September Seasonal Produce 🍎

Jólakötturinn

Masturbation memories: A SEX TOY GIVEAWAY!

It’s been 14 years since I sat in my college dorm room and typed up my very first sex toy review. My blog is now a teen, the same age I was when I fell in love with a girl for the first time. Should I be asking my blog about its sexuality? Honey, you know you can come to me with anything.

I could yammer on about how different everything was back in 2007, because BOY WAS IT, but there are more pressing matters here, such as getting free sex toys into your hands! I’ve gathered 50 prizes for this giveaway, and I can’t wait to bestow them upon you.

Enter to win now! (ends 10/27) 

Had a realization

Oorlog is the relationship of cause and effect in Norse belief. Causes and effects weave in and out of each other to create the Web of Wyrd, or the web of destiny.

Oorlog is the yarn, the Wyrd is the total knitted project.

Loki is a trickster who operates as an element of random chance in Norse stories, inciting change and movement.

Loki’s name means “knots.” Now I know why.

📅 Weekly Rituals 📅

Monday

🔮 Correspondences: travels, dreams, psychic powers, peace, mystery, healing, home, fertility, emotions, family, divination

✨ Ritual: brew green tea and put all your positive intentions for this week in the tea by stirring it clockwise for good luck. 

–

Tuesday

🔮 Correspondences: bravery, business, courage, strength, war, partnership, passion, protection, sexual intentions, work, victory

✨ Ritual: connect with the strength and bravery of nature by going on a walk outside, a hike, or at least opening your windows wide open and letting the fresh, cold air of the morning in your home. 

–

Wednesday

🔮 Correspondences: art, astrology, communication, focus, creativity, education, excitement, inspiration, wise

✨ Ritual: take a ritual bath or cleansing shower, and repeat the following mantra “I cleanse myself so I may feel light, creative, peaceful and at ease”. 

–

Thursday

🔮 Correspondences: abundance, money, luck, growth, personal development, prosperity, health, expansion, altruism

✨ Ritual: on a bay leaf, write a keyword or sigil representing a wish or dream of yours, focus on it with all your intention, then burn the leaf with a white candle to make it happen. 

–

Friday

🔮 Correspondences: affection, friendship, love, romance, beauty, social interactions, harmony, birth, reconciliation

✨ Ritual: after working or studying, bring harmony to your desk by thoroughly decluttering any unnecessary item, cleaning up the dust and magically cleansing it with sage or Palo Santo. 

–

Saturday

🔮 Correspondences: banishment, spiritual communication, justice, curse, death, cleansing, purification, time, end, debts, home

✨ Ritual: to get rid of a curse or negative energy, fix a black candle in a bowl by letting some wax melt at the bottom of the candle. Then fill up half the bowl with water. Turn on the candle, then focus all your intentions on banishing the curse. When the candle has reached the water, the negativity will be gone. 

–

Sunday

🔮 Correspondences: ambitions, goals, career, growth, beginning, masculinity, health, spirituality, success, prosperity

✨ Ritual: read your tarot by drawing 3 cards (Past, Present, Future) to learn from last week’s mistakes, understand your current mental state and prepare for next week. 

[to any deity in particular]: Hi. I’ve brought shitty alcohol, two electric candles, a chocolate bar, my many issues, and an undying love for you. Can you help me un-fuck myself?

[deity]: sighs deeply

Magic In Cooking #1

Just some notes I have! Not originally mine. By Nicole Canfield.

Apple:

Fruit of the Goddess

Love

Health and Immortality

Healing

Garden magic

Banana:

Ruled by Mars

I’d hate to say but…. it has lust and sexual effects….

Orange:

Ruled by the Sun

Joy

Love

Creativity

Chocolate: Different kinds have different properties:

Milk Chocolate:

Nurturing

Friendship

Dark Chocolate:

Love

Intimacy

Let me know if you would like more?

1. Two girls don traditional wreaths near a bonfire during Ivan Kupala Night celebrations, outside the small town of Turov, Belarus, on July 6, 2016 # Sergei Gapon / AFP / Getty.

2. People celebrate the Slavic pagan holiday of Ivan Kupala outside Novokuznetsk, Russia, on July 6, 2011 # Yaroslav Belyaev / AP.

Cold Weather Minestrone Soup

Classes were supposed to start today and since they haven’t because TX freaks out over ice, I thought I’d be productive on another front instead. So, here’s my Beginning of the Semester, Cold Weather Minestrone Soup. I’ve made this soup for a while now; it started off with some random recipe online (probably the food network website), but since I found it years ago, I’ve changed it to fit my own needs. This soup deals with ingredients that represent wealth, prosperity, purification, protection, love/lust, healing, etc.—all that good stuff that makes a good rounded semester of getting shit done both academically and socially.

I use a lot of canned and frozen stuff since I don’t always have time to cook and use up fresh ingredients. I prefer to make my own broth, since I learned how to fairly recently, but it’s very time consuming and canned/boxed broth works just as fine.

Ingredients:

3c Chicken/Veg Broth

1 can diced tomatoes (28oz, or two 14oz)

1c onion, chopped

1 ½ c celery, chopped

1c shredded carrots

1 can white cannellini bean, drained and rinsed (15oz)

½ tsp salt

½ tsp pepper

2 bay leaves

½ tsp dried sage

1tsp dried thyme

2c frozen/fresh spinach

1 zucchini, chopped

2c cooked mini bowties (technically any smaller pasta will work, but bowties are cute, so I always use these)

Directions:

Put broth, tomatoes, onions, celery, carrots, beans, salt, pepper, bay, sage, and thyme in a medium (or bigger) slow cooker, and stir. Cook on low for 7hrs, or high for 3 ½ hrs. Add spinach, zucchini, and pasta, then stir and cook for another 30 min. Remember to remove the bay leaves, or like, eat around them, since they can fuck up your throat. Add more salt or pepper if you want and you’re good to go!

*Please note that this recipe is for a crock pot, but can easily be changed to the stove top by adding more broth and cooking on medium-low to medium heat for about 4hrs. When cooking on the stove top, you’ll have to babysit it more by stirring occasionally and checking the tenderness of the veg. It’s more of a guessing game with the time, too. I’ve made this both on the stove and in a crockpot, so it can definitely be done on either.

Correspondence:

Bay: psychic powers, protection, purification, healing

Beans: protection, wealth, sex/lust

Carrots: sex/lust, fertility

Celery: sex/lust, fertility, peace, mental strength, psychic powers

Onion: stability, absorbs sickness, protection, prosperity, luck

Pepper: protection, purification, exorcism

Sage: cleansing, purification

Salt: purification, cleansing, healing, protection

Spinach: prosperity

Thyme: purification, psychic powers, health, fortune, love

Tomato: love, prosperity, healing, protection

Zucchini: protection, prosperity

Happy cooking! And stay warm!

Magic vs. Medicine?

People who believe in witchcraft know there are things in this world that science cannot explain. Many witches also believe in the healing power of nature. Because of this, there tends to be a lot of overlap between witchcraft and alternative healing.

Some alternative healing modalities, like herbal supplements, crystals, and essential oils, are incredibly popular with witches because they align so well with a magical worldview. And that can be a beautiful thing. If you find that taking CBD oil or diffusing lavender makes you feel good and gives you a sense of empowerment, then it absolutely has a place in your life.

The problem is that alternative healing (and, by extension, magic as a whole) is often framed as being in competition with conventional medicine. It’s presented as an “either/or” — either you believe in doctors and medicine, or you believe in energy healing and herbal supplements. This is not realistic, and it may even put people in danger.

The irony of this is that the first witches were also the first doctors. In Ancient Egypt, doctors would invoke the gods to imbue medicine with healing power, or curse a disease to make it leave a patient — these approaches were paired with actual medicine. In medieval Europe, witches and cunningfolk were the keepers of medical knowledge and would often serve as healers.

Even today, most pharmaceutical medications are made from naturally occurring ingredients. For example, antibiotics are synthesized from bacteria and fungi. These medications are not less natural than the medicine people used hundreds or thousands of years ago, but they are more refined thanks to modern technology. Rather than trading a natural remedy for an artificial one, you’re often just taking a more effective form of the same substance.

Personally, I like to use magic and alternative remedies to treat symptoms, but use medication to treat the underlying cause of the problem. If I have bronchitis, I might drink echinacea tea and diffuse eucalyptus essential oil, but I’m also going to take a full course of antibiotics to kill the infection.

Likewise, if I’m having a bad mental health day, I might take a bath with lavender or do some energy healing on myself, but I’m also probably going to call my therapist and continue taking my prescribed antidepressants.

Some witches have a lot of resistance to therapy, psychiatric care, and psychoactive medications. I’ve heard every possible argument, from “psychoactive meds lower your vibration/block your psychic abilities/dull your ability to feel energy!” to “if you tell a therapist you believe in magic, they’re going to think you’re crazy!” These arguments are completely false, plain and simple.

I’m a better witch when I’m in therapy and on my meds, because I’m a better person when I’m in therapy and on my meds. I’m better able to focus, set goals, and be aware of my body, which are all important skills in magic. I have no doubt that if I wasn’t doing what I need to do to keep myself stable, my mental health would suffer for it.

Good therapists know the importance of religion and spirituality, and they will respect your beliefs. No matter what your beliefs, a good faith-affirming therapist or counselor is always a good idea.

Your therapist is not going to think you’re crazy if you tell them you can astral travel, or talk about an experience with a pagan deity. What they will do is let you know if your experiences are outside the realm of healthy spirituality, and give you guidance on how to keep yourself safe if this is the case.

The truth is, whether we want to talk about it or not, not everyone who sees angels or talks to fairies is having a genuine spiritual experiences. As many as 63.3% of delusions in schizophrenia patients are religious in nature. If we are going to encourage people to seek out direct experiences of the spiritual, we also need to inform them on how to recognize when those experiences aren’t healthy or are not grounded in reality.

Psychosis refers to any experience that is not grounded in reality, including hallucinations (false sensory experiences) and delusions (false beliefs). Psychosis is not a mental disorder, but can be a symptom of many different disorders. It can also be an isolated incident in someone who may not usually experience breaks from reality.

Som if someone claims to have been visited by Isis, or Cernunnos, or the Virgin Mary, how do we know if they’re describing a genuine spiritual experience or a psychotic episode?

First of all, look at context. If someone claims to see angels or to be the reincarnation of a god immediately after taking drugs, after pulling an all-nighter, or while running a high fever (all potential causes of psychosis), they may be disconnected from reality and may need medical attention. On the other hand, if you know this person to be stable, sober, and well adjusted, they may very well be describing a genuine spiritual encounter.

Second, look at the actual experience. Is it consistent with the person’s existing beliefs? Is it consistent with experiences other people have had within the same belief system? Is this person clearly able to differentiate between this experience and the “real world,” or is the experience taking over their daily life? Answering these questions can help determine whether mental health intervention might be needed.

Finally, as a general rule, if you have an experience that scares you, makes you feel like you are in danger, or makes you feel compelled to hurt yourself or someone else, you should get a second opinion from a trained mental health professional.

As members of the witchcraft community, we have a responsibility to look out for other members of the community — and that includes being willing to say something if we believe someone genuinely needs medical help. Science and spirituality are not opposed, and they can coexist. Being a witch doesn’t mean rejecting science, and believing in science doesn’t mean rejecting magic. A healthy dose of skepticism goes a long way in keeping your magical practice safe, productive, and empowering.

Resources:

The Dream podcast, season two

New World Witchery podcast, “Episode 65 — The Slender Man Discussion”

Inside Schizophrenia podcast, “Psychosis in Schizophrenia”

The Savvy Psychologist podcast, “302 — Chemtrails, Aliens, and Illuminati — The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories”