Storm Witch Tip:

Itty bitty self-love spell jar to keep in my pocket!

I used:

*Altar Salt, to remind myself I am a glorious creation.

*a shard of cinnamon stick for comfort, to be comfortable in my own skin

* Coco Powder, for the energy to love myself even when it's hard. (plus for its aphrodisiac properties 😉)

*Sugar, to remember to be sweet with myself

*and some rose quartz shards, for overall love.

🎄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

Pronunciation Of The Wiccan Holidays

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The names that are generally used to denote the Wiccan sabbats (as well as festivals of many pagan traditions) come from Gaelic (both Scots and Irish), Welsh, Norse, and Anglo-Saxon. There are variations of pronunciations for each one.

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Samhain (31 Oct)

Irish Gaelic for "summer's end." The standard Irish pronunciation is "sow-in" with the "ow" like in "cow." Other pronunciations that follow with the many Gaelic dialects include "sow-een" "shahvin" "sowin" (with "ow" like in "glow").

The Scots Gaelic spelling is "Samhuin" or "Samhuinn." There is no linguistic foundation for saying this word "samhane" the way it might look if it were English. When in doubt, just say "Hallows" or even "Hallowe'en."

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Yule (21 Dec)

Norse for "wheel." It's pretty much pronounced just like it looks, although if you want to make a stab at a Scandinavian sound, it'll be more like "yool" and less like "yewl." This is the winter solstice.

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Imbolg/Imbolc (1 Feb)

Irish Gaelic for "in the belly." Pronounce this one "IM-bullug" or "IM-bulk" with a guttural "k" on the end. Other names include Candlemas; Brighid (pronounced "breed"), who is the Irish goddess whose festival this is; and Oimelc (pronounced EE-mulk), which means "ewe's milk" in Scots Gaelic.

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Ostara (21 Mar)

Saxon name for a maiden goddess of spring, loosely connected to Astarte and Ishtar. This one's easy -- "o-STAHR-uh." Other names include Eostre (say "OHS-truh" or "EST-truh"). This is the spring equinox.

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Beltane/Bealtaine (30 April)

Irish Gaelic for either "fires of Bel" or "bright fires." If you want to try it in Gaelic, you can say "bee-YAWL-tinnuh" or "BELL-tinnuh." Unlike Samhain, this word can within the linguistic structure of its language of origin be pronounced like it looks -- "BELL-tane" -- without totally abandoning its original construction. Other names are Walpurgisnacht (vawl-PUR-gis-nahkt) and May Day.

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Litha (21 Jun)

Norse or Anglo-Saxon for "longest day." You can say this one just like it looks, or you can try for a Scandinavian sound and say "leetha" with the "th" more like a "t." This is the summer solstice.

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Lughnasadh/Lunasa or Lammas (1 Aug)

The first is Irish Gaelic for "festival of Lugh" (a major Irish deity); the second is Anglo-Saxon for "festival of the loaves" ("hlaf-mass"). Don't panic at that spelling; the second (which is modern Irish as opposed to old Irish) tells you all you need to know.

Say "LOO-nah-sah." (Some people maintain that the Scots dialect says it "LOO-nah-soo.") Lammas is just like it looks, "LAH-mus."

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Mabon (21 Sep)

This is believed to be a form of the Welsh word for "son." Therefore, it would probably be pronounced "MA-bon" with the "a" like in "mass." However, most Wiccans and pagans say "MAY-bon." This is the autumn equinox.

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Article Source : https://clubs.ncsu.edu/spm/FAQ/11pronounce.html

Image Source : https://www.instagram.com/p/B4aX5vVHBX_/?igshid=llpzumjzbbcb

My Yule Traditions:

Warding The Home

On the shortest day and the longest night of the year, the veil between the spirit world and ours becomes thin. This allows wandering spirits the cause mischief and possibly invade your home. Unfortunately, if you live in an apartment as i do, or just don’t have a chimney to burn the infamous Yule Log, you’ll need to resort to other measures to protect your humble abode through the long night. What I do is place one seven-day candle with a protective sigil drawn on it in every window of the house. Placing snowflake obsidian or black tourmaline stone in the corners of the window can add an extra boost of protection, sealing your house up good and tight. 

Offerings for Wondering Spirits 

This year, instead of just shutting out spirits, I want to provide them with some goodies while they’re on their journey. Currently, I’m planning on baking yummy Yule cookies and placing a good travels charm on them for any spirits who find themselves at my front door. 

Spiked Spiced Apple Cider

Sorry baby witches, this one isn’t for you. However, the recipe can be used without alcohol. This year, I’m placing a protection charm over the cider while it simmers, protecting anyone who indulges in this yummy sweet nectar. Later on, I’ll be posting a recipe for the cider as well as the spell.

Simple ways of turning any recipe witchy ✨

🌰 Bless the salt before using it for a protection spell

🌰 Stir clock wise for cleansing, and counter clock wise for banishing

🌰 Rosemary in a stew is yummy and also works great for protection or self love

🌰 Add hot spices to attract love, and warm spices for hearthy spells

🌰 When you bake a cake, when your greasing the tin, draw a sigil in the butter and then cover up with flour. Blessed be!

🌰 Use a toothpick to draw protective rhunes on your biscuits

🌰 Black pepper for hexing! (even on baked goods)

🌰 Use a strong liquor to ward off evil spirits (and have a sip while you cook, we can never be too careful 😉)

Quick Project: Associations

Take a sharpie pen, and write associations on the back of your spice jar labels. 

This will help for quick reference while cooking as to what intentions are going into the pot, so it were.  You can reinforce them by focusing on them, and just being generally aware of what is going in.  

Use the white spaces of the labels to your advantage.  This doesn’t have to be pretty, after all, most people just have regular run-of-the-mill plastic spice containers. 

This isn’t a substitute for a more practical list in your Grimoire/BoS, but it can be a quick and dirty trick. ;)

Author: Elizabet Wynnter Blog: The Spiral-Path Please do not remove Author or Links

Yule Logs

Despite much uncertainty surrounding the initial beginnings of the Yule Log tradition, today, the Yule Log is a way for witches, pagans, and non-practitioners alike to celebrate the winter solstice. What we do know about the traditional Yule Log is that it was a piece of wood burned, at least, for the day/night of the solstice itself (though perhaps for the entirety of Yule, which originally lasted many days) and part of the log was always kept unburned so that it could light next year’s Yule Log, passing the light from one log to another throughout the years. This unburned part was said to bring luck and protection to the home it was kept in throughout the year. These days, we use the Yule Log to light and warm the home, ward off dark and danger, and remind us of both the darkness of the solstice and the soon-coming light. 

Here are a few ways to bring a Yule Log into your solstice celebration this year. 

For a sweeter option you can always bake a Chocolate Yule Log - time consuming, but not overly difficult, a dessert Yule Log can be a fun way to bake alongside family and friends while you warm your home and fill your stomachs.

If you do happen to have a fireplace then choosing, buying, finding, or chopping your own large wooden log or bundle of logs (usually Oak, but many sources vary) is certainly an option if you want the more traditional experience of tending a fire throughout the longest night of the year. 

My favorite option for adopting the tradition of the Yule Log, however, is to decorate a log with ribbons and foraged items and drill holes for candles to burn throughout the night, lighting your home without the need for a small blaze. Here are two sources on how to make one and what they can look like when finished. 

Happy Yule!

Kitchen Magic: Empowerment Oils

Empowerment oils… oh, boy! When it comes to oils, there are about as many oils as there are witches in the world, and more! When I had first started getting into witchcraft, I was most intrigued by what I could do in the kitchen - something that definitely makes sense, as I am a cook and am pursuing a culinary degree - and between the herbs, teas, and oils, I had discovered an entire world of witchery that seemed daunting at first. And oils, I think, were probably the most daunting.

In learning about oils, I had come across entire books dedicated solely to herbal concoctions that can be blended up for use - Cunningham’s The Complete Book of Incense, Oils & Brews alone has 62 oil recipes, and that’s just a select few that Cunningham had shared.

But, sister witch, understand that you don’t have to be a whiz in the kitchen, nor a certified herbalist to make use of oils. With research, you can learn quite a lot, but like any aspect of the Craft, it comes down to what feels right. Trying to make a healing oil and you want to throw an amethyst into the bottle? Go right ahead! Making a money oil and don’t feel like bay laurel draws money to you? Leave it out and toss in some cloves! The possibilities are nearly endless.

So in order to cover oils in any kind of meaningful way, I feel like it’s best to break that umbrella topic down into what the oils are being used for. And as tempting as it is to hop straight into specialized oils, like Return-To-Sender or Road Opener oils, I realized that when I was studying oils and learning from other witches, I almost never came across a general-purpose oil, or what I call an empowerment oil.

In short, an empowerment oil is a multi-purpose oil meant to give a spell or other working just a bit more umph. It’s not focused to any particular use, and if I were to compare it to crystals, I would say that an empowerment oil is most like clear quartz in its uses. It is a battery oil, an energy drink for your mojo bag, liquid fire warmth for your spells that are going cold.

So! All of that rambling said, say you want to get into making empowerment oils. What do I look for? What do I put in it? Do I have to have a special carrier oil extracted from the wood of an endangered arctic berry bush? Well… first of all, I hope that you’re practicing wisely and not using endangered species for your work if your practice calls for it and it can’t be substituted for something non-endangered… well, good on you, but I won’t be helping you out on that one.

I break down what I look for in an oil based on the following criteria: What is it for? What do I want it to look like? Do I want to put it in my body? And can I easily make it with ingredients I have access to, or can easily gain access to?

What is it for?

Simply saying “empowerment” isn’t enough. Just like with any spell, you want to be able to visualize the purpose of the oil. So my Fire Water oil, for instance, is an oil where I knew I wanted it to protect, cleanse, purify, and enhance my workings. I visualized it as liquid fire, and when dressing, say, a healing candle, I can see the candle glow with golden healing warmth.

This is the kind of thing you want with your oils. Specific intent. The beautiful thing about empowerment oils is that they can be enchanted time and again for whatever you’re using them for. Going back to the Fire Water, I enchant it when I make it so that I can align the herbal properties, and then when I use it in a spell, I enchant it again so that the more specific property is called upon. My oil can be used for all sorts of purposes, but if I’m needing it for protection, I call upon that specific property.

The best way I personally use to do this is by using multiple herbs that share common traits. Cinnamon, Rosemary, Sage, and Cloves are all exceptionally good protection and purification herbs. All four of them are in my fire oil. Cinnamon, Clove, Rosemary, Sage, and Juniper are all very good for energizing and waking me up. All of them are in my fire oil.

You can use your intuition to determine what properties you want to incorporate into your oil, and start determining your ingredients from there!

What do I want it to look like?

This varies from person to person. Some couldn’t care less what their oil looks like, as long as it smells good, or as long as it does what they want it to do. For me, the senses are very important to incorporate into the spell or mixture I’m using - call it the cook in me.

If you’re a person who is put off by something because it stinks, looks or tastes rancid, or has floaty bits in it, then put together your recipe in a way that counters all of that.

I love vibrant colors, swirling movements, and pleasant smells that remind me of the purposes I want to incorporate. As such, my oils are pretty, have floaty bits, and smell - if I may say so - rather divine. For me, all of that adds to the magick of my Craft, so I take it into account.

Do I want to put it in my body?

I am a cook. For a lot of my oils, I want them to either be edible and pleasantly smelly or safe to put on skin with pretty scents. This is why I use a lot of herbs and spices that I can easily find in my kitchen. However, essential oils are occasionally included, and it is important to make sure that you know if what you’re putting into the oil is safe for consumption.

This may sound like a no brainer, but it isn’t always so for some people… I’ve seen someone get herself sick because she didn’t stop to think about a) how much essential oil she was adding, and b) whether it was a natural oil or if it was an artificial oil meant for aromatherapy. Always. Do. Your. Research.

Similarly! If you want the oil to help you with divination or healing, don’t add selenite to it - the stone will dissolve, and you will get yourself sick by consuming it. If it’s a divination oil for communicating with the dead, do not consume an oil with nightshade in it. You’ll end up communicating with the dead, but your physical body would be most ready to become fertilizer.

Can I easily get the ingredients?

If the answer is “yes!” Then have at it! If the answer is no, then in my practice, it’s important to consider why that may be. The oil may not be meant to have that ingredient, or Goddess could be saying “leave it out” or “there’s something better that you already have.”

I often see recipes that call for woods that aren’t readily accessible where I live. If I’m making a protection empowerment oil, for instance, and I’m not worried about consuming it, but it calls for female holly berries (holly with pointed leaves), I won’t have access to that. What holly grows here is all male. I can, however, substitute the holly for acorns or oak leaves, since oak is very easily accessible here.

Use your intuition and go with your gut if you can’t get a hold of something. It is okay to change up recipes as you need to suit your purposes.

In conclusion…

Empowerment oils are beautiful tools for any witchy working, and can be used in place of any other oil if you don’t have access to it (drats! I’ve run out of amethyst oil… good thing I have a jar of fire water!).

Be safe, and mix to your heart’s content! Empower your empowerment oil and empower your spell with that lovely empowerment oil! Just know that as long as you’ve made it your own, it will do wonders for you!

I’ll leave you with a short list of good herbs that I personally love to use as all-purpose herbs for empowerment oils, or which are great for mixing with others!

Blessed Be! )O(

Herbs: Cinnamon, Sage, Rosemary, Cloves, Juniper, Bay Laurel, Chili Pepper

Oils: Olive (extra virgin), Grape Seed, Vegetable, Canola

Stones: Clear Quartz, Salt, Iron

Litha Recipes with Correspondences and Vegan Alternatives

Cinnamon Red Sun Tea

Ingredients:

- 6 cups water

- ¼ cup loose red (rooibos) tea leaves

- 2 Cinnamon Sticks

- Simple syrup or Agave to taste

Directions:

- Place water, tea leaves and cinnamon sticks in large container or pitcher. Stir. Cover with lid or plastic wrap. Let stand in sun for 3 to 5 hours.

- Strain tea, discarding tea leaves and cinnamon sticks. Serve tea over ice or refrigerate until chilled. Sweeten with Simple Syrup, if desired.

Correspondances:

- Tea ~ courage, mental powers, prosperity, restfulness, strength

- Water ~ purification

- Cinnamon ~ healing, love, luck, lust, peace, protection, psychic powers, strength, success

- Sugar ~ love

Peach Earl Grey Fritters

Ingredients:

- 1 ½ cups whole milk (almond or soy for vegan)

- 1/3 cup earl grey tea

- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter (coconut oil for vegan)

- 5 cups all-purpose flour

- 1 pinch nutmeg

- 1 pinch cinnamon

- 1 teaspoon salt

- ¼ cup sugar

- 1 tablespoon active dry yeast

- 2 eggs (egg substitute for vegan)

- 6 cups Vegetable oil, for frying (use more if needed)

- 3 large peaches, diced

For Icing:

- 1 cup powdered sugar

- 3 tablespoons honey (agave or maple syrup for vegan)

-  1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

- 2-3 tablespoons milk or cream (almond or soy for vegan)

Directions:

- In a small pot, heat the milk, tea, and butter until the butter has melted and the mixture is warm. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.

- Mix the flour, nutmeg, cinnamon, salt, sugar, and yeast in the bowl of a mixer (or a large bowl if mixing by hand). Add the warm milk mixture and mix to combine.

- Add the eggs, scraping the bowl well. Turn the mixer up to medium speed, and, using a dough hook, mix until the dough begins to pull away from the edges. If mixing by hand, knead until it easily pulls away from the sides of the bowl as you knead (it will still be quite sticky).

- Transfer the finished dough to a well-oiled container and cover. Allow it to rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour. Alternatively, you can refrigerate the dough overnight so that it’s ready to make in the morning—but you may need to punch the dough down once or twice during that period to prevent it from over-fermenting.

- Roll out the doughnut dough on a lightly floured surface into a rectangle about ½ inch thick. Size/precision of the rectangle isn’t important—just focus on an even thickness for the dough. 

- Use a knife, pastry scraper, or bench knife to cut the dough into long vertical strips about ½ inch wide. 

- Next, cut the strips horizontally about ½ inch wide—this should make a whole bunch of ½ inch squares. 

- Divide the dough squares into 12 even portions. 

- To shape each doughnut, take about 2/3 of one portion of dough squares and smoosh them gently together. Place about ¼ to 1/3 cup of diced peaches on top of the dough.

- Top with the remaining 1/3 of the portion of dough squares and smoosh the dough gently to adhere to the peaches and other dough. It’s best for each piece of peach to be touching dough in two places (on top and on bottom), otherwise some may fall out when you go to fry them.

- Cover the doughnuts with greased plastic wrap and let them rise for 20 to 30 minutes.

- While the doughnuts rises heat the oil. If you have one, use a deep-fry thermometer to test the oil and help regulate the temperature—around 350° F is best. If you don’t have one, throw a doughnut hole or scrap piece of dough into the oil and see if it sizzles and rises to the surface. When it does, you’re good to go.

- Working in batches, gently drop the doughnuts into the oil, frying until they’re golden brown on both sides, 2-3 minutes per side. It’s helpful to use a spider or slotted spoon to support the fritter for the first 15-30 seconds, until the dough sets.

- Drain the doughnuts on several layers of absorbent paper towels. Let cool for 5-10 minutes. 

-In a small bowl, whisk the powdered sugar, honey, cinnamon, and milk or cream to combine. Add more milk or cream as needed to make drizzly glaze. Drizzle each doughnut into the glaze, and serve immediately.

Correspondances:

- Milk ~ Goddess energy, love, nurturing, spirituality

- Tea ~ courage, mental powers, prosperity, restfulness, strength

- Butter ~ smoothing relationships, spirituality, tenacity

- Flour ~ revealing hidden matters, consistency

- Nutmeg ~ confidence, emotional openness, fidelity, healing, luck, prosperity, social interaction

- Cinnamon ~ healing, love, luck, lust, peace, protection, psychic powers, strength, success

- Salt ~ cleansing & purification, grounding, protection

- Sugar ~ love

- Yeast ~ grounding, purification

- Egg ~ fertility, lust, protection, spirituality, strength

-  Oil ~ spirituality

- Peach ~ happiness, healing, fertility, longevity, love, wisdom

- Honey ~ happiness, healing, love, lust, purification, spirituality, sweet things in life, weight loss, wisdom

- Maple Syrup ~ prosperity, love

Raspberry Banana Bread

Ingredients:

- ¾ cup fresh or frozen raspberries, thawed

- 1 ripe banana

- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

- ¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon

- ½ teaspoon baking soda

- ¼ teaspoon salt

- 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

- 1 cup white sugar

- 2 eggs (egg substitute for vegan)

- ½ cup vegetable oil

- ½ teaspoon lemon extract

Directions:

- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease a loaf pan.

-  Mash raspberries in a bowl with a fork. Mash banana in another bowl with a fork.

- Combine flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg in a bowl.

- Beat sugar, eggs, raspberries, banana, and vegetable oil in a bowl with an electric mixer set on low until smooth, 2 to 3 minutes.

- Stir flour mixture into raspberry mixture until batter is just moistened; stir in lemon extract. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.

- Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 1 hour. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack.

Correspondances: 

-  Bread ~ (in general) kinship, sustenance

- Cake ~ (in general) celebrations, hospitality

- Raspberry ~ happiness, love, protection, stamina, vigor

- Banana ~ fertility, love, luck, potency, prosperity, spirituality

- Flour ~ revealing hidden matters, consistency

- Cinnamon ~ healing, love, luck, lust, peace, protection, psychic powers, strength, success

- Baking soda ~ raising energy or expectations

- Salt ~ cleansing & purification, grounding, protection

- Nutmeg ~ confidence, emotional openness, fidelity, healing, luck, prosperity, social interaction

- Sugar ~ love

- Egg ~ fertility, lust, protection, spirituality, strength

- Oil ~ spirituality

- Lemon ~ faithfulness, friendship, happiness, longevity, love, marriage