Happy Litha, My Beautiful Fairy Angels ✨💛✨

Look who's in my asks again

Look who showed up again - the Neo-Nazis in the guise of J*y of Satan. And, hey, they follow the gay pagan gods - as if that's some sort of pre-determined group.

So, here's the thing. If you get one of these asks, it comes directly from the J*y of Satan themselves. They aren't asking for your help in learning about the group. They are trying to get you to visit the site (notice they give the URL, not just the group name) and perhaps do some searching on the group (helps their google ranking. Long term, they want to recruit you.

They have no interest in your opinion on Satanism itself. They aren't Satanist. They are neo-nazis.

What they believe changes a bit depending on audience and popular current events. The asks will stress things they feel are important to you in order to begin the recruitment process.

Block them and delete the asks.

In this case, you don't have to "do your own research." They aren't nice people to read about.

I love you witchblr but some of y’all are actually truly batshit. Like you tripped over the thought that “hey maybe there’s a sort of spiritual energy in the universe and maybe we call that magic” and stumbled headlong into “literally every minor occurrence is A Sign From The Gods and also science is fake and also if I get dizzy it’s a spirit trying to contact me and not even remotely related to my health”. 

Hot Take: Most things that happen are ordinary. If you find yourself not even considering a mundane explanation for something that’s happening or something you’re feeling, you maybe need to recognize that you’re getting overexcited about the idea of something Special taking place.

Shadow Work Prompts 1

1. what emotion do you try to avoid (e.g. anger, sadness, jealousy...)? what makes you afraid to feel it? what are you afraid will happen if you feel it?

2. in what ways are you priviliged? what do you take for granted?

3. pick an adjective from the list below that would trigger you if someone would use it to desscribe you and then ask yourself: "why would this trigger me? what would be bad about it being true? is it the accuracy or inaccuracy that bothers me? what could be a positive aspect to being that way?"

list: arrogant, lier, jealous, mean, cruel, possessive, bitchy, bossy, loser, greedy, mysterious, sneaky, codependent, sick, fat, disgusting, stalker, stupid, idiot, fearful, unconscious, masochistic, narcissist, insignificant, frigid, sexist, manipulative, racist, victim, egositic, arrogant, ugly, careless, passive, aggressive, lame, boring, tactless, irresponsible, incompetent, lazy, unfair, childish, know-it-all, insensitive, psychotic, sad, ordinary, hypocritical, reproachful, gloomy, jealous, envious dirty, tyrannical, inflexible, heartless, resentful, dominant, bad, ignorant, uneducated, tasteless, insecure, depressed, hopeless, not good enough, cry baby, paranoid, pushy, stubborn, inferior, weak , impatient, unreliable, self-destructive, over-sensitive

4. what is the biggest promise you made to yourself that you have broken? how does that make you feel?

5. how do you lie to yourself in daily life? what are you trying to avoid?

6. what do you think is your worst trait? why is it "bad"? what positive aspects does this trait bring with it?

7. if you truly loved yourself, what would your life look like? is it very different to how it actually is? and if yes, why?

8. think of a time someone broke your heart. could you have been responsible in some way as well?

9. do you hold grudges against someone? if so, why are you not letting them go yet?

10. what do you need to forgive yourself for?

11. think back on the last time a person triggered you: can you see how the aspects of that person that triggered you are also in you?

12. ask yourself: "if... were true about me/my current life situation, i'd be terrified" (try to fill out this sentence as often as possible)

13. think back on your last argument/fight: did you actively try to see the other person's viewpoint and would there have been a way to be more compassionate with the other person and yourself?

14. think about a time in your childhood when you felt unhappy (small or big moment) and write a letter from your child self to the present you about how you felt and how you perceived the situation: try to take on that child as much as you can and write from its perspective as automatically as you can then write a letter back to that child, explaining the situation, showing empathy and understanding and asking how you can help now or which needs have to be met for that child to feel good again if you get answres from that child, then try to meet those needs today

15. In what areas of life are you holding back and playing small? (Think about the times you feel weak, small or disempowered.) Write them below and next to each explore why

16. In what ways do you feel judged by others? Write them below. Explore how many of these judgments might actually originate within you first (and are displaced onto others)

17. What negatives or positives do others point out about you that you have trouble accepting?

18. What emotions do you rarely express around others – and when did you first start hiding these emotions from others? (Emotional suppression and repression often point to areas of shame buried within you.)

19. Reflect on a period of life where you were at your worst (i.e. most selfdestructive, argumentative, etc.). Write a short, but heartfelt letter of understanding, acceptance, and compassion for that version of you. You can return to this letter later whenever you feel rotten about yourself.

20. What are your “hot buttons” or triggers that cause you to get angry or defensive in the presence of others?

The Great Handfasting Project: Secular Wedding Planning Books

While historical sources about pre-Christian weddings and books written by modern pagans can give you a lot of good ideas for your ceremony, many of them don't cover the most stressful part of getting married: planning, budgeting, scheduling, and managing a modern wedding.

My fiance and I decided in December to move our wedding date up from August of 2024 to August of 2023 -- cutting our planning time from nineteen months to just over seven months. This meant we had a lot less time than intended to make a guest list, make a budget, book a venue, send out invitations, buy our outfits, arrange catering for the reception, and all the other things you have to do to make a wedding happen. It also meant that our timeline was a little more rushed than we'd originally intended.

Because our timeline had suddenly shrunk, we decided to prioritize planning the reception first, then start writing a script for our ceremony after we'd nailed down reception details. We did this because we knew our reception was going to have more than three times as many guests as our ceremony and would be what we spent most of our budget on. Our reception is also going to be 100% secular out of consideration for guests who may not be comfortable attending a pagan ceremony but who still want to support us.

I cope with new and stressful situations by reading about them. Research is the balm that soothes my worries and the foundation that lets me build my own kickass plans. When we decided to move up our wedding date, I immediately went out and bought a couple of books to help me navigate the many big and small decisions I'd have to make in the coming months.

The Everything Guide to Micro Weddings by Katie Martin

When I first started looking into planning my own wedding, I quickly learned that what my fiance and I wanted to do is called a "micro wedding." According to Katie Martin, a micro wedding is any wedding or commitment ceremony with fewer than 50 guests. I feel like most pagan weddings end up falling into this category. (Something about pagans makes us prefer small, intimate gatherings, I guess?)

Pros

Katie Martin is actually a professional wedding planner, so this book very much comes across as expert advice from an industry professional.

There's lots of good, practical advice about logistics, which is exactly what I wanted. This book taught me how to make a wedding planning spreadsheet, and I love that.

I like that the author includes advice for dealing with family members' expectations for your wedding day, especially when they would have liked to see you do things differently. I think a lot of this advice is relevant to pagans whose family doesn't understand why they want a handfasting, or anyone else who has to gently break it to their grandmother that they aren't having a church wedding. I felt like these sections did help prepare me to defend our decision to do a small, casual wedding and my decision not to have my biological father present even though several of my siblings are still close to him.

This book is LGBTQ+ inclusive!

I also love that the author gives practical advice for interfaith and multicultural weddings, including alternatives for when one or both religions doesn't allow interfaith ceremonies.

I like that the author addresses guest dietary needs in the sections on planning the menu. For example, she recommends asking guests about food allergies before finalizing the menu, making sure to have vegan/vegetarian options, and offering non-alcoholic drinks for toasts. As a vegetarian with Celiac Disease, I appreciate this and can testify that it's unfortunately not something every wedding planner thinks about.

This book was written after the pandemic and includes tips and ideas for celebrating during quarantine, which is really helpful.

The appendix has literal checklists you can use to plan different parts of your wedding.

Cons

Katie Martin is a professional wedding planner who specializes in destination weddings, and it shows. She discusses destination weddings a lot in this book. Maybe it's just because I'm not planning a destination wedding, but I felt like that topic could have been its own book instead of being lumped into this one.

The "environmentalist" politics of this book are inconsistent. At one point, Martin says that one of the main draws of micro weddings is that they have a smaller carbon footprint than bigger weddings, which I'm sure is true. But just a few chapters later, she gives a list of potential locations for destination weddings that includes Hawaii and other places where both the environment and Native people are seriously harmed by tourism. This is a very minor gripe, but it annoyed me and felt a little bit like greenwashing.

I wish Martin gave price estimates for the things she suggests. I understand that she probably didn't want to date her book by including exact numbers, but a rough estimate would have been helpful. There are almost no numbers given, and when the author says that Option X is cheaper than Option Y, she doesn't say how much cheaper it is. This makes it hard to think about budgeting while reading.

It really rubbed me the wrong way that this author subscribes to the outdated etiquette of referring to married women as "Mrs. [husband's name]" in invitations and programs. Martin even says divorced women should be addressed as "Mrs. [ex-husband's name]" if they haven't remarried! This is based on the incredibly patriarchal idea that women's identities are defined by their husbands, and if I received a wedding invite that addressed me this way, I wouldn't go. There are also no alternatives given for addressing same-gender couples. This just feels like an incredibly old-fashioned and misogynist inclusion in a book that is otherwise very modern.

Overall rating: 4/5 stars

Would I recommend it? Yes, especially if you're doing most of the planning for your wedding yourself.

Offbeat Bride by Ariel Meadow Stallings

When my fiance and I first decided to (literally) tie the knot, Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride) was an incredibly helpful source of inspiration. It was the first time I'd ever seen photos of polyamorous weddings, which I immediately sent to all of my partners with lots of hearts and crying emojis. It's also a goldmine of inspiration for queer weddings, nonbinary/genderqueer weddings, disabled weddings, and so much more. So when I learned that the site's founder had written a wedding planning book, I knew it would be an invaluable resource.

(Note: This book has been revised twice since it was originally published. The version I read is the third edition, which is the most recent version.)

Pros

This book addresses things I've never seen talked about in other wedding planning resources, like the conflict of hating the beauty industrial complex for making money off insecurities they created vs. wanting to look nice for your wedding photos. (Because even if you don't hire a photographer, someone is gonna take photos.) I loved this book's "do what you gotta do" approach and the emphasis on feeling comfortable and beautiful on your special day.

I cannot stress enough how much I appreciate the section titled "A Big-Bride Survival Guide." As a fat girl, lemme tell you: as stressful as shopping for wedding outfits already is, it's more stressful with a bigger body. And don't even get me started on the subtle (and not-so-subtle) weight loss comments from relatives. I loved that this book includes practical advice for how to navigate the entire process as a fat bride (or groom, or spouse).

This is by far the most LGBTQ+ affirming wedding planning book I've read so far. There's an entire chapter dedicated to queer weddings, but advice for queering your wedding is sprinkled throughout the rest of the book as well. "Queer wedding" also isn't only defined as two men or two women getting married. There's advice for bisexual and pansexual weddings (and the author identifies as bisexual!), asexual weddings, transgender weddings, and nonbinary/genderqueer weddings. There's even a short but sweet section on polyamorous commitment ceremonies, both for groups of more than two people who are "getting weddinged" and for polyamorous couples who may not be out to all their guests but still want to find subtle ways to include their other partners. I also really liked that the author acknowledges the struggles and hardships faced by queer couples (and throuples and more) and the importance of celebrating queer community, resilience, and chosen-family.

I really appreciate the warning about the pitfalls of wedding planning apps, magazines, and social media. The author warns readers about the risk of having so much inspiration you fall into the hole of choice paralysis or keep redoing things you already finished. She also warns about the temptation to compare your wedding to someone else's. I loved this gentle reminder to be mindful in how we engage with the wedding planning industry. Here's a wonderful direct quote: "Remember, the wedding tech is here to serve you. You are not here to serve it."

There's an entire chapter on disabilities and accessibility! I really appreciated this inclusion, and I found the advice genuinely helpful as I plan a wedding that accommodates my own chronic illnesses, my fiance's and my ADHD, several guests with mobility issues, and other guests with various other health conditions and invisible disabilities.

I loved the chapter on self-care and navigating wedding planning anxiety. Planning any big event, but especially one as legally, ideologically, and culturally loaded as a wedding, is really stressful, even if you're doing a small celebration with just close friends and family. I appreciated the acknowledgement that feeling stressed or anxious is both normal and common, and I loved that the author talked about the ways this stress can affect your physical body as well.

Overall, this is a really great book with excellent advice, and it really does cover every single aspect of wedding planning.

Cons

It's actually really hard for me to think of stuff I dislike about this book, if I'm being honest. There were a few typos, but nothing atrocious.

This book is written from the bride's perspective. The author includes lots of stories about her own wedding, and she is a woman who married a man, which definitely shaped her experience. Like I mentioned, there's a lot of good advice here for grooms and other-gendered people having weddings, and there's a lot of advice and suggestions for queer weddings. But if it's important to you to read a book about someone's firsthand experience of having a same-gender wedding, or of being a transgender bride/groom, or of navigating the wedding industry when you don't identify with a binary gender, this book isn't that.

Overall rating: 5/5 stars

Would I recommend it? Yes!!! Especially if you're having a "nontraditional" wedding.

Beginner Witch Tips

Read. Before you even think about practicing magick, you need to study. It sounds tedious, I know, but witchcraft is not a trivial undertaking. 

Start a grimoire/Book of Shadows/Journal. You’ll need a safe place to keep all of the information you’ve gathered safe, and a grimoire (as I call mine), is essentially a notebook for that exact purpose. It doesn’t have to be fancy (though you’re welcome to make it as ostentatious as you like), – it can be a bullet journal if that’s easy for you. Within your grimoire, you should keep all gathered information, spells, failures, successes, records of work you’ve done, etc,. Anything that pertains to your craft.

Don’t put pressure on yourself to pick a path. You might see a lot of witches who class themselves as one thing or another, e.g., storm witches, kitchen witches, elemental witches, spirit/divination witches; green witches; cosmic witches, and so on.That is cool and their prerogative, but you will also see witches known as eclectic. Eclectic Witches, are simply witches who choose to practise many different types of magick and forge their own path, instead of following only one, or following a pre-established path. Basically, there is no need at all, whatsoever, to label yourself. With many of us, our paths found us in time. 

Research paths, secular witchcraft and religious witchcraft.Witchcraft alone, is a practice. However, some paths are indeed religious, such as Wicca. Make sure you know the difference before you begin actively practicing and before you decide on your path, if you do choose to do so.

Carry a little notebook on your person.You can’t always carry your grimoire with you, so I personally like to carry a tiny little notebook with me, for those moments when inspiration takes me, or if something captures my imagination or attention. You can add it to your grimoire/BoS later.

Oh, and one more thing: don’t ever stop learning and reading and recording. Witchcraft is a path of continuous learning.

Things to Research:

Crystals/gemstones/minerals

Herb and crystal correspondences, e.g., such as color and planetary.

Sabbats (also known as “Witches Sabbaths”) and esbats.

The basic tools of witchcraft.

Altars (if you’re so inclined).

Lunar phases.

Divination, e.g., tarot, runes, pendulums. 

Witchcraft and deities (if you’re so inclined).

Traditional witchcraft practises, such as circle casting.

SAFETY! What is safe to use/burn/touch/ingest. There are lots of poisonous and potentially fatal plants and ingredients out there.

Easy/budget magick/witchcraft.

The history of witchcraft, including lore, myths and tales.

The importance and use of the elements in magick

Research cultural witchcraft. Make sure that your practice does not steal from closed cultures. 

Easy Practices for New Witches:

Grounding – grounding is the act of centering your energy and focusing it within yourself. You can ground yourself by being out in nature and using visualising techniques that tie your energies firmly into the ground (very traditional method), or by finding a quiet place that you are content in and meditating.

Meditation.

Visualisation/visualising.

Sigil crafting/creation.

Dream interpretation.

Charging jewellery/crystals/objects/sigils.

Using glamours in makeup/cosmetics/everyday wear.

It’s not fair, I found love It made me say that Get back you’ll never see daylight, If I’m not strong, it just might

My Favorite Plants & Care Guide

some plants that I adore and how to care for them - advice from a green witch and self proclaimed plant enthusiast

plants are a great way to brighten up a room and your mood and a great way to make your space feel more witchy. enjoy :)

1.) jade plant

level: easy

water: once a month

light: full sun (put on or near a window)

2.) zz plant

level: easy

water: once a month

light: any kind of light (put any where in the room)

3.) paddle plant

level: easy

water: once a month

light: full sun (put on or near a window)

4.) pothos/philodendron

level: easy

water: every 2 weeks

light: indirect light (near a window but not in its direct light)

5.) snake plant

level: easy

water: every month

light: any kind of light (put anywhere in the room)

6.) chinese evergreen

level: easy

water: every 2 weeks

light: any kind of light (put anywhere in the room)

7.) monstera deliciosa

level: medium

water: every 2 weeks

light: indirect light (near a window but not in its direct light)

hope you guys enjoyed and buy some of these plants!

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