Magick and Mayhem

A blog about the occult, chaos magick, and other weird shit that I feel compelled to write about.

[magickandmayhem]

Fuck Cancer Awareness Posts

So I see that the “cancer awareness” and “only brave people will repost this bs about cancer” posts making the rounds and I have some shit to say about that. You aren’t helping anyone. Everyone is aware that cancer exists. You’re only patting yourself on the back in front of an online audience. If you want to help people with cancer, try actually doing something. For instance:

Use Charity Navigator to find a highly rated charity to donate to. Here’s their list of charities that get a perfect score: https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=2203 anything 4 stars and above is good though.

Donate to ExtraLife, Children’s Miracle Network, Ronald McDonald House, St. Jude’s

Use smile.amazon.com so that a part of your purchase goes to a charity of your choosing. I donate to Gift of Life Transplant House because they helped mom so much.

Donate Blood: https://www.redcross.org/give-blood.html I’m donating on January 21st at the Webster Community Center

Become a Bone Marrow Donor: https://bethematch.org/

Register to be an organ donor: https://www.organdonor.gov/

Get vaccinated for HPV. Gardisil vaccinates against the strains of HPV that cause 80% of cervical cancer. According to the CDC, roughly 13,000 people are diagnosed with cervical cancer every year in the US.

Stop smoking. According to the CDC, secondhand smoking causes more than 7,000 deaths a year from lung cancer (34,000 deaths a year from heart disease).

Get cancer screenings, encourage loved ones to get screened. No one likes mammograms, pap smears, testicular exams, prostate exams, etc, but they save lives.

If you have breasts or testicles learn what they should feel like and look like. If you’re not sure, ask your doctor how to do a self-exam. Make sure your teens know too. Don’t trust Health Class to keep them informed and safe.

Donate hair. It can be tricky to find a charity that doesn’t profit off of hair donations, so research first. 

Donate books, toys, magazines, etc to your nearest oncology ward.

Donate and share GoFundMe campaigns

Vote for people that support banning carcinogens. Pesticides and asbestos cause cancer. Asbestos killed 237,000 people in 2017 according to Asbestos.com

But whatever you do, don’t post your bra color, the place you keep your purse, or how brave you are. The brave ones are the people that are getting their chemo or their radiation, hoping it works, hoping they live through it.

[edric-unsane]

General Etiquette for Working with the Dead

These are some of the guidelines I follow when working with the dead:

When entering a graveyard, be sure to greet and leave something for the guardian of the graveyard.

Never walk on the graves of the deceased.

Never take anything out of the graveyard without permission of the guardian or a specific grave’s resident.

Never take items people have left for their loved ones off the graves.

Only gather graveyard dirt from the perimeter of the graveyard, never from the graves themselves.

Upon leaving the graveyard, say farewell to the dead you encountered, and the guardian.

Never force the dead to work for you, if they are unwilling or unable to aid you try again later or try another spirit.

Be mindful of the dead’s beliefs in life, not all will be friendly to those who practice magic.

Give the dead the same respect and thought that you yourself would wish to be given.

Obey your local laws and ordinances regarding the dead and graveyards/burial sites.

[magickandmayhem]

Making some divination incense

[magickandmayhem]

Getting my travel altars finished for the contest we're holding in Twin Ports Pagans tomorrow.

[magickandmayhem]

First Episode of a Magic/Occult Podcast Out Today!

@edric-unsane and I just released the first episode of our podcast The Hard Road today. Check it out and let us know how we did! It’s available on Pocket Casts, as an RSS, and soon on iTunes. Episodes every Wednesday.

 http://www.podcasts.com/the-hard-road-7627799b4 https://pca.st/CKxd

[edric-unsane]

Alright folks, I’ll be doing free readings again with the Forty Servants for the next couple hours.

PM me if interested; first come first serve.

[magickandmayhem]

Can confirm, Mr. Unsane is pretty damn good at reading the cards. Hit him up!

[magickandmayhem]

My Brain Gets the Evening Off

I got The Contemplator as my card to concentrate on for the day. It’s kinda all about taking a mental break from a problem and coming back later with a fresh perspective. Since a good part of my day was spent debating philosophy with my therapist and working on chapter outlines for the book I’m supposed to be developing, I took the contemplator’s advice and took the evening off. 

My partner and I made chocolate chip muffins and now I’m playing video games and watching twitch. I’m playing modded Minecraft. FoolCraft 2 specifically. I’m breeding chickens to get diamonds and trying to find an infinity cow. Modded Minecraft is just pure crazy. I love it. I’m just over here savoring a low-stress evening.

[magickandmayhem]

stardustandwitchery replied to your post “My Therapist Teaches Magick and She Doesn’t Even Know It”

I had a similar thought today. A lot of the mindfulness and visualisations I've been taught in therapy remind me a lot of magickal practices, energy work, etc.

Yeah, I’m apart of DBT therapy group and the majority of it is relevant to magick!

[magickandmayhem]

My Therapist Teaches Magick and She Doesn’t Even Know It

When I think about the way my therapist encourages me to think and the exercises she has me try, I think of the Mitch Hedberg joke where he said that his mail man was a drug dealer and didn’t even know it. Because my therapist basically just has me practice magick but calls it by different names. She’s had me charge items with a certain feeling and then discard them, she’s challenged me to look for things that work instead of getting wrapped up in the mechanics of it all, and she’s encouraged me to see the world as a spectrum and not a duality. All of these things are all already really important to my magick. My therapist has just helped me expand it all to the entirety of my life. Which I thought I had done previously, but I was very mistaken. Oops. But now I’m working on it.

Currently, she has me working on a very very rough draft of a table of contents for a book I’d some day like to write. I’d never really gotten a solid start on it up to recently because I just didn’t feel like I had much to say. And I didn’t know where to start for that matter. Forcing myself to sit down and write chapter titles, though, I’ve realized I have a lot to say. I want to write a book about magick for those that have suffered and understand intimately the feeling of living in desperation because I think magick to us is different. I think we can use magick to help ourselves take steps forward in the terrible situations some of us face. I’m not saying that I can conquer trauma and poverty with magick. I’m saying I found magick because of those things and it’s helped keep me alive. It’s the tool that’s there when nothing else is. It’s the part of my life where I always feel capable. I want to talk about all of that. And I want to talk about the potential pitfalls in the current magic communities for us desperate bunch. And I want to talk about the strength of people that live a life where they fight against something every day. And I want to talk about magick because I fucking love it.

[magickandmayhem]

Change Is Stressful

We got a call back on an apartment we’re interested in renting. It’s a nicer neighborhood, a small building with bigger apartments, and it was a place we’d never thought we’d get a call back on because there’s always a huge waiting list. We’re waiting to hear back about seeing the place and asking all the important questions. There are a bazillion little things that would mean we’d have to turn it down. I’m excited and stressed about it all at once. Even more stressed that we didn’t get a return call to set up a showing right away.

I decided that I should probably reach for The Servants to help out. I did a reading and everything looks like it’ll turn out well, though it’s going to be tough. I’m down with that for sure. So, I’m planning on calling on The Contemplator and The Witch as needed this week so stress and worry don’t keep me from getting anything done. 

I’ve also been looking into astrology lately, mostly because it’s never interested me very much and I’ve always dismissed it, but I feel like if I understand the whole system a bit better maybe I won’t be so quick to call all of it bullshit. Just the newspaper horoscopes. They’re always solidly bullshit. A friend recommended astro.com to get started and a few books.

[magickandmayhem]

Makin’ Jelly

I got The Dead and The Master in my cards, so I decided today to make jelly from frost grapes picked from my home town. I’d watched my grandmother make grape jelly when I was a kid, but I’d never actually done it myself. At the end of the day, I had a whole quart of jelly, enough leftover juice to make syrup for a french toast dinner, and completely purple hands and counters. I’m counting that as a win. If that fucking jelly doesn’t set up I’m gonna cry. I don’t know why I’m so worried though, I’ve made jam before and never had a problem. I’ve already agreed to make another batch or 3 actually. And I’ve agreed to make some wild plum jelly and syrup too. It might be a very busy week for me. 

[magickandmayhem]

A Day of Divination

My local witchcraft related group met up today to do some divination and my makeshift Servants deck did some work. I was a little worried that it would be hard to read them for others, but it was as clear as ever. I also got to have a really long discussion about numbers and their meanings and different styles of reading. I also got to see someone do a reading with a system they made from scratch for themselves and it was so inspiring. I was fascinated and I really want to take a shot at making my own divination system. Especially since I’ve seen so many people doing exactly that and being very successful. I’m definitely a big fan of using The Servants as an oracle deck, for instance. I think Tommie Kelly did an astounding job at making a system. I’ve kinda stuck to tarot and things very similar, or at the very least made by others. Everything else I do is kinda hodge-podge and of my own making (typically) so it seems like a good time to do that with divination.

[magickandmayhem]

The Final Day of the Novena

The 9 days are up and tonight we’re making an offering to The Chaste. Each night of the 9 days we added a word that helped build on what success would look like, and 1 penny to represent the slow build towards success. What started as an insignificant cent is now nearly a dime. The idea is that change takes small steps and time. Since I feel that the novena was a successful start on the path to healthy choices for my friend, we’re making offerings to conclude it.

My offering is this: a public, whole hearted thank you to The Chaste. Thank you for reinforcing feelings of dedication, discipline, and confidence. Thank you for paving the way for the first few crucial steps on a much longer journey.

[magickandmayhem]

The Healing Powers of Nachos

I missed posting yesterday because I was feeling under the weather and I’d gotten The Healer servant 2 days in a row and decided that meant an evening off with my partner was in order. We binge watched some Bleach and ate nachos and it was awesome. 

Drawing The Healer reminded me of something else awesome that I haven’t mentioned here yet. 23andMe is doing a study on depression and bipolar. If you agree to give them access to your genetic data for their study and do some questionnaires each month for 9 months you get some of their services for free. according to their fact sheet about it, you will “... receive over 70 personalized genetic reports online about your health, ancestry, and traits.” As far as I can tell, it looks like that would usually cost about $200. Regardless, though, I think the more research into mental health the better. The way I see it, even if I feel like, at the end of the 9 months of questionnaires, that it wasn’t worth the time, at least I contributed towards research. I think that this is a really neat way of getting genetic data from a large number of people who suffer from major depression or bipolar.

Also, the insight for ancestor related magic could be pretty sweet.

Link:

23andMe Study FAQ Sheet

[magickandmayhem]

Data Collection with The Servants

I started drawing cards from The Servants deck 8 days ago now and when I started that I also started keeping a Google Form that I fill out every day so I can keep track of which Servants show up often and which ones never appear. 8 days isn’t a lot of data to go off of but I’m looking forward to seeing the breakdown after the month is up. I know that The Guru and The Master have shown up a few times and have been very helpful.

When this month is up I think I might apply the same strategy and do a standard deck tarot reading each day and track it too. Especially since I have a deck I want to get more used to working with. I occasionally like to tackle my magick as a science experiment or data collection because it gives me direction when I want to tweak something. Right now I’m tracking servants so I can better understand when each of them works best. But also for the insight into what is and is not appearing as I mentioned earlier. I also want to check at the end of the month to see if certain Servants are appearing more frequently together. It could be an indication of how they’ll best work for me, or maybe just an indication of who they play best with.

[angelsblooming]

Reblog if you’re a witch 🔮🌏☀️🎃🌲🍁🌝✨🌈 I’ll follow!

(Reboots only!!) I want to follow as many witch blogs as possible!! A follow to me would be great as well!

[magickandmayhem]

Pride Day

My city held its annual Pride Festival this weekend. I went to join in on the fun and music for a while and picked up a rainbow flag to put on my altar. It got me thinking about being a young girl, slowly realizing that I was bisexual, and why witchcraft became so important to the person I became. It all started with a goddess. I know there are a number of gods and goddesses from many traditions that fit into the LGBTQIA+ family. The one that was important to little me was Artemis. She was important because she looked out for young girls. She was important because, to me, she represented body sovereignty and the right to define myself for myself. With her protection, Atalanta hunted the Calydonian Boar and became an Argonaut (in some myths). Artemis has always been a reminder that being a woman does mean I can’t choose to be a hunter. To me, she’s a reminder that women don’t have to be prey. So, a toast to Artemis, the protector that helps young girls find their way.