"She Lives Inside Someone’s Locket."

you wear an ancestor's face. you look like a woman you'll never meet. in that mirror, there's thousands of you. and in the bath, when you look down, she looks back, shaking and deforming in the ripples as she lies beneath the surface.

Springtime above Salt Lake City - sound on

i cant wait to have my own home, bake some bread, look out of the window, water the plants… i’ll get there

Spell Jar Basics: Creating and Tailor-Making Your Own Spell Bottles & Jars

(Hello again, everyone! I’m back after a long hiatus - it feels good to be witching again!)

Spell jars are a great and easily modifiable way to do “slow-cooker” magic-stuff that doesn’t require a lot of active participation time, but the combined result is just as - if not more-potent.

THE COMPONENTS: THE JAR

You’ll need a jar, first of all - the size and shape of which should correspond to your intent, ideally. For smaller,”single-burner” spells, you might want a small, corked bottle you can balance a spell candle on. If you were to make a witches’ bottle for protection, you’d want something a little bigger, to hold all the ingredients, and probably something in an amber or other more opaque tone, so you can’t see inside.

Ideally, your jar or bottle would have a lid, for various spell-mechanics purposes-using the jar as a sealant, keeping the contents together while you shake it, and so on.

FILLING THE JAR

Next, you’ll need the components for the “spell” part. Assemble harmonious ingredients that are correspondent to your intent - for instance, if I were to assemble a spell bottle for balance, I’d try to grab some herbs and reagents correspondent to my intent (coriander, sea salt, and so forth), that are mostly yellow (the color I correspond with balance), and, perhaps, keep it down to 5 ingredients, which is the number I correspond with balance. 

Fill the jar or bottle with these ingredients-this is you doing the prep work for your spell! If you intend to shake the contents to reactivate them every so often, for instance, you’d want to leave a bit of room at the top.

You might want to add some extra oomph to your jar for more heavy-duty spells, like tying correspondent ribbon around the jar, or inscribing a sigil or planetary symbol on it.

CASTING THE SPELL

Now that your spell preparations are complete, you’ll need to pick a good time to perform your spell, and choose a way to “activate” it - that is, a spell mechanic to set your intent in motion and do the actual “casting”.

For timing, you’ll want to pick something that,again, corresponds with your intent: You can use the waxing and waning tides of the moon to draw or remove something from your life, use sunsets and sunrises for manifestation and banishment, cast at high noon for an elemental fire influence, or on a clear, dark night for an honorary jar for Nyx - do a little research and listen to your gut!

As for the casting, you have a number of ways to go about it. Here are a couple of popular methods you can pick, mix, and match (but remember, you can always invent a more appropriate method for your own spell!):

Sealing with a Candle: An effective way to complete and cast your spell, with the added bonus of sealing in the contents of your jar for permanent magick. Choose the color of your candle according to your intent, inscribe it with a rune or sigil, anoint it with oil, or/and customize it in any way you see fit to correspond it with your intent and with the contents of the jar. Burn the whole candle at once to cast a spell in one go, or light the candle a little bit every night during the waxing or waning moon to draw or rid, respectively.

Burying the Jar: For spells involving the earth, staking a claim on your own property, magic you don’t want to reverse, or jars honoring cthonic spirits, bury your jar in the dirt, whether it’s in your yard or in a container.

Reversible Spells: Leave the jar’s lid or cork unsealed by wax, but firmly pressed on, perhaps with a string or ribbon to seal the magic in instead. If you ever have need to reverse the spell, you can open up the jar, safely unenchant and dispose of its contents, and clean out the jar with salt and water for later.

Recastable Spells: Leave a generous portion of room in your jar or bottle before sealing, and give it a vigorous shake when you want to re-cast.

Now go forth, and cast!

If you do make any spell jars, I totally want to see them! :>

The Arcana: Portia Devorak.

aesthetic | horror | monster 

Pssst! “Unsung Saint: Crotalus horridus” is now available as a print and other products over at my Society6 . Also, some pretty good cyber Monday deals, if that’s something you’re interested in.

Hopefully my last promotional post for a while, and I’ll get back to working on the third piece in this series.