Walking the Talk

May 18, 2020May 18, 2020 J.Leave a comment

I had a dream the other night. It was about someone I haven’t seen in years, and virtually never dream about. We were close at one point, but time and circumstance eventually decided otherwise.

In this dream, I was faced with a decision: I wanted to try to take on some of a soul debt that they’d incurred, to make things right again. I kept being told that I couldn’t. It wasn’t mine to take, and nothing I did was actually going to “fix” things.

It’s a bad habit I have. I spent a lot of my childhood trying to manage people’s moods, to keep mommy from getting screamy, or my younger siblings from getting in trouble. I’ve always been sensitive to noises as it is, especially a raised voice or the sound of a slap. Even now, as an adult, the thought drives nails into my brain and twists my stomach into hard, acidic snarls. Like Kiko, who immediately searches for the source of the sound any time she hears a video of a kitten meowing, I tie myself in knots to make all of the bad things stop. While “trying to fix things” seems to be helpful on its face, it’s not a good habit to have. The ability to sit with discomfort and know when not to interfere is a skill worth cultivating.

This is all some very roundabout exposition to justify asking one question: Why do we do what we do?

The person in my dream once called themselves a shaman. There’s a lot of stuff tied up in that one word, many even hesitate to use it because it often comes with a heaping side of appropriated cultural practices. It’s one of those words, like “tattoo,” that is a loan word for a widespread thing. In some cultures shamanism was just called “journeying” or “hedge riding” (much as tattooing was called “pricking” or even “embroidering”) so using a distinct loan word from another culture had appeal. For most people curious about communicating with spirits through altered states of consciousness, it isn’t necessary to turn to appropriated cultural teachings. Your elders know the ways.

This person called themselves a shaman in a tradition where they were an outsider. But why?

Was it the appeal of gaining secret knowledge?
Was it an attempt to adopt something new and “exotic,” like a hermit crab coiling into a painted shell?
Or was it a genuine desire to use these skills to help their community?

Unfortunately, it didn’t end well. They lost friends and loved ones. They were pushed away. In the end, they weren’t any better off than when they started, and neither was their community. Whatever it was that they had sought, they didn’t obtain it.

I know another person who called themselves a green Druid witch. They were a powerful witch, too. But working within the framework they chose came with rules, so they found sly ways to work around them. So why adhere to a tradition to begin with?

Was it to position themselves as an expert?
Was it out of genuine belief and respect?
Was it because they thought it would fill a personal need?

In the end, that didn’t work out so well either.

I’ve also known doctors who seemed to practice more “eminence-based medicine” than anything else, so this isn’t restricted to people in the metaphysical/religious/esoteric community. There is no shortage of people with ulterior motives, even if they don’t realize it themselves.

In the pursuit of any knowledge, self-interrogation is important. Do we seek titles? Recognition? The uncovering of hidden talents? A broader set of skills for interacting with the world? Why do you do what you do?

Know yourself. Know your motivation. Self-deception always leads to loss.

divination · life · Witchcraft

And then she said my partner used to be my grandma.

May 15, 2020May 14, 2020 J.Leave a comment

Note: This post contains affiliate links. These let me earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting independent sellers and this site!

A couple of months ago, I came across an Etsy listing that piqued my curiosity: Couple Past Life Reading.

“Welp,” I thought, “This is going to go some interesting places.”

I don’t usually do past life-type stuff. It isn’t that I don’t think past lives are possible, it’s just not really relevant to how I live my life right now. I have also noticed a — shall we say — type that tends to be kind of way too into the idea. (For some reason, this kind of person also was, without fail, Cleopatra, Catherine the Great, or Morgan le Fay in a past life. You’d be amazed at how much dead royalty’s walking around.) Still, for less than a twenty, I was down to find out what my partner and I were up to a lifetime or so ago.

underwater-1216244_640 — This picture came up when I was looking for royalty-free pictures related to past lives. I’m not sure what’s up with these fish, but enjoy.

Now that COVID-19’s made it much tougher for a lot of people to earn a living, I figured it was also a good time to promote an inexpensive way to help someone keep a roof over their head, while getting some entertainment and insight and not having to worry about shipping.

So I sent a few pictures of my partner and myself to Rossana, and sat back to wait. Sure enough, it wasn’t long before she delivered. The report she gave was long and detailed, so I’m just going to hit the high notes:

We lived in the 18th century. He was my mother’s mother, and was afflicted with blindness after sustaining an injury while saving her son from a fall off of a horse. I read books to her and acted as her eyes — which was particularly interesting to me, since my partner drives and does other things I can’t do because of my vision loss.

He, as my grandmother, worked helping runaway teenagers, unwed mothers, and political dissidents. I never married, but I had two daughters and worked as a folk healer using herbs and the laying on of hands. I was also part of a secret society that helped women escape domestic abuse and gave them new lives and identities. My daughters’ father didn’t feature prominently in my life — he fled to Spain and eventually died. I lived a long time, and died at an old age.

Neat stuff, huh? I laughed when I found out that my partner was my grandma — no star-crossed romantic entanglement there! I did like that we were ordinary people, it made things much more interesting than finding out we were Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. I also didn’t tell Rossana anything about our relationship, so finding out that I was his “eyes” in a past life (much as he is mine in this one) was pretty cool.

Did this change my perception of past life work? Not really, though it did stir up some curiosity in me. Rossana has a wide variety of other reasonably-priced readings available (including pendulum, runes, and Lenormand cards) so I’m definitely going to return to her in the future.

Books · Neodruidry

The Book of Hedge Druidry: A Complete Guide for the Solitary Seeker

May 13, 2020May 12, 2020 J.Leave a comment

Recently, I had enough free time to finally finish reading Joanna van der Hoeven’s The Book of Hedge Druidry: A Complete Guide for the Solitary Seeker. While not completely solitary myself (I’m a solo practitioner, but still part of a group), I still wanted to see what new information and perspective I could gain from van der Hoeven’s work.

It’s an impressively comprehensive guide, split into four sections: theory, practice, study, and technique. The book begins by delving into what the Druids were, their history, and what became of them. After that comes a breakdown of the cosmology in van der Hoeven’s (and, from my experience, most) Druidry. She follows this with practice: meditation, spellcraft, prayer, ritual, and so on. There are rites and rituals geared specifically for hedge Druids, herblore, the Ogham, and even ethics.

I can’t vouch for the historical accuracy of all of the information presented here, but that’s something I’ve kind of come to expect from most books about witchcraft and paganism. Van der Hoeven does appear to have done her homework, as each reference has a citation. At this point, I don’t even really try to point out historical inaccuracies unless they’re particularly glaring (like one book’s claims about an “ancient Irish potato Goddess”). One thing I liked was the acknowledgement of the divide between the Druids and modern Druidry — no one can really, factually claim to follow the same faith and practices as the ancient Celtic peoples, we’re all working from what’s more-or-less a reproduction. That doesn’t mean modern Druidry has any less poignancy or value, it’s just the truth.

Books like this tend to hold the most appeal for beginners, since they tend to go over well-trodden ground. Even so, I thoroughly enjoyed it — particularly the section on rites and rituals. Ever since I began to use the ADF ritual structure, I haven’t really been doing as much as I used to outside of that, since most everything I do follows that structure. I took a lot of inspiration from The Book of Hedge Druidry, both for practices to incorporate into my ADF-structured solo rituals, and as small workings on their own.

The book concludes with a section on ethics and acting within one’s community as a teacher and leader. Rather than the (in my opinion) rigid and often misinterpreted Threefold Law, van der Hoeven gives a thorough description of what it means to be centered, know yourself, and be able to act with honor for the good of everyone and everything around you. There’s no judgment, no finger-wagging, and no westernized idea of karma, just an explanation of what it means to act for the highest good.

Had I come at this book from a different perspective, there’s one specific area that would’ve disappointed me: The lack of real information on hedge riding. The bit of information provided about the Other worlds is enough to pique curiosity, but not really enough to prepare a solitary practitioner for journeying or spirit work.

All told, I found this book to be an accessible introduction to Druidry for the solitary (or just solo) practitioner. While I’ve definitely benefited from the study programs and ritual structure ADF provides, if I was completely on my own, van der Hoeven’s work would serve as a great jumping off point. I definitely recommend it to anyone curious about modern Druidry, or even just looking to expand their magical or religious bookshelf.

divination · life · Plants and Herbs

The Rowan and the Heather

May 12, 2020May 12, 2020 J.Leave a comment

This week, I wanted to dive back into Ogham divination. I’ve been practicing working with a pendulum made of a fallen cypress root, and the set I have is probably the most conducive to using it.

When I first learned pendulum divination as a preteen, I did it a simple way: hanging a ring or pendant from a piece of string into an empty glass, and asking it to show me “yes” and “no.” Usually, an even number of taps on the glass was a “yes,” while an odd one was a “no.” I’ve always enjoyed using pendulums, and I’ve been having a really interesting time devising ways to mix different types of divination together. Driftwood Ogham fews and a wood pendulum seemed a natural match!

I didn’t ask a specific question this time. So far, this set seems pretty good at telling me what I need to know. It isn’t much like tarot or Lenormand, in this respect. It’s less about answering questions than providing a different, more nebulous kind of insight. If Lenormand describes actions and situations, and tarot describes the energies and emotions surrounding those situations, Ogham is another layer entirely.

The pendulum was still over every oval of driftwood, except for two that made it swing in swift, ever-widening circles: Rowan and Heather.

Heather came up for me last week, when I asked specifically about working through some old patterns. These are things that are going to take more than a week to get past, so I’m not surprised to see this friend appear again.

Rowan is Luis. In Ogham divination, it represents protection from every kind of danger — physical, emotional, and spiritual. It’s defense, precaution, and care. Bind two rowan twigs into an equal-armed cross with red thread, and you have a protective charm. This points to either having protection, or needing it. In either case, it’s time to look to the things that make us feel safe.

Honestly, it reassures me. If Heather points to needing to metaphorically “burn down” old protective patterns so new growth can emerge, Rowan tells me that they aren’t necessary. I am protected, I am safe. I don’t need them. There are healthy behaviors and mechanisms there, better ways to protect myself that don’t involve self-sabotage.

I can keep doing the work without fear, and I’ll be better for it.

life

Homeschooling, feat. Kuato the Martian Resistance Leader and Gwyneth Paltrow

May 11, 2020May 10, 2020 J.Leave a comment

It’s always a delightful feeling to discover new things about your partner.

Like, for example, the fact that they don’t know anything about Goop and have never seen Total Recall. (Him.) Or that they can’t stand hearing people call machines “pieces of junk” because they feel like it’ll hurt the machine’s feelings. (Me.)

This weekend, I sought to rectify these gaps in his cultural education.

I purposefully didn’t want to watch the 2012 remake, because there’s a heavy-handed charm in the original that I didn’t think would translate. Even when they’re trying to, there’s a ridiculous rubber-alien magic that modern remakes can’t really capture. Besides, I don’t know if Colin Farrell can really nail campy one-liners, you know?

Honestly, I’m kind of surprised by how well Total Recall has aged. All of the parts that look incredibly goofy and narmy were just as goofy and narmy years ago. It was a fun watch that was exactly what it said on the tin: A Schwarzenegger action flick on Mars that was just as Schwarzeneggery as it promised. We snarked. We ate kettle corn. We watched SpaceTrump get his eyeballs inflated by explosive decompression.

And then I led him down a Goop rabbit hole:

“Vagina eggs? What.”

“… That’s a lot of money for vagina eggs.”

“I keep reading the word ‘Goop,’ but it’s not sinking in as the name of an actual company. Goop. Goop.”

“There’s a very big ‘how did we get here’feeling. Like why did anyone think this was cool or a good idea?”

“Oh boy! The Goop Lab! That sounds very trustworthy.”

“Vampire facials! … Oh, your own blood.”

“I feel like these jade eggs are going to be in every article about her. Like they’re the crystal skulls to her Indiana Jones. They’re the common thread that will lead us back to the ancient aliens.”

“Oh, so you cowards aren’t gonna show me the $15k 24 carat gold dildo? You’ll show me the eggs, but not that?”

“Please stop doing that to science.”

In unrelated news, there are more birds in the trees outside my windows, and they’re singing their hearts out. Everything else is quiet around them — there’s no real traffic to shoo them away or drown them out. As much as I hate the reason for it, I love the fact that I can hear their songs like this.

Here’s hoping you’re staying safe, sane, and not succumbing to any cooter egg- or astronaut sticker-related problems.

Plants and Herbs · Witchcraft

Turmeric Folklore and Magical Uses

May 6, 2020May 5, 2020 J.3 Comments

Turmeric is what gives curry a yellow color (as well as everything else it touches). It has a subtly spicy, earthy scent and flavor, and, to be honest, is next to impossible to find folklore or magical uses for.

It’s not that they don’t exist, of course. It’s just that they’re kind of drowned out by the number of blog posts, articles, and books on its nearly-magical health benefits. People use it for inflammation, diabetes, cardiovascular health, and to improve liver function. It’s a bit outside of the scope of this post to go into all of that — besides, I’m not a doctor — but it’s pretty evident that turmeric occupies an important place for a lot of people around the world.

Turmeric is native to southern Asia and some Pacific islands. In the places where it grows wild, it has a history of use as a medicinal herb going back about 4000 years. Interestingly, though turmeric was known in ancient Greece, it never really caught on except as a dye. (Interestingly, ginger, turmeric’s cousin, didn’t seem to have this problem.) Needless to say, if you’re looking for uses of turmeric in European-based witchcraft, they’re a little thin on the ground.

Turmeric Magical Uses and Folklore

Nobody seems to be able to agree on what elemental correspondences go with this herb. Some say air, while one source I found said fire. While fire makes sense to me, I would probably say earth.

In India, turmeric seems to function as a sacred anointment. It’s used for brides and grooms during the pre-wedding haldi ceremony, girls entering puberty, and the bodies of the dead. Most of the sources for witchcraft uses of turmeric cite purification as one of its properties, so, while I doubt that its associations in Indian culture are exactly the same, this makes a lot of sense.

Malevolent spirits, particularly the angry dead, can be sent away with the smell of turmeric.

Turmeric is also indicated for spells for healing, strength, and vitality — since it’s a potent medicinal herb and general tonic.

Turmeric’s golden color is useful in color magic. Yellow is associated with abundance and happiness, while gold is associated with the energy of the sun, prosperity, success, and healing. (This sun energy might be an explanation for why turmeric is so useful for purification!)

Using Turmeric

Since turmeric stains pretty much everything it touches, that makes it great for making magical inks, dying sachets, bags, or poppets, or adding color to sweetening jars or other potions.

Turmeric essential oil has a very warming scent, and can be substituted for hot spices when you don’t necessarily want their sharp pepperiness. Like the root itself, though, the essential oil stains — use it with caution!

If you can keep it out of humidity, you can use turmeric to bury magical tools to purify them the way you might use sea salt. Again, be careful — don’t use it to bury anything porous, and keep it dry, or you might find that whatever you buried is now yellow.

I love turmeric, and I put it in everything. While I haven’t experienced the magical health benefits a lot of natural health websites attribute to it, it’s delicious, easy to use, and gives everything such a bright, pleasing color. If you’re looking for an ingredient for magical ink for a prosperity, abundance, joy, or purification spell, you can’t really go wrong with turmeric.

divination · life

The Alder and the Heather

May 5, 2020May 5, 2020 J.2 Comments

For this week’s divination, I went back to my driftwood Ogham set. I asked the question that, probably unsurprisingly, has been plaguing my mind lately:

How do I heal my self-confidence and get used to self-promotion?

I drew Alder and Heather.

Alder is Fearn, the fourth consonant of the Ogham alphabet. Symbolically, alder is a battle-tree. Magically, it’s said to help us face the things we fear. Alder likes to grow in areas that give it “wet feet” — this creates an association with the liminal space between earth and water, between the logical and the emotional, between the body and the heart. It’s wood is also naturally water-resistant, a useful characteristic for creating structures designed to last underwater! It’s a supportive, protective tree spirit, with strong connotations of defense in battle, whether that’s against others or oneself.

Alder tells us to create strong boundaries and defenses, so we don’t undermine ourselves with negative emotions and self-doubt. Any decisions made right now should be carefully considered, so your emotions don’t lead us to burn the bridges we should be building instead. Seeking guidance from the spiritual realm will be helpful here — the roots of the alder help us resist being eroded by our negative emotions, the way they help the earth resist erosion by the water, but, despite this assurance, it’s a mysterious tree that isn’t always forthcoming with how it’s going to do this.

Nice. I can see it. It matches the tarot reading I received the other night, when I was told that not only am I not self-promoting, I don’t always necessarily make the right decisions when it comes to things of that nature. So… Way to call me out, alder tree!

Next is Heather, Ur, the third vowel of the Ogham alphabet. Symbolically, it’s a plant of contrasts — it’s passion and enthusiasm, and the consequences of both. Magically, it’s said to open portal to the realm of the fae. (And fairies associated with heather are said to be particularly attracted to shy people, to boot.) Burning it brings rain, sleeping on it brings prophetic dreams of good luck, and carrying it is protective. Heather tops can be brewed into alcohol, and heather honey is particularly dark and thick. It’s a flowery, sensual, intoxicating plant.

Unfortunately, heather also doesn’t produce terribly well. At least, not if it isn’t periodically burned to the ground! The word-Ogham kennings refer to cycles of growth, or the earth. It’s said to be connected to death and fate through its connection to the soil (a connection which is somewhat reinforced by its magical use for prophetic dreams).

Drawing Heather is often interpreted as enjoying a sweetness and time of repose, but the lesson here is clear: There’s time for drinking heather beer and eating heather honey, and a time for burning the heather to the ground. There’s a time for sweetness, and a time for death. Don’t worry, though, because the burning of the heather brings it back with renewed vigor.

Taken together, I can see a path emerge. I have behaviors in place that are protective for me, but paralyzing. (If you can’t handle positive attention, hiding most of yourself away is a great way to avoid it!) Alder’s protection can help me weather my own negative emotions. Heather shows me that, while destroying my deep-seated protective mechanisms won’t be pleasant, I’ll grow stronger and better than before if I do it. Doing what feels good, avoiding my fears, needs to be balanced out by burning the whole damn thing to the ground if I want to enjoy the sweetness of new growth.

It’s going to suck, but it’ll be okay.

Now I’ve just gotta make that list my therapist told me to. Sigh.

life · Neodruidry · Witchcraft

An Bealltainn toilichte!

May 4, 2020May 3, 2020 J.Leave a comment

Hello!

If you celebrate Beltane, I hope yours was a happy one. If not, I hope your May is going well. (Well, all four days of it, anyhow.)

I did a small, low-key ritual at home, to honor the Three Kindred and pray that this year’s metaphorical harvest is good. All of the omens were positive — blessings I really need right now. I had some candles, incense, a parlor palm for a tree, and a tiny bit of honey, beans, and whiskey for offerings. I didn’t have all of the woods to build a sacred fire, but I kindled a tiny one of oak, rowan, and ash twigs. I also didn’t have flowers or much in the way of decorations, but it was enough.

Someday, I’ll be able to have a proper bonfire outside.

Saturday, I participated in a video call with one of my former teachers, a group of current- and former students, and entertainer Mandy Goodhandy, for tarot readings and cocktails. I had a lot of fun — and not just because it was the first time I’d spoken to someone who wasn’t either my partner or one of my cats in roughly a month.

When my turn came around, I asked a deceptively simple question: What do I have to do to obtain the life I want?

The answer? Learn to self-promote.

I’m, uh…
I’m not great at that.

Let me back up a few minutes. When my turn came around, both Mandy and my former teacher commented on my energy, that I seemed to exude a light. It was incredibly sweet and kind. Also absolutely terror-inducing.

I’m good at accepting compliments in the moment. At the very least, I can keep my idea-meat from short-circuiting long enough to smile and croak out a “thank you.” Inside, however, it’s more like

I’ve been working with my therapist about it. It’s slow going.

As you can probably see, this presents certain impediments to promoting myself. I make things, but, when it comes to showing them to other people, I panic. I’ve been taking small steps to try to get over it, but there’s still a huge element of self-sabotage when it comes to trying to attract attention — the one thing guaranteed to make me want to flee in terror.

I can catch a giant spider and let it outside. I can hook a rattlesnake. I can handle a spinal tap. I can take a lot of things in stride.
Just not that.

(Fun fact: When I was a little kid, I used to hide under the stable and cover my ears whenever anyone sang “Happy Birthday” to me. Though I no longer do this, the desire to has not lessened.)

And so that’s where I am. My therapist has tasked me with writing down good affirmations about myself, and reading them every day. (This is also slow going.) I’m trying to find meditations for boosting confidence. I’ve got a pouch of crystals waiting to be charged for self-esteem. At this point, I’d gulp flower essences by the pitcher if it seemed like it’d help.

I asked Lenormand cards for some guidance. They gave me Bear and Mountain. Stubbornness, and dominating obstacles. No secret tricks here, just doing the thing. Damn it.

Still, there’s no harvest without tilling. (I mean, there is no-till farmin, but work with me here.) There’s no reward without toil. If I want to have the harvest I’ve prayed for, I have to put in the work of… riding the bear up the mountain?
The metaphor’s gotten away from me a little bit, but you probably catch my drift.

From my house to yours, have a good week.

divination · life

Getting closer, card by card.

April 28, 2020April 27, 2020 J.Leave a comment

Learning Lenormand divination has been immensely practical, especially now. It’s a lot more tangible than tarot — where tarot deals with emotions and energies, Lenormand cards deal with actions and circumstances. Both tarot and Lenormand readings give you a glimpse of the situation as it stands now, if nothing were to change, but having both at my disposal has been very helpful.

I’ve been doing small, two-card daily Lenormand readings for myself. Every day, I ask the same question: What can I do right now to bring me closer to the life that I want?

And I get an answer: Write something, deal with unresolved relationships, make something, focus my energy and attention on a specific area.

It’s nice.

Sometimes, it’s funny — since the readings are very straightforward and practical, the advice isn’t always profound. For example, for this week’s reading, I asked what I should focus on for the week to get me closer to my ideal life.

I drew the Tower and the Anchor. The Tower can represent authority, in a governmental sense. It can be the company you work for (or, in my case, my self-employment). It can be protection and isolation. The Anchor can be achieving your goals — as in, dropping anchor once you’ve reached your destination. It can be stability, or settling down. Most sources interpret this combination as a safe harbor, long-term protection, or a stable isolation.

fantasy-782001_640 — This image showed up when I was looking for a public domain image of a tower. Not gonna lie, social distancing would be a lot more fun there, I think.

In other words, “You want to know what you should do to achieve your goals? Really? Maybe stay home and don’t die first, nerd.”

Which… Okay, I get that. The world isn’t likely to be substantially different over the course of the next week. Safe harbors and isolation it is.

I asked my copy of the Crow Tarot deck the same question. In response, I drew The Heirophant.

The Heirophant is a religious leader. He’s an authority. He is tradition, convention, conformity, and a mentor in The Way Things Have Always Been Done. In a spiritual sense, he is ritual, routine, and ceremony. When he shows up, it’s often a sign not to rock the boat — if you want to succeed, it’s time to listen to people who have gone before you. Reinventing the wheel won’t get you any closer to your goal.

Taken together, I should stay home and take this opportunity to study and build more routine into my day. Structure and good advice will bring me closer to the life I aspire to, now’s not the time to take chances.
I agree.

crystals · life · Plants and Herbs · Witchcraft

Cleaning House, and Don’t Try the Brown Mushrooms

April 27, 2020April 26, 2020 J.1 Comment

Note: This post contains affiliate links to some items. These links allow me to earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting small businesses, the post office, and this site!

This weekend, my partner and I decided it’d be a good time to give everything a nice, solid deep-clean. Everything. The windows, the stove, the weird, hard-to-reach area behind the toilet, everything.

Cleaning house is a great opportunity to refresh the energy in a place. While there are small, day-to-day things you can do to keep the flow from going stagnant on you, nothing really beats a solid top-to-bottom scrubbing and airing out.

Due to a combination of frugality and scent-sensitivity headaches, I make pretty much all of our cleaning products. (What I save in glass cleaner and counter spray, however, I more than spend on ethanol, vinegar, baking soda, and castile soap.) I keep a canister of homemade cleaning wipes in the bathroom, and another in the kitchen. I’ve got pretty cobalt glass bottles of spray cleaner on my kitchen counter, and another of tub and tile cleaner under my bathroom sink.

Frugality and lack of synthetic scents aside, the nicest thing about these DIY cleaners is that the ingredients easily pull double-duty; the same things that keep stains from my counters and rings out of my tub also have a history of use as spiritual cleansing agents. Make them on the right day, in the right moon phase, during the best planetary hour for whatever you’re trying to do, speak your intentions as you add each ingredient, and charge them by whatever method is preferable for you. (I would, however, advise against using sunlight — depending on what ingredients you use, heat and UV light might denature them, leaving you with a concoction that’s mostly water.)

We opened up the curtains and all of the windows. We played upbeat music. We scrubbed everything.

When the physical cleaning was done and my partner was figuring out lunch, I worked on the other side.

I love tarot cards. Not only are they useful divination tools, they’re useful aids for focusing magic. Whatever you’re trying to draw in or push away, there’s a card for that. In each room, I set up a small altar with a candle or incense, a clear quartz,and three cards: The Sun, The World, and the Ten of Cups.

94225825_253429959348725_986577567261655040_n — Cards from the Tarot de Maria-Celia. Massive Herkimer diamond from TheElusiveHerkShop. Lavender and lemongrass candle from SweetgrassApothecary.

These three cards are among the most positive omens in the deck. The Sun speaks of radiant positivity, abundance, and optimism. The World speaks of auspicious beginnings and infinite possibility. The Ten of Cups speaks of ultimate fulfillment. Good stuff to bring into your life and home, right?

I treated them the way you might treat a crystal grid — placing them, charging them, and releasing the energy. It was a small ritual, moving room-by-room, setting up each grid, and putting them to work, but it felt more uplifting and powerful than I can say.

I definitely needed it after the day before that. Friday, I had ambitious (well, relatively ambitious) dinner plans. I made penne, a quasi-homemade mushroom risotto, and grilled vegetables marinated in balsamic vinegar and herbs. Everything came out tasty, and all was well.

You know how some people have genetic quirks that keep them from enjoying certain foods? I don’t even necessarily mean allergies. Some people are lactose intolerant, some think cilantro tastes like soap, and so on.
As it turns out, some people can’t handle boletes.
Like, really can’t handle them.

I am apparently one of them.

mushroom-1281733_640 — More like “bol-eat-your-insides-apart,” amirite?

I know the mushrooms weren’t actually toxic, because they came in a prepared blend and I really hope Trader Joe’s knows better. I was lucky, though. Some pretty intense gastric pain and dehydration was the most I had to deal with, though I was legitimately concerned that I was going to need some kind of intervention if things didn’t improve quickly enough. I definitely didn’t want to need a spinal tap because my intracranial and blood pressure decided to shoot way up on me. I definitely definitely didn’t want to go to the hospital and have to explain that I was there because my dumb ass decided now was the time to try eating unfamiliar fungi.

Lesson learned. If you’re trying to avoid using ER resources, maybe stick with things you’re absolutely certain you can tolerate. Save the risotto experiments for the future.

Here’s hoping you’re safe, staying sane, and not eating anything weird.