Cursing with Kats

Wild Flowers and Full Moon - Hodo Nishimura , 1940s-50s.

Japanese , b . 1910s- ?

Easter has NOTHING to do with:

Ishtar

Ostara

Pagan holidays

A goddess called Eostre (Bede was a speculating idiot and he’s the original source for this nonsense)

Easter has EVERYTHING to do with:

The Jewish celebration of the Passover seder

The Christian celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ

Nobody stole our shit. Easter was never pagan to begin with. Rabbit was considered “fish” by the medieval Catholic Church so that people could eat it during the 40 days of Lent, and eggs laid during the Lenten fast were hardboiled for preservation and then eaten during the breaking of the fast on Easter Sunday. That’s why we have bunnies and eggs.

Stop conflating Easter with pagan holidays, and get the fuck out of here with that casual anti-semitism.

The type of Seder that Jesus would have attended is in no way indicative of what a Passover Seder is to Jews because it was a different type of Judaism at the time.

I agree that Easter was not stolen from pagan traditions, but it is also not based on Jewish ones and it’s important not to conflate “Judeo-Christian” because we’re two separate entities. That’s why Christians holding a Seder is very wrong.

The TIMING of Easter is related to Passover, as the Last Supper is widely believed to have been a Passover Seder. (Fully acknowledging that the Biblical canon is describing very different circumstances and traditions to what exists now.) The dates differ somewhat between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches because their holidays align to the Gregorian and Julian calendars respectively. (The shift from Julian to Gregorian affected the timing of certain other holidays as well, but I digress.)

All right. Since it’s Easter and this is going around again and people are getting spicy in the comments, I’m settling shit on this post once and for all. Cause I’m getting pretty damned sick of being called ignorant and antisemitic (and worse) for pointing out DOCUMENTED HISTORY AND LITURGICAL CANON like I had anything to do with its creation. I was going to make this its’ own post to avoid making this one obnoxiously long but yanno what? My jar of Fucks To Give is fucking empty.

You want the sauce? Here’s the sauce. And then I don’t want to hear another fucking word about it until next year when somebody inevitably digs this up again.

All right. First things first. The word “Easter” or “Ostern” or something like it is only found in English and German-derived languages. In Spanish, it is Pascua. In Italian and Catalan, Pasqua. In French, Pâques. In Greek, Pascha. In Portuguese, Páscoa. I could go on, but suffice it to say that nearly all Romance languages (and many of their derivatives) use some form of a word derived from the Latin Pascha, meaning of or having to do with Passover (Pesach). The two holidays are linguistically and temporally associated. This does not make them the same, but the association MATTERS, because it shows that right from the beginning Christians associated Easter with Passover and not with some random pagan solstice holiday.

“You mean Ostara?”

We’ll get to it.

As for timing, let us turn back the clock to 325 CE and the First Council of Nicaea. Up until this point, Christians had relied on the Jewish calendar to determine the date of Easter, since they associated the holiday with the same timing as Passover. Part of the council’s agenda was to designate a date for Easter which was not dependent on the Jewish calendar but still occurred around the same time. Subsequent councils eventually decided that Easter would take place on the first Sunday after the Paschal Moon, or the first full moon in April. Please note that the word “Paschal” appears in liturgical observances right up to the present day.

So that’s why the timing of Easter and Passover are connected in Church liturgy. Whether it is correct for the Church to associate Easter with Passover in this way according to Jewish religious canon and history is a separate issue. I did not make up this association out of thin air. It exists in history and in language, and if it’s inaccurate for the two to be associated in this way, y'all need to take it up with Rome.

And YES, when modern pagans ignore this in favor of saying Easter was straight-up sourced from pagan traditions and pagan traditions only, that erasure of the Jewish connection with the holiday IS FUCKING DISRESPECTFUL. THAT is where the casual antisemitism comes in, and we ought to be fucking aware of it.

Now as for Ostara….

When Bede wrote in the 8th century that “Eostermonath” must have been named for a Germanic goddess of spring, he was SPECULATING. We do not have sources for this supposition or evidence of the existence of a goddess called Eostre or Ostara before this, only his theory. And as we all know, given enough time, very old things are taken as gospel. So when Jacob Grimm quoted Bede in his own work, 19th-century occultists took it to be true and based their subsequent musings upon that single source.

These days, we have Wicca to thank for the presence of Ostara on the calendar. And it wasn’t even originally part of the Wheel of the Year. After deciding in 1958 that they wanted to celebrate the solstices and equinoxes as well as the quarter days, Gardner’s coven just marked the vernal equinox as the spring solstice and called it a day. Unfortunately, he was working from the now-debunked claims of Edward Williams (also known as Iolo Morganwg) who claimed that druids celebrated festivals on the solstices and equinoxes based on the belief that the druids had built Stonehenge and therefore marked these occasions as sacred. (More on this in Prof. Ronald Hutton’s article, “Modern Pagan Festivals.”)

Moving forward a few years, we come to the infamous Aidan Kelly. In 1974, he took is upon himself to create a new version of the Wheel of the Year with new “historical” names for several holidays. He took his information from Bede’s speculation as well and named the spring equinox festival Ostara. (This is also the point where we get Litha and Mabon, but I digress.) And even Aidan Kelly acknowledges, and I quote, “The Venerable Bede says that (the spring equinox] was sacred to a Saxon Goddess, Ostara or Eostre, from whom we get the name “Easter,” which, almost everywhere else, is called something like ‘Pasch,’ derived, of course, from Pesach.”

So Kelly’s new Wheel was adopted by the Wiccans and their broad influence spread it to the rest of the neopagan community and everyone just took it as gospel. It’s thanks to modern paganism’s penchant for conflating most of ancient European paganism and not doing their homework that we now get this idea of Ostara as an ancient spring celebration of the goddess Eostre, who, as you’ll recall, might not have even existed. And of course, because modern witches love to pick a fight and feed their persecution complexes, that translated directly into the idea that Easter and Ostara were the same holiday and that Christians must have “stolen” it.

And let’s address this “stolen” holiday idea. Yes, pagan peoples were converted, and their traditions were sometimes preserved and adapted to fit new ideas in order to ease the transition. This does NOT mean pagan holidays were just straight-up adopted into the Christian calendar. What even would be the point of saying Christianity was the “true religion” if they just went about like, “Hm, yes, this pagan holiday looks good, let’s just add that to the list like we consider it just as important as our own,” if they considered pagans to be ignorant heathens and their gods to be demons and devils? You can’t have it both ways, people.

If the Church had adopted pagan holidays, THERE WOULD BE RECORDS. We have records for just about every decision the Catholic Church has made with regard to the minutiae of their belief system, to say nothing of the construction of their calendar. Syncretism occurs when two or more cultures exist in the same place for a long enough period of time that their traditions begin to blend together. This has been happening FOREVER. It is not unique to Christianity or even Europe. Pagan cultures syncretized and shared and changed over time as well. The fact that Ostara as we know it today is not an ancient holiday does not make it any less valid or worthy of observance.

The Ishtar thing is a fucking meme and I’m not even going to dignify it with an argument.

In conclusion, and perhaps most goddamn importantly - You Can’t Fucking Steal A Holiday. You can ban it, you can suppress it, you can wipe it from the record, but you can’t steal it. Stealing implies that it’s a commodity or property which is gone and can never be used or observed by the original culture ever again. No one is stopping you from observing, learning about, or celebrating the thoroughly modern holiday of Ostara in whatever way you prefer.

a simple spell to help subtle or nuanced feelings be communicated 

💙  dry some rose petals and crush them, add dill. 

💙   sprinkle a pinch of the two herbs over an effect of the person, or something that represents the relationship. 

💙   make a little circle out of the rest of the herbs, put the candle in the center.

💙   Burn the candle and chant,

“By rose petals and dill this spell starts Draw me closer and show your cares As I’ve held you in my arms And you hold me in your heart.”

💙   SAVE THE HERBS IN A BAG or something. 

not all witches have the same budget or spell ingredients readily available to them, so when one witch writes a spell with ingredients they consider easy to procure, it may not be the same for the next witch that wants to try that spell. 

🌿 homemade replacements:

sometimes you can make a substitute for the ingredients, the way land locked witches can make sea water from sea salt and tap water. it’s not entirely the same but it’ll do well enough. however, not everything can be almost-manufactured.

🌿 common “replaces anything” alternatives:

rosemary - replaces any herb

rose - replaces any flower

quartz - replaces any crystal

white or black candle - replaces any candle. 

however, these are just stand in- the hold the spot, boost the spell, but only in generic, neutral energy. these ingredients can even water down the intent of the spell because they don’t support the correspondences of the spell. without components that have the intent of the spell, what do you have to direct that energy?

🌿 so how to replace a spell component?

the core of any spell is the intent, the results it wants to achieve. however, that intent is the sum of the intents of the ingredients in the spell. you need to break down the spell into its ingredients and understand what is needed and why, and even if anything is expendable. 

example:  a spell to speak clearly may have one herb for communication and another for clarity, and one for luck. 

the one for luck may be less necessary than the other ingredients, just there for a little boost to the spell. 

however, using only the component for communication, the spell might only bring opportunities to communicate, and they may go badly or well, there’s nothing in the spell to balance that. so the other component is needed, the one for clarity. 

however the herb for clarity on its own may end up only providing insight and understanding on your part, and not communicating well with others.

figure out the correspondences of the herbs and their part in the spell, and look up herb/stone/etc correspondences for that intent, and replace with what you find that is available to you. 

🌿 however, there are other times you may need to replace something in a spell, like personal association. 

say you hate lavender, yet it’s in every calming or sleep spell. if lavender makes you gag when you need a sleep spell, it’s plain not going to help the spell for you, even if you have plenty of lavender on hand. 

again you research what lavender or whatever herb generally stands for, and find an equivalent, like chamomile tea. if you like chamomile and have it on hand, it can be your new go-to replacement. 

~A spell to bring your strength and power to the surface~

What You’ll Need:

a pen

a couple pieces of paper

several items that you feel connected to that give you a sense of being and strength

a candle and incense (color and scent similarly things that you connect to yourself)

-This spell has more to do with you than with the items involved, as this is truly about your personal power, and so can even be done without all of them.-

What you need to do:

1. Do whatever is necessary for you to do spell and energy work (i.e. cast a circle, cleanse, meditate etc.)

2. Arrange the candle, incense and items however best fits your work space be it on an altar, table, desk, floor or wherever you are working.

3. On one of the pieces of paper, write out what you feel your biggest strengths are, and what things might hinder each of those from being brought to the surface

4. Light the candle and incense, focusing on those traits you wish to bring out or amplify

5. Now on the second piece of paper, write out those same attributes, only this time, preface them with the opposite in this format “I am no {negative}, I am {positive}”

6. Say it out loud as you write it, emphasize that you ARE NOT the negative aspect and that you ARE the positive

7. Blow out or allow the candle to burn itself out. Same with the incense. Focus on the positive reinforcement of the attributes you are seeking to bolster within yourself. Do whatever you can to strengthen those pillars of your being. 

Whenever, if ever, you start to doubt yourself, reiterate the positive affirmations, leaving out the negatives (since you’re trying to improve)

*This is a spell from my personal grimoire*

Happy Casting Witches!

M.G.

—“an old germanic spell to attract the man or woman {person} of your dreams”🌞🌷

note!!!!: this is not my spell, this is from The Book of Spells by Nicola de Pulford 💜

ingedients:

-white and red rose

-scroll of paper

-lock of your hair

-short piece of ribbon

how to do it:

gather a red and white rose which are not yet fully open. on the scroll of paper, write a description of your ideal lover that you’d like to attract, then wrap the scroll around the lock of hair. next, take the roses and cut them in half, placing the white half to the red half while enclosing the scroll (with the lock of hair) between them. bind the halves together with the pink ribbon and kiss each half. cast them into running water, such as a stream or a fountain. finally, bury the remaining halves of the roses together in the earth, asking Venus to bless your spell. 🌹❤️

and remember!!! love magick should be consensual, never force someone to love you.

how to craft a spell jar: 

gather your ingredients

charge & program each ingredient before adding it to the jar (aka, give power & instructions to your ingredients)

add the ingredients to the jar

close the jar

enchant the jar as a whole object (see my post on enchanting items for further guidance)

seal with wax, ribbon, or string to finalize & cast the spell 

optional: decorate your bottle if you wish

what you can use as a jar:

tiny craft store jars

mason jars

pickle / pasta sauce jars

old medication bottles

food storage containers

what you can add to a spell jar: 

dried herbs

dried citrus peels

magickal powders

small crystals

gem chips

essential oils (a drop or two will go a long way)

infused oils (carrier oils such as olive or grapeseed oil that have been infused with herbs)

a few drops of charged water (storm water, war water, sea water, holy water, rain water, moon water, sun water, etc.)

paper (with sigils / symbols / glyphs drawn on it, an incantation, a name, a phrase, etc.)

coins

beads

glitter or confetti 

seashells / shark teeth / beach sand

leaves

DNA (finger nail clippings, a piece of hair, etc. to be used as a taglock)

animal fur, nail clippings, teeth, or whiskers***

nails, glass, pins, needles, thorns, & other sharp objects (great for cursing, binding, banishing, or protection)

vinegar, lemon juice, pickle juice (mostly for “souring” a situation)

honey, sugar, syrup (to “sweeten” a situation or for attraction)

pretty much anything that fits & corresponds to your intent

what you should avoid putting in a spell jar: 

fresh herbs or plant material (this can cause mold to grow inside of the jar)

biological secretions (i mean, you can if you want but it’s not necessarily sanitary & there are cleaner, more easily obtained taglocks to use instead)

what spell jars are good for: 

containing your spell, theoretically making it easier to manipulate & control

manifesting goals/intentions over time

manifesting goals continuously 

passive manifestation that doesn’t require much ongoing participation from the caster

what to do with your spell jar once it’s been crafted:

keep it on your altar

depending on the intent of the spell, keep it in a different area that you frequent (for glamours, keep it in the bathroom; for sleep or dreams, keep it in the bedroom; for safe travels, keep it in your vehicle; for cursing, keep it concealed in a black box; etc.)

wear it around your neck

put it in your pocket, purse, or backpack

bury it in your backyard or within a potted plant outside (for spells you don’t plan to undo or want to last indefinitely)

if burying is not an option, hide it somewhere on your property

leave it at a crossroads

recharging spell jars: 

shake it up

light a candle on top of or next to it

submerge it in a bath of herbs or crystals that are associated with energy

submerge or surround with sea salt (a natural conductor of energy)

anoint with oil / blessed or charged water

pair with a tarot card or rune stone that matches your intent

suffumigate with incense smoke

energy work & visualization

disposing of & reversing spell jars - when you feel like the spell has done its job or you need to undo its effects:

do not throw the entire jar into an open flame - this is incredibly dangerous

remove the contents from the jar & either burn them or bury them

for items you wish to save, cleanse them thoroughly before using them again

take the jar & cleanse it in whatever manner you choose & either save it to be reused; or shatter it & then dispose of it properly

***please practice safe & ethical harvesting when it comes to using parts from a living animal in your craft; don’t ever trim whiskers off of your pet (if they come out naturally then it’s okay to use them); routine grooming is a great way to obtain some of the things i mentioned; you can use the baby teeth that you inevitably find when your puppy or kitten is teething, also! 

A spell to bring a friend joy when they need it.

You will Need:

💐 Azaleas 💐 Lilies 💐 Witches Grass 💐 Orange Ribbon 💐 Yellow Ribbon

Steps:

💐 Lay out the flowers and organize them as you like best

💐 Take your orange and yellow and begin wrapping them around the stems

💐 “In your time of sadness and murky skies, I bring you light and joy. These flowers will give you the joy you deserve, and bluer skies.”

💐 Tie the ribbons in a bow and kiss the tie and hold the stems in your hands as you do. Visualize the bouquet glowing yellow like the sun and remember the times you saw your friend smiling, laughing and enjoying themselves. Put those memories into the kiss to bring back such things.

this is a spell to attract someone to you, whether it’s a lost connection or someone you’ve talked to a few times. this spell won’t force them to do anything against their will, it will just make them more attracted to your energy.

what you will need:

red pen

piece of paper

rose quartz

four pink/ red/ purple/ etc candles

a fire safe container

a lighter/ matches

a separate sealable container (optional)

tip: i reccomend listening to pagan poetry by björk!

what to do:

cast your circle

set the candles in each cardinal direction

light each candle, beginning with the east

write down the name or a description of the person you’d like to attract

fold the paper as small as you’d like and, using the east candle, light it on fire and place it in your fire safe bowl

snuff or blow out the east candle and move it next to the west candle, allowing an opening on the east

holding your rose quartz in your hands, visualize your person for as long as you’d like

snuff or blow out each candle

Ingredients:

-lemon peel

-rose quartz

-black tea

-cinnamon

-clove

-elderberry

-mustard seed

-pink/Himalayan Salt

-catnip

-a rosebud

I don’t have time to list all the properties today. I recommend researching them as to better understand why the components were chosen and strengthen for intent. I also recommend to pair the spell jar with a sigil.

You will need:

A green candle.

A ring or bracelet in copper, Venus’s metal.

A small bag of old nails.

An empty bowl.

Timing:

Friday, the first hour after dawn, Venus’s day and hour.

The spell:

Light the candle.

Put on the copper ring or bracelet, touching it and then your heart with the index finger of your dominate hand, and say, “Lady Venus, morning star, call gentle love from near or far. Send to me a lover new, who will always to me be true.”

Take off the ring, shake the bag of rusty nails hard, and say, “Lady Venus, fierce evening star, this old love does my future mar. Release me from my broken heart, for shattered I am that we did part.”

Drop the nails one by one into the bowl, then say, “No more cruel love, for you I grieve. By the light of Venus, my thoughts you shall leave.”

Put on the ring or bracelet again, saying, “Venus, star of morning, my life begins again with this new dawning.”

Wear the ring/bracelet, dispose of the nails, and let the candles burn through.

“1001 Spells: The Complete Book Of Spells For Every Purpose,” by Cassandra Eason

*Requested by an anonymous user*

There are times in a witch’s life where patience just isn’t going to cut it. You need that one thing to happen, and you need it right now! For those times, try out this simple spell of manifestation! This would be most effective during the waxing moon, or the new moon just before it begins to wax (on a day such as today, for instance!).

What you need:

* Fire (candle, cauldron, fire pit, etc) * Paper (any kind will do, but the more elaborately decorated it is, the better this works) * Incense of any kind will do, though certain herbs will work better for certain thoughtforms/wishes (see full list below) The chant:

Waning, waxing, pull and push Bring forth my vision, my solemn wish Let it manifest into my destiny As I do will so mote it be! The process:

Close the blinds, lock the doors, or go outside somewhere where you needn’t fret about the judgmental eyes of others. Get a good fire going in your cauldron or fire pit, or light your candle. Sit and focus on your desire, envisioning it happening. See yourself holding what it is you want or experiencing the happening as realistically as you can; mind that magic has little recourse in the world of fantasy, as fantastical as it seems at times. Once you have your vision firmly in your mind’s eye, write it out on the paper, as well as the date, and your religious name. Bless/consecrate the paper by any rite you wish, and then when you feel ready, feed it to the flame. Imagine is as a glowing orb which grows larger as the page burns up. Dance around it and chant the words above as it grows, letting your energy latch on the energy of the paper burning. Finally when you have generated enough energy, release it into the world with firm belief in its success.

What You’ll Need •

§*optional* A white candle

How Toº

∞If you have a candle this is where you light it and hold it in your hand, this is just something to focus your energy on so it doesn’t go everywhere (my mind also wanders and I forget what I was doing/saying and when you’re holding fire it helps the focus ;D) ∞Take a deep breath and ask your God/deity/god/goddess/(or whatever else I missed) for help ∞Visualizing the object in your mind, the shape, weight, colors, exhale and Say out loud    “Object I seek, I pray I’ll seek     Where ye hide, I shall see     What is lost, must be found      Please help turn my luck around” ∞Stare into the flame visualizing the object again ∞Feel the energy in the room and breathe it in ∞(If you have a candle) Exhale that air to blow out the candle ∞Thank your God/deity/god/goddess/Fey/Faeries/Elf/(or whatever else I missed)

Witchy Meanings⦿

Purity ~ Luck ~ Finding Something That’s Lost ~ Connection To God/deity/god/goddess/Fey/Faeries/Elf/(or whatever else I missed) ~

Communication Spell Jar

Vanilla Incense ash (optional) (warmth, peace)

Salt (cleansing, clarifying)

Oregano (promotes tranquility)

Clove (prevent malicious words)

Dill (encourages kindness, wards off ill intent)

Mint (release, healing, renewal)

Caraway (memory, honesty)

Charge with Citrine or Lapis Lazuli, seal with blue wax!

For when you can’t quite get your words to come out right, or there seems to be a major miscommunication in your life.