Category: Techniques & How Tos

How to Make Moon Water

Bringing things back to basics with a how to make moon water. I know this seems like a pretty obvious thing to some folks, but I often get messages asking me what this ingredient is or what that ingredient does. Ingredients many practitioners consider very basic, like full moon water.

First, let’s cover what full moon water is. Moon water is water that has absorbed the light of a moon. This can be any moon phase at all. Usually though, when people refer to moon water, they’re referring to full moon water.

As you might guess, full moon water is water that has absorbed the light of a full moon. New moon water is water that has absorbed the light (or lack thereof) of the new moon. Waning and waxing moon water can also be used.

Now there are some variations of names here and some additives to take into account. I’ve seen people refer to new moon water as starlight water because without the moon, it’s really water just gaining starlight. it’s also called dark moon water, because the new moon is sometimes called the dark moon.

People also will divide the moon water up further by including and calculating out the astrological and planetary positions. I don’t have much to do with astrology, not my field of expertise, so I tend to mark the data down, but I rarely do anything with it beyond grabbing a jar marked “full moon water”.

There’s also some variation on how to actually make full moon water. what you actually need is water. But the type of water matters to some people. Others add intent to the water. Other people add crystals, herbs, salt, and so on.

Truth be told, adding these things tends to make it no longer just moon water. Adding a crystal in the water really makes it a moon water gem elixir and adding herbs in the water is just a herbal infusion. But if that’s how you want to make your moon water, then go for it! Just know that most spells aren’t referring to anything other than water that has absorbed the moon.

Ready for the recipe?

Ingredients:

  • Water, any kind. Purified, spring, bottled, filtered, or tap.
  • A clear jar with sealing lid
  • A paint marker, any color or label
  • A clear, cloudless night during the full moon

First, make sure your jar and lid are clean.

Next, pour your water into the jar and cap it. You can enchant the water, put some intent in there (such as matching the intents to what the moon phase tends to represent), or you can say nothing at all.

Place the jar in a window or outside where it will be in clear sight of the moon. This should be done after moon rise (so, pretty much as soon as you can see the moon and after the sun has set).

You can leave the jar out there as long as you’d like, but try to take it back inside before sunrise.

Label the jar by writing on the jar with the paint marker or using a pre-made label. The label should at least read “full moon water” (or whatever phase the moon is at), but you might also want to add a location, date, weather, and so on to your label.

Place the jar somewhere dark without sunlight, like a closet or cupboard. use the full moon water in spells, to anoint items for more power, abundance, happiness, to bless something with lunar energy, or to charge an item.

If you’re making any other type of moon water, this above also applies, just do it on a clear night where the moon is in the right phase.

I even made you a little pinterest how to for you all. Easier to reference, for sure. Hope this helps!

What Makes a Crossroads a Crossroads?

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What Makes a Crossroads a Crossroads

Have you ever looked at a spell and it says something like “leave the object at a crossroads”? Many, many spells end this way and for good reason. Leaving an item at a crossroads magically and energetically disperses the energy. It’s good when you’re leaving a general offering for spirits. It’s great when you’re trying to cast a non-targeted spell.

Leaving spell work in specific places is usually because you don’t want it around. As said, sometimes it’s for safety’s sake (ie curses or spirits), but other times it’s for things like healing spells.

If you used a rock to remove a disease from somebody while healing them, you don’t want to keep that disease-ridden rock. So put it at a crossroad where it’s away from you.

Some witches leave things at the crossroads so others can pick it up and a curse can be passed that way. And some witches use it to bless those in the same manner.

It’s also commonly used in getting rid of spirits and curses. Capture a spirit and release it in a crossroads far away from your home. Toss the remains of the curse you’ve casted or the dregs of whatever uncrossing spell you’ve done to rid yourself of a curse. Both instances ask you to visit a crossroads far away from you home.

A third usage is an energy reset. This usually is used by a practitioner that does a lot of land-based or local magic or works with a lot of spirits. Sometimes, you just need to cleanse the energy lines and the space.

 

All of those things can be done at a crossroads. But what makes a crossroads a crossroads? What are the unspoken rules about crossroads? And why are there unspoken rules at all?

First, let’s establish what a crossroads is.

It’s an intersection. Or, rather, a crossroad is where two or more streets intersect or cross one another.

Properly, it should be any intersection where four streets meet and none of the roads are a dead end or cul-de-sac. However, train-tracks and roads, bridges, and so are are also crossroads and can be used, even if they are literal streets.

Plus, dead ends and cul-de-sacs can be useful in crossroad including spells – want to stop energy from spreading? Want to make a boundary within your neighborhood? Those kinds of spells could benefit from streets that end abruptly.

Similarly, a corpse road is a road that traditionally refers to the pathways or roads the dead were carried on from the church to the graveyards. Often, corpse roads were separate paths with gateways because of fear that the dead linger on such roads. Now-a-days, any road used to carry the dead from one place to another could be considered a corpse road.

I like to combine the two. My home, the Crossroads House, sits between two crossroads (literally two intersections) and is behind a funeral home. So my crossroads are corpse roads. However, if you don’t work with spirits, perhaps selecting crossroads that are not corpse roads is more beneficial to you. Weigh your choices carefully.

When it comes to symology and magical purposes, crossroads are well-known world-wide. I’ll quote from The Complete Dictionary of Symbols edited by Jack Tressider (pg 128-129):

The unknown – hazard, choice, destiny, supernatural powers. The important attached to intersecting ways in most ancient cultures is remarkable. The fact that they were natural stops for wayfarers only partially accounts for the number of shrines, altars, standing stones, chapels, or Calvaries sited there. In Peru and elsewhere pyramids were sometimes built up over years by travellers adding votive stones as they passed through crossroads. Spirits were thought to haunt them, hence they were sites for divination and sacrifice – and, by extension, places of the execution or burial or people or things of which society wished to be rid. Many African tribes dumped rubbish things there so that any residual harm might be adsorbed. Roman crossroads in the time of Augustus were protected by two lares campitales (tutelary deities of place). Offerings were made to them or to the god Janus and other protective divinities, who could look in all directions, such as Hermes, to whom three-headed statues were placed at Greek crossroads. Hekate, as a death goddess, was a more sinister presence, as was the supreme Toltec god, Tezcatlipoca, who challenged warriors at crossroads. Some version of the Oedipus myth placed his faithful encounters with his unknown father, and the Sphinx at crossroads – an analogy for destiny. Jung saw the crossroads as a maternal symbol of the union of opposites. More often, they seem an image of human fears and hopes at a moment of choice.

That’s a lot of words so I’ll break it down.

Crossroads have and will always be a symbol of choice. In the past (and even today) travel by the roads is pretty much the only way to go. In the past it was safer because other travelers can band together to protect one another. Today, property laws say you can’t trespass making roads pretty much the only way to travel.

Because people traveled on them shrines, altars, and holy places were erected at intersections. Sometimes even notes were left by signs. It was also a great place to meet people coming and going.

It was and is also a place where spirits dwell. Part of that is from the shrines, others is because of the executions. I see crossroads a bit like a spiritual water cooler. Spirits seem to collect there because of all the different energies coming from different directions (and be carried by different people and things).

Additionally, if you believe that energy travels via roads (whether naturally or through people passing on those roads), then crossroads are very magically powerful.

Because of the spiritual symbolism behind them, especially in regards to actual spirits, there’s a lot of unspoken rules about crossroads. Here’s a few of them.

Never use the same route home

This means if you came up the eastern road, you should use the western, southern, or northern route home. Don’t use the eastern. This is because a spirit or energy could follow you home through the circuit you’ve made. Instead, take a different way home, which should spiritually or energetically get them of your trail.

Never respond to voices at the crossroads

Sometimes, you’re at a crossroads and you may here people talking. Logically, this is because crossroads tend to be open spaces and voices travel. However, it may also be spirits or faeries. In any case, don’t respond to the voices you’ve heard. Just go about your business and be on your way.

Do not make deals at the crossroads

This follows the above rule a bit further. If you go to the crossroads and see another person there, then keep on going. Don’t stop to talk with them, don’t stop to do your work, and don’t turn around and go back the way you came. Don’t meet their eyes and, above all, do not make deals. Simply put, there’s a strong belief that if you meet another person at the crossroads, it’s probably going to be a faerie, spirit, demon, or even the Devil, depending on who you ask. It’s Bad News. Skip the drama and don’t even stop.

Never leave items with your address or name at the crossroads

This is not only for spiritual safety, but your physical safety. Someone could simply google you and cause all sorts of problems. Spiritually, offering your real name to spirits, other practitioners, etc is often questionable. Your name is a piece of you. Guard it.

Try to leave environmentally safe items at the crossroads

This isn’t a rule, but it should be. Often times, we leave leftovers of spell work and other things at the crossroads. Typically speaking, it gets cleaned up when the city comes by or neighbors. But animals and the less fortunate also use or consume what they find at the crossroads. So if you’re going to leave an item that is not for consumption (like sugary bread baked with glass for a curse) then bury it at the crossroads. You may need to search for a crossroads that you can discreetly dig at, but it’s worth the trouble to keep animals or people from consuming unsafe things. This is also true for jar spells. Consider, does it really need to be in a glass jar?

 

I use crossroads fairly extensively in my craft, when it calls for it. But I’ve been asked what a crossroad is about a dozen times a year, so it was time to type up my thoughts about it.

Crossroads certainly have their place in magical practices. It has it’s place in folklore. It’s certainly a symbolic feature and we use it often in media to describe being torn or in many places. Remembering this folklore and symbolism is important, but you’ll also want to take into account your own practices to see if crossroads fit your practice.

 

Post includes an original tumblr post.

7 Magical Things to Do When You Want Love (But Don’t Want Romance)

Valentine’s Day is almost upon us. Even if you don’t pay any attention to this couple-centic holiday, many pagan related festivals also focus on love (or sex). But what about the times in between?

Have any of you ever been at a point in your life when you’re ready to encourage new love into your life but you don’t quite know how to do that? Or you’re not really ready to dip your toes into the dating pool? It could also be that you just don’t have a ton of love in your life and you want more of it. You could be single and actually really love being single but that doesn’t mean you don’t get lonely occasionally. Or you might be asexual but that doesn’t mean that you don’t want love or cuddles sometimes. Love is not a singular thing but a many branched tree and many times there’s lots of branches that are forgotten or ignored.

Whatever your reason may be, there’s a lot of reasons why people may want love but aren’t willing to ready to dive into the big stuff like formal spells or dating apps. This is a list for people in those in between places that’s not here or there.

 

7 Magical Things to Do When You Want Love (But Don't Want Romance)

 

01 Take a luxurious bath with all the works

This is commonly seen as a self-care or self-love tactic (and you’ll be seeing a lot of those as well here) but it’s also super good when you want to attract something to you.

Specifically, this would be the reason you break out the fancy candles and the soaps that you never use. Make up some salt or sugar scrubs or buy some. Make sure that you’re alone, if possible, and you’re ready to dedicate some time to this.

You may also want to find some music or white noise soundscapes to add in. This is a personal choice. Maybe you want some sexy musics or your favorite tunes. Maybe you want to set the mood for yourself with music that reflects the kind of love you want to experience or you feel a spiritual connection to a song or type of sound and want that to play while you’re bathing. Reading a book or scrolling through your feed or watching a movie while you’re in the bath is always an option.

Before you set up the bath, however, take a shower. Wash off the old you before you set up the bath. During that time, focus on cleansing and rejuvenation techniques and spells. Meditation is also a good choice during the shower portion. Then ready the bath right after that.

The purpose of taking a bath like this is to not only give yourself some primping and care, but also to wash away all the old gunk that might be attached to you. The bath gives you a chance to bring up a little luxury, glamour, and more positive aspects of yourself that you’ve forgotten. You might not ever remember or need to wear your jasmine perfume but you can bath in jasmine scented soap and get the same effect, even if all you do is crawl into a pair of sweats afterward and binge watch Netflix.

 

02 Keep some of your hair

People have a thing about hair. Some people find it really gross. Others find it extremely attractive. And some folks don’t care either way. Only some hair is considered socially unacceptable on certain bodies and some hair is considered unacceptable at all times, even though it naturally grows?

It’s kind of weird to me since our hair is typically some of the cleanest parts of the body because we often use very harsh chemicals on it. (Plus, so long as you have access to a good diet and water, your hair often maintain itself in non-extreme temperatures without any chemical cleaning agents at all.) The hair on your head is probably cleaner than your hands, for example. It’s weird.

Hair, however, is an incredibly traditional ingredient in magic, especially love magic. Next time to get a haircut or trim, keep some of your hair if you can. Wrap it in a red cloth and put the whole bundle in a box. Keep the box somewhere safe where no one else may run across it but it’s still close and accessible (under the bed or in a bedside table is a good place)

Before you tuck that box away though, put in some love-drawing ingredients. It may be rose quartz or dried rose petals. (Some coins wouldn’t go amiss either, I’m sure.) The idea is that the box holds a part of you. It’s you, so treat it carefully and with love. Add items to the box that you want to bring into your life and keep it safe.

 

03 Tell the birds

Do you live near trees or often see birds nearby? Tell the birds what you’re looking for when it comes to love.

This can definitely be something that makes the neighbors think you’re an odd duck, but it’s definitely something that will work. Tell the birds, who are often chatterboxes and knowledgeable in folklore, about what you’re looking for. Afterwards, look for that same bird species as a sign or omen of potential love.

 

04 Tell the wind

Telling the birds might give you omens and signs of when potential lovers are nearby, but telling the wind can bring you even more peculiar things.

On a windy day, go outside and whisper the kind of love you’re looking for. Be specific as you’d like. Tell the wind how you’d like to spend a windy day with the love you’d like to have. For example, if you want a platonic cuddle buddy, then describe how on a windy day you’d curl up together and watch Practical Magic and eat brownies.

The thing with telling the wind what you’re looking for versus the birds is that birds only bring local and potential love. The wind may bring you a best friend that lives across the world that you’ll only ever get to have video chats with.

 

05 Pick your love song

Have you ever heard a song that’s just exactly the kind of love you want to experience? Or maybe it’s a song used during a scene where the characters share the exact kind of love or relationship you want to have. It might be a song classic or it could be something a Disney song. It could be instrumental or it might be from a musical. Whatever your song is, you probably have on in mind.

Use that! Pick your song and play it whenever you feel lonely. Make a whole playlist if you want. Play the song or songs before you head on when you’re feeling up to meeting new people or want to find love.

Love songs are often used for just couples. Pick a song that represents the love you want to feel and use that like a blanket of comfort and warmth. This is officially permission to listen to cheesy love songs just because you like them.

Can’t think of a song? You can write one or use a poem which you stick to music.

 

06 Grow a Plant

Flowers are often gifted as presents during this season but buying yourself a plant and reading up on how to love and care for it is pretty amazing. It’s saying, “I want you to live and be happy so I can live and be happy.”

The more you care for a plant, the more it cares for you. Tell your plant what you want from a lover (or your life in general) and care for the plant as best you can.

It can be any kind of plant you want, from a big leafy palm to a delicate orchid. It’s up to you. Pick something that you find interesting or pretty and just pick one. Focus on learning everything you can to take care of that plant.

As it grows, it should allow you to share some of the love bottled up inside of you. Sometimes we have too much love in our bodies for the amount of love we are allowed to share. This is an excellent way of sharing that love without getting weird looks.

 

07 Carry your tears and heartache

This one is tricky but it’s really good for when you’ve been hurt a lot by love and want someone who understands.

Get a small bottle or locket that you can carry with you. Whenever you cry or feel terrible because you’re lonely or want love, hold the bottle or locket, open it up, and let your tears fall onto it. Tell your hurts to the charm, pouring your heart out. Be as honest as you’d like to be. Cry over your ex. Complain about how you can never find someone who wants what you want. Express yourself.

Just be sure to tell the bottle or locket not just how sad and cruel the world is, but also what you want to feel when it comes to love. Add in some self-love for yourself too. Go ahead and flatter yourself. Tell all those things to this object and carry it with you everyone. You’ve poured out your heart and soul to this thing and and it will look for someone who will mimics what you want in life.

This doesn’t have to be a bottle or locket but it could be a necklace, pair of earrings, a handbag, a journal, etc. It should be something you can hold.

 

There’s lots of other things you can do. The thing is to think about what you want to be feeling and experiencing. If you want someone to come over and hang out, cuddle and play video games, then look for that. Adapt spells for that. Love doesn’t just have to be about sex or romance. It can be a lot of things. Allow yourself to feel love, in whatever form you need.

 

 

 

Pop Culture Spells Are Real Spells

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I’m sure you’ve heard it before. “That’s not a real spell” or “You can’t use that spell from Charmed” or my personal favorite “You need to use a spell from a real spell book not one that you made up or stole from TV.”

Some of my followers are laughing. You should be. The sad part is I’ve actually been told these things by other witches. I’ve heard them from actual people actually saying and believing this.

So I’m going to say this straight: this kind of thinking is illogical, infuriating, and bullshit.

Candle Smoke

Someone had to write those spells. Even in your precious “real spell book” (whatever that means because what separates a spell book from other books except intent and instructions?). I’m not even going to touch the fact that some actually people believe you shouldn’t write your own spells (or that you need a particular skill level or talent for it). Nope, I’m not going there. But I will go to that place where I can rant about the other stuff.

I’ve used spells from all sorts of places. TV shows, movies, books, poetry, video games, songs, instrumental music, even humming. I’ve used it all. None of the spells have failed because they were written for a video game. None. If they failed it was because a) Turning into a dragon is a bit out of reach at the moment (but who knows in the future?) b) I didn’t actually put effort into the spell and/or was just fooling around c) I didn’t power or empower the spell properly (look, unicorn horn and dragon teeth are kind of hard to come by, OK?) d) spells sometimes fail.

Let me give some examples of the cool shit I’ve done with spells from media forms:

  • Hair support spell – TV, slightly altered to turn from a curse into something more useable on myself
  • Attraction spell – a mix up of two songs with selected and slightly altered verses.
  • Short-term construct (created familiar) – song, verbatim
  • Mirror scrying spell – children’s book
  • Curse – based on a curse from a spell book, re-adapted for my novel, then re-adapted to be less vicious and used in real life.
  • Protection spells – general idea used by thousands of media forms AND witches
  • Harvesting spell – humming
  • Blessing for the dead – movie
  • Water boiling – a play
  • Annual festival ritual opening – poems
  • Annual festival ritual closing – anime / manga
  • Healing spell – Disney movie
  • Faerie conversation opener / spell – video game

All of these, by the way, worked as they were intended to. All of these were used in the same year.

Spell and Herb Candle by This Crooked Crown

Why is a spell written for a video game is less… whatever than one written by a magical practitioner from a hundred years ago? Why are words of a dead person considered more valid? They aren’t casting the damn spell. You are. So it doesn’t really matter where the spell came from because you’re casting it. You. You can turn anything into a spell. Even humming.

(The only exception I’ll make is if the spell itself is a living spell that gains power the more you use it. But that’s the only exception and I’ve never actually seen a spell like that in any books or ever used as an argument so we’ll put that exception aside.)

I really don’t understand the logic of a person who says “that’s not a real spell”. When they are asked to explain why that example isn’t a real spell they never say “because there’s no vocalizations, so it’s really just a working” (which, in my opinion, would be a valid argument and then the word choices would change for the rest of the discussion appropriately). They never say that. They just say “you can’t use a spell from Final Fantasy! You just can’t.” When asked to further explain, they’ll simply keep saying “Because it’s not a real spell.” It’s a circle of fallacy.

What people mean when they say something’s not a real spell is that it was not written by a practitioner for a practitioner to be used as a spell. That’s what they’re saying. And that’s bullshit. It’s also poisonous thinking.

No spell is valid until you do the spell and verify it for yourself. I don’t care that Sparkly Pony Butt the Greatest Witch There Is says the spell works. You. Didn’t. Do. The. Spell. If you didn’t test it, then there’s no it’ll work just because Sparkly Pony Butt says so. If you do the spell and it does work? Great! Even if the spell doesn’t work, that doesn’t mean the spell still isn’t valid just because it didn’t work for you. You are one person. You can’t invalidate an entire body of work just because it didn’t work for you. You might not like Game of Thrones but that doesn’t mean it isn’t valid entertainment to other people, right?

For All Sorts of Money Powder by This Crooked Crown

On that idea, you can’t invalidate a spell from some media form just because it was written for a character. The character used it, didn’t they? The spell most likely worked for them too. So… why can’t it work for you? What? Because magic is different from their fictional world? The results might be less flashy and different but you’ll probably still get results. Using media forms for spells is brilliant. I’ll give you some example:

You broke up with your now ex-lover. You really still hate that asshole. They cheated on you, kicked your dog, shit in your cornflakes, called your art ugly, whatever. You want to curse them. Your ex-lover once charmed you by reading their favorite poem to you. Use that poem against them. Curse them by turning that poem into a weapon. Don’t change the words, change the intent of the words. Make it so every time that ex-lover utters a line from that poem they become entangled further in the curse. Make it so their shoelaces are never tied, their bread will always spoil, they’ll develop an uncontrollable bladder, or they’ll feel your heartbreak every time they read that poem. Every. Time.

Another example: You ran across an amazing healing spell in a video game. It is literally the most beautiful thing you’ve read and it strikes you in ways you can’t quite articulate. Use it. You feel a connection to it. That person you’re healing doesn’t care where you’re getting that spell from. All they care about is their flu going elsewhere.

Example Three: You’re watching Doctor Who and the Doctor said something that struck a cord. After thinking about it a little, you realize you can make it a spell. You’re excited and tell your Whovian friend who says you can’t use it (the the snarkiest way possible). The Doctor doesn’t believe in magic and blah blah blah. Now you’re a little heartbroken. Re-watch a couple of your favorite episodes (I’d avoid Doomsday) and do it anyway. Also yes, your Sonic Screwdriver can be your wand. Ignore anyone who says otherwise.

Example Four: Harry Potter. Use it. Love it. Ignore assholes who make snide comments. They aren’t on the Quidditch team and they’re just jealous. Seriously though, Harry Potter is often cited as an inspiration for many. Some of you probably came to magical practices from Harry Potter. Why shouldn’t a spell from the series be used as well? You might not be able to make something float as well as Hermoine, but you could probably use Wingardium Leviosa to lighten a heavy bag or box.

Pop Culture Spells Are REAL Spells by This Crooked Crown

Words are just words until they are given meaning. Given intent. We are the ones that ascribe emotional meaning and intent to words. Because words are just words, you can give them any intent you want. Turn that blessing into a curse, if you want to. It doesn’t matter what others say. Your spells are valid for you. They don’t need to work for anyone else. They just need to work for you. Tweak that song verse to fit your desires. Make it your own. And use it.

You’re a witch. Manipulating shit to our wishes is what we do.

Adapted from my original tumblr post here.

7 Tips to Get Your Life Under Control So You Can Get Back to the Magic

We’re all busy, right? We’ve all got a ton of things on our minds and it gets to be so hard to keep track of stuff. It’s even harder to fit in spiritual practices and make time for witchcraft.

I recently experienced this myself. I took on a lot of projects for This Crooked Crown on top of some personal projects for my own practice. Then Life reared its head. Family needed medical procedures or were sick (everyone’s OK! No worries), birthdays kept on coming, and the upcoming spring’s always a busy time with the ongoing Secret Future Plan project we’ve got going. Plus there’s the regular stuff to do too – readings, writing posts, taking photos, answering questions, and so on. There’s just a lot of stuff happening. I couldn’t keep up. It happens. Who’s got energy to cast a spell when you’ve been go-go-go all day?

I started going to bed with stress headaches and woke up with them too. That’s when I decided enough was enough and I was going to start managing my shit better. Here’s what I did.

7 Tips to Get Your Life Under Control So You Can Get Back to the Magic

01 Write down everything you’ve got going on 

This is absolutely the number one thing I recommend. It really drives home how busy you are and lets you see what’s happening so you can start prioritizing better. You may even decide to put something on hold for a while until some other project or situation can be finalized before taking up the reins again.

I wrote down everything I was thinking, doing, and feeling. It included little stuff like a mobile game I super enjoy playing daily to big years long projects that move slowly but surely. I also included stuff like stress about politics, birthdays, and personal worries or frustrations.

Then I numbered them three times. The first time, I numbered how important they were to me. This is kind of eye opening. You’ll really begin to see what’s important to you right now. Then I numbered them according to due dates – what needs to be done when – so bills or shop orders. The final time, I numbered them in order of priority to me or others I actually care about – a friend’s birthday, for example, might be more important to me than some due date for a thing I don’t really want to do.

Now do a comparison of the numbers. You can get as mathy as you’d like with this and figure out averages or whatever. I kind of just looked for similar numbers. If I listed a lack of spiritual connectivity as personal importance to as five but on the priority/due dates they were eleven or twelve, then that’s an area I need to focus on temporarily to feel personally satisfied but not dive into a major project for. So I might do a longer meditation session to help balance that out and get some more immediate results.

Make sure you look at how important stuff is to you and how you rate it as a priority. It might be that you’re ignoring your health or self-care in order to get shit done. it could also be that you want to accomplish something because you’re excited about it but it’s not actually all that important. Could your attention and energy be spent elsewhere or do you want to follow that excitement and allocate whatever time and energy you have left after you do that?

Also look at what numbers keep coming up or coincide with those items, especially if you’re into numerology. See if there’s a correlation with your divination readings in what cards keep coming up or if there’s some numerical importance attached to those numbers. Look at numbers that have huge discrepancies – or items you forgot to number. Those things may need some attention.

Now go through that list one last time and number how you want to proceed, taking in all that data. Using those numbers, write out a to do list with at least one actionable step you can take to start on that immediately. So if a birthday is your number one concern, write something like “research birthday gift” or “go out on Tuesday and buy present”.

It’s kind of a pain but this process can be really eye opening, especially if you remember to include things that aren’t just your daily to do or mundane but spiritual stuff as well. Maybe replacing that broken altar bowl doesn’t seem important but it might be weighing on your mind more than you know.

How to make this magic: Honestly, this technique is pretty eye-opening. I would use magical ink or paper or a language to write the list one last time in order of how you want to proceed, like a to do list, to ensure that you can accomplish what you want to accomplish.

 

02 Turned off the electronics early

I’ll be honest. I’m definitely one of those “turn off tablet/phone/computer/TV, roll over, go to sleep” kind of people. I don’t necessarily want to be. In a dream world and life, I wouldn’t even have a TV or computer in my bedroom. But since this isn’t a dream world, I have a ton of electronics in my sleeping area. And it’s a bummer.

Once I started going to bed with stress headaches – and waking up with them, I immediately stopped using electronics actively before going to sleep. Instead, I turned everything off but my tablet and read an fiction-based e-book until I found a physical book I wanted to read. I still woke up with stress headaches but I felt immediately less stressed and slept better.

There’s some scientific data to back this up but I know personally that turning my brain off from TV and instead letting my brain imagine stories before going to bed is better for me personally. Also look into blue light filters. I noticed my eyes hurt far less when I use blue light filters at nighttime.

It’s hard, I know. But give turning off your electronics ten minutes before you go to sleep a try.

How to make this magic: Putting sigils on your phone case for energy boosting is a great idea during the day to give both you and the phone a helping hand. Removing that phone from your hand at night allows you to have less energy and, thus, sleep much easier.

Aroma stimulation may also be useful. For example, I know it’s “no electronics time” and/or bedtime when I use lavender scented products. For me, lavender is used for quiet time. You might have a different scent that triggers this so do a little research to figure your own “shut off” scent.

 

03 Changed your rooms’ atmosphere and energy

Our rooms have their own atmospheres and energy. Right now, I’ve stacks and stacks of books everywhere for research projects. It reminds me of my college days where I was super stressed and sick all the time. Once I identified that as a contributing factor, I swapped out some things to shift the room’s energy – and my associations – to something else.

I picked fire, wind, and light as an energy to focus on. I used citrus scents, made sure to work in brightly lite rooms, and put on wind and bell soundscapes. My stressful associations shifted away and I felt far more productive and accomplished.

I also changed out my bedding, picked up lightly about the room, and rotated some decorative pillows and throw blankets to give a subtle change. I also throw open a window for a little while to air the place out.

As a bonus, changing up the lighting, scents, and sounds can immediately affect your mood.

How to make this magic: Color symbolism helps here, but so do scents and so on. Magical correspondences are your friend here. Ringing a bell can also dissipate clustered energies.

 

04 Dressed to boost your mood

Ten years ago, I scoffed at wearing sweats and casual tees on a daily basis. Now it’s my go-to when I’m in a time crunch and spending the day typing on a computer.

It makes sense. Ten years ago I was super active and busy – places to go, things to do, out before the sun rises and home at the witching hour. So I had to dress appropriately for those things. Since I work from home and my only co-worker is a cat, wearing sweats and a worn tee isn’t going to make a difference in what I do.

Except it kind of does. I started to put on non-lounge clothes in the mornings. It helped, most of the time, and kept me from glancing longingly at my video game consoles. Did it make me more productive? I don’t think so, but I felt more productive and put together. I felt more of a person and less like a cat pretending to be a person, so it has to count for something.

How to make this magic: Color symbolism and recognizing what outfits make you feel good about yourself is a huge bonus here so keep an eye on that. You can also individually enchant your clothing or other items for magical boosts as well.

 

05 Started work before you’re actually awake

The first thing I usually do in the morning depends on whether or not I woke up with or without an alarm. If I work up with an alarm, the first thing I’m doing is turning off that alarm on my phone which inevitably means I’ll check my notifications. If I woke up without an alarm, I’ll meditation for a few minutes, do some light yoga, and grab some breakfast.

But when I’m in a crunch, the first thing I do is crawl over to my desk and start typing. Usually, this happens when I have a reading queue a mile long and a post needing to be published in three hours. If I start working the moment I’m conscious but not yet awake, then I’m less likely to get distracted before half finishing whatever I needed to do.

When I do get distracted, I’m way more likely to want to finish whatever I was doing because, well, it’s probably almost done anyway.

Don’t get me wrong – this is a terrible thing to do routinely to yourself. It may start you associating work with lack of sleep (even if it’s true) and get you thinking bitter, dark thoughts against your work. It also doesn’t guarantee good work, especially with less intuitive projects. Remember to edit and review before you hit that send button if you work in this state. A metaphor that made sense at five a.m. might not make sense at eleven a.m.

How to make this magic: Cast a magnetic-style charm to one of your desk items, like your computer mouse or a sticker on your laptop. This allows you to feel “drawn” to use an item, even subconsciously.

 

06 White noise generators or instrumental music

I love white noise generators. I use them ALL. THE. TIME. Literally, all the time.

White noise is a great way to get your brain to productive mode without dealing with silence or hearing too much conversation and becoming distracted. I found that if I changed out what kind of sounds I listened to, I could get shit down. When I want to work, I put on video game instrumental soundtracks (no joke! Try the Skyrim soundtrack next time you’re knocking out a boring typing project).

White noise is not a one-size fits all kind of thing. Once you get into it you realize different people find different white noise better than others. For example “brown noise” rather than “white noise” is more comforting to me – think thunder rolling over the roaring ocean rather than rain. So if you’ve tried white noise generators before, try it again but try different tones and pitches to see what works best for you.

I highly recommend the free website mynoise.net. I’m not an affiliate of the website. I just really, really love it. I also use a playlist on Spotify (I have a premium membership I share with other folks so no ads) and the app Insight Timer which is a meditation app with a community who offer white noise meditation tracks for free.

How to make this magic: Use the sounds to your advantage. I’m spiritually attached to the ocean and water in general. So my go-to sounds are all water based. If you’re attracted to the wind, they have generators and soundscapes like that too. Fire? Done.  Earth? Yup, that can be handled too (forest sounds, cave sounds, farmland sounds, etc). More urban? Crowded cafe sounds are really popular. Use what makes you feel rooted and at home.

 

07 Meditation

When I was younger, I never meditated. It just wasn’t me and not something I wanted or needed to do. I knew what I wanted to do and I usually had a schedule of things to do in my head. As an adult, I have a ton of stuff going on too but now I’m often pulled in so many directions I can fail to prioritize what’s actually important to me. Meditation helps me ease that.

Meditation is also my go to when I have a super long to do list and I want to figure out what I actually want to do that day. My to do list might be twenty items long but meditation gives me a moment to breath and think “OK. What’s actually important here? What can I do now for others, now that I’ve done something for myself?”

Guided meditation can be really helpful for folks who have brains that don’t like to shut up or want to achieve a particular goal. Others may do better with simple quiet meditation. It’s a personal taste sort of thing. Even a few minutes helps.

How to make this magic: Meditation is often used in magical practices but there’s a lot of guided meditations out there that can be used to achieve particular goals or help you release a lot of negative emotions. Try out some and see what proves to be helpful to you.

 

So that’s what I did to get my to do list down to a minimal amount. They’re simple techniques, to be sure, and you’ve probably heard them all before. That’s kind of the point. They’re stuff you’ve heard before because they work. Don’t knock them until you try them.

I know January was really hard for a lot of people. I saw a lot of people struggling with some drama and nonsense during all of that time. It can be really difficult to dig yourself out of a hole spiritually in order to really get back on track so early on in the year. Just remember that each day is a chance to start fresh. Each month is a new beginning. You can always start again. Don’t give up and remember to give yourself a chance to breathe!

Grimoire or Book of Shadows 101

 

Grimoire and BoS 101

 

Grimoire, Book of Shadows, Book of Secrets, Book of Spells… Magical research is often collected into a book (or two) and is known by a specific name. There isn’t a universal name that is correct for your book. You can name it whatever you want! Although “grimoire” isn’t a technically accurate name for my magical research, I use it as it feels best to me and my personal practice. For this post, I’m going to use BoS to refer to this book, whatever you may call it. BoS is often an abbreviation used within the community so it’s probably already familiar to you.

Let’s clear away some of the nonsense right now. You can have a BoS in a notebook. You can have a BoS that is completely digital on the computer or a website. You do not need to have a super pretty book or even have one book – you can have multiple! And you are not bound to that singular book forever. You can fill a book, decide to retire it, and get rid of it, if you so choose.

The sacredness of the Book of Shadows stems entirely on two things – one, Wiccan covens often have specific  rituals written down in their BoS and those books contain their secrets and initiations rites. The books are secretive and sacred because they need to be, as part of the initiation religion. The second reason why magical books have this air of sacredness is because books are, historically, expensive.

Books aren’t commonplace historically. Your average person rarely owned a book except for the Bible. Literacy wasn’t commonplace until public schools were more accessible and even then, many PoC were banned from learning to read. (In fact, in the US, literacy rates between PoC and white people didn’t equal out until 1979 and PoC still suffer from lack of opportunities for education even today.) The rest of it comes from the fact that education was commonly given to the wealthy. You can look through numerous historical household records and find years worth of expenses – but never once is a book mentioned. Even if a person did read well, there was no guarantee that they would read for pleasure.

The most learned men, until recent history, were clergy. Secular scholars were something of a rarity through much of history. So it isn’t surprising that there’s this idea that books are sacred because, for a long time, they were. Families may only own the Bible. It is literal a sacred book. Plus, as said above, until fairly recently in human history, vast majority of the world didn’t have access to literacy or books. Books could also be poorly translated or contain so much academic wording that the average person would struggle to read it (something that holds true even today.) Information was passed down through word of mouth and if it was written down, things often got left out. This is true for just about everything. I’ve personally have three different recipes written by my grandmother for the same dinner roll recipe. Some of those recipes are just a list of ingredients – and none of the recipes have the same ingredients on the list yet all are titled the same. None of the recipes produce the rolls from my mother’s childhood. If that can happen just passing down a family recipe from grandparent to grandchild, imagine what trying to write down family lore would be like?

Suddenly, the lack of magical books and the sacredness of the written historical rituals we do have becomes extremely important. Books are fragile things. They can be easily destroyed. Technical information can be extremely difficult to copy down correctly by memory. Those are the practical reasons why the BoS gained many of the sacredness it has and why it’s so commonplace within the witchcraft community. It’s why the BoS has names like “book of shadows” or “book of secrets”.

 

 

ANYWAY, none of that gives you the information you need to actually create a BoS.

In order to create a BoS, you need to write or record information you want to keep on hand. That’s it. You don’t NEED to have a dedication. You don’t NEED to have a correspondence chart. Would that help? Sure, if it’s useful to your practice.

The best way to start of BoS is to get a blank journal that you like and can take some damage. So while a school notebook is perfectly acceptable (and I had one as my first BoS as a kid myself), having something that can take some candle wax spilling on it is ideal.

Don’t be afraid to mess up the BoS. I, like many of you, fear messing up a beautiful new journal. But, uh, you bought it for that purpose? If you don’t like how it turns out, you can always rip out the page or cover it with white out.

Binders are actually incredibly common for modern practitioners. It may not be pretty but it sure it handy.  Using a binder allows you to print out spells or resources from online, or type them up and print them out. It also allows you to remove stuff from the BoS without damaging the BoS itself. Plus, tabs. Tabs are great things.

Scrapbooking books are also useful for BoS. I’m very fond of the post-style binders or scrapbooking books because it allows you to remove things like a binder but still have that book feel.

Of course, lots of people also use folders on their computers, information saved to their cloud drives, or private blogs to organize their BoS too. Some people have huge Word documents and others have a neat tumblr blog filled with spells.

As said before, you can also organize things by separating your BoS into different books – one book for dreams, another for spells, a third for divination, etc.

Try different systems until you get one to work for you. If you’re not much of a recorder when it comes to data, that’s OK. Some people just work best off the cuff.

 

 

So if the actual physical form of the book doesn’t matter, what does matter?

The information has to mean something to you.

It’s fine to copy things down or take notes for the sake of learning, but what’s the point of writing down a whole bunch of stuff in your BoS if you’re not going to use it? It may be a good idea to keep a separate section, notebook, etc on research that you might want to look back on later but don’t use in your day to day practice.

 

An index is your best friend.

An index is a list of subjects that are contained within a book that lists where you can find those subjects by page. It’s like a table of contents on steroids. And it’s an amazing thing that you’re probably not using.

Your homemade index is probably not going to contain every page a subject is listed on unless you’re super organized or diligent. And if you’re setting up your BoS now, you can plan so you won’t need an index. But for those of you who started a BoS without a plan and are sick of flipping through a hundred pages for that luck spell you KNOW you saw just last week, then you need an index. Take a weekend, write out what pages you can find what information on, and stick that at the front of the book.

Indexes, weirdly, come at the back of the book. Which is super illogical to me because, uh, shouldn’t they all be at the front of the book? So you don’t have to keep flipping to the back of the book to look up something? Do yourself a favorite and put your index at the front of your book. Help your future, exhausted, “I’ve been done with this shit for three hours and just want to go to bed” self out. Not that I’d know that feeling from experiences or anything. Nope, not me.

 

This a labor of love

Writing in your BoS probably won’t be your favorite thing to do. This is especially true if you’re worried about aesthetics. It’s a time consuming task and one that will require consistent and diligent work to be actually useful.

If that’s not your thing, that’s OK! You’re the one who gets to decide how you use that BoS. But if you want it to be indispensable, you’re going to need to put some serious time into it.

 

Space for you to add notes and grow

Most importantly of all, you need to be able to take notes on the information you have written down. Maybe you learned later on that that cool piece of trivia is actually related to some folklore. You might want to add that folklore in but alas! You didn’t save room. Now you’ll need to either add a page or make a note to look up a different page to get your information.

Additionally, your practice will likely grow and change as you grow and change. Your BoS will reflect that over time as well. Make sure there’s enough room to grow or that you’re willing to put your BoS aside and make a new one if the time comes where it no longer serves.

 

 

Of course, you do not need a BoS. You just don’t. My grimoires are spread across a dozen books and, honestly, I barely touch half of them. This is largely because I often make up my spells at a drop of a hat. I don’t really plan out much of my spells so I don’t really need pages upon pages of spells.  Do I have them, sure. But they’re not necessary for me.

Maybe you’re the same. Maybe you’ll find that your BoS isn’t useful to you or that you would be better with a journal style rather than a textbook style BoS. You BoS has to be useful and suit you.

That’s it. That’s all you need! Good luck to the new witchlings out there! And for you old hats, maybe it’s time to dust the cover off that BoS and take a gander at it, hm?

 

 

Links for more reading:

Cornell has a over 3000 books from the time of the Inquisition on witchcraft. http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/w/witch/index.html

I happen to have some online posts on hand regarding household purchases for the 1850-1870s. Keep in mind that the term “dime novels” stems from literally paying a ten cents for a small novel, something that started in 1860. To keep things in perspective, you could buy a pound of granulated sugar or a yard of bleached shirting fabric for the same dime in 1860. Your rent for a four room tenement was $4.45 in 1860.

 

 

How to Create a Deity (Pop Culture Paganism)

How to Create a Deity by This Crooked Crown

 

A few years ago there was quite a kerfuffle about pop culture paganism. Okay, I’m totally downplaying it. It was pretty much a knock-out drag-down fight where people from all over were weighing in on their private blogs and tumblrs. It was a thing for at least a week.

It’s a weird thing to debate to me because I’ve always been using pop culture and non-magical media as inspiration for my magic. I developed my system of energy manipulation through a children’s fantasy book when I was ten. I taught myself scrying from an adult fantasy book not long after that. There is a book series that I’m fairly confident I wouldn’t have survived high school or college without. I read it daily and it helped shaped me in troubled times. I always had a few copies of the books on me, and it got to the point where a friend had copies in her bag in case I forgot mine.

People find hope and faith in all sorts of places. It seems really weird to me that people would disparage anything that others find faith in. Who cares who or what someone else worships? Their worship doesn’t disgrace your deity or deities. If you feel that it does, then it’s something that’s off in your thinking, not the other way around. I mean, there are plenty of faiths that want to have one deity above them all but… uh, that deity’s existence doesn’t necessarily mean other deities don’t exist?

Plus, historically, there are a lot of deities we recognize now that were sort of adapted or merged from other deities. Some of this is due to our historical understanding and some of it was due to regionalism. This is basic, Wikipedia-level knowledge.

Creating deities isn’t new. And worshiping non-deities isn’t new either. It just isn’t. After all, some traditions invoke the elements into their circles, and they aren’t typically considered deities. Sacred, yes, but not deities. Ancestor worship is a world-wide phenomenon and those ancestors aren’t considered gods. Pop culture paganism isn’t just interested in pop culture based pantheons but all aspects of paganism. So pop culture based spells, sacred entities, and so on.

And why not now? Why not now when there’s so much else in the world then there was back then? Who cares if someone you know online worships a god of coffee or a goddess of procrastination? Who cares if they are following the Outsider from Dishonored or are serious about the Elven pantheon from Dragon Age? Who cares if Link and the Legend of Zelda is their source material? What difference does it make if they live by the Jedi codes? So what if they have a shrine to the deity of quantum mechanics? That entity gives them hope, faith, courage, and strength. It makes them stronger. It’s one of the major reasons why people become involved in religions to begin with.

Anyway, there is no proper list of requirements or a checkbox one must fill in to become a deity. There is no list. There is absolutely no such thing as a proper deity because any deity is a proper deity. This is a personal thing. You’re going to have to make up your rules or what is and isn’t a deity yourself.

I could tell you each deity needs attributes or associations, but that’s not strictly true. What each deity usually has is a sphere of influence.

A sphere of influence is the things the deity influences around them. Let’s take Hermes. Hermes is the god of boundaries and thresholds; doorways. This means he crosses between worlds. In fact, except for a few rare occasions, he’s the only deity that can cross between the realm of the dead (as he’s conductor of the dead and an emissary), the mortal realm, and the realm of the gods. This means he has influence in all three locations. Let’s go further. He’s a god of traveling, of journeys (since he’s a god of doorways). He’s also a god of transition, movement: again, traveling, change, etc. This means he’s key and ideal for anyone who’s livelihood relies on traveling. He’s a messenger, right? An emissary. He passes knowledge and information onto others, especially the masses. This means he’s key for any knowledge, wisdom, speechcrafting, or works of art or literature. He’s passing that information on, giving up that culture to others. He’s even a bit of a trickster in some myths, which plays well with his cleverness and previously discussed influences. These are the things he is: we know this because of the source material, the literature we have on him.

So, Hermes is a god of herdsman (travelers), heraldry (messenger), omens (messenger), trade (travelers, messengers and bringing things to the home), travel, luck (because you’d bloody well need it with traveling and hoping someone doesn’t kill the messenger), the dead (again, emissary of the dead), thievery (literally within his mythos), language, education, the arts, literature (again, communication via messenger), athletics (you do that much traveling and you’d be in shape too), and finally the home.

Now the home is interesting here isn’t it? He’s a god of travel but he’s also a god of doorways. Your doorways. To your home. Why the hell wouldn’t you ask such a god to guard your doorways from trespassers? Why wouldn’t you ask for luck and grace as you pass under his doorway each and everyday? You return the same way as well.

That’s all in his sphere of influence. And it goes further. Hermes is associated with rams, due to mythology. So rams are in his sphere of influence. So are certain types of trees, symbols (winged hat, shoes, and staff anyone?). Hermai are a specific symbol that appear over doorways, crossroads, and regular roads as a mini shrine to Hermes himself. And that’s just off the top of my head. I’m sure someone out there has a whole huge list of what he’s associated with, all information gathered through mythology and historical, cultural research.

That’s his sphere of influence. Now, how does this relate?

Hearth by This Crooked Crown

Each deity there is can be broken into spheres of influence. Anything from the smallest fae to the greatest deity. All can be broken down into their associations, into their spheres of influence. As a creator of your own deities, you have to create your own mythology and spheres of influence for each of your deities. How detailed they are is up to you. You’ll find it’ll grow through associations humans make with objects.

I’ll take an example from one of my fictional novels-in-progress.

Deandr is a god of death, luck, intoxicants, war, and madness. He shares madness with two other godesses, the goddess of love and passion and the goddess of music, tricksters, and inspiration. Because Deandr’s a god of death and war, he’s worshiped by warriors. He’s a god of fighting (see: death)  and intoxicants so he’d be popular among brawlers and drunkards. He’s a god of luck so gamblers and thieves would find him irresistible. He’s also a god of madness – madness from drinking, from the throes of winning and losing, of adrenaline, blood lust, grief, despair, death, etc. He’s a god of a lot of things. Carrion birds, flesh-eating animals, animals used in combat (like horses), animals considered lucky (rare animals, like albinos, or two headed snakes) would all be part of his sphere of influence. Any plan used to make alcohol or intoxicants would be in his sphere of influence. Lesser attached but still considered would be children born of illicit drunken affairs, prizes from war, money and commerce, crafting, brewing, games. These are things that are attached to him simply by association, even if they strictly aren’t in his sphere of influence.

Now, obviously, spheres of influence can overlap with deities – this is true of all mythology, again, using Hermes as an example, he shares his status as a god of messengers with Iris and he shares his status as a god of the home with Hera and Hestia, depending on the home.

Spell and Herb Candle by This Crooked Crown

 

So the answer is there is no list. You have to decide what each god is in control of and from there let the associations grow. What does that god influence?

I’ll use a pop culture example. Let’s go with Cecil from Welcome to Night Vale. He’s the Voice of Night Vale – so speaking is his thing. But he’s also a messenger of news and plays music residents might not otherwise hear. So he’s the the bringing of new things, changes. He’s ruler of words, carefully crafted. But it goes deeper than that. He’s charismatic. He has influence and can dominate over people. He can sway public opinion, for good or bad. It goes, again, further. He’d also be great at self-deception, love at first sight, and living or creating his own world. He’s a big part of his community and clearly loves it so he’d be great for worship within a community.

For our purposes, this means he’s skilled with all chants and word spells, he’s mesmerizing so he’d be great with influencing and dominating others. As a radio host he’d had a radio personality – meaning he’s partially an illusion. He’d definitely be the entity you’d want to call upon if you had to make a public speech, need to convince someone to do something for you, or send a secret message. Associations would be music, words, voice recordings, any type of broadcasting equipment, broadcasting towers, cats, Carlos, and various other things he’s mentioned as a personal interest. All that from a character who’s physical appearance and off-radio personality we don’t even know.

Bonfire by This Crooked Crown

 

So when you create your deities, sit and really think about them. If they’re a god of water then what does water effect? Well, there’s animals living within it, there’s atmospheres of the sea, there’s darkness and light. There’s stillness and movement. It creates life and can kill. It’s literally a whole world. It can partially suspend gravity (as shit can float on water). And that’s just the beginning. That doesn’t even get into the composition of the water itself or how humans use it. It doesn’t get into that we’re made up of water. Water comes from the sky as well, can be both solid, semi-solid, and liquid (transforming much?). And it goes a ton further than that.

All of that before you get to the setting up of the altar, shrines, or holy spaces. All of that before offerings, rituals, and invocations. Can you skip those steps, sure. But you’ll find that you’ll connect much easier on a rational level when you have things laid out. You’ll find people will take you more seriously (and you’ll take yourself more seriously) when you have it all laid out.

This is a long-term, deeply personal project for each person. It will require quite a lot of thinking and researching the source material. It’ll require you to decide which source materials to follow when you have conflicting information. It’ll require you to think and really connect with this entity as you develop your practice. No two people approach the same entity in the same way – that’s true in any religion. It’s true in pop culture paganism too.

Good luck to those starting this endeavor. I hope this helps provide some thoughts on your path. I’m happy to be a sounding board to bounce ideas off of, if you’re stuck! Just drop me an email. Best wishes!

[Updated and adapted from my original post here.]

Starter Plants for a Witchy Garden

Starting a witchy garden? Or maybe you’re just trying to add more magic to your cooking with fresh herbs? It can be so hard to know which plants to start with and which herbs to keep on hand.

Starter Plants for a Witchy Garden by This Crooked Crown

 

This “must haves” for your practice is going to vary wildly. It’s even going to vary on what purpose you might have for those plants. Are you keeping them around for their herbal benefit or magical?

Many people try out green or kitchen witchery only to run away from it or struggle with it. This largely comes from difficulties in knowing complimenting flavors and tastes (remember to taste your food when cooking folks!) and accidentally killing your plants.

I get you. I really do. I have a light green thumb – I can keep things alive but sometimes they just kick the bucket. My best plant right now is my aloe which I leave alone and it’s happy.  When it comes to kitchen witchery, rest assured, I’ve made plenty of stupid mistakes there too. I’ve heard the song of the fire alarm plenty of times.

Knowing what to start with and what to try is super difficult, especially when you’re just starting out. Here’s some tips for you new witchlings (and maybe a gentle reminder for us old-timers)

 

 

Start small

Those big beautiful gardens you see on Pinterest? Yeah, they’re not created in a single season or even a single year. Same thing with indoor gardens. Pick a plant or two tend to them. If they’re still alive and kicking a few months later, add on another plant. Plan for what you want. This also allows you to save up money for garden because it is not a cheap hobby.

If you have such a black thumb that you can kill off a plastic plant, rest assured that you’re not without option. You can use fresh spices. A farmer’s market is your best friend. Some farmer’s markets operate all year around and others are only seasonally. Check out your local ones and see what they offer.

Protip: Take a day and visit both your farmer’s markets and grocery stores. Sometimes farmer’s markets actually partially stock from farmers that also sell to your grocery stores. Or you’ll find that you don’t like that specific potato sold at that farm or discover that while the grocery store is cheaper then farmer’s market tastes better. Figure out where’s the best places to get certain things and you’ll save yourself the heartache of “aw, the radishes are so much better at this farmer’s market!”.

 

Growing versus buying

If you’ve been to online communities you may have run across the idea that plants you grow are more useful than buying herbs. This is only kind of true. (If you’re making a face, keep reading.)

My experience is this: If you’re a spirit worker, the plants you grow develop bonds and relationships with you because you’ll probably talk to that spirit. That plant will be infinitely more powerful – but probably only for certain things. You might discover that the plant you grow is really only good for protection spells. It’s not really going to help you with a luck spell.

But the same fresh or dried herbs you get from the market or store? Those babies can be used for anything they’re associated with rather than being shoehorned into whatever the plant wants to be used for. So they’re infinitely more useful even if you can’t control their quality.

That’s the other main argument: you can’t control the growing conditions, ethical conditions, and quality if you buy. This it true so I highly suggest to look into farmer’s markets to circumvent these things. You can also quickly google on your phone farms the food comes from to see how controversial or unlikable they are. You might be the weirdo standing there for five minutes staring at a head of cabbage but isn’t that better than working with something you don’t agree with?

Growing is, of course, cheaper except for the initial investment. But growing also requires a lot of…

 

Research

I feel like a broke record but research your stuff! This is especially true if you’re growing things. Just some simple research in how certain plants grows (or even that specific breed of plant) can entirely change how I care for a plant.

Research can also change how and why you grow a plant. I don’t use a lot of lavender in my practice but I do for my herbal medicine. So I’d rather grow it outside and harvest it than keep it inside. I use citrus in my craft for cleansing and for my herbalism. I grow mini trees in pots. Same thing with peppers. I grow them in pots so I can have fresh peppers for protection spells and curses.

Research can also tell you on whether or not you actually need a bunch of that plant. If you never use mint in spells but for rare occasions and never cook with it… then why are you growing it? Why waste that time? So what if everyone recommends it or uses it in their spells? YOU don’t and that matters. Develop your own list and needs for what you use in your practice. look through your spells and decide for yourself.

 

 

Those are some super basics. Ready for my go to list of plants for basic witchcraft?

Basil

Sex or sexual attention,  soothing fights between couples or family, dieting or fasting, health and healing, the home, sympathy, harmony, increasing money, good luck, to curse others, fire element, fertility, weddings, romance or romantic love, for attractiveness, exorcism or banishing.

Lemon Balm

For improving memory, easing depression or grief, lifting one’s spirits, for romantic love or romance, for clairvoyant dreams, health and healing, and youthfulness.

Lavender

To see ghosts or spirits, to attract men (especially sexually), for women’s strength or sexual attractiveness, to calm, to calm nerves or anxiety, against unwanted sexual attention, fertility or childbirth, for sleep, healing and health in general, air element, divination, purification or cleansing, for sex or sexual attention, easing depression or grief, relaxation, and for romantic love or romance.

Mint

For increasing money, prosperity, wealth, trade or increasing business, dieting or fasting, cleansing or purification, clairvoyant dreams, divination, relaxation, easing anxiety or nerves, health or healing in general, for improving memory, air element, for sex or sexual attention, romance or romantic love, and creating change or a catalyst.

Rose

Protection, peace, harmony, romance or romantic love, sex or sexual attention, soothing fights between couples or families, for newlyweds, for weddings, for women’s sexual attractiveness or strength, for sleep, healing or health in general, attuning or aiding psychic powers, for clairvoyant dreams, divination, clairvoyance or second sight, and against or wards off negativity, bad luck, spells, curses, or malevolent spirits.

Rosemary

Cleverness or mental clarity, focus, for confidence, against thieves or trespassing, for courage or against fear, purification or cleansing, improving memory, against nightmares, for rejuvenation or power / energy, youthfulness, women’s strength or sexual attractiveness, for beauty, for physical strength or endurance, romance or romantic love, to attract friends, healing or health in general, exorcism or banishing, protection, protection at sea, to invoke the sea, against unwanted sexual attention, boosting the five senses, clairvoyance or second sight, and against or wards off negativity, bad luck, spells, curses, or malevolent spirits.

Thyme

Wards off fatigue while traveling, victory, to win a battle or overcome an enemy, ease depression or grief, for courage or bravery, wards off fear, wards off nightmares, healing or health in general, for sex or sexual attention, to see faeries, funerary rites or to send off the dead, purification or cleansing, hex / curse breaking or spell breaking, for rejuvenation or power / energy, clairvoyance or the second sight, and against or wards off negativity, bad luck, spells, curses, or malevolent spirits.

Sage

Youthfulness, prosperity, wealth, trade or increasing business, health or healing, for improving memory, easing depression or grief, and earth element

Apple

Youthfulness, to know or enter the underworld or land of the dead, for romance or romantic love, for sex or sexual attention, water element, relaxation, for happiness or joy, for success, for gardening success, for rejuvenation or power / energy, health or healing, to use in place of a poppet or for image magic, and wood can be used to create magical tools.

Mugwort and/or Wormwood

Divination, scrying, to strengthen divination tools, for magic mirrors, for clairvoyant dreams, clairvoyance or second sight, to see ghosts or spirits, to contact or manifest spirits, air element, health or healing, for protection while traveling, wards off wild animals, wards off fatigue while traveling, and purification or cleansing.

Yarrow

Divination, clairvoyance or second sight, attuning or aiding psychic powers, romance or romantic love, for weddings, health or healing in general, sexual prowess or fertility, water element, for fair weather, for courage or bravery, wards off fear, for wisdom, purification or cleansing, for rejuvenation or power / energy, exorcism or banishing, and against or wards off negativity, bad luck, spells, curses, or malevolent spirits.

Peppers in general

Protection, against envy or jealousy (both directed at you and your own), exorcism or banishing, for curses or hexes, and fire element.

 

 

What did you notice about that list? Most of the list can be bought in stores or probably grows locally to you. All of it can be eaten (but please check your allergies and health warnings first!) It’s an excellent start and it covers a lot of things you might be trying to do.

(Side note, my list is from various numerous sources. Too many to list in a blog post. If you want to know where I got a piece of lore from, drop me a line and I’ll give you the source.)

Also, every single one of those plants can be grown in pots at least for a few years. Yes, even apples. There’s some intrepid farmers that make dwarf apple trees but you’ll probably do much better just planting it in the ground. Cayenne peppers, lavender, and roses will need fairly large pots in order to thrive (and do yourself a favor and put them on little rolling plant trays). Most of the rest can be kept in your standard windowsill.

Again, what you grow or keep around entirely depends on your personal practice and needs. Good luck with your gardening!

 

Money Powders

Money powders are an often under utilized magical tool that is so easy to create and use. I use money powders quite often in my money spells and in general day-to-day money handling.

For All Sorts of Money Powder by This Crooked Crown

First, let’s cover what a money powder is. Simply put: it is ground magical ingredients enchanted to bring money or financial boons to where-ever it’s placed. So if you sprinkle money powder on a spell candle, that spell will be affected. If you sprinkle money powder on the floor or in your laundry, then your home and laundry will be affected. Simple, right?

Money powders have endless combinations and composition. Pretty much any ingredient under the sun can be used in money related spells in some way or another. Deciding what to put in a money powder and how many ingredients to put into it will entirely come down to preference.

Want to know my secret for money powders? Here it is: You need to believe it. Not necessarily that the magic will work or the spell is working. Or even in the powder itself. Here, belief is more about knowledge. You have to “know” the ingredients are good for money magic.

 

 

For example, roses aren’t super well-known for money magic but I do sometimes use roses in a money spell, especially when I want to increase money for an art-related thing or for personal beauty. But I wouldn’t use it in a money related spell for gambling. I’d probably pick cinquefoil and clover.

There’s also a difference what kind of money you need. If you start looking at herbal folklore texts, people didn’t always use the same ingredients for personal wealth versus business wealth. This may come down to how that piece of folklore is written down and shared but in a comparison of seventeen herbs pulled from three different sources only mint and cinquefoil was on both lists. Also, spells to find employment only share ingredients about half the time, I’ve found.

By the way, those seventeen herbs are as follows: For increasing money Scott Cunningham in Magical Herbalism suggests almond, basil, hyssop, mint, bryony, ciquefoil, High John the Conqueror, honeysuckle but for business pursuits he recommends mint, peony, cinnamon, benzoin, and cinquefoil. Almanac.com suggests sage for increasing business and Miranda Seymour in her delightful little book A Brief History of Thyme and Other Herbs also suggest sage but adds valerian and dill to the business increasing list.

 

Common Money Spell Ingredients by This Crooked Crown

 

That being said, sometimes you might just need money from any source and you don’t care where that money comes from. For situations like that, an all-purpose money powder is your go-to. For our purposes, a business related spell or money powder is directly you selling goods or services for money. it may cause your job to get a big new client or for you to get a raise. Personal wealth spells may cause any of those business related things to happen but it’s also likely to have you find twenty bucks in a forgotten pocket or have someone pay you back for lunch from five years ago out of the blue.

My favorite way to use money powders is to sprinkle them across the threshold of my work-space or even on my desk overnight. In the morning, I simply sweep them up and toss them in the compost. I keep a jar of all purpose money powder at the ready for candle spells and throw a pinch of non-dying powder in my laundry for events.

 

For All Sorts of Money Powder by This Crooked Crown

 

Ready for a recipe? Straight from my own recipe book, here’s two. All you need to do is to ground the ingredients together in a coffee grinder or mortar and pestle. Or take the smart route and buy the ingredients pre-powdered such as ginger powder or almond flour.

 

For All Sorts of Money (All-Purpose Money Powder)

  • Basil
  • Cinnamon
  • Nutmeg
  • Sugar
  • Mint
  • Clover
  • Cinquefoil

 

For Personal Wealth (Non-Business Money Powder)

  • Basil
  • Sugar
  • Mint
  • Cinquefoil
  • Cinnamon
  • Almond flour
  • Ginger

 

For Increasing Business (Non-Personal Wealth)

  • Basil
  • Salt
  • Mint
  • Cinquefoil
  • Cinnamon
  • Sage
  • Coffee

 

For All Sorts of Money Powder by This Crooked Crown

 

Of course, if you’re not into the mixing and grinding, you can always pop over to my shop and buy an ounce for yourself.

Remember that the recipes above are just a place to start. You get to have fun and personalize your recipe according to your own preferences and practice. Experiment with what you can create and see what kind of magic can happen!

Enchanting Objects for Second Sight

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If you’ve hung around fairy tales long enough, you’ve run into the concept of using objects to achieve second sight.

Second sight is the ability to see things that are beyond normal perception such as spirits or energy. Some people are naturally gifted at this and others train themselves to use it. It sits firmly on the line between psychic ability and intuition.

Enchanting Objects for Second Sight by This Crooked Crown

Let’s be clear on one thing – just because someone has the second sight does not mean that they’re seeing spirits all the time. It doesn’t mean that they’re able to see all spirits. It doesn’t mean that they are always seeing spirits with their physical eyes. Spiritual beings aren’t always able to be perceive with physical eyes. It’s far more minute than “can you see that ghost?” even if it doesn’t seem like it.

There’s lots of folk information on how to achieve this. Looking through a hagstone or enchanting object are just one of the ways. You can use sandalwood, wisteria, wild thyme, and a number of other herbs to see what’s beyond normal vision. Trance inducers like flying ointments also work in this manner.

Look through a hagstone or doorway is another way to see these things. It’s about threshold crossing which is known to allow one to step between the worlds. (Hence the word “hedge-crossing”). Using this method, you’ll look through a hagstone (a stone with a natural hole in the center but shells with holes in the center work well too) and see what there is to see. Threshold crossing can be any kind of threshold. Stepping between two poles could be a threshold. Crossing between a wall and a hedge could be a threshold. There’s tons of ways to cross like that.

Weirdly, enchanting objects to allow you to see things is common in folk stories and fairy tales but not a common technique shared in modern day. I have no idea why this is.

In order to enchant an object to see what’s beyond normal sight, you’ll first need to pick an object that can be held up to your eye. Eyeglasses and sunglasses are absolutely the easiest and more available for this. A camera could also be used. You may want to pick a necklace you can hold up to your eye. This will be a constant spell so it’ll always be working.

That could actually be a problem. Anyone who has the second sight can tell you that it can be really distracting to see stuff that isn’t there. I’ve braked suddenly while driving thinking I was going to run over a dog that wasn’t there. I nearly jumped out a chair just last night because I thought something ran across the wall directly next to me – but nothing was there. If you’re not use to seeing these beings, you can absolutely end up looking a bit weird. It’s not a consistent thing but at least once a week I end up being startle by some spirit shenanigans that I wasn’t expecting and no one else can see.

You could also pick an object that you wear in order to give you second sight. This gives you more control over the ability. A pair of earrings is a good choice but a necklace or even an article of clothing can be a good choice too.

The technique is very simple but gathering the ingredients can be very complex. It can take up two or three months to set this up if you don’t have any of the materials on hand. For best results, it could take years because you should collect the water and plants on the first of May and then cast the enchantment then as well – which could be difficult if the moon’s not working with you. You could, alternatively also or exchange May Day for October 31st or some other spirit important holiday. I don’t bother because that’s a lot of hurry up and wait for me but to each their own.

First gather water from an old water source – an old river, well, the ocean, etc. I specifically mention old as a pond newly made in a golf course isn’t going to have the same kind of results we want.

Gather the first morning dew for about seven days. You can do this by placing a jar outside overnight and picking it up as the sun rises the next morning. It probably won’t amount to much but that’s OK.

Create full moon water and new moon water by placing jars of water in window sills under the moonlight (or lack of moonlight).

Pour water from each of these sources into a bowl and place any of the following into it: calendula petals, wisteria leaves, powdered sandalwood, mugwort, ash leaves, violets, wild thyme, lavender, or woodworm. Pick as many or as few as you’d like. Let this sit under the full moon for a full night but remove it from sight before the sun rises. You can strain this water now, if you want.

Cleanse the object you intend to enchant. Wash the object with each water source. Make sure that you concentrate on the surfaces of the object. For a pair of glasses, you’ll trace the water along the eyeglass frame then wash the lenses on both sides. Repeat once more with the herb infused water.

Sleep with the object at your side on the night that you wash it. Then it’s ready to use. To use it, concentrate on what’s before you with your mind to see if there’s anything there for you to see. This should allow you to see spirits and energy far more frequently than before. As stated above, you may not physically see things with your eyes all the time but you should be able to sense things and see glimpses more easily.

In addition to the problem mentioned above with reacting to things as if they’re physically in front of you, there’s another thing to be aware of. When spirits begin to notice that you’re able to see them, then they start paying attention to you. This can be fun for some people and terrifying for others. It depends on the beings you end up meeting and how you interact with them. If you’re not thinking about spirit work, then you might want to consider against this entirely. In the end, that’s a choice you’ll have to make.

It can be difficult to see spirits. Sometimes they simply don’t want to be seen or the circumstances aren’t right. Or maybe they don’t even have a physical form for you to see. You may need to just roll with whatever they give you. Good luck!