Intermediately Witchy

she/her yarrow-the-witch is me! I'm a witch with a biology degree so shit gets confusing. I'm kinda vibing rn with Athena, Apollo, Hermes, and maybe Brigid but I'm still pokin around

[yarrowthewitch]

yes hællo velkum to my cäv

[space-queen]

WELCOME TO WITCHDEX.NET 💜

witchdex is a comprehensive, dynamic, and mobile-friendly reference for magical + witchcraft correspondences based on several years of independent research. it's a work in progress and i am constantly updating and adding information so please remember to do your own research!

currently compatible with firefox, chrome, and safari, and for entertainment purposes only - not a replacement for medical, financial, or legal advice.

dataset + code created by me - please don't steal, copy, or redistribute as your own!

CURRENT CATEGORIES

crystals, plants, fruits, planets, metals, colors, and one single mineral, which is salt lol

TIPS + TRICKS

search for whole words without punctuation - instead of "self-love" try "self love"

some of the most common terminology used for associations/traits include but are not limited to: attraction, banishing, binding, cursing, divination, dreamwork, fertility, fidelity, love, lust, manifestation, protection, psychic abilities, power, warding

keywords for items include associations that would be considered benefic to the caster, and if an item also has a baneful association, it will be listed as such underneath its keywords - the same applies for items that may be toxic

you may notice missing information in some sections as i continue to work on this page - please be patient with me! :)

if you see any misinformation, misspellings, typos, formatting errors, coding errors, duplicate entries, etc. OR have any questions, please send me a message via the contact page

please enjoy and consider buying me a coffee so i can keep doing stuff like this in my spare time. :)

my links for non-tumblr viewers: - blog - personal site - book of stars [grimoire] - witchdex - ko-fi

♡ luna // space-queen

[poeticnorth]

Pagan writers when talking about female deities: "They're a mother goddess"

Pagan writers when talking about male deities: "Well, their role and function is a lot more complicated and important than just just being a father god, and here's a 10k word essay discussing why they're more than just a father god"

[homewardskies]

OOOOO I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS

This is what originally turned me away from Wicca (among other reasons). So many books, blogs, and other resources seem to have so much built-in misogyny that it boggles my mind.

It's part of why I hate the invention of the "Mother-Maiden-Crone" archetype so much.

No, Hekate is not MMC. She is a powerful force of sorcery and liminality. No, the Morrigan is not MMC. She is a Goddess of bloodshed, mercy, and power.

Reducing such multi-faceted entities, such influential spirits, down to the box that patriarchal systems tried to fit them in is so disrespectful.

Freya, Frigg, Aphrodite, Hekate, Athena, etc. Do many Goddesses have aspects of fertility, nurturing, parenthood? Yeah, they do, just like Zeus, Ares, and Njordr. Is that all they are? Is that even the core of what they influence? Not always.

Immediate red flag if any book you're reading only has Goddesses in the footnotes, as mothers.

[ashleysjourney]

Very well said 🙏

[ruusverd]

I will start taking Maiden-Mother-Crone seriously when male deities start being assigned Boy-Father-Geezer.

[primulaceas]

PEOPLE NEED TO GET MORE ANTI PSEUDOSCIENCE.

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[aniseandspearmint]

@thebibliosphere

[creature-wizard]

The reason people are told "mundane before magic" is so they remember to do things like check whether they've got mold or carbon monoxide in their house before they decide the problem is a malevolent spirit, find out whether their health problems have a treatable medical cause before deciding they're cursed, and make sure they have a mechanic check their car once they hear funny noises instead of just casting a safety spell on it and calling it good. People get hurt if they neglect the mundane.

[primulaceas]

PEOPLE NEED TO GET MORE ANTI PSEUDOSCIENCE.

[starlit-meadow]

Look it’s me

[sitting-1n-silence]

I think people forget how much scrap material is around us everyday they can use in magic. Especially fabric.

The amount of charm bags and pouches i make from old ripped up shirts or scrab fabric is nuts. You don't need to be using big chunky martials or jars for everything when thrift stores have soooo much fabric waiting to be adopted and put to use.

Get crafty witches

[maximumqueer]

Ambulance with the Caduceus on it: disappointing but kinda funny

Ambulance with the Rod of Asclepius on it: Good and normal

Ambulance with *both* The Caduceus and Rod of Asclepius on it: Fucking hysterical. Are we going to the hospital or the morgue? Who knows!

[tolkien-witch]

The suits of The Lord of the Rings tarot deck illustrated by Tomás Hijo ✨

[coinandcandle]

Local house witch telling you to please learn basic housekeeping skills.

It’s not your fault if no one ever taught you but YouTube is a magical place and can teach you at your own pace.

[coinandcandle]

Someone asked me what housekeeping skills I’d recommend learning.

Keep in ming that this is not me shaming you, I know you have your reasons, folks. This is just a guy who enjoys clean spaces asking that you start learning now.

Here’s what I suggest as an adult who has lived with other adults who didn’t have housekeeping skills:

First and foremost, learn about all the places in your house that need to be cleaned and understand how often they should be cleaned. the American Cleaning Institute (I guess that’s a thing) has a good article about basic cleaning info. Plus this video on cleaning tips is great!

Learn how to do your dishes. HOT water is the only way to clean your dishes.

Learn how to clean your shower head, especially if you live in a place with hard water. Same goes for your sinks.

Learn how to do your laundry correctly. Even without the whole “separating whites and colors” thing, there are things you need to learn about washing your clothes. Learn what the tags mean, too.

Also, you don’t have to use fabric softener and you shouldn’t use it on towels or any fabric meant to absorb. (Learn about laundromats) And please learn how to clean out your dryer vent, it’s a safety hazard!

Get a disinfecting cleaner for your high-touch areas, especially the gross ones like the bathroom. Just because it doesn’t look dirty, doesn’t mean it’s clean!

Learn how to sweep, mop, and vacuum effectively.

You’ll also want to make sure to change out your home’s air filters.

TL;DR, here are some cleaning videos.

How to Clean Everything in Your Bathroom

How to Clean Everything in Your Kitchen

Livingroom Cleaning Routine

How to Clean Everything in Your Bedroom

Now these resources are not the end-all-be-all, but I think if you don’t know much about cleaning your space this is a good way to start.

[thumperdaetime]

here’s some of the things that are helping me actually clean (as an adult who had messy parents, and has a hard time getting threw my nurodivergency about cleaning specifically) that may be helpful to you:

Favorite Cleaning Book: it helps you work through the emotional side of cleaning (and other care tasks)

Current Favorite Decluttering Method/Concept: it helps you know how much is too much to keep and how to get started when you’re overwhelmed. (having too much stuff makes it incredibly hard to clean/organize.)

Basic Cleaning Skills: this channel is amazing! this man has a special interest in cleaning and cleans people’s spaces who deal nurodivergence that make it hard to clean. he does this for free (or at a deficit because he pays for supplies and dumpsters and transport and such) and does it all with empathy and kindness working With the people as much as people can handle instead of just coming in to “fix” an issue. these videos are a bit different from his usual ones, (the last one’s most like his usual videos) but i find having the sped up cleaning videos with a voiceover can help fill in for body doubling when im too ashamed to bring people into my messy spaces.

[analog-machine]

I’m gonna queue this as well so you’ll be seeing it again from me in a few months without any comments on it, but this is all good things to know

[witchescollection]

coming back from my retirement to just pipe on here and remind y'all that a lot of witchblr is generic and rooted in consumerist culture.

example: you do not need mass-produced correspondences tables that some other witch (no matter how reputable) put together. look at the damn thing. you already have your own associations with colours, shapes, etc. just write down you think the rock is pretty and it's for when you need an outside look bc it's sky blue (which reminds you of when you look up at the sky and feel like an ant).

another example: no one can tell you how to work with your deities. look up some academic sources, read some ancient literature, sure. but also just do it. stop sitting around waiting for someone tell you it's okay to give this deity chocolate - it's your craft for fuck's sake.

i'm not saying everything on tumblr is bullshit, but most of it is people taking what works for them and then using that to write a guidebook. you are the witch. you are at the centre of your craft. it's your ancestors, your gods, your tools, and your life.

decide what you want for yourself.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Hello internet user whose entire concept of feminism comes from tiktok. In front of you are three ancient myths about women. You have five minutes to figure out which one of them was made up in the 1970s. If you choose wrong, you will be ripped to pieces by Maenads.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Okay since everyone wants the test, instead of giving you three myths here’s several myths. One of them is a real Greek myth with sources of it from ancient times and the rest of them are fake. One of the misconceptions was specifically invented in the 70s.

1. In every version of the myth, Medusa is born a human and Athena turns her into a monster

2. Hestia, goddess of the hearth and family, willingly gave up her place as the 12th Olympian to make room for Dionysus

3. Persephone chose Hades and wandered into the underworld of her own free will

4. Pandora didn’t know what was in her jar and unleashed evils on humanity by accident

5. During the voyage of the Argonauts the huntress Atalanta beat the hero Peleus the father of Achilles in a wrestling match

6. King Midas of Phrygia decided to give up his golden touch after turning his daughter to gold

7. Aphrodite was widely worshipped as a war goddess in Greece

[what-even-is-thiss]

lmao I promise you that only one of these is real.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Hiding the answers under a cut in case you wanna guess on your own.

#5 is the real one. You can find a reference to Atalanta wrestling Peleus at funeral games while on the journey of the Argo in The Library by Pseudo-Apollodorus.

This is an artistic depiction of the event from a piece of pottery currently being held in Staatlishe Museum Berlin.

The one invented in the 1970s was the one about Persephone going down to the underworld herself. This was invented by Charlene Spretnak in her book Lost Goddesses of Early Greece and is often spread falsely as a real myth without crediting her.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Explanations for all of them, again under a cut.

Ovid invented the version where Medusa was originally a woman and Ovid hated most of the gods on principle. Also, he was Roman. The earliest versions of gorgon myths depict her and her sisters as being born as monsters.

There's no reference in ancient mythology to Hestia giving up her spot. In some regions she was one of the 12 Olympians, and in others Dionysus was on the list instead. The idea that she stepped down was invented by modern writers who like to have coherent logic in their stories.

Explained above. A bit of creative writing.

Pandora according to Hesiod was the first woman and perfectly aware of what was in her jar. She was created as part of the punishment for mankind. Human women didn't exist before Pandora according to Hesiod. But because Hesiod was misogynistic even by ancient Greek standards, writers and artists after the ancient Greek religion died out re-characterized her as stupid and curious rather than evil.

5. As explained above, real.

6. This version was invented by Nathaniel Hawthorne. In the original myth, Midas just got hungry. No Daughter involved.

7. Aphrodite was worshiped as a war goddess mostly in Sparta and sort of Rome as Venus. Most Greeks weren't comfortable culturally with the idea of a goddess of love also being a goddess of war so in most of Greece she was just a goddess of love.

[creature-wizard]

Tales of Times Forgotten articles on ancient polytheism, atheism, witchcraft, Christianity, & other historical topics everyone should read

Misconceptions about the Witch-Trials

Debunking the So-Called “Dark Ages”

Was Giordano Bruno Really a “Martyr for Science”?

Who Was The First God?

Did Ancient “Pagans” Really Worship Nature?

Was the “Green Man” Really an Ancient Pagan Deity?

Misconceptions about the Library of Alexandria

Modern Stereotypes About Ancient Civilizations

Ancient Greek Misogyny

Why Did The Patriarchal Greeks And Romans Worship Such Powerful Goddesses?

Did the Ancient Greeks Really Believe in Their Myths?

Did the Ancient Greeks Ever Climb Mount Olympos?

What Evidence Is There for Atheism in Ancient Greece?

No, the Romans Did Not Just “Steal” All the Greek Deities

What Was the Conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity Really Like?

Things That Did Not Cause the Fall of the Roman Empire

No, Transgender People Are Not a Sign of Cultural Collapse

Christian Adaptation of Pagan Iconography

Greek Writers Quoted in the New Testament

No, the Christian Cross Is Not Based on the Egyptian Ankh

Just How Pagan Is Christmas Really?

No, Santa Claus Is Not Inspired by Odin

The Long, Strange, Fascinating History of Santa Claus

The Origins of the Christmas Tree

The Not-So-Pagan Origins of Easter

No, Easter Is Not Named After Ishtar

No, Groundhog Day Is Not of Ancient Pagan Origin

Here’s How We Know the Canonical Gospels Were Originally Anonymous

Lucifer Is Not a Name for Satan!

Was Jesus Copied Off the Egyptian God Horus?

Was Jesus a Communist?

What Does the Genesis Creation Story Mean?

Is Everyone Really Born an Atheist?

No, There Isn’t a Conspiracy to “Hide the Truth” about Ancient History

Who Are The Illuminati Really?

The Ancient Astronaut Hypothesis Is Racist and Harmful

The Truth about Atlantis

What Do Conservatives Really Mean When They Talk about “Western Civilization”?

The "Hero's Journey" is Nonsense

Jordan Peterson Does Not Understand Mythology

Jordan Peterson Does Not Understand Ancient Languages

No, Public Universities Aren’t Dominated by Evil Atheist Professors Seeking to Destroy Students’ Faith

[comparativetarot]

The Magician. Art by Thiago Corrêa.

[en-theos]

thinking about the discrepancy between aphrodite and dionysus as deities from the east(TM) and how well it illustrates that myths =/= nuggets of prehistoric knowledge that can be deciphered into a reconstruction of pre-literary history.

the myth about dionysus' origin is that, while a son of Zeus and perhaps the Theban princess Semele, he was born in the far east (or south, which were often conflated in Greek geography) on the fairytale like mount Nysa and then (slowly) made his way back to Greece. perhaps conquering the Indians along the way. This led scholars to believe up until the 60's that he was a middle-eastern god imported into the Greek pantheon aroudn the 7th century, since he does not really feature in Homer's epics.

and then post WWII war classicists deciphered the Mycenaean script linear B and discovered a god among the sacrifice tallies called di-wo-nu-so. HUH! moral of the story being that Greek myth projects as much as it preserves, and Dionysus' subversive character and eastern characteristics are a Greek projection, an emic (internal) view of that external to Greekness for that exact function: providing a countermodel that is neatly incorporated into the Greek cultural (religious) system. go figure.

Meanwhile Aphrodite features HEAVILY in Homer's epics, is given a primordial origin (born of Ouranos' ball foam landing in the Aegean), arriving on Cyprus or Cythera, still (arguably) within the sphere of influence of the Mycenean Aegean. her origin is solidly presenting her as Greek or at least Close.

but then you look at how she defends Troy in the Trojan war and how Zeus makes a point of saying she should not have any pretensions of belonging on the battlefield and how he makes a point in the Homeric hymn to Aphrodite of "subduing" her, since her matchups of gods and mortals tend to disrupt the proper balance of things and embarrass the other gods. this upstart goddess (a direct descendant of Sky) needs to know her place within the pantheon.

and then the archaeological record shows us Cyprus' key role as a trading stop between the Levant and Greece, shows Phoenician trading routes from Cyprus to the southern Peloponnese (you know near Cythera) and shows statuettes of Astarte and Anat, goddesses of both warfare and sexuality. HUH. and then the myth of Aphrodite and Adonis comes in with its uncanny similarities to myths of Levantine goddesses and their mortal lover that they recover from the Underworld. but, presented as quite solidly Greek, involved with Greek festivals (the Adonia) etc. etc. (and actually the Greeks themselves knew of this origin of the myth/cult. I'm generalizing things and pointing out the discrepancy between myth and history, even the historical commentary of the Greeks themselves).

tl;dr myth preserves, historicizes, and explains, but also projects, invents, and fantacizes. While Dionysus' myths carry clear geographical configurations, to do with 'culture' and 'foreignness', Aphrodite's don't, and yet a closer look reveals that the characterisation of Aphrodite reveals more actual historical truth about Greek interaction with the outside world in the so-called Greek Dark Ages than Dionysus' does.