Bring Nature Inside: Part 1

Last Spring I delved into gardening more than I ever had before. I planted all kinds of flowers, trees, herbs, shrubs, and more! It was fantastical to dig in the dirt and care for these plants, watching them bloom and grow and stretch toward the sun.

Then winter came and one by one many of my plants began to whiter or stop giving off blooms. This is obviously upsetting but also a reminder to contemplate the nature of life and death and everything in-between. 

However, there is a simple way to help bring that joy of plants and growing into the home through houseplants! Below I have provided some house plants that I personally care for as well as both mundane and magical properties of the plant.  

💐 Devil’s Ivy (Pothos)💐

Devil’s Ivy is one of the easiest plants to care for in the home.

Mundane Properties (Devil’s Ivy):

Magical Properties (Devil’s Ivy):

💐 Spider Plant💐

Mundane Properties (Spider Plant):

Magical Properties (Spider Plant):

💐 String of Pearls💐

Mundane Properties (String of Pearls):

Magical Properties (String of Pearls):

(Disclaimer: This is by no means a comprehensive guide to each of these plants. Doing research on any plant before attempting to grow it yourself is highly advised. The magical properties of these plants are my own interpretations and you may find different or alternative uses for them.)

More women

Thank god they decided to make more

Wow

Dolly Parton has really been hard at work

But In doing so…she created her biggest enemy…Jolene

Ultimate Protection Magic Masterpost; Part 1

PERSONAL PROTECTION

Jar Spells & Pouches

Amulets

Bath/Shower Magic

Kitchen Witchcraft

Potions

Spells

Wards/Rituals

Sigils

HOME PROTECTION

Spell Jars

Sprays & Washes

Rituals

Wards

Spells

Sigils

GRIMOIRE PROTECTION

Spells

Sigils

[part 2]

The Circleville Herald, Ohio, April 2, 1928

ok luvlies here is my Anti-Depression Self Love Candle recipe for all my fellow mentally ill witches on my blog💗

Things you need (all precharged and cleansed where needed)

(i know this seems like a lot of ingredients but u can tailor this to what you have and need)

Steps

to finish i just lit mine and left it near my windowsill to charge under the sunlight with two rose quartz and a tree agate.

i hope you guys are feeling better soon and if you like these posts lmk and i’ll make more!

💗🌙🌷🍃💐

The fact that humans can be killed through physical means is so ridiculous to me

Like this sounds wild but like. hear me out. a person is such a ridiculously infinitely complicated web of thoughts and feelings and beliefs and such an unbelievably huge amount of knowledge and the idea that you can destroy that by holding a pillow over someone’s face for three minutes is absolutely surreal. The idea that you can remove knowledge and emotion and memory from the world with a physical object is literally unbelievable. people are literally infinitely huge and complex and the fact that you can kill the person by killing the body is wild. I’m sure this is incoherent but I hope you get it

It’s like. Imagine you threw a fist-sized rock at the empire state building and the entire thing and everything inside it collapsed into dust. That’s what the existence of human death feels like

The next update will fix it so that humans can only be perma-killed through the use of one particular magic dagger.

this intuition is exactly how we ended up with the idea of souls, spirits, ghosts, the afterlife,

Kisses from Luna!

@spanish speakers te amo feels weird to say??????

TE AMO! IS TOO! INTIMATE!! maybe if you say it quickly and in a jokey way its ok but in a serious talk??? it feels too much!!!!!!!

“i love you” is NOTHING compared to te amo. i love you feels like a kiss on the check and te amo feels like fucking marriage. 

#I have like a whole thing on saying te amo to anyone

YEA. i had a relationship with someone and she dropped the “te amo” super quicky and i was like…………”thats ok, thank you, but im gonna be honest w you….i’m not saying te amo until i really feel it” thats how serious it is. 

te amo IS very serious, very deep, very intimate. when you want to tell someone that you love them without it being massive, the term you want is te quiero

cant believe no one had contributed this

Same for German imho?!??? Ich liebe dich is THE confession. You don’t drop it in a joking way.

It might just be me, but I wouldn’t randomly pepper Я люблю тебя into conversation either. It feels… too much.

Maybe it is the English one that is weird

I tell my close friends “I love you” all the time. I think It’s different if I were to say “I’m in love with you”.

In these non-English languages, do parents not tell their children “I love you?” Or is it only romantic?

Oh, I’m monolingual but I know a bit about this one! :D

So, in a lot of languages, there are multiple verbs that mean, “to love,” which are each situational, while, in English, we derive the meaning through context

Like, “Te quiero,” refers to love for friends and family, aka platonic love, while , “Te amo,” or, “Ai shiteru,” in Japanese, is so achingly tender and romantic that you might as well write the other person a receipt for your heart, because it’s theirs now

At some point, English did have multiple verbs for, “to love,” but eventually English speakers decided, “to hell with it, I only want 1 broad term for these big mushy feelings,” because we hate having multiple words for things almost as much as we hate punctuation

TL;DR: cultures that are non-English speaking do tell their kids they love them, they just have multiple words that mean, “To love,” and English is the odd man out because it got tired of that and went

It's not THAT big in Germany tbh. Yes, you probably wouldn't say it one day in. Some might not even say it after months. But that's pure preference.

There is however a difference between platonic and non-platonic "I love you"s. A mother never tells their children "I love you," it's "Ich hab dich lieb," which can't really be translated tbh. It's a much, much stronger version of "I like you". You'd say it to your family and close friends.

But you do say "I love you" a lot in relationships and sometimes early. It doesn't hold that much meaning. You can't compare it to the Japanese "I love you" at all

Beltane Recipes with Correspondences and Vegan Alternatives

Honey Oat Bread

Ingredients:

- 1 cup milk (almond or soy for vegan or dairy free)

- 2 tbsps unstated butter or margarine

- ¼ cup honey (agave for vegan)

- ¼ cup water, lukewarm

- 2 ¼ tsps instant yeast

- 3 cups all-purpose flour

- ¾ cup oats (instant or old fashioned)

- 1 ½ tsp salt

For topping:

- 1 ½ - 2 tbsps honey, warmed (agave for vegan)

- 1 ½ -2 tbsps oats

Directions:

- In a small bowl heat the milk so that it is warm enough to melt the butter, but not boiling. Add the butter, stirring until melted, then stir in the water and honey.

- Stir the yeast into the mixture and let sit for 15 minutes until bubbly.

- In a large bowl, or the bowl of a standing mixer, combine the flour, oats, and salt.

- Pour the milk mixture into the flour mixture, mixing with a dough hook or spoon until it just comes together to form a dough. Knead in the mixer or by hand for 10 minutes, until the dough is smooth and elastic.

- Cover the bowl with a clean dry towel and allow to rise until doubled, about ½ to 1 hour.

- Once doubled, with your fingers, flatten the dough into a 9 by 12-inch rectangle. Tightly roll the dough, tucking the ends as needed, into a loaf. Place the shaped dough into a lightly greased 9×5-inch loaf pan, cover with a clean dry towl, and allow to rise until doubled, about ½ to 1 hour.

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees (180 C). Place an empty loaf pan on the bottom rack of the oven and bring 2 cups of water to a boil.

- When the loaf is doubled again, brush the top with the warmed honey and sprinkle with the oats.

- Place the bread in the oven and pour the boiling water into the empty loaf pan on the bottom rack of the oven. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, until the bread is deep golden brown and the internal temperature is about 190 degrees.

- Transfer to a wire cooling rack and allow to cool completely before serving.

Magickal Correspondences:

- Bread ~ (in general) kinship, sustenance

- Oat ~ grounding, prosperity

- Butter ~ smoothing relationships, spirituality, tenacity

- Milk ~ Goddess energy, love, nurturing, spirituality

- Water ~ purification

- Flour ~ revealing hidden matters, consistency

- Honey ~ happiness, healing, love, lust, purification, spirituality, sweet things in life, weight loss, wisdom

- Salt ~ cleansing & purification, grounding, protection

- Yeast~  grounding, purification

Lemon Chamomile Whipped Shortbread Cookies

Ingredients:

- 2 cups salted butter or margarine, very soft

- 1 cup powdered sugar

- 1 tsp vanilla extract

- ½ cup cornstarch

- 3 cups all-purpose flour

- 3 tsps lemon zest

- 3 tsps loose chamomile tea

Directions:

- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Lighty grease three baking sheets.

- Using a hand-held electric beater, cream the butter, sugar, and vanilla until very creamy.

- Gradually beat in the cornstarch and flour.

- Beat in the lemon zest and chamomile. Continue to beat the batter for a full 10 minutes until it looks like slightly overbeaten whipped cream (see notes).

- Drop the batter by heaping tablespoons onto the prepared cookie sheets.

- Bake the cookies for approximately 15-20 minutes. Remove the cookies from the oven just as they start to brown on the bottoms.

- Let the shortbread cookies cool on the cookie sheet for at least 10 minutes, then transfer them to a cooling rack to finish cooling. Do be careful when moving them as they will fall apart if you transfer them too soon.

Notes:

- If you use a stand-mixer instead of a hand held electric beater, the cookies will fall flat. If you want to use your stand mixer, please make sure to reduce the time you mix the batter.

Magickal Correspondences:

- Cookies ~ (in general) nurturing, love

- Lemon ~ faithfulness, friendship, happiness, longevity, love, marriage

- Butter ~ smoothing relationships, spirituality, tenacity

- Vanilla ~ joy, love, luck, lust, mental powers

- Chamomile ~ the sun, purification, protection, calming, luck

- Flour ~ revealing hidden matters, consistency

- Sugar ~ love

Honey Lavender Lemonade

Ingredients:

- 1 ½ cups honey lavender simple syrup (recipe below)

- 1 ½ cups lemon juice

- 2 ½ cups water, sparkling water, or sparkling wine

Honey Lavender Simple Syrup:

Ingredients:

- I cup honey (granulated sugar for vegan)

- ½ cups water

- 1 tbsp lavender buds

Directions:

- Stir all ingredients together in a medium saucepan, and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Stir until the sugar is dissolved.

- Remove from heat and refrigerate. Strain out buds before using.

Directions:

- Stir all ingredients together until combined. Serve over ice.

Magickal Correspondences:

- Lemonade ~ love, purification

- Lemon ~ faithfulness, friendship, happiness, longevity, love, marriage

- Honey ~ happiness, healing, love, lust, purification, spirituality, sweet things in life, weight loss, wisdom

- Lavender ~ fertility, love, purification, relaxation, rest

- Water ~ purification

- Sparkling wine ~ lust

dark cottagecore 🍄🥀

🧿Witchy Vibes Playlist🧿

one fairly common experience of gifted children is wishing for pain. wishing you had some great big horrible thing in your past so that you can justify the pain you’re in, and so that you’ll deserve help. it’s exhausting and it fucks you up and to anyone out there who feels like they haven’t suffered enough to get help: you’re allowed to want help. you’re in enough pain. you deserve to feel better

holy shit yeah

is this one of those things that everyone actually does?? i just assumed i was a shitty person

Wait that’s normal?

It’s not “normal” as in “everybody feels this way so suck it up and quit whining”.

It’s “normal” as in “many people experience pain, loneliness, anxiety, self-hatred, and other symptoms of mental illness that feel like they ‘don’t count’ because there’s no real Thing they can point to to explain it, but their pain and suffering are real and ought to be taken seriously.”

However, when I say “many people” I actually mean “less than a quarter of the population”. The vast majority of people aren’t in massive internal pain most of the time. If this post resonates with you, I super recommend you look into mental health resources, because nobody deserves to feel this way, and there’s a very real hope that information, understanding, therapy, and/or medication can work together to help you feel better.

Fantasizing about being hurt or dying in some way so that everyone realizes how much pain you’re in isn’t a sign that you’re a terrible person. It’s a sign that YOU’RE IN A LOT OF PAIN. Pain that deserves help and that CAN be helped.

The notes on this post today make me wanna CRY.

…sorry, did you just say the vast majority of people aren’t in massive internal pain most of the time???? what

So here’s where I’m getting my statistics from:

One basic test of massive internal pain is a depression test. Here’s one such questionnaire, the PHQ-9. It lists nine symptoms of depression and asks people how much they have experienced them over the last few weeks. Among them are symptoms like, “Feeling down, depressed, or hopeless,” “Feeling bad about yourself – or that you are a failure or have let yourself or your family down,” and “Thoughts that you would be better off dead or of hurting yourself in some way.”

It’s scored by asking people to rate if they’ve experienced the thing: 0, not at all, 1, several days, 2, more than half the days, or 3, nearly every day. Then you get a total score by adding up the ranking of each of the nine symptoms listed. So the lowest possible score is 0 (never experienced any of the symptoms) and the highest possible is 27 (all the symptoms nearly every day). The PHQ-9 considers scores above 5 to indicate mild depression, above 10, moderate, and above 15, moderate to severe depression.

When you run thousands of people through the PHQ-9–for example, if you ask doctor’s offices to ask everyone seeing their doctor for any reason to take it–this is what the score distribution looks like: 

Far and away, the most common score is 0. The vast majority of people experience no symptoms of depression in their daily lives. The vast majority of people do not feel hopeless, do not feel like failures, and do not think they would be better off if they were dead in their day-to-day lives.

Depression really is unusual, not the natural state of human existence, and, in the majority of cases, really truly treatable.