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[feralwitch]

Shout out to all of my fellow witches who are too exhausted and busy to do complicated rituals and elaborate spellwork- the simple life does just fine, really.

[feralwitch]

What advice would you give to someone new to witchcraft or curious about starting their journey?

Quite a bit, I hope you don't mind a long post!

Make sure your ingredients and stuff aren't toxic to you or your pets. Essential oils, certain stones, many herbs, and so on can be extremely harmful if used improperly.

If you're going to use candles, research candle and fire safety.

Certain mystical practices/views can potentially create issues with certain mental illnesses. EG, anxiety can make you prone to thinking everything is a sign. OCD can make you prone to worrying whether you've offended the gods/spirits. This doesn't mean you shouldn't practice, it just means that you should be aware of how your mental illnesses impact your beliefs and thoughts.

Nothing is absolutely essential. Anyone who tells you that there's some item or herb you must have is probably trying to sell you something.

Aesthetic is cool and also useful for getting into the right headspace.

There are many models and theories of magic. Some people are very certain that their model is the One True Model, but there's always going to be someone whose own experience says otherwise.

Magical practitioners of the past improvised and made it up as they went along, too. (I say "magical practitioners" because very few of them would have actually called themselves "witches.")

Be aware that you're going to run into a lot of pseudohistory. The witch cult hypothesis had a huge influence on the modern witchcraft movement, and some people still cling to it. There's a lot of people still claiming that Christmas and Easter were stolen from pagans. Many people anachronistically project modern magical models onto the past. Some people believe this because it's just what they heard somewhere; some people believe it because they're conspiracy theorists. You can't entirely avoid it, but you can learn to recognize it. YouTube channels like Angela's Symposium, ReligionForBreakfast, and ESOTERICA are great places to start learning about actual religious and occult history.

You can also get better at recognizing conspiracy theories by learning their most common tropes. I wrote about them in this post and this post.

The whole concept of cultural appropriation isn't about policing what people do, and anyone who tries to use it that way is being a dick. It's about respecting marginalized cultures' boundaries and not depriving them of money, goods, etc. See this post for more information.

[feralwitch]

6 Satanic Self-Care Suggestions

1. Believe in yourself.

2. Honor your physical, mental, and spiritual needs.

3. Set boundaries and stand up for yourself.

4. Indulge in the worldly pleasures that bring you joy.

5. Use the power of ritual to your benefit.

6. Look to Satan for knowledge, insight, and inspiration.

🌕 Pearl Satanachia 🌕

[feralwitch]

worship evolves with time. yes, the people who worshipped the gods back in the day had specific offerings to be given. but what is stopping you from giving modern offerings? things around your house? offerings shouldn't have to cost you a fortune. your deities aren't holding you at gunpoint to only receive what you can't easily get. they are a means of showing your love in your day-to-day. so yes!! give your deities candy bars! show them a silly little doodle of them in the corner of your notebook!! make a spotify playlist and play it for them!! dedicate a journal to them!! make a pinterest board and fill it with pins that remind you of them!! the important aspect of these offerings is that you are thinking about your deities. thinking about them and feeling love and devotion to them is a means of offering! you are devoting your energy in these acts!!

[feralwitch]

A Prayer for Dead Bugs

Oh Beelzebub, mother of swarms, father of plagues, parent of tiny things. Here lays one of your own, dead.

Take this child back to your arms and carry them to rest. Let in decay so they may feed the soil, as I will too one day.

————————————

This one is special to me. I always notice little bugs who have been stepped on or simply perished when I’m walking, especially now that fall has settled into the northern hemisphere. I quietly have said this or a variation of it recently when I see these little dead bugs. I hope others will use it similarly.

[feralwitch]

May the Gods ease your gender dysphoria.

May they bless you with gender euphoria, and supportive friends and family.

May they guide you and help you on the path for your transition, no matter what form that may take.

[feralwitch]

Destroy the idea that it’s humble to hate yourself. Destroy the idea that loving yourself is conceited.

[feralwitch]

One of the many many reasons I will never return is because they want me to die to myself (read: baptism and repentance). They want me to kill my identity and cut off my interests and drown parts of my personality and burn my “worldly” knowledge. They want me to finish destroying myself so my broken body can be forced into the mold of the “good” and faithful servant.

[feralwitch]

tsu_namee Welcome home 480 Otis 🤎

[feralwitch]

Book Review: Wild Witchcraft by Rebecca Beyer

TW: Alcohol mentions and tallow mentions. Poison Path things as well. This is: Wild Witchcraft by Rebecca Beyer Rating: 9/10 Pros: An amazing outlook into animism, herbalism, and foraging in a safe, sustainable and non-appropriative way! The instructions on how to garden were very to the point and explained some complicated ideals in an easy to digest way, I think one of my favorite quotes from the book that stuck with me while reading was,

“Just when I think magic has been cut down and paved over; a dandelion has pushed it’s way out of the cracks in the cement.”

I hope that quote helps you understand what sort of writing to expect out of this book! As someone that grew up learning planting from my Papaw who took classes on the subject after getting out of WWII through a governmental program and was a farmer before that, some of the information on growing was things I already knew. But for a beginner just looking into ‘wildcrafting’ or foraging or just plain growing your own herbs for witchy things?

Get this book.

The author, while an herbalist, breaks down each plant she mentions and includes plenty of warnings and suggestions for use both magical and holistically. She covers the poison path in a very easy to understand way while making sure you understand it’s not a beginner’s thing, and certainly not one to take without serious consideration first. The author takes careful note of Indigenous practices and makes sure to drive it home that their voices are to be heard over anyone else’s when it comes to taking care of American land. There are so many rituals and remedies included in this book that I have a feeling I’ll be referencing it quite a lot, and not just for the gardening and foraging tips!

Did I mention the entire 11 pages of a bibliography in the back?? No? Well there’s that too. My academic heart is thrilled.

Cons: Honestly? The only real con I have is that the author spends a chunk of time going over the Wheel of the Year which is a wiccan construct in a book that otherwise doesn’t have any wiccan imagery or practices up until this point. It feels…weirdly thrown in? But she also includes multiple folk traditions that were common amongst those particular time periods so…it is worked in but it still feels a little odd and jarring to me.

The author also mentioned the use of tallow as a commonly used oil for salves, which is correct but some people are uncomfortable with the idea and I understand that! Since the author has tincture recipes as well she does mention the use of alcohol in steeping purposes.

Overview: Animism, foraging, herbalism, and being safe to the environment. Good stuff all around!

[feralwitch]

More folks need to appreciate that there is a massive difference between someone being like, "I believe I'm talking to a spirit entity, but I acknowledge that I can't definitively prove this and so I don't expect other people to just believe me," and somebody being like "I am most assuredly talking to a spirit entity and you have to take my word for it, and you have to live your life in accordance with this spirit's decrees."

[feralwitch]

🏳️‍⚧️

[feralwitch]

If you know anyone who seems really chill to the point of being virtually indestructible, like nothing could ever bother them in any way, could get hit by a train and just shake it off and be totally fine, laughing it off as soon as they've dusted themselves off and stopped bleeding, but who occasionally just randomly falls apart to complete fucking smithereens with seemingly no cause nor warning, only to get back up again a few minutes/hours/days later like "ok yeah I'm fine again that was weird lmao", and you've ever wondered what the fuck is up with that:

They are actually not ok and most likely are not ok at any point. The whole "hardiest person you know who just collapses randomly sometimes" thing isn't a deliberately constructed façade, as a matter of fact it might be something that they actually personally believe themselves to be. But in reality this is somebody who's either unintentionally learned or has been deliberately trained to hide negative emotions and mask symptoms at all costs, as the #1 priority that goes over any other survival needs.

So even though it may look like they go from 1 to 100 completely at random and unpredictably, and then swing right back again to being totally fine, you have no way of knowing how long they've been at 95% before the last line of defense broke down and the system collapsed. And once they flip back up, odds are that they just managed to scrape their shit back together again just enough to get their backup masking systems running. The "check engine" light never turned on because the wire was clipped years ago.

If this is you, this is your callout to seek some sort of help. I'm telling on everyone in this room including myself.

[feralwitch]

The Old Gods

Fall & Spring - Winter & Summer

Prints Available Here

[feralwitch]

I can see why someone would worship a tree. Not every tree but some of them tempt me to idolatry. Like... Anyone else get this

[feralwitch]

"you should be at the club" i should be in the woods. performing the ritual.

[feralwitch]

Crows + @screenshotsofdespair