I'm Having Trouble Understanding Correspondences- What Makes A Plant Associated With Jupiter, For Example?

For the witchy asks: 🌹🦄

witchy asks

8. (🌹) - what's something that isn't talked about enough in the witchcraft community?

I don't know if it's not talked about "enough," but I find it very curious how many witches who are also animists totally ignore inherent correspondences within nature.

Arguments about where correspondences come from and what they mean very often seem to focus totally on human decisions and desires.

I've always been under the impression that the fact that correspondences for a single thing often vary from culture to culture causes people to assume that humans make them all up.

There rarely ever seems to be an idea that oak trees in England are different fellows from oak trees in Ohio (pretending that the couple hundred of species of oak don't exist and it's all just One Guy), and that authentic connection to the tree will validly produce different correspondences in each area.

Or that spirits are as multifaceted as humans. As an individual, to some people I bring pain and injury, and to others I extend deep love and protection. But if an animal spirit does so, that means those two "correspondences" are incompatible, and therefore the human made them up and projected them.

Or that as humans, two of us may see the same facet of a spirit and we ourselves respond to it differently - so of course, there is nothing inherent in the herb, all that matters are our own reactions, and there is no meaning within the plant beyond our attitudes towards it.

Or that the individual spirit of a single plant is an individual, and is not a nameless hivemind pouring fourth an unwavering, set pattern of meaning and power.

Of course not everyone works with spirits, or is an animist. But for spirit-working witches who are animists, I often question why they speak of natural things as being meaningless until a human ascribes the meaning.

9. (🦄) - what's something that's talked about too much in the witchcraft community?

I'm not sure I can say. I haven't been back in a "big" community long enough to comment on it.

But you know what, let's go ahead with TikTok.

People talk about TikTok too much.

I made a Winter Syrup to beat the January blahs

Every January, as we scurry off to the grocery store to buy pounds upon pounds of citrus fruit, we joke in my household that we must have scurvy.  I have multitudes citrus-forward cocktails that are designed to fight of the mid-winter ennui - lemon-drop martinis and whiskey sours - we’ve even experimented with putting clementine juice into drinks!

So when I found a recipe online for a Vitamin C heavy syrup that doesn’t HAVE to be served in alcohol form - I was pretty excited.   Better yet, it called for using evergreen needles which (if you’ve been following along) is completely in line with my study of Eastern White Pine that I have decided to undertake this month.

Serendipity is funny things: along with evergreen needles, the major vitamin C contributor in this recipe is rose-hips and I happen to have dried a bunch from Rosa Rugosa that I harvested at the beach in September that have been waiting for the perfect project.   Because I’m an overly ambitious kitchen witch (who also has a partner that loves food) - I had everything else needed for this recipe all set to go.

The crafting was surprisingly simple - its just a simple syrup - something that I’ve made dozens of times out of all sorts of ingredients.  You just want to leave the “tea” part of the mixture on the stove for a long time - we’re talking hours.

In the end I used Eastern White Pine and Rosa Rugosa rose hips for the vitamin C; cardamon, cinnamon and allspice for flavoring, a knob of ginger for its anti-inflammatory properties; lemon balm for its calming effect, and orange and calendula for sunshine energy.   For a sugar, I used raw local honey which is my go-to for most things.

So far, I’ve been loving having this in my life.  I’ve been adding some to my turmeric and ginger tea every day - it adds a nice earthy/herbal/woodsy taste but isn’t overpowering.   I will absolutely make this again and look forward to experimenting with different flavors/added intentions in my syrup.

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The Lemon Hex

For when someone has REALLY done you dirty and you just need a quick and powerful burst of baneful energy. This one is powerful, fast-acting, and short-lived, by nature it can really f a person up and can't be undone/reversed once you've cast it. As always, practice responsibly and be safe!

What You Need

A lemon (naturally.)

A knife to help handle said lemon

A leaf or piece of paper with your target's name/identifying info on it (taglock)

Ginger/Cayenne Pepper to help empower/speed up the spell. Both preferred, but just one can do.

Salt/Black Pepper, good baseline ingredients for most hexes

Anything nasty or spicy you can think of. Hot sauces/peppers, old vegetable juices, lint/dust, dish scum, you name it.

Important note: This is not a spell you want to use needles, nails, or other hard things in. Keep it soft and organic if you can. You'll see why.

Steps

Throughout all of this, I find hexes to be a good opportunity to speak your mind, let the target know exactly how they fucked up and how this is the consequence of their actions.

Prepare your taglock and cut an opening in your lemon. Give it some room in the middle.

Roll up or stuff the taglock inside the lemon alongside all of the other ingredients. Be sure to add the ginger and cayenne for best results.

Once it's all in there, give it a little roll/squeeze to make sure those lemon juices permeate all the nasty insides. Let the citrus sting and the spices burn, let the grossness reflect the grossness they've wrought on your own life being sent back.

Chop the whole thing into pieces in preparation for the next step.

Once you're ready, chuck it into the garbage disposal.

If you don't have a garbage disposal, a blender with some liquid should work too. You could even continue using nasties like lemon or pickle juice.

Your lemon is now ground up and liquefied. Dispose of the remains however you please.

On Purple Dead Nettle

My new plant-love of this Spring season is the unassuming (and yet striking beautiful) Lamium purpureum, aka Purple Dead Nettle.   This wild forageable is considered a “weed” in many yards and gardens and yet has great medicinal, edible, and magical properties.  What more is there to love? I first noticed purple dead nettle after seeing it on a Youtube channel - it turns out, it was growing in my neighborhood all along and I had been oblivious! Purple Dead Nettles (Also sometimes called Purple Archangel) is found around the world.  In warmer areas, it is a annual Winter weed that provides much needed ground cover - here in Southern New England it is a early Spring flower that blooms for about six weeks starting in mid April.   It is highly distinguishable by its square stem (proving its membership to the mint family) and distinct red/purple leaves.  It can grow up to 8-10 inches tall but generally prefers to stick close to the ground. It is a super food - all parts of the plant are edible though its leaves are fuzzy so it can be a strange experience to eat it on its own.  It can be added to salads, used as an edible garnish, made into pesto, or added as a green to smoothies.   It’s flavor is green and reminiscent of grass or clover. Medicinally, it is an astringent, diaphoretic, and purgative.   It has anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, and anti-fungal properties.  It’s leaves can be made into a salve or applied directly for on-the-go wound care.   Consumption slows the production of histamines so it has a claim to fame as a plant used to treat seasonal allergies.   It can be dried and drunk as a tea but can have a laxative effect if consumed in quantity.   It is also listed as unsafe for pregnant and breast feeding humans. On of the best quality of this wonder-plant, in my opinion, is that it is one of the earliest bee friendly flowers that blooms in the colder climates.  Bees and other native pollinators seem to prefer Purple Dead Nettle to other plants.  Yet another reason not the mow this lovely plant down and let it thrive!

Magically it is associated with happiness and cheerfulness and considered useful for grounding when combined with yarrow.   Like all hearty plants that will grow “anywhere” it also has an association with strength and resiliency.  For magical purposes, dead nettle is most often dried and turned into an incense blend or tea (see the above mentioned warning about drinking too much of it.) Last but not least, I wanted to share a fun fact.  The Latin name for Purple Dead Nettle (lamium purpurium) means “diminutive purple monster” - a nickname given to the plant that spread out of control.   Laugh all you want but be careful where you plant it if you don’t want a yard FULL of dead nettle.  But for real - who wouldn’t want a yard full of dead nettle?  Certainly not me… Like my work?  Please consider supporting me by Buying Me of Ko-Fi.

not gonna lie kudzu has shot up to the top of my list of favorite plants so fast. she's such a bad bitch.

Witches of Tumblr, what are your go to books about herbs/plants/flowers?

Yesterday I learned my backyard is home to purple ground ivy and its place within herbal witchcraft and herbal medicine was fascinating so I want to continue this journey. Obviously I know a few herbs and plants that are good for certain things but I really want to educate myself deeply!

I was looking into the Green Witch but really all and any suggestions are welcome for a beginner such as myself.

Green Witchcraft: A Living Ward Spell

Note: I called this a green witch spell because it calls for caring for a living plant. That means providing it with the correct levels of light and water for its care. You do not have to call yourself a Green Witch to use this spell. You do, on the other hand, need to be able to care for a plant. Be advised. Note: There are a lot of parts to this spell. This isn’t the kind of thing that should be undertaken lightly or can be accomplished, in most cases, in a single weekend. This is by design. Be aware that in assembling the items to complete this spell, you have begun the action of casting it. You are creating a living ward that could live for upwards of ten or twenty years or more – treat it with the reverence it deserves.

This spell is designed to create a living plant ward tl protect you and your environment. It uses a combination of candle magic (as an initial charge for the spell) and green magic to power the spell. I also suggest the use of additional elements such as bindrunes, sigils, or intention papers but they are not necessary. As always with my spells, I expect you to bring your own magic to the table here – how you empower this spell should be determined by how you cast magic.

I will also include some sections on how to interact with your plant ward – they are just that, suggestions. Take what resonates with you and leave the rest.

To Cast This Spell You Will Need:

1 Jar Candle appropriate in size to use as a cachepot (3″, 4″, 5″ or more)

Oils or herbs to anoint your candle (optional)

A paint pen or other permanent marker (optional but recommended)

A plant (I suggest one that you associate with protection magic)

A pot with drainage holes that will fit into your cachepot

Soil, Water, and Sunlight to care for your Plant Ward

The goal of this spell is to prepare a vessel and imbue it with protective energy and then to permanently home a plant in it to create a living ward that you feed with water regularly. Steps 1 and 2 of this spell can be performed congruently or separately. They are interrelated – the size of your plant will dictate the size of your cachepot/candle, so keep this in mind during your choosing process. If you choose a cachepot that is too small for your plant, you will need to transplant it out quickly, defeating this process. If you choose a cachepot that is too large for your plant, you risk root rot. As you might imagine, a dead plant is not an effective ward.

1 – Choose Your Protective Plant Ward

Ultimately, your plant choice is up to you. There are, however, some things that I think it is important to keep in mind when choosing a plant for a spell like this. The first is that we need to keep this plant alive so choosing a relatively “easy” plant is a good starting place. You know how much time and care you like to put into your plants, now think about this also as the time and care that you want to put into your wards. If you want to maintain your wards more often, you may wish to choose a plant that is more thirsty or time-consuming. If you are more of a set-it-and-forget-it type of magic user, something more low-key may be more your style.

The second thing is that your plant needs to be able to grow effectively in your environment. I would lean towards choosing a plant that you have grown before in your current living space as you will know, for sure, that it is a good fit and will thrive in your home.

Things like rose bushes and herbs have a lot of protective properties but can be difficult to grow in a home environment. I suggest thinking about what protection means to you – there are many ways that plants can be protective (bark, thorns, poisonous leaves, vines that strangle…) besides the obvious protection associations in That Big Green Book.

Keep in mind that the size of the plant in its mature form will come into play here. Some plants can be continually divided to remain in the same pot for a long time while others will outgrow their homes in 1-2 years. A plant that can stay in its cachepot for at least a couple of years – either through the slowness of its growth, division, or because it prefers to be a bit snug in its home – is preferred for this type of spell.

Plants can be expensive but this step doesn’t have to be! Check your local plant groups for free plants or propagate an existing plant you already own. I would suggest that the plant become fully acclimated to your environment before you actually use it in this spell.

2 – Choose You Candle/Cachepot

Once you know what type of plant you want to grow as a ward, it is time to find yourself a vessel to house your ward. Here we are looking for a candle in a pretty jar* that you like enough to keep as a decoration. You may have one in your house already! The one condition is that whatever sized plant you have chosen should be able to fit inside your candle jar as a cachepot. It doesn’t have to fit exactly (there’s a possibility here of choosing a large cachepot to give your plant ward space to be repotted and grow!) but you should be able to comfortably sit your plant into the candle jar.

From there, the choices are very much up to you and virtually endless. You can choose based on a color association that you have with protection magic, or maybe it is the scent of the candle that makes you think of protection here. I suggest choosing a scent that you enjoy (or scentless altogether) as you are going to burn this candle out before we use it as a home for your new plant.

If you make your own candles, there is some amazing room here to further your own magic by choosing an appropriate vessel and then making a protection candle to go inside of it.

Candles, especially bigger jar candles, can be quite expensive. This isn’t about going out and spending a lot of money here (though you can, of course, if you wish). You can often find unburned candles in thrift shops or at discount stores of all kinds.

*If ascetics aren’t important to you, you can skip this step.

3 – Create Your Protection Vessel

Now that you have chosen a vessel, we want to imbue it with the energy of protection. This is basic candle magic 101 and can be done in many different ways. Many people will start by cleansing the candle with their preferred methods. Many people like to write their intentions or sigils/bindrunes/magic symbols onto the candle – you can write all around the outside of the candle to create your own art effect or stick to the bottom of the candle to be more discreet. You want to use a permanent marker that won’t wash off if at all possible.

Some people will meditate with the candle, send their power into it, or imbue it with another energy source such as the sun, moon, or Reiki. Many people dress their candles with magical oils, protective powders, or gemstones.

Do what works for you and your practice. If you need a very basic protective spell, you can draw the Algiz rune on the bottom of your candle, anoint it with olive oil, and add a couple of pieces of finely ground rosemary to the edge of the candle (away from the wick). Please practice fire safety here.

4 – Burn Your Candle

Ultimately, I feel that the goal of this candle burn should be to burn your candle out as efficiently as possible to minimize soot stains on the jar and to burn as much of the wax as possible. To do this requires some candle tending. Generally, to burn a jar candle down completely you need to wait until the top layer of wax has melted before you extinguish it on each burn. The amount of time that will take is determined by a ton of factors: the temperature, the type of wax, the number of wicks, the type of wicks, airflow, and other things as well. You may not be able to let your candle burn for that long with every lighting, but I suggest at least attempting to.

There’s a lot of additional magic that you could add to this step. You could speak words of protection over your candle as you light it. You could light it once a week on a Tuesday in the hour of Mars. You could light it every day for a number of days that is magically significant to you. You could dedicate the candle to a protective force that you work with. Or burn it on a protection altar. You could write a petition paper and place it under the candle while it is burning.

I personally think that including your plant in the spell here is very useful for creating a connection – I would keep my plant near the burning candle as the spell progressed to strengthen the connection between the plant and the energy of the candle burn that fuels the spell.

Continue with this step until your candle has completely burned out. From here you want to clean out your vessel of any remaining wax, soot, or other leftovers from your candle burn. Take care to try not to remove any protection symbols on the jar, but things happen. It’s okay to go back over and redraw your protection sigils if you have to here.

5 – Put Your Plant into its New Home

Note that I do not say PLANT your plant into its new home. We are using the candle jar here as a CACHE POT, not the direct home of your houseplant. This is because your houseplant likes to have drainage holes and the candle jar has none.

As you do this, you might wish to talk with your plant about how and why you are putting it into its new home. This is when, in my practice, I would Name the plant if I had not discovered its name prior. Giving a plant a name creates a connection between the spirit of that exact plant and you; it also gives you a nice way of addressing the spirit of the plant! (if you don’t do spirit work, feel free to skip this step) I like to tell my plants that I am enlisting them in the protection spell that I have cast and asking their permission.

Place your plant in a place where it will get its needs met and watch it grow! Congratulations, you have just made yourself a living ward.

6 – Care For Your Living Ward

Properly caring for your plant wards is an important part of this spell and is a type of repetitive magical focus. The goal is to focus on your plant as it grows and check up on its needs. This allows you to feed your spell as you water your plant and the growth of the plant feeds the ward itself. Forge a connection to your plant as you care for it – think about its growth, think about the magic that you imbued into the creation of the ward, and think about the candle burning that fueled the spell! Depending on your sensitivities, you may be able to “feel” the ward.

Over time, you may want to burn additional candles to add power to your living ward. You can do so by anointing the candles in the same way that you did your original (with the same symbols, oils, and herbs) and burning it close by to your plant. Depending on your practice, you may also be able to change the ward with sunlight, moonlight, or words of power. Use what you are good at here!

It is wise to remember that this is still warding/protection magic so I would refrain from telling people about your ward or sharing photos of it on social media.

7 – Troubleshooting this Spell

Eventually, depending on your plant ward, your plant may outgrow the container that this spell was built for. Consider this to be a great success! You choose to continue to work with this plant by transplanting the plant into a larger pot, finding a new vessel, and casting the spell again – or -by finding a new plant sized small enough to fit into your current vessel. You may be able to divide your plant and keep a part of it for your spell while “retiring” the rest. (think about the power of continually dividing a pothos and each time creating ANOTHER living plant ward that you put in a different space in your house…) What to do if your plant ward dies or is not doing well: This happens to the best of us. Some people might consider a plant ward dying to be a sign that something magically is amis in your environment. You need to decide for yourself if that makes sense to you. I would consider what is going wrong with your plant – have you been under or over-watering it? Is it dying because it’s too rootbound and needs to be repotted? Does it have a plant pest? Did it scorch in direct sunlight?

You not caring for your plant properly is almost never going to be a sign that somebody else is messing with you. But if your plant ward is suddenly dying for no reason (and you’ve thoroughly checked the reasons) – do some divination on it, please. Also, unpot your plant and check the roots because that’s always the best practice.

If you need to move house, you will need to decide what to do with your plant ward. If the ward is more designed around protecting you as a person, it may be able to move to your new place. If it is designed around protecting your space, it should probably be recast in the new location. In that case, I would choose a new jar candle and cast the spell anew. When in doubt, I suggest casting a new spell.

8 – Variations on a Theme

Though this spell is written to create a protective ward, it can be altered easily to fit most other long-term goals. You could use a plant associated with tranquility to make your space more peaceful, as an example. I suggest sticking to magical goals that affect your environment or your person here. The reason for this is that I believe that this spell works because you and your plants share the air in your house – you breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide and your plants “breathe” in carbon dioxide and “breathe” out air. If your belief system of how magic works differently, your experience may vary.

There are always ways to vary this spell to suit your needs - if you come up with a cool one and feel like sharing, I'd love to hear about it!

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Ancestor Veneration

In the occult discords I frequent I periodically see questions from new practitioners who want to start spirit work and have been directed to start with their ancestors, but they’re in a bind because like many young folk today they don’t have such a great relationship with their family. For their own reasons they don’t know their family history and either feel disconnected from previous generations or don’t want to connect to their bloodline. Over the years my personal ancestor veneration has taken shape in a way that I think might be helpful or of interest to people who want to strike up a relationship with their ancestors, but don’t have a great one with their living or recently deceased family.

Types of ancestors:

Beloved Dead: These are my known/recently deceased spirits, people I have known in life who have passed on. Not always technically ancestors, because these spirits aren’t aren’t necessarily related to me, or in my direct line of descent. The only requirement is that I knew them in life, as well as in death.

Ancestors: My actual forebearers, the people I’m directly descended from. I know many of their names because my family tree is very well researched, but I never met them in life. This also includes the ancestors whose names I don’t know but are still in that familial line, those spirits I refer to as “unnamed ancestors” or “unnamed forbearers”.

Cultural Ancestors: This by far the largest category, because there is no upper limit to the number of sub categories I can squeeze in there, none of which rely on actual blood ties. It has my ethno-cultural ancestors, the Irish people who came before me, the Italian people who came before me, the Norwegian people who came before me… etc. But it also has the ancestors of the things I choose to identify my self as: The disabled people who have come before me, the witches who have come before me, the Sailors, the Dancers, the Musicians, the Storytellers, etc. Everyone in this category connects me to some kind of cultural history that exists outside of my bloodline.

Who To Call On and When?

For me calling on my ancestors is a lot like calling on a deity. I petion them/ dedicate my actions to them, when I’m doing something that’s in their realm of influence. For instance: Say I’m cooking a traditional Italian meal, I would call on my Italian cultural ancestors, and they would get some of the meal as an offering in repayment. I would also probably call on the individual spirit of my grandmother, one of my beloved dead, since she was the one who taught me Italian cooking, and it’s quite likely her recipe I’m using.

I also have specific days set aside for my most frequently called upon groups Christmas Eve was always big with the Italian side of the family, and I still celebrate it the traditional way, so that’s become a day for my Italian cultural ancestors. St Patricks Day is for my Irish cultural ancestors. St. Lucia Day is for my Norwegian ancestors. I’ve set aside Talk Like a Pirate Day to venerate all of the sailors, fishermen, and wayfinders who have gone before me, and

Why Approach Ancestor Work/Worship/Veneration like this?

I feel like this approach gives me, and perhaps others, the most flexibility and the most options to approach ancestor work on terms that work for me. Have a great relationship with the family you’ve interacted with, but uncomfortable with the actions of your ancestors a few generations back? Interact only with your Beloved Dead and your Cultural Ancestors. Want nothing to do with your biological family, but still want to do ancestor work? Create a spiritual found family by working only with Cultural Ancestors. This way of thinking about those who loved what we love before us could be applied to any interest or personal identity that a person holds dear. However you choose to define yourself you can can use to draw a connection to people who also defined themselves that way in the past.

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Connection is not a feeling.

With some of the responses I've been getting on my post about connecting with nature, I realized I needed to write about this.

Folks have got to understand that connection is not a feeling. "I feel such a deep connection with-" nope, that's not connection you're feeling; that's fascination.

Whether it's nature, or a culture, or anything at all, connection isn't transcendent. It's something you build with actual physical effort. It's a relationship.

Let's say there's a stray cat outside, and I want to have a connection with it. So I go inside my house and meditate on the cat, visualizing myself sending out rays of love to the cat. I look at pictures of cats on the Internet. I collect cat memorabilia and pray to cat goddesses. But when I go outside and try to pet the stray cat, it runs away.

This is because I never built a genuine connection, or relationship, with this cat. I'm a parasocial admirer, at best. To the cat, I'm a weird stranger.

But let's say I put cat food outside, and I stay out there while the cat eats, and slowly get closer to the cat as it becomes more comfortable with my presence. Finally, I give the cat light touches, and it gradually learns that I am safe. And we become friends.

Now I have a connection with the cat, because we have a relationship. I feed the cat, the cat eats my food, and we're in each others' social networks.

"But what if I can't build relationships like this?"

It's okay if this is impossible for you right now. You're not going to be a Bad Pagan or a Bad Witch because you can't do something that is literally impossible at the moment.

But, if a connection is something you want to have, at some point? Get studying. You want a connection with nature at some point? Okay, then start studying ecology. Learn about the rain cycle. Learn about environmental damage. Find materials about the plants and animals in your area.

What about a culture? Okay, go learn about its history, go learn what kinds of problems its people are currently facing, and work on perceiving them as real, complex people instead of whatever stereotype you have in your mind right now.

And above all, remember: that's not a mystical connection you're feeling, that's fascination.

Elminx's Guide to Augmenting Your Spellwork

This guide is intended to be allied to the type of spellwork that draws something towards you or is desirous of change within yourself. The goal here is to create actions throughout our day or week that bring our thoughts back to the magic that we have performed. From my way of thinking, this keeps the stream of magic flowing in the right direction through your returned focus. It can have the added benefit of reminding you to take the actions in the world that are necessary for the success of your spellwork.

There will be a number of examples following but they all have the same theme: doing something during your initial spellwork that you will return to after the spell has been cast to keep your attention focused in the direct on what you want. Some of these things will be very obvious and you will have seen them before - others may be less so and better suited to a person in the broom closet. Some of these are standalone spell techniques on their own; here I am trying to convey that when combined together, multiple types of spellwork can have a greater effect than individually.

The idea is to continue to do the things listed below until your spell has manifested. Yes, there are obviously too many to do all at once. You are, as always, free to pick the ones that fit the spell best or the ones that fit your own lifestyle. Or to disregard all of them altogether.

Create an altar for your spell Say that I was going to create a spell for money to make sure that I could pay my rent on August 1st. I would create a money altar for my spell, do my spell on the altar, and keep all of the spell ingredients (including candle remains and any nonperishable offerings) up for the month of July. If I was going to create a spell to combat the upcoming Venus retrograde, I would keep the altar up all the way through the end of the retrograde. The visual reminder of the altar helps to realign your thoughts toward that spell.

Feed your spell This one goes along with the first nicely. This can look like a lot of different things - it could be adding coins to a money bowl or a spoonful of sugar to a sweetening jar. It could be burning incense on your altar for success on your exams every Sunday. It could be successively lighting small candles to charge your spell for a set number of days, weeks, or on every full moon. If you work with spirits of deities, it could be making repeated offerings while you ask for help with your spellwork. If you are the type of person who sticks to schedules well, make it a scheduled thing. You could align it with the days of the week if you're into that or with the moon cycles. If you're not a scheduler, do it when you remember.

Mantras (and other Spoken representations of your spell) If you are a verbal person, word magic may work very well for you. This can be anything from one phrase to a rhyming couplet - the idea here is that it is something that you remember to repeat to yourself. I think that this type of magic work especially well when doing work on changing something about yourself, but you may find a use for it in other areas that I have not. Ideas for using mantras: say them when you wake up or before you fall asleep at night, say them while looking in the mirror while getting ready in the morning. Or, simply say them when it would be appropriate for the magic that you have worked.

Sigils (and other Visual Representations of your Spell) If you are a visual person, sigils and other types of art magic can help you to augment your magic. The idea is to charge or create your symbol during the casting of your magic and then return to it throughout your days. Depending on your situation, you may able to hang your artwork or sigil on your mirror in your bathroom or even on your fridge. If you cast a spell to get better tips, carry the sigil or wear it when you are working. You can draw sigils on your skin with lotion or other skincare. This can be at once the most obvious forms of magic (think the Bluetooth symbol) and the most discreet. You can incorporate your sigil onto something you handmake like clothing (inside your clothes or out), jewelry, or any number of other charms.

Put it in a Jar (and other Physical representations of your magic) Yes, jar spells and other container magic are a topic all onto themselves. But have you thought about putting the remains of a spell into a jar? This is a very sympathetic view of magic, but it makes no sense to me to cast a spell to bring something toward you and then immediately get rid of the objects used in the spell. It's counterintuitive to throw something away that you want. N'est pas? Instead, put the items you used in the casting of the spell into a jar or bag and keep it somewhere safe until the spell comes to pass. This is where an altar to your spell comes in handy - it's a place to house this object. Bonus: this makes it harder for sneaky people or inquisitive animals to find their way into your spell components. Other versions of this include putting your intentions for the spell into an object such as a stone or a piece of jewelry and carrying it with you every day.

Invoke Your Senses Again, this is strictly my opinion, but magic involves both the unconscious and the conscious mind. The best way to hijack your unconscious mind and keep it aligned with your consciousness is through the base senses like smell and taste. They tap right the fuck in as they are deeply connected to our memory centers. Here I suggest picking a scent or flavor from your spell and incorporating it into your life for the duration afterward. If you use rose petals, buy yourself a rose-scented soap or rose perfume. If you use basil, make yourself pesto once a week or work to otherwise incorporate basil into your meals. As far as food goes, items like jams and simple syrups are perfect for this purpose if applicable. This involves a bit more planning than some of the other suggestions but can be very rewarding (and tasty!). Alternatively, if sound is important to you, you could use a piece of music during your spell and then play it repeatedly to reactivate the feeling of the spell. Or, if you're very musically inclined, you could write your own song or simply set your mantra/words to music in some fashion.

This is a very non-exhaustive list of some of the techniques that I have used to keep the energy of my spells flowing when I am working on a longer manifestation. Mostly, as stated above, these techniques are best used for magic designed to bring something towards you or to change something about yourself but they can be adapted for use with other types of magic as well.

Again, the goal here is to create moments throughout your day or week where your attention is turned back to your magic through repetitive actions such as showering with rose soap or donning a necklace you made with your sigil every morning.

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