Every Time I Lose A Strand Of Hair While In Outside I Like To Think Its An Offering To The Hummingbirds

Every time I lose a strand of hair while in outside I like to think it’s an offering to the hummingbirds and other critters who need it for their nests! 🪺✨💁🏻‍♀️

My journey as a Pagan has genuinely changed my life. My outlook on life and my perspective on a lot of things has changed and made me happier because my pagan views have taught me to appreciate the smaller things in life. I worship the natural world and the way the universe works. I worship the dirt that holds all of us up. I worship the math used to create a pattern in nature. I worship the way the light from the Moon hits a car's hood and its shine that hits my eye. I worship the path the planets take around the Sun. I worship the homes webbed by spiders. I see everything, all life, all natural phenomena, all science, as divine. My pagan faith teaches me to recognize the beauty in everything. Since I started taking a moment everyday to notice the littler things that we take for granted, its helped me become a happier and better person.

I would love to hear about your take on animism!! Do you believe in souls? Do you believe everything has a soul? Does that apply to inanimate objects? To what extent?

How do you apply animism to your craft and practice!

💚🪲🌿

Hello-hello! Glad to see you!

I am grateful for question, because I now can summarise what I believe in and put it into words.

I am indeed an animist. I could even say, if that term exit, hard animist. I believe everything has if not a soul, then some kind of alive essence.

I don't know if my understanding of soul is universal. Soul feel for me like a spirit, that lives in all of us and around. Everything has a spirit, soul, energy, understandable it for us or not, familiar and easy it is or not.

I do believe that inanimate objects also have soul, it is our choice to notice it or not. My car surly isn't animate, but I greet her every time and thank and praise her for getting me where I have to be, and I say her to rest while I am gone and don't miss me and she was nothing but kind to me. When she is broken she makes it so I won't be stuck in the middle of the road, she fully breaks only at mechanics place, and in the time of car crash she made that I wasn't hurt. My house, my home sure isn't animate, but he waits every day on the same place for us to live, he makes sure that my loved ones and me are safe under his roof. He is mighty and steady, he was build with my father's love and he keeps it still after my father is in the skies. He keeps us safe in the earthquakes and doesn't let bad people stay, he keeps mother's plants on his territory and makes it our little place.

There could be many more examples, but those two are the most strong, that came to my mind firstly.

I really enjoy philosophy of shintoism on inanimate objects and also philosophy of Marie Kondo. Japan has it's own way of seeing spirits in animate and inanimate. There almost everything gets another life after 100 years old. Foxes become kitsune, inanimate objects gain life and become tsukumogami. Shintoism is fantastic in this way, it's whole philosophy on it's spirits, that is so unusual from what I used to see and I love it.

Kon Marie is from Japan, so her approach to it is similar to shintoism. She is not a spiritual teacher of any kind, but dhe teaches how to clean a tidy up. Not in typical way, but with love to every thing. She thanks the home, thanks every thing that made it's purpose, she gives her love go clothes. Her way is not capitalistically driven, her way is driven by love to both people and things. I learnt that in her book "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing" gave me a lot with the way I look at things now.

As to which extent it goes, it depends on the object itself and situation. There could be a cap from bottle, and it's continuation of the bottle. It's spirit is one, shared between parts. If we will take this cap on it's own, it still will be having spirit of bottle. But what if we will do something with it? Paint it for our art project or add it into something more for another project, where many other caps are used? It starts to change. With art project it changes it's spirit to something new, with creating project it's spirit becomes shared with other caps to whatever we creating. Beauty of things. Fluid and solid at the same time. Beauty as animate and inanimate, different, but similar lifes.

Something like this. Thank you for your ask, I am really grateful.

Foundation of Witchcraft: Spellcraft Science 🪄🧪

Witchcraft and science are more similar than we think. Both require just as much care, focus, and experimentation. Approaching your spellwork like how a scientist would approach an experiment, would create more reliable and effective spellwork and outcomes.

From cleansing your space and tools to recording your spells like a lab report, it allows for a more systematic and reliable record of what does and doesn't work for you. It also makes it easier for you to reproduce, improve, or adjust your spell work into the best results.

1) Write Out Your Hypothesis

This is where you write what you want to happen and record your hypothesis.

2) List Out Your Ingredients

List out all the ingredients and tools you used to create the spell, this includes crystals, sigils, herbs, etc...

3) Your Steps

Write in detail the steps you took to create the spell. As much as we want to rely on our memory. Our memory and we are not perfect, but paper and pen will hold true.

Example:

Step 1: Cleanse your space and tools.

Step 2: Open the circle.

5) Record Your Results!

This is the most important part! Make sure to come back to record your results to see if the spell really worked or not! Usually, I give it about 1 week to 1 month to see if the spell really worked, and if it didn't that's okay too! After all to make sure, you can find out what works or what doesn't work for you, keep a record of everything! You now have the list of everything you did, readjust and try again!

Of course, this might not work for everyone, but this is what works best for me in terms of how I create my spells and do my work. Feel free to adjust this as well and find what system works for you! Just make sure to keep record!

Telling the bees

The custom of "telling the bees" is a charming and ancient tradition where beekeepers inform their bees about significant events in their lives, such as deaths, births, marriages, and other major occurrences. This practice is believed to have its roots in Celtic mythology, where bees were seen as messengers between the human world and the spirit world. The presence of a bee after a death was thought to signify the soul leaving the body. The tradition became particularly prominent in the 18th and 19th centuries in Western Europe and the United States.

To tell the bees, the head of the household or the "goodwife" would approach the hives, gently knock to get the bees' attention, and then softly murmur the news in a solemn tone. This ritual was believed to keep the bees informed and prevent them from leaving the hive or dying. The custom underscores the deep connection and respect that people historically had for bees, viewing them as integral members of the household and community. (The Historian's Den)

I can easily see how you can turn this in a magical tradition with some little adaptation: plant flowers and plants for bees in your garden, invoke the spirit of the bees, keep bee-telling to the bee-spirits and take care for the plants. I am sure that one day the spirit of the bees will be your ally and that you will learn from it. And a big plus: you are helping the bees to survive in a world full of mono-cultures and poisons. Witchcraft and care-taking for your environment can go hand in hand if you wish to.

Hello, good person!

Happy to see you. I hope you are well.

I came with question about two particular Archetypes.

I saw you putting whole thing into words, what I am really grateful for, you may know my religious sideblog, on which I talk about it sometimes. Throughout my path there were 5 Archetypes I was worshipping/working with, now it came to two, which feels most closely to me. With others I still have good relationship, it's now just honouring and appreciation, rather than working.

Two Archetypes I want to ask about are: The Snake, which is pretty popular, but I want to know your opinion, because you are cool, and, the one I have most absence of information, The Deepsea Anglerfish.

Both are very dear to me, and, while, with Snake it's pretty easy find symbolism and role, with Anglerfish it's just nothing.

What would you say? What ways to connect and honour/worship/work with you would recommend?

Thank you very much for answer. I wish you very good day.

Hello!!

Thank you for calling me cool <3 I'm definitely not but I appreciate the compliment nonetheless ;)

Lets talk about these archetypes!

Starting with Snake because, as you said, they're super popular in myth and folklore and are just very well known spiritually. Snakes are associated with cycles, rebirth, poison, medicine and death (to name a few). This symbolism can vary between species (i.e. King Cobras obviously have a more royal association and venomous snakes are more likely to represent death than say a corn snake).

Snake, as an archetype, is really about transformation and transmutation - shedding skin, cycles, venom -> medicine, life -> death (and vice versa) etc. This is the basis of Snake as an archetype (in my experience).

This symbolism comes from the physical properties of snakes. They're one of the most common phobias in the world (there's interesting theories on why this is, relating to our primate instincts) making them symbols of death and fear, they can be venomous but that venom has been transformed into medicine. They grow and change and shed their skin, literally leaving their past behind.

An animal's archetype, their symbolism and their power is directly linked to their physical forms. With that in mind, let's look at the Deep Sea Anglerfish:

Most well known for their luminescent lure, Anglerfish have a illicium, or modified fin, that is alight with symbiotic bacteria. This lure draws in their prey in the darkness of the abyss. These guys have a lot of diversity but generally show quite high levels of sexual dimorphism with the most notable example being in species with "parasite males" - males are significantly smaller than females and attach to them like a sperm-producing parasite when they encounter one another, and males often die if they don't find a female.

When we look at these characteristics in the species, we can start to piece together the symbolism and archetype of the animal. These amazing fish are simultaneously representative of a light in darkness, unseen truth etc and also tricksters and manipulation. They're a sign of obsession and death, as well as survival against all odds.

If I, personally, were to work with Anglerfish, I would look to them for knowledge on finding hidden truths but also on finding what I need and getting by in difficult times. I would work with them perhaps as a trickster-hunter, as a spirit that knows darkness so well they would be blinded by any light that is not their own.

I've already rambled way too much so I'll wrap up!!! I'd say that for working with either of these Archetypes, the ways of connection are not too different from any other Archetype:

Create: draw, paint, write poetry etc that explores and celebrates these archetypes and their complexities

Read, watch documentaries etc, learn as much about them as you can! Understand their tangible forms and you will understand them better spiritually

Protect their physical, individual forms if you can! Look at how to protect native snakes, sign petitions to stop deep sea trawling etc

Include them in your life and practice as often as is sustainable for you!

Sorry this has got so long but please drop another ask or dm or whatever for other questions or futher discussion because I LOVE this topic!!!