Southern Cunning

LOL. I don’t. I wish I could tell you some fluffy nonsense about casting spells for joy by playing Enya on your way to work or something, but I can’t. Witchcraft can be challenging. It can be overwhelming and extremely time-consuming.

I have found that even a simple spell can take days to prepare properly. Sometimes you have to wait for the perfect time to cast it and then sometimes you won’t see the benefits for months. I think of all the jars of incense and oil “cooking” on my altar. One way I have tried to maintain balance is to keep my witchcraft confined to the Full Moon and Dark of the Moon sabbats and the eight seasonal festivals. I have gone through periods where I have casted a spell every other day. It wrecks your brain and drains your energy. It’s terrible. So I try to keep my hands-on practice down to a dull roar.

I then pursue witchcraft as a hands-off hobby at other times. I read books, listen to music and podcasts, write on here, shop for ingredients and tools, etc. But sometimes I don’t even do that. I take breaks. If I disappear from here for periods of time, that’s why. Either I am doing the most witchy things or the least witchy things.

It’s important to have other interests and to allow them to flourish. Witchcraft can be dark. It can even be scary sometimes. We are human beings and we crave balance. As witches we are drawn to the dark and mysterious power of the moonlight.

But we need the sunlight just as much.

I made my own athame.

Having no metalworking training, limited skills, and access to only those hand-tools I could justify buying for a single project it was a lot of hard work.

It took nine months to make (which was a nice synchronicity) and is made of materials that were chosen for their connection to me and compatability with my ‘home frequency’.

This is a really great question friendo. You’re a seasoned practitioner yourself, so these answers are probably ones you already know. Nevertheless, beneficial for readers.

All real magic incurs risk. There is no way to practice magic completely safely. I see posts floating around in radius to my own saying “infernal magic is dangerous! There’s no real reason to do it! Do magic that’s safe!” This is a false sense of security. All real magic is risky to some degree. Granted–some kinds of magic are higher risk than others, infernal magic being one of them. But if you think a poorly made pentacle or mojo hand can’t get you into some trouble the only person you’re fooling is yourself.

All real magic is a skill; therefore, it requires practice. Just as a weaver creates sturdier, more beautiful blankets more quickly with the passage of time, a magician only builds their strength and skill through practice. This is the only way. There are no shortcuts. If you love the Arte you will love it’s work and practice will be a joy even when it’s difficult and frustrating.

Discernment is invaluable. Use it frequently. No matter what kind of magic you’re doing you need to learn discernment. It’s important to discern whether or not some rituals are worth the risk, whether or not the spirit you are speaking to is who it says, how to prepare best for life disruption, whether or not your ritual ideas are functional, if timing is right…there are so many things discernment can tell you. And it mitigates some of that risk because it gives you more information to work with given the situations you may find yourself. It’s a safety skill as important as knowing how to cleanse, banish and ward. It will prevent you often from setting yourself up for failure.

Know the rules before you break them. Every system of real magic has a structure that is internally consistent. That doesn’t mean this structure is rigid and can’t be toyed with, but you must first understand its grammar. You can’t do wordplay in a language you aren’t fluent in. It’s the same with magic.

Magic has measurable successes and failures. Sometimes magic is about using your intuition, but it’s in the context of securing the object you intend to acquire with your ritual. Magic is not a religion–it is a tool, and has no more of a moral code than a hammer or a knife. The one with moral and spiritual feelings about it is you, and is not inherently found in any “law of magic”. You can objectively use a knife properly or improperly and it is the same here. Keep good records of what you have achieved, what you have failed to achieve, and what you have yet to achieve with it and let that build you a picture of where you should focus your energy on improving. Magic is not about your spiritual feelings, although sometimes they intersect. Magic, most of the time, is about securing objective gain. Understanding that will strengthen your magic and make you more capable as a person.

With the art of miracles, there’s no reason to neuter your achievement ceilings. Enchant for everything. Even if you fail it will make you better at magic because you’ll be doing more magic. You truly can do anything with it–earn more money, hurt people, fuck with their perception of you, speak with the dead. Think big. Open yourself up. This isn’t a weird kind of psychological role playing game. Magic is very real and that means its benefits are for the taking. I will caution you though–personally, I think It’s a double edged sword. If you can do the miraculous, you are no longer in a position to complain about problems you can solve with your abilities. As you become more skilled, the right to complain must pass away. Perhaps that’s my own personal bias but I think it’s important to touch on, at the very least to really grapple the reality of what you can potentially be capable of.

Learn to think critically. This goes not only for the books you’ll read, but the spirits you’ll speak with. Who is telling you what? Is there any benefit to having you believe that? Why might that be so? What credentials do they have? Can what they’ve told you be fact checked? And if it can be fact checked, do it. (It can, 99.9% of the time, always be fact checked.) This not only reduces your rate of error, but also the possibility of being manipulated and hurt.

I’m sure there’s more I’m missing, but that, in the most broad terms possible, will apply to anyone, anywhere, no matter what kind of true magic they choose to pursue. But that’s just like. My opinion, man.

This is a great question, and one that is a part of a few components. I’ll probably do a full article on the website on this subject but I’ll bullet point it here. It’s a long one. 

- Defining what is Southern is highly contested amongst Southerners. Very few Southerners will agree on what exactly meets the criteria for being Southern.- Being Southern is much more about your culture than Geography (fight me) although Geography is apart of the equation. - Certain states are rarely up for debate when it comes to being Southern these would be Virginia, Kentucky, the Carolina’s, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana - Contested states for being Southern are often Maryland, Florida, Texas, Arkansas, and West Virginia  - Some people define the South as strictly those states that were apart of the Confederacy during the civil war. This continues a legacy of associating Southern culture with racism. While racism is one of the leading issues in Southern culture it does not define the culture and many of us Southerners are actively trying to make the South an inhospitable environment for racists through grassroots activism and reclaiming Southernness. - In my opinion your geography is secondary to how you were raised. Did you grow up with dishes like collard greens, brusslesprouts, deep fried anything, venison, and biscuits and gravy? Is Mac and cheese a vegetable to you? You probably have a claim to being Southern. - Likewise just because you grow up in a Southern state doesn’t mean you’re Southern. - People who question someones “Southernness” because their from the contested states has probably never lived in one of these places or if they have did not explore past one major city. Take Florida for example. I’ve lived here almost my entire life. My family has been here going back 8 generations. We grew up valuing Southern Hospitality, meaning that if someone needs help you goddamn help them. Even if you don’t have much, you try your damnedest to give to others. Southerners tend to have a strong relationship to their food. Farming, raising livestock, and hunting are all embedded into our lives. If you didn’t do one of these things a neighbor or family member did. All of these things happen throughout Florida (and no, not just the pan handle). Go to Polk County, Everglades City, Arcadia, almost anywhere in North or Central Florida and you will find people who identify themselves as Southerners. - Yankees get no say in what being Southern means. - A lot of distinct cultures exist under Southern culture. Each state has its own culture, and county. Appalachian’s get a claim to being Southern for sure. Florida Crackers do as well. Hill folk, Hillbillies, rednecks, ect. all have distinct cultural markers but all have a link back to being Southern if they claim it. Being “white trash” or a rich Southerner both have completely different cultural values but would fall under being Southern. It’s not a monolith. - There are a ton of LGBTQ and POC in the South who identify as Southern. Racist white Southerners do not have a monopoly on the South. LGBTQ and POC Southerners have every right to reclaim Southernness and fight against the problems throughout Southern culture. Those of us in the new generations are redefining what it means to be Southern while holding true to the traditions that are important. - Southern culture centers on Southern hospitality, food, an understanding of history and how to combat its oppressive legacy, y’all (linguistics), typically a closeness to the land/food ways, music, valuing hands-on work and learning (working hard playing hard), community focused help (ties into hospitality but on a larger scale, often hinging on church communities as well), and shared story telling values

However, to get a well-rounded contextual backdrop for the magic, it is advisable - nay, required! - that you read every bit of folklore you find, not just the chapters on magic. There are a lot of things unsaid in the records on magic, that will become apparent and make sense only from reading about life, practices and worldviews in general.

To start you off

Resources from the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at the Indiana University Bloomington

Folklore | Hoosier State Chronicles

Indiana Folklore at Americanfolklore.net