WITCHY PSA
DONâT YOU DARE PUT SALT IN THE GROUND.
DO NOT CAST SALT CIRCLE IN THE DIRT.
DO NOT SALT THE GROUND TO CLEANSE IT.
DO NOT BURY SACHETS THAT INCLUDE SALT.
STOP SALTING THE GROUND.
YOU WILL MESS UP THE SOIL AND HURT THE PLANT LIFE.
USE SOMETHING ELSE.
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The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, New York, October 28, 1900
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A lazy witchâs guide to spells
Get a candle with the color that corresponds with that you want (ex: love-red, green-wealth,etc), light the candle, write what you want on a little piece of paper and fucking burn that shit. There you have it kids, mostly every spell Iâve ever done.
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Appalachian Folklore, Wives Tales, and Superstitions
Brought to you mostly by my grandparents, but also by my family at large. These are all things I heard growing up in the northern region of Appalachia and wanted to share with y'all. The lore and sayings may vary based on location, family tradition, and other factors, but this is just what Iâm sharing from my experiences!
⢠Give the first pinch of a freshly baked loaf of bread to the Good Men to keep them happy.
⢠Deaths and births always come in threes.
⢠Spin around in a circle three times before you walk in the front door to confuse any spirits that are following you.
⢠Donât throw your hair out! If a bird builds a nest with it, youâll have migraines.
⢠âRed sky at night, sailorâs delight. Red sky at morning, sailorâs warning.â
⢠If the leaves on trees are flipped over with their backsides showing, rainâs coming.
⢠If you hear a dog howl at night, death is coming.
⢠If youâre giving someone a wallet or purse as a present, put money in it to ensure theyâll never financially struggle.
⢠Spirits canât cross running water.
⢠Cats and dogs wonât enter a room where spirits are present.
⢠Carry an acorn in your pocket for good luck, a penny for prosperity, and a nail for protection.
⢠If youâre having nightmares, put a Bible under your pillow. Theyâll go away.
⢠Take a spoonful of honey to keep your words sweet.
⢠Keeping a pot of coffee on ensures a happy home.
⢠Itâs bad luck to walk over a grave.
⢠A horseshoe hung above a door ensures good luck.
⢠A horseshoe in the bedroom staves away nightmares.
⢠If your right hand itches, youâll soon be receiving money. If the left itches, youâll be paying it.
⢠Wishing on a star works. âStar light, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.â
⢠When you have a random shiver, someone just walked over your grave.
⢠If smoke from a fire rises, expect clear skies. If it rolls along the ground, expect storms.
⢠Rosemary near the door provides protection. Lavender provides peace.
⢠âA ring around the sun or moon, rain or snow is coming soon.â
⢠Wind chimes and bells keep spirits away.
⢠Seeing a cardinal means unexpected company.
⢠For that matter, so does dropping silverware.
⢠Rubbing a bit of potato on a wart helps it to go away.
⢠If the soles of your feet itch, you will soon walk on strange grounds.
⢠Black eyed peas, greens, and/or pork and sauerkraut should be eaten on New Yearâs Day to welcome good luck and good fortune.
⢠Driving a nail into a bedframe or crib will drive away curses.
⢠If your ears are burning, someoneâs talking about you.
⢠If you dream of fish, you are or will soon be pregnant.
⢠Listen to the wisdom of children, they see and know more than we think.
⢠To dream of death means birth, to dream of birth means death.
⢠To cure a headache, crush some mint leaves in your hands, cup them over your mouth and nose, and breathe in a few times. It should help.
⢠Placing a fern or ivy on the front porch protects against curses.
⢠In a vegetable garden, never plant the same plants in the same spot two years in a row. Rotate where they are, and youâll save your soil. (Note: this is a real thing called crop rotation, and is actually kind of important)
⢠A black bird (Raven or crow, doesnât matter) on the roof or a windowsill is an omen for death. To avoid it, you have to scare it away without using your voice before it caws.
⢠Say a prayer when you pass a coal mine for the lost souls still in the mine.
⢠Thank the land and the Lord with every successful hunt or harvest you have, for nothing is guaranteed.
These are a few of the folklores, wivesâ tales, superstitions, and sayings that Iâve heard growing up (and still living in) in Appalachia! I encourage other Appalachian witches, cunning folk, and general inhabitants of the Appalachian region (and just the mountain range at large) to share whatever bits youâve heard over the years! I just wanted to share a bit with y'all to give you an insight into some Appalachian lore, my own practice, and maybe give you some things to research and incorporate into your own practice! đżâ¨
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A Friendly Reminder
to always check and double-check the side-effects of any herbs, essential oils and/or crystals you may be using, especially if you will be ingesting them, placing them in contact with your skin, or diffusing them into the air you breathe.
Please also check to see if they will be safe for your pets, because whatâs nontoxic for us isnât necessarily nontoxic for them.
And always remember:
Just because something is natural doesnât mean it is safe. đżđżđż
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âCan I really call myself a witch?â
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FIGURES OF NORSE MYTHOLOGY: HEL
Hel is the daughter of Loki and the Jotun Angrboda. Half of her body resembles a living woman while the other resembles a corpse. Her expression is always gloomy and grim. The Aesir feared Hel and her brothers, so they were abducted by the gods and banished. Hel was made the ruler of the realm of the dead, which is also named Hel. The entrance is guarded by Garm, a monstrous hound. Helâs hall is Eljudnir, home of the dead. Her servants are Ganglati and Ganglot, who move about so slowly it is difficult to tell if they are moving at all. Her plate is called Hunger, and her knife is Famine.
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Kiki Smith - Lilith, 1994 - Bronze, silicon, and glass.
âIn medieval Jewish lore, Lilith was Adamâs first wife. Â When she demanded to be Adamâs equal, she was evicted from the Garden of Eden. Â Lilith flew away to the demon world, replaced by the more submissive Eve. Â Smith catches us off guard with Lilithâs pose and placement. Â Most sculptures receive our gaze passively, but Lilith stares back with piercing brown eyes, ready to pounce.â
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one thing you should know about southerners is that weâre scary as fuck. drive through the backroads in a town where people donât know you and theyâll all stand in the middle of the road and stare you down as you go by. down the road a ways from my neighborhood is a big white and brown house with 5 sheds out back. the fuck do they need 5 sheds for? idk but iâm not trying to be the one to find out. i wouldnât suggest you try either, because another thing you should know is that weâve all got guns. my next door neighbor is 87 and still goes to the firing range. he also still washes his own truck once a week, mows his own lawn, and just got re-married a few months ago. his wife is 79 and she is beautiful, hardly a wrinkle on either of them. one more thing you should know about southerners is that we think weâre never gonna die. and when we do? we haunt.
you donât believe me? go inside that lighthouse at midnight. go inside that doctorâs office that used to be a military hospital back in the civil war. go inside that abandoned house thatâs sagging down the middle and creaks every time the wind blows but still somehow smells like gun leather and freshly cooked bread. hell, drive around in the middle of nowhere at night. iâve heard stories of friends and acquaintances who have, on one of the long, slick black paved roads that run through the miles and miles of orange groves and corn fields, come across a group of folks all dressed in white robes running barefoot down the road with cow skulls held up in front of their faces, or looked out the window while driving and seen red eyed death running beside them at 65 mph. but listen, that was probably all bullshit. go ahead and walk by yourself through the woods. youâll be fine. thereâs nothing watching you from within those thickets of palms and pines and moss that are all stitched together with spider webs and rotting into the earth. nothing hiding just beneath the surface of that murky brown lake. definitely nothing in those dark, dark shadows you canât quite see into when youâre blinded by the sun, waiting for night to fall so it can come out. nahhhhh, definitely not. you want some tea?
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Autumn witch. Illustration for mini stickerpack dedicate to HalloweenÂ
Helena Mischenko 2018
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To all witches, with love
Recently I came across a post about making a tarot deck out of pokemon cards. Sure, most of you will find it silly. But let people enjoy things. You might not use emoji spells, but let people do it. You can, obviously, disagree. But let people enjoy things. One of the first comments was something along âthis canât be real, it is so stupidâ, the person later apologized saying they follow the old ways. Amazing. But just because youâre lactose intolerant you canât judge people who drink milk. For the love of everything magical, please stop putting people down because they donât fit into your standards of how things should be done. Let people enjoy things. You can always give constructive criticism. But âthis is so stupidâ adds no value to your point. Thanks for coming to my ted talk.
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a reminder from your science witch sister that itâs flu season, and haunting graveyards at midnight or walking barefoot in dark forests becomes much less romantic when you are ill, so go and take your vaccines and do your part to ensure herd immunity for the sick, the elderly and the young.
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Jar Substitutions
Before you do a jar spell, itâs a good idea to ask yourself where that jar will spend itâs life. Is it going to be buried immediately? Will it hang out in your closet for a few years? Will you keep it on your dresser to shake and re-energize every now and again?
Why is it important to think about? Eco-friendliness, my pals. Glass isnât exactly what youâd call biodegradable. Many witches are replacing jars with more sustainable, eco-friendly options.Â
Is the spell going to be buried, left outside, tossed in a river, left at a crossroads, etc.? Leaves, flowers, coffee filters, anything made from wool or cotton, tea bags, peat pots, egg shells, natural clay, long grass woven into baskets, and so many more biodegradable options are available to replace the standard glass or plastic jar.Â
Can the spell eventually be disassembled? Cool, you have my permission to use glass or plastic, but consider using one from the thrift store or one you already have! Peanut butter jars, tomato sauce jars, etc. That way youâre not condemning another jar to its eventual landfill destination. When youâre done with it, take it apart and recycle the jar.Â
The spell canât be disassembled? Go to Michaelâs(or equivalent craft store) and go to the wood aisle. There, you will find small jewelry boxes made of either wood or cardboard. Many will have metal closures, and you can seal them with wax if you need to. They will biodegrade significantly faster than glass or plastic.Â
I know, glass jars are pretty, and contribute to the aesthetic of witchcraft. By all means, use glass jars to hold your herbs, to store your moon water, for anything thatâs temporary. Because you can recycle those. But spells are a commitment, often we donât want to take them apart once theyâre put together. So itâs our job to consider how our practice effects our planet.Â
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Essay on November
There is at times a small fire
In the brain, partita for violin,
Brier, black stem,
All burning in the quarter notes.
And the hedgerow
Beyond the barn
Calls its starlings in.
Then frost, sere leaves,
A swollen half-moon
Like a drowsy fingertip
Above the apple trees.
âStephen Kuusisto
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Iâm trying to find some more information about the witchesâ foot; anyone who has anything, feel free to share. All Iâve found so far (no sources, sadly):
The Witches Foot
The Power of the Witches Foot Symbol in Magick and Ritual
But I do like this symbol and think it could be a good one to use. Itâs simple enough for anyone to draw, it doesnât have any other strong associations or connotations that I can find, and itâs discreet.
WITCHES NEED A SECRET SYMBOL FOR SAFE PLACES
So a lot of us are out of the broom closet so to speak, but many of have to be careful of being public because of the views of the communities we live in. What I propose is a symbol we can put on flyers or in shop windows that means âYouâre safe here.â
I donât believe that a pentagram would work because itâs got so much stigma attached and itâs really easily identifiable. Ideally, we can find something that is not tradition specific. I donât know. I just want us to be able to put feelers out into the community without painting a target on ourselves for intolerant jerk faces, and I want witchlings that are seeking guidance to be able to do so in a safe environment. I mean, how badass would it be to find a little symbol of solidarity in your favorite coffee shop or bookstore??
Reblog with suggestions!
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Witchionary: UPG
I havenât been involved much with the online pagan community, and starting a witch blog has made me realize how much discourse has been going on that Iâve been unaware of. One concept that Iâd never heard of until recently is UPG, an acronym for unverified (or unsubstantiated) personal gnosis.
UPG seems to be particularly relevant to people doing deity work, which is not my cup of tea in general. But I have seen it referenced elsewhere in occult practice, so I figured I should try and determine whether itâs something I need to use in my writing.
Short answer? Iâm not into it.
For the benefit of anyone whoâs as unfamiliar with this term as I wasâand to give you an idea what definition Iâm working fromâhere are some of the ways Iâve seen UPG defined:
Unverified Personal Gnosis (UPG) or Unverifiable Personal Gnosis, refers to any spiritual beliefs, truths or revelations experienced or adhered to by an individual that is based on personal experience that differs from or does not exist in accepted lore. The term is used quite a bit in reconstructionist circles to distinguish those beliefs and practices that are held by an individual based on personal experience from those beliefs and practices that have a historical basis or that are drawn from myth, folklore or archaeological evidence.
âWitchipedia
itâs a solid personal headcanon that has little to no historical basis OR something of a revelation that changes your perspective of an entity
âthepaganstudygrouppage
It refers to understandings you have of the gods (as well as concepts and situations related to your religion) that arenât backed up by the lore (that is, mythology and so forth).
âtheinformedpagan.com
From a perspective of scholarship, I get the importance of distinguishing between âinformation from historical sourcesâ and âunsourced modern claimsâ. From a standpoint of personal religious belief or practice, however, Iâm less convinced of its usefulness.
The Informed Pagan says of UPG, âit should always be understood that this is your UPG, and not something anyone else is required to accept.â Which, to be honest, seems like something that should go without saying about all belief and practice. I mean, I have a generalized problem with authority that definitely extends to religion, so I may be the wrong person to ask; but I donât think anyone has any business telling you what you have to accept into your personal belief system.
Thereâs also the question of how UPG is different from any other aspect of belief. It sort of reminds me of when people talk about âmade-up words,â as though all other words werenât made up at some point. Again, Iâm not big on deities, so apologies if I come across as disrespectful; but at the end of the day, we donât have any source of objective truth about deities or any other unverifiable parts of our belief systems. Even things that a lot of people have agreed on, like a godâs name and the symbols associated with him, started somewhere, with someoneâs personal belief. The fact that it happened a long time ago or became a popular belief doesnât make it any more real than a new, individual belief.
Some people use additional terms like shared personal gnosis (SPG) and verified personal gnosis (VPG) to expand on the idea, SPG being a UPG someone else shares with you, and VPG one that either a lot of people share or that turns out to be backed up by existing sources. But I donât think these terms make any more sense of the concept. They still seem mostly useful for distinguishing between new and old beliefsâwhich, again, I see the point of if youâre a historian or theology scholar, but which I donât see much use for in personal belief.
Honestly, it all just makes me think weâre too hung up on the idea of what weâre âsupposedâ to believe, whatâs substantiated and what isnât, and I just donât see why that has any importance to personal belief systems. If you feel moved to make an offering of white lilies to Hecate, what difference should it make to you whether anyone else has done that before?
Iâve seen various people insist that you should preface anything you say with âthis is UPGâ if itâs not backed up by lore. By all means, do that if you feel like you should. But personally, Iâm not swayed by this concept, and Iâm not going to be using the term UPG on this blog. What Iâm more likely to do is cite sources where I feel itâs appropriate, which will probably be informed by my academic background. That seems more sound as a system, anywayâassuming everything is personal opinion unless itâs backed up with sources, rather than assuming everything is canonical* unless itâs marked as UPG.
*I liked that UPG was compared to headcanons in one of the definitions above, because the whole thing does remind me a lot of the canon vs. headcanon conflict in fandom discourse. There does seem to be a lot of conflict that arises from people confusing âthing I believe about this characterâ for âthing that is objectively true, that you have to believeâ. But it all kind of goes back to, why do we care so much what other people believe or think we should believe, unless theyâre actually trying to make us conform to their belief? We definitely have a lot of work to do in respecting each othersâ beliefs and practice, but I donât think the solution is coming up with terminology that puts those beliefs into a hierarchy of legitimacy.
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