markedbyfireandash

[markedbyfireandash]

Spells using Vicks

One part of my practice is the use of camphor, which can help bestow peace in a home. Vicks has camphor and eucalyptus, used for opening up the sinuses during cold and flu symptoms. Here's a way I used it to calm someone down:

Their name paper was taken and the Vicks rubbed across their name. This was followed with an incantation that they'd calm down, be cooled down by the camphor. This was then wrapped with blue thread and kept in a container.

Another way one might consider using vicks is in a bath or steam. The menthol smell helps alleviate flu symptoms, but it can also help in removing unwanted energies. Camphorated Oil also helps with this.

[markedbyfireandash]

Avenues of exploration for sorcerous troubleshooting, i.e., why didn't the spell work?

Paths of investigation I'd take. Feel free to add your own if you like. As context my practice is basically Traditional Witchcraft; spirit-centric sorcery.

My general advice is to not solely focus on sorcerous techniques. Go wide and examine more things... look for patterns in your entire life, like the turning of a season, not merely the harvest of a single tree.

I think spellwork has so many variables that it can be very hard to narrow things down with few data points. Sometimes to resolve a problem, many spells and techniques must be attempted.

If you don't have time to troubleshoot, a solid first action is a general offering ritual to The Powers That Be. Request help and support in making your magic work. Invite lessons and teachings to help you overcome this particular obstacle. Ask for forgiveness if you've accidentally done something that has offended a god or spirit.

Domain

Is that entire area of your life/the situation blocked?

One prosperity spell failing is happenstance. The same spell fails three times, maybe it's a bad spell or not suitable for you. Five different prosperity spells using five techniques... maybe your prosperity is blocked.

Look at your entire life going back weeks or months: has progress in this area of your life been strangely blocked or limited?

Try different spells and techniques to make progress in the same area - does anything work?

Be creative. Broad categories like prosperity, relationships, work, and home may be insufficient. What about categories like transferring planning into action, raising boundaries, and harvesting? Again, looking at your day-to-day life may reveal fruitful insight.

Potential solutions:

Unblocking and way-clearing magic for this part of your life/the situation, to try and clear the way for magic to manifest correctly.

Curse-breaking spells, or any spell in the category of "break up and send away harmful, limiting energies."

Healing and protection magic to bolster the channels of your life/the situation that need to be uplifted and supported (e.g., instead of a more cash now spell, a heal my financial channels spell).

Wellspring

Do you not get along well with those powers?

Prosperity magic works, except when it's an aggressive competition spell. Wards work, as long as they're illusory - your aggressive protections fall flat. The iron knife feels dull and absent in ritual space; the obsidian one works fine. The possible connection? You and the planet Mars do not get along.

Planetary powers that work well for you out-of-the-box may be impacted by your natal chart or other factors.

Plant spirits may be miffed if you did one of their living relatives dirty; even if you did so years or decades ago.

Nature spirits may not know you or be interested in letting you work in their space, or with their power, until introductions are made and terms are agreed upon.

Elemental magic may be more or less effective for you depending on natural affinity and preference; some people have very strong affinities that can make it difficult to work with other elements.

Ancestors may be more or less pleased to assist depending on whether or not you've met cultural expectations of veneration, and whether your work suits their preferences.

Consider asking yourself things like:

In every spell that fails, am I trying to use fire as a driving force?

In all my money spells that fail, am I always trying to call on Mercury?

Does my personal energy work wonders for glamours and illusion magic, but fail to get things to materially manifest?

Potential solutions:

Engage in remediation - correcting relationships with powers so that you can work more easily with them. I count this as an aspect of spirit-working and it can be done both religiously and secularly.

If you don't have relationships with powers you're trying to call on, see if you can make them - you don't have to be besties, but it helps to know where you stand and formalize a working connection.

Ask yourself what powers in your life always work well. Just because something is on a correspondence list for 'emotions, psychism, feelings' doesn't mean you can't use it to cast wards, money spells, curses, and banishments. Use powers that work for you regardless of the domain of focus, and see what happens.

Look for energetic substitutes. See what other powers out there match your needs.

Look for different paths to success. Building a wall is not the only way to protect a castle; you can also dig a moat. And those are basically opposites.

Technique

Does that type of spell work for you?

Not every kind of spell, technique, or combination of techniques works for everyone. Someone can be out here moving mountains with jar spells but can't even use a candle to save on the electricity bill.

Did a failed spell use a new technique you've never used before?

If a new technique fails, do you understand why the technique is being used? Do you understand how it works? Would a greater understanding help plug it into power for you?

Does a technique rely on prerequisite skills? Do you know those skills?

Did focus on a new technique distract you from other parts of the spell that accidentally got left out? For example, focusing so much on an incantation's phrasing that you forget to actually raise power.

Potential solutions:

Try achieving the same goal using a different technique to see if the technique is the problem. (candle spell -> knot spell)

Break the technique down into its composite parts and build up competency with each aspect before putting it all together again.

Isolate the technique outside of the spell and find a way to practice it until you become more familiar with it.

Tradition

Does that school of magic teach that basic skills or techniques are required for their magic to work?

Traditional Witchcraft seems neat. But do you really need a compass, a stang, a witchparent, and a cauldron? Chaos magic works just fine and they're not using that stuff. So we can probably snip that compass right out. What does it even do, anyway? Seems superfluous if not everyone needs to do it to have success.

Not understanding something might not be a great reason to change it or leave it out.

This can mean that to be successful within a tradition requires not only reading spellbooks but also books that provide theory, context, and understanding into the system.

A surface-level understanding of a tradition doesn't mean there aren't complex structures of reasoning underneath that reinforce the need for certain ritual actions.

Potential solutions:

When working within a specific tradition, seek success with spells and rituals as they are written before attempting to modify them.

Research to see if this tradition prescribes steps of initiation, cultivation, or attainment before you're supposed to be able to access certain powers or resources.

Not every tradition is right for everyone - fish were not made to climb trees, etc. If one tradition holds no water for you, it might not be your home.

Strategy

Did you plot like a spider in the center of its web?

"I cast a spell to make someone ignore me, but they kept ignoring my boundaries. Why didn't it work?"

"Everyone in the house is so emotional, so I cast a warm fire blessing to bring verve and cheer. Now everyone is just super energetic and getting into emotional arguments. Why didn't my spell to calm everyone down work?"

The desired outcome and the function of a spell are two sides to a Venn diagram, and unless they overlap spells will always "fail" in the sense that they will not bring desired results.

The actions we want to take, and the actual outcome we desire, often fail to overlap. Many spells are cast out of reactionary impulsivity, reinforcing unhelpful actions that got us here in the first place.

Relying on correspondence lists to determine your strategy I think leads to a kind of brainrot... "this situation seems too watery, so adding fire will fix it." The correspondence list can perhaps launch a person past the critical thinking portion where it's determined that adding fire will not have the same effect as draining water.

I believe self-therapy can intersect with witchcraft when we become so emotionally tied to plans of action that we cannot, even behind closed and locked doors, secretly use magic to take other actions. If the actual solution to having your boundaries violated is to become seen and take up space, but you cannot bear to take that action so you repeatedly cast spells to become invisible, this is an issue of strategy that perhaps can only be resolved through inner work.

Potential solutions:

Reformat spellcrafting sessions to start with a period of reflection, critical thinking, and journaling to ask yourself what would need to happen in the world around you to obtain your desired goals. This should not be hedged by whether or not you can think of a magical solution to make those changes.

Ask yourself if you are seeing middle steps that would be required to occur before your final desired outcome can occur.

If you prefer to cast large, multi-faceted spells, see if you might have more utility breaking it up into multiple smaller spells with focused intents, cast one at a time to move your situation through stages until you reach the desired goal.

Instead of assuming your magical action will bring your desired goal, try a journaling exercise where you apply that magical action to hypothetical situations and see what you think would actually happen.

Spells to reveal correct steps of action can be deeply helpful, as is increased or refined divination sessions before spellwork.

Self-Sabotage

Do you already have a spell that's stopping this current spell from manifesting?

Heavy-handed protection spells can stagnate your life and stop a lot of things from happening. A social influence spell starts to have a weird impact when your department meetings start to include upper management. A spell designed to call faeries to live on your property accidentally blacklists a lot of random spirits.

When your spells aren't working, it's wise to double-check your prior spellwork.

Spells can have hidden side-effects that were never intended; see if you've cast anything that could potentially be related.

Energies or magical effects can build up over time, calcifying into barriers, bottlenecks, or rogue logic loops.

Potential solutions:

Undo old spell vessels that may or may not still be active, but that you no longer rely on.

Experiment with methods of divination to discover ongoing magical influence in your life.

Develop a system of magical hygiene in your life which includes not only breaking up old and unwanted energies around yourself, but also managing old spellwork that may no longer serve you.

Nuclear options are available for destroying a lot of magic happening around you; this is very inadvisable, but live your truth regardless.

Turn it Off and On Again

General steps to trying to wiggle free of a blockage.

Perform a relatively strong self-cleansing to remove unhelpful or deleterious energies.

Perform a general offering ritual to the Powers That Be in your path and around where you live, asking for any accidental offense to be resolved and for help in fixing your sorcery.

Cast an unblocking or way-clearing spell to facilitate your goals.

Perform divination to see why old attempts failed, and to obtain a new angle of attack.

[markedbyfireandash]

You must stop holding out on us. Where did you get your green ocean binder/note cover?

Chicken! I'm flattered and delighted.

It is the hokusai wave journal from Oberon Designs in the teal color, and it is built like a TANK.

Many years ago, I lost most of my material possessions to flood damage. The journal cover, which was my bullet journal setup at the time and not my grimoire, was covered in disgusting skunky gunky disgusting flood water. After throwing out the inner contents, I figured I had nothing to lose, so I tossed the journal cover into...the washing machine. With some dr. bonner's liquid soap. On a normal cycle. I think I put it through the dryer, too, for a little, on low, though I ultimately dried it in the sun. Somehow, this was fine. Then I reconditioned with straight up coconut oil, and it's somehow both lusciously soft and still absurdly sturdy. This was years ago and this baby is still going strong, and I am not easy on my working items. I mention this because Oberon Designs did a limited release a while back with the Rider Waite Smith Fool card on it, and I bought it to make a more obvious grimoire, but because it's new it feels so stiff and like an entirely different product. But it isn't! It just hasn't had the shit beat out of it yet. So my point is: these things take a TON of abuse. They're absurdly well made. They're pricey, for notebook covers, but like. Worth it, imo.

More caveats: I don't actually use it entirely as intended because I have it set up midori traveler's notebook style, because I love a modular set up. Because it's the American half latter size and I have several elastics in there, I can just fold paper in half and scribble away on my makeshift notebook insert. Or I can print things out booklet style, and put that in there. And I buy those slim cheap roughly 5.5 × 8.5 kraft cover notebooks in bulk and burn through them as necessary, because for me, the grimoire is more a lab notebook and less a coffee table book, though the covers are so nice that they probably deserve a fancy grimoire.

in THEORY, the modular grimoire is also an all in one travel altar and all I need to pack for witchcraft while traveling. in actual reality, I've never travelled light in my life.

and now, because I've been given an excuse, thank you so much...here are some example pages. still sandy from last time I took The Book to the beach.

Starting with bookmarks:

For operative reasons, there is an antique key in there. I found a flat one, so that's nice, for the notebook format. The moon and stars charm is also from Oberon Designs--they tend to throw in a little freebie with their orders. I was trying to DIY a little in grimoire black mirror for a while, and none of my attempts really worked, and then i just made the St. Cyprian chaplet with the black mirror there, so--I'm not sure why this is still in here but why not. Why are there pressed flowers in here sometimes? It's a working item, baaaaebeee. All kinds of shit happens here.

reference materials:

like I said, I wanted a written by hand/printables for ease of use hybrid format so that's what I have. pictured: some sigils and reference notes for the dia de los reyes workings I always forget about until the absolute last minute so that I'm frantically running around the house very January 6.

etc

but fundamentally this grimoire is my grimoire so there's silly things in it because I am a silly person with ADHD who is also in a rush everywhere absolutely at all times. here is an origami dragon who lived in my wallet for many years--extremely effectively, so witchblr really does sometimes offer some fun yet useful ideas. also here are some fruit stickers? also my dog. also on the opposite page pictures I do not wish the internet to see. the big red envelope came with uhh...a mini waffle iron? shaped like a heart? and now houses a paper based charm. It's sturdy enough to take out of the grimoire and toss into a purse when necessary. also: kraft notebook with painter tape label.

further etc

I love journaling and notebooks in general so I have a lot of purchased and DIY folders and stuff in here, obviously. fu talisman from when I was reading the tao of craft. absolute banger of a talisman; very strong for what I needed/need it for. see also: pocket playing card meaning thing I do not use at all whatsoever. st jude card from seraphin station. ruler in case I need to make straight lines.

storage (and etc)

and here is my very DIY storage solution, which is: a slider ziploc bag and some medical tape. dr jose gregorio hernandez wallet card from, again seraphin station, who is also on here as @karmazain. background photo print of a Baron Samedi veve, for ritual focus or you know, whatever. big holy card of la caridad del cobre, aka our lady of charity, who is also Oshun or at least Oshun's catholic mask, depending on who you ask and how they look at it (maferefun oshun, of course, forever and ever). packet of black pepper and unseen similar packet of salt for some REALLY on the go magic, if necessary. big sticker / feng shui amulet of the three celestial guardians, which is usually tucked into the pocket flap meant to secure a notebook.

and ta da! far more information than you asked for! but I love witchy gear, i love talking about our gear, I LOVE LOOKING AT PEOPLE'S BOOKS, so.

[markedbyfireandash]

"cascarilla" 🤝🏼 "smudging" 🤝🏼 "road opener"

terms that keep being appropriated within witchy and pagan circles because people don't realize they refer to specific things and are not just generic terms

[markedbyfireandash]

Reminder that if you're asking spirits to help you with something long-term (i.e. protecting your home, bringing in job opportunities etc) it can be good practice to have an agreement on "rest" and "finished" commands. I.e.

"When I tell you that it is time to sleep, return to your vessel and rest until I ask you to continue again."

"When I tell you that your work is done, I will thank you with an offering and our relationship is completed so you may leave my space."

Signed, someone who forgot to do this and had an unhappy spirit asking where their offerings where because I forgot to say that I now *had* job and didn't need them bringing me more!

[markedbyfireandash]

DIY herb burner and lampblack collector. Fuck those little charcoal disks, I'm not paying for those.

I've never had a nasty accident with one of these but I'm not like, a fire scientist. Please use caution and especially be careful if you get a ton of soot collecting under one of these things.

I GET FAR LESS SMOKE THAN DIRECT FLAME.

Good if you want less smoke

Bad if you want a lot of smoke

Also:

It won't go up in a flurry like a charcoal disk. Good to make tiny amounts of herbs and resin last for a long time with a gentle, warm scent that's not overly smokey.

THE TOP AND THE SIDES GET HOT. YOU CAN BURN YOURSELF. Don't touch an on-fire charcoal disk and don't touch tinfoil in direct contact with flame. Blow out the candle and the tinfoil will cool down relatively quickly. BUT IT ALSO HEATS UP SUPER FAST, TOO.

Pull about 4 inches of tinfoil off the roll. Fold it in half.

Fold the tinfoil twice more, along the indicated black lines. The black lines are each about 1.5 inches away from the left and right edges of the tinfoil. This fold marks the height of the little hut: these folds form the main legs your hut stands on.

Measure 1.5 inches down from the top of your tinfoil, and mark this on the left and right fold lines.

Make a 1.5 inch cut down each new fold line. This will form three flaps. The flaps on the edges will be small. The flap in the middle will be wide.

Fold all three flaps down. Each flap should be folded down about 1.5 inches.

Fold the two small flaps behind the larger middle flap.

Turn him over :) wow, he stands

Pinch and crimp corners until he stands as even as he will go.

He is very fragile. Carefully hold up two sides and tap down in the middle of the roof to create a gentle indent to ensure burning herbs roll inwards and downwards. The hut must not have a tilted roof that things can roll off of!

(Single bit of storax resin)

[markedbyfireandash]

Death Witchcraft Masterpost

-Beginner Death Witchcraft

-Unusual Death Witchcraft

-Spring Death Witchcraft

-Lost Cost Death Witchcraft

-Safe Crossings for Someone Who’s Passed (pet-friendly as well)

-Massaging the Bones (attuning tools and bones to your space)

-Web of Protection (symbiotic/deathwork based ward)

-A semi-theistic Prayer for Passing/Grief

-My Humorous Retelling of “Koschei the Deathless”

Graveyards:

-Ways to Bond with a Graveyard

-Graveyard Dirt Uses

-Graveyard Alternatives

-Graveyard Dirt Alternatives

-Subtle Graveyard Offerings

-Bereavement Traditions

Spirit Work/Ghosts:

-Spirit Work 101

-Autumn Spirit Work

-Communication with Ghosts

-Non-verbal Spirit Communication

-Using a Spirit/Ouija Board

-Spirit Work Techniques: Keys

-Spirit Work Techniques: Energy Directives

-Spirit Banishing Tip

Recipes/Spells:

-Spirited Jack O’Lantern

-Safe Crossings Jar

-Baked Apple Offerings

-Pumpkin Seed Offerings -Underworld Powder Series- Styx

-Underworld Powder Series- Lethe

-Underworld Powder Series- Cocytus

-Underworld Powder Series- Phlegethon

-Underworld Powder Series- Acheron

-Contacting a Loved One

-Death Witch Tip

-Death Witch Tip 2

[markedbyfireandash]

in criticism of #witchblr being predominantly beginner guides (of which i am a little guilty), here's a little thread of some more advanced witchcraft ideas i've picked up.

if you can't access any of these links lmk!

please reblog with your own! and add links or book recs if you have any.

the passage of time

learn chronokinesis (x)

different philosophical theories of time (x)

pagan ideas of time (x) and nature's time (x)

the spirituality of time (x)

critical understandings of myth

defining myth (x)

modern constructions of myth (x)

what happened to myth? (x)

modern media myth (x)

modern myths and design (x)

american myth and nationalism (x)

british myth and nationalism (x)

european non-classical myth (x)

criticisms of paganism

*these are a collection of criticisms that i found interesting, and worth reflecting on. contrary to what tumblr thinks, there are negatives for (neo)paganism, and blind spots. being aware of them is useful.

is it giving ancient pagans a bad name? (x)

is it a nature religion? (x)

is it theist? (x)

does it allow space for grooming and sexualisation? (x) *note, original essay is no longer accessible, but i think the comments do a decent job explaining.

is it authentic? (x)

is there a secret global neo-pagan movement? (x) *note, probably not, but this article still offers some interesting criticisms despite being a bit... kooky?

what even is paganism? (x)

[markedbyfireandash]

Dex Inspired by pseudo-Agrippa’s description in the Fourth Book Of Occult Philosophy, 1559. Via: https://www.instagram.com/p/C5YkT8CrFT9

[markedbyfireandash]

Stone Hex

To give a person horrid luck for a given amount of time.

Find a smooth stone and spit on it. Whisper their name over it. Turn it thrice counterclockwise.

"With this stone, I turn your fate,

misfortune shall be your mate,

until again I turn the one

on blessed path of setting sun."

The person shall suffer misfortune on top of misfortune until you take the stone in the same hand and turn it thrice clockwise.

[markedbyfireandash]

Reasons to not always take spirit communication posts at face value

Reading accounts of other people's easy and fabulous spirit communications might make us negatively judge our own practice if we lose sight of how much can be lost in translation.

(I'm not saying every spirit communication anecdote is inherently misleading)

LANGUAGE OF CONVENIENCE: OP is summarizing complex encounters as "the spirit said."

LOST NUANCE: A lot more tedious detail was happening behind the scenes; when personal detail is lost, the experience appears to be simple, easy, and vivid.

INTENTIONAL OBFUSCATION: The practitioner changed details of what happened on purpose, perhaps to share part of a personal or sacred story, without betraying their obligations.

THEY MEANT SOMETHING ELSE COMPLETELY: OP didn't mean they were having vivid communication experiences, it just sounded like that.

"I love it when my spirits help me throughout the day" can imply regular 2-way spirit communication or spiritual intervention.

But it can also mean, "it's easier to manage my anxiety when I focus on the idea that spiritual protectors are around me."

FALSE INFERENCE: OP meant what they said, we just assumed it meant something else. We might think a "powerful experience with Hekate" is supposed to mean shadows grow out of the walls and auditory hallucinations of baying hounds, when in reality OP just felt a strong sense of certainty and intuitive power.

HIDDEN COST: The rituals, initiations, careful planning, long-standing offering schedule, and perhaps years of practice aren't directly mentioned in the post; perhaps neither are spiritual exhaustion, burn-out, or other "ceiling" factors that prevent these experiences from regularly happening. Without this context, it can seem that everyone is having powerful experiences so easily.

[markedbyfireandash]

Y'all know it's okay to just try stuff in witchcraft, right?

Across the internet, I see a lot of people who seem to be asking for permission to do what they want. While I see some validity in getting wisdom from others, I worry that the people asking these questions might miss out on the experience they could get from going ahead and making a good faith attempt.

"Can I do this spell even if I don't have rosemary?" I don't know. Try it!

"Can I use fruit juice as an offering to my goddess?" I don't know. Ask her!

"Can I include a pocket watch in my magic?" I don't know. See if it works!

Of course, it's not a good idea to jump in and try something that could be harmful, but if you're not hurting yourself or others and you're not appropriating from a closed practice, just give it a go! You're allowed. You're a witch with magic and power and discernment of your own. You don't have to get permission from a bunch of internet strangers. Have fun trying new things!

[markedbyfireandash]

Advice for if your practice is feeling stressful or unfulfilling (that isn't 'just stop practicing')

Before you expand: long text post!

I think it's interesting that the first line of advice stressed and unhappy practitioners often receive is 'stop practicing! take a break,' because besides a breather this doesn't actually do anything. When a person is done with that break they're still going to have the same stressful, unfulfilling practice they did before.

Stop practicing is useful advice for someone who is about to deep-fry their brain in uncontrolled Witch Fire. It's useful advice for someone who experiences unexplainable catastrophe every time they engage in magic.

I'm not sure it's useful advice for people who want to practice and are actively seeking help figuring out how.

So here are some ideas. Feel free to add your own.

If your practice has too much of a time load:

Scrape over-engineered ritual. Examine ritual formats. Are you spending a majority of your practice time engaging in elaborate ritual? Where can that be paired down?

Swap ritual for enchantments. If ritual performs an action (laying a compass), can you substitute for that ritual action by making enchanted objects that take less time to activate (enchanted compass altar cloth)?

Minimize ingredients. If you regularly perform spells that require lengthy enchantment of ingredients, can you use fewer ingredients to achieve the same results? If you're using more than 3 correspondences for any spell, is this because you are wise in your own ways, or because you just feel that more is merrier?

Mash rituals together. Do you have a string of rituals, even small ones, that you perform one after the other? Is it possible to reorganize these so they're all done at once, in the same ritual? For example, setting out an offering to the gods, a different offering for the ancestors, another for helper spirits, etc. Can you combine these all into one single offering?

Check for over-tending. Is it possible that you're repeating magical acts, like feeding wards and cleansing, more often than you need to? Did you arrive at this schedule through trial and error, or did you just guess this is how often you should do them?

Check for your own levelup: spell maintenance. If it's been a while since you re-evaluated your ritual/offering/maintenance schedule, your increase in skills may mean you need to do these tasks less often to achieve the same result.

Check for your own levelup: techniques and routines. Some techniques, like carefully entering trance, grounding, and centering, are like training wheels that wear ruts into our paths of magic. As we improve in skill, old rituals and techniques that have been carefully couched in these helpful devices may become ingrained in us so that we can perform them in almost any state of mind, much faster and easier than we could before. Experiment with any technique you've been doing for a while and see if you still need to perform time-consuming meditative or focusing techniques before you can perform the skill.

Be reasonable with your own goals. I find most 'laywitches' give themselves daily and weekly schedules that would put actual cloistered monks to shame. Did your spirits tell you they expect daily offerings, or did you decide on that an run with it? Where are you overcompensating and overexerting in your path when nobody, including yourself, asked you to?

If your practice has too much of a work load:

Much of the advice of the prior section applies. Also,

Just work less. Are you putting in 100% effort when 20% or 30% would do? Are you treating every act of magic like a performance review that will control the outcome of your magical career? I'm not being sarcastic; an actual solution to your path being too much work is to just put in less effort. If you've never tried this you may be shocked at how effective magic can be when you're only doing what needs to be done.

Find simpler, more reasonable stuff. Find new techniques, and spell and ritual formats that are paired down to fit the amount of effort that's reasonable to exert for any given magical act. If you can't work with correspondences without a lengthy act of activation, find a way to cast simple spells that doesn't rely on correspondences.

Limit research and prep. Ask yourself how much research you reasonably need to get started on any given project. Remember that a huge amount of a witch's education is experiential; you will probably never know enough until you've already done it three or four times.

Be goal-oriented; prioritize actions. Ask yourself if you've set arbitrary workloads before you can get started with anything, such as forcing yourself to write artistic grimoire pages before you're allowed to perform a ritual you're interested in.

Learn skills to help prioritize actions. If your practice is consumed by acts of upkeep such as cleansing and empowering objects, focus on learning energy sensing so you can reasonably determine whether or not an object actually needs to be cleansed or empowered.

Administrate your own practice - what can go on the back burner? Make a list of all your active ongoing projects and maintenance, including upkeep of energy batteries, spells that require maintenance, and situations you want to change and are casting spells on. Prioritize them; see which ones you can set aside.

Restructure your projects to minimize maintenance. Consolidate spells and projects where possible. For example, if you have multiple protection spells for many people that require upkeep, condense them all onto a protection altar so you can feed and tend to them all at once.

Work in batch and bulk. See where you can do batch work to lighten your load. You can bulk enchant candles and incense, instead of enchanting incense every time you do a ritual. You can enchant oils, waters, and incense to feed your spells, taking time out of upkeep.

Levelup your charging and maintenance skills. Learn energy work to attach energy tethers to batteries and other important projects so they're able to drink from the wellspring you attach them to, and stay charged.

Scrape routines that don't serve you. Examine any daily routines. Are you doing them because they're helping you, or because you feel like you're supposed to be doing something every day? See if you can replace more intensive daily routines with something less tiring, like a prayer to your path itself.

If your practice feels too silly:

You have a right to privacy. Cocooning is valid. It's fine to take steps to limit who can see and potentially judge your practice. You can keep things to yourself until you're ready.

Tend to your emotional wellness. Self-therapy, in any form you feel comfortable with, can help mitigate the inner eye of judgement.

Reduce your beliefs to palatable doses. Believing in magic for only the duration of your work is perfectly fine. You don't have to 'believe-believe' 24/7. If you're not ready to integrate the belief of magic and spirits into your baseline worldview, don't - you can agree to buy in to those beliefs only while you practice techniques and cast spells, and then put them away the rest of the time.

Scrape stuff you really can't get past. Ask yourself what about your practice feels silly. Are there trappings - like altars, ritual movements, and speaking aloud - that you don't like? Change them. Is the idea that religious faith itself is a bit cringe? Self-therapy (or you know, the regular kind) may be assistive.

Ask for help modifying your process.Is there something very specific about a ritual or technique that you just can't get past, but you don't know how to change it? Research and see what other substitute rituals are available. Ask others and see if they can help you brainstorm.

Embrace the silliness. It's not going anywhere. Believing in your practice and holding it dear and sacred is not the same as being ✨super serious gravitas✨ all the time. There are lots of things about witchcraft, and the acts of the witch, that are silly and make you realize you're doing something ridiculous. I came out here at 2 am after it's been raining to climb down a slippery riverbed to get a branch of a tree that I think is talking to me?? Because some medieval guy said Tuesday is the planet Mars and I think trees talk to me?! Ridiculous. Yet I still love it dearly in a sacred place in my heart. It can be silly and glorious at the same time.

Cast a wider net. See if you're barking up the wrong tree. Traditional Witchcraft, folk magic, lodge magic, chaos magic, eclectic neopaganism... these things are not interchangeable. If you've never explored different traditions, why not give it a go? You might find another path that feels a lot more natural to you. A lot of people fall into a certain path just because they don't know what else they could be doing!

If your practice feels unfulfilling:

What are you doing to bring yourself fulfillment? Why did you get into witchcraft? Make a list of your top 5 reasons (if you have that many). Which techniques, spells, and rituals are you regularly performing are designed to deliver these desires to you? If one of your goals of practicing witchcraft is to 'feel connected,' how often are you performing acts where the only goal is to make you feel connected?

Grow your path deliberately in the direction of your needs. What do you wish you had in your life right now? Is it the feeling of being loved? Inner peace? Feeling like nature is alive and watching you? Look for what techniques and rituals in your practice will bring these things to you. If there are none, find or develop them.

Ask for help and share your feelings. If you work with gods and spirits, do you regularly tell them how you feel about your practice and ask them for help finding fulfillment?

Find contentment in the process. It's vital to find joy in the process. If you have regular routines or upkeep you need to do, how can you modify it so that process in and of itself is satisfying to you? Try considering the visceral element of witchcraft: the words, scents, sounds, moods, and thoughts that you want to experience in your present moment. Witchcraft is experiential: a great deal of the experience you create in the tidepools of routine is under your control.

Contemplate the larger purpose. Some witches do have magical chores and responsibilities they can't or shouldn't shirk. If this is true of you, and you can't modify those routines, try refocusing on why you're doing them and the importance they hold in your path. See if you can find balance elsewhere in your practice that feels rejuvenating; sort of a 'work-play' balance of your own craft.

Set short-term goals you can celebrate. Are you undertaking a lot of 'workout routines' that are designed to basically make you magically buff, or get good at a particular skill, but you're doing them with no endgoal? Try creating short-term goals that excite your sense of wonder or accomplishment. Like, practicing tarot until you can read the Celtic Cross, or practicing energy work until you can make a four-element layered energy shield. Build goalposts for yourself, both in the short and long-term, and celebrate your successes.

Scrape routines you're not doing for any good reason. Are your regular practices things you're doing because they fill you with mystery and wonder, or because you're just pretty sure that's the kind of thing witches do? If you're bored or unfulfilled by a particular routine, consider stopping it altogether, especially if you can't think of any short-term goals that it's helping you work towards. Think about the reasons you got into witchcraft: what practices would help you fulfill those reasons, while also feeling good to practice?

Seek out a likeminded community. A good working group of friends can be invaluable. My close group of witch friends, whom I've been hanging out with for years, started as a Tumblr post asking if anyone wanted to make a small server to study witchcraft. Reach out and see who's out there to study with, talk to, and practice with. It can be loads of fun to do short-term study and practice challenges with friends, and a great way to get feedback and support.

Evaluate your spiritual relationships. Although it can be painful and challenging, sometimes we enter into our paths working with gods and spirits that after some time, we need to move on from. Is it possible your path has become stagnant because you don't want to keep working with a god or spirit that your path has been built around? It may be time to see how you can move on.

When 'take a break' might be helpful advice to heal your practice:

Of course, YMMV :)

'Taking a break' doesn't mean stop being a witch, stop believing in magic, or stop 100% of your practice. It can also mean putting a lot of projects on the back burner, switching to bare-minimum (or below minimum) maintenance, and squashing regular routines.

I'm talking specifically about taking a break in the interest of your own practice - not the conditions under which someone is ""allowed"" to stop practicing witchcraft.

Take a break to rest and let your seeds germinate. 'Fallow periods,' when you have no desire or motivation to practice witchcraft, and when it seems like there's nothing for you to do, are normal. Some witches experience this cyclically, perhaps during certain seasons or when predictable life conditions are met. There's no need to force yourself to practice when it's just not flowing. The snow on your mountaintops needs to melt to replenish your waterways, bestie. There's nothing wrong with you, the sun just isn't out yet.

When you're hitting yourself with a hammer. When something in your practice is triggering or harming you, and stopping will have no consequences, then stopping your practice for a while is probably a good idea. Use the downtime to seek healing or reformat your practice.

To open your life up for necessary work. Not every witch can out-path every problem. Consider taking a break when the problem is something you will have time and energy to work on if not for your regular magical practice.

When you're about to deep-fry your brain with Witch Fire. Consider taking a break when the problem with your practice is that you are practicing too often - such as fatigue due to excessive spellwork, divinatory obsession, trouble staying out of the spirit world (compulsive astral travel), or focus on spirits/magic/the spirit worlds are starting to erode your home, school, or work life.

To let the ripples settle. When you've done so much magic or ritual work that your life is a boat on a stormy sea, and you just need to batten down the hatches for a while and let things settle.

[markedbyfireandash]

Localise your practice. You don’t need to offer the things traditionally associated with your deity if you don’t have them. No wheat or barley to offer Renenutet? The dandelion in your garden will do just fine if that’s what fits your practice. No moonstone for Artemis? A pretty rock you picked from the forest will look amazing on her altar.

Our gods were worshipped around a wide geographical range, with diverse cultures, plants and animals. Don’t let the unavailability of certain resources stop you from worshipping in a way that is authentic to you.

[markedbyfireandash]

Grimoire - Decolonizing Witchcraft

Racist Stereotypes About Magic What you mean to say: Karma Edition Depth and Cultural Appropriation in Witchcraft Racism, Spirituality, and Witchblr Making Magic More Inclusive Accidental Appropriation Closed Traditions Aren't a Monolith. CHAKRAS (are not what you think they are) Chakras - What they really are

More related posts at: For Pagans/Witches to Beware of My Posts Related to My Practices Religions and Deities

[markedbyfireandash]

Hey Chicken, I used to be able to center perfectly during meditation but now my brain just feels fuzzy and uncentered and Bad. I'm using the same technique as before, which is pulling my energy toward the center but now when i do it my head hurts. Do you have any advice for this? Thx

Perhaps not in specific, but it's my experience that life and magical changes can make techniques ineffective or feel weird, where they were once helpful.

Generic advice:

Pull energy lower, towards your solar plexus. Avoid pulling energy in and storing it higher up, near the head.

Build energy roots or develop a grounding system concurrent with centering, so excess energy can be sloughed off.

Cleanse your energy before you draw it back in.

Check spiritual hygiene routines: is a personal cleansing in order?

Draw energy towards you and see where it wants to go. A useful visualization is to imagine a creature (I use the tiny golden dragon described by Aidan Wachter) coming out of your solar plexus and accepting the energy, and then letting the creature itself store it in the proper location.

[markedbyfireandash]

St. Revisits a Question: Banishing the energies of others

I was asked a question some time ago about banishing a person’s energy while still trying to keep a healthy relationship. My response was minuscule at best, and no one else really had a answer for the inquirer. If you’re going to banish a person, you gotta banish the entire person. At least  that was the consensus. Then, it happened. I needed to banish someone’s energy without flinging them into the abyss. Namely the energies of a number of my coworkers. 

I think I approached that person’s question wrong, which happens when you don’t have experience with something. Experience teaches us the exact angle at which something must be handled.

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