How it all started?

It all started with an assignment. When Dawn Black was in college, a professor challenged their students to each produce a one-page summary of a scientific journal article in easy-to-understand language, free of jargon, weekly.

Dawn’s Gemini brain loved this assignment. It was a wonderful thought challenge that sent her down a rabbit hole of additional studies and references that often distilled down to very simple concepts. The exercise helped Dawn understand each concept better too!

When the class was over, Dawn continued writing summaries, applying them to her personal occult studies.

Dawn had been practicing magick since she was a teenager and knew that it was a set of skills that anyone could learn, but she found that many available books and online sources were full of jargon, assumptions and symbolism that hid these simple concepts and made it difficult for people who did not already understand them to grasp; not unlike a scientific journal article.

Initially, Dawn created these summaries for her own reference and stored them on her blog. Soon she was writing articles according to other peoples’ requests and providing links to definitions of terms to ensure these people could understand them.

As Dawn dipped her toe into the larger magical community and was ridiculed for mispronouncing words, she realized how important these words could be to helping other people entering the community. Her collection quickly outgrew her blog and needed its own home.

Thus, the Witchipedia was born.

Witchipedia today

Since then, it has only grown until it became much too large for just one person. After a few volunteer assistants and some failed attempts at partnerships, Dawn’s life had changed a great deal since college and she was feeling overwhelmed.

The Witchipedia began to languish.  Only its wonderful Patrons were keeping it afloat with their donations to pay for its hosting fees.

Then, one day, the folks from Magickal Spot reached out to Dawn and offered to take over the administration of the Witchipedia while keeping her on as a writer.

Dawn was cautious and suspicious, but as they talked, they realized that they had the same goals in mind and that by releasing the Witchipedia to the Magickal Spot team, she could better serve it and the community by focusing her energies on her own talents, writing, teaching, and explaining.

Meet Dawn Black

I am a homesteading hearth witch who grew up along the shores of the Hudson River and has lived among the Great Lakes for the past 20 years. Together with my musical husband and youngest child, I steward a one-acre mini homestead with herb, vegetable and flower gardens, chickens, ducks, geese and rabbits, and areas reserved for native plants and wildlife. 

I believe it is my duty as a cunning woman to help heal our natural systems and I use regenerative farming methods and foster daily habits to minimize my household’s impact on the environment. I am obsessed with plants and ethnobotany, I am a fabulous cook and I enjoy tabletop roleplaying games and youth fantasy novels.

I have three children; two are grown, and I have been practicing magick alone and with family and friends for over 30 years.