Elminx's Long-Form Lemonade For Sweet Cleansing

Since bread metaphors are in, I'd like to express a controversial opinion on correspondences.

As the metaphor goes, if you want to learn how to bake bread extremely well, you may study multiple types of bread from various different cultures, because many of these breads will have something to teach you which you can apply to your own bread.

Additionally, in examining the recipes of a multitude of cultures, you may begin to notice a few common threads.

"Bread," you might then say "Is made with flour." And you would not be incorrect.

"But," someone else might point out, "Flour is for making papier-mâché!" And they would not be incorrect either.

So then, does flour have bread-making capabilities, or papier-mâché-making capabilities? It has both.

And what if someone were to add, "Bread is made with almond flour, which is completely different from wheat flour. In fact, you shouldn't use wheat flour, because some people can't use that bread." ("Well I'm allergic to almonds, so really--")

So, if bread can be made without flour, and flour can make things that are not bread, is there any connection between bread and flour at all?

Obviously, there is.

It's just complicated. If you study the practices of many different cultures, and you find similarities, then you might feel inspired to create your own recipe using some of these common traits-- the ones that you find you like the most.

The correspondences of different things are not fixed-- new ones can be constantly invented. Likewise, your spell can be ruined by a bad combination-- or a bad combination for you.

If something is not working for you, find alternatives.

---

Magics for Curse-Breaking

Updated: November 12th, 2017

Are You Cursed?

[Have I Been Cursed?]

[How to Tell if You’ve Been Cursed]

[I’m Afraid That I’ve Been Hexed]

[Knowing if You Are Under a Curse/Have Been Cursed]

[So You Think You’ve Been Cursed]

[So You Think You’ve Been Cursed?]

Protection from Curses

[Curse Removal / Protection]

[A Hearth Witch’s Defense, Part Two - Protecting Yourself & Your Hearth From Curses]

[Protection and Return to Sender Jar]

[Protection from Curses]

[Protection Jar Against Binding and Hexes]

[Protective Measures Against Common Hexes or Curses]

[Three Little Empresses: Curse Protection Poppets]

[To Ward Off Curses]

Decoys

(a decoy acts as a “substitute” for you, which the curse will be redirected to instead of harming you; the decoy can then be cleansed or destroyed to remove the curse from it; sometimes you don’t get a choice and the decoy gets destroyed, and you have to make a new one if you still desire its protection)

[Anti-Curse Poppet]

[Black Hole Decoy]

[Creating a Decoy for Protection Purposes]

[Curse Decoy]

[Decoy Poppet]

[Diversion Jar]

[Negativity / Bad Luck / Curse Absorbing Decoy Poppet]

[Sea Witch’s Scapegoat]

[Spell: Witch Bottle]

[The Spook’s Decoy]

[Substitute Spell]

[Witch Bottle]

To Break a Curse

[Antidote: Hexed Objects; Removal Powder]

[“Black as Night” Curse Removal Body Scrub]

[Blackthorn Reversing Spell]

[Break a Curse Candle Spell]

[Break a Curse Spell]

[Break a Spell Cast Against You]

[Breaking a Curse]

[For Breaking a Curse]

[Burning Bridges Spell]

[Buster Poultice Recipe]

[Curse Breaker Cleansing] (cw: sigil)

[Curse Breaking Hand Washing/Bath]

[A Curse-Breaking, Purifying, and Protective Witch Jar] (tw: music autoplay)

[Curse Removal & Reversal]

[Curse Removing Wash]

[To Destroy a Curse]

[The Healing Pool: A Cursebreaker]

[Hex and Curse Breaking]

[Hex-Breaker Candle]

[Hexbreaker Powder]

[Lemon Uncrossing]

[Lift a Curse]

[Mild & Spicy Cursebreaker Powders]

[Multipurpose “Curse Removing” Wash]

[To Remove a Curse]

[Remove a Hex, Reverse a Jinx]

[Removing Hexes and Curses]

[Rid Yourself of a Curse]

[Smoke Out the Curse]

[Thu'um Magix: Disarm]

[Unbinding Spell]

To Send a Curse Back

[Anti-Curse Powder]

[Calcifer’s Bargain - A Spell to Reverse a Curse/Hex Placed on You]

[Charm - Curse/Spell Breaking]

[To Counter a Curse]

[Curse Breaking Shampoo]

[Curse-Reverse]

[Curseturner Powder]

[“Drown the Witch” Reversing Spell]

[Engraved Hourglass Nebula Curse Return Spell]

[Flame Wheel]

[Lemon Curse Breaker]

[Major Arcana Spells - Lady Justice - Return to Sender]

[Mirror Counter-Curse]

[Mirror, Mirror (Reversal)]

[Reflect Away Harm (Curse Reversal)]

[Return to Sender]

[Return to Sender / Banish Negativity Spell]

[Return to Sender Candle Spell]

[Return to Sender Spell] 

[Reverse a Curse]

[Sealed with a C(urse)]

[Simple Hex/Curse Reversal]

[A Simple “Reverse the Curse” Spell]

[Spell: Return to Sender]

[A Spell to Counter Another’s Magick]

---

Simmer Pot For Peace and Love

Since we are having guests over for the first time ever, I really want the house to feel…inviting and cozy and warm. SO! I decided to craft a little simmer pot to get those juices flowing!

2 Lemons, peeled and sliced (for cleansing, and for joy)

Roughly 2 TBSP of Rosemary (for Love, protection and peace)

3 TBSP Lavender (Love, happiness, comfort)

Pinch of Sea Salt (for cleansing and purifying)

So, just combine these all in a small pot, fill it with water, and bring it to a boil. Then reduce heat and let it simmer however long, adding more water when it gets low. 

PRO-TIP- Don’t throw away those lemon peels!! You can dry them and use them for witchcraft! You can soak them in salt to make Lemon Salt!! You can candy them and eat ‘em! 

---

Connection is not a feeling.

With some of the responses I've been getting on my post about connecting with nature, I realized I needed to write about this.

Folks have got to understand that connection is not a feeling. "I feel such a deep connection with-" nope, that's not connection you're feeling; that's fascination.

Whether it's nature, or a culture, or anything at all, connection isn't transcendent. It's something you build with actual physical effort. It's a relationship.

Let's say there's a stray cat outside, and I want to have a connection with it. So I go inside my house and meditate on the cat, visualizing myself sending out rays of love to the cat. I look at pictures of cats on the Internet. I collect cat memorabilia and pray to cat goddesses. But when I go outside and try to pet the stray cat, it runs away.

This is because I never built a genuine connection, or relationship, with this cat. I'm a parasocial admirer, at best. To the cat, I'm a weird stranger.

But let's say I put cat food outside, and I stay out there while the cat eats, and slowly get closer to the cat as it becomes more comfortable with my presence. Finally, I give the cat light touches, and it gradually learns that I am safe. And we become friends.

Now I have a connection with the cat, because we have a relationship. I feed the cat, the cat eats my food, and we're in each others' social networks.

"But what if I can't build relationships like this?"

It's okay if this is impossible for you right now. You're not going to be a Bad Pagan or a Bad Witch because you can't do something that is literally impossible at the moment.

But, if a connection is something you want to have, at some point? Get studying. You want a connection with nature at some point? Okay, then start studying ecology. Learn about the rain cycle. Learn about environmental damage. Find materials about the plants and animals in your area.

What about a culture? Okay, go learn about its history, go learn what kinds of problems its people are currently facing, and work on perceiving them as real, complex people instead of whatever stereotype you have in your mind right now.

And above all, remember: that's not a mystical connection you're feeling, that's fascination.

On Purple Dead Nettle

My new plant-love of this Spring season is the unassuming (and yet striking beautiful) Lamium purpureum, aka Purple Dead Nettle.   This wild forageable is considered a “weed” in many yards and gardens and yet has great medicinal, edible, and magical properties.  What more is there to love? I first noticed purple dead nettle after seeing it on a Youtube channel - it turns out, it was growing in my neighborhood all along and I had been oblivious! Purple Dead Nettles (Also sometimes called Purple Archangel) is found around the world.  In warmer areas, it is a annual Winter weed that provides much needed ground cover - here in Southern New England it is a early Spring flower that blooms for about six weeks starting in mid April.   It is highly distinguishable by its square stem (proving its membership to the mint family) and distinct red/purple leaves.  It can grow up to 8-10 inches tall but generally prefers to stick close to the ground. It is a super food - all parts of the plant are edible though its leaves are fuzzy so it can be a strange experience to eat it on its own.  It can be added to salads, used as an edible garnish, made into pesto, or added as a green to smoothies.   It’s flavor is green and reminiscent of grass or clover. Medicinally, it is an astringent, diaphoretic, and purgative.   It has anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, and anti-fungal properties.  It’s leaves can be made into a salve or applied directly for on-the-go wound care.   Consumption slows the production of histamines so it has a claim to fame as a plant used to treat seasonal allergies.   It can be dried and drunk as a tea but can have a laxative effect if consumed in quantity.   It is also listed as unsafe for pregnant and breast feeding humans. On of the best quality of this wonder-plant, in my opinion, is that it is one of the earliest bee friendly flowers that blooms in the colder climates.  Bees and other native pollinators seem to prefer Purple Dead Nettle to other plants.  Yet another reason not the mow this lovely plant down and let it thrive!

Magically it is associated with happiness and cheerfulness and considered useful for grounding when combined with yarrow.   Like all hearty plants that will grow “anywhere” it also has an association with strength and resiliency.  For magical purposes, dead nettle is most often dried and turned into an incense blend or tea (see the above mentioned warning about drinking too much of it.) Last but not least, I wanted to share a fun fact.  The Latin name for Purple Dead Nettle (lamium purpurium) means “diminutive purple monster” - a nickname given to the plant that spread out of control.   Laugh all you want but be careful where you plant it if you don’t want a yard FULL of dead nettle.  But for real - who wouldn’t want a yard full of dead nettle?  Certainly not me… Like my work?  Please consider supporting me by Buying Me of Ko-Fi.

---

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.

---

Witchcraft Exercise - Home Brews

There are a lot of opinions in the modern witchcraft community about what sorts of things make the best components for spells. Some go simple, some go fancy. Most published sources focus on specialized materials like crystals, ritual tools, or plants you aren't likely to find outside an occult shop or a botanical supplier.

But any broke witch you talk to will extol the virtues of working with inexpensive common materials from everyday shops or even just items you have lying around the house.

So to that end, here is an exercise you can do at home to familiarize yourself with your available resources and brainstorm new ideas.

Select one room of your home. It can be any room you wish. If you're not sure where to start, the kitchen is usually a good place. Sit in the room for a while and thoughtfully examine the objects around you. Open drawers and cabinets if necessary. Select five to ten items and make a list of them.

Write down all the magical correspondences of the items that you can think of. Brainstorm five ways that each item can be used in a magical working. Brainstorm ten ways that the items can be used in combination with each other. If you're feeling extra creative, try to write a spell that incorporates as many of the items as possible.

Repeat this with other rooms and other items. This will help you build a list of ideas of what you can do with the materials you have to have as well as helping you practice identifying magical correspondences.

For bonus points, turn the exercise around by listing five types of spells and sussing out how to cast multiple examples of each one using just the items you can find around your home.

Pro-tip: Don't just limit yourself to herbs and art supplies. Get creative!

Happy Witching!

---

When Life Gives You Jewelweed, 1

As an intuitive witch, I strongly believe in working with the plants that grow in your natural environment. It's a covenant that I have made with my spirits and the spirits of the land - it's invasive, I should use it all up or if it's native, I should help it to flourish and grow.

Enter jewelweed aka Impatiens capensis, Balsam Weed, Slipper Weed, "Touch Me Not"

Jewelweed is native to the American Northeast but is not often a gardener’s friend.

I don’t blame the intrepid gardener who, appalled at the HUNDREDS (literally) of jewelweed plants that spring up in their yard, pulls them all up in a haste to do be done with the voracious spreader (jewelweed is known as “touch me not” because its seed pods go off like a BOMB when touched, spreading its seed voraciously – one misstep with this and you will guarantee yourself months of weeding jewelweed out of every space you have).

Yes, almost every single plant in this following photograph is jewelweed! Dora has recently moved into her ancestral home and is trying to reclaim her gardens back from the mess that her Grandmother made of them to “fit in” with the popular gardening trends of the ’90s.

As often happens when you start to clear out a wild space, the first thing to move in are the “weeds” – in this case – jewelweed!

Still, as a green witch, I know that even the most “obnoxious” plants have fabulous magical, edible, and/or medicinal properties. Jewelweed is a perfect example of this.

Jewelweed is both anti-inflammatory and an anti-histamine and can be used topically to treat eczema, bug bites, stinging nettles, and fungal rashes. It is best known for its ability to neutralize the urushiol compound in poison ivy that causes many people to have that horrible itchy rash. This can be done in one of two ways. Firstly, by applying the raw sap of the jewelweed plant directly to the area that you want to treat. For longer-term use, jewelweed can be made into a salve or tinctured (I am going to put mine into a Thatcher’s Witch Hazel toner because I know that my skin tolerates that well).

Magically, there is less information on the properties of jewelweed. Like many of the native plants to the Americas, there is a dearth of information due to the continued reliance on “old world” herbs in our modern crafts. Due to its healing properties and the wet environment in which it grows, the obvious elemental association is Water. The bright orange color of its trumpet flowers speaks to happiness and joy. I might simplify that plus its healing properties to a sense of “relief”.

My intention is to pick and dry some of the flowers and play around to see how it works out magically. I’ll update you with the results.

I am pleased with the medicinal applications of jewelweed. My partner has both realized their love of gardening and developed quite an intense contact dermatitis to something in my garden, so a jewelweed concoction is right on time. I intend to make both a salve and infuse into Witchhazel – they will ultimately be my guinea pig as to which is better.

In any case, I’m very excited to be making a new plant acquaintance.

Do you like my work? Please consider supporting me by Buying Me A Kofi.

---

For the witches and pagans who need to hear it, connecting with nature is supposed to be about like, actually observing nature over long periods of time, not doing stuff like hoarding endangered bird feathers and beach sand, or just meditating out in aesthetically-pleasing locations. Can you tell me exactly when your wildflowers and weeds start blooming? When do your bugs come out of hibernation? When do migratory birds come and go? How does the air feel during different times of year? If you can't do stuff like that, you aren't connecting with nature.

---