“I Observe Witchy Holidays. Observe Them As They Pass By Me Because I Forgot. Again.”

Messy winter magic ✨️❄️

You don’t have to have fancy crystals and herbs for spell jars btw. You can use sugar, coffee grounds, leaves, acorns, etc. Don’t fall victim to witchcraft consumerism.

For my fellow fibre arts witches, if you're starting to get the Annual Cold Weather Fidget, that driving urge to reach for hooks and needles and that big bin of spools and fabric lurking in your closet....

If you feel like Doing A Witchcraft, you can work some witchy into whatever you're making. Weaving, crocheting, knitting, nalbinding, stitching, embroidery, and knotwork can all carry magic and serve as a vehicle for creating spells, sigils, talismans, or enchanted wearables.

Am I saying you can put a spell into that pair of socks you're knitting? That scarf you've been working on? That pile of granny squares waiting to become a blanket? That cross-stitch piece you've been meaning to finish?

ABSOLUTELY.

There are even books on knot magic, witchy crochet and knitting patterns, and beautifully spooky cross-stitch and embroidery pieces. (And lots more downloadable patterns exist on etsy and fibre arts forums!) Perfect for chilling with your favorite hot beverage and current binge-watch while you keep your hands from getting bored.

Go forth and have fun with it!

For new witches:

You don’t have to accept everything you’re told, your journey is yours to create. Don’t feel pressured to label yourself or fit into someone else’s idea of what a witch should be. Trust your instincts, explore what resonates with you and remember that your craft is deeply personal and will evolve over time.

One of the first things I've crocheted in ages. I love the way so many things can be brought into witchcraft, it really motivates me to keep at them.

Oh my god, guys.

Are we just going to ignore the fact that bay trees and laurel trees—the laurel trees, used for Roman victory wreaths—are the same?? Why is witchblr sitting on this??

And why are bay leaved associated with prosperity? It makes sense, but they should symbolise victory and glory! Success! Fame, winning, being lauded and recognised! Prosperity comes along with this but it's not central.

I only found this out yesterday, I'm shocked.

EDIT: In North America (and probably other places) there is Mountain Laurel, it's a shrub that grows by roads in northern states. It's poisonous. Don't burn or eat it!

The Bay Laurel is the tree used by Greeks and Romans. It's safe and used in cooking.

Thank you so much to @.teawitch for adding this!!! I literally copied their addition into the post, sorry.

Witch tip::

Eat a tarot card to gain its powers

This is your friendly reminder that herbs aren't inherently safe.

Natural doesn't mean Safe.

Lightning is natural. Opium, therefore heroin and opiate drugs are derived from poppies. Cinnamon oil will burn your skin. Lilies are toxic to cats and will cause organ failure. Activated charcoal will neutralize your prescription medications and literally anything else in your system. St. John's Wort will destroy your serotonin production and mess with your happiness threshold if it DOESNT KILL YOU FIRST.

So anyway.

Do some damn good research every time you go to eat, breathe, bring around your pets, bathe in, or smoke something. Be safe please.

How to incorporate yarn crafts into your cottage magic journey!

If you are a witch that likes to journal or keep a book of shadows, you can use this to help plan out your crafts. You can write down what you want to make, your goals, the colors, and what hooks you are using. This allows you to focus your intentions, your goals, and even color magic into the craft! Crocheting and knitting can also be calming and possibly meditative! It can help you get ready for a different spell as well, if you are not using the yarn for the spell itself!

This can also be a form of knot magic, and you can focus protection or any other outcome as you work and make your stitches/knots in the yarn/string! You are most likely zoning out anyway while working, so thinking about your intentions should be easy to do in the moment. If knot (:3) then you can write your intentions in a journal to help you!

You can also burn incense or a candle while you work to help calm yourself, breathe life into the craft, and help set your intentions. 

Did you know that you can make a familiar out of yarn? They obviously behave differently from a living familiar but they are still used for protection and companionship! 

Yarn can also be used for jinxing and hexing. You can weave your intentions into the yarn and then burn it at the end of the project. Please make sure you are being careful and practicing proper fire safety!

You can also make offerings with the objects you’ve made. Remember, deities often prefer handmade offerings than store bought offerings!

How do cards gain meaning in an occult sense? Like, both tarot and french-suited playing cards started as game pieces, but they have gained an understood meaning. Is it just someone whips up an organized table of connected ideas or is each card interpreted from a certain framework?

Oh good question!

Many things that we now consider staples of western magic are ideas that have been added to over generations by several layers of thinkers. Tarot Divination specifically is an excellent example of this!

In 1770, A french printmaker and occultist going by Etteilla published a book about how to do cartomancy with a 32-card Piquet deck. He writes down some simple but strict associations for the cards, and makes what is probably the first mention of reversals in carotmancy. He said that he learned the system "from an Italian." Now, its unclear how much of the system is his own invention, people have been doing cartomancy for as long as there's been cards, but the text presents a larval, bare-bones version of the cartomancy methods we know and love today.

Its 1780-ish. The Rosetta stone hasn't been discovered yet. Occult-inclined Europeans are obsessed with Egypt. That's where our boy Trismegistus is from! There's a concept in Egyptian mythology called The Book of Thoth, a mythical book of spells penned by the God of Knowledge himself. This was the Holy Grail for European Occult Egpytaboos.

In 1781, Antoine Court de Gébelin claimed that Tarot cards were the "original book of Thoth," Saying that Tarot cards had been used by ancient Egyptian priests for their own magical ceremonies, and that their designs contained ancient mystical secrets. This is 100% not true, but he writes a pretty fun pseudohistory for Tarot that involves Romani people bringing the decks to Europe through the Levant where they then taught its esoteric secrets to several Popes.

Then in 1783, Ettellia responded with another book. Manière de se récréer avec le jeu de cartes nommées tarots ("Way to recreate yourself with the deck of cards called tarots") Where Ettellia basically claims "uhm actually I knew about tarot divination way before Court de Gebelin published that big ass book. But anyway here's an interpretation of Tarot symbology that includes multiple references to Egyptian, Zoroastrian, and Greek mythology." But the smartest thing he did was include spread methods that involved Thoth and Numerology. Napoleonic Occultists fucking loved Thoth and numerology.

In 1788, he formed a little magical society for the express purpose of discussing and workshopping ideas for Tarot divination. In 1789, he made a TRULY smart decision, and published a Tarot deck that was Specifically For Magic, and that basically cemented Tarots place in magical history.

Occultists just kept iterating! Someone would speculate "maybe the suits correspond to the elements" and people went "yeah, they correspond to the elements! That makes this tool even more fun and interesting to use!" Then people go "What if the suits and the elements also correspond to parts of the Self?" and people went "Sure they do! That makes this tool even more interesting!"

But its also not just one thread. Eventually you get the Golden Dawn saying "The Major Arcana correspond to the nodes and paths on our version of the Quabbalistic Sefirot, you know, the hermetic version with a Q." and some occultists responded "Idk about that! Love what you've done with the color symbology though!"

The development of magical ideas is an iterative process. It is people whipping up a table of correspondences, but that table needs a mythology to keep it together. Originally, the mythology that gave tarot "power" was its Egyptian pseudohistory, but these days its the fact that occultists have been iterating on and fine-tuning this system for hundreds of years.

Humans don't think in tables of information, they think in stories. The cool thing about stories is that they're flexible. If magic is anything, its learning how to engineer stories to make the tables of information more effective.

I'm gonna plug my patreon where I post all of my occult research if you wanna see more stuff like this