B*Witchling

‘the cider moon - pagan tradition + craft to celebrate the autumn’ is a 28-page hand-illustrated book full of medieval pagan wisdom, autumnal herbal magick, harvest recipes, and meaningful rituals. it’s perfect for the new or experienced witch (and lovers of autumn, halloween, and all things spooky).

this is my masterpiece so far, and i’m so excited to share it with you! ‘the cider moon’ features:

the history and symbolism of mabon and samhain, the pagan autumn festivals

a collection of spells which use autumnal herbs and colors

step-by-step instructions on making walnut shell candles and old pagan wheat-stalk charms

recipes for cardamom apple cake, a pagan currant shortbread, and roasted spiced squash + potatoes

an original poem, and LOTS of autumnal illustrations

and much more! check out some photos…

‘the cider moon’ is $10 a copy, and i can ship anywhere in the world! i self-write, edit, illustrate and publish these books all myself - i make them to help pay off my medical debt from years of asthma attacks and ovarian cysts, and also to help with my student debt. if this book interests you, your purchase would help me out immensely!

(Made, in part, for my own benefit on this very tired Lughnassadh)

🌽 Eat some carbs/bread, and leave the rest to your deity/beings of choice if you like.

🌽 Light just one candle, (gold, orange, white, yellow, red, or brown if you can) and just spend five minutes thinking about Lughnassadh and all the things you wish to harvest in the coming months.

🌽 Reconnecting with nature is always a good idea, if you have the spoons for it. See if you can take a walk outside, or maybe meditate with some plants.

🌽 Write down everything you hope to manifest in the coming months. Keep it in a safe place for Yule, where you can bring it out again and burn it to close this chapter on that part of your life.

🌽 Drink some mint tea to draw abundance. Leave some for your deity/beings of choice, if you like.

🌽 Write down all the things you’re grateful for, imbue the gratitude into a piece of paper, and bury it later when you can.

If there's a child in your life that you want to introduce magic to, here are some small and simple ideas:

Enchanting their blanket and letting them know

Making wishes on dandelions

Using mythology as bed time stories

Painting sigils on their ceilings with glow in the dark paint (they get to see the sigil and actually see that it's charged and used as they sleep)

Tea parties

Pearl earrings for good luck, wisdom, and wealth

Knot magic applied in hairstyles

Celebrating the equinoxes and other celebrations

Creating a fairy garden

Putting a rosemary plant on their desk to help them remember what they studied

Teach them phases of the moon and their importance

Teach them florist things and geology

Take them to the beach

Let them decorate and keep an altar in their room

Give them some basic spell books

Put honey for sweetness and milk for strength in their baths or other herbs (just make sure it's safe for their skin and to be ingested)

Teach them basic palministry

Go feather hunting

Go foraging with them

Burn incense or get a diffuser for their room

Speak your chants, spells, and correspondences out loud

Make them a jar spell for peaceful sleep

Plant jasmine outside their window for health, happiness, and relaxation

Bake bread with them

Teach them to meditate and ground

Make them rose and honey tea when they feel lonely and sad

Have them keep a dream journal

Teach them how to read playing cards

Make them amulets for safety and love

Draw sigils on the tags in their clothes

Paint their nails a color to match what you want to bring into their life (ie blue for calm, red for love, white for peace, etc)

Use glow in the dark star stickers and recreate some constellations inside

Cleanse their room or teach them how to

When they have bad dreams, place some amethyst and salt under their pillow

Bring the color orange into their room to bring in energy and joy or blue to bring in calm and peace

Place an iron nail in the floor under their door and above their windows to keep out fae

Hand down your grimoires

Plant an oak tree in your yard to provide a place to play and also to bring strength into your home and as a place to worship deities associated with the tree

Teach them about curses and the like

Get them an authentic dream catcher

An opalite necklace for confidence

Shark tooth necklace for strength

Teach them to love and respect the Earth

Like, I get that you want to reblog a cool post about how awesome the goddess is, but maybe rethink sharing it if it’s got some sort of crap about how “males just don’t understand our connection to the goddess! Don’t let men scare you out of celebrating your feminine power!”

They call others “Genderists”

They usually use the phrases “trans activist”, “trans activism” and talk about how horrible they are

They call themselves “gender critical”

Talking about how men are always violent and women are always Pure

They say females instead of women

Look at the usernames for phrases like “rad” “terf” and usually references to genitalia

Beltane is a holiday of sensual pleasure, which is uuuuusually equated with sex. There ain’t nothing wrong with that, but it can be a little isolating or uncomfortable if you’re asexual or otherwise not into sex! Some alternative ideas:

-Celebrate your other senses! Dance, work up a sweat, get lost in happy music, relax in a bubble bath. Basically just celebrate your most positive and deep feelings and REALLY feel them.

- Connect with nature. Beltane is the time of rebirth, so celebrate the emergence of all your favorite flowers, the bumblebees, butterflies and lil birbs. Go for a walk and thank them, and just sit in your happiness.

- BAKING. As a kitchen witch this is pretty much my go-to for any seasonal celebration, but it really is such a good outlet. You get to work hard, maybe try something new, incorporate ingredients relevent to that time and your practice and then reap the benefits of your intent. Honey, lavender and lemon are great ingredients for this time of year, both for yourself and for offerings if you’re into that.

- Celebrate other relationships! This is prime time for really appreciating and relishing in good friendships. Have a night out together, have a night in together, but focus on building each other up and the beauty of found family.

-CLEAN. This is honestly my favorite one. There can be nothing more rejuvenating than seeing your space clean and ready for new energy and new undertakings. Throw in some flower-scented candles and happy music for a next-level day of Beltane self care.

Partially this is just a list of prompts, partially you could absolutely make a functional wreck this grimoire out of it. Blank pages are suggested, and some of these require taking the page and destroying it or something similar, so I recommend either a. making the pages single sided or b. writing them all down first and seeing which ones need blank backs so you don’t destroy something you wanted to keep.

If you have anything else to add, feel free to add it to this list or your grimoire!

And if you are feeling kindly, you can donate to my ko-fi!

1. Write a protection spell for this grimoire.

2. Press your favorite flower here, and write down its correspondences.

3. Drip different colored wax here, and write down the color meaning.

4. Press healing herbs here, write their names and uses. If needed, use them, and replace.

5. Rub different dirts here and say where you got them, and their uses.

6. Make full moon water. Write a spell for growth on this page. Dip this page in the full moon water, and when it dries keep the spell near you, in your wallet, purse, backpack.

7. Fold this page into an envelope and put lucky herbs inside. Write a luck spell on the front of the envelope, imbue your intent, and then burn the envelope.

8. Write a song or poem that is important for your craft. Write your Craft playlist.

9. Make sigil components on this page.

10. Make sigils on this one.

11. Write a love spell. Use this page to wrap up a rose quartz and sleep with it under your pillow.

12. Make a collage of something important in your craft – nature, the moon, technology, etc.

13. Meditate on this blank page, or a scrying mirror, or a crystal, and write down what you see.

14. Make a pendulum circle, including Yes, No, and Maybe in different directions. Ask questions, and write down the answers. You can make a pendulum out of a needle and thread, and put the needle in this page to keep it safe.

15. Write a glamour spell, and mark this page with whatever you will use for the glamour – lipstick, paint, dirt.

16. Throw tea or coffee onto this page. Fold in half to make a print. Read the image and write down what you see.

17. Write a banishing spell. Bury this page in a jar of salt, and seal it with wax. Put in a dark place.

18. Make a collage of your favorite celebration, and use it as altar décor or wall art. Make a collage for all celebrations, if you want.

19. Make new moon water. Write a spell for a fresh start on this page. Dip this page in the new moon water, and when it dries burn it.

20. Draw herbs and write correspondences.

21. Draw crystals and write correspondences.

22. Draw astrological signs and write down traits.

23. Look up your own birth chart and write down all information. Write down what all of the positions mean. If you have to look something up, write down what that means too.

24. Use a couple pages as a dream journal – write down dreams when you have them, and analyze them. Write down what the imagery means to make a sort of personalized dream glossary.

25. Draw herbs and crystals you use the most and write down their correspondences.

26. Write a spell for your garden or houseplants for growth – or, write a spell for personal growth. Make a page into an envelope. Put in your earth-friendly ingredients and the spell, and bury it in your garden, in a pot, or near your home. For added growth, put in some seeds of local flowers. Remember this spot. It’s your natural altar now.

Page 50: Punt kick the journal into the middle of a field and do your ritual wherever it lands then write about how it went

-drip wax on this page, write down correspondences.

-press healing herbs here. press luck herbs there.

-dip this page in full moon-charged water. put it in your wallet.

-wrap a rose quartz in this page and put it under your pillow tonight.

-write a wish on this page, fill it with your intent, and burn it.

-use this page to brainstorm sigils

-write down a blessing here. write down a curse there.

-rub different kinds of dirt here and write down where they’re all from.

-meditate on this page, write down what comes to you.

Write down your favourite guises for the fair folk here

Put this page in a jar and cover with salt

Write down shufflemancy lyrics here

Make a collage themed on your favourite celebration

Use this page to write down new moon intentions

Trace your favourite crystals and rocks on this page

Write down weird old names for herbs on this page

🌼 Also known as spring equinox

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🐇 When Is Ostara?

🌼 Northern Hemisphere: 19-22 March

🌼 Southern Hemisphere: 19-22 September

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🐇What Is Ostara?

🌼 Ostara is a celebration of the start of spring, it’s when night and day  have become at perfect balance with each other. At this time, light now begins to take over darkness. Signs of spring are here for most of us or are arriving very soon. New life and growth are appearing all around us. Winter is drawing to an end and it’s getting to the time where we need to shake off the winter, if we haven’t already at Imbolc, and move full force ahead. All of the planning and procrastinating at Imbolc is now to be put to the test and begun. It’s a time for fertility, new growth, the birth of animals and insects too. The sun is slowly awakening to its full potential. The sun god and the young maiden goddess are married now and so conception is imminent. When she gives birth she will become the great mother. It’s also time to begin to honour your spring deities and your fertility deities, the main one being the Germanic Anglo-Saxon goddess Ostara who the sabbat is named after. She wakes up the earth with her powerful energy and creates fertility, growth and renewal all around. Ostara often takes the form of a hare of rabbit, which is why rabbits are a huge symbol of Ostara.

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🐇 How To Celebrate It

🌼 Easter, the traditional Christian holiday that is widely celebrated, has been adapted from the pagan Sabbat Ostara. As you may know, Easter is named after the female hormone oestrogen, necesary for fertility, which is one of the main aspects of the celebration of Ostara. As Easter has evolved from Ostara, there are actually quite a few similarities between the two holidays.

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🐇 Activities

🌼 Any plans or goals that you would like to complete this year, get started on them now; motivation is high!

🌼 Start your magickal herb garden if you haven’t already, if you don’t have room, no worries! Small pots and plants in appropriate places can be just as effective.

🌼 Take a walk, look for the first inspirational and motivational signs of spring, Maybe even press a flower or two.

🌼 Hold an Ostara egg hunt.

🌼 Wear green to represent the green earth arriving.

🌼 Spells to cast at this time would be for hope, love and good fortune or any that relate to achieving goals, to fertility and to love.

🌼 Bless an egg with a property of your choice and eat it.

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🐇Altar Ideas

🌼 Decorate it with green, purple and yellow ribbons to represent the spring and greenery that comes to the earth,

🌼 Light green,purple and yellow and orange candles.

🌼 Paint real or fake eggs for your altar to represent fertility and honor the fertility goddess Ostara.

🌼 Decorate your altar with some spring flowers- only pick a few though! After picking flowers, water them to give thanks and plant some more seeds around them if you can.

🌼 Pot up a plant and place it at your altar, keep it healthy and watch it grow and flourish.

🌼 Add statues, trinkets or stuffed toys of hares or rabbits- these are major symbols of fertility and immortality, and are close representations of fertility deities.

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🐇 Food And Drink

 🐇 Good foods and drinks for this time of the year are anything that represent fertility and seasonal foods to honour the beginning of spring:

🌼 Green vegetables 🌼 Seeds 🌼 Eggs 🌼 Dairy such as goat’s , cow’s and sheep’s cheese and milk. Free- range or home produced is best, but shop-bought or dairy substitutes, if you don’t eat dairy, are just as good. 🌼 Meats such as lamb, ham and rabbit, or meat substitutes 🌼 Flowers that are edible, on salads, etc. 🌼 Light breads 🌼 Fresh juices

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🐇Crystals

🐇 Relevant crystals to carry around with you this time of year and to meditate with, use in divination and spell work, and place at your altar are:

🌼 Clear Quartz

🌼 Agate

🌼 Rose Quartz

🌼 Amazonite

🌼 Jasper

🌼 Lapis Lazuli

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🐇Herbs And Flowers

🐇 Herbs and flowers that are preferable at this time of the year are seasonal flowers and herbs that can be planted, or that begin to blossom or be fragrant in the spring.

🌼 Lilies

🌼 Narcissus

🌼 Lavender

🌼 Honeysuckle

🌼 Lemon Balm

🌼 Daffodils

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🐇Incense

🐇 Good incense to use during casting circles, burning at your altar around Ostara time and for cleansing and consecrating, as well as for magickal workings, are:

🌼 Floral- spring flowers

🌼 Rose

🌼 Strawberry

🌼 Oak Moss

🌼 Sandalwood

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Source: A modern guide to witchcraft & magick by: harmony nice

Art Credit To: natachachohraart

Witchy Practice: Yoga Salutations

Sun Salutations (Surya Namaskar) ~

Starting your day with a good stretch, honoring the sun, and revitalizing your body and mind is an incredibly beneficial alternative to checking your social media or turning on the TV. Get outside and do a quick set of stretches that will get you pumped for the day!

Mountain Pose- To begin, bring your hands together at your heart. This is a great time to set your intention. Inhale. Bring the arms out to the sides and up to the sky to join your palms above your head. Lift your gaze to your thumbs and slide your shoulders away from your ears.

Forward Fold- Exhale. Release your arms to  either side and forward bend over your legs to come into a forward bend. Place your fingertips in line with your toes. Flatten your palms if possible or tent your fingers. You can also bend the knees a little if that makes you more comfortable. Inhale.

Plank Pose- Exhale. Plant your palms and step or jump back to a plank position. In plank, make sure your shoulders are over your wrists and your butt is neither sticking up nor drooping down. A straight line from the crown of your head to your heels is what you are going for. Take an inhale here.

Superhero Pose- Exhale. Lower to your knees, chest, and chin. Put arms out in front of you, feet shoulder width apart and lift both arms and legs off the ground. Hold.

Upward Dog/Cobra- Inhale. Come forward to a low cobra. Anchor your pelvis and the tops of your feet to the floor but try not to press into your hands as you come up into the backbend.

Downward Dog- Exhale. Push back to downward facing dog. You can come through hands and knees on the way if necessary. Stay here a few breaths (or more) if you need to take a break. If you are going for a brisk pace, just stay one breath.

Warrior Pose- Inhale. Step your right foot next to your right hand, then lift your torso with hands raised.

Forward Fold- Exhale. Bring the left foot to join the right in standing forward bend. Inhale up to a flat back and then exhale back to Mountain Pose. End by bringing your hands together and lowering them back to your heart. 

Moon Salutations (Chandra Namaskara)~

Mountain Pose- Begin the sequence standing in Mountain Pose. Inhale - Hook the thumbs of your outstretched arms as you raise them up over the head. This variation of Raised Arms Pose is a backbend, so reach the arms behind you mimicking the crescent shape of the moon.

Standing Forward Bend- Exhale -let the arms swing down behind your back. Interlace your fingers behind the back and bring your hands over your head as you fold forward. (Not pictured in the bunny image but this is the correct next step in the sequence).

Crescent Lunge-  Inhale - Release your interlaced hands as you swing the arms up next to your ears and step the right foot back to the end of your mat coming into a High Lunge.

Downward Facing Dog-  Exhale - Drop the hands down in front of you as you step the left foot back behind you coming into Downward Facing Dog.

Superhero Pose-  Inhale. Put arms out in front of you, feet shoulder width apart and lift both arms and legs off the ground. Hold.

Upward Dog- Exhale and lower limbs placing your hands beneath your shoulders. Inhale. Lift your chest up into upward facing dog pose.

Downward Dog- Exhale. Lifting your butt and keeping your back straight push back into downward dog.

Crescent Lunge- Inhale. Step the right foot between your hands and bring the arms up next to your ears coming into a High Lunge Pose.

Standing Forward Bend-  Exhale. Step the left foot forward to meet the right foot as you swing the arms down and interlace the fingers behind your back in a forward bend. (Again, not pictured)

Raised Arms Pose-  Inhale - Release the hands from behind your back and hook the thumbs in front of you as you come up to stand. In a continuous movement, take the arms up and back behind you coming into backwards crescent stretch.

Mountain Pose-  Exhale - Bring the arms back above your head as you return to Mountain Pose. 

My DIY rune set for learning basic runes (charged and cleansed with selenite, amethyst and citrine)

@estfortis @mams-a-witch @willowade @noonymoon

Y’all are so sweet 😭

Just wanted to share this edit of “The Extremely Large Herbal Grimoire” PDF. As you can see I’ve done a lot of work on it, so please share it around.

Winter Solstice Ritual, right of passage for the new year.

Items you will need, (you may exchange items that represent the idea being conveyed in the ritual):

White candles (snow, purity, newness, winter)

Red candles (passion, the season, new love)

Blue candles (compassion, mercy, ice, strength)

A bowl of water

Flower petals that represent you as a person (this is always different for each witch or sorcerer, some even use wood chips)

Stones, statues, drawings that represent the winter ❄️

Salt

Next, place them in a pattern around the bowl of water that should be in the center and accessible to you. This pattern will represent a snow flake.

Use the salt to connect each item, giving it a snow flake appearance.

Incantation for the solstice-

“With this alter I do thee invoke the Most High God, his blessings and rebirth into the new year. Cleansing all that has been done over the past year.

Enchanted this water with strength, mercy, magick, and protection as I walk into the Light.”

Dip your main pointer finger into the water and place a drop on your forehead and all those present. This drop of water is a major blessing for the new year.

if icicles form where you live, break them off into any bottle with a lid and let it melt to make winter water for spells