#and maybe even some other witchy stuff like my cauldron and incense and whatever

[punkrockisafulltimejob]

I do suppose since I called out of work I can finish sorting and putting away my books

[ofcloudsandstars]

This week was a wild Samhaintide ride. I’ll post more about it in the read more

Here's yet another selection of stories from my witchy life I am ready to dump on you all so get ready lol:

Wednesday night was the party at the occult shop Treadwells where we met a new witch friend who joined us for the Samhain festivities. I have already made a post about it here but her name is Letitia and she is a beautiful sapphic Taurean witch who loves gardening and cooking (duh she's a Taurus) and all the goddesses she worships and bought an incredible pumpkin pie to the ritual.

Halloween

So the day begun with me making candles for the ritual. I bought a skull candle, a candle the shape of a jackolantern and then I made several candles which were three mini pumpkins hollowed and filled with black wax that’s pumpkin and bourbon scented, then four tea light spell candles with black wax and four tea light spell candles with a special wax my sag witchy friend bought for me from Edinburgh from a witchy shop. The wax melt was made with herbs and was called 'thinning the veil'. I’ll elaborate later. I also had to walk to the post office to pick up the ouija board. I had a feeling I'd finally get my hands on it on Halloween. Its a very aesthetic round one and I was excited to use it.

We chose to gather in Queenswood in the north of London. It was already SUPER SPOOKY cause there was a murder nearby so all of the buses were being redirected lol. We gathered all in black with our witch hats and delved deep in the woods. It was so beautiful and the ground was completely coated in gold and red leaves so you couldn't even see the path. We found a clearing in the thick of the woods with an old tree that grew sideways so it made a semi circle. We made a HUGE circle that we drew in the earth with a dead stick and went over with dragonsblood incense and black salt.

We opened the space by lighting the pumpkin candles and begun with centering our energy. There were several parts to the ritual we planned, but first we begun with a 'putting it to rest' spell since autumn is the time to let things go and samhain is about death so it was like officially bringing things to an end. We wrote down what we wanted to end in our lives on a piece of paper (such as not seeing coworkers from a toxic job that someone was leaving or the retrograde made my friend run into her abusive father that she had binded from seeing her for YEARS so she wanted to put that situation to rest) and ignited it in my cauldron. When it burned down to ashes we chose a spot (under a goblin-like tree) outside of the circle to open the earth and bury it in. After we put it in it's grave we all said a few words of departure and said: rest in peace. lol.

In my case I wrote down names of these models that are obsessed with this Italian guy (who is the son of a huge fashion designer) who is in love with my sister. They are obsessed with him for his connections to the fashion world and that he is rich and are jealous of any 'hoes' he's currently into so they posted instagram stories on Halloween with them in witch hats taunting that they were going to curse him and all of his lovers or whatever in cutesy filters and my sister knows I practice witchcraft so she told me. So I binded and banished them and the next day they unfollowed her lol.

Anyway, afterwards we focused on what we should reflect on by pulling tarot cards for mercury retrograde in scorpio that was beginning on that day as it's going to be like two weeks of descending into our own underworlds. After we got a card we lit the black tealight candle as a road opening spell to manifest a helpful path with overcoming our retrograde's lessons.

Then I lit the skull candle and we had a moment to reflect on our ancestors and those that we loved that have been lost that year. We each shared stories then lit the white tea light candles with the wax that was for thinning the veil. When we lit it we thought about our loved ones or ancestors.

Finally we did a dance for thinning the veil. I had flying devil oil that was some fragrance oil I got from a hoodoo shop and we dressed ourselves with it and ran around the circle and chanted in the leaves. We then ate the pumpkin pie the lovely Taurean witch bought also some maple sugar fudge she bought (what a champ), and halloween candy. We used the Ouija board but it was really challenging. We thought maybe it was cause we needed to be less grounded so we put it away and cleaned up the ritual space and headed off.

The Taurean witch was going to head home to cook a feast, my French aries witch friend went to her friends she's staying at to have a party and my Sag witch friend went home to cook a dumb supper for her and her mom. I went back to my place to nap then get ready for the night. I met my Sag friend at a music venue to watch Honeyblood which is SUCH a witchy band. The performance really reminded me of some scooby doo hex girls shit. It was a lot of fun (until some grown ass men with no sense of self awareness took the mosh pit to mean something more of a Jailbreak riot and started throwing their whole 6ft man bodies everywhere despite not everyone being gladiator sized. It was really ridiculous but golden when Honeyblood sang "Glimmer" with lyrics like "she can put a hex on you" thats when this one guy in some sailor outfit shoved his body into us and we BOTH looked at him with such evil at the same time and he like.. stopped.. and like hastily moved to another part of the room..)  If you don't know Honeyblood you should listen to them, they are such a babe witch band.

We then went to a bar nearby to get flaming shots of absinthe as its a personal tradition (also a way to 'cross the veil') and someone took candids of us at the bar! (I added the picture above), for some reason we really caught the attention of everyone though we just were in witch hats like EVERYONE was like: OOO WITCHES and like we even had some lady take pictures of us at the bar? Like ok it was cute I guess. My friend was drunk then so every time someone was like: oo a Witch! She'd holler back YASS BITCH 365 24/7!!!! Like o' dear.

Final part to the night was the house party my Aries witch friend (she's the one who's apartment I almost burned down once when I was making spell candles). It was a place around the corner from mine with a host who was HIGH OFF HER FACE on drugs. There was the counter of alcohol that kept us going all night, we had a lot of mingling with everyone there then when it started to get a little less wild we claimed an empty bedroom and tried the ouija board again since we were definitely less grounded than in the forest. Unfortunately the results were still a bit weak but we got a little bit of consistency with movement. There was some guy there that seemed interested but as time went on it turned out he was more interested in me than the board. I am a touched starved human being and he was playing with my hair and I was drunk so I did not care then after we ended up kissing while my other witchy friends and some new comers were chatting about the dead. My Aries witch friend lives on the other side of the city so she asked if they could stay at mine and I was like yea plus it was like 4AM at this point and this guy was getting very handsy like I just wanted my hair to be played with so I was like ok nice meeting you I gotta go. And He was like oh no please come say one last goodbye. I was too drunk to realize that he was in the bathroom and he closed to door to make out with me and I was like this is nice you do have nice flowy long hair that covers your big shiny forehead that I am now noticing in this bright fluorescent lighting but I gotta go. And he's like: No I wanna take you home I wanted to the moment I saw you. And he WHIPS OUT HIS DICK AND SAYS: this is for you. I am DYING like honestly I found it hilarious, I was so drunk I like forgot that there were other people on the other side of the door so I barge out of the bathroom like: WE ARE GOING HOME and my witchy friends saw his dick and were howling with laughter and that 10 minute walk home they would NOT LET ME BE IN PEACE about it.

Samhain Day

Anyway my friends stay over and in the morning I make tea and a light breakfast since we are hung over and we watch The Worst Witch 1980s Halloween special where we fucking Howl at laughter at everything especially Tim Curry flying around in that Cape. The rest of the day is really quiet since most of it is me sleeping trying to recover from the day before.

At 4 PM I call my relatives to say I love them and stuff cause I felt like my closest relatives on the other side of the veil wanted that. I made a feast for myself which consisted of Mashed sweet potato, a salad of chopped royal gala apples, carrots and beetroots and duck sauteed in maple syrup and bourbon. It may sound sweet but the bourbon balanced it out and duck tastes a bit sweet so it blended well with the maple flavor. After I had sticky toffee pudding for dessert. I made a plate for my ancestors and then got ready for fireworks with my other witchy friend who is the sound healer at Alexandra Palace.

I nearly missed the MASSIVE fire effigy burning cause the commute there was a NIGHTMARE since everything was still being redirected. (Thanks mercury retrograde). The fireworks were incredible though. There were so many it was like being bombarded with fiery psychedelics. My friend still wanted to show off her sexy angel outfit for Halloween so I asked if she wanted to hang out with us tomorrow night to party.

Saturday Night

She came over like at 4 and we got ready. She looked a bit like the angel from the remake of Romeo and Juliette with Leonardo decaprio but in lingerie with a long white lace robe. I dressed as a poltergeist though I don't think it came off that way but I had a sheer black dress on with a skeleton body suit, a glow in the dark wig and pale tulle. I just wanted to be a spooky ghost. We had to sneak into a members club that I work at cause I am NOT allowed to be there and I was terrified of them finding out so it felt like Danger Partying. They had a day of the dead party so I blended in but I felt like some staff that recognized me were like staring at me all night. We still had fun and spoke about our Samhain experiences. My friend is also a medium so she gave me some ouija tips so hopefully that can help me in the future.

Sunday Morning

I went to a workshop in the food forest about fire starting!! It was beautiful and magical and the forest was in full autumn mode. I learned how to chop wood with different axes and carve wood and start fires with either two pieces of wood (which is extremely hard on your own like you better be in the dryest place possible and you better have a bow), and how to start fire with flint/magnesium which is 1000% easier would highly recommend. There's so much magic in nature and so much magic in those workshops. We learned which trees were best for firewood and which were toxic and how to use bark or forage for fire starter materials. I am getting more drawn to fire as an element to work with in magic so I loved learning the techniques and also that you can start fires with the back of a knife (the teacher had a specific wood carving knife that was thick) so its like if you get a specific Athame which is ruled by fire you could also use it to start fires too if you got a fire steel key. (It's a rod of magnesium and you'd strike it with the back of the knife hard and fast and sparks will shoot out like fireworks).

Anyway that was my week so far!! It was so much fun and adventurous I couldn't have asked for a better experience. I have today off so I had a moment to reflect and get myself together for work tomorrow but afterwork I am celebrating Bonfire night with my sag witch friend at Victoria park so I am excited to take part in that!

I hope you all had a great Samhain!

[breelandwalker]

So... I want to be witchy and practice the craft but I've honestly no idea where to begin. I also don't really have the money to afford supplies like candles and crystals and herbs and stuff (high school student here...) so I'm not even sure if I could practice effectively because of that. I have a couple books, but I'm not sure if the authors are credible or not, so I'm afraid to practice from them. Do you... have any advice or tips?

-big warm smile- Sweetie, come and sit by me. Let’s chat.

First of all, welcome to the community! There’s a lot to learn and a lot of complications and it might take you a while to find your feet, but there’s plenty of folks around who are willing to help. We’re glad you’re here! :)

Now then, supplies and budget concerns. There are SO many witches out there working on a shoestring budget or no budget at all, and they practice just fine.

One of the things that gets fed to us a lot by popular literature and media is that in order to be a witch you need lots of rare herbs and fancy crystals and enough candles to set a small village on fire. Not so. Basic spells can be done with whatever you have to hand. It’s all a matter of working creatively and thinking outside the occult-store box.

You’re a student, yes? So in your accoutrements for school, you’ve got things like paper, pens, tape, maybe some markers and things, right? And your home kitchen, that’s probably got a spice cabinet with some cooking herbs, right? And you’ve got access to the internet (obviously) and a blog.

So…good news! You’ve got everything you need to start your practice.

No candles? No problem! You don’t really need live-flame candles unless you’re working a spell that requires something to be set on fire. You can use LED candles, or a picture of a candle, or a flashlight, depending on what the symbolic need for the item is. Or, if you want, you can skip them altogether.

No herbs? Check that kitchen cabinet. Amazing things can be done with the seasonings that are probably already in your home. Some of my go-to herbs are Basil, Rosemary, Sage, Thyme, Cinnamon, Cayenne, and Ginger, to say nothing of good old salt and black pepper. The spice aisle is a treasure trove for witches on a tight budget, and even more so if you have a local dollar store that carries cheap generic seasonings. You only need a pinch or so of an herb for full effectiveness; a little bit goes a very long way!

No crystals? Again, not a requirement. Some witches work extensively with stones and gems and such, but as with candles, unless you’re working a spell that specifically revolves around the use of a crystal, you don’t really need them when you’re starting out. If you do feel a draw toward crystal magic, small quartz points are easy enough to find as decorative items or jewelry and they tend to be less expensive than most other minerals. (I recommend checking this shop for crystals and such. The owner is a fellow witch and her product is very good quality and very reasonably-priced.)

With paper and pencil, you can work on creating your own sigils, make paper charms or poppets, practice writing spells, or take notes on things that interest you. Blogs are a great way of doing this as well; plenty of witches have blogs that function as digital repositories for their magical learning.

As for the other stuff (i.e. cauldrons, jars, besoms, statues, incense, etc), all that can wait. The most important thing that you can do as a beginner witch is research. And not just with books either. The internet can be a great source of information, so long as you don’t mind exercising those critical thinking skills.

Witchy tumblr has taught me a whole slew of things that I never would have learned from books; some stuff about the community you can only learn from other people, and it largely deals with social awareness and etiquette. Generally, if you follow Wheaton’s Law (“Don’t be an asshole”), you should be fine.

Getting back to books…yes. There ARE pagan authors who are very popular and very problematic. The only two that I recommend avoiding wholesale are Silver Ravenwolf and Raymond Buckland, due to the rampant racism and misinformation found in their rhetoric. There are others that should be avoided for other reasons, but those are the two you see in bookstores most often. (My post on other authors and their issues is here.)

EVERY pagan author is problematic in some way (including me) because there are so many viewpoints in the community about what is and is not acceptable in the craft. Generally, you want to avoid (or at least heavily fact-check) anything that tells you the following:

There is only ONE WAY to be a witch / practice witchcraft (wrong)

There are only Certain People Who Can Be Witches (fraud)

Christians are evil / stole our holidays / burned millions of witches (lies)

It’s perfectly okay to cherry-pick whatever you want from other cultures and traditions and cobble it together however you please (NO)

You can’t do magic without deities / witchcraft is a religion (try again)

You can only do magic for pure good / for the good of others (haha no)

In order to be a witch, you must join a coven / undergo initiation / be trained by a person of certain rank / perform certain rituals / own certain objects / work your rituals naked / follow (or not follow) a certain religion / make vows to a certain deity or set of deities (nope nope and uh NOPE)

Whatever you end up reading, definitely supplement that learning with research on practical history (that boring stuff you learn from dusty old tomes) and a good dose of practical botany or herbology (knowing which plants do what so you don’t accidentally give yourself an allergy attack or a dose of poison).

If you’d like a place to get started, I do maintain a website with lots of free information on plant-based cottage craft (the way I do it, anyway) and advice for beginner witches. I also have a book in the process of being published that you might find useful. My two collaborative projects, The Sisters Grimmoire and The Witches Cupboard, are available on Amazon in print and on Kindle.

And if you have more questions, feel free to ask. :)

(Wow this one got away from me. But I hope it helps!)