#supermarket sabbats

[imnotavamp1r3]

♡౨ৎ Books I want to read in 2024! ౨ৎ♡

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I'm currently reading Earthlings by Sayaka Murata, which will likely be my last or second last book of 2023 depending on how much time I'll have to read during the holidays. So I've decided to make a reading list of the books I would like to read in 2024. At the time of typing this, I've read 36 books in 2023 and I hope to read even more next year!

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🎀 Boy Parts ♡ Eliza Clark

Genres: Fiction, horror, contemporary

Synopsis: Irina obsessively takes explicit photographs of the average-looking men she persuades to model for her, scouted from the streets of Newcastle. Placed on sabbatical from her dead-end bar job, she is offered an exhibition at a fashionable London gallery, promising to revive her career in the art world and offering an escape from her rut of drugs, alcohol, and extreme cinema. The news triggers a self-destructive tailspin, centred around Irina’s relationship with her obsessive best friend, and a shy young man from her local supermarket who has attracted her attention.

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🎀 Carmilla ♡ Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

Genres: Horror, gothic, fiction

Synopsis: Isolated in a remote mansion in a central European forest, Laura longs for companionship—until a carriage accident brings another young woman into her life: the secretive and sometimes erratic Carmilla. As Carmilla’s actions become more puzzling and volatile, Laura develops bizarre symptoms, and as her health goes into decline, Laura and her father discover something monstrous.

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🎀 Elvis and Me ♡ Priscilla Presley

Genres: Nonfiction, biography, memoir

Synopsis: Decades after his death, millions of fans continue to worship Elvis the legend. But very few knew him as Elvis the man. Here in her own words, Priscilla Presley tells the story of their love, revealing the details of their first meeting, their marriage, their affairs, their divorce, and the unbreakable bond that has remained long after his tragic death.

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🎀 Goth ♡ Otsuichi

Genres: Horror, fiction, mystery

Synopsis: Morino is the strangest girl in school - how could she not be, given her obsession with brutal murders? And there are plenty of murders to grow obsessed with, as the town in which she lives is a magnet for serial killers. She and her schoolmate will go to any length to investigate the murders, even putting their own bodies on the line. And they don’t want to stop the killers - Morino and her friend simply want to understand them.

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🎀 Grotesque ♡ Natsuko Kirino

Genres: Fiction, horror, mystery

Synopsis: Life at the prestigious Q High School for Girls in Tokyo exists on a precise social a world of insiders and outsiders, of haves and have-nots. Beautiful Yuriko and her unpopular, unnamed sister exist in different spheres; the hopelessly awkward Kazue Sato floats around among them, trying to fit in.Years later, Yuriko and Kazue are dead — both have become prostitutes and both have been brutally murdered.

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🎀 Lapvona ♡ Ottessa Moshfegh

Genres: Fiction, horror, historical fiction

Synopsis: Little Marek, the abused and delusional son of the village shepherd, never knew his mother; his father told him she died in childbirth. One of life’s few consolations for Marek is his enduring bond with the blind village midwife, Ina. Ina’s gifts extend beyond childcare: she possesses a unique ability to communicate with the natural world. Her gift often brings her the transmission of sacred knowledge on levels far beyond those available to other villagers. For some people, Ina’s home in the woods outside of the village is a place to fear and to avoid. Among their number is Father Barnabas, the town priest and lackey for the depraved lord and governor, Villiam. The people’s desperate need to believe that there are powers that be who have their best interests at heart is put to a cruel test by Villiam and the priest. But when fate brings Marek into violent proximity to the lord’s family, new and occult forces upset the old order. By year’s end, the veil between blindness and sight, life and death, the natural world and the spirit world, civility and savagery, will prove to be very thin indeed.

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🎀 Kamikaze Girls ♡ Novala Takemoto

Genres: Fiction, young adult, contemporary

Synopsis: Meet Momoko, a "Lolita" decked out to the nines in the finest (and frilliest) of Victorian haute couture. The only scion of a drunken interlude between a cowardly yakuza and an inebriated bar-hostess, Momoko's mom has since split the scene, and, after various ill-fated scams that involve imitation brand name merchandise, Momoko's dad relocates them to the boondocks of rural Ibaraki prefecture. To escape her humdrum existence, Momoko fanaticizes about French rococo, dreams of living in the palace of Versailles, and buys all her extremely lacy clothes from an expensive Tokyo boutique. Meet Ichiko, a tough-talking motorcycle grrrl (on a tricked-out moped) who leads a ladies-only biker gang known as the Ponytails. Together, this unlikeliest of duos strike out on a quest to find a legendary embroiderer, a journey on which they encounter conniving pachinko parlour managers, legendary street-punks, and anaemic costumers. Who knows, they might just make it big...if only Ichiko would stop head butting Momoko in the forehead.

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🎀 On Sun Swallowing ♡ Dakota Warren

Genres: Poetry, fiction, feminism

Synopsis: On Sun Swallowing is a sweet and bloody collection of poetry, dancing in the spaces between skinned knees and red wine, satin and switchblades, rosaries and Dionysian ecstasy. Her writings are haunted by the ghosts of girlhood, god/s, lovers and the landscape of childhood, but Warren is unflinching - she haunts her ghosts in return, with sharp lyricism and cutthroat vulnerability. On Sun Swallowing explores shadowy emotion, at times in a whisper, at times in a scream. Think: cheap cigarettes, even cheaper wine, and an oath to reach hell by midnight and be home in time for work in the morning.

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🎀 Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk ♡ Legs McNeil & Gillian McCain

Genres: Music, nonfiction, history

Synopsis: Iggy Pop, Danny Fields, Dee Dee and Joey Ramone, Malcom McLaren, Jim Carroll, and scores of other famous and infamous punk figures lend their voices to this definitive account of that outrageous, explosive era. From its origins in the twilight years of Andy Warhol's New York reign to its last gasps as eighties corporate rock, the phenomenon known as punk is scrutinized, eulogized, and idealized by the people who were there and who made it happen.

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🎀 The Witching Hour ♡ Anne Rice

Genres: Horror, fantasy, fiction

Synopsis: On the veranda of a great New Orleans house, now faded, a mute and fragile woman sits rocking... and The Witching Hour begins. It begins in our time with a rescue at sea.  Rowan Mayfair — aware that she has special powers but unaware that she comes from an ancient line of witches—finds the drowned body of a man off the coast of California and brings him to life. ��He is Michael Curry, who was born in New Orleans and orphaned in childhood by fire on Christmas Eve, who pulled himself up from poverty, and who now has acquired a sensory power that mystifies and frightens him. As these two, fiercely drawn to each other, fall in love and set out to solve the mystery of her past and his unwelcome gift, the novel moves backward and forward in time from today's New Orleans and San Francisco to long-ago Amsterdam and a château in the France of Louis XIV.  An intricate tale of evil unfolds—an evil unleashed in seventeenth-century Scotland, where the first "witch," conjures up the spirit she names Lasher... a creation that spells her own destruction and torments each of her descendants in turn.

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If you've read any of these books, feel free to comment what you thought of them (without spoilers obviously lol). That's it, byeeeee!! ˚｡⋆୨୧˚♡

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[haveyoureadthispoll]

Irina obsessively takes explicit photographs of the average-looking men she persuades to model for her, scouted from the streets of Newcastle. Placed on sabbatical from her dead-end bar job, she is offered an exhibition at a fashionable London gallery, promising to revive her career in the art world and offering an escape from her rut of drugs, alcohol, and extreme cinema. The news triggers a self-destructive tailspin, centred around Irina’s relationship with her obsessive best friend, and a shy young man from her local supermarket who has attracted her attention… Boy Parts is the incendiary debut novel from Eliza Clark, a pitch-black comedy both shocking and hilarious, fearlessly exploring the taboo regions of sexuality and gender roles in the twenty-first century.

[roamingbadger]

Calling all writers and fanartists! We need your help to get to 100 works in the Declan Fraser/Alison Heywood (Sanditon) tag on AO3.

Full description of how you can participate beneath the cut, along with the transcribed list of words.

Join our Fralison Quest for 100!

The game is simple: roll a 100-sided die or use a random number generator to pull as many words as you like from the list of 100. The resulting numbers correspond to the words that make up your prompt. Repeat as many times as you like! Our goal is to reach 100 fanworks in the ship tag by December 31st, 2023. As of this posting, we have 69 (nice).

The words below were suggested by our diehard Declan and Alison shippers in our All Things Fralison discord server. If you love these two and you are looking for a tight-knit group of fellow fans, please join us! We'd love to have you, and I promise we don't bite.

Word list below:

Thunderstorm

Sabbatical

Subway

Bonfire

Babysitter

Breakfast

Date

Postman

Sympathy

Saturdays

Rollerblading

Supermarket

Crossword

Coffee

College

Waterpark

Athlete

Festival

Park

Farm

Bookstore

Guitar

Mystery

Claddagh

Library

Adoption

Goat

Night

Ranger

Combat

Principal

Frosty

Unplugged

Heatwave

Piano

Nightmare

Sun

Reading

Caregiver

Detective

Summer

Zoo

Parents

Lifeguard

Kennel

Camping

Island

Lies

Harmonica

Pimpernel

Pumpkin

Lake

Navy

Singing

Castle

Secretary

Aperitif

ComicCon

Plane

Pier

Lost

Travel

Mist

Surf

Jealousy

Sunflowers

Counting

Uber

Medieval

Cream

TRX

Telescope

Holiday

Desert

Stadium

Hostel

Christmas in July

Avalanche

Grandmother

Backpacking

Thames

Blizzard

Boat

Class

Pregnancy

Acting

Office

Appointment

Oasis

Sea

Waves

Cottage

Rugby

Barbecue

Train

Letters

House-exchange

Fired

Parade

Newborn

[winniethewife]

“The magic of Samhain is that of endless possibility. Since we return to the beginning, we can begin anew in any way we wish.” — Michael Furie, Supermarket Sabbats

[klinefelterrible]

If you're relatively young and you want to lose weight, drop your current job or take sabbatical or change your life and go to work in a local supermarket. You will find yourself unloading merchandise and goods, filling and moving bottles and cases, moving lots and lots of weights and soon you'll realise that this and cutting your sugar intake makes you thinner and fucking thinner and when people ask me how I drop from 112 to 88 in five months, it's just that

A lot of younger people have no idea what aging actually looks and feels like, and the reasons behind it. That ignorance is so dangerous. If you don’t want to “be old,” you aren’t talking about a number of years. I have patients in their late 80s who could still handily beat me in a race—one couple still runs marathons together, in their late 80s—and I lost someone who was in her early 60s to COPD last year. What you want is not youth, it is health.

If you want to still be able to enjoy doing things in your 60s and 70s and 80s and even 90s, what you want to do, right now, is quit smoking, get some activity on a regular basis (a couple of walks a week is WAY better for you than nothing; increasing from 1 hour a day of cardio to 1.5 will buy you very little), and eat some plants. That’s it. No magic to it. No secret weird tricks. Don’t poison yourself, move around so your body doesn’t forget how, and eat plants.

If you have trouble moving around now because of mobility limitations, bad news: you still need to move around, not because it’s immoral not to, but because that’s still the best advice we have. I highly recommend looking up the Sit and Be Fit series; it is freely available and has exercises that can be done in a chair, which are suitable for people with limited mobility or poor balance. POTS sufferers, I’m looking at you.

If you have trouble eating plants because of dietary issues (they cause gas, etc.) or just because they’re bitter (super taster with texture issues here!), bad news. You still want to find a way to get some plants into your body on a regular basis. I know. It sucks. The only way I can do it is restaurants—they can make salads taste like food. I can also tolerate some bagged salads. On bad weeks, the OCD with contamination focus gets so bad I just can’t. However, canned beans always seem “safe,” and they taste a bit like candy, so they’re a good fallback.

If you smoke and you have tried quitting a million times and you’re just not ready to, bad news. You still need to quit. Your body needs you to try and keep trying. Your brain needs it, too. Damaging small blood vessels racks up cumulative damage over time that your body can start trying to reverse as soon as you quit. I know it’s insanely, absurdly addictive. You still need to.

You cannot rules lawyer your way past your body’s basic needs. It needs food, sleep, activity, and the absence of poison. Those are both small things and big asks. You cannot sustain a routine based on punishment, so don’t punish your body. Find ways to include these things that are enjoyable and rewarding instead. Experiment. There is no reason not to experiment—you don’t have to know instantly what’s going to work for you and what won’t, you just need to be willing to try things and make changes when things aren’t working for you.

You will still age. Your body will stop making collagen and elastin. Tissues you can see and tissues you can’t see will both sag. Cushioning tissues under your skin will get thinner. You’ll bruise more easily. Skin will tear more easily. Accumulated sun damage will start to show more and more. Joints will begin to show arthritis. Tendons and ligaments will get weaker and get injured more easily, as will muscles. Bones will lose mass and get easier to break. You’ll get tired more easily.

But you know what makes the difference between being dead, or as good as, in your 60s vs your 90s? Activity, plants, and quitting smoking. And don’t do meth. Saw a 58-year-old guy this week who is going to have a heart attack if he doesn’t quit whatever stimulant he’s on. I pretended to believe it was just the cigarettes, and maybe it is, but meth and cocaine will kill you quicker. Stop poisoning yourself.

Baby steps; take it one step at a time; you don’t need to have everything figured out right now. But you do need to be working on figuring things out.

[suburbanfeijoaeconomy]

Granny Smith Apples

During my third year post high school, I found myself having a large distaste for granny smith apples. This was especially displeasing as I had heralded granny smiths as the ultimate type of apple in my preadolescent years. The lemonades were too soft, the rose apples too powdery and royal gala were simply uninspiring. Granny Smith apples had a particular crunch and tang to them that no other apple had. They were juicy and flavoursome and my snack of choice while I waited for my mother to cook the spaghetti bologna.

I rummaged through the pantry to find another snack to pass the time. Supermarket muffins? Not exciting enough. Salada crackers? I had no dip. Kalamata olives? They looked too soft. This pattern of behaviour occurred over and over. The meticulous searching of the shelf, hunting through the back of the fridge, staring out of the window and thinking; maybe I should just wait until dinner.

Dinner was also my job now and had been for many years. My mother, a chaotic and fiercely loving woman had taken a sabbatical from cooking dinner when I was fifteen and only returned to this task after I moved to another city. In my teenage years, I had positioned myself as a mother of sorts to my two younger siblings. Various happenstances.... had become of us in the years prior and I felt a duty to provide as much stability and support to them as I could. I had the nagging feeling in my chest that our wide-eyed hope and imagination had been taken away from us too early and I was doing anything I could to give them the sense that I would protect and fend for them. Including my mother, a woman I loved and I knew was maybe similar to me in terms of maturity, but someone who's decisions I ultimately would not trust over mine.

The act of cooking dinner was something I had associated with love and care for so long. My mother making butter chicken from scratch on a Friday night, the fire ablaze in the lounge and my legs dangling off the stool, eyes tracing the pages of my latest library book. She has always been an optimistic character in nature and this has rubbed off in ways that will permanently propel me through my life. She would let me lick the ladle and scour the pantry for more garam masala, I would tell her about how in my current book it was following a dynamic between a French girl who took in a homeless girl who struggled with addiction. My mother would listen and I assume think about how she created a daughter who was so enamoured by fictional stories and imagination.

Later when she would not return from work when the sun was already down for hours, I would offer her a meal. I had done the labour of love, frying roasting, tossing, making a meal for the four of us. My younger sister on occasion offered to do the dishes and in this way, we played house for many years. Providing for our family. Wrapping my mother's meal in gladwrap for when we heard her ute pull up in the driveway.

In my third year post high school I lived with five other people and we did not cook dinner together. I rummaged through the cupboards for snacks and then would tell myself to wait for dinner but I could also do anything or have dinner at any time because, for the first time in my life, I was truly alone.

During this year I had fallen in love with an unreliable character called Joseph. He was very scared all the time and distrustful to let his guard down, resulting in avoiding me when he was having big complex feelings, and me feeling lonely. Despite my own character flaws at this time, I was largely reliable and naturing towards him and wanted him to feel safe relying on me. Our relationship was complex and loving and overshadowed by the mutual skills we lacked to be entirely self assured.

My deepest darkest desire within our relationship was to cook him dinner. To have him sitting at our oak table, dicing mushrooms while I fried shallots and washed the risotto rice. For him to recount his day to me and for me to kiss him on his forehead and tell him I loved him. To poor him a little red wine and him laugh and ask, “are you trying to get me drunk, Kate?”

My deepest darkest desires never came to fruition as he would very infrequently reply to me when he was experiencing despair, and I would continue to think about all the ways granny smith apples didn’t satisfy me anymore. I would make dinner for myself and have to remind myself, even if I am alone and I am the only receiver of this meal, I have put love into it.

Mostly I did not resent him for struggling as most people do in their early twenties. At some point, I found our dysfunction distasteful, and I found granny smith apples very delicious again.

[rory-aradia]

Simple Ostara Egg Salad 🐣🐰🌷🌿

Original Recipe Titled: Springtime Egg Salad taken from "Supermarket Sabbats" by. Michael Furie

Ingredients

8 hard- boiled eggs, peeled and washed (rejuvenation)

2 tablespoons celery, chopped (mental clarity)

2 tablespoons onions, chopped (cleansing)

½ cup fat-free or regular mayonnaise (success)

2 teaspoons mustard (purification)

Instructions

In a bowl, chop the eggs and add the remaining ingredients. Stir to combine and charge the salad with the intention that “this salad shall bring cleansing, renewal, and success to all who consume it, according to free will and for the good of all.”

Serve immediately or chill until needed.

[grandmawitch]

Coffee Magic ☕✨

“Coffee is a kind of magic you can drink.”

― Catherynne M. Valente

Coffee magic is some of the most convenient type of magic since the beans are readily available at grocery stores and we can buy a brewed cup almost anywhere.

✨ Make a quick & easy potion by using flavorings that correspond to your needs (ex. Pumpkin for prosperity, Cinnamon for success, Vanilla for love, Hazelnut for luck, Nutmeg for hex breaking, etc.)

✨ When stirring your morning coffee, stir clockwise (deosil) and repeat your daily affirmations  

✨ Draw sigils on your cup according to your needs of the day

✨ People with redheads & brunettes can rinse their hair with strong black coffee to enhance their natural color

✨ Fresh coffee grounds can be mixed with a carrier oil and used as a gentle exfoliant, the tannins reduce puffiness

✨ For a simple banishing spell, mix coffee grounds with dirt from your target’s footprints, and cayenne pepper and sprinkle of the target’s front doorstep

✨ Burning coffee is said to ward off nightmares, bad spirits - and for sure mosquitoes. Place dry grounds (unused) on a charcoal disc as you would incense

✨ The aroma of strong coffee brewing is said to revive psychic depletion  

References:  The Hearth Witch’s Compendium by Anna Franklin, The Element Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells by Judika Illes, Supermarket Sabbats by Michael Furie

[readerbookclub]

Breakdown - October’s Book List

Hello! This month’s book list is about characters who are doing... okay. Yup. They’re fine. Absolutely no cause for concern. Nothing to worry about. Just happy characters in happy novels. All sunshine and rainbows :)

As always please remember to vote for which one we should read using the link at the bottom of the post.

The Bell Jar, by Syliva Path

The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under—maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that Esther's insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and has made The Bell Jar a haunting American classic.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation, by Otessa Moshfegh

Our narrator should be happy, shouldn't she? She's young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn't just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It's the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong? My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful answer to that question. Through the story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world, Moshfegh shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, it is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers.

Nausea, by Jean-Paul Sartre

Nausea is the story of Antoine Roquentin, a French writer who is horrified at his own existence. In impressionistic, diary form he ruthlessly catalogues his every feeling and sensation about the world and people around him. His thoughts culminate in a pervasive, overpowering feeling of nausea which "spread at the bottom of the viscous puddle, at the bottom of our time, the time of purple suspenders and broken chair seats; it is made of wide, soft instants, spreading at the edge, like an oil stain." Boy Parts, by Eliza Clark

Irina obsessively takes explicit photographs of the average-looking men she persuades to model for her, scouted from the streets of Newcastle. Placed on sabbatical from her dead-end bar job, she is offered an exhibition at a fashionable London gallery, promising to revive her career in the art world and offering an escape from her rut of drugs, alcohol, and extreme cinema. The news triggers a self-destructive tailspin, centred around Irina’s relationship with her obsessive best friend, and a shy young man from her local supermarket who has attracted her attention…

 The Crying of Lot 49, by Thomas Pynchon

Suffused with rich satire, chaotic brilliance, verbal turbulence and wild humor, The Crying of Lot 49 opens as Oedipa Maas discovers that she has been made executrix of a former lover's estate. The performance of her duties sets her on a strange trail of detection, in which bizarre characters crowd in to help or confuse her. But gradually, death, drugs, madness, and marriage combine to leave Oedipa in isolation on the threshold of revelation, awaiting the Crying of Lot 49.

Please vote for which one we should read, here.

[msmoonfire]

How to prep for MABON ‘20 -COVID19 edition

Hey my fellow witches! This year we have to rearrange our Mabon fest according to all the covid19 restrictions. 

I’m going to share some tips and ideas to inspire you guys to prep for this holiday & celebrate in total safety. ♥️ 

First let me tell ya what Google says for us in the Northern hemisphere:

Mabon 2020 will begin on Monday, September 21  and ends on Tuesday, September 29.

Keep in mind that the most important days are Sep 21-23. Witches in the Southern hemisphere will celebrate around March 19-22 & bookmark this post to prep at their best;)) 

SO, let’s start this journey with the right foot IN ADVANCE.  All the late witches out there yeah you heard me: IN ADVANCE. Make yourself ready BEFOREHAND. We’re going thru this together.

1. Thinking of a party? MAKE SURE WHOEVER IS CELEBRATING WITH YOU (except for close people you’ve always shared the same roof with) TESTS NEGATIVE FOR CORONAVIRUS. Force them to get tested, ESPECIALLY IF THEY WERE ON VACATION. No tests, no invitations. Be firm on this point.  > anti-covid tip: always sanitize your hands and go get tested yourself first!

***I highly recommend to spend most of this sacred time all by yourself to minimize the risk of contracting the virus. We will party together once a good vaccine or an effective cure is out and globally accessible... Let’s wait😉

2. If you have a garden, and had planted some herbs/fruit/veggies before, go pick the results of the 2nd harvest and use them to cook delicious foods during Mabon! (Lammas is the 1st harvest, yep) > anti-covid tip: gardening is an outdoor hobby that allows you to keep social distancing & breathe fresh air 

3. An Equinox is "equal”: re-establish balance in general. I’m talking about your overall ph, diet, work, feelings, home, social life... Don’t stress over useless activities, limit vices & excess, avoid fights, don’t hustle, don’t splurge, don’t push yourself in the gym, don’t let your home/room look like a junkyard, take good care of yourself, only be there for people who love you... Take this time of the year as a moment to re-gain harmony and equilibrium in all comfort. > anti-covid tip: reducing stress levels can improve your immune system

4. Apples are in season, so be creative with em! Use apples for multiple purposes, even for decorating your altar if you will. Snack on them, offer them, cook them, collect their seeds, whatever comes to your mind... > anti-covid tip: rinse your apples thoroughly, never share your apple while eating one + a healthy diet feat. apples can boost your immune system

5. Work with the element of EARTH. Here comes the spellwork my lovelies... Connect with your crystals, use herbs in your rituals, offer food, sit on the ground if you can, be out in nature, curate your garden, learn to cook, position your altar (or anything else) to the South (*Southern hemi: to the North), enhance your natural beauty, seek beauty in the simple things etc... > anti-covid tip: spending time away from the crowds does actually reduce the chances of getting infected

6. Stay hydrated, drink your water & treat yourself. Drink vegetable milk or tea to pamper yourself a little more than usual whenever you have a break (or a cozy spa night at home). I’m very into herbal teas and lemon/apple water atm, not the spicy ones tho (save them for Samhain & winter!). If you’re fully allowed to drink alcohol, sip a glass of Rosé (loads of good Pinot Noir rosé are out this season, but any rosé will do), Portuguese Tinto, or maybe Pinot Gris. As for beer, just stick to the one that you prefer or try lighter ones! *remember balance is key, drink responsibly or not at all* > anti-covid tip: never share your glass while drinking your beverages, make sure glasses & bottles are sanitized and clean

7. Get comfy within your body: love your figure, feel yourself, train your 5 senses, stretch a lot/practice yoga, look at yourself in the mirror, take selfies or photos of beautiful details, touch/massage yourself, take care of your hair, groom, apply body lotion and enjoy your earthly beauty. Mabon wants you to look bomb hun! > anti-covid tip: getting familiar with your own body can help you recognize any weird symptoms easily, as well as the smallest changes in your system... Be friendly to your body and it will thank you in so many ways later on!

8. Use a big jar to save money. A little sum everyday. Open the jar only after the sabbat of Samhain. Trust me, this month is crucial for saving money. Autumn is coming and we must prepare for all those transitional, unplanned expenses that we will have to face during the colder months. Remember to look at the jar everyday and speak some words of gratitude. Working with money, food and tangible stuff of any sort are also activities that are related to the element of Earth.  > anti-covid tip: always wash your hands after handling money

9. ALWAYS PRIORITIZE YOUR SAFETY WITHOUT FEELING STUPID OR PARANOID. This way you’ll end up saving someone else’s life, believe it or not. Leave the d16Kheads say whatever they want to say & be strong. Clean your disposable/reusable mask with disinfectant, make sure you never forget it and please stay safe... but try to minimize the waste. Avoid crowded places as much as possible, prefer open venues with plenty of room for maintaining social distancing, avoid peak hours in shops/malls/supermarket/whatever, carry hand sanitizer with you, keep your distance especially from people who might show evident covid symptoms and remember to be kind to people! Oh and SMILE a lot: your mouth is hidden but your sweet eyes are OUT! 😉

Hope this post was helpful for all of you lovelies,

xox msmoonfire

[greenfinchandlinnetbird]

New Moon Blessing

Here begins the next moon phase.

May you bring growth and increase

And bless my new projects.

May what I begin grow stronger

In accordance with the waxing

Light of the moon.

-Inspired by/paraphrased from Michael Furie, Supermarket Sabbats

[twiddlebirdlet]

Mod, do you cook? Are you single? It's ok if you don't want to answer the second but I'm genuinely interested in knowing whether or not you enjoy cooking and if you're a foodie?

I had heard there was someone that was going around asking personal questions to various blogs. You sound like you might be that person. I don’t want to accuse you of anything, however, but because this is about cooking which is something dear to me, I’ll answer this personal ask.

For the first question, the answer is yes. For the second question, all I have to say is: it’s not nice to ask such a depressingly personal question so close to Valentine’s Day. No hard feelings on that, but I’d really rather just talk about food. Now about cooking:

Yes, I’m a foodie, and yes, I enjoy cooking. I went on a sabbatical trip to Europe a year and a half ago, and one of my favorite memories was spending a blessed eternity in a French supermarket in Provençe stocking up the kitchen in the house I’d rented. I’ve never had a bad meal in France, and the ingredients found in French grocery stores are, in my opinion, superior to most US grocery stores. The yogurt and cheese aisles alone..... 🤤

Cooking things I like: for cookbooks, in my opinion, you cannot go wrong with Mastering the Art of French Cooking from Julia Child. It’s not perfect (we can debate whether or not it’s appropriate to put bread crumbs on your cassoulet), but it’s really a cornerstone of home cooking knowledge. For television shows, I generally gravitate to PBS cooking shows like America’s Test Kitchen, but I understand they are dry dry dry. My all time favorite for just sitting back and watching is Good Eats from Alton Brown. I love ALL of those shows. It’s the best mix of food science and entertainment, and you can learn so much from him.

Sorry, I got distracted by this ask. I really do love cooking and food...lol

Here’s a picture of Julia Child’s kitchen that I took a few years ago while on vacation to the Smithsonian. Bon Appétit!

[goddessofoddities]

Sabbats And The City:Beltane

Ah, summer. Finally. In the PNW it is always a long wait for the four months of the year that are somewhat warm and sunny. This year, instead of celebrating from a bar patio or at a grill out with friends, I had to figure out how to ring in my fave season completely solo. I mentioned that one of my biggest sources of energy is being around the people in the city, charging off of the emotions and love and fun that comes with a bustling bar and restaurant scene. So, even as a solitary practitioner, I was in a pinch due to the Stay Home order.

BUT being a chaote I’m all about experimentation and substitution, so I looked for ways to celebrate that err on the slightly more traditional side of what I normally do. I bought and ate a lot of fresh local fruit, as well as some fresh baked oat bread with a little honey butter from my local supermarket. I took a stroll through the neighborhood and collected flowers and dandelions from neighbors *NOTE: I never take flowers that are going to be missed. You can absolutely snag a sprig of lilac/cherry blossom/lavender/bluebells around here and no one will be any the wiser.* I took a cleansing bath with a flower petal filled bathbomb. 

We also live in a townhouse, and our neighbor put a rudimentary fire pit in his yard area recently, so I was excited about the potential of an actual bonfire... until it started to rain. So I lit a candle as my little bonfire. Around 9pm, my partner pointed out that it had stopped raining! So I grabbed a bottle of rose wine and we drank and talked and had a blast, just the two of us. I then had a brief commune with the gods.

For all bby witches still in the broom closet: I see you. Maybe scared about being called out by family while at home right now. Eating fruit, drinking tea, picking flowers (and pressing them <3), taking a fancy bath, lighting a candle... this is ALL stuff you can do in plain sight to celebrate without suspicion. Don’t have fresh local fruit? You have canned? Fruit snacks? Chocolate covered raisins? SUBSTITUTE. It’s really alright. This is a celebration. This is *YOUR* celebration. You can’t go wrong. No candles? Light a match or a lighter briefly to have your own little fire to appreciate for a moment. Watch a youtube video of a bonfire! The possibilities are endless  Don’t let anyone make you feel like you are doing it wrong if you don’t have access to fancier things. 

Magick can be gritty. It can grow and transform into whatever practice works for you at any time. I hope you all had a blessed Beltane! Let me know if you have an innovative practice that you want to share!

[witchynyx]

Advice for Beginners

I recently made this post for the influx of beginners to some witchy aminos, but thought I’d share here in case it’s helpful as well. It can definitely be overwhelming when you’re new to everything and really don’t even know where to start, so I thought I'd put together a few pointers to hopefully help out on your way.

Witchcraft vs Wicca vs Paganism

You'll see these words a LOT, but not always with enough information to distinguish between them.

PAGANISM refers to religions which are non-Abrahamic (the Abrahamic religions being Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), but particularly to polytheistic religions (ie religions with many gods) from pre-Christian Europe.

NEO-PAGAN religions are newer religions based on older pagan religions or ideals, or around nature worship.

WICCA is a neo-pagan religion (founded in the 1950s) which worships a God and Goddess and observes 8 seasonal celebrations (sabbats).

WITCHCRAFT is a magical practice, which can be practised with or without religion.

Read (Critically)

We have access to so much information! However most information regarding witchcraft is some level of subjective, and a lot of folks present their take on the topic as objective fact, which can be super confusing when you're first starting out. Read from a wide range of resources, and know that information will be conflicting, but that doesn't necessarily mean one's right and one's wrong.

Paths and Labels

Everyone's path is different - we're different people with different lives and different histories. That said, there are a few more well-trodden directions than others, particularly for those with a teacher, or who follow a particular tradition. Some of these might also be inspired by the types of magic you choose to practice. There are a lot of words/labels people use to describe their practice to others, and lots of newbies feel like you need to jump straight in and find labels before you have any practice to describe. If you feel super drawn to one type of practice or another, that's rad! Otherwise, I 100% recommend not picking one (ie being eclectic) and exploring everything that interests you. You'll wind up where you belong, and limiting yourself early on isn't usually too helpful.

Tools

What tools do you need to start? Literally none! The only thing you 100% need is your own mind and will, everything on top of that is just a bonus. Yes, a lot of us like to buy pretty things, but you really don't need to. If I was going to suggest a "starter kit": a notebook (see below), a pen (for taking notes, journalling, drawing sigils), some candles (cheap white candles will get you started with candle magic), salt (table/cooking salt is fine, just don't use salt outside), herbs (whatever you've got in your kitchen/garden, or can buy rosemary cheaply from the supermarket to use in place of any herb), and maybe a quartz crystal if you want to go really wild (clear quartz can be used in place of any other crystal). Otherwise, you can use pretty well literally anything in magical practice, and also find pretty well anything you need from nature (even in the city, more often than you'd expect). Unless you've got the money to burn, I'd recommend not buying things unless you KNOW you're going to use them.

Magical Books

Most folks will keep some kind of book to record the things they learn, do, and experience in their practice, often called a Books of Shadows (BoS) or Grimoire. A BoS is usually more personal (eg journalling, recording spellwork) than a Grimoire (more generic and objective information), but you can more or less use the terms interchangeably. You can create your book in literally any notebook, although some folks use a binder, or keep theirs digitally. You don't *need* one, but it's nifty to keep track of info, and have something to look back on later to see how far you've come!

Recommended Resources

“Grovedaughter Witchery” by Bree NicGarran - There is honestly no book I can recommend more highly, if I had the funds I would honestly buy a copy for every new witch.

"Wicca" and "Living Wicca" by Scott Cunningham, followed by anything else of his (even if you’re not Wiccan;

"Supermarket Magic" by Michael Furie - a great intro to the practical side of witchcraft (and it uses things that you can buy from the supermarket);· YouTube (I'd recommend Witch of Wonderlust, Avalon Cameron, Owlvine Green)

Your library! Check out any physical and digital collections you have access to (ebooks can be read on a phone/tablet/computer) - if they don't have books specifically on witchcraft, they're still likely to have books on astrology, herbalism, mythology, astrology, gardening, cooking, crafts, psychology, plant identification, local history, aromatherapy, philosophy, and possibly crystals, tarot, and other forms of divination.

Internet Sacred Text Archive (digitised copies of old and publicly available works)

Project Gutenberg (free ebooks, mostly old (copyright expired))

Kindle store/app: free on mobile, some free ebooks, but also free previews of books (so you can check it out before you buy a copy).

Hopefully this helps start some folk on their way!

💜  

[skyboivinauthor]

Mabon blessings

Autumn Equinox, 2nd Harvest, Falls Between September 21 - 23

Mabon, (pronounced MAY-bun, MAY-bone, MAH-boon, or MAH-bawn) is the Autumn Equinox. The Autumn Equinox divides the day and night equally, and we all take a moment to pay our respects to the impending dark. We also give thanks to the waning sunlight, as we store our harvest of this year's crops. The Druids call this celebration, Mea'n Fo'mhair, and honor the The Green Man, the God of the Forest, by offering libations to trees. Offerings of ciders, wines, herbs and fertilizer are appropriate at this time. Wiccans celebrate the aging Goddess as she passes from Mother to Crone, and her consort the God as he prepares for death and re-birth.

Various other names for this Lesser Wiccan Sabbat are The Second Harvest Festival, Wine Harvest, Feast of Avalon, Equinozio di Autunno (Strega), Alben Elfed (Caledonii), or Cornucopia. The Teutonic name, Winter Finding, spans a period of time from the Sabbat to Oct. 15th, Winter's Night, which is the Norse New Year.

At this festival it is appropriate to wear all of your finery and dine and celebrate in a lavish setting. It is the drawing to and of family as we prepare for the winding down of the year at Samhain. It is a time to finish old business as we ready for a period of rest, relaxation, and reflection.

Symbolism of Mabon:

Second Harvest, the Mysteries, Equality and Balance.

Symbols of Mabon:

wine, gourds, pine cones, acorns, grains, corn, apples, pomegranates, vines such as ivy, dried seeds, and horns of plenty.

Herbs of Maybon:

Acorn, benzoin, ferns, grains, honeysuckle, marigold, milkweed, myrrh, passionflower, rose, sage, solomon's seal, tobacco, thistle, and vegetables.

Foods of Mabon:

Breads, nuts, apples, pomegranates, and vegetables such as potatoes, carrots, and onions.

Incense of Mabon:

Autumn Blend-benzoin, myrrh, and sage.

Colors of Mabon:

Red, orange, russet, maroon, brown, and gold.

Stones of Mabon:

Sapphire, lapis lazuli, and yellow agates.

Activities of Mabon:

Making wine, gathering dried herbs, plants, seeds and seed pods, walking in the woods, scattering offerings in harvested fields, offering libations to trees, adorning burial sites with leaves, acorns, and pine cones to honor those who have passed over.

Spellworkings of Mabon:

Protection, prosperity, security, and self-confidence. Also those of harmony and balance.

Deities of Mabon:

Goddesses-Modron, Morgan, Epona, Persephone, Pamona and the Muses. Gods-Mabon, Thoth, Thor, Hermes, and The Green Man.

Mabon is considered a time of the Mysteries. It is a time to honor Aging Deities and the Spirit World. Considered a time of balance, it is when we stop and relax and enjoy the fruits of our personal harvests, whether they be from toiling in our gardens, working at our jobs, raising our families, or just coping with the hussle-bussle of everyday life. May your Mabon be memorable, and your hearts and spirits be filled to overflowing!

Symbols of Mabon

The Cornucopia

The Cornucopia, or Horn of Plenty, is a traditional symbol for Mabon. It is a wonderful symbol for the wealth of harvest and is beautifuly balanced symbol which is both male (phallic) and female (hollow and receptive)

The Apple

The apple is the symbol of the Fruit Harvest. The apple figures significantly in many sacred traditions. It is a symbol for life and immortality, for healing, renewal, regeneration and wholeness. It is associated with beauty, long life and restored youth. The Ogham name for apple is Quert and Quert is the epitome of health and vitality. The apple is at the heart of the Ogham grove and is the source of life. For Pagans, the apple contains a 'secret'. Cut an apple width ways and it reveals a pentagram containing seeds. It is a much loved symbol of Paganism. The five points represent the elements of Earth, Air, Fire, Water with Spirit at the top, and thus also the directions of East, South, West, North and Within.

A circle around the pentagram represents the eternal circle/cycle of life and nature, and of wholeness. In ritual and ceremony the pentacle corresponds to the element of Earth. It is believed to be a protection against evil for both the person and the home, worn as an amulet or used to guard entrances to the home through windows and doors.

Colours of Mabon

From green to red, orange, yellow, brown and gold.

The Mabon Altar

Your altar should be dressed in the very best produce you can find from field, forest and market, from garden and the wild. Apples, pears, damsons, sloes, rose hips, elderberries, blackberries, hawthorn berries, the possibilities are large. If you collect from the wild, be not greedy - always leave plenty of fruit and berries for the birds and wee creatures.

Make an outdoor shrine for the nature spirits in thanks for the bounty they help to provide. Leave one of each flower, fruit and vegetable that you have, as a gift.

Things To Do

Great Feast of Thanksgiving.

Celebrate with a feast for friends and family using as much fruit & veg, locally grown, as you can.

Go Walking.

Go for a walk and collect as much of nature's wild abundance as you can, while respecting the need to leave enough for everyone else including the nature spirits. You will find wild damsons, sloes, rosehips, elderberries, blackberries, hawthorn berries and more. Remember the fruit is the carrier of the precious seed.

Clear Out and Complete.

We think of Spring as the time to clear out but now is the perfect time to complete unfinished projects and clear your home of unwanted stuff. Prepare to hibernate!

Plant Bulbs.

This is an excellent time to plant tree seeds and shrubs. They have all of winter in the darkness to establish and germinate. Plant bulbs which will hide in the earth until early Spring beckons. Make each one a hope, idea or aspiration for Spring and wait until their little green noses show above ground - to remind you!

Buttermilk Bread Charm for Mabon.

You will need:

3 mugs of strong white flour

500 ml of Buttermilk (available from the supermarket)

I teaspoonful of bicarbonate of soda

Mabon ribbon in your choice of colour - red, orange, yellow, gold, brown

A handful of dried fruit of your choice - dates, raisins, sultanas, currants

Place the flour and dried fruit in a large bowl. Make a well in the centre. Sieve in the blended salt and soda and pour in the buttermilk. Mix well with a wooden spoon until the dough feels springy. If it feels too sloppy just add a little more flour. Turn it onto a board and cover with a fine dusting of flour. Pat it with your hands until you have a round shape. Take a sharp knife and score lightly into eight sections, one for each festival. Our picture shows the bread cut into five sections, making a pentacle.

Place onto a greased baking tray and pop your buttermilk bread into a moderate oven for about 20-25 minutes. Keep and eye on it. When the bread is ready it will change colour and it will sound hollow when you tap the bottom. Cool completely on a wire rack. When it is cool, tie it with Mabon ribbon.

Take time to concentrate on the bread you have created and turn the loaf three times saying"From the fields and through the stones, into fire, Mabon Bread, as the Wheel turns may all be fed. Goddess Bless."

Now take your bread and share it with your family and friends and pass on the generous blessings of this bright and bountiful festival. Eat it fresh, as soon as it is made if you can.

Recipe donated by the Counter Enchantress. Adapted by the Boss Lady with permission.

The Counter Enchantress is discovering that you can add almost anything appropriate to this simple bread recipe and it STILL WORKS beautifully. You can decide for yourself what the appropriate additions are for a particular festival, in this case dried fruit for Mabon, and just do it. There is much kitchen magic in working with one recipe through the Wheel of the Year just changing it a little as the wheel turns.....

Somerset Apple Cake

We are very blessed here in that we live in the sacred Isle of Avalon, also called the Isle of Apples, in Somerset, England. And we are indeed surrounded, still, by orchards which grow apples both for Somerset's famous cider-making and for eating. One of our family pleasures is a local orchard which grows many traditional varieties of apples. Most of what they grow goes to make apple juice. But just before they do that, local people are invited over a weekend to go pick apples for themselves and their families. And it's such fun to spend an afternoon among the apple trees within sight of Glastonbury Tor. Chalice Well Trust is developing an organic apple orchard on the slopes of the Tor and now also produces small quantities of delicious organic apple juice which are sold to visitors. It's a limited supply and very precious - reserved for very special occasions or ceremony in our household.

Below is an authentic Somerset Apple Cake recipe. Eat it either cold, or warm with cream.

INGREDIENTS:

340gms/12oz self-raising flour

a pinch of salt

225gms/8oz margarine/butter

½ teaspoon cinnamon

170gms/6oz caster sugar

115gms/4oz sultanas

450gms/16oz cooking apples, finely chopped

3 eggs

a little milk

a little demerara sugar

METHOD:

1. Rub the fat into the flour and salt. Add the sugar and cinnamon. Make a well in the mixture and drop in the egg and fruit. Mix well; if the dough is a little too stiff, add some milk.

2. Place in an eight-inch greased cake tin, and sprinkle a little demerara sugar on the top.

3. Bake for one-and-a-half to two hours, in a moderate oven (Gas Mark 4/180°C/350°F), until cooked. Allow to cool slightly before turning out onto a cooling rack.

[sokeanshu]

‪Wheel of the Year! ‬ ‪Blessed #Lammas! 🥖🍷‬ ‪.‬ ‪This is the time to celebrate the first “harvest”. What you’re growing to help you & your family survive.‬ ‪.‬ ‪Lammas is 1 of the 8 witches (pagan) sabbats! It’s a harvest festival and is a time of ripeness and fruitfulness. Like all harvest festivals, this is a time to give thanks for the gifts of the Divine. It's also a time when we celebrate our skills.‬ ‪.‬ ‪Other names that have been giving to this sabbat are Lughnasadh and Lunasdal. The word (Lughnasadh) can also mean “to give to marriage”. Ironically, this sabbat is always the day after my wedding anniversary (July 31st). ✪‬ ‪.‬ ‪The primary focus of the sabbat is for a Bread Harvest/First Harvest/Grain Harvest. The celebration of the product of our own labor comes together with the gifts from the God and the Goddess to provide us with food and life. ✨‬ ‪.‬ ‪Today this is probably the least-honored of the witches sabbats. As we've become industrialized, harvest celebrations have all but been forgotten. Our daily bread comes not from the fields, nor from the generosity of the God and Goddess, but bought plastic-wrapped in bulk at a supermarket. Yet it is no less vital to us today than to our foremothers and forefathers before us.‬ ‪.‬ ‪Some of the magickal ideas for your Lammas Ritual: ‬ ‪- Bake items and give away as gifts to neighbors‬ ‪- Bless Marriages, Babies and Homes.‬ ‪- Have an Outdoor Picnic followed by Ritual.‬ ‪.‬ ‪Today focus on the harvest, prosperity, self-love and physical & mental health. ‬ ‪.‬ ‪#SokeAnshu #Witch #Witchcraft #Wicca #Wiccan #Witchy #Pagan #Paganism #Sabbat #WheelOfTheYear #Druid #Druidry #Druids #Celtic #CelticPagan ‬#Witches #WitchesOfInstagram #Religion #Spiritual #Spirituality #Spirits #Occult #Spells #Spellcraft #Divination #Tarot #TarotCards #Runes https://www.instagram.com/p/B0n1tvupOPs/?igshid=wz6qzghjytxo