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!

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!