Ritual Work - Blog Posts

Blót

A friend of mine that is not heathen was having trouble explaining blót to his girlfriend, who is also not heathen.  I liked my answer enough that I wanted to share.

Blót is an Old Norse word that refers to a ritual of sacrifice.   It is the origin of the English words blood and blessing.

A central idea to Norse thought is that a gift demands a gift.  Blót is a ritual in which we give gifts to the gods in thanks for what they have given us.   In pre-Christian times this was done through animal sacrifice, though sacrifice of weapons, armor, or other significant items like jewelry is known to have occurred.

The essence of blot, for me, is that I am giving back to the gods a gift of what they have given me after it has been shaped by my own efforts into something new.  For instance, I will give jewelry I have made, or food I have cooked.

Blót is a ritual of developing  with the gods.   Friendship are formed by giving of yourself to another.   This ritual is about creating and sustaining friendship with the gods. 

Creating A Morning Ritual 🧘🏾‍♀️☀️

The Summer Solstice has finally come! We are officially halfway through the year. This energy is great for manifesting, expressing gratitude, and making changes in your life for the next few months. Now is the best time to create new morning rituals, to not only enhance your living but to enhance your magic as well! ✨

What is a Morning Ritual?

A morning ritual is anything you do to get your day started. In the witchy world, a morning ritual combines mundane tasks with everyday magic practice.

Sometimes the morning is the only time we get to practice magic, with our lives being so hectic and busy. 

How Long Should it Be?

Your morning ritual can last anywhere from 10 minutes to 1 hour or more.

First figure out how much time you have to spare in the mornings. Do you have 9am classes or work really early in the morning? Set your alarm for 10-20min before you have to leave, and do your morning ritual then. Work overnight and only get the mornings to sleep? Set an alarm for early afternoon, the exact time doesn’t matter. Mornings completely free? Set up I comfortable time to rise and you use as much time as you’d like.

The ritual should last as long as your activities do. If it takes you 20 minutes to do yoga and you’d like to include it in your routine, try to allot time for that. Which brings us to the next point:

What Practices Should I Include?

Anything that you want to become habitual and/or anything you’re trying to improve at.

It takes 21+ days to create a habit, and 1,000 hours minimum to get good at something, so including these things in your morning ritual will help speed up that process.

A normal morning ritual consists of regular activities like: making tea/coffee, stretching, taking a shower etc. When you’re coming up with your list, make sure to include these tasks that you’re already used to doing. (this will be helpful in figuring out how much time you need, as well)

To spice up your morning ritual, try to turn those mundane tasks into something more magical. Then, consider which of your witchy practices require little energy and can start you up for the day.

Some examples of ritual activities include:

Pulling tarot/oracle cards for the day

Showers/baths for cleansing 🚿

Smoke cleansing 💨

Making tea/coffee with herbs corresponding to your intentions for the day (ie. rosemary before going to any classes/lectures) 🍵☕️

Doing chakra meditation focused on a specific chakra ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🧘🏾‍♀️

Sun Salutation Yoga ☀️

Creating a quick crystal grid

Going outside and walking barefoot, for grounding 🌱🌿

Burn incense with scents/herbs corresponding to the day’s intentions

Write out affirmations/intentions for the day in a notebook/journal

Dream journaling! ✨

Working on a page in your grimoire 📕

Playing music and dancing around the house to stir up energy 💃🏽🎶

Lighting a candle on your altar or around your sacred space (bonus points for color based on intention) 🕯

Quick self-love/glamour magic 💎

Etc. etc. etc.

Your list could include one, a few, all, or none of these things. It’s all about what feels right for your individual practice. If you don’t already know what you want to do, look into what other witches or spirituals in your belief do on a daily basis. For example, practitioner of Norse Mythology often work with runes, you could definitely include that in your morning ritual.

But most importantly your morning routine is your own. Make it what you want it to be. It can be as long or as short as you’d like, and as eccentric as you please. The most important part is that you enjoy what you’re doing, and you feel energized doing it.

matterzcollective.com <3

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)

If you go for a walk in the forest, remember these ten things:

If you pass by a ring of mushrooms, don’t step in the circle, but do tell the mushrooms your dreams. They love to hear stories.

If you see large, foreboding pawprints in the middle of the trail, do not follow them; the path leads only to sorrow and despair.

If you hear the lull of a flute by the bubbling of a river, you may listen, but not for long; if you linger, you can never leave.

Be sure to keep any items you bring secured in your rucksack, with a few seashells hanging from it; the crashing waves from the shells will scare off thieves.

Return home before night falls. You never know what might appear when the forest is cloaked in darkness.

If you do stay after sundown, do not look at the stars. They are temptresses in their beauty, but can bring death and destruction.

If you come across wildlife, avoid eye contact. Some creatures may steal your soul if you stare long enough.

Never pass under a gnarled, curling tree, for you may enter a world that looks like your own, but is different still.

If you find a jar of honey or jam resting upon a boulder, ignore it. There are those who would tempt you with sweet nothings; don’t accept their gifts.

Mark a trail from your starting point with plain yarn. If you cut the trees, they’ll come for you. If you tie a ribbon on branches, they’ll capture you.

Be wary of the forest and all of its inhabitants. It is beautiful and wondrous, but can be frightful and merciless.

“It is also important to avoid making regular offerings to the spirits, including you familiars. Each offering should be made as payment for a specific service performed. In this way they will always be active and eager to earn their keep. As it is written in the Book of Abramelin the spirits are industrious creatures and must not be coddled like pets.

 On the other hand, a spirit who expect to be fed on a schedule will be less inclined to work and may become a lazy glutton. Your only option then is to withhold food until they agree to work, which is counterproductive and certainly not the kind of hostile relationship you want with them!

… Other exceptions to this rule would be offerings made to your ancestors and your personal head-spirit/guardian angel - for whom you can make regular offerings without harm. However, such regular offerings should be kept very simple (such as fire, water, and incense), and special or more elaborate offerings given only as thanks for specific work accomplished.”

- Ritual Offerings

This is probably the witch advice you didn’t ask for, but I’ve found it’s much easier to remember to do general periodic maintenance that’s otherwise easily forgotten or put off when tied to milestones such as solstices, equinox, new, or full moons. 

For example: Stow your winter blankets or clothes on the Vernal Equinox and take them out again on the Autumnal Equinox. Replace your air and water filters on solstices and equinoxes (every 90 days). Begin new 30-day challenges or do reset/cleaning of your living space on the new moon (every month). 

Living cyclically breaks life down into manageable little blocks of time and helps us live in the moment by paying attention to the ebb and flow of the Earth.

Khaire 💫💀🖤

What are the best sources for giving offerings to ancestors, gods, & local wights? What are the sources & what do you do exactly when giving offerings, like you specifically, give us an example pls?

This is a great question but I really have no hope of answering it adequately, this is such a complicated subject that it would take several doctoral dissertations.

There are basically four subcategories of sources for this sort of discussion which are: accounts by contemporary non-pagans, archaeology, Old Norse literature, and folk tradition. Some contemporary accounts of pagan worship include Tacitus’ Germania, The Life of Saint Ansgar by Rimbert (which among other things refers to deification of a dead king), Ahmad ibn Fadlan’s Risala, Ahmad ibn Rustah’s Book of Precious Records, the account by Ibrahim al-Tartushi, De Administrando Imperio by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Thietmar of Murseburg’s account in his Chronicon, Adam of Bremen’s Gesta Hammaburgensis (part way down the page in the link ; mentions animal and human sacrifice as well as pouring libations, and I’m sure others that have slipped my mind. I’m not sure if it’s contemporary or not but the Life of Saint Columbanus also refers to Suebians gathering to sacrifice a cauldron full of beer to Wodan.

Sacrifice is an extremely common reoccurring feature of the Icelandic sagas. Scholars have been studying the instances in the sagas for literally centuries trying to determine what elements are The best source on representations of blót in Old Norse literature is unfortunately, as far as I know, only available in Icelandic, which is Blót í Norrænum Sið by Jón Hnefill Aðalsteinsson. Some of what he discusses also appears as a chapter in the book A Piece of Horse Liver. The most important sources to his study are Landnámabók, Íslendingabók, Hákons saga góða (part of Heimskringla), and Eyrbyggja saga. These accounts typically deal either with legal proceedings, major holidays like Jól or Winternights, or attempts to gain something by supernatural intervention (such as settlers sacrificing to gods to guide them safely to Iceland). It can be very difficult to tell which elements are genuinely preserved from pre-Christian times and what is post-Christian speculation. Also in many of these instances the actual proceedings of the sacrifice are not described, it’s only said that there was a blót. In many cases there is a reference to wooden idols and especially to blood being poured over them; there is also reference to worship of trees (esp. Heiðreks saga where a tree is called blóttré and reddened with blood), forests, rivers, and lakes. A few times animals are worshiped such as when Flóki Vilgerðarson blóts to three ravens which eventually guided him to Iceland. In Kormáks saga a figure who is directed toward a hill where álfar live and told to redden it with bull’s blood and make a meal of the meat for them and leave it on the hill. Eiríks saga rauða also features a figure, Þorhallr, who sneaks off from the settlement and recites poetry for Thor. Saxo Grammaticus can also fall under this heading. The poem Hyndluljóð also refers to Óttarr sacrificing to the ásynjur although the details of what Freyja is saying about it is a little obscure.

In the archaeological record sacrifice varies wildly over time even in the same places. I’m not sure what your upper or lower limit on time is here, but sacrifice changed so radically over time from the stone age through to the end of the Viking age that it would take a shelf of books to describe each. A book that I read (well, part of) for things that go that far back was Scandinavian Archaeology by Håkon Shetelig and Hjalmar Falk, although it is quite old now and you can probably find something better. Although it specifically concerns Denmark, I also recommend The Prehistory of Denmark by Jørgen Jensen. Around the turn of the century bog deposits of weapons, jewelry, and other equipment are common. As time goes on, gold seems to increase in importance, with Gullgubber coming into play at the end of the Migration age. Glass beads were found among the remains of what’s believed to be a hǫrgr (stone alter) in Norway and were interpreted as having been offerings left on it. Also within this category are grave goods – since burials make up a huge amount of Scandinavian archaeology they are usually discussed in terms of more general studies of material culture rather than directly from a religious/votive perspective.

As far as folkloric tradition goes I am mostly familiar with Icelandic folklore although I understand that bowls of porridge with butter were left out for house- and homestead wights in mainland Scandinavia. In Iceland around Christmas it was believed that it was the designated time for the elves to move (that is, change residences); they left the lights on for them and sometimes left out something for them to drink. There are recordings on http://www.ismus.is/ of interviews with Old Icelanders who had heard stories of people sacrificing a bundle of hay to a bog in order to get better weather. There was a part of a sheep’s heart called Ullareyru ‘Ullur’s ears’ which into modern times in Iceland was cut off the heart when the sheep was slaughtered and buried deep in the earth (I can’t find a source for this, but I was taught this in class).

Here is some further reading:

Terry Gunnell, “Hof, Halls, Goðar and Dwarves: An Examination of Ritual Space in the Pagan Icelandic Hall.”

Preben Rønne, “Horg, hov and ve” (a description of the Norwegian hǫrg and vé complex mentioned above)

Jakob Orri Jónsson, “Food, blood and little white stones: A study of ritual in the Icelandic Viking Age hall”, a master’s thesis on ritual space in saga-age Iceland.

Lilla Ullevi, a pagan cult site that has been the subject of archaeological investigation

As far as what I personally do, it depends entirely on the situation (I have not lived in the same place for more than a year since I became heathen so I’ve had to adapt frequently). If I’m not indoors I try to be near a body of water, at an elevated place, or near a tree. I don’t really worship indoors if I’m alone. When I lived on the east coast of the US I would try to be at the beach either when the sun rises or after it’s set (depending on the situation) and recite the “Heill Dagr…” verses from Sigrdrífumál or something else if it seems more appropriate. At one place there was a rock that looked like a huge Mjölnir sticking out of the sand and I would pour libations over it. When I am with one of my friends we pass a bottle back and forth and toast to gods and/or ancestors and/or whatever until the bottle is empty. There is a certain rock where we have left lamb meat for ravens; we’ve also left meat offerings in the jetty. She has a small bookcase alter with objects relating to Freyja and Thor on it where we leave offerings, especially if we are drinking we pour some of whatever we’re drinking into a small glass and leave it there. I go especially off the rails at Þorrablót and last year actually did the Þorri-welcoming ritual (that I highly doubt has anything to do with pre-Chrisian paganism, btw). I have frequently participated in group settings. It’s my opinion that ritual should really never not be accompanied by music, but that’s just me. If I have something to say I always do actually say it, even if it’s only a whisper (this is inspired by Eiríks saga rauða).

I think that in the sources one can discern two distinct threads, one that emphasizes reuse and reaffirmation of the ritual landscape in which you’re permanently situated, and the other which emphasizes transforming your current setting into one that is relateable to the mythological cosmology (see the Gunnell paper). For better or worse I’ve been stuck with the latter. That means hunting for bodies of water or auspicious-looking trees where I hopefully won’t be seen. Some day when I’m not moving so frequently and maybe even have some actual money I’d like to work out something more consistent that involves permanent structures or landscape elements.

I am still very much still in the process of formulating some kind of praxis and I highly doubt I will approach it for years. At least for now it’s more about experimentation than repetition. We do not have a “right way” and getting comfortable with ambiguity is a necessity.