Moon Magic

Witchy Starter Terms

Ground- Clearing/releasing excess energy and also connecting your own energy with the earth’s.

Center- Usually done after Grounding to calm your emotions, mind, and body to be physically and magickally ready to act.

Cleanse- Removing negative energies from an object or a space. Also works on people.

Charge - To infuse an object with personal or external power/intent.

Intent- the energy/focus of the magick and energy you’re working up.

Visualize - Forming mental images. It is done to direct energy during spell work. Much like imagination.

Banish- To magickally end something, Or to rid the presence of. Definitely works on people.

Consecrate- The blessing of an object or place by instilling it with positivity.

Sabbat- The Witches/Pagans festivals or Holidays and changing of the seasons

Talisman- An object charged with personal power to attract a specific force or energy to the wearer. Also known as an amulet.

Cowan- a formally derogatory slang word for a non-Witch, it is now more like the term “muggle” from HP.

Book of Shadows- your (or your coven’s AKA group of 13 or so witches) personal magickal records. You would write tarot readings, associations, and spell outcomes here.

Grimoire- the book of spells of a witch.

Burning Times- A term used by Witches for the period of persecution in the Middle Ages and later on. The Catholic Church oppressed many witches, pagans, and Jewish people. The only actual burnings happened were only in Scotland, and on the continent of Europe. In England and the U.S.A, they were hanged to death.

Esbat- Weekly or biweekly meeting of a coven. Typically held either on the full moon or the new moon.

Old Religion- Another name for the Craft.

Spell- A physical, mental, or verbal directing of magickal energies toward the accomplishment of some goal.

fahrenheit & celsius; red rock canyon state park, california

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Thrifty Witch Thursdays: Hagstones

Whilst focusing on hagstones I wanted this to be a reminder that witchcraft is whatever you have and whatever you can find. Go back to nature, you find a twig or stone you like? Pick it up, thank your deity for the gift and take it home.

Hagstones/Odin Stones/Seers Stones are stones which naturally have holes in them due to being worn by water, whether that’s the sea or a rolling river.

There are many myths around these stones and I invite you to find your own which you like. Some say if you look through the stones you will see the fae world and be able to see through glamours. Others say you will see a person’s true self. 

If you write a wish on a piece of paper and put it through the hole it could come true.

They are linked to Odin, by resembling the hole he had to bore through the mountain to reach the sacred mead.

I found these stones in Portsmouth, UK, and I was lucky to find quite a few as it was a fairly pebbly beach. If you’re lucky to live near a pebbly beach I think you’ll find a few too. Otherwise they can be quite rare. If you really wish for one and keep your eye out you’ll sure to come across one!

(Please don’t buy these for extortionate prices online, I understand you may not have the ability to find them due to where you live but I’d hate to see anyone get ripped off for our craft. I have a few, if you’d absolutely love one I will be happy to send you one.)

🕯☽☾🔮🖤 looking for active witchblrs! 🕯☽☾🔮🖤

A little bit worried that witchtok sucked up the life of witch tumblr, so please reblog if you’re an active/practicing witch on tumblr as of July 12, 2021! 

Please be POC/LBGT inclusive!!!

Sidenote: I am a beginner closet witch looking to find my path, interested in norse/celtic/hellenic pantheons. But all are welcome and the more folks I can follow, the more knowledge I can gain, and the more people I can meet! 

☽☾ Thanks in advance, Blessed Be! ☽☾

Everyday Magic for the Green Witch

Grow herbs on your balcony or in your backyard 

If you live in an apartment, find good indoor plants

You can never go wrong with more succulents 

Water your plants from your water cup to bond with them

Write sigils on the pots of your plants to help them grow 

Bury a coin in the forest to welcome money into your life

Carry a book around to press flowers in

Illustrate or take photos of interesting plants you see 

If you cannot have real plants, get fake plants from a craft store and decorate your room

Wear clothing or accessories with plants and flowers on them 

Tuck flowers into your hair 

Bring leaves and flowers home as offerings for your deity

Help caterpillars cross the sidewalk 

🎧 Witchy Podcasts 🎧

Podcasts to learn about witchcraft 

🎧 Witch Wednesdays is a great podcast for the baby/beginner witches out there, with 20 to 30 minutes episodes covering topics such as kitchen witchcraft, how to use herbs and crystals, how to caste a circle, and much more. 

🎧 Seeking Witchcraft, similarly to Witch Wednesdays, is aimed at beginner witches who are looking for 30 minutes informational episodes on various topics in the witchcraft and wiccan worlds.  

🎧 Between the Worlds has tremendously helped me to improve my Tarot practice. The host discusses Tarot, psychology, mythology, pop culture, witchcraft, magic, art, and history with guests, it’s fun! 

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Witchy vibes podcasts on other topics 

🎧 My Favorite Murder - do I even need to introduce it? - is a fantastic true crime comedy podcast. The hosts are hilarious, and tell horrifying stories with the right amount of comedy, respect, and gravity. 

🎧 The Faculty of Horror is a great podcast hosted by witchy-horror journalists to tackle all things horror with a slash of analysis and research. Each episode discusses horror movies with a fascinating academic point of view. 

🎧 This Podcast Will Kill You might not actually kill you, but the hosts give me incredible witchy vibes with their knowledge in ecology and epidemiology. Each episode tackles a different disease, from its history, to its biology, and finally, how scared you need to be.

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Do you listen to witchy podcasts? I’d love to get your recommendations. I especially want to start listening from podcasts hosted by witchy POC and folks from different cultures and backgrounds. 

SHADOW WORK SIMPLIFIED

What is shadow work?

If I had to describe shadow work in one word, it would be introspection. Introspection is the examination of your own mental state and is necessary in order to learn more about your fundamental nature. Although it may sound off-putting and even scary at first, shadow work is a necessary component in the process of healing. We all have aspects of ourselves that we’ve rejected and hidden away out of fear. Through shadow work, we’re able to reflect on our thoughts, emotions, and habits so that we can find the root cause of our suffering and heal ourselves. By reincorporating those aspects of ourselves that we’ve denied, we feel more fulfilled and can begin to love ourselves fully. 

Where does shadow work come from? 

The concept of the shadow self comes from Carl Jung who believed that our shadow self is the subconscious aspect, or “dark side”, of our personality that our conscious ego doesn’t identify with. However, I would like to clarify that “dark” does not imply or equate with bad. That which resides outside of our consciousness can be either good or bad, but aren’t inherently reflective of our value or “goodness” as a person. 

Although these repressed aspects of ourselves can manifest negatively, it isn’t because those parts of us are “bad”, but that the process of repression is inherently painful and toxic. This is reflected by Jung when he states, “Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.” He believed that until we’ve merged our conscious and subconscious selves, that our conscious would be “the slave of the autonomous shadow”. This is due to the shadow self overwhelming our conscious selves by falling victim to our own self-imposed traps. 

Through assimilating this shadow self, not over-identifying with it, Jung believed we go through the process of enantiodromia, thereby integrating the subconscious by reincorporating our shadow selves into our personality and allowing us to solidify ourselves through wholeness. He best described this by stating "assimilation of the shadow gives a man body, so to speak.” However, don’t fall into the misconception that shadow work is a short-term practice. Shadow work is a continuous practice and integration of the shadow self is a will take place throughout your life.

How do I do shadow work?

In the last question, I identified that practicing self-reflection is a key component of shadow work, but what does that mean? What am I supposed to be reflecting on? Well, the first thing that you should focus on is being present throughout the day. Identify feelings that come up throughout the day and observe them objectively. What situation or interaction triggered these emotions? How did I react to those emotions? Were my emotions controlling me or was I in control of my emotions? Why did this situation or interaction cause me to feel this way? How did I cope with those feelings (self-harming, lashing out at others, communicating my feelings, journalling, etc.)? Did I punish myself for getting upset? If so, why? 

There are numerous ways to reflect on your feelings and experiences in order to get a better understanding of yourself. Through evaluating how you react to situations, which situations upset you, and how you managed those feelings, you’re able to build the foundation to understanding your emotions and bridge the gap between your subconscious and conscious mind.

Once you’ve done this, you’ll find that the emotions you feel in the present are reflective of unhealed emotions from your past. Perhaps the reason you feel that you’re unable to set boundaries as an adult is because as a child, your parents never respected your boundaries by going through your phone or diary, yelling at you when you said no to a request, forcing you into situations that made you feel you had no choice. 

By identifying the root cause of your emotional pain, you’re able to address it in the present and heal from the trauma. The simplest way that I’ve found to address them is through journalling. You can purchase a physical journal or even use your notes app, either way, you’re writing out your feelings and reflections to gain deeper insight. It’s important to remember that this looks different for anyone and that the best way to approach shadow work is by doing what feels most natural! You can choose to stick to self-reflective journal prompts, vent about whatever is upsetting you, write letters to whoever has hurt you, etc. Ultimately, you can guide yourself based off of what you feel you need and where you are in your journey.

What parts of yourself do you find yourself rejecting the most? Many of us have experienced the pain of rejection in some aspects of our lives and sometimes, it’s incredibly painful and leaves us with long-lasting wounds. We end up going through our lives carrying baggage that we don’t even know we have! Many times, I’ve found myself wondering why I felt so repulsed by aspects of myself and why I felt so strongly that they needed to be locked away forever. I couldn’t allow myself or others to see my truest self, my whole self, out of fear. I was scared of being rejected, shamed, humiliated by the people around me. I was scared of hurting other people by being myself and of being hurt by others. That’s no way to live, is it? When we tell ourselves that aspects of ourselves aren’t good enough, we end up going through life devaluing ourself. We’ve broken our own trust by rejecting ourselves, we’ve told ourselves that we aren’t good enough or worthy of love. In shadow work, you’re called to go inward and unpack everything that we’ve kept hidden for years and sometimes even decades. 

Bring the parts of yourself that you’ve repressed to the surface and nourish them with love, allow yourself to see that ALL OF YOU is deserving of love and support. For you, that could mean unlearning your unhealthy beliefs about food or eating, allowing yourself to be emotional around the people you love (despite how much you were told that you were too emotional, a crybaby, too sensitive in the past), allowing yourself to relax without feeling guilty about not being productive because you recognize your needs (even though you feel your sense of worth is tied to being productive at the cost of your own health).

Common misconceptions about shadow work?

Shadow work is evil or bad, the shadow is evil or bad 

The purpose of shadow work is healing through working with your subconscious to release repressed aspects of yourself and heal from painful, traumatic experiences. Your shadow side is simply your unconscious and to believe that it’s bad is to believe that you are bad. It’s merely the part of yourself that you aren’t aware of consciously and shouldn’t be feared. 

Certain emotions are “bad”

When you let go of the idea that emotions are either good or bad, you’ll allow yourself to just be and stop putting so much pressure on yourself to feel “good” all of the time. Happiness isn’t a constant state of being so stop expecting to be all of the time, we have a range of emotions for a reason so stop being ashamed of them. Your feelings are natural and if you feel like they’re out of control and something to be ashamed of, there is nothing wrong with that! It’s okay to feel like your emotions are controlling you because that isn’t permanent. Your feelings aren’t permanent and are completely manageable with proper guidance! The reason you feel like your emotions are controlling you is because you probably don’t have the knowledge to cope with them in an effective and healthy way. It’s helpful to sit with your emotions alone and look at them objectively without placing any judgement on them, this will help you calm down and assess your feelings. From there, you can identify what you need to relax and recover as well as acknowledge to yourself that your feelings are natural. When you stop categorizing your emotions as bad, they’re no longer shameful to experience and therefore you can see with better clarity how to cope with them and move on.

I’ve already released it so…

Why am I still upset?

Why does it still keep popping up in my head?

Why haven’t I moved on?

Why am I not making progress?

With the rise of self development and spirituality, I find that more and more people are rushing to complete their healing. Healing is a continuous, life-long cycle and not a destination. Putting the pressure on yourself to reach the place of ultimate healing is not only toxic, but it impedes your ability to actually heal anything. Healing is about love, compassion, and patience and it’s not going to happen according to a timeline. Allow yourself the time to experience your emotions, see them objectively, forgive yourself and others and move on without the pressure of expectations. 

 Another reason that you could be experiencing this is that despite the work you think you’ve done, it hasn’t been sufficient. I’ve found that a lot of journal prompts provided online are surface level at best and can be more pacifying than revealing. If you’re not feeling anything while doing your inner work, you’re not doing it correctly. Ultimately, this is about uncovering what makes us UNCOMFORTABLE and moving through those feelings. When you allow yourself to experience the sadness, hurt, anger, and/or frustration than you’re telling yourself that these feelings are okay and don’t need to be suppressed. The reality is that no matter what you’re feeling, you are allowed to experience those emotions and it’s only human! Unfortunately, many people associate lower vibrational emotions as bad, but this is a huge misconception! Telling yourself that anger, sadness, etc. are “bad” implies that you shouldn’t experience these emotions and that you have to get rid of them which is not only wrong, but unhealthy. There is no right or wrong emotions so don’t buy into the belief that you should feel a certain way, simply allow yourself to be and you’ll find that it’s much easier to navigate your emotions and needs. The only way to make it to the other side is by wading through the water, be patient and know that you’re feeling exactly what you should be. When you stop censoring yourself, you’ll discover a newfound sense of freedom and wholeness. 

 If you find yourself circling back to certain topics, for example, your ex-boyfriend than perhaps there are triggers in your environment that remind you of the situation, you have more that needs to be addressed that you may not have been ready for or aware of previously (hence why shadow work is a practice that is ongoing), or they’re representative of a deeper issue that you’re repressing. Whatever the cause is, the same methods as earlier will apply and can be discerned through your own intuition. 

What are some basic journal prompts that I can do?

What feelings come up when you think of ____?

How did that experience make you feel emotionally? How did it make you feel about yourself? How did it make you feel about the other person or people?

Write a letter to yourself, your inner child, the people who’ve hurt you, and the people you’ve hurt. Express how you feel honestly, without holding back and then forgive yourself and the other person.

If you could say anything to yourself or another person for closure, what would it be?

How have these situations and experiences impacted your mental health? How have they affected your belief system about yourself, other people, and the world?

What about yourself are you ashamed of? What about yourself are you embarrassed of? What about yourself makes you angry? What do you regret? Why do you feel this way about yourself and where do these feelings stem from?

What makes you feel most alone? What makes you feel most loved? How can you incorporate that knowledge into your life to make it better?

What’s the most hurtful thing someone has said or done to you? Why did it hurt you so much? How does it still affect you now? How can you heal from it and allow yourself to move on?

What do you need to forgive yourself for? What do you need to forgive others for?

Where do you feel you lack security in your life? Why? How does this impact your life and your relationships?

This is a list of generic prompts for you to start with, but feel free to message me if you need help with more specific topics or I can make another post altogether for journal prompts.