Moons, Holidays, And Retrogrades 2022

After some research about Blood in folk medicine and magic

Hello! I’ve recently seen a few good posts about the uses of blood magic in modern witchcraft and some also good posts about its uses in folklore, so I thought I might as well make a small compilation of sources!

Therefore, I’m not here to tell you how blood magic works! You already know and can find about the use of blood in rituals, spells, scrying and whatnot from all the posts that circulate on the subject. You also know that blood must be harvested with precautions if you don’t want to catch, or give someone a disease that could effectively kill them! Whee!

This is why I present to you a few sources about the use of blood in folklore and a commentary on these sources!

Here’s one like cuz it’s centered on a civilization I know well, the ancient greeks! I studied them in class and am familiar with most science men mentioned in the article. Truth be told, I don’t think it’s perfect. I don’t like the way it buries other ancient civilizations under the rug to focus on the greek while proclaiming most ancient civilizations were all fans of blood, but I appreciate researching work and the time the person put into quoting greek passages of ancient texts as proof of their arguments. It’s neat. Plus it goes on at length about the visions the greeks had of the role of blood in all types of life, which could be used in paralel with ancient religious texts about rituals and magics involving blood, if anyone has those!

I don’t know about the trustworthiness of this one, but I read it and it’s quick and understandable about the practices revolving around blood in the old days. I especially like the part about egyptian and german practices which are interesting. The author also took the time to quote names of ancient greek historians (as much as one could call Herodotus a historian in the strict meaning of the term) which I find nice! Added to the sources on medicinal cannibalsm quoted at the end, including this article which quotes its own sources, and this book, sadly too expensive for me at the moment (I saw the price and went *nope*).

This article on Britannia, the website, is about blood offerings in different cultures and could be paired with this one about the origines of sacrifice though religion and history, I think it can be fairly interesting to learn the bond between the action of sacrificing something coming from a being, be it life, flesh, bones or blood, and the desire of a result linked to the believed importance of the said parts. I’ll read them and maybe update the description as I go!

I also found a few other books too, including this book about Folk Hematology in the Appalachian South by Anthony Cavender in the Journal of Folklore Research (JSTOR), Mummies, cannibals and vampires by Richard Sugg about the history of corpse medicine through the ages, and The Spirit of Civilization: Blood Sacrifice and Monetary Debt on JSTOR too by William Pietz.

Honestly, I’d like to read them all to see if they’re good or full off bullshit like some books can be, but I advice to anyone who might find all these resources helpful to compare them with each other and make their own opinion. I’m not your dad, of course, but I’ve seen enough people believing everything they were told in my short life to wish everyone could like researching stuff as much as I do!

Therefore, I leave you with this absolutely unproductive post, hope it’ll be at least useful to someone, and on that note, for anyone interested in french and down for a good laugh, this video is about a practice of blood offering by dick-piercing. Yeah. You read that right. Enjoy.

Not normally what I'd post, but let's just say every witch needs to know fire safety and effective methods.

✨Since a Blue Moon takes place on Samhain, here’s some things to know about them🌝✨

The Blue Moon is when a second full moon appears within the same month (first being October 1st). With its gravitational pull being so strong, it’s a second chance for you to cleanse yourself of all that no longer serves you.

‘Once in a Blue Moon’ is a metaphor for ‘not very often’, but literally means about once every two-and-a-half years.

☾·.· Power of the Blue Moon✨

A Blue Moon holds double the power of a normal Full Moon. Make wishes and cast spells under a Blue Moon if you’re looking for long-term results. Your intentions will have until the next Blue Moon to germinate.

☾·.· Magickal Effects of The Blue Moon 🔮

Broadening of personal and psychic abilities

Increases spell and ritual power

Encourages accepting and moving on from lessons

Heightened sense of self-awareness and patterns

Elevated clarity and accuracy in divination sessions

Rare window of opportunity to quantum leap

Powerful time for inner-work and healing.

☾·.· Once in a Blue Moon Spell 🌙

Cut out a piece of paper

Write three wishes/intentions for the Blue Moon

Fold the paper in three

Seal the paper with wax (Blue candle, or correspond the colour with the wishes/intentions you wrote on the paper)

Hold the paper up to the moon to charge it with her energy

Read out the wishes, verbally or mentally, then hurt the paper

Leave an offering of silver for the Moon

Hi Bree, I just listened to your Hex Positive episode on Warding the Home and there's a part in there where you stated that you created a ward that basically gave you a "physic tap" of sorts when you weren't home or without your permission.

Do you have any tips on creating a ward like that or the process of creating a ward similar to that? Thanks in advance! I love the podcast!

Sure thing!

It's all part of customizing your wards and specifying what you want them to do, like, "This ward will activate when I lock my front door." When I set up that bedroom ward, I told it to let me know if anyone came into my room while I wasn't home. The concept of a "psychic tap" is something I got from Anne Bishop's Black Jewels books.

It didn't always work and it certainly wasn't infallible, but there were a few occasions where I felt a sort of ping while I was out and then came home to find things out of place or trigger objects moved.

I have something similar set up in my home now, but I've had to tweak it a lot to account for when family members come to feed the cats while we're away or maintenance has to come in while I'm at work. It's mostly there for peace of mind.

Today's herb of the day is Star Anise!

Gender: Masculine

Planet: Jupiter

Element: Air

Magickal uses:

Drink as an infusion with tea or burn as an incense before divination to boost psychic abilities and awareness. Place on your altar to increase the power generated from it, add to a bath with bay leaves for purification, place in a dream pillow to prevent nightmares, carry with you to bring luck in love, health and money matters. Carry in a satchet to ward off the evil eye, hang an anise seed head from your bedpost to restore lost youth, use as an offering to entice spirits to aid in magical operations and anise leaves or anise seeds used in a potpourri will protect a room from evil spirits and intentions. Good for money, luck, protection, psychic power, dream, love, purification, power and purification workings.

Other uses:

Star anise has been used in Asian and Eurasian cooking for many, many years. This age-old spice is not only known as a culinary expert, but is also famous for its medicinal properties like being used to improve heart health, steady blood sugar, ward off bacteria and fungi, aid in sleeping and help fight the flu.

In foods and beverages, star anise is considered a culinary spice; both the seed and oil are used as flavoring.

In manufacturing, the oil is used as a fragrance in soaps, cosmetics, perfumes, and toothpaste, and to mask undesirable odors in drug products.

Deities:

Quan Yin

The perfect cake doesn't exi-

Leslie Vigil on IG

idk where this is from but its the cutest thing ever ....the canon is wrong this is canon now

A specially customized Pender Ward, created using Lodestone beads and beads shaped from the wood of the client's oath-bound Tree familiar.

I salute the divinity in you

❄️ Bath Spell ❄️

For purity and cleansing.

This was very impromptu but I tried it out and I like it!

Ingredients:

Snow Water

Vinegar

Witch Hazel

Egg Shell

Ice Cube

Bay leaf

Black Salt

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Collect snow water! I left a cup outside while it was snowing for about ten minutes just to let it collect at the bottom.

Bring the cup inside and add a little vinegar. Snow water is great for purification and the vinegar adds a cleansing value to it.

Add Witch Hazel to your mixture. Witch Hazel is great for your skin IF it is alcohol-free. It has many purification values.

For the egg shells, I saved some over from when I had breakfast. I boil mine but how you clean yours is up to you. I actually think Less is More when it comes to egg shells because they’re hard to clean up sometimes.

While you fill up your bath, I would add the ice cube. The act of melting ice represents cleansing and purification.

Add your mixture in a circular motion.

Add the black salt in a circular motion.

Add the egg shells.

Add your bay leave(s). I like to bless my Bay Leaves with a kiss before adding them to anything.

Extras:

I light white candles and use clear quarts and smokey quartz to line the bath. I also use aromatherapy but it didn’t correspond to the meaning so I didn’t add it in the ingredients list.

I also lit a pink candle for Venus and gave her a seashell offering so she can enjoy the bath as well.