Not Only I Feel Connected To Athena, It's Also About Hephaistos. He Give Me So Much Strength To Wake

Not only I feel connected to Athena, it's also about Hephaistos. He give me so much strength to wake up early enough every morning to be in time in class, He gave me faith in the fire that burn in my body, tells me it will never fail me. He tells me to stay focus, to work as hard as I can, to stay humble, to believe in myself even when I feel depressed, even when I fell anxious. With Him I feel so strong, despite my thoughts making it harder.

Quantifying Your Craft: Witchcraft Journaling Questions (Autumn 2024)

I'm planning to do something like this every season around the equinox to see how my practice has changed.

General

Do you follow any paths or traditions?

🦇 No

How would you classify your practice?

🦇 I could call myself as a beginner practicioner. You can say you can play an instrument just because you know how to play a chord. I use whatever I have available to me and things I can do without anyone noticing. I am very experimental. I like to see things for myself and write my own spells, as others are usually not accessible to me.

Do you work with any deities?

🦇 When it comes to witchcraft, I've worked with Goddess Aphrodite once. Other than no. I need to get to it again some time.

Do you work by yourself or with others?

🦇 I work by myself as that's what I have available to me. But I would really like to have friends to celebrate special days with.

For how long have you been practicing?

🦇 I think I only got myself to believe in it towards the end of last year, but I only really started practicing this year.

Working Space

Do you have an altar?

🦇 No, I would love to have one but I don't live on my own and I practice in secret. I might decorate my room properly, fill it with enchanted items and turn it into an altar though. I have other things to handle first. I might get a little travel altar when I go to university.

Do you have a dedicated workspace or a space for magical workings outside of your home?

🦇 I don't have a dedicated space but I do my workings inside. I live somewhere where it's impossible to do anything without being interrupted. Unless the area is so deserted that there aren't even drunks outside.

If you could describe your ideal workspace, what would it look like?

🦇 I would like to have everything I use often in one place to find quickly. A notebook full of my spells, herbs I already have access to like mint, cloves, chilli peppers and salt. Maybe some candles. The playing cards I use for divination. A bowl to put things in. Some matches because I prefer them to lighters. Ropes and beads. Flowers I've gathered from the side of the road. The Harry Potter wand my cousins 3D printed for me as a birthday gift. A ritual dagger would be so cool, but unfortunately it has to be fake because I can't be trusted around sharp objects. I can imagine it placed nicely on a purple tablecloth.

Tools

Do you have tools that you work with?

🦇 I have a deck of playing cards. I'm using the one I already had at home. It does the job. One more thing I gotta figure out. When there are people home however, I use the deck of cards website. Still works. I haven't looked into how to use the wand I had talked about yet. Another thing on my to do list.

What do you use the most frequently? Do you have favorites?

🦇 I really like cloves. It's easy to have them around all the time because I can't chew gum and it's an alternative for bad breath.

Do you make or grow any of your components?

🦇 I don't grow anything just yet. I just use what I have at home. I do have some ideas in mind though.

Where do you acquire the things you need for magic?

🦇 I just use whatever I have at home or collect things from the plants outside.

What are your favorite sources of information?

🦇 I can't buy books so I like to watch long form videos on YouTube. I also like to meditate on things I use as correspondences.

Do you have a ritual garb or jewelry that connects you to your craft?

🦇 No but this is a good idea. I should make a bracelet or necklace to wear when I want to get in the mood for spell work.

Witchcraft Exercise - Quantifying Your Craft

Witchcraft is a complicated business. There are lots of moving parts, dozens of things to study, and so much information to try and keep straight in your head. It’s easy to become overwhelmed. Sometimes we forget things. Not just when the full moon is (although plenty of us do) but what it is we want to do with our craft.

And sometimes we feel like we’ve lost our drive. Like whatever moved us to become witches in the first place has somehow slipped away, leaving us with just the dregs. Sometimes we feel stuck, unable to make progress. It’s easy to become frustrated too, but it’s important to push on.

To that end, I offer this exercise.

Choose a journal or open a word document and begin quantifying your craft.

Start by outlining the broad concepts. Do you follow a particular path or tradition? How would you classify your craft, i.e. green witchcraft, cottagecraft, sea witch, lunar witch, and so on? Do you work with any deities, and if so, which ones? Do you work alone or with others? How long have you been practicing? What, to you, is the most important aspect of your craft?

Then get into your working space. Do you have an altar? If so, what’s on it and why? Do you have a dedicated workspace, or a place you go to work magic outside of your home? If you could describe your ideal workspace, what would it look like? 

Next, describe your tools. Do you have cards or runes or a wand or other specialized tools that you work with? What do you use most frequently? Do you have favorites? Do you make or grow any of your components? Where do you acquire the things you use in your magic, if you can’t make them at home? Do you have a personal library? What are your favorite sources of information? Do you have ritual garb or jewelry that connects you with your craft?

Sketch out your year as a witch. What holidays do you observe and how do you celebrate them? What seasonal festivals or special occasions do you mark? Which ones do you enjoy the most? Is there a time of year when you feel more energized?

Once you have all of this recorded, think back to what first interested you in magic and witchcraft and describe that. Was it a movie? A favorite book? A personal experience? Were you raised in the craft or did you come to it on your own? What made you decide to become a witch?

Then think about how you’ve progressed since you started. Have you achieved a particular goal you set when you began, or are you closer to achieving it then you were? What have you gotten really good at? Where are you still struggling? Where would you like to be a year from now? Are there things you’d like to try but haven’t yet?

And of course, if anything else occurs to you, record that too.

There is no need to share these thoughts with anyone if you don’t want to. This is purely a personal exercise, to help you understand where you are, where you’ve come from, and where you want to go. Quantifying this information might provide some much-needed inspiration, in addition to helping you solidify any nebulous thoughts that might be floating around. It’s much easier to progress in your craft if you have an outline for what you’re already doing.

Happy Witching!

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Want more witchcraft exercises? Check out the masterpost here.

(If you’re enjoying my content, please feel free to drop a little something in the tip jar, tune in to my monthly show Hex Positive on your favorite podcast app, or check out my published works on Amazon or in the Willow Wings Witch Shop. 😊)

Remember that every dollop of lotion you rub on your skin, every little nap you take to be well again, every glass of water you drink to take care of yourself, is blessed by Aphrodite. She’s always there to have a moment with you.

How to Make a Charm Necklace Magic-Style

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So in a recent post I talked about having a set of charms that I wear whenever I leave the house. I thought it might be a fun tutorial to detail how someone could make a similar thing for themselves! The post is a long one, so the rest of the guide is under the cut!

Step 1: Lay out all of your perspective charms and see what speaks to you and what you might want to put together. When you're choosing pieces, try to think of your goal and intent while you're putting your charms together (i.e. mine is for general day-to-day so I mostly focus the charms around safety, ease of way, and good fortune. Tailor yours to what you need). You don't have to make a necklace, just make sure that whatever you're attaching your charms to and the jump ring(s) connecting everything are sturdy enough to hold the charms' weight.

I have a 'main' components and 'auxiliary' components with the main components being the anchor points and foundation of what I'm working towards (i.e. I have my locket with sigils and my key charms as main components and I'll switch out the other parts as desired). Listed below are some ideas for options that you can combine, but use whatever feels best to you:

Lockets- I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that a locket is part of your configuration. You can fit a slip of paper with spells/sigils written on it AND if it's a scent locket you can add a bit of fabric with a perfume oil or a spell oil that would be safe to wear (check the spell oil ingredients if you're going to use a spell oil).

Bottle/Vial Charm Pendants- these are really good for wearable spell jars (you'd just have to careful about breaking them). You can buy pre-made bottle spell charms (there are a lot of options available) OR you can buy a vial pendant and do a working of your own choosing depending on your preferences/needs (there are also many options for empty vial charms you can buy). You could also keep spell powders/dusts in a vial charm (also usable for on-the-go workings).

Crystal Pendants- If you are someone who utilizes crystals in your practice, having some complementary crystals or crystals that you tend to favor can really add a kick.

Religious pendants/charms- Pentacles/crosses/saint pendants/deity pendants/etc. are all good options for this sort of configuration if they're something that features in your practice or you have a specific figure you want to invoke.

Symbol/Icon charms- similarly to the option above, charms that have animals/flowers/symbols/ whatever else you may want to invoke the properties/help of can be a good addition as well

Bells- bells have traditionally been used in different cultures for sound cleansing and to ward off negative spirits/entities. If that's something you might want (and are ok with making some noise) adding a bell might be a nice touch.

Keys- keys are useful magically for unblocking roads, gaining access, and invoking magic/energy relating to crossroads. Keys/key charms can be pretty easy to get too, so it might be worth trying to have one in your configuration.

Other meaningful charms: as it says on the tin, if it's important to you or you want to keep it on you, try it out in your configuration see if it will work well with it. In the picture above of my own pendant collection alongside more standard pieces there's an antique pen knife that can be worn as a pendant. Put whatever you want on these configurations is my point.

Tip! Some pendants like the pendant on the right have a paste/textured back that you can write on. If that's something you'd want to do, aim for something that looks like the pendant on the right. It's a solid way to hide sigil magic in your jewelry.

Step 2: Prepare the individual charms that you're going to be putting together. Clean/cleanse* everything appropriately (use mundane and magical methods), get sigils written out, anoint anything that you want to anoint, charge/enchant anything that needs it- whatever workings you need to do to the individual components of your charm necklace, do them now.

*If you're using metal pieces (especially if they're old/antique) there's a decent chance you may need to clean those pieces periodically with a metal cleaner/polish. When you clean the metal, do maintenance work for the rest of the configuration by charging/re-enchanting the other charms.

Step 3: Put your charms together and test out your configuration. Sometimes things won't work together as well together or a different component will work better in your configuration.

Ending Notes & Tips

If you put something like this on an object, make sure you focus on how you need/want to effect the object. Like, I have another variation of this on a chain on my bag, and that working is more focused on security and being unobtrusive more than anything else.

Generally I would consider how fragile your individual charms/items are and how likely breakages are to occur. You don't want to be scattering any broken glass/sharp bits and you definitely don't want to cut yourself on anything in the event of any broken charms.

Other considerations should be if individual parts are safe to wear. As previously mentioned, select for spell oils that are safe to wear and for crystal pendants that won't interact with water/skin oils/body products (i.e. selenite melts in water and pyrite will create sulfuric acid when exposed to water). Basically make sure that having this on your skin isn't going to cause any problems for you.

It can be a a good idea to change up individual charms in your configuration to tweak things to your daily needs. Using my usual configuration as an example, I'll switch out my crystal pendants or other charms if I have specific needs/events for a day (like maybe if I'm traveling I'd add more protection/safe travel oriented charms or if I had a date on I'd choose one of my love/attraction charms).

I hope this gave you some ideas for your own practice, thanks for reading💜

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Witchcraft ethics: is it ethical to bind someone from smoking?

Does anyone associate Aphrodite Areia with fighting for something you love or going to war for your country? Doesn't have to be national, but maybe going to a protest or taking risks because of what or who you love. I haven't done divination with her on this yet. Just curious.