knitwitches

[knitwitches]

Discussion time!!

What do you consider to be the anatomy of a spell? Seems like everyone has their own ideas, with a certain amount of overlap.

As usual the idea here is not to debate over some idea of a definitively correct answer, but to see other perspectives and potentially put more conscious thought into our own practices.

Feel free to just post a link if you've already made a post with your ideas on the subject.

[knitwitches]

The “55x5” Method- A way of manifesting your desires✨💫

Today, I am going to introduce you to the most successful method I’ve tried so far for manifesting your desires with the Law of attraction.

What do you need?

A journal/ piece of paper/ something to write on.

A pen.

How does this work?

You write down your desire 55 times for 5 days. Write in the present tense. Remember to add the date on the paper so you keep track of the days.

For example, say you want to manifest a date with someone. You write down something like “I am so happy and grateful for my date with X” 55 times.

While you are doing this, it’s important that you are focused on the feelings that going on a date with X person would give you. Visualise them and also visualize you being on that date and feeling what you would feel. Don’t focus on the how, when, why or what. Just know that this is yours and it’s already happening.

After you finish writing your desire 55 times, add your signature and say “And so it is, starting now. I know that it is done for my highest good and for everyone’s highest good. Thank you, thank you, thank you” or something that resonates with you but express your gratitude, and claim that your desire is now a reality.

I finished my writing… Now what?

Go live your life. Detach from the outcome and just know that what you want is already yours. Make this now the Universe’s/God’s/ whatever source of power you believe in problem. Let go and IT WILL COME TO YOU. IT WILL HAPPEN when you least expect it and in the most unexpected way. I promise this is true. Just let the source of power you believe in do its work, you have already placed your order and it was taken/listened to.

What happens if 55 times is too much for me to write down?

- You can do it 44 times for 4 days, 33x3 (my personal fave), 22x2 or even 11x1. Whatever resonates with you the most, and depending on how ‘big" your desire is. Some things take more time than others to manifest, but it also depends on each person’s abilities to manifest.

Can you listen to music while you do this method?

Yes, as long as you don’t get distracted by it. Make sure to choose music that helps you keeping your vibrations high and that relate to the thing you want to attract.

I hope you like this post and you find it helpful. Let me know if you try it out and if you have any success stories with it. If you have any questions, leave them in my askbox and I’ll try to help in what I can.

[knitwitches]

As the years go on, I've decided I like the word "focus" in spell writing a lot more than "intent." In part, it's because the internet kinda poisoned the word "intent." Someone's intention is treated like the end-all-be-all of magic, which undercuts all the hard work and research others do, can quickly slip into "law of attraction" pitfalls, and implies the cultural folk traditions people fight to keep alive are meaningless. If intent is all that matters, then there's no reason to do any homework or examine your actions, which isn't a healthy mindset for any magic work or occult study.

Focus, meanwhile, gets the same point across but doesn't carry the same social baggage. I also think it does a better job of describing something you apply to other steps, not a complete step itself. (After all- intention/focus isn't just another ingredient you add... it should be the standard you measure every action and decision by. I think focus does a better job connotating that.)

I've already been using focus for a while now but I thought I'd officially remark on it. Anybody else have thoughts/words they like? Let's discuss. ^^

[knitwitches]

in all my four years of being a witch NEVER have i seen a basic method for enchanting objects. like???? it’s one of the most common aspects of pop culture-witchcraft and i know it does exist in irl witchcraft, so where are the spells???? WHERE??

if you know of some pls send them to me xx

[knitwitches]

Suggestion:

Unless you are already good at/practiced in the Thing, being bad at the Thing and making mistakes with the Thing while in ritual/spell space is not a bad omen.

[knitwitches]

Energy Work 101: Basic Shielding

"Shielding" is an energy work technique that puts a protective sphere of energy around you. This technique is basic at its core, but can be continually evolved and upgraded to become very advanced and powerful indeed.

Concepts & Theory

Most all shields are spherical or egg-shaped.

Shields are often sized to be an outstretched arm's length away from your body, plus a foot (30cm) or so extra all around. You can make them any size you like. Because they are made of energy, the bigger they are, the more energy they take.

Shields fade away. Depending on how stable they are when you make them, they may fade within hours or days.

Shields can and will affect your mood and how people perceive you.

It is a good idea to practice dismantling/undoing shields as often as you practice creating them.

While the most basic shield is a bubble of white light, they can be endlessly modified.

You can have more than one shield at once. They can be stacked concentrically. Think about which shields you want to be closer to you and which you want on the outside next to others.

One of the most useful ways to modify a shield is to specifically choose what kinds of energies you want to bet let in, and what kinds you want to keep out.

The basic technique used for energy shielding can also be used for other techniques such as glamours, energy cleansing, object charging, and some forms self-care. Because of this, shielding is a good place to start practicing practical energy work.

Shielding is a cousin of aura-imprinting. The technique I am talking about here puts a bubble of energy on the outside of your aura. Aura-imprinting/strengthening techniques refer to changing your aura itself.

Methods of Shield-Raising

There are as many methods to accomplish shielding as there are people. Here are a couple:

1. Make one hand into a fist and place it over your heart. Place your other palm on top of it. Gently push down on your chest to create pressure - not so much that it hurts. Imagine, feel, believe, or know that within your chest is a wellspring of energy. This energy pools around your fist as you create pressure there. When you are ready, move your fist away from your body (experiment with both fast and slow motions). Imagine, feel, believe, or know that an energy sphere grows from that place in your chest and expands until it surrounds you. It stops expanding about a foot away from your outstretched arms.

2. Breathe in. As you breathe in, consider that you are pulling pure energy out of the air and into your body. Hold your breath for a beat and decide that when you exhale, that pure energy is going to start forming a sphere around your body. As you exhale, imagine, feel, believe, intend, or know that this energy flows around you to start forming an energy shell. Continue breathing in and out with intent until you can easily imagine, feel, or believe that the shell has become solid and complete.

3. Consider a pop-culture method that a character uses to shield themselves. Steven Universe can do that rose quartz thing, for example. Or, imagine Captain Picard of Star Trek saying, "shields up!" and the Enterprise being surrounded by powerful protective energy. Copying a pop-culture technique can be extremely effective for shielding. Put your intent towards causing real power to flow, and let culture be your guide.

4. Consider that your body is permanently connected to your environment and there is always free energy exchange passing between you and the world around you. This process is automatic, but like your breath, you have the ability to take control of this process if you so choose. Feel the parts of you making contact with the world below (your feet, or bottoms of your legs if you are sitting). Decide, intend, choose, or will that the energy passing into your body at those points will instead rise up and surround you in a shield. You may need to actively stay with this process and continually will it to occur; with practice you may need to only check in every now and then.

A Method of Shield-Dissolving

1. Consider that you have placed energy around yourself which exists there whether or not you can feel it. Decide, intend, choose, or will that this energy breaks up and dissolves. You get to choose what to do with the energy. Options include:

Drawing it back into yourself

Pushing it down into the earth

Releasing it into the air around you

Would you like to do a fun experiment? Release the energy into the air around you in a closed room with no open doors or windows :)

Consider drawing energy back into yourself until you feel your storage containers are full, then pushing the rest of it downwards and into the earth.

Basic Shield Programming

For practice in raising and putting down energy, the form or shape your shield takes doesn't really matter. If you need to know what form it will take in order to complete the exercise, the most basic shield is considered to be a smooth bubble of white light; you can choose to practice with any form you like.

Programming a shield basically means to choose its effects. Common effects include limiting emotional intake from others, and blocking out environmental energy.

Form should follow function. If you want an energy shield to totally completely block out 100 of environmental energies, its form may take an opaque, solid black orb. If you want the shield to limit some energies but not others, it may take the form of a chain-link fence, be semi-opaque, or be like vines with gaps-inbetween them.

Experimenting with what forms work best for you is worthwhile. You do not necessarily need to choose a specific form: simply putting willpower behind your intent will also suffice.

Two Methods of Programming

I recommend trying the first technique for initially creating the shield, and the second technique for making adjustments once it exists.

1. Choose the intent of your shield before you even begin making it. As you begin gathering power, hold your intent in the forefront of your mind. Understand, believe, or know that the shield will not be created in general, but that it will be created within the specifications of your intent, like pancake batter poured into a cookie cutter mold. Hold your intent at the forefront of your mind while energy is gathered and released into the shield. (This is what you're doing automatically if you choose a pop culture technique with specific shield purpose and form)

2. Create a general/basic shield in any way you prefer. Observe, believe, feel, understand, or know that this basic shield is under your control and will respond to your intent. Select an intent. Pour your intent into the existing shield. This may be done through the vehicle of the breath, hand symbols, eye gazes, chanting, or any desired method. Observe, believe, feel, understand, or know that the shield responds to your will like a pond rippling when a rock is thrown in. Maintain your focus until you sense the work is complete, or until you're tired or bored.

[knitwitches]

Hello! Quick question- do you or have you ever used tarot decks before, and if so do you have any tips for getting familiar/building a relationship with a new deck? I just ordered my first set, and I wanted to consult with a more experienced heathen!

I don't get on with tarot decks personally. I always get my best results with runes.

HOWEVER, lots of people here DO use tarot so I'll open the question to the floor.

[knitwitches]

Ran’s Runes (divination tool in honor of the sea goddess)

From a dream I had. A plain mason jar with sand, shells, rocks and sea glass from our local shores. Added in small blue garden stones with runes painted on them. Simply turn and watch the changing sandscape until a rune - or several - are clearly visible to guide you. :)

[knitwitches]

How to Involve Origami in your Witchcraft✂️💌✨

1. Chose your paper

The color or pattern of the paper can correspond with your intention. For example, green paper could represent luck, heart pattern could represent love. If you are doing it for a deity, you could also chose  colors or patterns associated with them, such as blue for Poseidon or owls for Athena.

2. Write or draw

You can add symbols or words on the paper that relate to your intentions. You can add manifestations, poems, pentacles, sigils, symbols, images, prayers, or a mix of any of them. 

3. Select a project

Chose how you are going to fold your paper to match with you intentions.  Some ideas may be a heart, star, crane, owl, clover, flower, butterfly, or bird. Use whatever project best matches your intention or skill level

4. Fold your intention

With each fold, recite your intention in your head or out loud, feel free to play music, burn a candle, or meditate on the intention you’ve set. You may also want to cleanse and charge it afterwards.

5. Storing after completion

One complete, do with it what your intuition tells you, you can put it on your alter, use it as decoration, store it in a box, bury or dispose of it, gift it to someone, or any other thing you see fit!

[knitwitches]

I’m a practicing witch for over 6 years. I still have to read what each Tarot card means whenever I do readings.

Don’t ever feel bad if you don’t have things memorized,

[knitwitches]

Tarot for Spirit Work

Since Samhain, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day are coming up this weekend, I wanted to put together my thoughts on using tarot to communicate with spirits. It’s not a complete tutorial by any means. I definitely wouldn’t try speaking with spirits if you don’t know how to make sure they leave and that’s extremely tradition specific. As always, practice safe spirit work folks.

Tarot is my main spirit communication tool. It’s variable and complex with allows for those sorts of meanings to come through. Since I’ve been working with tarot for 13+ years now, the conversation can flow fairly naturally.

Lots of folks prefer a pendulum when starting out. You can actually use tarot in a pendulum like system: Cups for yes, Swords for no, Pentacles for maybe, Wands for it’s complicated, and Major Arcana for ask again later. That’s more than enough to start with even if you don’t know specific tarot meanings.

The one big mistake I see folks making is that they will pull one big spread. One, these are almost always harder to read. It give the spirit one shot to say everything they want and the message can come out kind of garbled. Two, it doesn’t mirror how human conversations work and this matters a lot when you’re working with human dead. If you invite someone to come through, working in small batches let’s there be a give and take. They can shape the conversation too. Especially if you’re inviting someone you knew in life to come through, it’s worth mirroring that exchange in death.

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend and stay safe!

[knitwitches]

[holds up a knotted string]

Okay so I caught something in here and now I don’t know what to do with it.

[knitwitches]

was working on this between shifts and finally finished today 👁

[knitwitches]

BEAD THROWING!!

(”What? Jes, what even is that? Is that just like… Bone Throwing? But with beads?”)

Well yes. Kind of.

The short background is that I was cleaning out some old boxes in my room and I found an old spell book from when I was 15 years old and just making witch shit up because I didn’t have access to Real Proper Witchcraft. (Flash forward to now, where Adult Jes is still making shit up and hand making everything just like Teen Jes had to, except that Adult Jes now does it voluntarily and finds it much more fulfilling than just buying Proper Witch Stuff).

Anyway.

Flipping through that old spell book, I found this little divination system that I had made up using some beads I had. I made jewelry a lot as a teen, so I just had a lot of beads around, so it made sense to use them for divination when I wasn’t able to access the Usual divination methods because of Family Reasons.

What kind of beads? Well, of course they were super mystical crystal beads!! Super pretty hand made fancy… crystal…

Yeah, bullshit. They were funky plastic beads.

Seriously.

Anyway, since these beads came in a bunch of different colors (seven, actually), I decided to pull two of each color and assign them ~*~meaning~*~*. Then I’d throw them onto a surface and interpret how they fell.

(”Yeah. Jes. That’s Bone Throwing.”)

Yes, okay, shh. Adult Jes can see that now, but Teen Jes didn’t know what bone throwing was. Hush up, this isn’t so much a ‘how-to’ guide as it is a trip down memory lane.

I actually forgot all about these until I found a page in that found spell book where I’d been journaling about some bead readings I did. And Adult Jes thought “Oh wow. This looks like it was really cool. Damn, I wish I could remember what each of those beads meant…” And then I turned a few more pages and found that Teen Jes actually HAD bothered to write down the bead meanings.

So, I guess lesson #1 of this whole thing is: Don’t dismiss anything in your craft as Too Stupid To Write About, because maybe fourteen years into your future you’ll look back and go “Wait, that was a GREAT idea!”

So anyway, I’d toss this handful of beads onto a surface, and then start interpreting how they landed. Having two of each color was key to this whole thing, because the first thing I’d do is start looking at the pairs. See how they fall.

For example… the red beads are Passion. Not like, romance-novel-passion, but like ‘powerful emotion and/or intense focus’. They’re pretty far apart in this toss. And what’s in between them? The black beads (Conflict) and the blue bead (Peace).

This is the part where the journaling would happen. Example: I haven’t been writing as much as I used to, even though it was something I was really Passionate about. I stopped after numerous conflicts with a friend (yaaaay abusive and manipulative friendships…) and it tore down my confidence. These days, I haven’t picked it up again because of Peace, but peace to the point of complacency. I’m comfortable and I don’t like rocking my own boat. Picking up a pen again would force me to face those old traumas. And I don’t want to because ugh.

More things to consider: There’s a green Wealth bead hanging out by the two Love beads, but the other Wealth bead is hanging out with both Uncertainty beads. Peace, Passion, and Spirituality are making a little wall between those two groupings.

Anyway, you get me? The main idea was to look at the pairings and see how close together they were, or if there was anything in their way. It was a lot of introspection and thought.

But like… also I found the entry in the spell book where I threw the beads for a high school friend and her boyfriend, and I couldn’t make sense of it because it definitely looked like their future had lots and lots of pain and heartbreak and that couldn’t be because they were like totally perf? And then as I was looking at it as an adult like “Oh that abusive lying psychopathic asshole got CALLED TF OUT by my FUNKY PLASTIC BEADS!”

So. Yeah. Bead throwing. Like bone throwing, but more plastic.

Lesson #2 to be gained from this is… idk, the young and the new witches tend to get caught up in this mystical idea of tarot cards and how they’re like the Ultimate Divination Tool but Oh No they can’t get any because their family Wouldn’t Understand, and I mean I get you, but also some Funky Plastic Beads will drag someone just as hard as the fanciest of tarot decks.

[knitwitches]

Thesleepypine

[knitwitches]

y’all i got obsessive, ingenious, familiar lmao

[knitwitches]

Figuring out correspondences for you and your craft

Sometimes I'll look at a list of which herbs or stones and just not jive with something, or I'll have a more nuanced vibe from whatever ingredient. An example of this is how for me cinnamon is not a prosperity herb but dandelion definitely is. There is also the problem of not knowing what one of your gemstones is and this method works well for this too. So I've been going through and useing this method on my rock collection along with starting on any herbs I have growing in the yard/ sitting in my spice cabinet. I'll use my rock collection as an ecample since its the one I've done more of.

I used a lil' incence to clense my stones before charging them in moonlight, I only did one of each kind

Holding each stone I would roll it between my hands with my eyes closed for a bit, trying to get a general sense of its energy before factoring in how it looks. I sometimes also go through and think about different things like money or love to sense any response.

After a while I get a general sense of the rough correspondence, or in some cases a specific correspondence. But if I want to examine it deeper, I would put on different music that fits the broad correspondence to feel which songs might resonate more.

Write down results, rinse and repeat through all my stuff over time (maybe 1 or two a night)

Final tips

For edible ingredients add taste and smell to the second step, and maybe even how it sounds when crunched or how it feels when rubbed between your fingers.

An alternative to music could be something like reading different poems aloud, or looking at art.

Sometimes you don't get any sense from a thing at all. You can try puttin' whatever that thing is down for a couple days before trying again, but it's ok if you don't get anything from it.

In most cases whatever I was trying to determine the vibes of match close to the more textbook correspondence for me, but in this I was trying to figure out the more specific uses. For instance vanilla, rose, and strawberry all mean love, but to me they mean 3 very different kinds of love.

I would also love to hear if anybody has any ideas to expand upon this technique.

-best wishes