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[books-hold-magic]

[books-hold-magic]

[books-hold-magic]

How to correspondence: when to spell

So this is a guide on creating your own correspondences for when to do spells according to:

moon phase

time of day

days of the week

month

(Links are to posts on my correspondences, plus my logic, for each aspect.)

Moon Phase

Most correspondence lists for moon phases include associations for each phase - new moon, waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full moon, waning gibbous, third/last quarter, and waning crescent. Personally, I only have correspondences for the full and new moon, and generally “waxing” or “waning”. There will be other ways too, and any method is okay as long as it works for you. 

When figuring out your correspondences, it’s probably easier to start with correspondences for the full and new moon, then waxing and waning, then break it down further from there. You could look into history and folklore, as well as astronomy and astrology, when developing these correspondences.

Time of Day

Some aspects you could consider are:

daylight: how light it is can influence how we feel. For example, I feel more motivated when it’s dark or almost dark, so I associate dedication with sunset. 

season/month: since the amount of daylight varies, you may find you have different correspondences for different seasons if you assign times to your correspondences.

your daily routine: you may find aspects of your routine work well with certain correspondences. For example, spells relating to beauty could work well with times when you’re usually getting ready to leave the house. Alternatively, you might want to associate spells relating to comfort and healing with times when you’re getting home and relaxing.

astrology: you could consider planetary hours and work their influences into correspondences for certain times of day.

Day of the Week

There are a few different aspects to consider for day of the week correspondences:

your daily routine: if you have a regular routine, you’re likely to already have certain associations for certain days of the week. You could also consider what you find yourself needing at different points of the week: do you struggle to get up on a Monday? Do you do the bulk of the housework on a Saturday? You could develop associations to help you when you need the boost the most. 

mythology: depending on your religion, you may want to do work relating to certain Deities on certain days of the week. 

astrology: you could look into planetary days and their influences.

Month

There are a lot of aspects to consider when it comes to finding correspondences for each month, but you should be able to find information quite easily online or consider your own experiences. You could consider aspects such as:

Average temperature

Exactly what you associate different temperatures with is, of course, personal, but you could associate months that are colder with preparation or spiritual goals as opposed to earthly ones, while associating warmer months with reaching goals and community (at least where I live, most of our community events are in the summer). 

Average rainfall/snowfall

Months with higher rainfalls could be associated with growth, while months with less rain could be associated with dedication or hard work. 

Average daylight hours

More daylight hours could be associated with hard work and dedication, as there is more opportunity for working longer. Though, if you’re a night owl like me, you might associate working into the night with dedication - so months with fewer daylight hours could carry the same associations. 

Local farming calendars

There’s quite a lot to farming, so here there are also multiple aspects to consider. You could associate sowing with growth or new beginnings (and this could be varied depending on the produce being grown - if you associate apples with prosperity, you could begin a prosperity spell when the blossoms first appear and complete it when they’re harvested, for example). You might also want to consider lambing, calving, harvesting, ploughing and more. 

Local seasonal foods calendars

Associations you have with specific foods that are in season at the same time could be extrapolated to associations with the month itself (you could also include culturally seasonal foods - like pumpkins in October - even if they aren’t in season locally, as long as that’s an association you hold for the month). 

Local flowers/fauna

Read up on the wildlife common in your area, and consider their associations. For example, February is filled with snowdrops where I live. For me, snowdrops are the first sign of growth, so February is all about growth for me. You could view geese migration as a sign of the seasons changing, or nesting/blooming seasons for fertility. 

Personal associations

What are your thoughts on different months of the year? Here, autumn isn’t really until late September/October, but I start feeling “autumny” in August so many of my associations for August are “autumny”. I usually feel particularly connected to nature in September, as well. You could also consider events like birthdays and community events, cultural/historical/religious associations or your own schedule - maybe you’re a student so you’re often busy with schoolwork in certain months, or your work has busy periods. These associations influence our needs and perceptions in each month, so it’s worth considering and bringing into your spellwork if you want to. 

Bringing it all together

So as you can see, there’s a lot to consider - and of course, there are different ways to put it together. You could, in theory, only do spells regarding new beginnings on a January new moon, at dawn, on a Monday (going by my personal correspondences) - but you might never actually manage to do that spell. The key here is that correspondences are a tool to help you focus your intent. Mixing time correspondences can be very effective! But there’s no point in waiting for the “perfect” time to do your spell if you never actually do it - or you wait so long that there’s no point (like doing a spell for luck on a test, a week after you did the test).

In practice, I try to mix moon phase and either time of day or day of the week (both, if I’m lucky/it’s a long-term spell that I’ve planned well in advance). I bring months in quite naturally, because I already tend to focus on those aspects each month (which is why they’re my correspondences), so I’m already likely to be doing spells on new beginnings in January. 

Good luck! I hope this helps. You might be interested in some of my other correspondence posts:

The problem with correspondence lists

How to correspondence: food & herbs

When to spell: by moon phases

When to spell: by time of day

When to spell: by day of the week

When to spell: by month

[books-hold-magic]

How to correspondence: food & herbs

So this is both a how-to guide for coming up with correspondences and a general correspondence list (not for specific foods and herbs). This post is specific to food and herbs, and my personal associations may be different to other lists. I’m putting the two together, since the factors I consider when listing correspondences are so similar.

Type of food

By “type”, I don’t mean food group (although you could consider that too). Here, I mean: is it a staple? is it luxury? is it comfort? Since this is so reliant on personal associations, just go with what feels right to you. 

Staple foods could be used for dedication spells, healing spells, spells relating to everyday things (relationships, basic skills) and spells relating to basic needs (self-care spells, spells to get a job, to find a place to live etc.)

Luxury foods could be used for spells relating to confidence, luck, love, success and prosperity. 

Comfort foods could be used for spells relating to community, healing, renewal, protection and emotions. 

Cultural/personal associations

Are there cultural or historical associations with a particular food or herb (such as rosemary for remembrance)? Does it appear in any folklore or mythology that you work with? Most importantly, what do you personally associate it with?

Source

Does the herb/produce grow locally, or is it imported? Is it seasonal? (I’m differentiating “seasonal” from “local” since there can be seasonal associations for imported foods). 

Local produce and herbs could be used for spells relating to everyday things, basic needs, community, healing, protection, emotions, love, dedication, fertility, prosperity, and anything relating to hard work. 

Imported produce and herbs could be used for confidence, luck, success and financial prosperity. 

Seasonal produce and herbs could be used for a range of associations depending on the season, as well as anything relating to community and communication. 

Medicinal properties

Are there any known or cultural medicinal or health-related properties? These could work well for healing and protection spells, or if you have health related goals, you could include something you associate with those goals in your spell. 

Harmful properties

Obviously don’t put anything harmful in anything that anyone is going to eat, and be careful not to touch anything harmful, but you could keep something harmful nearby while cooking if you’re casting a hex or curse. Just don’t put it anywhere near anything that’s going in the food. 

Bringing it all together

Considering the different aspects of a food can help you narrow down or reason out a correspondence, but ultimately the point is to keep your intent clear in your mind when you cast. Associations don’t have to be perfectly balanced or reasoned if they work for you.

I hope this helps! You might be interested in some of my other correspondence posts:

The problem with correspondence lists

How to correspondence: when to spell

When to spell: by moon phases

When to spell: by time of day

When to spell: by day of the week

When to spell: by month

[books-hold-magic]

The problem with correspondences

Beginner witches, listen up.

When I started practising, one of the first things I did was put correspondence lists into my grimoire. Or, I tried to. You see, correspondences are individual. To some extent, they’re based on history, folklore, mythology and medicine - but they’re also highly personal. You can look at ten different correspondence tables for the same herb, and depending on the herb, you’ll get similar answers - but you can also get highly divergent ones. The result? I ended up writing 5-20 different correspondences for a bunch of herbs and crystals that I had never even heard of. Do I remember them now, 7 years on? Hell no. 

There’s a few problems with this:

You don’t know which source to trust.

Sources may totally conflict.

You don’t know why those correspondences are listed.

You won’t know what you can and can’t swap out of a spell.

Correspondence tables often don’t provide sources or reasoning.

You may not have those associations, so they may not actually help you.

Correspondences are tools. They help you to focus your intent in your craft. What’s the point in getting the “right” colour, herb, crystal, element, and moon phase for every spell when you don’t understand why you’re using them, or they don’t help you focus your intent? 

So, what’s the solution? Figure out your own correspondences. 

This doesn’t have to be difficult! Let’s say I’m doing a spell because I have a cold. For me, being sick is associated with soup, lemon, orange, honey and ginger - because my Nan used to make me a hot drink with the last few ingredients in it. So maybe I’ll make that drink, or maybe I’ll make soup with fresh ginger in it. I’ll stir the pot widdershins first, to “banish” the sickness (because I associate counter clockwise with banishment or getting rid of something), then deosil to “bring” or “grow” my health (because those are my associations for clockwise). See? Easy! 

Okay, so how exactly do you come up with correspondences?

Well, some of them are pretty immediate. Think associating mistletoe with Christmas, or plants in your area that only bloom at certain points of the year. You can also consider:

history, mythology and folklore: throughout history, there have been associations with certain plants, colours etc. that you can read up on. Some examples include associating purple with wealth or success because the dye for purple clothing was highly expensive (Roman emperors wore it) and associating rosemary with remembrance, as mentioned in Hamlet. 

medicinal properties: even if you aren’t interested in herbalism, you could include plants with medicinal properties in healing spells. 

local associations: this is pretty likely to cross over with history and folklore, but considering local associations is important, too - especially since associations in world history and mythology may not apply to you and your path. You might also have certain associations with “local” in a general sense (see my post about food correspondences below).

cultural associations: think “pumpkin” for October, even in countries where aren’t particularly common. Are there any cultural associations that you have with particular things? (These may be some of your “stronger” associations.)

personal associations: what’s your personal experience? Did you fall into a rosebush as a kid, so you’d rather associate roses with pain than with love? Did your first crush give you a green handbag, so green is a colour of love for you? What do you find comforting?

These aren’t the only aspects to consider, but it’s a starting point. Depending on the type of correspondence you’re looking for, you could consider other aspects, too (like farming calendars for month associations and seasonal foods).

This isn’t to say there’s anything wrong with using or posting correspondence lists - I’ve posted some myself. They can be really useful - but be aware that those are someone else’s correspondences, not yours, and they may not work the same way for you as they do for someone else - and that’s okay! You have your own resources and your own experiences, and it’s your craft. 

I hope this helps! Check out my other posts about coming up with your own correspondences:

How to correspondence: food & herbs

How to correspondence: when to spell

[books-hold-magic]

“When Van Gogh was a young man in his early twenties, he was in London studying to be a clergyman. He had no thought of being an artist at all. he sat in his cheap little room writing a letter to his younger brother in Holland, whom he loved very much. He looked out his window at a watery twilight, a thin lamppost, a star, and he said in his letter something like this: “it is so beautiful I must show you how it looks.” And then on his cheap ruled note paper, he made the most beautiful, tender, little drawing of it. When I read this letter of Van Gogh’s it comforted me very much and seemed to throw a clear light on the whole road of Art. Before, I thought that to produce a work of painting or literature, you scowled and thought long and ponderously and weighed everything solemnly and learned everything that all artists had ever done aforetime, and what their influences and schools were, and you were extremely careful about *design* and *balance* and getting *interesting planes* into your painting, and avoided, with the most astringent severity, showing the faintest *academical* tendency, and were strictly modern. And so on and so on. But the moment I read Van Gogh’s letter I knew what art was, and the creative impulse. It is a feeling of love and enthusiasm for something, and in a direct, simple, passionate and true way, you try to show this beauty in things to others, by drawing it. And Van Gogh’s little drawing on the cheap note paper was a work of art because he loved the sky and the frail lamppost against it so seriously that he made the drawing with the most exquisite conscientiousness and care.”

— Brenda Ueland, from “If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit”

[books-hold-magic]

“When Van Gogh was a young man in his early twenties, he was in London studying to be a clergyman. He had no thought of being an artist at all. he sat in his cheap little room writing a letter to his younger brother in Holland, whom he loved very much. He looked out his window at a watery twilight, a thin lamppost, a star, and he said in his letter something like this: “it is so beautiful I must show you how it looks.” And then on his cheap ruled note paper, he made the most beautiful, tender, little drawing of it. When I read this letter of Van Gogh’s it comforted me very much and seemed to throw a clear light on the whole road of Art. Before, I thought that to produce a work of painting or literature, you scowled and thought long and ponderously and weighed everything solemnly and learned everything that all artists had ever done aforetime, and what their influences and schools were, and you were extremely careful about *design* and *balance* and getting *interesting planes* into your painting, and avoided, with the most astringent severity, showing the faintest *academical* tendency, and were strictly modern. And so on and so on. But the moment I read Van Gogh’s letter I knew what art was, and the creative impulse. It is a feeling of love and enthusiasm for something, and in a direct, simple, passionate and true way, you try to show this beauty in things to others, by drawing it. And Van Gogh’s little drawing on the cheap note paper was a work of art because he loved the sky and the frail lamppost against it so seriously that he made the drawing with the most exquisite conscientiousness and care.”

— Brenda Ueland, from “If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit”

[books-hold-magic]

Footnote

There was a footnote at the end,[587]. He closed the book and stroke the title on the cover. It was his name in golden letters. He still couldn’t believe he was holding his own biography. He put the book back unto the shelf. He wandered through the isles, looking at the numbers.  “105, 106, 107” he counted out loud.  It would take some time before he would find her. There was only one sentence…

[books-hold-magic]

The Book of Swans last chapter - Revised

The Book of Swans last chapter – Revised

[books-hold-magic]

The Book of Swans chapter 8 - Revised

The Book of Swans chapter 8 – Revised

[books-hold-magic]

The Book of Swans chapter 7 - Revised

The Book of Swans chapter 7 – Revised

[books-hold-magic]

The Book of Swans chapter 6 - Revised

The Book of Swans chapter 6 – Revised

Something soft brushed against my face. I try to push Castien’s head from my shoulder, his hair was way softer than I expected, but instead was greeted with a high pitched shriek the moment I touched it.

(more…)

[books-hold-magic]

The Book of Swans chapter 6 - Revised

The Book of Swans chapter 6 – Revised

[books-hold-magic]

The Book of Swans chapter 5 - Revised

The Book of Swans chapter 5 – Revised

Kind of corny if you ask me, but at least it’s not a maiden in distress or something.

(more…)

[books-hold-magic]

The Book of Swans chapter 4 - Revised

The Book of Swans chapter 4 – Revised

 “He has to come as well you fool, mom would never specifically ask for the servant as well. Are you new or something?”

(more…)

[books-hold-magic]

The Book of Swans chapter 3 - Revised

The Book of Swans chapter 3 – Revised

Today starts my adventure.

(more…)

[books-hold-magic]

The Book of Swans chapter 2 - Revised

The Book of Swans chapter 2 – Revised

You would think that all the déjà vues that hit my face would slap me awake, but denial is a very strange and strong thing. I just finished this book, I just read this story.

(more…)