My name is Rabbit, and this is Harebones, an archive of my writing on my experiences with animist witchcraft and folk magic.
About the Author
I’m an animist, pantheist, polytheist, spirit worker, folk magician, and traditional witch.
I’ve been practicing some form of these practices for about two decades and I’ve passed through quite a lot of steps on the path, from Hermetic and ceremonial practices, chaos magick, and demonolatry to druidry, reconstructionism, and initiatory paths. While I have my differences and disputes with a lot of these systems, all of these journeys were key to my reaching my current step on the spiritual path. I don’t consider myself “finished” and likely never will. My early experiences in the public-facing occult community started on IRC and LiveJournal and evolved to writing essays and guides in the early 2010s on WordPress and Tumblr.
My life and my spiritual work are meaningfully embedded in antiracism, gender liberation, bodily autonomy, and anarchism. I use my skills for the purpose of liberation and justice, and my work here reflects my commitment to these causes.
I am nonbinary, generally use they/them/their pronouns, and reside in the Piedmont.
About Harebones
I’m a writer by nature, and I process a lot of my thoughts and feelings through the process of externalizing them. Journaling about my experiences has always come naturally to me. In part, Harebones is an effort to share parts of that work.
I am hopeful that writing about my practices will help build a community of like-minded practitioners and inspire those who are looking for others with an animist, enspirited witchcraft. I’d like to believe that I can create writing in the world that I would have loved to read ten or twenty years ago, when I was looking for shared feelings and signposts that I was going in the right direction.
Harebones does not have a set post schedule or series of topics. It will likely encompass personal experiences, research notes, local cultus, folk magic, book reviews, and other miscellany. My craft is also entwined with my life, and I will speak about my personal experiences and activism.
What Harebones Is Not
This is not a beginner’s guide or 101 course. There are plenty of 101 guides for beginner witches out there, and this is not one of them. I may occasionally feel moved to put my own spin on a “101 question,” usually because I think the popular guidance is wrong or missing some perspective I can add, but I am not a teacher.
This is not an academic project. I am frequently going to talk about my own work, and when I do so, I am not going to cite my sources. My work frequently comes to me through the spirits, the living world, and oral traditions, none of which can be cited and all of which are generally looked down upon by contemporary academia. I do a lot of research and love to present historical notes, but that is neither a guarantee nor my focus. Everything I write here (unless explicitly stated otherwise) is opinionated.
This is not a complete reflection of my work. Many aspects of my practice are private. Just because I have not written about something here does not mean that I have no thoughts on the matter.
A Final Note
The most beautiful thing about my work to me is that it is always evolving and changing. I am always learning a new way to think about things or do things, and I love being able to change my mind. It is one of the pleasures of my work in this life that I never feel like it is complete or that I understand everything there is to understand.
If my writing contradicts itself, I may be speaking to some unexpressed or newly discovered nuance, or changed my thoughts on a matter.
I hope that, if nothing else, this writing finds someone, and makes them feel like their community is just a bit larger.
All the best,
Rabbit.