Ten of Sticks

he/him ~ grey beard, skin of brown ~ craftsman witch ~ actual forest cottage

[tenofsticks]

Tis a momentous event, my ALL hand crafted witch/magician supply shop is open for business. I'm only selling evil eye amulets, but I have several other things in the works. Mostly just patting myself on the back here on my Tumblr blog, my Biz Witch aspect will operate in another realm.

Ten Sticks

Aggressively handmade crafts for your magic inspired by nature and antiquity.

[tenofsticks]

Perhaps not a curse or a spell in the strictest sense, but you can disrupt a foe in a very serious way if while in discourse you can make them feel anything they were not expecting to feel. Anything.

[tenofsticks]

I live on a rural property on the edge of a small village at the end of a street that has a suburbanites-on-vacation cottage vibe, past the point where the road turns to gravel. We're very private, very introverted in practice, and routinely turn away visitors who disruptively wish to cross through.

A vocal portion of the street reviles us in a way that I am surprised adults with lives can muster and cast us as anti-social and strange. I can say, the whole situation has done wonders in positively affirming my witch identity.

[tenofsticks]

I had a very strange experience in the grocery store parking lot when doing my weekly in-town shopping. As I was getting into my car after loading groceries a man asked me for gas money. I don't think this man was house-less. Or, at least not until recently. When I've lived in cities, I often found some time to sit with people on the street asking for money and such. This man did not fit the profile.

He was sitting in his car, which was old, but very clean. He wore a crisp clean white t-shirt, new and fresh looking flannel sleep pants. He almost looked freshly showered, but there was some snot hanging from his nose the whole time I talked to him. The interior of his car was clean and empty. People who live out of their car tend to have a lot of stuff in their cars.

I gave him what I had in my wallet, which was a single $5 bill. I lamented how hard it must be for him right now with gas prices being what they are with the times. He nodded in agreement and told me why the world is as bad as it is, "Take a one dollar bill, turn it around and find the pyramid on the back. Read the words below the pyramid. Look them up, and follow the rabbit." Then he offered to give me his number in case I knew of a place to stay for the night.

Now, I also have known a few Illuminati believers in passing, and well, I don't know, they never bothered with the ol' pyramid on the dollar bill secret sign. They were like 10 steps in the deep beyond that. And they would have never offered their number, because they wouldn't be sure if I might be "one of THEM". I think this guy had a fresh break. I suspect he maybe had an apartment, maybe a girlfriend and just snapped a couple days ago, and maybe "scrubbed" his person and car of trackers.

I went about my way, thinking if I could've done more. In my experience, with strangers with mental health issues in need, you can't really take a a bit of time and set up anybody for long term help. You'd have to get involved with them to a level that you just may not be prepared for, and with some risk to yourself. Unless you can take on that task, the best you can is have a kind interaction and give a bit of no-strings attached material aid. I hope he ends up in a safe place.

[tenofsticks]

Okay, it was a little pricey for a thrift store purchase for me, $20. But what a find.

[tenofsticks]

I don't unilaterally buy decorative stuff for my general living space, and this oil lamp base is not my partner's style, so I guess my altar room has a new addition. I've never been a fan of the grape motif, it always seemed generic to me, but this particular example changed my mind. Maybe I need to indulge in some Dionysian activities.

[tenofsticks]

I wasn't practicing in the 90's (much), but I was a spiritual explorer and an armchair occultist. I was talking to my young new-witch nephew who has been getting deeper into his craft, and it prompted me to reflect on what seems different to me now vs then. Note, this is not at all a admonishment of then and a rebuke of now, just observations, and only from what I understood back then.

I feel like there was less space between self-identified witches and other identifications aligned with the occult, like Thelemites, Chaotes, variations on Golden Dawn, folk-based, etc. And as information was harder to find and verify, the sense of what-was as far as it applies to tradition felt more, uh, plastic and dreamy.

Deity worship was definitely a thing, but there was less of a focus on individual gods and on pantheons and working with it on a whole. And paganism definitely including a lot more pantheistic flavor which made the community of ideas between traditions and pantheons more continuous.

One of the more commonalities of practitioners was a rebuke of Christianity specifically, as that was what many were trying to find refuge from in witchcraft. And while there may have been some what online witches identify as "New Age" elements, I would say it was mostly in the form of what I would've called Hippie or 20th century counter culture elements, which I would consider to be a bigger cultural body than "New Age".

[tenofsticks]

The results of a herb and plant gathering for a spell jar apothecary for my nephew. Got hemlock, hawthorn, foxglove, ivy, snapdragon, calendula, coriander, red clover, lemon verbena, peppermint, borage, fuchsia, oregano, comfrey, mallow, fennel, apple, feverfew, rosemary, pericon, epazote, fern, yarrow, sage. I may have missed one or two.

[tenofsticks]

Hey witches, just had this discussion. If the full moon is on the 31st, but is at 1:50 am, it's actually more accurate to make observations on the night of the 30th than on the night of the 31st.

Also, in my practice, this isn't Solomonic magic, just go out when the moon looks real big, that's good.

[witchofalbion]

It occurs to me that when I warded the house I did in fact forget to include the garden.

Which might explain the bindweed

[tenofsticks]

I can't know your magic, but I suspect that weeds are far more powerful than any witch.

[tenofsticks]

I'm a full grown man, gone no-contact with my parents. I left home on a greyhound bus at 16 due to general neglect after my mother, with the help of joining the Jehovah's Witnesses really did a number on our family.

She, now an elderly woman, has been reaching out recently. I've been thinking about communicating, just for humanitarian reasons. I mean, any woman having to deal with life, especially in the 1960's deserves some sympathy, but I ended up deciding against it.

Turns out that she's been reaching out because she's looking for a new place to live after absolutely poisoning my sister's household with her toxicity, and is trying to use the leverage of leaving and cutting out my sister to convert her to the JWs. This has always been her way, she uses religion as a cudgel and to keep at the center of attention, she loves citing Biblical passages supporting respect and submission to parents.

One of the central moments in my leaving home and the cult was standing up for myself when the Elders came to my house and tried to set me back in line by reading me scripture. As a teen in deep depression and turmoil I knew my needs were not being met with the religion and I argued with them. After denying them, my mother tried to do the same. And after I denied her, she threw that research bible straight at my head in anger. I laughed, the message was all right there.

I believe there's something bigger out there than a material existence, but I'll never trust a self proclaimed authority to tell me what it is. For me, personally, this is a very large part of me being a witch.

[tenofsticks]

First time with carving letters by hand. This was going so well, but later I decided to see if I could color the words with a flame char, and I burned the words off.

[hellenicgoddess]

Ancient Greek Coins With Octopuses 🐙

[tenofsticks]

My completed compost bins. They're overbuilt, but I had a lot of this sturdy reclaimed decking and I sure wasn't going to buy new materials, not in this economy! I started filling the first bin today and threw in a bit of yarrow to inaugurate it. Yarrow is supposed to be a compost activator, but really you need a lot for it to do its job, but I figured a little of its spirit wouldn't hurt.

[tenofsticks]

My young occult brain was kick started by so much fabrication and confabulation, Carlos Castaneda, The Golden Bough, the Necronomicon. The kind of stuff that could pass before it was easy to fact check. I don't think factuality is all that important in magic, and even maybe hindering to a point, but I like to keep at least one foot planted strongly in the mundane mostly for mundane functionality reasons.

I do miss those particular brands of wonder.

[varwlf]

Bluejays are underrated both as corvids and as spirit messengers.

[tenofsticks]

Agreed, with special props to scrub jays, if you're lucky enough to have them around. More like spirit gossips.

[memories-of-ancients]

Flask, Roman, 1st century AD

from The J. Paul Getty Museum