Thewildcalledmeback - Beautifully Wild, Long Lost Child - A Dance Of Intentional Chaos

What surprised me in Peru

I have been in Peru for almost 4 weeks now. I haven’t seen much yet as I a have been volunteering in the same town for 3 weeks but I really do like it so far! People are super chill, the food is delicious and the little town I’m staying is awesome for surfing :)  However, there were a few things that surprised me since I got here ^^ Here are a few examples: 

Speed bumps: Ok I really love Peru, but can you guys stop with speed bumps??? Honestly there are everywhere, super high and wide and also SUPER annoying. No sign to warn us, no official size, just BOOM a speed bump (thank god I’m not driving!). Also drivers honk ALL the time, sometimes for no reason at all. 

The variety of climates and landscapes: Peru is quite big so obviously there are quite a different climates here, but that much variety is incredible. On one side of the country you have the biggest rainforest on earth, and where I am right now it’s super dry, no vegetation, just sand and dust. And obviously there are also a lot of mountains with the Andes. It’s almost 30°C where I am now and only a few hours from here, it’s snowing, like how cool is that? 

The desert: It’s always been my dream to see what the desert looks like, and now I’ve seen one. Thank you Peru! (I always thought I would see the desert in Africa, but nope, the earth is full of surprises^^)

People are very helpful: In France and the vast majority of countries I’ve visited, when you ask someone for a direction, they will explain you were it is with words and gestures. But here in Peru (and I noticed the same thing in Costa Rica, is that a Latin America thing??) people actually walk with you to your destination, even if it’s quite far. And like, THANK YOU!!!??? Why do people do that? At first I thought it was a weird thing of men following me, but no, people really do that because they’re kind, and honestly wow, you would never see that in Europe (at least not in France…). Also I’ve had a lot of people asking me if they could practice their English with me, here is seems like everyone wants to learn English and is actually making a lot of efforts to do so, which is pretty cool :) And a lot of Peruvians also helped me with my Spanish!

People share their beer: I don’t know how it’s done everywhere else, but in Europe (and North America I think?), when you get a bottle of beer, you drink it by yourself. Of course you can ask other people if they want some, but it’s not seen as rude to drink the whole bottle or can be yourself. Here in Peru you are supposed to share everything! Here the rule: don’t drink the whole bottle, pour some in your glass and pass the bottle. 

Fireworks: people use fireworks every day, at any time. They don’t necessarily  need a special occasion to play with them. It’s kinda weird to hear fireworks for no reason all the time but we get used to it ^^

Purple corn: A few weeks ago, I had no idea purple corn actually existed. But now I love it, especially in Chicha Morada :)

Here are a few simple ways you can help save the bees this season. Without nature’s tiny workers, many plants and crops would die, which means no food on your table!

🍃Let clovers and dandelions grow in your yard while also planting more bee-friendly flowers, like lavender, thyme and rosemary. 🍃Stop using commercial pesticides and herbicides since their chemicals are extremely harmful to bees and even yourself! 🍃Keep a bowl filled with small rocks and water outside to keep them hydrated 🍃Bees need a healthy boost as well so you can feed them sugar water by using a 1:1 ratio for spring feeding 🍃Support your local beekeeper

Home Protection Magic: A Method For The Low-Spoons Spellcaster

After a rough couple months of mental health, all my wards and shields kinda… fell by the wayside. Since I’ve been putting them back up, I thought I’d offer a general explanation of how I do it.

Basically, I use a form of sympathetic magic to reduce the toll my wards take on me. Otherwise it has to be an obnoxiously complex multi day process. Since this works just as well, I don’t see the point in putting myself through that.

So clearly it comes in handy if you have limited energy reserves, but it’s also useful if you have issues visualizing. I’ve included another method to make this work specifically for folks with visualization issues.

Supplies

All you need is a few writing utensils in assorted colors and some paper, or an image editing program. It doesn’t need to be a fancy one, you can literally do this in Paint if that’s what you’ve got.

The Prep Work

For the sake of convenience (and also not publicly posting my actual house on the internet like a dingus) I’m gonna be using a random Sims 3 lot for this post. Say hi to our demo house:

We’ve got the house, so now we’re gonna map the place!

If your place is on its own lot, include the whole lot. I like to do this from a top down view so if I’m struggling I can go to Google Earth and get a reference.

But since I’m using the Sims for this demonstration I’m gonna just… shift the camera angle.

So, from here you’re going to mark off the property line, walls of the house, trees, gardens, paths, frences, decks, etc. Whatever you think is relevant.

It doesn’t have to be perfect or 100 percent straight, just enough you can tell what’s going on.

This is what I ended up with for the demo house:

So yeah, clearly it doesn’t have to be perfect, just close enough you have everything of importance covered.

This is a lot sloppier than I’d normally do it since it was like 5 AM and I wanted my bed, but it would still work because I don’t really do a ton with plants so the missing tree and chunk of garden aren’t a big deal to me.

(That said, be smarter than me when you’re doing this for realsies. Don’t do it for real when you’re about to drop from exhaustion.)

So, now you set up your external protections.

For this exercise I picked a fire based ward for the property line to incinerate malicious magic and deter anybody nasty, a ward filler that was inspired by Apollo and made up of golden arrows that will sap the strength of malicious magic and cause extreme discomfort to people with less than honorable intentions who got through the first ward, a fog based ward to slow/delay any intruders and to hold any magic that gets through the rest of it till it dissipates, and a sanitization ward at the front porch and the back deck because I’m an empath and don’t like taking residual crud from outside into my house.

You can set these up in a few ways, but I’ll be including one with visualization and one without so this doesn’t get any longer than it already is.

The Procedure: Visualization Edition

Drag your finger along the lines of the diagram and visualize the ward going up on that part of your property. While you do, focus on what you want your ward to look like, how it feels, what you want it to do, how strong you want it to be, where you want it how you want it to react to an attempted breach, etc. That’s it!

It’s still going to take energy, but the drain on your resources should be a lot smaller.

The Procedure: Not Visualizing Edition

So, this is a little more complicated but not too much so. You might want to make a few copies of your diagram (or take a couple pictures on your phone. Just in general replicate it a couple of times.) just in case, because you’re gonna draw your wards.

Grab some pens/pencils/markers in colors that correspond to your wards (or pick colors in your graphics program if you’re going the tech magic route)- elemental affinity, purpose, both, up to you.

Using my example wards, I ended up with this:

Since you’re not visualizing, focus on the intent as effectively as you can while you’re drawing, because you’re gonna speak (or think!) those suckers into existence.

Describe what you want it to look like, what you’d want it to do, how strong you want it to be, where you want it how you want it to react to an attempted breach, etc. All the same things you’d be visualizing if you were going that route.

If you’re confident in your art skills, you can save a bit of energy by not focusing as much on what you want it to look like and drawing a direct representation of your ward instead. (I’m not fantastic, so I’m sitting there adding stuff like “this red line is a wall of fire taller than the house” into my description. Still works!)

This is a little less energy efficient than the visualization method in my experience but it’s still heaps better than doing it all on a large scale.

So that’s the process! It’s the same deal inside your place, except instead of rocks, trees, and decks you’ll be marking windows, doors, and furniture.

Feel free to modify the method here however you see fit, and if you do I’d love to hear about it!

🌲❄️winter feels❄️🌲

(recipes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)

Info YULE Appreciate

Symbols of Yule:

Yule log or small Yule log with three candles

Evergreen boughs or wreaths, holly, mistletoe hung in the doorways

Gold pillar candles

Baskets of clove studded fruit

Simmering pot of wassail, poinsettias, Christmas cactus

Herbs of Yule:

Bayberry

Blessed thistle

Evergreen

Frankincense holly

Laurel

Mistletoe

Oak

Pine

Sage

Yellow cedar

Incense of Yule:

Pine

Cedar

Bayberry

Cinnamon

Colors of Yue:

Red

Green

Gold

White

Silver

Yellow

Orange

Stones of Yule:

Rubies

Bloodstones

Garnets

Emeralds

Spellworkings of Yule:

Peace

Harmony

Love

Increased happiness

**This list is not absolute and just my opinions**

common outdoor items & their uses

a guide to common outdoor items and their magickal uses.

acorns- luck, protection, wisdom, power

walnuts- healing, protection, self care

pinecones- fertility, masculinity, growth, nature

pine needles- cleansing, healing, strength, banishment

pecans- employment, protection, success, abundance, prosperity

grass- growth, learning, healing, new beginning, grief, recovery

maple leaves- feminine, travel, change, decisions, healing

oak leaves- truth, justice, knowledge, steadfastness, protection, guidance

birch leaves- protection, cleansing, fertility, purification

dandelions- calling spirits, divination, healing

dandelion seeds- divination, wishes, manifestation, dreams, luck

dandelion leaves- defeating negativity, steadfastness, growth, purification

2 leaf clovers- love, luck, courage, cleansing

3 leaf clovers- protection, luck, fidelity, divination

4 leaf clovers- spirit work, luck, psychic ability, attraction

5+ leaf clovers- wealth, luck, attracting money, sanity

wild clover flowers- animal magick, blessings, breaking curses, luck, love

apple seeds- love, secrets, knowledge, gateways, divination, prosperity

tree bark- protection, binding, banishment, cleansing, purification

rocks- many rocks have crystals hidden inside, the most common is quartz types. if unsure, rockcs can represent strength, stability, protection and banishing. if you suspect its a crystal, look it up and discover the correspondences that matter to you!

will add more as i can, feel free to add your own!!

simmer pots 🍎🍯

credit to:Claudia Fuchs

I merged a few recipes of these together. Swapped and changed some ingredients.

Orange

Lemon

Apple

Rosemary

Lavender

Star anise

Rose buds

Rose petals

Hibiscus

Bay leaves

Cinnamon

Moon water

Florida water

Kananga water

Used more of some ingredients than others, depending on the smell you want..

So I used more of the flowery smells.

Not too much of the florida and kananga as they are strong anyway.

I have bottled the water, once it cooled, and hoping it will work with my diffuser- it should do.

uh huh honey 🍯

(recipes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 ,8 ,9 ,10)