For several months now, nay, almost a year, I have been plagued by turtle omens. It started innocently enough, with coming across turtles only three or four times a day, maybe two days a week, but quickly escalated to six or seven turtles a day, nearly every day. Everywhere I turned, there was a turtle. Pop on twitter, images of turtles filled my timeline; walk through a room where a tv is on and surely there would be a turtle; browse through a magazine while waiting in an office, an article on turtles; my eldest daughter even received a pair of socks with turtles on them as a gift. 

Of course, I began researching the meanings of these omens. Most of the information I came across repeated the same things: “slow down” or “it’s time to come out of your shell.” Neither of these was right, and for obvious reasons. The notion of “slowing down” is relative, a turtle goes just fast enough for itself –it is neither too fast nor too slow (it is only slow from our perspective.) And a turtle also cannot “come out” of its shell –it is a part of its body, who it is. These would later become necessary pieces in figuring out the puzzle of the turtle omens, but I wouldn’t figure it out for many more months.

This morning I received a question regarding witchcraft. With that person's permission, I have reproduced the question and my response, in the hope that they may prove insightful for others. While I make no claims to speak for all Pagans nor all witches, for ease of explanation, I did answer in generalities and use "we" a far too many times. For those who may read this and whose practice and worldview as a witch differ, know that I meant no disrespect in this.