The other day I opened up my questions, wondering what you guys would like to see. My friend Kat, (who recently moved herself) proposed a great topic, of tiny home craft living. Now if you aren’t already aware, I live in a tiny home- a school bus conversion to be exact. I know a few witches in the community have amazing, stunning and grand altars up all year round, which isn’t exactly feasible when your home is 200 sq feet. My sacred space, my altar, everything about my craft, and also my personal space, fits on one desk. You see, I share my space with my husband as well. We each have separate “workspaces” as it were, to do with as we’d like. Mine is my desk, my makeup station, my altar, my space for tarot cards, my craft station, etc.
Tiny home living, on all fronts, combats one major issue; prioritizing your entire life. I haven’t watched it, but I am familiar with the Maria Kondo show, about decluttering your life. That’s tiny home living turned to an 11. (If you get that Spinal Tap reference, you’re my kind of people. Anyway, you have to take a step back and prioritize everything you own, even your wardrobe. That, however, is an issue for another day- and probably something none of you particularly care about for the purpose of this blog.
As my craft being micro-sized, I figured for this, I would instead discuss the aspects of tiny home living that Instagram, tv shows, and vloggers leave out. Only- we’ll talk about it through witchcraft. If it’s okay with you all I want to focus on this in the form of a list. If it’s not okay with you… well… go read something else XD!
- Right off the bat, my biggest “issue” or struggle with living in a tiny home, and being a practicing witch, is the cleanup. Living in a small space makes clean up incredibly easy, that being said…. It gets filthy so incredibly fast. Let’s take incense for an example. I burn incense at a bare minimum rate of twice a day. Any form of smoke will create smoke webs. They form in corners of rooms and crevices, the soot, being drawn to the corners where the cold sits. This, in a tiny home, is an annoyance and a problem. These incense also have our dear friend, ash. Ash gets everywhere regardless of the size of the home you live in, but in a tiny home, the mess feels much greater, much quicker. In a full-sized home, I’d clean my altar maybe… IDK… once a week every 10 days. In a skoolie conversion, it’s almost every other day. I’m sure my spirits appreciate it, to the highest.
- Everything has to be small scale. Even my herbs/spices are in super tiny bottles, except the fair few I used most often, like chamomile and bay. My local apothecary is my number one fan because I feel like I’m in there every other day. This is an exaggeration, but when everything has to be small scale, you can run out of herbs quickly. This I think may have more to do with BCM, and less to do with the tiny home, but honestly, its been long enough at this point- I can’t say for certain and is worth mentioning.
- I have too much stuff. Its funny cuz point one was about the Maria Kondo ideology, right? Well… tell that to my 60 tarot decks. Or tell that to my beautiful custom wand, made by @corvidae_moon_art on Instagram. It’s probably the most beautiful thing I own, and I don’t have enough space to display it the way I’d like you. You have to remember my sacred space, is my altar, my desk, my workshop, and my vanity. A lot is happening. I can’t exactly just lay everything out, because I have to work there too! At some point, I have to prioritize, to make sure that everything is accounted for.
- Witchcraft is constant learning and education. Books, notebooks, and pens take over everything. Again, we’re talking about prioritizing space right. I recognize that especially for education, a lot of people prefer physical copies of books. I know I do. However, for the sake of space, digital readers are so helpful. I have a kindle, but I am aware there are like half a dozen e-reader options at this point. If you aren’t someone who is an excessive note-taker or annotator, Kindle’s are such compact, brilliant options. A lot of the books we read for research can be found on free sites because they’re so old. Similarly, I can’t speak for other countries, (worth looking into though) in American, the entire public library system has a free online e-pub resource. You can check out books from the library, for your e-reader. So not only is it a financially smart option, even witchcraft aside, but the space you save on books can’t be matched.
- Circle casting is the final thing I’m going to address. When I was first learning about witchcraft, and spell casting, I was always told to use a “nine-foot circle in diameter (approx) cast in either stone, candles, salt, etc.” Well, aside from the logistics of that, and the impracticality of that, as I’ve seen with time. When the width of your home is only 7.2 ft wide, that is just straight-up impossible. So everything shrinks in and your cleansed, consecrated, sacred space suddenly is no more than 4 feet in diameter. For this, as a hot tip the biggest piece of advice I can give you, is double check, triple check, and check again, you have everything you need before you start. You’re working in a tight space and breaking your circle on repeat because everything is so tight together, is exhausting. So instead, take your small space, to get outside (if you can) or being super prepared before you cast your circle. It’s a small space, don’t make things harder on yourself by rushing on setup.
I know this maybe wasn’t the best glimpse into a tiny home living but I hope that it helped even one person. Sure- maybe you don’t live in a tiny home, but maybe the room your rent is small. Also maybe you can’t get outside to work under the moonlight. Or you’re in a dorm room. Tiny living has many faces, and isn’t always prefabricated or converted school bus. Maybe you work in your closet because you’re that broom closeted, hey- I’ve been there. You can make it work, it’s all about adjusting and making things small.