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Witchcraft Exercise - Quantifying Your Craft

Witchcraft is a complicated business. There are lots of moving parts, dozens of things to study, and so much information to try and keep straight in your head. It’s easy to become overwhelmed. Sometimes we forget things. Not just when the full moon is (although plenty of us do) but what it is we want to do with our craft.

And sometimes we feel like we’ve lost our drive. Like whatever moved us to become witches in the first place has somehow slipped away, leaving us with just the dregs. Sometimes we feel stuck, unable to make progress. It’s easy to become frustrated too, but it’s important to push on.

To that end, I offer this exercise.

Choose a journal or open a word document and begin quantifying your craft.

Start by outlining the broad concepts. Do you follow a particular path or tradition? How would you classify your craft, i.e. green witchcraft, cottagecraft, sea witch, lunar witch, and so on? Do you work with any deities, and if so, which ones? Do you work alone or with others? How long have you been practicing? What, to you, is the most important aspect of your craft?

Then get into your working space. Do you have an altar? If so, what’s on it and why? Do you have a dedicated workspace, or a place you go to work magic outside of your home? If you could describe your ideal workspace, what would it look like? 

Next, describe your tools. Do you have cards or runes or a wand or other specialized tools that you work with? What do you use most frequently? Do you have favorites? Do you make or grow any of your components? Where do you acquire the things you use in your magic, if you can’t make them at home? Do you have a personal library? What are your favorite sources of information? Do you have ritual garb or jewelry that connects you with your craft?

Sketch out your year as a witch. What holidays do you observe and how do you celebrate them? What seasonal festivals or special occasions do you mark? Which ones do you enjoy the most? Is there a time of year when you feel more energized?

Once you have all of this recorded, think back to what first interested you in magic and witchcraft and describe that. Was it a movie? A favorite book? A personal experience? Were you raised in the craft or did you come to it on your own? What made you decide to become a witch?

Then think about how you’ve progressed since you started. Have you achieved a particular goal you set when you began, or are you closer to achieving it then you were? What have you gotten really good at? Where are you still struggling? Where would you like to be a year from now? Are there things you’d like to try but haven’t yet?

And of course, if anything else occurs to you, record that too.

There is no need to share these thoughts with anyone if you don’t want to. This is purely a personal exercise, to help you understand where you are, where you’ve come from, and where you want to go. Quantifying this information might provide some much-needed inspiration, in addition to helping you solidify any nebulous thoughts that might be floating around. It’s much easier to progress in your craft if you have an outline for what you’re already doing.

Happy Witching!

not gonna lie kudzu has shot up to the top of my list of favorite plants so fast. she's such a bad bitch.

my 'this but not that' tarot spread

A very simple spread my friends, to identify what the hecc is happening.

It's a three card draw - any arrangement will do.

first card - "the answer is,"

second card - "that is to say,"

third card - "..and it is not-"

example: "what are these weird vibes I'm getting from my friend?"

first card - "the answer is that your friend feels like they can't relate to your beliefs any more."

second card - "that is to say, your friend is growing emotionally in a direction that makes them question some of your beliefs."

third card - "and it's not that they think your beliefs are actually bad. they're just questioning a lot of things on an emotional level right now."

Lil concept for intermediate or beginner+ witches

If you've already cast for everything you need in the short to mid-term and you're looking for avenues of practice:

Look ahead and find a very strong astrological election for any desired operation (wealth, social standing, healing, psychism, defenses, etc.). If you need ideas, consider upgrading current enchanted objects or getting permission to cast on a mundane friend.

Dedicate your spare research time to building or modifying an ideal spell for your operation. Especially consider aligning stone, spirit, and herbal allies to the planetary elections you've chosen.

Spend time doing divination as you lead up to this election. Cast small spells to clear the way and prepare conditions for your working.

Seriously, spend several weeks preparing for a single spell. Feel it inside and out. Know why, how, when, where. Still do any other spells you need in the moment... just keep this one in the works.

When the time comes, pour your heart into it. Cast the everliving fuck out of that spell. Let it be The Event that consumes your week, or your month.

Let your research, divination, and development help you grow. Let your casting show you your power. And enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Some of you may have already come upon this one, but I’ve found that when it comes to objects I want to imbue with magic or bring to “life” (in an animist sense), simply just breathing on them goes a long way. Like a rock can be “dead” and then you can just breathe on it and the little fella just wakes up. Of course you can do this on anything you want, like stuffed animals and figurines and all of your tools. You could even do it on a snowman if ya want. So yeah. :D ETA: Breathing on things can also be fine for quick cleansings. Just blow on ‘em like you’re blowing off dust or whatever.

You can literally just ask your ingredients/tools what they are best at, or if they'll be helpful in a specific spell, or for advice on how to best utilize them.

Yes, you can, right now. You can just do it, whether or not you're a spirit medium or can "visualize".

Don't get me wrong, I find cultural and historical research of correspondences to be very important. But also, just ask the thyme in your cupboard what it likes to do in its spare time. (Bonus points if you take notes and compare to your research later on)

Here's how I do it. I call it my "pinging" method, like how a modem pings a server. Here's how:

Prepare your question.

If you want to be polite, start with a, "hello, is anyone there?" Although admittedly this is more for animists. If you believe you're just reading energies and there is no indwelling spirit, why not get right to it?

Questions to explore utility and correspondences include:

"Magically speaking, what are you best at?"

"If I added you to this spell, how would you influence/affect it?"

"What kind of intents are you best at supporting?"

"What kind of magic do you not like to be involved in?"

"What other ingredients do you work well with?"

"What other ingredients do you not get along with?"

Focus on the thing which you would like to communicate with.

Avoid performing this technique on living animals, as it often scares them :(

Have it in your field of vision, or touch it, or do whatever you need to do in order to feel focused on it.

Observe, Believe, Feel, Understand, or Know, aka OBFUK (my handy acronym I use to replace "visualize," which I ordered that way because it kind of sounds like "oh f*ck," as in, "oh f*ck, the ubiquitous use of the word 'visualize' has caused many witches to be ironically equipped with blinders that require energy perception and control to be funneled through a filter of sightedness and images, which for many is counter-intuitive and detrimental to their practice"). Anyway -

Observe, Believe, Feel, Understand, or Know that the object which you would like to communicate with is aware of you and will hear you when you send your question.

Send your prepared question.

Speak or think your question to the object. OBFUK that the object receives your question.

Anticipate receiving the answer.

Listen, here's the downfall of this technique: You need a wee bit of open space in your mind. No, you don't have to be a meditator to do this technique (I did it for years before I began meditating). You just need enough space for the answer to arrive.

I have found that ideally, this means actively anticipating receiving your answer for 1-3 seconds.

This works on the same meditative trick as, "wait for your next thought to come and it never will." The force of anticipation itself is what creates an open platform for your answer to arrive at.

Your mind does not have to be "totally clear". You can have a lot of tabs open and still be able to pull off this technique.

Analyze what comes.

We will all get answers in different ways. Repeat: there is no golden standard for how you are "supposed" to receive your answer. Here are some ways your answer might appear to you:

Snippets of memories, songs, scenes, verses, or literature pop into your awareness.

A fully or partially formulated concept comes to you all at once.

You are strongly reminded of something (say, the god Aries, or a soothing woodland scene).

An image or images come to your mind's eye, either still or animated.

Nothing seems to come to mind at all, but certain things on your altar or around your house, or certain colors, suddenly stand out or seem especially relevant.

Nothing seems to come to mind, but you feel energy moving on or around you.

Nothing seems to come to mind, but you feel as if you can smell or taste something that wasn't there before.

It is unlikely that you will hear a voice in your mind that says, "hi, I'm Basil, and I'm good at..." Our particularly clairaudientally blessed friends may receive such information, but the rest of us are likely going to have to apply some level of interpretation to what we receive.

Be aware that if you're talking to something with an indwelling spirit, it may not be interested in trotting out answers to your question, and may have questions of its own, or something else it wants you to know instead.

Ask more questions, or say goodbye.

I believe good manners go a long way, so even if you feel you haven't received any answer, it's polite to send a message like, "thank you for your time, have a good day."

Your answers are now UPG.

I really want us all to understand this!

UPG stands for Unverified Personal Gnosis. It means that you have personally received information through spiritual means, however, that information is not necessarily agreed upon or accepted by anyone else but you.

Please don't go around sharing your UPG as if it is actually verified spiritual canon!

Even if that information is totally cohesive within your personally constructed spiritual system, I'm sorry, but your personal spiritual system is not universal.

If I have a communication session with my rosemary plant, and it tells me, "yes, I'm a plant of protection and dreams [community accepted correspondence], but that's only one side of me; I'm also a spirit of evil, nightmares, and destruction, and that's why I can also defend against them [unverified personal gnosis]," it is wildly misleading of me to go on Tumblr and post a new rosemary correspondence that includes "cursing, nightmares, and destruction" as if everyone needs to automatically accept and believe my own claims.

It is now on you to experiment with the information you receive, compare it to other resources, and decide if what you heard was valid, legitimate information for a certain group, tradition, or practice, or if it is untrue, or if it is only true for you.

Your UPG might end up being totally valid and verified by others (this is then called verified personal gnosis) and this is such an exciting, wonderful, and validating thing to experience.

However, every single time I have a question about a spirit or god, and someone says, "hold on, I'll ask them!" and comes back 5 minutes later with an answer they assume I should accept as canon, I want to reach through the screen and slap them.

Your spirit communication is not automatically spiritual canon, and should probably undergo many steps of testing and verification before EVEN YOU accept it as true.

Troubleshooting

"It isn't possible for me to complete the active anticipation portion, what could I do instead?"

This technique is specifically a telepathic one; you receive communication within your mind. If doing so on the fly isn't possible, I'd recommend trying an entirely different technique, such as asking the same questions through tarot or another divination system, or petitioning the ingredient for a dream.

"I don't think I'm receiving any answers, what do I do?"

Not all spirits want to talk to us. Or from a secular perspective, not everything is imbued with enough energy for us to get a reading, or that energy may be hard to access or understand.

Objects which are very often used in witchcraft, such as magical and culinary herbs, minerals, and animal parts, often have something to say. (Perhaps the reason they are used in magic is because they're so willing to work with us in the first place!)

You can also gently cleanse the object and offer it some incense or water, then invite the spirit/energies back, and see if that changes your results.

Or, you may need to try contacting it over several days, maybe also with feeding and cleansing, before it responds. (Remember, it takes the object energy to communicate with us, whether it is a spirit or just a lump of energy, something must be expended to send you a message).

Plus also: This technique is a skill you need to practice. If I tell you how to hold a guitar and how to make three cords, it's still going to take you a minute to strum out Wonderwall. I recommend a minimum of hours of practice before you write off your own psychic abilities.

"I don't know how to tell the difference between a spiritual answer and my own thoughts."

Practice, practice, practice - and verify. Also be patient and gentle with yourself, and move forward with the understanding that far from 100% of people are magically born with thought patterns clear, regular, or tame enough to easily (or ever) track.

Perhaps the best way to move verify is to communicate with common ingredients in witchcraft, ask them for information, and then verify it against information online. Don't give up too quickly; common correspondence lists are often oversimplified to the point of uselessness. Your herb might have given you a snippet of information commonly ignored by mainstream witchcraft.

"I'm only getting invalid answers - my rose quartz told me it's used for blood magic and banishing."

Try cleansing and charging objects before you read on them. For beginners, it may be difficult to discern whether you're contacting an object, or the energies it's sucked up or wallowed in.

There may be an indwelling spirit or energy "haunting" the object and returning invalid or silly answers. Try reading on different objects and see if your luck improves.

You may be particularly psychically closed off. When I don't properly connect, I get all kinds of nonsense that seems like a real answer, when it's just my random thought generator (un)helpfully trying to fill in the blanks. General practice of divination and spellwork will assist you. I would avoid using this technique to practice, as it may confuse your discernment to accept your inner voice as external communication. Set it aside and come back to it after a couple of months and see if there are changes.

Similarly, the spirit might just not want to talk to you, or isn't present in the item (or, the energies you seek to understand don't exist in that item).

The spirit may be giving you valid information that most people just don't agree with. My UPG for rosemary is that it is sort of an "uncrossing" agent for your life in general - part of the way it protects you is to align things around you so that misfortune is diverted. It's not a good luck charm, this is just how it achieves its goal of protection. This isn't totally off the wall; I think almost everyone agrees that rosemary is protective, powerful, and "high vibrations." But I don't think I'm going to find anyone else talking about how rosemary works the way it does, so I'm not going to be able to cross-check this anyway. But even if they do, they might talk about a different aspect of rosemary or something else it does. So I'm caught in a limbo where this information is true for me and the plant works that way every time I use it, but I can still never verify that with my community. If your answers aren't totally out of left field, you may be receiving genuine information about how the object wants to work with you. But that doesn't mean you will ever be able to verify that with your community.

Guardian Animal Shielding

I find this technique to be extremely comforting. It may be adapted to many models of magic, including psychological ones.

I find that this shield is better performed alone or when you can focus on it. It is more of an event than a practical utility.

TL;DR: Put yourself in a headspace where your favorite natural biome is all around you. Call a guardian animal. Spend time with the animal and thank it when you are done.

TIPS & TRICKS: Build a folder of gifs, video clips, photos, audio tracks, etc. that just take you to your favorite biome (perfect chance to create mood boards really).

You can perform this technique as a meditation, but also you can employ it as energetic shielding.

SHIELDING: Choose what biome you want to spend time in. You can be very specific (like choosing to be near a body of water, the time of day, the weather patterns, or the types of flora and fauna present) or you can be very general. Decide if you would like to call on a specific animal from that biome, or if you will call for any animal in general.

Draw energy up a shield around you in whatever method you prefer. I generally find it to be much easier to pattern the shield while you make it, instead of creating a white bubble and modifying it after the fact (e.g. if you create your shields by exhaling energy, exhale the biome itself).

Once your biome shield has been created to your satisfaction, consider spending time within it to feel it. This is a good opportunity to practice psychic senses. Try feeling, smelling, seeing, tasting, and hearing what is within the shield.

When you are ready, speak, think, sign, or indicate that you want an animal to join you in the biome. If you use words, they might be, "otter, come join me. I need a friend and a protector. Come sit with me in my shield." Or, "Mother Earth, I've called you to be around me. Now I ask you send an animal to protect me and be my companion at this time."

If you do not want to use words, you can pattern an animal into your shield using energy work techniques or any technique you prefer.

Try spending time feeling, smelling, seeing, (maybe not tasting), and hearing the animal. Try talking to it and watching its behavior.

You can go about your day and this biome and animal will travel with you. Reinforce it by adding more energy to it using whatever technique you prefer. When you are done, if you remember to do so, thank the animal for its company and ask it to return home.

MODIFICATIONS: If short on time, create the shield to include the animal automatically, instead of having to invite it.

You can invite the same animal over and over again, or invite a new one each time.

The guardian does not need to be an animal and the environment doesn't need to be a biome. Consider a heavenly shield and pearly gates with an angelic guardian, for example.

Especially if you call out for a general guardian, your actual guardians and guides may appear, even if they are unknown to you at this time. Especially watch out for specific beings that show up time and time again. (this technique was how I first met my primary spirit guardian, although I didn't know it at the time!)

This technique can be a form of divination and self-reflection. Let everything be very general, including the biome. Pattern your energy work to "bring forth the environment I need the most." Call for "the guardian I need the most." Observe what is created around you.

As stated above, this technique in general is excellent for practicing psychic sensing.

Once you have a protection amulet or two in hand, try this in a natural area. Pattern your shield to be the energy of that area. Call for a local benevolent spirit. See what happens.

It's actually been on my mind for a while so now I have an excuse to talk about it!

But I think it's a good idea to read public/beginner oriented/teaching posts with a critical eye to ask how the author might have edited or adapted that information specifically to communicate a concept in only a few hundred words.

In my faith reciprocity and mutual support with spirits is central. It's both spiritually sacred and sorcerously vital. This reciprocity is multifaceted, individualized, and impacted by my bioregion. To fully step out my beliefs on this topic in a public-facing way might take 20k words or so. Longer if it's explicitly for beginners and more things have to be explained along the way.

But in a 400 word post about spirit-working sorcery, this entire sphere of my practice gets distilled down to: "always pay the spirits for their help in your spells."

Over time I've received a few asks (and a couple vagueblogs! lol) which implicitly assume the basis for my spirit-working is transactional, cash-in-hand gig labor.

I do think that people want to take public-facing posts written for the masses and use them to reverse-engineer insight into someone's practice. I think wanting insight is perfectly fine, of course.

But I also think that it's good to question exactly why Content™ posts are saying what they're saying.

Is the author just parroting what they heard? Do they claim to have direct experience with the topic at hand?

Is the author claiming to be providing insight into their real practice, or are they writing a general how-to on the topic?

Who is the target audience of the post? If it seems like it's for beginners, is it likely the author chose to present only beginner-friendly information?

If the author didn't include disclaimers and warnings, is it likely they would have been scolded for not including them? Does this have an impact on how much of the post relates to their real practice?

Maybe this is just me, but I feel I have very often run into the following 2 situations:

It's pretty clear to me the author has no direct experience, they just learned about something and they're excited about it, and they're parroting warnings, disclaimers, and "rules" because everyone else says them.

It's pretty clear to me the author has a lot of direct experience, knowledge, and insight into the topic, but that they have edited their work to either avoid being yelled at, and/or to surgically install training wheels into the topic to help beginners avoid breaking an ankle.

("Why don't people just be honest with their practice without everything being edited for polite society or the palates of beginners?" because they will be yelled at and driven off the website, lol)

If you want my opinion... I think there are a lot of great writers out there trying to provide good information on how to practice witchcraft. I just would be very hesitant to assume much about what they're actually practicing based on those posts.

I ask myself this a lot lately: is everything exactly what it seems?

The mind and the senses kind of naturally rail against those spirits we engage with that can't be categorized or rationalized easily - not the unknown, but rather the can't-be-known.

Some things have no name, others have no form. On a very surface level, we work to let go of expectations so we can see what's really there. In a deeper sense, I believe we have to continue to cast aside these constraints we put on the spirits we engage with, and our way of perceiving them.

Spirit work involves a lot of fighting against our own apophenia - a need to distort by forcing into form and creating connections that aren't there. It's really easy to want to assign name and nature to something that can't fit neatly into a box.

It's a fact that we will make mistakes, be mistaken about the nature of, or identity of, a spirit at some point in the journey. The trick is to keep peeling away the layers, until pretty wrappings and trappings fall away and we can see what's really in front of us.

Don't blink. Don't be afraid to take yourself apart. Let yourself, and the spirits around you, become complicated.

Cleansing Your Space Without Smoke

1.)  CLEANSING AIR SPRAY

  Your first and most simple way to cleanse without smoke would be to make a salt water solution (Fresh Salt Water from a Beach is a big Plus! Or reuse that snow/ Rain Water)

Simply mix the salt to your water until it dissolves fully.

Essential Oils are completely optional, Make your solution your own this is nearly a “base” Recipe but also very effective on its own.

Spray all around your Home, Altar, Car, Body to clear the congested energy.

   2.) STEAM CLEANSING AND FLOOR WASH

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ OPTION ONE ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~

Boil water, And Add herbs that work with the intention of your cleanse.

Sage- Clears ALL energys

Sweet Grass- Think “Sweet” promotes love

Rosemary- Love, Cleansing, Protection, Money  Your all purpose herb

Cinnamon: Protection, Love

Lavender: Peace, Tranquility, Happiness

Cloves: Exorcizing, Banishing negativity

Rue: Exorcizing, Expelling, Hex Breaking

Chamomile: Keeping, And Promoting peace, Happiness

Basil: Luck

Angelica Root: Protection against Malevolent spirits

(Research different herbs, Mix and Match to make YOUR Perfect blend)

Boil all of of your herbs together, Until you get a rich, Dark Color. Use this time to “add” Your intentions and energy’s into your mixture. Make your magic Happen! Take the pot and “Smudge” with the steam. All nooks, All cranny’s, All corners, All Rooms.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Now here is your “Second Option“  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

ONCE THE MIXTURE HAS REACHED ROOM TEMPERATURE use your decoction as a Floor Wash. You can add any detergents, Or Fragrances at this time

Clean all your floors, Base boards, Window Sills, What ever feels right, Although I would always start with the Floor.

(You may want to dilute in clean water, As some herbal mixes can stain)

This gives your Home Cleansing some extra OOMPH

You can dispose of your mixture Naturally, Outside, Or down the drain, Its up to you. This is an eco friendly solution.