Let me start with my altar. There are no typical Aquarian altars, because there are no typical Aquarians. A good place to begin is to set up a space and cram it full of anything and everything that represents the sweetness of life and the mysteries of the universe. I worship the many-gendered Goddexx before a bookcase shelf strewn with lollipops, thrift-store knick knacks (unicorns; dancing girls), flamingo feathers scrounged from the ground at the zoo, a teeny jug of full moon water, a deck of tarot cards, glitter, and a hunk of amethyst bought for cheap at an actual science museum (pro tip). As an Aquarian witch, you aren’t going to join a coven. Even though Aquarius is the sign of the humanitarian, and they are first in line to donate their spleen for the good of a stranger, people also make them sort of uncomfortable and trigger their social anxiety (or just flat out bore them). Because you have no one to answer to — Aquarians are very independent — you will find that this astrological style of witching is supremely chill. 
 

Today’s modern witches are always marinating their crystals in moonlight, infusing old jam jars with moon water, scribbling their new moon intentions into their little notebooks a.k.a. grimoires. The reactionary Aquarian witch asks, Why isn’t anyone worshipping the sun, who gives us all that Vitamin D and grows the crops and let’s us see what’s right in front of our faces? The sun is sort of the woo underdog, and it gets a lot of play in Aquarian witchery. 
 

Another neglected figure to bring into your Aquarian practice: Satan. A Christian misinterpretation of the great god Pan after all, the horned and horny goat-diety liked getting wasted and skanking about with his pan pipes. Aquarians love to rescue obscure ephemera, especially deposed-of deities. 
 

To Witch like an Aquarian calls you to be both overzealous and also deeply, metaphysically lazy. Aquarian witchery looks a lot like this: “Oh, it’s Ostara, the spring celebration that the Christians stole and renamed ‘Easter,’ I’m going to make an altar and put out some treats for the Faerie Folk and set out my crystals and take an enchanted bath and fall asleep with rose petals slowly drying in my hair.” But what happens is, “Ugh, that’s so much work, the Goddexx sees me and loves me exactly as I am, I don’t have to prove anything by being a witchcraft overachiever, and yes it’s a special holiday but that is only if you believe in time, which Aquarians don’t.” And so maybe you pick a special tarot card before turning in, to mark the occasion, but more likely you just crawl into bed, give yourself a big O with the Hitachi Magic Wand that’s stashed under your bed, call it sex magic, and fall asleep.
 

The first basic tool to start practicing Aquarian is: Amethyst, the Aquarius birthstone. Purple is such a funky color — think of Prince — and Aquarius are a funky people. Amethyst helps clear your mind and connect with intuition. And that’s great because Aquarians are air signs (hella mental) and things that help chill that part of the body out, like meditating with mind-calming crystals, are where the real growth happens for an Aquarian witch. Amethyst is said to help aid sobriety, and as Aquarians can get really, really high on ideas, scheming and plotting without realizing they are deep in fantasyland, this stone is necessarily grounding. 
 

Of course, Aquarian’s ability to stoke a big vision fuck whatever anybody else says, is part of their radical charm, and should mostly be encouraged. But we are not all using our powers for good. We must remember that Ronald Reagan was an Aquarian. He even had a special White House astrologer, so he quite possibly was an Aquarian Man-Witch. Sometimes Aquarians can get so carried away with a concept that they believe can save ‘humans’ — really the concept of humans — that they never stop to think, Hey, would humans even like/want/need this? Aquarians don’t think about that kind of stuff. In this way they make great cult leaders and communists, and we need to keep our eye on them and load their pockets with stabilizing Amethyst and other grounding rocks like Garnet and Jasper. These stones help remind Aquarius they are human, too, and not a brain in a box. 
 

The Star card in the Tarot is the major arcana that represents Aquarius: the water bearer, up there in outer space, channeling some higher frequencies, translating them, and pouring them back down onto earth, nourishing the masses with inspiration, new ways of thinking, a radical intellect that stirs the passions of the people. This is good Aquarius — Frederick Douglass and Yoko Ono, Toni Morrison and Dr. Dre. It’s nice to put The Star card on your altar as you are channeling Aquarian witchery, and pray for intellectual revelations, especially those that help the greater good. 


The Star comes directly after The Tower card in the tarot — it’s the wide vision and the detached optimism you need to clean up the world after it’s been thoroughly trashed. In this way, Aquarian witchery is great to conjure if your own personal world has just been turned upside-down, and it’s great energy in general, because the world (you may have noticed) is on fire — total Tower vibes — and we do all need to be channeling The Star’s bright future. 
 

As an air sign, Aquarius’ other magical tools also include feathers, smoke (as in from burning herbs and incense), pens and pencils, and tough little knives. The astrological glyph for Aquarius, a couple of zig-zags lying on top of one another, symbolizes Aquarian’s electrical energy. Their ruling planet is Uranus, a planet known for its changeable, unstable energy, it’s desire to shift our lives around, ending things without warning and hurling whole new situations at us with the swiftness and power of lightning. 

Channel the Aquarian vibe to help you embrace change or to assert the virtue of crying in public, the cosmic truth of letting yourself have a freaking meltdown. Aquarius don’t judge — they really don’t, and that might be the nucleus of their magic. 

Whatever you want to do with this energy — use it to summon detachment or free yourself to sulk and pout; explore a random spiritual tradition that piqued your interest or throw a peace sign at the full moon and call it a day; deepen your dedication to humanity or nurture your latent agoraphobia — Aquarius is there for you regardless. They meet you where you’re at. They believe in harm reduction. They think the most messy human part of you is what is blindingly holy. They are rooting for you, with every twinkling fiber of their being — even if they may need to do it from a distance.