pyroplumis

[pyroplumis]

(casts fireball) | INPRNT

anyway i know that caleb doesn’t have long, greying hair at the same time his arms are bandaged. but hear me out: i like to draw him greying, and the bandages look badass. i’ve spent too much time learning to draw to not draw whatever i want.

[pyroplumis]

as a city witch, I can tell you that throwing something in a gas station trash receptacle works the same as burying at a crossroads. don’t stress over shit.

[pyroplumis]

“Sleep is used as a means of experiencing summoned ghosts also in the Greek magical papyri. One of the Pitys spells achieves a necromancy by laying out a dead body (or more probably, just a skull) on an ass’s hide inscribed with magical figures. The recipe states that the dead man will stand beside one in the night, which seems to indicate that he will appear to one in a dream. Another papyrus preserves in fragmentary form a hymn to Hermes in which he is praised as an escort of souls and also a rouser thereof, and mention is made of his mantic skill. Hermes is asked to prophesy through dreams. The notion is probably therefore that he will send ghosts in dreams. Justin Martyr seems to have regarded necromancy and the sending of prophetic dreams in general as akin. As proofs of the continued existence of the soul after death, he cites necromancy, boy-medium divination, invocations of the souls of the dead, dream-senders among the magi, and demon-assistants.”

—

Daniel Ogden - Greek and Roman Necromancy

(via forbidden-sorcery)

[pyroplumis]

Blessing of the candles against sore throat

The Blessing of the Throats is a sacramental of the Roman Catholic Church, ordinarily celebrated on February 3, the feast dayof Saint Blaise of Sebaste. (…) „O God most powerful and most kind, Who didst create all the different things in the world by the Word alone, and Whose will it was that this Word by Which all things were made should become incarnate for the remaking of mankind; Thou Who art great and limitless, worthy of reverence and praise, the worker of wonders; for Whose sake the glorious Martyr and Bishop, St. Blaise, joyfully gained the palm of martyrdom, never shrinking from any kind of torture in confessing his faith in Thee; Thou Who didst give to him, amongst other gifts, the prerogative of curing by Thy power every ailment of men’s throats; humbly we beg Thee in Thy majesty not to look upon our guilt, but, pleased by his merits and prayers, in Thine awe-inspiring kindness, to bless this wax created by Thee and to sanctify it, pouring into it Thy grace; so that all who in good faith shall have their throats touched by this wax may be freed from every ailment of their throats through the merit of his suffering, and, in good health and spirits, may given thanks to Thee in Thy holy Church and praise Thy glorious name, which is blessed for ever and ever. Through our Lord, Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who with Thee lives and reigns, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, world without end. Amen.”

After which, the blessing is made by the ordained minister in these words:

„Per intercessionem sancti Blasii, Episcopi et Martyris, liberet te Deus a malo gutturis, et a quolibet alio malo.”

Then, he makes the sign of the cross over the persons head:

„In nomine Patris, et Filii, + et Spiritus Sancti.  Amen.”

- Wikipedia, Blessing of the Throats

[pyroplumis]

No Frith with Fascists and Folkists!

Always anti-Terf and always Antifascist.

[pyroplumis]

some elements of spellwork distinguishing animist or spirit-based approaches from the energetic and psychological – a laughably basic and woefully incomplete list:

waking: most especially relevant for dried herbs or other preserved material. rouse what lies dormant with breath and touch and whisper.

speaking (or writing, etc): ask for assistance, don’t demand it. give praise, throw in some epithets. make deals, discuss terms and conditions. say thank you. say what you mean.

listening: now shut up for a bit. anticipate communication. words, song snippets, images, colours, feelings, whatever. look out for a “no” and be ready to honour it–it may hit hard in the chest or the guts. we have two-way streets here.

giving: praise, prayers, food, drink, candles, incense, crafts, all the usual suspects and more… reciprocity is key, no one likes a perpetual taker. some situations call for altruism, others for hard-nosed contracts, others for a secret third thing.

feeding: giving again, but specifically to maintain or revive longer workings. remember what the dormouse said…

sourcing: the perfect is the enemy of the good, but it makes a difference. grow, make, forage (responsibly) as much as possible. listen & give when sourcing things from the earth. shop ethically, re-use, thrift.

paring down: if it seems like a lot to go through for everything you want to include in your spell, then good. depth before breadth. use fewer herbs/stones/whatever that you know well, and that really need to be there. god i hate 12-ingredient spell jar recipes with #babywitch stuck on them. yes i will probably stick #babywitch on this. sue me.

to me these follow logically from the premise that plants, stones, bones, bits & bobs have spirit, not just energy. because that implies that their power must be given, it isn’t just there to be channelled (energetic model) or derived from the practitioner’s mental associations (psychological model). i claim nothing of reality and little of truth, but this premise has served me well.

just in case: the writing style is a little conceit that i use in many of my personal notes, which this was originally. obviously “in my opinion/experience/practice” etc.

[pyroplumis]

If you call yourself a green witch or a garden witch or whatever, read the Viridarium Umbris right now.

[pyroplumis]

“While treating of the mythical and historical Orpheus some of the points of solar connexon in the Dionysos Myth were noted. And it is important to keep in mind that Dionysos typifies the spiritual Night-Sun and is distinct from Helios, the symbol of the visible physical sun and from Apollo, the occult potency of the spiritual Day-Sun. Thus, Dionysos is Nyktelios, Lord of the Night, and Nyktipolos or Night-wandering, and Aristophanes represents the Mystics calling upon Iakchos, the Eleusinian Mystery-name of Zagreus-Dionysos as “the Morning Star that shinest nightly”. Macrobius quotes an Orphic verse which speaks of “The Sun whom men call Dionysos,” while another Orphic fragment says: “He is called Dionysos because he whirls in circular motion through the immeasurably extended heavens.” And the Eumolpic verses state that “Dionysos with face of flame glistens like a Star with his rays.””

— Introduction to Studies in Orphism by Martin Euser

[pyroplumis]

fucking hate it when the stuff everybody says "actually works" does actually work.

hate exercising and realizing i've let go of a lot of anxiety and anger because i've overturned my fight-or-flight response.

hate eating right and eating enough and eating 3 times a day and realizing i'm less anxious and i have more energy

hate journaling in my stupid notebook with my stupid bic ballpoint and realizing that i've actually started healing about something once i'm able to externalize it

hate forgiving myself hate complimenting myself more often hate treating myself with kindness hate taking a gratitude inventory hate having patience hate talking to myself gently

hate turning my little face up to the sun and taking deep breaths and looking at nature and grounding myself and realizing that i feel less burdened and more hopeful, more actually-here, that i am able to see the good sides of myself more clearly, that i am able to see not only how far i have to grow - but also how much growth i have already done & how much of my life i truly fill with light and laughter and love

horrible horrible horrible. hate it but i'm gonna do it tho

[pyroplumis]

My dad and I once had a disagreement over him using the adage "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

I said, "That's just not true. Sometimes what doesn't kill you leaves you brittle and injured or traumatized."

He stopped and thought about that for a while. He came back later, and said, "It's like wood glue."

He pointed to my bookshelf, which he helped me salvage a while ago. He said, "Do you remember how I explained that, once we used the wood glue on them, the shelves would actually be stronger than they were before they broke?"

I did.

"But before we used the wood glue, those shelves were broken. They couldn't hold up shit. If you had put books on them, they would have collapsed. And that wood glue had to set awhile. If we put anything on them too early, they would have collapsed just the same as if we'd never fixed them at all. You've got to give these things time to set."

It sounded like a pretty good metaphor to me, but one thing I did pick up on was that whatever broke those shelves, that's not the thing that made them stronger. That just broke them. It was being fixed that made them stronger. It was the glue.

So my dad and I agreed, what doesn't kill you doesn't actually make you stronger, but healing does. And if you feel like healing hasn't made you stronger than you were before, you're probably not done healing. You've got to give these things time to set.

[pyroplumis]

All changes happening in my life are positive, cleansing, and transformational 🧿

[pyroplumis]

[pyroplumis]

WE THE URBAN

[pyroplumis]

Hey folks, as you're exploring your various paths of spirituality and magic, it's important that you're mentally prepared to find out that you're really, really wrong about something somewhere down the the line. You might discover that a practice you take for granted is appropriative and misrepresented from its original form and intent. You might find out that something you thought was real history was actually made up by somebody fairly recently. You might find out you've been subscribing to an idea that has its origins in a hate movement.

It's not a matter of if this kind of thing will happen, but when. Even if you're doing your very best to research reliable sources as exhaustively as you possibly can, you can be certain that somewhere along the way, you'll absorb something like this. No one is immune. This won't make you a bad person. It's not like you misinformed yourself on purpose, much less went out there with the intention of harming someone or misrepresenting their practices. It's not like the people giving you bad information told you "hey, guess what, I'm a hateful shithead and I'm lying to you." You just didn't know, that's all. Nobody can know everything, not even the most well-read scholars. While being wrong isn't good, it's also not a moral failing. What's important is that you acknowledge that you were wrong, and accept this as an opportunity to learn and grow. It's the most anyone can do, and if someone tries to make you feel bad about being wrong in the first place, don't listen to them. (Being right doesn't inherently make someone morally superior!)

Ultimately, what's really going to speak to your moral character is your ability to admit that you've fucked up and your willingness to do better. You will fuck up one day, so have a healthy plan in mind for dealing with that.

[pyroplumis]

this ask polly comment..

[pyroplumis]

There are two types of witches; those who've licked a Himalayan Salt Lamp, and those who haven't.

[pyroplumis]