Strigidae Codex

A bit late this year but people seemed to love last year’s so here’s one updated for 2021. Again, this is free for personal use!

Clear and Lemon Quartz 🤍 🍋✨🌛

Here are some ways to incorporate death witchery into your daily life.

Change your morning commute to walk by a graveyard

Ask spirits for permission before taking graveyard dirt

Cleanse a container or vase and place it on your altar for spirits to take up residence

Burn black candles on your altar and during your rituals 

Draw tarot or oracle cards daily to see what the spirits have to say 

Bring offerings to graveyards 

Research ethically sourced animal products 

Carry around a crow call to talk to the crows

Collect fallen leaves to use in spells

I see a lot of beginner pagans posting about this and I think there’s been a serious miscommunication of information from us more experienced pagans to the new generation. 

This is an organic process

Working with deities is more like making friends or finding a passion. You don’t just go embark on some kind of spiritual quest to determine which deity is yours. It’s not a personality quiz. It’s also not like unlocking some kind of secret engraved on your soul or anything like that. In my personal opinion, that’d be a little creepy and would take the choice out of things. 

How do I say hi?

Choose a deity that you feel drawn to or share interests/values with and invite them for a meal. Give some offerings based on the information you know about them. Talk to them. If you’re still struggling to rely on your intuition with proper discernment, pull out a divination method to talk to them and get to know them. If it goes well, continue to invite them over, invite them to participate in activities with you, etc. 

What if I’m not thrilled with the first deity I pick? 

If at any point you become uncomfortable with their presence or you’re just not vibing with that deity, let them know and move on. Deity work shouldn’t be scary or intimidating. If it is, then maybe there’s some unprocessed trauma from Christian culture. No relationships with deities should be fear based. 

Can I work with multiple deities? 

Forming relationships with multiple deities is normal, that’s why we call it polytheism. Our deities aren’t jealous or possessive like in monotheism. You can even work with deities that may not have gotten along great in the canon mythology too. We’ve been doing so for literally thousands of years, that system isn’t gonna break down now. It’s typical to have a few main deities that you work with the most just like a close circle of friends and then your other friends and coworkers. Throughout my life and my practice I usually bump shoulders with and talk to the entire Norse pantheon but I have my main deities; Hel, Odin, Skadi, Syn, and Eir. 

Are there any deities I should stay away from until I’m more experienced? 

Nope. In my experience, deities are here to form positive and mutually fulfilling relationships with mankind. I’m not quite sure where this rumor got started that you should stay away from any specific deities or that any deity will “fuck your shit up” or any of that nonsense. Tbh it reminds me of similar fearmongering around spiritwork. In magic, metaphysics, or in paganism if you hear people saying to “just don’t” with anything without providing information about how to do it safely, it’s probably a projection of that person’s own fears and insecurity. There may be specific deities that a specific practitioner doesn’t get along with, and that’s okay. But their experiences shouldn’t deter others from forming fulfilling relationships with those deities.