Some of you are asking me a lot and requesting for some of my more personal practices, so here you are:

This is a massive cleaning that I did of (some of) my personal herbs and my portable ritual box. This is just a sampling of some of the herbs I’ve collected, but alas, moving to a small space in the city can have some detrimental effects to your Craft. I’ve been bringing the rest of my herbs and tools periodically to my new place, and as you can see here, I take the time to make sure they’re all cleaned, sorted, and put away neatly in my closet. :)

The last two pictures you’ll see is my ritual box, my pentacle-covered book I use to write letters to Deity, my mortar and pestle (one of them), and a tincture I made recently. On the shelf in my closet, in the second last picture, is my Book of Shadows (the chained one), and in the last picture, the book on the shelf of my closet is my witch’s journal.

Enjoy!

EDIT: Yes, to those wondering and have asked, that is body paint in my ritual box.

Drying herbs, making tinctures, and offering sacrifices. Just a typical Sunday afternoon.

Spell written by TheLivingWiccan. Do not remove source.

So this might make some of my followers a little squeamish, but here is a spell I thought of today. This spell is perfect for any suburban or urban witch who doesn’t have much outdoor space, but does have a compost. Good for rural witches too!

Compost Spell: To Diminish a Negative Force in your Life; Magic for the Suburban Witch

Needed:

• Paper, undyed and preferably recycled.
• A compost with earthworms, or some other decomposer
• A waning moon, preferably

Method:

    1) Take the paper and write out the negative force in your life. This preferably should be written out with mud, juice, olive oil, or some other natural ink, so as to not harm your little decomposer critter friends!

    2) Fold the paper along the written portion of the paper, imagining its power slowly diminishing.

    3) Place the paper inside the compost. As it decomposes, hopefully so too will the negative force in your life.

    Optional step 4) Feel free to add some flair to this spell! Add herbs that correspond to your wish, maybe give some food as an offering to the decomposers (probably a little tastier than paper!), write a little incantation to go with it…. anything else that comes to mind! This is just a simple template that I hope people will add on to.

Blessed Be,
TheLivingWiccan
)O(

Spell written by TheLivingWiccan. Do not remove source.

silverwitch:

Clean Sweep

Oh no! I’m so sorry to hear about your aunt. That must be incredibly hard for you and your entire family. :( I hope I can help.

So, here is a list of some things I’ve posted before, a lot of correspondences and healing spells. I would definitely try creating your own spell using maybe some of these, but mostly things that speak to you. Being a witch is all about intuition — you need to figure out what you can use in your spell that you think would be most effective. Figure out your aunt’s favorite colour or flower or fabric maybe. Be creative.

I really hope this helps!! Sending positive thoughts to both of you.

Blessed Be
)O(

christowitch:

Terra dare fidem

Caeli dare sapientia

Ignis dare calor

Aqua misericordiam

/

The land to be given

The wisdom of heaven to give

Of fire to heat

The water of mercy

/

Earth give loyalty

Air give wisdom

Fire give warmth

Water give compassion

The celebration of this year’s Beltane.

What you’re seeing is the setup that my little circle did, with the centre bowl completely as offerings for the Horned God. We dedicated each candle to a different God representing each direction. We handmade the incense ourselves while in the circle.

After ritual, the offerings were left left in the cleft of a tree’s trunk.

Bottom photo: the symbolism of the Great Rite by the God and Goddess Personified of our circle. The Triple Goddess symbol and the God symbol were painted on the right hands of the conduits with body paint and smeared together.

I hope you enjoyed your Beltane/Samhain!

Blessed Be
)O(

 All these photos are property of TheLivingWiccan. Do not remove source, do not use pictures without permission.

Today I was pondering harvesting my large aloe plant for ritual, but wasn’t sure if the plant was ready. I took my hand to see, and an entire lance fell off into my hand. Knowing this was a gift, I set about a thank-you ritual.

This ritual was to bless the aloe vera lance to be used in further ritual, should I ever need a protection satchet, a love potion, a protection potion, whathaveyou. It was to bless the aloe, and to thank the God for blessing it.
So what you see in the above picture is parts of my God altar set outside in the garden. There are two antlers, (recycled and respected) a red candle, and a burning bowl full of sage. All fire safety precautions were taken to ensure I didn’t set my creeping moss on fire.

Some of you might notice the cornbread! It’s an offering to the God as payment for the gift of the aloe and the further use of it. Some of you might also notice the extended God symbol I’ve drawn onto it in blood. (Being an avid student of medicine, all safety measures were taken there as well)

I’ve always seen the God as slightly more “sacrifice-y” than the Goddess, you might say.

I left the aloe out until the sun set. I laid down in the grass next to it, even though it was a little brisk out. I meditated until I knew the God would send me a sign. So finally I opened my eyes to see the moon overhead, ready to take over my watch. I went back indoors to warm my bare feet and relish the fact that I had once again communicated with my God and Goddess, with the Earth, and with myself.

All in all, a pretty sucessful ritual.

(Do NOT remove source)

I love making shell candles. It’s a little difficult to get the wick to set straight at first, but they’re great to use for Water magic.

I wake up every morning and give Thanks for the day. Then I select a mantra or invocation to a specific deity and carry it around with me for the day in a prayer scroll. It helps keep me focused on a goal and leaves me thinking spiritually all day.

I try to do a small ritual ever few days. These can vary from simply leaving offerings for animals outside to a full on river ritual.

Then before I go to bed, I meditate, sometimes leave out offerings, and give thanks again. I would really suggest to anyone trying daily devotions to just start doing as many little witchy thing as much as possible! It keeps you connected.

Don’t forget to give Thanks. Whether or not you worship deity, you need to give thanks. Either to a God, Goddess, plant, animal, or just the earth in general, you must give thanks. You don’t own anything; we all share on this planet. When you don’t give thanks, you just assume that what you did was something you were just privileged to do. What about the plants you picked? What about the water you took from the river? What about the answered prayers?

I hope I answered your question!

Blessed Be
)O(

I get this question a lot in terms of scent-sensitive scenarios — you can check those out in my answered questions page. :) But to answer your question, any loose incense is going to smell a little smoky, yes. However, they don’t all smell like marijuana. In fact, the only thing that smells remotely close is sage, and even then, your family should be able to smell the vast difference.

If you want to avoid this smoky, sometimes overpowering scent, I would see if you’re maybe letting the incense burn for too long in open flame. Remember that it has to smoulder — the more that you light on fire, the more smoke you get.

You can also try switching over to Joss sticks (those long dried incense sticks most commonly sold in stores.

I hope this helps!

Blessed Be
)O(

spell-a-day:

A spell for change

Find a stone you don’t mind parting with, and focus on it, using it to symbolize a bad habit that you would like to change.

Hold the stone and visualize your goal.

Chant:

Water flows, carves the land,

Change occurs at its hand.Make a change in my life,

Whatever;s wrongs, make it right.

For good of all, and harm to none, As I will it, so it be done. 

Bury the stone and pour water over the soil.