#i feel like i should do a banishment spell for the full moon based on this!!

[samwisethewitch]

Building a Magical Home

One of my favorite quotes about the magic of homemaking comes from Cory Hutcheson, host of the New World Witchery podcast. He says, “Home is a transformational act. It is the thing you do to turn a space into a space… that is full of ritual and significance and meaning. So there is sort of this ongoing relationship you have with the space that makes it a home.”

The act of creating a home, of making a space your own, is inherently magical. But if you want to make your space feel a little more witchy, here are some ideas to get you started.

Charms and Talismans

Making your own magical objects can be a powerful way to bring magic into your space. The best thing about making your own charms is that you can make them look however you want, so it’s easy to disguise them as ordinary household objects. You can make a charm for any intention by combining objects based on their magical correspondences.

I’ve talked about protective charms in previous posts, so I’m not gonna spend a lot of time on it here. The simplest protective charm is keeping a large piece of iron under your bed to keep away nightmares, evil spirits, and negative energy. You could also make your own protection charm, like a witch bottle.

You can create a “happy home” charm to bring peace, harmony, and happiness into your home. This charm could include herbs like basil, rosemary, lavender, peppermint, and/or bay leaves, as well as other items that you associate with peace and good fortune, like lucky coins, crystals, or black cat fur. Write your desires for a harmonious and happy home on a piece of paper, fold it up, and add it to the charm. You could store these items in a green bag, bury them in your backyard (in this case, make sure you’re only using biodegradable plant matter — leave out the coins and crystals), or place it inside a household object like a lamp or an end table.

If you suffer from insomnia or other sleep issues, try making a dream charm to help you sleep well and have sweet dreams. To make a simple dream charm, fill a blue or purple bag with lavender, chamomile, peppermint, and any other objects that you associate with peace, restfulness, and sleep. If you want to have lucid dreams or receive psychic messages in your dreams, include a bit of mugwort. Place the charm in your pillow or under your mattress. (I personally swear by this one, as it’s helped a lot with my insomnia.)

Charms are great for homemaking magic because you’re actually creating a magical object, which can then become a permanent fixture of the space.

Magical Decor

You can use magical items to decorate your home to bring certain qualities into that space.

Hanging or displaying a broom is said to bring good fortune, protection from evil, and good hospitality. Cauldrons are used to represent the Goddess, rebirth, and raw potential. Horseshoes hung above door frames bring safety and luck to all who cross under them, and keep unwanted guests away. If you can get them legally and ethically, animal bones, teeth, claws, and feathers can represent the spirit and energy of that animal. You can also put up images of spiritual and occult symbols — I have an image of the Sun tarot card hanging in my bedroom to promote positivity and growth.

If you need to be a little more subtle with your witchy decorations, working with the magic of color is a great way to do that. Gathering a lot of items of a single color in one room changes the energy of that room. Here’s a quick guide to give you some ideas:

Yellow is associated with divination, mental clarity, the element of air, success, communication, and inspiration.

Purple is associated with divine power, spiritual awareness, mystery, astral travel, magic, and authority.

Blue is associated with healing, psychic abilities, the element of water, peace, truth, and patience.

Red is associated with protection, the fire element, sex, power, vitality, and love.

Orange is associated with ambition, creativity, breaking through blockages, and career success.

Pink is associated with romantic love, friendship, self love, compassion, and emotional well-being.

Green is associated with nature, herbalism, the earth element, money, wealth, prosperity, and luck.

Brown is associated with grounding, animal magic, stability, and balance.

White is associated with purification, cleansing, the full moon, new beginnings, healing, and spiritual growth.

Black is associated with protection, truth, outer space, banishing, and transition.

Decorating your home with colors that are meaningful to you can create a powerful magical space. You may also have your own color associations (for example, yellow is a very “happy” color for me), so feel free to incorporate those into your decor as well!

Growing Magical Houseplants

Most witches feel a very deep connection to nature and draw power from the natural world, but we can’t all live in a cottage in the heart of the forest. Even if you live in a tiny apartment in the city, you can still bring nature into your space by keeping houseplants. Many popular houseplants have magical uses, and many popular magic herbs can be grown inside. Here are a few to get you started.

Aloe. This is one of my favorite plants. Aloe brings luck and protection, especially protection on an energetic/spiritual level. I like to keep aloe in my bedroom to protect me while I sleep, as well as to bring luck and inspiration while I’m working at my desk.

Basil. Basil is very popular in money spells, and will attract prosperity and luck to your home. However, it also has protective properties — both spiritual protection and protection from bugs, since basil is a natural insect repellent! Basil can also be used in love spells, and is just generally a good plant to have around for good vibes.

African Violet. This flowering plant attracts positive spiritual energy into your space. It has associations with the moon and the water element, and is very good for promoting spirituality and psychic power.

Rosemary. Rosemary is one of those herbs that every witch should have on hand. It’s so darn versatile, it can be used as a substitute for virtually any other herb, and can be used for almost any intention. Some of the most common magical associations for rosemary include: cleansing, purification, protection, healing, mental activity, and enhancing memory. According to author Deborah J. Martin, there’s an old English saying that, “Where rosemary grows, the woman rules the house.” Like basil, rosemary is a natural insect repellent.

Lavender. Lavender brings peace, love, and gentleness, which makes it a perfect addition to any home. It can be used in spells for cleansing and purification, enhancing psychic abilities, and stress relief. Lavender is also a powerful addition to love spells. Keeping lavender in the bedroom can aid in restful sleep, while lavender in the kitchen will bring harmony to the home.

Sage. Sage is the most talked about cleansing herb, and with good reason. Unfortunately, a lot of the sage bundles you can buy at metaphysical stores are made with white sage (Salvia apiana), which is sacred to Native American peoples and is endangered due to overharvesting. Instead of buying those, why not grow your own garden sage (Salvia officinalis), which has a lot of the same magical properties? Growing sage in your home will purify the space and protect those who live there. Sage also has an association with wisdom and mental prowess.

Hoya. Hoya is a common houseplant that you’ve probably seen even if you don’t know it by name. It has a distinctive appearance with waxy, dark green leaves and clusters of white, star-shaped flowers. Hoya aligns and balances the energy centers within your body, as well as in the surrounding space. It’s associated both with grounding and with spiritual openness, so it can be great for balancing the two.

Peppermint. Peppermint has a variety of magical uses, but my favorite way to use it is for gently opening up blockages and getting things moving. It’s great for cleansing, but is more gentle than rosemary or sage. Place it in any room where you tend to do a lot of healing work, or where you could use some peace and love. Peppermint is also used in dream magic, so growing it in the bedroom may bring on vivid or lucid dreams.

Orchid. Orchids are used in magic for love and lust. Historically, orchid has been used in folk medicine to promote male virility and “Jezebel root,” used in American folk magic to attract wealthy male lovers, is a type of orchid root. If you live with a significant other, try growing an orchid in the bedroom to promote passion in your sex life. Otherwise, grow orchids in your home to promote love or to attract romance.

Catnip. If you have cats, they’ll love this one. Catnip is actually a type of mint, and has strong lunar associations. It’s said to make one more charming and attractive, and is especially useful for attracting women. At the same time, catnip promotes courage and fierceness. It is also, of course, associated with cats and feline deities, so this is definitely a plant you’ll want to keep around if the cat is one of your animal guides.

If you have a yard space that you can turn into an outdoor garden, your magical plant options are limited only by your local ecosystem. Some outdoor plants that have magical uses include roses, sunflowers, rue, lemon balm, and strawberries.

Creating an Altar

Altars are focal points of magical and spiritual energy. Many people, both witches and non-witches, find that having a designated space for their spiritual practice creates a deeper sense of sacredness and purpose.

An altar can serve lots of different purposes. Many witches use their altar as a magical work space to prepare spells, meditate, and do divination. You may choose to dedicate your altar to a deity, your ancestors, or some other spirit(s) you work with. You can also build altars for specific intentions, such as a money altar or a love altar — performing rituals at this altar everyday is a powerful method for manifestation. You altar may be some or all of these things, or it may just be a place to sit and connect with the spiritual.

You can set up an altar on any flat surface, like a shelf or table, or inside a container like a jewelry box. Your setup can be as simple or as elaborate as you like. An altar can be huge and complex, with statues and candles and flowers, or it can be as simple as a tealight and an incense burner. It’s all about what appeals to you.

Resources:

New World Witchery pocast, “Episode 143 — The Magical Home”

Southern Cunning: Folkloric Witchcraft in the American South by Aaron Oberon

Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner by Scott Cunningham

“Candle colors and their meanings” by Michelle Gruben on the Grove and Grotto blog

Green Witchcraft by Paige Vanderbeck

A Green Witch’s Cupboard by Deborah J. Martin

“The Magic of Orchids in Wiccan Love Spells & Rituals” on the Art of the Root blog

[resinatingbeauty]

Book of Shadows: Witch's Salts

Pretty much everyone has heard of 'Witch's Salt' or 'Blessed Salts', some by other names. These terms typically reference Black Salt specifically (no, not the edible kind), but there are many uses for salt in magick aside from just Black Salt and regular Salt and they are a simple tool to make that can be crafted from ingredients you may already have in your possession, inexpensively, and integrated into practically any spell, ritual, blessing, or other spiritual practice.

I'm going to go over different variations of these salts I have personally created and discuss how you may make and use your own in your own magick.

Black Salt is the most popularly used and integrated Salt in witchcraft that I have personally seen included in many spell kits, altar kits, baby witch kits etc. Sold by other sellers on Etsy as the only salt included. Black Salt is incredibly useful and is beneficial to have premade and on hand. Black Salt can dispel negativity, create a circle of purity and protection, can be used to cleanse and consecrate a space, person, or object, among many other uses.

When it comes to creating Black Salt and any Witch's Salt the base is traditionally Sea Salt, the more pure the better. If you live near the ocean like I do and can integrate Sea Salt that is naturally obtains near you than of course I would recommend doing that over purchasing it in a store, but there is nothing wrong with using store bought Sea Salt! You may also use regular, fine salt, or coarse salt if you do not have Sea Salt on hand and don't want to dump money into it (though it is cheap and may be bought at discount stores.)

Edible Black Salt is usually made from combining activated charcoal with Sea Salt, and I do use activated charcoal in my own recipe for Black Salt, there is no 'standard' for ingredients for Witch's Salt. Anything that calls to you that you believe should be integrated into your salt for its specific purpose you may include. Typically, following the theme of cleansing, protection, banishing etc.,one would select other ingredients that have these properties and exhibit the desired color. Don't worry about the consistent black coloration- this can be achieved using a myriad of methods and materials after you have chosen what you would like to integrate.

My 'Black Salt':

•Coarse Sea Salt (locally sourced)

•Activated Charcoal (This is what I use in conjunction with the ingredients below to give my salt a consistent black color)

•Palo Santo Ash (Ash from burning sacred Palo Santo Sticks which are an item also used for consecration and cleansing. Acquire sustainably or not at all, Palo Santo is a sacred tree to many indigenous people and poachers are known to harvest it )

•Sage Smudge Ash (Same concept as with the Palo Santo, I grow my own Sage. There are many herbs and botanicals with cleansing and purifying properties that may be used in place of Sage and Palo Santo that may be integrated at your discretion. Use whatever you like!)

•Obsidian Crystal Chips (Cleansed and charged under a full moon, Obsidian carries protective properties and the crystal itself absorbs negativity)

All or some of these ingredients are combined in a ritual using a mortar and pestle to grind them down where I usually say my blessing and allow the salt to absorb the moon's rays until sunup if possible. I believe the blessing / charging portion of creating your 'Witch's Salts' or Sacred Salt is quite personal. It can be something as simple as the visualization of your energy transferring to and empowering the salt- whatever you believe and feel you must do, do it. As I always say, there is no right or wrong when it comes to magick and spirituality.

The same method of creation may be used to create salts for other purposes as well.

Don't worry so much about matching your ingredients to the color you desire your salt to be. I am more concerned with the magickal & metaphysical properties of the components than the resulting color when blended as I usually choose to use non toxic mica pigments to color the salt if the blending process doesn't yield the vibrancy I desire, except with the Black Salt.

Color has its own energy as well, regardless of where the color comes from. If you would prefer the color to come from organic or natural sources, there are some components you can try mashing together to achieve your desired color

Red- Annatto Seed, Cranberry Juice

Black- Ash, Charcoal

Blue- Blue Thistle, Blueberry Juice

Green- Lime Zest, Chlorophyll

Purple- Plum Juice, Wine

Pink - Peony Petals (Fresh, ground)

Literally anything you can think of may be used to color and add to your salt. The process of blending these ingredients is magickal in itself and I recommend doing so with a mortar and pestle over a bowl if you can. You can also use food coloring or other pigments. I use mica because it is dry and has similar consistency as salt so that it blends well. It is the same mineral that mineral eye shadow is made from and you can definitely use old eyeshadows for this purpose. Store your salts in a dry place, preferably in satchets or jarred.

How to Use

You can use these salts in any corresponding spell as you would any other tool on your altar or in your cabinet. Substitute them as you would use the components that they are made of. For example, if you would use Rose Petals and Rose Quartz for a love spell, you may choose to use Pink Salt instead or in conjunction. These salts also make a great addition to spell jars and may also be used as talismans themselves as they carry their own magickal energy!

If you aren't the creative type, I have salts for sale individually/a la carte or as a bundle in my shop in several different sizes and colors ready to be used for your Craft! You may find them at blursedbaubles.etsy.com

Happy Crafting!

Samantha

[talesofatwentysomethingwitch]

my garden blooms in negative degrees

a poem inspired by my first tarot reading; i did this during my first ritual for samhain, it was very last minute and off the cuff but i enjoyed myself a lot, and felt compelled to summarise what the cards told me in my reading, and during the ritual, through a poem rather than writing and dissecting everything too much afterwards. enjoy!

this is the spread i used!

Banish;

               The idea that I am not enough

Banish;

               Negativity, fear, and regret

Feel; 

               Gratitude

TURN INWARD & FOCUS ON YOURSELF

FORM YOUR OWN OPINIONS

ISOLATE IN ORDER TO GROW

LEARN ABOUT YOURSELF

Don’t let your learning turn to ignorance or arrogance

Emulate;

               Justice

                           Those who have wronged you will feel it

Follow the previous;

     Find closure, focus on yourself and move on

Your body is the garden where your mind will flourish

                                                                          Take the utmost care

Let the rose and its thorns push through the earth; let them wonder at the fullness of the petals; the sting of the thorns. 

Take a breath;

You are doing enough

Your knowledge blooms

Love will come when you, and it, are ready. Tend to the roses first. 

YOU MUST BE THE HIEROPHANT BEFORE YOU FOCUS ON ANYONE ELSE

All;

    is well. feel the Earth. feel grounded. feel gratitude. 

[spinnyandwitchy]

New Moon Ritual

New moon rituals are about starting fresh. As the new moon marks the beginning of the lunar cycle, it is primed for self-reflection, goal setting, and healing. This is the time to create habits, start projects, or initiate life changes. Utilize the new moon’s fresh energy, priming you to start something new. Liberate your most authentic self, address and reset boundaries, set intentions for what you want to see manifest in the coming cycle. We can now call our shadow forward on the darkest of nights and shine our light into those darkest parts of ourselves. During the new moon, the sun and the moon share the same zodiac house which provides a concentrated dose of that signs archetype. Remember, the new moon is a time to: Stop, assess, maneuver. Breathe life into your goals, your ideas, your intentions. The new moon can bring additional energy and clarity to these activities, though it is not recommended to give up something you care about or give time to energy-vacuums. While ridding your life of negative energies, stopping bad habits, and setting aside unhelpful patterns, the new moon is about beginning, about inviting new experiences. This can be looked at as approaching the new cycle from a strengths-based angle. Looking to exit a toxic relationship? The new moon is the time to focus on healing and manifesting personal strength. The full moon could be more apt for banishing negativity, releasing the unwanted. Utilize the power of shining your light into your darkness and focus on what you can grow and achieve. Now is the time to accept the unexpected invitations. Below are some of my focuses during the new moon, followed by a process for a ritual with a healing spell. - Intention setting: Intentions should be clear and specific. Try creating a mantra for this moon cycle. The goal of setting intentions is to inform the universe of your aspirations and utilize that to keep yourself focused. Intentions can center on what you want to see manifest during this moon cycle. - Candles and the magic of light: While the moon is all but invisible to our eyes, this is a time to begin looking again for the brightness, i.e. bring light into your life. Candles are a wonderful way to ask the universe for clarification, shine a light into the darkness. - Meditate/yoga Prepare for the upcoming cycle by healing and focusing yourself. For Healing and Moving Forward Gather yourself (or with your coven). Sit in stillness and stop. Stretch, meditate, and do some centering yoga. You’re starting into a new, fresh lunar cycle. Feel free to set a protection circle around yourselves to ascertain that no negative energies permeate into your healing. As your mind clears, I like to do tarot readings or oracle cards to highlight what I/we need in order to heal and focus during this cycle. Discuss and develop your mantras and intentions as you each are comfortable (or on your own, be your light witch!). Your mantra is growing clearer in your mind and it is time to charge your new moon candle with it. Invite the light of healing and growth into your life. Having rested, stopped, stretched, and assessed where you need to be, it is now time to maneuver. Find herbs or oils that reflect your need/intention, coat your hands and hold your candle before your heart. Repeat your mantra three times, taking a deep breath before each repetition. Light your candle. If you need additional healing, this can be accompanied by a c

[willow-salix]

Why hello there

Is there anything you would recommend a babi witch like myself studying that has been missed from my list :>

Mah list (so far):

○ Witch vs Pagan vs Wicca

○ Types of witches

○ Grey witch

○ Black witch

○ Crystals + Properties

○ Sacred geometry

○ Pentacle + Pentagram

○ Sigils

○ Protection

○ Moon phases

○ Sabbats

○ Types of salts

○ Respecting nature

○ Graveyard etiquette

○ Spirit guides

○ Divination (runes, Tarot, Coins, etc)

○ Casting a circle

○ Candle magick

○ Colour magick

○ Closed practice appropriation

○ Herbs

○ Astrology

○ Tree of life

○ Auras

○ The five clairs

○ Energy/visualisation magick

○ History of starseeds

○ Astral projection

○ Methods of meditation

○ Grounding

○ Plant magick

Ooh OK! Here goes.

First and foremost, as a witch of twenty plus years, the most important thing I can tell you is to be yourself. If this is a belief system and way of life that you want for life it has to fit in with you and your personality.

Forget everything you see on Instagram, tictok or Pinterest, it's not about the aesthetic, it's about you.

There is no room for witch shaming on my blog.

And by that I mean that EVERYONE works in different ways, at a different pace and to different levels. Never compare yourself to anyone else or how they work. Never think that you aren't doing enough or that you aren't progressing enough.

You are on your own path and that is the right one for you, so you do it your own way. You want to stop and smell the flowers? Do it. You want to dip your feet in that stream? Go for it! You want to stop and rest for a bit? Best idea ever!

You should never feel pressured to do anything that you aren't ready for or aren't comfortable with. That includes such things as blood magic, working with deity you don't feel a connection with, working skyclad, doing any kind of sexual magic or anything that makes you feel off about it. It's YOUR craft.

Be kind to yourself, don't have expectations and don't ever think you aren't good enough or worthy.

This includes making your craft unique to you. Visualisation is one of the witches most poweful tools, the magic doesn't come from the expensive athame, insence or candles, its in the heart of the witch. The power comes from you. And visualisation is your key to that but so is choosing how to make it work for you.

Take me for example, I'm this loveable thundernerd witch, so that reflects in my craft.

In circle (mediumship development) we did a meditation and I was directed to the beach. So what beach did I go to...

"There's a lovely beach, I can feel the salt water on my skin, I can smell the salt in the air, there's a light breeze that's rustling the leaves on the palm trees all around me and in the distance I can hear the faint sound of someone playing the piano."

Hell yeah I was there. That's my happy place!

I need to ascend to a higher level of consciousness? Am I taking that golden winding staircase or am I calling John for the space elevator? What do you think I'm gonna choose?

I need to go lower, below the earth to go into trance? Hell I'm taking Alan's seat down.

Make it work for you.

Working with charms, that's a very important thing for me. I have lucky charms, trinkets and things everywhere. And they don't have to be pagan. I put a spell on my car to keep me safe and the car safe. Then I charged up a little TAG John and Virgil, they live in my car, Virgil is my co-pilot John is my navigator. They help me feel calm and safe.

Energy weaving is a big thing, I always do it that any energy I raise for something that doesn't already have a predetermined purpose, say for example it's full moon and I'm bouncing around outside, everything I raise I direct out to the earth as healing. I'll raise my arms to the heavens and say : I send this energy out to anyone or anything that needs it right now, I send my love and healing into the wind and trust that it will be taken to where it can do the mslt good.

Talking to other witches about how they do things and how they work is sooooo important. That's why I'm not in a tradition ( alexandrian, gardnerian etc) because I don't like having just one way to do things. That doesn't work for most people, they just won't admit it.

Trying different things to find a way that works for you is so much nicer and healthier than struggling to work the one way that you've been taught. So read, a lot, watch a lot of reputable youtubers (I recommend Tylluan Penry, she's amazing, a grandmother witch and a good friend of mine) and make your own choices. And remember that nothing is set in stone, we are ever evolving and every changing, if you feel the urge to try something new and work a different way, do it. You don't have to stick with it.

An astral altar, sooo important but something I don't see many people talking about. An astral altar is something you build in meditation.

You have your happy place, somewhere you feel safe and calm and protected (Tracy Island and the beach for me or my Nan and Grandads house as I remember it before they passed away) but it could be anywhere, a woodland, a house, a stream, a playground you used to love. Anything or anywhere.

Here you find a nice place that you like and you dream up /visualise your altar base, like a nice table, a tree stump, and rock, anything. And here you place all the items you might need, all the things you've dreamed about that you can't afford or the things you have in real life. And you place them all there. You keep that space, you charge it up, you spend time there and then, any time you are away form home or can't get to your altar in the real world for any reason, you have somewhere to go, somewhere to work and some where to commune.

Tools, I didn't see that on the list but might have missed it.

Anything can be a tool. That's the biggest lesson of all. Our pagan ancestors would have used whatever they had to hand, no tools were single use or bought for the purpose of their craft. A cauldron was cooked in all week, a knife is used to chop everything and then used to direct energy.

These days we have the resources (and don't have to hide) to be able to have specific tools that we use only for our craft, but they don't have to be expensive. Go to a thrift store or buy cheap on eBay, a letter opener is an athame, a single wine glass can be a chalice, a pretty bowl is your offering bowl, a single plate is an offering plate, mismatched candle stick holders. All valid and will work just as well. The tools are a focus, they are NOT the source of our power.

Another tip, make witchcraft part of your every day life. Make it as natural and normal as everything else you do. It's part of your life and should be treated as such.

Making coffee in the morning? Set your intentions for the day and focus on it as you make it. You want to draw positivity? Stir doesil (clockwise) that's attracting. Want to rid yourself of the bad mood you had yesterday? Stir widdershins (counterclockwise) that's banishing. Not got anything? Stir a pentagram and call it good.

Sigils, doodle them everywhere (if you want a quick lesson on how to draw them and make up your own, let me know). Charm the shit out of everything.

Whisper a food blessing before you make food or eat. Bring that abundance in.

Trail your fingers along a wall or bushes to feel the energy as you walk.

Everything is magical to a witch.

Read mythology stories, it helps us learn and helps us connect to the stories of our pantheons and deity.

And heres the biggest thing I can tell you. Don't worry about getting things wrong. It's how we learn and honestly there is no such thing as wrong as long as your intentions are right.

Wording of spells doesn't matter, the intention and feeling behind them does.

You can do a cleansing by saying : Blessed spirit, Father God, mother goddess, I ask that you bless this house/tool /space and help drive out any negativity. Spirits that reside, if you're good you may stay, if you wish me halm, then please leave.

Nothing wrong with that.

Or you do a me: Mother Goddess, Father God, I'm back. Help me out here please, I need to cleanse this shit. Yo, spirits, good guys, ya chill, bad shit, get the fuck out! I'm the witch I'm in charge, do as you're told *claps hands all over the place and follows up with a cloud of vape smokes because my intention is in my breath and I'm blowing that negativity away*

And last but not least. I'm sure you've heard "Ever mind the rule of three, what you send out comes back to thee" That's very true, try to only send out good if you can. But you're human and it won't always happen, you'll have bad thoughts and negative emotions, that's normal and fine. Just don't do it with nastiness in your heart.

"and if it harms none, do what you will."

There's a line here most people don't know... "do no harm. But take no shit."

Because the one person most witches forget to look out for is themselves. Being good, doing good and being positive is great, but not at the expense of yourself. If it harms you, don't do it.

Love and light, and bright blessings to you. X

[tipsycad147]

Beginner Witch Tips That You Won't Want to Miss

By Penelope Hughes

What are the Different Types of Witches and Which One Are You

There are many forms of witchcraft, and each one suits a different kind of person. Knowing which type of witch you are is essential. You will learn quicker and have a higher success rate if you lean towards your strengths and passion.

Hereditary Witchcraft

This type of witchcraft is passed down from generation to generation. When you were young, your family would have already trained you in their path. You would have learned family recipes with magickal ingredients and have a family grimoire. You will most likely have access to a Book of Shadows, which will give you an extensive advantage in your studies compared to other witches.

Green Witchcraft

A practitioner of green witchcraft works primarily with nature as their teacher and instrument. You will live in alignment with Earth and understand that everything living has a spirit. Your main tools will be plants and herbs. If you have a green thumb and enjoy working with herbs and plants, green witchcraft may be your calling.

The Faery Faith

This type of witchcraft works closely with the faeries (faery or fey). These are magickal beings such as undines, nymphs, pixies, or sylphs believed to live in the astral realm. The astral realm is parallel to ours. Practitioners of this craft will learn to work with the thirteen lunar months of the Celtic Tree calendar, and they will access different energies that each of the thirteen months holds. Green witches who work with the fey will often overlap their craft.

WICCA

WICCA is a religion that is neo-pagan and nature-based. Their beliefs are similar to the ancient Celts' religious beliefs. Wiccans do not have one single holy book, but they do follow two laws. The first law is the Rule of Three, which means "three times what thou givest returns to thee." The other law is the Wiccan Rede, which means "an ye harm none, do what ye will." There are many different sects of Wicca, and they all have separate traditions.

Kitchen Witchcraft

This type of witchcraft incorporates cooking into their spellcraft. The process of cooking and eating becomes a form of ritual. Consuming the food infused with magick kitchen witches release the energies from their food into themselves and the Universe. Kitchen Witchcraft is a calling for those who are skilled at cooking and enjoy working with food.

Chaos Magick

This type of witchcraft prefers to work with sigils and charged symbols. Chaos witches will learn how to enter a state of unconscious intention called a "gnostic state." They use breathing techniques, muscle relaxation, or intense emotions to enter a gnostic state to think and enact magick unknowingly.

Eclectic Witchcraft

This type of witchcraft is a combination of different practices that is unique to the witch. An Eclectic witch creates their path by drawing on their heritage, passions, and various types of magick. This type of witchcraft does not follow one single track.

Books for the Beginner Witch

One of the first things I will recommend to a new witch who wants to get started is to read lots of books. Knowledge is power, and you will not gain that knowledge by sitting idle and waiting for others to teach you.

I am always reading books and learning new things. I usually purchase my books, but you do not have to. If your short on cash or don't want to buy your books, check what resources your local library has. You might be surprised by the amount of information they have available.

The Book of Shadows: by Brittany Nightshade. This book is excellent for the new witch. Just understand it is not a real Book of Shadows. The book covers different types of magick and goes over how to cast simple spells. She does cover love spells in the book, and I would say love spells are very popular, but please be cautious with them and never cast a love spell with a particular person in mind.

The Green Witch: by Arin Murphy-Hiscock. I just finished this book and cannot praise it enough, especially if you are interested in Green Witchcraft. Arin does a beautiful job covering herbs, flowers, essential oils, and so much more than I expected. She has a handy index for a new witch at the back of the book that you can quickly flip to if you need information about a specific herb or plant.

The Wiccan Book of Shadows: by Ambrosia Hawthorn. If you are interested in learning about Wicca and its fundamentals and practices, I highly suggest the Wiccan Book of Shadows. Some books meant for beginner witches can be very biased or, on the other end, they do not offer much of a foundation. This book met in the middle for the perfect mix of a good and robust foundation. Another thing I love about this book is how gorgeous it is on display. When I got this book I knew at first glance it was not going to go on the bookshelf.  This is a beautiful piece of art that needs to be displayed.

The Door to Witchcraft: by Tonya Brown. This book covers the history of witchcraft through the ages and how it has evolved over time. You will learn about fundamental techniques, traditions, rituals, and ceremonies that every new witch should know. Our history is significant to know, do not forget that it was not so long ago we were burned at stake.

What The Colours Mean in Candle Magick

New witches will usually start with magick that they find most straightforward and the least complicated. Because candle magick is not as difficult or complicated as other types of magick, it makes sense that new witches would start with candle magick.

One thing you should remember when preparing to use candle magick is your candles need to be dressed. Dressing the candle is accomplished in two steps. The first step is exercising the candle of any negative energy or previous magickal energy. The second step is charging your candle. Neither step is complicated, but it will require a great deal of concentration and visualization skills.

Witchcraft Tools That You Should You Get First

The basic tools of spellcraft include the athame, wand, sword, cords, cauldron, chalice, and altar bell.

If you're a new witch with a small budget ( I know the feeling, I started in middle school), skip these tools and focus on candles, incense, oils, and herbs.

I would recommend forgoing the tools in the very beginning and encourage you to study. Join a coven, get some books from the library, join beginner witchcraft groups on Facebook (be safe when talking to people online, and meeting people from online groups could be dangerous).

The Athame: This is a ritual dagger with a double-edged blade. It will have a black or white handle that witches will paint or engrave runic names or magickal symbols on it. It is used for casting the circle, storing or directing energy during rituals, and stirring potions.

The Wand: The wand is the emblem of power, and it symbolizes the ancient element of air (some traditions believe it represents fire). Its traditional uses are to cast the circle, draw magickal symbols, invoke spirits, and stir cauldron brews. Wands are usually carved from the wood of the hazel, ask, rowan, or willow tree. Modern witches have had wands carved from crystal, ivory, and metal. I recommend sticking to wood but that's just my preference.

The Sword: If you are starting and new to witchcraft, you should not need to get this basic tool. Covens usually use it, and if you join one, they will most likely already have a sword for their rituals. The sword is used the same way as the athame, but it is considered more authoritative.

The Cord: Cords are used to store magickal energy for later use. A witch will tie nine knots into the cord to hold the magickal energy. When they are ready to release the power that has been stored, they untie the knots in the same order in which they were tied. Depending on the intent, you might untie one knot every night for nine days.

The Cauldron: The cauldron is made of iron and possesses great mystical power. It symbolizes the four ancient elements of air, fire, water, and earth. Its three legs represent the three phases of the moon (waxing, full, and waning.) Cauldrons are used for rituals, brewing potions, burning incense, and holding charcoal blocks, candles, amulets, talismans, and herbs. Be careful if you intend to buy a cauldron offline. A lot of times, they are a lot smaller than what the pictures make them look like.

The Chalice: A sacred goblet is a tool that represents the element of water. It is used for ritual mixing of salt and water, blending potions, and pouring libations (a drink poured out as an offering to a deity).

The Altar Bell: If you are interested in WICCA, they use a small bell to keep at their altar. It is rung three times to signal the start or close of a ritual. Other magick practitioners use altar bells to summon or banish spirits, dispel negative energy, and drive away mischievous fairies.

https://www.mysticalstudies.com/post/beginner-witch-tips-that-you-won-t-want-to-miss

[gilded-gheists]

{part 1 to this post}

So anyway here’s more on why I think Tubbo should work with aphrodite in my witchcraft au to further prove my points as well as the things Ranboo and Tommy also work with. 

> I like the idea that Aphrodite wants to empower Tubbo and teach him about self-empowerment and doing things by himself, away from his family in the au. As he’s lived a life of tradition working in his family’s shadow and needs to break away and find his own path in witchcraft to find  the happiness that he can have in his craft.

> Aphrodite, as common knowledge kinda, accepts shells as offerings and Tubbo literally made a song called ‘life by the sea’ so I’d take a guess and say he likes the seaside and beach, leaning further into water witchcraft (and a later take on water-based deitie from the Norse pantheon as his patreon god) and becoming a sea witch down the path.

>So yeah, Tubbo ends up working with Aphrodite and keeps a small offering bowl for her (she understands as his family are highly strict about their following) which he tops up with pretty shells, dried rose petals, pink salt, rose quartz and, of course, an apple. 

>Tubbo is very skilled with candle and incense making! He’s great at both and often people in the town commission him to make them some or teach them how.

> Ranboo, when he starts to find his own niche, I feel would really get into helping spirits & daemons and inviting well-minded ones into his house to help him along his path. He’d stoke out antique shops with Niki (who slightly dabbles in helping spirits as part of shadow work) and look for objects that are cursed or have a spirit attached to help him along. Wherever it’s finding them a way for freedom or learning about witchcraft and spirits from them. Or even learning how to banish them properly too.

> As well as getting heavily into working with his ancestors in the path, Ranboo would be heavily interested in what exactly they did and I feel like his grimoire would become thick very quickly and full of information he learns and small little tabs poking out of it. 

> I know very little about it but am highly interested in draconic witchcraft myself and I feel like Ranboo would be too. He’d work with dragon guides and leave offerings for them on an alter dedicated to the dragon and his craft. Very dedicated to making it perfect for the dragon he works with.

> Sam teaches Tommy about the fae and how he works with them. He teaches him etiquette about how to not be tricked and not accept offerings from them. Leaving offerings for the fae and more. Tommy becomes fascinated with it and with his whole ‘protecting the land’ thing he has going on he leaves small offerings of buttered bread and thyme and a spoonful of honey out for them.

>I’m saying Tommy would make an excellent fae witch and would just be a really good one with that too. 

> Tommy works with animals a lot in this au as well as his familiar and his spirit guides. His whole thing is cultivating a better life for himself and those he cares about (humans and animals alike) with witchcraft. He has a very start-friendly path (fae can be handled properly, he works with a mentor after all who can teach him about them. Of course it’s usually not advised to dive into fae work though.)

>He has so many jars lining his room and it always smells like apple incense and caramel in his room.

>Sam also gets Tommy into the alternative ways of protection. Tommy’s favourite becomes sound cleansing and hanging herbs and fabrics and stained glass around his room. Think of Howl’s room from Howl’s Moving Castle  except less cluttered. 

(some little extra notes)

> when all of bench trio are finally friends, they make each other small ‘friendship’ protection jars that they all wear around their necks.

> They also all go on walks at night on the beach, kicking up sand, pushing each other into the ocean, looking for hag stones. Some nights they spend time in the forest too, looking for edible plants or herbs for Tommy to use the next day.

> They hold stupid competitions to see who can collect the most rainwater whenever it rains. Tommy always wins because he adds water to it. (oh and they always lend one another moon water if someone needs some for a spell but ran out :] )

>Tommy’s familiar is Hetta the chicken and I will die by my words. She helps him pick tarot cards in the morning and he meditates with her in his lap.

[ofcloudsandstars]

October Magical Dates and Astrological Transits

Welcome to the most fantastic month of the year! My birthday month Halloween month!! We are sandwiched between two powerful full moons that will take us on a journey deep within ourselves to find where our energies could be suppressed, where we feel oppressed and how we can empower and transform ourselves. Each major celestial event feels like part of a chapter of self discovery and empowerment that leaves us shedding away what we no longer need and having to transform ourselves to evolve into an elevated new level.

As usual I will make additional posts on some important days as they come but below is the full month of October!

----

Week 28 - 4

1st - ☾♈ Full moon in Aries Happy Lunar Festival to those who celebrate it!

We kick off October with a full moon!! The fact that this month is framed by full moons and full of transits that force us to confront our buried emotions sets the tone for October and for us to make peace with our shadow sides.

This moon is very special for a number of reasons as it's the Harvest Moon (the full moon near the Autumnal Equinox) and it's the Aries full moon which packs a lot of power. The Aries full moon often asks us to step aside and focus on our needs and goals especially in relation to our partnerships or what we may contribute to a relationship. This full moon may be an aggressive presence in rocky relationships where people's needs may erupt to the surface if they are not being met or honored by their partner.

This fiery moon will be conjunct Mars rx and Chiron in Aries merging our unresolved childhood traumas with our repressed energy and motivations that the mars retrograde brings. Full moons can be cathartic and this can demand us to bring release to what we may have buried away. Challenges can trigger our deep emotions that may get expressed through explosive anger, yet it's a time to take note of what those feelings are and try to heal by making healthy decisions that honor our feelings. This moon will also trine Venus in Leo which will help to smooth it out and bring a pleasant vibe to it's energy. Venus does want to have harmony and trines love unions so in the realm of relationships this can bring a moment of peace or compromise and a window to discuss anything that needs to be addressed in relationships. Finally this full moon may feel intense with the squares coming from Jupiter rx, Saturn and Pluto rx in Capricorn. We may feel burdened by our responsibilities, restrictions (especially with Covid regulations), the powers that be that are constantly avoiding reform. This can also add to the tension of the mars conjunction and feelings of repressed anger or suppressed energy. We will be craving release. It's a good time to focus on how we can redirect our energies to honor our needs especially in relation to our inner child and what needs we were neglecting before. Full moons are great for release and attraction magic so you can use the energy to draw your new reality towards you, however if you are feeling the frustrations of the squares, take a moment to do some visualization meditation to really ground the energy and emotions of the reality you want. Try to avoid going into manifestation carrying that frustration or else it can seep into the reality you are trying to attract your way. With the moon in Aries, it's a great evening for fire-based magic. Candle magic goes well with attraction and manifestation spells.

2nd - ☾♈ Venus enters Virgo

A new sensuous cycle begins as Venus enters Virgo. When Venus is in the sign of healing yet practical virgo, we tend to express our love and care for others through acts of service and being supportive towards each other. We tend to find enjoyment and pleasures in things that are sensual yet practical. We may feel more inclined to treat ourselves through self care that honors our health and physical well-being. We could easily feel guilty if we are too self-indulgent or frivolous in this time. It's a wonderful transit to practice self-love in the everyday tasks such as taking care of our bodies and appreciating wholesome foods and activities. The shadow side of this energy can be us being overly critical of ourselves, picky with our partners or worrisome. However instead of worrying about what we cannot fix, we should try to turn the energy inwards to help nurture ourselves and whichever insecurities arise, find ways to be patient with ourselves and focus on inner healing.  

3rd - ☾♉ Pluto direct in Capricorn Moon enters Taurus

The energy of this outer planet is moving direct finally. Though it is still in it's shadow, the period of introspection, inner soul-connecting and facing our deep shadows has come to the end of this phase. It's now time to address the grip of power coming from powerful authorities which dominate our lives and undermine our power. A lot of these themes were already brought to light this year and these themes will grow only more climatic as we approach the year 2024 when Pluto will complete it's return for the USA's government chart. (Even if you don't live in the USA, the impact of these political events can ripple across most of the world). The structures revolving around massive businesses run by oligarchies and police states are slowly decaying and transforming and the period of reflection has come to it's end for now.  

4th - ☾♉ Moon in Taurus When the moon is in Taurus, it's a good time for taking things slow and to relax. It's a great time for kitchen magic, earth and plant-based magic and self-care magic.

----------------------- Week 5 - 11

5th - ☾♉ Same as above yet this moon will be void of course so it's a good rest day and best to not start anything new.

6th - ☾♊ Disseminating Moon | Moon Trine Sun Moon enters Gemini

The waning gibbous moon is a great time for taking stock of your progress during this lunar cycle and celebrating any little successes you’ve managed to accomplish so far no matter how small. It’s a lovely vibe for socializing, spreading generosity or just taking the moment to enjoy life. When the moon trines the sun it’s a harmonious time that brings a lot of luck. When you take stock and realize that you may not be where you’d like, then it’s a good time to catch up on work to help you out or do magic to bring opportunities for doors to open for you. It’s a good time to wrap things up or spend time socializing or alone enjoying life!  

7th - ☾♊ Mercury in Scorpio opposite Uranus rx in Taurus Draconids Meteor Shower

The combination of Mercury opposite Uranus rx along with a meteor shower can bring unexpected happenings, sudden epiphanies and new insights. This energy can also lead to other unexpected happenings which can bring discord and slight chaoticness. Though today is not a great time to make plans, it is a great time to go with the flow and be open to exciting encounters or changes in our paths that life may bring us. The energies today may bring many surprises and sudden changes that may electrify us as it brings something new to our routine yet it can also impact areas such as transportation or technology and cause it to have issues. Give yourself a bit more time with commuting or patience with electronics today. Magically this is a great time for trance meditation with binural beats to help bring in new insights or activities such as freewriting to get your stream of consciousness out.

8th - ☾♋ Moon Enters Cancer

When the moon is in Cancer it’s a good time for magic around the home such as cleaning and cleansing, kitchen magic and bath magic. It's a great time for self-care rituals and water-based magic.

9th - ☾♋ Last Quarter Moon Mars rx in Aries squares Pluto in Capricorn

Though last quarter moons are generally reflective, this last quarter may feel very intense with Mars rx squaring Pluto in Capricorn. We may feel the same themes of being repressed by authorities or powers that be that surfaced to our consciousness during the Aries full moon being revisited today. We may reflect on how these powers have suppressed our energies in the past and contemplate how to overcome them today. It's a great day for road-opening and barrier breaking magic to get rid of obstacles in our way.

10th - ☾♋ Venus in Virgo trines Uranus rx in Taurus

This transit bring a lot of benefits for us to try new things or meet new people that can help us push our boundaries and broaden our perspectives. It's a great time to honor our values and individuality (especially in the themes of our health and work ethics) by exploring new hobbies or anything outside our usual routine. This is a great time for creativity and experimentation especially in the areas of you connecting with your individuality.

11th - ☾♌ Sun in Libra squares Jupiter in Capricorn Moon enters Leo

Today is gonna feel dramatic and optimistic yet with a shadowy side to dive into excess and pump things up. Jupiter squares tend to add gas to the flame which is great for our enthusiasm and energy levels yet it can lead to over abundance, over confidence, over spending and over indulgence. Paired with the moon entering dramatic Leo and our confidence levels and disregard for our usual restraints may fly out the window. (HAha it's my birthday today...) It's a great day for partying and enjoying life yet also knowing when to pull the plug. Make sure to budget yourself wisely today, put on lucky or protective charms and not over indulge. It's a great time to show gratitude and make offerings towards the spirits that look over you.

----------------------- Week 12 - 18

12th - ☾♌ Balsamic Moon | Moon Sextile Sun Jupiter in Capricorn sextiles Neptune rx in Pisces Mercury in Scorpio sextiles Venus in Virgo

The Balsamic Moon is the waning crescent moon after the last quarter moon. It's the perfect time until the new moon to shed what you no longer need. It's a time of taking action for banishing, cleansing and shedding. The next few days will have aspects that will push us to face our shadow selves along with hidden traumas and ask for us to shed what is no longer needed. With the Jupiter and Neptune rx sextile, it will make it a dreamy and magical day. It would be an excellent day for magic, celebration and exploring our creativity and path. Jupiter will want us to expand on our creativity and connection to our spiritual side today with it's sextile with Neptune rx. Anything ranging from divination, trance meditation, astral projection, dream magic and journeying would be a great idea today as the energies will encourage us to experiment. Mercury will also sextile Venus which will push us to want to deeply explore our connection to sensual pleasures in a healthy and practical way and maybe create that connection between what is healthy, wholesome and practical which can enrich our minds and connect us with our souls. Today is a great day to plan a ritual, do meditation and any type of magic that encourages you to explore yourself and your boundaries.

13th - ☾♍ Sun in Libra opposite Mars rx in Aries Moon enters Virgo

Mars will be incredibly bright in the sky this evening as the sun moves opposite it. We may notice a red star shining brighter than usual in the evening sky as the sun fully illuminates the retrograding planet. However energetically this aspect can bring up external events that can force us to reckon with our sources of motivation, our source of drive and repressed energy or anger. Where we may feel that our energy is stifled or repressed can come out unexpectedly through events that may trigger us to face this aspect of ourselves. With the moon now in virgo we may be able to look at these passionate emotions through an analytical yet healing perspective. We can easily find solutions to express our emotions and understand them in a clearer light. Today would be a great day for shadow work in understanding our repressed energy and how we can find a solution to express and release it.

14th - ☾♍ Mercury retrogrades in Scorpio

Every other planet this year has had some time off so it's no surprise Mercury is ready to join the club. Mercury is about to go retrograde for the next few weeks, diving us into our deep underworld to face the shadows hidden in our psyche. Eventually it will retrograde back into Libra forcing us to re-evaluate our personal values and relationships. Whatever shadows that are unaddressed lurking in the corners of our mind will come out now to be reckoned with. Just in time for the spooky season!

15th - ☾♎ Sun in Libra squares Pluto in Capricorn Moon enters Libra

To add to the flavor of yesterday, today we get to experience the INTENSE square of the Sun and Pluto locking horns. This energy can trigger fears of being controlled against our will or more aware of our shadows that may bring up our need for control. There could potentially be ego conflicts with other powerful people or authority figures that will tighten their grip on everything. We could either feel pigeon-holed today which can create challenges that force us to either defend ourselves or make a major change or cause us to crave power in order to control the situation around us. If desires for power emerge today, pay attention to what your shadow self is telling you and reflect on the source of these deep rooted fears. Is it coming from past negative events? Traumas? Even past lives? Is it from current events? Working out what negative emotions may arise today can give us insight on the general theme of this month of where we feel that our energy is repressed and how we can make changes to break free from our current shackles. (There is also this theme coming from Uranus still being in retrograde as well). Additionally the moon will have entered Libra and begun it's new moon phase and will be opposite Mars rx today so there will be emotions emerging from repressed energy that we will be more aware of and be able to observe. With mercury retrograding in Scorpio it will be a great time for shadow work today as well.

16th - ☾♎ New Moon in Libra Sun in Libra opposite Chiron rx in Aries

The moon will be opposite the sun today as it begins it's new cycle in Libra. The new moon in Libra asks us to review our values, what makes us balanced and our relationships for this cycle. This libra season our values have been questioned, along with perhaps, our stance in situations or previous compromises which could have undermined our freedoms and repressed our emotions. We will be asked during this new cycle to re-align with our values, evaluate the relationships that still align with our best selves and make changes in areas that do not reflect our values or that may suppress us. This moon will also square Jupiter, Saturn and then Pluto in Capricorn tying together the themes of where we may feel burdened and oppressed. Especially with the global political climate it's a good time to see where our complacency has lost us our freedoms and where we need to take action to ensure us a better future.

This new cycle may feel more confrontational than the usually harmonious libran energies we are used to. The Sun will be opposite Chiron rx in Aries bringing us potential sudden external events which could trigger our inner trauma, show us where we need to heal physically and mentally and make us more aware of adversity that we need to overcome. We may be brought to more awareness of what trauma could have fed the shadow sides or toxic traits that have been holding us back. As we are in Shadow Work/Shedding season it’s a good time to look into these traits during the beginning of this cycle and shed away what no longer holds value for us. 

17th - ☾♏ Eros enters Virgo Moon enters Scorpio

The lil' asteroid of passions and inner fire moves into Virgo today shifting our inner fuel to find more spark in the areas of life revolving around service our health and practicality. We may be more reasonable and solution-oriented while pursuing our passions. We may find more interest in sex that is acts of service towards our partner or healthy exercise embedded in our routine. With the moon entering Scorpio it's a good time for sex magic and shadow work.  

18th - ☾♏ Venus in Virgo opposite Neptune rx in Pisces Sun in Libra squares Saturn in Capricorn

Today may feel like it will drag on forever with the hard Sun and Saturn square bringing a dull desaturated filter to the world. We may feel restricted and burdened by our responsibilities or by authority. This may feel extra unpleasant with the new wave of Covid that may look to restrict our freedoms and make us worried about our stability. Additionally Venus will be opposite Neptune's Retrograde which is a recipe for some messiness. This could be a helpful time of reflection where we could have been seeing another person (or even more abstractly- a business, an idea or alignment of whatever) through rose-colored lenses that could be ripped away by this transit. We can finally see them for who they are and how they might have hoodwinked us in the past. On a negative side if we haven't yet learned the lesson this opposition can be the recipe for scammers or more people to come and take advantage through glamours and tricks. Be wary of your spending today, your boundaries, your CREDIT CARD INFORMATION ONLINE lol (negative Neptune transits ALWAYS brings out the scammers), and make sure to put up your wards today. It can be a day that drags on forever and may feel a bit gloomy especially with the moon still in Scorpio but you can help it go by quickly by working with the Venus and Neptune rx opposition to seeking out art that aligns with your values or spiritual beliefs. Watch films that make you feel magical or paint, draw, write, create what you love when you get a moment. If the Saturn square makes creating anything too difficult then watching a movie or favorite show can help with the escapism.

----------------------- Week 19 - 25

19th - ☾♐ Venus in Virgo trine Jupiter in Capricorn Mars rx in Aries squares Jupiter in Capricorn Ceres direct in Aquarius Moon enters Sagittarius

Though yesterday could have felt heavy, today the energy will feel Spectacular!! The mood will shift to being more lighthearted and optimistic with the moon now in shimmering Sagittarius. The jupiter energy may feel a bit more fiery and sparkling than usual with Jupiter squaring Mars rx which will only swell our inner desires and passionate emotions and drives that will need to explode outward!! If we are feeling repressed, there is no hiding that energy any longer with this volcanic transit! However to help bring some joy to this energy we have Venus in Virgo trining Jupiter bringing harmony to our values and creating luck in areas of generosity, spending time with loved ones and honoring our values and what we love. This is a day asking you to align yourself with what makes you feel most authentic. Lastly the little dwarf planet Ceres goes direct finally so we will feel that boost in areas of being nurturing and caring towards others especially in regards to our roles in our community. Now that we have took some time to nurture ourselves during it's retrograde, it's time to consider how we can contribute our support to our communities.

20th - ☾♐ Waxing Crescent Moon | Sun Sextile Moon

With the moon in Sagittarius during this waxing crescent period, it's an excellent time to experiment! Review on what you've reflected on or what intentions you've set during the new moon in Libra (aligning with our values and relationships that serve our greatest good / seeking harmony and justice and not compromise for the sake of "peace") and try out new things that align with your goals. Especially after yesterday's transits we may have a better idea of what those things are and with the moon in Sagittarius we may feel more aligned with our personal philosophies and faith. Optimistic Sagittarius will want you to expand on these ideas and experiment in any way you can!  

21st - ☾♑ Venus in Virgo trines Pluto in Capricorn Moon enters Capricorn

With the moon still in it's waxing crescent experimental phase, we may get a boost of intense and incredible energy asking us to reconnect to ourselves on a soul level. With Venus trining Pluto we get that added intensity and passion connecting us with our values on a visceral, powerful soul level. Anything that can bring us joy and satisfaction or loved ones or beliefs can be connected with on a deeply intimate level. A new relationship during this time would be very intense (great time for a soul mate), yet on a negative side this transit can give power to obsessions which we must be aware of how to curb if it goes too far. However today is an excellent day for love-attraction magic if you want something deep and intense, decorating our space to have meaning or reflect our values or express ourselves in any genuine way. This is a good time for soul-searching, attraction magic, sex magic and anything art-based.

22nd - ☾♑ Orionids Meteor Shower

With the moon in Capricorn, it's a good time for organization, addressing our tasks and responsibilities, ancestor magic, earth and mineral based magic and during the void of course, reviewing our work this cycle so far. The Orionids Meteor Shower can bring in energy from beyond to help us broaden our insight. If you catch a glimpse of a 'shooting star' make a wish!

23rd - ☾♒ Sun enters Scorpio First Quarter Moon Moon enters Aquarius

We enter the Spooky Season officially as the sun enters the dark and mysterious Scorpio. This season marks the middle of autumn where everything is starting to wither and decay, the nights are growing longer and we are feeling the chilly winds that kick up the skeletons of dead leaves. With Mercury retrograde in Scorpio still the deep underworld themes of Scorpio will feel strong as we are asked to face our inner shadows as we descend into the darkness. Today also marks the first quarter moon in Aquarius. Looking back at the New Moon in Libra we can think on the themes of us aligning with our values and people that support and reflect that as well and with the first quarter moon that theme will ask us to strategize on how we can express these unique part of ourselves as part of our roles in our community. The themes of the community may be brought to the surface with this first quarter moon and many people may want to take action, however this moon phase is best for reflection and taking that pent-up energy to strategize. There is always a time for action during the waxing gibbous phase when energies are more harmonious. If you are feeling blocked and restricted during this square it's a good time for barrier-breaking magic to dissolve any obstacles in your way. Focus on what opportunities you'd like to attract or what you need to move forward and do magic to bring that your way or break through whatever is holding you back.

24th - ☾♒ Venus in Virgo trines Saturn in Capricorn

This is an excellent day to work on your self love, self confidence and commitment to your values with Venus trining Saturn. If you have been having a rocky relationship with others it's a good time to work out the rough patches. This is also a good day for artists that may be procrastinating on work or that put a project to the side to continue building on it. Additionally it's a great day for love attraction magic (or any attraction magic with this theme: ) with a type of relationship that is long lasting, committed and reliable.

25th - ☾♓ Sun conjuncts Mercury rx in Scorpio Moon enters Pisces

The theme of our inner descent will be front and center today with the sun conjunct Mercury rx in Scorpio. It's a good time to take the day slowly, not make any serious plans and do some self reflection and shadow work. Whatever emotions that may arise we need to bring awareness to and release what no longer serves us. Especially during this time of year it's a great time to be aware of our shadows, make peace with repressed energies and release toxic beliefs that are holding us back. The day may also feel a bit melancholy with the moon's added energy entering Pisces. We may feel like we could be drowning in our darkness and the shadows of others around us. We may be more aware of others shadow selves and be influenced a little easier by their presence due to pisces's nature of dissolving boundaries. If others that are not aware of these qualities of themselves suddenly lash out today, it's best to carry some obsidian, put protective wards around yourself and keep to your safe corner.

----------------------- Week 26 - 1st

26th - ☾♓ Waxing Gibbous Moon | Sun Trine Moon

Whatever you have been reflecting on, strategizing and working on, now it's time to put those plans into action with the sun trining the moon! This aspect brings a lot of luck, harmony and magic in the mundane to spring out today. If you put plans into action, make the first move, release something new, then there is a lot of potential for great things to fall into place. If you may have been feeling blocked or frustrated on the first quarter moon, this phase may help you with new insight on how you can progress forward. If you did barrier-breaking magic to dissolve obstacles on the first quarter moon, you may see wonderful results or sudden 'open-doors' appear today. Keep on look out today for opportunities sent by the universe! Use lucky charms and glamours and send out good energy to attract it back to you.

27th - ☾♓

Today is an excellent day for rest with the moon in Pisces. There are no demanding transits and with this being the last day of the moon in this sign, there will be a void of course that will ask us to slow down and chill out. Pisces energy loves to day dream, nap and escape so it's a good day to indulge in some bath magic, take restful naps, smoke or watch something light hearted.

28th - ☾♈ Mercury retrograde enters Libra Venus enters Libra Moon enters Aries

Venus reunites with it's home sign Libra bringing the themes of harmony, partnerships, justice and values to a crescendo in this part of the cycle. Mercury rx will re-enter Libra bringing these themes to the surface of our mind as we reflect on these aspects of our lives. It's a good time for introspection in these areas, shadow work, understanding any current challenges regarding these themes for ourselves, especially as we move closer to the full moon that tends to bring out external challenges and themes with it's opposition. This day will tie back AGAIN with the initial full moon starting this month off and all of the other points and themes about our repressed energies and how we align with our values as the Moon enters Aries and creates an opposition with mercury rx in Libra. We will be able to connect dots on how our previous compromises or alignments could have repressed our true passions and energies and we may have to face sudden bursts of anger or hidden fire that we weren't aware of before, yet it could shed light on our current journey.

29th - ☾♈

When the Moon is in Aries it's a great time for channeling courage, hexing, fire-based magic and creating new things. However as this is the end of the moon's transit in Aries as it faces it's void of course which wants us to rest and reflect, it's a good time to reflect on our inner drive and our repressed emotions and how we can healthily release them. This void of course is a good time to reflect on the themes of the last full moon in Aries and how you have integrated what you've manifested into your life.

30th - ☾♉ Moon enters Taurus

With the moon in Taurus it's a great time to take things slowly and relax. It's a great time for kitchen magic, earth and plant-based magic and self-care magic.

31st - ☾♉ 🎃 HALLOWEEN  🎃 Full Moon in Taurus Sun in Scorpio opposite Uranus rx in Taurus

It's HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!! And to top it off it's a powerful Blue Moon! (A Blue Moon is a Full Moon that occurs twice in a month!) A Blue Moon is powerful showing second chances, boosted luck and new windows of opportunity so this is a fantastic time for release, casting spells, banishing or any type of magic! In this post here where I compare the sabbats to the lunar cycle, Halloween reflects that balsamic moon period where it's time to shed, banish and release, so tonight we can banish what no longer serves us and bind what seeks to strip us of our power. We may feel very inspired after this whole month of self transformation and looking at our repressed energies and what is binding us in it's brutal authority. It's time to break those barriers apart! With the Taurus full moon we are asked to look at our resources and what we value physically and if that aligns with our soul. What materialistic things or paths were we clinging on to? Do they reflect our most authentic selves? This will be brought into question and be brought to change with the Sun opposite Uranus rx (also this full moon conjunct Uranus rx) forcing us to undergo transformation which can help break old habits, old mindsets, expand our perspectives and evolve. A bit like a death and rebirth which is in theme for Halloween. With this opposition, this can bring unexpected and exciting encounters or events that will shake up our worlds. We may have to suddenly adapt to change as a new chapter and reality get brought into our lives. It could either bring havoc or freedom, however if it's something that could trigger a negative response in you, you may have to consult that shadow side and see if there is a trait you may need to let go or that is holding you back from evolving. However just to protect yourself it's always good to carry some protective charms and wards especially on a day like Halloween.

____________________

[anistarrose]

Fear The Reaper A Lot, Actually - Chapter 4

AO3

Chapter Summary: An unlikely friendship springs from a book club, while secrecy becomes more important than ever for Tres Horny Boys. Kravitz receives a summons. Angus does a hit.

Characters: Kravitz, Taako, Barry Bluejeans, Angus McDonald, Magnus Burnsides, Merle Highchurch, Noelle | No-3113, The Raven Queen, The Director | Lucretia, misc. BoB cameos

Relationships: Taakitz, Angus McDonald & Taako, Barry Bluejeans & Kravitz, Kravitz & Angus McDonald

Don't let the Lunar Interlude-esque setting confuse you — this update's a long boi! If you can't already tell how much I love Angus McDonald, then the next few thousand words should make it pretty clear.

***

Some days, Kravitz found paperwork relaxing. Today was not such a day.

The Raven Queen was almost always receptive to his suggestions about how to restructure the forms, and happy to do what she could to minimize the bureaucracy and tedium inherent to almost any other office job. But today, Kravitz’s unbeating heart just wasn’t in his work — just like yesterday, after he’d returned from Wave Echo Cave.

So it was simultaneously a relief and a surprise when a blue glow flashed in his peripheral vision, and he felt the telltale tug of a summons from the Material Plane, specifically…

“The moon?” he muttered out loud. “What is with these people and ridiculous floating secret bases?”

The pull of the summoning spell was designedly weak, and easy for Kravitz to shrug off if needed — but he wasn’t going to pass up an excuse to get out of the office, and try to part ways with Taako on a better note this time. Maybe he could ask around, find out if anyone knew what Lucas and Noelle were up to…

In a cozy bedroom on the moon, a hissing plume of smoke emanated from a sapphire arrowhead, embedded in the soil of a potted plant. As the smoke solidified, Kravitz’s human form took shape, and instinctively scanned his new surroundings for dangers or necromantic abominations.

Two floor-two-ceiling bookshelves were stuffed with novels and encyclopedias, and glow-in-the-dark stars covered the ceiling. The bed was neatly made, but was so small it couldn’t have accommodated anyone larger than a gnome, or a halfling… or a human child.

“Hello again, Mister Grim Reaper,” said Angus. He sat on a tiny wooden chair, pen in hand and notebook open to a fresh page. “I’ve got a number of questions for you.”

Kravitz plucked the arrow from the potted plant, and the electric blue glow of the sapphire faded. “Does Taako know you have this?”

“Nope. But if he did, he’d probably endorse me breaking the spirit of the law, if not the letter — after all, you never said that only Taako could summon you this way.”

Kravitz holds up his hands. “I didn’t mean to sound accusatory. I was just… expecting to meet with Taako today, so this surprised me. But I’d be happy to answer your questions — provided they don’t take more than an hour or so.”

Angus narrowed his eyes. “Will you answer me honestly?”

Seeing no reason to lie to even the most precocious of ten-year-olds, Kravitz declared: “I swear to answer truthfully upon my oath to the Raven Queen.”

“Then tell me — why are you so nice?”

“Pardon?”

Angus glared at him. “You know exactly what I mean — why are you so helpful? You tried to reap my friends’ souls, and told them they that could only save themselves by accomplishing an impossible task! But then, you — you saved them yesterday, and even healed them! What are you playing at?!”

Immensely grateful that he’d set the terms on his own honesty oath, Kravitz told the truth with a few details omitted. “I helped them because they seemed like nicer people than most of the bounties I hunt — and in that strange sort of ‘begrudging respect’ way, I guess I’m growing fond of them.” Taako even moreso than the others.

“If you were really fond of them, you wouldn’t be trying to kill them in the first place,” Angus muttered, lowering his gaze.

“I’m sorry,” Kravitz told him, and that too was the truth. “It’s just what my job demands —”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have gotten into this line of business!” Angus screamed, wiping tears from his eyes. “In two months, I’m gonna lose three of the closest people I have to family, and it’ll all be because I’m just a kid detective who can’t track down a couple of liches — but it’ll also be because of you! I hate you, and I hate everything you stand for!”

Angus’s fist sunk harmlessly into Kravitz’s raven-feather cloak, but he staggered backwards like he’d punched a brick wall, falling to his knees and taking off his glasses to sob — but against his better judgement, Kravitz kneeled down at Angus’s side.

“Don’t count out Taako and the others just yet,” he whispered. “I’ve seen them do miraculous things — escaping from me in the laboratory, for one thing, and banishing Legion, for another. If they can defeat thousands of unruly undead souls in combat like that, then they might just be worthy opponents for even the most crafty and powerful of liches.”

“You’re sure they’ll be okay?” Angus sniffed.

“No,” Kravitz admitted. “I’m not sure. I wish I could be, because I really don’t want to send them to the Astral Plane. But they’ve got help — not just your smarts, but my scythe as well, because I don’t intend to just stand idly by without giving them a fighting chance. I… truthfully, Angus, when I offered them the deal, I wanted to bring an end to the headache they’d given me by any means necessary. But they’ve earned my respect since then, and though the deal can’t be undone, there’s no rule stopping me from aiding them. I don’t want to reap their souls if there’s any way I can avoid it, any excuse or loophole.”

Angus rubbed his nose. “Do you — do you normally like reaping people’s souls?”

Kravitz took a moment to think about his answer. “I was a human like you, once. Alive, and precocious, and always getting in over my head. When I died, and started serving the Raven Queen as a reaper, I felt like I had discovered my life’s purpose, even though it ironically required becoming undead as a prerequisite. My duty is to keep the balance of the universe — to save lives by stopping liches, necromancers, and their foul servants from upsetting that balance — but I remember what it felt like to be mortal, to have mortal loved ones. So… I don’t enjoy watching people grieve, because it feels all too familiar.”

He sat down, and crossed his legs. “I don’t tell a lot of people about this, but in a way, if I’d come to terms with death and grieved more quietly when I was alive… well, let’s just say I probably wouldn’t be a reaper today.”

Angus managed a smile. “You know, you’re nothing like the Grim Reaper in the Caleb Cleveland, Kid Cop books.”

“Oh? I know there are… a variety of misconceptions about me floating around in the world, but I haven’t read that series. Are they detective stories?”

“They’re the world’s greatest detective stories,” Angus declared, “and I own every installment!” For the first time since his ill-fated attempt to punch Kravitz, he stood up, and selected a book from his bookshelf. “This is the first one that you — well, not really you — show up in.”

Kravitz took a look at the cover illustration, which featured a child in a deerstalker hat standing back to back with a deathly pale man, dressed in tattered gray robes and wielding an iron scythe. The title read Caleb Cleveland and the Mask of Death.

“Not much of a resemblance, is there?” Kravitz mused. “I guess can’t fault them for the iron scythe, because that’s what everyone seems to expect, but iron and celestial magic don’t always get along — better than iron and fae magic for sure, but still not especially well.”

“His personality isn’t a whole lot like yours either, sir,” Angus sheepishly admitted. “This is the start of the five-book Grim Reaper arc, which starts off with the reaper helping Caleb solve murder mysteries until Caleb’s previously-struggling private detective agency — which he started after his schism with the corrupt police establishment in the last book — is renowned throughout the country. But then Caleb realizes that the reaper is just trying to bring about an era of prosperity and increased population density, so that he can kill the maximum number of people possible while poisoning the water supply! And of course Caleb disavows his partnership with Death, but the reaper spends the next four installments of the arc committing more murders as revenge — which initially felt like a little bit of a motivation downgrade, if I’m being honest, but it also led to some great continuity between books as well as some really well-written horror that unsettles without pulling on cheap shock value! So they turned out to be some of my favorite books in the series, and… I’m sorry if I judged you a little hastily because of them. You’re a whole lot nicer than the Grim Reaper I expected.”

“You don’t have to apologize. You’re hardly the first person to misjudge me for my line of work, and I don’t expect you to be the last.” Kravitz flipped through the book, which was full of underlined words and fan theories neatly written in the margins. “Actually, do you mind if I borrow this? I’ve always loved mystery novels.”

“You really want to read it?” Angus’s eyes lit up. “Uh, well, I should probably start by giving you the first book in the series, otherwise a lot of callbacks to previous adventures won’t make sense. But I guess I did kind of just spoil the whole plot of Books 21 through —”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kravitz assured him with a smile. “And I think I will take Book 1 to start out, please.”

“Alrighty, then!” Angus selected a well-worn book from his shelf and handed it to Kravitz. “Could you, um… let me know what you think of it when you finish reading?”

“I absolutely can. Oh, and Angus?”

“Yes?”

“You sound like a marvelous detective. If anyone can crack the case of these liches, I believe it’ll be you — but don’t beat yourself up if you can’t, alright? That’s a lot of pressure to put on someone, and you’re a growing kid — you need your rest.”

Angus nodded. “I’ll try to remember that, sir.”

***

Angus gave directions to the three Reclaimers’ shared dorm, but didn’t specify which individual room was Taako’s, so on a hunch, Kravitz knocked on the door of the room that smelled the most like baked goods. Sure enough, he heard Taako shout “It’s unlocked!” over the banging of bowls and cookie sheets.

“You need to look after your arrows better,” Kravitz warned him as he entered. “If someone with more malicious intentions than Angus were to steal one, then they could easily lure me into a trap.”

Taako blinked. “Whoa, what happened to your accent? I thought you were a stranger and almost chucked a bowl of gingersnap dough at your head!”

Kravitz narrowed his eyes. “Did you really? You look like you’ve got a pretty firm grip on it, there.”

“No, you called my bluff. I’m too good of a chef to just go chucking perfectly good food whenever someone spooks me — the point is, what is up with your voice, my dude?”

“It’s, um… a work accent,” Kravitz explained. “My normal voice isn’t that intimidating. As you can tell, heh.”

“Still wouldn’t want you to slice me up with a scythe, though. You gotta give yourself more credit.” Taako rolled a small handful of gingersnap dough into a ball, dusting it with sugar and placing it in the corner of a fresh cookie sheet. “And to answer your complaint earlier, Angus wasn’t as slick as he thought he was when he swiped that arrow, but I let him get away with it ‘cause I knew neither of you two dorks would try to fight each other or anything like that.”

“He actually did want to fight me for a minute or two,” Kravitz replied, “but we worked it out and now we’re apparently… book club buddies? I’m not sure, I’m no good with kids — or maybe I’m better with kids than I’m consciously aware of?”

Taako snorted. “I didn’t endear myself to little Ango at first either, but now I guess I’m his hero, and his teacher, and maybe even his emotionally adopted uncle or something? There’s just something magical about that kid.”

“Absolutely, but… he seemed stressed.” Kravitz sighed, and Taako’s expression softened. “I suppose this is partly my fault, but there’s an awful lot of pressure on him.”

“Yeah, he — he doesn’t find it so funny when me an’ the boys joke about death, I’ve been noticing. I’ll make sure he takes some time off the case to relax ��� you think that would help him?”

“I think that would be a good place to start.” Kravitz nodded, glancing over the sheets of oatmeal cookies cooling on the adjacent counter. “You look like you’ve been keeping busy yourself.”

“Yeah, the Director was so thrilled with my Candlenights macarons that she requested a couple batches of oatmeal-white chocolate and some gingersnaps. Guess she read my cookbook or something — ‘cause my whole cookie portfolio is choice, don’t get me wrong, but those are a couple of my top-tier baked goods after the macarons.”

“They smell heavenly — and I should know, working in the Astral Plane! Do you mind if I try one?”

“Wait!” Taako pushed Kravitz’s hand away from the tray. “I didn’t check them for — hang on, you’re already dead, right? You know what, go for it. Sorry about that.” Under his breath, he added: “It’ll be fine. Perfectly fine.”

Confused and a little concerned, but too polite to decline Taako’s offer, Kravitz took a bite of an oatmeal cookie. It was still slightly warm, and the white chocolate melted in his mouth, but he couldn’t imagine it being any less of a delight after having cooled, either.

“So, how many of these does your boss actually want,” asked Kravitz, “and how many can I take back home? They’re just as good as they smell!”

“Course they are,” Taako snickered. “Gimme a few minutes here, and I’ll make you a little gift baggie.”

“Speaking of gifts, that reminds me —” From an inside pocket of his cloak, Kravitz procured four new summoning arrows. “I spoke with the Raven Queen, and was able to arrange an exception to that… company policy, the one about summoning me for business only.”

Taako didn’t look away from his cookie sheet, but his ears immediately perked up.

“You can use them outside of emergency situations — within reason, of course,” Kravitz continued. “I don’t want to manifest in the middle of, I don’t know, a heated debate about moon bylaws, or whatever it is that you people vote on up here.”

“Actually, it turns out moon society is kinda authoritarian.” Taako finished filling the first sheet with gingersnap dough, and began work on a second. “But be honest — how much of this was actually premediated on your part, and how much is just a spur of the moment decision now that you know I’ll give you free baked goods?”

“It was premediated, but make no mistake, the baked goods are a bonus,” Kravitz chuckled. He neglected to mention that there had been no company policy in the first place, nor had there been a conversation with the Raven Queen. Part of him just wanted to give Taako his Stone of Farspeech number like he had with Angus, and bid farewell to the archaic summoning rituals altogether, but it would still be handing over personal information to an active bounty, and there were some lines even Kravitz didn’t dare cross — at least, not yet. “But as good as it is to be able to keep in touch with you, there’s something I should probably warn you about sooner rather than later.”

“Fire away.”

“I assume you were looking for Lup in Wave Echo Cave the other day. But that didn’t unveil many clues to you, did it?”

“Unveil? No matter you and Angus are starting a book club, you speak in the same detective mambo-jumbo. But you’re right, we found zilch.”

“Are you going to start looking for Barry Bluejeans next, by any chance?”

Taako made a funny expression. “Yeah, I guess that’s the plan. But, well, we also agreed that the plan should be to stay on the moon to rest and train for a couple days — ‘cause Magnus has been a bad influence, and we all rushed into the cave expedition just a day after we almost died averting the crystal apocalypse. You saw how that worked out for us.”

Kravitz nodded. “Today is the first day I’ve actually seen you without bags under your eyes. It suits you.” The last part slipped out without Kravitz thinking it through, but it prompted a wink from Taako, which Kravitz considered among the better possible outcomes of impromptu flirting.

“But getting back on topic,” he continued, “I wanted to warn you about Barry. I’ve encountered him a number of times, and he’s not exactly a normal lich.”

Taako sat down on a stool and crossed his legs. “Well, you dunno what my reference point is for liches. He could be a totally regular, run-of-the-mill lich by my standards — maybe a little spooky, but nothin’ to write home about, you know?”

“Then you’d be consorting with some pretty strange liches, because Barry is a very confusing one. Most liches are either antisocial or obsessed with grim monologues, but Barry has held a handful of coherent brief conversations with me — all of which started out weirdly normal, until he started rambling nonsense about the planar system with a genuinely unsettling amount of conviction.”

“Oh, those liches,” Taako muttered, nodding along. “Always saying the darndest things.”

“I feel like you’re not taking this as seriously as you could.” Kravitz narrowed his eyes. “To be fair, I’ve never seen Barry hurt innocent mortals, which is another way he differs from essentially all other liches — but that doesn’t mean that he’s not a threat, especially if you’re hunting him down. After all, there’s a reason I’ve spoken to him several times, but never successfully captured him.”

Kravitz thought back to one of his first and most troubling encounters with Barry, about a year after the end of the Relic Wars. They’d crossed paths by accident, in a seaside town recently demolished by a serpent of the Oculus’s creation, and Barry had exploited the shambles of the port to his advantage, hurling fishing nets and tattered sails at Kravitz as he made his escape.

“You can’t run from justice forever, Bluejeans!” Kravitz had shouted, slicing through a weighted net with his scythe. “Your kind all wind up in the Eternal Stockade eventually!”

“I’ve spent decades bracing myself for the end of apparent eternity and the exhaustion of apparent infinity,” Barry had replied matter-of-factly. “If your prison could really stay intact until the end of time, then I’d be happy to hunker down there with everyone I love and wait for this storm to blow over.”

With a flick of a spectral hand, he’d flung a half-dozen crates of rotten fish at Kravitz’s head. “But you don’t see me handing my soul over without a fight, so… I guess that should tell you everything I think about your so-called ‘eternal’ stockade.”

Kravitz had easily dodged the crates, but stepped right into the epicenter of the geyser that erupted from beneath the dock a moment later, launching him into the air. By the time he’d flown back down to sea level, Barry had been long gone.

“You know, if he still seems pretty chill for a lich,” Taako mused, dragging Kravitz back to the present, “and he’s harmless except for when you try to capture him, then… why are you still trying to capture him? Why not just let him do his thing?”

Kravitz sighed. “That’s a good question, and I’m honestly curious… why do you think I haven’t given up on him?”

“Well… ‘cause liches are illegal, right? Is this a trick question?”

“That’s the answer I was expecting, and you’re not wrong — but that’s not the entire story, either,” Kravitz told him. “I also don’t want to leave Barry to ‘do his thing,’ as you put it, because I don’t know what ‘his thing’ entails. I’ve heard him allude to needing something specific out of undeath, but I don’t know what that is — if it’s immortality, or power, or something else altogether. I don’t know if he’s just putting on a harmless facade while he waits for me to let my guard down.”

Taako nodded. “You think he’s planning something.”

“I know he’s planning something. Most liches, they’re unpredictable because the combination of undeath and their hunger for power has eroded their sense of logic and driven them insane. And at first, I thought this was the one thing Barry had in common with them — with his nonsensical grim warnings, and haphazard pattern of popping up in the last places I expect — but over the past decade of hunting him, I’ve gradually realized he isn’t insane at all. He just bases his decisions off of information that no one else in the universe seems to possess, and constructs plans that no one else in the world understands. He’s unpredictable, but not irrational — and coming from a spellcaster as powerful as he is, that honestly terrifies me.”

Taako whistled. “Guess we’ve really got our work cut out for us, then.”

“I’ll leave you with this: please, if you track Barry Bluejeans down but he seems civil, and reasonable, and harmless, you still cannot and should not trust him, no matter what he tells you. With liches, even abnormal ones, you can’t risk anything less than constant vigilance. Take it from someone who learned it the hard way centuries ago, and has been significantly better at his job ever since.”

“Aww, you’re worried about us,” Taako snickered as he placed the gingersnaps in the oven. “But I read you loud and clear — you don’t need to worry about me falling for a lich’s tricks, of course, but I’ll remind the other two goofuses to be careful.”

He frowned, closing the oven door. “Although, now that I think about it… what does Barry even look like as a lich? I don’t actually know what we should be searching for, but I’m assuming it’s not a normal-ass dude in jeans.”

“Oh, you can’t miss him. Most necromancers spring for black or gray robes, but his is bright red.”

Taako’s eyes went wide. “You know those grim warnings you mentioned him giving? Would they happen to be about, uh, the hunger of all living things?”

“You’ve met his lich form, too?” Kravitz slapped his forehead. “Were you also the best man at his wedding? Do you golf with him on Saturdays?”

“Man,” Taako muttered, “I am so glad we decided not to tell the Director about this.”

***

Angus found Noelle in the Bureau’s gym, dumping a cooler of water on her teammates as they finished an intense workout. On the other side of the room, Avi was thoroughly demolishing Brad Bradson at an impromptu game of half-court basketball, and a small but rowdy crowd had gathered to watch.

“Not gonna lie, I’d kill to be a tireless cyborg like you, Noelle,” Carey groaned, overdramatically collapsing into Killian’s arms. “I’m exhausted.”

“I dunno. If training didn’t make my arms ache, then I don’t think it would be half as satisfying,” Killian replied, wiping her brow. “Although some laser eyes to pair with my crossbow might be pretty kickass.”

“I’m enjoying the whole swappable body parts thing more than I thought I would,” Noelle said. “At first I was worried I’d accidentally fry a whole bunch of people with my arm cannon, but it turns out I can just take it off for non-violent occasions!”

“Hey, Angus!” Carey called out, waving to him. “Got any strong opinions about cyborgs and integrating technology into our bodies?”

“Um, I was actually just here to ask Noelle a few questions. Is this not a good time?”

Noelle shrugged. “Well, we just finished training for the day, so I don’t see why not.”

Angus beamed. “Great! But do you mind if we conduct the interview somewhere… a little quieter than this gym?”

Noelle raised an arm, shielding Angus from a stray basketball. “Sounds like a plan.”

Upon arriving in Noelle’s as-of-yet sparsely furnished dorm, Angus sat cross-legged on the floor and opened to a fresh page in his notebook.

“So, Magnus told me that you had a run-in with Barry Bluejeans shortly before his death in Phandalin. I’d never want to force you to think back to traumatic memories, but if there are any details you recall about him off the top of your head, that could be vital to our investigation.”

“I appreciate the concern, but it’ll be alright,” Noelle assured him. “I’ve already been thinkin’ back to that encounter a lot, ever since I learned Barry was a lich — ‘cause he really, really didn’t act like how I was always told liches would behave. See, he… he almost took a blast of fire to the chest while he was shepherding us into that stockroom, and even then, he told us to stay in there while he risked his life trying to lead the dwarf away. He was so brave, and he even got that dwarf out of the bar… but still not far enough away, I guess.”

“Was he using any spells? Magically redirecting fire? Did he try to teleport you to safety?”

“No, no spells that I saw. He threw a chair across the room to distract the dwarf at one point, but that was with his own two arms and I imagine a whole lot of adrenaline, not any sorta spectral mage hands or whatever it is that wizards use.”

“Hmm.” Angus clicked his pen. “I hate to say it, but if he didn’t cast a single spell, then it sounds like he really wasn’t trying that hard to save the town…”

“No, that’s not it. I’m sure of it. He told us not to be afraid, but he was… he was scared. Did a real good job of hiding it, but he was shaking as he closed that door to that stockroom and went back into the bar to face the fire. I sincerely believe he was doin’ everything he could to save us from the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet, and it just… wasn’t enough.”

“I wonder if Lich Barry has — or rather, had a kinder but more incompetent twin brother,” Angus mused, jotting down the thought in his notes. “It would make more sense than — wait. What did you just say about the gauntlet?���

“That Barry tried to save us from it? I guess I didn’t know what it was called back then, not until after I died and I remembered the Relic Wars —”

“Exactly! Noelle, you’re a genius!” Angus sprung to his feet. “We need to go talk to Johann!”

Noelle floated after him as he raced out of the room and towards the nearest elevator. “About what? The Voidfish?”

“Right! Maybe Barry didn’t cast any spells when he was alive because he didn’t remember that he could!”

“So when he died, the memories would’ve all rushed back to him, and he could go back to his lich-y business!” Noelle finished. “But why would the Bureau have erased information about Barry, of all people?”

“I don’t know,” Angus admitted as they stepped into the elevator and it began to descend. “Maybe he used to work with them, and went rogue? I’d ask the Director, but…”

“She’s not in on the lich-hunting secret, right. But you’ll probably have to tell her eventually, won’t you? Y’all can’t keep sneaking out forever.”

“Oh, I know. But the Reclaimers are going to be the ones to break the news to her, not me. They were the ones who lied about it in the first place, after all.” The elevator doors opened, and Angus sprinted out at full speed towards Johann’s office. “Johann, I have a question! Is there a way to check what people the Voidfish has erased?”

Johann gingerly set down his violin, and tapped his head. “You’re looking at it. I’ve been in charge of feeding info to the Voidfish basically since the Bureau got started, and lucky for you, I’ve got a pretty good memory for who and what gets erased from the rest of the world.”

He sighed. “I kinda… I feel like the least I can do is remember them when no one else will, you know? ‘Cause it’s what I hope someone will do for me when I’m gone, and… well, that got real depressing real fast. You probably don’t want to hear that, kid — so just tell me, who do you need to know about?”

“I realize now that I’m forming the question in my head that this might sound like a goof,” Angus admitted, “but have you ever erased information about someone named Barry Bluejeans?”

Johann laughed. “You’re right, that does sound like a goof! I can’t remember hearing about him before, never mind erasing him — and I’d definitely remember a name like that, trust me.”

“Oh.” Angus’s face fell. “I was so sure…”

Noelle drifted over to the Voidfish’s tank, watching the swirling galaxy patterns drift by. “Don’t give up, Angus. You might still be onto something — maybe the info could’ve gotten erased before Johann was in charge here, or maybe before the Bureau even found the Voidfish.”

Johann nodded. “Yeah, maybe. You want me to ask the Director about it?”

“No!” Angus and Noelle shouted in unison.

“Not yet,” Angus added hurriedly. “Maybe eventually. I’ll need to talk to Taako and the others about it first.”

“Okay, whatever,” Johann shrugged. “I don’t really understand what’s going on here, but you do you.”

As Noelle rode the elevator back to the roof with Angus, she asked: “So, what’s our next move?”

“I guess we should go tell the Reclaimers about the break in the case, or lack thereof. And maybe make an argument for coming clean to the Director, while we’re there.”

They made their way back to the Reclaimers’ dorm, but upon opening the door, every one of the room’s occupants jumped out of their seats in shock.

“Oh, it’s just you two,” Taako sighed, lowering his Umbra Staff. “Try and knock next time! I thought you were Lucretia coming to bust our secret meeting!”

The living room looked exactly how Angus would expect the site of an impromptu clandestine gathering to look, with dozens of papers scattered about and a corkboard lying on the coffee table. Red and blue strings connected dozens of thumbtacks, and the center of the board was occupied by a red crayon drawing of a disembodied robe.

Merle chuckled, elbowing Magnus. “You know, if you’d really wanted to keep our meeting secret, then we woulda made sure our ‘security guard’ actually locked the goddamn door —”

“That’s not important right now,” Magnus interrupted, closing the door and motioning for Noelle and Angus to join the circle around the coffee table. “What’s important is that you two haven’t let anything slip to Lucretia since the last time we talked!”

“Um, we haven’t, but…” Angus frowned. “We were actually thinking it might be better to let her in on the secret. I have a lot of questions that only she can help us answer —”

“Then they’ll just have to go unhelped!” Taako declared, magically silencing Angus’s Stone of Farspeech. “If you tell her our lives depend on arresting one of the Red Robes, she’ll go ballistic!”

Angus blinked. “I think I’m missing a lot of context here, sir.”

“I think I’m missing even more,” Noelle added.

Magnus pointed at the drawing of the Red Robe. “See this? This is Barry’s true form, according to Kravitz. And according to Lucretia, the Red Robes are all super duper evil, so she’s not too keen on us talking to them. Or interacting with them any more than we have to, really.”

“Well, what’s supposedly so evil about them?” Noelle asked. “Are they all liches?”

“No! Well, actually, they might be,” Merle admitted. “I dunno the states of all their souls, but we do know they made the Grand Relics!”

“What?” Noelle gasped.

“You know, like the Philosopher’s Stone?” Magnus added. “And the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet?”

“No, I know what the Grand Relics are, but there’s gotta be some mistake,” Noelle replied. “Barry was trying to stop the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet from going off and incinerating the whole town — and even if he was amnesiac when I met him, I just can’t imagine him ever creating something like that. It just doesn’t make sense —”

“Nothing about Barry Bluejeans makes sense,” Angus agreed. “There must be something we’re missing…”

“I’m sure there is, but one way or another, I’m pretty sure Barry did help make the Relics,” Magnus told them. “He’s popped up near almost every one of them, except for the Oculus —”

“Yeah, remember when you sensed a lich in the Cosmoscope, Noelle?” Taako chimed in. “That was Barry. He rooted through Lucas’s trash and said some ominous shit about billions of lives getting devoured. Doesn’t that sound like a guy who could be the evil mastermind behind the Relic Wars?”

“Well, why don’t we just ask him?” Merle spoke up. “I mean, it’s not like we have any trouble finding the guy even when we’re not looking for him, ha! — so next time we run into him, how about I cast Zone of Truth, and ask what he has to do with the Grand Relics?”

“That’s a great idea, sir!” Angus exclaimed, but his face fell after just a moment. “But if Barry usually just shows up around the Relics, and we have no idea where the last three are, then how will we know where to look for him? We don’t have the time to wait for another to surface randomly like the Philosopher’s Stone and Gaia Sash did.”

“Kid’s got a point, Merle,” Taako admitted, rubbing his chin. “But as long as we don’t have any other leads… I can think of at least once place it wouldn’t hurt to check, and maybe even grace with a séance!”

“Phandalin?” Noelle asked, and Taako nodded.

“Exactly! Sure, the last time we revisited an old stomping grounds didn’t go so well, but Phandalin’s just a flat circle where you can see danger coming from any direction. What could go wrong?”

***

End notes:

Some miscellaneous headcanons about the stuff in Angus’s room: Magnus made the bookshelves and chair, Lucretia provided the bed and helped Angus attach the stars to the ceiling, and the books are almost all Angus’s own. It took a while to bring them all up to the moon, but Lucretia was happy to help, and she and Taako both gave Angus a few more novels to add to his collection.

Next chapter has some exciting stuff happening, including an appearance from a certain lich that the boys may or may not be hunting, so stay tuned! I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to hold the every-other-Tuesday update schedule after Chapter 5, because long story short:

I got a part-time job that doesn’t take up that much time, but does occupy the part of the day when I’m usually in the mood to write.

I had mild insomnia for like a solid 4 nights, which I have since recovered from but not before it threw a wrench in my writing process, so that burnt through a “buffer” pre-written chapter or two.

I’m by no means abandoning this fic, but if updates slow down to more of a monthly pace after Chapter 5, this is why! Just wanted to give you all a heads-up.

[thekitchensnk]

and the spider lilies bloomed in the fall (chapter 19)

Rating: T Warnings: Violence Pairing: Gin/Ran Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19

“They say that lovers doomed never to see each other again still see the higanbana growing along their path, even to this day.”

A girl collapses on a dusty road one day. A boy takes her home.

The girl lives.

—

(The boy doesn’t.)

Rangiku leaned over and scrubbed viciously at the table under the window.

She was good enough for the academy. She was more than good enough- she was brilliant. Then why could she not bring herself to leave?

She bit her tongue and it poked out from between her teeth slightly as she cleaned. There was a recalcitrant water ring marking the table’s surface. She paused for a minute, and, casting a glance around her to make sure no one was watching her slacking off, ignored it and craned her neck to look outside. The sun was shining high in the sky, and the shadows of nearby buildings were short. They were still in the shadow of the walls of Seireitei; they stood like pale grey giants in the distance.

He was out there somewhere, out there in the big wide world, clothed in black, learning magical spells and sword fighting techniques to fight monsters.

That could be her too if she wished it. She was strong enough.

Then why did she resist?

She stared out into the distance, rag clenched in her hand.

Three square meals a day- good ones too, she had heard. She would make as much as a shinigami in a month as she currently did in almost a year- all the sweets she had once dreamed of, the fancy silk kimono given only to the highest earners at the Floating Moon, they could be hers with money like that. She was strong already, she knew, but she would become stronger still with a bit of training, and the thought appealed to her. She would be able to put her strength to use, protecting innocent souls in the world of the living and banishing monstrous creatures.

She would be brilliant.

She could imagine herself in black. Now that she’d thought about it, had pictured it, she wanted it. She wanted it badly.

She’d look good in black.

Then why did she resist?

We don't need you. We made it through before you came, and we'll be alright after you're gone. We don’t need you, Rangiku.

How could words spoken so gently have hurt so much?

It had been a week since Ayame had confronted her, but the truth still stung.

Rangiku bit at her lip as she looked out.

Maybe it doesn’t matter if they don’t need me if I need them, she thought.

(But really, she needed them to need her, so that they would never abandon her.)

How could she leave them?

Sayaka with her raucous laughter and her dirty jokes; Rin with her dignified, aristocratic manner and her endless tendency to indulge her; Yuki, with her sad smiles and her soft, lined hands; Ayame, fussy, ferocious, beautiful Ayame with her impeccable aim and her scathing comments, those scathing comments which she never truly meant. They were hers now.

She had just found them; how could she leave them now? Did it matter if she wasn’t needed when she wanted so badly to stay?

(Would it hurt, she thought, to give up that brilliant future?)

She sighed, and her shoulders sank as she did so. Her eyes were downcast and unseeing, and her cloth made vague circles on the table-top.

She’d be alone if she left; alone again.

But-

But-

(He’d be there.)

It was a whisper in her heart, a small and furtive thought which she tried to pretend she wasn’t thinking. She could only bare to examine it if she looked at it from odd angles, from out of the corner of her eye, if she refused to acknowledge the full weight of the thing.

But there was no way that she could avoid thinking of him, not on this day of all days. The trees were putting on their autumn finery; the world was painted in shades of auburn and gold; the autumn mists were descending.

It was her birthday and it had been almost three years since he’d left.

What was he doing? What was his life like now? Did he wake late with messy hair and have to run to his lectures, like she’d heard all the students did? Did he go out and drink with friends, and did his cheeks glow pink when he was drunk? Did he still play pranks, and did he still hustle at go with a hidden gleam in his eye? Did he drive his teachers crazy? Were they smart enough to see through him?

Had he grown, as she had? Did he still smile widely and inscrutably, as he always had? Had he learnt to cut his own hair, or was he stuck with it stupid and lopsided? Had he grown stronger, more skilled, more powerful? Was he still stupid and annoying and mocking, and brilliant, so brilliant?

Could he possibly be standing right now, as she was, and be looking at the same rosy sky? Could he be eating the autumn-harvested persimmons he had loved so much, and which he had once shared with her, had once fed her hand to mouth?

What would he say if he could see her now, with her long hair and her wide hips?

Would he-

(Would he look at her softly, as he once had?)

Her heart squeezed like a vice at the thought, and she had to steady herself.

Or-

Would he still feel whatever it was that had made him leave her? Hatred, boredom, contempt- whatever poisonous thing he had felt which had inspired him to leave?

She balled her hands into fists, and her nails carved semi-circles into her palms. Shaken, she faced up to what she had suspected all along.

She was frightened.

She was scared to go to the Academy because she was scared to see him.

She was scared because she would see him. They were drawn together, he and she; it was inevitable. She would see him, and the moment would come when it would all be confirmed anew.

She was not sure she could survive being rejected again.

Maybe she’d prefer it if she never saw him again. It would be safer that way.

(She frowned. The thought did not sit right in her mind.)

She’d never hurt again.

(Except for want of him.)

The sun, just beginning to set in the sky, was painting Seireitei’s grey walls pink. She stared into the distance blankly, her mouth a grim line. Pink, as far as the eye could see.

Something banged suddenly on the window, rattling the frame loudly. She yelped and stumbled backwards.

“Could you help me?” a baritone voice called plaintively. “Are you open? Do you have any sake?”

Rangiku shrieked.

“Ow!” the voice whined. “No loud voices, okay? Can I get a drink? I’ve got money.”

“Ayame-chan!” Rangiku hissed loudly, her eyes darting to the amorphous skein of pink at the window. Now that she paid attention, she could see that the pink was embroidered in a floral pattern. A woman’s haori.

Not the walls of Seireitei then, she thought sheepishly. Just some creepy drunk.

Ayame walked over to the window and squinted out. “Some weirdo in a woman’s haori and a straw-hat, Rangiku-chan. He must have been day-drinking and gotten lost. No one would wear that get up together otherwise.” She nodded to herself, convinced of her logic.

Rangiku sat up from where she had lain sprawled on the floor, and rubbed her shoulder.

“Helloooooo?” the voice said morosely.

“Should we let him in?” Rangiku asked, hoping that Ayame would say no so that she could continue to shirk work. “Opening’s only an hour and a half away.”

Ayame’s mouth twisted as she ran calculations. “Could you manage him alone? I need to get ready for tonight.”

“I guess so,” Rangiku sighed. “Extra work.” She glared at Ayame, as if it was her fault the man had turned up.

“Stop being lazy, you,” Ayame huffed guiltily. “You know you would just have spent the time in the tub anyway.”

“I like my baths!” Rangiku muttered in protest. “It soothes my aching bones from all the scrubbing you make me do.”

“You talk like you’re Chiyo-san’s age, Rangiku-chan. Stop being lazy.” Ayame rolled her eyes, and moved to let the man in.

“Hello, sir!” she said brightly, putting on her best and most enthusiastic customer service voice. “I’m afraid we don’t officially open for another hour and a half, but of course we’ll try to accommodate you. My name is Ayame-chan, and it is my pleasure to introduce you to my colleague, Rangiku-chan, who will be serving you whilst I make preparations for opening!” She rattled the pre-prepared spiel off perfectly, as if it has been engraved on her eyeballs, having given it a million times before.

The man looked delighted.

“Ayame and Rangiku! Will there any other lovely flowers joining us?” he said, casting his eyes around hopefully.

A vein pulsed in Rangiku’s forehead. Such an original joke; no one has ever been creative enough to make flower jokes based on our names, Rangiku thought sarcastically, internally throwing her hands up in the air 

Ayame lips quirked upward as they shared a look, doubtlessly aware of what was running through Rangiku’s head, having heard the old complaints countless times before.

“I’m afraid not, sir! Not until opening!” Rangiku said with feigned cheer. “What can I get you to drink?”

She slid behind the bar, rolling her sleeves up as she went. Her hands flew with precise and automatic movements to a cleaning cloth, which she threw over her shoulder. Her working nights were already long; this was going to be a tough evening.

“I’m going up to get ready,” Ayame said. “If you need help…” she trailed off, and mimed ringing a bell.

Rangiku cottoned on quickly, and gave a thumbs up. “Don’t worry, don’t worry,” she said, genuine cheer starting to enter her voice. She was sure she could handle one drunkard in a straw-hat by herself, no matter how massive he was. “We’ll be fine.”

Despite her complaints, she did enjoy the perks of the job, and getting to meet new people ranked chief amongst them. She had spent many nights listening to tall tales and gossip, getting genuinely invested in her customers’ complaints, periodically letting out an outraged “No!” or “You’re joking!”.

She was particularly intrigued by her customer’s interesting choice of dress for the evening, and was looking forward to getting that story from him.

Ayame trod steadily up the stairs, leaving Rangiku alone with the customer.

“Sake,” the man announced grandiosely. “Sake. Gimme the good stuff. The good sake. Rangi-Rangiku-chan.”

She was mildly impressed that he had managed to keep hold of her name in his sorry state. He looked as if he had been dragged through several hedges backwards and had slept on someone’s roof. The stranger’s warm, brown eyes seemed to have trouble focusing, and he seemed insistent on giving her his dopiest, drunkest smile.

But his seemed to be a well-intentioned face. And he seemed like he liked a bit of fun, which made him alright in Rangiku’s book.

She played along, pouring him their second best sake. The real good stuff was for special occasions, and she was hesitant to let a dubious pink-robed stranger have some without sign off from Chiyo.

“One of our finest sakes coming right up for you, sir,” she said in the stuffiest impression she could muster of a noble.

The stranger heard her, and guffawed so loudly that his straw hat fell across his face. She handed him his sake, and added the amount to his tab, and the man plonked his hat down on the counter.

“I am glad to see that I have found my way to an establishment of quality,” he said with the same feigned pomposity.

“Everything here is quality, sir,” she assured him. “Booze, music and tits.”

“Now you sound like a true noble,” he grinned.

“What?” she said with lazy disbelief, “You can’t be saying that the nobles go around talking like that? They’re not that rude. How would you even know anyway?”

The stranger ignored her and stretched his large limbs across the bar, his bearded cheek pressing against the cool wooden surface.

“Ahhhhh,” he sighed in pleasure. “So nice and cold.”

Ayame had polished the bar earlier, but it irked Rangiku know that the facial imprint of a drunken eccentric would be smudging it all evening after her efforts. She resisted the urge to poke him in the offending cheek. A vein twitched in her temple.

“Hey!” she said loudly instead, “What do you mean, ‘like a true noble’?”

The man rumbled and vaguely waved his hand in the air. “You meet the Shibas, and they’re all vulgar, the whole lot of them- riding boars and screaming, shooting off fireworks into the sky, swearing. The Shihoins aren’t much better.” His liquid brown eyes took on an amused gleam. “And the Kyourakus- well, they’re a bunch of ingrates. The less said about that lot, the better really.” He grinned, seemingly entertained by his own jokes. Rangiku was lost. “Once you’ve got enough money, you can afford not to have manners,” he informed her, and he sloshed his sake around in his cup as if to prove his point.

She digested this, and then nodded vigorously. “That makes sense,” she said sagely. “I was talking to a-“ rival? Antagonist? Pain in the ass? “-guy here one night who’s in Seireitei at shinigami school, and he said that the students from noble families are stuck-up pricks who look down on everyone from Rukongai.”

The man scratched sheepishly at his hair and twiddled with one of his hairpins. “It does happen,” he admitted, “but usually they get over it by the time they graduate. By that point a shinigami is a shinigami and you’ve got to trust your comrades when you’ve got a Hollow breathing down your back.” The man changed the topic quickly. “It’s quite rare, isn’t it? A shinigami coming from fourteenth?”

For a drunk man, he spoke very cogently. Rangiku was impressed, and wonder what that spoke of- a long and practiced history with alcohol, or a tendency to try and get people to underestimate his abilities.

“Yeah,” she said with a shrug. “Not that rare though. It’s far harder making it to Seireitei from a district out in the thirties or fourties. If he was from Inuzuri, then I might be more impressed. I kicked his ass.”

The man laughed, and Rangiku flushed in self-righteous embarrassment. “I did!” she protested hotly. “I kicked his ass.”

“No, no,” the man said placatingly. “I was laughing at the fact that it would take coming from Inuzuri to impress you. Those are some pretty high standards that you’ve got there, Rangiku-chan. I’m sure you did kick your poor boy’s ass.”

Rangiku considered the man’s justification for a moment. “Okay,” she said grudgingly, a suspicious look on her face. “I can buy that. Anyway, my friend made it to Seireitei, and I think we were from around that number, though it’s hard to tell- we didn’t live in a village or a town.”

“Makes sense,” the man said reasonably. “Guess you would have high standards if that was your experience.” His warm, dark eyes filled with pity. “That must have been pretty rough. We don’t do enough for the poorer districts.”

Rangiku felt uncomfortable; she had never liked to be pitied. It made her feel as if she was being singled out, exposed, and for all the wrong reasons. The increased scrutiny of the man’s gaze felt like worms wriggling on her skin.

She changed the subject quickly.

“Why were you out drinking? What’s the occasion? Did you lose your friends? What sort of a party costume is a woman’s haori and a straw hat?” she asked rudely.

The man looked affronted. He shifted his head, with all its dark curls, onto his arms, and gave her a pained look.

“It makes no sense to say something like ‘woman’s haori’,” he complained. “Why can’t it just be a haori? And even if you insist on calling it that, it’s no big deal. I suit it.”

A slow grin crept across Rangiku’s face as she realised.

“It’s not a costume,” she said gleefully.

The man pouted at her. “I wear this every day.”

“But a straw-hat? Really? ‘S not very stylish” she asked dubiously.

He looked wounded. “It stops my pretty face from getting sunburn if I fall asleep on a rooftop,” he said plaintively. “My friend told me I should wear it because I kept getting silly sunburn marks. He’s more sensible than I am.”

He had fallen asleep on a roof! Her first impressions had been bang on. Pleased, she hummed to herself.

“So what’s the occasion then? What brings you out tonight?”

The atmosphere turned in a moment. The man’s eyes were suddenly stony serious.

Rangiku reeled from the mood whiplash.

“Eh?” she said in shock.

The man held her gaze intensely for a few seconds, and his eyes bore down into her soul. It was transfixing and a little frightening. He looked at her, and then-

He could not help but sputter in laughter. He took a sip of his sake.

“Hey!” she said in alarm. “That was just plain creepy! Watch it before you stare like that at a pretty lady!” In spite of herself, she leaned over to refill his cup.

“I’m sorry for giving you a fright. I’ll tell you why I’m drinking.” There was something there, something tight about his eyes, which she had not noticed at first, and she looked at him in concern. “But…” he trailed off slowly, and sudden merriment danced in his eyes. “I’ll only do it if we play a game!”

He winked at her.

“Eh?”  Something about the man was thorough disorienting. He was serious one moment, morose the next, and then his eyes would twinkle and he would joke and laugh and offer to play games. The constant feeling of disorientation reminded her of someone. “What sort of game?”

“Quid pro quo. I ask you a question, you ask me a question.”

That seemed very reasonable to her. It could even be quite fun. She grinned. “No. I ask you a question, you ask me a question." She paused, and sighed melodramatically. "But if we're going to talk all evening, my poor throat will get all dry and sore and my voice will get raspy..." She looked at her customer with big, blue, beseeching eyes.

He leapt on the opportunity. "A drink then!" he cheered with a wide smile, "For my lovely, attentive barmaid. And another one for me!"

"You're my new favourite customer!" she enthused.

She poured their drinks, and raised her cup. "Kanpai!" she said, before knocking back the drink. It certainly beat staring at the ceiling gloomily in a bathtub, as far as birthdays went.

She wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand, and bent over the counter, her weight resting on her arms. "Right," she said with determination, looking over him. "Right. Let's get this started. First question. What's your name, mysterious stranger?"

He blinked balefully at her. "That's a boring question!" he whined.

She stuck to her guns. "Name!" she demanded, banging her cup on the bar-top.

The man pulled a face. "Kyouraku Shunsui."

"Kyoura-" she paused. "Wait! You said that name before! You're a noble? You?"

He moved a hand lazy hand in the air. "That's circumstantial evidence! Immaterial to the case at hand!" He protested. "I'm innocent, I swear! And anyway, that was two questions. You’re cheating already," he said accusingly. "Wait your turn. It's my turn now. What," he paused dramatically, "is your name?"

Her palm came up to smack her face before she could help it. "You already know my name! I told you earlier! How drunk are you?"

"Oh yeah," he said with drunken cheer. "You're like the flower. Rangiku-chan. Whoops."

She sighed weightily and sipped her sake with a scowl. It was going to be a long night if the man insisted on asking questions like this. "Ask another question."

"Hmmmmmmmm," he extended the sound for a comically long time. "Okay. Right… How long have you worked here?"

"Almost three years now."

He looked at her expectantly, as if expecting more detail.

"What?" she said. "That was your question!"

"Booooo," he drawled childishly. "This game won't be any fun if you don't give any details."

"There aren't any details to give on that question!" she argued hotly. "It was a bad question. You want good answers? Then ask good questions! It's my turn now. Why do you wear that haori?"

He looked taken aback, and he ran his fingers through his tousled hair. "Yare, yare," he sighed wearily. "I wear it to commemorate a woman I loved." His eyes took on a strange gleam and a smile twitched at his lips. "Or I wear it because it's the only socially sanctioned way of wearing something as comfy as a blanket outside my bedroom. One of those two things- you figure it out."

Rangiku was annoyed. "You're supposed to tell the truth," she complained to him.

"I was!” He smiled mysteriously. “Maybe. It's my turn anyway."

"Go for it."

"How did you beat that shinigami student?"

Rangiku perked up. "That's an easy one. We went out into the street behind the bar. I concentrated my spiritual energy into my hands, and bam!" She punched the air ferociously. "Just like that. I got him smack bang in the chest and he went twirling through the air. It was brilliant,” she informed him.

He nodded slowly, and as he did so, sake sloshed out of his cup. She moved to refill it.

"So you have spiritual power. That makes sense."

"What about you?" she asked. "You're a noble. Don’t you high and mighty folks usually have powers?" Thinking about it, he had seemed to know a lot about the academy and how students treated those from Rukongai. That should have tipped her off.

He seemed to find the question hysterically funny for some reason. His shoulders shook with barely suppressed laughter, and he kept making sputtering noises.

Her eyes narrowed. "Hey!" she said hotly. "It's rude to laugh at a beautiful girl's heartfelt questions"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." His eyes shone with humour. He did not look sorry in the slightest. "Yes- yes, I have spiritual power. Y’know- just a little bit."

"Are you a shinigami?" she demanded.

"Not your turn!" He wagged his finger at her, and she huffed at him. "If you have spiritual energy, why aren't you at the academy?"

It was a question she had been asking herself all week, put to her by a complete stranger.

"Was that a bad question?" he asked, not unkindly. "You don't have to answer if you don't want to. Who even says that you want to go?"

She looked at him, and sighed, her previous melancholy washing over her again. His eyes, warm and brown and full of compassion, looked at her with genuine curiosity. "I do want to go," she said firmly. "A lot, actually. It's a two-sake cup question.”

"Would you like me to buy you another cup?"

"Go on, and I'll give your question my best shot."

She poured herself more sake, and began to piece together an answer.

She did not know what it was that compelled her to answer him.

She had always avoided expressing her worries and her fears to people that she knew. It was not a rational or thought out thing, as far as she could tell. It was just that it was... Safer. In her experience, if you became too much effort for someone, they would just leave you behind. It was best to show the world a smiling, happy face, to laugh and to be merry and beautiful; there would never be any reason to leave behind someone who was no trouble.

A stranger though- there was no reason to hide from a stranger.

She'd likely never see him again, and so she took the plunge.

"At first I didn't think I was good enough. Or at least, that's what I told myself for a long time." She told him with a side-long glance. "I think… That it was just an excuse I was using, so that I wouldn't have to think too hard about anything difficult. It was easier just to say 'Oh well! I can't make it, so what's the use of trying? Guess I have to stay here.'" She took a deep breath. "But that was a pile of shit! It turns out that I'm actually amazing. But actually... I think knew that all along. I was just lying to myself because I didn't want to leave. Do you get me?"

He looked at her, and his gaze was soft and serious. Was this really a drunk man? For a moment, she doubted it.

"I think so," he nodded, and almost to himself, he said, "Sometimes the person we're best at lying to is ourselves." He paused, and addressed her directly. "What is it that's keeping you here then?"

A small, shy smile crossed her face, and when she looked at him then, it was like she was looking past him, to something that only she could see. "My job. My friends,” she said warmly.

But then her smile faltered.

“They don’t need me though,” she said quietly. “Not like I need them. Ayame-chan is desperate for me to leave. She'd kick me out the door with my bags tomorrow if she could. She doesn’t want me to waste my talent. She doesn’t want me to get ‘trapped’.” She looked at him earnestly. "It's difficult, because I want to go! I do! So much! But I don't want to leave either."

Kyouraku hummed in sympathy.

Rangiku could not stop. “But I don’t want to be alone. Not again. Not ever.”

The man pulled himself up from his drunken sprawl across the bar.

“I don’t think loneliness would be a problem for you. Look at us! Nattering on like fishwives! And we’ve only known each other for what, an hour? You’re a charming girl. I don’t think that would be a problem.”

He paused.

“Just for the sake of argument here,” he said, “why couldn’t you visit them? You’ll be very busy for your first few years, but of course, you’ll get plenty of vacation time from the academy. It wouldn’t be a hard thing.”

She had gone still, very still, and his sharp eyes had noticed it immediately. He inclined his head towards her slowly. “There’s a gap here…. You knew that you would be able to visit. So why not go? You knew that you could always visit.”

He was very sharp, for a drunk man.

She swallowed, and closed her eyes slowly.

There was a beat of silence, and then he spoke.

“Is it a boy?” he asked with mischievous delight.

Rangiku squawked loudly, and glared daggers at him.

“It is a boy!” he crowed.

She could not even deny it, so she just fumed uselessly at him. “It isn’t like that! Not at all!”

He was obviously very entertained. “Isn’t it?”

“No,” she gritted out, and he grinned. “He left me behind.” Her heart was sickeningly tight. “I didn’t even know he was going to leave, and he abandoned me. I should have known. He was always leaving, but I’m stupid and didn’t even suspect a thing.”

To her horror, there were tears in her eyes, and she tried furiously to blink them away. She felt a kind of writhing anger. She had never told anyone before, and it was shaping up to be every bit as intrusive and bruising as she had thought it would be.

Kyouraku noticed the tears, and was shame-faced.

“I’m sorry,” he offered quietly, and she gave him a fierce look. “I didn’t mean to pour salt on old wounds. That must have been very difficult. It’s tough, being left behind.” He paused. “I know I may not seem it, looking as virile and handsome as I do, but I’ve been round the block a few times. There’s not much I’ve not heard in my time. You should talk to me about it and I’ll see if I can give you some advice.” He was obviously trying to make up for his insensitivity by extending an olive branch.

Rangiku sniffed, suspicious, but she took it anyway.

“You say ’Talk about it’ like it’s an easy thing… Where would I even start?” she said accusingly.

“How did you meet?” Kyouraku prompted gently.

She was silent for a long moment, pulling together her thoughts. It did not all come flooding back. It was not an easy thing. She had to reach fiercely for every word, to fight down the reluctance to speak, to strain and grasp to pull the sentences together.

But she did it.

“I’m not sure how long ago it was, now. Time had a way of blurring together, back then, so that days could go by and feel like hours and months could pass in minutes. But this is the way I remember it, and that I’ll never forget,” she said.

“There was a day, a day a long time ago, when I was stumbling along a dirt road in my old, worn out shoes with the sun burning the back of my neck. It was the kind of dry heat that you occasionally get at the end of summer, before the mists set in- the sort where your throat dries up with the heat and your eyeballs itch, where the cicadas buzz so loudly that the noise feels like it will never stop bouncing around in your brain.

“I hadn’t eaten in almost five days. I just knew that I had to keep moving, because if I didn’t, it might just be the day I finally collapsed and never got up again.”

Kyouraku’s expression was a grim line, and his eyes were dark.

“As it turns out, I did collapse.” She laughed but it was an odd, soft thing. “But it was okay.

“When I opened my eyes, he was there. He had a dried persimmon in his hand, and he put it to my mouth, and I chewed it, though I don’t know how I could have, my mouth was so dry.” Her gaze fell to her hands, her expression was gentle, but she didn’t see them. She was too far off, lost in some distant, untouchable memory.

“I don’t know how it tasted, that first persimmon. I don’t remember. I was too out of it, too light-headed even to stand. But it must have been the sweetest thing in the world.” She looked up at him. “I don’t remember what happened, but when I next woke, I was in his bed. I had stolen his only blanket.” She laughed brightly at the memory. “I was so panicked! I thought he was going to throw me out! But he didn’t- he told me to stay. That’s how we met.”

Kyouraku looked troubled, but captivated nonetheless.

“I don’t know whether that’s beautiful or incredibly sad,” he admitted to her.

“A bit of both, maybe?”

“Maybe. The most beautiful things are usually a little bit sad.” He said the words with such sincerity that she knew in her gut that he had to be speaking from experience. She looked at him askance, but he motioned at her to continue on.

“We lived together for a long time,” she said after a beat.

“I have a bad habit of only remembering the good bits- the times when we laughed, the times when he tried to push me in the river and I managed to slip him up instead, or the one time I ever managed to beat him at go, when he had stolen a bottle of sake on my birthday. I remember the songs we sang by the river, the made up lyrics he added, the times when he held my hand the first time we went into town, or the way he kept me safe. What I remember most is the way he never let me starve again after he found me.

“I forget that he was a pain in the ass, that he pissed off everyone he ever met, that he would leave all the time telling me where he was going, that he made me feel so lonely, that people were scared of him, that they all hated him. I even hated him sometimes, I think.”

Her voice trailed off.

“I was so stupid, to think that all of it- any of it- meant anything at all. In the end, he left me, and that’s what I keep coming back to. He just… left. And I was alone.”

She paused, shame-faced. Something she had buried deep and secret within herself was rising from in her, something so fragile and so powerful that she could barely face it in the light of day. But she was tired, too tired to keep it back now. She had kept it to herself for almost three years, and now she could bear it no longer.

She looked at her hands, at skin that had been made rough and worn by the endless work of cleaning. Her hands, which had never been soft.

“He didn’t love me,” she said quietly. There it was now, out in the world. There could be no turning back. “If he’d loved me, he would have stayed.” She looked Kyouraku in the eye. “I think I might have loved him though.”

There was a heart-rending beat of silence.

“Anywa-“ she tried to rush out.

“Is that why you’re scared?” Kyouraku asked compassionately.

She bit her lip, and she nodded mutely. “I keep wondering what would happen if I were to see him again,” she confessed quietly.

“Would that be such a bad thing?” he asked reasonably.

“What if he hated me?” she mumbled pathetically.

He held her gaze, suddenly very serious. “And what if he didn’t?”

“What?”

“What if he didn’t?” He repeated. “What if he was just being stupid and insensitive when he left, Rangiku-chan? What if you’re throwing away your shot at a comfortable future on a groundless, misplaced fear- a misinterpretation of the situation- when things could actually work out? When you could be friends again? I don’t know the odds- I don’t know the boy- but wouldn’t you want to at least try?”

He paused, and he sighed.

“The time you have isn’t infinite. Not even here. Trust me, I know what it’s like to be working on a timer. That friend I mentioned earlier- he’s really not well. Time is precious. Don’t waste it.”

She bit at her lip, uncertain, but he continued.

“And consider this- what if it’s worse than that? What if he is such a bastard that he really didn’t ever care? Why would you let fear of a bastard like that rule your life?” He looked at her intently. “Don’t let fear ruin your life.”

He paused, and he grinned then, and for a moment, she could remember that he was supposed to be nothing more than another drunken fool.

“Or bastards. Don’t let those ruin your life either. Or fearsome bastards for that matter. They’re probably the worst of all. It might even be the case that you don’t even see him at all for a very long time. Seireitei is a big place. So why worry? Be merry. Drink. Party. Have fun. Don’t let it get you down. Forget him, even if only for now.”

He knocked back the rest of his sake, and gave her a hopeful look. “Did that help?”

She looked down, her brows furrowed in thought.

“Actually…” she said, “I think it might have.” She paused, her face twisted. “Weird!”

It felt suddenly like a massive weight was beginning to lift from off her shoulders. All of a sudden, she could not fathom how she had managed to struggle for so long in silence.

She smiled shyly at him, with such heartfelt gratitude that he was taken aback. His brown eyes widened, and his hand flew up to his hair self-consciously.

“Thank you,” she said. It was as simple as that.

She looked around furtively, and reached up to the top shelf.

“This is the best sake we have,” she whispered to him in a conspiratorial fashion. “I think you deserve some after that speech.”

The change in track allowed them both to circle back to less emotionally fraught ground, and they both seized on it.

“Rangiku-chan!” Kyouraku whispered in a betrayed voice. “You were holding out on me the whole time! You said the other sake was the good stuff!”

“This is for emergencies!” Rangiku whined, glad to be back on familiar ground. “Chiyo-san- my boss- measures how much is left in the bottle with a ruler, I swear. I’m taking a serious risk just showing this to you. She’ll kick my ass if she finds out that I let you have some on the house.”

She poured him a generous helping, and looking around to make sure that no one was watching, sloshed a little into her own cup.

“Kanpai!” she cheered in a hushed voice.

He raised his cup to hers, and his haori sleeve dragged in some spillage. He groaned lowly. “I’m going to have to ask Lisa-chan to get this cleaned for me tomorrow and walk around naked until I get it back.”

She tasted the sake and she moaned. “This is the good stuff. I’m ruined now,” she informed him dramatically. “Now that I’ve tasted this, I’ll never be able to go back to the cheap stuff.”

He grinned. “You can get better stuff than this in the mess halls in Seireitei, I’m pretty sure.”

She knocked him with her hand. “You’re just making that up. No way you can get such good sake there so easily.”

“I’m not kidding! Even on an unseated shinigami’s wages, you would be able to drink nothing but sake of this quality every night, I reckon.”

Her head went back and she laughed joyfully. “Now that should have been their sales pitch. Do you think I would have worried for a moment about joining up if I’d known that? I’d have left years ago.”

She hummed to herself as the sake curled warmly in her belly. “I’ve forgotten- whose turn was it to answer a question? Was it mine?”

He looked at her hopefully. “We’re still playing?”

“Don’t see why not. It’ll keep me entertained until we open,” she said with a shrug.

“I think it’s your go to ask a question.”

She hummed again, this time in thought.

“Who were you drinking with this evening?”

Kyouraku smiled a lazy grin. “I started off with some of the higher seated officers, but they couldn’t keep up. No one else wanted to keep going, and so I marched the long march to drunken glory by myself after they all left.”

Something about that sat wrong with Rangiku. “It’s no fun to drink on your own!” she protested. “You should have gone with them.”

“I’m not alone now,” the man pointed out quickly. “I’ve got you to keep me company.”

But he had been before, Rangiku couldn’t help but notice, and her eyes narrowed keenly.

Kyouraku whistled innocently to himself and gave her a dopey look. “My question. Who’s your favourite co-worker?”

Rangiku stumbled. “I can’t answer that!” she protested hotly.

“That’s my question, so you have to answer it,” he said, pointing his finger at her in triumph.

“That’s too hard! I can’t choose between them!” she whined pathetically.

“That’s my question!” he sang at her and she pouted.

“They’re right upstairs- they could hear me,” she said desperately.

“Rangiku’s a chicken!” He grinned.

It was a blow to her honour, and she pulled herself up with a kind of clumsy haughtiness. “Fine!” she said with a bang of her fist. “Fine!” She scowled. “Yuki and Rin are the nicest to me, but they’re older than I am, and so they treat me like a child. That can be nice, but it means that they’re less fun, and they’re less willing to mess around.” She mulled it over. “Sayaka is the most fun, but she doesn’t always think about what she says, and it’s her fault that I had to fight the shinigami student in the first place, so she’s in my bad books at the moment. Ayame is a pain in the ass.” She paused. “But it’s so much fun to wind her up. She gets so angry and she stomps around in a huff, even though she likes to pretend that she’s so above it all. It’s fun when you get her to join in.” Rangiku paused again, and a small smile crossed her lips. “It’s probably Ayame,” she confessed.

Kyouraku had a devilish look on his face. “I’m going to tell the rest of the girls you’re playing favourites,” he announced.

Rangiku glared. “No you’re not. I’ll kick you out before you can.”

She suddenly felt the pressing need to come up with a good question, to get revenge for his stupid prodding. “My go!” A devious look crossed her face. “What was so bad that you had to go on drinking alone?”

One eye looked at her from under a heavy eyelid. “What makes you think that?”

This was what he did, she realised. He equivocated and changed the subject and artfully wrong-footed her to keep her away from topics that he did not want to discuss, and he had been doing it all evening. Rangiku was young, and, she admitted to herself, occasionally quite self-absorbed, but she was not stupid. She knew what avoidance looked like.

She gave him a level look. “I’ve stood behind this bar for almost three years. Give me some credit. No one drinks on their own unless they don’t want to be sober.”

“I’m not drinking on my own,” Kyouraku insisted again. “I’m drinking with you.”

“You were wandering the streets alone before, looking for a drink.”

“Because I knew I would find someone to drink with,” he said firmly.

Rangiku was not convinced. “It’s not very fair to avoid the rules of your own game just because you’re afraid to answer. I answered your questions, and it was painful. If it’s a bad question, you should tell me and I’ll ask you a different one.”

He had a haunted expression in his eyes. “I’m not afraid,” he said, but the look in his eyes gave lie to his words.

“Sure,” she said sulkily. It stung a little that she had spilled so much of her soul to this stranger, only for him to refuse to do the same. Her heart clenched with the unfairness of it. Her lips curled in a pout and picked up a cup and began to clean it with quick, agitated movements. “I told you everything,” she said intensely, refusing to hold his gaze.

“You didn’t have to,” he pointed out sharply.

“But I did anyway.”

He sighed deeply. She took a chance, and glanced up quickly from her busy hands, but he caught her eye. His brown eyes were dark and heavy, and focused on her. She fumbled with the cup and glared at him fiercely.

He was silent for a moment, and when he spoke, it was slow and reflective.

“My niece has applied to the academy this year. I saw her application letter with my own eyes last night.”

Rangiku halted. His expression was fragile- vulnerable- and he could not meet her eye. It moved something in her. She put the cup down slowly, and rested her arms on the bar, leaning forward so that he face was only inches away from his own.

“Is that so bad?” she asked gently, her eyes wide but searching.

“Yes,” he said, swallowing. “No. But also yes.”

“Why?”

He was silent for a moment, and could not hold her gaze. “She’s so young,” he said finally.

That was not it, and Rangiku knew instantly, but she was hesitant to say so.

“I’m young,” she said, her heart fluttering oddly. “My friend was young when he left.”

Kyouraku’s mouth twisted, and something in Rangiku twisted in response. He was a stranger; he should have meant nothing. But here she was all the same, reluctant to say the thing that would upset him.

“Too perceptive,” he said quietly. “Too perceptive by half.”

She took a deep breath, then, and said what she had suspected all along.

“You’re like me,” she told him quietly. “You’re scared too. Scared like me.”

Something lit in his eyes, a wariness or a fear- that he had been seen and seen so easily- but he said nothing.

“It’s alright to be scared,” she said, and she drew in a deep breath. “But ‘don’t let fear ruin your life’. Right?” They were his own words, offered back up to him tentatively, and her forget-me-not eyes were bright and blue and earnest. “Right?”

His eyes widened. His mouth was dry.

When he laughed, he laughed and laughed, and it sounded hollow.

“Can’t even take my own advice,” he said bitterly, and she caught the self-loathing in his voice.

Rangiku’s mouth formed a small ‘o’. “Hey…” she said hesitantly, leaning forward. “Hey-“

He stood suddenly, and did not wobble at all. It was hard to believe that the man had ever been drunk. He grabbed his hat as he rose. She had not realised before how tall he was.

“It’s late,” he announced blithely, ignoring her. “And I should be off. Lisa-chan will be out looking for me, and I don’t want to make my adorable Lisa-chan any angrier than she is already. That wouldn’t be nice.”

He was running, Rangiku realised- running away from the truth and the pain of confronting it. “Hey-“ she said sharply.

“It was a pleasure, Rangiku-chan,” he said. He paused, and as had so often been the case that evening, Rangiku found herself wrong-footed once again by his emotional turns, these strange games he always seemed to be playing and always seemed to be winning. He grinned at her, and she could only blink back. When he bent down to push a hair behind her ear, she looked at him with wide eyes. “I’m looking forward to seeing you in Seireitei,” he told her warmly, as if he wasn’t running away in a bid to avoid confronting his problems. “Maybe we can do this again.”

She stumbled. “Y-yeah,” she said uncertainly.

He placed a generous amount of money on the counter, and Rangiku’s eyes went wide. He beamed at her. “A smart, pretty girl always livens up a party! We’ll definitely see each other.”

He left so suddenly that had Rangiku looked away, she would have missed it. One second he was there, and then next, he had vanished as if he had simply melted into thin air.

She blinked owlishly for several seconds after, alone behind the bar. She wondered what it was that frightened him so much that he had felt that he’d had no choice but to leave.

The last thing she had seen of him had been a flash of white as he had turned on his heel, where his pink haori had lifted with the speed and turn of his movement-

A flash of white, and the number eight.

[theblessedbee]

🇨​🇱​🇮​🇨​🇰​ 🇹​🇴​ 🇸​🇪​🇪​ 🇹​🇭​🇪​ 🇴​🇷​🇮​🇬​🇮​🇳​🇦​🇱​ 🇧​🇱​🇴​🇬​ 🇵​🇴​🇸​🇹​

• ᑤᑗᖇSᙍ & ᕼᙍ᙭ ᙘᖇᙍᗅᖽᐸᓿᘉᘜ •

ᛉ . ꍏ ꃅꍟ꒒ᖘꎇꀎ꒒ ꃅꍏꈤꀸ . ᛉ

Just the thought of a curse for some is enough to send the mind on a terrible tangent. I'm here today to tell you not to fear, because I'm bringing you an arsenal of curse and hex breaking tips and tools.

• So what is a Curse? •

A curse is defined as a negative energy attack put upon someone or something normally to cause harm, misfortune or to take something away from another. Sometimes practitioners of malevolent magick can place this upon you, or even someone with strong feelings, normally negative. Sometimes we can trick ourselves into thinking we have been cursed, which can cause curse symptoms in itself. I wrote this guide for the cursed and uncursed, so those can be aware of what they are, what they do and how to escape its grasp.

• All about Curses •

☠ Comes in many forms ☠

Curses come in all shapes and sizes. The entropy or chaos curse, The binding, The lesson, and The special-purpose curse. It can even come from jealousy or admiration and manifest as the Evil Eye curse.

☠ Timing is everything ☠

Curses in general can become effective immediately or may be dormant for years, and some curses laid on families have been known to have plagued them for generations. The problem is often not solved unless you discover you have been cursed!

☠ Keep your lips sealed ☠

The more personal information someone knows about you, the easier it will be for them to inflict harm upon you. Such things are your appearance, your full name, and your magickal name. It's best to keep quiet about these things around people you aren't so trusting of, or when meshing with other practitioners. Either way, it's always good to be safe!

☠ Is your foe a pro? ☠

If you are cursed, then it is most likely low-end magick practiced by an amateur. Professionals are generally doing more important things with their magick abilities. However, amateurs can have a lot of raw power even when they lack technique, their curses can still be very harmful and dangerous.

☠ Most distastefully bad juju ☠

When life starts feeling like a real life horror movie, you have a special-purpose curse and they can cause a great deal of disaster and havoc in your life. The evil eye curse is considered a special-purpose curse. You can wear a protective talisman called a Nazar that sheilds from the curse being put upon you.

☠ Avoid phony bologna ☠

Be very skeptical if a psychic tells you in a random reading that you have been cursed if you have not suspected yourself that anything has been going on. Some may even try to charge you fees to remove it for you. Be very wary especially if the reading was offered to you for free or very very cheap. That technique is called the bait and switch. If you think you are really cursed, I recommend that you get a second opinion or find a trusted practitioner.

☠ Purify and protect ☠

There are a couple of ways to deal with a curse. The first is to become an initiate of magick and learn to protect yourself. Sometimes other banishing rituals or protective spell workings are used to overpower the curse, protective amulets and talismans can be worn, and blessed oils and sacred washes can be used to attempt to lift the curse’s effect. A major side effect in removing a curse is that when the curse is broken, its energy can recoil on the person who cast it, and if the person has not taken the adequate precautions, it could very easily backfire.

☠ Seek Heavenly Help ☠

Call upon your spirit guides and ancestors for help and guidance. Family members can protect you from psychic harm from the beyond, but you must ask for the help yourself. Speak to them and let them know how you feel about that you need guidance. I also highly recommend decorating common objects around you such as pencils and lighters with angelic symbols, seals and runes, such as Algiz the rune for protection. This will give you the reassurance and extra protection you need during a crisis.

☠ Are there real remedies? ☠

You can find remedies for specific curses online. You don’t need to practice before you do this, but it is very important to follow all the instructions carefully and conscientiously. Remember to carry some form of protection with you such as a crystal, amulet or talisman or a charm, so you don’t end up being a curse victim in the first place!

• The Curse Cures •

Lets explore the different methods we can use to cure a curse...

☠ Anti-Curse Bath ☠

This is by far the easiest way to cure a curse, and that's by taking a bath using salt, oil and hex breaking herbs. It will remove the negative energy attached to you from the curse.

You can use uncrossing herbs and oils of your choosing and steeping them a while before entering the bath. Be careful to choose ingredients that won't irritate the skin. This is best done under a Waning Moon, but timing isn't essential if you are in a desperate situation. Repeat this as much as you feel is needed. This will only work if it is you who is cursed, and it isn't caused by an external object and if so, you could risk being re-cursed.

☠ Gather ☠

Hexbreaking herbs

White Candle

Incense

Oils (Olive or Essential)

Salt

Moon Water, Gem Elixirs (Optional)

The Cursed Person

🛠 Process 🛠

☠Gather Ingredients

☠Visualize a magick circle around you

☠Light your candle and incense

☠Begin to fill the tub, use moon water, gem elixirs, and steep your herbs

☠Add the oil and salt, imagine your bath becoming pure

☠You can make a purifying scrub for your skin using salt and olive oil as a mixture

☠Step in to the tub and cleanse your body thoroughly, imagining the energetic ties being removed as you wash them off

☠Enjoy the bath until it's too cold. Blow out the candles and incense, uncast your circle and dry off

☠ A Vessel for the Vile ☠

Curses can sometimes be drawn out into a vessel of some sort. Back then, animals were sometimes used as vessels and sacrificed afterward. Eggs for one, have been popular vessels for uncrossing in Italian, as well as African American traditions.

An egg is normally used as a vessel because it can be broken open to examine the contents to determine the results. You will need a person to help you with this, preferably someone experienced in magick.

☠ Gather ☠

A White Bowl

A White Candle

Incense

An Egg

Moon Water (or any water)

The Cursed Person

A Helper

🛠 Process 🛠

☠Gather Ingredients

☠Visualize a magick circle around you

☠Light your candle and incense

☠Get the cursed person to lay down on their back

☠Begin to pass the egg over their body, starting at the head moving in smooth downward motions, being careful not to swish the yolk

☠Say a prayer of the persons choosing. After saying the prayer, crack the egg open into a bowl of water and examine what you see...

☠Close the Circle. Discard the bowls contents at the base of a tree or at crossroads far away from the home of the victim. This process may need to be repeated several times to be effective, to "trap" the curse

☠ Get rid of that thing ☠

If you have a cursed object and you can find it, you should take it and bury it far away from you! If you can't manage to find it, you might be able to locate it using astral projection to follow the link to locate the object. A pendulum might be useful for this as well.

Don't hang onto cursed things, no matter how pretty. They will only make you suffer endless misfortune. Here's what you can do...

☠Take it far out into the country

☠Throw it in a river so it washes away

☠Destroy it, and dispose of the parts in running water

☠Burn and flush the ashes down, set them free in the wind or bury them far away

☠Use Astral travel to get to the object, or its astral double, and destroy it there. You may need to cast a binding spell to find out who cursed you. Cut the cords and free yourself from their ties

💣Don't rehome it 💣

Cursed objects should be destroyed and discarded, don't give these objects to people you love, you may be passing your misfortune on to them!

🌼 Try your best 🌼

You may not be able to try every method that I have mentioned here, as everyone has different skills. Certain curses may take more effort to get rid of than others. Uncrossing requires copious amounts of time, energy and materials and it can also be dangerous. Be sure to exercise caution and use protection when doing this work.

• Curse & Hex Breaking Ingredients •

Heres a list of ingredients I put together that you can use to break curses and hexes.

💣 Watch out! 💣

Please do your research before using them anywhere on or in your body, or even burning! Your safety comes first!

☠ Angelica root ☠

☠ Eyebright ☠

☠ Agrimony ☠

☠ Batwing Herb ☠

☠ Frankinsense ☠

☠ Calamus Root ☠

☠ Hyssop ☠

☠ Myrrh ☠

☠ Alkanet root ☠

☠ Ginseng ☠

☠ Peppermint ☠

☠ Hydrangea ☠

☠ Rosemary ☠

☠ Feverfew ☠

☠ Elder Flowers ☠

☠ Basil ☠

☠ Jasmine ☠

☠ Galangal root ☠

☠ Pepper (black or cayenne) ☠

☠ Bay leaves ☠

☠ Lemon verbena ☠

☠ Sage ☠

☠ Fumitory ☠

☠ Hemlock ☠

☠ Blackthorn ☠

☠ Devil’s Bit ☠

☠ Licorice root or fennel ☠

☠ Stinging nettle ☠

☠ Chamomile ☠

☠ Mandrake ☠

☠ Vetiver ☠

☠ Cinquefoil ☠

☠ Mugwort ☠

☠ Wisteria ☠

☠ Linden Flowers ☠

☠ Red Clover ☠

☠ Dragon’s Blood ☠

☠ Mullein ☠

☠ Juniper Berries ☠

☠ Woods: Ash, Hazel, Oak, Rue, Sandalwood, West Indian Elm, Willow, Wormwood ☠

☠ Brimstone ☠

• Curse & Hex Breaking Crystals •

Heres a list of Crystals, Rocks & Minerals that I put together that you can use to break curses and hexes.

☠ Fire Opal ☠

☠ Amethyst ☠

☠ Hematite ☠

☠ Bloodstone ☠

☠ Moldavite ☠

☠ Sapphire ☠

☠ Jade ☠

☠ Smokey Quartz ☠

☠ Carnelian ☠

☠ Obsidian ☠

☠ Black Tourmaline ☠

☠ Amber ☠

☠ Labradorite ☠

☠ Kunzite ☠

☠ Malachite ☠

☠ Clear Quartz ☠

☠ Selenite ☠

☠ Tigers Eye ☠

☠ Howlite ☠

☠ Apache Tear ☠

☠ Rose Quartz ☠

☠ Jet ☠

☠ Staurolyte ☠

☠ Blue Kyanite ☠

☠ Spirit Quartz ☠

☠ Celestite ☠

☠ Fire Agate ☠

☠ Jasper ☠

☠ Fluorite ☠

I really hope you learned a bit about curses, and how to get rid of them. I hope makes you feel ready to take on the cruel, dark world. Even if you do encounter this one day, you will be prepared, and armed with an arsenal of knowledge that you can use to help yourself and others.

Thank you so much for reading,

and blessed be!

*images found on giphy

🇧​🇾​ 🇹​🇭​🇪​ 🇧​🇱​🇪​🇸​🇸​🇪​🇩​ 🇧​🇪​🇪

[bareboneswitch]

Warding - Basics and Beyond

Okay, so warding is something I’ve done for a while now and the advice on how to do it varies immensely. Some people make it sound very simple but don’t give a lot of information on how to build on them; others make it sound very complicated, usually because they’re missing out steps that they - as a someone who is used to building wards - don’t even need to think about doing anymore. Here’s my best attempt to make a post which makes the best of both approaches.

It’s stupidly long post, so click to keep reading, if you can’t get to it, let me know!

The Theory Stuff

What are Wards?

Wards, at their most basic, are protection spells. They are most usually placed on your home and personal spaces like your car.

What are the Benefits of Wards?

Well, the most obvious benefit is that wards protect but what makes wards particularly useful is you can layer them. This means you can have linked protection spells and you don’t have to worry about making a single protects-from-everything-and-every-eventuality spell. (Because goodness knows magick likes it’s loopholes.)

Secondly, the energy you use to make and maintain the ward from doesn’t have to be your own. So if you’re a fellow spoonie, this is still doable.

Thirdly, (though this is just my personal feelings) it means you need to cleanse your space less as negativity has a much much harder time getting in.

When to Use Wards

There is a question of ethics about when and where to use wards and although it entirely depends on your own feelings, it is something you should consider. If you share a space with someone - e.g. a house with your parents or in shared accommodation - people might not be comfortable with you placing wards on the entire home. If this is a something which concerns you, you might want to ward a smaller space like your bedroom or even just your bed.

How to Make Wards

This is the most basic of basic of basic warding methods. This is not a practical ward to try to actually use but this is to help you understand the framework of a ward. We’ll talk about more useful wards in a bit.

Make sure you won’t be disturbed for a while (ten to fifteen minutes for this method).

Cleanse your space.

Ground yourself and get yourself into a headspace which is calm and centred (meditation helps but isn’t necessary).

Imagine a ball of energy forming in your hands, it’s a little heavy but it’s full of warmth and the intent to protect.

Let it grow until it’s too big to hold and imagine it surrounding you, protecting you.

Now visualise it expanding, first as a ball, but then moulding to the boundries of the space you are warding. The walls, the ceiling, the floor, right into the corners; the energy forms a barrier between your space and any negative forces trying to enter it.

Voilá, your space is warded.

So as you can see, wards at their most basic are very simple. But the problem with the ward above is that it uses solely your own energy. This means it will only last until you fall asleep or otherwise run out. However, the solution is fairly simple: you use something other than yourself to supply the energy. This can be done both on a long term basis and/or in the short when you’re setting up the ward.

Short Term Energy Source

When you’re first setting it up, you can either still use your own energy or you can use another, external source. This source could be a crystal you’ve already charged, a plant or another person. While using another person is a whole different set of ethical issues, plants and crystals are often considered the easier options because they’re physically in front of you. This doesn’t work so well for me personally, so I use something more esoteric; the sun. In this vein, you can also use the moon, any of the planets you feel a close connection to, or one of the elements.

To do this, you can either have the external source with you when you make the ward (such as a crystal) or visualise it (like with the sun). If having a representation of the source helps you connect, go for it! Then draw energy from the source, visualising it pooling into a ball in your hands and thank the external source. Then continue with making your ward as shown above. Make sure you visualise the energy from your external source as separate from your own energy! Otherwise you might end up being the source whether you like it or not.

Long Term Energy Source

Once you’ve set up your ward, you need to tether it to an outside source. This is not optional as otherwise the ward will just be temporary and casting a circle for protection would be just as effective.

Many people like to use something physical to tether their ward. Sigls and crystals are common favourites and easy to use. This is not only because physical tethers are often reassuring, they also provide an easy charging point when your wards need a top up. You can use the sun and the moon or anything other energy source to power your wards long term but as a general rule, you need to give proper thanks to whatever you use. So you can cleanse a crystal regularly as thanks, you can water your plant as thanks and you can make sure your sigil is clear and defined, but considering what you need to do to thank the sun for unlimited energy is, personally, a little daunting.

So using a crystal or a plant or a sigil is fairly simple. First step is make sure you have one which corresponds to your intent e.g. an appropriate sigil, or clear quartz, or rosemary are good for protection. Secondly, once your ward is raised, imagine drawing a tiny bit of energy connection your ward to your tether. Imagine it as being strong, open and the flow is moving from your crystal, plant or sigil towards your ward. Remember to thank your tether appropriately!

If you’re using a sigil, avoid using something which will mark surfaces permanently as you may need to take it down.

Layers

So I’ve mentioned this a couple of times but this is one of the real benefits of warding as opposed to just a general protection spell carried on your person. Theoretically, you can put up hundreds of wards, linked to and layered on top of your original ward.

It’s works best if your first ward is based on the concept of general protection and you use it as the tether for every new ward. This means that if one layer becomes disturbed, you don’t have to break down any wards on top of it to fix the already wonky ward.

And I do mean, tether it to the original ward, not to the original ward’s tether. So it should look something like this:

This is because while your choice of crystal/plant/sigil is great for general protection, it might not work so well with spiritual protection. The original ward acts as a filter, meaning you can hang whatever further wards you want on it.

The Practical Stuff

How to Create your Ward

You will need

Yourself

Some uninterrupted time

Your cleansing space tools

A source (you, a plant, a crystal, the sun etc.)

A tether (crystal, plant or sigil associated with protection)

Basic warding:

Make sure you won’t be disturbed for a while (ten to fifteen minutes for this method).

Cleanse your space.

Ground yourself and get yourself into a headspace which is calm and centred (meditation helps but isn’t necessary).

Visualise the energy from your source forming into a ball in your hands, it’s a little heavy but it’s full of warmth and the intent to protect.

Let it grow until it’s too big to hold and imagine it surrounding you, protecting you.

Now visualise it expanding, first as a ball, but then moulding to the boundries of the space you are warding. The walls, the ceiling, the floor, right into the corners; the energy forms a barrier between your space and any negative forces trying to enter it.

Take your tether and visualising it connecting to your ward. Imagine it as being strong, open and that the flow is moving from your crystal, plant or sigil towards your ward.

Thank your source and/or your tether.

Alternative Methods

Pure visualisation methods don’t work for everyone and some of you may have noticed that raising a ward as I’ve described is an awful lot like the visualisation method of casting a circle. The two aren’t dissimilar; both are methods of protection. This means, like with casting a circle, you can raise a ward in different ways. Here’s a few examples:

Walk the perimeter clockwise

Use a wand or athame to trace the edges of your space

Chant your intent or create a spell to say aloud

Use incense aligned with your intention

Anything you can do to help yourself believe in the protection of your ward and it’s strength, go for it.

Maintaining Wards

Make a habit of recharging your wards. I do mine every month but go with whatever feels comfortable for you.

It’s as simple as repeating steps 3 and 4, then pushing your ball of energy into your tether for the first ward. From there, the energy will spread out.

If you haven’t recharged them in a while (for about six months or so), you may want to channel straight from an external source. But please do safely!

Dispelling Wards

It’s best practice to take down your wards if you move away from your house/appartment/dorm room. Ethically, the next inhabitant might not be okay with magick; practically, leaving your magick lying about where you can’t tend to it can get you caught up in some seriously bad side-effects.

To do so is as easy as reversing your process. If you used the basic method, all you need to do is get hold of your tether and draw the energy through you and into the earth. You generally start by drawing the energy back from your secondary wards and then, when those have been removed, your original ward. If you used a sigil as your tether, remove it by any means necessary.

Any added elements should be reversed e.g. using banishing incense or walking the perimeter anti-clockwise.

MISC (But Kinda Important)

Doors and Windows

This depends on your thoughts about the matter but some people feel that something special has to be done about doors, windows and any other openings into the warded space.

I, personally, don’t feel the opening of a door or a window would disrupt the wards around my home. This is largely because in my mind, my wards are grounded by the corners rather than the walls themselves. As a metaphor, I’ve got physical hooks in all the corners of my room, the spiritual veil is then hooked onto each one and stretched between them. I don’t believe opening the door is any more likely to disrupt the veil than walking through it.

However, I know this is a quirk in my brain rather than something which will ring true for everyone. If doors and windows cause a conundrum for you, then visualise there being a ‘thicker’ or reinforced section of the warding over them.

Types of Wards

This is by no means an exhaustive list but rather a few “must have” themes of wards.

A ward to allow energy to be pushed out (essential in case you need to cleanse the space or want a spell to affect someone not present)

Protection against harmful energy

Protection against harmful spirits/entities/people

Protection against harmful magick

An auto-cleanse ward (cuts down on the need to cleanse by other methods)

I also personally use wards which reflect harmful magick back to whoever sent it and ones designed to help me leave negative thoughts and feelings at the door. But these aren’t what I’d consider “necessary”.

[dailywitchlings]

Are you a new Witch who doesn’t know why do you need to have a B.O.S? 

Or you might just be confused and lost about what exactly should you be writing on you magical book. 

Truth is: You don`t really NEED one for your witchcraft practice, BUT it can really help you to “level up” your magical skills by taking notes of your past magical experiences or simply writing correspondences for future rituals and spells.

When I started my magical practices I just kept one old high school notebooks and sort of wrote everything I did and read on the internet, books, etc… I just mixed everything. But it turns out for me, it wasn’t really working because I could never find what I wanted LOL. 

So maybe it’s easier for you to have one book for each subject, and that will help you A LOT on your studies.

So anyway, if you`re wondering what kind of things you could be writing I’ve came up with 5 most important and ESSENCIAL things for your Book of Shadows.

1. WRITE DOWN YOUR DREAMS:

I know, this one seems stupid, but a lot of people underestimate dreams and think they are not really that big of a deal. IT IS. Specially if you are working on a spell, or working with deities. They could be talking to you with symbols and secret messages in your dreams. So write before you go to sleep say it to yourself: “I am going to remember everything I dream tonight and afterwards I will write this down on my grimoire.” This helps your brain retain information about what you dreamed that night. 

2. TAKE NOTES ON YOUR MAGICAL EXPERIENCES:

Ok, this one is the most important for me. It is CRUCIAL that you write everything when performing a spell, ESPECIALLY one which you’ve created from scratch. Write down the phase of the moon at the time, the exact time you performed it, the day of the week, the stars, the color of the candles you used, herbs, etc… 

Take notes on how you felt before and after a banishing ritual. Take daily notes on how your personal energy is going.

3. MAKE LISTS AND BULLET POINTS:

I like to make magical shopping lists on my grimoire. It’s important for me to keep a section filled with simple and essencial spells and herbs that I might use every month, for example: Herbs for protection, for banishing, for chakra cleansing, incenses, candles and etc…

I also make lists of spells I wanna be performing on the Full Moon in advance. WHY? Because I can get lazy with magic sometimes, and I know you can too. So when the full moon comes I already have my ritual written down along with all my ingredients for it. 

4. SEPARATE ONE SECTION FOR DIVINATION:

Yes, divination is important. Wether it is to try and guess what is going to happen in your life this year, or using it for self-knowledge purposes, or to just talk to your gods… Divination is a big part of magic and I think that learning how it works is crucial for your magic. 

Choose one type of divination: Tarot or Runes, or another one that you think is easier for you. Learn about it, write down the meanings and associations and then practice every single day. Sleep with a tarot card or rune under your pillow and write down your feelings and dreams the next day. Carry one with you during your day and write down everything that happen so that later on you can compare with the “official meaning” of that card or rune. Medidate and don’t forget to keep taking notes.

5. LAST BUT NOT LEAST” CONSECRATE AND PURIFY IT.

This is not obligatory, but it’s necessary in case you wanna protect it from ending up in the hands of people you don’t want to read it. It is a magic book, guys! And even more personal than a journal or a diary. So I would protect it and keep it very safe.

So here is a very cute and short blessing prayer for your B.o.S :

Elements of fire, water, wind and earth please protect this book

From wondering eyes and prying looks

Fill it with strong and Ancient power.

In this right and ready hour.

Of course you can use this one as a base and modify it to your will. There are tons of other blessing you could find on the internet. You could also consecrate it to your Mother Goddess and Father God, and then decorate it as you want.

I bought mine on Amazon, it’s cheaper than trying to find one here where I live so that’s where I would buy it. 

Here are my favorites:

1. Obsidian Journal: 

2.Antique Leather Handmade Journal

3. Big Leather Journal (Handmade)

4.Leather Journal with a stone on the cover: (I am IN LOVE with this one.I guess I’m ordering a new journal)

5. Leather Journal with Gem Stones. This is my absolute favorite.It’s not that cheap, but LOOK at it. So gorgeous.

6. Classic Book of Shadows with a pentagram on the cover. This one is perfect! 

I could spend hours and hours on this website looking at new journals to create a new B.O.S. I’m obsessed by them. But how it looks it is not always important. You could just use an old high school notebook if you want!

Just remember to have fun with it! Cut out spells, put some dried herbs, make some beautiful drawings…

All of this can help you understand magic even more than just reading books. 

Magic is not just theory, it is PRACTICE, TRIAL AND ERROR.

[ndanya-qiri-ffxiv]

The Dusk Shaman

( Please ignore weirdness of tenses... I have a bad habit of, well, not editing. )

The only sounds were the the crunch of boots through snow as Khuja made her way to the trial ground, accompanied by the three Elders of the Clans and her mother, Ohzu. They were dressed in their warm, heavy furs. The Elders carried their staves, and Khuja her spellbook, but otherwise they traveled light. It was neither a long journey nor a difficult one and already, she could see the cave on the horizon.

The winds of Coerthas were blessedly still this evening, and the sky was clear, allowing the full moon and myriad stars to shine down on them without filter. It gave her comfort. It allowed her to focus. As the cave loomed ever closer, Khuja steeled herself ever more.

“We are here,” said Basuh, elder of the Jinjahl clan, as they reached the cave entrance. She was the oldest of the Elders, but moved with all the grace and confidence of someone younger.  She steps into the snow-free entrance to the cave, followed by Pako of the Molkot and Soje of the Moshantu. Ohzu moved to the side, watching the proceedings with a critical eye.

The elders faced Khuja, who remained outside the safety of the cave, standing tall and proud in the snow. Basuh was the first to speak, with distinct authority, “Khuja, you are First Daughter of the Moshantu clan, daughter of the Matriach Ohzu. Tonight, you seek the title of Dusk Shaman. Are the words I speak true?”

“Venerable Elders, the words you speak are true,” Khuja returned, placing her hand over her heart and bowing her head to them.

“The Dusk Shaman is a master of all elements. Fire. Earth. Wind. Water. Void. She is capable of destruction and healing, control and chaos. If you are found unworthy, you will not be allowed another chance and will be disinherited. Is there ought else you would do before attempting these trials?”

“Venerable Elders, there is not else I would ought to do. I am prepared,” Khuja said, glad to hear herself sound firm and confident. She didn’t feel it.

“We shall begin,” Basuh stated before she turned on her heel and made her way further into the cave. Torches lit the way, and Khuja followed along. They did not descend far before entering a large, open space within the cave itself. Inside there were four stations set up, each with a different trial set.

Basuh was again the elder to speak, “You will begin at the left, and work right. You are to dissipate the block ice with fire, from the inside out. You are to raise a stone pillar measuring six fulms in height. You are to overturn the table with wind. Lastly, you are to douse the bonfire, though leave the coals burning hot. Have you any questions?”

Basuh had motioned to each station in turn as she spoke. The block of ice was easily as tall as Khuja, and was wide as she was tall as well. The circle to work with the earth was small. The desk was solid, ancient hardwood, and the bonfire was tall and raging. The young Keeper shook her head, “No, Venerable Elder. I have no questions.”

“Then you are to begin,” Basuh murmured, before moving off to the side with the other Elders and Ohzu. A deafening silence falls over the cave now, broken only by the crackling of the bonfire. Khuja approached the block of ice first.

She did not hesitate to begin to work. She half-closed her eyes and then reached out with her aether, tendrils invisible to all but her. She picked at the surface until she found an imperfection. Her aether wiggled into the imperfection and then sought another. Over and over she repeated the process, until her aether was pooled as close to the center as she could manage.In the next moment, a handful of the tattooed runes and symbols began to glow as she activated the spell. Fire erupted in the middle of the block of ice, and soon it was nothing more than a puddle.

“Pass,” called Soje.

Khuja did not pause to celebrate. She stepped up to the circle of dirt that served as her second challenge. Once more she reached out with her aether, pooled it in the dirt and rock there. She lowered herself down to a kneeling position and held the position. A few moments of silence - and then another set of tattoos and runes begin to glow. She gritted her teeth and then rose to her feet sharply, lifted her hands from the ground to above her head.

The earth followed, and soon a pillar of earth and stone stood before her, well taller than her. Certainly more than six fulms.

“Pass,” called Pako.

Khuja stepped to the next task and tried to keep her hands from shaking. She was not nervous or tired, but she was growing anxious. She took a deep breath to calm herself and then reached out with her aether once more. She gathered the latent wind aether from around her and drew it into a bundle before her. Carefully she then knelt down, before thrusting both hands forward to ‘throw’ the ball of wind forward, which she guided to the ground and base of the desk. It caught the heavy wood and Khuja then lifted it, with a grunt as the heavy wood resisted. It took an extra tick or two but soon enough, the desk had been flipped up onto its side.

“Pass,” called Basuh.

Khuja continued now to the bonfire. Extinguish the flames, but not the embers. She eyed the fire a moment before she reached out once more with her aether. This time, she drew water aether from the snow outside. The then carefully began to weave it among the fire, slow and steady, avoiding the flaring fire as best she could. Soon enough she had a dancing latticework of water aether ready to be called upon. She threw her hands out to her sides and it came into being near the base of the fire. The flames died at the base and then disappeared into the air, leaving only red hot coals around the charred wood.

“Pass,” called Ohzu.

“You have passed the trials of four of the elements,” Basuh said from her position to the side, “Now you must prove your mastery over the fifth. You are to summon a voidsent, a simple voidoriga, and bind it to you. Prove your mastery over it. Then, banish it. Should you falter, the beast shall be slane, and you shall be deemed a failure. Do you understand?”

Khuja had, by now, turned to face the Elders. She nodded her head once, “I understand, Venerable Elder.”

“Then begin.”

Khuja bowed to them and then snapped her spellbook off her belt. She flipped it open to a familiar page and withdrew chalk from her belt. She knelt down and drew a handful of symbols with the confidence of someone who had been doing this for years. Showing confidence was key. With the symbols drawn, Khuja returned to her faet and pocketed the chalk, snapped the book back to her belt.

Once more did her runes and tattoos begin to glow, this time bright enough that even beneath her furs they could be seen. A moment later and there was a rumble like thunder in the cave above her symbols before a tear in the fabric of their reality appeared. She opened it further, watching carefully for her quarry.

It did not take long to appear. A voidoriga - scaly, deformed, vicious, and winged - burst from the tear, attempted to fly for freedom. Khuja clapped her hands together, which shut the gateway down behind it and simultaneously launched aetheric chains from the symbols on the ground up to the beast. They snapped around wrists and ankles and throat, and now the Keeper made eye contact with the snarling and flailing beast. “You will submit to my will and serve me for a time,” Khuja said, voice firm in tone but slightly shaky from the effort to hold the creature, “I will strike a bargain. A small portion of my aether for a small portion of your time. Then, you shall be banished whence you came.”

The voidoriga shrieked and thrashed and ignored her. Khuja set her feet and snarled as she fought to hold it. She held her hands out, strengthened the bonds, “I… said,” she then yanked her hands back and down, pulling the aetheric chains - and the creature - with the motion, “Submit!”

The voidoriga hit the ground with a dull thud and a now-pained shriek. It started to struggle again but Khuja only yanked on the chains harder. Eventually, the creature stilled and glared at her. Silence once more fell across the cave.

“We have an accord, then?” She asked firmly. The beast let out a low growl but nodded once. She was never sure how smart these creatures were, but they always had a dangerous sort of cleverness hidden in their eyes. “Then your bindings will be removed, and you are to stay put.”

Khuja eyed the creature for another second or two and then stood up, snapped her fingers, and the chains disappeared. Her heart skipped a beat when the voidoriga stood, and she saw the Elders and her mother get ready to kill the creature… but it didn’t flee. It stayed put and stared at her with those beady eyes, awaiting a command.

The Keeper let out a quiet sigh of relief. She portioned off a small portion of her aether - knowing it would regenerate in time - and then floated it over to the creature. Greedily, it launched itself at it. “Now, begone.”

She clapped her hands together and the runes on the ground glowed brightly. With a surprised shriek of pain, the creature burst into flames and then was gone, back where it had come from. Khuja then stood tall and still, hands clasped behind her back. There was some discussion among the elders before Basuh stepped forward, looking stern.

“Khuja, First Daughter of the Moshantu clan, daughter of the Matriach Ohzu, it is with great honor that we bestow upon you the title of Dusk Shaman. You shall serve the Clans with honor, and long may you do so.”

It is all that Khuja can do to express her excitement and glee. She must concentrate on the honorific ways. A hand was placed over her heart and she bowed to the gathered elders and her mother.

“Venerable Elders, I thank you, and accept the title of Dusk Shaman. I shall serve the Clans with honor for as long as I may live.”

Each Elder approached her in turn after that, took her hands in their own. They murmured soft words on encouragement or gave minor blessings of their own, often unique to their Clan. All the while, her mother hung back and waited, her hands folded behind her back and her brow furrowed slightly.

Soon enough, mother and daughter were alone, and the cave was silent save for the sounds of distant water dripping from the ceiling of the cave to the floor. Khuja can’t keep a straight fact any longer and erupted into a fit of excited giggles.

“I did it, mother!”

“You did,” came Ohzu’s reply, though it was far more tempered, nearly devoid of her daughter’s excitement. Khuja’s smiling faltered, and then disappeared as her mother continued talking, “Nearly five winters older than your elder sister. Twenty-one winters old you are, and - “

“Miah is gone, mother,” Khuja said sharply, feeling old pain rising to the surface, “She has been gone for -”

“Do not lecture me, child, I know. I also know what consumed her. She was a prodigy, but too bold, too careless. You will not make those mistakes. I will not allow it.”

“O - of course I will not make those mistakes. I suffered in her passing as well. I would never repeat what she had done. I am more -”

Ohzu held up a hand to silence her daughter, and then clasped it once more behind her back. Her tail swayed slowly behind her, “You will not make the same mistakes, because I will not allow it,” she repeated, with careful and controlled emphasis on her final words, “You will partake in the celebrations and the feasts, and in a sennight you will leave. You will travel the lands, mediating and strengthening your control over the elements. You will not return until you have mastered them utterly.”

Khuja’s jaw slackened as her mother continued to talk. Her ears pinned back and she couldn’t help but stomp her foot and lash her tail, “That is unfair! You did not require it of Miah. I have never heard of this required of any that would call themselves a Dusk Shaman, and -”

“Those who have failed in the past have not been my daughter,” Ohzu snapped, her voice quiet and cold. “This is not negotiable. You will do as I say. Alternatively, you may return the mantle you have been bestowed -”

“No,” Khuja retorted, with a shake of her head that sent her braids bouncing, “No, I will not relinquish this mantle. I will go on your journey. I will do as you say. I miss her too, mother, but this will neither bring her back nor honor her memory nor prepare me better than I already am.”

A heavy silence fell between them as neither wished to budge on the issue. “It will make me feel better, and I have no doubt you will return stronger for it. Go. Meditate. Grow.”

Ohzu approached her now, leather scuffing on the rock floor as loud as thunder in the otherwise silent cave. She reached up and took Khuja’s face in her hands before she leaned down and kissed her on the forehead, “I am immensely proud of you, as I was her. I did not protect her enough, and now I shall protect you overmuch. Come, the feast is to begin soon.”

With that, Ohzu stepped beyond her daughter and continued to the mouth of the cave. Khuja hesitated a moment longer, lingered in the space where her victory occurred, and then turned to follow.

[ofcloudsandstars]

November Magical Dates and Astrological Transits

Welcome to the deep darkness of the year. November we get plunged into the dark quarter getting us in our hibernation mode and focusing on the realms within. It's a great time of the year for magic in the household (known and tagged sometimes as Cottage Witchcraft: witchcraft encompassing magic indoors, in your bedroom, kitchen witchcraft, bath witchcraft, cleansing and crafting etc.), shadow work and resting. It's also a great time to take up a hobby craft as you can focus your creations and learning on gifts for Yule to come.

This month is nearly nested between two Full Moons but the previous full moon reached opposition on the 31st so technically the moon at the end of November is not a Blue moon. However the moon at the end of November is a Blood Moon meaning it's a Full Moon Eclipse that will cast the moon in a red shadow. The themes of this month will take us through Scorpio's shadowy introspective period helping us to understand where our energy and sense of freedoms may be repressed then optimistic Sagittarius season helping us to focus on our dreams and how we can work towards manifesting them. There are a lot of surprises coming with dynamic Uranus in retrograde influencing a lot of planets which will lead up to the full moon eclipse no doubt bringing a lot of changes and sudden endings that no one can predict. Get ready for your life to be upgraded!

1st - ☾♉ Samhain  🎃 Mercury rx in Libra squares Saturn in Capricorn

We will still be under the influence of the full moon as it's in mid-transit in Taurus. Today Mercury rx in Libra will square Saturn in Capricorn bringing up themes of restriction and our mental barriers. With mercury in retrograde it's a good time to reflect on how these mental barriers can hold us back and why we feel oppressed by them. Especially since Samhain is a good time for shadow work and overcoming mental obstacles, it's a good day for meditation and introspection on how we may harbor negative beliefs that keep us imprisoned. (Especially in regards to our relationships, coworkers and authority). With the full moon conjunct Uranus RX we may have gotten themes of material or superficial things that we value that could either be restricting our freedoms or holding us back. The next day with the Mercury rx square with Saturn we will dive further into our subconscious to focus on our mental blocks and restrictions. Since Samhain is a good day for shedding and letting go this is great energy to reflect on and release for our personal freedoms to emerge. Take a moment today to write down what you'd like to free in yourself. You will see later on it will help ;)

Additionally Blessed Samhain!

Week 2 - 8

2nd - ☾♊ Moon enters Gemini

When the moon is in Gemini it’s a good time for taking in new information, studying magic or writing in your grimoire, using binural beats in magic, meditation or trance or doing air based magic.

3rd - ☾♊ Mercury Direct in Libra

Mercury finally stations direct today! It will still have it's moment of grogginess so still expect delays and some missed communication, but things will finally start moving forward. Take the time to reflect on what you have learned during this retrograde period and how you will apply it to your life moving forward. Though Mercury will be moving forward, it's still a time for rest, hibernation and reflection. Don't feel the need to hit the ground running or be surprised when everything still feels groggy and introspective. This is the dark quarter of the year and time to hibernate.

4th - ☾♋ Moon enters Cancer

When the moon is in Cancer it’s a good time for magic around the home such as cleaning and cleansing, kitchen magic and bath magic. It’s a great time for self-care rituals and water-based magic. The theme of burrowing and hibernation will feel amplified today as the moon is in it's home sign.

5th - ☾♋ Disseminating Moon | Moon in Cancer Trines Sun

The waning gibbous moon is a great time for taking stock of your progress during this lunar cycle and celebrating any little successes you’ve managed to accomplish so far no matter how small. You can reflect on all that you have worked through and learned through retrograde and the insights that the full moon has given you. It’s a lovely vibe for socializing, spreading generosity or just taking the moment to enjoy life. When the moon trines the sun it’s a harmonious time that brings a lot of luck. When you take stock and realize that you may not be where you’d like, then it’s a good time to catch up on work to help you out or do magic to bring opportunities for doors to open for you. Celebrate at home with the moon in Cancer and make your personal space feel special by burning nice scented candles, changing bedsheets and getting really cozy. 

 6th - ☾♋ Mercury in Libra squares Saturn in Capricorn

Time for another Mercury and Saturn square, except Mercury is now direct! This is when I suggested you should write down any themes the last square brought up on Samhain as you may get stronger clarity now on what you need to let go in order to liberate yourself mentally. As all squares operate, it's not a good time for action, yet reflection and meditation. Wherever you feel mentally blocked, reflect on it, write it down, meditate on it and do some divination if you are feeling stuck.

7th - ☾♌  Autumn’s Crossquarter Moon enters Leo

Today is also when the Sun is 15 degrees in Scorpio making it the official Crossquarter of Autumn. This is a period of shedding, cleansing and banishing along with tying up any loose ends before going into hibernation. This is the official end to Samhaintide. 

8th - ☾♌ Last Quarter Moon in Leo

The themes of reflection and introspection carry on with the Last Quarter moon in Leo. The Last Quarter moon is a good time for reflecting on the lunar cycle that past and the lessons we have learned. It's a good day for meditation, mindfulness, gratitude and reviewing the past. The lunar cycle begun on a Libra new moon so you can take the themes of introspection today on what you have learned in regards to what resonates with your heart, the value you put on relationships, your money, material wealth and partnerships and what is truly important/resonates with you vs. what is holding you back. Leo rules the heart so this is a good day to be honest with yourself and seek out what makes you free and what is in your best interests.

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Week 9 - 15

9th - ☾♍ Venus in Libra opposite Mars rx in Aries Moon enters Virgo

You may find some clarity today on the inner work you could have done yesterday with the last quarter moon as Venus in Libra transits opposite Mars rx in Aries. Previous injustices regarding relationships of all kinds could come up now from the past. Repressed anger or desires could emerge that may feel shocking but could be clarifying on the pain experienced or how you could have created barriers to protect yourself yet in turn these same walls became a mental prison. As the moon and season is in decline it's good to reflect on these themes and release what's no longer needed. With the moon entering Virgo you will have a more clear headed approach to your introspection. With the opposition it's a good time to release the built up tension in healthy ways in any physical activity from exercise to dance. This energy could also show you where you may feel lacking in terms of your relationship dynamics or self confidence. It's not a time to act yet but to reflect and observe. Write down any insights in your journal to review later.

10th - ☾♍ Balsamic Moon | Moon Sextiles Sun Mercury enters Scorpio Sun in Scorpio trines Neptune rx in Pisces

Mercury enters Scorpio today! We can re-enter our dark underworlds now with a bit of introspection from what the retrograde has bought. Mercury in Scorpio brings two weeks of deep intense thought, diving to the core of the truths shrouded by darkness and uncovering ours and others shadows. With the moon in it's balsamic phase (waning crescent), it's a time to wrap up loose ends of this lunar cycle and depart from anything no longer serving us. If there are things in our lives such as people or physical materials that no longer align with our values, we should find ways to distant ourselves or banish them. It's also a good time to do some deep house cleaning and throw out anything old that we've been holding on to without realizing (as I type this, there are 3 large plastic water bottles in the corner of my vision I use for watering my plants which I only need 1 of haha). With the Sun trining Neptune rx this can highlight what our dreams are for ourselves or the future. Now is a time to pay attention to our dreams and day dreams to see where deep subconscious desires lie that may be brought out by Mars's retrograde and Mercury now in Scorpio. The Sun and Neptune Rx transit also heightens our sensitivity and empathy towards others. This can help us connect with our sense of spirituality from within.

11th - ☾♎ Moon enters Libra

When the moon is in Libra it’s a good time for attraction magic (friendship/coworkers/partners - all kinds), glamours and charms, love based magic and harmonizing spells.

12th - ☾♎ Jupiter conjunct Pluto in Capricorn

Today will feel powerful and intense as the expansive Jupiter conjuncts intense Pluto in Capricorn. We will feel focused and driven to succeed and with a mix of intense effort with good luck, we will have teh boost to make a big difference anywhere we focus on energy towards on this day. This is powerful energy to not let go by so mark this day on your calendar. It is important to think about what you want to do during this prosperous phase. Ventures regarding business success, abundance, travel or career can get a boost of positivity during this time if used well. However focus your energy on either spiritual self-development or success for your genuine benefit and not more power or control over others (especially those already in power). Anyone with power already can get a boost during this time so if you challenge them you can face those powers against you. Therefore focus on your success and if it's in a circumstance even where your success lies in another person relinquishing power over you then maybe use this energy to escape from their influence, but don't challenge anyone directly.

This is a great day for action but if you want to do spell work then try barrier-breaking magic where you can break through obstacles to gain what you need.

13th - ☾♏ Moon enters Scorpio

Today is Friday the 13th! It's a magical day celebrating Venus and the divine femme! It's been warped by modern day society to be evil or whatever, but Friday the 13th is a fun time to be spooky, get up to shenanigans, do love attraction magic and fool around. Especially in honor of Venus, Friday the 13th is a fun day to dress up very mystical or witchy just for the sake of it. Today will feel extra spooky and intense with the moon entering Scorpio. When the moon is in Scorpio it's a good time for shadow work, energy based magic, scrying, blood and sex magic.

14th - ☾♏ Mars direct in Aries Sun in Scorpio sextiles Pluto and Jupiter in Capricorn

GOT DAMN Mars is FINALLY Direct. Finally.. woof.. It's over. Though it will still be in it's groggy phase we may already feel motivated and ready to move forward after that lengthy period of introspection and reflecting on our inner motivations and drive. Energy may feel more free-flowing from now on and we may feel more inclined to act. This energy will be amplified by the Sun sextiling both Pluto and Jupiter in Capricorn helping us to work through anything. This will help us succeed in our goals and aspirations and especially in the realms of our work or careers. You will feel the energy to hit the ground running and it's a good time to wrap up projects or strive for what you need during these prosperous transits.

15th - ☾♏ New Moon in Scorpio Venus in Libra squares Pluto in Capricorn Moon enters Sagittarius

A new lunar cycle begins! The moon in Scorpio will bring themes of our liberation again with it being opposite Uranus rx and how we need to connect with ourselves on a soul level to understand where we have been stripped of our power. This theme will be amplified by Venus in a square with Pluto. We may be more aware today of how we can be controlled in our relationships as power and control issues may arise. There can also be emotions tied to not feeling loved or valued come to the surface or worse, be buried deep within but be the motivation behind acting out or seeking control. If you are feeling these negative feelings you should look within to seek out what you need to change in order to make yourself feel more free and more valued and how you can commit yourself to these changes during this new Lunar Cycle. Especially in transformative Scorpio, this New Moon is looking to make a change.

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Week 16 - 22

16th - ☾♐ Venus in Libra squares Jupiter in Capricorn

So Venus and Jupiter squares are not like many other. Squares tend to bring frustration or restrictions that may make us feel blocked and forced to reflect on our obstacles. However Jupiter squares creates another type of obstacle which is excess. Sometimes too much of a good thing can easily lead us astray. With the Venus and Jupiter square we can easily blow a lot of money accidentally on a shopping spree or spend way too much on take out or any other forms of gluttony. You should be especially wary if substances come involved. Moderation is key with this transit and we can easily go overboard if we aren't careful, especially since the moon is transiting Sagittarius. If we do feel inclined we should reflect on the root reasons why we want to over indulge instead of feeding the need. This way less damage is done. If you do want to go out, give yourself a budget so you don't over do it.

17th - ☾♑ Mercury in Scorpio opposite Uranus rx in Taurus Venus in Libra opposite Chiron rx in Aries Moon enters Capricorn

Today may feel hectic but there is opportunity for healing if you pay attention. The two major transits here are Mercury opposite Uranus rx and Venus opposite Chiron rx. With the Mercury and Uranus rx opposition we may be faced with obstacles that may change our plans and scatter our minds. This is not a good day to make plans or agree on deals but just to let our minds wander and not be restricted. This is a day that can bring great insight and epiphanies to how we relate to ourselves as an individual and understand our freedom. It's a better day to reflect and seek to understand ourselves then move forward. Additionally with Venus opposite Chiron rx we may be confronted with painful emotions revolving around our relationships and past trauma or pain. With the two transits together we can be confronted with external obstacles or events that could make us aware of our limitations, freedom, lack of individuality or authenticity and how that pain or boundary could have stemmed from toxic relationships from the past. Though it's potentially a lot of pain to work through, it's a day that can bring insight on how to move forward from it.

18th - ☾♑   Moon in Capricorn

With the moon in Capricorn, it’s a good time for organization, addressing our tasks and responsibilities, ancestor magic, earth and mineral based magic.

19th - ☾♒ Waxing Crescent | Sun Sextiles Moon Sun in Scorpio sextiles Saturn in Capricorn Venus in Libra squares Saturn in Capricorn Moon enters Aquarius

While the moon is still in Capricorn, it will sextile the Sun in Scorpio bringing a boost of positive energy that can help us take on any task. This is a great part of the lunar cycle to look back on the intentions you've set for the new moon and start exploring new ways to incorporate what your intentions were into your life. This could look like you signing up for a new class or experimenting with something new. It's a great time for seeking out new ventures, experimentation and learning. With the moon's energy in Capricorn there would be a boost in the areas of work where you can explore new open positions at work or switching up your schedule and seeing how that suits your work life balance better (especially in regards to the new moon theme and if that allows you to have more freedom.) The Sun will also sextile Saturn in Capricorn giving us a positive boost in our work ethic. We will find tasks much easier to complete today and feel more responsible. It's a great day to get your to-do list checked off and confront whatever long-term "to-do's" that you may have (like renewing that license for example). Venus in Libra will also square Saturn in Capricorn bringing the positive mood down a little as we may feel restricted by some of our relationships or unable to really act upon our values due to barriers or obstacles that block us from being our true selves. The energy today is pretty free-flowing to make changes in your life so if you are feeling that restriction maybe you can look into how you can shift things around like your work schedule or try new things to feel less blocked.

20th - ☾♒ Moon in Aquarius

When the moon is in Aquarius, it’s great to expand on your perspective, explore new material, work with tech magic or electricity and work with celestial magic or astrology. Especially as the moon is still in it's waxing crescent phase it's a great time to explore new things and try new ventures.

21st - ☾♒ Venus enters Scorpio

Venus enters the most passionate and intense sign, Scorpio bringing us into the deep depths of the shadows lingering from our love lives and other relationships that may still cause us to act paranoid, jealous or resentful of some people we live around today. This cycle is a great time for shadow work revolving around our relationship to other people and understanding why some people may trigger a negative response from us. Romance under this transit can be intense, dramatic, thrilling but also if you manage to have a healthy dynamic it can be soul bonding and long lasting. It's a good time for healing the heart and confronting any toxicity that we may be unknowingly harboring for the next month that this transit continues.

22nd - ☾♓ Sun enters Sagittarius First Quarter Moon in Pisces

The most festive season begins!! The Sun enters optimistic and excitable Sagittarius today bringing lights to the impenetrable dark of this somber quarter of the year. Trees will start to be aglow with lights, festive music will haunt us from every radio station and shop, everything we drink will be hot and spiced. You cannot escape the jolliness of Sagittarius season. However this energy may feel more tense than usual with the first day also landing on the First Quarter moon in Pisces. The first quarter moon calls for reflection on strategy and what we've learned this lunar cycle so far by experimenting and trying new things. What tools have we gained? What would we be willing to try or implement to get our goals ahead? Especially in the theme of Pisces we may really be focusing on our dreams and how we can bring our dreams to reality. How do these dreams liberate us? With what we've learned how can we achieve that liberation? As optimistic Sagittarius season overlaps with this lunar cycle, we may feel upbeat about taking this on.

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Week 23 - 29

23rd - ☾♓ Mercury in Scorpio trines Neptune rx in Pisces

Today feels tied in with yesterday's transits as Mercury makes a beneficial trine with Neptune rx which will create a lucky period of time where we can feel mentally aligned and balanced with our creativity, our spirituality and our dreams. We will be in-tune with what we want and be able to express it. If we are feeling repressed in this area, this transit will help us to understand these hidden parts some more. As beneficial as trines are, they are unfortunately so easy-going in their energy that we can easily miss them going by. This is a beneficial day to work towards your dreams so mark it on your calendar (especially as the moon will be conjunct Neptune rx in Pisces as well!) The energies will be aligned.

24th - ☾♈ Waxing Gibbous | Sun Trines Moon Moon enters Aries

Another wonderful trine will happen today with the Sun trining the Moon in Aries. This easy going day will be a great day to work towards your dreams as well, implement whatever strategies you reflected on and planned during the first quarter moon at the start of Sagittarius season and put them into action! Especially as the moon is in Aries we will feel inclined to take action so perhaps this trine will not go as unnoticed as most. This will feel like such a good spirited and lucky day, it's good to use this expansive energy wisely and keep your eyes on the prize. Fire magic would feel powerful today as well as barrier-breaking magic to bust through any obstacles in your way. It's also a good time to raise energy and create spell items especially fire-based tools like spell candles.

25th - ☾♈ Moon in Aries

Today the moon will conjunct both Chiron rx and Mars in Aries still giving us some of that productive boost of energy from yesterday. It's a good day to work though we may feel a window of time where we could feel uneasy or subject to pain with the moon and chiron rx conjunction. It's good to be aware of this to understand where to take it slow and be kind with yourself as you charge forward towards your dreams.

26th - ☾♈ Moon in Aries

When the moon is in Aries it’s great to take on challenges, use fire magic and hexing.

27th - ☾♉ Venus in Scorpio Opposite Uranus rx in Taurus Moon enters Taurus

Once again the themes of our lack of liberation and freedom in regards to our current relationships comes into the spotlight with the opposition today between Venus and Uranus rx. With chaotic Uranus transits it's always a spin-the-wheel adventure and Uranus rx will want us to seek change that can help us feel more free or help us expand our perspective. Even so Uranus loves change for the sake of change just to try something new and learn so our existing relationships, especially any that are restrictive could all go through an upheaval where we could either end up leaving or another person could get involved. It's an exciting time but it's usually not long lasting and it's just to change things up. If you are in a situation where you don't like the dynamic between you and another person, today is the day to shake things up or break it off. Also be mindful of your money today. Uranus is the master of surprises and chaos and even though it's in retrograde it can still bring events that could impact your finances or valuables if you are not careful.

28th - ☾♉ Neptune direct in Pisces Mercury in Scorpio sextile Jupiter in Capricorn

Wow Neptune is finally direct! This sleepy planet has finally ended it's 7 month long nap and is ready to move direct helping us reconnect with our source of creativity and be more aligned with our dreams and spirituality. Another beneficial transit will be Mercury sextiling Jupiter creating a day where luck is on our side in regards to learning new materials, trying new things (especially in the work place), understanding and exploring our minds and deep subconscious and taking on any tasks. However we should avoid biting off more than we can chew as this sextile can give us such optimism and ability to take on so much we can forget that we have natural limits and we may be unable to complete everything before the clock strikes 12.

29th - ☾♊ Moon enters Gemini

The energy carries on from the next day but as the moon enters Gemini it's a great day for reading and exploring interests, communicating ideas, sound and music based magic, air based magic and meditating with binaural beats.

30th - ☾♊ Full Moon in Gemini, Lunar eclipse Mercury in Scorpio sextiles Saturn in Capricorn

Today's full moon feels powerful and intense as it's not only a lunar eclipse, it's a blood moon which means it's a total lunar eclipse casting the moon in earth's shadow giving it a reddish illusion. It's a time of transformation and changes that can leave the past chapters suddenly behind as we get elevated to the next level. With the moon in Gemini opposite the sun in Sagittarius the themes are surrounding the details of the big picture and how they form the steps in the grand staircase that will carry us up towards our dreams. Eclipses are not the best time for manifesting new things as they are best for endings so if you are struggling with obstacles that stand in your way of your dreams or anything that is blocking your staircase it's time to banish them all! Avoid charging anything under this moon (unless if it's something like an athame that serves to cut chords and bring endings). Be aware that the eclipse is about endings to bring in a new chapter in life and unless you want to channel that energy into your tools you should be aware of what you are bringing in.

This will feel like a productive day with Mercury sextiling Saturn making us superbly aware of our tasks but having the ability to take them on. We will feel more responsible today and will feel inclined to work on our plans.

[eclectic-aquarius]

Greek Goddesses and Moon Magick

As a lunar witch, I love the practise of using different phases of the moon for different types of magick. I think it’s really helpful to keep not just full moon water, but water from every phase of the moon. That way you can utilise the properties of all the phases even when they’ve passed. 

 Something I recently discovered is helpful is to associate the different phases with deities and call to those deities for help when casting spells based on lunar phases. With that in mind, I’ve compiled a list of Goddesses that I personally associate with the lunar phases. I used Greek Goddesses because I feel the most affinity towards them, but I’d be really interested in anyone else’s lists of deities from other cultures.

DISCLAIMER: I don’t necessarily believe in the existence of deities as conscious beings, but I do believe in the existence of their energies. When I use these names in spells, I am not calling to a deity but rather I am calling upon the energies that the deity represents.

NEW MOON - DEMETER

The new moon is a time to plant seeds (both literally and figuratively) and focus on new beginnings, so the Goddess of fertility and harvest is perfect to call upon for help in this phase. She is also the Goddess of the cycle of life and death, so her energy will surround you as you begin this new cycle.

WAXING CRESCENT - ARTEMIS

In Wicca, this is the moon phase of the Maiden and so in this time I like to call upon the ultimate Greek Maiden, the virgin huntress Artemis. This is a time for constructive magick, for attraction, success and luck in your endeavours and so it is great to have the energy of the patron of hunters; she provides us with luck and protection in our own hunts. She is a protective figure, but will cause great harm to those with bad intentions.

FIRST QUARTER - NIKE

The first quarter is a time for action and driving your goals forward with passion and determination, so the Goddess of victory and strength is perfect here. It is a time for spells to help increase motivation, energy, vitality and creativity and these are all skills that are deeply valued by Nike. She is pictured on Olympic medals and her name was used for the shoe company because of her links to speed and strength. 

WAXING GIBBOUS - PERSEPHONE

Persephone, like Artemis, is another maiden who is associated with the waxing phase in Wicca. The waxing gibbous is a time where you should be seeing the fruits of your labours, so I like having it represented by the Goddess of vegetation. She is also the Queen of the Underworld, and that darker energy that she carries should help with the spells for courage and patience that are common around the time of the waxing gibbous. As Terry Pratchett said,  “A witch ought never to be frightened in the darkest forest, because she should be sure in her soul that the most terrifying thing in the forest was her.”

FULL MOON - GAEA

In Wicca, this phase is the moon phase of the Mother, so it makes sense to call upon the Great Mother, Mother Earth; known in Greek Mythology as Gaea (or sometimes Gaia).  She is an omnipotent motherly figure, nourishing and providing for all things and her intensely powerful energy will help guide your magick during the full moon.

WANING GIBBOUS - ATHENA

The waning gibbous is often known as the thinking moon, so it is ideal to ask for the energy of the Goddess of wisdom. This is a time for meditation and strategy, which Athena is well versed in. Undoing curses and bindings are good spells around this time, and it is good to have Athena’s courage around when doing that.

LAST QUARTER - HESTIA

Hestia is often overlooked, which is sad to me because her energy is so important. She is the Goddess of the hearth, and she looks after and protects our most important things - our home and our family. This energy is perfect to call upon in the last quarter, when the most powerful spells involve clearing negativity out of our minds and the space around us. She helps us to banish negative spirits in our house and in our souls.

WANING CRESCENT - HECATE

In Wicca, this is the Crone moon phase and Hecate represents the Crone. The protector of Witches, the Goddess of Magick, her power and wisdom only grows stronger in her old age. Her energy will help you in your waning crescent spells to find atonement, knowledge and balance. She is a master of the life cycle and will allow you to be able to let go and move on.