There are three pathways within Fencraft, and you can follow either one or a mix of the two (or forge your own way). You may, of course, discover different or individual tutelary spirits for yourself. The key is, it can be helpful to split out when you are doing Religion - a typically relaxed, mindful/greatful, celebratory activity - and when you are doing Witchcraft - which is a skill, and can feel like a full time hobby - and when you are doing Mysticism. It can help you work out what to “do” next.
Future versions of this page will have a dedicated reading list & rites section for each path
The Sun is associated with Religious Paganism - festivals celebrating the earth, encouraging the harvest and welcoming the sun's return. Many of the key Powers are Greater Powers - which are revered and worshipped and celebrated - or gods in the classic sense, but Fencrafters will also discover local trees and barrows and alleys guarded by nameless spirits, who they can work with more directly.
Keeping the Wheel of the Year, going on a lot of nature walks, and embracing the sensory qualities of living in the world, are important personal practices. It's good to have hobbies on the Sun-path: keeping a garden, learning to cook, fishing, hiking, weaving, things which help you appreciate and encounter the land to its full. These hobbies often come under the guidance of a Guardian Spirit, such as the Weaver, the Hunter, and so on, who have attached themselves to humanity and take an interest in anyone learning their ways. Hearing the voice of the Greater Powers can be tough, and activites which get you into your body, and aware of your surroundings, and working with the land provides the psychic “space” and immersion to understand their nudging - and encounter the raw power of the Landweird.
Sun-path magic tends to be intuitive, unstructured and very ancient; it's usually worked for the good of the land, or the people on it, in a collective way. Spells for harvest and weather are archetypal. Sun festivals usually rely on direct observation: the Powers are present on solstice day only if you can see the sun, the queen of the storm only when the wind is fierce. A key tool will be almanacs - of times and tides, and weather forecasts - and a key practice, going out yourself to see when and where the moon is rising. Alongside enjoyment of the world, you are called to enjoyment of beauty: reading the Wizard of Earthsea, watching the Owl Service, reading Tolkien (or a marine biology textbook), are all Sun-practices. They immerse you in the simple pleasures of the world.
Pagan practice is often hindered because it is "religion with homework" - for the Sun path, you never need anything but to step outside your front door. You can write rituals, amass tools, and read books about local folklore and botany; but baking a fresh loaf and going abroad with your hiking stick is enough. The Sun is simple, straightforward, unfussy. Aesthetically, the Sun-path often resembles anglo-saxon, viking or celtic reconstructionist traditions; or kitchen-witchery, green or granny magic. It can be practiced as pure animism - or as an atheist passion for nature.
The Sun Path is especially suitable for those with a disability or low income. Most Pagan and Occult traditions demand the ability to forward-plan rites without knowing your energy or pain level, access rare and complex texts, have space to cast circles and store ritual-specific equipment, bathe before magic, etc. Sitting by the window on solstice morning with a cup of tea is archetypal Sun Path magic: it responds to your body and the natural world in the moment, and focuses on simple pleasures. The New Age is often inherently capitalist too: be-better, learn more, undergo struggle, work harder, be goal-oriented. The Sun Path is not competitive or ambitious. Come as you are, for you are already enough. This is Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay magic, patient and enduring. Enlightenment is unhurried.
Still, the Sun-path also encompasses the weird of the wild - especially at dawn and dusk and overnight, times where the land has not always been a friend to man, and must be appeased. Anyone who has ever been cast adrift in an open boat and lost sight of land will know that the Sun Path is, in no sense, a fluffy option. The raw power of nature is not to be taken lightly, and she who can gain the favour of nature's power is mighty indeed.
The Sun Path is especially suitable for nature-lovers, for those who wish to practice immanence and presence. The best thing about the Sun Path is it can be practiced at different “levels” of commitment. Celebrating each Sabbat with a nice meal is enough. So is undertaking intense devotional work to listen and discover the nature of the Landweird.
The Moon is associated with witchcraft - working with spirits for personal gain. Many of the key Powers are Lesser Powers, who can be spoken to and bargained with - including demons, fairies, the dead, but in some cases deities too. Expect to be revering, celebrating and offering presents rather than worshipping per se.
The Moon Path can be very suitable for people escaping toxic birth religions: the Powers here are more like capricious omnipotent teenagers and crotchety maiden aunts who need pacifying, rather than gods requiring service and servitude. You can often outwit or even master them, although that's not necessarily advised. Celebrating rituals on a lunar calendar, gaining the favour of key allies, working your way through a court to gain knowledge and influence, and working magics are all typical practices. Walking the moon path IS itself a big hobby: you will want to master both ceremonial and traditional magical forms, learn to enter trance states, know how to bargain and ward. Above all, the Moon Path powers tend to want more than just your attention as you drink your morning's tea. If the Sun path is about taking pleasure and being mindful of the things around you in their natural state - the Moon path is about just taking, using, controlling, directing, actively wielding power, and putting the things around you to use.
Moon-path magic tends to be “artificial”, bookish and precice; a good way to think about the Moon is “inward” magic - shadow work, self-reflection, selfish goals, in contrast to the outward and collective interests of the Sun. You can do it indoors, and compel spirits to show up on their days of power - regardless of whether the sun has actually risen behind the clours. Aesthetically, the Moon-path draws from grimoire traditions, the pop-cultural image of the witch, the period of the Witch trials, but you can use any system for actually practicing magic - including chaos, qabbalah, tradcraft, Wicca, and so on. Whatever works. Perhaps the most powerful Sun path ritual we have is going for a nice long walk; it's on the Moon path you get out your candles and compasses, and measure out precice protective angles on your bedroom room floor.
The presence of Stellan energy, and thus a Stellan path, is new to my understanding - and far less clear. And yet, that's Star in a nutshell: Unclear. Vague. Contradictory. Uncertain and unsettling.
It is associated with the Landweird. For "Stellar energy" does not have anything to do with stars - but the spaces between them. And if the Landweird is the "God of the Gaps", then Stellar practice is launching yourself headfirst into that abyss and getting lost in what you find there. You'll be working with the Greater Powers in their most wordless and inhuman form; its sacred texts include Labyrinth, HP Lovecraft, Merlin Wylt, Fight Club (probably). Tales of going underground and off the edge and beyond the places man was supposed to know. Not just through the looking glass, but what Alice found there. The Stellar path is sanity check magic.
Stellan energy stands outside of time; it's most often associated with nighttimes and new moons, but only because those times make you vulnerable. You enter the Stellar current by immersion and self-loss: rage, terror, obsession, adoration, or by ecstatic practices like fasting, drumming, substance use, singing, jogging, or by land-based practices, like sitting in a dinghy and casting yourself adrift on the open sea. The Star is associated with the unknown: the sea, the barrows, caves under the earth, the heart of the forest, the immensity of space.
The Star Path can also be Moonish: sigils, almanacs, crystals and complex ritual forms are welcome here, so long as your working is - on some level - a terrible idea. You're summoning something far before human ability or understanding. You're blind with rage, or consumed with lust. You want knowledge - at any cost. Moon magic emphasises cleverness, mastery and control. Mad scientists, evil wizards, scorned witches: all are manifestations of Stellar energy, of power used blindly and too far. The Star brings us war, environmental devastation, and radiation: chaos, blight, the world un-done.
It is here, you note, that Landcraft is short on moral guidance: we know the Powers exist, but pay no mind what you do with them. Mortal men have always been afraid of the Star; but we are witches. The Star is things unknown - awe and terror, wonder, immensity. Things man has labelled evil or malign are, in truth, those things that man does not understand. The Star shines on the marginalised: queers, immigrants, sex workers, women who are angry, ambitious or sexual, all of which are rendered voiceless, hidden, threatening. Stellan magic tells us, it's OK to be angry; it's good to be bad; you can get what you want, and damn the world to stop you. The Star governs the emotions, memories, dreams and hopes, and the hidden movers that rule over man. The Stellan Path can resemble Satanic or Thelemic strands, emphasising personal autonomy (and personal responsibility), and the beneficial qualities of lust, anger, selfishness and so on. The wicked witch of the wood was not always so weird and warped, and perhaps to listen to her you may agree her rage is just, or at least, can be understood.
Of course, sometimes things of the Star are genuinely "evil", and ought not to be tampered with. But who am I to tell you which is wise or foolish? This Path is much akin to free-diving or mountaineering to levels humans cannot easily survive; the pioneering aviators who vanished into the sea, the early astronauts who burned in the sky. You risk everything, to gain a glimpse of that wordless immensity.
Stellar practices are best used as part of a path, rather than a path in its own right. It follows the traditions of mysticism or "shamanism" - but few of us have the support structures which allow us to go mad in a cave full-time and still get fed. It emphasises two aspects of Landcraft to the full: immersion and experience, and recognising the Powers as essentially inhuman, alien, beyond our understanding. Stellan work is generally unstructured; you have to feel it, and go beyond.