Have you seen our Portable SpellStations? We made these for people who either need to keep a discreet altar or want to do some work on the go. They’re also handy for those of us with overly full altars who find we need a simple place to do spell work or work with oracle or tarot cards.
The Portable SpellStations come in a handy black velvety bag for easy transport, and come with a clear disk and ten circular papers. Use the papers to write a spell on, and put under the disk with a tea light on top, or put colored paper disks underneath to do all color work with a simple white tea light. We also sell supplemental planetary, zodiacal, and elemental disks. Sorry, but the bee disk is kind of a tease–they usually come with either a pentacle or a cross-quarter disk.
Even better, these are sized to fit medium-sized Society6 bags, which come in all sorts of really cool designs. What better way to be witchy on the go?
We get asked this a lot, since there’s so many books out there it’s hard to tell what you need when. Our Workbook of Shadows and Workbook of Sabbats are intended for the new wiccan/pagan/eclectic, though certainly someone who’s been practicing for a while might get something out of them. It’s always useful to go back to basics and reality check yourself!
The idea behind them is to help ground you in a practice that is meaningful to you, rather than overwhelming you with information. These workbooks guide you through prompts that encourage you to think about what you enjoy doing and how you can tailor a practice to fit your circumstances and preferences. There’s plenty of books that will give you all the information you need, but that can be like drinking from a fire hose–and even if you don’t choke, much of what you read is most useful once you have idea of what’s important to you in picking and choosing.
Water magic is about releasing, accepting, flowing around obstacles, anything you might imagine that water is, helps, or does.
There are many creative ways to work with water. You can do a meditation or a spell in the shower or when you wash your hands, or take a purifying ritual bath as a more special occasion. You can bless your water bottle with a specific intention, or charge it with crystals (be careful to use only ones that are not toxic or just set up a grid around your water bottle).
Many people collect rain water or moon water from different phases of the moon. You can use these during spellwork or meditations. If you use a fountain pen, you could even put your ink cartridges out in the moonlight!
What ways do you work with water?
Happy Mabon! Today is the pagan sabbat Mabon, the Autumn Equinox, where the days start getting shorter and the nights longer. This is the second harvest, a time to reflect and celebrate before we head into the season of Samhain.
Take the time to soak in some sun! This is a good time to take stock of what you need to keep you healthy and happy and figure out a good self-care routine before things get cooler and darker. What do you need to do more of? What do you need to release or do less of? Don’t forget Vitamin D!
Happy Mabon! Today is the pagan sabbat Mabon, the Autumn Equinox, where the days start getting shorter and the nights longer. This is the second harvest, a time to reflect and celebrate before we head into the season of Samhain.
Take the time to soak in some sun! This is a good time to take stock of what you need to keep you healthy and happy and figure out a good self-care routine before things get cooler and darker. What do you need to do more of? What do you need to release or do less of? Don’t forget Vitamin D!
Fire Magic is a great “entry level” way to get into spells for new practitioners because, well, candles. Most people enjoy candles and they’re easy to find these days in all sorts of colors and sizes. Candles make it really easy to do fire magic in a safe, confined way.
The main consideration with candles is whether you want to burn your candle to completion for the duration of your spell or meditation. You can buy small spell candles that last only a short time, so you don’t need to worry about leaving them unattended until they burn out. On the other hand, if you want to use a candle to help you commit to a focus or remind you of an intention, you might want something that lasts longer and lets you work over a period of time.
Keep in mind, though, that if you use a larger candle, you need to let it burn fully to the edges the first time you use it or it will tunnel down and be wasteful and eventually unusable.
If you can’t burn a candle where you live, you can use fire-colored crystals (or even yarn!) to connect you with the energies of fire.
Let’s talk about boundaries and protection. Many people turn to witchcraft because they want to take control of their lives and feel powerful. These are great goals, but keep in mind that when it comes down to taking care of yourself, the romance and attraction of spells and magic won’t get you that far — it all really comes down to practical skills and consistent intention and focus.
How are you protecting and taking care of yourself? Do you respect your own boundaries? How are you nurturing your own power, releasing what you don’t need, and taking actual steps forward?
I’m so happy to have gotten my hands on a copy of the eagerly awaited “The Book of Blessings and Rituals” by Athena Perrakis, Ph.D. The woman behind Sage Goddess, Athena is a genuine, warm, and prolific individual, and I was eager to see what would be in this collection. I was pleasantly surprised to find it’s a cozy, readable 6×8 book that’s a joy to read in bed or on the couch with a glass of wine. It does have, as I expected “special” blessings and invocations for sabbats and other events, but it’s also full of projects and “ordinary” rituals to make daily life more magical. It’s also perfect for the eclectic seeker who doesn’t want to be limited to a specific path. Don’t miss this one!
Last night was the Full Moon in Virgo, and here in New England this one was kind of special. We haven’t had much snow, and when we have, it hasn’t lasted long. So it’s really cool to look out the window on the night of the full moon and see the light of the moon, which is reflected itself, reflecting off the smooth layer of icy snow. Everything was so bright, we had to close the curtains so the light wouldn’t keep us up!
Working with the moon should be easy, you’d think, but people tend to complicate it. I’ve heard and read so many things about what you’re “supposed” to do on the full moon — how it’s time to harvest what you’ve worked on, or time to do rituals on fullness and completion. But one thing seems consistently true for me — it always seems to catch me by surprise. I mean, really — it’s just TWO WEEKS after the new moon. Who can get anything done in that time? When the full moon comes around, that’s about when I go “oh, crap, that STUFF I said I would do.”
This is why we chose to work with the moon the way we do in our Moon Journal. The full moon, for us, isn’t about being DONE, but about putting in that final push to be done. Its focus is “To Will,” and its first journal prompt is “You have spent the past two weeks working at integrating something new into your life. Write about how you might keep your focus in this area strong.”
This is always such a relief for me, having come from moon-shaming work in which I usually get to the full moon and just think “shit.” It’s ending up being totally natural to look at what I’ve done the past two weeks in an honest, gentle fashion, and then just think of how to put in the final push, key up my will, and really DO THE THING. The full moon isn’t a time to be done, but a time to illuminate, gently, what you’ve accomplished and commit to bringing it forward in your life. The moon cycle is gentle and constant, so you always have more chances.
Working with the moon is not a linear process of success or failure, as we’re used to in life. It’s about keeping at it, and making changes slowly but surely. We’d love to hear how you work with the moon, and if you’ve used our journal what you think of it.
We say ‘A’ philosophy, not ‘the’ philosophy because one of the wonders of Wicca/Witchcraft is that it is (certainly Should be) up to the individual to decide on how they view things. There are certain common things though that help define a Wiccan philosophy. This post addresses the idea that the individual is all important. We each have an obligation to ourselves to survive as living beings. We must obtain food, water, and shelter in order to survive.
We must do this survival thing while ‘harming none’. This makes sense since there are many other humans and each one has the same obligation of survival as we do. Working together and allowing each person to make their efforts simply makes sense.
So as Wiccans or Witches whether beginners or experienced we must make sure that we are all set with our own survival. It seems that for survival needs we would need to practice as Solitary. Others have their own needs. Once we are comfortable that we will survive, then we can move on to other things. When in a Coven, the focus will be on intentions for the group as a whole, which is nice because being social is good and there is more energy with the right group of people together.
However, though a Coven could be nice, we must always remember to take care of ourselves. Take for example the Sabbats. These holidays are nice for celebrating if possible with the Coven, or friends and family or whatever combination of people. But it is very important, to take at least a moment; perhaps your own ritual, or meditation, in which to pay attention to your own needs and feelings at the particular time of year.