Lammas Altar

So this is my altar for Lammas:

Like most of my altars, it has my usual suspects towards the back, such as my element jars, Tibetan singing bowl,and God/Dess candles (red for God, amber for Goddess).

The altar cloth I am using is an orange/gold/blue scarf, which I think shows the transition into the harvest season.

I moved the incense burner towards the back and have been using incense for my offerings this month.

Below that, I have my yellow offering bowl with a bit of flour in it to represent the first harvest. I wrapped my prayer beads around it, which you can see as the gold and black beads around the bowl.
The left of the bowl has my ceramic wheel of the year, with Lammas almost at the top.

The right of the yellow bowl is a small heart shaped box, which I found for a dollar at Michael's craft stores. I am using it to hold my two of my pendulums, and will be painting it later so it looks nicer.

Rose quartz on the left, carnelian to the right

On either side of the altar, I have a few stones, which I chose by using my carnelian pendulum. This is my first time using my pendulum to help me decorate my altar, and I really enjoyed it, so I will probably do so in the future. Because I used my pendulum, the stones I put up there are not necessarily just for Lammas, but also to help me out personally.

Another part  of my altar that reflects my personal life instead of the holiday is the Tarot card I placed down in front.

I started working at my new job yesterday (and its going wonderfully) and I put the Ace of Pentacles down to reflect my financial growth, as well as to help motivate me to get working! I put a chunk of raw clear quartz on top to amplify the energy of my altar as a whole.

Changing my altar from Litha to Lammas really gave me a sense of calm, like I was shaking out the cobwebs a bit. I think having my pendulum help choose the crystals helped create this sense of calm, and I also like how I focused a bit more on my personal life, rather than just choosing symbols for the holiday.

I hope this helped give you some ideas for your altar. Thanks for reading!

Update

Hey everyone, I'm so sorry I haven't posted in a while. If I'm being honest with you all, I've been struggling with my depression, and it has killed my motivation to do anything pagan or witchy.

BUT! I have just put up my  Lammas altar, so that will be coming up a little closer to the Sabbat. I also have a lavender 'pleasant dreams' witchy craft coming up, so the second I get all the necessary components (I'm missing witch hazel, which seems kind of ironic to me) then I will do that and get that up here on my blog as well.

In other more mundane news, I had my volunteer orientation for the local animal shelter yesterday, and very excited to begin helping out my community. I've looking forward to this for a month now, so I'm glad its finally happening.

I also start my job on Monday! This is a huge relief to me, because I've been unemployed since I graduated college, and its very difficult to pay for my rent without a source of income.

So in short, I am still alive and (fairly) well, I just haven't had much to report or blog about. Hopefully I will get my altar post up early next week (I'm thinking Tuesday), and then do one about my actual Sabbat celebration the following week.

Thanks so much for reading, and hopefully now that my life is getting more productive, I will be more productive as well!

Thoughts on Respect and Offering Ideas

I have discovered that a lot of my practice is based on the idea of honoring and respecting myself as well as the God/Dess, spirits, and ancestors. The ancestors one is especially important to me, because without them I would not even exist. I spend a lot of time lately thinking about how I am connected to to them as well as to other spirits, and I always feel that they deserve a lot of respect.

It is strange to me to watch a show such as Ghost Adventures (my guilty pleasure) and see how they try to contact spirits around them. A lot of their tactics involve yelling or threatening spirits, and I feel like I go the other way about it.

Whenever I try and communicate with spirits, or even just pray, I end with a thank you, and often a kiss. The kiss is something that came to me while praying when I first started out my journey with Paganism, and is my way of offering love back to the world. It has inadvertently become a big part of my craft. I kiss my ring after asking for protection, kiss my divination tools after using them, and kiss the air to seal my prayers. I have a tattoo in memory of my great-grandmother, and I kiss that as a way to honor and show that I miss her.

Again, it comes back to how I feel these things should be approached with respect. For me, another part of that respect can be given through offerings, so I thought today I would give you a list of some of my offerings:

• Drinks: This one was how I started out with offerings, because its usually something I have readily available. Whenever I would make tea, I would pour a little in my offering bowl. I would also leave small amounts of wine when I had that, and I have read recently that a lot of people leave out water for the spirits.

• Food: Like drinks, this is good because its readily available. I don't really use food a lot as an offering, just because its never really felt like something that I wanted to offer. The only time I really used food was when I wanted to leave an honoring for the aforementioned great-grandmother, in which case I offered a food that I knew she liked. 

• Incense: This is the type of offering I have been doing lately, just because I have collected a lot of incense and wasn't burning it nearly as quickly as I thought I would.

• Body: No, I don't mean offer up your body (unless that feels right to you), what I mean is use physical actions as an offering. For example, lately my favorite offering is dance. I will turn on a song and dance in their honor. I like this a lot too, because it is a way of offering things without needing any actual thing. This means it can be good for people who can't afford physical offerings, or who are still 'in the shadows' and are unable to leave things out.  It doesn't even have to be dance, you could run in their honor, sing, do yoga, etc.

• Art: I have yet to do this, because I am not very good at art, but I have known people who do devotional drawings or poems as a means of offering.

• Pretty Much Whatever You Can Think Of: If you think it would be something good to offer, chances are, it is.You can usually tell if its been accepted or not, and if you are unsure, you can use divination to confirm. I have friends that use pendulums to help determine what offerings they should leave. One friend asked what that spirit would like to be offered, and it told her lemons, so whenever she gets a lemon with her water at a restaurant, she uses it as an offering. Another friend offers Swedish Fish, so it really depends on you, and your relationship with who you're making offerings to.

I hope this helps give you some ideas for possible offerings, and again, its just a few things I have done, or have seen others do.

Thanks for reading, and have a great week!

Tea Witchcraft (That's Not Just Tea)

So, as a witch, my herb collection is severely lacking. I don't have any lavender or bay leaves, really I just have a few kitchen spices and that's it.

I do, however, have an rather large amount of loose leaf teas (mostly herbal).

Really, just a lot of tea.

So I often charge and drink tea as part of my practice. However, I think that tea witchcraft can be used for things other than straight up tea. So here are two things that I did in the past week that involve tea. Hopefully, they will help you form some ideas of your own.

Tea Craft #1: Vanilla Chai Cake

A while ago, my mother told me that I could use teas in baking (or cooking, in theory) by replacing whatever water the recipe called for with tea instead. I tried it out this week because I had company coming over, and decided to make a cake with the intention that people be sweet to each other.

I followed the cake recipe found here: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/simple-white-cake/

The recipe calls for milk instead of water, so I decided to use chai since I read that chai is easier to prepare in milk compared to other teas. In addition, chai is delicious and sweet, so I thought that it would definitely add to my intent.

I used a 1/2 cup of  milk like the recipe called for, and added a large teaspoon of the chai I was using. I brought it to a low boil, and simmered it for ten minutes. You have to stir it every so often to prevent a skin from forming on top of the milk.

After the ten minutes, I poured it back into the measuring cup.

Here you can see the color it ended up after steeping, as well as the name of the chai itself. I found that after simmering, a bit of the milk had evaporated, so I added a touch more milk to bring it back up to half a cup.

After I had mixed the rest of the ingredients that the cake called for, I added the chai to the recipe. You can strain the tea leaves out of it, but I decided to leave them in to make the cake a little stronger with the chai flavor.

I stirred it all together, then baked it. After it baked and cooled off a bit, I frosted it with chocolate icing (again, focusing on the sweetness) and topped it with rainbow sprinkles. As I frosted and sprinkle-ed it, I repeated my intent over it several times.

I was so excited to eat it, I forgot to take a picture of it all done! But here's a picture it with some slices out of it.

It ended up being probably the most delicious cake I'd ever eaten, and I will absolutely be making it for lots of events in the future.

Tea Craft #2: Self- Love Bath Salts

My new apartment has a bath tub in it, so I am planning on taking Full Moon bath rituals. This month I wanted to focus on self-love because, a) I think that is something that people can always use, and b) I've been feeling kind of down since the move.

I love this craft because its so easy, and chances are you already have everything you need to make it: some sea or Epsom salt, a jar to keep the finished product, and some loose leaf tea.

I used two different types of herbal teas, and Epsom salt. I would have preferred sea salt, but I had Epsom salt on hand already, so that's what I used. I used a mason jar to store it, again because its what I had.

The teas I used are called Namaste and Really Raspberry. Namaste has small rose buds and chamomile, which are good for self-love and relaxation. Really Raspberry has (you guessed it) raspberry, which is another good loving kind of fruit (in addition to being my favorite), as well as hibiscus.

I also chose these teas because I know they will make a very pretty pink bath.

First. I added the Epsom salt to the jar, a little less than half way. Then I alternated scoops of the two teas on top.

I added the tea so that the total jar contents were about two thirds of the way full.

Finally, I shook it all up to mix the salt and the tea. As I shook I focused on my intent of giving me self- love.

It looks much prettier in person, and hopefully with make a lovely bath.

Both of these crafts were super easy, and I hope it helps you come up with some crafty ideas of your own, whether or not they involve teas.

Thanks for reading!

Litha/ Midsummer Altar

Litha/Midsummer was Sunday, and here it was a very rainy day, and also my boyfriend's birthday, so I didn't do too much for it. I baked a cake and kind of dual-purposed it as a birthday cake/ sabbat cake, and I lit some Amber incense as an offering (which smells so good!).

My altar was thrown together kind of haphazardly, but I really liked how it turned out!

My altar is very  summer-y, since it is for Midsummer, and so the colors and items reflect that. I used a green and gold scarf I have as an altar cloth, and kept the usual constant items on it, such as my singing bowl, prayer beads, God/Dess candles, and element jars, I added an incense burner to it, and may keep it on there as a constant as well.

I divided it up into sort of a God side on the left, and a Goddess side on the right. So on the left:

I have a stick to represent masculinity, the Sun card from my Original Rider-Waite deck, my carnelian pendulum, and my wheel of the year. On the right:

I set up my crystals in a sun-ish shape. I chose stones that I felt reflected the season, so there are a lot of greens and earth tones, such as fluorite, jade, red jasper, malachite, Botswana agate, smoky quartz, etc.

I put a yellow offering bowl in the center, again to be reflective of the sun.

I hope you had a great Summer Solstice, and a great rest of the week!

The Big Move

Hello from my new apartment! I recently moved, hence the lack of updates. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up more regularly.

Lately, I have felt drawn to graveyards, and have been considering spirit work. I'm not sure yet, but it something I will be researching. This is important to note, because there is a cemetery across the street from my new place, and today I walked through it.

I have been wanting to go into spirit work lately as a way of honoring those who are departed, as well as connecting with my ancestors. So I have decided that at the very least I want to go to the cemetery on New and Full Moons to visit with the spirits there.

When I went today, it was just to introduce myself. I took an offering and left it at the front gate. I left three pennies, a nickel, a dime, and a quarter.I also left my camera at home out of respect, but may take some pictures later when I feel more comfortable, and I silenced my cell phone.

 I went pretty early in the morning, and the groundskeeper was cutting the grass so I didn't stick around too long. However, it felt like a pretty powerful place, and I will go there again in a few weeks,

In addition to that, today is the New Moon, so I will be doing a cleansing/blessing of the new apartment. I will post that on here soon, as well as my Litha/ Midsummer altar.

I hope things are going well with my readers, and if you have any experience with spirit work, please let me know!

Full Moon Celebration

Tuesday night was a Full Moon, and I met up with a friend to celebrate it. First we met at Panera Bread for dinner and to discuss our beliefs. After that we tried going to a few metaphysical shops, but they were all closed. So finally, we ended up at our local Unitarian Universalist church for a Full Moon Labyrinth Walk.

The church has an outdoor labyrinth design in their courtyard, but since it was rainy out, they moved the walk indoors. They had a large mat that looked like this:

The idea of a labyrinth is that there is a set path, so its not like a maze. As you walk you can pray, or reflect, or meditate. For me, its a very calming experience, and it helps me to feel centered.

My friend and I walked it a few times, then brought our Tarot cards in to the hall by the labyrinth and did a few short readings.

I found my old Tarot deck from when I was around 12 or 13, so I am trying to connect with them. Here is a photo of my cards from this deck: The Mythic Tarot.

The top row got cut off a little, but they are The Empress, The High Priestess, and The Hermit. I am very glad that I found this deck, and look forward to using it as well as my Original Rider-Waite.

My friend has a set of Edward Gorey cards, that I wish I had gotten a picture of, because the artwork on those is very interesting and dark.

It was a great night, and I encourage others to search for local events in their area. I think the UU churches are a great place to start.

Talk to you next week!

How I Create Tarot Spreads

Hello, and welcome back! I know its been a while since my last post, but I recently graduated from college, and so I wanted to spend as much time with my friends as possible before I left them.

However, I did not forget about Little Miss Pagan and will begin writing at my weekly schedule again,

Today, I wanted to share with you all how I create my Tarot spreads. I am an avid television fan, so most of the spreads I do are based on my favorite tv shows, so for today I am showing how I create those.

I will use my Murder House spread as an example, based on season one of American Horror Story.

The first thing I do is think of a symbol I associate with the show. I use this to determine how many cards will be in the spread, and to give it a shape. For the Murder House spread, I wanted it to look like a house, so I wanted to have four cards as the house, with a card at the top to be the roof,

Next, I chose the five characters I wanted to use, these are usually the main characters and my favorites, and sometimes I'll add cards if I feel I need to include people. For this spread, I chose to use Vivian, Ben, Violet, Tate, and Moira.

Once the characters are chosen, I decide which card they will be in the spread. For the one, four of the characters pair off in the show, so I decided to keep the four of them as the base, and set the last one as the roof. So Moira was the fifth card at the top, and I put Vivian and Ben as the two bottom-most cards, and Violet and Tate as the second row of cards. I decided to have the women on the left and men on the right, again just to give them some organization.

Once the order of the spread is created, I assign meaning or questions to the cards. For this, I think of major character themes or motivations. A lot of the time I'll look up quotes from or about that character to influence the question for that card.

I try to jot down two or three options for each card, and then choose the one that fits the best. For example, for Moira's card I came up with two options: one was about what messes you are cleaning up since she is a maid, and she also has a great quote about women always cleaning up messes, and the second thought I had was to be how people see you, again because as a character some people see her as a beautiful young woman, while others see her as a elderly woman.

So once I narrow down my favorite questions, I assign them to the cards, and the spread is done! For the Murder House spread, this is what I created for the cards:

1: (bottom left) Vivian: What scares you?
2: (bottom right) Ben: What are you hiding?
3: (second row left) Violet: What makes you brave?
4: (second row right) Tate: What is the darkness inside you?
5: (top) Moira: How do people see you?

I hope this helps other tv fans create Tarot spreads. What spreads have you created? I'd love to see them!

Happy (Belated) Beltane!

Since I have been running out of things to post and graduation is impending, I will be cutting down to posting once a week. I will hopefully return to me twice a week schedule once I get settled into the 'real world.'

Beltane was Friday, and it was probably my favorite Sabbat so far. It was also the first Sabbat I celebrated last year, so in a way, it was my 'Pagan birthday'.

For me, Beltane is the beginnings of Summer and so my altar reflected that.

Beltane is a time of flowers, and so I have a purple floral altar cloth, and I kept my Ostara flowers on there as well. I have my standard altar items towards the back. My elemental jars (feathers, chili powder/ashes, terrarium, and water), my Tibetan singing bowl, a red offering bowl, and my God/Dess candles in the center.

In addition to the basics, I added two candles as the 'fires of Beltane' since it is a fire festival. To the right, I have my prayer beads, some stones I found at my favorite places, and I also added a penny to represent my spirit guide. I put a small fairy pendant there to represent nature spirits, another common theme of Beltane. On the right is my ceramic Wheel of the Year, and a photo of my boyfriend and me.

Around the offering bowl, I put crystals that I felt were appropriate. These are fluorite, tiger's iron, red jasper, citrine, clear quartz, mookaite, rose quartz, malachite, and jade.

For Beltane, some friends and I went for a walk in New Germany State Park, and just explored the trails.

Then, I had friends over for a potluck dinner and Tarot readings.

We had so much food, and all of it was delicious. I am so grateful to everyone who celebrated with me.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you had a good Beltane as well!

How to Handle Burnout

Recently, I have been feeling a bit worn out with my craft, and have noticeably decreased my practice. This makes me sad, because I really enjoy my spirituality, but I also understand that it can take a lot out of you, and that burn out is something that witches and Pagans can face regularly. So, I have created a list of things that I believe would help someone who is experiencing spiritual exhaustion:

• Get back to basics. I think that once people start practicing, it can be easy for them to want to progress quickly, without focusing on the basics of it. I think this happened with me, because lately whenever I do practice, I feel very drained of energy. I think this is because I never really focused on grounding myself, so going back to this could help me keep my energy.
• Meditate. This is another sort of basic, but I think it can help with any kind of burn out. I briefly mentioned an app in another post called "Stop, Breathe & Think" which is free on Google Play,and probably Apple as well. This app is great because it lets you adjust how you are feeling physically, mentally, and emotionally, and then makes suggestions based on how you are feeling.
• Find what made you happy in the beginning. For me, it was forests. I realized that what I felt in a forest was definitely a sense of worship, and that is what drew me into Paganism. So for me, getting back to the elements made me feel that same joy that I felt pre-burnout.
• Relax. I personally don't think that you should force yourself to do anything spiritually that you don't want to do. If you force yourself to do a Tarot reading or a spell when you aren't feeling up it, it becomes a chore rather than something you love. The flip side of this however is that forcing yourself may remind you of how much you love it, and it could kick you out of your slump. I guess this is a choice you have to make yourself, but I would rather not do the latter.
• Work with others. Something that is helping me with my burnout is planning the Beltane Gathering with my friends. Seeing like-minded people makes me feel better about my practice. If there is no one near you who you could work or practice with, reach out to other Pagans or witches on the internet.

That's what I have so far. I hope this helps people who are going through a similar phase as myself. Tomorrow I should be doing a post on my Beltane altar, since its coming up on Friday.

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

Birthday Witchy Haul

Here is a list of all the witchy stuff I got for my birthday! I always like seeing all the pretty stuff other people have in their collections, so I thought I could do one for myself too.

That little gold thing is a tiny incense burner that was a gift from one of my friends who has recently explored Paganism with me. I haven't quite figured out how to use it without accidentally putting out the incense, but I'm sure I'll get it right eventually. I also picked up some Night Queen incense to go with it.

These are two new crystals I got for my collection, but I'm not quite sure what they are. The one on the left is a low-grade Tiger's Eye (or so I was told) and the shop said the one on the right is a jasper, but it doesn't look like a jasper to me. I'll take these to the rock shop in my home town to get a better identification

And my new pendulum collection! The one on the right is carnelian, and I already kind of talked about that one. The one on the left is probably rose quartz, and the one in the middle was supposed to be bloodstone, but it doesn't look like it. It's black, so I'm thinking it might be onyx?

Finally, I got a Marimo moss ball! This isn't witchy or Pagan related, but I think its adorable and wanted to share it. I named it Carlyle, and its my favorite.

That's it for this week! Talk to you on Tuesday!

New Moon Gathering

Saturday night was the New Moon, so my friends and I came together and celebrated! It was my first official spiritual get together, and it was a lot of fun, so I will definitely do it again.

I was little out of it, because I wanted to try fasting on the New Moon, and it drained me a lot more than expected. I may not do it again, I haven't decided yet.

Before people came over, I wanted to make sure my place would be protected, so I created a super brief protection spell. I hung a twig star on my door and focused on it protecting my home, and I also grabbed some stones that I felt were appropriate (sodalite, amethyst, shungite, jasper, and Botswana agate) and I placed them in five candles. As I lit each candle, I again focused on my home being protected.

We spent the evening doing Tarot and pendulum readings, and just generally discussing our spirituality, beliefs, spirits, etc. All in all, I think I had about ten people come out, and I would have had a few more people, but they were busy. I am going to invite them all out to my Beltane gathering as well.

It was really great to celebrate with everyone, and I am so grateful to everyone who came out. It's fun being a solitary practitioner, but there's something about practicing with others that feels better to me. I'll be sad to graduate and leave my group behind.

I will be having another Beltane/ Full Moon gathering next Saturday, so I will make a post about that once that happens.

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

My Favorite Online Resources

Hey, for today's post I thought I would share some of my favorite online resources for Paganism and witchcraft. Sometimes I feel like their can be a bit of a 'shun technology' vibe in Paganism, which is fine, but I personally think it can be great for those who can't afford books, or who want to talk and meet like-minded people.

Here's my list:

http://www.paganforum.com/activity.php  -  Pagan Forum was one of the first places I found as a Pagan, and I loved it because its all info from other real Pagans and witches. I didn't need to worry about finding little Harry Potter spells or anything, and the discussions were also very helpful in helping find my path.

http://www.witchywords.com/  -  This blog is run by a woman named Marietta, and she was one of my main inspirations for creating this blog. Marietta makes witchcraft and Paganism feel very approachable, and she herself is very likeable. I find her Sabbat posts to be very helpful.

Pinterest  -  Pinterest can also be a good resource. I found a lot of good posts and inspirational quotes on their about Paganism, but you also have to be careful because a lot of it can be Halloween stuff. Just follow what feels right to you, and check your sources.

Tumblr  -  Tumblr to me, is my greatest resource right now. It has a wide network of Pagans and witches, as a result there is a lot of information. A lot of the users are also very friendly, so I think its good for people who are just starting out because they can ask questions to others who have been practicing for a while.

YouTube -  YouTube is a lot like Pinterest in that they have good resources, but they also have terrible ones. I go to YouTube for the more 'New Age' -ey stuff, like crystals, meditation, divination, etc.

There are a lot of other resources, I just can't think of any off the top of my head.  There are also some good apps, I just downloaded a meditation one called "Stop, Breathe & Think" which allows you to adjust your mood, emotions, and physical state. I haven't used it yet, but its got good reviews.

Let me know if there are any resources that you think I should check out! Thanks for reading!

First Pendulum and Dedication

So myself and my friends have recently begun communicating with spirits via pendulum work. I used a Ouija board a lot as a kid, and talked to one spirit in particular: Reg. I had a feeling that he was still around, and sure enough, he is. I wanted to get a pendulum that I would use exclusively for speaking with him, and this is it:

It is made of Carnelian, and I got it from the same place I get all of my crystals from. I had it for about six hours, and then it fell on my floor and the tip snapped off. Reg said he liked it better broken though, and the brokenness has kind of grown on me.

After I got it, I did a little cleansing/ dedication ritual for it, and I thought I would share here since I couldn't seem to find any on Google.

Materials:
Pendulum
Incense
Incense Burner
Sunlight/Moonlight
Bell (optional)

I started by going out into the woods with my pendulum. I sat and lit the incense and offered it to the God and Goddess, as well as to Reg.

Then I rang the bell (my Tibetan singing bowl) and said:

I call all spirits who wish to help
I banish those who wish me and mine any harm

I said that three times, and then set the bowl down by the incense.

I passed the pendulum through the incense smoke, and focused on cleansing it of any negativity.

I held the pendulum in my hands and said:

I dedicate this pendulum to myself and my spirit guide, Reg.
It will help me communicate and understand Reg better.
It shall be used as a tool for the good, and shall not be used by anything that wishes harm on me.

If you do not have a spirit guide to dedicate it to, you can use your deity, or just dedicate it to yourself.

After that, I kissed it, and set it in the sun to charge (make sure your pendulum will not fade in sunlight. If it does, you can use moonlight instead, or a charging method of your choosing). I hung mine in a tree to catch the sun:

It was a lot sunnier when I actually did the ritual

When I felt like it had charged enough, I took it down, and said thanks. I love my pendulum so far, and have been carrying it around with me so I can ask little questions when I need to.

I plan on getting another pendulum for my birthday (this Friday!) and I will more than likely do a witchy haul post. I am also hosting a New Moon Gathering for some friends and myself, so that's another post to look forward to.

I hope this post helps anyone looking to dedicate their tools!

To Those Who Feel Like They Have To Hide

I have been fairly open about my spirituality from the beginning. I never felt the need to hide from my friends and most of my family. I have been extremely lucky in that everyone I have told has been very open to my beliefs, and a few have even begun to practice with me (the reason why this post is late is because myself and some friends were up very late last night doing pendulum readings).

Because everyone has been so great when I tell them about my faith, I kind of forgot that not everyone is that understanding.

So this week, when a friend of mine told her parents about how she is exploring paganism, I was very upset to find out that her parents had acted very negatively to her.

They scolded her for looking into silly 'new age' things, and for turning away from her upbringing. Naturally, she was very upset by this.

I realize that many people have stories like this, and I think it is terrible. You should never feel bad for believing what you believe. Whether that's Christianity, paganism, or whatever other belief system. As long as it makes you happy, and nobody is being hurt, I don't see why you should feel bad for practicing.

So I guess this post is mostly me trying to give people who are scared about paganism or witchcraft a pep talk. It's OK to practice these things. If this is a path that you enjoy, and want to take, you should. Don't let anyone make you feel bad or stupid for making a choice that they would not have chosen, and even worse, a choice that they likely do not even understand.

This is a safe blog, and if you feel like you need to talk to someone in a judgment free zone, I am here.

Thanks for reading.

DIY Negativity Banishing Doll

I've been talking about this doll for a few weeks, and I was finally able to finish it. I wanted to wait until the waning moon, to get some of the banishing energy from it.

I forgot to take pictures of the early part of the process, so I will explain to the best of my abilities.

Materials:
Fabric (I used black felt, or something like that. It's really soft.)
Two buttons
Ribbon
Thread
Needle
Doll Stuffing
Three tealight candles

Sachet:
Fabric
Thread
Black candle/wax
Black Pepper
Salt
Cloves
Basil

Instructions:

First, I traced a doll pattern on the fabric, and cut two pieces of it. I positioned the two buttons on the doll for eyes, and stitched them onto the right side of one of the pieces.

Then I put it right sides together, and stitched it most of the way around, leaving an opening for the stuffing. This meant that I stitched around the body, and left the head open. Once that was sewn, I flipped it inside out, so that now the right sides were facing out.

After that, I made the sachet to put inside of it. I took a small bit of scrap fabric I had, and placed a bit of the salt, pepper, cloves, and basil in the fabric. I chose these herbs because I have read about their properties in repelling/ preventing negativity. Then I pulled the fabric up and wrapped thread around it to keep it shut. I burned a black crayon for the wax over the thread to secure the thread didn't come undone.

Once that was done, I waiting for the waning moon to come into cycle, then I went to my circle. I took my three tealight candles and called upon the God, Goddess, and my own Spirit to help me with my work.

I took the doll, and filled it with stuffing and the sachet:

The dark blue thing in the middle is the sachet

Now stuffed, I stitched the rest of the doll shut:

Then I cut a length of ribbon, and wrapped it around his neck. I tied it in a bow, and then cut to where I wanted it. I put a small stitch on the back, to make sure the ribbon stayed secure.

I made sure the ribbons were even in the front. Then I untied the ribbon, and on the inside of the back of the ribbon, I wrote "Banish Negativity" to sort of cement my intent.

I wrote his name on the other side of the ribbon. Then I re-tied the bow, kissed it, and thanked it for fighting off negativity from me.

I had a lot of fun doing this, and may make some for my friends. I hope you liked this too. 

Here he is, watching over my room.

What a cutie!

It's Always Something

I have mentioned my friend L in several posts, as being my main witchy friend. Today she asked if I wanted to hang out, and so we went to check in on our circle. Whenever we do that, we always end up doing this grand project without meaning to, and today was no exception.

A few weeks ago, L left some candles in our circle and when we came back, they were gone. We assumed someone had practiced in our circle, since a pentacle had been left there, and then taken them. I left a note saying I didn't mind if they practiced there, but I wanted the candles back, Today, we got a note back! This was really cool to me, because it showed that there are more witches on campus; people I could possibly invite to the Beltane ritual I am planning with L. Anyways, it said they did not take the candle, and it thanked us for letting them use our circle.

L found one of the candles around the circle, so we kept looking around for the other, Well, we never found the other candle, but we did find a complete animal skeleton that had been cleaned over winter. L collected the bones, and she is now gently cleaning them. Since the bones were already very clean (there was no flesh on them at all) she is cleaning them with warm soapy water and baby toothbrushes.

So like I said, we can never just check up on the circle without some project popping up.

Today was also cool because we were talking to one of our friends about what we do, and she joined us at the circle. So that's another person who may join our kinda-sorta-not really coven.

I did a courage spell this week, but because it is very personal to me, I have decided not to share that here. However, my negativity repelling doll is nearly complete, and I will post that here once it is finished.

Another thing, I do not feel that I am able to keep up posting here with the Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule I am currently at, so I will now be updating it on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

So I will post again on Tuesday! Thanks for reading!

Just Another Monday

Just thought I'd give a quick update. I don't have too much to write about, it's been a pretty relaxed weekend for me.

I may come up with a spell for courage, in which case I'll share that here on Wednesday.

I am also working on creating a doll to repel negativity, so once that is done, I'll share that too.

In mundane stuff, I get to see my boyfriend this weekend, so I am very excited for that. I am still in college, and he got a job and moved 12 hours away, so I don't get to see him that frequently.

That's about it for me today. I'll try to have a more interesting post up on Wednesday!

Altar Terrarium

So a while ago, there was a post floating around on Pinterest with an idea for creating an altar out of four glasses, with each one representing the elements. You can find that pin here:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/325736985520228599/

As you have seen from past altar posts, I have adopted a similar idea by using four jars  and having each one contain something that reminds me of that element. I use ash/chili powder for fire, feathers for air, water for water, and a small terrarium my little sister made me for earth.

Well after almost a year, I have officially pronounced the terrarium dead. Here's what the old one looked like:

 Pretty Dead

So I figured it was time to remake my altar terrarium. When my sister made the old one, she put this little nut she found in it, and I decided to keep it to help tie the old one to the new one. I also kept it because it looks really cool, kind of like a heart or a skull.

After pulling that out of the old terrarium, I went down to the arboretum at school (which is lately where I've been spending all of my time). I thanked the earth for what it had given me, and then I emptied out the jar. This is how the jar looks when its empty:

After emptying the jar, I put down a layer of gravel so that there is a drainage space in the jar:

 I tried to mix up the size of the rocks used so the rocks on top are a bit larger than the ones on the bottom of the layer. After that had been done, I went to a spot I was sitting at the other day, because I knew there was moss there that I could use.

I thanked the earth again, and took a small bit of moss, and carefully arranged it in the jar. Its easier to do it in small bits, instead of trying to fit a whole piece down in the jar.

 Then I came home and carefully wiped the dirt from the inside of the jar so I could see inside of it easier. After that, I positioned the nut from the previous terrarium, as well as a piece of clear quartz.

That's it! I hope it will be happy on my altar. In addition to this terrarium, my friend made me a cactus terrarium as a gift the other day, and I love it! Here's a picture of the one she made, but it doesn't do justice to how it looks in real life:

 She recently opened up a shop on Etsy to sell her handmade witch-y items, such as wire-wrapped crystal pendants. If you'd like to check out her shop, it can be found here:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/CostumeWitcheries?ref=shop_sugg

Have a great day!

Witch Kit for a Friend

As I have mentioned before, a few of my friends have expressed their interest in how I practice witchcraft. One of my friends has decided that they want to practice themselves. I am extremely excited to have another person to work with, because while acting as a solitary can be good, I really enjoy practicing with others. I'm not sure how to explain it, but working with others makes my craft feel more complete in a way. So it's kind of annoying that I'm graduating soon, and will be leaving this group.

Anyways, since they are pretty new to it, I wanted to give them a little 'witch kit' to help them get started.

I picked them up two crystals: a clear quartz and an Apache's tear. I chose clear quartz because its a good all-purpose stone, and you can use it for pretty much whatever he would be starting out with. I got the Apache's tear because it will help him stay grounded and also repel negativity, which I think is important.

A few days later, I went to Goodwill and found a set of three bells, which I think are made of brass. I picked the one that sounded the clearest, and got that for him. His living situation means he can't burn any kind of incense, and I use sound to cleanse things myself. I am hoping the bell will be a good alternative to smoke cleansing for him.

I am giving him five white tealight candles because 1) I have a lot of them, and 2) they are like clear quartz in that they can be used for just about whatever he would need candles for.

He has mentioned a type of witchcraft that involves fabric (possibly stitching) so I am giving him some scrap fabric I have so he can explore that option.

Finally, I wrote him a note explaining all of the items, and put them in a jar, which would also be use-able for his craft. I am giving it to him tonight, and I hope this helps him on his path.

This is what the final product looks like:

I am pretty pleased with it, and I hope this helps others plan a little kit for themselves or others!

My "Box of Shadows"

Over my Spring Break, I visited my grandparents. I love visiting their house because I spent much of my childhood playing in the woods they have, and making crafts with my grandmother. Now though, visiting is bittersweet.

My great-grandmother passed away a little over a year ago, and the house serves as a reminder of her passing, and all of the great things she did when she was alive. While I was there, my grandmother gave me the jewelry box that my great-grandfather gave to my great-grandmother.

The box is gorgeous, and I feel very blessed to have received such a special gift.

Here's a better picture of the top

I was originally going to use it as a jewelry box, but I don't have a lot of jewelry, just a few pieces with special significance to me. I do however, have a lot of little bits and pieces I use in my witchcraft. 

I was storing all of it in a small cardboard box, and it was difficult to get things out of it, and it was nearly impossible to organize. It made my dresser top look messy and disheveled, between the cardboard box and all of the little things that wouldn't quite fit in the box.

So I realized it would probably be better if I stored this stuff in the jewelry box. I am calling it my 'box of shadows' because I have a book of shadows, and now I have a box to go with it.

It has three 'sections.' On the top level, there is a long skinny section, in which I am keeping a stone necklace, and some little things my grandmother has made.

Then there are the three little compartments. The one on the left is where I am storing my crystals, center has my incense burner and some pennies, because I have been using them in my craft lately. The right has a small hand mirror, which again was a gift from my great- grandfather. I don't know what I will do with it yet, but mirrors seem to come up a lot, and it was too special for me to get rid of.

The bottom section is where I put everything else. It has some candles, altar cloths, offering bowls, ceramic snowflake, and incense.

I really love it, and I plan on doing a ritual later to thank my great-grandmother and honor her.

How do you store your witchy stuff? Do you have a specific place for all of your things, or are they scattered around the house?