Grimoire - Hellenic Polytheism

New Year Magic, Spells, and Rituals

The New Year is a powerful time for intention setting, transformation, and manifesting fresh opportunities.

New Year Cleansing Ritual

Purpose: Release the old and invite the new.

Materials: Sage, rosemary, or palo santo; a black candle (for banishing) and a white or green candle (for renewal).

How-to:

Light the black candle and state your intention to release negative energy and old patterns.

Cleanse your space with the smoke from your chosen herb, visualizing negativity dissolving.

Light the white or green candle, setting intentions for growth and positivity.

Year-Ahead Tarot or Rune Reading

Purpose: Gain insight into the energies and opportunities of the coming year.

How-to:

Pull one card or rune for each month, reflecting on the themes and guidance they offer.

Write down your interpretations in your journal.

Use the information to plan your year or focus your magical work.

Prosperity Spell

Purpose: Attract abundance and success.

Materials: A green or gold candle, cinnamon, bay leaves, coins, and a small pouch.

How-to:

Light the candle and focus on your intention for prosperity.

Sprinkle cinnamon and place coins around the candle.

Write your financial or career goals on a bay leaf and burn it in the flame.

Place the ashes and coins in a pouch to carry with you for luck.

Personal Transformation Bath

Purpose: Shed old energy and prepare for new growth.

Materials: Sea salt, rose petals, lavender, and clear quartz.

How-to:

Prepare a warm bath with the ingredients, focusing on your intention to cleanse and rejuvenate.

Submerge yourself, imagining all negativity washing away.

After the bath, write down one intention for self-growth to carry forward.

Midnight Wish Spell

Purpose: Make a powerful wish as the year changes.

Materials: A silver candle, moon water, and a piece of paper.

How-to:

Write your wish on the paper and place it under the candle.

Light the candle and focus on your wish as you sprinkle moon water around the flame.

Burn the paper in the candle’s flame and release the ashes to the wind.

Moonlight Charging Ritual

Purpose: Empower your tools and crystals for the year ahead.

How-to:

On the first full moon of the year, place your crystals, jewelry, or tools under the moonlight.

State your intentions for their use in your magical practice.

Remember, you can always adapt these suggestions to suit your unique needs, substitute ingredients or tools with what you have available, and create your own traditions. Your craft is personal, and your intuition is your best guide.

The Witching Hour

The Witching Hour, traditionally believed to occur around midnight, is a time steeped in mysticism and associated with heightened supernatural activity. This concept finds its origins in various cultural and religious traditions, with the common theme being that the veil between the physical world and spiritual realms is at its thinnest during this time. This thinning is believed to allow for easier communication with spirits, heightened psychic abilities, and more potent and powerful magickal energies.

In folklore, it is said that witches, spirits, and other supernatural beings are most active during the Witching Hour, making it both a period of potential danger and great opportunity for those practicing the occult or esoteric arts. The term "Witching Hour" itself evokes images of secret rituals, whispered incantations, and unseen forces at play, capturing the imagination of those who explore the magical unknown.

Historically, the Witching Hour has roots dating back to medieval Europe, where the Catholic church declared 3 AM as the hour most associated with witchcraft and demonic activity, countering the time of Christ's death at 3 PM. Over centuries, the more generalized midnight hour gained prominence as the true Witching Hour, perhaps due to its symbolic representation of the transition from one day to the next, which associates it as a liminal space in time, or because it occurs during the darkest part of the night.

In contemporary, this period remains significant for those practicing witchcraft or other esoteric traditions. Modern witches and spiritual practioners often use the Witching Hour for spellcasting, divination, and meditation, believing the energies are more potent and conductive to spirit work and magick. This time is also ideal for introspection and connecting to one's inner self, as the quiet and stillness of midnight provide a perfect backdrop for deep reflection. Thus, the Witching Hour continues to captivate, symbolizing a powerful window of time for transformation, connection to the unseen, and unlocking hidden potentials.

Pick a Picture Reading | PAC

Pick a picture 1 - 2 - 3 Hello, sweethearts. It's an unusual reading. I picked quotes for each pile that will give you insights or enlighten you.

Pile 1

“Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.”

— Sigmund Freud

“Who told you that there is no true, faithful, eternal love in this world! May the liar’s vile tongue be cut out!”

— Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“Revenge may be wicked, but it’s natural.”

― William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

“Evil is just what is positive; it makes its own existence felt.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer, On the Sufferings of the World

“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.”

— F. Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

”The pleasure lies not in discovering truth, but in searching for it.”

― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“Who are you then?”

“I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.”

— Goethe, Faust

Pile 2

"In order to know the light, we must first experience the darkness."

— C.G. Jung “The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“A woman may possess the wisdom and chastity of Minerva, and we give no heed to her, if she has a plain face. What folly will not a pair of bright eyes make pardonable? What dullness may not red lips are sweet accents render pleasant? And so, with their usual sense of justice, ladies argue that because a woman is handsome, therefore she is a fool. O ladies, ladies! there are some of you who are neither handsome nor wise.”

― William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

“They spoil every romance by trying to make it last for ever.”

— Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Here's my advice to you: don't marry until you can tell yourself that you've done all you could, and until you've stopped loving the women you've chosen, until you see her clearly, otherwise you'll be cruelly and irremediably mistaken. Marry when you're old and good for nothing...Otherwise all that's good and lofty in you will be lost.”

— Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication"

— Leonardo da Vinci

“Don’t worry about people. People think what you want them to think.”

— Theodore Dreiser, The Financier

Pile 3

“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”

— George Orwell, 1984

“To define is to limit.”

— Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait.”

— Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. Frown at it, and it will in turn look sourly upon you; laugh at it and with it, and it is a jolly kind companion; and so let all young persons take their choice.”

― William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

“If goodness has causes, it is not goodness; if it has effects, a reward, it is not goodness either. So goodness is outside the chain of cause and effect.”

― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“Hardships make or break people.”

— Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.“

— William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

Spell Bags

What Are Spell Bags?

Spell Bags are usually small bags that contain a range of ingredients linked to the intention of your spell. They can sometimes be known as different names, or have slight cultural differences. For the purpose of this post I will refer to a spell bag, but they may also be called spell sachets, charm bags, and in some cultures, mojo bags (please do your own research). You can also make spell jars, which are pretty much the same, only you use a jar and not a bag.

Bag Colors

Gold - wealth, protection, the God Silver - prosperity, the moon, the Goddess Yellow - healing Orange - travel, communication, messages Green - nature, growth, prosperity, abundance, friendship Blue - peace, calm, wisdom, benevolence Purple - wisdom, wealth, grandeur, mysteries, justice Red - success, romance, strength, protection Pink - love, healing, friendship Black - absorbs negative energy

How to Make a Spell Bag

Think about your intention for making the spell bag… Why are you making it?… What do you want to get from it?

Think about ingredients you want to put into the spell bag and their correspondences… What ingredients will fit into your spell bag?… What specific ingredients are associated with your intentions (for example, what herbs are used for protection)

Collect your bag and ingredients, and focus your intent on each of them. You may also want to write a magickal chant. This can be simply read out, or written down to leave inside the spell bag.

Assemble your spell bag.

Spend time either meditating on your intention, or reciting your magickal chant.

Find a place to put your spell bag. This may simply be on your altar, or in your pocket. Alternatively, there may be a specific place you want to put it (such as by your bed for a sleep spell bag, or in the corner of your room for protection).

Tip-Jar

This rare first edition of Margaret Mitchell's "Gone with the Wind" was used to conceal a .32-caliber pistol (1941)

Growing.

Some of my writer’s block cures:

Handwrite. (If you already are, write in a different coloured pen.)

Write outside or at a different location.

Read.

Look up some writing prompts.

Take a break. Do something different. Comeback to it later.

Write something else. (A different WIP, a poem, a quick short story, etc.)

Find inspiring writing music playlists on YouTube. (Themed music, POV playlists, ambient music, etc.)

Do some character or story prompts/questions to get a better idea of who or what you’re writing.

Word sprints. Set a timer and write as much as you can. Not a lot of time to overthink things.

Set your own goals and deadlines.

Write another scene from your WIP. (You don’t have to write in order.) Write a scene you want to write, or the ending. (You can change it or scrap it if it doesn’t fit into your story later.)

Write a scene for your WIP that you will never post/add to your story. A prologue, a different P.O.V., how your characters would react in a situation that’s not in your story, a flashback, etc.

Write down a bunch of ideas. Things that could happen, thing that will never happen, good things, bad things.

Change the weather (in the story of course.)

Feel free to add your own.

✨️🫙✨️Spells✨️🫙✨️

"The light of long ago is different from the light of today."

The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt