The Green Witch: Vlogging, Phytography and Human–Flora Imagination

Through her vlogging channel called The Green Witch, Annabel Margaret communicates her daily activities as an aspiring herbalist, artist and videographer who practices green witchcraft from the rural town of Seattle, Washington DC, with a folkloric bent. Drawing inspiration from traditional witchcraft books, her vlogging practice revolves around treating the natural world as her classroom, constantly experimenting with herbal plants to concoct herbal beverages and food. Her narrativised daily routine reveals her individual-specific ritual of brewing herbal blends, remedies and spells by using natural ingredients from her garden. Sharing her knowledge of green wisdom, Annabel mostly narrates her practical approach to performing daily magic with herbs and simple tools through direct explanations and tutorials with a poetic undertone. In some of her videos, Margaret also illustrates and writes poetry that is inspired by her knowledge as an aspiring herbalist. She runs The Green Witch in tandem with her other personal vlogging channel under her own name, Annabel Margaret, in which she narrates her personal journey of moving to a cottage on her own in Washington and rebuilding her life as she reconnects with nature. Through the lens of automediality as its methodology, this chapter discusses Annabel Margaret’s strategies of creating her digital identity and representation as a multilayered autobiographical text that showcases both a creative and thoughtful way of receiving and using natural resources while building a life for herself as an artist, videographer and, eventually, a published author. This chapter also uses phytography as its combined approach to emphasise Margaret’s nature-inspired poetic narratives and videomaking that shows how she takes care of the plants by using her nature-based philosophy as a green witchcraft.