#might rearrange my altar a bit too since i have some new things i wanna put up

[hornedcraft]

wanted to spend some time at the park after my short shift today but the wildfire smoke is too fuckin bad it’s killing me (i already gott rough bronchitis this is just making it worse) so i get no fresh air outside plants time :(((

[orangepunkwitch-blog]

Not dead!  Not an abandoned blog, either!  This kinda happens from time to time, so lemme explain myself:

Did the read-more page-breaking thing so nobody has to scroll for eons if they don’t care to read...

Anyway, my absence.  My mental and physical health have been absolute shit, and I’m starting to think I may have seasonal depression on top of situational depression as well since every damn winter I have no energy to do much of anything.  But as this year progresses, I’m finding myself perking up some.  My physical health is largely due to flare-ups (I haven’t been diagnosed but it’s strongly considered that I may have endometriosis; I need to get a laparoscopy to find out and currently cannot afford that, etc. etc. long story for another time) and lack of proper dieting and exercise.  The flare-ups and shitty periods are why I can’t exercise when I’d like to, and we can’t always afford healthy food for strength and energy I need to do things (my metabolism is high enough to where gaining weight isn’t exactly an issue with me despite being almost 30).  The worst of my pain occurs the first couple of days on my period, to which I have ultimately resorted to smoking marijuana which helps tremendously.  The only time I use it off the rag is during an extremely bad flare-up, which are thankfully rare.

‘Kay... mental health...  My husband and I still live with my parents here on the farm and it’s been stressful to the point where I’m getting anxiety-related chest-pains from time to time lately (long story-short: my parents---especially my dad---are assholes and even Loki said that no amount of magick can help them so I just rely on my wards in my room to have a safe haven).  This and the fact that we may have a lack of proper oxygen in this house might be contributing to it.  I plan on beginning my luck at growing pet-safe indoor house plants such as succulents and aloe vera to help with this after visiting a friend’s house whose mom pretty much has an indoor garden and realizing how much better I feel just being there for a few minutes.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about a topic relating to what this blog is about: Paganism, witchcraft, and being a Lokean.

Nope, still a solid Pagan with Druid beliefs and such, still a Lokean, but I haven’t practiced entirely too much witchcraft because there haven’t really been ways for me to use it where it’s needed.  You can’t expect certain spells to work if you’re not doing anything to help it along (such as a job wouldn’t just fall into your lap because you still have to apply for a job).  Money spells can get expensive if you’re doing it constantly for your spouse or parents because you’ll eventually run out of candles and such (I can’t do it without ingredients because I’m scatterbrained and need a damn decent point of focus and stuff).

I’ve got plans, though!  I still haven’t invoked Loki for practice (which he’s cool with) so there’s that; I need to work out a ritual, and Loki says that for me, being short, sweet, and too the point is the best way to go.  So I’ll be working something out with him in the (hopefully) near future.  There’s also the fact that I plan to try out my green thumb and see about growing pumpkins and sunflowers.  The sunflowers are to help with luck or prosperity or something on the property (honestly, I really wanna grow some out front to make the place look nice and having half a field of these flowers will be great for the faeries living there).  The pumpkins are because I fucking love Halloween and love pumpkin pie and have a few recipes involving pumpkin I wanna try.  I’d also like to try my luck at selling some, too.

While Loki tells me he isn’t associated with pumpkins, he sure as fuck likes to press the whole “come on, you know you wanna” bit onto me with growing them, and I’m getting this feeling that he’ll show up presence-wise whenever I go out to the pumpkin patch, so...  Whatever, I’m gonna grow pumpkins because pumpkins are fucking awesome.

I’ll be asking the neighbor that owns the property across the street from us if I can do some bone-hunting and maybe a little bit of fossil-hunting.  I still have the deer bones that my friend gave me that I need to wash, plus a dead young skunk I’m trying to decompose for bones, but winter makes this shit hard, so that’s part of my spring/summer activities.  Loki wants me to try and articulate the skunk and have it mounted on a wooden platform and put onto his altar and I’m sitting here like: uuuuhhhhhh you don’t have much in a way of room...  Regardless, articulating a mammalian skeleton will be beneficial in starting myself out in first-hand osteological studying, which is something you kinda have to know if you wanna be a paleontologist (which I do).  I’m also interested in creating a staff involving animal bones, but I’m not sure what I’ll be using it for.  If not for magick use, then it’d make for a great bring-along prop for a future druid character for D&D night (my husband and friends and I are just starting out with D&D because we haven’t been able to afford the books to play in the past, so we’re real excited about this).

Speaking of osteology, I plan on going to the museum with my husband and some friends in Pittsburgh and taking as many reference photos of all the fossil skeletons as I possibly can so I have decent and varied angles of the animals for reference when I practice to better my paleoart.  I don’t wanna keep on using artistic renditions or limited angles of the same damn pics of fossils on the internet for references.  I just need a decent camera, and I’m hoping my mom will stop acting immature and demand from a supposed friend that they give her her camera back.  She has more authority to demand it back than I do, and I never talk to those people anyways, so it would make sense if she tried getting the damn thing back.  Even though it’s sort of old, it’s still very high quality even for today’s standards and cost my parents nearly a grand to purchase.  If not, my husband (who is extremely knowledgeable in technology and quality) can help me get a new decent camera (because my iphone sucks and his samsung phone can only hold so much memory for the amount of pictures I wanna take).

I do plan on doing more magick this summer, largely to help with learning a new instrument.  While I do wanna properly learn the French Horn since I simply have the instrument, I need the proper mouthpiece (not sure if I’ve bitched about this in past posts), but every damn time I try to get the proper mouthpiece that I need, shit happens and I never get it.  However...  There’s a very strong possibility I could be learning how to play drums.  I’ve always wanted to play but my parents did their damnedest to keep me from that thinking I’d just be annoying on drums.  Turns out I’m quite proficient in terms of knowledge on how to play after a clerk at the local music store permitted me to play around on a drum set in one of the tutoring rooms because I paid very close attention to my band teacher helping the percussion section back in middle school.  That knowledge stuck with me because I wanted to play drums so damn bad.  So as it turns out, looks like I’ll be a drummer after all!  It’d be a great way to help me stay in some upper-body shape and help relieve stress through movement while creating music.  I’ll worry about starting a band later once I’ve actually become proficient in actually playing the drums, though.

Loki has made sure I stayed on the right path to where I don’t completely go on hiatus regarding creativity.  I have a deviantART now if anyone is interested, and I’ve been working on some DIY punk clothing for myself.  I’ll also be working on getting my hair how I want and learning how to apply makeup.  It’s apparently time that I start expressing myself how I want now that I know what I’m doing.  I’m going to go for a goth-punk look that I’ve always wanted since forever, just didn’t know how to achieve the look without spending a fuck ton of money (turns out that I never needed to in the first place).

....yay tangents.

Loki’s basically been trying to teach me to stop relying on the pendulum so damn much.  Basically I have to accept that I’m not going to know everything and find some other coping mechanism unless I absolutely have to consult with a pendulum, otherwise he’s just going to lie to me to hammer the lesson into my head.  I mean, his opinions?  Fine, sometimes I can’t take a hint on my own, he knows it, and sees the pendulum being something that could work.  But other stuff I won’t get into, he’s like, “Okay look...”  He’s also apparently preferring that I use tarot readings in general divination than runes.  I think it’s because the runes were a nice beginner’s way of helping me figure out the whole divination thing.  I’ll Sometimes combine tarot with the pendulum if I’m not sure and very damn confused on certain things, but other than that, I’ve been getting the hang of it.  I still need the handbook because holy dumbfuck, I can’t remember every little thing about every damn card.

Actually, this one tarot spread tried to basically tell me to compare what I’m going through to a caterpillar’s life and I’m currently in the pupa stage.  Meaning: I’m working on the appearance that I want, and when I finally achieve it, something something butterfly/moth analogy.  Of course, it isn’t narrating my whole damn life, just a part of my life.

Regarding art, I’ve been working with Kenaz, and that’s the rune I have on the Loki painting I may or may not have shared here sometime ago (I’m pretty sure I did but I’m too lazy to go get it so...)  The painting has now been moved to a new part of my room (after rearranging shit for the millionth time) and it’s lined up to where it’s directly across from where I sit to do art.  Ever since then, I’ve been able to dish out projects with higher quality than what I usually do at a faster rate.  It’s just that lately, thanks to precipitation, I can’t do charcoal drawings for a while.  Reason being is that I have to go to the outer garage to spray fixatif on it when I’m done and I need proper air circulation for that, and my windows aren’t meant to be opened... the architect of this house was a fucking idiot.

I am not entirely sure if I’ll be purchasing and reading anymore Pagan/witchcraft books for a good while, especially after being better informed, checking my amazon wish list, and finding out that some of the stuff I wish-listed is empty garbage because a lot of crud cranked out by Llewelynn tends to be garbage for money (note: I said “a lot,” not “all.”)  But I do make purchases of incense from a small business witchy shop (they make their incense sticks).  Lately, I’ve been focused on finding affordable boxes suitable for Bast’s, Thoth’s, and Cernunnos’ altars because my asshole cat likes to knock only the tiny shit off them.  I’d also like to get proper statues for Bast and Thoth, too.

I’m also interested in making a smaller besom for general workings, and putting my bigger one up above the front door for protection purposes.

I don’t know how to end a ridiculous post like this, so that’s all I’ve got for now.  I’m not disinterested, it’s just I don’t have a whole lot going for me, plus my health isn’t entirely the best right now.  Take care, everyone!