Ghibli Music For Studying

Reblog if your blog is a safe space for

- witches of color - male witches - lgbtqpiad+ witches - non religious witches - young witches - beginner witches - plus size witches - differently abled/disabled witches - witches suffering mental illness

FIRST, gather your herbs.

Consider starting with something gentle that will be nice to learn with. Some of my first tinctures were skullcap and lemon balm. These herbs aid in stress and are usually effective if taken multiple times daily over time. I find that trustworthy plants like these are great doorways into herbalism. 

The best place to gather herbs from would be your own garden. If this is not possible be sure to find a trustworthy local herb shop or a bigger buyer like Mountain Rose who sells organic. It is best to tincture most herbs fresh, but dry works well too.

*** If the herbs are coming straight out of the garden you can gently wash the aerial parts, and definitely scrub the roots clean of any dirt residue.  

THEN, chop and macerate.

Chop up the herb or root as small as possible. Once you think it is small enough, go smaller. The more surface area that is exposed during the maceration process, the stronger the medicine can be! For roots, dried herbs, and larger projects I will use a Vitamix. If you often have a small amount that can be easily ground, you may want to consider getting a coffee grinder to reserve for all your herbal endeavors. 

Now you are ready to macerate, which basically means to let the plant sit in alcohol for a few weeks. This process pulls out all the healing constituents that make tinctures therapeutic! 

For your menstrum (or solvent) you will need to use some sort of alcohol. Some people like to use glycerites which are sweeter, or apple cider vinegar. Traditionally brandy or some form of alcohol like vodka was used. When I do the standard method, which is a bit more complicated, I use grain alcohol that is nearly 100%!

Fill a jar all the way to the top with your herbs. Cover it with your brandy or alcohol of choice. Let the herbs macerate for one full lunar cycle. Starting medicines on the full moon can be quite magical! Label your jar with the ingredients and date, and store in indirect light. Shake the maceration daily with good intentions.  

***Remember that you are powerful and the energy that you put forth and the intentions that you set will come through in the medicine.

FINALLY, strain and enjoy!

After a month (or longer) has passed, strain out your herbs with the muslin cloth. Squeeze out any remaining liquid that might be living in the herb. Compost the finished herb which is also known as mark. Pour the now tincture back into jar or into a dosage bottle with a custom label. You have now made your very first folk tincture!

Now you can make medicine from all the beautiful plants that grow around you. You will begin to discover that most of what you need is pretty close by. The St. John’s Wort on the highway, the kudzu on the pine trees, the wild oats dancing in the pasture, the dandelion in your lawn, all the plants are here waiting for you! 

With love and healing light,

Summer Ashley

For some reason tumblr insists on ruining the quality, but if you click on the image it is fine!

When magic works

I’ve spent much of my life wondering about whether magic is “real”, whether it “works”, whether it’s silly for me to invest my time and emotional energy into witchy stuff (even though at this point, I can’t not invest emotional energy into it; it makes me happy). I’ve spent the past eighteen years of my life trying to live magically and every few years I boxed up my witchy stuff in shame and told myself not to be so stupid. Because I was scared. Because trusting in that which I cannot see makes me feel vulnerable. But I could never bring myself to get rid of anything; particularly my crystals.

This week I’ve done two specific witchy things which made me think. I stuck a pin in the arm of my sofa after I lost my watch (thanks to @loveofakind who posted about this!), and I reblogged a money spell. Neither of which are things which take a lot of time and effort, but both of them made me think “eh, I really don’t think this’ll work but what’s the harm in trying”.

Straight after I put the pin in the sofa, I found my watch. The morning after I reblogged the money spell, I had a meeting with my new employer and they told me they’re giving me a relocation allowance for my move across country. I wasn’t expecting to get that because I asked weeks ago and they hadn’t responded so I thought it was a “we’re not gonna give you the money but we don’t want to have to tell you that” kind of situation.

Part of me is thinking, “Well, was it the witchy stuff? Would I have found the watch/got the money without it? I mean, the watch was literally right in front of me, and the money from my employer was already a possible option. Where’s the PROOF that there is a direct causal link between my witchy stuff and the money/finding my watch?”. I’m a researcher. I work in analysing evidence to form conclusions based on that evidence, and most of my job is about disentangling coincidence from causality. But just because I apply those rules to my job doesn’t mean I have to apply them to my life.

Witchcraft is a total mindshift for me (and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in that). I’m finally learning to reconceptualise what I mean by evidence and when my actions, my body and my experiences are that evidence. Because ultimately, I don’t know that my actions led to those particular conclusions. What I do know is that I achieved what I wanted to achieve. I found my watch, and I can afford to move across country. And I don’t know whether my actions played a part in that, but I also don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t reblogged that post or put a pin in my sofa.

And the biggest part in me learning to feel comfortable as a witch is realising that I’m not trusting something “out there” to achieve the goals I’m aiming for. I’m learning to trust myself.

“Wake the fark up, Samurai. You’ve got a food bowl to fill.” ~ Johnny Silverpaw

MAGIC MEMORY AID

Sprinkle ground cinnamon and cloves into some honey—rosemary honey, if at all possible.

Add a few drops of pure vanilla extract.

Inhale the fragrance and let the dish sit beside you for a minimum of an hour while you’re studying.

Just before the exam, slide a sprig of rosemary through the scented honey and rub it against the back of your neck.

Taken from Judika Illes’s Magic when you need it.

❤❤