Good evening! I hope you are doing well! I'm just sort of stumped, and I was wondering if you had any suggestions for spell ingredients for safe travels?
Hey! Mercury is a good planet to call upon as well as saturn: mercury rules travel and saturn rules protection and safety. I have made spell jars in the past that I kept in my vehicle or on me when i was traveling. I’m thinking maybe make a spell jar and fill it with some mercurial herbs and a piece of hematite or some other dark stone if it’ll fit in there, seal with black wax or ribbon or string or whatever and do the aforementioned. simple but effective ! best of luck my friend.
How did you gain such extensive and well rounded knowledge of astrology? Any book/resource recommendations? I’ve been highly interested in learning more about it for a while and I feel ready to dive in!
The short answer is that I've been studying astrology since the Fall of 1996 so we're coming up on 26 years of study. The longer answer is that I have read every single astrology book that I've ever gotten my hands on (I used to sit in the astrology section of Barnes & Noble and just read), I have investigated my own chart and the chart of every single person that I've ever been close to (and more than a handful of my "enemies"), and I am completely unafraid to ask questions. I have unabashedly made my friends, loves, and others my test subjects. This will be a long answer and I will write a separate post on astrology books (I've been meaning to anyway) BUT astrology is impossible to learn if you tackle it all at once. What you can see my synthesize IS 100% 26 years of study - I didn't start out here. Not by any means. I don't know where you are on your astrological journey, so I'm going to start very basic. The first thing that you need to learn is the signs. Inside and out. You need to understand the elements. You need to understand the modalities. You need to understand the seasons. You need to understand how each of these things comes together to create the energies that we associate with the signs. There is a reason that Taurus is fixed/earth/spring versus Virgo's mutable/earth/summer versus Capricorn's cardinal/earth/winter. You need to learn the ways that earth interplays with water and the ways the fire interplays with air and how the signs create oppositional energies with each other. Other than looking at your own birth chart (which you should ALWAYS be studying), I would not go any farther than that until you feel like you have reached a level of mastery of the signs themselves. Then, you need to understand the planets. These relate closely to the signs as each planet rules one or more of the signs, so your understanding of the signs will help you here. This is your first point of synthesis - you will realize that you were ALWAYS studying how the Sun shows up as a sign because that is what we are taught in pop culture astrology is. Don't focus on the outer planets - stick to the Sun and Moon here at first and then go on to look at the personal planets (Mercury, Venus, and Mars). This is where most of the meat of natal birth chart interpretation lies and is what you will, inevitably, spend the longest time in study. Until you think that you can explain why Mars in Scorpio is different from Venus in Scorpio which is different from Sun or Moon in Scorpio, you really need to remain here. Understanding how the energies of each sign work with each planet is vitally important - this is the longest course of study for a reason. Next, you need to understand aspects. This is how the planets interact with each other in positive or negative ways. This is a lot of math and you can have programs do it for you but you really should learn to somewhat do the math yourself if you are capable. This is really just basic geometry - everything is about angles because the horoscope is a wheel. The most important aspects are calculated at 30 degrees intervals - 30 degrees is two planets in conjoining signs, 60 degrees is a sextile or two signs in aligning elements (earth to water or air to fire), 90 degrees is square or two signs in non-aligned elements (earth to fire or air, as an example), and 120 degrees is rrine or two planets which share an element, and so on. Until you can explain this as well as I just did and understand the orb of effect (how many degrees apart from an exact angle if allowed for you to consider the planets in aspect with one another) - this is where you should remain. This is the meat of the natal birth chart - it shows our natural strengths and our weaknesses. After you have mastered this - you finally have a choice. If you are interested in continuing down the path of the personal birth chart, I would tackle houses next. If you are more interested in how we interact with each other - I would tackle synastry - the study of how two charts interact
with each other. If it's especially important to you, you could also specialize at this time by doing a deep dive into planetary retrogrades, or the outer planets and how they impact our lives, or some other astrological niche. (I went with Synastry here and no regrets, it's a fascinating subject) Transits - what I post about most often on this blog - as a synthesis of my knowledge of the signs, the planets, and the aspects. You need to have a deep knowledge of how a planet affects an individual who is born during a transit before you can start to understand how people living in the world will experience that very same transit. This point is the hardest to explain how to get here - all I can say is that I asked the planets to show me. This came to me when I started working planetary magic - primarily with Mercury and Venus but also with the others as well.
That was a lot. I hope that helps. Feel free to send me additional asks if this wasn't what you were looking for.
-Minx
Witch aesthetics: Sun witch
Automatic Writing
Automatic writing is a form of divination, taking words from the subconscious mind, and translating them onto paper. It is not just a form of divination, but a common method of receiving messages from spirits and other entities. From this it gets its other name: 'spirit writing'. When you do this you are effectively asking a spirit to possess your hand in order to communicate. In the practice of spiritualism spirits are said to take control of the hand to write messages, draw pictures and symbols, write letters, or even entire books.
Many will point out how similar automatic writing is to a talking (ouija) board. It is quite similar in the sense of using spelled-out messages as a means of communication. If you plan to contact entities have protections in place and do a cleansing, just as you would for a talking board session. Anything you call on, you must be prepared to banish.
Automatic writing is typically done on paper with pencil/pen/crayon/paint/etc. But, some people do actually use the notes application on their phone or a laptop keyboard as their medium. There are different ways to practice automatic writing, but they are all capable of achieving results.
• It shouldn't matter what you're writing on, it could be a designated journal, notebook, or copy paper, or on the ground with chalk. Just make sure spirit has enough room.
• You should practice a fair amount of meditation before hand and be capable of entering a 'trance state' to allow spirit to clearly communicate.
• When you reach a trance state let the spirit know they are welcome to use your hand to write. Don't focus on what the spirit is writing or the letters your hand is shaping, concentrate instead on the meditation and your connection to spirit.
• When you are satisfied that they got their message through, open your eyes and scan the paper for letters, words, symbols, images, etc.
• Meditate on what you want to know for a few minutes and then begin your writing. You may also keep your eyes open and jot down any words that come to mind immediately.
• You may cross out anything that doesn't make sense to decipher a clearer message.
It's important to remember that automatic writing gets clearer with practice. Your first several tries may yield little to no results. Patience will pay off and it can become a reliable form of divination and spirit communication and is a powerful addition to any craft.
I'll happily be the crazy aunt that some how gives good advice.
Sandalwood- protection, healing and purification.
Cherry- attract and stimulate love.
Vanilla- luck, happiness, and stimulate memory.
Jasmine- luck, especially love matters.
Coconut- protection and purification.
Frankincense- spirituality and protection.
Cinnamon- wealth and success.
Myrrh- protection, healing, purification and spirituality.
Pachouli- money and attraction.
Rose- love and returning calm energies.
Strawberry- love, luck and friendship.
Dragons Blood- increases personal power, attraction, manifestations, sensuality and love.
Sage- clearing the air, cleansing negativity and promoting a more peaceful environment.
an illusion is defined as something that is likely to be wrongly perceived or interpreted, or something that distorts your perception.
distortion involves altering the natural or original state, shape, or condition of an object or giving a misleading impression of such.
illusions can affect all of the 5 senses - seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling.
i feel like the terms can be synonymous depending on your desired outcome but, this is how i break it down:
illusions: creating things that don't exist; what you perceive and what you want others to see
glamours: altering what already exists; how you perceive and how you want others to see things
shields: a combination of both but commonly used for protective workings
when you want to alter, manipulate, or distort the perception of reality.
invisibility (masking yourself or your energy)
distorting one's appearance or the appearance of other objects
confusion
distraction
disorientation
persuasion
however you want, although i'm partial to raising energy in whatever method i choose, directing it into a thing, and then using said thing to activate the spell whenever i want.
herbs:
anything psychotropic or hallucinogenic in nature - think chamomile, cannabis, datura, wormwood, mugwort, damiana, gingko, nutmeg, salvia, valerian, poppies, coffee, tea, etc.
OR whatever corresponds to your specific intent
crystals:
agate (confusion)
alexandrite (delusions)
amethyst (delusions)
celestite (detachment)
diamond (confusion, disorientation)
kunzite (distraction)
moldavite (delusions)
obsidian (conflict within others)
etc.
not to mention, crystals have refractive properties, too! you can use that idea for distortion. (check out my a-z crystal list and curse correspondences for some more ideas)
cosmic:
moon - emotions, imagination, and the unconscious mind
neptune and pluto - illusions and metamorphosis
dark matter and black holes - invisibility and darkness
elements: if you consider the example of "driving down the road and thinking you see a puddle of water up ahead but then it just disappears when you get close to it," mirages could technically incorporate all of the elements:
earth is the foundation for the mirage, or the road you're driving down
fire provides heat
air is heated by the road
the actual mirage appears as water
and! when water turns to ice, it can create optical illusions like parhelia (sun dogs), sun haloes, and light pillars because of its interaction with sunlight.
plus lots of other cool stuff so use your imagination and good luck!
♡ luna
© 2025 ad-caelestia
My boyfriend is not very familiar with spell work, and he asked if I could do a spell for safe travels. We were invited to a local hockey game and we were given free tickets. He seldom asks for spells for himself mostly for other people. But I figured with the planetary alignment and it's heavy concentration of a lot of different energies at once, so perhaps a spell wouldn't hurt.
Ra and his yellow candle for guidance and blessings
Dragon's Blood incense for protection
White candle for purifying and cleansing us and our space
Black candle for protection and ridding of negativity
Amber perfume for protection and soothing of nerves
I essentially asked Ra for guidance and protection during our travels. May the journey be smooth and calm, and if we meet any obstacles may they be small and manageable. May we handle these energies with calm and clear minds and understanding.
Salt for grounding and cleansing
Lavender for calm thoughts
Rosemary for gentle protection
Bay Leaf to ward of negativity
I asked Ra to bless this spell jar because it's going to be going on the car with us tomorrow.
Also, I had some witchy ambience music in the background because I prefer some noise to help me focus.