Welcome to my 1st Blog!
I thought that with the Full Moon being tonight and with it bringing changes and new growth, today would be the day to start!
Hi I'm Niki! And yes, I'm a Witch
I haven't always been a #witch. It's not something you are really born into. I guess it's like any other spirituality, you can follow on from what the people who guided you into teenage and adulthood have done and yes, I was christened into the Unitarian Church, which was conveniently situated across the road from our farm.
I grew up in central Canada, in the province of Manitoba in a small farming community named Cloverdale near the capital city of Winnipeg. I often joke that I lived in 'downtown Cloverdale' which really was a crossroads of the mile markers that gridded the landscape of our agricultural surroundings. On one corner sat the school, where my grandfather met my grandmother, who was a teacher there. The other corner, welcomed the community in as the Village Hall. The third corner has Cloverdale United Church and then there is us on the fourth corner: Jenkins Farm; a 5 generation small holding. My aunt Nadine, who was great a storyteller, would often lovingly refer to our situations as: Education, Damnation, Salvation and Starvation. I'll leave you to figure which is which 😏.
I went to church and did Sunday school as that was what was meant to be done. I didn't dislike it. For me it was more of storytime with lessons to be learned of how to treat people, how to be kind and honest, giving and tolerant. A bit redundant but it served as re-enforcement of what lessons my parents, Tom & Pam had instilled in us from Day 1. It didn't resonate with me though as it seem to do with some people. I guess you could say it just wasn't my 'vibe'. I have always been interested in nature and funny enough it never seemed that strange when the parents decided to build their dream home of a log house on the farm. In fact, I've just come to the realisation that I was brought up doing things different from everyone else and this started with my sport of Judo.
I think I was probably the only one in Selkirk (the neighbouring town and where I went to High School) that didn't skate.
Now, I hear you...
Pffft?
A Canadian who can't skate?
Is that a thing?
I know, I know, but there are few of us out there.
It's not that I can't skate, I just don't do it well. But when you are brought up in a hockey town, you get known as "the Judo Girl" pretty quickly.
To make a long story shorter, I went on from my small Selkirk Judo Club to eventually compete for Canada at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. And now I'm here, in the UK, with my lovely family of an adoring, wonderful husband, one lovely bonus son and 2 willful and beautiful daughters, spouting witchcraft and making homemade soap.
Not so much of a departure.....
Why Witchcraft? Why Soap?! 🤷♀️
I'm not going to go into too much detail about Wicca and Witchcraft as I'll save that for another blog, another day. I will tell you why though.
It was a time of great uncertainty for me, as you'll find with most people who seek and find spirituality of any kind. We had just moved to Belgium for my husband, Neil's, job and I had my reservations as I had lived in this part of the world before, and was asked to leave.
(I'll save that for my book, never mind a blog!)
He travelled a lot, and Belgium is a country where people keep themselves to themselves, well in my neighbourhood anyways, so it was lonely. I took the time to re-ignite our coach education business, however, something was missing. I was feeling out of control,...no no...., that's not right, I wasn't feeling IN control.
Yeah that's more it, really.
I researched all sorts of religions and spiritualities and as I'm a fairly independent person mass ideals and dogma wasn't very appealing.
My mom will say, 'You just don't like people telling you what to do.' And she's right.
Hands up.
I have a thing with authority. So rules and being born into a certain dogma was not ever going to fit. I knew there was a higher power of some kind. There has to be. There's too much......(you can't see me but I'm making big circular hand gestures in the air) of THIS for there not to be. I'm not quite sure why it needs to be a man, and to be fair, I don't know if it should just be a female entity either, however the Wiccan spirituality spoke to me on a liberal woman-strong level, but also with the partnership of her male counterpart. It explains that there is energy everywhere and that our environment, within the Elements, are energies of that we unknowingly feed off, and can use as guides, manifesting our own life/future/destiny.
Now that's sexy.
Well, to me anyways.
In control of our own destiny. I like it. And I Iike that idea of controlling and manifesting my life by way of things around us, enough to seek out a witch in my area and start taking lessons. Oh yes, I went to Witch School. And I was blessed as a witch on Samhain 2009.
Craftiness comes in different guises
My family is a crafty family.
Dad was a blacksmith, my brother Matt is a blacksmith (Cloverdale Forge). Mom, I think if we were to go official, holds the World Record for the most folk craft courses completed at the folk school she attends, (she can make anything now) and she owns a B&B. My sister Jennifer it just as talented with a pen and paper, be it art or mediating groups to a positive and constructive end.
I've always taken to the woodworking side of things and small crafts but the soaps came about as Neil has a bit of skin eczema which flairs up from time to time. We've tried every medicated and chemical salve out there, but to no avail. Then I read that we gain
7 kilograms of chemicals by the time we fly off to The Summerlands.
7 KILOS!!
I don't know about you but I could do without 7 extra kilos! And all absorbed through our skin. I've always loved natural products, so it didn't take too long for me to put two and two together. I thought, I can make this and I can make it so it helps people manifest things into their lives. I can help people with their own daily magic. They can get a hold of what's going on in their lives by I can give them the means to guide themselves through this busy, busy life we all find ourselves in. Call it life coaching with a pointy hat.
So started Uniqi Productions! A fellow witch in Belgium handed me an envelope one day with my name on it, only it was spelled 'Niqi'. Now, having a name derived from Nichole (See?!! I have to be different even in that! Thanks Mom!) you grow up with all sorts of spellings. Half the fun at Christmas was to see what spelling I would get on my Christmas card from Grandma Russell: Nicky, Nicki, Nikki, Nickie, never Niki. So when I received this, I was tickled! I thought I had seen every spelling. I decided to tuck that away for if I ever had my own business, and here we are.
Well it's probably more than a normal blog but thought I should let you know who is making your soap ☺️. I would love for you all to follow me on my Instagram where most of my ideas for this blog will germinate as I looooooove Memes and word play. Check it out and you'll see what I mean.
I'll say goodbye for now and next blog will be near Halloween time or our New Year Samhain! Thanks for the chat!
Merry Meet, Merry Part, and Merry Meet Again 🧙🏻♀️