A Travelling Altar

Pagans? They’re stars 

Muslims? They’re the greatest™

Christians? They’re heckin rad

Jews? They deserve ice cream and warm hugs

Sikhs? They raised my GPA and cured my asthma 

Buddhists? They bless this world with their very presence

Hindus? Can’t get better than these guys

Shintoists? They’re A+++ human beings 

Taoists? They’re about as wonderful as kittens

LGBTQ+ who religiously cover their heads (especially trans boys and nb ppl)? It makes me so happy knowing they exist

In 1932, the musicologist Wilfrid Perrett reported to an audience at the Royal Musical Association in London the words of an unnamed professor of Greek with musical leanings: “Nobody has ever made head or tail of ancient Greek music, and nobody ever will. That way madness lies.”

Indeed, ancient Greek music has long posed a maddening enigma. Yet music was ubiquitous in classical Greece, with most of the poetry from around 750BC to 350BC – the songs of Homer, Sappho, and others – composed and performed as sung music, sometimes accompanied by dance. Literary texts provide abundant and highly specific details about the notes, scales, effects, and instruments used. The lyre was a common feature, along with the popular aulos, two double-reed pipes played simultaneously by a single performer so as to sound like two powerful oboes played in concert.

Orpheus and Eurydice - Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson (1767–1824)

François-Pascal-Simon Gérard (1770–1837), after the drawing by,

a circa 1798 Engraving at the J. Paul Getty Museum

Los Angeles, California

And I said “Yes, but they make the best witches.”

We’re raised in cultures that place focus on belief but witchcraft isn’t about believing. It’s about doing. The best witches I’ve known haven’t necessarily been those who’ve sat around and told me, misty eyed, how they love the goddess or enthused about fairies. 

No, the best have been those who pragmatically set up altars and did rituals, not because they believed, but because it worked. Sometimes they were trying to prove it wouldn’t work. That this witchcraft stuff would have no affect on reality. Except it did. So they kept doing…because it worked. 

They often become very knowledgeable witches because they get caught up in research. Witchcraft becomes and experiment as they work to find the best techniques. They look into Ceremonial Magic, Hermetic Quabalah, Thelema and other systems the same way a scientist pursues research. 

I also had an in between period of “hahah, well, it only appears to work because something something the subconscious, nothing mysterious about it a all, its just psychology!”

And then you do some kind of really externally focused spell, because, hahah, it’s not like it will WORK anyway, so–

And then things work a lot of the time and you’re like, 

Marble tombstone of a woman (seated) who died leaving her child in the care of a nurse. Athens, 425-400 BC. Now in the British Museum.

I feel like one major weakness that many magic practitioners don’t realize when making correspondences is that they aren’t specific. 

Yes, basil and rosemary are both good for protection. But what kind of money spells? What kind of protections? 

A protection could work by hiding you, by filtering things out, by being an impenetrable wall, by dispelling negative energies. And if you were to pick from one or two of those- you could still be even more specific. 

How does it become an impenetrable wall? Is it the bricks themselves, or is it the cement that holds it together? 

And even then-how good is the cement? Would rosemary’s cement work better? 

Don’t just stop there- consider the different forms of the material. 

Is dried basil better at certain things then fresh basil? How does it act in a potion, in an oil, in a tincture? 

Try…

Paint your nails with color magic

Check on your plant babies

Tea/Coffee spells

Try a new tarot spread in a reading

Go for a walk and observe the world around you

Bath/shower spells

Go make your bed and cleanse it 

Tech or emoji spells

phone cleansing

Doodle some new sigils

Pray/offer things to your deities 

Clean something physically and spiritually 

Baking or other kitchen witchery

Exercise for strength and flowing movement