It’s empty right now, I’ll be working on getting posts from here to there later tonight when I have time.
Thinking of moving this blog to be its own blog instead of a sideblog. It would most likely keep the same name/url whatever. It would just be easier to manage that way. Wouldn’t happen for several days at least tho. I would also probably be looking for 1-2 mods to help out with it.
Mods like admins. People to answer asks, make posts, reblogs stuff etc... Since due to my mental health I can't keep up with it.
Thinking of moving this blog to be its own blog instead of a sideblog. It would most likely keep the same name/url whatever. It would just be easier to manage that way. Wouldn't happen for several days at least tho. I would also probably be looking for 1-2 mods to help out with it.
As all witches know, herbs are a vital part of the craft. I am so lucky to be blessed with a large garden, and me and my husband grow an abundance of herbs for both magickal and culinary purposes. I have been drying my own herbs for years, and keep my cupboard well stocked! For me, drying my own herbs has yielded so much benefits, such as:
• It works out so much cheaper then buying from the grocery store.
• Its so much better for the environment. Think about the packaging that herbs come in when you buy from the grocery store that gets thrown away! We store our herbs in labelled glass jars, and the process is absolutely zero-waste.
• Its a lot of fun! I absolutely adore the entire process, it feels very earthy, witchy and it is so rewarding to produce commonly bought things yourself!
Currently, my inventory of dried herbs that I have prepared myself is as follows: Basil, thyme, parsley, coriander/cilantro, rosemary, oregano, sage, dill, lavender, tarragon, chamomile, peppermint, lemonbalm and many more. I use these dried herbs for teas and infusions, cooking and witchcraft. I also keep a fair amount of these herbs for using fresh!
Does this sound like something that appeals to you? If you have the space for a herb garden, it is definitely achievable, even if it is just on a balcony or windowsill!
Harvesting: the best time to harvest herbs is when they have plenty of healthy foliage to allow further growth. Regularly snipping actually allows herbs to thrive and encourages new growth! To keep my herbs healthy, I regularly snip off dead leaves and harvest healthy, abundant foliage while leaving enough to spare for the plant. The absolute BEST time to harvest is early in the morning after the dew evaporates, but before the suns rays start to evaporate the essential oils within the leaves, which happens when exposed to heat throughout the day. Use scissors to cleanly snip the foliage off the plant.
• Drying: After harvesting, it is important to dry herbs quickly to preserve flavor. After washing herbs, make sure to pat dry gently, you don’t want any moisture in preparation for air drying. To air dry it is very simple! Tie an elastic or piece of string around the base of the herbs to create a bundle. Then you want to hang them upside down in a warm, dry and dust free area out of direct sunlight. I use a drying rack and peg the herbs upside down and then hang the drying rack up, however you can use a clothes hanger or hang them on a line! Some people like to wrap a brown paper bag around the herb bundles when drying. This a) stops leaves falling onto the ground when dry and crumbly, and b) keeps them from gathering dust, etc.
You will know your herbs are dry when they feel dry and crumbly in texture.
Storing: After my herbs are dry and brittle to the touch, I separate the leaves from the stems and store in clean, airtight glass jars that are labelled so I know which herb goes where. I keep the leaves while and crumble just before cooking, as I believe this helps to retain flavor, but I know some people will crumble dried herbs with a mortar and pestle before storing. Keep your dried herbs in a cool, dark place away from humidity, and enjoy! 🌿
The images are in some variant of Elder Futhark Runes for those asking!
I got about 10 asks and a few comments on images about it in the last little while and making a post is easier. I’ll try to remember to tag the pictures with it from now on.
-A
Invocation to the Goddess (2)
Gracious Goddess, You who are the queen of the Gods, The lamp of light, The creator of all that is wild and free, Mother of women and men, Lover of the Horned Man, And protectress of all. Descend, I pray, with your lunar rays of power, Upon my circle here.
Invocation to the Goddess (1)
Crescent one of the starry skies, Flowered one of the fertile plain, Flowing one of the oceans sighs, Blessed one of the gentle rain, Open me to your mystic light, Waken me to your silver tones, Be with me in my mystic rite.
Dollar Tree: Witchy Edition!
I’m currently browsing witchblr and it occurred to me that, as a Dollar Tree employee, I do a lot of my witchy shopping at the Dollar Tree (because I’m poor because I work at Dollar Tree lmao). I feel like Dollar Tree is one of those stores that you don’t really know what all they have unless you work there, or if you go inside and spend an hour or two just wandering the aisles and perusing the stock. So I wanted to share some of my ideas for dollar store witchy shopping, for the financially strapped witches of the world!
Note: I am absolutely not saying that you need supplies/items to be a good witch. The most important part of practice is intent! Your chosen deities will not fault you for not being able to have pretty glass bowls and sweet pea candles. Witchcraft is about the purpose and the intent behind your spells and rituals, not the items you have!
Okay, let’s get started! I’ll update this post as I find new things that can be used, because it’s a weird hobby to go in on my days off and just browse…since I have no life and nothing better to do.
• Candles
Alright, so I will readily admit that the candles from Dollar Tree are not the strongest smelling candles in the world. The Pillsbury ones, which are some of my favorites, are pretty strong and I love making my room smell like a butter cake. But for the most part, most of the candles don’t smell super strong and won’t smell up your whole house like a Better Homes or Yankee Candle will. However, I think they are perfect for altar use, or just to have on your desk in your bedroom. I do all of my practicing in my room, since I share a student apartment with 3 other girls, so this isn’t a big deal for me. As an artist, color is a huge focus of mine, so when purchasing candles from the dollar tree, I go largely based on color. For unscented candles, we sell a lot of votive and taper candles, as well as tea lights! These are mainly white, but we do have some cute striped ones at my Dollar Tree every now and then. We also have some incense, but I haven’t tried it.
• Candle Holders
I’m putting this in it’s own section because we have just as many candle holders as we do candles! I personally love when we start getting seasonal tealight holders in. We get Halloween, Christmas, and winter/spring/summer/fall themed holders in a lot, which are generally kept in the seasonal area at the front of my store and not with the rest of the candle items. In terms of year round candle supplies, we usually have ceramic holders of so many shapes and sizes I can’t even remember them all, as well as metal and glass cups/stands for tealights, votives, pillar, and taper candles. We have star shapes, leaf shapes, round, square, anything you can think of! Come buy candle holders from Dollar Tree!
• Altar Cloths
Okay, this was something I actually came across as an idea on Youtube, and I’m kind of annoyed at myself for not thinking of it before! But I also don’t use an altar cloth, so… Anyway, in the kitchen section you can find silk table runners in quite a wide variety of colors. If you’re setting up an elemental altar, we have red, green, and blue at my store, as well as neutral white and brown. I personally would go with the white or cream colors, since my altar is multipurpose and I dedicate it as needed. The runners are 12 inches wide and 72 inches long, so I think they would fit most altars unless yours is super compact!
• Vases/Jars
Y’all. My store here in Rexburg has SO. MANY. VASES it’s not even fucking funny. We sell a lot of glass product, which in turn tells corporate to just keep sending us more, and we don’t have all the shelf space needed for all the shipments we get, so we end up having to stack open-faced boxes in the aisles. It’s pretty terrible, lol. Anyway, if you go on the Dollar Tree website, you can see that we have a pretty large selection as far as size and shape goes. We sell Mason jars as well, which are a favorite of mine. I don’t usually buy these in bulk, so it MIGHT be cheaper to buy your mason jars in packages at Walmart or something, but I buy as I need them, and Dollar Tree is still my favorite for vases and pebble terrarium jars just because their selection is way better imo.
• Chalices
I’m using a fancy word to describe what’s essentially a wine glass, but I have five different glasses that I’ve bought from the Dollar Tree, and I love them. There’s normally a really good variety of color and even shape (stemless, stemmed, margarita, etc). The seasonal glasses are my favorite, because they’re normally decorated beautifully. For fall, the glassware/dishware had autumn leaves, and this year our spring collection glassware was a gorgeous sapphire blue! If you are a fan of liquid offerings/faery libation brews/etc, check your Dollar Tree!
• Picture Frames
If you have an altar, it’s pretty standard that you have some representation of your deities on it. My primary deity is Bast/Sekhmet, and I also have some representation of Ptah, and while Bast is represented with a figurine that I saved up for specifically, Ptah is represented by a small 2x2 canvas I did an abstract painting on (since I’m an artist and follow him as the god of the arts). Whether you’re starting out or you just don’t have room for a statue, some people prefer to represent their deities with icons. You can paint your own or print one off from the Internet, but you’re probably going to want a frame to put it in! Dollar Tree has a massive selection of photo frames, usually, and mine even sells different sized photo stands (in different colors!)
• Glass Dishes/Bowls
Also for people who like liquid offerings, Dollar Tree has a number of glass salad bowls and crystal-like glass bowls, flat dishes for food offerings, or even just for decoration! They come in multiple sizes as well, so you can get really tiny ones for decor or normal dinner bowls for offerings. The smaller plates can also be used to hold items that you’re consecrating.
• Misc Supplies
So depending on what kind of witchcraft you practice/deity you worship/spells you cast/etc., a lot of your general supplies can be found at the Dollar Tree. Here are a few recommendations for pretty basic supplies:
1. Matchsticks, the brand is Diamond and they come in a box of 300
2. Saltines/crackers (I use these as a basic food offering)
3. Nuts/other snack foods for offerings
4. Pints of milk if your Dollar Tree has a fridge section, if you’re meticulous enough to have a separate food stash for your offerings (I know some people who are)
5. Notebooks. I’m not very picky on what my grimoires/books of shadows look like. My current book of shadows is a composition book with a bunch of kawaii art on the front…:D
6. Salt, you can buy a big container of it for 50 cents
7. Other herbs/spices in decent sized containers, if you’re into kitchen witchery
8. If you don’t have an athame and want a knife specifically for carving into candles or something, you can find singles and packs of kitchen knives.
9. I like to decorate my altar according to sabbats, so for decor, the craft aisles have bags of river gems, stones, and aquarium stones as well as a variety of flowers. There’s bags of hot glue sticks if you need them for a hot glue gun (which I use a LOT); ribbons and rolls of decorative mesh, and depending on the holiday they get themed color rolls of these items in as well; there’s garden decor like birds, dragonflies, etc for floral decorating that can be used in a number of ways; bags of sand; foam blocks in multiple shapes of floral arranging; and in fall, there’s always a large selection of autumnal decor to choose from (just be sure to get there early in the holiday season for fall items, as they start being set out in September and sell fast!).
That’s all I can think of right now. As I said, I will continue to add to it as I find new things!
Some Robin made a nest under the picnic table covering at a park near my house. So I’ve been taking pictures of the babies periodically. They’re so big now they’re pretty much fledglings and will be leaving the nest probably within the next week or two. Just thought I’d share.
-A
Checked again yesterday and they're gone.
-A
Some Robin made a nest under the picnic table covering at a park near my house. So I’ve been taking pictures of the babies periodically. They’re so big now they’re pretty much fledglings and will be leaving the nest probably within the next week or two. Just thought I’d share.
-A
Hey Flowers, I’m not currently in a place where I can give any money, so I’m doing the next best thing and spreading the word.
“Hello, my name is Tatum, I am 20 and currently living in London Ontario. I have been dealing with multiple chronic illnesses since I have been 15 and I am desperately in need for a service dog.
I depend heavily upon family and friends for help but my mother has many of the same conditions I do and my father is currently going through cancer treatment. I believe a service animal will help me gain more independence that I want as I am still fighting to attend college.
I have found a foundation that will help me get an animal! But I can’t afford the fees so I am hoping that you can help, please any donation counts and if you can’t donate, please share!
Let me tell you how this service dog will help me!
I am currently diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, I am in constant pain and I have trouble getting things I need such as dropped objects or something on the other side of the room
Hypersomnia, a sleep disorder that causes me to sleep to much and too deeply. I have actually slept through a fire alarm! Thankfully it was only a drill.
Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome or POTS. It means I frequently fall and pass out, I have had multiple concussions because of this, the most recent being March 5th 2018, and I have balance issues as a result, a service dog that I could lean on to regain my balance or call for help in an emergency is desperately needed. Also did you know service dogs can alert you before a fainting spell? That’s amazing and what I need!
Non-epileptic seizures, I have seizures with no brain activity involved so there’s no medication I can be put on. This means I can have them multiple times a day with nothing to control them. A service dog would help by putting me in a recovery position and calling for help.
My last emergency room visit was March 5th, a service dog could have prevented this visit.
If you’re interested in the foundation I have found it Thames Centre Service Dogs in Mount Brydges, Ontario. They are the best of the best.
Now please, can you help me?”
She’s a kind soul and just recently was -avoidably- emmited to the ER due to a fainting spell while out shopping. She’s at $615/$5000 and is hoping to get $2500 by June 5th (her birthday).
Posting as of 05/15
This was posted by a friend of mine trying to help her friend. I'm reblogging it here as this blog has way more followers than my main in hopes to get it some exposure. If you can't donate that's fine but please consider reblogging.
-A
Tips on Grimoire Organization
Please note that if you are using a hard bound notebook or journal, adding in additional pages will bulk up your book, like so: (these are the exact same journals, btw)
- Envelopes. Let’s say you’re doing a section on Tarot in your Grimoire, and you want to include a few Tarot spreads, but you don’t want to waste two or three pages. Glue an envelope onto one of your pages to make a “pocket” where you can store little cards or papers with the tarot spreads written on them.
- Pockets. Similar to the envelope idea. If you have a page, or section for example, on herbal teas, you can make a pocket out of a piece of paper to keep your current favorite tea recipes in.
- Dividers, Cover Pages and Ribbons. If you’re like me and you like to have “sections” in your grimoire, you can easily make dividers by gluing a sheet of paper in your book (to make it heavier to make the sections stand out more). You can go further by turning your divider into a cover page for that section. And if you don’t like the idea doing that, you can always glue a ribbon, or a string, to the spine of your book to act as a bookmark.
- Double pages. I always had a problem with “wasting” pages in my grimoire. For example, my page on consecrating and charging. These two concepts are very similar to me, and I didn’t want two page stating the same thing. So, what I did was write out all my information on charging on a separate sheet of paper, then glued the top of that page into my grimoire. This way I could flip up the page on charging (as if it were on a clipboard) and have my page on consecrating underneath.
- Extended pages. Similar to the one above. In my Crystal section of my Grimoire, I decided to write out a chart that let me search for crystals by intention. So I drew my chart on a long sheet of paper, then folded it over (side to side) so that it fit comfortably in my book, then I just glued one side down into the book.
- Brochures. In my Elements section, I had a ton of information I wanted to write down, but I didn’t want each element to have more than two pages. So I used a piece of computer paper and folded it into a brochure (or into thirds) and glued it into the book so that the flaps would open and give me double the space to write.
- Clear Tape. There are many times where i finished a page in my grimoire only to find out there was a section that I left out. A simply way to fix this was with clear tape. I would write my forgotten bit of into on a separate piece of paper and then use clear tape to tape one side of the paper to my page. This allows me to flip the paper back and forth without covering up anything that I had written.
Other Resources on Grimoire Organization:
- Witch Tip by @pumpkin-bean - Grimoire Index by @triplevirgo - Witchy-Woman’s Grimoire Organization by @witchy-woman - Altar in a Journal by @thesubtlewitch
I hope this helps everyone with their Grimoire organizing needs! If anyone knows of any other awesome organizing tips, feel free to share!
P.S. Check out my Grimoire Masterpost for more tips on making a grimoire!
~L
This is Amazing
I am the radiant king of the heavens,
Flooding the earth with warmth
And encouraging the hidden seed of creation
To burst forth into manifestation.
I lift my shining spear to light the lives of all beings
And daily pour fourth my gold unto the earth,
Putting to flight the powers of darkness.
I am the master of the beasts wild and free. I run with the swift stag, And soar as a sacred falcon against the shimmering sky. The ancient woods and wild places emanate my powers, And the birds of the fir sing of my sanctity. I am also the last harvest, Offering up grains and fruits beneath the sickle of time So that all may be nourished. For without planting there can be no harvest; Without winter to spring. Worship me as the thousand-named sun of creation, The spirit of the horned stag in the wild, the endless harvest, See in the yearly cycle of festivals my birth, death, and rebirth And know that such is the destiny of all creation.
I am the spark of life, the radiant sun, The giver of peace and rest, And I send my rays of blessings to warm the hearts And strengthen the minds of all.
Another old page
-A
gentle reminder that mother’s day is not for all moms. it’s for good moms. abusive and neglectful moms do not deserve to be celebrated on this day. and if you are the child of one of those moms, you should feel no guilt in ignoring the day altogether. I hope you can stay strong kiddos! ♡
there is a certain level of nihilism in witchcraft that i wish i could impart to every witch, which is that nothing at all matters, it doesnt matter if you don’t have all the exact spell ingredients, nothing in the grand scheme of anything matters so do whatever the fuck you like. you are the head of your personal beliefs, you need to take your own agency, you don’t need to ask some other witch’s permission to swap out ingredients or do something a little differently
But why do this at all if you’re not going to at least TRY to follow the ingredients? Things are used for a reason?
hello! things are used for a reason, but i hope you’ll let me make an analogy. witchcraft, spells, they’re a lot like cooking,. hang with me a sec
there are like, a hundred ways to make a chocolate cake. does it matter in the grand scheme of things if you use bittersweet chocolate instead of semisweet, or dark chocolate instead of milk, or even white chocolate? i’ve done 4/5 of those, and i can tell you, nope. it’s still a chocolate cake. your result is the same gist of it, maybe the person eating it can tell your didn’t use their recipe, but no one would argue that it isn’t actually a chocolate cake upon eating it. and it doesn’t just stop there, there are even more ways to alter a chocolate cake, even on a more fundamental level. you can use a box mix or from scratch, use bread flour or cake flour, you can make it gluten free or vegan. you can even use carob (tastes just like chocolate) instead of chocolate and an unsuspecting eater will still think it’s chocolate cake. it’s absolutely mad.
but everything in a cake is there for a reason, as you point out, things are used for a reason. yes! flour is the base and the butter and milk and oil for moisture and the eggs to bind it while it bakes, sugar to make it sweet, salt and vanilla and chocolate for flavor, baking powder/soda to help it rise and balance acidity levels, and baked at 375f for 40 min. it’s fairly standard, and yet nearly all these ingredients can be replaced (see above paragraph) and it’ll still be a chocolate cake, maybe chocolate cake with a twist. i’ve made chocolate cake with ground almonds instead of flour, worked just fine.
and metaphor goes on even longer, obviously if you put like a sock in the cake and make it from garbage and tuna it will no longer be considered a chocolate cake, it’s tuna a la gross. if you really want to get into the philosophical “what makes this cake a chocolate cake” i recommend reading plato’s theory of forms where he basically says “what makes a chair a chair? three legs and no-back is a stool, but if it’s four legs and a back? then how is a dog not a chair?” that’s a joke he doesnt say it exactly like that and really makes you consider how you define things verbally vs your fundamental understanding of them.
and also, no one cares what you make your cakes out of. yeah some nut at the garden party may throw a fit that eww how dare you serve vegan chocolate cake but it’s your cake and what does susan’s opinion even matter? she’s not the leader of cakes. no one is, it’s just a cake.
tl;dr it doesnt matter that there are a hundred ways to make a chocolate cake, all of them work. they may taste a little different but it still functions as a cake
so there is variation, but it’s not set in stone. a spell may call for sage to cleanse but i may choose to use lemon instead. or i might forgo cleansing entirely, because my craft doesn’t call for it, the veritable gluten-free chocolate cake of magic
K yeah but like… Magic don’t work like that hun.
why not? how does magic work then?
Actually, magic works exactly fucking like that.
literally one of my favorite posts to date
"Magic is like cooking" is a great way to put it. People are always asking what to do if they don't have this specific herb/plant/stone that they can't get in their region. Or that they're worried about their pet getting into plants toxic to them. Absolutely substitute something else. Generally plants/stones/everything else has more than one use. Use what you can.
-A
So in our local dog park we found bones hanging from Trees with symbols drawn on to them I’ve tried to hard to decider them but no luck could you help if I were to submit?
I could try but I make no promises. I can post them if you’re ok with that and see if any of the followers can help.
-A