Hello! I've Taken A Peek At The Witch Craft Book Library You've Put Together, But I'm A Bit Confused

Witch Tip: Get to Know Your Spell Ingredients

Get to know your spell ingredients. Just because one ingredient is good for money doesn't mean it's a good fit for you.

There are a lot of parts to getting to know an ingredient.

You can research its functionality if it has an herbal use whether medicinal or culinary - the classifications of herbals help a lot in understanding a component's working in your spell, ie - how it will do what you want it to do. A warming herb has a different effect than a cooling herb, for example. An herb that drys out the body can also be used to dry out a situation. A purgative can be used to clear things.

You can research the historic uses of the spell ingredients - I would look at both medical and magical uses here. Though we have debunked a lot of old medicinal uses and I by no means mean to suggest that you use herbs by their old medical uses, these practices give an idea of the nature of the plant. Over time, particular cultures develop an understanding of specific planets and if you are respectful, you may be able to tap into this shared knowledge.

You can hold and interact with the ingredient. This is a must for me before I will use anything in my spell work. I am an animist - I believe that all objects (both inanimate and animate) have a spirit - both their own individual spirit and a connection to the great over-arching spirit of their class. For instance, the basil plants in my garden are three things: each is its own individual basil plant, also a combined Basil spirit that is growing in my garden, and a piece of the spirit of Sweet Basil as a whole. When learning to work with the energy of a spell ingredient, I need to know how it feels. How it interacts with my energy. Is it calming? Does touching it make me go buzz buzz. How does it smell? How does it taste (if its safe to consume, of course)?

You can grow/harvest/gather/mine that ingredient yourself. This only furthers your knowledge of this ingredient. Did you see it when it was a tiny seedling? Did you plant it in the ground? Did you spend hours in the woods looking for the perfect specimen or find a field full on your walk home from work one day? Sure, the seashell you picked up on the beach may not be as perfect as the one you can buy online but you have already established a personal connection with that shell by choosing to take it home.

There are so many more ways. You can write/photograph/draw your object. You can meditate with it. You can potentially communicate with it through dreams or other means of divination. You can experiment with using this spell ingredient by doing your usual spell work with it in addition or substitution to something that you normally use - did it make a difference? How did working with that ingredient change your magic?

Take notes on the different ingredients you use and become the scientist in your own witchy life.

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Witchcraft Exercises

Just a quick compilation of the posts I've made about exercises to help improve your craft. These can be used as journaling prompts, inspiration for activities, or as methods for pulling yourself out of a slump and recharging your witchy inspiration.

Witchcraft Exercise - Quantifying Your Craft

Witchcraft Exercise - Dig Through The Ditches

Witchcraft Exercise - The Book of Lessons

Witchcraft Exercise - Home Brews

Prompt - Music to Witch By

Most of these are also available in the May 2021 bonus episode of Hex Positive (check your favorite podcatcher).

Happy Witching!

Been tossing this idea around in my head but for spirit-working witches I lowkey think a good place to start is going around to make introductions to a variety of helpful spirits, either benevolent or neutral in moral dignity, who can be called on at any time.

Literally going around and meeting the archangels/monarchs/guardians/gatekeepers (etc/whatever) of the four elemental roads. Just shaking hands and saying hi. Asking for their support, patience, and grace in working with them and their domains.

Brief introduction to the structure you live in, or absent of that, the land you live on.

Choosing your top 5 personal favorite kitchen spices, one or two nice rocks, and the nearest convenient tree and just doing a series of private rituals to meet them one by one.

Because then by the time you want to get started with other stuff, like finding familiar spirits, learning new skills, or solving problems, you already have met several spirits who are likely to be easily invoked to stand by your side and offer protection, assistance, and guidance for the task at hand.

Just because you don't know any spirits on a friendship level doesn't mean you have to be alone. You can still have spirits standing with you to help and ensure things go well. You can lay a compass, call forth the elemental gods, and ask them to provide assistance for the duration of the ritual. You can ask them to send a teacher or a guide to you to help you with something important.

Etc.

Pesto.Mystic

Violet Experiments, 2022

May has been a long and winding month. As always happens when everything blooms at once, I ran out of time to do all of the things and, more

May has been a long and winding month. As always happens when everything blooms at once, I ran out of time to do all of the things and, moreover, to write about all of the things. I’m feeling very behind (that may just be Mercury retrograde talking). I did manage to carve out some time for violets, my absolute favorite early spring edible. I’ve been working with violets for two years now – I’ve written in the past about my violet syrup experiments (which were relatively successful) and I also made a violet cordial, violet drinking vinegar, and violet sugar cookies (which were less successful – not inedible but not really what I wanted.)

As fate would have it, my perfect violet picking day was May Day proper. I had a number of helpers – friends who were all helping to collect dandelions for our May Day feast and a little bit extra (violets for me). My friends have all willingly signed up on my journey to eat all of the edible flowers so the promise of future violet edibles was all the encouragement they needed. With extra hands, picking enough to make violet syrup and then some was easy and so I set out to make violet jelly as well.

Both the violet jelly (featured here in the front) and the violet syrup (back pouring bottle) have been a smashing success. Violet jelly is what I have been missing in my life – the flavor is so deep and purple. (I know, descriptive, right?) The jelly has been great with a charcuterie plate (really good on salted meats and cheeses) and it makes a pretty great addition to a cheese danish, too! Truth be told, I like it BETTER than the violet syrup which I have found to be a bit finicky.

If you’ve been following along for a while, you’ll know that I have a serious thing for cocktail syrups. My go-to is to make them into a gin sour with a good solid juniper-forward gin and some freshly squeezed lemon juice. That is one of my staple cocktails so I know my recipe isn’t the problem but honestly, I haven’t particularly liked the violet syrup in that application. A lot of my others have so I’ve kept making the cocktail but up until last week, I wouldn’t have skipped the cocktail syrup for that jelly any day.

That all changed in a moment. I was staying at a hotel on the beach in Cape Cod with my partner, my coven mate, and her partner. We didn’t know what to make for a drink – it was hot. We knew that a tiki drink was in order. But what?

We surveyed our assets: aged rum with pineapple and lime juice sounds like a tiki drink, right? My partner used some Google magic and came up with an absolutely perfect summer cocktail. It called for aged rum, those two juices, Aperol (which I had thrown in our bags on a complete lark), and simple syrup. We happened to have our violet syrup so in it went.

Meet the Violet Bird of Paradise

The bird of paradise is already a riff on the more classic Jungle Bird cocktail and we put our own twist on the drink by using violet simple syrup rather than plain cocktail syrup. The results were spectacular. The violet flavor grounded this drink (as I mentioned before, violet has a surprising amount of depth of flavor for such a tiny flower) and the color-changing properties of the syrup were on full display when combined with the citrus elements of the drink. This is the perfect cool you down on a hot day kind of drink.

The Violet Bird of Paradise

1 oz. overproof rum (I used aged rum for this purpose 1 oz. Aperol 1 oz. Pineapple Juice 1/2 oz. Fresh Lime Juice 1/4 oz. Violet Simply Syrup

Mix in a Boston shaker and then serve over crushed ice.

This drink is sweet and needs to be served very cold – don’t skimp on the ice. Fill the entire glass. With rum, pineapple, the orange from Aperol, and sweet violet – this drink can be easily enchanted for good times and happiness. Please drink and enchant responsibly!

Minx

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Cleansing Carpet Refresher Powder

Many witches incorporate physically cleaning their space as part of how they cleanse the energy of their space, but most tips out there involve sweeping or adding ingredients to mop water or to surface cleansers. But I have carpets! (and simply vacuuming just didn’t feel like enough).

So, my ingredients are for cleansing, healing, and peace: 

Rose 

Lavender 

Rosemary 

Pink Salt 

Bay Leaf 

Chamomile 

Eucalyptus 

Cinnamon

Fine Salt 

I ground that up in my food processor, but a mortar and pestle works really well too! I just had too much shoulder pain to mess with that lol 

Then I added that to baking soda and cornstarch, which help to eliminate odors and lift stains/grease/grossness. I wish I had the measurements but I just poured it in until it seemed right… 

Mixed it up really well and ended up with something like that ^ then I added oils with similar properties (here I will specify that the oils I use are herbal infused oils that I get from a small mompop Indian market, not essential oils). Just a couple drops of each, or else the powder will clump up too much: 

Lemon oil 

Peppermint oil  

Rosemary oil 

Lemongrass oil 

Lavender oil 

Eucalyptus oil

Mix all of that up, and then spread it over your carpet. I tried poking holes in the lid of my jar, but that didn’t spread as easily as using my hands. Lightly tossing it to spread it over the carpet also allowed me to be more involved in my intent. Leave the powder on your carpet for about an hour, and then vacuum it up! 

Stop equating animism with anthropomorphism challenge, go!

In my worldview and my understanding of animism, it is more about acknowledging and recognizing that everything on this planet is a part of the planet's whole and that each thing - no matter how big or how small - carries a spark of that whole within its part. That spark does not in any way apply the meaning of "life" as we know it and certainly not human-like intelligence or emotional capacities.

To not appropriate the terms from another culture, the best word for this spark is most likely "spirit" but that is where things get tricky. We often call the remaining presence of a human after death a spirit, but we mean very different things here despite using the same term. When used to describe what resides within all things on this planet, I would say that "spirit" here means something more akin to "life force". But that also gets confusing because by calling it "life force" it can get confused with "living" which is also not really what is meant at all.

If one considers, for a second, that every object inside of your house has one thing in common - to paraphrase Carl Sagan: every bit of it is made of star stuff. More specifically, we exist because of vast volcanic eruptions early in our planet's history so we could say instead (and this is a deeper hint into my personal religious predilections here): it is all made of volcano stuff.

That to me, that space stuff, or that volcano stuff, that is the spark of life - that is the spirit - that is the life force within all things.

That doesn't mean that all things are living (obviously?). That doesn't mean that all things have a big S Spirit or that they have sentience, intelligence, and most certainly it does not mean that they have human-like emotions.

What it does mean is that once upon a time, every object - your plant, your toenail, your cat, your spork - all of them were a part of the primordial fire that created all of this (/crazyhandwaving). That each thing plays its role and has its place. And because it has a role to play and a place - it is deserving of respect.

How does this idea of respect for everything play out in my life? I think about what I consume. I try not to throw things away unnecessarily. I care for the objects in my life by cleaning them, using them as intended, storing them properly, etc. It means that I don't value humans over the other creatures on this planet (we are all made of the same volcano stuff and this is the home to all of it). It means that I don't value the life of animals over the life of plants (sorry vegans - you keep doing you but that doesn't work for me). But that doesn't mean sentience. My knife isn't out to get me and won't get mad if I use another knife because it is an object. It has a simple existence: it is made for cutting. Do I think that you can imbue an object with something more than that? Yes, but I don't believe that it is a simple matter to do so and I don't think that it just happens. I strongly suspect that even knives that have been used to inflict great harm are still most likely just knives. Perhaps it is best to understand that in order for anything to experience the world in the way that we, as humans, experience the world, it would have to be quite close to human. Yes, your cat may experience some level of jealousy if you pet your other animals - or get mad at you when you go away from two weeks; but watch how quickly those emotions leave your animal. Compare that to the way that a human acts and how long emotions remain. Then consider, in the relative scheme of things, how close your cat is to a human.

Your plant doesn't get mad at you if you don't water it. Your house doesn't get resentful if you fall into a depression and can't sweep the floors. In my worldview, even the gods aren't as rageful as we've been led to believe - most of that is just made-up human shit.

And honestly, that makes me feel better about my life, and it makes me feel connected, which is why I keep believing in it.

Mini Land Spirit Shrine

use this as a conduit to connect you to the local spirits and nature

get a pot

fill it with local dirt/sand/clay

keep it on your porch/inside/near your house. somewhere you can visit it.

put cool natural items in it, like local shells, bones, branches, etc. that you’ve found…

watch it come to life. if i just leave a pot of dirt around, something will spring up in it. usually those considered “weeds”. if nothing grows, plant a low-maintenance native plant in it. but there should be something after a time.

make offerings like water and more natural items as you desire. 

connect to it, talk to it, introduce yourself.

Rinse and repeat over time. That’s really it! and then you just… build a relationship as time goes on.

Witches of Tumblr, what are your go to books about herbs/plants/flowers?

Yesterday I learned my backyard is home to purple ground ivy and its place within herbal witchcraft and herbal medicine was fascinating so I want to continue this journey. Obviously I know a few herbs and plants that are good for certain things but I really want to educate myself deeply!

I was looking into the Green Witch but really all and any suggestions are welcome for a beginner such as myself.

troubleshooting spotty spirit connections/"godphoning"

This post is full of my personal UPGs and stuff. These are just my beliefs and what works for me. YMMV.

It takes them a lot of energy to come through to us. Feed them and help them get across the veil.

Have you ever done a big tarot reading and got really drained? Or focused really intensely on a spirit guide meditation that left you feeling lightheaded and hungry? When we connect to the spirit world it is tiring and energy-intensive. There is no reason to believe that connection on their end is any easier.

A lot of rhetoric gets tossed around that spirits and guides are so powerful and life-changing, etc. And this might be true, but I think it gets construed in a way where we assume that because they're so powerful, it must be very easy for them to appear to us - so any failure of communication is squarely on our shoulders.

This is unfair to both them and us.

Your offerings aren't just token gestures. You are actually providing energy to your spirits - dense, earthy energies they need in order to be able to come through to our world. Fresh water is refreshing and polite, but not really energizing. Food offerings are especially helpful.

This is the point of spirit houses and spirit vessels. You create a sacred object or space aligned to a spirit's energies, and invite them to come inside of it and use it as they please. As a magic-worker, your words of dedication and consecration make a literal foothold for that spirit to more easily come to our world. This also provides a place for the spirit to rest and relax as they speak to you.

Liminal times and spaces make it easier for us to reach the spirit world, and therefore easier for them to reach us. Taking actions such as laying a compass, casting a circle, or reaching trance states can actually be extremely helpful. It's not about "spirits are dangerous so cast a circle first," and it's not about "you have to meditate and clear your mind" (trance can be achieved ecstatically, after all). It's about creating or entering into in-between spaces where our worlds more easily meet.

If you primarily use tools to communicate with spirits, cleanse and charge them more regularly. The spirits can direct the energy within your tools instead of having to use their own.

If you're already using spirit vessels or houses, try gently cleaning them and re-consecrating them. Provide as much energy as you can to the spirit at that time, so that they can more strongly imprint upon the vessel.

Stop trying to talk to them all of the time.

Spirits are people too. They shouldn't be treated like invisible humans with cool new skins, but that doesn't mean they don't have autonomy and personhood.

Spirits exist independently of us and they don't disappear and go into the void when we stop paying attention to them. They are living their own lives. Even if you believe the spirits do revolve around you, at some point they have to leave to go find information you're asking about, or review the strands of fate to make sure you're headed in the right direction, or whatever.

You don't expect your human friends to be on call 24/7 and it's rude and inconsiderate to just assume all spirits are going to want to communicate with you every single time you want to communicate with them.

No, the point of this is not "you're clingy and the spirits need space."

The point is that if you're just picking up the spirit phone at any random time, of course some of your communication will "fail" because they're not free to answer!

You might be blaming yourself for having unreliable psychic abilities when the reality is that you're just sending a FaceTime request at a bad time.

It is my experience that this is true even of gods. Sometimes I walk by the shrine of my primary god and it's just empty - he's not there right now. It's not because he hates me or because my psychism failed. He's probably off chasing nymphs or something, he'll be back later.

Try setting a schedule with the spirits if possible, such as determining what time(s) of day they're free to talk, what days of the week or moon phases they're usually free or busy, and so on.

You have times when you're more or less attuned to communication, too. The most random stuff can make psychic senses go haywire. For some, a strong cup of coffee will turn off their second sight like flipping a switch. If you try to get more of a schedule going, it will be a lot easier for you to control the variables contributing to your successes or failures. It's not fair for you to assume your psychic senses are static and you should just be able to turn them on at any time you want.

Give them a good reason to talk to you.

There are many kinds of spirits. Some we primarily interact with as friends and companions. For them, the reason for them to talk to you is that you're cool, interesting, and they want to spend time with you (all your friends think that about you! I promise!).

Other spirits can hold a much more spiritual or tutelary role in our life. When they speak, they have something important to say - and they're not necessarily going to let that be drowned out by everyday chatter.

Have you ever done a tarot reading you didn't like or understand, and then re-drew the spread to ask again? And the second time made even less sense?

Talking to spiritual teachers can be like that. They tell you something important, and they're not necessarily going to rephrase it. The problem with spiritual teachers and guides is that you still have to be the student and the explorer.

I have often communicated with the gods and spirits of other people. In these situations, I do my best to give them a really good reason to want to talk to me. "Hello, gods and spirits of [client]. I am helping [client] with [their question/problem]. I will be empty, and you can speak through me. I'll do my very best to clearly share everything you want them to know."

No matter what, though, spirits might just not want to talk. And that's ok.

Ask yourself the kinds of relationships you have with the spirits and beings you're attempting communication with. Having a very close and fulfilling relationship with a spirit doesn't mean it's appropriate to treat them like a casual friend (just as I can have a very fulfilling relationship with a professional mentor, but it's still inappropriate for me to call them at 3am after some wine).

Keep an eye on the intention of your communications. Are you unable to "find" your guide when it's about an important spiritual question, but they show up just to chat? Or vice-versa? Ask why a spirit might choose to not respond to some types of communication.

I find that spiritual guides can get irritable and non-responsive if you continually request communication without applying their advice.

In the case of spirits who are primarily friends/companions, try thinking of a fun activity for the two of you to do together, or something interesting to show them. Spirits enjoy novelty, too. Maybe you could read a new book together :)

Conversational skills transcend dimensions.

There is a difference between requesting communication and just vibing with a spirit's vibes.

When you want to communicate with the spirits, do you actually think, say, or sign, "hi, it's me, I want to talk to you today about [topic]"? Or do you just kinda show up like, "I'm here, so... yeah."

I like vibing with the vibes. I like sitting quietly with people and spirits and just existing with them. But I wouldn't sit quietly in the vibes and then say, "okay, so you're just not going to talk to me??"

Other things like manners go an incredibly long way. Spirits have a concept of boundaries and politeness - some more than others.

Active listening and critical thinking helps a lot too (and it's a great way to strengthen relationships with other humans!). Make sure you're treating spirits like a conversation partner, and not a novelty toy that spits out mystic answers to your questions.

One of the best ways to bond through communication is to create the space for the other person to share their thoughts. It's more than reasonable to show up to a spirit with a question.

But if you redirect the conversation always to be what you want to talk about, think your senses are going haywire just because a spirit is showing you something that isn't what you asked about, or only want to talk about yourself or your problems - it's not reasonable to expect that 100% of spirits want to be a part of 100% of those conversations.

Try approaching every spirit communication with clear intent. Just wanting to chat and hang out is more than okay, but be upfront with your interests and needs.

Try asking the spirits if they're free to talk and if they're interested in talking about what you want to discuss.

Make time and space for the spirits to bring up their own topics.

Employ manners at all times, even if you think your communication effort failed. Please, thank you, hello, and goodbye are powerful words.

Be open to the idea that the spirit might not want to talk about your question or your problem, and that they might have something to share with you that doesn't appear to directly benefit you.

Longtime lurker coming back to witchblr for like...the third or fourth time.

This blog will be mostly a personal resource and notebook while I try to redefine the witchcraft practice I had going on many years ago, when I was a lot more active. I'm doing a lot of reexamining of beliefs to try and quantify what I actually want out of this and why it keeps calling me back. My focus is heavily nature-based, very local, some beginner herbalism, with a big side of home/hearth/kitchen workings. Animism and spirit work are also big interests, though I'm tentatively dipping my toes into learning about that and maybe bringing it into my practice. Angels as well, though from a secular standpoint.