Sarah Anne Lawless 6

25 August 2010 - 12 January 2011

09/09/2010 – Travelling

Travelling. It’s what I call it when I wander out of body. Sometimes there’s flying, but it’s
not that way for everyone. For me yes, but it’s because one of my main familiars is a bird.
I’ve talked about travelling out of body before, but not of my own experiences (I’ve travelled
in my body as well, but it mostly results in the second-sight). For a long time I thought I was
just having strange vivid dreams, but then I started travelling to meet other witches. Some of
them were dead, some of them still living, and some I recognized from my waking life. I even
went to a house party of all witches once. There was no ritual or witches’ sabbath, but we had
a good time drinking, talking, and laughing. I remember being worried that I had to be home
that night and I shouldn’t be out, but as I held on to the back of the bus to catch a ride home I
remembered that my body was sleeping soundly at home so I had nothing to worry about.
The solo witches I’ve met have told me their whole life stories and taught me little things
about the craft. At the end of the experience I feel like I’ve known that person for a very long
time, but in coming back to my body I do not know who they are.

When I travel it isn’t story book hedgecrossing. There is rarely ancient scenery and fairy tale
settings. Shamans of old saw a reflection of the world they knew in the otherworld and
modern witches shouldn’t expect it to be any different for them. Sometimes the world tree is
an elevator, sometimes its a flight of stairs, sometimes the shaman’s horse is a bus, and
sometimes gods wear jeans. Sometimes I travel in our realm and other times in the
otherworld. Many times the otherworld is like a maze for me – I must go through many
strange places to reach my destination and then I have to do the same to return again. I often
feel like a rat in a maze. I’ve taught myself to recognize when I’m travelling by taking note of
if I have to travel to get somewhere upon falling asleep and if I have to travel to get back
again. Sometimes the travelling is quick and other times it takes a while and is uphill.

One of the strangest experiences yet was being remade. It didn’t happen all at once but over a
period of a month. First my feet were cut off. The next time my hands. Then a man dressed in
black attacked me on the way to visit a shaman friend of mine and I was forcibly made to
vomit up all my insides, my lungs, organs, muscle tissue. I woke up unable to breathe. The
last instance I was brought to a large building through a hidden door. It was a factory, but
instead of products, they made witches. I remember being worried I wouldn’t survive the
process, that I would fail. I knew others had failed and had died or gone mad. They remade
my body and lastly cut off my head, rewired it, and put it back on. To travel home I had to
walk uphill and was very worried about my head falling off. When I reached the top, I woke
up and realized I had been rigidly holding my neck straight. I have to say, I was glad to have
it over with as I was tired of having dreams about me dying.

Travelling is still rather sporadic and unpredictable for me, but I’m slowly learning how to
control it. Sometimes I don’t travel by choice but am taken somewhere by one of my gods or
a familiar spirit. They can do that you know, especially the mercurial gods of crossroads, and
not always at a convenient time. I mostly travel at night when I’m supposed to be sleeping.
The body gets rest, but the mind doesn’t. I often have a headache or am mentally exhausted
upon waking. I tend to travel with no specific destination in mind and find what I find, but
you can also pick somewhere to travel with intention. It’s unfortunately something that
cannot be taught. You do it or your don’t. The more stressed and weighed down you are in
your waking life, the less likely you are able to travel. The more fear you have towards
travelling also makes you less able. Travelling isn’t safe, few things witches do are, but as
long as you protect yourself, you won’t regret not doing it. There’s a reason my bedroom is
littered with protection charms and I have one on my person at all times.

15/09/2010 – Magical Ink Making

I came up with some recipes for magical inks and then got together with my friend to make a
test batch to see if the method would work. We started with the recipe for black ink as my
other recipes had more expensive ingredients. I boiled Alder bark for about 5 hours to get a
very dark brown. You’d need to boil it forever for the dye from the bark to turn black. Local
natives used to use this simple dye to stain their fishing nets black so the fish couldn’t see
them. Once we had a concentrated dye from the bark I added it to my smaller dye pot and my
friend and I added gum arabic and myrrh resins along with crushed dried spiders and
lampblack.

You can make your own lampblack by collecting it from candle or oil lanterns or buy holding
a spoon over a candle and scraping off the black residue (lampblack) that forms on the metal.
This takes forever to accumulate enough lampblack for an ink — especially if you are
making a large batch. If you’re only making enough for a small vial for yourself, then this
method is viable. One way to cheat is to purchase a high-quality tube of black watercolour
that is purely lampblack and Gum Arabic — two ingredients you’re going to need anyway.
You still need other bases for the colour however (like the Alder bark) or you’ll just be
writing with diluted watercolours and it’s not the same as an ink nor is it as strong. I would
only recommend this cheat for a black ink though.

Once the ink was blended and the writing tests showed the right consistency and darkness of
colour, we allowed the ink to cool and then strained it through a very fine sieve (handcrafted
inks can be pretty gritty). I had to add a little more alcohol at this point to thin it as the ink
thickened when cooling. Then I poured the ink in pretty wide-mouthed bottles and had a bit
of fun testing it out. And voilà, lovely handmade magical ink!

23/09/2010 – A Fruitful Harvest Home

What a beautiful sunny day it was for the harvest. Now the rain is drizzling and the fog is
rolling down the mountain, but yesterday was serendipitously sunny. I needed a dry day to
harvest my henbane. It’s getting too cold for it and the leaves were starting to fade. So I
collected the remaining the flowers to dry and then pulled all five henbanes up by the roots.
The roots are more substantial than I’d hoped – alrauns perhaps? I separated the henbane’s
parts while thousands of crows flew by the tree tops. A murder looking for some trees to
roost in for the night. Their cackling was my harvest song.

In thanks for the bounty I left an offering on my dark altar of earthy beets, sweet gum pods,
blackberries, bittersweet berries, white nightshade berries, tobacco leaf, a thornapple from my
moonflower, wild hazelnuts, red roses, thistle fluff, Oregon grape roots, and a sprig of
henbane with fully ripened seed pods. I found fresh trimmings from a Maple tree on a path
and picked a branch with the leaves starting to turn red at the tips. It’s a perfect stand-in for
the world tree at my altar. I burned my Greenman and Mistress of Earth incenses and played
harvest chants. Bless these harvest fruits Holy Ones and take of their sacred essence. Thank
you for all I have harvested this year.

24/09/2010 – Shamanising the Full Moon

A lovely friend of mine came to visit. We had tea and toast with homemade blueberry-
lavender jam she had brought. We caught up chatting over our steaming mugs – it had been
months since we’d last seen each other. A normal scene from life, but I happen to be a witch
and she a shamanic practitioner with a background in witchcraft. We talked about how close
and yet how different those practices are. For me the difference is context and terminology,
but the nitty gritty practices aren’t so different.

She had brought her drum and I had mine. We created sacred space calling the four directions
plus above and below and opened the door in the tree (the centre). She taught me how to
consciously and intentionally journey. She calls it shamanic journeying. I call it
hedgecrossing or travelling. The drum booms like soft thunder causing the dishes in the china
cabinet to tinkle. The smell of burned cedar clings to the air and our clothing. I find may way
into the earth, the darkness. It was only for a short time, but it felt much longer. Like when
you pass out and upon waking feel like you’d been asleep for a hundred years. It was much
easier than I thought and my focus will get better with time. Another reminder to just DO
instead of worry and never try. Then she went into the darkness of the earth herself and
retrieved a power animal for me. It’s better if someone else does it for you. You might let
your desire win over truth if you search for one yourself. In her shamanic community and
lexicon animal familiars are divided into types. Some protect, some guide, some are an innate
part of you. I find this very interesting and it rings truth for me. And like in the witchcraft
community, be very careful who you tell about your familiars. No usual suspects of eagles,
wolves or bears for me, no, I always get the weird sort of creepy ones (it doesn’t mean I’m
unhappy about it though).

And then it was time to celebrate the full moon. I aligned myself with my Goddess to better
commune with her. My forehead smeared with forest earth and water from a hidden mountain
spring. She was very loud this time and didn’t waste time mincing words, but there was
some gentleness (she’s not always gentle). She made me cry. It’s personal. It involves blood
and body issues. She says I need to stop resisting and allow myself to ebb and flow like the
moon, the tide, the seasons of the earth. Acceptance can be hardest when its yourself. Then
she gave me a magical to do list. Once you know better you don’t get a finger waggle, you
get a silent glare. I need to work more regularly with my spirits and I need to travel more –
consciously and intentionally. I also need to get my tools together. I’ve put it off for too long.

I gave her an offering of Strega and my moon incense and burned some jasmine incense for
my spirits. I thanked her. Then I blew out the candles.

27/09/2010 – Belief & Witchcraft

Belief and blind faith are for sheep. Witches don’t need them. Instead, we have tangible
experiences to back up our own practices and cosmology. We don’t need to believe in
shapeshifting – we do it. We don’t need to believe in gods and spirits – we talk to them
regularly. We don’t need to believe in an underworld and afterlife – we travel there. Magic is
like the wind. You can’t see it, but you can see what it touches and it is very powerful. A
warm wind can melt away the snow and cold and bring in spring in just a few days or a harsh
wind over the ocean can destroy hundreds of years of civilization with just one hurricane.
Magic is the tangible unseen. You don’t harness it or control it, you are made from it, for
magic is the very fibre of your being.
28/09/2010 – Dem Bones: Skulls and Bones in Magic & Ritual

“Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones
Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk a-roun’”
— Traditional

Bones are a type of fetish. A fetish is “an object regarded with awe as being the embodiment
or habitation of a potent spirit or as having magical potency (source)”. The word fetish
originates from the French fétiche which stems from the Portuguese word feitiço meaning
“charm” or “sorcery”. Feathers, bones, crystals, and stones are all types of fetishes. Skulls
and bones have an appeal to witches who perform spirit work and are a necessary and simple
way to connect with spirits of the dead and of animals. Working with bones is not just for
necromancers and black magicians. Practitioners who work with bones are a wide range of
healers, diviners, shapeshifters, rootworkers, witches, shamans, druids, and pagans.

Cleaning Bones

The safest and easiest way to clean bones is maceration. Remove any remaining skin or flesh
and place the bones in a container and completely cover with tapwater. Replace the water
every few days with fresh water. You can pour out the smelly water in your garden as a
morbid compost tea your plants will love. When the water stops becoming murky and as
smelly you are ready for the next step. Rinse the bones again with plain water and scrub off
any remaining tissue. Then submerge the bones in a container filled with hydrogen peroxide.
This both sterilizes and whitens bone. It may take a few hours or a few days depending on the
size of the bones and the strength of the hydrogen peroxide. Afterward remove the bones and
give them one last rinse with water and allow them to dry. They are now ready to work with
as you please. Never use bleach. It will cause bone to degrade at a very fast rate and can also
cause fatty tissue to become trapped inside the bone resulting in greasy smelly bones that will
continue to decompose. Here’s a great pdf of instructions from The Bone Room: Prepping
individual skulls and bones using maceration.

Too squeamish to deflesh bones and leave them in a bucket of smelling rotting water? No
worries, there are two other methods you can use to avoid that part. The first is to bury the
animal. Bury it fairly deep so scavengers don’t smell it and run off with your precious bones.
Depending on the size of the animal, skull, or bones you are burying, it will take three months
to one year for all the skin and tissue to decompose and just leave the bone(s) behind. To
make it easier to dig up a skeleton of a whole animal bury it it in a burlap sack. The bag has
to be a natural coarse material and loosely woven in order for the bits to still decompose
properly. Once you’ve dug up your bones, wash them with water and follow the same
instructions above using hydrogen peroxide. The second alternative method is exposure.
Some people have had success leaving dead animals they find on a hot sunny roof to
decompose. This is an efficient method if you don’t mind the smell and toss a dark
rubbermaid container over top to get the heat, but not the damage from the sun. Once again,
the length of time it takes depends on the size of the animal or bone. Please don’t throw a
deer on your roof! I’d only recommend this method for parts of a larger animal or whole
smaller creatures like birds and squirrels. If you use the exposure method you’d have to live
on a farm or in a more rural area. Suburban neighbours tend to frown upon decomposing
animals next door.

Reddening Bones

Take red ochre

Fat and tallow
Rub my bones
And say your prayers
“Barrow Song” — Telling the Bees

Reddening bones is a practice found across countries, cultures, religions, and time. It is
mainly performed by peoples practicing ancestor worship, but animal bones can be reddened
as well. The process is literally making the bones red. This is meant to mimic the lifeforce,
blood, and tissue that have since left the bones and give them life again. To redden human or
animal bones you use, mix red ochre with red wine until it forms a paste and let it sit in a jar
or bowl covered for a day or two. If you can’t get your hands on red ochre pigment you can
substitute with old red brick dust as old bricks contain ochre. Then apply the mixture to the
cleaned bones with your hands and cover the whole bone or skull with paste. Leave it on for
another day (half a day at least). You can wrap it in plastic to keep the paste wet or spray it
now and then with water or red wine to keep it moist. Keeping it moist allows the colour to
leech into the bone just like henna into the skin. Then remove the paste and allow any
remaining particles to dry. When the skull has completely dried, brush away any remaining
red ochre particles. Do not wash the bones, but a gentle polishing with a soft cloth is okay.
Store your newly reddened bones on your altar or in a beautiful box or cloth bag.

Bone Divination:

There’s a thousand things you’ve got to see to believe,

c’mon and lay them bones down at my feet
we’re going to look into your future see what we can see.
“Bangor Mash” — The Devil Makes Three

There are so many different types of bone divination, mostly belonging within a cultural
context, that it is better to find a method that resonates with you or is found in the culture you
base your magic and practices in. I’d even recommend coming up with your own system.
Most bone divination practiced today is performed in Africa and Asia. The amount of lore on
bone divination merits an article of its own. If I did write such an article it would solely be
on Scottish bone divination methods. For the time being here are some more varied resources
to explore:

 Ancient Bone Divination (video)

 Divination by Chicken Bones: A Tradition Among the Kammu in Northern Lao
People’s Democratic Republic (article)
 Reading the Bones (video)
 The Oracle of the Bones (book)
 Throwing the Bones and Reading Other Natural Curios (article)

Human Bones
The possession and reverence of human bones is most commonly found in cultures who
practice a long tradition of ancestor worship. It is still part of the mourning process in some
Asian countries today to dig up the bones of your loved ones after a few years, clean them,
reassemble them neatly in a box and find them a new home in a tradition called “second
burial”. Despite misconceptions, it is not illegal to possess human bones in Canada and the
United States. This doesn’t mean grave robbing is legal, but instead that it is legal to purchase
human remains or to convince your parents or grandparents to let you have their skull after
they die (that is, if you can talk them into it).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9b3tc0OtVM]

Human bones are used in magic and ritual as a fetish or vessel to house the spirit of the dead
person and enable them to ground better in this realm so a magical practitioner can better
communicate and work with them. The spirits of the dead are not servitors to be bound and
ordered around. Instead they are allies to help and guide us. Place your skull or bones in a
place of reverence either on an ancestral altar or in a beautiful container like the reliquaries of
churches in the Middle Ages. Leave your bones regular offerings. Find out if the spirit has
any preferences of alcohol, tobacco, flowers, foods, candies, or objects. You can invite them
to share in the essence of your meals ever day at dinner as well. The person the bones
belonged to in life can become a familiar spirit to you in your art. They can help you
commune with the dead and send messages back and forth. They can travel places you cannot
and be your eyes and ears. Always make sure to work with a spirit out of love and respect. If
you work with bones not of a family member be sure to build up a friendship with the spirit
as you would with a real person. Do not ask too much of them too soon, but instead be
consistent in your offerings and communion with them first.

Human bones can also be used in necromancy. Necromancy is a form of divination working
with the spirits of the dead. One summons them and presents them with questions about the
past, present, or future. It is believed the dead are not bound by time and are excellent oracles
and advisers. For more information on working with spirits of the dead see my article on
Ancestors in Modern Witchcraft
Animal Bones

“All shells and bones

the spey-wife enters,
widdershins.”
Kathleen Jamie, Atoms of Delight

Animal bones are used in witchcraft and folk magic to commune and work with animal
spirits as familiar, guides, and protectors. Like human bones, the bones of animals can be also
be used to ground a spirit animal in this realm. Bones act as a spirit vessel for animal
familiars to dwell in when you work with them. This doesn’t mean that the spirit lives in the
bone(s) all the time, but instead it is their home when you call upon them. Animal bones and
skulls can be placed on an altar or carried in a medicine or crane bag to work with them
outdoors or on the move. Animal bones can be used to call upon mythological creatures as
well. To do this you need only to combine bones from the different animals that make up the
creatures. For example, bind together parts from an eagle and lion to summon a griffon or
combine snake, lizard, and the bones or feathers of a bird of prey to summon a dragon.
Animal bones can be incorporated into ritual jewelry for direct contact and easier communion
with the spirits the bones belong to. Ritual jewelry using bones is the most practical and
direct way of bringing your animal familiars into rituals and spellwork. If you only have very
small bones or a delicate insect to work with than you can place the parts in a glass vial and
either use it as a vessel on your altar or attach a chain or leather thong to it to wear around
your neck. By wearing animal bones you can take on the attributes and powers of the animal
they belong to such as fox teeth for cunning, owl bones for seeing in the dark, or snake bones
for the ability to renew and change your life. Bones can also confer an animal’s magical
abilities. Many animals are “shamanic” in nature enabling the practitioner to whom they are
familiar to adopt their ability to travel between worlds. Such creatures known to travel
between the realms of earth, sea, and sky or have extraordinary powers of transformation
include frogs, toads, snakes, all birds (especially water fowl), alligators, crocodiles, turtles,
beavers, otters, dragonflies, spiders, beetles, butterflies, cicadas, and more.

Animal bones can be used to craft ritual tools. Many traditional rattles are made using skulls,
turtle shells, or little bones tied closely together for the sound of their rattling against one
another. Bones can also be tied to staffs or stangs, wands, or even sewn onto ritual robes.
Animal bones, especially chicken and other bird bones, are used for traditional divination
methods in many cultures. This can also be incorporated into European practice by carving
Futhark or Ogham runes onto animal bones or using slices of deer antler instead of the usual
materials of wood and stone.

Animal bones, hides, and feathers have yet another important use in magic — shapeshifting.
These parts can be worn as jewelry or donned as a costume while going into trance to leave
your body so either your spirit takes on the form of the animal or you are led to a living (and
willing) animal to possess temporarily. Another method of using animal parts for
shapeshifting includes making a magical salve or potion with bones, hairs, skin, or feathers to
rub on your skin or take internally before attempting to shapeshift. If you are making a salve,
include herbs and/or fungi associated with that animal as well as bits of your own hair or nail
clippings in the recipe. If you are making a tea or tincture as a potion, make sure to do the
same. In my experience tinctures are much more palatable than a tea of bone shavings and
hair. For more information see my article: On Shapeshifting.

Resources:
Andrews, Ted. Animal-Speak: The Spiritual & Magical Powers of Creatures Great & Small.
Llewellyn, 1996.
Andrews, Ted. The Art of Shapeshifting. Dragonhawk Publishing, 2005.
Baring-Gould, Sabine. “Skulls”. A Book of Folk-lore. London: Collins Clear Type Press,
1913.
Searfoss, Glenn. Skulls and Bones: A Guide to the Skeletal Structures and Behavior of North
American Mammals. Stackpole Books, 1995.
Thompson, C.J.S. “The Folk-lore of Skulls and Bones”. Hand of Destiny: Everyday Folk-lore
and Superstitions. London: Senate, 1932.
Yronwode, Catherine. Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic. Luck Mojo Curio Co., 2002.

02/10/2010 – Weeds for Witches Part I: Bittersweet

So often ignored and trodden upon, the humble weed lives on following us around the world
just in case we should remember its ancient applications. The weeds in your very own
backyard often hold more magic and potent medicine than the imported dried herbs you
would buy in a shop. The weeds didn’t necessarily follow us. Many of them were planted
intentionally for food and medicine in both Europe and the New World until they were
forgotten after being replaced by pills and creams from the pharmacy. Why spend all that
money on simple remedies when there are so many free ones literally outside your door? Pay
closer attention to weeds you pluck from your garden and yard, growing in the cracks in the
sidewalks, sprouting up in parking lots, or hiding alongside fences where they are missed by
the lawnmower. Learn more about them and perhaps you’ll leave hating them behind and
start to see weeds as Nature’s pharmacy instead of just something to kill.

I’ve selected ten very common weeds growing in Europe and North America to demonstrate
just how useful weeds can be to witches in our magic and for crafting our own herbal home
remedies. I hope, by learning about these weeds, the reader is inspired to get out in nature and
get their hands dirty. With luck, those weeds in your backyard will end up dried in labeled
canning jars or used to make home remedies instead of tossed into the compost heap or
sprayed with nasty chemicals. I’ll post one weed every Saturday, starting today with
Bittersweet Nightshade.

Bittersweet

Solanum dulcamara

Other Names: Bittersweet, Felonwort, Garden Nightshade, Scarlet Berry, Devil’s Tomato,
Snakeberry, Staff Vine, Woody Nightshade

Where it Grows: Damp locations such as in the shade by houses and other buildings or
winding inside hedges (it seems to particularly like Yew hedges). You can find it anywhere
from a dense thicket in the wild wood to creeping up a chain link fence in the middle of a
city. It is mainly found throughout Europe, but has also naturalized throughout all of North
America.

Growing & Harvesting: It’s a weed so it’s very easy to start from seed. Just toss the seeds
on the earth where you want it to grow either in late fall or very early spring. Bittersweet also
grows very easily and quickly from cuttings. Just snip off a few pieces and place them in
water for 1-2 weeks until roots form and then plant them. It is fairly aggressive and fast
growing so be sure to plant it somewhere it won’t bother other more delicate plants. It doesn’t
at all mind being put in a planter or pot. It makes a great decorative climbing vine on a porch,
but just be sure to keep it away from small children who have a bad habit of eating the red
berries and poisoning themselves. The leaves and vines will die back every year depending
on the climate where you live. In a warm climate the leaves will die, but the stalk will survive
eventually growing large and woody the older it gets (hence the name “woody nightshade”).
In a colder climate the whole plant may die back, but if you leave the berries on the vines it
will reseed itself and come back the following year (not always where you want it to though).
To collect the seeds: harvest the berries when they are bright red and let them overripen
before extracting the seeds. For medicine: harvest the leaves and stems in spring or early fall
and dry for later use.

Magic: Ruled by Capricorn and the planet Saturn, but other sources say it is ruled by
Mercury and the signs of Air. Deities who have an association with this plant include Hermes
and Hecate — shamanic deities who easily travel through all three realms of sea, earth, and
sky. It can be added to a witches’ salve used to access the World Tree and communicate with
both deities and the spirits of the dead. In folk magic, it is used to heal a broken heart by
either placing some of the dried herb beneath your pillow or carrying it in a sachet on your
person. I would recommend mixing it with Bleeding Heart flowers for this purpose.
Culpepper, in his famous herbal, claims it will cure vertigo if you wear Bittersweet around
your neck it. It is also traditionally used to protect from evil and also to cleanse anyone,
animal, or object of evil or the evil eye. Instead of burning it, try dipping a fresh clipping of
Bittersweet in springwater or rainwater and flick it onto the people or object you wish to
cleanse.

Medicine: As it is mildly toxic Bittersweet is best if used externally as a poultice or salve.

The parts used are the leaves, stems, and root bark. The berries are not used for medicine.
When ingested it mainly acts as a purgative which translates from herbal lingo as “makes you
puke”. As a poultice the leaves are good for treating herpes, boils, and gout. When used in a
salve Bittersweet is better mixed with other herbs. In his massive Herb Book, John Lust
recommends mixing Bittersweet with Chamomile to make a salve for treating inflammation,
bruising, and sprains, but make sure not to use it on open wounds like cuts and gashes (rashes
should be okay). Lust also recommends blending it with Yellow Dock (another common
weed) in a salve to treat skin diseases and sores such as eczema and psoriasis. In either salve
it would also be good for treating various insect bites. You can also used the dried plant as a
medicinal bath to treat skin conditions and skin infections as well as aching joints by taking
such a bath for a few days in a row. Do NOT use when pregnant.

References:
 Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs
 Medicinal Plants of the Pacific West
 The Herb Book by John Lust
 Witchcraft Medicine

09/10/2010 – Weeds for Witches Part II: Clover

Where it Grows: Wild Clovers can be found all over the Northern Hemisphere mainly in
meadows and bright sunny spots. Some native, some naturalized. It will grow anywhere there
are people and can also be found in South America, Africa, and Australia. It does like a little
bit of shade and suffers in hot dry weather. The two most common clovers are Red Clover
and White Clover. Red Clover is larger with taller stems and big purple to pink flower heads.
White Clover is smaller, closer to the ground, and has smaller white flower heads and
sometimes variegated leaves.

Growing & Harvesting: Clover is actually commonly planted by farmers as a cover crop or
sown in fallow fields as it is known to naturally restore nitrogen to the soil. Scatter clover
seeds all over your grass lawn in spring or early fall and you’ll never have to fertilize your
lawn again. Clover doesn’t mind compacted soil at all so let your children run wild over it.
Planting clover in your lawn will also attract honey bees and other beneficial insects to your
yard. This is especially beneficial if you have a vegetable or herb garden that needs
pollinating. Clover seeds are easily found in just about any seed catalogue or local garden
centre. Continually harvest the flower heads of Red Clover as they bloom and dry them for a
medicinal tea or for use in magic. White clover flowers are edible, but should only be eaten in
small quantities.
Magic: Clover is one of the oldest cultivated plants. It has been used both medicinally and
magically since ancient times. Although modern folklore has this three-leaved plant being
associated with the Christian Holy Trinity, the association of plants with three leaves goes
much further back into Pagan times. The ancient Greeks and Romans associated it with their
triple Goddesses and the Celts considered it a sacred symbol of the Sun. It is the national
flower of Ireland, but the association with St. Patrick is actually more modern. In folk magic,
Red Clover is used in a ritual bath to attract money and prosperity to the bather and is also
used as a floorwash to chase out evil and unwanted ghosts. White Clover is used for breaking
curses and is worn as a sachet or put in the four corners or a house or someone’s property to
achieve this. The four-leaf clover is a very famous good luck charm believed to protect from
evil spirits, witches, disease, and the evil eye. This familiar childhood rhyme for a four-leaf
clover actually originates from the Middle Ages:

One leaf for fame, one leaf for wealth,

One for a faithful lover,
And one leaf to bring glorious health,
Are all in a four-leaf clover

All of these together are supposed to give one the happiest and most fulfilling life possible.
Four-leaf clovers are also traditionally used to see fairies and other spirits, to heal illnesses,
and to avoid being drafted into the military. Three leaved-clovers are worn as a protective
talisman and two-leaved clovers are used by young women to get a glimpse of a future lover.
With its three leaves, Clover is a very shamanic plant allowing one to see into and interact
with the Otherworld. It is a good talisman of protection and power for traveling out of body
and walking between worlds. Never underestimate the magical power of this simple and
harmless weed. It also makes a good offering to Mercurial deities and can be burned with
incense, added to ritual smoking blend, made into alcoholic brews, or left with a food
offering.

Medicine: Clovers are very good for both your health and your livestock animals’ health (if
you have any). They are rich in nutrients and vitamins and the leaves and flowers can be
added to salads or used as garnish. Use the new green leaves when eating them raw, but you
can also add the tougher older leaves to sautéed or steamed greens like spinach and kale. You
can even add the leaves into stir fries, soups, and pasta sauces, but add them last and just
cook until wilted to retain the nutrients. Even the roots can be eaten when cooked. You can
batter and fry Clover flowers just like Elder flowers. The flowers of both types of clover can
be used to make homemade wines, beers, or vinegars. Red Clover flowers are steeped to
make a popular tea which, although drunk for pleasure, can be used to treat liver and
gallbladder issues, stomach and digestive issues, as well as for women’s menstrual and
fertility issues.

References:
 Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs
 Plant Spirit Wisdom by Ross Heaven
 The Herb Book by John Lust
 Witchcraft Medicine
10/10/2010 – Autumn Harvest Soup

The dark half of the year is upon us, spirits come closer to us, and the nights grow cold
replacing the friendly warm summer nights with cold darkness that chills the bone. My
garden soldiers on regardless, producing flowers, berries, and seeds. My daturas are still
blooming along with the mullein and my white nightshade’s berries are turning as black and
as shiny as a raven’s eye. At this time of year I get cravings for root vegetables and squash.
Pumpkins, acorn squash, sweet potatoes, yams, parsnips, turnips, and carrots — oh my! I saw
acorn squash at the market and had to bring one home for soup. Don’t bother and worry about
all that cutting and peeling – there’s no need. I just cut them in half (use a serrated knife for
ease), scoop out the seeds with a spoon and then season the inside with salt, pepper, and
herbs. Then I place the halves face down on a baking sheet and roast in the oven at 375°F
(190 C) for 30 minutes.

While the acorn squash is roasting I set to work dicing two onions, two large carrots, two
yams, and four garlic cloves. I tossed the onions and carrots in the soup pot with some olive
first and when they had softened I added the garlic. Then I added 12 cups of chicken stock
(you could easily use vegetable stock for a vegetarian version) and the diced yam and brought
it to a boil. I let it boil on medium heat for half an hour until the yams had cooked through
and then I added the roasted squash which I easily scooped out of the skin with a metal
spoon.

Once the squash was added I poured the soup in a large bowl and added a little at a time into
my blender to purée it. I took the centrepiece out of the lid to let the steam escape so the soup
didn’t explode my blender and through the open hole added more soup once the blender had
been turned on. Each blended portion then gets poured back into the soup pot and heated.
Then I added salt and cracked smoked black peppercorns along with fresh thyme and oregano
from my terrace garden. I always add a dash of hot sauce and Worcestershire sauce to my
soups as well.

Lastly, I made some Irish soda bread with whole grain flour and lots of diced green onions
(and plenty of butter) to go with the soup. And voilà, you have yourself a delicious Autumn
harvest soup that will serve 8 people. To change it up you can use any kind of squash:
pumpkin, spaghetti squash, butternut squash… whatever your favourite may be. If you hate
squash then just up the number of carrots used and maybe add some parsnips too. Instead of
herbs you could add nutmeg, ginger, coriander, and cumin for a spicier tasting soup. Happy
witchin’ in the kitchen!

12/10/2010 – Horned God Reading List

I’ve heard this sentence said often in the Pagan and Witchcraft communities: that everything
is about the Goddess and there is very little on male gods out there, especially not the Horned
God. Well it’s simply not true. There is an abundance of works available from as early as the
1920s onward. My own personal favourite work, which I highly recommend to any devotees
of this wild god, is The History of the Devil: The Horned God of the West by R. Lowe
Thompson. Here is a Horned God reading list in chronological order (note the first three
predate Wicca – both Gardner and Doreen Valiente were influenced by them):

1929 – The History of the Devil: The Horned God of the West by R. Lowe Thompson
1933 – The God of the Witches by Margaret Murray
1936 – The Goat-Foot God by Dion Fortune
1969 – Pan the Goat-God: His Myth in Modern Times by Patricia Merivale
1994 – In Search of Herne the Hunter by Eric Fitch
1996 – Masks of Misrule: The Horned God & His Cult in Europe by Nigel Jackson
2008 – The Horned God of Wytches by Zan Fraser
2008 – The Goat Foot God by Diotima
2008 – Horns of Power: Manifestations of the Horned God by various authors

Favourite Quotes:

“I adjure you, O Spirit, Ram-bearer, who dwells among the graves upon the bones of the
dead, that you will accept from my hand this offering”

— Sepher Ha-Razim, 300 CE

“But though Cernunnos is the Western equivalent of the Greco-Roman Ades-Pluto, we

cannot regard him as a late importation. For, as [Sir John] Rhys points out, he is antique both
in his dress and in his attitude; and the ‘younger gods cluster round him like children by the
side of their father.'”

“At this point I stop to see in Cernunnos the old palaeolithic magician of the caves. In this
cult he has been deified as a god of the dead, and, since the discovery of metals, probably by
wild hunters in the old bare rocks of the hills, as a god of wealth. But he is still the progenitor
of all men. He still encourages wild animals, the stag and the ox, or, rather, the auroch.
Ancient of days, he stands aloof from the younger gods.”
— R. Lowe Thomspon in The History of the Devil, 1929

“The Devil was represented as black, with goat’s horns, ass’s ears, cloven hoofs, and an
immense phallus. He is, in fact, the Satyr of the old Dionysiac processions, a nature-spirit, the
essence of joyous freedom and unrestrained delight, shameless if you will, for the old Greeks
knew not shame. He is the figure who danced light-heartedly across the Aristophanic stage,
stark nude in broad midday, animally physical, exuberant, ecstatic, crying aloud the primitive
refrain, ‘Phales, boon mate of Bacchus, joyous comrade in the dance, wanton wanderer o’
nights’ … in a word, he was Paganism incarnate, and Paganism was the Christian’s deadliest
foe; so they took him, the Bacchic reveller, they smutted him from horn to hoof, and he
remained the Christian’s deadliest foe, the Devil.”

— Montague Summers, 1926

16/10/2010 – Weeds for Witches Part III: Dandelion

Where it Grows: Where is Dandelion not found? With its fluffy seeds easily carried by the
winds, Dandelion has spread across the world with its deep roots helping it to evade weeding
attempts. You can intentionally grow them from seed, or by transplanting, to more easily
keep track of the age and size of the roots as well as for lettuce greens. If you transplant,
don’t be alarmed if the leaves die. The root is still alive and the leaves will come back once
the root is used to its new home.

Growing & Harvesting: Everyone with a garden or a lawn knows Dandelions well. Mostly
from cursing them while digging them out of their yards or spraying their roots with harsh
chemicals to kill them. There is no need to plant Dandelion as it will grow everywhere
regardless and is usually quite plentiful. Stop killing them with chemicals right now and let
them grow. Collect the bright yellow flowers before they go to seed on a sunny day to make
sweet Dandelion wine. Instead of tossing Dandelions you dig up into the compost pile, save
the leaves for salads or cooked greens and save the roots to dry for magic or roast for a
delicious coffee substitute.

Magic: Dandelion belongs to Hecate and is mainly a chthonic plant associated with the
underworld and necromancy. It is beloved by bees, goats, pigs and is considered a toad plant
(all have a certain underworld nature), with bees sometimes acting as psychopomps in old
folklore. Dandelion is also a very Mercurial weed associated with the air element explaining
its use in aiding in communication with the dead and increasing psychic ability. Drink an
infusion of the dried and roasted roots to enhance your psychic abilities before performing
divination or summoning spirits of the dead. Medicinally, Culpepper writes that Dandelion
has an “opening and cleansing quality… it openeth passages”. This can be applied to
sympathetic magic, meaning this weed is excellent for walking between realms and
communing with the spirits that reside.

Drink Dandelion wine, made from the flowers, to aid in communion with deities and spirits
of the upperworld. Both the root tea and the wine make good offerings to Hecate. Pour some
in a small hole dug in the earth and cover it, walking away without looking back (an ancient
Greek custom when offering to underworld deities). In folk magic the seeds are blown to
make wishes. Imagine all those little seeds you blew germinating and growing – your wish
sympathetically growing and coming into being a hundred times over. Large Dandelion roots
are also a very fitting and traditional root to make alrauns (root poppets) from.

Dandelion Root Tea (Coffee Substitute)

Dig up larger two-year-old roots and scrub them with an old toothbrush or a potato scrubber
to clean. Then chop them up into medium dice and place on a baking sheet in a 250°F oven
for about two hours – maybe giving them a shake or a toss now and then. When they turn a
milk chocolate brown and have shrunk in size, they are ready. Grind the dried toasted roots
as you would coffee beans and either run through a coffee maker or place in a tea bag or
ball as you would infuse a cup of tea. Try plain or add cream and honey or brown sugar for
a caramel tasting treat. Toasted Dandelion roots also make a great addition to chai recipes
and can be substituted for the black tea leaves.

Dandelion Wine

2 cups of freshly picked Dandelion flowers (no stems)

3 lemons
1 orange
7.5 cups (4 lbs) brown or demerara sugar
1 gallon water
1 tbsp. of yeast on a piece of toast

Add the water to a stock pot with flowers and bring to a medium boil for 20 minutes. Strain
out the flowers adding the liquid back to the pot and then add the sugar. Peel one lemon and
the orange adding the rind to the pot and then juice them and add that too. Remove from heat
when the sugar has dissolved. Allow to cool to a lukewarm temperature and then add the
yeast on a small piece of toast. Cover with a dish cloth and leave on your counter to ferment
for two days. Skim off any foam and take out the peels. Pour into a 1 gallon carboy and add
just the peels of the remaining two lemons. Cap with an airlock and keep an eye on it the first
couple days to make sure it doesn’t leak liquid everywhere. Allow to ferment for six months
before bottling – be sure the yeast is dead before doing so!

Dandelion Bitters

1/2 cup roasted dandelion root

2 cups brandy
honey to taste (preferably dandelion honey)

Put ingredients into a canning jar, screw on the lid, and shake well. Then leave in a
cupboard for 2 weeks shaking a couple times a day each day. After the 2 weeks are up, strain
through a sieve lined with cheesecloth or a coffee filter and pour into a new, clean canning
jar. Allow the sediment from the root to settle for 2-4 weeks and then filter off the clear
liquid. Bottle in an old tincture bottle with a dropper if you have one and take 1-3 droppers
30 minutes before meals to stimulate your digestive system. These bitters can also be used for
magical work by ingesting before divination, necromancy, or walking between the worlds.

Medicine: Dandelions are rich in vitamins and nutrients. It is one of the best weeds to
incorporate into your regular diet. It is most well known as a diuretic to help the liver and
gallbladder, but it is also popular for cleansing the blood. Home brewers love to joke about
how drinking Dandelion wine doesn’t count as drinking as the properties of the Dandelion fix
any problems the alcohol causes as you drink it. Dandelion makes a great detoxifying tonic
and eating the fresh greens can actually aid in bone health and growth. The leaves are bitter
so be sure to mix them with sweeter greens when eating fresh or cook them with something
tasty like bacon, onions, and a touch of lemon juice. To make a tonic tea, harvest the plant
whole before it flowers or just the leaves while it’s flowering and steep them in boiled water
just as you would a tea. Drink daily or just for a short period of time especially before
changing your diet. Dandelion is also a great flower for honey production as it flowers in the
fall as well as the spring allowing bees to have one last mad honey-making dash before
winter. Dandelions produce a dark rich honey.

References:

A Modern Herbal vol.I by Margaret Grieve

A Sip Through Time by Cindy Renfrow
Culpepper’s Complete Herbal
Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs
The Herb Book by John Lust
Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic by cat yronwode
Medicine Grove by Loren Cruden

19/10/2010 – Crafting New Witches’ Salves

There’s more magic cooking in the witch’s kitchen. I’m making more of my Toadman’s
Salve for shapeshifting, hedgecrossing, and communing with a toad familiar. I’ve started
another batch of my Genius Loci salve for materializing and communicating with nature
spirits – mainly those of forests and wild places. I’m also working on a crafting a 17th
century fairy ointment recipe. I just need to find one more ingredient before I can complete it.
I found the instructions in the classic work Fairy Tradition in Britain by Lewis Spence. The
making of the fairy ointment is quite ritualistic, but not nearly as elaborate as crafting
Medea’s Salve.

Supposedly Prometheus taught Medea how to make this salve from Mandrake root.
Mandrake sprung up from the ichor, god blood, of Prometheus from his time in punishment
for bringing us fire. Gods’ blood is poisonous to mortals like the Mandrake, but in small
doses the root is very useful medicinally and ritually. It would be good for channeling gods as
Prometheus is the Gods’ telephone pole – this salve is like a phone you can use to dial a
deity’s number with an invocation. Even being tortured and bound, Prometheus as trickster
still covertly gifted we mortals.

A simple blend of precisely measured genuine Mandragora root, rich extra virgin olive oil
from Greece, and high quality filtered beeswax. However, this salve is not so simple to make.
Following the ancient recipe with the help of my lovely apprentice, we left a sacrifice of an
apple and a healthy dose of my home brewed pomegranate-apple mead in a pit at a crossroads
to Persephone. Then we lit the altar candles and created sacred space to work within. Next we
cleansed ourselves in the waters of seven springs (as many local ones as we could find)
before invoking Hecate with an offering of my Hecate incense and more mead. Then we were
able to work with the Mandragora and craft the salve of Medea which can be used in honour
of Prometheus, Persephone, Hecate, or Aphrodite depending on your intent. This salve will
allow you to take on the powers of a god, is what Medea says to Jason. Use for channeling
and for rites needing abilities beyond your ken such as shapeshifting, travelling between
worlds, or communing with spirits. My apprentice and I tested it out when we were done and
I made sure to take notes. We rub a small amount of the salve on the back of our necks,
behind our ears, and inside the elbows. Then wait around twenty minutes…

Heat, waves of heat like a hot flash, but not a flash – waves. It is pleasant. My hands and my
neck are warm, but the rest of my body feels cool to the touch even though I feel hot from the
inside. I feel this same heat when I sing charms, invocations, and when performing certain
rituals. We went outside on the deck to sit with my poisonous plants and the cooling night air
made the heat balance and I felt comfortable even though I should have been cold. Definitely
mind altering. Time goes by quickly. No fuzzy mind or clouded thoughts. Sight is very focused
and sharp with clearer detail. Young crows fly by in mass numbers to roost for the night. The
tiny purple bittersweet flowers with their tiny tufts of pollen. It makes one silly and giggle a
bit like pot. Saliva builds up in the mouth and words become confused to speak. I touch the
datura. I’m thirsty it says with no words. I feel this strongly. I touch the earth and it’s quite
dry. Suddenly, it starts to rain.

Around the same time my apprentice and I also made the traditional Nine Sacred Herbs
Salve. The recipe for this salve is taken from an 11th century manuscript which also contains
the charm sung along with its use to empower the herbs. The nine sacred herbs were
discovered and shared with us mortals by the god Odin and are traditional to Germanic and
Anglo-Saxon lore. They are chamomile, chervil, crab apple, fennel, mugwort, nettle, English
plantain, viper’s bugloss, and watercress. This is a magical healing salve used for healing
both physical and metaphysical illness. Out of the nine herbs, the ones still used medicinally
in salves today are chamomile, mugwort, and plantain – not bad for thousand-year old herbal
knowledge.
To enhance its healing powers, the charm is sung three times while applying the salve to heal
ills beyond the herbs’ medicinal abilities such as painful arthritis, rheumatism, sprains, carpal
tunnel, infections, diseases, or even to cure someone of the evil eye or other curses. It is a
long charm, but it is traditionally to say or sing it all three times: Nine Herbs Charm with
Translation.

23/10/2010 – Weeds for Witches Part IV: Hedge Bindweed

Names: Convolvulus sepium, morning glory, Devil’s vine, hedge lily, field bindweed

Where it Grows: Hedge Bindweed mostly grows on the eastern half of North America and
all across Europe, but it is also making a tenacious appearance on the West Coast of Canada
and the US as well. The native variety local to British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and
California is the Nightblooming Morning Glory (convolvulus nyctagineus). Morning Glories
prefers wastelands, hedges, fences, and cultivated land with good sunlight. The name
Morning Glory refers to the fact that the flowers tend to bloom in the cool morning air and
close or wither and die while the hot sun is out.

Growing & Harvesting: Most gardeners hate Hedge Bindweed and try to pull it up at every
turn (usually unsuccessfully). Convolvulus sepium is the wild variety, but there are many
other types of Morning Glory from around the world in all different hues and sizes that one
can grow as ornamentals. Morning Glories are planted in the Spring after the last frost. There
are a few varieties, mainly from Mexico, known to be hallucinogenic which were both
worshipped and ingested by the Aztecs – the most common being “Heavenly Blue”. The
seeds were used and the chemical components within them have been found to have effects
similar to LSD. However, the seeds are also very poisonous, so don’t think you can have a
nice high by eating a handful of seeds. An ambulance might have to come by your place.

Magic: Morning Glories belong to Saturn, patron of Witchcraft. It is a plant of dawn and
dusk and thickets and hedges separating civilization from the wild wood. Hedge Bindweed’s
magic lays in the places in between – thresholds and doorways – openings to the otherworld.
It is a good ally for hedgecrossers and spirit workers. Its persistent vines creating a
connection or bridge to both worlds one is travelling between giving the safety of a return
route. Its flowers are too delicate to use, but the tangled vines can be put to work in binding
spells for people, objects, or spirits. The roots are the main part used in folk magic and Hedge
Bindweed was one of the Native American conjurer’s roots. It is used as a substitute for High
John the Conqueror Root and has the same magical properties of good luck, success,
confidence in self, strength, and commanding power. It can be used anywhere in Hoodoo
formulas calling for High John.

Medicine: Only the roots are used. Hedge Bindweed is mainly a purgative and not
commonly used in herbal medicine. It is taken internally for constipation and bowel issues. It
also helps with inflammation of mucous membranes. It is not to be taken in large doses or for
an extended period of time or it can cause constipation and other health issues.

Resources:

 Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs

 Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic by cat yronwode
 Plants of Coastal British Columbia including Washington, Oregon & Alaska
  The Herb Book by John Lust

24/10/2010 – Rites for the Ancestors

The hunter’s moon, the blood moon, has come and gone. On the night of its perfect fullness a
group of witches met somewhere in town. They painted their faces to look like the shades and
then paid their coins to Charon to be ferried to the Underworld. There in perfect silence, only
broken by the sound of systrum and drum, the witches met with their beloved dead. After
their communion, the witches paid a coin again to be ferried back to the realm of the living
where they merrily feasted drinking deeply of rich mead and wine.

My role was at the South altar and I called the Guardian using my red frame drum with its
Yew wood beater. I baked Fly Agaric cupcakes for the post-ritual feast – vanilla bottoms with
red velvet cake batter on top iced to imitate the hallucinogenic mushroom. Then I made
traditional oatcakes in the shape of Oak leaves and iced them as well for a wild forest platter
of sweet deliciousness.

Then it was time to assemble the ancestral altar. Out came the ram, crow, and owl skulls. I
nestled them among pomegranates, persimmons, crab apples, corn, and henbane roots. Some
vigil candles for longevity and atmosphere completed the altar. After smudging the altar and
anointing the candles and ram skull with ancestor oil, I lit the candles and dedicated the altar
to me and mine’s blood ancestors as well as the mighty dead – the ancestors of witch. This is
where offerings will be left for the dead until the middle of November.

29/10/2010 – Ancestral Altars & Rituals

A brief introduction to modern ancestor worship for animists, spirit workers, pagans and
witches. Whether you wish to work with familial ancestors (the beloved dead) or the
ancestors of witchcraft (the mighty dead), this article contains simple practices and rituals to
incorporate into your spiritual path. You will learn how to set up shrines and altars for the
beloved and mighty dead, how to create a spirit fetish to connect the dead to the land of the
living, how to give formal and informal offerings, as well as simple rituals of benevolent
necromancy. Keep in mind the dead are with us the entire dark half of the year from
Samhuinn until Imbolc. Honour them often and perhaps leave your ancestral altar up until the
gate is closed once more between the living and the dead. A blessed All Hallows’ Eve to you
and yours.

SHRINES & ALTARS

Most cultures, ancient and modern, that worship the ancestors maintain shrines or altars at all
times. The home shrine or altar is where the ancestors are told of all that happens in one’s
life–all our joys and sorrows. Offerings are given, as the dead are believed to still require the
nourishment they receive from our libations and burnt food offerings. It is also at altars and
shrines that the ancestors are petitioned for aid or advice. Whenever something is asked of or
received from the spirits of the dead, something must be given in return. This may be
anything from libations, burnt food offerings, or certain incenses whose fumes are as food to
spirits.

The Ancestor Shrine

The ancestral shrine can be anything from a small shelf to a full table top with photos and
belongings of dead loved ones, various candles, a bell, water, flowers, and an offertory dish
for libations or unsalted foods. The altar cloth should be white for worship and offerings and
the candles white or blue. This is a devotional space to pay respects to one’s ancestors—
especially those of your family. I recommended a shrine for those who do not wish to delve
deeply into spirit work, but still want to regularly honour their ancestors.

Shrines can be used for daily or weekly offerings and are a good place to share the sorrows
and joys of your life with your dead relatives. A good daily practice is to set a portion of your
dinner meal aside on their shrine before you sit down to eat yourself. Other good offerings to
leave at an ancestral shrine include their favourite foods, alcohol, tea, coffee, tobacco,
flowers, and incense. It is best to offer only what the individual spirit preferred when alive.
Did they have a sweet tooth? Were they a smoker? Take these things into consideration when
choosing the right offering.

The Ancestor Altar

The ancestor altar is a full working altar with divinatory tools as well as spirit vessels to
house the spirits of the dead you will work with. The altar must be large enough to house
your tools and supplies. The cloth that covers it should be black for your necromancy work.
The candles used should also be necromantic black—both the altar candles and offertory
candles. Other supplies can include a stang, staff, or wand made from ash, blackthorn, or yew
wood; an incense burner or cauldron; an offering bowl and cup; and one or more spirit
vessels. Place either a cauldron or clean bowl filled with fresh water on the altar before any
rite of necromancy. In general, the ancestor altar can include a collection of tools and
supplies that can be used both outdoors and indoors, rather than a static altar in your home. If
you do not wish to have an obvious altar set up for your spirit work, you can store the
supplies instead, and only bring them out when you intend to use them.

Spirit Vessels

The most common tool used for working regularly with ancestors is a vessel for their spirits
to dwell in while visiting our realm. Such vessels should always be consecrated to their
purpose and the spirit(s) invited to make a home of it. In Haitian Voudou such a vessel is
known as the govi, which is a spirit pot that houses the ancestral spirit of the priest(ess) or the
ghédé themselves. In European Witchcraft, a spirit box is used and may be filled with
anything from cremation ashes, bones, or personal belongings of the deceased along with
herbs which foster communication with the dead. A spirit vessel can also take the form of a
fetiche, such as a real, wooden, or ceramic skull stuffed with hair or belongings of the
deceased relative. If the spirit you work with is not one of the recently dead, you could stuff
the vessel with red thread instead, to ground the spirit in the vessel. A quartz crystal is also a
good addition, as many cultures worldwide believe this stone has the ability to ground spirits
and keep them in our realm so we can better commune with them. Familiar ancestral spirits
should never be bound or trapped in a vessel; they should be free to come and go as they
please. They should also always be worked with out of love and not forced. Doing the
opposite can have repercussions.

RITUALS OF NECROMANCY
If you choose to summon a chthonic deity or spirits of the dead to ask a question or a favour,
timing is important. For the best results, perform the following rituals at dusk, dawn,
midnight, the dark moon, the waning moon, the autumnal equinox, Samhuinn, the winter
solstice, Imbolc, or the spring equinox. I have known people who have an open door policy
with the spirits of the dead in their home. This is a very dangerous thing to do! It is especially
dangerous if you have children or do not live alone as you are endangering not just yourself
but also your family and roommates. Inviting a strange spirit into your house is like taking a
stranger off the street into your home–they could either be a lovely person, or they could kill
you and take everything you own–you just never know. Unfamiliar spirits should be
summoned within a well-made protective Circle only and should always be banished
afterward. Familiar ancestral spirits do not need such formalities, but make sure it’s actually
your ancestor you’re talking to and not a demonic or mischievous imposter. This can be done
by asking questions only your ancestor would know the answers to or by simply using their
full name (including all middle names) or basic genealogy each time you summon them.

To summon your ancestral spirits, call to them while burning an incense that both attracts
spirits as well as aids in communication with them. It is also necessary to burn an offertory
incense for the spirits as food to sustain them while visiting our realm. However, make sure
you do not offer the food incense until you know you have summoned the correct spirit as
you do not want to give strength and power to an incorrect spirit. If you work with gods, a
gatekeeper or pyschopomp should be called upon to open the gates between worlds and let
the spirits of the dead through – the most common being Hecate and Hermes. A traditional
offering to such deities is olive oil and honey. Lastly, do not forget to send back what you call
forth. This is especially important if you are working with an unfamiliar spirit. Make sure
either you or an underworld deity closes the doorway between the worlds when your ritual is
finished.

Ritual of Offering to the Spirits

For this simple ritual you will need:

• white cornmeal, white powdered egg shell, or white chalk

• a white candle with holder (don’t forget matches or a lighter)
• food and/or a libation
• incense (plus charcoal if using incense)
• a small gardener’s trowel

Take your supplies and offering(s) to a crossroad or graveyard. Both three- and four-way
crossroads are perfect. A dirt crossroad is preferred so you can dig a hole to leave the
offering, but pavement will suffice in a pinch. If you only have access to a paved crossroad
and aren’t near any dirt paths, make sure to just leave an offering of alcohol or incense
instead of the food so you’re not leaving a mess for people to drive over. You will want to
use a crossroad with little activity or at a time of day when you won’t be seen, as in some
areas the police might be called due to your supposed “satanic activity”. Once at the
crossroad, draw a sigil like those shown below near the centre, where the roads intersect if
you can.
Ancestor Sigils by Sarah Anne Lawless

If you are at a cemetery, draw the sigil at the grave of your choice on the ground where the
body would be. If you are worried about the sigil in the graveyard being taken the wrong way
by the police, then draw the sigil in the dirt with your index finger instead. Dig a small hole
in the center of the sigil and light your candle, placing it nearby. Then mutter your intent and
who you are leaving the offering for (i.e., a deity or spirit of the dead). If it is a deity, you
may recite an offertory incantation or summoning for them. If you brought tobacco or
incense, burn it now. If you have a cigar, light it and take a few puffs, blowing the smoke at
the sigil, then place the lit cigar upright in the hole. Pour your libation and/or food offering
into the hole and then turn your head from the offering and walk away without looking back.
After performing this ritual consistently, the Witch may eventually ask the spirit or deity to
appear so they may ask something of them—anything from permission to collect dirt from
their grave for magical use or for powers and abilities. Where do you think all of those “deals
with devils at the crossroads” legends come from?

Spirit Vessel Consecration Ritual

The following ritual can be used to consecrate a vessel or fetiche that will be used for spirit
work by an individual or a group. For this ritual you will require:
• A vessel (box, pot, jar, skull, or fetiche object)
• A white candle
• Incense burner
• Charcoal
• Ritual knife
• Personal concerns of the deceased
• Red ochre or red brick dust mixed with water or red wine
• Anointing Oil (plain olive oil works in a pinch)
• Summoning Incense (i.e. wormwood, sandalwood, copal…)
• Offering Incense (i.e. myrrh, pomegranate peel, sandalwood…)

Before the vessel or fetiche can be used for spirit work, a consecration ritual must be
performed to connect the spirit(s) to the vessel and invite the spirit(s) into it. The most
common spirits housed in such boxes are the spirits of the magical practitioner’s family who
have recently died or have been dead for generations. The practitioner can add anything they
feel is appropriate to the vessel: a rosary, ring, a letter written by the deceased, photographs,
obituaries, flowers from the funeral, teeth, hair, nail clippings—anything related to the
spirit(s) the vessel is intended for. If you are consecrating a fetiche you might want to drill a
hole in it to have a place to load such personal concerns. If the spirit(s) you will be working
with is long dead, and no personal concerns can be obtained, then use a piece of red wool
instead to create the connection. It must be red and it must be sheep’s wool. Herbs can also be
used in place of personal concerns such as wormwood, althea root, copal resin, or yew.
After dusk during the waning or dark moon, create sacred ritual space however you do so in
your tradition. Invoke the deity you work with who guards the gates to the underworld, and
ask them to open the gates and raise up the spirit(s) you wish to work with. If you do not
work with Deity, call your spirit guides to help you open the door to the underworld. If you
are an animist, animals such as owls and snakes are well-known psychopomps. Once this is
done, place the white candle and vessel or fetiche on the altar. Anoint the candle with oil and
light it in the ancestor’s name. Anoint the vessel with oil and the red ochre mixture. Burn the
summoning incense as you call up the spirit(s) by name and lineage, and invite them to reside
in the vessel. It is best to have one spirit per vessel, but guilds of spirits will get along when
housed in one fetiche, such as the ancestors of Witchcraft, your blood ancestors, or the
ancestors of a specific trade. Next, burn some of the offering incense and tell them your intent
to have the vessel be a home for them while visiting you. Ask if they will agree to work with
you and use the vessel. If you do not have the second sight, watch the candle flame for
flickering, spitting, and hissing for a “yes” or the flame to be inexplicably snuffed out or
weak for a “no.” Sometimes it is the incense that will spark or go out as a signal rather than
the candle. If the spirit(s) agree, show them the way to the vessel and to you by pricking your
thumb with your ritual knife, or a sterilized pin, so a drop of blood forms and anoint the
vessel with the drop of blood. If the vessel will be used by a group, have each member
perform this action. The vessel is now linked to you and the spirit(s). If you’d rather not draw
blood, you can add your own personal concerns (hair or nail clippings) to the vessel. Burn
more of the offering incense in thanks. Continue with a planned spirit work ritual such as the
Ancestor Communion Ritual given next, or ask the spirit(s) to return to the underworld, your
or your tradition’s Gods to close the gates, and end your rite.

Ancestor Communion Ritual

This ritual is appropriate for an individual or a group. It will require:

• bread, butter and honey or bread, olive oil and salt (for new spirits)
• the spirit(s)’s favourite meal or foods (for familiar spirits)
• a libation (wine, mead, ale, whiskey, vodka, rum, or other beverage)
• tobacco, hemp, or offertory incense
• an ancestor altar and supplies (including a fetiche)
• summoning incense
• banishing incense

Create your sacred, protected space however you do so within your tradition or culture, and
call any underworld gods you work with to aid in the rite. Use a stang, staff, ritual centre
post/pillar, tree, or tree stump to access the World Tree (see On Circle Casting and the World
Tree for more information) and call up the ancestors. Burn the summoning incense and call
up those you wish to commune with by name. If you do not know their name, list their
lineage. If they are not of your blood ancestry, be very specific. Once you are sure you’ve
summoned the right spirit(s), invite them to share a meal with you. They will take sustenance
from it and your offering of incense, smoke, and alcohol as well. Eat and drink with them. If
you are with others, have all present share in the food and offerings. The sharing of the food
connects you with one another and with the ancestors you’ve summoned physically and
spiritually. This communion isn’t mean to be a silent or solemn occasion. Talk, feast, and
laugh as if you were at a dinner table with family and friends. This itself is also an offering,
which allows the dead a taste of life again.
Do not ask for anything of the dead the first few times you perform this ritual. If you start
having communion more than once a month, then it would be appropriate to make requests. It
is best and most common to ask for blessings of prosperity, fertility, and luck. After further
communion, you or your ritual group could start asking the spirits to aid in divination. When
you are finished, burn your banishing incense, say a clear farewell, and ask the ancestors to
return to the underworld by following your representation of the World Tree down. If you
work with a psychopomp, you can also ask them to direct the spirits back to their realm and
close the door between the worlds. End the rite, close the Circle or ritual space, take down
your wards, and the ritual is done.

30/10/2010 – Weeds for Witches Part V: Mullein

Names: Candlewick, hag’s taper, hedge taper, king’s candle, feltwort, flannel flower, hare’s
beard, velvet plant, Aaron’s rod, Adam’s rod, Jacob’s staff, Jupiter’s staff, shepherd’s club.

Where it Grows: Mullein is best known for being from the Mediterranean, but it also
commonly grows in Europe and Asia. A few species of Mullein have naturalized in North
America and Australia (esp. Great Mullein). Mullein is not invasive, but persistent. It needs
disturbed soil in direct sunlight and isn’t usually a problem for farmers to weed. You can
never quite get rid of it though because of the thousands upon thousands of seeds it produces
which are shook free in a breeze. Look for it in wastelands, open fields, construction sites,
and almost barren sunny hillsides and roadsides.

Growing & Harvesting: Mullein is easily transplanted from the wild in spring before June
1st. It does well in poor soil with good drainage, but will also do well with a mixture of earth,
sand, and manure. Otherwise plant the seeds in November or early March as they need to
over-winter in order to germinate. This plant is very child-friendly with its large leaves like
velvet rabbit’s ears. Mullein makes an interesting addition to vegetable gardens, but you
could just as easily grow it in a pot on a sunny porch.

Magic: Mullein as a single-stalked plant literally is the Hag’s taper. It belongs to the
crossroads, to Saturn, and to the underworld. It is Hecate’s torch and Lucifer’s staff. It is a
key and a door. Mullein resembles a torch with it’s tip covered in bright yellow flowers with
orange and red pollen mimicking flames. Perhaps Hecate’s saffron robe was dyed with rich
yellow Mullein flowers instead of actual saffron. The flowers were once used in ancient
Roman dyes and pigments. Add the flowers to a recipe for a yellow magical ink – perhaps
steeped in vodka with turmeric and saffron heated with frankincense or pine resin. Use for
drawing prosperity sigils, sigils of the sun, wealth, success, and strength. Witches can use the
soft leaves as candle wicks or soak the dried stalk in beeswax or tallow to make a torch for
rituals of necromancy. Mullein is used to see manifestations of spirits, to see into the
otherworld, and to commune with the spirits and deities who dwell there. It is used for
divination and dream work or a combination of the two (prophetic dreaming). Mullein
protects you in your sleep helping to combat both evil spirits and nightmares. As it helps one
to fall asleep when ingested, Mullein makes an excellent tea to encourage prophetic dreams
and as an aid in lucid dreaming or astral travel while asleep.

Dreamer’s Tea

2 parts Mullein flowers

1 part Poppy flowers
1 part Mugwort
2 parts Spearmint

Blend Mullein and Dittany of Crete with traditional spirit summoning ingredients and you’ll
have an incense which, according to folklore, will allow you to see spirits. Grind with a
mortar and pestle and burn on charcoal during ritual after having created sacred and protected
space.

The Witch’s Necromancy Incense

Mullein
Dittany of Crete
Myrrh
Sandalwood
Wormwood
Another blend that can be used to help manifest spirits for necromantic rites is one noted by
Cornelius Agrippa in his work The Philosophy of Natural Magic. If used, it should only be
burned outside due to its poisonous ingredients (unless you substitute the Hemlock and only
add a pinch of Henbane).

“Also, it is said, that fume made of the root of the reedy herb sagapen, with the juice of
hemlock and henbane, and the herb tapsus barbatus, red sanders, and black poppy, makes
spirits and strange shapes appear; and if smallage be added to them, the fume chaseth away
spirits from any place and destroys their visions.” ~ Agrippa

Agrippa’s Spirit Suffumigation

Asofoetida or Galbanum resin
Hemlock juice (substitute with anise, angelica leaf,)
Henbane, dried leaves
Mullein, dried leaves
Red Sandalwood powder
Black Poppy Seeds

Mullein is a safely smokable herb. Smoke it to aid in hedgecrossing, divination, to call and
commune with psychopomps, crossroad’s deities, chthonic familiars, and spirits of the dead.
If you don’t smoke, it can also be used in a tea. A powerful magic tea would be a mixture of
mullein and roasted dandelion root. It could be drunk for rites of Hecate, before performing
divinations, or before summoning spirits.
Mullein in spring (before stalk)

Medicine: The flowers, roots, leaves, and stalk of Mullein are used in folk medicine. The
flowers picked early in the morning and infused in olive or jojoba oil make an excellent oil
for treating earaches in children and adults or mites in animals. Store the mixture in a glass
tincture bottle with an eye dropper. The leaves are used internally (drunk or smoked) to treat
pain, colds, coughing, lung and throat problems (asthma, brochitis, infections), and
indigestion. Externally Mullein is used to treat inflammation, eczema, psoriasis, hemorrhoids,
wounds, and sores. Like dandelion, the root is also used as a diuretic. Mullein root can also
be used as a tea to help with bedwetting children and older folks suffering from urinary
incontinence. Because it can be used to treat such common problems, it is a good weed to
have nearby.
17/11/2010 – The Ethics of Malevolence

So, I totally stole the title from a chapter in Emma Wilby’s Visions of Isobel Gowdie. It was
a wonderful chapter covering the moral dilemma of cursing and why there are actually ethics
and good reasons behind cursing people. Wilby divides curses into two types: public curses
and private curses. Public curses belong more to common non-magical folk and are either
verbal, spoken in front of the receiver and/or an audience, or they can be in the form of
poppets or cursing sachets left openly on the person’s property or nailed to their front door
(dead chicken anyone?). Private curses were usually reserved to magical practitioners and not
the ordinary public and involved more complex rituals and spells done alone or with a group.
Private curses include the use of poppets, witch bottles, written tablets hidden in the victim’s
home, witch’s ladders, or animal sacrifices.

I have known some people who say: “If I don’t believe in curses then they can’t affect me.” I
say: “If you don’t believe a bus is going to hit you if you stand in the middle of the road,
you’re still going to be roadkill regardless.”

Why do we curse? Witches and ordinary people don’t curse because of enraged hissy fits,
petty disagreements, or out of vindictiveness and envy (although it does happen). Most
people who actually use curses do so because they have no other way of dealing with a
horrible situation which is normally beyond their control. Have a nasty manipulative passive
agressive ex partner who won’t let off? In an abusive relationship and can’t figure out how to
end it and leave? Have nasty neighbours that shit on everyone’s parade? Have you ever been
abused by someone and can’t prove it and so therefore can’t take any legal action (this
includes bosses, friends, family, internet stalkers aka trolls, or Pagan community members,
etc)? Do you have a crazy ass evil spawn-of-Satan landlord or you are the landlord and
believe your tenants somehow managed climbed out of Hell? Has someone hurt your children
or other loved ones? Have you had a loved one go missing and no body has been found or
anyone brought to justice? Are you in a nasty legal situation and everyone’s believing the bad
guy instead of you? Were you in a magical group, coven, or community and feel you have
been cursed by the members?

The list of ethical reasons behind cursing goes on and on. Why would anyone take such
offenses and not do anything about it? Even if nothing can be done on a mundane level, I’d
sure as hell be doing something about the situation magically. Even better if there is
something that can be done on both levels. In Hoodoo, hot foot powder, goofer dust, vinegar,
and black salt are a normal part of practice, but in modern witchcraft such concoctions and
hexing is still frowned upon by most. Newsflash – some people out there in the world really
do have it in for you. If your practice belongs more to folk magic or Traditional Witchcraft,
don’t be afraid to break out the family photos, poppets, pins, thorns, a witch ladder, a witch’s
hexing bottle, binding herbs or threads, and good ol’ black candles. There is a wonderful
history of colourful curses from the ancient Pagan world up to modern day. Cursing tablets
and binding spells have been found in Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and the
Mediterranean. Scottish curses can be found in the works of ethnologists Alexander
Carmichael and John Gregorson Campbell such as this curse below:

The Wicked Who Would Do Me Harm

The wicked who would do me harm

May he take the [throat] disease,
Globularly, spirally, circularly,
Fluxy, pellety, horny-grim.

Be it harder than the stone,

Be it blacker than the coal,
Be it swifter than the duck,
Be it heavier than the lead.

Be it fiercer, fiercer, sharper, harsher, more malignant,

Than the hard, wound-quivering holly,
Be it sourer than the sained, lustrous, bitter, salt salt,
Seven seven times.

Oscillating thither,
Undulating hither,
Staggering downwards,
Floundering upwards.

Drivelling outwards,
Snivelling inwards,
Oft hurrying out,
Seldom coming in.
A wisp the portion of each hand,
A foot in the base of each pillar,
A leg the prop of each jamb,
A flux driving and dragging him.

A dysentery of blood from heart, from form, from bones,

From the liver, from the lobe, from the lungs,
And a searching of veins, of throat, and of kidneys,
To my contemnors and traducers.

In name of the God of might,

Who warded from me every evil,
And who shielded me in strength,
From the net of my breakers
And destroyers.
Carmina Gadelica. Vol.II. T. & A. Constable, Edinburgh: 1900

Icelandic curses have been found in manuscripts from the Middle Ages and one of my
favourites is the farting curse from the Galdrabók which is spoken after one has drawn certain
symbols onto calfskin with one’s own blood:

I write you eight áss-runes, nine naudh-runes, thirteen thurs-runes — that they will plague
thy belly with bad shit and gas, and all of these will plague thy belly with great farting. May
it loosen thee from thy place and burst thy guts; may thy farting never stop, neither day or
night; thou wilt be as weak as the fiend Loki, who was bound by all the gods; in thy mightiest
name Lord, God, Spirit, Shaper, Odhinn, Thorr, Saviour, Frey, Freyja, Oper, Satan,
Beezlebub, helpers, mighty god, warding with the companions of Oteos, Mors, Notke, Vitales.
Curses can be found in just about every magical and spiritual tradition across the globe. I’ve
even found curses from the Native tribes local to where I live. A favourite seemed to be to
put a splinter of lightning-struck wood inside the home of the intended victim so their house
and the people within it will be struck with disaster.

My point in writing this post is to make my fellow magicians aware of the history of cursing
as well as its ethical and practical applications in our mundane and magical lives. It is better
to be informed about how to perform curses and how to remove them then it is to be surprised
with a magical or physical attack and be without knowledge and defenses to counteract. After
all, even a doctor can’t cure unless they know all about disease. Now I leave you with some
reading to arm yourself with knowledge–

Books of Malevolence & Protection:

 Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World by John G. Gager
 Death and Destruction by Talia Felix
 Grimoirium Verum
 Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic by cat yronwode
 Little Book of Curses & Maledictions for Everyday Use by Dawn Rae Dowton
 Protection & Reversal Magic: A Witch’s Defense Manual by Jason Miller
 Psychic Self-Defense by Dion Fortune
 Spiritual Cleansing: Handbook of Psychic Protection by Draja Mickaharic

22/11/2010 – Necromancers’ Chant

white is the colour of bone and ash

to speak to the dead we bathe and fast
red is the colour of blood and death
we rub the bones and give them breath
black is the colour of womb and tomb
we sit in the dark to leave the room
30/11/2010 – The Religion of Trees

I am a tree worshipper, but it goes beyond holding an ancient Oak or Redwood in awe. I
worship the tree, the World Tree. I worship it like a god, and in many cultures the World Tree
was considered a god, but its deified versions became so common it was forgotten they were
part of the Tree to begin with. I started researching and worshipping trees many years ago at
the same time I began woodworking. It wasn’t until an ancient god sat beside me on the bus
one day that I started chasing gods and the history of the World Tree. That god was Legba of
the Good Tree. My first reaction was “what the hell is an African god doing getting the
attention of a pasty white Scots-Irish girl?” But later I learned that was all he was doing –
getting my attention so I would pay attention. Today the Tree still whispers recipes for
remedies and magical concoctions into my ear for the Tree rules knowledge of herbs – both
their medicinal and magical applications. But the Tree no longer wears Legba’s face. The
Tree rules the creatures that live in symbiotic relationships with trees – from squirrels, birds,
lizards, and snakes to termites, cicadas, and spiders. Larger animals also depend on trees;
bears, deer, wild cats, and goats – yes goats can climb trees. Trees are used to build our
homes, to build our ships, to make clothing, blankets, baskets, furniture, tools, ropes, amulets,
and medicines. Trees are sources of food for human and animals – we feed on their fruits,
their seeds, and their blood.
Blackthorn full of ripening sloe plums

Legba originates from Benin, Africa. The locals view him as a virile black man with goat or
bull horns and an erect phallus (sound familiar?). Legba is the lwa of the crossroads through
whom all gods, spirits, and mortals must go through to cross and communicate between
realms. He guards the gates between worlds. All who wish to speak to spirits must propitiate
and ask for Legba’s help first. His symbol is the crossroads—two intersecting lines—and
offerings may be left for him there of tobacco, rum, or his favourite meal of roasted chicken
and sweet potatoes. Legba is both the World Tree or axis mundi and the poteau mitan or
centre post of the peristyle (outdoor temple) in Haitian Voudou. Legba is sexually
ambiguous, usually presented as male, but not masculine. He has appeared to me as a
flamboyantly gay man before. Legba is a triple-god. One of his other two sides is Legba Ati-
Bon or Gran Bois/Bwa who is ruler of the wild forests and the Island below the Waters where
the spirits and lwa dwell. Gran Bois is well versed in herbal medicine and communing with
wild animals. He is known for and proud of his massive erect phallus. Red and green serpents
are especially sacred to him and offerings to this deity are usually hung from a tree. The
second is Carrefour, one of the three magician lwa. Carrefour is well known for being a spirit
of black magic, charms, enchantment, cursing, and destruction. He is considered to have the
appearance of a demon, and when he possesses someone during a ritual, the attendees do not
speak to him, fearing he will bring evil spirits into the realm of the living through the
doorway he opens between the realms. Both Legba and Carrefour open doors, but working
with Legba rather than Carrefour ensures the spirits you commune with are benevolent, but
does not guarantee they won’t be mischievous. He is always left offerings and called before
all the other lwa and spirits.

I didn’t stop there, I kept chasing the Tree. I followed him into the future and found the
Gaulish god Esus. Esus is a tree and each year he must cut himself down with his great axe,
only to reborn again in the new year. Esus was associated with bulls and egrets (white
herons). He was also a triple god often found along side the other Gaulish gods Teutates and
Taranis. Human sacrifices and offerings to Esus were hung in trees.

“In early ritual, human, animal, or arboreal representatives of the god were periodically
destroyed to ensure fertility, but when the god became separated from these representatives,
the destruction or slaying was regarded as a sacrifice to the god, and myths arose telling
how he had once slain the animal. In this case, tree and bull, really identical, would be
mythically regarded as destroyed by the god whom they had once represented. If Esus was a
god of vegetation, once represented by a tree, this would explain why, as the scholiast on
Lucan relates, human sacrifices to Esus were suspended from a tree.”~ John Arnott
MacCulloch, 1911

Esus sounds so much like Jesus who is so much like Dionysus, who is so much like Osiris,
the great fertile pillar or djed of ancient Egypt. As the poteau mitan of the Haitian temple is
Legba’s spine so too are the great djeds of Egypt Osiris’ spine. But trees aren’t so common in
Egypt and Osiris’ backbones were often pillars of stone. The word for a stone pillar in the
ancient Greek tongue is herme or herma. It referred to stone pillars with four sides found at
crossroads, borders, and sometimes doorways. Hermai were usually topped with the head of
an older bearded man and carved with an erect phallus. For good luck people would rub olive
oil on their hands and stroke the phallus. Then comes the new Olympian god Hermes –
guardian of crossroads and boundaries, guide of the souls of the dead, and messenger of
mortal and god alike.
But he couldn’t just have appeared, come from nothing. Hermes, the pillar of Greece, is so
very much like Prometheus the ancient Titan believed to be the father of our race.
Prometheus who created us with his hands and gifted us fire and cunning against the desires
of the other gods. For favouring us with a divine gift he was punished. A great wooden pillar
was struck through his body, some say on and some say under a mountain, and to it he was
chained for thousands of years in punishment for aiding us… perhaps even for making us.
Every day an eagle would pluck out his liver and every day it would grow back to be eaten
again. But even in anguish he was still friend to our race gifting us with the knowledge of
sacred plants. It is said Mandrake sprung up from his blood spilled on the ground, and
perhaps the other Solanaceae as well. In the Argonautica it is told that he taught Medea, the
witch of Hekate, how to brew ointments and prepare these herbs. Prometheus was messenger
of the Titan gods and also their resident trickster which his epithets reflect. What if
Prometheus was the wooden pillar, a tree, and the mountain was the World Mountain – the
axis of the Earth? Then Prometheus would be both the Earth’s axis and the World Tree and
thus able to communicate with anyone anywhere on Earth even simultaneously.

In my search I found wooden pillars used as temples and also carved into the likeness of gods
by the Scandinavians and Slavs, and ancient rings of wooden pillars have been excavated in
the United Kingdom. I read the ancient Brehon laws protecting sacred trees in Ireland and the
expensive World Tree Drums and grisly punishments for those who harmed them. This led
me to other excavations, this time of great tree trunk coffins found in Scotland, England,
Germany, Eastern Europe, Asia, and even a cypress tree trunk coffin found in Egypt just like
in the myth of Osiris’ death. Anthropologists postulate that the ancients once believed one’s
soul could travel to the otherworld only if one’s body was buried in a tree. As little as a
century ago here in Canada, it was common for Northwest Native tribes to bury their dead in
trees. Some in tree trunk coffins, some in hollowed-out canoes, and some at the foot of a tree
they were close with in life. There are tribes in South America who mummify their dead and
hang them in trees. I read of the cult of Odin, the trickster who hung himself on a tree for
knowledge and whose sacrifices were also hung from trees like those of Esus. I followed the
tree, the pillar, back into time when trees were not cut down and reshaped. When the most
that was done to them was a face carved into their living flesh or Druids grafting arms high
upon the trunk of an Oak mimicking our human form as well as the images painted onto a
shaman’s frame drum. A time when strips of wood were taken from living trees to make a
drum, it being bad luck for the drummer if the tree died. This was a time of pre-shamanism
when the gods were anthropomorphic beings with branches of flowers and leaves growing
from their horned heads. The gods of trees are the oldest gods. They created us, we are their
children; the children of trees. Bark and skin, wood and bones, pith and marrow, sap and
blood, leaves and lungs… My God is the phallic axis of the world and my Goddess is the
round earth the World Tree is struck through; the tree and navel, the tree and the cave, the
tree and the well, the stang and the cauldron. That, my friends, is how a god from Africa led
me back to my own roots and my own culture to find the balance between the old world and
the new. And now I carve, grow and wildcraft healing and poisonous plants, and visit the Old
Ones often in their wild wood. Their animal and insect messengers come to me often and I
use stang, staff, and wand to commune with the spirits of the three realms. I follow the
religion of Trees and my witchcraft is that of the wild wood.

Follow the path I stumbled onto:

 Comparative Mythology by Jaan Puhvel

  Deer Goddess of Ancient Siberia by Esther Jacobson
 Gods of the Greeks by Karl Kerenyi
 Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe by H.R. Ellis Davidson
 Secrets of Voodoo by Milo Rigaud
 The Forest in Folklore and Mythology by Alexander Porteous

01/12/2010 – Disclaimer of a Traditional Witch

My beliefs and practices fall into the realm of Traditional Witchcraft. It’s mostly because of
my delving into Scoto-Scandinavian folk magic and witchcraft. I was drawn to and obsessed
with Traditional Witchcraft from a young age before the plethora of books, forums, and
websites came into existence. I was raised on the meat and bones of fairy tales, folklore,
legends, and mythology. This means that, gasp, I was not influenced by Andrew Chumbley
and the Cultus Sabbati nor was I influenced by Robin Artisson. I’m still not influenced by
them or interested in them. I’m not attracted to the high ceremonialism and embellished
language of Chumbley and Shulke (although I admit Chumbley’s poetry is gorgeous and
Shulke’s illustrations can be witchy in a way that is orgasmic). Nor am I attracted to the
pseudo Cornish slash Germanic craft of Artisson who borrows heavily from Cochrane and
Cornish practitioners like JackDaw and Gemma Gary. I do, however, admit to having an
early crush on Robert Cochrane’s brain and loving Doreen Valiente more than your average
witch. But truly it is Baba Yaga, Habetrot, Holda, and the Queen of Elphame who hold my
heart. Instead of joining a popular tradition I followed the Fairy-Faith and delved into spirit
work.

I find it odd and amusing that, although I’m considered a Traditional Witch, I was not
influenced by the same traditions and writings that most modern Traditional Witches
commonly are. I didn’t read Jackson and Howard, I read Jones and wished I hadn’t (he
needed a really good editor). I ignored Xoanon, Pendraig, and Fulgur and read Paul Huson,
herbals, and dusty old books of folklore instead. I read the writings of Robert Cochrane and
loved them, but followed the footsteps of Joe Wilson back to the earth with my drum instead.
My heroes are female folklorists Dr. Hilda Ellis Davidson and F. Marian McNeill. In spite of
not sharing the same influences with my fellow Witches, I still ended up one and not less of
one.

What is my disclaimer to you other Traditional Witches new and old? That it is not what or
who you read, but what you do that makes you what you are. An author or publisher does not
define our path or make one more witchier than another. Don’t let anyone intimidate you by
saying otherwise. Put away your books and grab your staff or stang and find yourself a
crossroad and summon the oldest teacher of them all if you dare. Go out there and find your
path.

04/12/2010 – The Witch’s Reading List

In total contrast to my previous post on putting down your books, here is my recommended
reading list for both the complete newbie and experienced witch. There are many, many more
I would list, but they are for supplemental reading. If one reads the classics recommended
first, you will be reading all the influences of the founders of modern Witchcraft and
therefore will understand them and their craft better. Read these words knowing Gerald
Gardner, Doreen Valiente, Alex Sanders, Robert Cochrane, Victor Anderson, and others read
them before you. Some may consider them out of date, but don’t listen to those people. You
have to understand where we came from as Witches to understand where we are going.

All you need to know is that yes, Frazer was wrong in his thesis that pre-Christian Pagans
were more savage and primitive than Christians and their worship revolved solely around the
agricultural cycle – but that the lore he collected by chance in pursuing his theory is
invaluable and may not have been documented otherwise; yes, Graves was a misogynist and
The White Goddess is filled with fakelore but he still made some great points about poetic
myth, the gods, and syncretism (and loved shrooms); yes, you’ll need a dictionary to read The
Secret Commonwealth, but it’s short and an important work to understand that the early
modern fairy-faith was an ancestor cult; the rest you should enjoy and will turn all the
lightbulbs on in your brain.

Let’s Begin with the Classics:

 Aradia or the Gospel of the Witches of Italy by Charles G. Leland, 1899

 The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries by W.Y. Evans-Wentz, 1911
 The Golden Bough by James George Frazer, 1922
 The History of the Devil: The Horned God of the West by R. Lowe Thompson, 1929
 The Greater Key of Solomon edited by Samuel L. Macgregor Mathers, 1914
 The Secret Commonwealth: An Essay on the Nature and Actions of the Subterranean
(and for the Most Part) Invisible People, Heretofore Going Under the Name of Elves,
Fauns, and Fairies by Robert Kirk, 1691
 The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth by Robert Graves, 1966

The Modern Classics:

Now that you know their influences – read their works.

 The Complete Art of Witchcraft: Penetrating the Secrets of White Magic by Sybil
Leek, 1971
 Fifty Years in the Feri Tradition by Cora Anderson
 High Magic’s Aid by Gerald Gardner, 1949
 Mastering Witchcraft: A Practical Guide for Witches, Warlocks & Covens by Paul
Huson, 1971
 Natural Magic by Doreen Valiente
 Rebirth of Witchcraft by Doreen Valiente
 Witchcraft for Tomorrow by Doreen Valiente
 The Writings of Roy Bowers (Robert Cochrane)

Read Your Mythology:

Kerenyi and Eliade will blow your mind, Puhvel will make you pull out the dictionary again,
and Dr. Davidson will be a refreshing breath of easily understandable air.

 Comparative Mythology by Jaan Puhvel

 Encyclopedia of Spirits by Judika Illes
 Gods of the Greeks by Karl Kerényi, 1974
 The Myth of Eternal Return by Mircea Eliade, 1954
  Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe by H.R. Ellis Davidson

Shamanism & Syncretism:

To understand just how far back our practices as magical practitioners and spirit workers go
one must explore the connections between modern Witchcraft, early modern Witchcraft, pre-
Christian Paganism, Shamanism, and pre-Shamanism.

 Cunning-Folk & Familiar Spirits: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern

British Witchcraft and Magic by Emma Wilby, 2006
 Singing With Blackbirds: The Survival of Primal Celtic Shamanism in Later Folk-
Traditions by Stuart A. Harris Logan, 2006
 Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy by Mircea Eliade, 1951
 Shamans Sorcerers and Saints: A Prehistory of Religion by Brian Hayden, 2003
 The Way of Wyrd: Tales of an Anglo-Saxon Sorcerer by Brian Bates, 1984
 Witchcraft and the Shamanic Journey (aka North Star Road) by Kenneth Johnson,
1999

Hands-on Magic:

A list of books to get your hands dirty, your kitchen messy, and give you lots of hands-on
experience. Mickaharic is my homeboy – anything by him is excellent, but the two listed are
his best. He draws from the many cultures living in North America. Valerie Worth’s books
are similar to his, but more witchy and less hoodoo. Reading her books is like reading the
grimoire of your grandmother… if she was a poet-witch.

 A Century of Spells by Draja Mickaharic

 Complete Book of Incense, Oils & Brews by Scott Cunningham
 Crones Book of Words by Valerie Worth, 1971
 Crones Book of Charms & Spells by Valerie Worth, 2002
 Hoodoo, Herb and Root Magic by cat yronwode
 Magical Herbalism by Scott Cunningham
 Spiritual Cleansing: A Handbook of Psychic Protection by Draja Mickaharic

Herbalism Class:

The only non-magical books on herbalism you’ll ever need are The Herb Book and The
Herbal Medicine-Maker’s Handbook. The magical herbalism books are a mixture of
reference and learning how to work with the spirits of plants.

 Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs by Scott Cunningham

 The Herb Book by John Lust
 Herbal Medicine-Maker’s Handbook: A Home Manual by James Green
 Magical and Ritual Use of Aphrodisiacs by Richard Alan Miller, 1985
 Magical and Ritual Use of Herbs by Richard Alan Miller, 1983
 Pharmako Trilogy by Dale Pendell
 Plant Spirit Shamanism: Traditional Techniques for Healing the Soul by Ross Heaven
& Howard G. Charing
  Witchcraft Medicine: Healing Arts, Shamanic Practices, and Forbidden Plants by
Claudia Müller-Ebeling, Christian Rätsch, and Wolf-Dieter Storl, 2003

Many of the classics are available for free on Sacred Texts and Google Books — always
check them first as well as your local public library before purchasing books. Read for free!
The out-of-print books I’ve listed aren’t very rare and shouldn’t be difficult to find on the
second-hand market. If you’re lazy just search Amazon. If you’re more determined try
AbeBooks or FetchBook.

07/12/2010 – They’re Watching You

“Don’t delude yourself. The minute you set foot upon the path of witchcraft, a call rings out
in the unseen world announcing the fact of your arrival.”
~ Paul Huson, Mastering Witchcraft

Not to sound creepy or anything, but the gods, the spirits of the dead, and inhuman spirits are
watching you. Don’t think they’re not. Don’t think you’re too small and insignificant.
They’re still watching you. Whether you define them as gods or spirits they truly do have
direct and indirect involvement in our lives – for some people on a daily basis. They don’t
watch you all the time, but now and then they will check in and do so more often when
you’re practicing magic. They watch to measure your progress in this life and in witchcraft.
Sometimes they’ll step in at crucial moments in your life where the right word or idea sets
you on the right path. They are constantly judging and testing you. Will you make something
of yourself? Will you take your witchcraft to the next level or only talk about it? Will you
finally realize they are there with you and give due reverence and start acknowledging them?
Will you make oaths and keep them? Spoken promises are binding and important, but not as
important as the actions that back them up. They wait to see what you DO.

A god’s (especially a mercurial god) favourite trick to do is to put obstacles in your path to
see how you react. Do you give up because of it or do you persevere despite it? This lesson
teaches that life isn’t easy or fair and people and events will get in the way of your dreams,
goals, and spiritual path. Don’t think just because an obstacle appears that “The Universe” is
saying it’s not meant to be. If you do this than you take the easy path of least resistance.
Remember the three roads from the Ballad of Tam Lin? If after making a decision, however,
you fall very ill, have a lot of bad luck, and your world seems to fall apart around you – it
may be a sign you’ve made a big decision that isn’t good for you and you are being warned.

Other times they will show up in your mundane life in disguise as a beggar, a homeless
schizophrenic, a friendly little old lady, or a stranger who makes an odd comment to you or
gives you a bit of advice or warning. Sometimes they will show up in their own form and
other times they will possess ordinary people to talk to you. Most witches have this happen to
them, but never realize it. Some spend so little time seeing the magic in the mundane that
they miss important interactions with gods and spirits. Spirits and gods have talked to me on
the bus, the subway, at pubs, and through friends – and that doesn’t even count dreams or
trancing out in the kitchen or while carving. Keep your eyes open and your third eye aware
for such interactions. Fairy and folktales are full of such occurrences – kings or commoner’s
being rewarded for aiding old beggar women who are goddesses in disguise or being killed or
cursed when they don’t. The tales don’t lie and perhaps many actually happened. So kiss the
hag, be kind to the crazy rude old man sitting next to you on the bus, mind your manners with
strangers, and keep any promises you make. You never know what you will be rewarded
with.

I hope to do a HedgeFolk Tale in the future about learning manners for interacting with
spirits from fairy and folk tales. Interested in learning how to properly interact with gods and
spirits? Read more fairy tales! My favourites that teach these lessons include “Habetrot and
the Scantlie Mab” (Scots), “Frau Holle” (German), “The Three Heads of the Well” (English),
and “The Ballad of King Henry” (Scots). A great book on the subject is Elves, Wights, and
Trolls by Kveldulf Gundarsson which provides examples from Scandinavian lore and
personal experience.
26/12/2010 – The New Year Approaches

The New Year is coming. Before you cross the bridge to the unknown world of 2011, how
will you end this year? What do you want to leave behind and what do you want to foster and
grow in the new year? Need to do a curse, a reversal, or an uncrossing? It’s bad luck to start a
new year with such things. What do you need to do before you cross that bridge to the New
Year? December was an unlucky month for me with its damn Mercury in retrograde. My
purse was stolen, my computer died, and I’ve been all kinds of sick (*cough cough*).
Whether I’m cursed or just unlucky, it’s time to perform an uncrossing before the New Year.

I celebrate Hogmanay, the Scots New Year, so every year at this time I clean my house from
top to bottom and chase out all the bad luck and negativity of the past year with my broom
and herbs. You can’t uncross yourself if you don’t clean house first! Then I’ll prepare a
spiritual cleansing bath for myself after which I’ll perform a purification ritual along with an
uncrossing to open myself up to what the New Year has to offer (and get rid of any
intentional or unintentional evil eye action). Then on New Year’s Eve I’ll fast and prepare a
feast to eat after midnight. I will leave things on my altar I want to attract in the coming year
– coins for prosperity, cards and gifts from my friends and family, food and drink for plenty,
and so on. On the stroke of midnight I run around the house and open every window and door
to welcome in the New Year. Then I’ll have my feast and perform some divinatory rites to
see what’s in store for 2011.

Instead of New Year’s resolutions I like to set goals instead. What did I do this year that I
enjoyed and what do I want to do less of? These are my personal goals for 2011:

 Cook from scratch more and bake my own breads

 Go outside more and do more magic outdoors
 Spend more time crafting and less time on my computer
 Do more writing for my books than my blog
 Do more woodcarving
 Work more on the Ogham deck
 Keep practicing saying no
 Keep in better touch with my family

What will yours be? What kind of life do you want to create for yourself next year? Who do
you want to be and what do you want and like to do? You can do that, you know, it’s your
life. I raise my glass to you all. Here is to the death of the old and the start of the new. Here’s
to your health, your wealth, and your happiness!

31/12/2010 – Familiar Offerings & Carvings

Last night I treated two of my animal familiars with their preferred offerings at my kitchen
stove altar. One received diced apple with maple syrup from my parent’s farm and
Grandmother Crow received a bowl of choice hazelnuts, pine nuts, and sliced almonds. What
she really wanted a bowl of guts, but I didn’t have any entrails on hand. Maybe next time
Grandmother. Both received water so they shall never thirst – water is always a welcome
offering at any altar. My kitchen Goddess, a fat prehistoric milk-producing version of Bride,
got a red candle and very hot Thai chili peppers to keep her warm and cozy and therefore us
warm and cozy during the cold winter. Her offerings make me desire to make spicy dark
chocolate chili truffles…

I finished another Rowan staff. This one carved with a Raven’s head and a Rowan tree
(speaking of ravens, there’s one cawing outside now). Like the Staff of Beasts, this one is
also in a private collection and is not for sale. I think I will always leave the bark on Rowan
wood I harvest from now on as it intensifies both the colour and patterns of the grain of the
wood when the bark leeches colour as it dries.
Now I’m off to do my annual New Year’s Eve house cleaning. May you spend this night with
the people you love with health and cheer and plenty of food and drink!

Slàinte!
Sarah