snowy-equinox

[snowy-equinox]

🔮 Witchy This or That 🔮

Thought this would be fun. Originally intended for my pinned about, it is instead now an ask game.

Tarot or Oracle

Herbs or Crystals

Full Moon or New Moon

Ceremonial Rituals or Casual Rituals

Sea witch or Green witch

Altars or Grimoires

Pendulum or Dowsing Rods

Protection Magic or Offensive Magic

Smoke cleansing or Water cleansing

Solar magic or Lunar magic

Astral Travel or Spirit Travel

Working Indoors or Working Outdoors

Seasonal Altar or Year-round Altar

Divination or Spellcasting

Group rituals or Solitary practice

Deity Work or Secular Work

Salt or Rosemary

Manifestation Journal or Vision Board

Collecting Spells or Writing Your Own

Day witch or Night witch

Broom or Wand

Mirror Scrying or Smoke Scrying

Cleansing baths or Sun Bathing

Crystal grids or Spell jars

Witchy playlist or Witchy podcast

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We're not saying that everyone always runs into these things, but if someone did need protection, what do you think is the most serious or important reason for protection?

(Even if that reason is less common, e.g., maybe you believe "negative energies" are more probable but you don't think that's nearly as serious as being hexed by evil wizards; to you, hexing is the most serious concern)

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"I asked chat gpt"

Ok and I asked the faceless old woman that secretly lives in your home and she replaced all your kitchen utensils with roaches.

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Xenia means Fuck ICE.

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Has tumblr caught onto the newest Game Changer shenanigan yet? Secret 11th episode that’s maybe a game?

https://www.ep11.love/

Password SAMALAMADINGDONG

Need another 88,300 to unlock it

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Anonymously tell me your assumpmtions about me and I'll confirm or deny them.

!!!

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learning that ofc means ‘of fucking course’ is such bullshit. she’s ‘ofcourse’ to me

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"No one cares about how long your run was"

"No one cares if you baked something"

Wrong bitch - I'm locked in. Post the little map thingy from the app, I won't even know what it means and I'll like it. Post your first upside down cake or homemade pizza crust attempt, I'm in there and I'm smashing the like button.

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Snakes in various ancient Roman frescoes and mosaics.

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I was reading something about Whitestown, Indiana and my eyes nearly popped out of my head thinking it was one of THOSE comically racist towns. Nice to know, at least the name, wasn’t that.

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Edith Wharton, from a letter to Morton Fullerton featured in The Selected Letters of Edith Wharton

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Oh, okay. I see. You think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select out, oh I don’t know, that gaslight gatekeep girlboss meme, for instance, because you’re trying to tell the world that you think modern feminism has been co-opted by corporations. But what you don’t know is that that meme is not from Instagram, it's not from Twitter, it's not from Tiktok, it’s actually from Tumblr. You’re also blithely unaware of the fact that in January 2021, Tumblr user missnumber1111 posted, "today's agenda: gaslight gatekeep and most importantly girlboss." And then I think it was a-m-e-t-h-y-s-t-r-o-s-e, wasn’t it, who reblogged it with an image of the phrase edited over a piece of "Live, Laugh, Love" wall art? And then gaslight gatekeep girlboss showed up in the feeds of eight different Twitter repost accounts. Then it filtered down through Instagram and then trickled on down into some tragic “alt side of Tiktok” where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that meme represents millions of notes and countless Tumblr users and so it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from Tumblr when, in fact, you’re wearing the meme that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of “stuff.”

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Snowy's Book Reviews - 'Cat Magick: Harness the Powers of Felines through History, Behaviors, and Familiars'

Rieka Moonsong, published 2023

I’ve always been drawn to animal-centered magic books, though they are often disappointingly formulaic. I’ve read at least 3 different books on “cat magic”, a type of magic that centers your craft around cats: Cat fur and whiskers are used in spells, deities associated with cats are your main entities, and much of the aesthetic is taken from cats directly. These points are often the breadth of these books, with the same correspondences, the same deities, the same chapters. 

I was pleasantly surprised to find that Moonsong deviates from the usual formula. She does not include a list of deities to worship based on a loose association with cats, and her writing is refreshing compared to other cat magic books I have read. Cat magic books often feel like they’re about your connection to your pet cat, instead of the idea of working with cat spirits and energy in a broader sense. Moonsong does a brilliant job of showing you the larger world of cat-based spirituality. 

I believe this might be due to a subtle, but important difference in perspective. Most ‘cat magic’ book authors believe that the cat itself is the familiar, but Moonsong believes that the familiar is a spirit that resides in your cat. By separating the pet from the familiar, she opens the possibility of spiritwork that isn’t focused on your pet specifically. For example, most authors plan their workings for when their cat is physically with them, but with Moonsong’s paradigm the familiar spirit can be present even when your cat is not. 

Of course, your pet cat is still a part of your practice and Moonsong does not neglect this. She talks about the importance of having cats in the home, and how to connect with your pet on a spiritual level. Unfortunately, this is where the book starts to fall apart for me. 

Moonsong makes bold claims about the extent of a cat’s protection. Before this section, she comes off as grounded and realistic. Here, however, she loses that quality nearly entirely. 

“While it may not be a frequent concern, the presence of a cat in the home can protect the residents from any hexes or curses that might be placed upon them. They can also stop psychic attacks meant to cause harm to their humans. The cat’s powerful auric field will absorb any negative energies that are being sent and transmute them.”

She writes as though simply owning a cat makes you invincible to spiritual attacks. Plenty of people who own cats have been successfully cursed, hexed, or haunted. I’m surprised that she has never met a cat owner who’s had to cleanse their space or banish entities. Moonsong also adds that this constant protection takes a lot out of cats, and is the reason they sleep all the time. I guess she forgot that feral cats and big cats sleep all the time too, despite not having a person to protect? Are they constantly under spiritual attack themselves? Who’s waging war on the Pallas’s cats in Asia? 

She links a lot of cat behavior to their protective properties. Throughout the book, it becomes a throughline; it’s the reason they sleep all the time, it’s the reason they stay near you, it’s the reason they sleep next to you at night. It can get overbearing, with this constant repetition shifting cats from being a loved pet to a living tool. I think Moonsong genuinely loves cats (and her own), but it can be very easy for people to come away from this book reducing cats to a warding system. 

“Pay close attention to how cats are behaving, especially in a home or personal space. When a cat is seemingly staring intently at nothing, this typically means that there is an energy or entity present there.” 

Usually, it means you have mice. Cats are ambush hunters, and will often sit and wait where they hear rodents in cabinets or behind walls so they can pounce when the rodent comes into view. Moonsong, despite writing an entire book on the nature of cats, does not mention this. She immediately jumps to this behavior being a sign of spirits in your home. 

She doubles down on this in a later paragraph about portals. Moonsong believes that portals (gateways to other realms or dimensions) can open randomly within your home and that “If you ever notice your feline friend returning to the same location in the home repeatedly to just sit, usually looking at a wall or the ceiling, this could mean that there is a portal there.” Again, it likely means you have rodents that return to the same spot, perhaps because of a nest or food cache in that particular location.  

Her paragraph on portals is interesting even when divorced from cat magic. Moonsong says portals can be opened accidentally, but gives no further explanation on what can open portals (besides spirit boards like Ouija, which is a common misconception). Normally, I would call this fear-mongering, however Moonsong seems pretty blase about portals, at least as long as you have a cat. She says that all you need to do to close a portal is ask your cat to help you as you burn an herb near the portal. 

Moonsong is a Wiccan High Priestess, and it shows. The Goddess is mentioned a lot in her writing. It becomes more apparent in her chapter on big cats; despite the chapter’s refreshingly unique subject, each species is assigned either Divine Masculine or Divine Feminine energies. It doesn’t make sense to ascribe Masculine/Feminine to animals, which can be either sex. As an example, the lion is associated with Divine Masculine energies. Given that lions are the only cats with an obvious sex difference, and it’s the only cat she assigns Masculinity to, her Masc/Fem assignments start to feel more psychological than spiritual. Moonsong makes no mention of lionesses in this chapter or the next one where she gives a ritual to summon a lion spirit. If you want to work with lionesses specifically, you’re out of luck; if a lioness appeared to you and now you aren’t sure if she carries Divine Masculine or Divine Feminine energies, Moonsong won’t tell you.

Another section to note comes near the end of the book. The author discusses Native American beliefs around cats, and how to work with power animals. Rieka Moonsong identifies as an Andean shaman, and while I cannot vouch for the validity of this claim, I did not enjoy her use of the term ‘shaman’, as it is specific to Siberian tribes and is not an accurate title for any of the groups she discussed. ‘Power animals’ is a Native American concept that, as far as I know, is closed to non-indigenous peoples. By reducing all of these cultures’ traditions to “shamanism”, Moonsong has allowed herself to take part in their practices since she is also a shaman. She is stepping over boundaries and advising her readers to do the same. 

She finishes the book out with your usual “beginner witchcraft book” correspondences–basic lists of herbs, crystals, candle colors, moon phases, etc. She doesn’t tie any of them to cat magic, seemingly adding them for the sake of this being a witchcraft book. Moonsong does include some mentions of chakras in certain candle color associations, and she does include a chakra ritual in the book. 

In the end, I have mixed feelings. Her perspective is original and I love that this book deviates from the usual topics of other ‘cat magic’ books, but unfortunately the author’s perspective is not one I can get behind. Her chapter on Native American lore and practices also left a bad taste in my mouth, and I think anyone who would like to check out her work should keep those views in mind.

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best m/f dynamic is a flamboyant bisexual show-off desperately in love with an extremely practical girl who’s difficult to impress 🤩

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so I got into grad school today with my shitty 2.8 gpa and the moral of the story is reblog those good luck posts for the love of god

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i'll be honest with you bud! i do not think that person leaving you on read for days and refusing to make the tiniest bit of space in their life for you and making you consult tarot cards about their feelings for you is your soulmate! not one bit!

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does anyone else think that its crazy (remembers i’m in discourse time-out this week) how the wind blowing thru the grass is so common yet so beautiful. one of many marvelous experiences in this wonderful life