Cunning Joseph

[cunningjoseph]

wild thing about witch trial records: they're basically the only reason we know ordinary folk magic existed at all in early modern Europe 📜 like. the accused weren't even hiding. neighbors got on the stand and testified *openly* that yes, they'd gone to Margery or Alice or Old Joan for a healing charm. yes, she'd helped when the cow got sick. yes, she'd found their stolen goods. this was normal. this was just... the village system of care working as intended. the prosecution created the archive. 🕯️ scholars like Keith Thomas (*Religion and the Decline of Magic*, 1971) and Emma Wilby (*Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits*, 2005) have spent decades mining these records — not for evidence of devil worship, but for glimpses of an entire working practice that otherwise left almost nothing written down. because why would it? this wasn't a literate tradition. it was embodied, local, passed person to person. the trial record becomes this bizarre artifact where the state, trying to destroy something, accidentally documented it in extraordinary detail. the questions asked of the accused. the neighbors' testimonies. the lists of what was found in the house — the bags of herbs, the written charms, the image in wax. we get names. we get relationships. we get *prices charged*. (yes, cunning folk were often paid. not in secret. just... Tuesday.) and here's the part that gets me every time: the vast majority of people being accused weren't claiming to be witches in any spiritual sense. they were providing services. healing. finding lost things. protecting livestock. lifting curses someone else had allegedly laid. the theological framework — the pact with the devil, the sabbath, the whole lurid inquisitorial fantasy — was largely projected *onto* them by the court system. what the records show underneath that framework is something much more mundane and much more interesting: a community-embedded practice of folk magic that people relied on and paid for and mostly didn't think twice about. the demonology was the court's contribution to the story. ✍️ which is also why it matters who gets counted in these records and who doesn't. the witch trials weren't evenly distributed across Europe — intensity, theology, and targets varied wildly by region. the famous English trials look different from Scottish ones look different from German ones look different from colonial American ones look different from the contemporaneous persecution of folk practitioners in colonized territories, where the mechanisms were sometimes similar but the stakes and contexts were entirely different and deserve their own careful treatment. and across all of it: women, the poor, the elderly, the disabled, the socially marginal, the queer (if you know how to read the codes). the state's decision about who to target tells you everything about whose knowledge was considered threatening, and whose community bonds were considered suspicious. 🖤 reading witch trial records as folk magic documentation doesn't mean aestheticizing the violence. the trials killed people. destroyed communities. were part of larger patterns of social control. that's not a subtext — it's the text. but the documentation is real, and the practitioners were real, and if we want to understand folk magic lineages honestly rather than mythologically, we have to sit with the uncomfortable fact that we often know what we know because the state tried to eradicate it and wrote everything down while doing so. the archive exists because of persecution. we can acknowledge that and still use it. 📖 --- *[fuhnke — art, music, engineering, entrepreneurship, and witchcraft]* #witchcraft history #folk magic #cunning folk #witch trials #keith thomas #emma wilby #early modern europe #magic history #witchblr #paganism #occult history #history of magic #folk practice #witchcraft research #the archive as violence #but also the archive as survival

[cunningjoseph]

If any of this landed this week — the hiding, the legibility, the aura-as-data, the spells-as-sentences, the line between influence and harm — the whole essay lives on the blog. It's the one I was most afraid to publish and the one I'm most glad I did. If you're a weird kid who grew into a careful adult, I wrote it for you. getfuhnke.com/blog

[cunningjoseph]

the thing about glamour magic that nobody says out loud enough: **you're not lying. you're editing.** like — there's this whole discourse about whether glamour is "authentic" or whatever, and i get it, but i think it fundamentally misunderstands what glamour *is* as a practice. you're not fabricating a false self and projecting it onto unsuspecting bystanders. you're choosing which true thing about yourself gets to be *legible* today. because here's the deal: you contain multitudes (yes i'm invoking whitman in a witchcraft post, deal with it). there are like seventeen versions of you that are all genuinely, actually you. glamour work is just... picking up the one that serves right now and putting it on with intention. the ring that you charge specifically when you need to feel like someone who cannot be moved. the particular way you hold your shoulders when you walk into a room that you're nervous about. the color you wear when you need the world to read you a certain way. that's a **working**. a small one, maybe, but small workings are still workings. ✨ some glamour mechanics i actually use: — **adornment as sigil**: jewelry especially. not because crystals do [thing X] according to some list someone made in 1987, but because the *act of putting something on with conscious intention* encodes that intention into your day. you remember, every time you glance at your hand, what you decided about yourself this morning. — **scent-as-spell**: smell is the sense most directly wired to memory and emotional state. wearing a particular scent when you're doing a particular kind of work trains your nervous system. eventually just putting it on *is* the spell. — **voice and posture**: this one's underrated in witchcraft spaces but it's been known in magical traditions forever. how you carry your body changes how you feel and how you're perceived simultaneously. you can work with this deliberately. — **name/pronoun magic**: the names we claim and the pronouns we use are some of the most potent glamour work there is. you're literally deciding what language the world uses to describe you. that's *power*. okay ethics sidebar because i think about this: glamour ≠ manipulation. the line for me is consent and context. dressing for a job interview is not the same as magically coercing someone into hiring you against their will. presenting yourself in a way that helps you navigate a world that isn't always safe is not deception — it's self-authorship. and honestly? the idea that there's some "unadorned authentic self" that's more real than the self you craft with intention is kind of a myth. we're always constructing. glamour just does it *on purpose*. (where i'd get more careful is workings specifically aimed at overriding someone else's perception in ways that harm them or you — that's where you'd want to think harder. but that's true of all magic, not glamour specifically.) anyway. the ring you put on with intention. the way you stand when you want to feel unshakeable. those are real workings. small ones count. 🖤 — *this is part of fuhnke's ongoing witchcraft content — art, music, engineering, entrepreneurship, and craft, all in one weird place* 🕯️ #glamour magic #glamour witch #witchcraft #spellwork #practical magic #adornment as ritual #sigil work #witch community #craft practice #intentional living #queer witchcraft #femme magic #name magic #scent magic #jewelry magic #small workings #body autonomy #self authorship #magic ethics #fuhnke

[cunningjoseph]

Plant of the week: mugwort (*Artemisia vulgaris*). It's coming up everywhere right now if you know where to look — roadside, cracked lots, the unloved edge of the garden. Silver underside on the leaves, bitter when you crush it between your fingers. One working: dream pillow. Take a small cloth pouch (an old sock knotted shut is fine, this is not a Pinterest situation). Stuff it with dried mugwort — a tablespoon is plenty, this herb is *loud*. Tuck it inside your pillowcase. What it does: mugwort is one of the oldest divinatory herbs in European folk practice. It thins the wall between sleep and seeing. Expect vivid dreams within two or three nights. Expect some of them to be unpleasant — that's the herb working, not against you. Don't use if pregnant. Don't use nightly forever; this is a tool, not a habit. Two weeks on, two weeks off. Harvest now while it's young. The leaves get tough and even more bitter by midsummer.

[cunningjoseph]

The line I will not cross: Influence is helping someone see something true that benefits them. Manipulation is helping someone see something false that benefits you. I use glamour magick to close business deals. I do. But only deals I believe will actually serve the person on the other side. If I have to hide the shape of something to get a yes, the answer is no. The skill is real. The ethics are the whole practice.

[cunningjoseph]

**the rice jar thing is real and here's the full breakdown because you deserve more than vibes** so that post floating around about a jar of rice near your front door for protection — yes. accurate. let's actually dig into why it works and how to do it properly because the mechanic is *fascinating* and the setup takes like four minutes. --- 🧵 **the principle** this falls under a category folklorists call "apotropaic counting traps." the idea: certain spirits, harmful energies, and general bad-vibes-entities are compelled to count discrete objects before they can proceed. salt works this way. seeds work this way. scattered grain at thresholds shows up in European, West African, South Asian, and East Asian folk traditions — independently, repeatedly — which is one of those convergences that makes you go *hm.* you're not building a wall. you're building a delay. a bureaucratic obstacle. by the time whatever-it-is finishes counting 10,000 grains of rice, dawn has come, your protections have held, it's given up and left. brilliant, honestly. --- 🍚 **what you actually need** - a jar with a lid (mason jar, old pasta sauce jar, literally anything) - dry uncooked rice — white or brown both work, doesn't need to be fancy - optional additions: a few whole black peppercorns (protection, Mars energy), a small piece of obsidian or black tourmaline if you have one, a bay leaf with your intent written on it - a marker or a label if you want to name it that's it. no smoke. no flame required. no rare herbs. this spell was *designed* by people who had limited resources and needed it to work, which means it works. --- ✍️ **setup** 1. clean the jar. physically wash it. starting with clean vessels matters — you're not building on someone else's residue. 2. hold the rice in both hands before you pour it. think clearly about what you want: *this threshold is protected. what means harm does not pass.* you don't have to say it out loud. the intention just needs to be *present* in you while you handle the materials. this is the sympathetic mechanics part — you're linking the physical object to the energetic function through your focused attention. 3. pour the rice in. add your optional extras if using. seal the lid. 4. if you want to mark it: write "threshold" or a protective symbol or literally just your address on a label. naming it grounds it to your specific space. 5. place it near your front door — doesn't have to be visible. inside a cabinet by the door is fine. on a shelf. next to your shoes. just near the threshold. --- 🔄 **timing** new moon = good for setting new protections waning moon = good for banishing/keeping things out saturday = Saturn rules boundaries and protection but honestly? if you need this, do it now. timing is an amplifier, not a requirement. --- 🗑️ **disposal and maintenance** replace the rice every 3-6 months, or after anything genuinely bad has tried to enter your space (energetically or literally). when you dispose of old rice: don't eat it (it's done work, treat it as spent), compost it if you can, or dispose of it outside your home — not in your kitchen trash if you can avoid it. thank it. it did a job. --- **substitutions:** - no jar? a small bowl works, just less portable - black tourmaline too expensive? a pebble from outside your home works fine — you're linking to *your* land - renting and can't keep anything visible? cabinet or closet near the door is completely valid - baby witch nervous about doing it "right"? your intent is the engine. the materials are just the car. you have the intent. do the thing. --- no gatekeeping. this magic belongs to everyone who needs it. 🚪✨ *— fuhnke*

#witchcraft #cottage witch #protection magic #folk magic #kitchen witch #apartment witch #witchblr #beginner witch #hearth and home #sympathetic magic #apotropaic magic #threshold magic #witch tips #the why matters #magic that works #rice jar protection #no smoke alarm required #closeted witch friendly #fuhnke

[cunningjoseph]

I see people in color. Not metaphorically — I mean I clock disposition the way other people clock body language. Tones around a person. Intentions, moods, whether they're safe. I used to think everyone did this. Then I got my AuDHD diagnosis and realized: oh. This is the pattern recognition. This is the survival circuit a hypervigilant kid built that never got turned off. It's not woo. It's data. I just learned to read it before I had words for it.

[cunningjoseph]

the light is doing something right now and i need to talk about it we're sitting at roughly three weeks out from Litha (Summer Solstice, ~June 21st for those in the northern hemisphere), and the pre-solstice stretch is its own distinct energetic territory that doesn't get nearly enough credit. everyone talks about the solstice itself, but *this* — this slow approach, the days getting longer in increments you can almost feel — this is where the real liminal work happens 🌞 --- **a little lore for the road:** the wheel-of-the-year framing most of us work with is largely reconstructionist, assembled from Celtic, Germanic, and folk Christian traditions through the 20th century neopagan revival — Gerald Gardner, Doreen Valiente, and later the Farrars codified a lot of what we now call "the eight sabbats." the solstice itself, though, is *ancient*. Neolithic ancient. Stonehenge is oriented to catch the midsummer sunrise. the Eddic poem Hávamál references the fire-festivals. across unrelated cultures, humans noticed that the sun reaches its apex and something about that *matters*. what the neopagan reconstruction got right, imo, is treating the week or so *before* the solstice as its own charged moment. the sun hasn't peaked yet. the light is still climbing. that's not nothing — that's potential energy wearing the costume of ordinary afternoon sun. in some folkloric traditions (particularly in Scandinavian and British Isles practice), the period before Midsummer was considered especially potent for herb-gathering, divination, and fire magic, partly *because* the sun hadn't yet turned. peak, then descent. you're catching the arc before it bends. --- **the ritual nudge (and you don't need anything for this one):** go outside at noon. actual solar noon if you can figure it — not clock noon, solar noon, which varies by location and time zone (timeanddate.com has a calculator if you want to be precise about it 🌍). stand in it. face the sun if it's comfortable. close your eyes if that helps. that's it. that's the whole thing. i know that sounds suspiciously simple, but hear me out: most of us spend the longest days of the year *indoors*, refrigerated, screens glowing. we're living in artificial light parity — our bodies genuinely cannot tell what season it is. standing outside at midday and *receiving* the sun is a form of re-attunement that our ancestors did just by existing, and that most of us have to be deliberate about now. if you want to layer something on top: bring a question you've been sitting with. not to get an answer — just to hold the question while the light is that strong. see what surfaces. write it down after. if you want to layer something on top of *that*: take your shoes off. grass, dirt, stone, whatever you've got. sun above, earth below. you've just made a very functional axis mundi with zero supplies and five minutes of your lunch break. --- the veil, in midsummer lore, thins *upward* — toward fire and sky spirits, toward the fae (in traditions that work with them), toward the expansive rather than the chthonic. it's the shadow-twin of Samhain's thinning. same principle, different direction. so yeah. the light is doing something. you're allowed to notice it 🕯️   *[fuhnke — art, music, engineering, entrepreneurship, witchcraft]* --- #witchcraft #litha #midsummer #wheel of the year #sabbat #solstice #summer solstice #folk magic #pagan #hedgewitch #seasonal practice #sun magic #liminal #witchblr #the fae won't be mad at you for taking a lunch break #solar noon is genuinely underrated as a concept #i promise this is a low-effort ritual that actually works #just stand in the sun bestie #fuhnke

[cunningjoseph]

Pride Month starts tomorrow, so let's talk about the witches who were already there. The cunning folk tradition in early modern England wasn't tidy about gender. Court records from the 16th and 17th centuries are full of practitioners who confused the clerks taking them down — men who did "women's" charm work, women who took on the village's protective/martial workings, people the records can't quite name without contradicting themselves three lines later. The trial documents preserve this not because anyone was being generous, but because the bureaucracy needed categories the practitioners refused to fit into. Folk magic across the diaspora has the same pattern. Two-Spirit practitioners in Indigenous traditions. The quimbanderas and the babalawos who broke their own lineage's rules to initiate the people their elders said no to. The hoodoo workers in the Jim Crow South whose households didn't look like the census wanted them to. Drag, ballroom, and houses as kinship structures with their own protective magic, their own oaths, their own ancestors. This isn't a "queer people have always existed" platitude. It's more specific than that. The work of cunning, of conjure, of folk practice has *always* been done by people the dominant culture wanted to disappear. The practice and the marginalization are not separate stories. The same forces that criminalized the magic criminalized the practitioners' bodies, households, and desires. So when Pride lands on the wheel this year, the lineage isn't a footnote. It's the floor. Sources I keep coming back to: Owen Davies, *Popular Magic*. Yvonne Chireau, *Black Magic*. Will Roscoe, *Changing Ones*. Read messy. Read primary where you can.

[cunningjoseph]

What glamour magick is NOT: — a filter — a vibe — manifestation in lipstick form — pretending to be someone you're not — making yourself "hot" to win What it actually is: choosing, on purpose, how you become legible in a room. The clothes, the posture, the cadence, the eye contact. The frequency you broadcast on. It's old. It's craft. It's not content.

[cunningjoseph]

I wrote the thing I've been afraid to write. Glamour magick isn't aesthetic. It's the survival skill I picked up as a hiding kid — invisible at home, weird at school, learning to dress and speak and carry myself in ways that made hostile rooms safer. I only understood it was a practice much later. New essay on the blog: how I learned the hard way, what glamour is and isn't, and how I use it now without crossing into manipulation. getfuhnke.com/blog

[cunningjoseph]

mirror work is not a beauty ritual. i mean — it *can* be. there's nothing wrong with looking at yourself and thinking "yeah, okay, i look good." but that's not what mirror work is *for*, at its core. the actual practice is weirder and quieter than that. you sit (or stand) in front of a mirror and you just... look. not hunting for flaws to fix. not hunting for beauty to confirm. not performing anything for anyone, not even yourself. just: witnessing. 👁️ and that is genuinely uncomfortable for most people! we are so trained to evaluate ourselves from the outside — to see ourselves the way an audience sees us — that the moment we try to just *look without judging*, our brains short-circuit a little. we start cataloguing. we start comparing. we start narrating. the work is in noticing that impulse and setting it down. not forever. just for this moment. just: *i am here. i am looking. i am not a problem to be solved right now.* --- here's why this matters for glamour specifically: glamour magic is the craft of shaping perception. but the first perception you're shaping is your own. 🖤 every adornment choice, every scent you wear like a second skin, every time you adjust your posture or your voice or the way you carry your name — all of that is downstream of a single foundational decision: *am i worth seeing?* and i don't mean "am i conventionally attractive" or "do i pass" or "will people approve." i mean something more fundamental and kind of terrifying: do i believe that i, as i am right now, am a being worth attending to? worth the effort of being fully present in? mirror work is where you practice saying yes to that question. quietly. without needing it to be dramatic or transformative on the first try. sometimes you just sit there for five minutes and feel weird and then go make tea and that's fine. the practice accumulates. ✨ --- a few things that help if you're new to this: 🕯️ **candle light instead of overhead fluorescents** — this is not about looking "better." it's about removing the clinical, evaluative quality of bright bathroom lighting. you want soft. you want present. 🖤 **no phones in the mirror** — no selfie mode, no documentation. this is between you and the glass. 🌿 **try talking to yourself out loud** — not affirmations necessarily (though those are fine). just... narrate. "i'm looking at my face. here are my eyes. here is how i look when i'm tired." witness yourself the way you'd witness someone you love. matter-of-factly. with care. 🌑 **dark mirrors are valid** — a piece of dark glass, a bowl of water, a phone screen with the brightness down. some people find they can witness themselves more honestly when the reflection is slightly abstracted. --- there's an ethics question that lives inside glamour work that i think about a lot: is shaping your own perception deceptive? and my answer is: no, but it matters *how* you're doing it. if glamour is about presenting a more authentic version of yourself — the version you feel you actually are, or are becoming — that's not deception. that's self-authorship. that's the craft doing what it's supposed to do. mirror work is the foundation of that because it asks you to start with what's *true* before you build on it. you can't glamour your way into something real if you've never actually looked at yourself. the eyeliner, the sigil ring, the coat that makes you feel like the protagonist — those work because they're expressing something. you have to know what that something is first. that's why we start in the mirror. 🕯️✨🖤 --- *this is part of fuhnke's ongoing exploration of glamour as a living practice — aesthetic, embodied, and worth taking seriously.*

#glamour magic #mirror work #witchcraft #glamour witch #the craft #magical practice #witchblr #occult #self perception #body neutral #queer witch #glamour as craft #shadow work adjacent #not a beauty ritual #the ethics of glamour #soft craft #candle magic adjacent #witnessing yourself #witchy things #fuhnke

[cunningjoseph]

let's talk about mugwort because it's having a moment and also because it deserves one. mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) is the herb i reach for when i need to dream on purpose. it's bitter, it's weedy, it grows in vacant lots and along train tracks — which is part of why i trust it. plants that thrive in disturbed ground know something about thriving in disturbed ground. three ways i actually use it: 1. **dream pillow.** dried mugwort + a small handful of lavender (mugwort alone is intense, lavender softens the edges) sewn into a square of cotton, tucked inside your pillowcase. expect vivid dreams within 2–3 nights. expect to remember them, which is the actual point. 2. **pre-ritual tea.** one teaspoon dried mugwort steeped 5 minutes in just-off-boil water. bitter. add honey. drink 30 minutes before a working where you need to be receptive — tarot, scrying, deep journaling. it loosens the analytical grip. 3. **threshold smoke.** dried mugwort burned on a charcoal disc at the door of the studio before a session where i need to bring something through. not as a "cleanse" — as a signal to myself that this room is a different room now. contraindications, because i'm not your aunt's blog: don't use mugwort if you're pregnant, on blood thinners, or allergic to ragweed. it's a thujone-containing herb so don't drink it daily for months on end. respect it. forage it if you can ID it confidently. buy it dried from a real herb seller if you can't. price should be under $8/oz; if someone's charging you $30 for "moon-charged ritual mugwort" run.

[cunningjoseph]

okay so let's talk about the **intent-first approach to spellwork** because i feel like this is one of those things that gets mentioned but rarely explained *why it actually matters mechanically* the short version: in sympathetic magic, the spell is basically a focused conversation between your will and the forces/energies/universe/your own subconscious (pick the framework that fits your worldview — they're not mutually exclusive). the physical components are *anchors and amplifiers*, not the source of the working. the candle doesn't cast the spell. **you do.** the candle helps you hold the frequency 🕯️ so here's a practical breakdown of what "intent-first" actually looks like in practice: --- **before you gather a single material, sit with these:** 1. **what do i actually want?** (be uncomfortably specific. "i want to feel less anxious at work" lands better than "i want good vibes") 2. **why do i want it?** (this isn't gatekeeping — it's signal clarification. your deeper motivation shapes the energy) 3. **what am i willing to do mundanely to support this?** (magic + action > magic alone, almost always) 4. **is this about me, or does it pull on someone else's will?** (if yes, rethink. coercive intent degrades the working and also just, ethically, no.) once you've sat with those, THEN look at your materials through the lens of "what helps me *feel* and *hold* this intent?" — not "what's the correct ingredient list" --- **the chipped thrift-store candle thing is real btw** a candle that costs $0.50 from the dollar bin that you've held and breathed into and intentionally dedicated to your working is more charged than a $40 chime candle you lit because it was the right color while you were also texting 🕯️ the color correspondences, the herbs, the timing — they're *support structures*. they help your brain lock into the right headspace. they're not requirements. they're scaffolding. --- **budget/apartment/closeted practitioner substitutions for common "requirements":** 🌿 **no herbs?** salt is almost universally available and corresponds to protection/purification across a ridiculous number of traditions. black pepper for banishing. bay leaves (grocery store) for wishes and fire release 🕯️ **no candles?** a flashlight, a phone flashlight, even the light from your laptop screen can serve as a light-source anchor. the element of fire is about transformation and will — represent that how you can 💧 **no fancy moon water?** tap water you've held and spoken your intent into is functionally the same thing. you are charging it with *your* intent. the moon isn't delivering a potion in a bottle — it's a timing amplifier 🌙 **timing locked because of circumstances?** do it when you can do it focused. a working done on a random tuesday with full presence beats a new moon working you rushed through exhausted 🙈 **closeted/shared space?** written intent on a piece of paper that you carry and then burn or bury later is a complete working. no visible tools required. your mind is the primary instrument --- **the thing about "working on a budget" is that budget practitioners often have *better* results** because they can't lean on the supplies as a crutch. you have to actually be *there*, present, doing the work. you can't outsource your intent to expensive tools 🌟 --- what are your go-to scrappy substitutions? the "i'm in a studio apartment with roommates and a $10 budget" spellwork solutions that actually work? drop them in the replies/reblogs because genuinely i think the collected folk wisdom in this community is invaluable and should be shared 🌙✨ --- *this is fuhnke — art, music, engineering, and a little witchcraft. no gatekeeping, no medical claims, no coercive love spells, ever.* #witchcraft #spellwork #witchblr #baby witch #eclectic witch #intent magic #sympathetic magic #budget witchcraft #closeted witch #apartment witch #secular witch #magic theory #witch tips #no gatekeeping #practical magic #fuhnke

[hibiscus-sweetie]

"get home safe" is a spell and i am casting it on all of you ✨

[cunningjoseph]

Blessed Be!

[cunningjoseph]

wait, can we talk about the fact that **bay laurel** has been quietly doing the most in your spice cabinet and most people walk right past her every single time they reach for the pasta? 🌿 --- **a small history before we get into it:** *Laurus nobilis.* she was sacred to Apollo. the Pythia at Delphi chewed her leaves before prophecy. Roman generals wore her crown. poets laureate — that's literally her name, still, in our mouths, right now. she didn't become a dusty pantry relic. she just got demoted, and she is *ready to be reinstated.* --- ⚠️ **two things before anything else:** **mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia) is not her.** Kalmia is toxic — don't eat it, don't burn it indoors, keep pets away. if you're buying bay at a grocery store or kitchen garden nursery you're almost certainly fine, but if you're wildcrafting or ordering from somewhere unfamiliar, check the latin. **pregnancy/nursing note:** culinary amounts (one leaf in your soup) are widely considered fine, but concentrated preparations are a different conversation. you know your situation. --- **the practice — called "leaf writing" in some folk magic contexts, and it's about as old as anything gets:** this is not complicated. it was never complicated. that's the whole point. take a bay leaf from your kitchen. hold it and **press your thumbnail into the surface** — not enough to break it, enough to score it. feel the oils come up. that smell? that's eucalyptol, linalool, a little camphor. that's also the smell of *pay attention now*, which is — functionally — what focus feels like when it arrives. here's the variation i don't see talked about enough: instead of writing on it immediately, **steep the leaf first.** a few hours in a small jar with olive oil (a kitchen staple, completely unsexy, perfect). the oil pulls out the aromatics. then write your word — or your question, or the name of what you're trying to understand — on the dry surface after it's come back out of the oil. the leaf is softer, more cooperative. use a toothpick or a fine pen. the writing is harder to read. that part is intentional. **to carry:** let the oil-infused leaf dry for a day on a piece of cloth. fold it into your wallet, your planner, wherever you keep the things you're actively working on. **to release:** burn it outdoors or with real ventilation. dried bay catches fast and smokes a lot — have your fireproof dish ready before you get started. use the remaining olive oil for cooking. this is not waste. this is the whole philosophy of hearth practice: nothing is only one thing. --- **the longer game:** bay laurel in a pot is one of those slow investments that pays off for *decades.* she's not fast. she is extremely loyal. a plant from a good herb nursery on a sunny windowsill will give you fresh leaves indefinitely — and fresh leaves are significantly more aromatic than dried, which matters both in the kitchen and in practice. but dried bay from the bulk section works. dried bay from the spice aisle works. this tradition grew up in regular homes, not apothecaries. --- there's something specific about the oil-steep variation that keeps catching me — the way it slows the whole working down. you have to wait. you have to come back to it. and that pause between intention and inscription is maybe the most honest part of the practice. anyway. she's been in your kitchen this whole time. 🌿 --- *[fuhnke](https://fuhnke.com/?utm_source=tumblr&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ebdf7076-d601-4ab1-abbd-e3483d767142&utm_content=922f9b06) — art, music, engineering, entrepreneurship, and witchcraft* #witchblr #bay laurel #kitchen witchcraft #laurus nobilis #hearth practice #herb magic #plant magic #folk magic #green witch #cottage witch #pagan #secular witchcraft #herb lore #greco roman paganism #the pause is the practice #she's been demoted and she's tired of it #oil steep method let's normalize this #the spice aisle is a temple

[cunningjoseph]

okay so the Ace of Cups. let's talk about it properly because it gets reduced to "new romance maybe?? 💕" and that is genuinely doing it a disservice. look at the classic RWS imagery for a second. you've got a chalice — big, ornate, held by a cloud hand because of COURSE it is — and five streams of water pouring out of it into a lotus-covered pool below. a dove descends with a communion wafer in its beak. there's a letter on the cup that scholars have been arguing about for like a century. it is PACKED with symbolism and most people just go "oh, Cups = feelings, Ace = beginning, so: new feelings. next." but the image is doing something more specific and kind of demanding, actually. the cup overflows. not because someone worked hard and filled it up. not because you did the inner work™ and unlocked your heart chakra or whatever. it overflows because that's just. what it does. the gift arrives before you've earned it. before you're ready. before you even asked for it. and the dove — okay the dove with the communion wafer is doing a lot of heavy lifting theologically. this is a card about grace. about spiritual sustenance descending from somewhere outside yourself. Waite and Smith were steeped in esoteric Christian symbolism and it shows, but you don't have to read it through that lens to feel what it's pointing at: something is being offered. something sacred. something that will nourish you. the question the Ace of Cups is actually asking is not "will you find love" but *are you in a condition to receive it.* and that is a MUCH harder question. because most of us have elaborate unconscious systems for deflecting good things. we get the compliment and immediately explain it away. the connection shows up and we decide it's probably not real, or not for us, or there's a catch. the creative inspiration arrives and we think we're not ready yet, we need to prepare more, we'll start when everything is settled. the Ace of Cups shows up and goes: the cup is already overflowing, babe. the streams are already running. the dove is already on its way down. where are YOUR hands? in readings I've seen this card show up for: - people on the edge of a relationship who are lowkey terrified to let themselves want it - artists at the beginning of a new project who can feel something but can't name it yet - people in grief who are starting to feel joy again and feel guilty about it - someone who is about to be genuinely moved by something and doesn't know how to handle that it's not a guarantee of anything external happening. it's an assessment of your interior weather. the gift is real. the overflow is real. the question is permeability. and sometimes the card comes up reversed or in a difficult position and it's asking: what is blocking the cup? what have you built over the opening? sometimes it's self-protection that made complete sense at some point and just… never got dismantled. anyway. the Ace of Cups. not just "love maybe." more like: *something is trying to fill you up. will you let it.* 🌊🕊️ — fuhnke 🌙 #tarot #ace of cups #tarot reading #cups suit #minor arcana #rider waite smith #tarot community #tarot talk #witchcraft #divination #tarot meanings #esoteric #the fool's journey #tarot deep dive #emotional openness #spiritual practice #occult tumblr #fuhnke #this card makes me feel things every single time #the dove with the wafer is doing SO much