godless dog

I use Star Anise in my protection network in several different forms. I crush it to put into herb blends for scattering at thresholds, brew it into licorice-y tea, burn it for a potent cleansing smoke, float it in coconut oil on a wax melter with other herbs to infuse the air—

And I put full star anise stars on door frames and window sills. These, I use as a sort of spiritual alert system. If an anise falls down, I need to refresh or bolster my wards/protections. If one breaks, I take it as a sign to check for spiritual breaches and attachments. Depending on where the anise fell (main door, bedroom window, etc), I can diagnose what sort of energy needs bolstering.

- great value's organic spices come in little glass containers that are perfect for spell jars

- instead of making a messy salt line everywhere, dissolve a bunch of salt into some warm water and use a paintbrush to paint salty water everywhere you'd like a boundary

- spiritually cleanse the insides of your spell jars and witch bottles before using them by putting an incense stick inside and letting them fill with smoke (i use frankincense)

- to burn loose herbs without a charcoal disc, put them in a metal strainer and set over a candle flame (supervised!)

- repurpose items that have bad memories attached to them by performing a cleansing ritual of the items and banishing the memories' presence

- for buried/inaccessible workings, create a small "charging remote" spiritually connected to your other workings that you can charge up the entire thing from

I can't believe this needs to be said, but you cannot practice witchcraft and use AI. Writing this while kinda (very) pissed so bare with me and apologies if this is a little incoherent.

Most if not all witchcraft practices are rooted in nature to some degree and, seeing the environmental impacts of AI, using such a tool goes against core values of the craft. If you use AI, you are directly supporting and indirectly contributing to the ongoing water shortage and the environmental destruction AI data centers cause. Your craft will then be tainted by this and your hypocrisy will come back to slap you in the face when you least expect it.

And if (for some reason) you do not care about the environment (why are you even here, then?), you are actively stunting your own growth as a witch by offloading tasks to a robot that doesn't understand the intricacies of the craft, only its aesthetics. Not to mention all of the blatantly false and outdated information these models are trained on. Witchcraft is, among other things, about connecting to your own intuition, your ancestors and the shadow work this entails. AI cannot do that for you. Yes, the research can feel overwhelming and shadow work may make you feel uncomfortable at times, but it's all part of what witchcraft is about. If you need help with research, there are plenty of resources online to help you make sense of it all without letting a water chugging machine think in your place (youtube videos, blogs, dedicated websites, and probably more that I can't think of right now.)