into the woods

Into the Woods We Go | A witch's archive of study, practice, and craft. Folk Magic. Spirit Work. Witch Flight. Not always linear. Not always literal. Mind Your Head. Keeper of the Crossed Roads. Tender of the Hearth. Tongue of Salt and Ink. Stitching spells. Riding Hedges. Hiking dirt roads. Whispering to bones.

[thistlefoot]

📌: I will try, in my own fumbling way.

Ania (she/they) | Queer. Married. ⚢. Autistic. Practicing witch since 1999. Homemaker. Caretaker. Fibercrafter. Gamer (Medieval + High Fantasy). Roleplayer (D&D). Practical Traditional Witchcraft with a heavy helping of academia. I like and follow from @slewfootwitch. ✨Icon art by Babbs Web.✨

𝔄𝔟𝔬𝔲𝔱 𝔪𝔶 𝔓𝔯𝔞𝔠𝔱𝔦𝔠𝔢

Please note that all of the labels I include here are used describe form, method and function, not aesthetics. My practice does not have any core or defining aesthetic value apart from my own personal preference for how the tools/curios that I make and procure look. All elements of my witchcraft are utilitarian in nature.

My Witchcraft: Founded on Familial Cunning Practice. Non-Lineaged, Non-Cochranian Traditional Magic. Practical/Non-Ceremonial Traditional Witchcraft. Black Book Traditional Magic. European Traditional Folk Magic. Commonplace Magic. Sustainable Magic. Handmade Magic. Service Magic. Animistic. Spirit Work. Spirit Flight. (In addition to my core practice, I also practice hearthcraft and various domestic magics.)

My Faith Practice: Independent Paganism. Unnamed Gods. Influenced by Dagger Period, Bronze Age, and Vendel Period Germanic and Nordic Faith & Practice. Mythic/Named Pantheon Venerated as Spiritual Ancestors and Mediators. Earlier Animistic and Cosmological Understandings Central to Worship. Secular Jewish Observation as Familial Identity, Ancestor Veneration and Traditionkeeping. Land Stewardship.

Many of the posts here will be meant only for my records and may therefore lack context or other details.

𝔄𝔟𝔬𝔲𝔱 𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔰 𝔅𝔩𝔬𝔤

This blog is an academic-focused space for personal research and projects that don't necessarily belong on @slewfootwitch. Posts prior to 24 May, 2026 may be focused on other things or may involve more personal posting. However, I have since adjusted the scope of my blogs to make designated spaces for different areas of my craft.

I do not have an inbox enabled on this blog, nor do I accept DMs here. I do not monitor these notifications at all. If you would like to ask me a question about my practice or a post here, please use my inbox at @slewfootwitch.

[thistlefoot]

𝔴𝔢𝔶𝔴𝔞𝔯𝔡𝔤𝔯𝔬𝔳𝔢 - 𝔪𝔞𝔶

I was going to do An Art for this month's @weywardgrove prompt, but I ended on a doodle instead (mostly because I am still learning digital art and I'm self-conscious about it). It wasn't a well-planned or well-thought-out doodle because, to be honest, I wasn't sure what prompt I wanted to answer so I just started drawing and reflecting on what I believed about magic.

For my own practice, I believe that magic can be many things and come from many places all at once. I believe that the witch is the source of their own magic. But I also believe that an element of that can come from or be supported by the relationships and connections the witch builds with the external spirits, land, etc. that make up their magical ecosystem. For me, witchcraft is built on connection--to spirits, to ancestors, to earth, to the spirit world, etc.--as much as it is on belief.

[thistlefoot]

I'm feeling very nostalgic about the beginnings of my practice and my relationship with magic lately, as a navigate this "sowing season" within my annual magical cycles. I've been randomly remembering things like how I started my journey into spirit work and communicating with the spirit world in dreams, how I met certain spirits and familiars that I still have with me to this day, the first little things my grandmother taught me that I felt were likely less folk magic she'd been taught by her grandfather and more personal to her.

I've been reflecting on these things a lot and feeling so utterly blessed to have been where I am for so long, to have built the relationship that I have out of these small parts and interactions.

[thistlefoot]

I spent a lot of years and a lot of time within those years mourning my "resting" and "healing" periods in my craft. (I hesitate to call them fallow periods, because I am still doing magic and still practicing witchcraft, just a different kind with a different focus.) Today, I received the message that I need to be doing something to mark and celebrate the annual phases that I follow and that, even though my alignment will adjust on its own, that doesn't mean that I shouldn't be magically shifting gears with some sort of observation.

I'm not big on ritual. I never have been. It wasn't part of what I was initially taught. The closest we get to ritual is habit. But I can envision myself marking and observing in other ways. Putting certain tools and supplies to rest to make more room for the shift in the type of magic I do. Waking, oiling, making room for other tools. Doing the same with spirits.

I wonder why they chose now to tell me this, when I am neither beginning nor ending one of my usual "tides". But I understand how it would help me to mourn less and embrace more.

[thistlefoot]

I learned about the spirit world and the way it communicated through my dreams years before I learned about witchcraft or magic. (In fact, some of the first magic I ever learned was to help me with my spirit experiences, and I don't know if I would have go on to develop such an interest in magic without those childhood experiences.) I was very young when I had a dream that I can still remember so vividly today. I dreamt that I got out of my bed while my mother and sisters were still sleeping. Everything was half-light and half-dark. Not like the light was coming from anywhere any particular. There were no lights "on". The "light" was really more the absence of pitch-black, just the ability to see. The way natural light looks in the evening.

I remember checking on my sisters in the dream and then going into the hallway and seeing that my mother was also still asleep in her bed. I remember thinking how odd it was that it was so light and yet no one else was awake, and how strange it was that no one seemed to be hearing me when I was trying to wake them up. I felt drawn to the living room for some reason (although, at the time, I was young enough that I knew I was not supposed to be in the living room before my mother was awake) and so I went there. As I did, I felt a sort of "vibration" from the door. I can only explain it as feeling as if a bell was ringing somewhere, but not being able to hear the bell. I remember focusing on finding where this "bell feeling" was coming from and the door just disappearing into light, and I remember knowing that I was supposed to go outside.

When I stepped outside, I found myself at the edge of some woods. (We did not live near the woods at this time. In fact, we lived in an apartment and, in waking life, our door faced a solid wall.) At the edge of the trees, there was a woman. At first glance, I thought she was extremely tall, but then I realized she was, in fact, floating several feet off the ground. She told me I could go into the woods but that I had to come and go through the entry next to her and that I had to be back before the sun. So I went into the woods and played and explored.

When I woke up the next morning, I told my mother that I had left the house with a woman and that I had played with all kinds of animals and that I didn't know how I had come back home so fast. My mother got really worried and took me to my grandmother's house where she made me repeat the story. My grandmother made me a bag to keep under my pillow. But the dreams didn't stop and over the next few months, I developed a bizarre fear of "floating away" from my body while I was sleeping and dying (also, if I remember correctly, because of something that was said to me in one of those dreams and that fear persisted for years). I didn't stop being afraid of floating away in my sleep until my grandmother started teaching me charms for nighttime protection and ways to communicate with the spirits in my dreams.

I think about that dream a lot and wonder what might have been different about my life or my practice if I had not had it, or if my grandmother had reacted in another way.

[thistlefoot]

My craft is a love letter. In the detailed notes of the folk magic and folk medicine that was passed down from my great-great-grandfather to my grandmother to me, there is a love of culture and custom that defied people-moving and roots itself in any farm, no matter how far it feels from home. In the stories of strange remedies that saved my grandmother and her brothers more than once, there is love for family and community that seeks to serve and save even when the lack of money prevents the buying of medicines.

In the pages that document my spirit work, there are memories of hushed conversations on my grandmother's porch and time spend recalling dreams for her to interpret. There are beliefs about spirits and the make-up of the human soul that came to me through religious custom, which form the warp for personal believes and experiences carefully woven against them.

Among the records of my more personal practices, there is the story of becoming. Of learning to walk without the help of others and of finding my own footing in the world and casting down my own roots. There is an ode written to all that I am and all that I ever will be. I do not know what I would be or who I would be without my craft. I am written in this love letter as much as I am writing it.

[thistlefoot]

𝔣𝔬𝔯 𝔠𝔩𝔞𝔯𝔦𝔱𝔶 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔭𝔯𝔬𝔱𝔢𝔠𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔣𝔯𝔬𝔪 𝔣𝔞𝔩𝔰𝔢 𝔣𝔯𝔦𝔢𝔫𝔡𝔰

I wrote this charm for a working to protect another from false friends and negative influences.

Let the Spirits who made the road before your feet set the stone firm beneath your step. No crooked tongue shall guide you, no hidden hand shall turn you aside. Let the light of the Insight go before you like the morning sun, and let the shadow of the Discernment stand behind you like a wall of stone.

If any would lead you into thorns, let their words falter and fall to dust. If any would hide their face in deceit, let their mask break and their name be known. What is crooked shall be made straight. What is hidden shall be brought into the day.

As mist flees the rising sun, so let false friends depart from you. Blessed is your road and wise be your counsel. Your path is kept, you steps are guarded, and only those who walk in truth shall remain beside.

[thistlefoot]

In hindsight of the repeated next-day effects of this charm, this needs to be paired with anchoring/aiming techniques. It might work best when there is a particular potentially false person in mind rather than applied generally, which has been my only use of it so far.

[thistlefoot]

Now that I've had an experience where I (personally) believe that readings using my personal symbolism for the Seed & Sickle oracle have come to fruition and I can see where my spirit-led application of the symbolism I have recorded for personal use and my real-world experience of what shape the foretold events take when they actually happen.

Now that I have some experience with these cards, I can either go through and mark them as "proven" (as is done traditionally for recorded folk workings that have been performed with success) or make notes on where some of my personal symbolism might need tweaking. I do feel like, with these readings, all of these cards can be marked as "proven" and also that I can continue using the spirit-led input in the same way that I already have. I do need to get better at sensing where a situation is coming from because, as much as I thought I knew who these readings would be about, that (offline) person hasn't even been in contact with me during all this time.

[thistlefoot]

Reblogging some old readings to take notes on. When I did these readings, I was working on my personal meanings for these cards. Now that they seem to have been seen through (though they were not about the offline situation I thought they were about), I'll be taking notes on how they worked out.

[slewfootwitch]

Note: This reading is a scheduled post. I post my workings, readings, omens, dreams, etc. several days after they are actually preformed. Please do not message me with your own divination or with "messages" from your gods/spirits related to my reading.

I am trying to get back into reading more routinely for myself and trying to move away from Tarot as my primary reading method, as the messaging and symbolism aren't always relevant to my practice and I already use Tarot every day for my part time job. This reading is a follow up on a string of general check-in readings intended to reveal unseen forces and machinations around me (brought to my attention through spirit-sendings).

Feverfew: I associated this card with fever and the fevered mind. There is a sense of incoherence and anxiety from someone that has them stuck in a thought loop of paranoia and resentment. Feverish as they may be, they are also misdirected and miscalculated. The heat burns itself out.

Daisy: A flower of innocence and truth. But also a flower of fleeting moments. All that is happening is temporary and superficial and need not be further explored or explained. I also associated the daisy with the Daisy Wheel, a reminder that I am substantially protected and capable.

Mugwort: The message that came with this is "some things are real, some things are not". This is another plant (along with some that have appeared in my previous readings about this issue, so this is a theme) that the right tools in the wrong hands are still the wrong tools. It is another plant that is helpful and powerful when used correctly, but does more harm than good in unskilled hands. It is also mildly psychoactive, which (paired with the feverfew's message about the feverish mind) is an indication that the person in this reading may be mistaking imagination for spiritual influence and is lacking mental clarity.

Mustard: What may be happening around me is intended to get a reaction, but is more annoying than harmful. It comes from a desire for attention rather than a desire to do actual harm. Mustard is a fast growing, invasion plant when it has its needs met. So the advice I can take away from this is not to met them.

All that said, given that the three readings have all had the same bark ≠ bite, belief ≠ result, nuisance ≠ threat, ego ≠ ability theme, I think I'll be taking mustard's advice here and starving this situation of any recognition or attention it seeks.

[slewfootwitch]

Doing some readings with the Seed & Sickle Oracle (Fez Inkwright). I don't use the book. I have never opened either of the books. I use my own folklore and practice as well as intuitive spirit messages as my compass instead.

Belladonna: In my practice and folklore, belladonna is associated with both danger and liminality. I am in a place of transition, in a space that I should move through rather than lingering in. My spirits and allies are here and ready to guide me through the darkest parts of the woods.

Tulip: The beauty of the work, the fruit of my labor has been carefully cultivated. It is a labor of for me, which may attract envy from others or may be seen as a symbol of status.

Thistle: I am in possession of knowledge and truth that can wound, though I might not realize its purpose yet. It is important to remember that sometimes acts of self-preservation and protection may necessitate harm to those who would act as predators.

Cornflower: Whatever is coming, whatever danger is on its way, I will outlast it. Through remembering my past and being loyal and true to myself and my values, I will persist beyond any harm that may come looking for me in the near future.

[thistlefoot]

I try not to think often about my great-grandmother. I grew up hearing how wonderful and loving and kind she was. I even incorporated some of her heirlooms into my early craft to carry on what I thought of as been her legacy. In the past decade or so, however, I've learned a lot about her and come to regard her lest as some beloved matriarch and more as a source of pain and shame for multiple generations of our family.

My great-grandmother was a hateful person. She was a homophobe. She didn't like Black people. And she didn't approve of interracial marriage. (Being married to a Black woman and also the product of my parents' interracial relationship, that was a hard pill to swallow about someone my family uplifts as being such a warm and loving woman.) And, if that wasn't bad enough, she started a lie about who we were and where we came from that almost lost us our actual roots and she did everything she could to quash the Jewish-ness out of our family.

It didn't work. We're still here. Some of us are still observant. Some of use are practicing, while some of us are less so. And, in the generation that I am a part of, we are doing our best to undo what she (and, by extension, her husband) did to our family. The confusion they caused, the hurt they caused. Passover is prompting me to reflect a lot on the allegory of Mitzrayim and to unpack what it feels like to have one of the narrow places in your family's history come from within the family.

I let my great-grandmother go a long time ago. I have no room for her in my life. I have no room for her on my altar. I never will again. I don't use her recipes. I don't even call her grandmother. (I call her by her name, which is just about the worst thing you can do to a grandmother.) I'm still figuring out how to navigate the narrow place that is my anger with her. I've thought about designing rituals to formally pruning her out of the network of my spirits. I've thought about binding her harm to her so that it might leave my living family alone. It's something that warrants thinking about. Maybe, by next Passover, I'll have an answer.

[thistlefoot]

𝔣𝔬𝔯 𝔠𝔩𝔞𝔯𝔦𝔱𝔶 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔭𝔯𝔬𝔱𝔢𝔠𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔣𝔯𝔬𝔪 𝔣𝔞𝔩𝔰𝔢 𝔣𝔯𝔦𝔢𝔫𝔡𝔰

I wrote this charm for a working to protect another from false friends and negative influences.

Let the Spirits who made the road before your feet set the stone firm beneath your step. No crooked tongue shall guide you, no hidden hand shall turn you aside. Let the light of the Insight go before you like the morning sun, and let the shadow of the Discernment stand behind you like a wall of stone.

If any would lead you into thorns, let their words falter and fall to dust. If any would hide their face in deceit, let their mask break and their name be known. What is crooked shall be made straight. What is hidden shall be brought into the day.

As mist flees the rising sun, so let false friends depart from you. Blessed is your road and wise be your counsel. Your path is kept, you steps are guarded, and only those who walk in truth shall remain beside.

[thistlefoot]

“[…] to most Scandinavians such as my old grandmother, the methods of folk magic that she practiced regularly were never actually associated in her mind with the concept of magic, nor with the dangerous and feared art of trolldom.”

Trolldom: Spells and Methods of the Norse Folk Magic Tradition, Johannes B. Gårdbäck

[thistlefoot]

“First, the lack of public knowledge about trolldom arose in part from the fact that the tradition itself often relies on complete silence for the magic to work. There are rules governing its teaching […].”

Trolldom: Spells and Methods of the Norse Folk Magic Tradition, Johannes B. Gårdbäck

[thistlefoot]

"Sweden is [a] geographical peculiarity, with the cultural influences found in is southernmost provinces owing much to continental Europe, and in the case of the black art book, especially to Germany. Sweden's northernmost provinces on the other hand are contiguous with Finland, a land between Scandinavian and Slavic cultural areas, and which shares certain aspects of both, but also retains its own cultural heritage. There is also the cultural influence of the non-Scandinavian Sami, an ethnic and cultural group found all over the northernmost regions of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. This creates an especially rich area of cultural confluence that could suggest much about the migration of ideas about magic[.]"

Dr. Thomas K. Johnson on the cultural and magical influences in Swedish Black Arts Books, in Svartkonstböcker: a Compendium of the Swedish Black Art Book Tradition

[thistlefoot]

"Not surprisingly, utterances of such power and danger should be hidden from common access, so some notebooks preserve them in a kind of secret code, substituting numbers for letters, or other ciphers, signs or symbols."

Svartkonstböker, Dr. Thomas K. Johnson