Too Soft For This World, Too Wild For Another.

I'm with y'all. Altars can be whatever and where ever. For me, in my bedroom, I have a special spot and its just an antique roll top desk, but its for my baby dragons, my crystals, and mostly for soothing my nerves. My other altar area (where most of my pictures are taken), is the dining room. That fluctuates constantly because of what I need to do for the day or of I'm doing my journaling. But it's a space where I mentally set up so I can get stuff done, or my ADHD will come in and I lose focus.

Been seeing a lot of 'you don't need an altar to practice' discourse and while I do believe that can be true for some practices, it is not true for mine.

Altar building is essential in my practice. I make an altar anywhere I worship. I go on a hike and want to offer the apple I brought? Then the stone I sit on is my altar. I want to do some yoga in the park? I bring some food, some water, and maybe a crystal or two. My altar is the dirt and the grass. I want to dance for Hathor in my living room? I move the things I need to the coffee table and that is my altar. My altars are constantly changing and moving. I am always building and taking down altars.

Yes, you don't *need* an altar to practice. Yet, there are so, so many more altars than a permanent one in a room.

Do I have a permanent altar? Yes. I have many. Do I use them? Honestly, barely at all. My most commonly used altars are the ones I build for a particular need and then take down after I am finished. Most don't even last two hours.

If you feel the need to have an altar for your practice, don't be ashamed to have transient ones.

Developing your senses over time.

I was once reading a post about clairaudience and it absolutely changed my perspective early on about thinking I was making up hearing our gods. It went along the lines of how it feels to have a conversation with yourself in your head. Answering your own sentences and questions. But then comparing it to the feeling of having something or someone else answer your question. Changed my way of thinking completely. As well as Helios once or twice going “make me talk.”

I tried. It felt really strange, unnatural and awkward. Then he actually answered me.

I trusted myself a lot more from then on.

I don’t talk to other people with clairaudience so I’m unsure how it works for others, but for me, it was a gradual thing and by the time I realized I did have highly developed psychic senses, for a good minute I was under the impression I had some level of psychosis lol.

At first it was just singular words, then tiny phrases, and then I could have closer to full on conversations. I still have some days where it’s “off” and I don’t get anything. But on most I’m able to fully tune in, focus on a god or entity’s energy and what they’re trying to tell me. Giving channeled messages has been so fucking rewarding, especially when I think about how all this started for me.

When Lord Hermes encouraged me to start giving readings and messages I was unsure if I'd do well. But after doing this for a few weeks I know this is what I was meant to do. This is my path. I love it so much and I thank the gods everyday (and then some) for working with me in this way and how much they’ve encouraged me in my life.

Sensing someone in my room is enough, to be honest. Since I’ll head over to my decks immediately to see what’s up. And sometimes while I’m pulling I’ll get phrases, songs, and full sentences. But I don’t need it anymore, not always. It’s good for clarity, though.

I have lots of funny stories from a few months ago of some gods finding it quite funny that I was in such disbelief about my abilities. I doubted myself a LOT, so much. I constantly prayed to Dionysus for help on quieting my mind. That ended in many conversations about differing the voices of gods to voices that may genuinely come from my head.

And this is just about clairaudience, not any of the other senses I’ve developed that have absolutely spooked the hell out of me. Smelling things, seeings our gods in my minds eye, tastes that are usually unpleasant, and touches that feel like rubbing your socks on a carpet and then touching a doorknob ☠️

It’s opened me up to an entire world I can’t wait to indulge myself in and explore. And I can’t wait to be able to help others do the same too. I hope I can find friends that are like me sometime soon. I know they’re around here somewhere. 🩶

May the gods bless all who stumble upon this and feel a little seen. 💞

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Look buddy, i’m just trying to make it to Friday.

With Halloween being around the corner, and being around other stresses such as work, coworkers going through their own stresses, and my personal stress, I decided to a simple negativity relief spell.

I used a black candle for releasing negativity, protection, and getting rid of some bad luck. I also have some Dragon's Blood incense burning for protection as well.

Also, my altar is not as decorated as it usually is, but I packed most of it up for moving.

And also while I was at Wichita, after working at another Dollar Tree I stopped at Five Below and found this....

It's incense. I love me some good incense during my spell. And these incense have such vampire vibe names. In case they are hard to read they are

Crimson Rose- Red Roses and Patchouli

Midnight Mass- Black Amber and Lavender

Ethereal Nightshade- Black Currant and Dark Vanilla

Nocturnal Forest- White Musk and Sandalwood

Widow's Veil- White Lily and Jasmine

Gothic Romance- Aged Sandalwood and Opopanax

Penny Dreadful- Burnt Sugar, White Sage, and Clove

I finally got my house cleaned up and my space is remotely organized. I feel pretty good about it so far. I still have to catch up on last night's dishes, but that's not much. Also, throw my clothes in the dryer, and I still need to take a shower. I have to do the last two things because Dollar Tree frowns upon nudity, and I can't stand my hair being greasy.

But also I saw some where you can make the tteok (rice cakes) like in tteokbokki at home with rice paper. It will give it a similar effect. The nearest place to get the actual thing is Wichita, so that's not happening today. But I'm just going to see if it works out.

How to reference in your grimoire

If you intend on sharing your grimoire with the public or you're a fan of a more academic style of writing then you're gonna want to reference your sources to avoid any kind of plagiarism.

You may have already learned how to reference at your college/uni, in which case follow that method, but if you haven't let me show you what i've been doing in my grimoire.

The referencing style I was taught in my degree is a form of APA 7th edition. This style is best for essays and small research papers and since my grimoire is essentially a bunch of mini contextual essays stuck together I thought it was appropriate.

Here's the format:

Author Surname, Author Initials. (Date of publication/release). Title of source: sub-heading/title of chapter. Publishing company/website. Place of publication/website link. [Format]

So for example, the book I'm currently reading is Buried by Professor Alice Roberts. If I were to reference this book in this format it would look something like this:

Roberts, A. (2023). Buried, An Alternative History of The First Millennium in Britain: Water and Wine. Simon and Schuster. London. [Book]

(Its up to you whether you decide to put the chapter before the book title, it doesn't make a difference, but I prefer doing it this way.)

This reference will need to follow an in-text citation. You can do that by adding a little number in parentheses next to your quote or paraphrase that corresponds to the number on your list of references OR you can make a mini reference following this method:

(Author Surname, Author Initials. (Date of publication). Page number if required)

So following this method an in-text citation would look like this:

(Roberts, A. (2023). p1)

Tips

If you are citing a source with multiple authors, organised them alphabetically by surname, your in text citation only needs to include the first one.

If you're referencing an online upload of an old source like Internet Archive or Project Gutenberg, include the original authors name first, uploaders name/ID second and mark which is which in parenthesis, then the date of original publication if you can find it, followed by the date it was uploaded to the site.

If you are referencing a film/TV episode, use the name of the director and include (Dir) next to their name.

If you can't find a date of publication/upload then write DNA instead.

Always put your references at the back of your grimoire. If your grimoire contains multiple chapters, group them by each chapter and then organise either alphabetically or chronologically. If your in-text citation uses numbers, organise your reference list chronologically. If you're using a mini reference, organise your reference list alphabetically.

This last bit is especially important for practitioners who intend to publish their work. Please please please do not skip referencing! I've read so many traditionally published witchcraft books who's authors don't do this or do it half-assed and I can't stand it.

Readers deserve to know where your information is coming from so they can be the judge on whether or not it's appropriate for them to practice themselves. Not doing so creates a cycle of ignorance among readers and new practitioners that encourages the spread of cultural appropriation, poor media literacy and poor historical and scientific understanding. Always cite your sources.

Sun Witch

I'm up already, getting jump started on some house work, and coffee already brewed. Said good morning to Ra. Just sitting here drinking my cup of coffee, and enjoying the sunrise for a minute.