Relationships With The Gods

Small things you can do for Yule 🌲✨

Decorate your Altar with Pine cones, Holly leaves and Pine leaves 🌲

Wear winter colours of dark greens, Black, Grey and Maroon.

Grown indoor plants during the winter🌱

Cleanse your space with Musky incense and candles and be fresh for the colder months ahead ✨

Use various nuts in cooking for any correspondenses in your kitchen Witchcraft

Cook veg stews (or meat) with herbs to keep you warm ✨

Put birdhouses in your garden to keep the birds warm and feed them seed 🐦

Do some winter inspired make up looks and outfits with your glamour spells ❄️✨

tips for giving off

big witch energy

crystals in your pocket

softly chuckle to yourself while staring into a strangers eyes like you know

dirt

talk to plants you walk by

nod at passing cats like old friends

when someone offers a hand to shake look at their palm instead and sigh deeply

rocks

stare at the sun stare right at it you coward

use a cauldron to cook all meals

…sage

MAGICK APPLE THREE CHEESE SOUP FOR FALL

This soup, is actually pretty tasty, so don’t be scared off by the title. Apple and cheese are really good together. And this recipe, from my kitchen to yours, is infused in magick!

Ingredients:

Olive Oil

1 cup apple cider ~ love, comfort, divine energy, healing, folk lore cure all

2 tbsp brown sugar ~ Love, comfort

1 large granny smith apple ~ revitalize, love, healing

 1 large onion, diced ~ warding, protection

1 1/3 cup freshly shredded cheddar

Sprig of thyme ~ symbol of Venus, beauty, courage, fairy communications, protection, psychic abilities

Ground garden sage (Note- Do NOT use white sage as it is sacred to the indigenous and should be saved for native practices) ~ clarity, protection, grounding, cleansing, wisdom, nightmare relief

Salt and pepper ~ Warding, cleansing, protection

½ cup gouda cheese

4 oz bree cheese

¾ cup half and half

3 cups broth of choice

Flour to thicken it

8 oz beer (Optional)

To prep: Cook your apple slices till soft, then purée them with a stick blender. Add a big pot to the stove, add oil to heat up on medium heat.

Cooking the soup: Add diced onions, pureed apple, and cook on medium heat for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add in broth, apple cider, seasonings, and beer (optional) into the pot and stir. You’ll want to bring this to a boil, and then turn down to simmer for an additional 12 minutes. 

Stir in your half and half and flour to thicken, along with your brown sugar. Cook this enough for the alcohol to boil off if serving people under 21 years of age or if you don’t want alcoholic soup at that matter. Cook for another 15 minutes stirring on a low medium heat.

Now stir in the cheese until it has melted in nicely in the soup, remember you can always add more things to you’ll liking. 

Authors Notes: Beer can be substituted for more broth, stir clock-wise for a more effective outcome. You can also substitute beer for one of you other potions, or edible elixirs. Pecans pair well with this, along with walnuts. You add bacon, or even dip apple slices into the soup.

Blessed be~

Angel….

When someone blogs about a spell, consecration, ritual or any personal magical or witchcraft work, they usually leave something out intentionally or unintentionally, said or unsaid. My first witchcraft teacher taught me to always add something to my spell work and especially if a spell had an even number of components to make it odd by addition. As a witch you need to make a spell your own, something that you and your spirits add to the mix. While most anybody can use a well made spell without edit to reasonable success, a witch tends to seal theirs with some personal flair. I have not heard this specific advice repeated by any of my subsequent craft teachers; however, it rings so true and perhaps sensible that I have always held it. Of course my subsequent teachers have emphasized making your own spells. So the emphasis on personalized witchcraft holds.

Actually useful shit to have as a witch

You really don't need all the fancy bullshit every tumblr influencer will ever tell you to use. Here's my countdown ofaxtually useful shit.

A pocket knife, preferably with a wood handle. Use that bitch for everything, enchant it, carve symbols in it. It will absolutely be your best friend.

A good bag or backpack with a couple of plastic or ziploc bags in it. If you ever run off into the woods to find minerals, bones, plants, etc. A set aside bag and some things to store your treasures in becomes a necessity.

Basic divinatory sets. You don't have to buy fancy shit, learn to divine with playing cards and dice, or learn geomancy, lithomancy, or rune casting with homemade sets. A tarot deck is nice, but it isn't necessary when you've got so many other divinatory aids available.

A nice sized chunk of scrap cloth. When you process dried plants or sort new ones, that shit can and will get everywhere. A scrap piece of muslin or linen can help contain all of that mess and make clean up way easier.

A stash of good rocks. Draw sigils or symbols on those babies and leave them in the garden, the windowsill,property boundaries, under the stoop, etc. You can never have too many good rocks.

A pendulum, for fucks sake. The cards are going to be vague as hell when you're trying to figure out yes or no questions, and using a candle to communicate with spirits is really fucking hard outside. If you can't afford one, find a nice chunk of pointy quartz and learn to macrame.

A workspace. Everyone talks about having big fancy altars, but no one mentions that you need a good surface to do all your work on.

Storage, so much storage. I'm not talking about mason jars and pill bottles, I'm talking about where you put all the things you put in those jars. Having a workspace with drawers is immeasurably helpful.

A broom and water source. You're going to be cleaning up after yourself a lot, it's helpful to have a jug of water and a broom that stays by your workspace.

A mode of cleansing. I make a salt concoction to scatter around my workspace on short notice and store it close by.

On that note: SOMETHING TO CANCEL SPELLS WITH. Eventually, something will go wrong. You'll want to end that spell immediately. Have something to do it with.

A strainer. If you don't have a blender, rub dried plants across it to get a powder. If you do have a blender, you can strain that powder with it. Either way, if you intend to powder shit, get a strainer.

Small trays. It makes drying flowers so much easier if you have a small metal surface to contain them with- then just stick those suckers in a southern window and let em go.

Yarn/string scraps. Having a box or drawer of scraps makes trying this up to dry easier and a bit less wasteful.

A stash of offerings for whatever you work with. Honey for fae, coins for graveyard gatekeepers, alcohol for ancestors, etc.

Protective talismans or charms. Once you're into all of this stuff, you'll likely stick your nose in something you shouldn't. Having basic protection with you or in your workspace is incredibly important. A key and hagstone with red string is simple and effective.

A lighter- so many people forget the most basic shit. You're going to want to light shit on fire if you're a witch.

And a last tip- if something is too hard for a mortar and pestle, a plastic bag and hammer works too.

I see people talking about a person who has been making transphobic comments on my dash. And its made me want to say this.

Just because some one makes claims about something in the magic, witchcraft and spirituality community. (Yes even someone with a big following) it doesn’t mean they are right!

If some one says that you have to use special tools to do magic, they are wrong. If some one makes a claim about someones Gods, and its historically inaccurate they are wrong. And this one came from some one in discord. if some one says the Gods punish you or make you uncomfortable in your worship, They are wrong. And especially if some of one says that if you have a spell meant for “women”, so it doesn’t work for trans women they are wrong.

Never support uninclusive magic!

What I mean by inclusive magic, is practices that do not use homophobia, transphobia or racism.

Here is stuff to watch out for!

You need special tools to do magic. (Absolutely not. Some spells can even be cast with a glass of water. I have a pair of scissors on my altar. And you can use playing cards In divination.)

My family says something needs to be done in a certain way. (Like if they say “my family says you can only read your cards once a day.” That is fine for them to practice it that way, but you are fine to do it your own way.)

If a spell is meant for a women, then it means a trans women cannot use it! (Absolutely not true. You can use any spell for a “women”, as a trans women. Because trans women are women. we should never accept transphobia in magic)

Men cannot be witches! (Absolutely anyone can be a witch or magic practitioner.)

My religion or practice is superior. (every practice that is not racist, homophobic or transphobic is valid)

Its ok for me to use rituals from closed practices, that I am not in. (Absolutely not)

If you take a brake from magic or stop trying to spiritually better yourself, you are a failure. (Wrong, people do what is comfortable for them. Some times it takes people time and many brakes.)

Feel free to add more red flags to watch out for!

.:: Defining Traditional Witchcraft ::.

What is Traditional Witchcraft?

According to Michael Howard, Trad Craft refers to “any non-Gardnerian, non-Alexandrian, non-Wiccan or pre-modern form of the Craft, especially if it has been inspired by historical forms of witchcraft and folk magic”.

Traditional Witchcraft, therefore, is not a single monolith. We can, in fact, distinguish between:

Operative Witchcraft or Folk Magic

Ritual(istic) Witchcraft

This first difference is taken from Margaret Murray; she used the first term for indicating the practice of magic, as carried out by cunning folk and folk magicians, and included the non-religious practice of spells, charms, divinations, etc. “whether used by a professed witch or by a professed Christian, whether intended for good or for evil, for killing or for curing. Such charms and spells are common to every nation and country, and are practised by the priests and people of every religion. They are part of the common heritage of the human race and are therefore of no practical value in the study of any one particular cult.” (The Witch-Cult, p. 11.)

The second term (also called “Dianic cult” by Murray) indicates, instead, “the religious beliefs and ritual of the people, known in late mediaeval times as ‘Witches’. The evidence proves that underlying the Christian religion was a cult practised by many classes of the community, chiefly, however, by the more ignorant or those in the less thickly inhabited parts of the country. It can be traced back to pre-Christian times”. Therefore we can say that Ritual Witchcraft is the cult of pre-Christian Deities or Spirits connected to the witches.

While the ideas of Murray about this cult have now been discredited, other scholars have reopened this field as a viable area of study, discovering many ecstatic witch-cults. The most known academics in this field are: Carlo Ginzburg, Éva Pócs, Emma Wilby, Claude Lecouteux, Wolfgang Behringer, Sabina Magliocco, Gábor Klaniczay, Gustav Henningsen and Bengt Ankarloo.

Relying on the work of these scholars, we can say therefore that Ritual Witchcraft was/is the religious system surrounding the Sabbath, the Procession of the Dominae Nocturnae from house to house, the spiritual flight, Elphame, the Wild Hunt, the Night Battles, etc.

As we can understand, even if the majority of the Ritual Witches were/are also Operative Witches (practitioners of Folk Magic), not all the Operative Witches were/are also Ritual Witches. The majority of Folk Magicians/Operative Witches, in fact, didn’t go to the Sabbath, didn’t astrally fly, didn’t astrally go with the Wild Hunt, from house to house with the Domina Nocturna, to Elphame/the Otherworld or to the Night Battles. Ritual Witches did.

We can say, therefore, that Operative Witchcraft is a practice, while Ritual Witchcraft is a religion.

Traditional Witches who are secular are, therefore, usually Operative and not Ritual Witches. While the distinction between Ritual and Operative Witchcraft is an established one in the Witchcraft community, I introduce a new, according to me useful, second distinction, inside Ritual Witchcraft (i.e. Witchcraft as a religion), by borrowing the terms “Revivalism” and “Reconstructionism” from Polytheism, in which it’s an already established terminology:

Hereditary Witchcraft

Revivalist Witchcraft

Reconstructionist Witchcraft

Hereditary Traditional Witchcraft brings together all the traditions that claim a lineage from the Witchcraft of the past.

Revivalist Traditional Witchcraft is inspired by folklore, trials and the figure of the witch without any presumption of hereditarity. Unlike the Reconstructionist one, it leaves ample space for personal initiative and the influence of other traditions, without slavishly following the history in every single detail.

Reconstructionist Traditional Witchcraft, finally, tries to resume, starting from the in-depth study of folklore, historical trials and documents, the exact practices and beliefs of Historical Witchcraft. For example, the pantheon of Spirits, the festivities, the structure of the Sabbath, the structure of the offerings, and so on.

An important aspect for those who practice Reconstructionism is the resumption of the names of the Gods (or it would be more correct to say, of the “Deific Familiar Spirits” or “Major Spirits”) forgotten and remained only in the trials papers and in folklore. The idea is to reopen roads, ways to these Spirits. Reconstructing therefore means paying homage to these Spirits and allowing those interested to re-establish a connection with Them.

We said before that Traditional Witchcraft is not Wicca. What’s the difference?

According to the Traditional Witchcraft author Lee Morgan:

“It could easily be said that one of the major differences between the modern revival referred to as “Traditional Witchcraft” and the other modern revival known as “Wicca”, is that Traditional Witchcraft draws on “folkloric material” and is largely “shamanic” whereas Wicca is more of a fusion of Western Occult ceremonial and natural magic traditions.”

(From: Lee Morgan’s “A Deed Without a Name: Unearthing the Legacy of Traditional Witchcraft”)

🎄Yule Mulled Wine🎄

This time of year is the perfect excuse to inject a little magick into the dark evenings and some steaming Mulled Wine is a delicious addition to a cosy night-in of Yule preparations :)

This recipe is scaled so it works for one 750ml bottle of red wine.

YOU WILL  NEED:

1 teaspoon crushed cinnamon sticks (warmth and protection)

1 teaspoon nutmeg (love, luck and warmth)

1 teaspoon slightly crushed allspice (fire and healing)

½ teaspoon cloves (fire, love and purification)

½ teaspoon ginger (fire, energy and passion)

1 ½ teaspoon orange peel (uplifting, the sun)

1 ½ teaspoon lemon peel (purification, the moon)

Orange & Lemon slices

5 teaspoons honey (sweetness, stability and good health)

A clean pair of old tights that you no longer need

Take the dry ingredients and the peel, combine them all and give them a little mix to start releasing those flavours! 

Take the tights and chop the feet off them - we’ll be using these as our bag to keep all the ingredients in. Cut them long enough so that you can tie the top off easily to stop everything falling out.

Add all the mixed ingredients into our newly chopped bag and give it a little squeeze.

Grab a saucepan and decant your bottle of wine into it, also adding your orange and lemon slices and your honey.

Keep on a low heat for 25-40 minutes (do not let it boil).

For that extra witchy goodness, be sure to stir some strong intent into the mixture. While I made it last night I focused on the joy, love and togetherness of this sabbat and tried injecting all those feelings into the wine ❤ 

Voila! Festive goodness for everyone :)

Enjoy, my pagan witchy babes xxxx

A Sea Witch’s Knots 101 - The Bottle/Jar Sling

I’m sorry this took so long! Some things came up in real life, and I wanted to make sure I didn’t rush the class just to get it up. Prior lessons are here:

The Square (Reef) Knot

The Bowline

So, let’s move on, shall we?

Keep reading

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?