How I Combine Magic Systems In Spellwork

November 9, 2023 Little Journeys EverywhereLeave a comment

Hello friends! Here is our question for the day: how are Chris Baty, Ancestry DNA, and animal bones all connected? You’re about to find out! So let’s take a journey and I’ll walk you through it.

I know it’s been a little while since I posted anything new. With the school semester and with family and several trips I’ve taken since it has just been a very busy few months! As those of you who have been following me for some time maybe aware, this is the month of our Lord and Savior Chris Baty! It’s NaNoWriMo Time!

You may be wondering what the title of this post and National Novel Writing Month have to do with one another but rest easy because I will explain it all.

This year I’m working on a series of short stories that are centered around North American cryptids (and for those of you who may not be aware, we have some weird and wacky ones, melting pot of the world that the U.S. is). Included in several of those short stories are bits and pieces of different Folk Magics, especially Appalachian Folk Magic or what is also called Granny Magic.

Weirdly specific right? But stick with me. Remember this is a journey!

When I started delving into my Ancestry DNA results and my family tree I noticed that, with the exception of a few outliers, the majority of my family has lived in the Appalachian region since my ancestors came to the US. It made me curious about what kind of traditions that they may have had and, as a practicing Pagan, what kind of belief systems they may have shared. This is what led me down the rabbit hole that is Appalachian Folk Magic!

Still with me?

Unconnected to my ancestry but still tied in with my own practice is the use of bone casting sets for divination and communicating with Spirit allies and Ancestors. My very first magical teacher other than my own intuition was a lovely lady whose own practice was very hoodoo based. Has anyone who has been a devout student of anything over time can tell you, we each end up collecting pieces of the teachings of those that have instructed us. It’s kind of like an ancestry on its own really. An ancestry of knowledge rather than blood.

So because of that influence, my own practice tends to lean into Conjure and root work just as much as it does Kemeticism and Indigenous Spiritually (thanks to my Elder, Standing Bear of the Fishing Lake First Nation).

Bone casting comes from the Conjure side of things originally. It’s something that I wasn’t very eager to get into because, and don’t make fun of me for this, it just felt very teenage edge lord for me. Like those try hard kids that try to convince people that bear real life vampires and spend too much time and Hot topic harassing the associates. If you know the kind of person I’m talking about, you know.

But regardless of my plans for my practice, Spirit will have it’s say at the end of the day and honestly the best we can do is just get out of our own way.

Now that we’ve seen how all of those things are connecting for me right now, let’s get back to the main topic at hand.

So magic systems!

What do I mean whenever I say something is a magic system? As I think of it, and Magic system is something like the use of crystals, the use of tarot or candle magic or runes. Methods of doing a working that each have their own set of rules and ways of use that are inherently disconnected from other systems and methods.

One of the things that my hoodoo teacher taught me during our first tarot class was that these magic systems don’t necessarily have to remain separate. She was a big fan of using dice casting and pendulums in conjunction with her tarot reading which I always thought was very fascinating! I’d never seen someone combine them in that way before.

Here is a picture or five of one of the spell workings I have ongoing right now.

This work has to be done consecutively for 7 days in a row for the first part of the Working and then another seven for the second part. As any good practitioner knows, I won’t be telling you what the Working is for because I don’t want to risk dispelling and undoing it after putting in so much time and effort! However that doesn’t mean that I can’t break down the pieces of the working for you to explain what’s going on and what you’re looking at.

This working in particular combines candle magic, crystals, my bone casting set, a bell and incense, the calling upon of Ancestors and Spirit Allies as well as prayer. At the base of the largest candle, between the amethyst and quartz, you’ll see I’ve left a little offering there as well for those who may come to aid me in the Working.

After all, not even Spirit wants to work for free! They will occasionally do volunteer work but everybody does their work more happily whenever they’re being paid for their services.

I’m using cards from three separate Oracle decks here: the Isis Oracle which has been a favorite of mine for many years now and was my very first Oracle deck; the Halloween Oracle deck, which is actually my go-to-deck right now; and in the center beneath my bones is a card from my Everyday Witch Oracle deck.

One of the first things you may notice about my bone casting set is that it’s not actually all bone! And it doesn’t have to be. Many bone casting sets include things like stones and fossils, both of which are present in mine, but also small knick knacks and curios. Two of the pieces that aren’t bone are actually from my great-grandmother’s sewing kit that was passed down through the women of my family and eventually made its way to me! In that way, my ancestors keep a solid foothold in any Works and castings that I use this set for.

Another piece is Blue Glass which is used for trapping nosy or invasive Spirits, and the last is a spent bullet casing. I didn’t realize till I picked it up but the small evil eye bead that is also part of the set was inside the bullet casing at the time so it’s not in the picture but it’s there! There’s also a bell because I’ve always been told that bells are the voices of the goddess on the physical plane.

The coral, stones, and fossils are pretty easy to connect with bones. The bleached coral piece and the fossils were once living things, the parts of them left behind after Time had it’s say, and what is a stone if not the bones of the very Earth itself?

Every practitioner is going to have their own opinions and beliefs as far as they’re chosen magical systems go. Some may believe that a bone set should only contain bones. Some may have no bones in their sets at all! Some may prefer not to combine methods like I do and some may combine methods that I’ve never heard of or experienced myself!

I’m always very curious to see what other people are doing and experiencing in their own practices so if you would like to please share with me here in the comments! I love learning about new methods or even new opinions on the same old tried and true ones and I’d certainly love to hear yours!

Sorry if this was a little rambly, it got away from me a little bit but I can’t help but have fun whenever I’m talking about these kinds of topics! It also doesn’t hurt that this blog post counts towards my nanowrimo word count. 50k, let’s gooooo!

Also, are you participating in this yearly writing chaos speed run? If you are, let me know and let’s do a word sprint or something!

Also also, sorry if there are any grammar or spelling mistakes. I usually try to be pretty diligent about them but after all, this is November. Editing is for next month. 😉

With Peace and Passion,
Ta! ✌️

Coffee Infographics To Know

January 21, 2023 Little Journeys EverywhereLeave a comment

Just some informational Infographics I found on different styles of coffee brewing when I was looking up using an infuser to make my brews! You can use these to get a better flavor and body from your favorite coffees. Let me know which ones you try out and prefer!

Ways to describe the aroma and flavor of your brews!

Parenting · Primary

Fleshing Out Your P.A.R.E.N.T. Plan!

February 23, 2020February 15, 2020 Little Journeys EverywhereLeave a comment

Photo by Vidal Balielo Jr. on Pexels.com

Hello my fellow wanderers, explorers, and Journeyers!

Today is a sort of follow-up to my piece on the amazing book titled The Danish Way of Parenting by Jessica Alexander and Iben Dissing Sandahl. The book centers around the idea that the hidden secret that makes the Danes the happiest people in the world (evaluated by two independent international studies) for the last 40 years almost in a row, actually lies in the way they bring up their children.

As human beings, we tend to stick with what we know and that proves especially true in how we parent. We tend to default to raising our kids the way we were raised. The book address is this first and foremost and gives us the task of “evaluating our default settings”.

However, the rest of the Danish Way of Parenting urges us to stop parenting and start P.A.R.E.N.T.ing. What the hell does that mean? Allow me explain it to you and while I do I’ll give you my P.A.R.E.N.T. Plan so you can have a good example for how to build and frame your own!

P.A.R.E.N.T. stands for:
*Play
*Authenticity
*Reframing
*Empathy
*No ultimatums/fear-based
*Togetherness and Hygge

That all sounds excellent and wonderful but what does it all mean in practice? Well hang on to your diaper bags and hydroflasks because I am going to walk you through what each of these terms means and then what it looks like in our home. Maybe you can find something in these that you may want to emulate or use for your own household! Let’s begin!

P means to PLAY!

That’s right! Play! That sounds so disastrously simple, doesn’t it? I have news for you then, dear parent. It is!

Get down on the ground, on their level! Meet them as an equal in play! This helps kids to feel more secure. Can you imagine being so small and to have this other human, one who holds so much power over you, just towering over you every time they talk or order or shout? Play should be entirely free of stress or power plays. Get down on their level. If they’re doing a puzzle, sit on the floor and do it too. Coloring at the kids table? Pull up a little kid-sized chair and channel your inner artiste! And you know what? That’s exactly what we do too!

Little Mawell’s favorite things that we do together:
*Dollhouse/Toy figure imaginative play
*Hide and Seek
*Painting or crafting
*Digging in the dirt, “excavating for dinosaur bones” as she calls it.

A is all about Authenticity

This point is referring to honesty with our children. Honesty also includes not giving false praise. For example, say that your small child makes you a sculpture that looks less like anything recognizable and more like someone crafted the 3-D bastard lovechild of a Picasso and a Salvador Dalí. Instead of grinning through your teeth and giving an obligatory “It’s a masterpiece! I love it!”, chose an interested “I see you worked really hard on that sculpture! Why don’t you tell me about it?” or “Oh, I see you added in some beads with the clay! That’s a very popular art method called ‘mixed media’!”.

Honesty can be hard with our children. We want to protect them from all things that may make them sad or confused. But it’s being exposed to these things that gives them the chance to learn how to cope with them. Nothing demonstrates this more than explaining a family death to a child. With Little Maxwell, when my grandmother and when a family dog died, we explained to her that when people and animals get old, then it comes their time to die.

Everything has its season. Flowers, weather, toys, even people. Everything breaks down, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t keep those people we love in our lives. We put little clay figures we made and pictures of those we loved up on our pantry-top and give them places with us during holidays. Little Maxwell even tells them about her day sometimes.

R is for REFRAMING.

Reframing is a term that means changing the way you look at a problem or misfortune to see it in a positive light. This can be really easy to do in every part of your life!

*Raining when they wanted to play outside? Have a board game tournament or jump in mud puddles!
*Dropped the birthday cake? Salvage what you can and make birthday cake shakes with the ice cream!
*Friends can’t come to visit? We can still hang out over a phone call, online, or spend some extra special hygge time with our family instead!
*Money was stolen? Then maybe it went to someone who needed it so much more at that time. After all, we are so use to the many blessings we have every day that it’s easy to forget that many people end up driven by desperation just to feed themselves or their families. Try to think of it that way instead, something I’ve done before too!

Read more about reframing here: http://feelhappiness.com/reframing-your-thoughts-make-yourself-happier/

E is for EMPATHY!

Going back to that last example, we could all admit that we could use a little more empathy in life. Not just for strangers, but for our own children and loved ones. For ourselves too, perhaps. I know that I’m guilty of getting irritable or tired and then just not giving a damn about anything else until I can get some desperately needed rest or quiet.

When I’m that tired, something that happens a little more often than I will admit, I can be quick to irritation, sickness, pain, and thinking less kindly of others than they deserve. Can you say the same or something similar? Are you in a position that it makes it hard to see the good in the world anymore?

It’s okay. You’re not alone.

It makes us feel…ashamed. Guilty. That’s another emotional stress that presses down on the internal pressures you may already be under. It perpetuates the cycle. The best way to end that cycle?

Empathy.

Have empathy for others and for yourself. Even if you don’t feel that you or they deserve it. After all, empathizing with others isn’t about being deserving or having done something to earn it. It’s about not having earned it at all but being able to give and receive it anyways.

N is for No Ultimatums/Fear-Based Discipline

If you, like me, were raised with a no-nonsense, ‘My-Way-or-the-Highway’, ‘Because-I-Said-So’ approach to parenting, then it’s likely that’s what you started out with while raising your own children. It’s our default setting after all. It’s what we were raised with so it’s how we know to do things. That’s not saying that our parents were abusive or cruel, it’s just that those were also likely their default settings too.

It’s human nature, after all. “Stick to what you know”, as the saying goes. But just because that’s what we know, doesn’t mean that those authoritarian practices are what we HAVE to stick to.

The important thing to do, regardless of your views on spanking or timeouts, is to allow them to be heard and understood. They need to feel that they have a voice in their life and home and that you are willing to listen to them, not just hear them talk.

Choose to find out, to ask them, why they behaved a certain way. You may find out, like me, that your little is so crazy before bed because they are trying to stave off sleep for as long as possible. Why? Because they’ve been having nightmares and are afraid to fall asleep. Instead of spanking or isolating them from you or others for a very real and understandable fear, a good approach would be to spend soe quality snuggle time before they go to sleep. Perhaps a security item or a nightlight or checking under the bed before sleep to put them at ease.

These are simple things that can not only increase your bond with your child but lessen blood pressure, stress, and bedtime battles! I know it does for us because we use these exactly same examples just last night!

Now if I could only find out where she saw a ‘scary policeman’…

I implore you to read this section of the Danish Way of Parenting, even go on the website for more information if anything. I believe that in our American culture, this concept is the hardest for us to incorporate. It is difficult. But isn’t the whole point of it all that giving our kids a better outlook on life, preparing them emotionally and intellectually, is the whole point?

T is for Togetherness!

Tender and loving and comfortable. Togetherness feeds the bond that you share with your entire family, your partners, and your friends. A plant cannot grow without sunlight and a relationship, no matter who it’s with, cannot grow without connection time.

A word used freely in the Danish Way of Parenting, for very good reason, is hygge, pronounced ‘hoo-gah’. Hygge may be an unfamiliar term to many of you but it’s a Danish word that translates loosely into “cozy togetherness with loved ones”.

It’s the feeling you get when it’s a snowy day out and you’re snuggled up on the couch with your sweetie, a warm gooey chocolate chip in hand and a bright glow in your chest. Inspiring. Beautiful. It’s living and loving in the moment, being present with the ones you care for.

The main way you can do this, is by spending time together! No together equals no hygge. Even if you aren’t necessarily doing the same thing, you can still have togetherness.

Boardgames, puzzles, or video games together. Candles lit while you watch a movie with your favorite snuggle buddy. Reading time with your little. Trying to make a new recipe together, the whole family contributing an ingredient one at a time and then tasting it after a cozy dinner all together at the table.

I wish I had a dollar for every time I used the word ‘together’ lately!

So that is the P.A.R.E.N.T. Plan that I’ve been using! I hope that it could bring a few ideas into your own practices with your children. Once again, I would highly, highly suggest reading this book if you haven’t already! It’s my favorite of all of the books I’ve read on parenting, period, and that is making quite the statement! Also don’t forget to drop us a follow and share Little Journeys Everywhere! A follow will let you know when our next post drops so you never have to miss a single post!

With Peace and Passion!

Ta!