collecting rain & moon water back in february ☁️♡
MANY PEOPLE HAVE ASKED RECENTLY FOR PROTECTION SIGILS RECENTLY SO HERE ARE MY FAVORITES:
LEFT: THE EYE OF NYX, USED FOR SECRECY AND REMAINING HIDDEN, ACTIVATES WITH THE FOLLOWING "Nocte in perpetua et in perpetua nox" WORKS BEST AT NIGHT
RIGHT: A WARD SIGIL OF MY OWN DESIGN, USED FOR PROTECTION AND DEFENSE ITS EFFECTS ARE PASSIVE AND DO NOT NEED TO BE ACTIVATED FUNCTIONS BETTER THE LARGER THE SYMBOL IS
a lemon
a knife to cut the lemon
salt
a dish on which to pour salt
something to put it on (plate, bowl, etc.)
cleanse all the tools and ingredients however you feel comfortable (i use sound thru music playing and smoke cleansing)
cut the lemon in half - if you're able, envision the lemon being able to access the negativity after being opened and slowly pulling all the stale or negativity in.
pour salt into the dish you have set aside and place your intention on the salt to allow it to keep the negativity in the lemon. Focus on the salt acting as a protective barrier for the lemon so the negativity cannot break free, not as a door that it cannot get in.
coat the lemon halves by putting them open-face first into the salt. If you may choose to sprinkle the salt on the lemon instead, there is no need for the dish for salt.
place the lemon halves with salt on the dish you have designated for them and you may put them in a room of your home or living space that holds the most stale or negative energy. If the whole place is equally stale/negative, place in the main room or kitchen or place that is frequented.
if the lemon molds, redo the cleansing spell, the rotting lemon means that it has collected a lot very quickly. best result is that the lemon dries out without molding. I normally repeat this every couple months.
Alternative containers for jar spells!☄️
I love jar spells just as much as the next guy! They're a great place for baby witches to start and they're helluva customisable- any size, shape, or ingredients you want. Not to mention they look cool as hell! But sometimes a jar just doesn't quite...work.
Maybe you just don't have a suitable one kicking around. Maybe you're in the broom closet, and a jar full of witchy ingredients would be too recognisably 'witchy' if it was found. Maybe you wanna carry it around with you, without ending up with broken glass in your bag. (Not a fun time).
Whatever your reasons, I got you covered!
These would be discreet and perfect to carry in a purse or in your pocket! They're well suited to spell jars to ease verbal communication, for 'sweet talking' or persausiveness, or to help with clamming up in front of crowds and the like! Lip gloss or lipstick would also suit a glamour nicely.
💄 Chapstick in particular is an easy one. Just pull out the part that had the product on it, et voila! You might want to take the screw part out too, or you could just work around it.
💄 Once a lipsticks run out, you can pretty much do the same thing as you would with a Chapstick!
💄 The lip balm that comes in little pots is even easier to work with! Just wash it out once it's empty and fill it up with your ingredients.
These are among my favourite diy containers! They're perfect for spell jars to boost your creativity or to prevent artblock, as well as being good for manifestation. (Drawing is kinda the same as manifesting something, right?)
✏️ Container sharpeners are an obvious choice! Just take off the lid, pop the ingredients in, and gum up the sharp part with something so nothing falls out. Candlewax would be a good choice, especially if you wanna seal it with a candle like most jars.
✏️ Spent markers and highlighters are a little fiddly, but fun! You can take the nib parts with ink in them out of the end(s), then pull the 'guts' of it out with tweezers. Save the nibs, but you dont need to keep the inside part around. Then you can fill the empty casing up with your ingredients, and pop the end and nib back on to make it just look like an ordinary pen again!
✏️ The empty pots from paint testers are another good one to use, and ballpoint pens are easy to get a hold of and hollow out!
✏️ The color of the pen/marker/paint could be matched to your intent, too!
Okay, so this one is probably only practical if you're into photography. But if you use a camera with film and have a few of em laying around, they make cute spell jars! These are useful for creativity and manifestation, again, but would also suit spell jars for aiding with memory, or for spells to make something stick around. Or you could make one for helping all your pictures turn out well!
📸 Just pop the ingredients in the container, no extra steps needed! I'm personally a fan of drawing a sigil on the lid or on the side.
I know I already covered lip products, but all sorts of makeup containers would make good spell jars once they're used up! Mascara containers, concealer sticks, and nail polish bottles are among the most useful in my opinion, but you could really use anything. They're particularly suited to glamours and the like.
🖌️ For any containers that have an applicator/brush in them, like mascara or nail polish, you might wanna consider taking it to get some more room.
🖌️ It gives you a good excuse to keep that empty container with a really cute pattern on it! You could match the colors or types of the makeup to your intent.
🖌️ All of them are useful for glamours, but you can get more specific for other intents! You could use mascara for a spell designed to help you 'see', like ones that aid in finding things or being perceptive, for example.
These are particularly suited for spell jars to 'sweeten' something! The only example that comes to mind while I'm writing this is tic-tacs, but anything that comes in a relatively sturdy container like a tub or box would be good!
🍭 Just like matching colors to intent, you could match flavors! Mint could be good for cleansing or awakeness, cinnamon for strength or wealth, etc.
These would be great for health, vitality, or cleansing spell jars! Empty hand sanitizer bottles or soap containers would work great for this.
💧This one's a little specific, but I've seen little gumball machine type things in public bathrooms that dispense little chewable...toothbrush things? They look like this-
And the containers from them would be great for these!
Okay, so maybe these are veering a little out of spell jar territory. But lockets are amazing for any sort of spell that needs a container! They can be for any intent, they're super discreet, and you don't even need to carry them or worry so much about losing them.
💍 Most lockets are pretty small, so you obviously cant fit *loads* in there. But if you have some tiny crystal chips, they work great! Those, along with tiny amounts of dried herbs and single petals from dried flowers, all work great for little locket spell jars.
💍 Lockets normally have a place to put a photo in, and you can use that for a sigil to suit your intent! Or if you work with any dieties or other entities, you could put an image of them in there, if they're involved in your spellwork!
💍 Any other jewellery with some kind of compartment would work too. I've seen rings which are basically tiny little lockets, which would also work great! You could even wear them on certain fingers to suit different intents. (I remember reading somewhere about each finger having different associations, but I cant find it. I remember the pinky finger being Mercury, though...?)
These would be great spell jar containers for health and vitality. Make sure you wont confuse these for your actual medicine! I know it'd be pretty hard to mix up the contents of a spell jar with your allergy meds, but still. 😅
💊 You could try matching a medications purpose to an intent, too. For example, a spell jar to help ease depression in a bottle that previously had depression medication in it, or a spell to keep away unpleasant things in a painkiller bottle.
💊 While we're on the topic- remember to take your meds today if you haven't! And always remember that magic is not a substitute for going to the doctor if you need it.
All of these have their own associations to me, but theres nothing stopping you from using them for any intent- if you wanna make a spell for good health in a camera film canister, noones stopping you. I'm sure theres a million other containers I'm forgetting about, but these are the ones I personally find the most interesting or useful. I hope this has been of help!
I actually don’t remember who told me this. I don’t know if it was my grandma, my mentor lady, my mom or if I just made it up. Here goes!
What you need:
a key that doesn’t belong to anything (old key, skeleton key, craft key, etc)
A bed preferably with posts or a headboard but no biggie if not
tape/string/cup hook/some sort of attachment thing
Salt and tea light are optional but may be helpful
What to do:
Charge the key with positive energy and the intent to shoo away the nightmares.
If using salt, put key in dish with it with a white candle and let it charge for however long you feel necessary.
Using the tape/string/some sort of attachment device, secure the key to the back of the furthest bedpost of the headboard from where you normally sleep. (If you don’t have a headboard, like me, either smush it between the mattress and box spring or the entire bed at the corner)
Sweet dreams and recharge when necessary
Altars are considered a key element of witchcraft for deity worship, elemental, planetary or ancestral connections, or spell work. However, they can be costly, you may not have the space for it, or you may be in the broom closet. But you don't need a physical altar, you don't even need physical tools. Digital altars are a great way to worship deities in the case you’re unable to set up a physical altar. There are heaps of alternatives if you’d like to get creative with it.
Some people doubt the integrity of digital altars, however I believe they gain metaphysical energy as they’re created, which can be used for witchcraft. Think about emoji spells for example!
Digital altars are different to digital shrines, which are similar in concept, but different in purpose. Shrines are more of a permanent honouring of a being, and they don't necessarily have to be used actively. Meanwhile altars are for active worshiping, when you’re actually giving an offering or trying to contact that deity. However, digital altars can also function as a shrine, depending on use!
Below are 19 different options for digital altars (but I'd suggest using multiple!)
Picrew Altar Sketch (by Camade)
This game was designed specifically for creating altars suitable for sacred spaces to perform deity worship, to connect with ancestors, and to be a witch’s working table. After saving it you can edit the picture frames to add pictures of your deity, your family or any other being. It has a lot of variability so it’s great for creating multiple altars very quickly in a consistent aesthetic.
Here’s a link to one I made the other day, using colours and imagery to suit my purpose. This is probably the easiest of the options, while also being the most versatile. However, there are limitations as you can't really make it specific to your chosen deity unless you edit the image later.
Canva / Morpholio / Photoshop
These allow for creating single image collages to set as your phone or laptop background with crystals, cardinal directions, deity images, candles, wands or any other altar tools, along with quotes, intentions and prayers. This can be as subtle or structured as you want, making it helpful for closeted witches.
You can use the collages you create for wallpapers on your laptop or phone, or you could get them printed out and stick them on your wall!
Minecraft
On Minecraft you can built entire structures as an altar or shrine, but you’re limited with decorations unless you install a mod. Mods can give you a lot of room to be creative and have a strong aesthetic. Alternatively, you can build just one room and line it with books, add an enchanting table, potions, diamond/emerald blocks, brewing stands, cauldrons and more, using the standard texture pack.
@gailcraft was kind enough to speak to me about her experiences using altars on Minecraft. She usually uses her Minecraft altars to function as a travel altar or when her physical altar hasn’t been cleansed, mainly as a visual representation of her physical altars rather than an actual workspace. When using her Minecraft altar, she generally keeps it strictly digital, writing out prayers on signs and giving in-game offerings of food and potions which correspond with the deity.
As you can see in the images she’s provided, she’s created a cottage-like structure to house her main digital altar to serve as a safe space, decorated with candles, crystals and plants inside. She has separate deity altars for Hades and Persephone, decorated with skull paintings, gold, spiders eye, crystals, flowers, a skeleton skull, lanterns and the aforementioned offerings in picture frames.
These are great altar alternatives as they don’t require much maintenance or energy, and are suitable for witches who are unable to have a physical altar or who travel a lot.
Another really cool idea for digital altars by @neonswitchhouse is to make digital spell jars by placing items in chests that may best represent your purpose, and you can specify this by writing intents on signs above the chests.
An added bonus is that you can design a skin for your avatar to look like yourself, and you can get pets like wolfs or cats.
Animal Crossing
New Horizons has so much potential for digital altars as it’s super customisable. You can dedicate an entire room in your house to witchcraft, decorating it with a glowing magic-circle flooring, candle wallpaper, candles, stonework kitchen sets, gothic mirrors, decorative bottles, cauldrons, brick ovens, pillars, stone and candle chandeliers. They also have divination sets with crystal balls, incense, bones (in the form of dinosaurs) and a whole load of other decorative options. The main issue is that collecting all of these is time-consuming unless you purchase them online. You can make offerings by placing items that correspond with your deity in your room.
There are heaps of examples of this. @spookynerdghoul has one here and @blomi-isle has one here. Alternatively @ostarasghost has a dedicated corner which you can see here.
You could also make an outdoor altar space, or multiple all around your island. You can create patterns to put on the floor as runes or sigils that correspond with your intent, if you’re looking to do spellwork or deity worship in-game. You could make offerings through art by creating patterns and placing them on stands.
There’s even a zodiac-themed item set that you can create by wishing on shooting stars. You can customise and dress up your avatar to wear cute witchy clothes too, or download outfits from their online section that other players have designed.
On my island, I have one section with a stonehenge which lines up with the full moon, as well as a separate rocky-section with some candles and a skull-hat, and a crescent moon island with a pattern of Saturn that I created, but I encourage you to go more full-out than I did!
Stardew Valley
@baduhennasravensraven classifies these as shrines, but I’d like to show it as an example as a potential altar. They’ve set up multiple sheds to serve as shrines/temples for different deities! You can see images in their post here.
Like for Minecraft, you do needs mods to get the full experience, but again you can make digital spell jars by growing the plants that best represent your purpose and placing them in with items that may best represent your purpose.
Sims / Avakin
I’ve grouped these together because they’re similar, but in both you can design and decorate houses in a 3D virtual world.
Again, expansion and stuff packs are needed to use Sims to the fullest, but you can find some great ones by @simdertalia here and here, or one by @lycheesmods here. Some more of the relevant ones are the Magic School mod (fair warning: it’s Harry Potter inspired) and the Paranomal pack, where you can have ghosts as roomates and perform a séance.
Here's an example altar made on Avakin by @onixdace. I'm not that familiar with this program, but it looks similar in concept to other house-design/decoration games.
Hollowmoor
@hollowmoor-game is a steam game still in the works with a planned release in 2023. I’m not sure yet of specific ideas in using it as a digital altar, but I’m sure it’ll be great, and I’ll update this post when it does come out.
According to their page, “As a budding young Witch or Wizard you’ll need to manage your farm and explore the mystical world to gather your ingredients. Brew potions! Forge enchantments! Complete orders for the townsfolks and learn their stories! Bring magic back to Hollowmoor!”
It seems promising! I believe it’s similar in concept to Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing, so I’m sure you could form a digital altar in the same way in Hollowmoor once it’s released.
Dream AI
[Edited 10 Dec 22] I’ve recently become aware AI art generators steal from creators online and I no longer endorse this method. Instead I recommend using art apps like CSP, playing a devotional playlist and drawing or painting what comes to mind to create an abstract piece of your own for a specific purpose. This way, in very low opacity, you can write out your intention and add images to be displayed subliminally on your altar.
Dream AI is an artificial intelligence art-creating app. You can use this to make an abstract artistic altar by typing in words like your deities name and their associations or a short prayer or intention, use the outcome as an altar by making it your phone background. You can also set a base image to inspire the art with your deity of choice, making a sort of subliminal image of that deity within the creation. This is helpful for closet witches, you can just claim you like the art the AI produced if anyone asks.
Alternatively, you can use the art as a digital offering by posting it on your tumblr altar captioned with a prayer, like @crazyskirtlady has here. Check out her page for more examples of techno witchcraft!
Notion
Notion is a great organisational app where you can add a mix of photos, gifs, text, embedded videos, music and playlists onto a page, making for a multi-media style altar. You can also store resource notes and links for any research you do.
@caduceussky and @arabellascraft were both kind enough to walk me through how they use their Notion altars!
@caduceussky has multiple different altars for different uses, like for deities and spirits, productivity, work-life balance, and prosperity spells that she uses in conjunction with physical altars, depending on convenience and her personal preference.
For deity/spirit work, she typically sets up her Notion altar first as a placeholder while she’s working on setting up a physical altar, then she treats it like a travel altar. She also use Notion for spell altars that have to do with work and study, since she uses her laptop for those, with separate pages set up for certain spells, sort of like digital spell jars.
For deity/spirit altars, she plays a devotional playlist while setting up the altar and adds a photo of a candle and photos of the deity/spirit or their associations like a collage. Digital offerings can go here, too, such as devotional writing or art. It can also be used as a journal to write her experiences and lessens she’s learnt from the deity/spirit.
For spell altars, she writes her intention at the top of the page, and any additional manifestations underneath. Similar to her deity/spirit altars, she includes photos of associations of the spell’s intentions, and sigils specific to the spell.
@arabellascraft uses her Notion altar for spontaneous rituals and spellwork as her physical altars are generally temporary. She meditates to her Notion altar or leaves a note, for example for gratitude.
She practices Irish folk traditions, one of which being having a moment of reflection and prayer when you first see the new moon of the month. Having her Notion altar in her pocket makes practicing this simple as it’s portable, however, one weakness is that there’s a lack of a physical connection. On the up side, the ability to embed playlists into Notion keeps her in the spiritual mindset rather than having to go back and forth in Spotify.
There’s about to be a Notion AI too, with the function of brainstorming assistance. This means you can type in something such as “What can I do to increase my mindfulness,” and a list of related answers and ideas will be produced, or “Write a poem about the God Apollo,” and the AI will generate one for you. You can join the waitlist here.
#Self-Care
This game includes a digital altar with a function to integrate your personal experiences by setting objects to a meaning, memory or realisation, like a journal. It also has organising functions to put objects away from you altar when you’re done with them and bring them back out when you’d like to display them again.
You can gain objects for your altar by performing in-game tasks like putting away laundry, fill-in-the-blank word activities with your choice of affirmations or life tips, simple puzzles, and gain tarot cards by picking a daily tarot card. You can also light a candle and type in an intention!
It does take a while to collect enough objects to display for a particular purpose, but if your digital altar is going to be your main altar, this one is a good long-term option.
The app is customisable to a certain extent with colours and designs, but some of the fancier stuff you have to pay for (like nicer backgrounds and patterns).
Here’s an image of my current altar on this app after about a week of use, along with an image of the main page.
Discord
On Discord, you can join a public server with custom categories to use as digital altars, such as this one by @homeiswherethehearthis. Alternatively, you can create a private server with chat rooms for various areas of worship and then post pictures/gifs and write prayers there.
With Discord altars, you can write messages to your deities, send them pictures, links to articles or books about them, as well as send them offerings of your creations. It’s a great way to have a massive private or shared space dedicated to your deity.
Further, you can add Discord bots that can do divination for you, as suggested by @lyresstrings in this post, such as a pendulumn bot, a daily tarot bot, or a horoscope bot. There’s even one that states the current moon phase!
Notes App
In the standard Notes app you can create folders for specific deities, and inside each folder, add notes daily, with images, links, song names and lists of correspondences to that deity. Further, you can write letters to your deity within the notes app, as well as intentions, wishes, and things you’re greatful for.
A great feature of this app is that you can actually lock your notes with a password just incase you’re worried about someone going through your digital altar.
This one is a good option to use in conjunction with a Collage altar if you make it your phone background.
Pinterest Shuffles
Pinterest Shuffles is a sister app of Pinterest, but instead of boards, it’s like scrapbooking. It’s an amazing tool for creative expression with a similar vibe to what Polyvore used to be.
The altars you can make with this are similar in concept to collage altars but the uses are specific to phones, meaning you can only make phone wallpaper images. With Shuffles, you can incorporate images directly from your Pinterest boards, which is great if you already have a deity board and want to condense it into a single image to set your wallpaper.
You can add text with intentions and prayers, or you can just use symbols of your deity of choice. I’d suggest making multiple of these, all with different intentions, so you can change your wallpaper based on what you’re asking of the deity for that day and worship on-the-go just by looking at your lock screen.
I made one as an example which you can view here. This is currently my home screen wallpaper! I added symbols of Saturn such as a clock, skeleton, herbs, capricorn, the world tarot card, the shrine of Saturn in italy, a crow, the number 3, karma, saturn-related texts, and my favourite images of Saturn.
Tumblr Blogs
This is probably the most common digital altar, mainly because of the massive witchcraft presence on Tumblr, and the ability to make multiple secondary blogs for each deity.
You can reblog general posts that remind you of your deity, images, gifs, spells, associations, prayers, emoji spells and more. However, are often considered to be more shrine-like activities. You can turn it into an altar by creating posts with digital offerings such as art and collages captioned with text spells, emoji spells, or prayers/worships (as inspired by @crazyskirtlady), or write poems for your deity.
Blogs are totally customisable, and you can change the designs with pictures, music, fonts and more. One important thing to note with secondary blogs is that you cannot initiate social functions like DMs, comments, even following and liking, and you can never change your secondary blog into a primary blog (trust me, I’ve tried. I made the mistake of making this account a secondary blog, now I can’t interact with any of you unless you reach out first).
The tagging system is a little weak though, and it can be difficult to search through all your posts and reblogs, so I suggest if there’s anything you want to keep track of, you have a separate space for it, such as on Notion.
Pinterest Boards
With Pinterest, you can create multiple boards for different deities or spirits, adding images that remind you of those beings from what others have posted. Finding inspiration is super simple! You can add images of representations of your deity, like food, clothes, crystals, art, sculptures, elements, animals, objects and more.
In the same sense as creating a Pinterest board, you can dedicate an entire Instagram account to your deity. You don’t have to follow anyone, and can keep it on private, or you can share it publicly. You can post your offerings, photos of things you come across in every-day life like images of the sun, the ocean, trees, plants, bugs and more.
Be careful with this option, however, as you can’t just download photos from Pinterest and post them without credit. This option is more appropriate for art you’ve created yourself and documenting your experiences with captions, poems, emojis, short letters, gratitudes, and intentions.
Spotify
One post by @asatroende got me thinking about how apps like Spotify can be used as digital altars by creating playlists with songs you associate with a deity as a form of prayer. Some examples other than normal music includes subliminals, podcasts, instrumentals, and white noise sounds. If you add a short ambient candle sound in the middle of the playlist, this can aid in visualising a candle, making your prayer or offering, then it
You can add a picture of your deity as the album cover and add an intention or emoji spell in the description to customise it further. Spotify also allows you to make folders, and insert multiple playlists within those folders, which is great it you have multiple deities you’d like to make altars for.
An added bonus is that if you have a Notion altar, you can embed this playlist into it!
For my Spotify altar for Saturn, I added Sleeping At Last’s ‘Saturn’ from Atlas I, a 1:24 minute candle sound, then the planetary/space sounds recorded and posted by NASA called ‘Nasa - Saturn’. This way, I can get in the mindset, make my devotional prayer to the candle visualisation, then mediate to the sounds of Saturn for 30 minutes. I used an emoji spell as the description, and used an image of Saturn eclipsing as the cover.
Apple Music
I’m not a user of Apple Music, but I’m sure it can be used in a similar way to Spotify. If you have the free version, you can only add songs that you own to a playlists. To get around this you can use a youtube-to-mp3 converter to get ambient sounds, subliminals and more. However, this isn’t necessary, and you can just include music you own that reminds you of your chosen deity.
Oculus
One last idea is if you have the technology and setup for it, you can create an altar in a VR game or space. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find any practical examples of this one.
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Special thanks
I’d like to give a big thank you to @gailcraft, @caduceussky and @arabellascraft for giving me permission to talk about their personal digital altars, and for providing me with information regarding them. A further thank you to @gailcraft for providing me with images to share with you all. Go check them out!
Here’s the explanation for baby withces:
Some people doubt the integrity of digital altars, however I believe they gain metaphysical energy as they’re created, which can be used for witchcraft. Think about emoji spells, for example!
Digital altars are different to digital shrines, which are similar in concept, but different in purpose. Shrines are more of a permanent honouring of a being, and they don't necessarily have to be used actively. Meanwhile altars are for active worshiping, when you’re actually giving an offering or trying to contact that deity. However, digital altars can also function as a shrine, depending on use!
Altars can be used for multiple purposes, for deities, patron planets, ancestors or general spirit work. Some people have one altar for everything, or separate their altars to keep these purposes separate, minimising the ‘cleansing’ you may have to do between each ritual.
Traditionally altars include tools to represent, the four elements, the cardinal directions, genders (although this is sort of being phased out), and offerings. The sub-categories of these are where you can get creative in the representations. More on that in a future post!
Prosperity and luck jar.
Gathered from my pantry and garden:
Cinnamon sugar & Cinnamon sticks -Abundance protection, success, healing, power, luck, fertility, manifestation, Prosperity, energy booster, protection
Ginger- Money, power, success, enhance magic, personal confidence, draws adventure and new experiences, speed boost for magic endeavors.
Rosemary- acceptance, clarity, healing, mental powers, protection, purification
Thyme- courage, healing, health, psychic powers, purification
Basil- fidelity, protection, wealth, luck, success
Clove- money, strong protection, dispels negative energy
Cayenne- clarity, repels negative energy, Empowerment, protection, speed up spell results, strength
Sesame- money, new opportunities
Rice- abundance, fertility, money, protection
Nutmeg- clarity, enhance intellect, good luck, prosperity, confidence
Comfrey- money, safety during travel
Dandelion leaves- Calling Spirits, Divination, Wishes
Clover flower and leaves- business, fidelity, money, protection, success
Purslane- happiness, luck, protection
Blackberry & leaves - healing, money, protection
Huckleberry and leaves- Dream magic, hex breaking, luck, protection, good fortune
Pecan leaves- Employment, money
Buckwheat tip (flowers and leaves )- Money, protection
Rose leaves- lasting love, harmony, dreams, happiness, healing, divination, luck, protection
Also used Lammas Full Moon/sun water. (sat it out last night and opened right before the spell)
Orange candle (scented French toast and pumpkin butter) Sealed the jar with the wax. Wrapped a key with gold ribbon Three rices grains on top. Gold plate sat two dollar coins on either side. I wore an emerald necklace with silver chain, gifted to me by my fiance. I attache a citrine pendant to it along side the emerald. Emerald and silver engagement ring Phantom Amethyst braclet Celestite bracelet.
Actively chosen colors: While picking the items from the garden I wore all light blue: (Psychic awareness, Intuition, Opportunity, Peace, Understanding, Quests, Safe journey, Patience, Tranquility, Ward depression.) Orange candle: (Creativity, Self-expression, Strength, Healing, Pulling things to you, Adaptability, Luck, Vitality, Encouragement, Clearing the Mind, Dominance, Energy both Physical and Magickal, Legal matters, New opportunities, Career, Overcoming addiction, Joy, Business success, Ambition, Fun, Action, Investments.) For the gold plate, ribbon: (Positive attitude, Power, Physical Strength, Success, Achievement, Mental growth, Healing energy, Intuition, Divination, Fortune, Luxury, Male energy, Understanding, Wealth spells and magick. Associated with the Sun God and the power of the light.)
A note about from my garden: All were picked fresh before doing the spell, Did not have any dandelion flowers or seed. I added one blackberry. The only one that was fully ripe, lol. The huckleberry is from the nightshade type of huckleberry. Do not know if that changes things. I have two pecan saplings so I took a leaf from both. Rose, I only took leaves, do not have many flowers so I didn't want to take them. A note toward ingredients. I mixed and matched and found ones I had access to. Please be open to changing up and making your own.
I've covered warding recently in my protection post. But here I will go into more detail on what warding is, the most popular ways to ward and how to create them as well as when to know when a ward is no longer useful or has been broken. I will also go into baneful warding and what it is.
What is warding?
Warding is a form of defensive magick which acts as your first line of defense against negativity. Be this baneful magick from another practitioner or negative entities and general negative energy. There are multiple ways to ward with each practitioner warding differently to the other. Wards come in all shapes and forms, and there is no limit as to how much warding you should do, you protect yourself as you see fit.
What is baneful warding?
Baneful warding is a form of warding in which the negative that hits a ward gets sent back to its source. Baneful warding is seen as a more "advanced" form of magick, however not too advanced for a novice to do with the appropriate amount of research. Baneful warding can come in the same forms as normal warding would.
Warding jars
Perhaps one of the most common wardings on this post, warding jats usually contain ingredients charged with the intention of warding. These ingredients usually range from herbs to bodily fluids such as saliva or blood. These jars are either buried on the practitioners property, left above entryway, left on an altar, or are carried with the practitioner when they want protection on the go.
A warding jar might contain: ashes of a warding sigil, bodily fluids, herbs and plants, crystals, bones, warding or protection oils, spices, metals, glass shards etc. These jars are then sealed with black or white wax (or are sealed in any other way, with glue, tape or simply just with intention).
When a warding jar is broken, you might find the contents of the jar to become moldy, the jar shatters, the seal might break or the contents of the jar to go off, you also might feel that the jar no longer has its power. When this happens, if the jar is intact, break the seal and empty the contents into the bin/trash or return them back to the earth. You can then cleanse the jar with your preferred method of cleansing and reuse the jar for another ward or spell.
Talismans and symbols
Talismans are objects which are charged with the intention fo protection or warding. A well known example would be the Nazar, known to ward off the evil eye.
Symbols are used to represent something or represent an intention example would be the pentacle/pentagram, a well known protection symbol. Another example could by the Eye of Horus, a symbol used by the Ancient Egyptians for protection, health and restoration.
You can create your own talismans and symbols to aid in warding. These might be used to ward against a specific thing, or can be used as a general ward to all negativity.
A talisman or symbol might break or feel like they're no longer useful once theyve done thier job. If this time comes, you can simply dispose of the old one and create a new one.
Sigils
Sigils are created and can be programmed with any purpose necessary. May this be warding ot cursing, they can be used for almost any working.
Sigils can be burnt to activate them, with the ashes being used in spells to add extra power. Sigils can be put up around your house or around your room for warding. These sigils can look like anything, simply draw them with the intention of warding.
Crystals
Crystals can be placed above entryways or in windows to act as a ward. Crystals can also be added to spells to give a desired effect or worn as jewellery to act as warding or protection on the go.
Some examples are: black obsidian, black tourmaline, clear quartz, amethyst, hematite.
When a crystal ward has been broken, the crystal might shatter, or go missing. Or you may feel the crystals energy feels different than usual. With crystals you cam simply cleanse and recharge the crystals to be used again!
Spells
Warding spells can be as simple as a dressed candle, or can be a complex ritual. Warding spells differ from practitioner to practitioner. Similar to warding jars, these spells might include the use of herbs, bodily fluids, crystals, plants etc. The methods of creating a warding spell vary, as there is no one way to create one.
When a ward breaks down, you might feel the ward break, or if it does what is intended, you might feel something bounce off the ward. Depending on the negativity sent your way, the ways in which you might feel a warding spell break down vary, this could range from feeling sluggish or nauseous to downright feeling psychic attack. (Whenever this happens, please consult a doctor, mundane before magical. What you may feel is a magical occurrence could be explained by illness, so please consult a doctor of you feel this way constantly)
Warding is a great form of protection which is used very often in a persons practice. While not all practitioners use warding, this is just to inform you of the ways you can ward to keep yourself safe in your practice!
Sometimes you can’t find a graveyard (or you don’t want to venture into one or look suspicious taking a jar of dirt from one lol). When this happens, and your ritual or spells calls for graveyard dirt, you can use one of these alternatives instead.
Dirt from a dead or dying plant : It’s very sad when one of our plant babies don’t make it (we don’t all have a green thumb and some plants are seasonal) but you can put the soil from these plants to good use. Graveyard dirt is powerful because it embodies the energies of spirits that have died and moved on. If you believe everything has a spirit (as I do) plants also have a spirit and thus the soil they died in would embody that spirit. You could also used actually parts (like leaves and stems) that have died on your plants as well. I usually check all my plants weekly for any dead or dying leaves and pull them off. I don’t like to just throw them away so I grind them down to a powder and use them just as I would graveyard dirt.
Ashes from burned herbs, spells and incenses : I personally believe that these burned spells, herbs and incenses hold a similar energy as graveyard dirt. It’s a representation of an ending or transitioning. So, in my opinion, it can be used as substitute in any ritual or spell that calls for graveyard dirt for this particular purpose. Be mindful of what ashes you use too. The ashes of a love spell will hold a different energy than ashes from a money spell.
Patchouli, cinnamon and coffee : These are just popular, fairly known, alternatives to graveyard dirt. And I think each one could be a good substitute depending on what purpose the graveyard dirt is for. For example, if the protection spell you’re doing requires graveyard dirt and you don’t have any or you’re not down with the idea of getting some (lol) I would suggest using cinnamon. However, this substitute wouldn’t be as useful if you’re doing a Samhain ritual that requires graveyard dirt to represents honouring the dead. For that I would suggest either soil from dead / dying plants or patchouli.
☆ These are just my personal opinions and beliefs. These beliefs are not a reflection of the witchcraft community as a whole and I always encourage everyone to do their own research. ☆
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Edmund | he/him | 22 | digital altar & spell gathering corner | non wiccan eclectic witch (spirit work, sigilcraft, technomancy, death craft, pop culture craft, etc.) | new to the craft & willing to learn
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