Overview: Kitchen Witchcraft: The Element of Water is where we learn rituals, spells, meditations, and more, involving the element of water.

Verdict: Here in Kitchen Witchcraft, best-selling author Rachel Patterson looks at the element of Water and how to work with it. The book includes rituals, spells, correspondences, Elementals, meditations and practical suggestions.

Indeed, Kitchen Witchcraft: The Element of Water is the sixth in a series of books that delve into the world of the Kitchen Witch. Each book breaks down the whys and wherefores of the subject and includes practical guides and exercises. Other titles include Spell and Charms, Garden Magic, Crystal Magic, The Element of Earth and The Element of Fire.

Now, as this is a personalized, and all-encompassing review, the book having been handed to me specifically for review due to my own upbringing, in my experience of nature-faith communities (mostly in-person and those local to where I live) it is generally rare for someone to proclaim themselves as a “water witch” or “fire witch”. These terms are more likely something you’d find in fiction, even in fiction that is written by pagan or Wiccan authors.

Basically, they’re not terms widely used in the community. Although, you might hear someone call themselves a “green witch”, “kitchen witch”, or even something like “naturopath” or “herbalist”. (Of course not all naturopaths and herbalists are going to practice Wicca or paganism, but they’d be crazy not to apply the concepts of “magic” and methods of folk-healing and other folk practices in their own work, no matter who they say they worship at any given time).

So I can tell you what a “green witch” or “kitchen witch” is, because these are terms we use. Generally these two can refer to people who do their personal magic and craft in their cooking, making soaps and salts, candle-making, and (especially for “green witches”), gardening.

Witchcraft in the kitchen is not much different from praying over your food while you cook it, and wishing the meal to be a happy one, and it winds up actually tasting better than the meal that you spent your time cooking over the stove cussing to yourself about whatever (or whoever) made you angry that day.

It’s a kind of magic where a religious or spiritual symbolism is used in combination with the ingredients. (This idea of blessing the food, or food being sacred or symbolic, exists in many cultures, including some practices in the major religions).

But my point is that “kitchen witch” and “green witch” are common identities. But in my experience, at this point in time, it’s rare to hear someone say they’re a “fire witch” or “water witch”. But it’s not hard to picture what those people are, and how they practice, if these two identities actually exist in community settings today.

Ergo, author Rachel Patterson (who herself is a High Priestess of the Kitchen Witch Coven, and an Elder of the Kitchen Witch School of Natural Witchcraft) reveals all there is to know about these so-termed “water witches” in such a way that is both lighthearted and impassioned. Everything here is made highly relatable and her prose ensures complete inclusiveness within the subject matter brought forth.

Personally, and going a little deeper into the subject matter, I would think that a “water witch” would specialize their personal focus on praying with water. Oceans, Lakes, Rivers, Rain, Snow, you get the point. They’d probably market and sell holy water, which is usually rain or dew, and water left out to be blessed by the moon, waters from certain rivers or springs, etc.

However, making “holy water” isn’t so much a practice reserved for “specialists” as opposed to something that people generally do for themselves. You also don’t have to like working with water or the beach or water in general, to make and use holy water in your personal practice.

On a side note, a “water witch” might like mermaids though. Or praying to mermaids, working with mermaids spiritually, and they’d refuse to call them anything but mermaids. However, I know from personal experience that this kind of individual would sooner call themselves a “mermaid” or even “water faerie”. As opposed to the label “water witch.” [M.D.]

About the Author - Rachel Patterson has penned more than twenty books on the rituals and practices of magic and paganism. She is High Priestess of the Kitchen Witch Coven, and an Elder of the Kitchen Witch School of Natural Witchcraft. A Hedge/Kitchen Witch with an added dash of folk magic, Rachel writes regularly for Pagan magazines and blogs and gives talks at Pagan events. She lives in Portsmouth, UK.

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