Kdbuckland - KD Buckland

Bird Symbolism

So I was looking out my window and saw two birds and the idea of making a list of symbolism associated with types of birds came to mind. My mom always taught me if you see an animal -especially if they are doing something out of the ordinary- you should take it as an omen. So here’s a list of some basic birds, some of the associations are personal but I hope you like it!

Blue Jay-the truth will be revealed, high energy, playfulness, clarity and communication.

Cardinal-hope, joy, good health, some associate them with angels or deceased love ones, passion and warmth.

Crow-often associated with magic and witches, transformation, power, intelligence and mystery. 

Duck-friendships, new friends, happiness, good fortune and protect against negative energies “water off a ducks back” :)

Dove-peace, harmony, joy, love, might be telling you to break away from a toxic situation, think positive, often associated with Aphrodite or Jesus or Angels

Eagle-power, leadership, freedom, adventure, breaking free.

Hawk- common as spirit guides, courage, protection, and awareness. 

Hummingbird- I adore hummingbirds and often associate them with faeries. Creativity, joy, love and beauty. Can be a sign that you are moving too fast in life and need to take a break.

Magpie-Magpies represent duality because seeing them can be really good or really bad, I know it’s confusing :/ Seeing a magpie can be a good luck omen and new oppurtunities will appear. They also represent illusion and trickery, maybe someone is being a two-faced friend to you. 

Owl- wisdom, associated with the goddess Athena, intuition, spiritual exploration, change, observation and intelligence.

Raven- associated with the nordic god Odin, mystery, magic, fae magic, knowledge, mischieve, and can be seen as a death omen (but can also mean change) 

Robin- luck, prosperity, good things will happen, joy and your hard work will soon be rewarded. 

Sparrow- associated with Aphrodite, new love and relationships, fertility, team work, time of productivity and stop procrastinating.

Stork-long life, prosperity, fertility, new life, wisdom, take time to relax, motherhood and luck.

Swan- also associated with Aphrodite and Apollo, gracefulness, beauty, music, poetry, creativity, loyalty, and long lasting relationships.

Vulture-death, cleaning up other people’s messes, renewal, patient, use your resources and be perceptive.

Woodpecker- hard work, take advantage of new oppurtunities, attention, progress and determination.

Tip! If you are repeatedly seeing a certain animal or have a strong liking to an animal it could be a way a spirit guide is trying to get your attention (or that animal is just really common in your area lol )

why do so many “icarus and the sun” artworks and stories portray the sun as a woman? do y’all know who controlled the sun? apollo. icarus is gay as fuck, y’all.

I am Axel Draven Graves

Normal people scare me. -- Tate Langdon

I can taste my spine -- Nick Miller

It can't rain forever -- Eric Draven

I got this -- Opie Winston

I'm not going to kill you, I'm just gonna hurt you really really bad. -- Joker

✦⚔️hex breaking bath⚔️✦

❧ rue is known for it’s magickal properties to break all hexes and banish negative energy cast your way. smoky quartz, garnet, jet & serpentine all exude protection and power, just like the colors black and red. allow the mix of the charged elements of fire, water, earth & air to forbid any negative entities from entering your space and to bring you pure protection and power. feel free to use my spell as you wish; blessed be. ❧

Here are the witchy apps I use (Android)

📆 Wicca Calendar (for Sabbaths)

✋Palmistry (it helps when combined with books for more visual)

📖 Black Grimoire (I use it for ideas I have on the go and for planning what I'm gonna put in my actual BOS)

🧪 My EO (essential oils guide)

✨ Nebula (astrology)

💎 Crystals guide (very complete crystal guide)

🌙 Deluxe Moon Premium (moon phases, astrology, wallpaper, etc.)

💤 Dreamboard (to track dreams)

🌸 Wicca oils (essential oils guide)

🧿 Chakras (meditation app)

♐ Upastro (natal chart, astrology, etc.)

🖋️ Runes and runic formulas (readings and guide)

💡Are you Psychic (intuition app)

🔋Crystal Charger (when I feel like they could use a boost but I am unable to charge them properly, you have sun, moon and quartz grid)

🧭 Compass (for casting circles)

🪔 The Aroma App (essential oils guide)

🌿 Herbalist Grimoire (herbs guide)

🕯️Wiccan and witchcraft spells (when inspiration is low)

🎴 Labyrinthos (Golden Thread Tarot Guide)

🌕 Moon (another solar phases app)

🤸 Fitify Yoga ( i like doing yoga for meditation and grounding purposes)

Brian May and Freddie Mercury visited a designer of women’s clothing together and found some designs that were originally made for the top of a wedding dress and had some custom made as stage costumes and then toured the world wearing matching wedding dress tops and delivering rock hit after rock hit and that’s how Queen killed toxic masculinity

Why Witchcraft Might Not Be Working For You

There’s so many different reasons a spell or ritual might not be working for you. So I thought I’d share some common reasons why some new witches might be struggling with witchcraft.

✨ You’re not connecting to the ingredients, tools or supplies needed for the spell

What works for me, might not work for you, and that’s okay. This doesn’t mean the spell you’re using is a dud or that you’re not doing it right. It just means that you haven’t formed those connections with the ingredients or tools yet, or your connection with them is different. 

A great example is blueberries lol. In witchcraft blueberries are most commonly associated with protection BUT for me I associate them with creativity and astral travel. There’s a personal reason for this and through out my many many years practicing and studying witchcraft I’ve come to build this relationship with blueberries.

✨ You’re energy is too low

I know the feeling of just really really wanting to get into the magick of it all. But witchcraft is energy draining. If you’re low on energy (edited) then you’re gonna be putting out low energy and that can affect the effectiveness of your spells.

Give yourself time and practice low energy magick like smoke cleansing your space, charging your crystals under the full moon or rearranging your altar (or creating an altar).  

✨ You have been given a false idea of what witchcraft is and how it should feel or how it should work

Real witchcraft isn’t measurable nor is it able to be defined in one true way. Witchcraft is different for every single witch. Even witches in covens have given different descriptions of the feelings they’ve had while performing the same spell or ritual. That’s because we all experience magick a different way.

Don’t be too hard on yourself because you didn’t feel a hot light burning inside of you, like one witch may describe. And don’t feel bad if you don’t literally see colors radiating from your spell jar like another witch described. Personally I’ve never experienced either of those things but that doesn’t mean that what I was doing wasn’t working, it just worked differently and felt differently for me. I may not have had those exact same experiences but I had my own, and they were/are just as special. 

Next time you do a spell or ritual, write how it made you feel in your journal. Don’t just write the spell down but write all the things you felt, saw, smelled, heard and even tasted. This way you can get a better understand of how magick works and feels for you.

✨ Your space, body, mind or spirit needs to be cleansed

The biggest reason I’ve found for my spells just completely flopping is I didn’t bother cleansing before doing it. Negative energy is like white cat hair stuck to your favorite black leggings, it ain’t going nowhere until you clean it lol.

The great thing about cleansing is it can be done with just your hands! Yeah, bet a witch has never told you that before LOL. Sound is a great way to cleanse a space. Snapping, clapping and rubbing our hands together makes sounds. You can tab on a table, or use EFT (usually done as a meditative practice but could be utilized in cleansing the mind, body and spirit as well).

You can cleanse with incense, candles, oils, and water too.

✨ Your spells have too many ingredients

I find the more stuff you use for a spell the more unpredictable the outcome is, this is because each ingredient can have multiple properties. Even if you have personal correspondences with them they still usually have multiple uses. Like the blueberry example I gave, for me I associate blueberries more with astral travel and creativity but I also associate it with platonic relationships, happiness and protection. Even though I still associate it with protection it wouldn’t be necessary for me to use it in a protection spell if I’m already using something else that I more strongly associate with protection.

In witchcraft, often times, less really is more. I’ve created the 5 elements “rule” for myself and it’s worked out really well for me. I use 1 ingredient to represent each of the 5 different elements (earth, air, fire, water and spirit) in most of my spells and rituals. If it’s a spell jar, pouch, tea. elixr (or something like that) I like to try and keep my ingredients to a 3 - 5 limit. It prevents me from using up my stash so quickly and prevents my ingredients from completely canceling each other out.

✨ You’re scared

This is sooooooooo normal, don’t even think you’re weird or something because  you’ve got some fears or concerns about practicing witchcraft. It’s common for someone from a religious (especially an abrahamic one) background to hold onto the teachings of their religion and to be fearful of the unknown. Especially if it’s been drilled into your head that it’s evil and you’ll burn in an eternity of fire for burning a sage bundle lol.

If this is you, ease into witchcraft. Learn more about the different traditions and take your time studying. This isn’t a race. Witchcraft ain’t going nowhere lol. You’re not obligated to just dive in head first. It’s okay to take your time and really get comfortable.

✨ Lastly, you’re taking on too much at once

You ever see those witch blogs that seem to pop up out of nowhere and they’re just blasted into popularity, only for the witch to later denounce their practice in the craft claiming that it wasn’t really working for them or that it all turned out to be bs? This is usually because they watched 1 or 2 youtube videos about witchcraft and decided to buy a $300 witch starter kit, 10 books about witchcraft and 3 tarot decks all before even doing any research into witchcraft at all.

They took on too much, too fast. They’ve also taken on things they lack an understanding of and because of this lack of understanding (and a natural desire to want to be good at something instantly), when it doesn’t work for them they claim it’s bullshit and fake.

You need to be patient. Just like any skill or talent, it takes time to master and to see the results we want. So if you’re someone whose invested a lot of money upfront into your craft and now it just doesn’t seem to be working for you, take your time. You’re not going to learn everything about witchcraft overnight (chances are you’ll never learn everything about witchcraft lol). The amount of money you spend won’t make you a better witch or make you better at witchcraft. So don’t fall for those beginner witch starter kits that start at $100.

You don’t need to do everything at once.

I hope this is helpful. If you have anything to add to this list please do so. And remember, witchcraft is a craft. Crafts take time, patiences and skill. These are not things that you just develop overnight. Take your time, cleanse your space, grow relationships with your ingredients, tools and supplies, and allow yourself to experience your magick and don’t try to replicate someone else’s. 

OVER HER

Five years ago....

Without even thinking the phone was out of his hands and smashing against the wall.  Axel hated the effect his ex-wife still had on him, almost 10 years after their divorce. He had tried to be there even after everything she put him through, all the pain, all the grief. It didn't matter because he knew she was grieving more than he was, her pain was far worse than his. The person she was in love with had actually died, while it only felt like the woman he was in love with was dead. He guessed in a way she was dead. 

The words the day she had left still rang in his head over and over, he knew the reason he couldn't really ever let himself love anyone was because of Gianna. She was still the one in his heart, his gypsy rose for his whole life. Yet she never loved him the way he loved her, he knew that but he couldn't let her go no matter how hard he had tried. This is why she still got under her skin so badly, oh how he hated and loved her at the same damn time.  

Surely he had to know by now, 10 years after their divorce, after all the abuse at her hands that the woman hated him. Gia had played with his love for her at first, once his murder trial proved he was innocent. She used his good heart to get what she could out of him. Of course, he took care of her, he still did to this day. He let her manipulate him to get what she wanted, he paid for her hospital bills. He even paid for the lavish funeral for her lover that was murdered the night she was shot. 

He headed down to his workshop, taking their old wedding bands with him. He got his smelter ready to melt down the precious metals. He knew that as long as he held on to these he would hold onto Gia and what he thought they had. He worked to pull the diamonds from the metal of the rings. Placing them into a safe place he dropped all three rings into the smelter, watching as they began to dissolve into a puddle of white liquid. He had loved her for a very long time, but it was time to let it all go... time to let her go. 

Holiday Punch

Ingredients

Holiday Punch

1 (64-ounce) container Cranberry juice cocktail

1 (14-ounce) container pineapple juice

1 container frozen lemonade

1 can Sprite or lemon lime soda

1 pint spiced rum

orange slices (for garnish)

fresh cranberries (for garnish)

plenty of ice

Instructions

Holiday Punch

Squeeze the container of frozen lemonade into a large drink dispenser or punch bowl.

Add the cranberry juice cocktail, pineapple juice, and sprite. Gently stir to combine. Add plenty of ice or an ice ring.

Serve over ice and garnish with slices of oranges or any citrus and fresh cranberries.

Recipe Notes

Holiday Punch Tips:

For a great addition, add a scoop of orange sherbet to each glass before pouring this delicious holiday punch!

Reblog if you need this energy