If old timey cartoon stereotype witches were around today it would rule. One of them would tweet or blog something like
I was talking to bethesdalah the other day and I asked her about how she dealt with potions leaving residue on her broom, as mine was getting quite sticky
and she told me that witches don't use their brooms to stir their cauldrons? I told her everyone in my coven does??? She said that was fucking weird???? Am I losing my mind?!?!?!?!!
and then for the next four months we'd have the most unhinged discourse the mortal realm has ever seen
You let your broom handle touch the ground!? that's a magical focus for air magic, you get dirt all over it and you're gonna faceplant the next time you have to go anywhere! stirring potions is one thing, that's water elemental, there's plenty of water in most air, but earth is going to ground your magical energies and nosedive your efficiency at best, if not your actual nose!
of course brooms are air focuses, even for cleaning purposes. let me go through the reasons why:
- Trees are earth-source, air-aligned. as the tallest plants on the planet, they have a yearning to touch the sky, and focus all of their energy in life on reaching up and out.
- you take some wood, and you let it dry out, purifying the air-alignment. you also dry out some straw, which is less powerfully air-attracted but on the other hand, much more hollow so easily air-converted.
- you attach the straw to the wood, and with purpose keep the straw aimed at least partially earthward in storage and use. This inversion of the tree (trunk on top, "branches" on bottom) demonstrates human control over elements, while building up a frustration of the air magic.
- for cleaning, you use the broom to blast dust and dirt off the floor, with tiny bursts of air magic, often called "sweeping". the air magic easily repels the dirt away from your work area, allowing it to settle harmlessly onto the earth elsewhere. It obviously comes out "branch"-ward.
- by keeping the soaring spirit of the witch focused earth-ward through cleaning tasks such as these, you build up a deep frustration of air magic in yourself, in kinship with the broom. With enough frustration and bond to the air focus kept under your power, you release the air magic through the focus in a powerful burst, and launch yourself skyward, letting your body soar with your spirit and finally allowing your focus's branches to reach the sky again. the exhilaration of flight and freedom combined with the release of frustration both in yourself and the broom makes this a very potent experience, it's not easy to forget, and allows easier channeling of power to that end in the future.
And that's why brooms are a powerful focus of air magic, and the primary means of airborne travel among witches.
I unironically love that I made a silly little joke back then and then this website spent a month making it real. Alan wake shit. Tlon Uqbar shit. This is just one of the actual 100s of responses I got. Thank you for reminding me