“PERFUME—the heady and elusive marriage of the essences of herbs and spices, wild grasses and flowers, bark and animal and tree—is an engine of the universe. From earliest times, people have taken pleasure in rubbing fragrant substances into their skin. Timeless and universal, scent has been a powerful force in ritual, medicine, myth, and conquest. Perfume has helped people to pray, to heal, to make love and war, to prepare for death, to create. To inspire, after all, is literally “to breathe in.””
— Essence and Alchemy: A Natural History of Perfume, Mandy Aftel
I've started keeping a little household book of anything I have to look up or anything my wife has to ask me (ex: how do I clean the TV without streaks or how often do I need to clean the dishwasher filter and how) to put into a more organized binder of basic household things that I am so used to looking up I haven't had to remember them.
I've decided to start doing the same for witchcraft related things. Any time I have to look something up in a book or even on my own blogs, I'll just write it down in this catch-everything-book and then eventually organize it into what will become the heirloom version of my grimoire.
If you are beginning on this path - or not, honestly, - just some posts I would suggest to start with. Gods know it is not the easiest to make sense of all that is on there. I am discussing some differences particular to my tradition and perspective here.
𓆙 Background &General theology
I Read the Book of Veles So You Don't Have To - the history of this disputed source, and a discussion of its contents and how they influenced modern Rodnovery traditions
Not a Candle for God, Nor A Fore-Poker For the Devil - the philosophy of evil and darkness in Slavic folklore
About Rozhanytsias, fate, and death
Slavic Paganism and Scythian Mythology
𓆙 The Gods
About Mokosh | St. Paraskeva Friday and Mokosh
About Khors
About Zoria as love goddess(es) | About the Zorias as a Triple Goddess (but not like that)
1) do this even if you're under 40. seriously. I definitely should have been doing something like this for years and I only turned 40 a month and a half ago
2) if you're like me just now trying this going "oh god i've only done 15 and i think my hands are cramping" start lower than 30 and increase by 5 once whatever number you're doing no longer makes your hand cramp up. I can manage about 15 per exercise at the moment.
This is a modern approximation to the average Anglo-Saxon’s hlaef (loaf)
“. . . the Anglo-Saxons held their own feast of the opening of the harvest upon 1 August, the hlaef-mass, or loaf mass, from which derived its Medieval English and Scottish name of Lammas. As such it appears regularly in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, explicitly (in 923) as the feast of first fruits. The same name and title are echoed in another early English text, the Red Book of Derby. It was clearly by then the custom to reap the first of the ripe cereals and bake them into bread which was consecrated in church upon that day: a book of Anglo-Saxon charms advised the division of this holy bread into four pieces and the crumbling of each one in the corner of a barn in order to make it a safe repository for the grain about to arrive there. The festival was also known in medieval times as the Gule of August, a term which has vexed linguists, who have only been able to suggest that it signifies the Yule of August, a period of rejoicing similar to that of December. The difficulty evaporates if it is simply an Anglicization of the Welsh gwyl meaning feast, the Welsh name for 1 August being gwyl aust, the feast of August. Certainly the arrival of the time when the first of the harvest could be gathered would have been a natural point of celebration in an agrarian society, and the importance of the first day of August was already so well established by 673 that the Archbishop Theodore of Tarsus decreed that the annual synod of the newly established church in England should be held then. It would seem very likely therefore, that a pre-Christian festival had existed among the Anglo-Saxons upon that date . . .”
—Ronald Hutton Stations of the Sun
This is my favorite part of the recipe for cooking the “bread” that an average Anglo-Saxon (aka a poor one) would have eaten: “each side will probably take as long as it takes to say nine or ten Lord’s Prayers. This is how they measured cooking time in the medieval period.”
The Lord’s Prayer in Old English (I do actually recognize some of the words!):
‘Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum: si þin nama gehalgod to becume þin rice. Gewurþe ðin willa on eorðan swa swa on heofonum. Urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg. And forgyf us ure gyltas swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum. And ne gelæd þu us on costnunge, ac alys us of yfele soþlice.’
I used 130 grams of all-purpose flour (not at all authentic but what I had) and added enough water to make a dough. Then kneaded it for 5 minutes and shaped it into two rounds.
“When the Anglo-Saxons were rich enough to own metal objects, they made brooches, not measuring spoons.”—The Early English Bread Project
I then went ahead and measured the time by chanting the Lord’s Prayer as mentioned above because this didn’t seem like simply a practical element to keep time, but you know, magic! Incantation! And since I planned on eating one of these to test it, and saving the other for Lammas rituals, the magic seemed like an essential ingredient.
Eight repetitions was plenty.
And I can’t help myself, a little syncretism with my Slavic Děduška blessing the bread for me.
Did I like this hlaef? No, I did not. I’m a spoiled lady of modern times, I guess. 🤷♀️
The Early English Bread Project said that traditionally the butter and cheese that would have been eaten with it was very salty which is why it was made without, but our modern butter and cheese probably didn’t make up for the lack. If I make it again to eat, and not just for ritual, I will probably add salt.
Do visit The Early English Bread Project for the types of flour thatwould have been used depending upon your degrees of poorness. And for such pithy comments as:
If you want to have an authentic stomach ache, you could add cockle, a troublesome weed that grew among the grain. Excavations in York showed that tenth-century bread had enough cockle to have given the eaters digestive discomfort.
… nimium gaudes hos manducare calentes! ‘You’re delighted to eat them when they’re hot!’ —scolding woman to King Alfred (Life of St. Neot ve
Next I made the leavened rich person version based on the recipe at the bottom of this post.
I cut the recipe in half as I knew no one else in the house would be interested in experimenting. I divided it into two loaves (hlaefs?). One to taste test and one for Lammas rituals.
Maybe I should have adjusted cooking times since I made smaller loaves. The outside was quite crusty.
This was much more to my refined tastes, however! 😜 I had it for second breakfast with butter and honey.
If anybody actually reads this and experiments, I’d love to hear your results/opinions.
This document provides a disclaimer for information contained on the website. It states that the information is intended as a general guide
In case anyone wants to make their own (very basic) magical ink but doesn't know how, here you go:
something for color: I grew up using pigeonweed berries (Phytolacca americana, poisonous) for this, but you can also use burnt bits of matchstick, charred wood, charcoal ash, burned herbs, and lots of other things that make it really easy to align your ink with a magical goal.
water or some kind of liquid: Different color sources have different moisture levels, so how much liquid will vary. It needs enough liquid to give it the desired ink-consistency. I use water or alcohol (if I want it to dry more quickly or extract more color). I have seen other people use liquified egg yolk with good results as well.
a binder: Something that acts as a thickener to keep all the ink color from just being suspended in the liquid and holds it together to make the color more even across writing. I have found gum arabic and arrowroot powder to be the most self stable, but I have also used honey for a single-use ink.
Grind up the color element. If you're working with a dry element (which I find to be the best option for the most pigment) you will want it to be as fine a powder as possible. Make sure to remove (or sift out) any seeds, clumps or large bits. Add the liquid element until it comes into the consistency you're looking for or slightly thinner. Add the binder and stir until well mixed. Adjust until consistency and color are where you want them to be.
Some inks work well with basic quills. Some work better with brushes. Experiment until you find what you like. It's not fancy, but that's a basic ink. These inks don't last forever. They should ideally be used within a month or so.
most folks who are sitting there thinking, "What should I put in my grimoire??" probably don't need a grimoire, they need a notebook. a binder. a journal.
this is my official and professional observation as a witch.
I would say yes, others might disagree, but I can't speak for them :')))
My post is less a commentary on what a grimoire is and more a commentary on doing the work of having a practice to document. You know what to put in your grimoire as you develop your path and as you see which things you go back to reference, as you create things you want to remember, as you make changes you think are worth noting.
Worrying about "what do I put in my grimoire??" before you have those things is silly. So don't worry about that. Just put things into notebooks or obsidian vaults or whatever works for you. Whatever things you want.
"Should I document my every ritual in my grimoire?" Put it in a notebook and see if it's useful to you.
"Should I include information on the astrological signs in my grimoire?" Put them in a notebook and see if they're useful to you. Do you go back and reference them ever or are they just pages in a book?
You'll put things in you eventually won't use anymore or like anymore or even completely disagree with. You'll add things that you'll reference a lot to your notebook. Over time you'll wish you had specific information in there and then you'll add it too.
Can the notebook become a grimoire? Sure. Don't worry about that. That's not the point. And should a time come that you want to take things out of your notebook(s) and put them into a fancy book or a new plain notebook, you'll go through your own material and know for yourself what goes in, it won't be me or anyone else out here telling you what you need.
It's also easy to fall into the trap of getting a special fancy book that you plan on using for your grimoire, but then it is so special and fancy that you become afraid of writing in it.
If this sounds like you, all the more reason to start with a cheap notebook. This will be your lab notebook as you experiment and get your hands dirty. Cross shit out, tear pages out, spill tea on it. It's fine. This is a rough draft.
Incidentally, as a writer I also cannot emphasize enough the importance of the rough draft. You are SLAPPING IDEAS ONTO THE PAGE BEFORE THEY ESCAPE, they don't need to be fully formed or good. That's for editing, which is a separate process. Don't let yourself get so hung up on potentially making mistakes that you fail to do anything at all.
Ritual axe decorated with skulls and crown motifs. It’s made from gilded bronze and rock crystal. Kham region. Derge, Tibet or China. 16th to 17th century AD. [1642x2100]
I took time to add a new page to the Red Book this morning. It's a simple sketch of a lake I saw in a dream last night, hidden away from the world and absolutely beautiful. I hope I can spend more time in some real world lakes soon ☀️
The Samhain Ultramarathon | 100 Days of Witchcraft
"Etheri, why are you talking about Samhain already? It's still Spring where you live..." shhh...
October 31st is my favorite day to be a witch! I find myself looking forward to it throughout various times of the year. So, this year, I decided to make a little "challenge" for myself in the days leading up to Samhain, and I wanted to invite others to participate ^.^
Starting July 23rd, I'd like to invite you all to join me for what I'm calling "The Samhain Ultramarathon!"
The challenge itself is to touch your Craft for 100 days in a row! Starting July 23rd, the task is to do something, anything, witchy each day, counting down to October 31st. Some days can be as simple as just updating your grimoire or lighting a stick of incense, while other days can be more elaborate spells or rituals. The ultimate goal is to touch your practice at least once a day, even for just one minute, for 100 consecutive days! It'll be like a spiritual marathon... hence the name :P
I'm sharing this now, over two months out, to give anyone who may want to participate time to coordinate! If you want to share your preparations and if you want to share your "marathon experience" once the challenge itself starts, please use the tag #TheSamhainUltramarthon !
still steeping @fur-teeth-bones-earth - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
