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@thedivine-doll
Meet the Witch
Hello! Thought I would introduce myself! ・。・゜✭・・✫・゜・。 Name: Astra Age: 33 Practicing: 10 years Path: LHP, work with deities and researching beginning to work with the infernal divine. Slowly delved into catholic folkism and working with Santa Muerte. Favorite part of my practice: Crystals and Tarot Fun fact: I have a cat named Hera
2024 Witch's Calendar
January
11th: New Moon
25th: Full Moon (Cold Moon)
February
2nd: Imbolc
9th: New Moon
24th: Full Moon (Quickening Moon)
March
10th: New Moon
19th: Ostara / Spring Equinox
25th: Full Moon (Storm Moon) / Lunar Eclipse
April
1st: Mercury Retrograde
8th: New Moon / Solar Eclipse
22nd: Earth Day
23rd: Full Moon (Wind Moon)
25th: Mercury Direct
May
1st: Beltane/May Day
7th: New Moon
23rd: Full Moon (Flower Moon)
June
6th: New Moon
20th: Litha / Summer Solstice
21st: Full Moon (Strong Sun Moon)
July
2nd: New Moon
21st: Full Moon (Blessing Moon)
August
1st: Lammas/Lughnasadh
4th: New Moon
5th: Mercury Retrograde
19th: Full Moon (Corn Moon)
28th: Mercury Direct
September
2nd: New Moon
17th: Full Moon (Harvest Moon) / Lunar Eclipse
22nd: Mabon / Fall Equinox
October
2nd: New Moon / Solar Eclipse
17th: Full Moon (Blood Moon)
31st: Samhain
November
1st: New Moon
15th: Full Moon (Mourning Moon)
25th: Mercury Retrograde
December
1st: New Moon
15th: Full Moon (Long Nights Moon) / Mercury Direct
21st: Yule / Winter Solstice
30th: New Moon
Wanna get rid of gossip and it be low energy?
“Dust your shoulders off”
It’s hard out there today.
I am leaning on ritual and making my offerings.
I am remembering that the most important thing is connection. Connection to my friends, my community, my ancestors, and the natural world around me. There is comfort and safety in those things.
Stay safe my friends, I am thinking of y’all too.
Have an altar, or don't.
Keep it however and wherever you want, if you do want one.
Arrange it how you like it. Put as much or as little stuff as you want on it. Put whatever you feel like on it. Remove it if you no longer like it.
Change it up once in a while, or don't.
Using Solar Patterns to Enhance Your Spellwork
Day
"The day begins with the dawn, moves to midday, through sunset, and then to midnight. Each of these four phases is associated with basic energies to add extra power to your spell:
Dawn: origins, new beginnings, illumination, children
Midday: energy, growth, creation, increase
Sunset: decrease, banishment, resolution, maturation
Midnight: endings, gestation, stability
From these four points, you can extrapolate other times during the day, such as midmorning or midafternoon."
Seasons
"The seasons have inspired more poetry and art than possibly any other natural event. Spellcasting by the seasons means you’ll likely be planning your spell far ahead of when you’ll be casting it. Chances are good that if you schedule a spell ac- cording to a season, you’re taking the time to think about it. If so, it will likely be a slowly evolving spell with far-reaching effects. Like the daily solar phase, the seasonal solar phase is associated with these basic energies that you can use to refine your spells:
Spring: origins, new beginnings, birth
Summer: passion, activity, creation/destruction
Autumn: transformation, farewells, nostalgia
Winter: introspection, planning"
From: Spellcrafting: Strengthen the Power of Your Craft by Creating and Casting Your Own Unique Spells by Arin Murphy-Hiscock
This is a post for disabled people. For mentally ill people. For low energy people.
This is a post for people who work three jobs and look after their kids.
This is a post for people who are TIRED. sick. Struggling.
The Gods will not abandon you.
Even if you don’t worship every day, the Gods will not abandon you.
Even if you can’t pray regularly, the Gods will not abandon you.
Even if you can’t put together offerings, the Gods will not abandon you.
Even if you stumble,
The Gods will not abandon you.
They will not punish you for the crime of being human. They know you are not divine. They know you are imperfect. They do not expect greatness and perfection, they just expect respect and humility.
Stay humble. Stay consistent. Show your reverence in whatever way you can. Keep them in your thoughts before you go to sleep at night.
The Gods know you.
DISCLAIMER: this is my personal interpretation. Obviously beliefs differ and the ancients would have thought very differently. This has just been my experience.
A neurodivergent witch's guide to starting a grimoire 🌿✨️
I remember when I was first starting out with building a grimoire and getting frustrated with how few resources there are on what a grimoire is supposed to be. I wanted clear directions and examples of what to include, but I mostly found YouTubers giving vague descriptions and repeating over and over again that it's extremely personal and private so they wouldn't say anything specific. As a neurodivergent person, it was very frustrating to try to figure out what to do from that. It took me a while to figure out what my own specifics were, so for any beginner witches out there, here are some specific ideas for starting off! Once you get more used to it, it'll get easier and easier to figure out what you do and don't want to include.
I'd recommend researching sigils and creating one to protect your grimoire; I placed mine on the second page after I dedicated the notebook for it, but you can put it wherever you feel like
Dates of moon cycles/information on how they affect your practice
Wheel of the year/sabbats if you celebrate them
Record rituals for sabbats if you choose to do anything for them, that way you have a reference for next year
Information on the elements- earth, air, fire, water, and/or spirit depending on your practice
Information on herbs or crystals you have- I like to print out pictures to include with the correspondences and leave space to write down specific things I use them for
Also, a quick reference list of ways you can care for individual crystals will be very helpful if you use them! Pay extra attention to which ones are sensitive to sun or water, it'll save you crystals later on
Basics of tarot, runes, or other divination methods
Color correspondences!
Information on zodiac signs; I printed out my star chart and put it in
When you do spellwork, write down everything you did and date it. Later you can come back and update whether it worked, what the effects were, and tweak it if necessary- basically treat it like a magic recipe book
A grimoire is not the same as a journal- if you want to write down personal reflections on meditation or your emotional experiences, I would suggest using a separate notebook for those things.
While I understand why people are so hesitant to show their grimoires, I have no qualms with showing a few pages for example purposes. However, I would suggest that you don't share anything that is personalized to your craft to others unless you can 100% guarantee that they won't cause you harm with it.
The only reason I'm ok with putting pictures on here is because they're full of basic information that anyone with Google could find and nothing that's specific to me.
With that being said, here are a few examples from my own grimoire as a reference!
Witchy Self-Care Tips:
Declare yourself a deity and give yourself all the respect and veneration you would an established deity. Speaking kindly of your flaws and boast proudly of your skills.
Leave yourself regular offerings of food and drink. I recommend at least three times a day, but there’s no reason you can’t have five or six offerings if you want them. Sometimes, it’s easier to give smaller offerings more often, after all.
Naps are offerings of energy. Take them as often as you need.
If people try to make you feel bad, turn them into a llama.
Turn your house into a temple, and tend to it with the same care and devotion as you show your altar.
Yes, this means doing your laundry. I know it sucks. I hate it too.
Decorate yourself and your temple however you like. You’re the deity, you get to decide what kind of iconography you’re associated with. If you don’t know where to start, I always recommend skulls and shiny rocks.
Treat your guests as worshipers and share with them the bounty of your household. Listen to their worries and rejoice in their successes, for they are your worries and successes as well.
Know and respect your limits. You are not a singular, omnipotent deity but one of many in a pantheon. You cannot be expected to know everything or have the power to fix everything.
Enforce your boundaries. One does not ask Deities of Harvest for the same boons one asks of Deities of Travel.
Take your own name in vain. As a treat.
What Is Spiritual Bypassing?
Spiritual bypassing describes a tendency to use spiritual explanations to avoid complex psychological issues. The term was first coined during the early 1980s by a transpersonal psychotherapist named John Welwood in his book Toward a Psychology of Awakening. According to Welwood, spiritual bypassing can be defined as a "tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks."
As a therapist and Buddhist teacher, Welwood began to notice that people (including himself) often wielded spirituality as a shield or type of defense mechanism. Rather than working through hard emotions or confronting unresolved issues, people would simply dismiss them with spiritual explanations.
While it can be a way to protect the self from harm or to promote harmony between people, it doesn't actually resolve the issue. Instead, it merely glosses over a problem, leaving it to fester without any true resolution.
While spirituality can be a force that helps enhance an individual’s well-being, engaging in spiritual bypassing as a way to avoid complicated feelings or issues can ultimately stifle growth.
Signs
Spiritual bypassing is a way of hiding behind spirituality or spiritual practices. It prevents people from acknowledging what they are feeling and distances them from both themselves and others. Some examples of spiritual bypassing include:
Avoiding feelings of anger
Believing in your own spiritual superiority as a way to hide from insecurities
Believing that traumatic events must serve as “learning experiences” or that there is a silver lining behind every negative experience
Believing that spiritual practices such as meditation or prayer are always positive
Extremely high, often unattainable, idealism
Feelings of detachment
Focusing only on spirituality and ignoring the present
Only focusing on the positive or being overly optimistic (toxic positivity)
Projecting your own negative feelings onto others
Pretending that things are fine when they are clearly not
Thinking that people can overcome their problems through positive thinking
Thinking that you must “rise above” your emotions
Using defense mechanisms such as denial and repression
Spiritual bypassing is a superficial way of glossing over problems in a way that might make us feel better in the short term, but ultimately solves nothing and just leaves the problem to linger on.
Examples
Spiritual bypassing can sometimes be difficult to spot because it is often very subtle. However, looking at examples can help make this phenomenon more apparent:
Following the death of a loved one, people tell surviving relatives that the deceased is “in a better place” and that it was “all part of God’s plan.”
A woman is angry and upset about something that someone else has done. When she tries to share her feelings, her friends tell her to stop being so negative.
A relative regularly crosses boundaries and behaves in ways that are hurtful to other family members. Rather than confront this behavior, those who have been harmed feel that they need to repress their anger and remain overly tolerant.
Spiritual bypassing is also often used to dismiss the very real concerns of people who are dealing with problems. People who are faced with discrimination are often advised to simply be “nice,” “civil,” or “patient” when dealing with blatant abuse. It suggests that people can rely on individual positive thinking to overcome complex social issues.
Recognizing Spiritual Bypassing
If you say these things, you might be engaging in spiritual bypassing:
"Everything happens for a reason."
"You create your own happiness."
"It was for the best."
"It was a blessing in disguise."
"Good vibes only!"
“Thoughts and prayers!”
Before resorting to platitudes, ask yourself who the comment is really helping. Is it really giving someone comfort or insight, or is it just a way of dismissing a difficult situation so that you can feel better?
Causes
Spiritual bypassing acts as a form of defense mechanism. It protects us from things that seem too painful to deal with, but this protection comes at a cost. Ignoring or avoiding the issue can make stress worse in the long-term and make the problem more difficult to solve later on. While avoidance is a primary motivator behind this type of behavior, there are other factors that play a role in shaping it.
Wellness culture, which often perpetuates ideas of toxic positivity and permanent optimism, is sometimes a driving force behind spiritual bypassing. It teaches people that they cannot be well or healthy unless they are able to rise above any negativity. The problem with this is that negative emotions are normal and often a sign that something needs to change. Ignoring these signs can lead to worse problems down the road.
An individualistic culture that promotes the idea that people must aim for self-actualization in order to achieve true happiness also contributes to a tendency to avoid difficult or painful emotions. Rather than trying to solve problems in the environment that lead to pain, individualism teaches people that they alone are responsible for their destiny.
Impacts
Spiritual bypassing isn't always a bad thing. In times of severe distress, it can be a way to temporarily relieve frustration or anxiety. However, researchers suggest that it can be damaging when used as a long-term strategy to suppress problems.
Spiritual bypassing can have a number of negative effects. It can affect individual well-being as well as relationships with others. Some of the potential negative consequences include:
Anxiety
Blind allegiance to leaders
Codependency
Control problems
Disregard for personal responsibility
Emotional confusion
Excessive tolerance of unacceptable or inappropriate behavior
Feelings of shame
Spiritual narcissism
Spiritual narcissism involves using spiritual practices as a way to increase self-importance. It often involves using spirituality to build the individual up, while also wielding it as a weapon to tear others down.
Denying Difficult Emotions
People often engage in spiritual bypassing when they think that they should not be feeling what they are feeling. Negative emotions can be overwhelming at times. Feeling of anger, jealousy, disgust, annoyance, and rage can be distressing, and people may find themselves feeling ashamed or guilty for feeling or thinking such things.
Rather than deal with the negative feelings—and any resulting reactions to those feelings—spiritual bypassing becomes a tool for avoidance.
Just as you shouldn’t try to suppress your own negative emotions in order to avoid discomfort, you should also avoid the desire to save other people from emotions or situations that make you uncomfortable. Trying to save or shield others—either from their circumstances or their own poor choices—can also become a form of spiritual bypassing.
Dismissing Other People’s Emotions
Spiritual bypassing can be a tool to dismiss what others are feeling. At times, spiritual bypassing can be used as a tool to gaslight others into staying silent about things that have harmed them.
Rather than being allowed to express their pain, people who have been harmed are told by others that they are being a negative person. This tendency uses spirituality to reframe events in a way that lets people off the hook for the harm they may have caused.
Avoiding Responsibility
Spiritual bypassing also reduces the discomfort that people may feel as a result of cognitive dissonance. People feel uncomfortable when they hold two conflicting beliefs or when they behave in ways that are not in accordance with their beliefs.
For example, if you believe yourself to be a good person, you might struggle to take responsibility for hurtful things that you have done. Admitting that you have harmed someone else through your actions not only causes feelings of guilt—it also conflicts with your desire to see yourself in a positive light. In this way, spiritual bypassing becomes a way to shift the blame back onto the other person while absolving yourself of any responsibility.
Judging Others
Judging other people for expressing justifiable anger is a form of spiritual bypassing. Anger is a normal emotion and a perfectly reasonable reaction to many events and situations. It means that there is something wrong and that action needs to be taken to fix a situation or mend a relationship. Authentic spirituality doesn't suppress valid emotions just because they're uncomfortable.
It’s okay to feel difficult emotions like anger, jealousy, and disappointment. The key is to deal with those emotions in healthy ways.
Justifying Suffering
Another example of spiritual bypassing is using supposedly spiritual actions to justify not taking action. Examples of this include saying things such as "it's that way for a reason," "it's as nature/God intended," or "it is what it is." It lets people off the hook for taking any responsibility, because according to such explanations, these things are natural, unchangeable, or divinely caused.
Such explanations make it easy to just accept things as they are and not focus on the steps that we can take to make a difference. Some situations may be outside of our control or we might face obstacles that make change difficult, but it is important to acknowledge and accept the responsibility for what we can do to make a situation better.
Bypassing also becomes a form of victim-blaming, especially in cases where people are experiencing the negative effects of various kinds of trauma. Telling people that they should just stop being negative in order to avoid exhaustion, anxiety, depression, and other physical and psychological manifestations of stress is essentially telling them that they are to blame for their own pain and suffering.
How It Hampers Growth
While spiritual bypassing may be less harmful than some other coping mechanisms, it can still lead to negative outcomes that hurt an individual’s ability to grow as a person and fulfill their potential. It can stifle emotional development and even stand in the way of fully realized spirituality.
Spiritual bypassing can also sometimes involve participating in "spiritual" activities in order to feel superior or to get around having to take any meaningful action. Instead of talking about a conflict, you'll meditate. Instead of participating in your community, you'll visit a temple. Instead of confronting your discomfort, you'll recite a prayer. The problem does not lie in engaging in these spiritual practices. The problem is that you're using them as a shield to make yourself feel better—not for truly spiritual reasons.
This is why spiritual bypassing can sometimes be so subtle and difficult to spot both in yourself and others. Meditation can be a helpful way to deal with stress that will help you cope with conflict. Visiting meaningful places can help give you a connection to your community. Praying can give you a sense of peace or comfort when confronting an uncomfortable truth.
The difference lies in the intentions behind those actions. Are they a way of making yourself feel spiritually superior to others? Then they are likely functioning largely as a spiritual bypass preventing true growth.
Healthy expressions of spirituality help you grow as a person while bypassing creates a barrier between you and authentic growth.
Tips and Tricks
Spiritual bypassing may act as a way to protect the self from things that we find threatening, but it neglects an important truth. We cannot pick and choose which emotions we experience. Life cannot be good thoughts, feelings, and emotions alone. In order to experience the highs, we must also endure the lows.
Some things that you can do to try to confront a tendency to spiritual bypass include:
Avoid labeling emotions as good or bad. While some emotions may be negative or unpleasant, they serve a purpose. Emotional experiences are not wrong or taboo, and feeling these emotions does not make you a bad person. Try viewing your emotions with acceptance and remember that all emotional states are only temporary.
Remember that negative thoughts and feelings serve a purpose. The goal of life is not to avoid having such thoughts, it is to use those thoughts to propel positive actions. Simply putting on rose-colored sunglasses and ignoring a problem does not solve it.
Remember that uncomfortable feelings are often a sign that there’s something wrong and something needs to change. If you are always trying to reduce discomfort by simply avoiding it, the situations that are causing you distress will stay the same. Look at these uncomfortable emotions as an opportunity for transformation rather than a burden to avoid.
While spiritual bypassing makes it difficult to acknowledge valid feelings, it is important to remember that spirituality itself can be a positive force in your life. Research suggests that spirituality can often have a number of physical and mental health benefits.3 People often turn to spirituality to restore hope, cope with distress, to find support, and to find meaning in life.
Studies have shown, for example, that people who engage in spiritual practices are less prone to depression, cope better with stress, experience better overall health, and have better psychological well-being.
Don't be too hard on yourself for mistakes. Growth is a process and it's easy to fall into old habits, especially when you are trying to cope with something difficult. Spirituality can be a positive force in your life and many spiritual practices can be excellent stress management tools. By actively avoiding spiritual bypassing, you can make spirituality a practice that will help you live a more harmonious and fulfilling life.
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-spiritual-bypassing-5081640
Toxic Witches and Psychics to Watch Out For... Part 1
--- There was a post I found that was similar to this, and it did it quite nicely. But I also want to write about my views and experiences about these sorts of people I had encountered down the line. I am not going to name or reveal who they are of course, but I want the focus on the examples to help those who are mainly starting out on these things. This is more so about safety and navigation through times of toxicity. Like anything I ever put out, take it with a grain of salt. --- 1. The Angry Tarot Readers
This may not sound so bad, but don't underestimate this. I'm talking about the readers who get SO offended if you dare say, "It doesn't resonate with me." Some people and I had observed this kind of behavior where we were desperately wanting a reading, and some people sold themselves to be well versed in their crafts. I had ignored my intuition and I didn't listen to my spiritual Family that I didn't need a specific reading. It came to me the next three days, and nothing resonated. I would boldly say it sounded like they just guessed. I gave them my review, told them thank you for the reading, then they suddenly gave me back a belligerent response like, "Haha, you're just not accepting the reading. You're a liar and you're just doing this to mess with my reputation! Good bye and good luck, kiddo!" Geez, person. Calm down... Sometimes it happens though... (Though, it was also my bad for ignoring the signs then) Sometimes the reading can be wrong and it won't resonate. Reading tarots for people aren't always just that easy, and it can be quite the language barrier between what you read from spirit versus biases or beliefs or such. Or, sometimes people can inadvertently have their barriers up and you can get limited or off-key information. Not all of your readings will be successful, and again, that's completely okay and it's normal. Just keep practicing! We're not above improving. As for you people getting the reading, yeah...all you can do is move on. Sometimes it'll be that way. I made a post about this earlier, but that's up to you to look into. ... 2. "I Am An Expert/Master" Types. I am personally a believer in always having a student mind. I do not believe in true experts or masters...because things are always changing, developing, upgrading, downgrading, or just completely go off the charts of anything. You can have a solid, pragmatic ground to walk on if you're not certain about something, but uhm.... I think it's fine to take great pride in what you learned, but it's not really realistic to know absolutely everything or all the mysteries of the universe. The real point I'm getting here is that someone would use that title to manipulate your own spiritual journey by telling you that YOUR journey is all for naught because of their own biases. They would also brag about all the spiritual trips they underwent as a way to make sure you can't have a say in their opinions or views. In my experiences, there was such a character. He worked in a metaphysical shop and he was all dressed up in ceremonial clothes. I was talking about a specific item I had as a child to another person and what it meant for me, then he barraged in and said, "Nope, if you didn't know the significance of an item then, it doesn't mean anything. It only means something if you know it does on the spot." He decided to pull me into a reading and he started to say things like, "Don't worry, I've been doing this for 35 years, I've been where you were. I'm an expert in all of the deities and I traveled the world in all of these wander lusts. Your spiritual team are not real, but maybe servitors can be a close thing to describe them. They don't really like you either but they also really don't like me at this point. Calm them down, control their emotions. They don't have free will anyway so do that. Only humans do. Deities, angels, demons and other creatures don't either. Sorry honey, but that's the truth."
Yeaaaahhhhh...but hey, you do you, that's fine and all... But he was completely disregarding my experiences, belittling my spirit Family, and enforcing that his views are absolute facts and nothing else. He did this for everyone he read. I suggest NOT to believe everything an "Expert" tells you if you're starting out. But, there are well versed people out there who can help you of course but always look out for the red flags. If you don't feel something is right, you don't have it take it. When he finished, I didn't say anything. I just smiled and told him "thank you." I left with a headache though and some of my Family just rolling their eyes and telling me once again, "I told you not to get a reading from him." ... 3. The Spiritual Bypasser.
From what we covered before, there's already hints of some of that going on, but specifically, it's the people who are really into the aspect that "lower vibrations" aren't allowed. I get it, it's not a good feeling on "lower vibrations" but I personally believe you need both worlds to get the full coverage of what you need to find in your spiritual or witchy journey. Both exists for a reason. It's not always "love and light." I don't believe in suppressing your lower moments or your emotions for the long run; it's pretty unhealthy, and it can create further unresolved problems. It's just minimizing or running away from them too when you do need to embark on what helps you work with your shadow. I don't like it when someone comes up to a person who's having trouble, and they just go, "Love and light only, no negative vibes. You need to toss that aside, blessed be/nameste." -- No, they should understand and sit with their emotions so they can feel it, nurture themselves, and feel vulnerable. You logically can't always experience the highs. It defeats the purpose on experiencing a high, because you appreciate it and feel it more when you experienced the lessons of the lows. Don't manipulate someone to be a certain way to cater to you so you can be comfortable. ... 4. Egotistical God/Goddess Devotees
This one should be a bit shorter, but it's pretty straightforward, I think. Don't let these people make you believe that you're nothing without a god/goddess or you aren't as close or worthy to be as close -- the people who brag how close they are to a supposed deity and make it about them being special over you and other people are the ones with...some sort of self esteem issues in my opinion. I may not be into worship, but isn't the point of working with a deity is to just...work with them and learning from them on how to help with your own journey? I met people who love to talk about their devotion, visions, dreams and cool experiences with that deity -- which is cool, don't get me wrong. It's interesting. But I'm talking about the ones who uses that to elevate themselves over others, go into this sense of superiority and say you're not as close to Aphrodite like they are. Or worse, they believe they receive "real" messages from this figure, or even the fact that they ARE this deity. Yeah...this speaks for itself pretty loudly. --- Hope this helps and have a good day.
Nontraditional Baneful Work (1)
For the hardcore crystal witch:
Specific harm
On a very sunny day, write on paper: "[Name Of Enemy] will [experience a great misfortune] before [date]" or similar, or use a sigil. Take a sphere of quartz, hold above the paper, and allow the sun to stream through it until the victim's name is scorched from the paper.
Harm in love
Write their name on a slip of paper. On another, write "your/their heart will not find love", similar, or use a sigil. Wrap in cloth or tinfoil with a piece of rose quartz. Unwrap to release.
(Even if you do not cleanse your crystals, I would recommend doing so after using them as described above)
For the elemental witch:
General harm
Create a vial of strong sun water, then "corrupt" with a pinch of pepper or a splash of red dye. On paper, write the name of your victim, and cast them into the vial. Shake vigorously to expedite.
Productivity-related harm
Cast a small item taken from your victim into a vial of ocean water. They now feel as if they are drowning in their responsibilities. Pour out to release.
There are always alternatives to the risk of pickpocketing items on and off of people, but this is a method I have always had success with.
For the nature witch:
Long-term harm
Healthy acorns sink in water, while rotten ones will float (most of the time). Take a floating acorn and and whisper to it its purpose. Sneak it into your victim's belongings and let it take root.
Bad luck
Paint the name of your victim in water on a maple leaf. Place the maple leaf under the candlestick of a black candle and let burn for as long as you like. Negative energy, including that of any standing hexes against you, will be captured and sent on to your victim, even if they are its originator.
(All are based on my own research, practice, experience, and theory. I encourage you to modify these for your own use if I have inspired you.)
common outdoor items & their uses
a guide to common outdoor items and their magickal uses.
acorns- luck, protection, wisdom, power
walnuts- healing, protection, self care
pinecones- fertility, masculinity, growth, nature
pine needles- cleansing, healing, strength, banishment
pecans- employment, protection, success, abundance, prosperity
grass- growth, learning, healing, new beginning, grief, recovery
maple leaves- feminine, travel, change, decisions, healing
oak leaves- truth, justice, knowledge, steadfastness, protection, guidance
birch leaves- protection, cleansing, fertility, purification
dandelions- calling spirits, divination, healing
dandelion seeds- divination, wishes, manifestation, dreams, luck
dandelion leaves- defeating negativity, steadfastness, growth, purification
2 leaf clovers- love, luck, courage, cleansing
3 leaf clovers- protection, luck, fidelity, divination
4 leaf clovers- spirit work, luck, psychic ability, attraction
5+ leaf clovers- wealth, luck, attracting money, sanity
wild clover flowers- animal magick, blessings, breaking curses, luck, love
apple seeds- love, secrets, knowledge, gateways, divination, prosperity
tree bark- protection, binding, banishment, cleansing, purification
rocks- many rocks have crystals hidden inside, the most common is quartz types. if unsure, rockcs can represent strength, stability, protection and banishing. if you suspect its a crystal, look it up and discover the correspondences that matter to you!
will add more as i can, feel free to add your own!!
On “Dead” Cultures and Closed Spiritual Practices: Why Colonialism Is Still A Problem.
Let me start this by saying that, as far as my knowledge of Paganism and Polytheism as a whole goes, I’m what the internet witch community calls a “Baby Witch”. I’m stating this out of the gate because I know there will be lots of people, including witches who have more experience on the craft than me, who might decide to ignore what I have to say based on that fact alone, stating that I’m not knowledgeable enough to give my opinion about this.
Here’s the kicker: I’m a ‘baby witch’, yes, but I’m also a twenty-six year old Venezuelan woman. I’m an adult. I’m Latina. I’m a Christian-raised Pagan,but I’m also a Latinoamerican woman over all other things including that. I grew up on this culture, these are my roots. It is because of this background than I’m writing this post today.
Looking through the “Paganism” and “Witchcraft” tags of this website, I’ve seen a few posts throwing indigenous deities and spirits’ names around on lists alongside deties of open cultures. Yes, you can know better by doing your own research and not going by what just a random Tumblr user wrote on one post (as I hope its the case with everyone on this website), but the fact that pagan beginners are still getting fed misinformation is still worrisome to me.
There’s nothing like reading a so-called expert putting Ixchen (Maya), Xolotl (Nahuatl) and Papa Legba (Vodou) on the same damn list as Norse, Hellenic and Kemetic deities and tagging it on the tags aimed at beginners who might not know better to truly ruin your morning. I’m not mentioning user names here: If you know then you know.
To quote @the-illuminated-witch on her very good post about Cultural Appropriation:
“Cultural appropriation is a huge issue in modern witchcraft. When you have witches using white sage to “smudge” their altars, doing meditations to balance their chakras, and calling on Santa Muerte in spells, all without making any effort to understand the cultural roots of those practices, you have a serious problem.
When trying to understand cultural appropriation in witchcraft, it’s important to understand the difference between open and closed magic systems. An open system is one that is open to exchange with outsiders — both sharing ideas/practices and taking in new ones. In terms of religion, spirituality, and witchcraft, a completely open system has no restrictions on who can practice its teachings. A closed system is one that is isolated from outside influences — usually, there is some kind of restriction on who can practice within these systems.”
A counter-argument I’ve seen towards this when someone wants to appropiate indigenous deities and spirits is to use the “dead culture” argument: Extinct cultures are more eligible for use by modern people of all stirpes. It is a dead culture and dead religion. It would be one thing if some part of the culture or religion was still alive, being used by modern descendants, but the culture died out in its entirety and was replaced, right? They were all killed by colonization, they are ancient history now, right?
Example: “If white people are worshipping Egyptian deities now, then why can’t I worship [Insert Aborigen Deity Here]?”
To which I have two things to say:
Ancient Egypt’s culture was open and imperialistic, meaning they wanted their religion to be spread. This is why Kemetism is not Cultural Appropriation, despite what some misinformed people might tell you. Similar arguments can also be made for the Hellenic and the Norse branches of Paganism, both practiced by people who aren’t Greek/Norse.
Who are you to say which cultures are “dead” and which are not?
Religious practices such as Vodou and Santería certainly aren’t dead, not that it keeps some Tumblr users from adding Erzuli as a “goddess” on their Baby Witch post, something that actual Vodou practitioners have warned against.
Indigenous cultures such as the Maya and the Mapuche aren’t dead, despite what the goverment of their countries might tell you. The Mapuche in particular have a rich culture and not one, but two witchcraft branches (The Machi and the Kalku/Calcu). Both are closed pagan practices that the local Catholic Church has continuously failed to assimilate and erase, though sadly not for lack of trying:
“The missionaries who followed the Spanish conquistadors to America incorrectly interpreted the Mapuche beliefs regarding both wekufes and gualichos. They used the word wekufe as a synonym for ideas of the devil, demons, and other evil or diabolical forces. This has caused misunderstanding of the original symbolism and has changed the idea of wekufe right up to the present day, even amongst the Mapuche people.”
For context, the Wefuke are the Calcu’s equivalent of the Familiar, as well as reportedly having more in common with the Fae than with demons anyway.
This and other indigenous religions are Closed because it is wrong for foreigners to just come and take elements from marginalized groups whom are still fighting to survive and that they weren’t born into. To just approppiate those things would be like spitting in their faces, treating them and their culture like a commodity, a shiny thing, a unique thing to be used like paint to spruce up your life or be special.
I know some of you are allergic to the word “Privilege”, but on this situation there really ain’t a better word to explain it. You weren’t born here, you don’t know what it is like, you are only able to see the struggle from an outsider’s point of view.
If a belief or practice is part of a closed system, outsiders should not take part in it. And with how many practices there are out there which are open for people of all races, there is really no excuse for you to do it.
Why Colonization Is Not “Ancient History”
If you have kept reading all this so far, you are probably wondering “Ok, but what does Colonization has to do with any of this?”
The answer? Everything.
With the general context of culture appropriation out of the way, let me tell you about why the whole “dead culture” argument rubs me the wrong way: Here in Venezuela, we have a goddess called Santa Maria de la Onza, or Maria Lionza for short, whom’s idol statue I have been using to illustrate this little rant. If you happen to know any Spanish, you might recognize the name as a derivative of Santa Maria, aka the Virgin Mary, and you are mostly correct: Her true indigenous name is theorized to have been Yara.
And I say “theorized” because it is a subject of hot debate whether she was really ever called that or not: Her original name, the name by which she was adored and worshipped by our ancestors, might have been forever lost to history.
That’s the legacy of colonization for you: Our cultures were stolen from us, and what they couldn’t erase they instead tried to assimilate. Our ancestors were enslaved, their lands and homes stolen, their artwork and literary works destroyed: The Maya and the Aztec Empire were rich in written works of all kinds, ranging from poetry to history records to medicine, and the Spaniards burned 99% of it, on what is probably one of the most tragic examples of book burning in history and one that people rarely ever talk about.
People couldn’t even worship their own gods or pass their knowledge of them to their children. That’s why Maria Lionza has such a Spanish Catholic-sounding name, and that’s why we can’t even be sure if Yara was her name or not: The Conquistadors couldn’t steal our goddess from us, so they stole her name instead. Catholics really have a thing with trying to assimilate indigenous goddesses with the Virgin Mary, as they tried to do the same with the Pachamama.
On witchy terms, I’d define Maria Lionza as both a deity and a land spirit: Most internet pages explaining her mention the Sorte mountain as her holy place, but it is more along the lines that she is the mountain.
You’d think that, with Venezuela and other Latinoamerican countries no longer being colonies, we’d be able to worship our own deities including her, right?
As far as a lot of Catholics seem to think and act, apparently we are not.
The Catholics here like to go out of their way to shame us, to call us “cultists”, to ostracize us, with a general call to “refrain from those pagan beliefs” because they go against the Catholic principles. Yes, the goddess with the Catholic-sounding name, a name she happens to share with a Catholic deity, apparently goes “against Catholic principles”. You really can’t make this shit up. (Linked article is in Spanish)
This is just an act of colonization out of many, of not wanting to stop until the culture they want to destroy is gone. Don’t believe for a second that this is really their God’s will or anything like that, they are just trying to finish what years of enslavement and murder couldn’t. They might not be actively killing us anymore, but they still want us dead.
So no, colonization is not some thing that has long passed and now only exist on history textbooks: It is still happening to this day. It is by treating it as old history that they can keep doing it, and it is by pushing the narrative that our indigenous cultures are “dead cultures” that they try to erase our heritage.
Because we are not dead. We are still here, we are alive, we have survived and we’ll keep on surviving, and our gods and goddesses are not yours to take.
¡Chao! 🐈
Discernment tip for newbies!
A lot of witches talk about how important discernment is, including me, so here's an example of how to do it when it comes to your practice (discernment in research is a whole different post…) I consider it the number one discernment rule and the default for me. If you have an experience that you feel may be intuitive, a sign, or an entity, ask yourself this: Could this experience have a logical explanation, not a spiritual one?
That isn't to say that if an experience does have a logical explanation that that’s the right answer 100% of the time, but I find that most of the time that's the case.
It's important to me to default to a more common or logical explanation especially as someone who experiences paranoia. Defaulting to something being a sign is in my opinion not conducive to a solid witchcraft practice, and honestly sometimes not healthy!
You don't need to be religious to be a witch. You don't need to be a witch to be religious. And if you're both religious and a witch, it's perfectly fine to keep the two completely separate.
