merribear

[merribear]

I sit on my little skeptic throne of witchcraft and enjoy it all because either magic is real and I’m very in tune with myself and the world around me, or it’s not and I become a master of meditation and good mental attitude and I get a fuck ton of shiny little trinkets and nicknacks that bring me immense joy there is no losing here

[merribear]

“Where are your pagan gods now?”

Gardening

Comforting your abandoned dead

Reclaiming

Rerooting

[merribear]

I recently started learning how to crochet, and I came up with a little chant to repeat to work in some knot magic. This one is for a scarf I’m making as a gift for my friend:

You are beautiful, and you show it,

You are divine, and you know it.

With this knot and all the rest

It holds my intention, this scarf is blessed.

[merribear]

[merribear]

Magical Powder Recipes

A collection of some of my original magical powder recipes.

All-Purpose Cursing Powder

Bree's Banishing Powder

Clean House Powder

Dream Dust

“Eye of Sauron” Revelation Powder

Heal Thy Heart Powder

Hexbreaker Powder

Inspiration Salt

Lucky Day Powder

“Outta My Way” Powder

Peacekeeper Powder

Persuasion Powder

STFU Powder

Traveler’s Luck Powder

Truthfinder Powder

For those of you who may not be able to find herbs locally, here are some online suppliers who consistently have affordable and high-quality products.

Penn Herb Co. - Bulk herbs, spices, and botanicals - including over 400 wildcrafted herbs, gathered from the United States and worldwide. Single ounce packages are available. Excellent source for powders.

Starwest Botanicals - Bulk herbs, spices, oils, and teas. Good amount of organic and Fair Trade products, as well as supplies for holistic medicine and tea-making.

Mountain Rose Herbs - Bulk herbs, spices, and sundries. Also carries organic products and essential oils, and has link to schools that offer courses in herbalism and herbology.

Bulk Apothecary - Bulk herbs, spices, and oils, in addition to materials for the home production of soap, candles, wine, and beer.

For more recipes to fill out your potion kit, you can check out Pestlework: A Book of Magical Powders & Oils. (Available on Amazon and in my shop!)

If you're enjoying my content, please feel free to drop a little something in the tip jar or check out my published works on Amazon or in the Willow Wings Witch Shop. 😊

[merribear]

On Technomancy

So firstly, I'm a Physicist... so I don't have the best grasp of how Magick is meant to work at a fundamental level.

Having said that, I'm fairly sure that the set of all digital information actually functions as a synthetic Weave™ and we tap into it everyday without thinking twice.

[merribear]

On Technomancy

So firstly, I'm a Physicist... so I don't have the best grasp of how Magick is meant to work at a fundamental level.

Having said that, I'm fairly sure that the set of all digital information actually functions as a synthetic Weave™ and we tap into it everyday without thinking twice.

[merribear]

Witchcraft Types: Cosmic Witch

[merribear]

"you cant do spells when youre emotional, only when youre calm, grounded, and balanced"

as someone with bipolar disorder id like you to shut the fuck up

[merribear]

[merribear]

A witch’s secrets

[merribear]

Simple Moon Spell - One Dozen Wishes

Intent: To create a jar of potential wishes, to be used as needed.

Materials:

Small Jar

Whole Bay Leaves (12)

Moonlight

In addition to their usefulness in spells for protection, wisdom, and healing, bay leaves are a potent ingredient for wishmaking. This spell does not specifically create a wishing spell, but it prepares a small supply of leaves for future spellwork, using the fulfilling energy of the full moon to pre-charge the component.

Obtain a bag of whole bay leaves. These can usually be found in the spices and seasonings aisle at the grocery store, or you can order them from a botanical supplier if you wish. Prepare a clean, dry jar with a lid as you see fit. Select twelve leaves, as whole and unbroken as possible, and place them into the jar. Cap the jar and leave it to soak up the moonlight on the next full moon evening.

When you have need of some wishmaking magic, take a single leaf from the jar, write your wish upon it, and use it in your spell. The use of the leaf depends on your casting method - you can include it in a jar or sachet charm, cast it into fire or water, or bury it to help your desired results grow, to name just a few.

Use the leaves as needed and when the supply is exhausted, you can pick twelve new leaves and refill the jar.

Happy Witching! 🔮🍃

[merribear]

Energy Work 101: Basic Shielding

"Shielding" is an energy work technique that puts a protective sphere of energy around you. This technique is basic at its core, but can be continually evolved and upgraded to become very advanced and powerful indeed.

Concepts & Theory

Most all shields are spherical or egg-shaped.

Shields are often sized to be an outstretched arm's length away from your body, plus a foot (30cm) or so extra all around. You can make them any size you like. Because they are made of energy, the bigger they are, the more energy they take.

Shields fade away. Depending on how stable they are when you make them, they may fade within hours or days.

Shields can and will affect your mood and how people perceive you.

It is a good idea to practice dismantling/undoing shields as often as you practice creating them.

While the most basic shield is a bubble of white light, they can be endlessly modified.

You can have more than one shield at once. They can be stacked concentrically. Think about which shields you want to be closer to you and which you want on the outside next to others.

One of the most useful ways to modify a shield is to specifically choose what kinds of energies you want to bet let in, and what kinds you want to keep out.

The basic technique used for energy shielding can also be used for other techniques such as glamours, energy cleansing, object charging, and some forms self-care. Because of this, shielding is a good place to start practicing practical energy work.

Shielding is a cousin of aura-imprinting. The technique I am talking about here puts a bubble of energy on the outside of your aura. Aura-imprinting/strengthening techniques refer to changing your aura itself.

Methods of Shield-Raising

There are as many methods to accomplish shielding as there are people. Here are a couple:

1. Make one hand into a fist and place it over your heart. Place your other palm on top of it. Gently push down on your chest to create pressure - not so much that it hurts. Imagine, feel, believe, or know that within your chest is a wellspring of energy. This energy pools around your fist as you create pressure there. When you are ready, move your fist away from your body (experiment with both fast and slow motions). Imagine, feel, believe, or know that an energy sphere grows from that place in your chest and expands until it surrounds you. It stops expanding about a foot away from your outstretched arms.

2. Breathe in. As you breathe in, consider that you are pulling pure energy out of the air and into your body. Hold your breath for a beat and decide that when you exhale, that pure energy is going to start forming a sphere around your body. As you exhale, imagine, feel, believe, intend, or know that this energy flows around you to start forming an energy shell. Continue breathing in and out with intent until you can easily imagine, feel, or believe that the shell has become solid and complete.

3. Consider a pop-culture method that a character uses to shield themselves. Steven Universe can do that rose quartz thing, for example. Or, imagine Captain Picard of Star Trek saying, "shields up!" and the Enterprise being surrounded by powerful protective energy. Copying a pop-culture technique can be extremely effective for shielding. Put your intent towards causing real power to flow, and let culture be your guide.

4. Consider that your body is permanently connected to your environment and there is always free energy exchange passing between you and the world around you. This process is automatic, but like your breath, you have the ability to take control of this process if you so choose. Feel the parts of you making contact with the world below (your feet, or bottoms of your legs if you are sitting). Decide, intend, choose, or will that the energy passing into your body at those points will instead rise up and surround you in a shield. You may need to actively stay with this process and continually will it to occur; with practice you may need to only check in every now and then.

A Method of Shield-Dissolving

1. Consider that you have placed energy around yourself which exists there whether or not you can feel it. Decide, intend, choose, or will that this energy breaks up and dissolves. You get to choose what to do with the energy. Options include:

Drawing it back into yourself

Pushing it down into the earth

Releasing it into the air around you

Would you like to do a fun experiment? Release the energy into the air around you in a closed room with no open doors or windows :)

Consider drawing energy back into yourself until you feel your storage containers are full, then pushing the rest of it downwards and into the earth.

Basic Shield Programming

For practice in raising and putting down energy, the form or shape your shield takes doesn't really matter. If you need to know what form it will take in order to complete the exercise, the most basic shield is considered to be a smooth bubble of white light; you can choose to practice with any form you like.

Programming a shield basically means to choose its effects. Common effects include limiting emotional intake from others, and blocking out environmental energy.

Form should follow function. If you want an energy shield to totally completely block out 100 of environmental energies, its form may take an opaque, solid black orb. If you want the shield to limit some energies but not others, it may take the form of a chain-link fence, be semi-opaque, or be like vines with gaps-inbetween them.

Experimenting with what forms work best for you is worthwhile. You do not necessarily need to choose a specific form: simply putting willpower behind your intent will also suffice.

Two Methods of Programming

I recommend trying the first technique for initially creating the shield, and the second technique for making adjustments once it exists.

1. Choose the intent of your shield before you even begin making it. As you begin gathering power, hold your intent in the forefront of your mind. Understand, believe, or know that the shield will not be created in general, but that it will be created within the specifications of your intent, like pancake batter poured into a cookie cutter mold. Hold your intent at the forefront of your mind while energy is gathered and released into the shield. (This is what you're doing automatically if you choose a pop culture technique with specific shield purpose and form)

2. Create a general/basic shield in any way you prefer. Observe, believe, feel, understand, or know that this basic shield is under your control and will respond to your intent. Select an intent. Pour your intent into the existing shield. This may be done through the vehicle of the breath, hand symbols, eye gazes, chanting, or any desired method. Observe, believe, feel, understand, or know that the shield responds to your will like a pond rippling when a rock is thrown in. Maintain your focus until you sense the work is complete, or until you're tired or bored.

[merribear]

The disciplined. That girl. The attractive one. The most feminine. The cultured, well read one. The girly and extra one. The one who's always put together. The sensual. The kind hearted. The alluring. The happy, warm, sunny person. The classy. The elegant. The graceful belle.

[merribear]

Common Herbs and Their Properties

(Mainly taken from: https://coven.thethriftywitch.com/pages/magickal-uses-of-herbs.)

Angelica: Mainly used in protection rituals, protects against negative energies and attracts positive energies. Can be used to remove curses, hexes.

Anise Seeds: Stimulates psychic abilities and wards off evil eyes.

Basil: A good protection herb. Can be used in rituals for protection, exorcism and love.

Bay Laurel: Mainly protection and purification. Stimulates psychic abilities and promotes success. Protects against baneful magick. Writing wishes and burning the leaf is a good manifestation technique.

Black Pepper: Promotes courage and helps banishing negative vibrations.

Catnip: Provides protection in sleep. Enhances beauty and can be used in love magick.

Cedar Wood: Promotes confidence and strength. Can be used in protection and purification rituals.

Chamomile: Reduces stress. Can be used in love and healing rituals.

Chili: Mainly used for hex breaking. Promotes love and fidelity.

Cinnamon: Mainly used for luck and prosperity. A good herb for protection as well.

Clove: Mainly used for exorcism. Also promotes love, money, and protection.

Coffee: Used for grounding. Dispels nightmares.

Daisy: Promotes love, luck, and innocence.

Damiana: Mainly used in love rituals. Can be used to increase psychic abilities.

Frankincense: Mainly used for cleansing and purification. Can be burned for protection and meditation.

Garlic: Mainly used for protection and exorcism. Can also be used for healing and purification.

Ginger: Promotes sensuality, sexuality and personal confidence.

Lavender: Mainly used for love, protection, healing, sleep, purification, and peace. Promotes healing from depression.

Mint: Promotes energy, communication and vitality.

Mistletoe: Used for fertility, creativity and protection from negative spells.

Onion: Used for prosperity, stability, endurance, and protection.

Oregano: Promotes joy, strength and vitality.

Rose: Magickal uses include divine love, close friendships, domestic peace.

Rosemary: Carried and used in healing poppets for good health, used in love spells, burned as incense for purification and removing negativity.

Sage (Keep in mind that white sage is endangered and closed): Used for self purification and dealing with grief and loss. Carried to improve mental ability and bring wisdom.

St. John’s Wort: Protects against all forms of black witchcraft. Used for banishing, protection & blessing.

Star Anise: Burned as incense to increase psychic awareness & abilities.

Sugar: Used in love spells and sex magick.

Thyme: Attracts loyalty, affection, and the good opinion of others. Burn or hang in the home for banishing and purification.

Tobacco: Promotes peace, confidence, and personal strength. Also used for banishing.

Yarrow: Uses include healing, handfasting & weddings, and divination.

[merribear]

🗝[[ via @divinemoonapothecary on IG ]]✨️

[merribear]

⛤SAMHAIN: History and Meaning⛤

Samhain is the holiest and most important Sabbat of the whole wheel of the year; it combines a number of elements: the agricultural crop, the wild crop, the transition of the autumn season into a winter temperature and the commemoration of the day of the dead. 

It is the time to remember our ancestors and our loved ones who greeted us, and as a solemn time it should tend towards contemplation of the mystery of life and death as taught by the ancients. 

Samhain is a time for introspection, to empty the false of our mind, heart and soul. It is time to heal the source of our deepest wounds and those we have inflicted on others, before time overtakes us. It is the time when we can learn to see clearly. 

The true victory of self is in the cauldron. Now we need to look at the nature of our motives and the outcome of our actions. 

Samhain is the time to communicate and listen to others, a time of death, of the thought of the ancestors and what we are thanks to them.

The leaves are falling, the apples are ripe, and the ice is on the ground. 

There is the scent of Autumn, an indescribable smell of October - pumpkins, apples, cinnamon, dry leaves and beer. 

Samhain approaches and the veil between the worlds gets thinner every night. 

You can feel it in the air that the Otherworld is approaching and the sunlight turns into sunset light. Our ancestors are celebrated in Samhain, it is the time of the dead and the dying. 

The spirits of the departed are closest to our hearts, at this time when even the earth is dying.

A melancholy and introspective mood descends upon us in this dark time of ends and completions; and therefore possible rebirths. 

In the growing shadows, darkness and fog prevail while the trees give off their colorful leaves, taking the appearance of skeletons.

This was also the time when cattle were killed for meat to be consumed in the winter months (the symbolic death of the wheat God). 

All the cereals still in the fields after Samhain were considered taboo, no one could collect them and became an offering for the spirits of nature.

⛤Samhain is the best known of all Wicca Wheel of the Year celebrations. And there is a reason for all of this. Obviously, first of all it is a festive Sabbat

and above all it is the only Sabbat that people recognize as a pagan festival  and they love to celebrate it anyway. 

In years past, the Christian Church decided, according to the tradition of the time, that people could hold this festival that they were so attached to, but that it needed a new name. He also decided that instead of being a feast to celebrate all the dead, it was to be transformed into a celebration of the dead saints. 

So the party turned into the best known Halloween.

⛤Our ancestors used to protect themselves this night, cutting out faces in vegetables and placing them near the windows. 

This gave birth to the so-called Jack o 'Lantern pumpkin. 

These carved pumpkin faces were placed next to the windows to keep the spirits of this night away. 

Being the veil of the subtle worlds, it was not only the ancestors who returned to earth, but all the people of the Underworld.

⛤Samhain is obviously the end of the "summer" mid-year(The Celts divided the year into two parts, summer and winter). 

It is also the last harvest before the snow. 

It is the opposite black of Beltane, announces the role of the Dark and celebrates the Crone. It is also considered the first of the witchcraft year. 

Since the Celts considered time to be circular rather than linear, the night is both the end and the beginning of the year. 

For this reason, Samhain is a feast of divination and a time for the dead. 

A night of contradiction where life and death, opposite but parts of the same cycle, were celebrated together.

⛤Sometimes most people think that this holiday is to venerate an evil god by the name of Samhain, but this deity does not exist in any Celtic or European pantheon. 

It is a literary creation of the twentieth century, without a foundation of reality. 

Fables of Druids who left pumpkins at the doors of families who had provided sacrifices for Samhain (Satan). 

This is not TRUE! Samhain today is famous as Halloween, and obviously still has much of the old Celtic tradition, despite the church's attempts to turn it into a day of prayer for the pantheon of saints.

⛤The best known aspect of Samhain is the Festival of the Dead. It is a night to honor ancestors, to celebrate their lives and to respect their memories. It is a time when families get together and listen to stories about the life of their great grandparents and legends about kings and their knights. It was believed that on this night, the dead could return to earth to find the living. It was common practice to prepare the table even for those who have recently died and to leave food for their wandering souls. Lights should have been placed on windows and along streets to guide the spirits of the night.

Witchfully Yours,

⛤Isidora & Bleiz⛤