Interwoven

I’ve been seeing a lot of posts popping up about where to start with deity work. I will explain some easy and basic places to start below however I think it is important to decide a few things before you make a choice.

A lot of people ignore the spirits that are already in their area and available to do work with, with sometimes not even a ton of effort required, but instead push everything aside to erect a shrine to a God that has never set foot where they live. There isn’t anything… wrong with this but it is a strange way to approach a craft in my opinion especially when new.

1) You do not need to hamfist a Deity into a “Goddess” and “Consort” role, in fact I would actively encourage against it. A lot of information about Deities is boiled down, stripped away, and colored over in order to fit Deities into predetermined boxes that no one ever intended for them to go into. 

2) You do not NEED to work with Deities in your practices. There are spirits, Spirits, Beings, and Others who you can also work with that are just as helpful if not more so in a lot of ways. Especially with communicating and getting results. 

3) If you DO want to work with a deity you should really figure out why. Why that specific deity for example is it because you need help with your love life? In a vague sense of love yeah, Venus is a great initial idea but do realize that there is more to Venus than “love”. In fact most Deities have many different faces, they are not all 2 dimensional. They are complex and contradictory or confusing, and trying to make them fit into what you already have preconceived is only going to make everything more difficult. 

4) Is the Deity you want to work with available to you? What culture are they from? Is it off-limits, initiatory, or closed? Have you done the required work to be able to pursue that path anyways? Odds are if you’re looking for beginners help on the internet for Deities the answer is no. 

5) You do not need Deities to do witchcraft. It is not “required”. In fact many witches do their work without ever involving any Deities at all. Just as a reminder if you’re feeling as though it is mandatory. 

If you’re still set on Deity work and how to pursue a relationship with one it’s relatively simple in most cases. Erect a shrine, usually a candle, incense or oils, a figure of the Deity (you can make this you don’t have to buy it), symbols or texts relevant to the Deity, dishes for offerings and petitions, vessels for liquid offerings, a small designated book for notes, poems, songs, and research, and some divination method or trance aids to help with attempting to reach out and communicate.

Some people give offerings before to butter up, others promise after the work is done if involving them in work. Its preference and probably if you’re approaching from a reconstructionist path good to pull from available literature. 

I may have answered something like this before, but I'm honestly not sure, so I'll do my best to just answer it here. This will look a little different for everyone, but this is what I can say based on my own experiences:

Spend a lot of time in nature.

This is really important. In my experience, it does quite a lot to teach you about local spirits and how one might best approach them. Aside from natural spaces, very old and historically meaningful locales can also be useful to spend time in, though, this is particularly useful when such locals are desolate.

Look into the native mythology and culture of your region.

This can look very different depending on where you are, but I believe it to be vital if you live in a colonized area. While I, in no way, encourage appropriating the beliefs or practices of a colonized area's local indigenous communities, I believe that attempting to make meaningful contact with regional spirits is lacking and disingenuous if it doesn't acknowledge the oldest and most traditional accounts of those spirits.

Learn about the flora and fauna of your region.

This is closely aligned with my first point about spending time in nature, but while that first point has more to do with developing a personal relationship to the land and learning intuitively from it, this point has more to do with actually learning about the biology and synergy of the lifeforms that make up that nature. I partially think this is important for the sake of respecting and understanding the land in a basic, but I also think that a lot of spiritual wisdom can be unintentionally gleaned from a scientific appreciation of nature.

Learn about the history of your region.

This may not always feel like the most thrilling or rewarding aspect of this work, but I think it is also quite important. In the same way that learning about flora and fauna teaches you about the land, learning about the history of a given region can do a lot to inform both your appreciation for a place, as well as highlighting or confirming any personal gnosis you may be sorting through.

Work on dream recall and interpretation.

I believe this to be of major importance for every form of spirit-work. Without a grasp of oneiric work, I think most spirit-work will stagnate, at best, and struggle with getting off the ground to begin with, at worst.

Pray earnestly and often, even if it doesn't necessarily feel like anything is "happening."

Gotta neighbor you you absolutely hate? Are they a total karen? Dont you just wanna go apeshit? Well now you can! This hex is pepper based as the main ingriedient. You can use a jalapeno pepper to wish your neighbor to fuck off and stop harassing you OR you can use a habanero to add alittle extra spice to your ill will and wish them all kinds of bad luck until they leave or move away!

Well... kinda? It's one of those things where I have heard him speak his name, but I've never heard that language, so I can't really get it, y'know?

He says his name, and I FEEL the meaning. Zeus comes from Deus. Jupiter from Deus Pater.

So it's sort of like that. That name was whatever way his culture said: The One Who Makes Witches, Who Feeds Them And Educates Them From His Own Means, And Raises Them Up In His Family.

In English we'd say Witchkeeper, Witchherd, Witchward, Witchfather... something like that. I'd make a joke about "he's the dad who stepped up", but that's pretty much it.

And Witch here being a spot within a venn diagram too complicated to draw let alone describe.

When the wolf at length had had his sleep out, he got on his legs, and as the stones in his stomach made him very thirsty, he wanted to go to a well to drink. But when he began to walk and to move about, the stones in his stomach knocked against each other and rattled. Then cried he,

“What rumbles and tumbles Against my poor bones? I thought ‘twas six kids But it’s naught but big stones.”

And when he got to the well and stooped over the water and was just about to drink, the heavy stones made him fall in and there was no help, but he had to drown miserably.

- The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids —–

Greed is a curse unto itself, and this spell turns that malice back onto a person whose greed is harming the people around them.

Make or acquire a cloth poppet. You’re going to be stuffing the poppet, so make sure it’s a decent size, with plenty of room in the stomach area.

It is not necessary to have any hair or nails from the target in order to make the spell work, but it can help. In the absence of such things, you can name the poppet thus:

“Poppet, I name you [NAME]. Your limbs are their limbs. Your flesh is their flesh. As you suffer, so shall they suffer.”

With scissors or a small sharp blade, open a slit in the belly of the poppet. If there is pre-existing filling, remove some of it. Into the cavity where the stomach might be, place a whole chili pepper (any kind will do), seven small pebbles, and seven tacks or thorns. Carefully stitch the poppet closed and whisper to it:

“Rumble and tumble, A pepper and stones. Swallow your greed, And choke on the bones.”

Take the poppet to a deep body of water, such as a lake or pond, and drop it into the deepest part you can reach. If such a body of water is not available, you can “drown” the poppet in a bucket of water for three nights and then discard it with your garbage.

-from The Sisters Grimmoire: Spells and Charms for Your Happily Ever After, (2nd ed) © 2017 Bree NicGarran

Want more fairy tale spells? Check out the masterpost here.

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The thing about an offering is that it has to come from you for the being you're offering it to. It is specifically FROM YOU meaning it has to be something within your power to give.

This could be something more easy or more difficult, but gods, spirits, ancestors, etc. aren't stupid--they know what you can and can't do.

They know if you're a minimum wage worker, or a broke college student. They know if you're well off financially but maybe you've burnt out and can offer expensive gifts but not much time or energy.

An offering shouldn't be the easiest thing in the world to give, but it never is, because if it was then you could do it without thinking about it. Even offering a prayer or words of veneration is an offering. If you can do more then do it!

The point behind an offering is intention and the means to give the offering. However that manifests for you is almost always gunna be good enough!!

For example: Hunting may be one way you could give offerings to the god Lugh--who I follow. Or taking part in competitive games, but I am asthmatic and trans and organized sports don't tend to like people like me very much.

And he has never asked this of me cuz he knows that's not my vibe!! Nor would it be much of an offering since it's not much within my wheelhouse, lmao. But did I spend 2+ hours painting my nails as perfectly as I could and offer that creative energy and time to him? YES!

TL;DR - Sometimes offerings are like:

Some people actually do need physical tools and ingredients to practice their witchcraft, even if they have to buy them mass produced, and it's okay to buy stuff for your practice even if you only use it for a little while, or it ends up not being long term or in regular use.

They used what they had.

Playing cards? Use them like tarot. Scrying? Water. Keep evil at bay? Bottle trees. Divination? Get brooches and throw them like a charm casting. Sick? Egg cleansing. Remember the dead? Make a memory jug. Stop bleeding? Use the Bible.

No need for fancy things. The things ‘round the home work just fine.

When did I forget this? How did I grow up and lose touch with this understanding?