"Но ныне она полюбила зиму. Зима в «чащобе» была прекрасна — почти невыносимо прекрасна. Дни чистого сияния. Вечера, словно чаши очарования — чистейший вкус зимнего вина. Пылающие по ночам звезды. Холодные утонченные рассветы. Причудливые узоры на стеклах окон Голубого замка. Лунный свет, тлеющий серебром на стволах берез. Клочья туч ветреными вечерами — рваных, закрученных, изумительных туч. Великое безмолвие, строгое и пронзительное. Сверкающие, словно драгоценности, дикие холмы. Солнце, внезапно прорывающееся меж облаками над длинным белым Мистависом. Ледяные серые сумерки, тишину которых нарушал вой снежной бури, когда их уютная гостиная, освещенная языками пламени, с невозмутимыми котами, казалась еще уютней, чем обычно. Каждый час приносил открытия и чудеса."
A Discord server that I help to mod had basically a lab project this week to cleanse and update our wards, and I had been thinking it was about time I update them for the changes of the seasons anyway. Since I like to involve the Forgotten Ones in my ward system I don’t like to leave them up for too long, I don’t like to ask any one of them to dedicate too much time to protecting my and my meatspace home, so I rotate seasonally. And we’re just getting to time of September when grass is green and grain is yellow, when days are still warm but nights are cool, the perfect time for this. Below are the steps of the process that I’m comfortable sharing publicly, there are of course always parts of my practice that I don’t share publicly, as if every practitioner’s prerogative.
Step 1: Prep and Gather
I already knew basically what I wanted to do for this workshop. Take down the old net, clean space, put up a new net and door ward. Ward mirrors and closet doors. The plan was to make a witch’s ladder for the net portion and a witch ball for the door and get those built in advance, so that I would only have the wards down for the amount of time it took to clean.
I gathered all of my materials, which included a little jaunt to the park down the street to get fresh oak leaves and bark, and Sweet Gum seed balls (I wanted horse chestnuts, but the local park had these in abundance.)
Step 2: Witch’s Ladder
My autumnal witch’s ladder is replacing my summer time shell and driftwood mobile. It’s made of handspun brown thread of this lovely gradient brown and gold wool that I think was supposed to be for felting, but it worked for spinning too. I braided in feathers left over from another project, sweet gum seed pods, and at the very end a small oak twig, which I hope will dry as part of the ladder. The feathers represent both the Woman with the Mammoth Head, and the Voices on the Wind, two of my Forgotten Ones, who I’m invoking for protection with this ladder. The thread and the sweet gum seed pods are to catch incoming spirits and energies and hold them until they can be cleansed or processed. Then the oak at the bottom invokes both the Hunter and the Lady of the Ways, and has always had protection correspondences for me.
While braiding the ladder I established most of the inner workings of my wards, the whitelist, the blacklist, how unknown entities should be treated.
Step 3: Witch’s Ball
I decorated the outside of this Christmas ornament at a friends holiday party back in December and I had always planned to use it to make a witch ball, and I finally got around to it. Inside is a small scroll with a protective charm, tied with more handspun yarn, then the rest of the ball is packed with clary sage, rosemary, cinnamon, yarrow, lavender, ground up eggshells, and salt mixed with rusted iron. The thread used to hang it is also used in the witch’s ladder, tying this into the whole system established in the ladder, but with some door base specifics.
Step 4: Cleansing
Now that everything has been made I can cleanse. I started by just plain old cleaning my room, I find it hard to make a room energetically clean if it doesn’t meet a minimum of physical cleanliness as well as clutter and mess makes me anxious. So I cleaned up, put things away, dusted and swept ( swept from east to west, following the path of the sun, which I feel also sweeps energies pretty well). I also plan on windexing my windows and mirrors, but since part of the warding process involves anointing those with oil it doesn’t make sense to clean those beforehand, since I’ll only have to clean them again.
This is sort of a middle step between physical and spiritual cleaning. I make a floor wash with water, vinegar, lemon juice, and lavender, and I use it to mop my floors as part of this process whenever I clean. It provides a good base for the purely spiritual cleansing, like making my area into a non-stick pan, anything I am trying to remove is easier to get out if I’ve already washed with this mixture. It’s pretty good on stains and sticky spots too.
With a good physical basis I can work on the energy. I didn’t bother to take down my old wards, which I know isn’t necessarily best practice, but I've had next to no activity in this entire apartment, and I know that nothing is in here to be driven out. Unless you are positive that your cleansing and banishment is just a precaution do not do this, alway make a hole in your wards so that whatever you’re cleaning our banishing can actually get out. In my case this is all just maintenance.
I opted for smoke cleaning this time around with a mix of cedar needles, rosemary, and clary sage. I burned it a fire safe bowl and wafted the smoke into all corners singing one of my cleansing chants. I paid special attention to the bathroom mirrors, and both of the closets, since these can act so easily as portals of entry ways. In the next step I will be barring these from acting as spiritual portals, but right now I just wanted to make sure nothing is lingering around, and I have a good base. I
Step 5: Barring the Back Doors
I have a bathroom with two mirrors and two closets in my room, and I’m not planning to ward those as entrances, so I have to make sure they are impassable to spirits. I have a long standing anointing oil that I use for this. The base is olive oil, which I like to think of as a cheeky call to my ancestors, which they seem to appreciate because they are willing to help. I then mix in a yarrow infused oil I make, plus cypress, rosemary, oakmoss, and Irish moss essential oils. I used this oil to mark a binding and blocking sigil on the closet doors and both bathroom mirrors. Because part of the process is also making the area feel clean and fresh I then cleaned the doors and mirrors so the oil didn’t stain or leave smudges.
Step 6: Hanging the Wards
With everything ready and cleaned I’m ready to swap my wards. I took down my summer ward, which invoked the Salt Gatherer and the Stone Cutter, now they can rest until next summer when that net will go back up. I replaced it with my new ladder and invoked the Woman with the Mammoth Head and the Voices on the Wind, beseeched their help with protecting my space and my home. I made offerings to them and said the prayer that I’ve been working on for the changing of my wards with the seasons. I then repeated the process when I hung the witch ball on the doorknob. (The pictures above are of the ladder and the ball in their final locations) I had some extra oak twigs with the leaves still on, so I put those on the windows for a little extra coverage.
Myrtle Beach sand, teeny unicorn horn shells, needles from this year's Christmas tree, dried rose petals, dried thistle, a bay leaf, a stick of cinnamon, a pearl, cloves, dried rosemary sprig, dried orange peel, pink sea salt, sage essential oil, a small mussel shell, rose quartz chips, quartz chips, pine cone chips, ginko leaf
"Oh, I swim pretty boy- pretty babe- Pretty Badly! I'll definitely need you to hold me the whole time I'm in the water💕"
So, humans don't like demons... So if you were in a monster boy band, even though most humans think you're in costume, you don't want to come off threatening.
Instead it would be better to present yourself as something fantastical yet powerless like a merperson
