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fera-intus · 7 months ago

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2025 Witches' Calendar

For all my witches out there, here’s a handy list of the 2025 dates for the solstices, some commonly-referenced holidays, full and new moons, and special astronomical events. I’ve listed my sources at the bottom.

Dates and times for all events are calculated for Eastern Standard Time, USA, Northern Hemisphere. Adjust for your location as needed and check the DarkSky Placefinder to see what special events will be visible in your area.

On a related note, readers are encouraged to create their own seasonal calendars, holidays, and observances based on your local biome and personal preferences. Enjoy!

Solstices, Harvests, Quarter Days, Some Common Dates

February 1-2 - Imbolc / Candlemas / High Winter

March 20 - Spring Equinox / Ostara

April 30-May 1 - Beltane / May Day / Walpurgisnacht

June 20 - Summer Solstice / Midsummer / Litha

August 1 - Lughnasadh / Lammas / Summer Harvest

September 22 - Autumn Equinox / Mabon / Fall Harvest

October 31 - Samhain / Halloween / Final Harvest

December 21 - Winter Solstice / Yule

Full Moons

January 13 - Wolf Moon ♋

February 12 - Snow Moon ♌

March 14 - Worm Moon ♍ (Lunar Eclipse)

April 12 - Pink Moon ♎

May 12 - Flower Moon ♏

June 11 - Strawberry Moon ♐

July 10 - Thunder Moon (aka Buck Moon) ♑

August 9 - Sturgeon Moon (aka Corn Moon) ♒

September 7 - Harvest Moon ♓ (Lunar Eclipse)

October 6 - Hunter's Moon (aka Blood Moon) ♈

November 5 - Frost Moon (aka Beaver Moon) ♉ (Supermoon)

December 4 - Cold Moon ♊ (Supermoon)

* The full moons in September and October are almost EXACTLY equidistant from the Autumn Equinox this year, so whether you'll have a Harvest Moon in September or October depends on where you live!

New Moons

January 29 ♒

February 27 ♓

March 29 ♈

April 27 ♉

May 26 ♊

June 25 ♋

July 24 ♌

August 23 ♍

September 21 ♍ (Seasonal black moon, second new moon in Virgo)

October 21 ♎

November 20 ♏

December 19 ♐

Special Celestial Events

March 14 - Worm Moon Total Lunar Eclipse

March 29 - Solar Eclipse

September 7 - Harvest Moon Total Lunar Eclipse

September 21 - Seasonal Black Moon / Solar Eclipse

November 5 - Frost Moon Supermoon

December 4 - Cold Moon Supermoon

(Check the DarkSky Placefinder to see what will be visible in your area!)

Mercury Retrogrades (in case you need them)

March 14 to April 6

July 17 to August 10

November 9 to November 29

Happy Witching!

SOURCES & FURTHER READING:

Bree’s Lunar Calendar Series

Bree’s Secular Celebrations Series

Moon Info - Full Moon Dates for 2025

Calendar-12 - 2025 Moon Phases

Full Moonology - 2025 Full Moon Calendar

AstroStyle - All the 2025 Full Moons

Your Zodiac Sign - Astrology Calendar 2025

Old Farmer’s Almanac - Mercury Retrograde Dates 2024-2025

Sea and Sky - Astronomy Calendar of Celestial Events 2025

DarkSky International - Dark Sky Placefinder for Stargazing

Patheos - 2025 Wheel of the Year Astrological Calendar

Image Source - How Stuff Works

If you’re enjoying my content, please feel free to drop a little something in the tip jar, tune in to my podcast Hex Positive, or check out my published works on Amazon or in the Willow Wings Witch Shop. 😊

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fera-intus · 2 years ago

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what's your opinion on pop culture witchcraft? i think it seems really fun and cool im just not sure how exactly a fictional god will manifest in the "real" world? i was just curious on what you thought :p thank you for your time!

I think that pop culture witchcraft is beautiful and sacred and I think more people should get into it!

My views on the intersection of popular culture (aka, the dominant cultural beliefs and creations at this moment in time) and witchcraft originate from the fact that when I began doing a lot of energy work, I saw a lot of stuff as video game characters & assets.

If I would binge any video game, for the next little while, a lot of my energy readings would be output in the symbols and lore from that game.

E.g., a pokemon binge, seeing Gengar near the querent: "Yes, you're being haunted by a ghost."

A DAO binge, seeing a dryad writing a letter to the querent: "A tree wants to talk to you."

These experiences have deeply influenced my beliefs on the nature of psychism, communing with the spirit world, and divination as a whole. It has inspired my beliefs on how to work with divinatory tools, especially my concepts of choosing your own symbol sets to work with.

After all, an upright triangle is so abstract, but a charmander? For many of us, that is a deeply rooted symbol of fire indeed! And I can't imagine how a triangle might act if it needs to be revived and balanced in my life, but I can surely visualize a charmander feeling sick and cold, or desperately trying to stack and balance heavy boxes.

This inspired me to consider the intersection of popular culture and the experiential nature of witchcraft. After all, aren't so many of us deeply imprinted on and influenced by what culture has told us about magic and spirits? Where is the line in the sand between how culture makes us interact with magic (path), and how culture makes us interact with magic (practice)?

Let me tell you a story!!

There is some internet monster named Momo. Momo has a *very* scary face (to me at least) so be warned if you google.

But when this story starts, I had never heard of Momo. I had never seen a picture of Momo or heard her name. Yes? Yes.

Now one time, I was doing an energy reading for a person, and I saw a horrifying monster woman with huge eyes and a twisted smile like a V slashed across her face, and not only this, but the horrifying monster woman was standing over the querent's bed, watching them sleep.

As a reader with about an ounce of wisdom, I knew much better than to say, "hey, a horrifying monster is watching you while you sleep." Because that is a dick thing to say to anyone.

As I continued watching to try and gain more information, it struck me that this monster woman wasn't threatening at all. She didn't have bad vibes. In fact she seemed neutral, or perhaps even an ally. She was just watching the person sleep.

I couldn't help but notice, however, that I could see her face so clearly. So distinctly. So I googled something like, "big smile scary woman face."

And there she was: Momo! The exact monster I was seeing. It was a startling moment, made all the more strange by the fact that this wasn't some monster of mythical lore or legend. It was like, a TikTok trend or something.

Finally I had to tell the querent something. Now y'all this happened some years ago and I don't remember exactly how it went down, but it was like this:

"Hey, someone is watching you sleep. The form is scary looking but they don't seem threatening at all. I googled it and it looks exactly like an internet urban legend named Momo."

"What? My cat?"

"No, it's a woman, an urban legend named Momo."

"No, my cat Momo. My cat is named Momo. She watches me while I sleep."

So to answer your question, Anon:

I expect that a fictional god can manifest at least as bizarrely as a real cat, I believe that the simple phrase "real world" is an artifact that fits into few reliquaries of the occult, and I think that pop culture witchcraft is absolutely fabulous.

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fera-intus · 2 years ago

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Dissecting ancient Greek wedding customs (or “How to adapt the clusterfuck they are into something somewhat doable for the 21st century”)

This post is going to be a bit different. I could stick to writing about the customs we know of from a purely historical perspective, and while it would be informative, it wouldn’t reflect what I’ve actually been up to. Some of you might already know, but I’m getting married, so I approached this topic with the intent of seeing what I could do (and get away with).

So this post is going to be more about method and the practical challenges that come with doing the groundwork of adapting very old (and often outdated) traditions in a way that makes sense for our modern times.

I do have some disclaimers to make before I get started:

Most (if not all) of the literature around ancient Greek marriage is hetero-normative. However, this does NOT mean that marriage rites shouldn’t be adapted for queer marriages or that queer marriages can’t be done within Hellenic paganism. It’s our job as reconstructionists and revivalists to rework and adapt to our needs.

Similarly, this post is bound to mention or detail cult practices that are no longer in line with our modern sensibilities. I also want to make it clear that this post is not a tutorial. I’m not saying how things should be done, I’m only exposing elements that I consider reworkable and propose suggestions so that it can help others make their own research and decisions, with the level of historicity that they deem fit.

While the wedding customs from fifth century BC Athens are decently known, the ones from other cities and regions of Greece are much more obscure outside of anecdotal and fragmentary details (with the exception of Sparta). For this reason, the Athenian example is what I’ll be using as foundation. If you reconstruct practices from other areas of the Greek World, you might find something valuable in this article: The Greek Wedding Outside of Athens and Sparta: The Evidence from Ancient Texts by Katia Margariti.

Basic/simplified structure

The typical Athenian wedding would spread over three days, and be marked by several steps, some of which are listed below. Note that the order of these steps is not precisely known and might have been flexible:

Pre-wedding:

Decorating: korythale at the door, decoration of the nuptial bedroom

The Proteleia

Filling of the loutrophoros

Wedding day

Nuptial bath

Adornment of the bride

Wedding Feast

Hymenaios

Anakalypteria

Nymphagogia

Katachysmata

Day after

Epaulia

Gamelia

Final sacrifices

Some of these steps included specific customs and traditions, not all of which are reconstructible for various reasons.

Decorations

The korythale: the korythale was a sprig, usually from an olive tree (or laurel), which was placed at the groom’s door (and perhaps the bride’s too). The word in interpreted as deriving from “koros” and “thallein”, which would translate “youth-blossom”.

The korythale is very reminiscent of the eiresione, which was a similar kind of branch of laurel used during the Thargelia and/or the Pyanepsia that had apotropaic purposes. Athenian weddings included a procession from the bride’s home to the groom’s house, so the presence of the korythale at the doors would indicate that a wedding was taking place involving the decorated homes.

While I haven’t seen any one make this interpretation, I would still be tempted to argue that decorating the thresholds of houses has a similar protective and luck-bringing purpose than the eiresione, which was also hung above the door of Athenian houses.

The thalamos (nuptial bedroom): While there is no doubt the houses were properly decorated for the occasion, we have mention of special care given to the nuptial bedroom.

It’s important to understand that the procession from the bride’s house to the groom’s went up to the bedroom door, it was generally an important location and its preparation is seen represented on ancient pottery. Euripides mentions the adornment of the bed with fine fabrics, while Theocritus mentions the smell of myrrh (sacred to Aphrodite). There is also evidence that, in the Imperial period, the practice of hanging curtains to create a canopy above the bed was adopted, very likely from Egypt.

When it comes to adapting this today, it is pretty straightforward and there is plenty of room for personalization. The korythale could be challenging depending on how easily available olive or laurel are in your area. I would also argue that the custom could be more loosely adapted so that instead of being at the houses’ doors, it could take the form of a floral arrangement at the door of whatever venue you are using.

Proteleia

In short, the proteleia refers to sacrifices and offerings that would be made to various gods before the wedding. The exact timing of these is more or less unknown, but we have reasons to believe they could be done a day or a few days before the wedding, and perhaps also on the day of the wedding. These offerings were made independently by each family.

It is in this context that the offering of a lock of hair and of childhood items is best known for brides. The recipients of the offerings are varied: In Athens the most mentioned are the Nymphs and Artemis, but various sacrifices to Aphrodite, Hera, Athena and Zeus were also performed. In other parts of Greece, pre-nuptial customs often included sacrifices to local heroines. Plutarch, in the 2nd century AD (and therefore way after the focus of this post) mentions the main five nuptial deities to be Zeus Teleios, Hera Teleia, Aphrodite, Peitho and Artemis.

Today, I believe the exact choice of who to offer to and what to offer very much comes down to personal preferences and circumstances. While we assume that both families made prenuptial sacrifices, we know very little of the groom’s side of things, since the focus was on the bride, and the rite of passage aspect was not present for the groom in Ancient times. This is a gap that leaves room for modern innovation eg. including Apollon to either replace or accompany Artemis or choosing a group of deities that is more couple-centric rather than family-centric.

Personally, I have settled on Aphrodite, Hera and Artemis and have integrated a Spartan custom that includes the mother of the bride in the sacrifice to Aphrodite. Hera Teleia will receive a lock of my current hair, while Artemis will receive a lock of hair from my first haircut as a child (that my mother has kept all these years), alongside some other trinkets. The groom will honour Zeus Teleios in a passive way. And I will honour the Nymphs through the the rite I will explain next.

Nuptial baths

Both bride and groom had a ritual bath before the wedding. Its purpose was of cleansing and purificatory nature, and is consistent with other water-based pre-sacrifice purifications. What made the bride and groom's baths distinctive was their preparation. The bath water used to be drawn at a specific spring or river. At Athens, the water for bridal baths came from the Enneakrounos, the fountain house for the spring Kallirrhoe, but each city had its dedicated source. The water was carried in a special vase named the loutrophoros (bathcarrier) and the act of fetching the water and bringing it back to the homes constituted a procession. The loutrophoros was often given as offering to the altar of the Nymphs after the wedding. It was an important symbol of marriage, to the point that, if a woman died before being married, she would often be buried with a loutrophoros.

This will be more or less difficult to adapt depending on circumstances and environment, but the logic of a purifying bath (or shower even) can be kept (though I would discourage bathing in water you are not sure of the cleanliness of). The idea of having a specific vessel can also be kept. Personally, I plan to have a special vessel for some type of purified water, and while I may not bathe in it, I plan to sprinkle it and/or wash my hands with it.

Adornment of the bride (and groom)

Traditionally, the bride would have a nympheutria (which we could equate as a bridesmaid, but seems to have often been a female relative) charged of helping the bride get ready. I won’t get into the details of the clothing we know about, mostly because there seems to be a lot of variation, and because I consider this to be a very personal choice. However, we can note that both groom and bride were adorned with a wreath or a garland of plants that were considered to have powers appropriate for the occasion (sesame, mint, plants that were generally considered fertile or aphrodisiac). Perfume is also something attested for both bride and groom, especially the scent of myrrh. The bride would wear a crown, the stephane, which could be made out of metal or be vegetal (the stephane is now the object of its own crowning ceremony in Greek Orthodox weddings). The bride’s shoes were also particular for the event, and named nymphides. The bride’s veil was placed above the crown.

Hymenaios and Feast

I am grouping these two since they are linked. The feast was more or less the peak of the wedding ceremony and lively with music and dances, as Plutarch indicates (Moralia, [Quaest. conv.] 666f-67a):

But a wedding feast is given away by the loud cries of the Hymenaios and the torch and the pipes, things that Homer says are admired and watched even by women who stand at their doors.

The hymenaios was a sung hymn in honour of the couple and the wedding, and there were other songs that were specifically sung at weddings. However the hymenaios wasn’t only for the feast, these songs would be sung also during the processions. The hymenaios also had the purpose of ritually blessing the couple, a ritual that bore the name of makarismos.

As for the feast, it was obviously abundant with food and the prenuptial sacrifices provided the meat that would be served. There is otherwise very little difference with what a modern wedding feast would be like: food, drink, music and dance around which gathered friends and relatives of the couple. Like today, the wedding cake(s) was an important part of the celebration. It was called sesame and consisted of sesame seeds, ground and mixed with honey and formed into cakes to be shared with the guests.

Anakalypteria

Note that there is a bit of a debate around this step, which is the unveiling of the bride. Some believe the bride kept her face veiled until this part of the wedding, where her face would be uncovered for the groom to see. Others interpret this step the other way around, where the bride is then veiled as a result of being now married. The timing of the unveiling is also up for the debate. It might have been during the feast (at nightfall), or after once the couple was escorted to the bridal chamber. There doesn’t seem to be a clear consensus.

The concept of unveiling the bride is otherwise something that isn’t unknown to us as a modern audience. As with everything else, how to interpret and modernize it is up to personal preference.

Nymphagogia and Katachysmata

The nymphagogia aka the act of “leading the bride to her new home” took place at night, likely after the feast. It is at this point that the groom ritually led the bride to his home by taking her by the wrist in a ritual gesture known as χεῖρ’ ἐπὶ καρπῷ (cheir’ epi karpo). The relatives and friends of the couple formed a festive procession that accompanied them to their new home accompanied by music and songs. The mother of the bride led the procession carrying lit torches, while the groom’s mother awaited for the new couple in their home, also bearing lit torches.

Once there, the rite of the katachysmata would happen. The couple would be sat near the hearth and the guests would pour dried fruits, figs and nuts over the bride and groom as a way to incorporate them into the household and bless the union with prosperity and fertility. As part of this rite, the bride ate a fruit (either an apple, quince or pomegranate). It is only after this step that the couple would be escorted to the bridal chamber.

These two rites are tricky to adapt in a modern context because of how location-specific they are (and that’s not even taking into account the implications of having family escort you to your bedroom etc). My take would be that the katachysmata is not too far off from the custom of throwing rice/flowers at the couple after the ceremony, and could probably be incorporated as such. The torches could also be replaced by any source of light placed in a meaningful location, depending on the where the wedding is being held. The nymphagogia could also do with an update, the easiest of which could simply be holding hands while leaving the wedding ceremony.

The day after (Epaulia, Gamelia & sacrifice)

The epaulia refers to wedding gifts to the couple, which would be given the day following the ceremony. At this point, it is implied that the couple has consummated their marriage and are officially newly-weds. Pausanias informs us that the term “epaulia” (also?) refers to the gifts brought by the bride’s father in particular and included the dowry.

After the epaulia, the bride's incorporation into her husband's house was complete. This might have been when the groom held a feast for his phratria (aka direct family), as a way to conclude the wedding.

As for final sacrifices, the bride herself may have marked the end of her wedding by dedicating her loutrophoros at the sanctuary of Nymphe, south of the Acropolis.

The epaulia could be adapted, in modern terms, with having a registry. Should someone choose to have a specific vessel linked to the ritual bath today, it could very well be kept, dedicated to the Nymphs and used as a small shrine. Considering how symbolic the object is, there is also room for it to become a piece of family heirloom.

Final words

This is really only a small summary of what a wedding could have looked like, sprinkled with a few ideas of how to manage the gaps, discrepancies and limitations. As I said in my introductions, there are details I haven’t mentioned. Some of the customs detailed here have clear modern counterparts, but others don’t. I’d like to conclude by addressing these.

First, the ancient Greek (Athenian) wedding is completely devoid of priestly participation. It was entirely planned, organized and led by the two families. Religious responsibilities were entirely self-managed. I find this point important to remember because it makes it much more accessible than if modern Hellenic pagans had to seek out an external authority.

Some of you might have noticed the absence of wedding vows, at least in a formal form like the one we are used to in our modern days (derived from Christian and Jewish traditions), this is not an oversight, there simply were none that we know of. As a sidenote, I would also advise against turning a wedding vow into a formal oath. I’m still debating on what to do myself, but I’m leaning towards a religiously non-binding vow that won’t curse me should things go wrong.

Adapting the structures and rites of the ancient wedding to today’s framework of ceremony will naturally lead to changing the order of things, on top of sacrificing elements for the sake of simplicity, practicality, personal preferences and, very likely, visibility. Unless you’re lucky enough to do a private elopement, chances are that relatives and friends might be there, and not all might know or even approve of your faith. I hope this post shows that there can be ways to include traditional religious elements that will go unnoticed to the untrained eye, like I hope it showed that the private nature of the ancient Greek wedding rites is a significant advantage for modernization.

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fera-intus · 2 years ago

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I am 22 pages into Nothing But A Pack Of Cards and so far I'm enjoying the writing style. It's flowy, and absurd (complimentary), and it really emphasizes that this is one person's experiences with a system built from the ground up.

It reads less like a 101 baby's first guide to magic and more like the research notes of a less-than-hinged mad wizard scientist, which is honestly my favorite kind of book. (I say, as a less-than-hinged mad wizard scientist with research notes myself.)

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fera-intus · 2 years ago

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Tarot Inspired Journal Prompts

Fool: what is something new you are doing or want to do?

Magician: what is a magical way to enhance my day? Or, how can I be more like the magician?

High Priestess: what are my thoughts on divination? What about intuition?

Empress: what part of myself do I want to grow/nurture?

Emperor: what part of my life needs me to take authority? How can I?

High Priest: what are my personal traditions? How is my spirituality unique to me?

Lovers: what relationships mean the most to me?

Chariot: what part of my life needs me to be more combative/ warrior-like?

Strength: what part of my life should I face with courage?

Hermit: what do I need to do alone more often? What do I need to do with others more often?

Wheel of Fortune: what do I think about luck, fate, and/or fortune?

Justice: when do I need to focus on legality vs fairness? Or, What may cause me to seek justice/retribution?

Hanged Man: what have/will I sacrifice for -x-? What am I never willing to sacrifice? What will I easily give up?

Death: what is something personal I want to end or change? What is something that will end or change no matter how I feel? How can I accept it?

Temperence: what part of my life needs more patience? What part needs more balance? How can I achieve both?

Devil: what is a primal desire I have? Should I grant it to myself? Why or why not? How can I get what I want?

Tower: what can I learn from the current or recent chaos/disaster in my life?

Star: what do I hope for? How can I get it?

Moon: what part of my life is best kept private? Why?

Sun: what makes me happy?

Jusgement: what part of me needs reflection? What is a fair assessment of that part?

World: what parts of my life have been fulfilled? What parts are still lacking?

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fera-intus · 2 years ago

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Creative Writing Tarot Spread

Writers block bogging you down? Use this 7-card spread to help jumpstart your creativity! This prompt can help you generate a very basic storyline.

First, pull a character card! Decide for yourself what this means: will your character carry the traits of the positive meanings of this card? Will your character’s conflicts be brought about by the card’s negative meanings? Will your character look like the figure depicted on the card? Will they wield the item depicted on the card? (Note: if your story has multiple main characters, you may wish to pull a card for each)

Next, pull the plot cards! Pull a card for the beginning of your story, a card for the middle, and a card for the end. Again, let yourself decide what this means. Do these cards describe your character’s emotional state(s) as the story progresses? Do these cards describe internal or external conflicts? Do these cards represent other characters your MC will meet along the way?

Finally, pull your meat cards! These cards are the “meat” of your story. Pull one card for the main or most important setting of your story, one card for the main conflict, and one card for the resolution of that conflict.

Have fun with it! Remember that these cards are just tools, and this spread is simply to kickstart your brain. If you get halfway through the spread and come up with something on your own, or if you start writing and realize your plot is deviating from what the cards gave you, don’t stress about it! You write for yourself, not for the cards. Thank them for their help and continue on with your own imagination.

Deck pictured here: The Essential Tarot by Chloé Zarka Grinsnir

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fera-intus · 2 years ago

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What Does The Deck Say? July 5, 2023

"The good news is that the hardest part of the path is over. The bad news is that the hardest work remains to be done. Now that you are in a better place (physically and/or emotionally) to review how you got here and why, now you have to begin the work of improving where you are and how you take care of things. Putting things to right often means uncovering where things went wrong. Don’t be dismayed by the evidence of previous mistakes. Taking care of things as you find them now will enable you to create more good things and memories in your life later."

The Tiny Timber Lenormand is a set of 36 etched birch tiles, each bearing the traditional number, playing card association, and a small image referencing the name of the card. Based on the Petit Lenormand system, itself named after Mlle. Marie Ann Lenormand (1772-1843), the small yet easy to read set allows for the use of all thirty-six tiles in a small space. The Tiny Timber Lenormand is ©Chas Bogan.

“What Does The Deck Say” is a weekday series of 3 card pulls from a cartomancy deck. No context or query is given to frame what the cards say as the posts are reading samples and not personal instruction. The result is sometimes humorous, sometimes serious, and usually surprising. All readers are invited to leave a comment about what they perceive in the random spread as each person will interact with the cards in their own way.

Personalized, direct, and private cartomancy readings are available via Ko-Fi: Noxporium.

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fera-intus · 2 years ago

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Trying to find contemporary rune books as an anti racist heathen is stupidly hard. I’ve read Diana Paxson’s book and I’m planning to study the rune poems as well as some of the more academic texts like ones by Page, but does anyone have recommendations for contemporary rune authors that do their research and aren’t massive pieces of shit? What about Pollington? I’ve heard mixed reviews.

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fera-intus · 2 years ago

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A Cardinalidae Feathursday

The Cardinals (Cardinalis cardinalis) and Rose-breasted Grosbeaks (Pheucticus ludovicianus) in our neighborhood have just been chattering away this early summer. The call of the Cardinal is quite distinctive, but we often confuse the call of the Rose-breasted Grosbeak with that of the American Robin. Some say the Grosbeak sounds like a Robin that has had better music lessons, but we have a hard time telling them apart. What do you think?

Both are members of the family Cardinalidae. The only other species in that family lives in our area (that we know of) is the Scarlet Tanager (Piranga olivacea), which also sounds remarkably like a Robin, but hoarser. The images shown here are from a 1930 painting by American nature artist Walter Alois Weber reproduced in Bird Portraits in Color by the American physician and ornithologist Thomas Sadler Roberts and published by the University of Minnesota Press in the 1934. The volume includes 92 color plates by five wildlife artists illustrating 295 North American species.

The three birds in the upper left of this plate are winter male, female, and male nestling Rose-breasted Grosbeaks; in the upper right are a fully adult breeding male and first-year breeding male Rose-breasted Grosbeaks; at bottom are adult female and male Cardinals.

View other posts from Bird Portraits in Color.

View more Feathursday posts.

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fera-intus · 2 years ago

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Have you purchased from the Jewitches shop?

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fera-intus · 2 years ago

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hi! ive been getting back into the craft recently and i was wondering if you have any book reccomendations that i could learn more from! (i know youve published your own, which i will be checking out soon!!)

I have a book recs tag that contains most of the titles that I regularly recommend for witchcraft studies, but there are a few I could mention by name:

History:

Drawing Down The Moon (Margot Adler)

Triumph of the Moon (Ronald Hutton)

The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present (Ronald Hutton)

The Oxford Illustrated History of Witchcraft and Magic (Owen Davies)

Witchcraft, magic and culture 1736–1951 (Owen Davies)

Witchcraft:

The Dabbler's Guide to Witchcraft: Seeking an Intentional Magical Path Seeking an Intentional Magical Path (Fire Lyte aka Don Martin)

New World Witchery: A Trove of North American Folk Magic (Cory Thomas Hutcheson)

By Rust of Nail & Prick of Thorn: The Theory & Practice of Effective Home Warding (Althaea Sebastiani)

Sacred Actions: Living the Wheel of the Year through Earth-Centered Sustainable Practices (Dana O'Driscoll)

Honoring Your Ancestors: A Guide to Ancestral Veneration (Mallorie Vaudoise)

Spellcrafting: Strengthen the Power of Your Craft by Creating and Casting Your Own Unique Spells (Arin Murphy-Hiscock)

The Magical Writing Grimoire: Use the Word as Your Wand for Magic, Manifestation & Ritual (Lisa Marie Basile)

Light Magic for Dark Times: More than 100 Spells, Rituals, and Practices for Coping in a Crisis (Lisa Marie Basile)

Sigil Witchery: A Witch's Guide to Crafting Magick Symbols (Laura Tempest Zakroff)

The Hearth Witch's Year: Rituals, Recipes & Remedies Through the Seasons (Anna Franklin)

Here are the Top Ten foundational texts that I started out with.

Here are the books I recommend if you want to work with plants.

Here are the three titles I have on the market.

Here is the Dropbox I made with free (legal) historical texts on witchcraft and magic.

And here is my personal library (slightly out of date) which might give you some more ideas!

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fera-intus · 2 years ago

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I think "spreadwork" sounds weird but idk what else to call it

I think a lot of modern tarot spreads assume that the key to a powerful spread is figuring out exactly how to phrase a question, and so the best spreads have the most curated lists of questions.

If we take a spread type people seem to have trouble with - let's go with spirit communication - the take seems to be, "you're just not wording your question correctly," or, "you're just not asking the right questions."

So a spirit communication tarot spread becomes, "here is a list of seven carefully worded questions - draw one card for each."

I'm not denying that learning how to frame questions is an important part of reading tarot.

But I do think it might not be as important as learning how to build spreads that are resilient enough to answer almost any question (within a certain category), even if it's phrased badly.

I think a huge part of tarot (and one that may unfortunately be lost or difficult to obtain with digital decks) is learning, for lack of a better term, "spreadwork" - how the actual placement and designations of the cards are actively involved in adding information to your reading.

When I say "designations" of the cards, here is what I mean:

Some spreads assign a specific question to a card, while other spreads designate what part of your own question a card should answer.

Suppose you would like a reading on your career. If you go to find a premade spread, one of them might look like this:

Card 1: What to focus on in your work life.

Card 2: Your greatest professional strength.

This spread is providing a list of inquiries. You draw one card for each.

However, a different spread may provide designations to respond to a topic of your own choosing, like this:

Card 1: What you are wrong about, or see without clarity.

Card 2: Information you thought was important, but won't end up mattering.

In this second example, we can choose our own specific question, such as, "will this job opportunity work out, or should I start looking for a new job?" And the spread will start giving answers: "When it comes to your job opportunity, what you're wrong about is..."

This is in contrast to the first set, where the questions are provided for you. "Should you seek a new job? Well, your greatest professional strength is being a good listener, does that help?"

And I think as readers, some of that skill - to learn how to assign your own designations - has been lost, superseded by emphasis on learning how to phrase questions.

There are infinite ways to designate a card, but we can consider a few common categories: signifiers; past, present, or future; final outcome; significant details and major theme; subtext and external influences; pitfalls, roadblocks or easiest paths; advice; and a category which I'll call negative cards - "this is not the correct path, this is not the advice to take away from this reading, this is not going to be the outcome."

And then you start to say - okay. I want to work with a signifier. That's my first card. But this spread is about feeling burdened, so when I place my cards, the signifier will be at the "bottom" of the spread.

And I want to know the most major thing blocking me. It's important - I'll put it at the top. One card. But that's not enough detail. So below that I'll have a couple of triads - the details triad, the past/present/future triad, and the "what am I doing wrong?" triad. Now it's an eleven card spread - one signifier, one major theme, and a set of three triads with their own designations.

Then you work with the spread a few times, and it flows okay, but not great. Details are repeated. There's a lot of dead weight on this spread, and the most difficult part to work with is the "what am I doing wrong?" triad.

So now we practice spreadwork (cardwork? idk.). And we take that troublesome triad and make it, "what is my best advice? What am I doing right?"

But of course that doesn't fit with the flow, it's a bunch of support cards in the middle of a blockage spread, so you take that triad out and put it beneath the burdened signifier - and now it's a foundation of support, a solid rock on which to stand.

This is what I mean by learning to work with spreads as a skill regardless of how you phrase the question. At that point, what does it matter if you phrase the question "what is blocking me?" or "what is my greatest blockage?" or "show me what's stopping me from succeeding?"

The question and how it's phrased becomes incidental to learning to work with the flow of information, learning to feel the energetic movement between the cards.

Do you always have to draw clarifiers for a certain card? Examine your designation - what piece of information do you always need to make the reading complete? Then add in a new permanent position to fill that need - "this is my greatest burden (card 1), it specifically exists within this part of my life (card 2)."

There are other aspects to explore also - will you flip over all the cards at once, or just one at a time? Will you lay the cards out in a geometric grid and read the relationships between mirrored pairs? Will you stack cards on top of each other? Will you move and rearrange the cards half-way through the reading to produce something danged awesome?

I'm sure people are getting tired of me ranting about it, but the longer I read, the more I become convinced that the pictures on the card and the book meanings that go along with it take up such a smaller piece of the interpretation pie than I once believed. I now believe that other factors - such as how you choose to organize a spread, and the designations within it - constitute a large part of the information flow within a tarot spread. I think it is somewhat telling that if I want to do a very specific, concise reading, the "card meanings" constitute a minority of information gathering.

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