Tag: spells

life, Witchcraft

Really, if you think about it, I’m just helping them sell their house (in a sense).

J.

I can’t say I’ve ever lived in a very close-knit community. My custodial parent was tired and angry all of the time, so we didn’t really do community activities, either. Now that I’m adult enough to do that kind of thing on my own, I love it. I can’t say that I really have any super close friends in my neighborhood, but I still love things like street fairs, farmers’ markets, and that gem and mineral show we went to not that long ago.

That’s why I approached the sudden appearance of a “For Sale” sign in my neighbor’s front yard with equal excitement and trepidation.

The house belongs to an older couple who have an adult daughter and young grandchild. It’s just like the others on my street — a post-war Cape Cod in a decent-sized yard, but theirs has an addition to give it some more space.

I never really saw the owners much, so I’ve never had the chance to really get to know them. I’m pretty much a golden retriever in a human suit, and my baffling levels of friendliness and desire for connections to other organisms yearn for expression, so this is a regret on my part. Honestly, the people who own the place could’ve moved weeks ago.

But this now raises a question: Who’s gonna buy it and move in? We’re in a walkable location that’s not far from DC, so I could see it going to someone who wants to Airbnb it (which is kind of a huge problem in this area in general). I hope not, though.

Honestly, I just hope whoever chooses to move in doesn’t suck.

Then I figured — if you can use magic to draw love, luck, and friendship into your life, why not cool neighbors?

Two candles, one pink and one yellow, lay sideways under a chunk of rose quartz. They are surrounded by four black Herkimer diamonds, and a stick of cedar incense burns just above them. There's a small quantity of incense ash on the wood near the candles.

This train of thought it what has found me sitting on my deck, fuming a set of candles (pink for platonic good feelings, yellow for friendship) and a bit of rose quartz in cedar incense, all while arguing with Frederick de Bonesby that it is actually very rude to let his gigantic ass take up the entire platform feeder, and there is a line of sparrows squabbling behind him while they wait their turn.

(Frederick de Bonesby does not care. His primary concern is maintaining his skin and his flesh and his fats, even though he is a tubby squirrel and not a powerful 92-year-old lich. He does this chiefly through consuming copious amounts of peanuts and dried corn.)

A squirrel sits on the railing of a deck, paws busily rummaging through a pile of nuts and seeds in a platform feeder.

But I digress.

Really, I’ve been using yard work as a kind of stealth mission. See, there’s a porcelain berry vine (pretty, but invasive) near the driveway that needs to be torn out. It’s right next to the fence dividing the properties, and also right by our gate. According to my calculations, this makes it an excellent spot to conceal a sweetening jar, which I can do by digging up the porcelain berry vine and stealthily burying the jar in its place.

I could fill it with sugar syrup and honey. Cinnamon and petals from the big Virginia rose bush in the front yard. Clover blossoms snuck from the edge where our yards meet.

I could also modify a love spell to attract a good neighbor. There are a bunch of them that involve listing the ideal qualities of a potential lover. But instead of “physically attractive” and “financially independent,” I could put things like, I don’t know, “fond of crows,” and “has strong feelings against lawns,” and “doesn’t think the entire LGBT community is a cadre of secret predators.”
Really, the principle is the same.

I could fold up the list and put it in a sachet with a magnet and the right herbs and stones. I could take the items on the list, write them on bay leaves, and sit on my deck while I burn them and blow the smoke to the four winds.

A terracotta dish holding a burning bay leaf.

I could whisper my wishes to a handful of birdseed, throw it on the ground, and let the birds carry them where they need to go.

I’m also considering modifying another love spell that involves using human image candles. It’s a kind of sympathetic magic where you take an image candle of the appropriate gender for each person, then move them incrementally closer together over a period of seven days, burning the candles a little bit each night. Once they reach each other, you burn them together and either bury the remains near your front door, or melt the wax together, pour it into a mold with bits of herbs, and make a pretty charm of it.

I could find a candle shaped like a house instead, then mark it with the address. Then I’d just need a general human-shaped image candle (or even a plain white one, in a pinch). The moving and lighting part would be the same. Once all I’ve got is stubs and wicks, I could hide the candles under the sweetening jar where the porcelain berry will… have… used to have been.
(I don’t know how tenses work for situations like this. I feel like I need Douglas Adam’s help.)

Honestly, I just want neighbors like the two ladies whose tend was next to mine during a celebration I attended years ago. One was a Unitarian Minister, one was an experienced mushroom forager, and they were very kind, generous, and friendly (and fabulous cooks). One of the first things they said to us was, “Nice to meet you! Breakfast is at seven.”

A lot of people consider such spells questionably ethical, even if you perform them without the intent to manipulate a specific person’s behavior. If you really think about it, in a way, I’m kind of just helping my neighbors to sell their house. I’m also attracting people who don’t want to exploit the area for its Airbnb potential and prefer native ecological diversity to monoculture lawns.

So really, I’m also kind of in in the right.

I just hope none of my other neighbors see me burying a bunch of jars and candle stubs in the front yard, or it could get awkward.

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Witchcraft

Is energy manipulation necessary for magic?

J.

Funnily enough, I got the idea for this post a long time ago — when I was reading up on reasons why cognitive behavioral therapy might fail. That, coupled with a lot of books and papers on traditional and folk magic, raised an interesting question in my mind:

Is energy manipulation requisite for magic?

I’ve seen some experienced witches who poke fun at the spells created and posted by younger ones. I’ve even written about raising and directing power myself. Here’s the thing though — none of that shows up in the really old stuff.

Seriously. I can point you to a hundred different old bits of magical folklore and formulae, and not a one will mention anything about raising, directing, or releasing power. Nonetheless, these spells were important enough for the practitioners to pass them down.

If you look at modern spells and rituals, though, some manner of energy manipulation is considered absolutely requisite. If you skip it, or somehow do it wrong, you won’t achieve your goal. You could argue that the old wise women and cunning men raised and directed power without doing so in so many words, or even worked old magic without realizing that that’s what they were doing. If that’s the case, then who’s to say that this power-raising has to be done on a conscious level?

I have a theory that I find pretty interesting. It’s similar to one posed by Phil Hine in Condensed Chaos, when he talks about Spirit, versus Energy, versus Cybernetic models.
I don’t think magic changed. I think we did.

The Guardian posted an article a couple of years ago on the apparent decline in effectiveness of CBT. Oddly enough, this decline might be due to nothing more than CBT’s reputation. When it was first developed, it was lauded as a marvel of modern psychology. This perception may have influenced how effective it was for people who tried it — believing they were learning a miracle cure for their problems, they experienced one. As more and more people went through CBT with less than stellar results, this perception shifted. It’s declining in effectiveness because it no longer benefits from a reputation as a miracle.

This isn’t to say that all magic is a product of the placebo effect (though there are certainly branches of mental magic that rely on it to a degree). I’ve had experiences I definitely can’t attribute solely to that. But, as the article above mentions, a 1958 book by psychoanalyst Allen Wheelis stated that Freudian psychology no longer worked because people had changed. Modern humans were better at self-understanding. They now needed different tools.

The old techniques weren’t completely wrong; they’d just outlived their usefulness.

Oliver Burkeman

Modern humans are better at understanding the physical underpinnings of the world (arguably at the expense of our metaphysical understanding and psychic sensitivity). We have knowledge that would’ve been unthinkable to our ancestors. Learning changes us. We interact with energy — and therefore magic — differently. One of my ex-partners’ grandmothers cured people of worms by snapping a handful of straw over their stomachs. My ancestors did things that, if I posted them to an online grimoire, would have experienced witches laughing and poking fun at them for being ineffective “baby witch” spells.

The act of observing changes the observer as well as the observed, and we’ve done a lot of observing.

Does this mean that one way is better, more legitimate, more powerful? I really don’t think so. As Burkeman says, old tools outlive their usefulness. We’ve changed. Ten thousand years ago, nobody could digest milk in adulthood. (And don’t even get me started on what we’ve done to our jaws.) We occupy and interact with our environment differently — including the unseen world. It’s entirely possible we need to consciously manipulate energy because that’s what we’ve adapted to.

I’m curious to see what shape the future takes.

art, divination, life, Witchcraft

Bustin’ (Disappointment) Makes Me Feel Good

J.

Yesterday, literally the same day that I posted that tarot reading, I got a bit of disappointing news. I don’t want to get into the details, but it turns out that an artistic opportunity that I’d been pretty excited about isn’t going to happen for me. C’est la guerre. Even amid fulfillment and happiness, it’s a bit much to expect everything to be a slice of fried gold.

Still, understanding that fact doesn’t really banish the bad feelings. Here’s what did, though:

I set a timer.

I gave myself ten minutes to be completely self-indulgent in my complaining. After that, the grumpling grace period was over and I had to keep quiet about it. This serves two purposes:

  1. It keeps me from dwelling on whatever’s bothering me.
  2. It keeps me from becoming insufferable to absolutely everyone around me.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I use this time. I flop dramatically on furniture. I go full Howl’s-Moving-Castle-goopy-wizard. I get to feel my feelings, I can be cartoonishly whiny until I laugh at myself, and other people won’t secretly wish they could lock me in a dumpster.

I did some agitation pedaling.

My partner calls it “having the zoomies.” I call it having more energy than I know what to do with. Sometimes it’s from anger or annoyance. Sometimes it’s boredom. Sometimes, it’s because I ate four bowls of cereal for dinner.

All that corn syrup and riboflavin

Either way, ten minutes of furious living room biking usually sorts it out decently well. I work myself up to my top speed, and hold it as long as I can — all while mentally focused on a goal I have. When I get to the point where I can’t sustain it anymore, I release the energy toward that goal.

Sweat is also cleansing. Sweating can be a sacred act. There are reasons why so many cultures have traditions built around inducing a good sweat.

Singing along to Turisas is entirely optional, but it helps.

RA-RA-RASPUTIN, RUSSIA’S GREATEST LOVE MACHINE

I took a bath (with friends).

(No, not human ones. I don’t think any of them would talk to me afterward.)

When it comes to spells to fix a disappointment, I think they should be spontaneous. It’s not really the time to go worrying about moon phases or astrological timing — if you have needs, fulfill them. Emergency magic performed from the heart can be just as effective as a meticulously planned ritual.

Water is the element of emotions. It’s cleansing. It’s healing. It’s a great way to kill some time doing something that’s objectively good for you. It was late at night, so I didn’t have the energy to make myself a full-on brew, but I do pretty much own my weight in various teas. I boiled some water, added two bags of peppermint and one of chamomile, and asked for their help.

“Peppermint,” I said, said I, “I feel like complete ass and would like that to not be a thing anymore. Peppermint, clear my energy from all that’s dragging me down, and, with chamomile, fill that space with luck and prosperity.”

If you’re putting it in a bath, the garnish is probably kind of excessive

I held my projective (dominant) hand over the vessel, and did the energy thing. When I felt that it was good enough, I asked the brew if it was ready.

“If this be done, and done well, push my hand away from the vessel.”

(Fortunately, I felt the familiar little energetic “push” against my palm. I don’t think I had it in me to sit on my bathroom floor and troubleshoot this spell.)

I poured the brew in a bath full of warm, fresh water, dumped in an unmeasured buttload of Trader Joe’s $1.99 sea salt, stirred it with my projective hand, and called it good. As soon as I stepped in, feeling the silkiness of the water, smelling the fragrant peppermint-and-chamomile steam curling up from the surface of the water, I began to feel better.

I also had a bright, unmistakable vision of a wolf’s face when I closed my eyes, but that’s probably going to take some further research.

I followed the advice I’d been given in the first place.

There’s a lot to be said for the idea of conceptualizing things as happening “for” you instead of “to” you, though that can be tough to remember in the moment. Personally, every setback I’ve ever experienced — every call I never received after a job interview, every breakup — has always led to something better within the space of a few weeks, like clockwork. I don’t force positivity on myself, and you shouldn’t either if you’re really not feeling it, but I try to keep this track record in mind.

Anyway, all of this is to say that, when the sun is shining and everything’s going great, sometimes a minor bump in the road can seem bigger than it is. Tarot readings function as more than a prediction and an energetic snapshot of your life. They’re also advice. Yesterday’s advice was to celebrate, spread joy, and not let my emotions overrule my discernment. I have a lot to celebrate (I sold a painting recently! I can hike longer trails! I did a bunch of paid writing!), I’m hoping this post might be helpful to someone else who’s feeling the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and, logically, I know this disappointment will pass and be forgotten before long.

I turned it around.

Creativity is deeply personal. When you put yourself into what you make, it’s hard not to take rejection pretty hard. Most of the time, though, that rejection has nothing to do with you — because creativity is so personal, there’s no accounting for what people want. What I consider my best work is almost never as popular as the things I’m not nearly as attached to.

Similarly, this situation in no way impugns me as a person or a creative force. So, worn out from pedaling, freshly minty, and completely called out by my own tarot deck, I went to varnish some paintings.

I don’t want to suggest that vigorous cycling and a bath are the way to deal with, say, a house fire, the loss of a loved one, someone stealing your car, or a loved one burning down your house and stealing your car, but these techniques can help shift the energy around the things that occasionally show up to heck your day apart.

Witchcraft

Raising Power (and Then What?)

J.

The whole moon hexing-thing seems to have opened up a whole can of worms, hasn’t it?

It seems like most witchy spaces have kind of gotten past the collective initial reaction to it, but it continues to raise a lot of interesting questions — some thought-provoking, some annoying and gatekeepy.

One discussion I came across involved the validity of using the internet as a magical learning tool. Sure, there’s a lot of very “Well, in MY day” attitudes about it among older witches and Pagans, but there are some valid criticisms to levy. The internet has democratized the spread of information, but that goes hand-in-hand with the spread of misinformation (as anyone currently dealing with relatives who believe COVID-19 is a hoax can attest). Granted, a lot of books on the subject are no better. I can’t recall the title, but I vividly remember reading one passage about an Irish potato goddess that someone not only wrote, but someone else published and other people bought. Misinformation still spread, just more slowly.

From this sprouted a discussion about the validity of online spells, and the preponderance of people looking for magic as a kind of quick fix. “Ceremonial” magic gets derided, while simple candle and jar spells pop up and get passed around everywhere. The only problem there is that the “ceremonial” stuff is often not ceremonial it all — it’s the power-raising and the meat of what makes the magic happen. Candle and jar spells are completely valid and workable, but there’s more the thing than putting herbs in a jar and hoping for the best.

This, in turn, hosted a conversation about power raising. One person was completely unconcerned about online spells — they could never work to begin with, because the instructions didn’t include anything about raising power “properly.” Why, one person asked, would you send your energy into your materials?
That, in particular, got me thinking: What does proper power raising and releasing even look like?

Before I even came to witchcraft, I was familiar with raising power — not as a practice, but as a feeling. I picked up on the bright, effervescent thrill that went through me when I was dancing, or when the song I was listening to hit that crescendo that was just perfect, and I could feel the build and release of energy. It wasn’t going anywhere in particular, but it was happening.

As I learned, I was taught the basic circle casting, power-raising, releasing toward your goal construction of a spell. While that’s a perfectly workable means of spellcasting, it’s also not the only way to do it “right.”

Like anything else in magic, it depends on the intention. I don’t mean the intent of the spell, I mean your intention to cast it in the first place. Your intent might be to get a new job, but your intention is to use a candle/jar/sigil/whatever spell to get a new job. That determines what your spellcasting looks like, even down to the release of power. Not every situation calls for a “cast a circle, raise power, release it toward your goal” strategy.

Candle spells are nice because they’re a simple, accessible type of sympathetic magic. You want something to happen as the candle burns. Maybe you want to reverse a hex, so you use a two-color candle and watch the black wax neutralize whatever the other color is. Maybe you want to feel better, so your fatigue decreases as the wax is consumed. Maybe you want to attract a lover, so their heart warms as the flame grows and burns. Versatile!

That also means that the candle is a way of releasing that power. You light the wick, the flame consumes the wax, it releases it as the products of combustion — heat, light, soot, and water vapor. Sending your intention and energy into the candle allows it to be burned when the time is right, or as needed — you raise and release power once, direct it into the sympathetic vessel, and let the element of fire do the rest. You could raise and release power toward your intent, but, at that point, the candle is strictly ambiance.

Jar spells are nice because they’re long-lasting. You fill a container with symbols of your intent, and put it somewhere to work. Maybe you want to keep a happy and stable home, so you fill it with peaceful ingredients and bury it in your back yard. Maybe you want to attract a new lover, so you fill it with rosebuds and bury it near your front door. Maybe you work with someone who really sucks, so you fill it with nails, hot pepper, and stolen pieces of hair and ditch it by a railroad crossing. In this case, much like the candle, the spell isn’t necessarily helped or hurt by a one-time release of energy toward a goal.

Sigils are their own thing entirely. They hopscotch back and forth over the line between magic and psychology as a matter of course, so they’re not going to follow the rules for raising and releasing power. That doesn’t mean that they don’t work, though.

Servitors are interesting energetic constructs, but that means that your energy should be directed toward making them. You don’t really need a circle for it — you’re going to give the energy its own shape, anyway. If you can’t keep it from getting away from you without a magical container, you’re probably going to have trouble with that second part as it is.

Knot magic is another time-release kind of spell. It’s a form of sympathetic magic where the tying or untying of knots contains and releases energy as needed. If you aren’t putting your energy into the knot-tying itself, then the action of untying the string doesn’t actually release anything.

Does this mean that energy raising and releasing have no real rules, and any online spell will work? Well… No.

The common thread of all of the types of spells I mentioned above is that the materials and actions in the spell have a reason for being there. The spell jar’s a magic battery. The knotted string is a string of magical firecrackers. The candle is a way of holding energy until the flame releases it. There are definitely some spells out there that are unfocused, at best.

For example, say you want to draw in a new lover. You fill a pretty dish with rosebuds, lavender, and jasmine flowers, add a drop of love-drawing oil, and send your energy and intent into the dish. You feel that the herbs have absorbed all of the energy they can, so the spell is over and you dispose of the remnants.

And then what? Where does the energy go? How does it get to its goal? You could burn the herbs and release it with the element of fire, fire’s related to warmth and passion. You could even scatter them in a moving body of water, water’s related to the emotions. But, unless the spell tells a novice witch to do that, are they going to?

I like online spell resources because they’re good for ideas. You can usually tell which have a chance of working (and which don’t stand a brine shrimp’s chance in a photon tube) by asking a pretty simple question for each ingredient and instruction: Why is this here?

Most will tell you to meditate or visualize. These are ways of raising mental and magical energy, but not the only ones. You can dance, sing, or ride a twelve-speed vibrator the size of a Thermos until your eyes bug out, and it’ll work just as well as long as you keep your goal in mind.

They might not give you an effective way to direct or release this energy. Don’t get me wrong, you can do way worse for yourself than holding a bunch of lavender flowers and meditating on something that would bring you joy, but that probably isn’t going to bring you much closer to your goal.

At each step, ask why. At each ingredient, ask why. Not only will it let you know if you’re wasting your time, it’ll make it easier to write your own spells or make substitutions when necessary.

life, Witchcraft

You don’t need to worry about the moon.

J.

Today, in Things I Never Thought I’d Have to Type:

Just in case you came across this Twitter thread yesterday — the moon is going to be fine. A minor internet kerfluffle ensued when some kids got the bright idea to hex the moon (?) and the fair folk (??) for… Reasons, I guess.

Everyone who gets into a hobby — whether it’s pottery, baking, or witchcraft — has a moment or two when they develop starry-eyed aspirations of punching way above their weight. For some people, that means trying to tat an entire lace tablecloth by hand. For others, I guess it’s trying to curse the moon. But, much like ending up with a pile of tangled thread instead of heirloom-quality table linens only really hurts the crafter, trying to hex the moon or the fae only really hurts the caster. The only real difference between the two is that a finished tablecloth would have been beautiful and served a purpose.

Kids have been doing asinine things since the beginning of time. When I was four, I ate an icicle that was hanging off of the muffler of my grandma’s car and became violently ill. When I was ten, I ate a plate of dog food to prove a point (the point was that chicken alfredo is gross, don’t @ me). My adorable baby cousin once spent twenty minutes enthusiastically smashing sliced peaches into his hair. This probably isn’t the first — or even most impressive — time someone’s tried to pull something like this. The moon will be fine. Moon deities will be fine. They’ve survived the destruction of their temples and imagery, the forced conversion of their believers, and actual people walking around and leaving trash on the moon. They survived Theodosius the Great and the Donation of Constantine. This is kind of adorable by comparison.

(It’s also what happens when you dive headlong into spellwork without learning enough about history or theory, but that’s another subject.)

space egg

Admittedly, energy might be a little weird for a bit. Not to get too deep in the weeds, but, during some vision work I performed before finding out about all this, I experienced what I can only describe as an energetic whirlpool. I tried to feel it, but it slipped right over my hands like oil on water. I asked what it was and what it was for, and was told that it wasn’t my problem and not to worry about it. I went on my way. I didn’t know what it meant at the time, and, to be frank, didn’t feel like it was useful or important to delve into something that had been expressly described as Not My Problem. In retrospect, it makes sense.

I don’t think these witches should be bound or otherwise disciplined by more experienced heads. I think they’ll get what’s coming to them well enough, either through the backlash of their own work, or the humbling realization that the whole situation is more cringey and hilarious than anything else.

As for the fae, maybe leave some honey or milk out in your garden. Wear some gold. Carry some cold iron. The fae are temperamental at best, and this definitely isn’t a situation where I’d recommend going the “fuck around and find out” route.

Burning incense.
life, Witchcraft

Rosemary for Remembrance

J.

My family has a long history of military service stretching back on both sides — all the way back to the soldiers in Acadia and beyond. I don’t know the names of my ancestors who died in war, though I’m sure there must have been some. Monday was Memorial Day, so I thought I’d do a Witchcraft Wednesday post on a ritual for memorializing the departed. Even if your Memorial Day plans don’t include rituals or spellwork, or you usually perform your remembrance work around Samhain (when the veil between worlds is thinnest), this is a good, simple working for this time of year.

All you’ll need are:

  • A white (or natural beeswax) candle
  • Rosemary oil (optional)
  • Sprigs of fresh rosemary
  • A piece of string or ribbon
  • The names, photos, or even just visualizations of your departed ancestors
  • Other herbs or woods associated with remembering or honoring the dead, like marigold. Oak is symbolic of strength, vitality, and victory, and is often a motif on military headstones.

Begin by anointing the candle with rosemary oil, if you wish. Next, fashion the rosemary into a wreath and tying it with the string or ribbon. If it is large enough, place it around the base of the candle. If not, place it before it. Inhale the sweet green aroma, as rosemary is the herb of remembrance. Let whatever memories or images it conjures up for you flow.

Fresh herbs.

If you have photos or belongings from the deceased, or even just other herbs, leaves, or flowers, arrange them how you wish. There is no right or wrong way.

You can say a few words acknowledging your lost ancestors’ bravery or sacrifice, if you wish. This is a complicated time for many people, and that’s okay. Many people choose military service as a way for them or their families to escape poverty, which is a terrible choice to have to make. Even if you are a pacifist, or are against the wars that they fought, you may wish to acknowledge the courage it took to go into the battle that claimed their lives.

Light the candle.

Say,

“The ones you left behind mourn you, but you are beyond pain and fear. You did not return home, but you are alive in our hearts and minds. Be at peace.”

If your belief system includes reincarnation, now is a good time to visualize your ancestor as they might have been reborn — free and happy, in a healthy, uninjured body. You can add some words to that effect, if you wish.

Allow the candle to burn. Dispose of the ritual remains in a manner appropriate to your tradition.

Though Memorial Day is for honoring the fallen, there are those still living who have sacrificed their well-being. The Wounded Warrior Project has a variety of veteran programs designed to help them move forward with mental and physical wellness, career and VA counseling, and more. If you can, please consider donating.

crystals, Plants and Herbs, Witchcraft

3 Spells for Keeping the Peace

J.

Ideally, you like the people you’re isolated with right now. Even if you do, though, it’s hard not to get on each other’s nerves once the cabin fever really starts setting in. There are tons of ways to fight boredom and keep busy, but you still might need a little extra help keeping the vibes smooth and tranquil.

That’s where these come in: Three spells to help you keep things happy and peaceful.

Starting with the Cleanest Slate You Can

Okay, so by now you’re probably already used to wiping down, washing, and disinfecting everything that isn’t literally on fire. Good! Physically cleaning a space is a key part of getting the magic flowing — dust, dirt, and clutter are less than optimal for energy flow. So, if you haven’t yet, do a solid spring clean. Set up containers for decluttering — one for things to keep, one for things that need repairing, one for trash, one for recyclables, and one for donations — and work room-by-room. When you’re through, get rid of anything you’re not keeping or fixing.

Once your space is as decluttered and clean as you can get it, rock on.

white-room-with-floral-curtain-2320016

A Wind Spell for Peace

The element of air is an oft-overlooked way to cleanse and freshen things. When it’s sunny and breezy out, open your windows and let the fresh air in. Close your eyes and feel the coolness against your skin. You can chant, pray, or state your intent here. I like to say something like,

“Let this breeze blow away all discord, so only peace and joy may remain. As I will, it shall be.”

An Herbal Tranquility Potion

I love making washing potions. It’s easy to do, too — add herbs to boiling water, as you might for tea, let them steep until the water cools, done. You can place dried herbs into a reusable tea bag, square of muslin cloth, or tea strainer, or just leave them loose and strain them out afterward. (As a word of caution, don’t mix the tools you use for potion-making with those you use for food-making. Not all magical herbs are edible, and many are poisonous.)

Some herbs and flowers that are useful here include:

  • Chamomile
  • Coltsfoot
  • Coriander
  • Lavender
  • Lilac flowers
  • Meadowsweet
  • Rose
  • Skullcap
  • Vervain
  • Violet

As the herbs steep, stir them clockwise nine times with a wooden spoon or wand held in your dominant hand. While you do this, say,

“No tension or strife shall come near,
Peace and tranquility alone reign here.”

Visualize the liquid filling with a calming, gentle golden light. When the potion is done and the herbs are removed, add it to a bucket of clean, warm water. Use this to wash your floors, doors, doorways, windows, and any steps leading to your front or back doors. Prepare the mixture fresh each time.

lavender-blossom-1595584_640

A Peaceful Herbal Sachet

The same herbs listed above can be made into an herb sachet. To make one, you’ll also need:

  • A square of white, blue, or light purple cloth
  • A ribbon or needle and thread (to close it with)
  • Any other peace-promoting curios you like. These can include metal peace sign charms, a small figure of a dove, tumbled amethyst stones, or anything else that feels right to you.

To begin, make sure the fabric, ribbon/thread, and curios are cleansed according to your favorite method. You can set them in the sun for a little bit, use sound, sprinkle them with blessed salt, fume them with cleansing incense, or whatever other way you like. When they are prepared, it’s time to get to work.

Hold the herbs in your dominant hand. Close your eyes, and feel yourself drawing power up from the earth, and down from the sky. Allow these energies to mingle in you, and direct them into the herbs in your hand. Say,

“[Name of herb(s)], I ask that you lend your power to this spell. Chase tension and stress from here, and bring peace and calm in its place.”

Place them in the center of the square of fabric.

Repeat this process with the curios, substituting the name of the curio for the name of the herb. Place them in the center of the fabric with the herbs as well.

Fashion the square of fabric into a little pouch, either by drawing the corners together and tying them with the ribbon, or by sewing it into a little pillow shape with the needle and thread. When you are through, lightly kiss the sachet, and hold it to your forehead. Say,

“With this spell, I draw in the energies of tranquility, that my home might be a respite from the hardships and strife in the world. Let no stress remain, only peace shall reign.”

Tuck the sachet in a hidden corner of the room you wish to influence. You can let that sachet take care of your whole home, or, if you think your place could use a little extra help, make a sachet to hide in every room of your home.

Remember: If You Can’t Source Ingredients…

… Don’t sweat it! Can’t find an amethyst? Most of the plain stones in your yard are actually variants of clear or white quartz, both of which will do in a pinch. No fresh lilac flowers or lavender buds? You might have a few bags of Earl Grey tea, which is made with lavender and bergamot (which is also helpful for lifting moods and instilling courage). Missing other herbs? See what plants you have in your yard — even “weeds” like clover are associated with things like love and protection, two properties that would be very useful here. You can also check your kitchen. Oranges, in particular, are great for bringing joy and sun energy to whatever spells include them. Zest the peels, allow the zest to dry, and keep it in a cool, dark place for whenever you need a little sun magic.

The most important part of any spell is declaring your intention and focusing your energy on that intention. You can have all of the right herbs, and it still won’t work if you don’t focus the power properly.

Magic is adaptable. You can experiment and bend things to suit what you have on hand. While there are some spells that don’t accept substitutions, the majority of them can be worked around to some degree. Since going out to shops to source rare and hard-to-find ingredients isn’t really feasible right now, this is the perfect time to see how you can adapt your magic to your landscape.

Witchcraft

Energy Cleansing Your Apartment (When You Can’t Burn Anything)

J.

If you’ve been following the saga of the gas leaks, you can probably guess why I put off doing a full-on apartment cleanse. It’s a good idea to do this as soon as — if not right before — you move in. It is a less-good idea to do this if you plan on burning things, and your kitchen smells like mercaptan.

Anyway! Now that the fire hazards are dealt with, I wanted to talk about apartment cleansing.

You should cleanse anything that’s been used by another person, and any time that thing has seen arguments, illness, death, or other struggles. You also want to cleanse your space whenever things just start to feel gross, heavy, or tense. I don’t support “good vibes only” culture, but it’s definitely important to wipe the energetic slate clean once you’ve experienced something bad and allowed yourself to process the trauma. This is especially true if you perform other spells or rituals in your home — there are some energies you don’t really want to keep around if you don’t have to.

Most house cleansing rituals involve things like candles and incense. These rituals are great, and extremely effective, but not always the best choice — what if your lease prohibits burning things? What if you have artwork, or other special objects that would be damaged by repeated exposure to incense smoke or soot? What if you’re asthmatic and shouldn’t be breathing in burning particulates? What if you might explode your entire block, because your building is very very old and literally everything is leaky?
You get my drift.

So, what does house or apartment cleansing do?

Ideally, cleansing a space gets rid of negative or stagnant energy, and brings in fresh energy. Psychologically, it can help give you closure after you’ve had a rough time, and create a sense of optimism and enthusiasm for the time ahead. It can also mentally prepare you to be the new steward of the place you’re cleansing.

What does it entail?

From my experience, house cleansing and house blessing are usually part of the same ritual. You cleanse the space, then you bless it. Some people roll them into one action by asking their guardian spirits, ancestors, and/or deities to both cleanse and bless.

Generally, cleansing a space involves walking around the area either clockwise or counterclockwise (depending on tradition), performing a cleansing act, and asking that the space be cleared of any bad vibes. A cleansing act can be wafting the smoke of burning herbs or incense over the walls, asperging them with water, sprinkling a perimeter of salt, carrying a white candle dressed with cleansing oil, or even just touching the walls and floor and declaring the intention that they be cleansed.

Incense and candles figure prominently in many popular energy clearing rituals, but they aren’t a necessity. There are plenty of other things you can do if burning things isn’t possible or desirable for you.

1. Lemons. Everywhere.

Lemons have a well-deserved reputation for busting up stagnant or negative energy. Even the scent of lemons is uplifting, and lemon juice is very helpful when it comes to actually physically cleaning your place.

You can use lemons in a variety of ways, from adding sliced lemons or lemon juice to your mop water, to leaving whole lemons in places where people tend to gather. I prefer to use them like this:

  1. Take a whole, fresh lemon, and slice it into rounds.
  2. Take a generous quantity of sea salt, and sprinkle it over the rounds. (Make sure to cover both sides!)
  3. Place them in a dish, and set it wherever you feel needs some cleansing.
  4. Keep an eye on the lemon slices — if they begin to get moldy, discolored, or mushy, discard them and try again with fresh ones. It might take a couple of lemons before everything’s thoroughly cleared up.

lemon-slices-232210_640

2. Asperge with water.

Asperging with blessed or holy water is probably my favorite way to cleanse a space. Depending on your tradition, “blessed” or “holy” might vary. In mine, water gathered from three natural sources is used in ritual. Alternatives include:

  • Water left to charge in sun- or moonlight.
  • Water to which has been added a pinch each of frankincense ash and sea salt.
  • A hydrosol made of a cleansing herb, like rosemary or sage.
  • Water you have asked your deities to bless.

Asperging involves dipping a bundle of herbs (or your fingers) into the water, and sprinkling it on the object to be cleansed. Sprinkle it on your walls, floor, and ceiling (if you can reach it) as you declare your intention to cleanse the space. Make sure to get the corners!

3. Use your own energy.

You don’t really need anything other than yourself, if you don’t have other tools at your disposal. You can stand in the middle of each room in your home, raise power however you customarily do, and release it into the walls, floors, ceilings, and corners of your space. Visualize it as a bright light that touches every surface of your home, absorbing and disappearing into them, leaving no trace of negativity behind.

4. Make some noise.

I feel like a lot of practitioners underestimate the power of noise (but, I admit, I might just be inordinately fond of raising a ruckus). Coupled with light and fresh air, there are few things as helpful for clearing the energy of a place. Open the windows, get a nice breeze going, let the sunlight in, and turn up the volume — at least, as long as your neighbors won’t complain.

There are a few different ways that you can use sound to help the energy of a place:

  • Play a set of chimes. Ascending scales are said to purify, and descending scales banish.
  • Play uplifting music.
  • Play Solfeggio tones. Each one is said to have a different effect, so it’s best to experiment and find the one that works for you.
  • Play nature sounds. Running water, insect chirps, and birdsong have their own, special effects. There’s a reason they’re part of so many meditation tracks!

color-1405478_640

5. Salt.

Sea salt is a quick and easy way to cleanse pretty much anything that won’t be damaged by salt. Personally, I don’t use it that often because I try to do most of my cleansing-of-things outside, and I don’t want it to leach into the soil — but I can vouch that it works.

To use it, sprinkle sea salt in the corners of your rooms while declaring your intention to clear the space. You don’t need very much — just a pinch will do just fine.

Every tradition has their own ways of preparing a home, from cleansing, to blessing, to protecting it and inviting in prosperity for its occupants. If you’re in a place where you can’t turn to candle or incense magic, you still have plenty of tools at your disposal.

art, Witchcraft

Spiders, Sea Perch Eyes, and Salvador Dalí

J.

I’ve been writing a thing about sleep, which has resulted in a not-insignificant amount of research into everything from sleep apnea statistics, to what kind of effects certain sounds have on the body’s cortisol level, to what Salvador Dalí used to do with sturgeon eyes.

Let me back up.

I once read a paper on Academia.edu (which I highly recommend if you’re at all interested in Semitic mysticism, lecanomancy, ancient Greek magical texts, or Egyptian magic). Ever since, I regularly get emails about some incredibly interesting subjects. For example, I have a pretty good handle on how to get a skull to talk for divination purposes, as well as how to punish it if it only tells lies and refuses to stop yelling. I don’t recall the exact search string that led to me getting a link to a copy of Dalí’s 50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship, but I did.

In it, he describes an ideal meal of sea urchins (“three dozen sea urchins,” to be exact, “gathered on one of the last two days that precede the full moon, choosing only those whose star is coral red and discarding the yellow ones”) and beans à la Catalane, after which you are to sit in front of a blank canvas without any light, until it’s become too dark to see it.

“It will become more and more dim until, when night has submerged you, you will completely have ceased to see it, or at most will only be vaguely aware of the space it occupies. Continue still to look at it, without remorse, for another good fifteen minutes, for it is under these circumstances that your spirit will work best and most decisively, and do not worry about making the maid wait when she calls you and says that the soup is on the table, for after what you have eaten at noon, your long afternoon sleep and everything that you are in the midst of painting in the dark, without yet even suspecting it, you have already in a sense had your supper, and more.”

After this, he recommends dining on sea perch, specifically the eyes. After consuming all but the hard kernels inside, you are to keep them in your mouth. Then, after getting into bed:

“[T]ake these eyes out again. Keep one in your hand, and put the other two on a small book or on a black box which you will rest on your knees, placing them at a certain distance from each other in such a way that, when you hold your forefinger in front of the two super-white balls and focus on your forefinger, the eyes of the sea perch will join, thanks to the precious distance between your own eyes, the grace and the mystery of your binocular vision, and the two eyes of the sea perch will become one single ball. This ball will seem to exert a hypnotic effect on you, and it is very desirable that on that night you should go to sleep while looking at it. But at the same time that you are staring at these two balls which have become one, it is furthermore necessary that, holding the third sea perch eye — the one which your wife has smilingly yielded to you — between the crossed forefinger and middle-finger of your right hand, you should gently caress it. You will then have the striking and unbelievable sensation of having contact with two sea perch eyes, and not merely with the one which is really between your fingers.”

This is “the secret of the sleep with three sea-perch eyes,” and, ideally, will make your sleep start off on the “right, good, and wise path!”

Later, he talks about the importance of constructing an aranearium — that is, a place to keep a spider. Granted, his ideal setup is strikingly different from mine. When I kept tarantulas, a small glass or acrylic aquarium with a suitable substrate and a very firmly-locking lid was enough to keep everything from a docile rose hair to a tetchy cobalt blue. He explains:

“The best aranearium is constructed with a slender olive branch, which you shape as nearly as possible into a perfectly round hoop, leaving four or five olive leaves clinging to the outer part of the circle, on which the spider will enjoy placing himself on various occasions. This hoop of olive wood you will secure on a four-foot pine pole provided with a solid base. At the bottom of the hoop place a small box in the shape of a perfect cube, of very green pine, provided with two holes, one in the top, and the other in one of the sides. This empty cube will serve as the spider’s nest. Within the previously moistened box, introduce a little earth and allow it to dry well in the sun. Since amber is very sympathetic to the spider — and how much more to the painter! — you must always keep a little ball of it on the cube, which you will use to magnetize the tip of your wand, with which you will manipulate and train your spider, so to speak, and with which you will reach to it its feasts of flies, of which you must always have several in reserve, which you may keep in a little bowl beside the ball of amber — for between amber and dead flies there also exist numerous affinities.

I’m interested in his ideas about the affinities between dead flies and amber. We know fossilized insects are often found inside of it, and that amber exhibits an interesting  triboelectric effect. Could that be adjacent to what he’s referring to? Or is it something closer to Remedios Varo’s exercises in effecting extraordinary change through the arrangement of shoes and stuffed hummingbirds?

He goes on to explain that a good artist’s studio needs five of these araneariums, for a particular purpose. You must place a crystal bowl full of water so that it reflects the landscape, and arrange the five araneariums in a line between you and it. Then, looking at the reflection in the water through the webs in the hoops of the araneariums, you can see the land adorned with a “glorious rainbow aureole produced by the irisation of your araneariums[.]” Ideally, you’ll do this around age twenty, and avoid ever looking at that sight again. This sight with therefore move you so much, it will have the effect of “set[ting] traps when we are young for our future adult emotions[.]” In other words, create a kind of a snare for nostalgia, so we can be moved by a smell, a postcard, or something equally small and mundane.

I admit, I’m not much of a fan of Dalí as a personality — while his work was undoubtedly brilliant, he was also arguably the first “celebrity artist.” While there were plenty of other famous artists before him, he arguably treated self-promotion as just as much of an art form as painting. Was he really building spider-homes and caressing sea perch eyes? I can’t say. I do find some interesting parallels between his writing and Remedios Varo’s letters and journals, though, as well as other occult practices.

Maybe I should build a spider box or five. For now, I’ll content myself with Rigoberta’s company.

Rigoberta, the orb weaver.
Rigoberta, the orb weaver.

life, Witchcraft

Let’s manifest the #$@% out of a place!

J.

I love my apartment. I really do. It’s cozy, it’s quiet (well… when one of the neighbors doesn’t trip their smoke alarm, at least), it’s got hardwood floors, and the bathroom has its own window. Despite some of the tragedy this neighborhood has seen, this complex has been home to me and many other people.

Between me, my S.O., and our cats, we’ve really outgrown our space. It’s a studio, and not only is it packed, it is decidedly not a large enough play gym for our very active kitty boy. I have a whole set of shelves just for herbs, oils, and art supplies, countless plants, and my easel takes up an entire corner to itself — when you’ve only got four corners to start with, this is not optimal. Studios are also subjected to the same disadvantages as a lot of tiny homes. When you have limited space, you have limited things you can put in it. When you have limited things, the things you do have undergo a lot more wear and tear. This is especially true of furniture and, unless you’re lucky enough to score some rugged, solid wood thrift store finds, it becomes noticeable pretty quickly. Having your bed in your kitchen/living room/work space also makes for some awkward entertaining.

We knew we wanted to move months ago, but the timing wasn’t right. It would’ve been tough to afford, and, after some complicated car trouble, we knew that moving to a less expensive spot just outside the city would make things harder on us in a lot of ways. Originally, we planned to wait a little bit. Since my S.O. got his bike, though, our options have opened up tremendously!

Which means I gotta find an apartment.

(Let me also add that I’ve begun to develop a hate-on for the word “manifest.” I think the internet has ruined it for me. It’s also the most accurate word to use here, so I’m just going to deal.)
(And complain a little.)

I’ve posted in the past about the ways specificity can make or break a spell. Fortunately, I’ve got a list of things I really want in a domicile, and not too many deal breakers. I’m not exactly looking for a penthouse suite, and my S.O. would be happy with anything that’s larger than what we have and has a separate bedroom.

What can I say? We’re adaptable.

New Home Manifestation Spell

A Cancer moon is good for work involving finding or buying a home. If you can’t perform it when the moon is in Cancer, try to do it on a Thursday.

For this spell, I used:

  • A citrine stone. Since I am trying to transform my list of wants into reality, I was careful to choose a natural citrine over a heat-treated stone. Here’s why.
  • Paper.
  • A pen and non-toxic ink.
  • A yellow chime candle or tea light. (I like using untreated yellow beeswax.)
  • Bay leaves.
  • A fireproof bowl.
  • Success or Luck oil. Use your favorite recipe or, if you don’t have one, dilute a few drops of frankincense in sweet almond, jojoba, or another carrier oil.

You can do this after casting a circle, opening the gateway, or any other spellcasting preparation you usually do, or simply after grounding and centering yourself.

  1. Begin by taking a few minutes to meditate on what you want in a house — how big should it be? What kind of neighborhood or community do you want to live in? Is there anything you need to live near? Do you want carpet, or hard flooring? Only you know what’s important to you in a home, so take the time to picture the perfect spot for you!
  2. When you have an idea of what you need, begin writing it down on the paper. Make a list of all of the details that are important to you, and be sure to read over it afterwards before considering it finished. There might be deal breakers (like mold or cockroaches) that you neglected to mention.
  3. After the list is complete, anoint the yellow candle and all four corners of the paper with the oil. Fold it neatly, and place it under the candle and citrine crystal.
  4. Light the candle.
  5. Now, on the bay leaf, write your desire: “I manifest the home I desire.”
  6. Light the bay leaf with the candle flame, and place it in the fireproof bowl. As it burns, say:

    “I wish to find a place for me,
    the perfect home where I feel free.
    Warm and cozy, where I can be,
    safe and comfortable, so mote it be.”

  7. Allow the candle to burn until it snuffs itself out.
  8. Leave the crystal in place, until you are ready to tour a new home or speak to a rental agency. On those days, dress it with a drop of the oil and carry it in your pocket. When you return, repeat steps 5 and 6 and place the stone back on top of the paper until it is needed again.

Happy house hunting!