Inner Child Magic: Remembering How to Play 💕
- Sara Jane Pierrepont
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Coming home to your inner child — and a little invitation to play again
Do you remember when the whole world was enchanted?
When the bottom of the garden was a kingdom, a puddle was a potion, and a good stone was treasure worth keeping forever? When a wish on a dandelion clock was the most serious magic there was — and you didn't have to believe in magic, because you simply lived inside it?
I've been thinking about her a great deal lately. The little witch I used to be.
It began, as the best things so often do, quite by accident. A few weeks ago I was rummaging for craft bits and opened an old suitcase I hadn't looked in for years. Inside were two small dolls I'd tucked away and half forgotten — and the moment I held them, something in me softened. There they were: my inner child, that I could hold in my two hands.
I've been playing ever since. Cardboard, scissors, glue, a tin of buttons. Making wishes. Hunting for treasure in the hedge. And somewhere in the middle of all that lovely mess, a little course quietly made itself.
The magic we forget
Here's the thing I keep coming back to. There's a kind of magic children do without ever being taught it, and most of us forget it somewhere along the way.
A child picks up a stick and it's a wand. They pour water between two cups and it's a potion. They decide the patch under the hedge is an enchanted kingdom, and for that whole afternoon, it simply is. No permission asked. No embarrassment. They just believe a thing into being and go and live inside it.
That's all spellwork really is, when you strip away the grown-up seriousness we pile on top. Deciding. Believing. Acting as if. The child witch already knew how to do it — fluently, daily, without any effort at all. We don't lose her, whatever we're told. We only tuck her away as life gets busy and serious and heavy.
And life does get heavy. I've walked through some hard years — many of you have walked them right alongside me — and if there's one gift I've carried out the other side, it's this: everyday things sparkle more now than they did before. When you've had to fight for the ordinary, you start looking at it with a child's eyes again, with wonder and a kind of deep gratitude. The small things shine. Reawakening my little witch has only deepened that, and it's felt like the most healing sort of play.
The Baby Witch Project
So I made something to share it.
The Baby Witch Project is six gentle sessions of paper-and-scissors magic — an invitation to sit back down beside the small witch you used to be. Together we make a little paper witch (a "little you"), a ribbon of wishes, a jar for found treasures, joyful pointless potions, a secret little world, and a band of promise beads to carry it all with you. Two of my own vintage dolls — Sara and Polly, with Custard the cat — will be your guides along the way.
There's no skill needed and nothing to buy. I made my own little witch from a Yorkshire Tea box and a bag of odds and ends, and it was the most freeing afternoon I'd had in an age. It isn't about making something perfect — quite the opposite. Wonky is welcome here. It's about that delighted, freeing feeling of playing again, and remembering the wonder you were always quietly carrying.
(If you'd rather listen than read, I chatted all about this on last week's podcast, too.)
The very first session is completely free, and it's arrived on the new moon in Cancer — the tender, homecoming moon, which felt like exactly the right day to open the door. Come and make your own little witch whenever you fancy a lovely, screen-light afternoon:
A little something to try this week
And whether or not you ever step through that door, here's a small invitation, from me to your little one:
Make a proper wish this week. A real one — on a dandelion, a candle, or the first star — the way you used to, with your whole heart and no embarrassment at all. Or pocket one small treasure on a walk, just because it caught your eye. See how it feels to play again, even for a moment.
Be kind to your little one this week. She's still in there — and she's been waiting so patiently for you to come and find her.
With love, Sara Jane x
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