How Can I Tell If Someone Has Put A Hurtful Spell On Me?

My Biggest Problem

Miso isn’t my biggest problem anymore. I know you’re gonna be like, 

“Bullh*ck, misophonia is the worst thing that ever happened to me, it’s ruined everything, ect.!!” 

But, my young, young dudes, I have some news. Adulthood is surprising as h*ck and has a lot of bumps and turns and I never anticipated in my whole of angsteenager existence that there would be life after miso.

For example, if anyone’s watched the video (x) I posted a hot while ago, they’d see that I’ve come out as ftm transgender and I’ve left home. I got engaged in December to @living-with-miso, my longtime Tumblr crush and we’re getting married next month.

 My type 3 Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) exploded into wondering each day if I can walk or use my hands. 

My computer broke. I need to buy socks. The milk in the fridge is expired.

And I know that mostly sounds like, 

“Gee, thanks Stephan, so you’re saying everything gets worse?” 

but man, I actually would say I’ve never been happier. 

You see, when you move out, you move away from the people who trigger you the most in the world: your family. You may have new people who trigger you, like a roommate, but eventually, you’re gonna be in a situation where you can more or less have total control over your environment. Make sure you choose a life partner that accepts every inch of you, and don’t settle for anything less.

When you grow up, you’ll be able to manage your life in a way you can control, to an extent. You literally don’t even have to attend classes in person anymore, almost anything is available online! Yeah, you’ll have days where you just want to rip your ears off and replace your hands with chainsaws because you need to attend job training, attend a family BBQ, or hurriedly make an Irish exit to said BBQ, but that’s not going to be the majority of your life anymore.

And that’s where I’m at. I’m out from the influence of more “adult” adults at the age of 22 and am finally the captain of my own life. 

Which is terrifying, but empowering. I decide if I can attend gatherings, I decide if I want to leave, I decide if I want to stay inside and live on the internet, I decide if I can live with my partner, and I decide if I want to eat cookies for breakfast unless Ashley is home and and tells me no cookies for breakfast (#marriage). 

And if anyone (other than my future wife) has a problem with the way I live my life or make decisions, guess what? I can decide to take my Scissors of H*ck You and cut them right the h*ck out of my beautiful rainbow life.

I may not have the power to decide whether or not I have misophonia, whether my hands work on any given day, or whether or not I have sensory meltdowns, but I can decide how I handle these things.

So I guess my point today is that miso life gets better once you’ve grown up. If you can make it that far, you’ll be happier. And god, I wish my teenage self had known how happy I would one day be. Thank god I decided to stick around.

So stick around, guys. Your life may look like shooty macaroni art, but it’s just practice at this point. One day, you’ll be Bob Ross and decide when and where your next happy little tree goes.

Stay Brave Out There, Stephan [soon-to-be] Vomacka

Bindrune

The Boring but Important Basics of Witchcraft

Let me start by saying CLEANSING CLEANSING CLEANSING. It’s the most basic, first thing you learn, exciting and boring part of witchcraft.

Negative energy is a scientific fact based on positive and negative charged ions that make up everything.

Clearing out negative energy and replacing it with positive energy is not something you should only do during spring cleaning. Cleanse after a very stressful or negative experience like a fight or finals. Cleanse if you’re feeling lethargic or upset. Cleansing may not fix everything but it definitely doesn’t hurt.

The best way I’ve found to cleanse it a salt water, sage, pine mix. It’s in a spray bottle and I just spray it around the room. It works best if you’ve cleaned up any clutter that may be lying about. It also helps to declutter your mind. For me that can be hard between my anxiety and depression so it really helps to sit down and work things out in my head.

Another basic is protection and casting circles. When you perform spells or rituals you open yourself up to outside interference. It’s like how your laptop limited to what’s on it by itself. When it connects to the internet it becomes part of all these other devices that are connected and its no longer limited. Without a firewall your computer can get a virus. So casting a circle is like activating a firewall.

You can create a mental circle but it can be hard to keep up if you’re performing an energy costing spell or ritual. Salt is your best friend!

Creating circles and walls from outside energy is essential for most empaths to function some days. It all depends on who you come in contact with. Even if you don’t spend much time with a person you can still pick up on their emotional energy. If you do get interference cleansing can help clean out other people’s emotions.

A lot of witchcraft is visualizing and focusing your will and releasing energy from things like crystals or herbs. Meditation and mental exercises will help you in whatever spells or rituals you want to do.

My last basic isn’t witchcraft but it’s essential for doing spells or rituals. Take care of yourself. If you are too tired and don’t have the energy, for whatever reason, to focus or use energy in a spell, it’s not going to work. So drink water, exercise, sleep, relax. Do what you can to take care of you. Self care isn’t always easy but it’s important in everything you do. I’m a big advocate of those occasional and unavoidable mental health days. Mental sickness will cause your body to become sick.

@crhserenity my formula that I use for digits is 1. State your intention 2. Put the sentence backwards 3. Get rid of all of the vowels 4. Get rid of all repeating letters 5. Take the letters you have left and connect them all into one solid picture 6. Add little dots and lines and swirls where you want them

I hope this helps a little, and I will try to mix some social stuff in for you!!

Hellenic Polytheism 101-Eusebia and Kharis

Eusebia and Kharis are important factors for building and maintaining a relationship with the theoi. A lot of us are practicing Eusebia and Kharis without necessarily being aware of those words and what they mean even. Eusebia and Kharis are two concepts that can be difficult to define and pin down. I’m sure other people have different takes on the two practices, but I’m goign to talk about how I define them, and what they mean for my practice. Hopefully this is useful to some folks :)

Keep reading

x

Incense Blending: A Guide

Blending your own incense can be a very powerful tool for pagans, no matter what path they choose to practice. A blend you have made has the benefit of being filled with your intentions and power, as well as the more mundane (but no less important) benefit of knowing what has been put into it. This guide is for making cone incense, as it’s easier to form than stick incense and in my experience, burns longer. 

Items Needed (the recipe I’m using is mine for my Samhain incense; the steps are the same for all cone incense, but the recipe differs). 

Mortar and pestle: don’t use the same one you do for grinding herbs for tea or food, incense is not meant to be ingested and in some cases can be harmful.

¾ tsp. Makko or another natural incense base: Makko is a common incense base most notably used in incenses of Japanese origin. 

1 tsp. Myrrh resin: This has a very pungent aroma, but works very well at holding all the parts of the incense together. There are other resins that work just as well for other blends (i.e benzoin gum).

1 tsp.crushed mugwort leaves: You want them to be small enough to stick to the Myrrh resin

1 tsp. Frankincense tears: tears are small chunks of resin, If you grew up in a Catholic environment (like yours truly) you’ll likely recognize these as the incense from funeral masses and Christmas/Easter/Lent.

2 tsp crushed Rosemary Leaves.

Pipette or eyedropper for water.

1. Combine your ingredients in a small bowl. and mix them together, making sure they’re all nicely crushed up.

2. Begin to add small amounts of water to the mixture. Using a pipette or an eyedropper prevents you from adding too much. remember, you can always add more….you can never take it back out.

3. Stir until the blend reaches the consistency of play-doh.

4. Once that happens and your blend has formed a paste, you can begin to form incense cones with your hands, make sure the cones are flat on the bottom.

Once you’ve formed your cones….let them dry for 24-48 hours and they’re ready to go!

The artwork of Adrienne Rozzi // POISON APPLE PRINTSHOP

PoisonApplePrintshop.com

wait hold up - being on an SSRI means you should never have citrus again? I knew about grapefruit but i figured that was because grapefruit can be fucking weird (my late grandpa had arythmia and some other issues as well as being a stroke survivor, one of the meds he ended up on had the no consuming grapefruit thing). I'm off the SSRI i was on, have been for a year or so. Should I not be drinking my lavender earl gray calm-the-fuck-down tea?! -shocked and sad noises-

Okay, clarifying, since I actually did an entire thesis paper on this for neurobiology/neuropsychology. This is the section specifically about bergamottin, which is the culprit that creates the grapefruit effect. That means bergamot oranges, grapefruit, lemons, limes, and pomelos? Nope, can’t have them. (Not that I liked grapefruit or pomelos in the first place.)I’ve been off the SSRI since about 2010 and I *still* cannot have these things on a regular basis. Some people don’t react as badly, but a cup of earl grey could potentially fuck me up for days.

I *can* have lemon or lime in small doses, but only if I’m using them to cook with.

Any other citrus is fine, though. I nom on clementines like nobody’s business with no ill effects. (Pun intended.)

Food and Pharmaceutical Interactions (The Grapefruit Effect)

At one time, I was prescribed theSSNRI known as Cymbalta (generic: duloxetine). An SSNRI is part of a group of drugs called selective serotonin andnorepinephrine reuptake inhibitors.  Basically,they keep serotonin and norepinephrine levels raised by preventing these twoneurotransmitters from being reabsorbed, thus making the effects of theirinitial release last longer. Cymbalta istypically considered an anti-depressant, but in my case it was meant as anattempt at treatment for certain painful aspects of fibromyalgia.  

The prescribing physician, an RNwho specialized in fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis, gave me a shortdescription of what the drug would do, how I had to take it, and what I couldexpect from the medication.  At no pointdid she mention that there were specific foodsthat could not be combined with Cymbalta.

At the pharmacy, the grapefruitwarning label was applied directly to the pill bottle.  Noproblem, I thought at the time, as I didn’t eat grapefruit anyway.  However, grapefruit was not the only culprit;I quickly discovered that hibiscus tea also interfered with the metabolizing ofCymbalta.  No one had warned me abouttea…or about chocolate, another culprit of pharmaceutical interactions.  Worse, no one mentioned anything abouttryptophan.  While I was not takingtryptophan supplements, I had a diet very high in carbohydrates.  In essence, I was eating the Cymbalta intoineffectiveness.

Grapefruit, the biggest knownoffender for food and drug interactions, prevents the proper metabolisation of manydrugs commonly prescribed.50 Thisis commonly referred to as the Grapefruit Effect. Improper metabolisation is aproblem for any medication, but with neurological medications, particularlySSRIs or SSNRIs, it means that dangerous levels of serotonin can build up inthe brain in short order. Such a build-up can easily turn into Serotonin Syndrome.51  As well as anti-depressants, grapefruit juiceis known to easily interfere with immunosuppressants, antihistamines, calciumchannel blockers, blood pressure treatments, sedatives, anti-anxietymedications, and drugs to treat erectile dysfunction.

Grapefruit’s origin brings theculprit to light. Grapefruit was created when an orange was crossed with theAsian Pomelo fruit.52 Pomelo contains high amounts of bergamottin, 53a type of furanocoumarin, 54 which is an organic chemical compound producedby plants. (Bergamottin is also found in the bergamot orange, the oil of whichis used to make bergamot tea.) 

Bergamottin inhibits the cytochromeP450 enzyme, which performs first-pass oxidative metabolizing of specificdrugs. Without that metabolisation, high levels of the drug in question can buildup in the body.  “Researchers havediscovered that the molecule bergamottin, found in grapefruit juice,inactivates drug-metabolizing enzymes in the liver, allowing drug levels tobuild up in the bloodstream. It can take up to four days for the body to metabolizethe offending chemical, and for the effects of a single glass of grapefruit juice to wear off.” 53 [Emphasismine.] Grapefruit juice causes interactions with so many pharmaceuticalsthat more work is underway to create a further hybridization of grapefruit toremove, or greatly reduce, the amount of bergamottin it contains.  It is hoped that this will reduce the numberof drug interactions caused by grapefruit juice.

There are other culprits, thoughnone are currently as troublesome as grapefruit juice. Hibiscus tea is known tointeract with the body’s metabolizing of acetaminophen, hydrocodone, Vicodin,Caduet, and Darvocet.55  VitaminC and acid-rich fruit juices, along with magnesium, will reduce theeffectiveness of Adderall if consumed within an hour of dosing. Amitriptyline,a tricyclic antidepressant, does not work nearly as well if black leaf tea isconsumed within an hour of taking it. Dangerous interactions with St. John’sWort, a popular herb for treating depression, have been reported when taken incombination with other mood disorder or anti-depressive drugs.56  If you’re having trouble treating yourheadaches, acetaminophen’s pain-killing strength is also greatly reduced bycruciferous vegetables (cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and broccoli) foods high inpectin (jams and jellies) and carbohydrates.57

Many anti-depressants, MAOinhibitors, SSRIs and SSNRIs advise you never to take tryptophan supplements(also called 5-HTP) while taking them. It might also make sense to advise patientsto make sure their diet is low in tryptophan, as well. A high-carb diet—andthus, a diet high in tryptophan—will hinder the medicine’s ability to work withthe body, and could lead to serotonin excess or, again, serotonin syndrome.

Potion Herbs & Ingredients

From my personal grimoire

How to Make & Use Potions

Potions are usually made with a liquid base of either water, milk, syrup, or other. Depending on the intent of the potion, a spell can be [ritually] recited over the cauldron or pot during the brew, while stirring either clockwise (to direct energy) or anticlockwise (can be used to reverse spells). Unlike magickal tea, a potion can be either drunk on its own or a few drops added to another beverage. During the brew, visualise the intent of each herb or ingredient added, and state its use.

Afterwards, pour the liquid into a vial and use the potion within a span of one to three days, depending on the ingredients used. A potion can be left to charge overnight in the light of the moon to add more spiritual power. 

For beauty potions:

Honey.

Rose.

Vanilla.

Roman Chamomile.

Milk.

Evening Primrose.

Orange.

Yerba Santa.

Catnip.

Cherries.

Lemon Verbena.

Strawberries.

For love potions (use responsibly) :

Apples.

Yarrow.

Sugar.

Lavender.

Fennel.

Juniper Berries.

Chocolate.

Jasmine.

Cinnamon.

Pommegranite.

Violet.

Lemon.

For psychic development potions:

Mugwort.

Skullcap.

Sage.

Ginger.

Blue Cornflower.

Lemon Balm.

Rosemary.

Blue Lotus.

Star Anise.

Nettle.

Thyme.

Hawthorn Berries.

For protection potions:

Basil.

Heather.

Pine.

Clove.

Bergamot.

Hyssop.

Garlic.

Caraway Seeds.

Bay Leaves.

Dill.

Vervain.

Agrimony.