Wiccan Creed
The Wiccan Creed is less well-known than the Wiccan Rede, but no less important. Where the Rede offers ethical guidance – how to act, how to choose – a creed offers identity. It declares who we are when we step into sacred space, what we believe about magic and ourselves, and what it means to claim the title of witch.
A creed is not dogma. It is not a list of beliefs you must accept to be considered legitimate. It is a mirror held up to your practice, reflecting back what you know in your bones to be true. Different traditions speak it differently. Different witches hear it in their own voices. This one is mine.
What Is a Creed
The word “creed” comes from the Latin “credo” – I believe. In many religions, a creed is a formal statement of faith, a set of doctrines that define membership and orthodoxy. The Wiccan Creed is not that.
In Wicca and witchcraft, a creed is personal. It is a declaration of what magic means to you, how you understand your place in the web of existence, and what you hold sacred. It may be spoken aloud in ritual as a reminder of why you practice. It may be written in your Book of Shadows and revisited when you need to remember who you are beneath the noise of the world.
A creed is not static. It grows as you grow. It shifts as your understanding deepens. What you believe at twenty may not be what you believe at forty or sixty. That is not failure – it is the living nature of the Craft.
Why a Creed Matters
Magic is not just about casting spells or celebrating sabbats. It is about identity – recognizing yourself as part of something vast and old, understanding that you are not separate from the wind or the tide or the fire that burns. A creed puts that recognition into words.
When you speak a creed aloud, you are not asking for anything. You are not petitioning the gods or the universe. You are declaring: This is who I am. This is what I know to be true. This is the path I walk.
For solitary practitioners especially, a creed can be grounding. It reminds you that even when you practice alone, you are part of a larger pattern. You are the wind in the branches and the roots reaching deep. You are mystery and manifestation both.
Themes of the Wiccan Creed
Most versions of the Wiccan Creed touch on similar themes, even when the language varies:
Connection to nature and the elements – witches do not see themselves as separate from the natural world. We are part of it, woven into the same fabric as stone and star, flame and flow.
Balance – the creed honors both light and shadow, dawn and dusk, action and rest. We do not choose one or the other. We hold both.
Magic as inherent, not external – the creed reminds us that magic is not something we acquire or learn to manipulate. It is what we are. We do not do magic. We are magic.
Community across time and space – even solitary witches are part of a lineage, part of a web that connects us to those who walked this path before and those who will walk it after.
This Version
The Wiccan Creed below grew from years of standing in circles, of feeling the pulse of the earth beneath my feet, of recognizing that I am not alone even when I practice in solitude. It is structured around the rhythms I return to: twilight and shadow, darkness and dawning, the path bathed in moonlight.
I wrote it to name what often goes unspoken – the feeling of standing barefoot on earth and knowing you belong to something older than words. If the Rede is a compass, the Creed is a heartbeat. It reminds you what pulses beneath the spells and rituals, what remains when the candles are blown out and the circle is opened.
If you are new to the Craft, let this creed be an introduction to the witch you are becoming. If you have practiced for years, may it remind you of the witch you have always been.
Starlight and Shadow
A Creed
Hear now the voice in the silence,
The footfalls of gods through the green.
We dance at the edge of the twilight,
In starlight and shadow unseen.
We are the wind in the branches,
The fire, the spark and the light.
We are the tide in its turning,
The roots that reach out of sight.
Follow the path bathed in moonlight,
Walk in the wake of the wise.
Starlight follows our footsteps,
We conjure, we craft, and we rise.
We gather in darkness and dawning,
To honor the balance and wheel.
We dance where moonlight has fallen,
And speak what the flames shall reveal.
We are the keepers of mystery,
Weavers of will and delight.
So do we rise in our power,
Magic unbound, taking flight.
Speaking Your Creed
A creed is not meant to be memorized like a lesson. It is meant to be felt – in the moment you realize you are not separate from the wind that stirs the leaves, or the fire that warms your hearth, or the roots that anchor the oldest trees.
You are already part of this. The magic recognizes you because you are the magic.
Speak your creed when you need reminding. Whisper it when the world feels too heavy or too bright. Let it be an anchor when you have lost your way, and a banner when you have found it. And if these words do not fit, write your own. Most of us eventually do.
Walk in wisdom, wild and free.