By Владимир Ушаков

Thomas Inman, Diana of Ephesians, Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism, 1874

Yoga in Prison

I require more of this

Queen Maria of Romania

Rumi (via abiding-in-peace)

boiled off the wax from some bayberries! candles of bayberry wax are supposed to be useful for good luck and money spells.

I learned about this process of wax gleaning from a candle-making revolutionary war re-enactor, who told me that these candles were less common than lard-based ones, but higher quality. Secondary in quality only to whale blubber lanterns.

This is so cool!! @witchposting how did you do this??

Omg I’d be so fascinated to learn how this is done

It’s pretty easy! I’m lucky enough to live near a beach where these plants proliferate. So even though the ratio of wax yield to berries is pretty low, (like 1/16 of the weight of berries you collect will be wax,) I was able to harvest a good amount without disrupting the plant’s role as a winter food source for birds. To get the wax, you just bring the berries to a boil in water. The waxy coating will melt off of the berries and float to the surface of the water, and when the water cools, the wax hardens and remains on top. There will be some berries and twigs and dirt embedded in the wax at that point, so you have to re-melt the wax and pour it through some sort of fine metal mesh to get all of those out. It’s also important that you use pots and containers that you don’t mind having wax stuck to–maybe forever. And keep in mind that you don’t want wax going down your household drains. During the purifying process, what I did was just cut some aluminum beer cans in half and poured the hot wax through a sieve into those. That way, if the wax was stubborn after cooling, it could just be easily cut out of the can with scissors. ALSO you will notice, if you try this, that the water you boiled the berries in turns a deep rosy red and has a beautiful aroma. You can drink it! Or reduce it and use it to make a syrup or something. I’ve read that it has been used in folk medicine as a tonic and to treat diarrhea. Also the root bark apparently has medicinal uses. Plants!!!! @wingedandwitchy

Aesthetic & Mechanics

In this post, I’m defining aesthetic as the what of my practice and mechanics as the why and how. 

In other words: Aesthetic is what it looks like and Mechanics are why and how it works.

For a very long time, I was a witch and a pagan with a strong set of mechanics, but I was weak on aesthetic. I chose not to have a consistent aesthetic because it felt stifling to me. 

(It can go the other way too, for the record. I could just as easily have had a very strong aesthetic without much sense of mechanics. For example, if I’d been a green witch who knew what herbs to use for which purposes, knew how to combine them into certain formulas, but didn’t know why those herbs are effective or how they work once they’re deployed.)

The thing is, aesthetic and mechanics can and do inform one other.

I do have a very strong aesthetic now, and it evolved directly from the way I thought about myself as a witch and the way I thought about magic and the way it worked. 

For me, these things were representations of the way the universe was created and how I fit into it, so naturally, a space aesthetic started to develop. Water and the ocean followed suit, bringing their influence to my aesthetic based on the way they fit into the mechanics of my practice. Finish that with a layer of the underworld (or otherworld, if you prefer) and now everything is tied together.

They coalesced into an aesthetic I generally refer to as “Queen of the Void” which is, simply put, star maiden meets evil queen.

You can see the Queen of the Void aesthetic at play on my tumblr @glowingnowhere​

It works the other way around as well. Aesthetic began to create practices and mechanics once they were put into play in my life.

My Queen of the Void aesthetic is actually slightly more complicated than star maiden and evil queen. I turned several aspects of my beliefs and practices into “characters” that allowed me to easily codify their aesthetic.

So when I say “Evil Queen” what I really mean is, this is magic, this is cursing, this fear, this is rage, these are wounds. 

When I say “Star Maiden” what I’m getting at is, this is hope, this is a piece of the whole, this is a seeker, this is a calling, these are wishes granted.

Of course I’m also saying the same thing each time.

“This is power. This is power. This is power.”

I knew that all these pieces I had made fit together, and I understood they were all just different facets of the same whole practice, the same whole worldview, simply broken down into the media that best expressed their individual function.

I didn’t realize how connected they were to each other and to me until I realized that I was playing out the same cycle in my own life that I had put into theirs. 

Each part of my aesthetic filled a slot on a wheel and then I realized, oh. I’m on that wheel. I’m in that cycle. 

I suppose my aesthetic actually created a kind of personal mythology for me, and that allowed me to see where I was in my life and what role I was playing, and where I needed to go.

Not only did this give me a deeper understanding of my own aesthetic, but relating to it in that way gave me the tools and the steps that I needed in order to begin healing myself.

In other words, my aesthetic directly led to the creation of new mechanics in my practice and my life.

This is power.

Tarot Cards - Afropunk Edition by Khalid Rosemin

Un-funk Yourself Charm

You’re in a rut. For some reason nothing has been going your way and you know your life needs a swift kick in the butt to get it back in gear. Try this powerful and energizing charm!

Materials:

Steps:

-Alerisa