Peyton Calico

I am perfectly happy working 8 hrs a day because I don’t have to:

grow my own food

find my own clean water

heat my house

For 37 years it’s been up there on the flat roof of Mark Gubin’s building in the flight path of Mitchell International Airport. A sign painted in letters 6 feet tall tells people arriving here by air: “WELCOME TO CLEVELAND.”

“There’s not a real purpose for having this here except madness, which I tend to be pretty good at,” Gubin said

Above that the roof, he was having lunch one day in 1978 with a woman who worked as his assistant. Taking note of all the low-flying planes, she said it would be nice to make a sign welcoming everyone to Milwaukee. “You know what would even be better?” Gubin said.

The next thing you know, he’s out there on the black roof with a roller and white paint creating the sign that would bring more notoriety than anything else in his long career. A story about his confusing message ran in thousands of newspapers and magazines, on national TV news, “The Tonight Show,” Paul Harvey, all over.

(Fact Source)

During one visit, Ruth noticed the nurses would draw straws, afraid to go into one room, its door sealed by a big red bag. She asked why and the nurses told her the patient had AIDS.

On a repeat visit, and seeing the big red bag on the door, Ruth decided to disregard the warnings and sneaked into the room.

In the bed was a skeletal young man, who told Ruth he wanted to see his mother before he died. She left the room and told the nurses, who said, "Honey, his mother’s not coming. He’s been here six weeks. Nobody’s coming!”

Ruth called his mother anyway, who refused to come visit her son, who she described as a "sinner" and already dead to her, and that she wouldn't even claim his body when he died.

“I went back in his room and when I walked in, he said, "Oh, momma. I knew you’d come", and then he lifted his hand. And what was I going to do? So I took his hand. I said, "I’m here, honey. I’m here”, Ruth later recounted.

Ruth pulled a chair to his bedside, talked to him

and held his hand until he died 13 hours later.

After finally finding a funeral home that would his body, and paying for the cremation out of her own savings, Ruth buried his ashes on her family's large plot.

After this first encounter, Ruth cared for other patients. She would take them to appointments, obtain medications, apply for assistance, and even kept supplies of AIDS medications on hand, as some pharmacies would not carry them.

Ruth’s work soon became well known in the city and she received financial assistance from gay bars, "They would twirl up a drag show on Saturday night and here'd come the money. That's how we'd buy medicine, that's how we'd pay rent. If it hadn't been for the drag queens, I don't know what we would have done", Ruth said.

Over the next 30 years, Ruth cared for over 1,000 people and buried more than 40 on her family's plot most of whom were gay men whose families would not claim their ashes.

Bitter experienced witch: every night for three nights gaze into a bowl of water.

New witch: I can’t do that.

Bitter experienced witch: you don’t have a tap or a body of water nearby?

And when it comes to the more legitimately expensive stuff like tarot cards (which you can usually get for less than €25, especially via Book Depository), sorry, you’ll just have to save, however long that might take.

The most expensive magical items I own are certain books, but I still have most of my texts as PDFs on a Kindle Fire (which was €100 at the time, can be found much cheaper now, has lots of perfectly functional knock-offs, could be replaced by a large phone), which in turn was the price of any 3 of those books in print. I didn’t NEED any of those books in print, but had the money so why not.

I mean, how do you think third world nations do their folk magick?

I wish witches would have more creativity and be more flexible. It can lead to amazing results. I will also say that many items at occult or New Age stores are junk - grotesque tchotchkes. Aesthetically displeasing. Every time I go into a witch store, they never have anything I need or want. Why would someone blow $80 on a silver wand made overseas when you can make one from the tree in your own backyard? That’s like preferring an Oreo to a cake made by your grandmother.

I have always said that the witch blood is very, very real. I was born to do what I do. I have always been fascinated by it since I was a small child. For me, it’s not a fad, it’s not a trend, it’s not a cry for attention. It’s an art. Like the painter who cannot live without painting or the singer who has to sing, I have to practice witchcraft. If I have to use my hand as a wand, my palm as a cup, and my blood as an offerring, goddamn it, I’ll do it.

If someone directly tells you that more expensive things mean a more valid witch, I will join you in telling them where to shove it. But I feel equally annoyed by the attitude that cheaper things mean a more valid witch.

I did a spell to draw money to buy a rare $200 grimoire I could not afford. I did this in response to a dream from my dearly departed witchcraft teacher that hinted at obtaining it. The spell resulted in a refund check cut on the solstice arriving for the amount I needed plus shipping. A refund when just a week prior I had been told I still owed a lot more. I have owned the book for sone years now, and that book taught me a lot about my dearly departed craft teacher and I never would have expected that.

Don’t get do caught up in the aesthetic of witchcraft that media has made you feel like you must in order to be a “real” witch.

I guess what I was trying to say was that one shouldn’t disappointed in their craft if they can’t afford certain items that other witches on different medias claim you need to have in order to be a witch. That using what you have available can work just as well.

Of course earning special tools that you want is wonderful! Do and get what you want! I agree with your statement of not letting anyone tell you that you aren’t a witch just because you don’t have certain items.

Here’s @dduane​’s first take on it and the finished product. We’ve made even more photogenic batches since.

Kneading is easy as well; either let your machine do it, or if you don’t want to or don’t have one, get hands-on. It’s like mixing two colours of Plasticine to make a third. Flatten, stretch, fold, half-turn, repeat - it takes about 10 minutes - until the gloopy conglomeration of flour, yeast, salt and water that clings to your hands at the beginning, becomes a compact ball that doesn’t stick to things and feels silky-smooth.

Here’s what before and after look like.

My Mum used to say that if you were feeling out of sorts with someone, it was good to make bread because you could transfer your annoyance into kneading the dough REALLY WELL, and both you and the bread would be better for it.

Then you put it into a bowl, cover it with cling-film and let it rise until it doubles in size, turn it out and “knock it back” (more kneading, until it’s getting back to the size it started, this means there won’t be huge “is something living in here?” holes in the bread), put it into your loaf-tin or whatever - we’ve used a regular oblong tin, a rectangular Pullman tin with a lid, a small glass casserole, an earthenware chicken roaster…

You can even use a clean terracotta flowerpot.

Let the dough rise again until it’s high enough to look like an unbaked but otherwise real loaf, then pop it in the preheated oven. On average we give ours 180°C / 355°F for 45-50 minutes. YM (and oven) MV.

Here’s some of our bread…

Here’s our default bread recipe - it takes about 3-4 hours from flour jar to cutting board depending on climate (warmer is faster) most of which is rise time and baking; hands-on mixing, kneading and knocking-back is about 20 minutes, tops, and less if using a mixer.

Here ( or indeed any of the other pics) is the finished product. This one was given an egg-wash to make it look glossy and keep the poppy-seeds in place; mostly we don’t bother with that or the slash down the middle, but all the extras were intentional as a “ready for my close-up” glamour shot.

I think any shop would be happy to have something this good-looking on their shelf. We’re happy to have it on our table.

Even if your first attempts don’t work out quite as well as you hope, you can always make something like this…

A victim literally escaped Jeffrey Dahmer’s apartment naked with a hole drilled in his head and unable to speak but police let Dahmer take him back to his apartment like everything was ok!

And I guess he doesn’t count as a serial killer but Eric Harris had already been making threats and harrassing students to an extreme degree before Columbine- police literally had a search warrant but they just never acted on it. If they had, they would have found the guns and pipe bombs and the shooting could have been easily prevented. They even tried to cover this up afterwards.

shoutout to nonbinary people who default to presenting as their assigned gender bc it’s safer

shoutout to nonbinary people who default to presenting as their assigned gender bc they don’t feel like they can pull off anything else

shoutout to nonbinary people who default to presenting as their assigned gender bc presenting as their real gender is impossible

shoutout to nonbinary people who present as their assigned gender bc they want to

shoutout to nonbinary people whose presentation is mistaken for their assigned gender but is in fact how they express their real gender

The Egg Test

Simply take an egg (obviously from your own chickens is best but uh, Im going to assume most of you dont have one so store is fine), and carefully pass the egg through the flame of a white or black candle to “draw out the bad” and set intent. Then crack into a white bowl.

If you find blood: You’re cursed! Blood is never ever a good thing to find in your eggs, but especially during The Egg Test.

If you find big white clots: The bigger the clot the bigger the problem. It usually means some kind of blockage or obstruction in your life. Sometimes from some form of bad energy.

If you find egg shell: (Now if you’re really bad at cracking eggs maybe ignore this one) but this is a sign of your generic brand Bad Luck.

If you find a broken yolk: Take notice of your internal and subconcious self. The root of your problems comes from a disturbance within.

If you find something unusual: Listed above or otherwise, cleansing methods (such as a salt bath) will usually clean up most problems. Do your own research for cleansing methods of choice. I would advise not to eat the egg, but rather to pass the egg one final time (in the bowl) over the white flame before disposing off it outside. If you do cook it (because hey, I get it) use protective herbs like basil or rosemary and don’t forget to salt!

If you find nothing unusual: chop onions, mushrooms, and spinach up while heating an oiled pan on medium low. Add the egg to the pan, when a yellow film forms around the side and the egg can be separated easily, fill the center with toppings and flip half over to form an omelet. Cook through, flipping as needed. Season with salt, pepper, fresh herbs, and tomato (salsa if you’re frisky). That’s my favorite way to cook an egg!