Tag: Witchcraft 101

Spells, posts, and other information for newbie witches and magical practitioners

Favorite Foods + Drinks Before a Ritual

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I’m very much a spontaneous kind of spell caster. I rarely plan out full rituals, but when I do, prep is an important step.

One of the steps that’s easy to forget to do is eating before the ritual. Truthfully, if you’re going to be using your own energy for a ritual (rather than channeling fully from elsewhere) you should be eating something both before and after the ritual. So you have a lot of energy to start with and to restore the energy you consumed during the ritual.

So an hour or so before the ritual, these are what I reach for:

  • Fresh fruit, such as strawberries, apples, oranges, bananas, raspberries, blueberries, pomegranates, and grapes
  • Fresh vegetables, such as cucumbers, tomatoes (yes, yes technically a fruit), carrots, broccoli, radishes, and celery.
  • Fresh salad, usually with lots of variation but not as much salad dressing, cheese, meat, or croutons as I might normally like.
  • Seeds and nuts, like sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, honeyed peanuts. I try to keep the amount I eat on the smaller side here, as sometimes too many nuts and seeds can feel heavy.
  • A small sandwich or wrap, heavily on the vegetables and flavors. Think afternoon tea sandwich size.
  • Yogurt
  • Smoothies
  • Tea
  • Water
  • Fruit juice, often watered down
  • Sweet alcohol, fruit-based alcohol
  • Wine or harsher spirits. I usually go with this when I need to jump directly into some sort of alternative stage of consciousness or drop inhibitions (ie feeling self-conscious) as quickly as possible.

As you can see, I tend to reach for fresh foods before a ritual, usually light on meat and bread. I’m not particular when it comes to my diet – the only thing I really steer away from is organ meat and diary – but I like to go with a light meal usually paired with tea or sweet alcohol before a ritual.

I find this helps keep the energy up and still allows me to move freely during a ritual – very important with how I tend to cast rituals – and not weigh me down. They also can usually be consumed while I go over my ritual notes or do other prep work before the ritual.

This isn’t to say that you MUST eat one of these foods before a ritual. It really does depend on a person and their personal taste. Let your body guide you to the best choices for you.

It should be noted that, for some rituals, I will intentionally skip this step. I won’t eat before vigils for example where I need to do a lot of spirit work and often do trances during that time. I will often skip food beforehand when I perform oracles or medium work. I personally find that I work better that way, but it’s not something I recommend without knowing exactly how to fast safely.

That being said, I do recommend to try and ensure that you’re taking care of yourself before your rituals as much as afterwards and consider trying different food combinations to see what gives you the best results with your magical and spiritual work.

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How to Make a Wish Manifestation Jar

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A wish jar is part meditation, part spell work, part law of attraction. It’s a jar is used to manifest whatever you’re looking for and can be used for any purpose. You could call it a dream jar, but I actually define those two differently.

For this project, you’ll need to get some sort of vessel with a lid. A jar’s easy, but a pretty box works too. I have a ceramic lidded pot I use. Ideally, this vessel should be opaque, so it’s “out of sight, out of mind” but dealer’s choice in my opinion. If seeing what’s inside is more of a reminder to re-up the energy, then do that.

Once you’ve acquired your vessel, clean and cleanse it in whatever method you prefer. I typically use cleansing water, but do whatever works for you.

Enchanting your wish jar is the next big step. I tend to dump a lot of energy into the box and say something that gives that energy a direction – a command.

For most people, I’d recommend some sort of wording such as “my wishes manifest into reality”. I usually use “the wishes that go in this box become truths”. It’s kind of weird phrasing and you’ll need to think of exactly how you want to word any verbal chants for yourself. What kind of wishes are you putting in this vessel? Is it going to be mostly law of attraction stuff, like “Let’s go viral on tiktok”? Or is it “I invite a puppy into my life”? How you phrase your wishes will depend on how you enchant the vessel. Think about how you usually verbalize your spells. I have a fairly specific if unusual way of speaking, almost left-field nonsensical at times, so my wording is often just plain weird. 

Once you’ve got your wish jar enchanted, stick is somewhere you visit daily. I recommend the bathroom counter, a vanity, on top of a dresser, your altar, in the kitchen, or by the door. These are good place because they’re probably places you visit frequently with a bit of time on your hands.

You can pick up the vessel and pour excess energy into it, empowering all the wishes in the box. Or you can pull out the wishes (I’ll get to that in a bit) and read them over, envisioning each wish coming to fruition, before returning the to the vessel.

To add a wish to the vessel, simply write down what you want on a slip of paper. You can also open the jar and whisper your wish inside of it, but writing it down allows you to pull the paper out and reread it. I’ve also used wooden popsicle sticks with the wish written on it. When the wish comes true, you can either bury or burn the paper or stick, depending on your preference.

Ideally, you should power the wish jar every day and charge it under the full moon or celestially important events (like eclipses or days where the planets line up right or equinoxes).

BUT, let’s be real. We’re all busy people and most of us have tried looking for our cell phones while it’s in our hands, so don’t fret about it too much if you forget for a while. This thing borders on both law of attraction and chaos style magic, so if you forget about it, it probably won’t harm it much, if at all. It’s not “set it and forget it”, but it’s not “oh dear gods, I forgot my wish jar, all my hopes and dreams are ash”. Find your middle point and do what works for you.

It’s kind of a weird little witchy thing. It’s not quite a standard spell because it’s so personalized it barely has instructions. But it’s not-not a spell either, you know? I find it a fun technique and magic experiment. It’s a good way of easing the witchy adjacent and children into magic thinking. And, if you spent time focusing each day on something like this, it serves as a sort of meditation. Mostly, it’s just a bit of fun that will hopefully manifest big results for you.

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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.

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.

Magical Gardening Tips for Complete Beginners

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Witches and plants go hand in hand. (Generally, of course. I’m not the boss of your craft, but, you know, it’s generally a thing.)

But gardening is expensive. So expensive. You wouldn’t think nature, the thing we live on, in, around, and with would be difficult to acquire, but it is. You can easily drop hundreds if not thousands of dollars a year on gardening – just indoor gardening. Never mind external gardens.

And witchy plants? SO MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE. Either you need to safely wildcraft them (and some of those plants shouldn’t be removed from their environment if you aren’t 1000% sure you can handle them, because the plants need all the propagation opportunities possible) or you buy those plants. Buying seeds can be a few bucks here and a few bucks there, but there’s always a good chance that your plant won’t grow. Then you’re out a few bucks and all you have is a jar of failed dirt. Buying live plants is a better middle ground, but plants do experience trauma so you still have a risk of them dying.

Aside from the expense of the actual plants, you may need to purchase soil, soil additives (because soil is not the same everywhere and some plants are unhappy without certain soil), pots and planters, plant trays and moving wheeled platforms for larger pots, plant food, and possibly plant lights or a water system. That’s for indoor plants. Outdoors? That’s a whole different expensive level. 

So, here’s some witchy truths and tips for indoor gardens.

True Facts

  • You will fail. Plants will die. You may feel like a murderer. It happens to us all.
  • Google plant care for your plant. It may just save your plant’s life.
  • Ask fellow gardeners and witches for advice. This is something all of us do in regards to plants so many are quite happy to talk about it.
  • It’s better to have one healthy plant than six unhealthy plants.
  • Plants do not always smell good. Some plants smell like ass and others will smell like death, piss, or onions. The prize may outweigh the cost, but not always. 
  • You will have bugs. Even indoors, there will be bugs.
  • Sometimes the organic or better quality stuff isn’t best. Think before you buy stuff for your garden. You organic soil may sprout mushrooms that kill your plants (true story) and you may find that a clear vase of water with a handful of rocks is better for a plant than a specific growing pot. Trial and error helps here, but don’t sink a ton of money on something without trying to more common stuff first.
  • Many, many, many plants are invasive. Mugwort, mullein, chamomile, and mint are common invasive plants used in witchcraft. I recommend googling before purchasing or at least googling before planting in the ground for all plants. Some plants spread like crazy and will destroy your garden if giving the chance. 
  • Annual means that it grows for less than two years and will need to be replaced, most lasting a single season. Perennial means it comes back again and again. Some perennials self-sow so you may get a perennial plant to come back, just not the same plant as before.
  • Keep an eye on how warm your plants can get. Too much heat will kill them, but so will too much cold. It may be best to put a plant on a table near a window than in a cold window sill, even if the window gets better light. 
  • Not all plants are pet-friendly. Google may tell you if a plant is toxic to animals, but a better bet is to just keep them out of a pet’s range.
  • Plants do weird shit. Expect to be surprised.

Where to get your plants

  • Grow from seeds
  • Get a cutting or live plant from a friend
  • Grow them from kitchen scraps
  • Buy a live plant at a store or nursery (online or local)
  • Wildcraft one (so long as the population of said plant is super stable)
  • Check the clearance section of a store or nursery 

I’ll be honest. I normally search the clearance section of stores first for plants to rescue. Normally these are plants that are growing weirdly, need transplanting desperately, or simply look unhealthy. And they may be all of that! But they’re usually really cheap so I tend to rescue them first and foremost.

I can, have, and do grow plants from seeds. I usually keep my plant purchases to a minimum from seeds, merely because I don’t have space to give lots of plants a head-start indoors. (Most of my growing space is a single large window where all the indoor plants live during the cooler months). I normally harvest seeds from foods I’ve consumed (like avocado or lemons), but I also buy seeds from Baker’s Creek (rareseeds.com). They sell heirloom vegetables seeds as well as flower and herb seeds.

My favorite (and cheapest) suggestion is to grow plants from fruits and vegetables you already have purchased. I’ve gotten ginger, scallions (green onions), potatoes, sweet potatoes, celery, garlic, and pineapples from kitchen scraps. Root vegetables and plants with bases like celery are easier to re-grow, in my opinion. A quick google search of ‘food you can re-grow from kitchen scraps’ will yield good results. 

Some of my best plants I get from nurseries. Yup, they’re more expensive (but not much more, to be honest, then home improvement stores), but they’re way happier plants. And you can get some beautiful selections you might not get elsewhere. Plus, you’re supporting a local small business, which is always a good thing to do. Two years ago, my household scored black petunias (actually a very dark purple) at a nursery whereas we had never seen them before. My preferred nursery is owned and operated by a single woman and conveniently is a few houses down from my preferred farmer’s market. I just have to remember to grab some bug spray before going and I’m a happy witch.

I rarely get plants in other ways. I sometimes will transplant a wild plant to save it from becoming someone’s lawn clippings (like I did with my bittersweet nightshade) and I’ve gotten plants from other people, but largely, I acquire my plants in the above ways right now.

Planting and grow your plants

Following your plant’s care recommendations, provided by google, is best. Seriously. Each plant will require a learning curve. 

My favorite pots for growing are a large clear glass jar and some cheap clay pots. I do have plastic ones, but I tend to only use them for very, very large plants. Ceramic pots are great too and I use them often. I skip concrete planters – they’re very heavy and I’ve had them crack in the New England cold winters. Who knew? Most of the time though, you’ll find a lot of my water-based plants growing in recycled olive or jam jars. I love the eclectic look of the different pots and jars, but if you like things more streamline and uniform, pick something that’s netural and available widely in a variety of sizes.

You can also use a double pot system. Plant your plant in something that might not be pretty, but you can place inside something that is pretty. I do this with plants that haven’t outgrown the pots they come in. Grow pots are cheap plastic and aren’t great, but sometimes moving a plant isn’t the best idea. I often just leave plants alone until they need some attention. I’ve done best at keeping things alive when I work in this manner.

I use decent but not stellar soil for my indoor plants (and I skip the organic stuff after a mushroom episode). I use dollar stone china plates for the bottom of my planters when I can’t find a real one to fit. Driveway gravel is great for draining rocks for the bottom of my planters, but it can be a bit sharp for some delicate rooted plants.. I dig using my hands and end up with dirt everywhere. I water as needed (unless the plants are liars) and feed them as often as I dare.

Working outdoors is a whole different game. There I have shovels, trowels, work gloves, clippers, shears, scissors, ladders, and every other thing under the sun. I use decent soil to bolster the land as needed or dive for gardening tomes to help balance the PH in the soil. I use mulch and large brim hats and consider the merits of growing compost and curse my yard’s poor dirt.

How I set up my pots generally follows like this:

  1. I pick a pot about slightly less than twice the size of the pot the plant currently is in. If it’s a seed, then I use a very small pot about six inches tall and three inches wide. If the plant is very root bound (as in the roots are all tangled together inside the pot), I’ll upgrade to a larger pot.
  2. I put a small layer of driveway gravel at the bottom of the pot. This is so the water doesn’t sit on the roots or soak the soil too much. If your pot has holes at the bottom (and you have a plant liner tray) then you can skip this step, but I generally always use the gravel. The gravel is somewhat pointy so be aware that it may damage very tender roots, so handle with care. I add more gravel if I’m planting something that needs drier soil, like a succulent or cactus. Some water plants are anchored by gravel and use smaller rocks for additional root assistance.
  3. Then I put a little soil in, just enough to cover the rocks (or more if the plant is short but deep roots or it’s a seed)
  4. I pull the plant out of the pot it’s already in, shaking some of the soil from the roots. If the plant is a seed, just plop it in the soil and plant according to recommendations. If it’s very root bound, you may end up spending several minutes loosening up the soil between the roots so the plant can have more room to grow. Be careful not to break the roots or any stems when handling the plant. Be gentle.
  5. Then I pad the sides of the plant with soil, layering on more and more until the roots are completely covered and the plant is well secured.
  6. Sometimes I add rocks at the top, but that’s largely depending on how much I want or need to protect the plant from soil erosion by water. 
  7. Then I drizzle water on the plant until the soil is wet. Finally, the plant can be placed happily in where I want it to go. I’ll add watering and feeding times to my calendar, as suggested by plant growing guides, and call it a day. 

Planting Outside

I won’t cover planting outside right now, because it’s a super large topic and the advice will vary depending on soil type, weather, climate, sun/shade ratios, wind, what’s already growing, wildlife, and how much time you have to devote to it all.

My general advice for outdoor gardeners is to do a soil test, then you’ll have a general idea how much work you’ll need to do to adjust to plants. That being said, it may be easier for you to simply grow in containers than in the ground, especially if there’s a lot of trees, roots, shade, or something buried in the ground, like a septic tank.

Take photos and notes of the areas you want to grow in for at least a week at various times of the day. I just leave a little notebook in the window closest to that area and take notes and a photo every time I walk by. This will help you determine how much sun, wind, and shade that area gets at various times of the day. It also may tell you what wildlife is nearby.

Armed with that information, you can start planning a garden. Again, this is a huge topic, but I typically suggest raised beds, because they’re just so much easier to take care of and work with.

Now, if you have specific plants you want to grow in a specific area, then do a test. I plant my desired plant in a container and place it in a spot where I’d like to plant it in the ground in the future. It helps determine whether or not the plant will survive there. There’s no guarantee even if all this is done. Some plants just don’t do well in certain soils. You’ll have to risk failure to succeed.

You’ll also want to keep in mind how much a plant will grow and how invasive it’ll be. Mint, for example, grows easily in containers, but shouldn’t be planted in the ground or it’ll take over the whole yard. Ground cover can be useful, but sometimes it’s impossible to get rid of later and becomes a nightmare. Do your research before you plant something with a reputation of being invasive in this manner.

Adding some magic

Magic can be added to any part of the routine.

When selecting plants, I seek out the ones that are calling for help or seem to want me specifically. I listen to what the plant wants and that’s how I get many of my plants to do well. This is an animist’s point of view, of course, but I find that it really works well.

You can plant by the phases of the moon and some people do really well with it. I have a theory that if you have a lot of water on the property, planting by the moon works better, but I don’t have near enough data to really propose this seriously right now.

Water can be enchanted with the power of the sun or moon. You can also used infused water, like a tea or water from making pasta to water plants with. This will largely depend on the plant itself. For example, I use nothing but clear, clean filtered or purified water for my indoor bamboo. If I use anything else at all, it dies rapidly and it very difficult to save. Google will, yet again, be your friend.

What you fertilize your plants with can also be enchanted. Rose, according to some gardeners, like calcium so planting a hank of your hair alongside your roses is good for them. I’ve tried eggshells, but I didn’t notice any changes with my rose bush, but I think that’s largely due to the location rather than the plant itself. Once you figure out what weird things you can fertilize your plants with, the magical connections should come quickly after that.

Of course, you can additionally enchant the soil you plant in with enchanted water, carefully made compost, or enchanted draining rocks with sigils painted on them in environmentally friendly paint.

Pots are probably the easiest to enchant. You can draw or paint with environmentally safe paint on the outside and inside of the plant to encourage grow and health in the plant. This can be as simple as a sigil or written word or as complicated as an intricate painting. The choice is yours.

Placing decorations inside the pot is also useful. This can be done by placing a tiny statue in the pot with the plant in a manner where the plant won’t be crowded. I’m plotting to turn the soil around my palm plant into a tiny fairy cottage, lacing each item I acquire or make with spells for prosperity, abundance, and household happiness and health.

There are many other ways to enchant your gardening too. Garden tools can be enchanted for strength and to be rust-proof. Gloves can be enchanting to keep the hands safe. Support for plants can be soaked in enchanted water.

Don’t forget that you can simply verbalize spells by talking to your plants. There’s some research to support that plants like being talked to nicely and sweetly and that backs up my experience nicely. (The only plant I ever struggle with is a climbing rose I’ve named Diva and she’s the most prickly thing I’ve ever met. She gets me every time, no matter what I’m doing.) I like to hum or sing-song to my plants as I work on them, if I’m not just straight-out having a one-sided conversation with them. I get some strange looks, especially from my brother, but I don’t mind.

Those are some basic tips! Hope it helps!

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Witchcraft 101: Adapting Spells

It’s a rare magical practitioner that hasn’t had to adapt a spell at one time or another. Usually it’s for personal practice reasons or ingredient reasons, but it can simply be that it’s too cold to walk outside or they just don’t like the spell’s steps or wording.

Adapting spells can be really easy – but it can be a challenge too. It’s okay if it’s a challenging or daunting task for you! It really is. Spell casting is a lot like cooking and baking; for some people, it’s easy to moderately okay and for others, it’s a daunting task.

Cooking and baking are relatively subjective. Things need to turn out a certain way to be properly edible and taste good, but not everything is going to taste great to the same people. Spells are a lot like that. There are some things that just won’t work quite as well for you as for others and some ingredients (like some foods) that you just don’t want to work with.

Like a recipe, there’s a way of approaching a spell that you need to adapt. Here’s how.

Step One: Read & Analyze

Read through the spell completely, including any notes the author or other practitioners may have made. Take notes yourself as needed, marking what things you’d need to purchase or procure in some manner. Also know any timing events that need to be marked on your calendar (such as the next full moon).

If you plan on making any adaptations, write it down clearly. You’re swapping this ingredient for that. If you don’t know what ingredient to swap something for, then you need to really sit down and analyze that spell. What purpose does that ingredient serve in the spell? If you can’t see an obvious reason, it’s probably best to assume it’s there for a correspondence reason. To help with that, check out correspondence charts.

How this compares to a recipe: When you make a new dish, it’s always a good idea to read through the recipe. It may need a special pan you don’t have or an ingredient that’s not listed in the ingredient list above. It may need the butter or eggs to be room temperature or it could be the baking is thrown off on cold days. There may be a reason that ingredient is specific to the recipe – without it, the puff pastry won’t rise or the chemical reaction you need for the yum factor doesn’t happen. Research helps mitigate this before you’re elbows deep in ingredients and realize you’re up a creek without a paddle and a storm is brewing on the horizon.

Step Two: Double check that you have everything

There’s little reason to try a spell or recipe when you’re missing half the stuff – it’s not the same thing at that point. You may be able to create something wonderful, but it’s a brand new spell or recipe. Not the same thing. That’s not a bad thing! Just make sure you write it down. But if you’re intention is to cast a specific spell, be cautious of exchanging too many ingredients or you’ll wind up with something different than the original intention.

That being said, I’m firmly in the camp of winging it. If you want to try and spell and need to adapt it, do it. Take notes on what you’ve changed (in case it works better than the original spell or goes terribly wrong), but try it anyway.

Step Three: Make your changes

Now’s the time for the adaptations. You’ve taken your notes and you have a good idea of what you want to do. Now to make the changes.

The first stop in adaptations is to a correspondence chart or list of some kind. I have one available here, which is sourced and ever-growing.

Sometimes swapping an item can be easy. You need something to represent luck, well, here’s four other herbs that do exactly that. When things have symbolic meanings or magical correspondences, they can often be easily swapped.

But not always. If you really want to be diligent, a quick google search with the ingredient plus something like “folklore” or “magical correspondence” can lead you to why that ingredient is considered lucky. This may be critical at times. Sure, an herb might be lucky, but only for gamblers. That isn’t going to help too much when you want luck taking an exam.

You also have to be aware of herbal associations. Some spells, especially the edible kind, have herbal combinations meant to do something actually physical to the body. It’s not symbolic in meaning, but science. So you can’t just swap in something with a magical correspondence when the concoction is herbal medicine in nature. Plus, herbs can be dangerous – they can counter to one another, they can react with medication or current medical conditions, and they can be toxic. So you have to be very careful when doing something that’s meant to be consumed.

Now for some people, they stay away from herbalism and stick with magical correspondences only. That’s perfectly okay! But be aware that many herbal connections come from herbalism. Even the weird ones. So knowing why something has that association may be important.

And none of that may matter at all. People can work intuitively with ingredients and make up their own correspondences and associations. That’s a great way to go about it too.

You also have to consider the purpose of the item in the spell. Swapping a red candle for a white one is easy since white is seen as a universal color or something of a blank slate. But when you start thinking, “well, I don’t think this makes a good candle spell. What if I skip the candle?” And for some spells, you can absolutely do that. The candle is superficial or is being used as a focus object (ie, something to look at and hold) For others, the candle is being used as a conduit (ie, the spell verse might have “as this candle burns”) or the candle has a practical purpose (ie, burning a piece of paper with writing on it). It’s harder to swap out items that are practical or are a conduit.

In short, there can be more to adaptations than just “this is the ingredient on the list that I have”.

Step Four: Do the spell

Go for it. Just try the spell. When you’re casting, you may need to change things up on the fly. Maybe the candle won’t stay lit or your neighbor is being nosy. Maybe the dog starts barking because she needs to pee or your phone goes off non-stop with notifications. Sometimes the wording is just plain weird and doesn’t work for you.

Adapting on the fly happens. Finish the spell. Even if you lose momentum or the build up of energy. Even if you feel rushed, judged, or things get weird. Finish your spell. Not finishing it can lead to weirdness and energy drains, at the least.

Use the words that work best clearly for you. Yeah, that old timey wording looks great, but if you’re not feeling it, use your plain ol’ normal words instead. Speak or think honestly and clearly when you need to make wording changes.

Step Five: Record

You’ve been taking notes all along. Now record what happened. How’d the spell casting go? Over the next few days and weeks, you’ll probably begin to see results. What are they? How do they meet your expectations? Do you think your adaptations changed how the spell worked?

As you progress with your practice, you may find that you don’t want to, need to, or like to write things down. I’ll be honest, as someone who spends a LOT of my time writing, I rarely write down the spells I routinely do or do off the cuff unless it’s really good. Mostly, I write down stuff I’m tinkering with. That’s my personal preference. You don’t need to have meticulous records, but they very much help.

I know a lot of this advice sounds like “just write it down!” and, honestly, keeping notes as a beginner can be really key. I am well-known for winging it in just about all my personal spells, but I take notes for myself on spells I’m working on. It can really help, especially when you’re doing an important working or you’re making adaptations.

Hope that helps! Happy casting!

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6 Tips for New Witches

Starting as a new witch is always hard, but the internet can make it really hard. Who do you trust? What should you focus on? Do you really need that $50 cauldron or those 80 herbs?

The truth is that no one’s going to have exactly the same experience. What your interests and passions are, who you are, and what you connect with on a personal and spiritual level all alter how you perceive even basic witchcraft information and that alters your path. You’re unique and so will be your magical practice. And that’s a good thing!

Still, it can be hard to get a good foundation and know where to begin. So here’s my top six tips for new witches.

01 Research Can Be Key – But It’s Not Everything

Spending time researching and reading various occult topics is really important as a new practitioner. Not only is there probably a lot to learn, but you can discover your new path and new opinions that way.

I find a lot of unique and interesting things about my own practices comes from research (and later experimentation). Research can show you new areas to explore and new things to learn. It can help you create a path that will stay with you for a lifetime. It can lead you to friends, coven members, or even life partners. It all starts with research.

That being said, research isn’t everything. Sometimes, you just have to close your eyes and follow your intuition. Sometimes you just have to take that instinctual leap. Sometimes, you just have to push up your sleeves and just try a spell.

Following your intuition and giving something a try can lead to wonderful, magical moments. It can make you really believe in magic.

It can also teach you a lot too. You may quickly learn that you dislike divination or verbal spells. Maybe you’ll go back to study those later, but for now, that dislike’s important information! It means that you should shift your focus away to something you do like for now. Come back to those dislikes later. Maybe the knowledge you’ll have learned since then will help you understand why you disliked it in the first place or maybe you’ll find that you still dislike it. Shelf it and come back later.

TL; DR: Read everything, but don’t forget to follow your intuition and passions. And use your public library!

02 You Don’t Need Everything

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
  2. A stoneware cereal bowl (plain black, plain white, or clear preferred)
  3. A 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. And those items can be cheaply gathered from what you have in your house already or purchased cheaply.

Bonus tip: Don’t rush out to buy herbs. Use what’s in your kitchen first. Add slowly and in small amounts. An ounce seems really small, but it’ll probably last you for a year for most herbs. You usually just need a bit for a spell.

03 Write Down Your Experiences

I am weirdly awful at recording stuff for myself. I always recommend it for others, but I almost never do it for myself. But! There are many times I’ve made a spell at a drop of the hat and wished I wrote it down because it worked great but I have no idea what I did so I can’t replicate it.

Even something as simple as a notebook with “I did X, Y, and Z” could help. Use a journaling app, post about it, or email it to yourself.

For those looking for more elaborate set-ups, there are lots of spell recording layouts out there. Just google or spend some time on pinterest.

04 Someone Else’s Practice Is Not Better Than Yours

There are a lot of people out there practicing spiritual or magical paths. And many of them post about it. Those altar pictures might be beautiful and they may have had a great experience with the deity your worship. Maybe they just have a gorgeous spell casting area or a meditation corner.

The thing is this: you can absolutely admire their practice. You can say “wow, it’s great that they’re having those experiences”. But those practices might not be yours to have. Cultural appropriate weighs in here heavily, but you also have to consider this: are you really going to change your whole practice and what drew you to practicing to begin with because someone has beautiful instagram photos?

There’s also no guarantee that what that person is post about is all that practice is. Sure, maybe the water goblet is used as a water element representative, but it might have another purpose that’s special to that person. You may be missing the point behind the prettiness of the scene.

And, real talk, they may be just taking pretty pictures. They might have spent hours to get the altar to look pretty just for those photos and spent five minutes lighting a candle and saying “hey, thanks”. Or they are lying about the experiences they have. People do lie within the community about their experiences, mostly for attention reasons. I have a policy: I believe people are experiencing what they say they are experiencing. I don’t doubt them. But I also know that those experiences aren’t any less valid or any less true than anything I’ve experienced. This policy allows me to live and let live, essentially.

You can want that beauty and experiences for yourself. Be a little jealous or sad that your practice isn’t as pretty or you’ve having great experiences. But let those things drive you to do better for your practice. Ask yourself if you’re changing things because they have meaning to you or if it’s just because you really want it to be beautiful. You can have beautiful things in your practice and they can be there for just the pretty factor. Just make sure that you aren’t altering things to having all beauty and no substance.

05 It’s Okay To Not Like The Popular Thing

So you tried that awesome tarot deck that everyone loves… and you didn’t like it. The art’s too dark or the devil card scared you or you just don’t like tarot card reading. That’s okay!

Sometimes we get stuff because we fall into the hype or we thought we’d use it and we didn’t. Or our practices changes and we don’t need it. When that happens, it’s okay to grieve a little that it didn’t work like you wanted it to. Then let it go. Give it away, sell it, donate it, etc.

You don’t need to hold onto things because everyone’s loving how deep and meaningful it is. If it doesn’t work for you, then it doesn’t work.

We change as people change. And so do our practices. It happens, sometimes very slowly over months and years. Sometimes it happens quickly because of events, trauma, or revelations.

Don’t be afraid to let your practice grow organically. If something’s working, then keep doing it. But don’t be afraid to set aside practices that no longer work for you.

06 Use Your Local Library

Your local library is a literal lifesaver, especially when you’re just starting out. I have bought books because I loved reading it. I have not bought books because they weren’t as good as I was hoping or the subject wasn’t covered as well as I’d like. I’ve been able to research a lot of stuff that would cost hundreds of dollars to research without it. I’ve sometimes saved that much by borrowing a single rare book alone. (Yes, seriously)

Not only can it save you a lot of money, it can also spare you from buying books that you won’t use or don’t like. Maybe you’ll find out that you really don’t like that popular author. Or that you’re not a fan of how this mythology book writes about goddesses. Just because something’s published, doesn’t mean it’s good. And not every book out there is something that you’ll want to re-read. Borrow the book, read it, and return it. And many times you can request a book from another library through the intra-loan system and have it delivered to your local library.

Many libraries also have a digital library where you can borrow e-books to read. Many times you can find the e-book, but not the physical book in your local library. Not only does this mean you can read it on the go, but no one sees when you borrow a book. It’s on your library record, but that’s all.

What else can your library do? A LOT. Here’s my local library as an example:

  • Free wifi with tables and chairs in various spots for privacy
  • Borrow movies – some even digitally – for free. Some libraries allow you to borrow music.
  • Public computers, free to use.
  • Print and fax machines, with a low fee.
  • Public notary
  • Meeting rooms for community events. Some libraries may allow these for private clubs or groups.
  • Free to borrow passes to museums, zoos, aquariums, and more.
  • Hosts free talks, lectures, and classes on many different subjects, including local wildlife, gardening, cooking, art, night sky viewing, crystals, reiki, history, and more. This month had geocaching, making a corded bracelet, a fairy house, outdoor photography, instant pot demo, vision board making, making a journal from scratch, bullet journal 101, four cooking classes, how to properly use a telescope, and basic info on Iceland and traveling there.
  • Free indoor and outdoor concerts from local musicians and well-known folk musicians.
  • Free art exhibits from local artists.
  • Free events such as passport processing, public paper shredding, movie showings, and similar.
  • Free trivia nights, including Harry Potter specific trivia nights.
  • Weekly clubs for teenagers and adults, including writing, journalling, knitting & crochet, quilting, and book clubs.
  • Weekly classes, including adult art class and children’s coding classes
  • Weekly English as a second language classes, including the requirements for citizenship
  • Weekly homework help or tutoring
  • Weekly computer and technology help, including help for using things like apps
  • Seasonal weekly farmer’s market with outdoor concerts and events.
  • Access to academic journals, digital magazines, online computer websites such as genealogy websites.
  • Online classes, including foreign language classes.
  • Locally published books found no where else on local areas (Key for local superstitions and folklore).
  • Public 3D printer
  • Private recording studio (you just need to book an appointment)
  • I can borrow a telescope to take home for a week
  • I can sign up a raised garden bed in the community garden

And that’s just the adult and teen stuff. For kids, there’s twice as many classes and events, including giant lego blocks, storytime, reading to animals, and more. Some libraries will even deliver books to you in a homebound program, allowing the elderly and disabled to use the library fully.

Given, my city is a small-to-medium sized city with only two libraries and a learning center. My friend lives a few towns over and their library has a mini museum, a full outdoor playground, borrows cake pans and fishing poles, and the elderly can request books or audio tapes and get them delivered at the nursing home. Each library is different, so check and see what your library is doing.

Also, I’ve never been to a library where I need to flash my library card to get in the door. You can probably walk into any town’s library and read their books. You just can’t borrow those books.

Use your library. I can’t stress it enough. The more you use it, the better for everyone.

That’s it! I know some of these seem kind of basic, but really, it’s okay just to take things slow and let them happen as they happen.

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Heat Magic

Heat magic is a form of magic using heat as a conductor of or influence to spells. In short, it’s hot as balls, so might as well cast some spells.

Heat magic is, for real, any time you work magic invoking or using heat as an element within the spell or working. So if you’re using the heat of a flame in a spell, that’s both heat and fire magic. It can be really useful, which I’ll talk about a bit later.

First, let’s talk about heat, in general. (Warning for casual and probably ill-explained science ahead). When we’re talking about how hot it is for our bodies in regards to the weather, we’re actually not just referring to the temperature. I mean, yes, we do say “how hot is it out there?” And we know from the number thrown at us that it’s hot. But, heat doesn’t exist alone, so there’s some other things you need to calculate.

We also need to factor in the sun’s brightness (because standing in bright sunlight is nice for about 5 seconds until it’s not) You also need to calculate the wind’s strength and where that wind’s coming from and how hot the wind is (because hot, stale wind on your face is just gross is like the earth’s breathing on you.)

You also need to add in the most important thing: the humidity amount. Humidity affects humans because we cool our bodies by condensation (we sweat). When it’s hot and dry, the water joins the air and goes on a wonderful journey that is Somewhere Else beyond your body and you’d care more if it wasn’t so bloody hot. That doesn’t happen when the humidity is high. When the humidity is high, there’s so much water grossness in the air, it’s like a swamp. Seriously, imagine a swamp – that’s what the air is when it’s humid out. It can make a cooler temperature in general, so much more miserable and hot, because there’s so much humidity in the air.

Additionally, one must remember that we acclimate to our regions and environments. So while someone in South Cali is like “110 today? Huh, it was hotter yesterday” and sneers at someone in New York is complaining about the 90 degrees in their area, one must remember that 1) the regional weather is not the same, so it might actually feel like 110 in New York, even if the weather app says otherwise. 2) While it might be normal for South Cali to experience that kind of heat, but it may not be in New York. People aren’t prepared for unusual weather patterns in their regions. This is why, when it snows in Florida, people lose their damn minds. And 3) people have different needs and therefore some people get more uncomfortable in certain kinds of weather than other people. And 4) that mocking people for complaining about the weather, a thing we all experience, is pretty fucking shitty among strangers on the internet. So let’s ease up people.

(By the way, all of the above, also hold true for cold temperatures. Just an FYI).

How you imagine heat will change depending on what kind of heat you’re accustom to. In Rhode Island, we have high humidity regularly pretty much all year long. It often rains and the humidity  stays right where it is, which is a kick in the teeth, let me tell you. It’s like “oh, it might rain today! Yay!” Thunderstorms rolls in for forty minutes, spitting warm water at you, then rolls out. “Oh, it made no difference at all, except it’s wet now. ” It’s fun.

When I imagine heat, I imagine it in three ways. Heat from fire and ovens, which is smoldering and directionally hot. Another is from heat in general, like standing in the sun and soaking in that warmth like a cat. The third is humid warmth where everything is a hot soupy swamp and no amount of iced coffee can help it.

Depending on your goal, pick a day embodied by your form of heat magic. Healing spells I’ll use sunny days, but I’ll reserve high humidity days for curses or spells that need extra energy.

Why heat magic? Well, it’s as natural as it comes. It’s a form of nature and weather. Controlling fire is one of the key discoveries of humankind, so working with fire magic is a good way to connect to older energies or ancestor worship. It’s also super low-key and needs no tools. You don’t need a cup of water like you might with water magic or a handful of dirt like in earth magic. You just need to open a window or step outside. (And then be miserable because HOT). It’s also a good way to work regionally within your practice, because your weather is localized to your direct environment.

Heat magic can be used in the same way you might use magic during a storm. You can simply cast the spell on the heat-soaked day. You can also use the heat as an ingredient, by “capturing” the heat in a jar (it will literally be a jar of air). It can be invoked (IE “by the heat of the day”.  It can be directed, like opening up an oven, and saying your spell with the heat blasting your face.

There’s lots of ways heat magic can be useful. You might have already given heat magic a try, by using the heat from a candle in a spell. If you haven’t, see what kind of spells you can come up with that might use heat magic. Who knows, you may find a new favorite spell medium and if not, at least you’ll have something else to do when it’s too hot to move or care.

How to Make Moon Water

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ready for the recipe?

Ingredients:

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

First, make sure your jar and lid are clean.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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