Mystic Brew

I've found this music box.

It plays a familiar tune...but I can't put my finger on it.

Offering by Rosalie Lettau

Someone once told me, "a fat spirit is a slow spirit", and we don't "seat" spirits in objects for them to become fat on offerings. We seat spirits in vessels so they can walk along side us, and work along side us to reach our goals.

Reading accounts of other people's easy and fabulous spirit communications might make us negatively judge our own practice if we lose sight of how much can be lost in translation.

(I'm not saying every spirit communication anecdote is inherently misleading)

LANGUAGE OF CONVENIENCE: OP is summarizing complex encounters as "the spirit said."

LOST NUANCE: A lot more tedious detail was happening behind the scenes; when personal detail is lost, the experience appears to be simple, easy, and vivid.

INTENTIONAL OBFUSCATION: The practitioner changed details of what happened on purpose, perhaps to share part of a personal or sacred story, without betraying their obligations.

THEY MEANT SOMETHING ELSE COMPLETELY: OP didn't mean they were having vivid communication experiences, it just sounded like that.

"I love it when my spirits help me throughout the day" can imply regular 2-way spirit communication or spiritual intervention.

But it can also mean, "it's easier to manage my anxiety when I focus on the idea that spiritual protectors are around me."

FALSE INFERENCE: OP meant what they said, we just assumed it meant something else. We might think a "powerful experience with Hekate" is supposed to mean shadows grow out of the walls and auditory hallucinations of baying hounds, when in reality OP just felt a strong sense of certainty and intuitive power.

I'm sure the friends I talk to outside of tumblr are tired of hearing me say this, but people go on social media and lie about all sorts of things, so I don't understand why mysticism would be the one thing excluded from that behavior. The phrase "ancestor scammer" exists, and yet...

I think there is also a certain amount of people not actually lying, but rather failing to distinguish between their imagination and actual interactions.

Good afternoon critters and creatures. Today I will be telling the a story of misinterpretation, lies and consequences.

If you've been following along with the class, I have Moral OCD, and a number of other mental health issues that interfere with discernment and interpretation of interactions.

When I was a teenager, I was given a phrase by my patron:

"Bad things happen to people who let them."

And if you've ever seen Men in Black, there's a Scene where J is getting the tour of the office, and touches a dangerous artifact, which bounces around and breaks Hundreds of things before it is caught, that's sort of the effect these words had for me.

Many, Many bad things had happened to me up to that point in my life. There was abuse and neglect and hunger. The Phrase was a reflection of my own paradigm that allowed me to believe that these bad things were a result of my own failings. Evidence that I was Weak.

As a teenager, I took this to mean that I needed to get stronger. I needed to take more responsibility for myself and my life.

This is a Fucking Toxic thing to say to someone like me, though, because I am already bound by radical responsibility. I am already the victim in my own Blame Game. And to have someone like my Patron say this to me at this time in my development was devastating. I doubled down into these beliefs for Years instead of thinking to question them.

Instead of realizing that Loki is a Fucking Liar who Lies. He said these things to me to test me, and I Failed in the most Spectacular fashion a person can fail, torturing myself while sitting in abusive circumstances that as a child, were completely beyond my control. And for Years this phrase bounced around in my mind, breaking pieces off my Autonomy and Agency before I caught on. And he crossed his arms and Watched this Happen.

But once I did... I was Furious. And I was Much farther down the mental health hole than I had been before.

A colored version of this post. 💛

As a witch, and especially if your practice is anything like hands-in-the-dirt, wading into rivers, bones and teeth folk witchcraft, you don't have to settle for anything.

You don't have to wait for good things to happen to you out of the random walk of life. You don't have to be a passive vessel in your own life, either.

Edible Flowers and Their Properties