First Days, a New Year’s Week Tradition

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Have you ever heard of the ritualized idea that what you do on the first day of the new year will continue on for the rest of the year? If you spend a lot of January first sleeping or arguing, the rest of the year will contain that.

I first heard of this from my friend Ginandjack. Eventually, I changed the tradition to a week long ritual of sorts. I LOVE the concept of it and I find that it really does work. Here’s my eight day long ritualized tradition.

December 31st, Day of Regret

  • Do things I don’t want to do in the new year but absolutely must get done.
  • Reflect and journal as needed
  • Divination for lessons learned, if needed
  • Clean the entire house
  • Food shopping
  • Settle debts, return borrowed things, lend things out as needed.
  • Schedule or pay bills early if possible
  • Contact people I want to see LESS of next year

January 1st

  • Do only the things that you want to spend most of the year doing.
  • Life a healthy lifestyle.
  • Do things that I want to encourage more of moving forward
  • Do not spend money (unless something MUST be paid for today and cannot be paid for earlier)
  • Eat foods that are considered good luck such as long noodles, circular foods, and so on.
  • Avoid doing chores such as laundry, dishes, and so on (unless necessary)
  • The first “random” song I hear during the New Year (ie, not one I know is coming or expect during New Year celebrations) can be taken as a prophecy.
  • The second song I hear should be one I choose that I want to be thematic for the upcoming year.
  • Divination is king
  • Visit or talk to people I want to see more of. (Sometimes I’ll bring food or salt with me as a New Year’s Luck Gift)
  • Nothing leaves the house (items)
  • Do not lend or borrow anything out.
  • No tears or you may cry for the rest of the year.
  • Wake up and get moving early (for me) in the morning.
  • Make bread
  • Make offerings
  • Watch the sunrise
  • See midnight in my region
  • Start routines I want to continue

January 2nd

  • Pay bills or schedule bills
  • Buy things I want to spend money on this year (vegetables or fruit are a great example), if I want to or need to. I prefer to try going to entire week without spending any extra money, but that’s just me.
  • Accomplish tasks I want to do more of, but don’t necessarily feel are as important as the things I wanted to do yesterday. An example might be I read a book yesterday and watched TV today)

January 3rd-7th

  • Continue what I’ve already started
  • Keep doing tasks I want to do more of during the year, but didn’t get to the days before.
  • Hop back on the bandwagon for things I intend to do everyday or on a schedule but already missed a day.
  • Remember to live my best and most healthy for me lifestyle

Obviously, this is a lot to observe and some of it requires prep. For example, if I intend to do New Year’s visits and bring gifts, I will actually prep them on the 31st and leave them in my vehicle or put them in a gift bag which clearly indicates what it’s intended purpose is. All of those items are things I won’t want back – like tupperware and so on.

I have noticed that the order in which I do things matter. For example, one year I decided to wait until the fifth day of the year to pay all my bills (my bills are all due at the middle or end of the month). For the rest of the year, I almost never paid the bills earlier than the fifth and a few times only just remembered to pay them before the due date. I normally always pay them on the second, so this was an odd change for me. The next year I switched back to paying them on the second and the other eleven months followed suit.

I also like to make sure I’m making changes from my previous routine if I decide I don’t like that routine. A good example would be changing to “work from home” clothes rather than just straight up pajamas or wearing the kind of style that you prefer rather than what’s “easier” (like you prefer cottage core but your easier style is sweat and a tee).

There are, of course, some things that I’d like to do more of but can’t. Swimming is one of my most favorite things in the world to do. However, I don’t have access to a pool in the colder months so I sometimes but on a bathing suit and listen to a water based soundscape for a while or I’ll take an extra long bath. If it’s warm enough, I’ll even drive to a beach and stick my feet into the freezing water.

(Did you know Rhode Island, where I’m from, does a polar plunge each year? A polar plunge which is when people go for a swim on the first of the year. Spending the first of the year on a beach is always nice. It’s a life goal to participate in that one day).

I know a lot of people do the first day of the year thing, but I like to extend it for the full week, to get any new routines off to a good start. Plus, then there isn’t as much guilt if you skip something due to lack of time or energy or whatever.

Anyway, that’s what I like to do during the first week of a new year. I find the tradition does tend to represent the rest of the year, but maybe that’s just me. What do you all think?

How to Enchant a Scarf

Enchanting can be one of the easiest ways of adding magic to anything. It’s super low key, can be done in public in front of people, and only requires a few moments of sitting quietly or murmuring to yourself to make it work. My style of enchanting does lean heavily on energy manipulation. If you’re new to energy manipulation, you should be able to follow along with this fairly easily, but skilled manipulators will have an easier time with it.

How to Enchant a Scarf. A super simple way to add magic to your wardrobe. Read more at thiscrookedcrown.com

This enchantment is for warmth and health. The same technique can be adapted to any kind of enchantment and this enchantment can be added to just about anything. It’s great on coats, socks, favorite hoodies, and bath towels. 

01 Clean and Cleanse

Whether you’ve dug your scarf out of the back of a drawer or you’ve purchased it new, you’ll need to wash the scarf and cleanse it. 

Make sure to look at the washing instructions of the scarf’s material. Some materials really shouldn’t be washed in a machine. If it needs spot cleaning, then VERY lightly mist it with some cleansing water or flick the water at it using your fingertips.

If you’re washing it in a machine, add a bit of cleansing ingredients such as a bit of salt or an herbal potion. Or you can enchant your laundry soap to cleanse. If you don’t have cleansing ingredients like that, you can use moon water as well. Why? Well, if it’s a new scarf or hasn’t been recently washed, it simply needs to be washed. That scarf probably has dust on it and scarfs tend to be by your mouth. Now-a-days with masks, this is less true, but it’s still something to be concerned about.

As for cleansing, I like to have things lightly cleansed while cleaning them and lightly cleansed while working in a new enchantment. It also helps shake up the stagnate energy in an old scarf and breaks up the energy from a store / warehouse and anyone who might have potentially been touching the scarf.

The aforementioned cleansing water works well, but you can also do smoke cleansing (which has the bonus of aroma), sounds such as bells, or even letting the scarf soak in a few hours of sunlight. 

02 Enchant it

Take the scarf in your hands. I like to lay it across my palms so my fingers can run across it, but whatever feels best for you. Feel free to move your hands around. You want to cover the whole length of the scarf.

Spend a few minutes centering yourself and gathering your energy. When it feels like you have excess energy in your core, push it towards your hands (or it may gather there naturally). Slowly drag or wave your hand over the scarf, letting the energy seep into the weave of the fabric or to coat the material, like liquid seeping into the fabric.

Now either speak, say, or think of how warm you’ll want to feel, how safe, how healthy. Envision the happiness you’ll feel when you wrap this warm scarf around your neck or a loved ones’ neck. 

When you think you’ve done enough, then you’re done! It really is that simple. When you hold it, it might not feel any warmer instantly, but the warmth should seep into your bones over time.

I like to go the extra step and repeat the warming thoughts when putting the scarf on.

Ideally, you should renew the enchantment every so often. At least every year, but you can do it as often as you like. The more you do it, the stronger the enchantment becomes.


Stay warm and safe everyone!

Etiquette for Visiting Witches

So, you made some witchy friends and you’ve been invited over to their place. Great! (Although, visiting people? In this day of social distancing?)

Still, there’s a certain social etiquette to visiting people’s houses, especially when one of you (or both of you) are magical practitioners or pagans. Actually, these are pretty good rules to follow when visiting anyone that has a lot of spiritual energy or religious beliefs.

Etiquette for Visiting Witches. Here's what to avoid when visiting a fellow practitioner's home. By thiscrookedcrown.com

01 Don’t touch

There are obviously things you’ll need to touch. Door handles, floorboards, cups or plates given to you, couches, and so on. But walking up and messing with someone’s altar or workspace? No. Just no. 

Truthfully, I don’t even like touching empowered things that I’ve been invited to touch that aren’t mine. I don’t like to touch items in stores because it’s weird. And I dislike the feeling of energy dredges that some items pick up when they aren’t cleansed regularly. (Although this is more of an issue in stores than it is in people’s homes.)

Energy transfer is one of the reasons that touching another practitioner’s stuff is a major no-no, but there are others. You don’t know the spells and rituals that item have been present for and it may be harmful for you to touch it. For example, I have several items in my home that could be dangerous or just not a good idea for anyone else other than myself to touch. Not even my brother, who lives with me and is a practitioner, himself should touch those items. And there are some of his items that I can’t touch. 

You also have to consider respect. It’s disrespectful to move around someone’s altar or workspace. They probably had it set a certain way for a very certain reason and even if you put it back exactly where it was, there’s still a sense that something’s been messed with. 

I’ve had to strip whole shrines then scrub and cleanse them because they were touched. And I once had to toss a complicated embroidered poppet spell I was in the middle of making because someone else touched it and messed up the spell’s associations. Just cleansing it wouldn’t work since it was completely ruined, so I disenchanted it and tossed it. 

02 Don’t mess with their spirits, ghosts, familiars, servitors, deities, or entities. And that includes summoning yours.

Some houses have spirits and ghosts living in them. And the residents are okay with living beside them. And other people have spirits or entities around for their practice. Don’t mess with them. Just let them be. It may not be your jam, but going around and cleansing people’s homes of spirits just because you think they’re not good for them is just plain rude – and possibly dangerous if they’ve a connection or relationship with that spirit.

The obvious exception would be a place of harm. If you’re being attacked by a spirit while visiting someone’s home, obviously cast some defensive spells to ward them off – or offensive, if you need to. But also tell your host. Sometimes, they can just tell the spirit to knock it off and they will. 

Summoning your own familiars, servitors, spirits, and so on is also asking for trouble. They might get caught in your host’s spells or fight with your host’s own spirits. I once had to stop two of my own servitors from tearing into a visitor’s familiar because they thought the familiar was invading. So be careful on summoning your own helpers.

03 Don’t go casting spells all willy-nilly.

This goes back to the energy thing from before, but there’s another reason. Some practitioners have spells to ward off magic cast by someone that isn’t them. There’s no reason to expect that doesn’t include yours. You might have your spell bounce back on you. 

04 Take care when eating food or drink prepared by your host

There’s always a danger when visiting a fellow practitioner that you’ll be consuming enchanted food or drink. This isn’t always a negative thing. It could be to promote health or good cheer. If you don’t want to  consume enchanted food, make sure you talk about that before hand.  Many times food is enchanted during the preparation, so saying “I won’t eat this fancy pie you made because you enchanted it” will probably disappoint your host – or you, if you’re bringing it.

If you’re really concerned about this, ask. Sometimes just simply asking in a polite and friendly way can do wonders.

05 Host gifts

Host gifts are old fashioned and rather formal these days. They’re pretty good for magical practitioners though. The act of hospitality is an ancient one and rife with magical intentions and meanings. Bringing a little something, like food or a protection charm, can really bring a lot of great energy with you when you enter the home. Plus it can a lot of fun.


Depending on your host, there are a bunch of other things to consider. Communication is key with any relationship, so make sure you talk to your witchy friend about these things when you iron out the details. And have fun! It’s hard to find friends in this field nearby, so enjoy the friends you gain.

10.2020 Shop Update! Divination Readings Availability

Hi! Where the heck has October gone? (Pumpkins and Halloween movies, that’s where.)

We’ve some updates around here in the shop section. Even some rare spots for divination readings have opened up!

3 card readings, pendulum readings, scrying readings, and even an oracular session. All readings are PDF and delivered by email. You can purchase them here.

There aren’t many spots available, so grab one if you can.

I’m also still available for spell casting. I’m also starting a trial run on custom spell writing. You can check out what’s in my cauldron here.

Where have the updates been?

In a moving box. Along with 95% of my library and most of my magical tools and items. I know I’ve been living here for a few months now, but time had flown. My current living situation is temporary and there’s a LOT of stuff going on behind the scenes here that eats up a lot of time emotionally and physically. And then there’s this whole pandemic thing happening.

To indicate how weird my current set up is… Last week I found a stack of cauldrons under a pile of floor pillows and I had to scale over the couch and through a pothos plant just to get a jar of moon water.

Don’t even get me started about the faeries. The one during my evening walk last night tried to take me out via rabbit.

But hey, at least I’ve got a stack of pumpkins to carve. It’s the little things that keep us going right now, right?

Teacher’s Good Graces Apple Spell

Anyone who’s taken a class with a large amount of students knows that sometimes you’re just a pile of things to grade to that teacher and not actually a person or face attached to that name/grade. I doubt that’s as much of an issue right now since the education systems had to adapt to current (pandemic) times.

I was recently going through a massive shoebox-thick stack of papers and discovered some notes I made about this spell during college. (I was deciding if certain apple types were better than others – the answer is maybe yes, a sweeter apple gives ever-so-slightly better results.) I mentally named it “Apple Teacher Friendship Spell” but that’s not what it is.

This spell’s purpose is to make you known to your teacher or professor in a positive way. It means that you’re starting off with a bit of a boost because they’ll think kindly of you. Will it give you a better grade? Maybe. I suppose it depends on how your teacher grades and how much their emotional states play into the grading itself.

It’s a pretty simple spell, so most broke college students can scrape together the coin to make this spell happen.

What you’ll need:

  • An apple (sweeter varieties are slightly better, but just get an apple you’ll eat. Bonus: if you can get one from your school’s cafeteria, even better.)
  • Your teacher’s names, spelled correctly.
  • A knife or something to carve with
  • Honey, caramel, or other sweet fruit dip
  • A bag you’ll carry to class (see below)
  • Plate, bowl, small cup (optional)

This spell ideally should be cast before you start class. However, sometimes that’s not possible or you’re on the fence about taking the course at all. You can cast the spell after you’ve met the teacher, but try to do it within the first few times you’ve met them.

Acquire an apple. Sweeter varieties have tested slightly better than sour or tart varieties, but just get an apple you’ll eat. (The eating part is important for this spell). If you can get an apple from your school’s cafeteria, then that’s even better.

Get some sort of sweet fruit dip. Caramel is a classic choice, honey, sweet or chocolate hummus, or just a sprinkle of cinnamon and sugar are also good. The dip itself isn’t important so much the process of coating the apple’s flesh with something sweet then eating it. Pick what’ll taste good, so long as it has a bit of sugar in it.

Buff the apple’s skin while thinking or speaking aloud of how you want to be treated in general by these teachers. Do they know your name? Do they ask you to speak in front of the class or do they ask favors from you? Do they grade you well? Do they ask how you are and genuinely care about the answer? Do they notice if you’re missing from class or if you’ve been acting out of sorts? Think on how you want to be treated and express that.

Once ready, slice the apple into as many slices as you have teachers. If you have six teachers, then you’ll need six slices. Ideally, they should be the same size, but don’t worry if they’re not.

Save the apple seeds! Set them aside on a plate or dish of some kind and let them dry out completely. Turn them over occasionally to make sure they dry on both sides.

Now on one side of the slice, carve into the apple your teacher’s name including any title they have. If the name is too long, you can use initials, but it’s better if you can carve the whole name out. Each apple slice should have the name of a different teacher.

Once you’ve gotten your apple slices carved, dip the apple as much as you can into your apple dip and eat the slices.

When the apple seeds have fully dried, put them in a little charm bag. This charm bag should be carried every time you go to class or school. You can also put the seeds in your pencil case or in a pocket of your school bag if you don’t want to make a charm bag.

Notes:

  • Buffing an apple is done by using a piece of cloth (kitchen towel, shirt, etc) and rubbing the apple’s skin to promote a shininess to the skin. Don’t press too hard as you might bruise softer apple varieties. Some apples don’t buff to a shine well and that’s okay. It’s just the act of buffing the apple that’s more important than the shiny factor.
  • Making a charm bag for classes is a really good idea for students. Add the seeds to dried herbs and crystals that promote your studies, concentration, and serenity.
  • This spell can be done even if you’ve never met your teacher and you’re doing classes online. The only change I’d suggest is that you keep the apple seeds in a glass jar next to your computer or studying area.

Patreon | thiscrookedcrown.com

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Scarecrow Harvest Protection Spell

Anyone who grows a garden has struggled with pests and thieves. It could be squirrels digging up your plants, birds plucking your berries, rabbits nibbling on the cabbage, deer grazing on your flowers, neighbors stealing your dear pumpkins, or spirits eating the essence of the peppers. (Is that last one a problem for other people or just me?)

This spell is is best used for growing rows of plants in the ground, but it can be used even in a small pot.

What you’ll need:

  • A scarecrow vessel (see below)
  • Soil from the plants you’re protecting (see below)
  • Juniper leaf
  • Garlic clove
  • Onion
  • Rose petals
  • Rose thorns
  • Rosemary
  • Water (see notes)

First, make or buy a scarecrow. Ideally, the scarecrow would be made of juniper, but it can be anything. It doesn’t even have to be a scarecrow. It could be a garden statue or pinwheel, but scarecrows (and similar) do help keep pets away in a mundane fashion.

Next, make a potion. In a large jar, bowl, pot, or cauldron, fill it up halfway with water. Put the juniper leaves, garlic, onion, rose petals, rose thorns, and rosemary in it. As you put them in, think or say out loud what you want to protect and what you want to protect it from.

Cover the jar and let it sit for twenty-four hours. It may be best to put it outside in the garden if you can. It may not smell great.

Alternatively, you can heat the water if you want and put the juniper leaves, garlic, onion, rose, and rosemary in it. Remember to enchant the water as you work. Let it sit and steep for an hour.

When the potion is done, strain out the ingredients and save the water. You can toss the used ingredients in your compost pile or bury them outside of your garden space.

Next go to each corner of your garden plot and collect a bit of soil. If you’re using a round plot or a pot, just take a bit of soil from the edge of the circle.

Once you have the soil, rub it over the scarecrow. Then wash the soil away with half of the potion. Use only the half of the remaining half, sprinkle a bit in the places you took the soil from.

Now place the scarecrow where you want it to go and use the last of the potion to sprinkle over it. Tell the scarecrow that you want it to protect the garden.

Notes:

  • The water can be any kind. Water from whatever source you water your plants from is good. Water purified by the sun or the moon (sun or moon water) or holy or sacred water is also great.

Patreon | thiscrookedcrown.com

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Book Review: The Divination Handbook by Liz Dean – 4.5/5

A no muss, no fuss divination book. It covers the most common forms of divination (tarot, scrying crystal balls, tea leaf reading, and so on) and does it in a easy to understand and thorough way. I knocked it down from a 5 to a 4.5 because I question the inclusion of a chakra pendulum chart. Like, I can see it’s usage, but it’s literally the only inclusion of this sort of thing in the book.

This book is small but mighty.

Filled with images, it’s something akin to a quick starter guide you get when you buy some sort of new electronic. If you already know what you’re doing, then this info won’t be a revelation. If you’re new, it’ll give you all the information to get started and clue you in to what you might want to research next.

Each section covers a new form of divination with all the info you need to get started and includes basic spreads or charts for each divination form.

The book covers crystal tossing (as in tossing crystals on a mat and determing meaning depending on the stone, the nearby stones, and position on a mat). This book includes basic divination meanings for commonly used stones, which is very helpful if you’re just getting started. It doesn’t cover crystal grids, which I kind of expected it too, since it mentioned them in the opening pages, but I’m ok with that info not being present.

Pendulum’s are also covered. I’ve don’t remember seeing a pendulum chart using chakra before and I’m very meh about it. Like, I could see the usage for it, especially if you’re very into Western chakra work or maybe helpful even in Eastern chakra work, but… eh. I have feels about it that are a tangent for another time. Anyway, color coding or simply having the meanings written on the chart wouldn’t have changed much, but maybe I’m just being too picky.

Runes, specifically the Elder Futhark, are also covered. I have personal spiritual history with runes that kept me from using them for the last 20 or so years, so my knowledge is from the first five or so years where that connection wasn’t present. (Maybe one day I’ll tell that story, but not today.)

Anyway, the book covers the three aetts (sets) and then goes into the runes individual meanings (including inverted). I am not a fan of inversion with any kind of divination, traditional or not, unless under specific circumstances and conditions, but to each their own. The book does have a note about inversion and not using them if you choose, which is always nice to see.

The instructions for tea leaf reading are simple (a little elaborate compared to how I do it, but you do you). Honestly, reading tea leaves (or coffee grounds) doesn’t need to be complicated. The little dictionary of symbols is more elaborate than other divination books like this.

I know some things about a palmistry, but not enough to put together a reading, so I paid attention to this chapter. This gives you enough information to get started. It even discusses the difference between chirognomy (the shape of the hand) versus chiromancy (the lines on the palm). It’s a good beginner’s primer. It’s one of the larger chapters in the book.

Chapter six is about tarot cards. Like the rest of the book, it’s a great guide for those who want to try their hand at it. It includes a few basic spreads then the usual card descriptions with both the upright and the reversed. The card descriptions also include images of the card, which is handy for beginners, The cleansing methods for the deck are unusual ones that I’m actually a fan of. It’s another longer chapter, about thirty pages.

Numerology is not my thing – I’ve a learning disorder involving math. I’m aware of sacred numbers and how to calculate various personal numbers and so on. But since math isn’t my thing, it’s been decades since I really dug deep into numerology.

This numerology chapter is actually pretty good (from what I can tell) including auspicious numbers, compatibility, and a breakdown for each basic number and talks a bit about the master numbers.

Scrying with crystals was the first type of divination I taught myself. It’s my jam. This final chapter talks about recording and planning your scrying sessions. How to connect to the scrying crystal and how to choose a crystal. This chapter refers to a crystal ball, but I’ve used raw pieces of crystals and it works just fine. It’s unusual to run into crystals like amethyst in basic scrying divination instructions, but I’m totally cool with this. Of course it goes into how to scry and variations thereof. It also talks about the symbols and colors that might appear during a scrying session, which is always nice.

And that’s the end of the book. It’s a good little book for someone who wants to get into divination, but they’re not sure what kind and they want just one pretty book on the subject on their self.

Would I recommend it? Yes. It’s not going to be show anything new to people who’ve been divining for a long time, but beginners will enjoy the book. Would I buy it for my own library? Yes. I like having various divination books to compare and contrast. Plus, it’s a good little book.

Witchcraft 101 – The 5 Things A New Witch Really Needs to Get Started

You know those lists of stuff you have that so-and-so blogger says are a must have or whats-their-face author swears you need? Yeah, skip it. At least at first.

If you’re getting into witchcraft I recommend just five things:

  1. White tealight candles + lighter and/or LED candle
  2. A stoneware cereal bowl (plain black, plain white, or clear preferred)
  3. A glass jar with tight closing lid (jam jars are great)
  4. Thread or ribbon (your color preference)
  5. Plain paper + smooth rolling pen

With all of that, you can do just about any spell. Seriously.

Here’s the break down the whys.

Tealight candles

Tealights are the perfect candle. They’re small enough that you can sit in a park, light the candle, sprinkle some powdered herbs into it, let it burn itself out, and be on your way by the time your podcast episode is over.

Tealight candles burn fast so you don’t have to wait around forever for a candle to burn out. This is super important because there are times where a spell will say “and let it burn out”. If you’re using a votive candle, that can take upwards 6+ hours. Anything larger and you’ll be there for days.

Minced or powdered herbs can be added too. You don’t want these ingredients to be too large or you’ll drown the flame, but a bit premixed from your kitchen ingredients and stored in a tic-tac container or mini shaker is perfect.

You can write on the metal tin to dress the candle, if you don’t feel like pulling the candle apart to write on the wax. Getting a tealight out of the metal tin can take some practice for some candles, but for others, it’s easy. Depends on your candle.

You don’t need a candle holder or a candle plate. You can get a tealight candle holder (there’s so many you could choose from), but you don’t need one.

They’re cheap. You can usually get a pack of tealights at the dollar store. At my local IKEA (Stoughton, MA), I can get 100 unscented tealight candles for $3.99 plus tax. If I want to go fancy, I could grab 30 color and scented tealights for $2.99.

I recommend candles over LED because you can burn stuff. If you have no intention of burning stuff and want it merely for light or symbolic reasons, use LED candle. At my local IKEA I can get a 6 pack of tealights for $5.99, but I can usually get a 2 tealight pack at my local dollar store.

Stoneware bowl

A stoneware bowl sounds weird, but you’re essentially looking for a heavy ceramic cereal or soup bowl. Why stoneware? Glass and metal bowls can be too hot to handle when heated. Plastic melts.

The ideal stoneware bowl will have a heavy bottom, a bottom ridge, or even feet at the bottom. Your coffee cup may have a bottom like this. You want the base to be thick so heat doesn’t spread easily from it and so it doesn’t break easily.

The inside should be nice and smooth so it’s easy to clean. Stoneware almost always it this way, unless it was made to be porous in some fashion.

You want it to have a thick or heavy bottom so it doesn’t break easily or burns the surface under it. It should be smooth on the inside, so it’s easy to clean. Black, white, or clear allows you to use it as a scrying divination bowl by pouring water in it or can be used for tea leaf reading.

While a bowl is ideal in size, a coffee cup or baking casserole dish could also be used.

Glass jar with tight lid

A glass jar with a tight lid, such as a jam jar or mason jar is great for mixing herbs, gathering water, making and keeping oils, etc. You can hold stuff in it, make stuff, keep stuff and so on. Sanitize your jars by boiling them with water and make sure they’re completely dry before using them for anything. Skip using jars like pickle jars or mustard jars, as the smell can be hard to get rid of.

If the lid is metal, you can use a piece of parchment or wax paper between the lid and jar to help protect the jar from rusting.

Thread

A cotton ball of thread can be bought in most places – check the hardware or cooking area. You can use twine, but it they often shed. Embroidery thread can be bought in any craft store or the craft section of a store. Same thing with ribbon. You can even use shoelaces, but it might not be cost effective. This can be used for any knot spell, to tie stuff up, or even make simple poppets.

Paper + Pen

With paper and a pen that moves nicely across the paper, you can write spells, take notes, try automatic writing, make sigils, and hundreds of other things.

Printer paper or a cheap sketchbook are perfect choices. Chalkboard or white boards are also excellent choices, especially because you can erase them and save time and money that way.

You can keep your notes and so on in a binder or folder, making a grimoire (book of spells/shadows/etc).

Alternatively, some people get by just fine without pen and paper, but I recommend it to start.

Bonus Tips

  • Start with the herbs in your kitchen rather than buying a special herb. Many times, you can substitute an herb in a spell.
  • Use the colors of your clothing for color symbolism rather than candle colors. It’s far cheaper than buying and storing special candles and you’ll be able to sense and remember the color meanings more easily.

That’s it an all. With those items, you can start just about anywhere with any kind of spells and you’re not going to need a lot of space to store it. They’re ordinary enough to hide in plain sight. And they’re cheap. The bowl’s probably the most expensive thing and that’s only if you can’t find what you’re looking for at the dollar store.

Goodbye Crossroads House!

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We sold our house!

Around late August of 2015  I started mentioning “Secret Future Plan” (SFP) on my personal twitter. SFP actually started a month earlier when, while kayaking with my mother, she mentioned that we could probably sell our house and get something more suitable to us.

When we moved into the Crossroads House 17 years ago, we had a lot of requirements (school districts, handicapped accessibility for my grandmother, spaces for everyone to keep out of each other’s way with our very busy lives). It’s a great house, but it no longer suited us so we decided to sell.

In order for us to sell the Crossroads House, we had to do some patch up. You know that to-do list of stuff you’ve been meaning to get to but never do? We had to actually go through that list and do it, plus have all of our financial ducks in a row. We took two years to get the house ready to sell. Painting and updating and so on takes both time and money, so we didn’t rush it.

Over the last three years, the Crossroad House has been on the market. We’ve gotten lots of offers, but usually they weren’t the right kinds of offers. We even had the house sold at one point, but something fell through in the final weeks of the sale. We took it off during the holidays too, since we didn’t want to fuss with that. Why it took so long to sell is easy – it’s a weird house. It has four bedrooms, but they’re all in different parts of the house. One bedroom is the whole second floor, what was once an attic. My bedroom and a second kitchen is in the basement. The other two bedrooms are on the main (first) floor, but are on opposite ends of the house, connected by the double parlor. The doors to the basement, that floor’s bathroom, the attic bedroom, and the backyard all connected in the small main level’s kitchen. All within walking distance to an elementary school, middle school, and the town’s high school. It’s a great house and way more spacious that it looked from the outside, but it’s not great for a family with little kids. It’s definitely more suited to teenagers or adults.

In 2019, as mentioned, we had the house sold. Then two weeks from closing, the sale fell through. We were absolutely crushed. We had already rented a new house to move into and had started packing. Literally the only thing that cheered us up was that Halloween was around the corner and I could go all out with decorating like I usually do.

We knew the next year, this year, was going to be it. Tons of little signs, included the tragic death of one of our Halloween decoration dragons, told us as much.

Then spring 2020 hit. We put it back on the market in early February, but the COVID-19 pandemic started soon after. About a week and a half after everything started to shut down in my area, we get a call. The buyer had been watching for a while and wanted to see the house. We had stipulations, of course. Masks, gloves, don’t touch anything, etc. Then the state shut own and no one could travel in from another state. We had several other buyers after that, some even with offers, but none were really serious.

Then the new owners came in. They saw the newly uploaded 3D model of the house and wanted it before they even saw it in person. They love it that much! The closing was the end of July and we’re all so happy that the couple that bought it love the house and are looking forward to putting their own spin on the house.

Of course, moving isn’t just signing over a house. We had to pack 17 years worth of stuff – including thousands of books. We were already partially packed, honestly. We had decluttered for house showings. But there was still a ton of stuff to do. The week before closing my Mom and I WORKED. We put in fourteen hour days for an entire week during a heat wave carting out box after box after tote after boxe. We got rid of a lot of stuff and threw a spur-of-the-moment yard sale on two separate days. The day before last it was a hundred degrees with nearly matching humidity and we ran around donating various things and making an unplanned trip across the state to Connecticut where someone was willing to host our ladder and kayaks for a while. We’d carry boxes over to fill our condo’s living room only to come home and put it all away after a long day of working in the heat and sun, so the landscape of the condo was constantly changing. My brother and uncle were amazed. My cat Kiki was angry and spent much of the time I was home ignoring me. (She likes the new place, she just didn’t like that I wasn’t there.)

I’ll certainly miss the old house. It was spiritually quite wonderful and it had a ton of room for everybody to spread out in. There’s a lot of memories and a lot of things we’ll miss.

So what’s next?

Well, we’re taking a month or so off to just relax and unpack. We still have some boxes that need putting away or to be put into storage, Tetris style. After that, we’re onto new horizons. Our condo is a temporary location only. We have plans for after this, but I don’t want to talk too much about that right now.

How does this affect This Crooked Crown? Well, I think it’ll actually help. Having to be constantly cleaning or having my work routine interrupted to do house showings was a pain in the ass. I can mark, to the day, where my beautiful and productive work routine crashed into the house selling nonsense and shattered. I’ve spent three years working with half the energy I’d normally have. Now I don’t have to worry about that. I can go back to doing my own thing without needing to make the house look like a magazine shoot.

I’m going to take it slow and build up This Crooked Crown again. We were doing well and helping people before. I’d like to do so again. I have a lot of projects that I can get back to now and now I’ve the mental space and emotional energy to dedicate to thoughtful posts once again.

If you’d like to support the cause, you can drop a coin in the tip jar or become a patron. I’m slowly by surely moving my Etsy and Storenvy shops here, so if you bought something in those places and want to see it here, shoot me a message (form below) and I’ll see what I can do. Otherwise, wander around the shop section and see what I’ve got for sale. Readings, spells, and more. Physical items, like charms, will be added as I make them since I had to cut back on my creating while we were selling.

Anyway, it’s good to be back! Thanks for your patience and let’s try and make 2020 a little bit better, hm?

Patreon | thiscrookedcrown.com

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7 Spells to Cast When Protesting

What words can I say that haven’t already been said? Black lives matter. If you’re more outraged about property damage than human lives, then you have your priorities wrong and you’re a shitty person. People do not need to “get over” the egregious murder of another person, especially at the hands of authority figures. Authority figures are suppose to be there to protect and promote peace – so why are they armed as they are? These are simple, basic human rights. It shouldn’t even need to be said – it should be implicitly understood and accepted, not debated.

Right now, I’m spending my time listening. I’m protesting and addressing racism within my family and friends and reminding people to be compassionate. People need to put aside their own uncomfortable or defensive feelings to empathize and listen to what black people are saying. But most of all, I’m supporting and listening the best way I can.

Remember to donate! George Floyd Memorial Fund. Black Visions Collective. Reclaim the Block. Bail funds for protesters.

Here’s some spells that require nothing. They can be cast on the fly, in a moment’s notice. They don’t require a specific words to be said or anything like that. They’re subtle, which is exactly what you need when you’re trying to save yourself and others. I’ve tested them myself, so I hope they work well for everyone else.

Invisibility glamour

This spell is simple. Essentially, you’re reducing your visibility to whoever is looking. They’ll see you, but not notice you. It’s like when you’re looking for your keys and they’re right next to your cup of coffee. It’s probably not going to stop someone from looking for you if you just punched them in the head, but it will keep people from focusing or staring too hard at you.

To cast the glamour, you need to pick the best way to cast it. Either you need to stand very still or move at a consistent, steady pace. So sit in a chair, stand in a corner or along a wall, hide behind a car, etc. Or you can walk at a steady pace matching the people walking around you in a crowd.

Now take a deep breath and think or whisper “You do not see me. No one sees me. I’m not here. Keep moving. You do not see me.” The phrasing doesn’t have to be exact. Say whatever feels right.

As you do this, pull your energy around you, like pulling a blanket closer to you and then over your head. Hold onto that as you move steadily and quietly to attend to you business.

This spell is best used when you need to get out a situation where you’re not being directly confronted, but feel unsafe. It’s also useful when you just want to go for a walk and don’t want people to bother you.

I’ve explained this spell in more detail here.

Protection barrier

This is a magic circle, so if you’re familiar with those, then you’ve already got this down pat. For those of you who aren’t great at magic circles, then it’s time to put those video game skills and TV watching hours to use.

Imagine yourself (and others) in a circle of energy. Fire is a common usage, but so it bright light. I tend to do light, wind, or water because those resonate well with me. You can swath yourself in darkness or whatever works best for you. Lean on your elemental associations and magical strengths here. If you do a lot of herbal work, picture plants or trees in front of you. Test out which methods work best for you.

If you’re not great at this sort of thing, then just pick something from a video game or TV show. Channel someone from The Last Avatar or pick your favorite protection spell from a video game and use it.

When you do your imagining, push your energy out from you to form a circle, bubble, or shield around you and whatever you’re protecting. This is energy manipulation, so brush up on that if it’s not something you’re great at.

This will not stop bullets, but I’ve seen people pause, hesitate, or stagger when crossing a barrier. That might give you enough time to run away. Mostly, it should be used when you’re already marching or in a stationary position, like at a protest.

Throwing Sigils

So this is kind of advanced, but it’s one of the number one ways I use spells in the field.

First you need to know how to make sigils. For this spell, create a sigil that keeps people away. Now simplify that sigil if you need to. It has to be easy to remember.

Now gather your energy into one hand and trace the sigil in the air. You can also trace the sigil with your foot, if that’s better for you. As you do this, speak or think your intent clearly.

With your energy still in your hand, push your sigil forward towards your target.

You can also use traditional symbols for this spell, such as a banishing pentagram. This can be done with any kind of spell or sigil, you just have to be able to remember and write the symbol or sigil clearly.

Energy healing

Healing spells are never meant to replace medical assistance, but it won’t hurt to cast a healing spell while you’re waiting for a medic to look at the injured person.

Place your hand over the injury, if possible. If that isn’t possible, put a hand on their back, belly, or head. You can technically touch them anywhere, but their core and head works best. Remember to ask their consent to be touched!

Push your energy into them gently. Focus on being calm and soothing the injury. Let the energy flow steadily and calmly, like the running of a creek.

If they’re bleeding, focus the energy towards the open wound and staunching that blood flow, like the energy forms an invisible barrier between the skin and the exterior of the body.

You can also temper the energy with cooling agents, if the person feels hot or feverish. Or heat up that energy when someone is cold.

If you’re working to flush out contamination, like pepper spray, focus on cooling energy and make sure you’re providing lots of clear water to wash their eyes and skin without getting contaminated yourself (and make sure you remove contaminated clothing).

Meet Up Spell

Lost your crew and phone is dead? Had to do a runner while protesting and not sure if it’s safe to text the others? This spell can help.

Get yourself to a safe location and send up an energy flare into the sky. To do this, sit for a moment and think of the people you want to meet up with. Use their names, if possible, but if not, think of their faces. Then push your energy up into the sky with a concentrated intention of “I am here” and “come find me”.

You can also enchant chalk or spray paint with the same idea. Push the energy into the chalk or paint rather than up into the sky and use it to mark the location or direction you went in. Use an agreed upon code or location to help yourself even more.

I’m staying here!

To make sure that no one moves you from your spot, take a strong stance and press into all the corners of your feet. Push your energy down, like planting roots.

You can double-down on this spell by also using your favorite grounding technique or mountain meditation, really focusing on becoming hard and difficult to move.

Binding hex

Point at the target then draw an X across their body and point down to the ground. Focus to keep them in one place and unable to do anything.

You can use a sigil instead of an X for this exact purpose, if you’d like.

Practical tips: Know your rights. Remember to wear good shoes, have an exit strategy, and wear a mask (which you should be doing anyway, because coronavirus is still a thing.) Charge your phone and maybe take a moment to look up what lawyers are offering to represent protesters then write that down somewhere that is not your phone (in case it’s lost or broken). Bringing some medical supplies and water is also a great idea. Just… prepare yourself for things to go poorly.

Please stay safe out there! Protect yourself and protect others. Stand for what’s right.

Patreon | thiscrookedcrown.com

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