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Cozy Coven Chats with Jenny C. Bell
Cozy Coven Chats shares the witch's journey. Jenny C. Bell has been a witch for over three decades and believes it's an empowering path. Jenny seeks to reclaim the word witch as well as the power of the witch's story. Join Jenny in exploring all weird and wonderful of being a witch.
Cozy Coven Chats with Jenny C. Bell
When Witches Go Silent: Meditation, Mindfulness, and Magic
Witchcraft and mindfulness might seem like separate paths, but they intertwine in powerful ways that can transform your magical practice. Drawing from her three decades as a practicing witch, Jenny C Bell shares her profound experience at a women's silent meditation retreat and the unexpected ways it deepened her craft.
The journey begins with vulnerability as Jenny acknowledges her initial resistance to silence. As a self-described Gemini moon who "loves to chat," the prospect of a day without speaking triggered anxiety. Yet this discomfort revealed exactly why the practice proved so transformative. Through guided meditations, silent meals, mindful walking, and periods of complete stillness, something magical happened – a collective shift from resistance to release.
What makes this conversation particularly valuable is how Jenny bridges esoteric concepts with practical application. She explains that witchcraft fundamentally depends on presence – "you can only make magic in the present moment" – making mindfulness not just complementary but essential to effective spellwork. The resistance we feel toward silence mirrors our resistance to shadow work, that crucial process of confronting what lies beneath our conscious awareness.
The most compelling insight comes through Jenny's explanation of "tending your own garden" – the understanding that personal spiritual work creates ripples that extend far beyond ourselves. When we create space for silence, we process emotions that would otherwise keep us awake at night. When we engage in meditation and mindfulness, our spells gain clarity and power. The ego loosens its grip, allowing our authentic magic to flow.
Whether you're a seasoned practitioner or simply curious about incorporating more mindfulness into your life, this episode offers accessible entry points. Try a silent meal, a five-minute meditation, or a walk without distractions. Your magic – and your life – might transform in ways you never expected. Ready to discover what happens when you embrace the power of sacred silence?
For more: https://www.jennycbell.com/
To order the Spirit Crystals book: https://bookshop.org/p/books/spirit-crystals-discover-your-crystal-guide-for-healing-and-empowerment/64b34cd1f68aa55f?ean=9780738779058&next=t&
Hey witches, welcome to another Cozy Coven chat. I'm your host, jenny C Bell. I've been a witch I can say now for three decades, because my birthday just rolled around and that's kind of exciting. In this chat, I will be talking about the connection of mindfulness and meditation practice with witchcraft and why I think that's been so important to my own journey as a witch. I will say that I have neighbors doing work and they've been doing work for days and I really wanted to record this.
Speaker 1:So please let the noise go as best you can. I'll do my best to edit it out. So recently I had the privilege to go to a silent meditation retreat and before you turn off the podcast, I want you to know that I know that's a privilege, okay, and I know not everybody can do that, and what I want to share in this journey, in this chat, is takeaways that everybody can do, okay. So I don't want you to be like, oh, here's another privileged person sharing their trip to India, because that's not what happened. Okay, I have been going to a wonderful acupuncturist for a couple of years. She specializes in helping women and she works with traditional Chinese medicine, which is herbal work. She really helped me a lot with menstruation but perimenopause, but really so, so much more, and she has this really amazing place. It was a very interesting story. She shared with me that she was looking for a home to buy and on Craigslist she said there used to be like a spiritual section in the local section and the ad was something like paradise awaits you. And it's this beautiful house on a hill out in the middle of kind of like nothing. There's lots of like nature around, and on the property is this octagonal shaped temple that has crystals built into the foundation and was blessed by a goddess, a priestess of goddesses, so it's dedicated in the goddess and mother earth into goddesses, and she couldn't pass this up and then eventually she was able to buy the.
Speaker 1:After the people decided that her and her husband had the right energy, she was able to buy the property and has been a keeper of it and that space has only been used for meditation and goddess work for, I think she said, 20 years, which is amazing, and she had been thinking about working with women in like a women's circle or doing a retreat or something. And I was like, heck, yes, sign me up if you do that. And so this was the year she decided to do it. I went to her second one. They were all one day and you could do all three or four of them as a series or you could just pick one. And I picked the one in April because it was focused on joy and my birthday is in April and I thought you know what? Yeah, let's, let's focus on joy, because that's something that is often elusive and in the way the world is right now, with everything going on, I live in the United States, but what's going on in the United States affects everybody, right, because we're all connected. Yes, I was like, yes, I'm glad I signed up for Joy and I do realize it's a privilege, but it's not it's.
Speaker 1:It was like you know it's a privilege, but it was also really hard for me to mentally allow the privilege. So I guess I I had the money, um, I was talked to my husband, I was able to get the Saturday, I was made a miss a soccer game, but there was. It was like I was able to pencil that in. But then I also had to overcome a lot of like my own, like guilts about spending time and money on myself, right, and I think that a lot of people struggle with that, but I think especially women or people who are more in their divine feminine. We really, the divine feminine, is all about receiving, but yet a lot of times we have a hard struggle with receiving because society kind of tells us not to right. Society is like a wheel and we're supposed to just always be on the wheel and never be tired and never want anything for ourselves or need anything for ourselves and just continue to spin and spin and spin and multitask and not complain, right? So yeah, so that there was like some things to overcome for myself.
Speaker 1:Yes, I had the money, yes, I had the time, but then my brain was, and then I have anxiety, like everybody, right, and I was like, oh, am I going to find it? Because she's like your GPS doesn't work and I can get lost in a mall. So that was kind of worrisome for me. And then it's like the idea of being silent. I'm a Gemini moon guys, I love to chat, that's why I have the cozy coven chat. So there's just a lot of things, but in the end, um, it was an amazing experience. And so, no, I didn't have to go all the way to India, uh, no, I didn't even have to really travel far. It was about 30 minutes from my home, which made it feel very attainable for me.
Speaker 1:Um, there was eight other women there and it was kind of by invitation only. So our person who led the retreat was most of us, I think, knew her through acupuncture or she's also a meditation mindfulness instructor at the local Tibetan Buddhist temple, so people might've known her through there. But she kind of hand selected us and most of us were middle-aged. There was one younger woman in there and I don't want to age anybody, so if they're listening, don't be, please, don't be offended, right? But it was a really special experience and I wanted to share it here on the chat Because I just I have really been processing it and I've never experienced anything like it.
Speaker 1:I've had some really great spiritual experiences, including going to a wolf sanctuary and petting wolves. I've gone to different sound bowl healings. I've I've just done really some really cool things. Not to brag right, these were all things that were local or inexpensive. Not to brag right, these were all things that were local or inexpensive, but this was something different. And so I want to talk a little bit about the retreat experience and then I would like to share why, or some takeaways that you could bring into your own life.
Speaker 1:But the first thing I want to share is why I think mindfulness, the practice of mindfulness, which is one of the why I think mindfulness, the practice of mindfulness, which is one of the, I believe, eight aspects of Buddhism. So if I'm maybe I'm wrong, but I know it's an aspect. And mindfulness is really presence, right, it's, it's expansion, it's presence I just had a sip of my jasmine tea it's understanding that everything happens in the present moment. Right, it's being here now and doing things mindfully means being not disassociating, not multitasking, not reflecting or brooding or worrying or projecting. Right, really easy, it's really easy to be mindful. I'm just kidding, that was complete sarcasm. So mindfulness is something I have probably returned to more times than I can count.
Speaker 1:My favorite author on mindfulness or on books is Thich Nhat Hanh. Please read one of his books. I think it can definitely be applied to witchcraft, because witchcraft is all about magic and you can only make magic in the present moment, right, and I think that a lot of witches are drawn to the craft as a way of evolving, of becoming their best version of themselves, of empowering themselves, of spiritually becoming connected, and mindfulness goes hand in hand with that. So some things that are mindful, some practices, are meditation, journaling and being present, taking deep breaths. So that's why I really recommend, if you're looking to join or get on the mindfulness path, look at Plum Village. That's a free app from all of the monks who are associated with Thich Nhat Hanh or read some things by him.
Speaker 1:He was a beautiful human being who, I think, just probably exuded love and joy and has some beautiful Dharma talks and meditations, wrote the most beautiful things like how to love, and he wrote about anger. And he wrote about you know how to relax, which I read the book on how to relax more times than I should probably share. Um, because it's just sometimes I struggle with relaxing, especially in our society where it's like go, go, go, do, do, do, multitask. Um, I only feel good and I like I have value if I accomplish something Right, and I think a lot of us can, can, can. I relate with that. So mindfulness practice really gets you off the hamster wheel of that and helps you become more aware of your thoughts. It's where we get the idea that you are not your thoughts. We start to become more in tune with that and that's shadow work, and shadow work is part of witchcraft.
Speaker 1:So I really you know, I'm not saying you all need to be Buddhist witches at all at all, but I think we can learn from everywhere, right? That's kind of the beauty of witchcraft. It's like I've said before, it's like a cut and paste religion. Make it your own, it's your religion, right? Like at the end of I forget what Madonna's song it is, but she's like this is my religion. That's how it is. It's like every witch is what every witch's practice is different, from which to which they could be in the same coven, they could read all the same books, they could even be twins, but their practices are going to be different, and mindfulness has played a huge role in my own practice. So, just putting it out there, if you've ever thought about maybe getting into that or trying that, this is your sign, right?
Speaker 1:So onto the retreat. So, as I said, I was anxious, I was nervous. The night before I actually went to a women's in business meetup, which was a whole like I was just doing new things. That week I went to DMV, which we all know what that's like. I had my first guest on my podcast. I then went to this women's meetup where we're supposed to. We had, like an inspirational speaker and we're supposed to connect with other women, which was, you know, very ego, very opposite of the retreat. It was actually really interesting. And then then I was going to this retreat that was my chair, by the way and so the morning of I packed everything.
Speaker 1:The night before we had a shared altar, so we were, we picked things out to bring for our altar. We picked things out to bring for our altar. I decided to bring the tarot deck when women had wings as a giveaway, because I am very rich in tarot decks and I thought, you know, it's all women and I didn't. I like that deck, but it's not like one of my top ones and I was like I'm going to give this to somebody. Later we learned about the importance of generosity. This was kind of perfect. I brought my own deck, the Cosmic Creator Oracle, which is. It represents alchemy and transmutation, and I thought we all want to transmute whatever junk comes up during this time. And other women brought things that meant something to them as well, meant something that brought them either joy or just had something special in their own heart.
Speaker 1:And we get there and we get to go in this amazing little temple meditation center and, oh, and, we also brought journals, we brought a water bottle and I brought some yoga props just to make myself comfortable. And we get there and there's a candle lit. It's very witchy, right. Like opening it, we were in sacred circle and the silence began, and we started with a couple. We had a couple of meditations throughout the day, some of them longer than others, all of them sitting, except for one of them was a walking meditation. We had two Dharma talks, one in the beginning, one at the end. We practiced I'm going to do my best here qigong or qigong, as before we sat, and that was all in silence. We also ended with like a little mini dance party where we danced with our eyes closed, silently, which to music though, which was super fun.
Speaker 1:Our host made us lunch and we had a silent lunch. So I know witches are familiar with silent suppers, so it was like that, basically like eating lunch in silence. You could be with one another, you could be on your own, and she really wanted us to. What she said was a uni task, right, like just eat lunch, which is very mindful, mindful eating, and then you have an hour and I ended up swinging on swings and laying in the sunshine and journaling. It was really quite beautiful.
Speaker 1:So at the beginning of the retreat I came in a little anxious because it was like I didn't know where she lived. We had to go on a dirt road. I'd forgotten my water bottle and my coat and I was kind of like, okay, and I'm always, I'm always late. Let me just be honest, I'm on my own time and I'm often I'm never early, I'm usually late, and I wasn't this time. So it was good, and so we get there.
Speaker 1:And for the first half I would say we all had a collective resistance. And what's really interesting about this retreat is that I know everybody's first names and I know some soul struggles because we did have shares, some soul struggles they have, but I don't know their last names and I don't know what they do for a living. And I want to say that's really, that was really cool, because it's like we were just holding other in silence and in like a soul, spiritual way and not in a ego way. And that's what we've done in our coven too is we know each other really as just our highest selves there, and so that's that was really cool. So, yeah, so I would say collectively we all struggled.
Speaker 1:There was lots of tears in the beginning. There was a lot of, you know, negativity, especially self-directed, I know, for myself and for others about you know, like what's keeping us from joy, and there was a lot of like turning inward, which is not easy, which is not comfortable. It's's that shadow work right when we go inward, that's our ego resists. Our ego is like no, we want you to just continue to live lives and not be your true self. Like the ego really resists it. And we were a lot of us were in resistance. I can hear people struggling during the meditations, like fidgeting and moving, and I was also struggling just towards the end of like our 25 minute one.
Speaker 1:My body I went in with like hip injury and my body was like not into it. And then we broke for lunch, and I don't know about the rest of the women, but I never take an hour long lunch. I don't think I've ever been given one at a job place. I don't take one here, working from home, and I never unitask. I usually eat lunch and I'm on the computer or whatever and to have a silent lunch, which was very yummy and nourishing, and be outside. It was like perfect weather, it was something shifted.
Speaker 1:And then we went on a walking meditation, which is my favorite kind of meditation, where we just walked super slowly through all of these spring blossoms and trees and her yard is very pretty, her gardens very beautiful and not like manicured. It was like my kind of garden, a little chaotic, like dandelions, you know, just just really witchy. Well, I had some technical difficulties so the video just kind of stopped and I went back and saw that I was about to talk about the walking meditation and kind of the realizations after that. So we all returned after the long lunch and the walking meditation and the energy was definitely altered. I know I suddenly felt so much lighter in all the ways and also like for the first time in a long time, like my body relaxed.
Speaker 1:I'm a multitasker, I am neurodivergent, I have a lot of energy. I do have anxiety sometimes and a lot of times my mind is very busy, my body's very busy and I don't rest and relax as much as I probably should, and I just felt this sense of deep calm and restfulness and that lasted days. The next day was Easter. I actually took a nap after lunch which I never do unless I am sick and it wasn't because I was exhausted, it's because my body had finally downshifted. That was the key is, spending this day in quiet, silence and restfulness and really reflecting caused, I think, my parasympathetic nervous system to finally kick on and for my body to downshift and to go into relaxation, and I've held on to that through meditation and breathing and practicing more mindfulness and going back to setting intentions every day.
Speaker 1:So what I think are some takeaways that people can do today is having some time of silence, right. So I was even mindful that I didn't wear a graphic tee when I went to the retreat, because it has words on it and if you've ever read the Artist's Way, there's a whole week that you spend without like watching TV or reading books, because you're supposed to deprive yourself of media. You're not supposed to listen to music either, and so something that you can do on a day off is give yourself silence, like put the phone away or shut it off, go outside or go somewhere in the house where there's no music, there's no social media, there's no TV, no books, and have a journal there, maybe a crystal, and read. Just let yourself be in silence, because you will be shocked by everything that comes up. Once you give yourself the space your heart chakra, your mind, everything you give yourself the space to be silent Suddenly so many things arise.
Speaker 1:And it's not as scary as it sounds. It's definitely an aspect of shadow work. When we really look at shadow work and really releasing ourselves from the ego's grip, we are tuning in and paying attention to our inner world, our inner dialogue, and that's what silence does. And I'm talking like I said complete silence, like it's okay, birds are singing. But you will probably sit there or lay there, agitated or irritated. At first. You may fall asleep, you may feel annoyed, you're going to feel uncomfortable, most likely, and then, at some point, with mindful breathing or journaling or mindful walking however you decide to do it you will have a shift, because that is what it's about. It's about giving yourself the silence, gives yourself the space to actually figure out what's going on inside.
Speaker 1:I had a lot of things going on in my mind. I was seeing things differently. It really allowed me a lot of clarity. At first it felt uncomfortable and almost embarrassing, like some of the things that came up, and then I was able to process them and go through them, release them that's important and then go through that. So, giving yourself silence once a week, if an hour seems really scary, right, if you're one of those people that's always plugged in five minutes, 10 minutes, and you don't have to be meditating at that time, you could be walking, you could be journaling, you could be just laying and staring at the ceiling, but the whole point is that you're allowing yourself space.
Speaker 1:I feel in today's world we don't do that. We are constantly plugged in and there's sounds and sights everywhere. You know you go in a store and music's playing and there's people talking and most people have the television on or social media going or music on, and that's great, do that. But sometimes you need to get rid of all of that and make space for silence, which makes space for all the things the shadow, the ego, the higher self, all of the things to come up, which makes space for expansion and release, which makes space for joy and that was the whole point of our retreat was to be able to allow ourselves joy, because it really is that. It's an allowance, right? I'm not talking about happiness, which is often external and fleeting. I'm talking about, like, real joy in the heart, where you feel content, I feel. For me, joy feels like contentedness, calm, right, and it may feel selfish or self-indulgent in today's world when so much craziness is going on to do that.
Speaker 1:But one of the best things I learned in the retreat was Tara Brock, who's a very famous meditation teacher. I guess she was recently asked about world events and how do you stay mindful, how do you stay grounded, those kinds of things? And her answer was to tend to your own garden. And what that means is, yeah, stay connected, understand the news, stay worldly, do those things. But then you need to also tend to yourself and your community and your family. And you know, when you heal yourself there's a quote in the A Course in Miracles when you heal, you do not heal alone. So when you may sit in silence and make space for yourself and do shadow work and do all the things we do as evolutionary witches, right, as witches on a spiritual journey, as witches who are empowering ourselves and always striving to do best and uncover who we are and be on this journey of life, when you do that it ripples out to your friends, your family, even if you're not telling them what you're doing, your calmness, your openness, your lovingness, your openness, your lovingness, your you know magic, it ripples out, and it ripples out into the community.
Speaker 1:There's been studies shown that where, in cities and communities, where monks meditate or people meditate in large groups, the overall effect is felt. It's felt by strangers who don't even know what's happening. Right, it's a ripple effect. And so when we tend to our own garden, it's our inner garden, our heart chakra. We tend to ourselves and our own happiness, our own joy. We can take on the world in a better way, right? If you are an activist or you're doing these things, that's self-care. You can't just go full force and not give back and not fill your own cup.
Speaker 1:And so I think that was really good advice. It's like now more than ever do we each need to tend to our own garden, and imagine if everyone in the world did that, if everyone was able to give themselves the space to evolve and ask the deeper spiritual questions and to expand and find joy. It'd be a beautiful place, right? And so I think witchcraft can be mindful. I think we could make it a mindful practice because, in the end, our spells work because of intention. Right, if you have a really strong intention. You're really clear on that intention. You're present. You've done a lot of the shadow work and a lot of the blocks and you really have that intention. You're really clear on that intention. You're present, you've done a lot of the shadow work and a lot of the blocks and you really have that intention. Your spell is going to be stronger because you're mindful. You're present, right? So how do we become present With mindfulness practices?
Speaker 1:So I share this and you know not to say like, oh, you should go on a silent retreat, because it's honestly not for everybody. But I invite you this week to invite silence into your life, right? Even Marie Kondo talks about taking your food and turning them around in pantries. So when you're opening the pantry, it's like not a whole bunch of words shouting at you, right?
Speaker 1:So how can you make silence in your day? And it could be like taking a silent lunch instead of working or being on your listening to a podcast or book or multitasking like so many of us do. What if you just take your 15, 20 minute lunch because that's more realistic than an hour and you just are silent and you're just eating and you're allowing thoughts to arise and you're allowing things to happen. Because, you know, sometimes we get to the end of the day and we can't sleep because we were so busy. All of our thoughts and all the things we couldn't, our emotions, nothing can be processed. And so we lay in bed thinking and processing because we never made space for silence. So I invite you to make space for silence and I thank you for listening. Blessed be witches.
