Uhhhhhhhh That Seems Bad

Beautiful evening!

is there like some secret tag that advanced practitioners use? as much as i enjoy seeing all the witchlings in the #witchblr tag, i would like to engage with other folks who have been at it for a while.

How to reference in your grimoire

If you intend on sharing your grimoire with the public or you're a fan of a more academic style of writing then you're gonna want to reference your sources to avoid any kind of plagiarism.

You may have already learned how to reference at your college/uni, in which case follow that method, but if you haven't let me show you what i've been doing in my grimoire.

The referencing style I was taught in my degree is a form of APA 7th edition. This style is best for essays and small research papers and since my grimoire is essentially a bunch of mini contextual essays stuck together I thought it was appropriate.

Here's the format:

Author Surname, Author Initials. (Date of publication/release). Title of source: sub-heading/title of chapter. Publishing company/website. Place of publication/website link. [Format]

So for example, the book I'm currently reading is Buried by Professor Alice Roberts. If I were to reference this book in this format it would look something like this:

Roberts, A. (2023). Buried, An Alternative History of The First Millennium in Britain: Water and Wine. Simon and Schuster. London. [Book]

(Its up to you whether you decide to put the chapter before the book title, it doesn't make a difference, but I prefer doing it this way.)

This reference will need to follow an in-text citation. You can do that by adding a little number in parentheses next to your quote or paraphrase that corresponds to the number on your list of references OR you can make a mini reference following this method:

(Author Surname, Author Initials. (Date of publication). Page number if required)

So following this method an in-text citation would look like this:

(Roberts, A. (2023). p1)

Tips

If you are citing a source with multiple authors, organised them alphabetically by surname, your in text citation only needs to include the first one.

If you're referencing an online upload of an old source like Internet Archive or Project Gutenberg, include the original authors name first, uploaders name/ID second and mark which is which in parenthesis, then the date of original publication if you can find it, followed by the date it was uploaded to the site.

If you are referencing a film/TV episode, use the name of the director and include (Dir) next to their name.

If you can't find a date of publication/upload then write DNA instead.

Always put your references at the back of your grimoire. If your grimoire contains multiple chapters, group them by each chapter and then organise either alphabetically or chronologically. If your in-text citation uses numbers, organise your reference list chronologically. If you're using a mini reference, organise your reference list alphabetically.

This last bit is especially important for practitioners who intend to publish their work. Please please please do not skip referencing! I've read so many traditionally published witchcraft books who's authors don't do this or do it half-assed and I can't stand it.

Readers deserve to know where your information is coming from so they can be the judge on whether or not it's appropriate for them to practice themselves. Not doing so creates a cycle of ignorance among readers and new practitioners that encourages the spread of cultural appropriation, poor media literacy and poor historical and scientific understanding. Always cite your sources.

This is your daily reminder:

Find joy where and how you can because you deserve to be happy.

Do what you can to help how you can, it's also more than ok if you can't.

The demon you summoned is playing with makeup, I don't know where it got all the stuff from.

My Ancestor Work

I can say for certain my witchy path may have changed over the years, this is one thing that has remained the same from the very beginning and I have been doing this for 12 to 13 years since my college days.

This was a very slow journey, between life happening a couple of occasions through out the years, living in other peoples' homes that were not witchcraft friendly, having to work most of the time to get back on my feet, it's a wonder I have remained a witch at all. But I digress, despite all that I found and remain in contact with one of mine.

Long story short, I was fascinated my the video game Assassin's Creed and all that followed. Particularly, the concept of ancestors and memories but mostly ancestors. It took some work, a lot of work actually.

It went from:

Mostly pendulum work, tedious but I was getting consistent results. And gradually I felt I was gaining his trust.

I began to have dreams about meeting him, in a time or place that was not familiar to me, and we wouldn't speak but we some how managed to understand each other.

After the dreams became frequent, and for a time I could practice without a care in the world, I began to invite him into my space. Bold, risky, kinda worth it.

But after getting married, and six weeks later my husband had a stroke, everything went to the way side. But one day, I was sitting alone in my bed at this point, I heard a deep, soft man's voice say "Hello, my dear." It wasn't a voice that I recognized, then I realized, I just heard him speak!

So, of course, this awakened my curiosity again, I began to research and work on my clairaudience on top of having dreams again. It was wonderful. Life was getting easier, and if there were difficulties I knew I wasn't alone.

Once I got on my own again/getting a roommate and getting adequate time, he and I have some how became similar to Assassin's Creed but with less consequences. I have certain access to his memories via dreams, I'm still clairaudient so even my boyfriend can have conversations with him, but also this the part where I can also channel.

Now, that I got that out of the way, I can share, who my ancestor is and some information about him. He's occasionally chatter box. So, this will be fun.

I also have this deck, and I love it.

✨Russian Gypsy Fortune Telling Cards✨

I love working with them and theyre simply my go to deck🔮✨

🧘🏿‍♀️🧚🏿‍♀️ for the ask game! 🫶

Do I look up to a spiritual leader/guru? Kinda, Mama J that owns my favorite witchy shop. The only thing with this question, is that I do find her more credible then some others I have been around, but I still question and do my own research on whatever topic we happen to discuss. Because, just because it works for her, may not for me.

Have I had a supernatural experience? Plenty, the college cafeteria that I worked at for 7 years, was pretty active. Pots would fly off shelves, not fall, fly. The clock would float off it's nail, like someone was trying to take it down to change the time, and then drop on the floor. Lights would turn off unexpectedly, not because of power issues or tripping the breaker. And of course, when I would be alone for my weekend breaks, I could hear some of our heavy ceramic plates rattle as if someone was grabbing a stack. And our dishwasher would start itself, even though you had to push something through to hit a switch to activate.

First day at Bealls!!!

Quick update! Got all the initial training videos done, and completed the money forms. They asked me to come back at 2 to shadow another woman. I said sure no problem, grabbed some lunch and decompressed a little. It's a relief. Not only financially but also it elevates the all anxiety I was dealing with. This whole situation really triggered my GAD pretty bad, but now I can breathe again.

Packing sucks! This is all.

books upon books upon books