Incense Blending: A Guide

Friendly reminder not to bury glass or plastic jars or throw them in the ocean :)

Environmentally friendly options include:

-seed starter pots

-bell peppers

-paper towel rolls

-toilet paper rolls

-tissue paper

-hollowed out vegetables

-hollowed out fruits

-eggshells

-wrapped banana peels

(Updated thanks to all of your lovely suggestions <3)

If you have any suggestions or concerns please let me know and they will be added

To those who have swept or have blown the leaves from the walk, have rinsed the dishes or dusted their screens, Hestia looks on you from beneath her veil. She smiles, then wraps a shawl made of sunlit October air around you.

To those who remain in bed, who are on the edge of crying, who have turned on the tv to drown out the world, Hestia sits on the edge of your bed, patting circles on your back. I know, my love, she says, I know, I know. It can be so hard. My sweet, it’s time to get up. I need you, she says. Let’s make this home a sanctuary. Light a candle. Make your hands to care about this place. Let out the work of love.

The term “potion,” I must frankly admit, is mostly used in fantasy stories that feature magick, such as Harry Potter and The Dresden Files. In the fictional universes of those stories, the term means a variety of things, but in general it refers to some sort of liquid designed to have a magical effect. Most famously, in Harry Potter in particular, potions and Harry’s study of them in school plays a major role in the plot, and fantastic concoctions with names such as “Drought of Living Death” show up. Many witches, magicians and alchemists scoff at using the term “potion” to refer to something they make in real life just due to it’s sheer association with fiction these days. I guess the thought is that, while saying you made a “spelled tea” or “infusion” might be well and good, saying “I created a potion today!” will bring out naysayers ready to point out that Harry Potter isn’t real in the snarkiest voice imaginable.

Obviously, I disagree. The word “potion” is useful, having been used for centuries to refer to the liquid creations of witchcraft and magick. It comes from a Latin term, potio, which simply meant “drink.” Actual practitioners have been creating potions far longer than Harry and Snape, and thus I think we’ve got as much of a right to use the term as those who parlay magick into fiction. It’s a very convenient word, allowing us to describe a whole genre of magical practice.

I use the word “potion” to conveniently refer to all liquids imbued with magical intent and having a magical purpose beyond their physical effects. This means that, when I say “potion,” I am referring to a wide variety of things, ranging from simple magical teas to tinctures, oil blends, and even alchemical spagyrics. The physical basis of each of these differs, and most, if not strictly all, potions somehow involve elemental water, if only by virtue of being liquids. There are those who would argue that concoctions with an oil or alcohol basis might find their primary elemental association elsewhere, but I hold that a liquid will always have a watery essence, insofar as elemental water includes all liquids, just as earth includes all solids to a degree.

It is important to note that while I tag most of my posts that involve potions under a general alchemy heading, and many books refer to potioncraft simply as “alchemy” or “herbal alchemy,” the vast majority of potions that witches make are not true alchemical formulas, though they may have been developed using alchemical theories and correspondences. 

When I use the phrase “true alchemy,” I largely refer to the practice of creating what some call spagyrics and similar, related concoctions, and I admit my understanding of it is currently a bit limited compared to some. If you’re interested in learning about the practice of true alchemy in a present-day context, I suggest reading Robert Allen Bartlett’s excellent book on the subject, Real Alchemy, or checking out Spagyrics, by Manfred M. Junius.

While I am writing this article as part of my series for beginner witches, and many beginners do create potions, it’s worth noting that potioneering, and in particular certain kinds, isn’t a very accessible part of witchcraft. Why? Well, many books tell you that you don’t need expensive tools and ingredients to do magick. While this is true in most cases, when it comes to potions, unless you’re very creative, you’ll have to invest a bit of funds and effort into just gathering the supplies. As I’ll hopefully show, these supplies needn’t be particularly pricy, and improvisation gets you a long way, but still, potioneering requires quite a bit more materials than most forms of witchcraft.

Another reason potion-making isn’t as accessible to a beginner as (for example) sigils or candle magick rests in the fact that many of the ingredients traditionally used in potion-making have physiological and psychological effects on human beings, making it risky to use them without doing a great deal of research, which can be daunting at best. It’s beyond the scope of this essay to discuss what herb or such is or isn’t poisonous and what can be consumed in which quantities, but many existing books and websites are full of that information. At the end of this essay, I’ll provide links to some potions I’ve developed that use highly innocuous ingredients, but everyone reacts differently chemically, and even with something like chamomile, be sure to do your research. I’m not trying to discourage anyone here, but if you choose to take up potion-making, do be mindful of your budget and research ingredients very carefully.

If you want to make potions, I suggest choosing a focus. There are many different types of potions, and alluded to earlier, ranging from simple to concoct teas to complex configurations of essential oils. Most witches work a lot with oil or water-based potions, and plenty also make tinctures and other potions with an alcohol base. I would recommend choosing one medium/basis to focus on - do you want to make drinkable potions and teas, tinctures, or oils?

Regardless of what sort you want to make, you will probably have to buy or find some equipment and ingredients, unfortunately. As I’ve said, most witchcraft requires little investment besides emotional commitment, but potioneering does involve equipment and ingredients I personally have built up a large collection of supplies for compounding potions and brews, and while not everyone’s going to want or need to do this, my advice to those who are looking to create a large laboratory-like setup is to start small. Below is an image of my current supply cabinet, with all my potion-making supplies visible, as well as some charm bottles and other things.

For the most part, herbs, flowers, and other plants make up the bulk of what is used in potions today. Choosing which herbs to purchase can be pretty overwhelming, but I always found it useful to buy herbs on an as-needed basis, slowly building up a collection over the course of a few months. Even if you cannot afford a lot of fancy ingredients, much can be done with simple household herbs and spices, like mint, basil, oregano and black tea. Many of the potions I make take the form of a tea-like infusion that may or may not contain actual tea leaves (often, it’s just herbs). 

For creating these, I find my porcelain mortar and pestle helpful, which I got from Amazon.com rather cheaply. I use it to grind up particularly difficult roots and herbs, and to bruise flowers such as lavender in order to better release their taste/scent into the mixtures I make. I also have a small scale, of the sort commonly sold in head shops, but I only really have this because some of the potions I make actually contain (legal) psychoactives and I’ve got to be careful about dosage. 

Whether you need any of this or not really depends on what your plans are. If you intend to work with so-called “baneful” ingredients or anything that has a strong physiological or psychological effect on the human body, a scale might be a good safety precaution, as it helps you calculate dosage. If you plan on mostly working with things like mint and thyme, which are culinary and safe for most people, it might not be necessary or worth the investment. Similarly, while a mortar and pestle allows you to grind and mix ingredients rather easily and adds a level of effort (and therefore power) to the process, not everyone’s going to want or need one plenty of herbs don’t require grinding.  

If you’re mostly going to be working with oils and making magical perfumes/scents, dried (or even fresh) herbs won’t be as useful as pure essential oils, though. These compounds are called such because they contain the chemical essence of the plant - basically the active ingredients of whatever herb or plant they come from. While essential oils, for the most part, aren’t consumable or meant to be ingested, they capture much of a plant’s properties, both magical and chemical, and often have an extremely strong scent, making them useful for perfumes and anointing oils.

Above is a photo of some of my oil and perfume-making supplies. I personally use essential oils rather extensively, mostly to make custom magical perfumes and scents, to create anointing formulas for candle magick, and also for use in cleaning (both in a non-magical and magical sense). Because essential oils are chemically as well as magically powerfully, I also use them in a therapeutic fashion - for example, I add a few drops of rosemary essential oil to my shampoo to improve my hair texture.

You can go into many stores and buy “aromatherapy oils” or “fragrance oils,” but in most cases, these aren’t actually essential oils and are instead synthetic forms of the scent, or just the essential oil diluted into a carrier oil. For example, if you buy a vial of rose oil perfume, it’s highly unlikely to contain any rose essential oil, and is probably a synthetic imitation of rose scent mixed into a carrier oil. Fragrance oils like this can indeed be used in magick if their smell is evocative enough, but keep in mind that synthetic rose oil perfume won’t have any of the chemical benefits (for example, clarifying the skin) that actual rose oil might give, and might actually do damage if you try to use it in that way. Once again, it’s really beyond the scope of this article to give a lot of safety and usage information, so please do your research. If you want actual essential oils, most health food stores will have them, and they’re available online quite affordably, even on Amazon.

For the most part, if you buy herbs online or elsewhere, they’ll be packaged in some form of plastic bag. Even Mountain Rose Herbs does this, but their bag’s rather thick and is vaccum-sealed. Either way, I recommend moving herbs from their original plastic bags into jars, which should be as airtight as you can find. I personally got a bunch of random jars at craft stores and places like Target, and store my herbs there, as well as in containers I just saved along the way, such as jars that used to hold instant coffee or peanut butter. If you’re potioneering plans involve making anything that you’ll save for later (an oil for later use, a salve, etc), you will need to have storage for it, too. I keep a small selection of bottles for this purpose, mostly purchased from the same herb stores where I get my essential oils and raw herbs. 

One note about that, though - while some of the jars I use to store my loose herbs have corks, I would never use a corked vial or bottle to store a finished tincture, salve, or other concoction, as most of the bottles you get that have corks are unlikely to be watertight and simply invite spoiling. Pretty much anything you make, though, will spoil eventually. There are methods (such as adding Vitamin E or buying a carrier oil that already has it in it) that will halt the process a bit, but nothing really has an indefinite shelf life. In particular, don’t expect to be able to keep a tea-like brew in your fridge for more than a few days without it going bad.

I personally recommend Mountain Rose Herbs for both dry herbs (in bulk) and essential oils, as well as carrier oils and many other products you might need for creating potions. Of course, there’s plenty to be had at most health food stores and even grocery stores, too. One thing I want to say about shopping for herbs is that it’s almost always best to buy loose herbs (say, mint, etc), instead of herbs already portioned into tea bags and labeled as a herbal tea. It’s much less expensive and generally gives you better quality because the herbs are fresher and, again, there’s less overhead. 

With loose herbs, you’re not paying for the cost of them being slapped into tea bags. I recommend getting some sort of tea ball or strainer if you want to do teas, and avoiding the cost of commercially-prepared tea bags. This is much more cost-effective in the long run. I cannot, obviously, cite prices everywhere, but as an example, here in Poland, a box of mint tea is roughly 9zl, whereas a slightly-greater amount of the actual herb, loose and without bags, is only 2.50zl. In the image below, you can see the strainer I currently use. I actually have a larger one for making teas for the household, but this one works very well for making strong brews for myself. I prefer strainers that allow the herbs to spread out in the water, so I rarely use things like tea balls.

When you’re ready to take the plunge and make your first potion, ask yourself what effect you would want it to have. I am a firm believer that, in witchcraft, form has a complex interdependent relationship with function, but that the latter should be considered first and foremost. While almost any form of potion can be designed to have any number of effects, I’ve personally found that certain forms are more suitable (from my perspective) for certain tasks. Oils, when used to anoint the body, go a long way towards changing how the user is perceived, and thus I tend to use them to help me put my best foot forward. Teas and concoctions that are consumed are great for altering your mindset and deep internal changes. The creation of waters, floor washes, and similar products are obviously best-suited to spells designed to affect an entire area, household, or everyone who will encounter the formula. These are just some general rules I use in my practice - you might experiment and find things work differently for you, but I thought I’d mention them nonetheless.

Regardless of what form your potion will take, please keep safety in mind at all times. You might read in some old manuscript that a certain herb helps with a certain purpose, but if we now, here in the 21st century, know that herb to be poisonous, you probably shouldn’t use it, or at least exercise extreme caution! Safety first at all times. Choose ingredients based on the magical associations you personally have for them, first and foremost, which may or may not be based on whatever tradition you’re working within. 

With the added safety precautions required of something to be consumed, worn, or doused about, the advice I give in my article on bottle spells for choosing ingredients mostly applies here, too, but there’s other issues to be considered, as well. If you’ve decided your spell will be a tea, you must concern yourself with how it will taste, and if the taste of the finished product lends itself to the goal in question. With an oil, you don’t want it spelling foul in most cases, so the harmony of scents, as well, must be considered. There’s actually a really good book out there, called Mixing Essential Oils for Magic, by Sandra Kynes, that, while also giving excellent traditional information on the correspondences of various flowers and herbs, also explains the theory behind perfumery and how to make blends that smell delicious.

Basically, when choosing ingredients for a potion of any sort, many factors should be bouncing around in your brain, and these include:

Safety (first and foremost!)

Scent/taste

Appearance

Traditional correspondences.

Personal correspondences

Safety (of utmost importance!)

Usually, when I’m making any sort of potion, I start by listing ingredients that are safe, appropriate to the form I’ve chosen, and associated in my mind with my goal or purpose. I then experiment a bit with them, mixing and matching until I’ve got something that works and fits with what I’m trying to do. For example, if I’m making a perfume oil for prosperity, I might begin by just setting out all the essential oils and herbs I currently have that I associate with prosperity, then make tiny batches mixing and matching until I get something that works scent-wise and in terms of general association, at which point, I’d make a larger batch. 

For teas, once you’ve factored in and taken proper safety precautions, a lot of it is simple trial and error. Some of my recipes are modifications of tea recipes I found online, having worked out the correspondences. Others are just things I’ve tried and found delicious and workable. I admit to using my fiancé to taste-test some of my infusions, too! This isn’t really an exact science, though there are aspects of science to it. If you’re being safe, don’t feel bad if you end up a few times with a concoction or scent you hate - just dust yourself off and try, try again. It took me forever, for example, to find that I hate the taste of lavender unless it’s combined with mint, and that, while I love eucalyptus as a scent, it lingers too much and is ill-suited to my preferences in terms of a floorwash or area cleanser.

One thing that bears mentioning, though, is that magick is not about following a recipe or even creating one, and in my experience, a tea or perfume will be just that (i.e., not a potion) until it is in some way magically empowered or enchanted. I’ve written an article about this, too, which you might want to read. Most witches realize the importance of intent and that strange factor that seems to separate the magical from the everyday, and I personally do go about enchanting each ingredient, whether it’s an oil or herb, that I add to a potion. I also, as I mentioned doing for spell bottles, add a final bit of enchantment to the finished product before using it, and with some things (oils, etc.,) I continually empower them with each use. This is one of those things that’s incredibly difficult to explain, though most people who do magick have a way of doing this that works for them, I’ve found.

Here, at the end of this very brief introduction, I’ll include links to potion recipes I’ve written and posted here. I’ll admit there’s only a few, and not all of them are meant for human consumption. As usual, use caution and do research before mixing up something from an online recipe. Also, I’d like to include a link here to @honeycoyote​, a Tumblr user who’s blog features a wide array of tasty, tea-like potion recipes - check them out here. I’ve made quite a few of those and enjoyed them! Here’s my own small list of potion recipes I’ve posted:

Devotion Oil

Attraction Potion

Concealing Your Craft

Focus Enhancement

Blogging Potion

To Bring the Sun Inside

I also want to recommend the following books for those looking to learn more about potioneering and herbal alchemy! The following is just relevant bits posted from my masterpost of book recommendations, specifically the books focused on potioneering and alchemy, but they’re really quite useful.

The Herbal Alchemist’s Handbook, by Karen Harrison. I cannot praise this book enough for its concise and well-formulated approach to astrology, herbs, and magick as a whole.

The Weiser Concise Guide to Herbal Magick, by Judith Hawkins-Tillirson. This is excellent for anyone who’s interested in any kind of magick. Yes, the focus is generally herbs, but there’s a lot to be learned here about Kabbalah and other correspondence systems, as well.

Real Alchemy, by Robert Allen Bartlett. Excellent book, lots of history and detail. There’s a strong focus on tradition within the text, yet the author is quite accommodating of his audience and describes alternate methods that work better in a modern context.

Spagyrics, by Manfred M. Junius. With a highly-developed academic tone and attention to detail, this book is a meaty look at traditional alchemy. I recommend this more for intermediate practitioners due to the sheer density of information.

Mixing Essential Oils for Magic, by Sandra Kynes. Fills a very difficult gap in published knowledge regarding the use of essential oils by discussing, in great detail, how scents interact with each other and how to create a formula that’s not only palatable, but evocative.

I hope this article was useful and interesting. It’s meant to just be a short introduction to the concept of potions rather than a full guide. I’ve got plans for more potion-related articles and writing, and if there’s something in particular you’d like to see, don’t hesitate to contact me. Also, if you enjoy my work, consider offering support to help fund future endeavors. Thanks for reading! 

Tips for building mind spaces

Other posts of the series: * Tips on Shadow spaces * On Spiritual Bilocation

Mindspaces, also referred to as inner temples, are a great step between meditation and astral travel experiences. However, they are an amazing multi-purpose standalone tool as well. Especially for undercover witches who need to keep their practice secret!

I divide them into two types: basic mind spaces and shadow spaces. This post is about the basic mind spaces.

Basic mind space.

This is essentially a bubble in the space between this plane and the astral planes. It belongs to you and you can change it around as you see fit. Those are like your accounts in dropbox. Just like dropbox or other cloud services, those are password protected etc etc; you get to keep stuff there, its not 100% break-in proof, but safe enough. And you can generate a link to the bubble and send it to a friendly spirit/deity/any entity really, that you want to hang out with.

This place is great as a safety retreat - you can rest here should things get tough. I feel that energy work and practice can be done easier in the mind space, and you can study the energy more directly and it flows much easier than in physical. There’s also spirit work to a done here.  Invite your spirit friends over, meet with your deities for a cup of coffee, so much potential for fun~  There is a lot of room for experiments, spell casting and learning. And finally you can set up a passage that’ll take you straight to astral planes.

Your mind space is very flexible and it can look like anything. It can be a room, a garden, a house, a mountain top, a metro station, an underwater location, a formless blob of darkness. Anything YOU want. Coming back to energy work - it is easier to work with and shape energy, hence its easier to build structures in your space that allow for anything you can think of. Kind of like Rose’s room in Steven Universe. Although it takes more than a wish to make that structure stable.

Here’s a great post to check out by @stsathyre

How to build a mind space.

An important point to keep in mind is that mind spaces can be re-shaped easily, so just go ahead and try things out! You can always adjust things and make them different/better as you go :)

Think of what purpose it is going to serve. Are you going to mainly use it for spellwork? Is it going to be a safety retreat? It has to be practical for whatever your goals are. Should it have lines of shelves for books and magical tools? A large table for mixing up herbs/energies? A number of seats for guests you are going to invite? An extra door that would take you out into the astral planes?

Sketch a layout. Yes, take a pencil and a sheet of paper and just plan out your space. Do you want that river to pass through the middle of the room? Behind the building? Do you want that huge boulder to be in the middle of the clearing where you can set up your mind-space altar? Think of how it would be most comfortable and appealing. Include some leisure areas, a pile of pillows, a pile of soft autumn leaves, a soft floating cloud you can rest on - it’s always nice to have that :) I would discourage from going into greater detail on your furnishings at this point - you want to go gradually. Plan for a door through which you will enter.

Think of the door and safety reinforcements. I would suggest that your door have some sort of authentication mechanism to check that it is, in fact, YOU who is trying to come in. The best way is probably to include something that would read in your energy signature - while it is possible to fake that, it is hard. And in the majority of cases, there isn’t going to be many beings out there who’d go through much trouble to break in.

Pick your technique for actually GOING there. I should probably make this a bigger point, but.. There are many ways to travel and there are many degrees of depths to it. In other words, depending on what you like, you can go into a deep meditative state and go full-in. This way, your experiences will be intense, you will strongly feel all the sensations. Sometimes there are situations where you might not have enough time or good enough circumstances to go that deep. For such situations, a form of a spiritual bi-location might come in handy, which will make your sensations duller but will enable you to actually do things in physical while you also work in your mind space. (this is my favorite way of handling these things because life circumstances can be a bitch). I am sure duskenpath posted about doing this but I can’t seem to find the post now. 

Use the technique and start working on that door! Seriously, if you still haven’t - go check out this post. Use your technique and take yourself to that door. The basic frame should already be there. Examine it and work with it. It helps to touch and feel the material, contemplate the color. Geez just go read that post x)

Work on one thing at a time. I would advise to start gradually. When you go in, focus on one thing at a time. Shape your item. Make the structure strong, then move on to the next item. Work out all the details of the item, feel it, hell - smell it! Those structures are like wine. Older is stronger. After you create a couple of things - let it rest. Exit the space slowly and go on to do your daily business. Let it sit for a day or two, think of what you’ve completed in your space once in a while, keep it hanging in the back of your mind but do not actively go there. Let it gain strength. When you feel like it’s pretty set, go back in. See how it looks, see how it holds up. You might need to revisit your first structures and add some energy in there, reinforce them. To give you an example: I decided I needed a forest. I started working on it, the general sketch, the basic layout of the forest. I let it sit. When I came back, what was more like a sketch became more of a real thing. I did not have to consciously keep them there or make them work - they were rolling on their own.

A warning of foggy vision. When you are setting up the space, you focus on the details and pay much attention to each item. However, I’ve found that for me, being in the mind space - especially during bi-location feels kind of foggy. It is mostly a problem of focus, since I am working in two places at once. It feels like I should be wearing glasses but I don’t have them on. The details of the objects are gone unless I specifically work with the particular object. Even then sometimes it is cloudy. And you know what? That does not stop me from getting things done in the space. It might slow me down. But it is perfectly fine. For me that is a fair trade-off. I either go there without the really deep submersion, and everything is foggy, OR I don’t go at all. So that’s just something to keep in mind too

Sigils as a structure reinforcement and a gateway. If you feel like giving your space and structure an extra boost, you can make a sigil to represent the space and the changes you made to it. I know, usually the tutorials say to work with words. Apply the same approach to the little layout plan you sketched before. Take the basic shapes you used for your tables, chairs and other itmes and combine them into a sigil. Make changes until you feel that the sigil is a good representation. That same sigil can be used as a point of focus if you have trouble reaching your mental space. However, I would suggest keeping that sigil very and very private. You wouldn’t want to let anyone know your bank account password, neither would you want to let anyone have your apartment keys :)

A bit more on what you can do

You can do witchy business right there. You can cast spells from your mind space. You can set up your altars and shrines there if you have to keep your work/worship hidden. You can also do shadow work by accessing your subconscious more directly (if anyone is interested I will write a post about shadow spaces). You can brew tea and enjoy quiet evenings near a fireplace. You can use your space as a station to create servitors and experiment with energy structures. There are so so many possibilities!

If you have anything to add or questions to ask, my ask box is open and I’d be happy to discuss/help out! :)

Why Your Spells Don’t Work

You set your intention. You had all the correct correspondences. You even timed your spell with the appropriate moon phase. And yet – no results. What gives? 

Failed spells happen to the best of us, and for a variety of reasons. But a spell gone wrong doesn’t necessarily mean that magic isn’t real or that you’re bad at witchcraft. Magic is complicated, and there are a lot of reasons it might not behave the way you want it to. Here are some of the most common causes of ineffective spells: 

1. Lack of real-world follow through

Magic is meant to be used as a tool to supplement your mundane efforts – not as a substitute for them. How can you expect your job hunting spell to bring in results if you aren’t applying for jobs? 

Magic does not exist in a vacuum, and it can’t make something out of nothing. If a spell doesn’t bring you the desired result, make sure that your non-magical actions are aligned with what you are trying to manifest. 

2. What you’re trying to manifest isn’t a realistic possibility

Wait, what? Isn’t magic supposed to be, well… magic? Shouldn’t you be able to ask for whatever you want and get it? Yes and no.

Magic is simply a way of directing energy. Magic can’t defy the natural laws of the universe. It can’t make something happen unless it was already a potential possibility.

If your intention is unrealistic for where you are right now, try splitting it up into a multi-step process. No spell is going to make you a billionaire overnight, but magic could help you get hired at a better paying job… and then get promoted… and then get offered a profitable side gig… etc. Starting small and working your way up is always going to produce stronger results, because you laid the foundation first.

3. Your intention was either too vague or too specific 

Whether you use written petitions or spoken incantations, clearly stating your intention is an important part (maybe THE most important part) of any spell or ritual. A good intention is specific enough to get you the results you want, but open enough to let those results manifest naturally.

Let’s say you do a money spell, and your intention for the spell is simply, “I have more money.” If you find a penny on the ground the next day and pick it up, technically that is more money than you had before. A better alternative would be to use an intention like, “I have enough money to buy ___,” or “I have enough money for everything I need and want.”

Using an intention that is too specific creates the opposite problem. Let’s say you want to manifest a scholarship to a specific school. You do a candle spell with the intention, “I have been chosen for the John Smith Scholarship at Jane Doe University.” But maybe the John Smith scholarship had already been awarded by the time you did your spell. Maybe there’s another scholarship at the same school that would be a better fit for you, or maybe you’re eligible for a grant that would make tuition more affordable. A better intention for your spell would be “I have enough financial aid to easily and affordably attend Jane Doe University.”

Magic always follows the path of least resistance, so you want to make sure that your intention is specific enough to give your magic a clear direction, but open enough to allow it some flexibility. 

4. Lack of focus/concentration

We all know the struggle. You’ve been planning this ritual forever, and it’s finally the full moon, but you’ve got a really full schedule today. If you hurry, you can probably squeeze it into the thirty minute window between school and work, right? 

If you say a few quick words and burn some incense before you head out the door in the morning, that totally counts as a spell, right? 

Not so much. Rushed, lazy, and/or half-assed spells rarely, if ever, work. Spells revolve around the raising and direction of energy, and that requires two things: a clear intention (see above) and intense focus on that intention. If you don’t have the time/energy/mental capacity to focus, it’s best to take a break, have a self care day, and come back to your spell some other time. 

5. You’re subconsciously blocking your own results OR you did a spell for someone else who isn’t open to it

I decided to lump these two together, because they’re different variations of the same issue. 

Whenever you are doing magic on yourself, it’s important that your mindset is aligned with your intentions. You can do love spells all day long, but if deep down you don’t believe that you’re worthy of love, that belief is going to block your spells from working. This is why mindfulness, psychology, and self care are all such important parts of a successful witchcraft practice. It’s also why I recommend doing the mental work before you sit down to ritual. 

If you did a spell on yourself, or are trying to manifest something for yourself, and it just isn’t working, I highly recommend setting some time aside for journaling and meditation and asking yourself 1.) if this is really what you want, and 2.) if you truly believe that you can have it.

The whole mindset thing gets even more tricky when you’re doing magic on behalf of another person, because their energy is also at work in the situation and could be at odds with yours. For example, if you do a spell to help a friend land a job, but that friend believes that they’re totally underqualified and could never get it, they probably won’t get the job even if you did everything “right” in your spell. 

This should go without saying, but it is extremely unethical to use magic to mess around in someone else’s head. Even if you think you know what’s best for them, they need to be open to it. If someone is blocking the spells you do on their behalf, all you can do is try to be supportive and find other ways to help them out.

Other (Rare) Reasons for Failed Spells

If a spell goes wrong, it will almost always be for one of the above reasons. But maybe you did everything “right” – you did the mental work first, had a strong, realistic intention, put lots of focus into your spell, and followed through in real life – and you still aren’t seeing results. There are a couple of other things that could be blocking your spells, but they’re very uncommon so I’m not going to talk about them in as much detail. These may be things you want to look into if you really, genuinely can’t think of any other cause. 

It’s possible that another witch has done magic that cancels out or blocks yours. This is not common, and it does NOT mean that someone has cursed you. It could be as simple as two witches unknowingly casting spells with opposite intentions, which end up cancelling each other out. (For example, maybe two different people both cast a spell to get the same job. Obviously, they can’t both get that job.) This is why it’s never a bad idea to incorporate a protective element into your spells to block outside interference.

There is a very, very remote possibility that someone has placed a curse on you specifically to block your magic. However – and I cannot stress this enough – this is VERY uncommon. If you were cursed you would know it, or at least know that something was very wrong in your life. If you feel like you have been cursed or hexed, I recommend looking into uncrossing spells, which are specifically designed to undo negative magic.

It’s also possible that a higher power is intervening. This doesn’t necessarily have to be a deity, although it certainly could be. Most witches believe in some form of fate or destiny, and it’s possible that your spell didn’t work because what you asked for is not in alignment with your destiny. In these situations, really the only thing you can do is surrender to the bigger picture. 

I just love how I can barely even consume misophonia content (articles or just posts on here) without constantly worrying about seeing specific triggers mentioned and consequently developing said triggers. So fun 🤩 love how quirky my brain is!

Or when media created by non-sufferers will have the audacity to play a clip of [trigger] and then be like “did that bother you?? 🤨 congrats, suffer.”

now that i’ve begun working more with energy, i wanted to share my methods of casting circles! when i first started working with energy, it was really hard to find references for casting circles, especially ones not dealing with the traditional Wiccan god/goddess. here are some methods and uses of casting circles!

Why Cast a Circle?

the primary reason i cast circles is to protect me from outside energy influences. most people associate circles to protection from ‘malevolent’ spirits, however, it’s just a great barrier in general!

here are some following scenarios i cast circles:

divination- to protect me from energies that might influence my cards or my interpretation o the cards

spellwork- pretty self-explanatory. i cast circles to protect from energies i don’t want in my spells, or from potential spirit attraction.

meditation- again, for energy use and to also not be disturbed from anything spiritual.

Methods of Casting

1 - Invoking Elements

a very basic way, if not the go-to way, of casting is to place each of the four elements at each of the cardinal directions. Earth at the north, Air in the east, Fire at the south, and Water in the west.

fire

Candles (color them for intent if used in a spell! alternatively, electric tea lights work fine.)

here is a post about color associations for candles!

Anything symbolic of fire colors (red or warm-colored cloth, figures/statues,etc.)

water

moon/sun water (in a jar works really well, or in an open container if being used for blessing anything)

blessed water, or water related to whatever you’re working with (storm water, diluted essential oils, etc).

here is a good source of different kinds of water and how to cleanse them!

blue or purple colored items

earth

stones or crystals (this is what i love to use! just be wary that some stones are aligned with other elements. clear quartz is a go-to.)

salt

dirt (from your backyard or specific, such as hospital or graveyard. make sure to cleanse it.)

herbs (especially roots)

brown or black colored items

air

incense (different scents have uses as well!)

here is a post with scent correspondences!

steam

yellow or white colored items

alternatively, any of these could be replaced with a tarot card of the corresponding suit! (wands for fire, cups for water, pentacles for earth, and swords for air).

to close the circle, walk clockwise starting in the east (air) and complete a full walk around the circle. do this as many times as you feel needed to envision a complete circle! after your use for it is done, unwind it by walking the same number of times counter-clockwise.

note: if you live in the southern hemisphere, you may want to reverse fire and earth in your directions and walk counter-clockwise to close the circle, and clockwise to end it.

2 - Envisioning

this is a very, very simple way to cast a circle! if you have very little time, simply imagine a ring of light around your workspace. you could align color to purpose as well.

the only downsides to this method include the fact that it may not be as strong as a physical circle for beginners especially, as i have learned many times over as i find energy that i don’t want in the circle. on top of this, to make it very successful, you may have to keep this image in your head throughout your spell or energy work, which may distract or hurt your concentration.

however, like i said before, it’s very easy, discreet, and requires no clean up! with practice, it could be very easy to maintain.

3 - Salt Circle

by simply spreading salt in a circle clockwise (or counter-clockwise depending on your location), you can create a strong barrier. as you walk around, envision your purpose of protection and safety.

if you are working outside, do not use salt. it will kill plant life! instead, consider alternatives such as: egg shells, diluted salt water, crushed herbs, flower petals, etc.

if working inside, consider setting out foil, cloth, or a tarp for easy cleanup. 

4 - Cleansing the Room Itself

if you find that you for some reason cannot cast a circle, or maybe are just starting out, consider cleansing the entire room instead!

some methods include:

smoke cleansing (NOT smudging. please do not call this action smudging unless it is part of YOUR culture.)

salt or protective mixture

dance/song

salt/water spray

incense and candles

for smoke cleansing, light your bundle and start facing eastward, spreading the smoke and asking for protection from either the corresponding element or any deities/spirits/etc. you worship. move clockwise or counterclockwise.

for salt or protection mixtures, simply place a small pile in each corner of the room or at the cardinal directions.

dance and song can celanse the room when accompanied with smoke especially. 

the salt water spray can be used similar to the protection mixture – spray a little in each corner or at the cardinal directions.

incense and candles can be placed in corners, the directions, or just throughout the room to act as protective energy.

Final Notes

make sure to remove your circle after you’re done!! leaving it up isn’t safe and could be draining on your energy or health.

try not to leave the circle in the middle of your work, if it can be avoided. ive had to do it before and nothing bad happened, but sometimes it ocould break the circle, or bring unwanted energy or precense in.

do your absolute best to have all your materials in the circle before you cast it. bringing items that were not in the circle before could carry energy that you just do not want in your circle. i’ve messed up plenty spells because of it already. if it is really necessary, cleanse the item as thoroughly as you can (quickly if you need to), and enter the circle from the east.

if these methods don’t work right away, don’t worry! these take lots of practice. some easy ways to try casting daily include:

cast a circle before you meditate

cleanse your room before you do homework for a safe space to work

if you have a form of divination, cast a circle before drawing a daily reading (i do this in the morning to see how the day will go or seek advice for the day!).

good luck!

Ostara French Toast & Tea Infused Syrup

Hi lovelies! I hope you’re having a wonderful day/night! I have decided to make another Ostara recipe. This is based off of my mother’s French Toast recipe. Remember to have fun with cooking! You don’t have to follow this recipe exact, experiment and have a good time! Please let me know what you all think! I’d love to hear your feedback! On to the recipe!

🌸Ingredients for French Toast:

🍞1 pan that can fit at least two pieces of bread. A griddle works well too 🍞1-2 sticks of butter 🍞A half a loaf of bread. I use Texas Toast. Any bread will do. 🍞2 eggs 🍞4 cups milk 🍞A LARGE splash of vanilla extract 🍞A little bit of almond extract

🌸Ingredients for Syrup:

🍞3-4 cups of your favorite syrup 🍞3 lavender tea bags (you can use dried lavender or other herbs and spices, about 3 Tbs total) 🍞Pot to hold everything 🍞Cheese cloth or tea infuser of using loose herbs

🌸Instructions for French Toast:

🍞Turn pan onto low- medium low heat 🍞Whisk eggs, milk and extracts together. 🍞Soak 1-2 pieces of bread at a time 🍞Add butter to the pan 1-2 tbs and let melt 🍞Add bread to the pan, brown on one side, flip, and brown on the other 🍞Soak your next batch while browning the first 🍞 in-between batches, of your butter turns brown, wipe it off and add more. 🍞Continue reading this until they are all browned. Then serve

🌸Instructions for Syrup:

🍞Add herbs and syrup to pot over medium-low heat 🍞Let come to a simmer then remove 🍞 Let steep for 20 min or more 🍞Serve with French Toast

Okay guys I hope you enjoyed this! Remember to have fun! If you make this, I’d love to see and hear about it!

Love and light Cait ✌

call me a necromancer bc i just raised a meme from the dead