Category: Witchcraft 101

50 Offerings to Give a Faerie

Ever want to get in contact with the Fae? Leaving an offering is the best way. Set down something wonderful and prepare for mischief and trouble!

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  1. Water from a spring, river, or purified water
  2. Bread
  3. Honey
  4. Wine
  5. Milk or cream
  6. Alcohol
  7. Small palm-sized petite fours or cakes
  8. Unwrapped candy
  9. Meadowsweet
  10. Roses
  11. Daisies
  12. Violets
  13. Bluebells
  14. Primrose
  15. Thisledown
  16. Cowslip
  17. Pansy
  18. Foxglove
  19. St. John’s Wort
  20. Bouquets of flowers
  21. Mushrooms
  22. Strawberries
  23. Berries
  24. Elderberries
  25. Peaches
  26. Apples
  27. Plums
  28. Other fresh fruit
  29. Mint
  30. Clover
  31. Thyme
  32. Mugwort
  33. Ferns
  34. Hawthorn
  35. Willow
  36. Elder
  37. Birch
  38. Shells
  39. Feathers
  40. Coins
  41. Jewelry
  42. Silver or gold
  43. Crystals
  44. Beads
  45. Shiny objects
  46. Interesting stones
  47. Spirit house
  48. Faery garden
  49. Bells
  50. Cheerful music

Of course, these are just some of the offerings that can be made. Some fae will appreciate some gifts better than others. Some items are merely associated with the fae and may interest them, if not precisely count as an offering.

You may also want to double check whether your offerings are also good for the environment. The fae may enjoy a cookie but the wildlife probably won’t.

Remember your fairy tales! Don’t eat anything, don’t offer up your name (instead say something like “you may call me X”), and don’t agree to anything!

Have fun!

How to Talk to Spirits of the Dead

Ghosts are probably both the easiest and the hardest types of spirits to have conversations with. Partially because we expect so much and get so little.

Talking to ghosts is one of those things a lot of people want to do. I have a quick guide on how to talk to ghosts and spirits of the dead. This may not get you evidence of the paranormal but it may help you make contact.

How to find a ghost

First, you’ll need to go to a liminal place. A liminal place is somewhere between worlds. A cemetery might be a good bet but you probably have just as much success there as an old crossroad or site of death. Don’t just pick a place that looks like it should be haunted. Pick a place that has rumors of being haunted that you can legally enter. That last bit is important. Don’t trespass just to spot a ghost.

Liminal places aren’t just locations but also things. Doorways are liminal spaces. As are windows, gates, mirrors, corners, and staircases. Rest stops, crossroads, hotels, parks, and gas stations are other liminal places. You can spot ghosts and spirits there at times.

Activity will also increase when spaces are becoming liminal. So houses that are undergoing renovation, for example, will see an increase in activity.

You can, of course, ask for a ghost to come to you. If you’re doing a seance or summoning a ghost, make sure the cleanse the space first and set up protections around yourself.

Remember to sit as quietly and calmly as possible. As much as you might want to wander around in a space, you’re probably more likely to run into activity if you just sit there and are quiet. It’s not as much fun as hunting the ghost but it’s friendlier. It also allows you to get in tune with the environment so you can start noticing the unusual. Cold spots, odd sounds, that sort of thing.

How to make contact with a ghost

Bring an offering to the table. An offering of something to the ghost is a good way to show that you mean no harm. A shot of alcohol, especially clear alcohol is good. Rice, bread, tobacco, incense, and water are also good choices. A ball is good for children and animals. Leave the offering nearby and within sight but out of arm’s reach.

You can also light a candle in their honor and memory but remember your fire safety too. Don’t leave a candle unattended.

Using a calm but confident and sure voice is ideal. You might be a bit scared, especially if you’ve worked yourself up with anxiety. Talking calmly will both calm you down and show that you don’t mean any harm. You can’t do much to spirits anyway but they’re less likely to appear when you’re angry.

Feel free to ask questions and listen for answers. You can use electronic devices, divination techniques, or just listen. You can ask for responses. Avoid demanding answers. That’s not a way to start a conversation. That’s just going to anger anyone around and draw the wrong kind of attention.

Open you mind. Take a deep breath and remain calm. It’s easy to get caught up in emotions not your own. Allow yourself to drift, as if daydreaming, and let instinct and intuition rule. If you feel like walking out of a room and up a flight of stairs, do it. Don’t try to control yourself overmuch unless you’re in danger or risk hurting yourself.

The key here is to allow your mind to seek out the otherness of a spirit. You’re not looking to be possessed or even to commiserate with them. You’re looking for a conversation. Pay attention to weird thoughts not your own. They may be just passing thoughts that we all have but if they’re followed by emotions not your own or there’s a lot of thoughts, someone might be trying to communicate with you

If you feel like you’re losing control or get scared, take control of yourself completely, coming to attention. Pull away, thank the spirit, and take a few moments to ground yourself. Have some water, drink some coffee, eat some chips. Talk to someone, get a hug, or leave the area. Don’t stay connected too long or you risk partial possession and energy draining.

Mediums and other sensitive people have somewhat of an advantage here but pretty much anyone can have a conversation in this manner if given time and the right circumstances.

Divination is a popular tool to speak to the dead. You can use whatever divination method you have on hand. I tend to use pendulums or cartomancy but use a method that you’re skilled in. This isn’t the time to break out a tarot deck if you’ve never read with cards before.

Look for surface meanings. Digging deep for symbolism isn’t going to mean much to a ghost since the chances of them knowing the divination method well is unlikely. The Death card is probably going to mean death. You might want to stick with the Major Arcana if you’re using tarot cards.

Pendulums are great tools for talking to a ghost because you can get “yes” and “no” answers pretty easily. You may even be able to use the pendulum to track or find a ghost. Make sure you keep your arm and hand steady.

Working out a communication system is always a good idea, especially if you’re planning on long-term communication.

Having a ghost knock once for ‘yes’ and twice for ‘no’ is a common means of communication. Passing by a light or fussing with a light is another good one. You can do active communication by asking a question and rewinding to listen for an EVP (electronic voice phenomena) response.

I’ve even used a method of having a spirit tap my right shoulder for “yes” and left shoulder for “no”.

It may take a while to work out which system works best for you, especially if you’re limited with equipment.

Finally, remember to document everything. Whether you update a blog, write in a journal, or jot a note down on your phone, make sure you document everything. It’s unusual to have activity in one night. Instead, focus on tracking that activity over the course of a few days to determine the type of spirit around.

Spirits exist in various manners. Even ghosts are not a singular “type”. Poltergeists are more vicious than a ghost and a residual haunting is tends to be less aware than a ghost. Memories or fragments are barely conscious and tend to be something of a one note kind of haunting.

You can do research to figure out what kind of ghosts there are but you’re not going to be able to hold a conversation with a fragment or residual haunting. You’re looking for an active and aware consciousness.

Overall, the best way to talk to a ghost is to remember that they were once people. They had lives, loved ones, and jobs. They existed and, despite being dead, they’re still people. People without bodies but still people. Be respectful and patient.

Have fun!

Begin Again [Spell Saturday #28]

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Sometimes, we just need to hit the refresh button on our lives. This spell won’t do precisely that but it’s pretty close. It’ll help you make a fresh, new start.

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What you’ll need: 

  • Flower, flowering plant, or petals from a flower
  • Water
  • Piece of quartz crystal
  • Candle

First, make sure you’ve cleansed your home, car, work, and self. For this, perhaps a light personal cleansing followed by cleansing whatever spaces and stuff you need to cleanse, followed by a deeper cleansing might be ideal. This spell should be done immediately after your self cleansing.

Light the candle and put the flower, candle, and water in front of you.

Hold the quartz crystal in your hand and just sit with it, meshing your energy with yours. If you’re into programming stones, you’ll want to program it to hold the energy you’re about to give it. (More on programming stones in the notes.)

When you’re comfortable and ready, say the following,

“I am beginning again.”

Blow your breath across the quartz.

“I breathe newness, energy, and light.”

Pass the quartz through or over the fire.

“I have fire, passion, and glory at my side.”

Touch the quartz to the petals of the flower.

“I am blooming, growing, achieving. I am beautiful even in the worst storms.”

Dunk the quartz in the water and pull it back out.

“I have healed, I have surpassed, I will never be broken.”

Now hold the quartz to your heart and say,

“I have begun again and will live my life as I wish, happy, and free.”

Carry the stone with you and/or keep it by your bedside. Hold it when things get rough or you’re beginning to fall into old habits.

Notes:

  • You can use any candle color here. I prefer white but yellow, red, or blue might be appropriate too.
  • Any flowering plant will work, especially if they’re your favorite flower. Roses are a good choice.
  • I like to use purified water for this spell.
  • This might be a great choice for a spell to cast on a quartz crystal piece of jewelry.
  • If you’re into programming your crystals, your crystal should be programmed to give you energy, light, and remind you of the spell you’re casting. It should serve as a gentle reminder of the life you want to live and the promise you’ve made to yourself to start again.

Happy casting!

5 Differences Between Your Imagination and Astral Travel

I think one of the number one questions I get about astral travel is how to know if you’re actually astral travelling or if you’re imagining it.

Here’s the secret – there isn’t a way to know, for sure, that you’re not imagining things.

But there is a difference, to some degree. You see, imagination is something you’re creating for yourself whereas the astral and spirit realms exist without us. That being said, dreams and your imagination are somewhat connected to the spirit and astral realms. Your spirit is somewhat connected, after all. You can affect those realms and we can create changes within those realms. It only follows that we can even create those realms with our minds.

We’re more powerful than we know, after all.

But there are ways to make sure that what you’re experiencing isn’t merely made up in your head.

  1. Is everything centric to you? We tend to play hero in our own heads. So a good way to tell if you’re making things up is to do a Mary Sue check. Does everyone love you? Does everyone hate you? Do you always succeed? Can you never be hurt or are your injuries easily remedied but seem super serious at the time? You might be making things up if this is true.
  2. Can you change form? In the astral and spirit realms, you can shape-shift but it’s fairly rare in your imagination to picture yourself as something else. Oh, it’s extremely common to imagine yourself more (or less) beautiful than you are. The change I’m referring to is turning yourself into a frog or something. Can you do that? Then you’re probably not making things up.
  3. Do the people around you live their lives without any thought to you? Spirits have lives of their own to attend to. It’s kind of unusual to daydream yourself in a crowd with no one acknowledging you unless that’s the specific things you’re intending to imagine. Spirits may acknowledge you the same way you acknowledge someone walking by you on the street. That should be the same. If that’s not the case, such as no one paying attention to you no matter what you do or everyone paying attention to you, then you’re probably making it up.
  4. Check gravity and physics. Things in the spirit and astral realms don’t operate according to physics and gravity. It’s fairly uncommon to run into this in your imagination without it being purposeful.
  5. Are you experiencing time skips? I find that time in the astral and spirit realms is fairly useless. You can live an entire day in the spirit realms but only a few minutes in the physical realm. Conversely, you can sit down to dinner with friends in the spirit realm and find that you’ve lost several hours rather than the twenty minutes you might have expected. That doesn’t happen usually with daydreams.

Bonus: consistency is sometimes hit or miss. With your imagination, you might dream up new and better ways to accomplish the core of the daydream. But with the spirit realms, that probably won’t happen. Things will stay the same. That being said, you can affect the spirit and astral realms, so you might find that things change quickly. It’s very YMMV.

It’s going to be hard to tell the difference at first but with practice, you should be able to pick up on the differences fairly easily after a while. Be patient and good luck!

How to Get Started On A New Path

So you’ve been doing you thing for a while now but it doesn’t feel right anymore and you want to try something new. You’re not the same person you were when you started practicing so why shouldn’t your practice change too?

But knowing where to start when you already have a foundation is hard. You know the basics that may be shared between your old path and your desired new ones but how do you actually, you know, start again?

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Write down what’s essential to you

This may seem simple and weird but it’s an important step. Don’t exclude anything! If you love taking naps, for example, write that down too.

Writing down what you love, both mundane and spiritual, will allow you to focus on what is the most meaningful to you. Once you’ve decided what’s truly important, you can decide whether you want that to be included in your practice. You can begin again by focusing on the core of what you want and build out from there.

You can also use tarot card prompts to channel some things. For example, if you want to be more like the High Priestess include that.

Mood board

I’m a big fan of mood boards and a mood board really helped me narrow down and nail a few goals for me when I was floundering a few years back. I used Pinterest for mood boards personally but some people use corkboard or similar set ups.

Mood boards can help you identify things you can’t name. For example, you might select five images of sunsets because you have a particular affinity to them. Then a few images of fire which feels similar. Maybe celestial fire is something you’ll want to incorporate in your practice.

It’s also super useful if you’re trying to build a witchy aesthetic to flush out and unite different areas of your practice into one cohesive unit. Plus mood boards have a tendency to be beautiful and that’s inspiring.

Talk to people & read things you don’t agree with

There are lots of magical systems that don’t mesh with my style. But reading books and posts about people’s experiences with this systems can allow me to knock a few cluttered thoughts loose.

Talking to people is similar. I’ve sat in on workshops about magical systems or topics that are completely contrary to my own style. It feels wrong to me even at times because they’re experiences clash so much with my own.

I might not gain anything but knowledge out of reading such materials or talking to people but it allows me to think about my own practice in a different perspective and that’s really important. being self-aware is a difficult process so anything that can help with that is useful.

Meditate and self-introspection

Meditation, self-introspection, and shadow work can help you realize what areas of your practice are lacking and what you actually want to do.

Identifying why your old practice isn’t working for you anymore is going to be a difficult process and a personal on. No one else can express how you’re feeling in that regard but you.

You’ll want to address various spirits and deities as well, asking their opinions or pull away from them as respectfully as possible, as needed.

Having a conversation with yourself and addressing any issues you have with your current practice will help you know what to avoid for the new practice you’d about to adopt.

Experiment!

This is probably the most important step. Just go and try some things. Talk to some people and join in on public rituals. Ask someone willing to answer questions about their practice and try a handful of spells that you wouldn’t normally attempt with your current path.

Spending time reaching out and touching what else there is in the world can help you figure out if the new things you’re trying to adopt into your practice are going to work for you or if they’re just good in theory.

Once you’ve decided what you want in your new path, it’s time to pull away from your old path.

Identify who you need to say goodbye to

Spirits and deities may change over time. Be as respectful as possible when you leave these relationships. Make a big offering and say goodbye. Speak with sincerity and thank them for what they’ve done for you.

You may not even have to leave the relationship with this entity but rather shift the tradition you’re working within. Or, you merely want to keep honoring them but not work with them. Whatever the specific case is, make sure you tell them what you’re planning and ask for their opinions on it, if possible. You don’t need to throw everything away simply because you’re moving on.

It isn’t easy to leave such relationships so give yourself time to mourn the end of the relationship as a whole.

Rehome and sell items that no longer mean anything to you

There are lots of practitioners out there willing to buy or swap ritual items with you. If you move from a ceremonialist system to a more folk-based one, you might want to sell off some ritual items.

Or, maybe you’ll want to talk to some people rehoming their items so you can pick up some new items for your own practice without having to pay full price.

This is another one of those difficult steps because you’ll probably find that there’s items you don’t want to get rid of but have no use for. Or items that might be useful but you’re not sure of. In this case, I recommend sticking the item in a forgotten drawer. In sixth months, go back to that drawer and look through it. If you didn’t think of the item, forgot about it, or discovered you didn’t care for it as much as you thought you did, get rid of it. If you did think of it but still didn’t find a use for it, keep it somewhere. Don’t toss things you still love.

Cleanse all the things

Cleansing your home, workspace, tools, clothes, bedding, work, and vehicles will help immensely towards setting up a new practice.

Focus mostly on cleansing everything you use for magic, from spell books to simple spoons. Then you’ll want to cleanse items that aren’t magical in purpose but still stuff you use and wear, such as shoes, clothing, etc.

A cleansing of your entire home, workspace, and vehicles can make getting a fresh start possible. Even cleansing your rug or coffee mug can go a long way.

Don’t forget to clean as well. A cluttered home doesn’t help you start anew. Cleaning and cleansing should always go hand in hand.

Keep a journal

Keeping a record of the changes you’re making and the changes you want to make can really help motivate you. Bullet journals are a really good idea for this but even doing a tumblr blog can be useful.

It will also allow you to track your personal progress and encourage you to keep to your goals. Just because something is spiritual in nature doesn’t mean you can handle it like a mundane issue, after all.

That’s it! That’s some really basic ideas on how to get started again. It’s a really painful process at times to realize that you’ve outgrown your old practice but it can be really fulfilling to allow yourself to embrace a new path that suits the you now.

7 Ways to Conquer Tiredness of the Soul

We’ve all felt it. A draining of the spirit. An exhaustion that never leaves no matter how much sleep you get. A tiredness of the soul.

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Let’s be clear right off the bat. I’m not talking about depression. Although soul tiredness can definitely be a combination or symptom of soul tiredness, it’s not what we’re discussing here.

Soul tiredness is when your very spirit and soul is just tired. Your spirit needs a nap. It needs to recharge, reset, and reboot. Here’s seven ways you can do it.

1: Meditate

Meditation is definitely one of those things that either you love or you’re ambivalent towards. Honestly, I’m rather ambivalent towards meditation as a whole. I don’t do it everyday but I find it a great source of comfort when I’m just so fuzzy brained that making coffee seems like a complicated task.

I use meditation as a exercise in escapism. I put on an ocean soundscape, bundle up in fuzzy blankets, and escape to a mental image of the beach with the Atlantic lapping on the shore. It’s a good way of allowing the body and mind to settle and relax.

It’s far more common for me to use meditation as a moment where I will do nothing else but sit and contemplate any and all thoughts that cross my mind. Sometimes I’ll have a specific goal in mind, such as sorting through a situation emotionally, sometimes not. That kind of introspection can really help you narrow down some of the internal struggles you may be having.

2: Quench Your Wanderlust

90% of the time, my soul tiredness is because I’m restless. I’m a wanderer. I like to travel and I like to travel alone. I like to be able to stop whenever I want or go as fast as I want in order to reach whatever destination I have in mind.

If I haven’t traveled anywhere in over a year, I get restless, lethargic, and simply unwilling to deal with the day-to-day monotony. (And I don’t even have a day-to-day monotony!)

I combat this by taking trips with friends and family. Usually it’s a road trip somewhere or maybe even a day trip somewhere. Sometimes I take the train up to Boston and spend the day meandering libraries and museums. Other times I pack a bag and head off to a campground to unplug and recharge.

Travel can be really expensive but once I start noticing the restlessness, I squirrel away some pocket change. I can usually pull off a day trip for less than $50 if I plan accordingly, take advantage of discounts, pack food, and take public transport.

3: Monotony Begone!

Soul tiredness often comes along when your life is so much part of the daily doldrums that everything kind of slides together. The best way to shake this is to literally shake up your routine.

Grabbing coffee with an old friend, trying a new restaurant, repainting your walls a fresh color, buying new bedding, or rearranging furniture.are great ways to change up your life in little ways that have a huge impact on your life.

Don’t forget the details when you’re shaking up the monotony. It’s the details that matter the most. Try a new candle scent for your bedroom or a new scent for your body wash. Spend a few minutes dressing nicely for an outing, even if you’re only running to the grocery store and stick some fresh fruit on your counter or table. It’s tiny things but it helps swap out boring habits with new, fun ones.

4: Divination

Divination is useful for seeing the future but it’s just as useful when determining what’s happening now.

There are so many spreads out there to figure out what’s going on with you internally. You can pretty much pick your favorite reader and they’ll almost certainly have something in their repertoire to take a deep look inside of your spirit.

Focus on what things you can change to shake the tiredness and start bringing those new elements and changes in your life.

I usually recommend Heal Your Heartache, Elemental Shift, and Explorer as good readings to overcome soul tiredness.

5: Cleansing & Cleaning

Cleansing yourself, your home, your car, your work, and your favorite places to go can really help you shake any weirdness.

I’m of a mind that one should always combine cleaning with cleansing. You can spiritually cleanse a place but if there’s a week full of dishes in the sink, you’re still going to have this thing in your way and in your sight.

So, spend an afternoon or even twenty minutes clearing off surfaces and doing some dishes or laundry. Then go about and cleanse the place. It’ll feel much better and tackling those annoying chores will take a few things off the mental checklist.

Definitely make sure that you wash all of your bedding and sweep under the bed. It will be a momentous chore with a lot of laundry. Rotate your mattress and reassemble your bed with a single simple change – a new pillow, a different set of sheets, swapping out a throw blanket, etc. We spend a lot of time in our bedrooms and in our beds. Making sure that your bed is a relaxing, inviting, and clean place is important. There’s nothing like settling down into a freshly made bed to make you say ahh.

6: Unplug Your Life

This is probably the most commonly found tip right next to meditation. It is absolutely the hardest one to accomplish on the entire list.

I’ll be honest. I’m never far from my phone. I live on social media (but is oddly ironic because I’m a recluse). As a writer, I an probably never more than five inches from a keyboard. I adore gadgets and I’m exactly the kind of person who wishes wifi dead spots on people when they annoy me.

But once a year I take three days to completely remove myself from communication. I don’t use social media, I don’t email, I don’t call, and I don’t text. I won’t even talk unless asked a direct question. I call it the Silence Festival and it is glorious. I do allow use of technology during the Silence Festival but it has to be something like writing, playing a single-player video game, etc. But that’s me.

You can bring that kind of electronic rest into your life right now. It’s simple. Turn off technology ten minutes before going to bed. Or don’t use technology within the first five minutes of waking up. Either one works and it can make a big difference. Instead, read for ten minutes before going to sleep or wake up and do some simple stretches.

It’s one of those things that you think “that’ll never make a difference” but it really does.

7: Crystal & Element Recharge

If you’re into crystal healing, then this won’t be new information. It’s akin to meditation but not quite the same thing.

Sometimes we need to forcibly reset yourself, this is one of the ways to do it. A simple quartz crystal can allow you to cycle through your energy but you can also use an element. For example, if you best association with air, maybe sitting in front of an open window, windy park bench, or even a fan will work. Amethyst, citrine, or any other stone you’re preferable to will also work. It’s really about personal resonance more than anything else.

Close your eyes and allow yourself to sit. Try to keep your mind empty and push away any intrusive thoughts. Eventually, you’ll acclimate to the crystal or element. Once this happens and you feel completely comfortable and aware at the same time, you can start the recharge.

Pull the energy from the element or crystal into yourself. This might require some energy manipulation, affirmations, or visualization. You might feel oddly cooled or warmed, depending on what you’re working with.

You can do this as long as you want but I usually do it until I feel a lightness of the spirit and want to sigh in happiness or relief. Then I open up my eyes, thank whatever I was working with, and set it aside to recharge by the sun or moon, depending on the element.

Remember to make sure your tiredness doesn’t have some other source. It could be hiding a medical symptom so make sure that you’re covering your bases.

And, sometimes, you really do just need a nap and some self-care. Cater to yourself and you’ll find yourself needing a full restore less often.

Soul tiredness is definitely an issue for mystics and practitioners so it’s always good to know a few ways to overcome it. Shake off those doldrums and get back to your center once again.

Spirit Destinations: How to Find Your Way in the Astral

Treading the spirit realms can be really difficult. It’s like going to another country: you don’t know the language and the culture’s a bit weird. You make stupid mistakes, and probably end up in a not-great neighborhood at some point.

 

Getting directions to anywhere in the astral is complication. Super complicated. I’ll explain. The spirit realms are always in flux. There’s always some conflict to avoid, some danger to be wary of. The topography and land itself changes at the whims of residents in the world. Wars and battles cause lots of detours. When a new ruler takes over, the entire land can shift and change. The very land itself can morph to suit the whims and personality of the ruler. The rulers become, in part, land spirits, protecting their territory from harm. It’s not unlike the story of the Fisher King. Even if the land doesn’t adjust to the ruler, there are dangers in the environment to watch for. Then there’s the people. Look at our own world. Look at all the cultures, all the taboos, all the knowledge and secrets that exist in it. Look at the hate and love we have. And we’re all humans, a single species with that much diversity. That diversity exist in every species, without fail. There are uncountable numbers of species and races in the spirit realms. You may be able to make some generalizations but most of the time, you’re a fish out of water. Add onto that each person’s own free will and individuality and you have a mess to deal with. Everyone has agendas of their own. People – and they are people – have , jobs, obligations, families, and lives to attend to. After all, how often do you pause to give strangers directions? The residents here might not pause their lives for you either. And that’s OK. We’re all people and have busy lives. Some folks will help and some won’t. Some people are nice and others are cruel. Variety makes the worlds wonderful, after all. But with all of that variety and flexibility comes a massive problem: how do you to find anything in a world that changes so much?

 

Asking directions can be a chore in and of itself. You may have to barter something just to get some complex set of instructions. Those directions might not even be accurate. Things change so often that halfway through the trip, there’s usually some change. Even if you get directions that are accurate, the names for things aren’t the same. For example, I live by an ocean when in the spirit realms. It has a lot of names: Ocean of Fallen Tears, Sea of the Giant’s Tears, Sunlight-Glances-Off-This-Body-of-Water-and-Dances-Across-the-Sands-to-Scatter-on-the-Sea-Glass- Castle-and-Dies-at-Sea (yeah, really). And that’s just the three I know. I’ve heard it called other things. The valley I live in itself doesn’t even have a name. The ruler’s been stable for years but hasn’t come up with a name yet for it. How do you give directions to a place with no name? Directions aren’t like google maps either. There often isn’t a “Take a left at exit 64 and travel 6.4 miles to veer right onto Main Street”. Instead it’s more like this: “Go to the Forest of Dean (but not that Forest of Dean, no, not that one either, that one) and talk to the fox spirit there. He’s going to try and eat you but once you deal with that, give him this ball of magic black ooze. He’ll tell you where to go next. He’s going to lie to you at first but wait a few minutes and he’ll give you your next destination.” That’s a lot of work just to get a new pair of shoes or something.

 

See? Lots and lots of complications. But, never fear. It’s not all that daunting when you have an adventurous spirit. Here’s some tips on how to somewhere in the astral.

  • Get the right directions. Ask around and see what directions people give. Spirit allies can probably provide help, if necessary. Seeking out an information broker is a good alternative. Information brokers tend to avoid giving bad directions. Their reputations rely on them go doing their jobs successfully. When in doubt, go to a trusted information broker. Just expect to pay an arm and a leg.
  • Check in often to determine your true location and get local news. Inns are specifically designed for this but roadside restaurants are surprisingly excellent too. Detour if necessary but try to stick to your directions. If you detour too much, you’ll end up somewhere else entirely usually with more trouble than you need.
  • Don’t tell everyone where you’re going. Instead, pick a location nearby where you’re heading. For example, if I was going to see the ruler of the territory, I might ask directions to the forest the ruler lives in. Save yourself trouble by being cautious with your business.
  • If you’re told not to stop, don’t stop. The best example of this in direction is from Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede. “Go to the main road outside of the city and follow it away from the mountains,” said the frog. “After a while, you will come to a small pavilion made of gold, surrounded by trees made of silver with emerald leaves. Go straight past it without stopping, and don’t answer if anyone calls out to you from the pavilion. Keep on until you reach a hovel. Walk straight up to the door and knock three times, then snap your fingers and go inside. You’ll find some people there who can help you out of your difficulties if you’re polite about asking and they’re in the right mood. And that’s all.” (Page 11)
  • Landmarks aren’t always landmarks. Sometimes you’re given directions that include people as a landmark, like the fox example above.
  • Travel in groups. Traveling together will allow for more interpretations of the directions. Extremely useful when the directions are hard to fathom.
  • Hire out a means of travel. Hiring a car, ship, horse, chariot, carriage, may be expensive but worth it.  You may even hop on the bus or spirit subway to make things much faster.
  • Think in alternative means of travel. You might walk everywhere but discover that you need to fly to get over a ravine. So sprout some wings,  hover, or ask for aid as necessary.
  • Remember that the spirit worlds are intertwined with this one. It is the strangest feeling to realize that you’ve been in this subway station before in the astral.  You’ll also want to remember that the spirit world isn’t always an accurate representation of this world. Sometimes walls are missing or there’s extra doors or a staircase to nowhere. In these sorts of liminal places, you can easily slip into the spirit realms. Those with second sight can see a merging of worlds in these places as well.
  • Sometimes you can just appear there. Teleporting in the astral is totally doable. You can also slip back into you body and re-enter the astral in your destination. This is a bit like cheating when you’re suppose to be on an epic journey but it can certainly make things easier. Please note it’s rude to appear in someone’s living room so aim for a backyard or something instead.

So that’s it! That’s how you get directions in the astral. It may be really complicated but that’s the fun of it. Now get out there and explore!

How to Deal with a Cursed Object

If you wind up with an object that’s cursed/hexed, things can turn ugly pretty quick. Not sure you’re cursed? Here’s a list of common things that happen when you’re cursed.

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How to handle a cursed object varies on culture and your specific practice but here’s some tips:

  • Don’t touch the object. Put gloves on, wrap something around the object, etc.
  • Remove the object from your space. I recommend taking it to a crossroad and finishing the hex breaking there but that might not be possible.
  • Don’t bring it inside. This is much like the above but if you catch the cursed object before bringing it indoors you can save yourself a lot of trouble.

How to break the curse on an object depends on what you’re willing to do with the object itself. Some will be appropriate and others not so much. Be sure to pick a technique that is best suited for your objects. Also keep in mind that there’s some tradition in setting up a failsafe in curses that trigger when the cursed object is broken without the hex being broken first. You’ll have to guess or divine which method is the best one for you.

  • Dip, wash, boil, or fry the object in cleansing water. Purified or water from a living source (river, ocean, etc) is ideal. You can also infuse cleansing herbs or stones in the water as well.
  • Fry, wash, boil, or dip in oil. Typically infusing the oil with herbs is ideal. Hot oil is good for destroying the object but be careful for burns.
  • Toss it in a fire
  • Toss it in a living body of water.
  • Abandon it at a crossroad
  • Give it to someone else
  • Urinate on it
  • Bury it
  • Pour salt on it
  • Circle the object three times in salt or pour salt into your hand and pass over the object three times. Toss the salt in a fire in either case.
  • Pour cleansing herbs on it
  • Let a stone absorb it’s curse and toss the stone away
  • Perform a hex breaking spell

As always, do what works best for you and your practice and be careful. There’s no need to do something illegal or hurt yourself trying to end a curse.

Originally posted here.

13 Ways to Break a Curse

Need to break a curse fast? Here’s 13 ways you can do it.

Not sure you’re cursed? Go here and check out the symptoms of being cursed. Have a cursed item? Here’s some tips to end that curse on an object. Want a list of herbs to help break a curse? Go right here.

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1 Smoke cleansing

The best method to use smoke cleansing to break a curse is a two step process. First, pick a non-toxic hex-breaking herb(s) and burn that, waving the smoke around the cursed person, object, or place. Then repeat with a cleansing herb selection. Incense made with or using the scent of hex-breaking herbs will also work.

2 Living Water

Water universally is used in witchcraft and magical practices. The key is to select living water such as a river, ocean, and so on to allow the curse to wash away.

Want a more ritualized version? Go to the ocean and stand in the water while the sun rises. Allow the waves to hit you as many times as you need to feel freed from the curse. Some say being hit seven times with a wave breaks bad luck.

3 Bath Water

Baths are not only relaxing but they can un-hex you too. Create a bath with non-toxic hex-breaking herbs. Soak in the bathwater and scrub your body. Drain the tub, run the bath again this time with relaxing and cleansing herbs. Soak in this water and let yourself drift off, hex-free.

4 Mop Water or Floor Wash

Infuse your cleaning water with hex-breaking herbs to really get in the nitty-gritty. A pinch of herbs for a bucket of water can go a long way and can be used on most surfaces. Don’t forget to wash doors, windows, walls, ceilings, and floors too. Test the water in small areas first in case of staining.

5 Drink it

Make a potion with non-toxic non-allergenic hex-breaking herbs. Drink this before bed. In the morning, make sure you urinate first thing when you wake up. Then shower and wash all your bedding.

6 Egg Method

Get an egg and roll it over your body. Get as much of your body as you can, especially the palms of your hands, your head, gentiles, torso, and the soles of your feet. Then take the egg to a crossroad away from your house and smash it on the ground. Leave in a different direction from which you came.

Candle Smoke

7 Pass It On

Pass the curse on to someone else. You can use a person, a poppet, or even a rock as your subject. You’ll have to have a pretty good idea what the curse is and you’ll probably need a pretty good idea on how to manipulate energy or spells in order to push the spell onto someone else but it’s definitely doable.

A lit candle can also be used to pass the curse on. Then simply blow the candle out and toss it in the trash to be done with it.

8 Reverse It

Reversing the curse or sending it back on the sender is a popular choice. Usually a mirror or reflective surface is used for this. Ideally, you’ll look at the mirror and pronounce that the spell once cast on you is now returned to sender. There are lots of spells of this nature out there so look for one, if you’re interested.

9 Pass Through a Graveyard

Someone could break bad luck by passing through a graveyard on a full moon. Ideally, the graveyard should have two entrances, allowing you to pass through one side and out the other. If that’s not possible, then walk the perimeter of the graveyard in a full circle and pass through the entrance once again. Make sure you can legally enter that graveyard after dark.

10 Destroy the Source

Curses often have some sort of physical component to it. Breaking the physical vessel of the spell may break the spell itself. “May” being the operative word here. Some casters are clever and set up security measures for this sort of thing.

Additionally, some spells are cast in the spiritual realms or use spirits to do the dirty work. A trip to the astral may be needed in order to break the spell, if that’s the case.

11 Blessing Upon You

A simple way to counter a curse is to seek out a blessing. Find a clergy member of any religion capable of giving a blessing and go through the steps needed to cleanse yourself and be blessed in the name of the appropriate entity.

Invoking the name of an entity or deity often works just as well as a full blessing.

spells and herbs

12 Through Fire

Take a fresh picture of yourself and print it out. On the back, write down the symptoms and bad crap that keeps happening to you. Cast this into a flame, let the picture burn completely, and dose the fire. You could say something like “as this fire burns, so does the one who curses me” or “as this fire dies, so does my curse.”

13 Spin around three times and spit

This is an old one but is so commonplace. Plus, it’s the easiest one by far.

 

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of ways to break curses and the above are just a select few. It’s best to arm yourself with a few techniques so you can handle any type of curse or negativity thrown your way.

How to Design Your Own Spiritual Calendar

The Wheel of the Year is one of the most popular new age systems of calendars but it’s not the only one out there. Hellenics and Heathens, for example, often follow a calendar of festival and holidays of historical relevance and reverence to their practice.

But what about everyone else?

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Source: Wikipedia.com

The Wheel of the Year is a fairly modern creation cobbled from historical (and in some cases still practiced) festivals and holidays, notably with Western European origins. But the world is not comprised with entirely Western European practices. Even if you don’t have a specific culture you work within, the Wheel of the Year might not appeal to you for many reasons. It feels weird to me to have a harvest festival when I don’t have a crop to harvest and it feels odd to celebrate the coming of spring when winter will go on for another six weeks in my neck of the woods. The Wheel of the Year works well for a select group of people and in a select climate and everything else is somewhat forced.

If you love the Wheel of the Year and want to use it, for whatever reason, that’s totally up to you. But if you want something different, stick around.

The first thing you really have to consider is selecting what days are important to you and how you’re going to incorporating your calendar with everyone else’s. Your family and fellow practitioners probably has certain holidays they consider important so that’s worth tracking as well. But what’s key is to pick out the events that you want to be most important to you.

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You might start off with just a single day for now but give it time and thought and often you’ll find that the calendar fills up. Maybe you need a day of rest and meditation after each college semester or you want to hold a ritual to pray for family and friends on the third of every month. Do you want to mark down the times with the best waves as an ocean witch? Maybe gardening practitioners want to hold their spring festivals on the days the frost is over for the year. There’s so many places you can go with this!

Don’t forget to look at historical holidays too. Are there special holidays or days associated with deities, gods, or spirits you worship or work with? Are there heroes you want to honor? Is there some pop culture being you wish to emulate? Dates and seasons relevant to these entities can all be marked on your calendar. Maybe you just raise a glass in their name or maybe you devise a ritual for them. How you denote what to do on those days is up to you.

You may also want to consider what’s a cornerstone festival and what’s more secondary. Do you need to add something to your calendar as an obligation? Or maybe something holds a more personal significance to you. It may not be spiritual or religious but it’s still time you want to spend doing something personally important to you. Figuring this out can save your sanity and let you focus on what’s really important and what’s nice to do when you have the time.

For example, the first week of September I spend rereading the entire Harry Potter series. It’s not spiritually important but it has personal importance to me. For another example, I hold seer’s vigils for spirits and the dead to clear the crossroads every couple of months. This isn’t a witchcraft or spiritual thing. It’s more of being a friendly neighbor duty to me. If I ever moved away from the Crossroads house, I probably wouldn’t need to hold those vigils anymore. Both these events aren’t nearly as important as my Demon Festivals however so if it came down to only paying attention to one holiday, the Demon Festivals would win out for me.

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You can have as many or as few holidays and festivals as you like and they can serve whatever purpose you want. Do you want a three day event where you spend as much time as possible having sex and conducting fertility rites with a consenting lover? Have fun! Do you want to dedicate five days of rituals and rites to an honored goddess? Go for it. Want to include birthdays, a cleaning schedule, or your family TV shows schedules? You can add that too. It might not be religious but it’s still important to mark down and is good for mental health. Plus, having everything in one place is usually a good idea.

Start with days and events that are important to you and go from there. My calendar is a mix of religious and spiritual events with practical events (like the vigils) and personal events like Harry Potter Week. They all have some sort of significance to me but they serve different purposes.

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You can physically design your calendar any way you want. I have my calendar copied in full on Google Calendar (as shown above) but I also write down major events in my business planner. I don’t bother copying it, however, on a hanging calendar as I feel like it’s not necessary. I really adore using a calendar like Moon Planner which is set up by the phases of the moon. (The English version is available under “For Foreigners” and only as a PDF right now.) This could be a great option if you’re very into moon-based rituals.

And that’s how you design a holiday calendar personalized to your practice and you! A calendar is meant to keep track of days and events that you consider important. You can add or subtract to that calendar at any given time so there’s no reason to not give it a try. It’ll take time so don’t be afraid to experiment and see what works for you. You can always add days in addition to the Wheel of the Year as well, so you can be as flexible as you want.