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CHEESY BACON AND TOMATO PASTA

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Is this how you roll?

Pluto has five moons – Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra.

Small Candle Spells

Not every witch has the means to collect tons of exotic ingredients.   Sometimes, all you have is a candle and a wish.  So, I have put together 10 small candle spells.  (The types of candles I am talking about are tea lights or small, tapered little fellas.  Relatively cheap and easy to use!)  Hope this becomes a resource for you all!  Let’s get started!  <3 Salt

BLACK CANDLE:  Protection

You will need:

One Black Candle

Sheet of Paper

Pen/Pencil

Spellwork:

Write down what it is you wish to protect, be it your home, your family, yourself, etc.

Light the candle.

Chant the following ten times:

By the time this black candle has waned, the blessing of protection be gained by all that fall beneath its wax be safely guarded from attack. Until the next waxing moon appears, protect all that I have written here.

Allow the candle to burn completely down and the wax to spread across the paper. 

Fold it and keep it until the next waxing moon.

Repeat as often as needed.

WHITE CANDLE:  Spirit Communication

You will need:

One White Candle

Photo of the Person you wish to speak to

Spellwork:

Before bed, light the white candle and focus on the flame.  Let’s its warmth ignite the love you feel for the person you wish to communicate with.

Say their name allowed.  Speak of the memories you have with them.  Let the memory of them come to life in your mind.

When you are ready, recite the following spell:

Before I rest my head for the night, I ask that my heart’s call to you, (say their name), be answered. In dreams, let us be together again and share the embrace of love. I await your visit and, for it, you have my deepest thanks.

Blow out the candle and visualize their face in your mind’s eye.

Once the wax has cooled, place it and the picture together near your bed.  You are free to sleep.  Enjoy the visit!

PINK CANDLE:  Self-Love

You will need:

One Pink Candle

Piece of paper (cut into a heart shape)

Pencil or pen

Spellwork:

On the heart paper, write down the positive aspects and assets you have.  It can be anything (from pretty eyes to being compassionate.)  Fill up the paper and fold it into a half heart.

Hold it in your hands and shut your eyes.  Deeply breathe, and focus on your pulse and the things you wrote.  Focus on yourself.

Recite the following incantation:

I am who I am flawed, challenging, human I am who I am soulful, in communion with the universe I am who I will be ever-changing and growing And I bow to the purpose that resides in me.

Light the heart paper on fire, allow it to turn to ash, and blow out the candle.

Anoint your forehead and the center of your chest with hearts made of ash.  Meditate on the self and what your purpose might me.

Anytime you feel the need to revisit self-love, use the ashes and light the candle again.

PURPLE CANDLE:  Accessing Gifts and Talents

You will need:

One Purple Candle

Spellwork:

On the night of the New Moon, sit in a quiet, dark room.  Light your candle and concentrate on expelling all the static energy from your mind.  

Focus on your the gifts you would like to explore.  An example?  If you are drawn to Tarot, have your deck nearby and envision yourself shuffling the cards.

Repeat the following chant 13 times:

My mind is clear, my heart is too Reveal my gifts, deep and true

Open your eyes and stare into the flame.  Let the fire of inspiration illuminate the talent you want to access.

Invoke the gift by whispering:

On this night, and all nights to come, I will open myself to this ancient power and allow discovery of my true potential.

Blow out the candle and keep by your bedside.  When you practice a gift or talent, light it until there is no more wax.

ORANGE CANDLE:  Calling Your Inner Child

You will need:

One Orange Candle

Divinatory Tool (Suggest: Tarot or Oracle cards)

Spellwork:

Light the orange candle and begin shuffling your cards.

When you feel that you have shuffled enough, hold the cards in your hand and focus on the flames.

Say the following spell:

Bring future to past with this candle’s light and provide for me childish insight. One card to tell me of my woes, another about the child within, a third cast to bring us together so that we may begin again.

Draw three cards.  The first will represent your position right now (who you are and what you have been going through); the second will represent your inner child and what insights they can provide through their innocence.  The third and final card will show you what will happen if you allow the present you and your inner child join together.

Light the candle whenever you need guidance from your inner child again.

LIGHT BLUE CANDLE:  Fortune and Glory

You will need:

One Light Blue Candle

Money (coins or paper money)

An Award or piece of Recognition (trophy, certificate, etc.)

Spellwork:

Anytime on a Sunday (the day where workings for wealth, achievement, goals, and promotions correspond), place your candle between your representations of fortune and glory.

Put one hand on each item, and say:

I humbly ask for the Universe and all the powers within it to look upon these representations of fortune and glory.  I light this candle to honor you and ask for the following blessings…

Light your candle and return your hands to rest on your items.  Recite:  

By the light of this flame, sweet fortune I do claim.   Wealth and wisdom I do gain. By warmth of this flame, glory granted to my name. Recognition I do gain.

Allow the candle to burn until there is no more wax.  Collect what is left, store in a jar, and keep in a place you conduct business.

YELLOW CANDLE:  Invoking the Spirit of Air

You will need:

One Yellow Candle

Spellwork:

At 3 PM, go outside and bathe in the light of the middle of the day.  Light your candle and place it in front of you.

Fisting your hands, place them on either side of the candle and say the following incantation:

Here and now, I call the element of Air.  Summer breeze and roaring wind, echoing melody and lifting wings, ever-dancing.  I call you forth to infuse my intention with your swirling fits of both song and silence.  Carry my will on your back and raise my purpose into your sky.  Breath and cloud, sound and song.  Air, I call you to me.

Open your fists and allow for the spirit of Air to translate through your palms and into your center.

Let the candle burn for five minutes and then blow it out, keeping it when you need it again.

GREEN CANDLE:  Invoking the Spirit of Earth

You will need:

One Green Candle

Spellwork:

At night, go outside and bathe in the light of the moon.  Light your candle and place it in front of you.

Fisting your hands, place them on either side of the candle and say the following incantation:

Here and now, I call the element of Earth.  Soil of fertility and growth, fecund source of stability, stillness and health.  I call you forth to filter away all that is impure, and to stand rooted in this world.  Mountain and dust, footstep and stone.  Earth, I call you to me.

Open your fists and allow for the spirit of Earth to translate through your palms and into your center.

Let the candle burn for five minutes and then blow it out, keeping it when you need it again.

DARK BLUE CANDLE:  Invoking the Spirit of Water

You will need:

One Blue Candle

Spellwork:

At twilight, go outside and bathe in the light of the fading sun.  Light your candle and place it in front of you.

Fisting your hands, place them on either side of the candle and say the following incantation:

Here and now, I call the element of Water.  Tranquil and powerful, rippling and deep, abundant resource of life.  I call you here to infuse my intention.  Wash my will in your flow, carry my purpose on your current.  Dewdrop and lake, clarity and storm.  Water, I call you to me.

Open your fists and allow for the spirit of Water to translate through your palms and into your center.

Let the candle burn for five minutes and then blow it out, keeping it when you need it again.

RED CANDLE:  Invoking the Spirit of Fire

You will need:

One Red Candle

Spellwork:

At sunrise, go outside and bathe in the light of the new dawn.  Light your candle and place it in front of you.

Fisting your hands, place them on either side of the candle and say the following incantation:

Here and now, I call the element of Fire.  Heat and flame, passion and love, anger and wildfire.  I call you forth to burn away all that impedes my highest vision and to enact change in the world.  Lightning and hearth, heart and forge.  Fire, I call you to me.

Open your fists and allow for the spirit of fire to translate through your palms and into your center.

Let the candle burn for five minutes and then blow it out, keeping it when you need it again.

Ravens have paranoid, abstract thoughts about other minds

Add this to logic puzzles, human speech repetition and nonvocal signals as things ravens can do

Cementing their status as the most terrifying of all the birds, a new study has found that ravens are able to imagine being spied upon – a level of abstraction that was previously thought to be unique to humans. 

The ability to think abstractly about other minds is singled out by many as a uniquely human trait. Now, a study from the Universities of Houston and Vienna have found that ravens are able to adapt their behaviour by attributing their perceptions to others.

The study, published in Nature Communications, found that if a nearby peephole was open, ravens guarded pockets of food against discovery in response to the sound of other birds – even if they didn’t see another bird. This was not replicated when the peephole was closed, despite hearing the same auditory clues.

According to the study’s authors, the discovery “shed[s] a new light on Theory of Mind” – the ability to attribute mental states to others. A number of studies have found that animals are able to understand what others see – but only when they can see the head or eyes, which provide gaze cues. This suggests that these animals are responding only to surface cues, and are not experiencing the same abstraction as humans.

The ability to hide food is extremely important to ravens, and they behave completely differently when they feel they are being watched – hiding food more quickly, for example, and are less likely to return to a hiding place for fear of revealing the location to a competitor.

The study replicated this behaviour. Two rooms were connected by windows and peepholes, both of which could be opened and closed. The ravens were trained to look through the peepholes to observe human experimenters making stashes of food. Finally, both windows were covered while a single peephole remained open – and, though no bird was present, the ravens still hid the food as if they were being watched.

“We showed that ravens can generalise from their own experience using the peephole as a pilferer, and predict that audible competitors could potentially see their caches through the peephole,” the authors wrote. “Consequently, we argue that they represent ‘seeing’ in a way that cannot be reduced to the tracking of gaze cues.”

Although ravens may not seem similar to humans, the two species do have something in common – their social lives. Like humans, ravens go through distinct social phases, from fluid interaction with other birds as adolescents to stable breeding pairs in adults. “There is a time when who is in the pack, who’s a friend, who’s an enemy can change very rapidly,” said Cameron Buckner, lead author of the research. “There are not many other species that demonstrate as much social flexibility. “Ravens cooperate well. They can compete well. They maintain long-term, monogamous relationships. It makes them a good place to look for social cognition, because similar social pressures might have driven the evolution of similarly advanced cognitive capacities in very different species”.

It’s not the only thing ravens can do – they’ve also been found to mimic human speech, complete complex logic puzzles and show empathy for fellow birds, which Buckner says could “change our perception of human uniqueness”. “Finding that Theory of Mind is present in birds would require us to give up a popular story as to what makes humans special,” he said. “Completing this evolutionary and developmental picture will bring us much closer to figuring out what’s really unique about the human mind”.

More than 400 years after Galileo Galilei discovered the first of Jupiter’s moons, astronomers have found a dozen more — including one they’ve dubbed “oddball” — orbiting the planet. That brings the total number of Jovian moons to 79.

The team of astronomers originally wasn’t even looking for the 12 new moons. Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science says he and his colleagues had been trying to track down a giant planet they think may be lurking at the outer reaches of our solar system.

As part of that search, Sheppard was using the 4-meter Víctor Blanco Telescope in Chile in March of last year and realized that Jupiter was right near the part of the sky he wanted to search.

“So we could also search for Jupiter moons while looking for things that are well beyond Pluto,” Sheppard says.

Galileo Would Be Stunned: Jupiter Now Has 79 Moons

Image by Roberto Molar Candanosa, courtesy of Carnegie Institution for Science

Unless you've been poisoned or your liver and kidneys aren't working, your body doesn't need a "cleanse" of anything. It cleanses itself of waste and toxins regularly just fine.

This is doubly true for "cleanses" based on junk science with coffee enemas or other gross nonsense.

A Beginner’s Guide to Candle Magic

The very first spell that most folks cast happens on our birthdays. Someone lovingly purchases or bakes a cake for us and candles, representing our age, are placed on top. Those candles are lit and as we close our eyes, we are told to make a silent wish and blow them out.

Many believe that this tradition dates back to ancient pagan rituals. Our birthdays were considered to be important since they marked our entry into this world. The candles on the cake held great force and power and, once blown out, the wish was carried by the smoke and sent to the gods. The gods, in turn, would receive the message and grant the wish.

Candles are integral to spell-casting and are arguably the best and most inexpensive way to get started. Most of us have a supply of candles or tealights in our homes, and some light them at night while having dinner, reading a book or writing. However, candles symbolize elements - earth, air, water and fire and, if you have a desire in mind, all you need is fire and the intent to make it happen.

Candle colours and their correspondences

One of the most important aspects of candle magic is to use the right colour candle. Some spells are rigid and need a precise colour or shade of a colour while others are more open-ended. If you are unsure of which candle to use, always use a white candle - it’s a neutral and pure colour that can be used for anything. Here are the main candle colours and their correspondences:

White

Cleansing homes

Purifying spaces

Creating harmony

Invoking spirits

Improving communication with others

Summoning guides and angels

For use in every situation

Blue

Promoting restful sleep

Finding the truth

Gaining wisdom and knowledge

Invoking psychic visions

Calming emotions

Suppressing anger

Aiding meditation

Moving your house

Becoming more patient with others

Curing a fever

Having a better understanding

Protection

Red

Promoting strength and vigor

Rejuvenating energy and stamina

Conjuring willpower

Summoning courage

Inciting passion and sexual love

Sparking enthusiasm

Prompting quick results

Warding off enemies

Becoming more attractive to others

Pink

Healing emotions

Attracting romance

Becoming more caring

Inviting peace and tranquility

Healing rifts

Banishing selfish emotions

Protecting family and friendships

Invoking spiritual healing

Being more compassionate

Green

Accumulating money and wealth

Promoting prosperity and abundance

Accomplishing goals

Growing plants

Attracting luck

Negotiating employment matters and finding new jobs

Hastening conception and solving fertility issues

Casting out greed and resentment

Yellow

Increasing activity

Resolving health matters

Nurturing creativity and imagination

Passing exams and learning

Aiding concentration

Controlling mood swings

Protecting yourself when travelling

Persuading others

Healing problems associated with the head

Orange

Increasing energy and stamina

Improving the mind and memory

Promoting success and luck

Developing business and career

Helping those with new jobs

Clarifying legal matters and justice

Selling goods or houses

Capturing a thief or recovering lost property

Removing fear

Purple

Summoning spirit help

Bringing peace and tranquility and harmony

Improving psychic ability

Aiding astral projection

Healing

Easing sadness

Improving male energy

Summoning spiritual protection

Brown

Attuning with the trees and earth

Promoting concentration

Helping with decisiveness

Protecting animals

Amplifying assertiveness

Aiding Friendships

Bringing material gain

Gaining mental stability

Connecting with Mother Nature

Studying and learning

Silver

Summoning the Mother Goddess

Drawing down the moon

Connecting with lunar animals

Purifying female energy

Improving all psychic abilities

Aiding clairvoyance and the unconscious mind

Ridding negativity

Developing intuition

Interpreting messages in dreams

Banishing bad habits

Gold

Healing and enhancing well-being

Rejuvenating yourself

Improving intelligence

Bringing financial gain and wealth

Winning competitions

Attracting love and happiness

Maintaining peace in families

Cosmic ordering

Black

Protection

Strength

Banishing

Reversal

Hex-breaking

Choosing and cleansing your candles

It’s important to magically disinfect your candles before use - most are mass-produced across the world, often in less-than-ideal conditions and, because wax is a vessel for energy, every person that has come into contact with your candle has effectively deposited some of their energy into the wax.

There are many ways to cleanse candles before a spell and most folks have a ritual that works for them. Some people enjoy a prolonged ceremony of candle cleansing while others leave them in the garden to soak up moonlight. Below is a method of cleansing referred to as “anointing” and involves water and oils to prepare the candle before the ritual begins.

Step 1: Wipe Clean

Wipe the wax with a paper towel, removing all traces of debris and dust.

Step 2: Prepare a solution

Mix salt and water into a saucepan on medium heat. Once the salt dissolves, let cool.

Step 3: Intent

Standing in front of the sink, hold the candle in your left hand. Pour a small amount of the saline solution over the candle, being careful not to wet the wick. Take a fresh paper towel and dry thoroughly while saying:

“This magickal water cleanses thee,

With good intent and purity.”

Step 4: Inscribing

With a small paring knife or needle, scratch your full name and your goal into the wax. It doesn’t matter where you inscribe the words, and it’s not important that they’re particularly legible. Once the candle is lit, these words will burn away and give the spell more clout.

Step 5: Anointing

Pour some vegetable oil into a small bowl. You can feel free to mix in herbs that are associated with your spell’s intent. Hold the candle in your left hand again. Dip the first finger of your right hand into the oil and run it down the candle from top to bottom in a line. Say this invocation:

“This magickal oil anoints thee, with all things good, magickally.”

Step 6: Rhyming and Repetition

One of the ways we can add more power to a spell is by repeating the incantation over and over. Often, prewritten spells, both ancient and modern, will rhyme with some kind of poetic fluidity. Repetition will help enforce the message.

Step 7: Ending the spell

After repeating your spell the desired number of times, you will need to close the ritual. Choose one of the phrases below to say before looking upward and saying thank you.

“And so it is.”

“The spell is cast.”

“So mote it be.”

–

Sources other than my grimoire:

Robbins, Shawn, and Charity Bedell. The good witchs guide: a modern-day wiccapedia of magickal ingredients and spells. New York: Sterling Ethos, 2017.

You can worship a deity without being devoted to that deity. You can make offerings without making oaths. It is okay. Please do not stress yourselves out because you want to make a thank-you offering but don’t want to make a lifelong commitment. Why would you need to swear oaths to say thank you? It is totally okay to just make conversation without involving vows and stuff.

“what time is it” you ask, i pull out my 2.7 metric ton granite sundial and immediately crush both of your feet, I loudly announce “it is cloudy”

Greek God Offerings

Collected from my grimoire. ***EDIT: I’ll make a part 2, since I cant fit any more gods on this post. :)

Aphrodite

A variety of plants and herbs; lady’s mangle, roses, rosehips, mint, jasmine, pear, plum, apples, honeysuckle, cinnamon, daisy, myrtle, iris

Anything pink/green

Olive oil

Crystals; rose quartz, jasper, emerald, topaz, peridot (any beautiful gemstones)

Love letters/songs/stories/poetry

The Empress tarot card

Beauty products

Self-care

Copper

Ares

Wine, especially red

Frankincense incense

Daggers or other weapon

Dog statues

Depictions of vultures

Fresh meats/meals with meat

The color red, even in candles

The Chariot tarot card

Apollo

Music, art, poetry, dance

Laurel, cypress, apples

Anything golden/yellow

Yellow and golden cakes

Yellow jasper, sunstone

Sports/competition objects

Animals; lions, wolves, swans, crows, etc

Hyacinthus, frankincense

Depictions of the sun/light

Orange juice/light colored juices

Artemis

Nature walks

Depictions of the moon

Animals; deer, geese, dogs, bees, bears

Almonds, amaranth, cannabis, cedar, cypress, daisies, hazel, mugworth, myrtle, willow

Honey

Moonstone, pearl, quartz, silver, turquoise, iron, aluminum, diamonds

White and silver candles

Athena

Milk, olive oil, wine, honey

Sweet smelling herbs and flowers

Bread, cakes, grains, fruits, olives

White/blue candles

Roses

Owls

Studying

Demeter

Wheat, barley, penny royal, poppy, sunflowers

Cornucopia

Pig, snake, owl depictions

Frankincense, myrrh

Honoring the seasons

Fruits

Dionysus

Wine

Fruits like apples and grapes

Meats

Pine

Frankincense

Depictions of snakes, leopards, bulls

Theater

Going to a festival

Roses

Hades

Anything dog related

Black colors, crystals, candles, etc

Metals, stones

Mint

Bones

Hermes

Coins

Strawberries

Wine, olive oil, honey

Frankincense, styrax

Dice/card games

Traveling

Hekate

Olive oil

Honey

Spellwork, charms, etc

Herbs

Purple/black colors

Anything dog related; dog hair, etc

Black/purple crystals; onyx, amethyst, etc

Poseidon

Horse depictions

Coffee

Fish

Mint

Anything blue/ocean related

Zeus

Depictions of eagles/bulls

Cinnamon, wine, cakes, pastries, meat, fish

Fruit

Oak, ash, pine

Frankincense