Mini Spirit House

I am home with my family for Spring Break! This means spending lots of time with my littlest siblings. My little sister wanted to have a day with me, and so I told her we could get something from Michael's and paint it. She found these mini-bird houses she wanted to paint, and I got one with her.

While I was in the store, I remembered that I had seen a few things about 'spirit houses' recently, and wanted to paint mine to be a spirit house, rather than just a decoration. I did a little research into spirit houses to make sure that it wouldn't be culturally appropriative, and it does not appear to be so.

Wikipedia describes spirit houses as: "...a shrine to the protective spirit of a place that is found in the Southeast Asian countries of Burma, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand"
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_house)

Since I just set up a sacred space in a forest, I thought this would be a good way to honor the land, as well as appease any spirits that live there.

Before Paint

It is quite a bit smaller than normal spirit houses, but I didn't have the money for a more extravagant one, and I think the spirits will appreciate the gesture.

After Paint

I made this house to honor nature spirits, so I wanted to keep a nature theme with it. I made the roof look like a sky, and painted the house green, with mushrooms circling the bottom to represent earth/ the forest.

Here you can see the mushrooms a bit more clearly

I really like how it turned out, and hopefully the spirits will too. I am going to add a clear coat to it, so I can hang it outside without worrying about the rain affecting it. I may also add a few bells to it, to make it feel more welcoming,

I will also come up with a dedication or prayer or something to say over it before I hang it up.

Thanks for reading! I hope this Monday finds you well.

Ostara Altar

Ostara is next Friday, but since I am going home for Spring Break during that time, I wanted to show you my Ostara set up today.

Ostara for me is the celebration of the Spring Equinox, Winter has ended and the earth is warming up again. So my altar is very Spring-y to reflect that.

Along the back I have my element jars: feathers for air, chili powder/ash for fire, a terrarium for earth, and water for water. I have them separated based on my duotheism, with air/fire for God and earth/water for the Goddess. Between the two of them is my Tibetan singing bowl.

In front of that I have my God/Goddess candles to represent them and spirit.

I have a yellow offering bowl between the candles, and center on the altar.

On the left, I have a little yellow bird to represent the birds returning and starting new life, and my ceramic Wheel of the Year.

Next to that and in the center, I have a bunch of faux daisies and butterflies again to show the life beginning to grow. In front of the daisies, I put out some crystals. I chose to put out clear quartz, fluorite, rose quartz, jade, malachite, Botswana agate, and citrine.

And finally, I have my prayer beads set out on the right of the altar.

This is probably one of my favorite altar set ups that I've done so far. I have some fun ideas planned to celebrate, and I will share that with you after Ostara! For college kids going on Spring break, I hope you have fun and be safe!

Creating a Sacred Space

I woke up this morning having absolutely nothing to write about. I finally settled on venturing back into the arboretum to play my ukulele and leave some offerings, and write about that.

So I grabbed my uke, some bird seed, and a blanket and walked down to the arboretum. I found the circle I was considering using, but with all of the melted snow, it was a muddy mess.

I walked up the hill to a reflective area set up in the arboretum, and as I began to setup my stuff, I received a text from my witch friend (I'll call her L, because I feel like there are a lot of people I talk about, and it can be hard to distinguish,) asking if I wanted to go for a walk in the arboretum. This was extremely coincidental, seeing as I was already there and I told her that of course she could join me.

A few minutes later L arrived, and we talked for a bit, until we discussed the circle she showed me earlier that week.

Remember this one?

Anyways, L's friend had made a circle near this one to combat any negative energy. I asked if I could possibly use this space for Esbat/Sabbat rituals, but I told her I felt weird using it, since it wasn't a space I had created. 

L mentioned her desire to create her own sacred circle in the arboretum, and I told her that we should make one while we were already there!

We wandered a little off the path and found a natural circle of trees which we decided to use. We moved some dead logs to better define the outline of the circle, and pushed all of the dead leaves out of the circle and onto the perimeter. I set a stone in the center to place candles on.

Here is a picture of it- but it doesn't do it justice

Some plants we found growing beneath the dead leaves

Once we set up the physical space, we left to grab some of our rituals tools, such as incense and candles.

We returned with three of our friends as the sun was setting and we performed the ritual right as it grew dark.

L created the ritual, and so I don't feel comfortable posting it here as it is not strictly mine to share. But I can say that it was beautiful, and everyone agreed that it felt very safe in the circle.

I will return tomorrow to work on my craft, and to better define the outline as well as help my friend with his first bit of spell work.

I am very pleased with my sacred space, and I am excited to begin using it!

Exploring my University

The university that I go to has an arboretum on campus, that I have loved ever since I began college. I went on a walk through there with several of my friends, and discussed the possibility of practicing rituals back there and everyone seemed to be on board with it! I'd love to celebrate Ostara there and do a ritual/ get together, but we are on Spring Break at that time. I might do it when we get back.

Anyways, I took some pictures of it today, and thought I'd share this beautiful place with you!

There is a creek that runs through it, which is probably my favorite part. There's just something about a small stream running through a forest that I just love. I often use this creek to help cleanse crystals.

The entrance to the arboretum has a kind of field, in which they have placed these benches. This is one of the places that I have considered doing a ritual at. I forgot to get a picture of the other place, but it has a circle of trees around it, and I know that other witches have blessed it before.

It's very bare right now, but I look forward to seeing all of the leaves and things come back in the Spring!

The above pictures are of this very strange circle that a friend showed me. She believes it was created by other witches, because the stones in the center are arranged in a spiral with a larger stone in the middle. I don't know who created it, but its a very neat spot. The hut is made out of the sticks that create the circle, and there is a log that juts out of the center of it.

There's a lot more to it, those are just the parts that I walked through today. I also stopped by the library, and picked up Magic, Witchcraft, and Paganism in America by J. Gordon Melton, Witchcraze: A New History of the European Witch Hunts by Anne Llewellyn Barstow, and Neil Gaiman's The Sandman Preludes and Nocturnes since I read the Sandman series when I was younger and loved it.

I think that university resources can be great, and if you are in college, I encourage you to see what you can find on campus!

Wheel of the Year

Way back in November, I went to a Paint- Your- Own Pottery Studio for Small Business Saturday (the small business version of Black Friday) and they were giving each customer a free ornament. Since I went with my boyfriend, we got two of them, and he gave me his.

I took mine home to design later, instead of painting in the studio. I knew I wanted to decorate it for my altar, but I wasn't sure with what until a few days again. I decided to put the Wheel of the Year (or the Sabbats) on it, so I can turn it as the wheel turns, sort of like my own way of cycling through the seasons.

First, I traced out what I wanted with pencil. I used a spaghetti jar lid to get the circle on it, because I am atrocious at drawing, especially when I have to make a perfect shape, like a circle.

I used a ruler to create eight sections, one for each Sabbat. Then I decorated each segment with things that remind me of that holiday, such as a May Pole for Beltane, and skulls for Samhain. Once it was traced, I outlined it with Sharpie:

And then colored it with colored pencils:

I'm very happy with how it turned out, and it looks better than I expected it to. Right now its sitting on my altar, with Imbolc/Ostara facing up.

I also created a very early Ostara altar, but I'll do a post on that once we get closer to the Spring Equinox.

So that's my "Wheel of the Year"! I still have another one of the ceramic ornaments, and I was thinking about doing a God and Goddess theme on it, maybe with a Moon and Sun or Moon with Antlers or something.

Do you have any suggestions for what I should put on the second one?

Witchery to Help Study

I am terrible about studying. I really don't study, but somehow I always get really good grades.On top of my lack of studying, I have really terrible senioritis. I don't usually worry about it, until I have an exam, and then there's this mad dash to try and absorb as much information as possible for the test. Yesterday was no exception: I had my first human resources exam.

I needed to study, and to help me stay focused I decided to come up with something quick I could perform before studying. This is what I did:

Materials:
Tea (Or beverage of choice, I used Holy Temple Chai)
Green fluorite
Red jasper

You can substitute whatever stones you feel would work best for you, I chose green fluorite because its good for helping students, and red jasper because it helps me feel focused.

First, I made my tea:

Then I sat in front of my altar, and placed my tea on it. I lit my God/dess candles. I rang my Tibetan singing bowl, and focused on clearing my mind and concentrating on what I needed to do.

After ringing my singing bowl for a bit, I returned it to the altar. I placed some tea in the offering bowl (which you can see between the candles) and I asked for help in focusing on my studies. Then I moved the tea to the center of the altar and held the red jasper and fluorite above it while charging the tea with my intent to focus on studying.

Once I felt like it was sufficiently charged, I took a sip of the tea and said thanks. Then I moved the tea and crystals over to my deck, set a timer for 30 minutes, and studied. Whenever I began to feel flustered about not finding my information, or distracted, I would drink my tea to re-focus.

And that's it! It worked pretty well, usually I can't focus on anything business related for more than five minutes, so going for half an hour was an accomplishment for me.

What do you do to help stay focused?

Daily Things

Today, I will be sharing some of the things I do daily as a part of my practice, to maybe give you some ideas.

Each morning, I get dressed and put on all of my jewelry. A few months ago I took my pentacle ring and cleansed it in a stream and asked the God and Goddess to bless it and protect me from negativity. So before I put it on, I hold it to my lips and whisper, "please protect me on this day," then I kiss it it and put it on.

If I feel like I need them, I will tuck some crystals in my pockets to help with whatever I think I will face during the day. Lately its been rose quartz or malachite.

When I leave my apartment each morning to walk to class, I will usually say good morning to the world, and say thank you.

When I get back from classes, I usually make some tea. Then I pour some of the tea in my offering bowl on my altar.

Before I go to sleep, I say a prayer that typically goes like this, "God and Goddess, I ask that you grant me safe passage through the night, and sweet dreams. In your names, I pray." This is whispered over my piece of amethyst, which I kiss and put in my dream/sleep thing that I made a tutorial of a few weeks ago.

Those are just my daily things, and many days I will incorporate random things such as Tarot or witchcraft.

I hope this gives you a better insight into my life. What are some daily things that you do?