a beautiful painting

Brigid by Susan Seddon Boulet

 

2014 Printable Sabbats and Esbats

image from http://happynewyearsms.org/happy-new-year-wallpaper-2014.html/15732588-happy-new-year-2014-message-over-black-background

Ok so I FINALLY got it done and here it is.  A few notes as this is the one I use for myself and my coven all times and dates are PST also you will see that I use the cross quarter days. Hope you like it and if you do please leave me a comment 😉

2014-esbats-and-sabbats

 

Candle Magick Video

Some of my Books

To start our Book of Shadows series lets talk about different types one might have. This goes hand in hand with What is in your Book Of Shadows (BOS)  You might choose to document your journey on your path, you might keep spells or rituals or songs, you might keep records of your events, or recipes. You might keep it all together or in separate books. The choice is yours and really you need to figure out what you like. To give you an idea of options I wanted to share this picture of some of my Books. I also keep several folders on my computer with information.  One for my personal BOS, one for our covens book, and one for recipes. Ok so lets look at these Books from left to right I will tell you a little about each.

1. The little one you can hardly see is small and green at the very back. This is my daily journal. Some witches call this a mirror book as it is a reflection of you day-to-day life. Not only is journaling good for your soul and well-being it is nice to record things to look back so you can see how you have grown or if your premonitions came true. I also will write my dreams in here though some folks use a separate book for that. This is also what I would use to do automatic writing.
2. The one with the Tree is my Book of Days. I have this divided by month and I have little bits of lore about each month. I also have menus for each month based on what is available in my area and I have activities for both me and for Little.  Like if I know I’m going to want to serve mead for Mabon I can put the recipe in July so that I know when to make it.
3. The black book on top of the book of days is my Covens record book.  This is rather like a meeting ledger where we record who was present and if anything “interesting” happened also if magic was done who asked for what. We only write on the right hand page so that later coven members can write on the left hand page or on back of the record page to comment on what the experience brought them.
4. Under that the Brown binder is a BOS that I use to store lots of reference material in.
5. The open one in back is my “Real” book I call it a Book of Blessings and it has things in it such as history and ritual that I want to keep permanent. It is also more of an art journal. (Don’t worry we will be going over what goes in a book in much more detail shortly, this is just an overview)
6. The other journal to the right of that is my magic book. I keep all my spells in that and sometimes add art but mostly it has my spells.
7. The black binder is of course my Covens Binder that anyone can add to or copy from and that has the rituals typed up and printed out in large print to make it easy to read by candlelight or moonlight. Lol
8. The cute red one is my Filofax. I always have a planner on me so I always have somewhere to write down spells that come to me or messages or what have you. I also keep some daily prayers in there and a to do list of witchy things I must do.

Sneak peak BOS class

I’m getting ready to start a BOS series over at The Pagan Mamaon facebook but you get a sneak peak at my current books 🙂

Masterpiece Monday work on my BOS

As I have began to explore my creative side I decided to do some work on my BOS. I hear / read about a LOT of people who wont get started on theirs because they want it to be perfect. I was like that for a long time myself. Then I figured I might as well just do it or it would never get done. I gave myself permission to not be perfect and to make mistakes. This is a perfect example of that. Not that it was a mistake I just changed my mind. If you have seen the pictures of my BOS Then you will recognize (maybe) these next two photos. These are how the pages originally were done and after a time I decided I wanted to change them. Today I am sharing with you first of the pages.

I liked the page well enough but later I found this wonderful picture and I wanted to use it in my book. I put it in but it never felt right.

It felt like I had just thrown it in there. So last week I decided to do something about it. I very carefully removed it from the original page. Then I decided to paint the background kind of like space. First black and then specks of all different colors. You can see the flecks better in the last photo. I then pasted on the image and I am very happy with how it turned out.

And here is a close up of the new page

Hope you enjoyed and as always feel free to leave a comment with a link to any Masterpiece you would like to share.

Building a Boundary (bonus spell)

Here is a page from my spell book. As I am doing the Pagan Blog Project with just spells this year I decided to make a new spell book with just spells.

I find this one very useful.

If you can’t read my writing 🙂 It says
Boundary, Boundary, Boundary, Bright
in the dark and in the light
Nothing passes through this line
unless they be friends of mine

You can build this mentally or you can also make the line out of salt.

B is for Blues Be Gone Bath

If you have read my blog you know I am generally an upbeat person. I try to focus on the positive because lets face it we all have the negative and it is easy to lose yourself in the Swamp of Sadness (if you don’t know that reference you NEED to watch Never Ending Story) This however does not mean that I am one of those naturally bubbly person. Now even people who know me, might be surprised by this. My positivity is something that is cultivated.

So when I need a little extra pick-me-up I always go for a bath. For one I love a bath. I use them for a lot of work but Blues-be-gone and Sick-be-gone are two of my favorite. For me the firs thing to do is draw a very hot bath.  I also sprinkle maybe half a cup of my detox bath mix in the bath. I make a batch of this use it till its gone then make a new batch. You can see from the picture above I keep in a Ball canning jar. I just put all the ingredients in and shake it up. then I can pour it right from the jar.
Detox bath mix
1 cup epsom salt
1 cup baking soda
1 tablespoon ginger

Soak in the tub and let your body and mind relax. This is also a good time to do meditation. When you feel you are done with the bath. visualize all the blues and sadness being drawn out of your body and into the bath water.
Say these or similar words
“Blues and Sadness be gone from me!
Sadness and blues you must flee!
Happiness will now abound,
For I am wrapped in love from all around!“
Pull the stop and let the water leach the sadness out of your body and take it down the drain with it.

Towel off and go drink 2 glasses of water. You need to replenish

And if you read my post earlier about being in a broom closet, this is yet another spell you can do in the broom closet again even if you live with non-pagan friendly folk.

This awesomeness happend today

and guess what it starts with B! Books and Binders oh My!

I have not seen my dear friend in ever, and we finally got some girl time to almost catch up. Whats more the sweetheart that she is brought me some Yule gifts!

She had these made! Can you stand it! This is a new Binder that is not mine but the Coven’s. It is SO beautiful and I just love it. I know the other ladies will too!

This one is just for me. You all know I have my handmade art Book of Shadows, but you also know I love my books and have a ton of different ones around. I love this one because it is a binder and I can always put in any and everything I want! I can organize and re organize to my heart’s content lol. isn’t it beautiful? The best most wonderful, sweetest part is this:

I love you forever. Thanks for helping me become Poppy 🙂

B is for Baby (spell)

photo credit: limaoscarjuliet via photopin cc

I am at a certain age where many of my friends are actually TRYING to get pregnant. So this is a spell based on one I wrote for a friend of mine. As I said when I do my spell work, I tend to write a new spell for each individual and need. I would also like to state explicitly (as I have said before) that spells should be done “for the good of all” You will notice that this is a spell that is done with a partner. If your partner is like mine, and doesn’t believe in such nonsense you still need to let them know that you are doing it, and get their permission.

This unlike most spells does not have to be done with the phase of the moon. It should be done when you are ovulating, and before sex. You will want something that symbolizes a baby to you. Maybe a picture or a baby outfit or a statue. What ever speaks to you.
Make sure your bedroom and altar are tidy.

Hold the object between you and your partner’s hand. Place your other hand over theirs and they will do the same. Look into your partners eyes and say this or similar words.

“I love you and you love me,
Together we create our family.
A little being of love and light
sent to us this very night
We promise to be good and true
and to help with all of what life has planned for you.
we offer you us. that’s all we can do
a loving family that is just missing you.”

Once the this is done place your item on your altar so that you will be reminded of it often. And go about the fun part of trying 🙂
You will also want to start acting as if you are pregnant. See my Laws of Attraction post from last week. This means among other things taking your prenatal drinking lots of water and making sure you the vessel of life are calm and comfortable as possible. I am not going to pretend that pregnancy is actually a comfortable state of being. I have heard it is for some but then for others it is kind of rough, the point is to stay peaceful.