Aese, they/them, 30. Witch, magical practitioner, diviner, spirit worker, big ol' nerd. May or may not be a moth in a pointy hat. Food, spirit work, divination, and practical magic. TAROT READINGS & CUSTOM SPELL SERVICES: Open on Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/aesethewitch
Hello! I'm Aese, a witch, magical practitioner, diviner, spirit worker, and big ol' nerd. I'm officially 30, and I use they/them pronouns.
You can find my original spells in the tag #my spells, my original recipes in the tag #my recipes, other posts I've written or replied to under #aese speaks, and asks I've answered under #aese answers.
My ask box is always open for questions and conversation. Be kind, be mindful.
I'm a witch for hire! You can commission custom food spells, get tarot readings, and buy spell recipe cards over on my Ko-Fi page.
Rules for tarot readings can be found here (Tumblr post) or here (Neocities site).
If you don't see something on the commission page that suits you, or if you need to negotiate prices, send me a DM here or on Ko-Fi.
If you like what I do, you can also tip me or become a monthly supporter for bonuses like commission discounts and monthly tarot readings. Supporters of all types get early and sometimes extended or even exclusive access to my work!
I've got a website over on Neocities -- check it out here to peek at more of my original fiction, see better-formatted content, and more! Leave a comment in my guestbook if you visit!
If you also have a personal website where you publish anything witchcraft-related, I also run a webring called The Witching Hour Webring! Read more about it here.
I sometimes do free one-card tarot readings. Rules are the same as for paid readings and can be found here (Tumblr post) or here (Neocities site).
I stream over on Twitch with an irregular schedule. We do live tarot, video games, arts & crafts, spellwork, and more! Join our Discord for stream announcements, polls, community chatter, and events.
Another of my side projects is The Pages' Journey, a community-forward website that will (hopefully) someday be an eclectic divination resource for all skill levels. It's got a blog over @thepagesjourney for questions and announcements.
My other blogs are:
@aesesinkwell - Writing and TTRPG stuff (peep the pinned post over there for specifics and warnings - there's horror and explicit content in there)
@aeseofspades - Random reblogs and non-witchcraft posting
@accustomedtofightingasateam - Trigun brainrot blog
It's wild blueberry season in Sweden and I've been picking and eating my fill everyday from the forest behind my house! The entire forest floor is covered in wild blueberry bushes and the tangy taste is so cosmic, I had to paint them✨
Photos of the berries I picked!
im trying to work with and connect with lillith and it made me curios if you as a jewitch had any experience with lillith? or are there other spirits and demons and figures in judaism that you work with instead?
So, I don't "work with" Lilith personally. For me, I've never really had anything to do with Lilith aside from having crafted or worked protective amulets, spells, and rituals against Lilith for other people.
I highly recommend reading this article by Zohare Jacobi:
Despite a hard-and-fast refusal to discuss Lilith for nearly six years on my social media platform, Jewitches, she remains the most popular
Sufficiently Advanced Witchcraft is Indistinguishable from Chores Part 3:
Tonight has ended up being energy management night, I don’t strictly schedule this particular chore, but is something that needs to be done at least once or twice a week. Like taking out the trash, it doesn't necessarily need to be done on a specific day, but you know when it needs to be done. I’ve been doing this particular exercise to manage my energy since I was child. My entire practice begins with keeping my energy organized and tidy.
Get comfortable, whether that's sitting, lying down, or pacing around the room.
Start taking slow, deep, and even breaths. 4 counts in. 4 counts out.
Feel your energy/power/magic/Whatever you call it as it naturally sits at the given moment: Where is it in your body? In streams throughout your body like veins? In pools along the path of your spine per at your major joints? Hovering just outside your body like an aura? Feel it where it is and as it is, unmanipulated.
Begin to draw all of your energy into a singular core. Gather it from everywhere it sits in and around your body one handful at a time. Pact it tightly and compactly, don’t let any spill or drift.
This is where you manipulate your energy to make it easier to measure out with your need. I spin mine into thread, but you could shape yours into a flower and pluck different numbers of petals depending on how much you need, a well that you draw different amounts of water from. The metaphor doesn’t matter, only that you can easily and comfortably adjust how much energy you take and you can keep it small enough to fit within you.
Shape your energy into its new form.
When you are done there should be no loose energy, no stray threads, nothing outside of that one core, everything should be wrapped up neatly and easy to conceal within any personal wards and glamours, of which I have many, and are my next maintenance task.
My next maintenance step is up keeping my personal wards and glamours. I’m not going to share my process for this, that’s a step too far, I can’t give away all of my secrets. Suffice it to say that my personal wards and glamours - which focus on obfuscation, misdirection, and appearing to be less than I am - rely on my energy being this carefully maintained. I am very deliberately “hiding my light under a bushel basket,” I don’t want anyone - spirits, other practitioners, surprisingly intuitive strangers on the subway, etc. to know what exactly I’m working with in the power, presence, and energy department.
*Note: recording of this energy exercise to come.
The thing about having (back to back to back) migraine this week is that I've been spending a lot of time Not In My Body. It's been surprisingly useful to practice Traveling. And much more interesting than writhing in both pain and boredom.
rip to the guy who posted his very expensive yixing teapot to r/tea, only for the comments to be not compliments on his taste as he expected, but instead GREAT GOOGLY MOOGLY and I SHOULD CALL HER. he then crossposted it to r/gongfutea, which is ordinarily more dignified and self-serious, but was it? was it?? of course not, because this is reddit, and this was the teapot
I’ve been donating to the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation for years and I never knew they had a bug podcast! Just listened to an episode about millipedes this morning and it was great. If you’re interested,
Bug Banter is available wherever you listen to podcasts or directly on their website :)
A couple days ago you posted asking for ideas for your series and I have a sort of idea. I learned magic through tumblr, it was my first exposure and teacher. Because of that, I've been a little lost lately, on what my practice is actually founded on. I wonder if you could write something up to help myself and others like me who have a shaky foundation, like how to back up to finding out what the basic building blocks are to build a practice on and to ask yourself the Big Questions that should influence your practice. I hope this makes sense! Anyway, thank you for your previous posts, they've been really enlightening! :)
This is.... fascinating.
Thank you kindly <3 Let's see if I can make anything from it.
I have been having Thoughts. A friend of mine, whom shall remain nameless due to his insistence that being known to Tumblr is a special kind of hell, brought up a concept yesterday which I have not thought of in some time.
This concept is one where magical practitioners, and for our purposes especially witches, may be divided into two categories: Laypeople and Clergy.
These titles are not ones you can choose for yourself. You either are, or you are not. And I think knowledge of this concept, whether or not one agrees, shines a floodlight on the sometimes murky waters of magical discourse.
The concept is this: There is a significant difference in the practices and needs for people who are permanently oath- and taboo-bound to their practice, and those who are not.
I have before spoken of a similar paradigm using the metaphor of oak trees and wildflowers:
Wildflower seeds are be blown all over a meadow. When those seeds land in viable soil, they strive to grow. Not every seed will take root, nor every sprout grow to maturity. But we know regardless that when May comes, the landscape will bloom with beauty and wonder, filling the meadow with something magical.
If such a time comes that the wildflowers are no longer wanted, or needed, or enjoyed, they will die out, and the meadow will go back to what it once was.
Just like wildflower seeds, acorns may not always land where they can grow. But when they do, the effect is very different. Unlike wildflowers, the oak tree does not dust the landscape with color that illuminates and enchants what already exists.
The oak tree transforms. Its roots reshape the hillside. Its branches host new fauna. Its shade reworks the nearby flora. And it never goes away. You can chop the oak tree down if you like; the roots are still there. You can dig up the roots; the hillside is now broken. Once planted, the oak tree transforms. Even if it dies, the meadow never goes back to the way it was before.
The laypeople and clergy paradigm takes things a step further. In that paradigm, "clergy" are bound to do (or not do) things, and if they fail bad things happen to them. They do not get to choose to leave their path. They do not necessarily get full autonomy in what they choose to study or practice, or how to apply their skills.
These are the kinds of people who are often found saying things like, "if you fail to uphold your responsibilities to the gods and spirits, they will get pissed off at you and can and will leave you." Or, "whether or not you want to accept it, there are rules." Or, "witchcraft is dangerous and it will consume you if you go in unprepared."
On the other hand, we more often see the opposite. "Gods love you unconditionally and you can never make them upset." Or, "there are no rules to witchcraft; anything you want to be witchcraft, is!" Or, "witchcraft is not dangerous, it is a beautiful, natural, and safe way to reconnect with your spirituality." Or, "how and when you choose witchcraft, including choosing to stop, is your choice. Nobody can tell you otherwise."
Although this simple duality obviously doesn't apply to everyone, I feel that very often everyone involved forgets the other is real and valid. The fact that gods will stop talking to you if you fail to uphold the devotional schedule they gave you, and the fact that gods will never care if you skip devotionals, are both lived experiences from valid practitioners worshiping the same god.
So, via this ask, the question is posed: "how to [find out] what the basic building blocks are to build a practice on and [...] the Big Questions that should influence your practice"?
One Big Question, and currently I feel perhaps the most important, is this:
Do you want your meadow to scintillate when the sunlight catches the rainbow hues of a thousand wildflowers that bring joy and wonder into your life?
Or do you want your meadow to be given over to the Oak Tree, remade in His image?
I will not give advice here on how to pursue the oak tree path, as I am of the mind that it should be avoided where possible.
However, if you are able to answer the Big Question for yourself, the basic building blocks then become:
For wildflower witches, what do you want?
Don't ask yourself what you want as a witch. Just... what do you want?
Do you want to be able to know about things before they happen? Do you want to be able to help and heal friends and family? Do you want to learn the uses of herbs and how to make amazing things in the kitchen? Do you want to reconnect with your ancestors and nature?
What do you want - let that be your guide. It is yours, all of it: the meadow, the flowers, where you roam and what you grow.
Take every single "how to start practicing witchcraft" guide you've ever read, throw it in the garbage, and start with you.
Why the hell should witches force a routine of energy work when all they want to do is make folk charms and read playing cards? Why should witches have to go learn divination when they just want to pray to their gods and learn about the land?
Imagine your entire path is thrown out the window, set on the sidewalk for someone to pick up and carry away. Start with nothing. What do you choose to add back? What is a relief to get rid of? What have you been forcing yourself to learn just because you were told it leads to power and success?
Start with you :) You are the building block. You are the meadow and the gardener. Release yourself from the watchful eyes of others, and do as you please.
For oak tree witches, if your acorn has already taken root:
Practice what you are guided to, do a lot of research, and survive until your initiatory period is over. I have faith in you <3
I knew this post was on my blog somewhere! I’m saving the link so we can find it the next time we need it and don’t have to spend hours looking for it.
