dude.

Silly Clown Circus

Some silly little clowns for all your art fight needs! ❤️💙💛

including some russian ones as well since they overlap

Hold your havdalah candle at the height you want your future spouse.

A snail burrowing in your home is an omen of an adulterous act will be committed in the home soon.

Don’t whistle in your home because Sheydim will be attracted to the sound because they love whistling.

A dog howling mournfully means that the angel of death has come.

Don’t leave books open, unless you want Sheydim to learn the knowledge. Close any books left open.

Carry a piece of iron or a needle when crossing a bridge, especially when intending to get pregnant.

Wear a metal pin on your clothing while traveling, especially iron, for protection.

Chimneys and Windows should never be walled off completely unless you want the resident Sheydim to be angry with you, so be sure to leave a crack open.

Toss salt into the oven occasionally to stop harmful gossip about you from spreading.

To protect your pregnancy, bake a challah once a week and give it away.

Keep garlic in your pockets for protection

Wear a red thread on the left wrist to protect against the ayin hara

Say Kayin Hara or kayin ayin hara before saying good news

Don’t cut hair for three year from birth

Smashing glass at your wedding

Tug on your ear when sneezing, especially fi talking about someone who is dead

Spit three times after someone says something very very evil or very very wonderful to protect against the ayin hara, or just say pu pu pu

Place salt in pockets and in corners of a room to protect against sheydim

Don’t take a direct path home from a cemetery 

Don’t sit at the corner of the table unless you don’t want to get married. (also russian)

Put fabric over mirrors during shiva

No baby showers to protect against the ayin hara

Do not place your hat or shoes onto your bed

Never leave your purse on the floor, unless you want to stop your money from flowing (russian)

Only give an odd number of flowers, only the dead receive even numbers of flowers (russian)

This is an incomplete list, mostly for my own reference. I invite anyone to add their own suggestions!

This post has been in the works for the better part of three years. The language around observance, religiosity, and identity is more important than ever. What it means to be a Jew is more important than ever.

Whether or not Jews are ‘religious’ in a world of non-Jewish religion has always been political: from the public debates Jews were forced into throughout Europe (like the Paris and Barcelona Disputations) to modern alt-right Republicans weaponizing their designation of only right-wing Jews as ‘religious’ enough to be taken seriously, this has always been more than a personal label.

Did you know that Judaism has a New Year of the Trees?

I see the ancient groves of olive trees and my heart breaks, it twists in my chests to see our community say it’s worth it to flood the land with sea water, to salt the earth, and destroy one another, somehow claiming this in the name of Judaism.

Judaism teaches magic in the trees; teaches that the roots ground us, that the branches bring us to HaShem and HaShem to Us. There is a famous Jewish idea that we are not in the business of going to heaven but in bringing Heaven to us.

Tu B’Shevat is this week 🕯️🌱 how will you be celebrating?

In an unusual acknowledgment of women healers’ varied experiences, The Shtetl Book—published forty years after the Second World War and contemporary with the achievements of the Women’s Movement—begrudgingly gives readers a keyhole peep into yet another type of women healer in the Pale. A short section entitled “Women at Work” mentions a few healing practitioners who stand out against a random list of feminine occupations: the “herb vendor,” a syrup maker, a “medic who healed with leeches and other folk remedies” (whom we can now safely identify as a feldsher, and possibly also a midwife), and an “opshprekherin,” a woman who gave advice and remedies to people convinced they had been cursed by the evil eye, an affliction cited in the Talmud that had to be cured before it caused further illness. Such a spare litany of occupations would seem to suggest that “Women at Work” did nothing worth elaborating; but with a little extra digging, we discover something much more intriguing.

In addition to their previously noted revelations, the An-Sky expeditions confirmed that the opshprekherin had survived into the twentieth century. The practice of the opshprekherin was rooted in the ancient belief in the evil eye. Mostly women, these healers were present in almost every town in the Pale and were sought for their expertise in times of crisis, during pregnancy, for toothache, a bad foot, an abscess, a “rose” (… skin infection…), the bite of a mad dog, epilepsy, or any other maladies believed to be caused by this curse. The opshprekherin never referred to written sources for her cures; hers was an oral tradition deeply shrouded in secrecy:

Pregnant women—especially when carrying their first child—often asked these older women for protection [for their baby from the evil eye]. People believed not only that the opshprekherin had the power to predict an unborn baby’s gender but that they could in fact influence whether it would be a boy or a girl. Those old ladies had a supply of “proven” charms and spells for each occasion. They performed magic with knives, socks and combs; they poured wax and poached eggs and knew hundreds of ways to cure a patient.

God's Wife Edited Out Of The Bible https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/wbna42147912

"In Search of Asherah: The Lost Hebrew Goddess - Femmina Classica" https://femminaclassica.com/in-search-of-asherah-the-lost-hebrew-goddess/

"Asherah/Asherim: Bible | Jewish Women's Archive" https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/asherahasherim-bible

Did you know that the bread/cakes made for her is the precursor to the communion wafer?

50 KITCHEN WITCH TIPS TO MAKE YOU FEEL MORE WITCHY

(And other useful things I've learned over the years)

Hi! This is a list of dos, don'ts, tips, tricks, and other fun things that I've learned over the years. I always love finding more effective and efficient ways of doing things so if you have any cool things you'd like to add, leave them in the comments or reblog. I'd love to read it.

Anyways... On with the list ^_^

Light candles around your kitchen space (just make sure nothing flammable is near you)

Annotate your cookbooks with the correspondence of the ingredients.

Mediating is really good to calm the mind before cooking.

Cut oranges and lemons thinly, dry them, and hang them with twine around your kitchen

Need a cleansing tip? Open all your windows near your kitchen. Let some fresh air in.

Cutting sigils into apples, pie crusts, and carved potatoes.

Save lemon and orange rinds, freeze them, and then use them to clean the garbage disposal.

Make infused oils and honey: Things like garlic honey, lavender honey, herb oil, sun oil, moon oil, dandelion oil, and other different edible oils are very fun and useful to make.

Hid sigils in pages of your cookbooks and kitchen witch journals.

Add some plants! Snake plants and spider plants don't need too much light, and growing your own herbs in your kitchen is awesome too. Basil, lavender, thyme, aloe vera, rosemary, etc. are good fits. You could also add some plants that require more sunlight on the kitchen window sill. Like cacti and succulents.

Bring crystals into your kitchen space such as rose quartz, clear quartz, amethyst, or whatever you want the space's intentions to be.

I keep a small money tree on the sill, along with cacti for luck and protection.

Make a simmer Pot! Mostly because it makes the whole house smell good, easy, and fun.

Stir clockwise for best results!

Learning how to pickle things is actually pretty witchy. Plus, anyone could do it as it requires absolutely no kitchen experience. You could pickle any vegetable, even if you don't like pickles. I originally learned this after having to take shelter from a natural disaster. A person brought a bunch of stuff and taught us how to pickle things with different spices and herbs. Very fun!

Decorate your kitchen with your favorite stuff. Crystals, decor, heat mits, that cool mushroom cake stand you've been eyeing at the World Market for the past 2 weeks, cool looking curtains, sun catchers. Why stop there? Paint the walls, hang shelves full of marked-up cookbooks that are a little too well-loved and thumbed through.

Wanna be the person that has the amazing-smelling house every time people come over? Syrups take some time to simmer down, it's actually a pretty good time to leave it on the stove to simmer. Since syrups have a lot of aromatic ingredients, it acts as a really good-smelling simmer pot.

Hang up herbs to dry with twine from cabinets that are rarely used.

Invest in that new set of plates and cups.

Homemade jams, butter, sauces, and syrups are your best friend.

Crochet or knit your own dish rags, pot holders, etc.

Don't pour extremely hot things into a glass that's not Pyrex, it will break, and you will be very sad about it.

Don't cook anything while extremely upset or emotional (For safety reasons)

Make recipes you want to make, not just because you'll like the effect. Make it because you think it's tasty.

Chinese Five Spice works in place of herbs for protection and luck spells a lot of the time! It's cheaper to buy 1 spice than 4 different spices that total up to 15 dollars when you could just spend 3-4 dollars.

Take a shower before cooking (I don't know how to explain this one other than it makes you feel better)

Don't use microfiber/plastic material clothes on hot burners, it will fuse to the burner and melt. It is VERY hard to get off.

I don't know if I need to put this one but I did see someone do it so nonstick pan = wooden utensils and plastic utensils, metal pan = metal utensils. Do not use a metal spoon in a nonstick pan, please. It can make you very sick.

Keep your pets away from hot oil, open ovens, and hot pans.

You can proof bread dough in the fridge overnight if you don't have the time to bake, or want to eat fresh bread right in the morning.

Need a quick witchy meal for dinner in 12 minutes? Use premade tomato pasta sauce and doctor it up with thyme, rosemary, and garlic, for protection and distilling stagnant energies. Serve with pasta of your liking.

You can substitute Butter for Crisco/shortening, buttermilk for 1 cup of milk + 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar or lemon juice, and heavy cream for 1 cup of half and half plus 2 tbsp of butter.

Use leftover animal bones to make bone broth

Teach yourself the art of bread scoring (It's fun, and you can show it off to your loved ones!)

Collect and hoard your own and others' family recipes.

Sometimes the food doesn't have to be a spell, sometimes it just makes you feel good and you don't know why.

Listen to your favorite music in the kitchen, it makes the monotonous things like chopping veggies move faster.

Invest in a vegetable chopper if you don't like chopping vegetables.

Find a really good hot cocoa recipe and make it once a week. Master it. Just for your own happiness because hot cocoa is really good. You could also be the friend/family member that makes the best hot cocoa ever.

Focaccia Bread Lasts a very long time, and it's very easy to make!

Keep a first aid kit near where the oven is, in case of burns, cuts, or serious injuries where time is everything.

Quick Bread and no-rise loaves are simple for beginners, tasty, and take little time. They also feel very witchy to make.

Study a bit of Herbalism! It's fun and really helps better understand the herbs you're putting into your food.

While something is boiling, put your wooden spoon over the pot to minimize the chance of something boiling over.

Try a bit of coffee magick, it's simple to get into, and gives you a boost of energy to take on the day!

If you're over 21, wine-making is a very interesting way to celebrate the sabbats. Just with that, make sure you KNOW what you're doing. With anything fermented, there's always a risk if you don't store things correctly. Apple wines, strawberry wines, dandelion wines, etc. all very cool to experiment with. If you're not over 21, vinegar is a similar way to experiment.

Hang up some witchy things, sigils, photos, cool magnets, and other things that give you joy on your fridge. (Sometimes if you are lucky they have some fun magnets at five below)

If you live in the US, for some reason, there are a lot of books in the book section dedicated to witchcraft and spirituality. At least where I live. And they are all under 5 dollars!

I know this might be an obvious tip but it is very helpful.

try to incorporate symbols/colors into crochet/knit projects to manifest what you want, for instance I finished these arm warmers and my intent was getting more money so I chose green which is associated with money and made sunflowers, acorns and crescent moons to put on them because they have properties associated with good luck and prosperity.

Do you want to make coloured sugars to use in your spellcraft, but don't know how? I experimented, so you don't have to!

Coloured spellsugars can be used in powders, jars, sachets, and since some of them are still food-safe, to put in your tea. I wanted to make a dark blue one for some sweet dreams, pink for self love, gold as a substitute for honey, and green for money/prosperity.

Methods under the cut:

I love making small altars to take with me, I have quite a few, but lately I've been feeling the itch to make a new one. @breelandwalker posted an article that really jumpstarted the creative process again. So I present to you: the travel altar challenge! I broke up the steps to creating a pocket altar into 19 weeks (or days if you have the spoons) and I'm planning on making a new travel/pocket altar for myself.

Will you join me in the challenge?

The list below is my basic list with some ideas added to hopefully inspire you. Feel free to leave out what doesn't work for you, add what you're missing and do things out of order if needed. Every number is a day/week, depending on if you want to go fast or slow.

pick a theme and/or purpose: This can either be for a specific power or deity, or can be for a specific kind of magic, such as sea witchery or kitchen witchery. You can also choose for a specific purpose instead, such as when you’re staying in a hotel/family home, or one that fits into your planner. Or if you want to make it more challenging, your theme can be the Starry Night by van Gogh, or an altar completely made of paper or clay.

make a list of what must be on/in an altar What are the necessities you need when practising magic? What would you like the altar to have?

choose a container Now that you have your list of necessities, you can guess a bit how big of an altar you need. You can choose a box, altoid tin, jewellery case, cosmetics case, crocheted bag, whatever you can think of.

decorate the outside if needed/wanted

decorate the inside if needed/wanted

representation of deity/spirit/animal/mythological creature/yourself a small focal icon for your altar. This can be an artwork glued into the lid or on a scrabble tile, a carved bead, a small statue made from clay, or simply a picture of yourself. Get creative!

divination method a tiny divination method that fits the altar. Think tiny tarot cards, a pendulum from a shell or ring, tiny runestones.

cleansing method this can be a herb blend that you sprinkle around, a cleansing spray, incense

offering blend either for your deities/spirits, or for the world around you as a thank you for using the space.

charging/anointing oil or water for when you need to make something you found – or yourself – more sacred or powerful

representation of the elements painted rocks or wooden disks, a feather, a leaf, a candle, and a shell, or instead of the elements something for the seasons, or the phases of the moon.

a SAFE candle holder and candle Fire safety is important, especially when you wish to use it outside or in someone else’s space.

incense something fragrant to set the tone. And again, fire safety is important!

altar cloth a thrifted scarf, a doily, a scrap of fabric, something to create a working surface with.

add a text/prayer/poem this can be on the inside of the lid, rolled up as part of the offering blend on a tiny piece of paper, or simply folded up as a reminder and to read aloud.

representations for your altar/sacred space boundaries painted stones or wooden disks, shells, specific crystals, anything to make a ring of protection for you and your work

add some beads prayer/focus beads, power jewellery, or strands of beads for charging, or perhaps a witch’s ladder.

Put it all together is there something you’re missing? Did you have everything on your list? Or are some things too big and do they need to be switched out?

Cleanse and charge your new altar!

Minimizing waste saves money and the environment. With a little creativity, there are many ways you can create opportunities to reduce waste and maximize the supplies you have.

🍄 Keep your jars. If you buy something that comes in a useful container and can be reused - then reuse it. In my experience, the best reuse for plastic containers is to freeze food. Also, small bottles like Advil bottles, are EXCELLENT spell jars. However, for all types, you can use them to store food, organize drawers and closets, store spell ingredients, or even make decorations. The possibilities are nearly endless!

🍄Keep all your fruit, vegetable, and herb scraps. With some scraps and water, you can make a lovely broth. Alternatively, you can use them to make a simmer pot for a spell or simply for the scent.

🍄If you eat meat, keep the bones. Again, a great broth ingredient!

🍄Avoid paper towels whenever possible. These are super wasteful and expensive. Whenever possible, I opt to use a towel or cloth. You can recycle old textiles for rags. However, if you're feeling ambitious you can knit or crochet towels and cloths; this is a great way to use up that scrap yarn you probably have laying around! You may even choose to add a bit of knot magic to these pieces.

🍄Thrift and upcycle. This is a bit of an obvious one; but really. It's a great way to have lovely belongings while reducing waste overall and saving money. With a bit of love, many things can be new.

🍄Almost every dish can be salvaged. It happens. We mess up. But, before you throw it away, do some research on how to salvage it. Odds are, you will be able to do it!

🍄Don't throw away fruits or vegetables that are overripe or wilting. Within reason, of course, many of these fruits and vegetables can be frozen for soups, casseroles, sauces, and smoothies!

🍄Buy a reusable coffee filter and tea basket for loose tea. Really, this is a given if you are a tea or coffee lover. Disposable ones are so wasteful and the reusable ones will pay for themselves in no time.

🍄Compost if you can. Compost dirt is amazing for growing ingredients for dishes and spells. While you're at it, save your eggshells, as well.

🍄Mend your clothes, blankets, and even shoes. A little bit of love can go a long way, including increasing the life of your favorite items. You can also add flair by learning how to darn and apply patches.

🍄Learn how to remove stains from fabric. In the same vein as mending, learning how to remove stains increases the life of your clothes. Different stains require different methods of removal, but usually, it is not impossible. Failing this, learn how to dye your clothes to revamp them.

🍄Use alternative cosmetics. This is a really big topic and I will create a post about this later. But, consider doing research. There are lots of things that can be made or substituted; notably face masks, hair masks, and using coconut oil as a make-up remover.

🍄Localize your practice. Use natural herbs and ingredients found in your local environment. Create your own correspondence if needed.

🍄Collect rainwater. Unfortunately, it is no longer a great idea to drink rainwater - but use it to water plants and clean your floors. Rainwater is also a powerful spell ingredient for spells that don't require drinking or putting on your skin.

🍄Only buy what you need. This time of year more than ever it is VERY tempting to buy up cheap Halloween-themed goods. But, consider an item's long-term usefulness, if it will create clutter and disorder in your home in the future, and if there are alternatives.

🍄Buy a cheap food dehydrator. These are perfect for making tea and drying out herbs, flowers, and other ingredients for spells and cooking.

🍄Consider alternatives in cooking and spells. There is always an alternative, you may not have to buy something new.