Jars & Bones

[leehallfae]

@/billypotts // unknown // azra t. @/5000letters // luciano ventrone // kate bush // sara ghedina on flickr // hayley heynderickx // pinterest // louise glück // victor hugot

[shirsack]

Late sharing of this year's batch of ornaments. Many of these have already been claimed. Hit my insta @s.hirsack to check for availability and/or order something custom.

[samwisethewitch]

It’s okay if you don’t feel like doing a big ritual for Samhain this year. 

It’s okay if you don’t feel like celebrating Samhain at all.

It’s okay if a holiday that, among other things, involves meditating on and embracing the reality of death would not be healthy for you right now, given that many of us have lost loved ones due to a global pandemic.

It’s okay if you need to scale back your Samhain celebration to something simpler, less traditional, or less “witchy.” I know that, personally, I’ll be doing a much more lowkey ritual this year.

It’s okay if you need to pivot to a secular Halloween celebration instead. Celebrating the time we have with our loved ones in this life is very much a part of Samhain, and if that means marathoning spooky movies and eating candy with some friends, that’s a totally valid celebration of this holiday.

It’s okay if you don’t feel like celebrating at all. It’s okay if you need a break. It’s okay to take care of yourself rather than reopening recent wounds of grief and loss. 

[peatbogbodyhasmoved]

“I very proudly entered the forestry school as an 18-year-old and telling them that the reason that I wanted to study botany was because I wanted to know why asters and goldenrod looked so beautiful together. These are these amazing displays of this bright, chrome yellow and deep purple of New England aster, and they look stunning together. And the two plants so often intermingle rather than living apart from one another, and I wanted to know why that was. I thought that surely in the order and the harmony of the universe, there would be an explanation for why they looked so beautiful together. And I was told that that was not science, that if I was interested in beauty, I should go to art school. Which was really demoralizing as a freshman, but I came to understand that question wasn’t going to be answered by science, that science, as a way of knowing, explicitly sets aside our emotions, our aesthetic reactions to things. We have to analyze them as if they were just pure material, and not matter and spirit together. And, yes, as it turns out, there’s a very good biophysical explanation for why those plants grow together, so it’s a matter of aesthetics and it’s a matter of ecology. Those complimentary colors of purple and gold together, being opposites on the color wheel, they’re so vivid, they actually attract far more pollinators than if those two grew apart from one another. So each of those plants benefits by combining its beauty with the beauty of the other. And that’s a question that science can address, certainly, as well as artists. And I just think that “Why is the world so beautiful?” is a question that we all ought to be embracing.”

— Robin Wall Kimmerer, “The Intelligence of Plants”, from the podcast On Being with Krista Tippett

[breelandwalker]

Secular Celebrations - Autumnal Equinox

From there, we move into the fall and come to the Autumnal Equinox and my favorite time of year. September brings the second harvest - more fruit, lots of gourds, and the rest of those autumn vegetables. Of course, there are some plants that will continue on well into the winter, but this is when most of the produce comes off the vine, and we begin storing them up for the colder months. The year begins to slide more noticeably toward winter, the leaves start to turn, and when the equinox comes, the day and night are equal once again.

This is a time for restoring balance. If things are feeling off in your home or in your life, take steps to restore that equilibrium and re-establish your routines. Cleanse your home of any lingering “summer grump” and make sure you air the place out once the weather isn’t so blazingly hot. I mean, who doesn’t love a bit of fresh autumn air in the house, especially when it has that little tinge of burning leaves to it? Mm, chef kiss, perfection. I mean, in 2020, we’re all sick of that because of the wildfires, but STILL. Do that end-of-summer cleanout, get ready for back-to-school if you have little ones, and start changing out your wardrobe.

There’s still time for a bit of last-blast outdoor fun, if you’re so inclined. Provided that the weather cooperates, you might plan one more beach day or camping trip or afternoon at the lake. Visit a farmer’s market or a harvest festival and have some fun. Visit that pick-your-own-produce farm again and bring from some seasonal fruits and veggies. I love apple-picking at this time of year, and it’s probably the thing I miss most about living in Pennsylvania. (Also, Stayman Winesaps are the tastiest apples on earth, and nothing you can say will change my mind.)

Go on a walk or a drive to view the changing leaves. Oh, and mark the day you first see leaves starting to turn. That’s a fun thing I do every year, I call it Turning Day. If there are maple trees in your area, those will probably be the ones that change first, so look for those. You can use fall foliage, acorns, and gourds to start decorating your home - real or silk, whatever works best for you.

This is another big holiday for bonfires as well - honestly, bonfires are pretty much part of ALL the holidays, they’re just fun - so if you can attend one or have one safely, that’s something to consider. Or maybe just have one more picnic or cookout before the weather turns too chilly for it to be feasible. Have a fall feast for your near-and-dear with lots of lovely seasonal produce and pies, maybe a roast fowl or brisket or fish, whatever you like best.

Speaking of food, this is my baking season. It’s finally cool enough to have the oven going without suffocating myself in the heat or running up a four-figure energy bill trying to keep the indoor temperature manageable. So if you’re a fan of baking, why not give that a try? There are plenty of recipes to choose from, like soda bread, pumpkin bread, spice cake, maple cookies, and so on.

Keep that sense of community going by making a little bit extra and sharing it with friends and neighbors. Some people do their autumn feasting around the equinox instead of in November, when Americans celebrate Thanksgiving. There is a holiday in September called Harvest Home that directly corresponds to this, so if you’d rather skip Thanksgiving but you still want to feast, that’s something to look into.

Start stocking your shelves for the winter too. Put up pickles and preserves. Refresh your canned goods and non-perishables, maybe save a few bottles of whatever libations you made earlier in the year. If you have kids, celebrate the idea of this gathering-in with a scavenger hunt. Have them help you find signs of autumn or needful items for the pantry.

As the year turns and the harvest comes in, meditate upon your own personal harvest. This might be a journaling activity. You’ve sown, you’ve tended, you’ve reaped. Now what is your harvest? What have you learned from the year? What abundance has entered your life? What have you lost? What surprised you? What didn’t go quite as you planned? What are you thankful for? What do you regret?

Meditate also upon the balance in your life. Do things FEEL balanced? Or are they out of whack? If so, how can you address this? Do you feel you need to change things, or is it more prudent to let them reach equilibrium on their own? What outside factors are affecting that balance, and what can you reasonably affect on your own?

- from Hex Positive, Ep. 011 - Secular Celebrations (Dec. 01, 2020)

[cerrtifiedcowboy-deactivated202]

Mabon - a day to give thanks to nature or Mother Earth for a good harvest and to pray to their gods and goddesses that the crop would last throughout the winter.

[leannan-sithe]

An old friend of mine respected me enough to be blunt with me when I was new to spirit work and worried about being haunted or getting cursed etc.

She said, "What makes you think you're important enough to be haunted? What makes you think your house is important enough to be haunted? Why would you get cursed? Have you done anything to incite a haunting or cursing?"

The answer obviously was no.

I'm an average person. I don't have many enemies who would think to curse me.

I live in the suburbs in a 50-odd year old home. Things have grown and died on the property but none that would clearly warrant it being spooky.

I've never experienced bumps in the night that weren't just my dogs or the consequences of my own stupidity.

So why did I think I could be haunted or cursed?

Because the media and internet used scare tactics to make me fear these things. Remember, sharks kill less people than deer, because people are around deer more. Don't believe overblown fearmongering when you haven't had the slightest shred of evidence that something wants to hurt you, or that something is even near you at all.

[thewindowofthesummerhouse]

[wolverinesorcery]

A Cornish protection charm -

To be drawn onto paper with the written addition of “Whosoever bareth this sign need fear no foe. So shall it be!”, folded and presented into a square bag made of velvet or felt & held with a cross of thread (or otherwise contained). Carry in a pocket or bag for protection.

No other materials are required unless the charmer wants them, originally noted from The Black Toad by Gemma Gary

[nepherious-deactivated20240331]

Misinformation and Critical Thinking as a Witch

I am pretty sure that many of us are quite familiar with the amount of misinformation that gets its way around witchy spaces. I know I've fallen for misinformation several times, notably those darn correspondence lists, and I'll probably fall for it again. And honestly, I think constantly yelling "use critical thinking skills!" is all well and good, but if you've been in the American public school system or in an evangelical sect of Christianity (or both), you know that isn't taught to us in any meaningful way. What the hell does critical thinking even look like?

So, I have something that might be able to help. This can also lead you to help research things for yourself in regards to paganism or witchcraft (or both), determine your own personal beliefs and more fully find what craft is meant for you, without just taking a bunch of books at their absolute face value. I find it really helps with my anxiety over not being able to really articulate what I'm saying about a thing - because I more fully understand WHY I believe the things I do, I have less trouble handling discussing it in a critical manner.

There's a few key things to keep in mind when reading a text, witchy, pagan or otherwise. Now, a lack of answer for one of these things doesn't inherently make them "invalid", but it does give you something you can dig into further to make that choice for yourself. As a witch, that is kind of your job - your power is your own, and you really should be making your own decisions on things. So, when you're reading a book, you can take a pause and consider:

What is the author discussing, and what is their conclusion? If a witchy author is talking about The Burning Times, what statement are they making about it? Do they believe this was an actual historical event? You'll usually know very quickly because in my personal experience, anyone who doesn't believe in the Burning Times (myself included), are very passionate about how we feel about this particular bit of misinformation.

What reasons do they have for making this conclusion? You can consider what the overall narrative is. For instance, if the author is vehemently against the story of the Burning Times as historical fact, their reasoning might be that they are a historian working against misinformation. The author may be arguing against the overarching issues of whitewashing within neopagan circles. If the author is making a statement in regards to the Burning Times being true, perhaps their reasoning is to invoke a narrative of continual, ancestral oppression against one singular unbroken group. You may need to real the whole of the book to really get an idea as to what the author is writing all of this "for".

What assumptions are they making in coming to this conclusion? Assumptions are things that we understand to be just kind of universally true, and there is kind of a problem with this in a lot of witchy circles. For instance, there is a problem within the pagan community of making the assumption that because their experience with organized religion was Christianity, the things that took place within their sect of Christianity are true for not only all sects, but other monotheistic religions as well. Conversely, there is the assumption that the "rule of three" is universal, when it is not the absolute law of the universe and is a specifically Wiccan thing. And even then that's debatable, but there are witches out there with a better understanding of that than I do and we're not here for that argument. The point is, it's important to know what is fact, and what is assumed.

Are there any informal logical fallacies present? Thiiiis is a big one, because there are a lot of ways of presenting an argument that tricks you into thinking the point being made is legit, but it really doesn't do anything to present concrete evidence towards the argument being actually true. This is your ad hominem attacks, your strawman arguments, your slippery slopes and false dichotomies. There's a lot to be on the lookout for here's a good link to a basic kind of rundown of several: https://thebestschools.org/magazine/15-logical-fallacies-know/

How true is the evidence presented, if at all? This is very important. There is such a thing as UPG, which stands for unverified personal gnosis - it is your own personal experience in regards to your own singular interaction with a spirit or deity of some variety. This happens in witchy spaces all the time, but it's important to understand that UPG is not evidence. It should not be presented as fact or evidence, and it should not be taken as absolute fact or evidence. You can subscribe to UPG all you like, just understand that it is UPG. Back to our Burning Times example, actual concrete evidence would be in the form of primary sources from the time, secondary sources, historical analysis by experts in that particular field of study, etc., and it must match the actual claim being made. Yeah, there were witch hunts, that's true. But the narrative of the Burning Times as a continuous thing that specifically targeted "real" pagans and witches is not backed up by evidence.

Every author is a human being. Human beings have biases, have their reasons for doing things a certain way, their own rituals and beliefs and faiths. You can't always trust that someone is writing something with your best interests at heart, or that they themselves aren't stuck in thought processes that they've been manipulated into. Some of the best recruiters are the True Believers, after all, but that doesn't mean what they say is infallible. Witchiness, pagan-ness, spirituality and enlightenment do not make a person any less human.

[lailoken]

River Basalt Hagstone

A Fey Gift of the Bone Mother

As some may remember, I undertook an very powerful piece of magic a while back, which called upon the Wilding Lord of the Forests, Fields, and Fens, and which ultimately led to the gifting of a Milky Quartz Hagstone from our river. Using this crystalline Fey Stone, I crafted a devotional link to the Horned Master using beads of Hawthorn, Bog Oak, and Blackthorn, tied off with a token of hand-carved Elk antler.

Not too long ago, I undertook another highly potent rite, which called upon the Bone Mother: Mistress of the Depths, Minder of the Dead, and Mother of the Damned. It was an extremely powerful work of magic—simultaneously overseen by the Nameless Dead, and by Fly, Crow, Deer, Heifer, Mare, and Moth—and it enjoined the aid of the Witching Queen herself. While I wish I could share more about the rite here, and about the things I learned in the working of it, I have been given leave (as of Grantingmas) to share this piece of the larger rite. What’s more, I have also been given leave to reveal more about certain rites, such as this one, in the Grimoire I am writing.

Following the central act of Spiritual Congress, I was directed to make my way to the river that sustains our land—this time, with the explicit knowledge that a black stone was to be found. Having spent a while searching around the same area of the river, in which, I had previous found the Quartz Stone, I let my intuition lead me further down the wending track of the water, keeping my eyes cast down upon the water’s face all the while, letting the current guide me into a gentle trance. After walking like that for what must have been about an hour, but felt as if it could have been far more, a dark cluster beneath a small rapid caught my gaze. When I inspected, I found a small cache of darker stones that seemed to have been trapped by the current within a particular dip in the rocks. Among them, my hands found this specimen, which sent chills up my arms.

While I’m not 100% certain of the hagstone’s mineral identity, several different books on mineral identification have led me to believe that it is a form of basalt, speckled with pale fossil impactions (which, of course, lends itself perfectly to the nature of the Spectral Dame.) It is an extremely humbling gift, and I am beyond deferential to be granted such an token by the River, on behalf of the Pallid Mother.

I suffumigated it using a specialized blend of Chthonian Herbs and then hung it from the limb of a young Yew tree, surrounded by plants whose roots enshrine the remains of beloved animal companions. It remained there from Dark Moon to Full Moon, before I retrieved it and and then hung it from the wizened limb of an Elder that overlooks our Gloaming Shrine from Dark Moon to Full Moon. Thereafter, I used it to create this Talismanic link to the Bone Mother and the spirit realm. It contains 13 bone beads, which include six beads made from Prehistoric Horse Bone, six beads made from Prehistoric Deer Bone, and one bead made from Antique Whale Bone that my mother inherited and then passed down to me. The end-piece is a token of 6,000 year old Bog Yew, carved with a triskelion, and glazed with a varnish made from Storax and Sandarac.

[childofthecrowmoon]

Summer solstice honey cakes ☀️🌻

Happy summer solstice! Here’s a recipe to honour the day:

(Makes about 30 cupcakes or 2 big cakes)

Ingredients:

Cake:

450g plain flour

225g butter

4 tbsp honey

150g sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp salt

4 eggs

250 ml milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

Icing:

150g icing sugar

20 ml water

1 tsp cinnamon

As much honey as you want

Lavender (optional)

1. Lay out cake cases or grease your tray if you are making one big cake and preheat your oven to 180C/350F

2. Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt together

3. Add the eggs, honey, butter, milk and vanilla extract and mix until smooth

4. Put the mixture into whatever you are baking it in

5. Bake for 20mins (cupcakes) or 40mins (big cake)

6. Whilst cakes are baking prepare your icing. Mix together the icing sugar, water, cinnamon and honey until smooth. Add more water if you need to.

7. Once the cakes are done, take them out and leave to cool

8. When the cakes are cool, drizzle the icing onto them. Add lavender if you wish

9. Eat!

[theoppositeofadults]

[mevima]

Translation: The cycle of life of the tomato, the blueberry, the blackberry, and the strawberry…

[satsuti]

”Today most of us must strike up these deals with spirits on our own and many of us do a poor job at maintaining ourselves. In our eagerness to touch the divine and make contact with the world beyond the hedge we often allow ourselves to become a feast for spirits more powerful or more numerous than we can really support and end up dried up or cracked, like a leather cauldron exposed to fire with no water in it. It is the 'moisture' of the fat or vital force that stops the vessel going up in flames when the divine fire touches it.

When one no longer has the vital force to reciprocate with those powers, when one forgets that the body is the alembic of transformation, the temple in which human and daimon meet, as well as the sacrificial pit and the sacrificial flame, and does not treat it as such, it is seldom long before the body and fleshly brain are no longer able to sustain the touch of the fire.”

- A Deed Without A Name, Lee Morgan

[grubarchived]

[bella-enchanted]

thewitchoftheforest ~ Instagram

[shirsack]

It started out as thought-mapping in my journal, then it turned into this whole idea for a thing. Considering this a practice run, as I want to condense the amount of text and change some other visual elements.