To The Menstruating Anon, Try Raspberry Leaf, Rosehips, And Hops (individually) Or Together In Herbal

1. Two girls don traditional wreaths near a bonfire during Ivan Kupala Night celebrations, outside the small town of Turov, Belarus, on July 6, 2016 # Sergei Gapon / AFP / Getty.

2. People celebrate the Slavic pagan holiday of Ivan Kupala outside Novokuznetsk, Russia, on July 6, 2011 # Yaroslav Belyaev / AP.

Witchcraft for the Home: Herbs and Spices

Kitchen and Cottage witchcraft is really what I focus on and I love to do little things to encorperate little things into my every day practice and a great way to do that is in the kitchen. So I’m going to list some of my go to herbs and spices that I use. A page straight from my Book of Shadows DISCLAIMER: NOT ALL HERBS FROM YOUR LOCAL WITCH SHOP ARE FOOD GRADE. MAKE SURE TO ASK FIRST. USING HERBS THAT AREN’T FOOD GRADE TASTE AWFUL AT THE LEAST AND CAN MAKE YOU SICK AT THE WORST.

Basil- Good for Protection. A favorite for pasta dishes. Use pesto as a good way to incorporate it. It’s also really good in soups.

Bay Lead- My favorite use for Bayleaf is healing, but not really physical wellbeing. I use it motly for emotional and spiritual healing. Really great after a long, stressful day. Cooks best in slow cooker meals like soups, stews, and pulled meats

Cinnamon- Protection and passion. I always find that it always brings a sense of warmth to whatever I’m making. I use it in a lot of sweets or whenever I’m making Chai.

Clove- Brings in warmth and casts out negativity. Clove is my favorite spice so I’ll add it to just about anything that’s “spicy”

Nutmeg- Strengthens divination. Nutmeg is really good in fall flavored baking and warm flavored stews, like those with a tomato base.

Pepper- Used for protection. I like to think of it as sort of a ‘bite’ at the things you need protection from. Actively expelling instead of putting up a “wall” like cinnamon.

Poppy seeds- Prosperity. Lemon poppy seed muffins are an amazing good luck charm to use before a a big test or meetings.

Rosemary- Purification, intellectual protection. Rosemary is a sort of go all herb. It goes great in roasts and traditional English and American cooking. Use a spring of rosemary on roast veggies, chicken, or steaks.  It’s also good in homemade bread and can be used during Sabbats and Holidays as part of the feast.

Thyme- Divination and clarity. This is another sort of ‘old school’ herb. You can find it in a lot of simplistic cooking (three or four ingrediant meals) and in a lot of italian food. It pairs great with marinara, eggplants, and peppers. Roasted egg plant with olive oil and thyme is one of my favorites.

Vanilla- Love. I put a drop of vanilla in my coffee almost every morning to try and bring love into my day. It works great if you have a stressful job you need to remember to stay caring and level headed at (childcare, health care, support lines). I also like to use it in small short bread or sugar cookies and use those as offerings (particularly to Aphrodite)

energy cleansing and healing spell

-🎐🌿✨🤍💧

this spell isnt necessarily overly complicated as far as components, but it’s a little physically involved, just a note if you’re a witch that has to worry about spoons and such, but on an okay day id say it’s perfectly doable

[ what you’ll need; ]

• white candle

• light pink candle

• yellow candle

• light blue candle

• sage incense

• three small bowls/plates

• mortar and pestle

• rose petals

• fresh thyme

• sugar

• honey

• lavender water

[ steps ]

light your candles, then your incense using the white candles flame. make sure you’re catching the ash cause you’ll need it later in the spell as well

in three separate bowls have your rose petals and then your thyme, then mix your sugar, honey, and lavender water into the third bowl.

place the rose bowl in front of your pink candle, charging it with self love, healing, forgiveness, and compassion.

place the thyme bowl in front of the yellow candle, charging it with healing, energy, happiness, and fulfillment.

finally, place your third bowl in front of the blue candle, charging it with soothing, healing, emotional strength, love, and gentleness.

gently grind together your petals and thyme, then add in some of the incense ash and use a bit of the lavender water to bring it to a pasty-paint-ish consistency of sorts, then add in the third bowls contents and combine, add more water if needed to keep the consistency where we need it

take the sludge and spread it across your face how you see fit, be messy if you want, get carried away, be as gentle or chaotic as you feel necessary and once you’re satisfied that everything’s been perfectly scrubbed with your new intent, rinse it all off with nice cool water and pat dry, follow up with a lavender/rose water/tea tree toner if you’d like, and a light moisturizer ✨

Sabbath Tip for Wiccans

Never... And I mean NEVER beat yourself up for not being able (for whatever reason) to do a full ritual for a Sabbath. Since today (August 1st) is Lammas/Lughnasadh I thought I'd share somethings you can do on a Sabbath without it being a full-on ritual at your altar with offerings.

Remember that a Sabbath is personal. If you take a moment to speak with the God and Goddess, or your patron deity, that is perfectly fine. Give thanks and ask for continued prosperity. Acknowledging the holiday within yourself is more than enough; you can light candles if you like but you can speak to you deity without any supplies.

Spend time on your grimoire [book of shadows] simply spending some part of the day devoted to your craft can be very rewarding. If a Sabbath comes up quickly and you don't have anything prepared then you can make a page in your BoS for that particular Sabbath with all of its associations and lore; or you could plan a Sabbath ritual in your book to use next year.

Eat witchy. By this I mean you can do something small to still commemorate the holiday. You could quickly look up associated herbs with the particular Sabbath and make tea if you have it available. Other than that, most Sabbaths are associated with wheat- that being said, having a quiet moment to yourself eating some toast with honey on it and thanking your deity/deities for the abundance of food and a beautiful harvest. [I know most of us don't harvest our wheat and make our own bread, but someone did, so give thanks] If you can't eat gluten then some fruit and milk'n honey are good universal Sabbath foods.

Grimoire ideas

About you:

How you got started in the craft

Your spiritual journey

Things you connect to (animals, elements, plants, ect)

Types of magic you do

Your natal chart

Your deities (if you have any)

Correspondences:

Remember, you don't need to write down correspondences you will never need! So instead, write about...

Crystals you have/want

Plants you can grow yourself/already have around you. Check your spice cabinet

And list things to use those for! So that would be herb bundles to burn, salves, recipes, and so on.

Other things you can use in magic that you already have

This would be things like sea shells, snail shells, grass, dirt, candles. Get creative!

Other witchcraft stuff:

Your sigils

Planets

The sun/moon +moon phases

Zodiac signs

The elements

Symbolism (animals, shapes, and whatever else you wish to add)

Spells:

What makes a spell that works!!! This should help with making your own spells

What NOT to do

Different types of spells

Spells you will actually use

Divination:

A section on tarot cards and their meanings

How to use a pendulum

Meanings of oracle cards

Rune meanings and how to cast them

Lesser known forms of divination!!!

Mental health:

Grounding and centering

Burn out care and being energy efficient

A list of what motivates you to do your craft

Small spells for self care

Astral work:

Your astral space (a map, a description, drawings of important locations)

Your astral body, if it's any different than your physical one

A list of spirits and important information about them

Protection, sheilding, banishing, and safety

Manners when interacting with spirits and what NOT to do

Methods of projection/travel that work for you

Post-astral grounding methods

General spirit work:

How to interact with spirits and how NOT to interact with spirits

Protection, banishing, shielding, and other safety things

How to give offerings (there's more than one way!)

Methods of communicating with spirits

Signs of spirits

Ways spirits can send signs and messages (animals, dreams, and so on)

A list of different kinds of spirits you work with/have encountered

A section for research, especially if you're doing deity work.

Grounding, if it helps you afterwards

A log of interaction with spirits. This can be like a divination journal but with spirits, if that's what you do.

✨ How To Wake Witchblr ✨

We’ve all seen the hashtag #wakingwitchblr or the term itself at one point. Still, I found that there’s a lack of info on what you can actually do to make witchblr more active. 

So I took it upon myself to create a list of things that anyone can do to revive our amazing community! Enjoy !

1) Don’t Like, Reblog instead 📣

There’s nothing inherently wrong with liking a post, it’s just that due to how Tumblr works, liking a post does virtually nothing. Reblogging, however, lets that post be seen by more and more people. The surefire way to revive witchblr is by reblogging as many witchy posts as you can. 

But what if some posts just doesn’t fit into your blog’s theme, even though you want to support it? Well, you have a couple options:

Reblog anyway. Diversifying your posts actually makes your blog more interesting. You can always tag it as ‘off-topic’ if the different theme bothers you that much.

Create a reblog/spam account! I have one and it is so simple. The post may not gain as much traction compared to if you RB-ed in your main blog, but trust me when I say a single reblog goes a long way.

Share it on other social media. See that arrow-like button down there? Click it and you can share the post anywhere. Send it to your witchy discord servers or your insta groupchat !

 2) Get off the ‘Top’ page. Go to ‘Recent’ 💌

AKA reblog from lesser-known bloggers.

Not only will you support fellow witches creating content, this also give you a chance to talk to them and find your place within Witchblr! Which brings me to my next point…

3) Interact with The Community 💬

If I’m a witch who wants to move away from Tumblr, there will be only one thing that can stop me, and that’s the friends and connections that I’ve made here.

Join online covens and discord servers, ask your witchstagram and witchtok friends for their tumblr url, and just have fun together. 

Interacting with other witches, making friends, even just giving compliments or advices. This is what makes us a community. It’s what makes us stay here. If we don’t interact with each other, than we’re just a bunch of people who likes the same thing without any connection. That’s not witchblr.

4) Diversify Your Tags 🎪

There is a kind of… exclusivity, when you look through the hashtags of witchy posts. Witches only ever tag with “witchblr”, “witchcraft”, and “magick”.

This creates an accurate, non-spammy post, but it is also a post that will only show up on other witches’ dashboard and no one else’s. The community will never grow in this way because there will be no new people finding the community. It’s just an echo chamber.

Instead, diversify your tags. I’m not telling you to tag your ritual oil with ‘cars for sale’, but if you made a travel altar yourself, there’s nothing wrong in tagging it #crafting, #diy, #handmade, etc. 

Non-witches will then find the post and potentially become interested in the community, thus making it grow.

5) Make Original Content 🔮

Original content is the backbone of any community, and witchblr is dying because we’re not producing any. So if you want to revive witchblr, make content of your own.

No, it doesn’t have to be well thought-out. Heck, it doesn’t even have to be good. Original content can be anything! It can be you posting about a witchy thing that happened. It can be your drawing, or a picture you took. It could even be memes???

Or it could be a ‘how to wake witchblr’ post that you wrote because you have a script due 3 weeks ago and somehow this is your idea of procrastination

The point is: just click that ‘Make a Post’ button, and make a freaking post !

6) Share This, and Add Your Own Tips! 🖤

Now that you know these, it’s time to let other people know too ! I put a lot of thoughts into this post, but I have to admit that these tips will only work if everyone in the community is doing it. 

If you have other tips or ways to make Witchblr more active, feel free to reblog with your own addition too.

I love this community, and if you’re reading this post I’m sure you do as well. It’s not gonna happen overnight, but I know that we can be as active as we used to be. We’ve got the heart, we just need the action.

Green Witch Healing Tea Blends ☕️🌿✨

Migraine Relief Blend 🍵

Holy Basil

Green Tea

Mint

Lemongrass

Ginger Root

Hibiscus Flowers

Anxiety Calming Blend ☺️

Lemon Balm

Chamomile Flowers

Mint

Catnip

Sore Throat Blend 😷

Mint

Sage

Cinnamon

Lemon Balm

Honey

Upset Stomach Relief Tea 🤢

Ginger

Mint

Lemon Balm

Chamomile Flowers

Fresh Lemon Slice

Immune Boosting Tea Blend ☕️

Elderberries

Calendula Flowers

Echinacea

Orange or Lemon Peel

Honey

Menstrual Relief Blend 👩🏽‍🦱

Raspberries

Chamomile Flowers

Lemon Balm

Mint

Winter Cold Relief Tea Blend 🌲

Pine Needles

Cinnamon

Mint

Fennel Seeds

Allergy Relief Tea 😪

Purple Dead Nettle

Peppermint

Cinnamon Bark

Lemon Peel

Ginger

Honey

Full Moon Dreams Blend 🌕

Black Tea

Chamomile Flowers

Lavender

Mint

Peaceful Sleep Tea Blend 😴

Chamomile Flowers

Spearmint

Lavender

Cinnamon

Passion Flowers

Jasmine Buds

Rose Petals

Psychic Protection Tea 🔮

Black Tea

Rosemary

Chamomile Flowers

Rose Petals

Lavender

Happiness Honey Milk Tea 🌞

Sun Water

Milk

Cinnamon

Honey

Autumn Nostalgia Tea Blend 🍂

Black Tea

Cinnamon

Sage

Orange Peel

Fennel Seeds

Forest Dweller’s Comfort Tea 🍄

Cinnamon Bark

Fennel Seeds

Ginger Root

Licorice Root

Orange Peel

Marshmallow Root

White Oak Bark

Hot Toddy for Good Health and Cheer

So, hot toddies are my absolute fave drink (read: alcoholic drink) for those cold nights where your hands are freezing and you’re feeling a little run down. They’re also a remedy for colds in one of my friend’s family, and who am I to argue with folk remedies? But I also like to put a little ~woo~ spin on it.

So, what you’ll need:

A large cup of tea (my favorite is chamomile, for its healing and sleep-inducing properties)

Honey (again, something I associate with healing in the magical as well as mundane)

A lemon slice (purification)

A cinnamon stick or a little sprinkle of cinnamon, if you can’t find cinnamon sticks (healing and strength)

Whiskey! Or liquor of your choice. I mean, you don’t have to, but this really gives it a kick. (originally distilled for medicinal purposes, I think whiskey is great for a healing drink)

Brew your tea like you normally would. Squeeze the lemon into the drink, and visualize it purifying you of any illness; add the honey (maybe in the form of a sigil if such is your jam), and focus on how it will trap any negativity and bring sweetness. Add a splash (or two or three, hey I don’t know your life) of the whiskey, thinking of it killing any foul microbes that might be lurking (this is not how it actually works in the body, though I think it’s a great visualization) and filling you with warmth (it may just be vasodillation, but it’s still a great feeling on cold nights).

Finally, take your cinnamon stick and stir either clockwise to bring in good health and happiness or counterclockwise to banish illness and negativity. Whichever feels right for you is the one I would recommend. For some reason, I tend to do clockwise when I’m just in it for the whiskey and good feelings and counterclockwise for my common colds.

Add or modify to your desire, but this is the basic outline of my hot toddy for good health and cheer!

Litha Altar Decorations

- lots and lots of flowers that grow native in your area this time of year

- sunflowers, roses, lavender, dandelions

- flower crowns and flower garlands

- a bowl of fruit and vegetables, especially anything citrus like oranges 

- lots of candles (Litha is a fire sabbat)

- colours like yellow, gold, and orange

- you could have a vase of sticks with fairy lights in it to represent a bonfire

- maypoles are still a thing for Litha

- a cute offering dish to leave out sweets for the fae

- a jar of local honey

- anything that represents the sun

- incense (sandalwood, rose, lavender, frankincense, dragon’s blood)

- oak leaves and acorns

- anything that reflects the sun like suncatchers, glass beads, and mirrors

• As Above, So Below •