A Triad of Spells

Hey all,

Once again I apologize for being M.I.A. Aside from the job hunting stress, there's been a family emergency regarding one of my Aunts. She reconnected with an ex from 20+ years ago, they started dating, and he turned out to be an emotionally abusive and verbally abusive loon. Said relative is also Bipolar II, so you can imagine how well that helped her state of mind.

Anyway, the ex was a real nasty piece of work and after I found out he was abusive too, I decided to do a bit of protection work for my Aunt. I created two sachets and anointed them with Protection oil and herbs. One was for protection against this loser, the other was to banish him from my Aunt's life so he couldn't be a negative influence in her life anymore. I called upon Aine, Goddess of Summer, Sovereignty, Love, Flame, Sunlight, and who is a Protector of Women, especially women who have been abused. Aine and Brighid often go hand in hand, and I think They see each other as a type of surrogate sister, as Aine is said to be the daughter of the Sea-God Manannan Mac Lir. Whatever Their exact relationship is, I often see Them as two sides of the same coin as both are Fire/Solar Goddesses. It's a similar relationship between Bast and Hethert-Sekhmet, if you want a comparison.

Moving on, I blessed each sachet with fire, thanked Aine, and ended the ritual. In two days time, my Aunt and her now-ex broke up after a really bad fight. Because of her already fragile mental health, while my Aunt knew intellectually that this was a good thing, emotionally she was a mess. I'd already decided to make a healing sachet for her when she had to be taken to the E.R. a few days ago.

To make a long story short, she had a pulmonary embolism and there's a nodule on her lung. For whatever reason, when she went on BC pills she neglected to tell her doctor that she's diabetic. Combine that with a very sedentary lifestyle and struggling with her weight, and it was a perfect storm for a blood clot to form.

The night she was taken to the hospital, I set up my altar and invoked my Mother, Brighid as I made my healing sachet for my Aunt. I rummaged through our spice cabinet for herbs associated with healing, put in a little salt for protection, added a dash of Protection oil, and voila! Another sachet, which I gave her today and told her to keep it on her dresser until she feels better.

In all honesty, she needs every little bit of help she can get. Her BPD has gotten much worse, to the point where it's practically resistant to medications (it doesn't help that she doesn't really want to get better), she mentioned several times that she'd be better off if the PE killed her, and her eyes just look….lifeless. Like there was no emotion, no spark, nothing. Just a psychic black hole. Her skin was ashen and there were bruises under her eyes. It was heart-breaking.

My Mum's going with her to the psychiatrist to discuss treatment options-she might have to get ECT once the pulmonary embolism's taken care of and once they determine if the nodule's cancerous or not. So yea, I hope they can find a good treatment option that helps her with her current depression. I don't know what's going to happen in the future, but I will do my duty as a Witch and try to help her anyway I can. Even if it's just sending good energy her way or including her name in my nightly prayers, any little bit helps, especially in this kind of situation.

Quick and Clean: Tealight Magic

(NB: This is going to be a very pic-heavy post.  I got carried away, what can I say?  As always, click to enlarge.)


Ilyssa and I were talking a while back about our preferences in spell candles and I thought this would make a good topic for discussion.  I'm going to talk about my favorite type of candle to use and I'm hoping Ilyssa and Amanda (and anyone else who joins us later) will also share theirs.

I can't remember when I started preferring tealights for both spells and devotional candles, but it's been some years now.  I'll still use other types--I prefer figure candles for healing, for example, and sometimes small pillar or even larger pull-out candles are necessary if I want to inscribe more than a word or two and need the space--but tealights are my go-to candles.  It's not just because they're quick, it's because I like how self-contained they are: all your magic goes into one little candle cup.

So I was telling Ilyssa that I'd do a post on this the next time I made up a spell candle.  Well, I ended up needing to do not a spell candle but a devotional candle.  I light a devotional candle for Hekate every night and, since I use tealights, have to replace it every two to four weeks.  I had to make up a new one last night, so I figured I'd take some step-by-step photos to post, showing how versatile my favorite "one-cup magic" candles are.

Here's everything I need, all lined up: a beeswax tealight candle*, a bottle of Ambrosia oil from Conjured Cardea, my "overflow jar" of lavender (I've got so much that it couldn't all fit into the pretty purple jar I normally use for it), and my candle-carving tool (which is actually from a wood-carving set and works beautifully):

The first thing I do is lay down a tissue or paper towel to catch the little bits of wax.  Then I pull the tealight out of its cup and carve whatever I need to carve into the bottom.  For this, I carved Hekate's name (in English, since I've yet to memorize how to do it in Greek) and a symbol I use for her.  When I'm using a tealight for a spell, I carve whatever word(s) and symbol(s) are appropriate.  Space is a challenge, though, and sometimes I've carved all around the side and top of the candle, too.

Next, I add whatever herbs I've chosen for my purpose. For Hekate, I normally use a special herbal blend that I concocted to honor Her, but since I ran out of one of the components (willow bark) I've just been using lavender, one of the herbs sacred to Her, until I can get more.  This, by the way, is probably the main reason I love using tealights so much for magic--it's the quickest, cleanest, easiest way to load a candle.

Next, I anoint the candle with the oil (or whatever I'm using) on the bottom, around the side, and on the top.  I usually use cypress (also sacred to Hekate) oil for Hekate's candle, but I recently bought this Ambrosia oil because it was created specifically as an offering to the Hellenic deities, and my gods are Hellenic and pre-Hellenic so it's perfect.  It smells, appropriately enough, divine.

After that, I pop the candle back into its cup and trim the wick (you can do that at any point, I just usually forget until now).  Then, back into the votive cup it goes.

Of course, you don't have to use a fancy votive holder for every tealight candle you use for a spell (though you should definitely have something heat-proof to set it on), but I bought this glass votive holder for Hekate's candle because it's pretty, and because when the candle is lit and the lights are off, it casts a beautiful star pattern on the wall behind it.  Fitting for the Daughter of the Stars.  (Hekate's parents, at least by some accounts, were the Titans, Perses and Asteria.)

And done!  As I said, this tealight will last anywhere from two to four weeks, depending on how long I leave it lit each night.  If you're using one for a spell, though, you can expect it to burn anywhere from two to six hours.  Anyone who's lit a spell candle in the middle of the day and ended up staying awake half the night to babysit it because they didn't want to put it out but also didn't want to leave it burning while they slept will appreciate this.



*After being stuck with several tealights that smelled, mysteriously and worryingly, like fried chicken, I decided to buy only soy or beeswax tealights if possible.  Soy candles are more expensive, and beeswax ones are more expensive still, but they sure do smell better!  Beeswax smells heavenly, so rich and evocative, it's just a magical smell in and of itself, even before you add oils or herbs.  Since I'm not made of money, I've only been using the beeswax candles for devotional purposes and am going to buy some soy ones for spellwork.

Spell For Courage

Hey all,
I apologize for being MIA for a while. Things have gotten pretty rough lately, as I lost my part-time job teaching belly dance at a local gym and I'm unemployed again. To make a very long story short, I'll give you the Cliff Notes version:

Basically, I was on Craigslist just seeing what (little) legitimate jobs were recently posted; I just happened to click on the Salon/Spa/Fitness category and lo and behold, there was an ad for a new belly dance teacher….at the place I worked at. They had already given rumblings of displeasure about the low attendance, but in all honesty, that's due to their nastiness and lack of good customer service skills, plus the high rate just to join said gym but I digress. Plus, I had been having some very bizarre lucid dreams that I'm pretty sure were premonitions so I wasn't entirely surprised. I just thought they'd be more mature but guess not.

Anyway, the next day I went to print it out so I could talk to them about it after the staff meeting last Monday and there was another help wanted ad for the same position. I printed both out, and planned to confront them because I was furious. It's not the fact that they wanted to get rid of me, that's not a big deal, it's the fact that instead of discussing the low attendance with me face to face and us talking it out, they went behind my back in an incredibly sneaky manner and posted the job ad. That is not cool.

Moving on, I'd recently bought a lion head's necklace at the 5th Avenue Fair and had planned to wear it in honor of the Eyes of Re. I have anxiety, usually brought about by my PMDD, so I decided to do a ritual to turn my new necklace into a talisman for courage.

I called upon my Mother Bast, Aset, and Hethert-Sekhmet to give me courage and to help keep my anxiety down and anointed it with Protection Oil from Practical Magick in SI, as well as Bergamot oil and Dragon's Blood oil I picked up at Pagan Pride Day this past September. Did a bit of energy work and voila! A brand spankin' new talisman.

This past Monday, I took a half of a Xanax to calm my nerves, donned my new talisman, took the print outs of the ads and confronted them about it. They knew they got caught in a lie and kept making up some silly story about how "oh, it was for a SUBSTITUTE instructor"…which made me laugh,because if that was the case, they would've included it in the advertisement y'know?

Then the owner tried to placate me, as he viewed me as some silly empty-headed girl he could manipulate, but what he found out is that I'm no kitten, I'm a lioness and I have claws to boot. Next he tried the condescending route, but when that didn't work, he gave up the ghost and I quit. Yea, I need a job and a steady paycheck, but there's no way I'd work in those conditions or with those incredibly sneaky people ever again.

Trust me, being unemployed is no fun but the Gods do not give you any more than you can handle. They have made me strong, and I have faith that They will lead me to the right job where I won't have to deal with people like that, a place that won't trigger my anxiety or PMDD the way my last full-time job did, and where I can put my strengths (namely writing) and my intelligence to good use. Everything happens for a reason, and bigger and better things await me.

Dua Bast! Dua Aset! Dua Sekhmet-Hethert!

The Vagina Saga Continues (aka Give Me a Break Already!)

 [Tl;dr (too long, didn't read) warning! Enter at your own risk! xD]

About three days ago, give or take, I discovered to my chagrin that I had yet another yeast infection. I took very small comfort in the fact that I hadn't had one since February, but it didn't stop me from being super pissed. It's interesting to note that in the few days before the infection really set in and made itself known, I instinctively did a mini-ritual where I worked solely with my sacral chakra; I must have sensed that something was off, and I was having some mild symptoms at the time, but as usual, only my hindsight was 20/20. Once I realized that I had the infection, I immediately refilled my prescription for Diflucan and bought a product called Yeastaway from a company called Boiron, which sells homeopathic medicine. Quick product promotion: it's a pack of 7 homeopathic vaginal suppositories that you use for 7 consecutive nights, and while it is SUPER messy (seriously, wear an overnight pad, or you will very much regret it), it is also super effective in relieving symptoms quickly. I tend to use homeopathic medicine in conjunction with modern medicine, but your mileage may vary!

But I digress; earlier today, I began experiencing what I believed to be early signs of a urinary tract infection (UTI), so I purchased some UTI test strips and some Cystex to help relieve some of the pain. Both UTI strips came up negative (I had to use two because I accidentally placed one pad-side down on the paper towel and I was unsure if that affected the results at all), and Thea advised me that it was most likely irritation from the yeast infection. Needless to say, the negative UTI strip results were very cheering, but the fact that I was so uncomfortable was really frustrating me; I realized that these medical issues were probably causing a ridiculous blockage in my sacral chakra, and that blockage was exacerbating my medical issues in a horrific Catch-22. I decided to do a combination healing spell and chakra cleansing/realignment specific to the sacral chakra in order to combat this problem.

I went on a trip to the East Village with my boyfriend earlier this evening, and we stopped in a little shop on St. Mark's Place whose name has completely escaped me (I'm sorry!). Usually when I walk into a crystal shop, the first thing that will happen is that my attention will immediately be drawn to a particular crystal for whatever reason; it's a pretty color, has an interesting pattern, etc. The next thing that will happen is I will either read on the placard or hear from the shop owner what the properties of the crystal are, and I will find that it's exactly what I need in that moment. That's exactly what happened with this crystal, which happened to be fire agate. Not only is fire agate perfect for the sacral chakra, but it also has a specific attribution of healing problems with one's sexual organs. I of course bought that crystal, and then went on to Enchantments to stock up on my usual chime candles, along with a white yoni candle to use for the healing portion of the spell. I decided to buy a new candle even though I already had a red yoni candle that had been used for a similar purpose because of two things; one, it was technically a brand new problem (even though I'd had the same problem before, it was happening at a relatively far-removed time from the previous problem), and two, I noticed that white candles were popular for uncrossings, and since the point of my healing spell was to uncross that area of my body and remove all the negativity, I felt that it was fitting!

Here you can see all of my spell ingredients, including an herbal mixture of hyssop, raspberry leaf, and lavender, as well as a moderately sized orange candle for the chakra cleansing/realignment and the white yoni candle for the healing spell. There's also my Hygeia and Uncrossing oils from Enchantments; it was actually Thea who inspired me to use Uncrossing oil for a healing spell, and considering the conjunction of the sacral chakra cleansing/realignment with that spell, it was a perfect fit! Next to the yoni candle is the fire agate, and behind that are two pouches; one black one in which I placed the remainder of the herbal mixture after finishing the dressing of the candles, and a red one which I created as part of the first healing spell and planned on recharging with this new spell. Finally, you can see my homeopathic medicine; as I mentioned in my post about the first healing spell, I've taken a great liking to blessing my medicine. It just makes sense!

For the actual spell itself, I carved the phrases "Healing," "Balancing," and "Realignment" into the orange candle, anointed it with both Uncrossing and Hygeia oil, and then sprinkled the herb mixture onto the candle. Next, I carved the phrases "Heal me," "Protect me," and "Release me" on the back of the yoni candle (I felt quite squeamish about carving the actual anatomical part!) along with a pentacle on the flat top of the candle, followed by an anointing of both Uncrossing and Hygeia oil and an application of the herbal mixture to the carvings on the back, the pentacle on the top, and the anatomical portion at the front of the candle. I placed the fire agate between the two so that it would be charged from both spell candles, and it was at about this point that I realized that I had no incantation ready to recite. I could feel that I had already built up quite a bit of energy just from creating the spell candles, and it felt right to simply recite what I had carved into each candle before lighting it. After lighting the candles, I anointed the fire agate and the medicine box with both Uncrossing and Hygeia oil and some of the herbal mixture.

After allowing the candles to burn for about 15 minutes or so, my boyfriend assisted me in deducing whether or not the spell had had any immediate effects by using a pendulum over my sacral chakra; at first the pendulum barely moved, but after placing the agate over the chakra and using a quartz point to help reactivate it, it began swirling in healthy, strong circles. I'm beyond confident that this spell is going to help me regain my sexual health (at least for the time being), and even as I speak, knock on wood, my UTI-like symptoms are gone. Hurray for witchcraft! haha

ETA: Just wanted to add a picture of the way my sacral chakra candle EXPLODED literally the second after I finished this blog entry: