Friday, October 14, 2016

Day 23

Are you enjoying this year's posts so far? I always love doing this. Autumn is my favorite season. This is the only time in Alabama when the humidity is bearable. (We always have humidity, even in winter. It's just there's a brief time when it is comfortable enough to be outdoors.) I love the cooler temperatures, the leaves changing, and of course, Halloween is my favorite holiday.

I love doing the Witches & Magick posts. I try to post things that really interest me and I hope those things interest my readers as well. This year I'm mostly posting pictures because I hope it inspires you to explore deeper into magickal arts. While that sounds like the easy way out, it's actually been a bit of a challenge. I am starting to see magick in ordinary things. I'm not sure if this is the result of having a Kitchen Witch practice (mundane household chores are the rituals) or if I have done so much magick in my home that the spells have charmed the items around my house. Let's take a tour and see if what enchants me has a hold on you.

I have several coloring books. I color one page at a time, in order. I use the pages as spells. I spend a few minutes studying the design to understand what it says to me. If I don't care for it, it becomes a banishing/binding spell. As I color I imagine my problems disappering. Sometimes I think of the design as a barrier to prevent anything negative from entering my life. If I really like the design it becomes something positive. I chant as I color. I believe spells that require a good bit of mental concentration are more powerful than spells that are done quickly  (though there are exceptions).

This is my swing. I intended for this to simply be a spot for taking a break. My sewing shed is to the left. I thought I could sit here after finishing a quilt block. Not long after the swing moved to its new location, I realized it now overlooks the nicest spot in the yard. My children sit here often. I now think it should be something to do with family harmony and happiness. I haven't decided yet what spell to do. In the background you can see ladders. I like to repurpose things. One holds windchimes and antique pulleys, the other is for my lanterns. I still have a few to hang up.

My fireplace. I do lots of spells here. I help the Wheel turn by decorating the mantle each holiday. This year, as I'm writing anyway, I am a bit behind with my fall decor. By the time you read this post I should be caught up.

On either side of my hearth are my brass coyote statues. I love them. In my Tallapoosa County house they guarded the hallway. They like the fireplace much better. They mostly sit proudly at their posts. One tends to lean a bit to the left because he isn't right. Can't expect much from coyotes.

My bookcases. Yeah, it looks dark because I am writing at night. Witches live in shadows anyway. My books on Witchcraft are up here with everything else that interests me from gardening to sewing to Nora Roberts to Louis L'Amour. I don't have time to read like I used to but I still look things up. I keep books even though I have the Internet. I can't make notes online. I was not one who wrote on pages until I went to college. At that time notes in the margins became necessity. The folding table is to keep my one year old from dismantling my library. She takes her books off her shelves every single day.

Kitchen island. Seen here is a rug in progress, yarn for two sewing projects, my open sewing box, husband's laptop, cookbook on the bar stool, various tools, and automotive stuff. I'm married to a mechanic. There's always something greasy or something to apply grease or something to remove grease in the kitchen. Of course, when I say grease I mean motor oil and not lard. Though we have that kind of grease, too. Every week I clear the island. Then I start working on something. Then mail gets tossed here, school papers are reviewed here, bills are paid here, and whatever my husband takes to work is here so he'll see it before leaving. I'd hate to see what it looked like without a weekly cleaning session. Where's the magick? It's in the rug. Most of my sewing projects are spells, remember?

Here's a sewing spell in progress. It simply started off as something that wanted to be made. I had the idea for a black star on a red and white background. I tried to put this aside until I had other projects finished. It wasn't happening. I couldn't forget it. When I started this it practically flew together. The spell part came later. I started thinking what red, white, and black means to me. Then people could not behave, which led to me muttering under my breath, then I was chanting intently as I stitched, and well, now it's a protection spell. Specifically, it is a spell to protect my family from the actions of self-centered people who give no thought to what repercussions their actions may bring. Most of the spells I get started this way.

Last, but not least, I have to tell you about the rocks. The previous landowners had a rock shop. For some reason they moved away leaving buckets full of semiprecious gemstones. This is rough tiger's eye. I have found amethyst, jade, red jasper, geodes, and many stones I can't identify. Anybody need obsidian? I have piles of it. I found this while cleaning around my shed. Over the years the stones have been scattered. The buckets have long since been kicked over and emptied. It's almost like having a mine in the yard.

So that's my practice. Now back to our regularly scheduled posts.

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