The Crafts: Wixes, Spells, and the Weaponized Placebo Effect

Seeing didn't want to say my suspicion in case she was just another traveler because implying people are otherworldly because I had a weird experience wasn't a thing I was comfortable with but. I did meet her at a crossroads.

 

That makes sense. I'm just a paranoid fuck with this shit, I suppose? So like my first response to a lot of weird crap is THROW MILK AT THE PROBLEM even if it is just a weird coincidence because What If It's Not. I work on a Just In Case ritual system, really.

 

I try real hard to be logical about things but given the amount of Weird Shit that happens to my family and myself specifically I probably should err towards throwing milk at problems.

(Speaking of which my shinies keep traveling, time for another offering)

 

Did an interview with a... photography? film? art? student, idr... about witchcraft, identity and gender. It was like an hour before she realised I'm an atheist and don't believe in souls. She found this confusing, but rather interestingly, didn't find it hard to grasp the combination of Jewish/witch or Jewish/atheist. I think this was because she didn't know much about Jewishness, so she was just trusting whatever I said, but she was excitedly exploring witchcraft (though as a self-admitted newbie) and developing a knowledge base, and what I was telling her was kind of shaking it.

These days I do far more studying than practice - not because I'm not confident in my practice, but because there's so damn much to study. Currently focusing on the identifiable Christian influences in neopaganism, plus going to some lectures on Wiccan history. I like it.

 

When I say "I can feel when I'm going to be lucky in the lootbox lottery in this mobile game", that is of course nothing but a Useful Mental Shortcut. If I wait to roll the dice until a time when I am feeling generally good about things, it's easier to accept bad rolls and the idea that "if the rolls are bad, it means it is Not The Lucky Time and I should try again later" helps me avoid the Sunk Cost Fallacy and not be one of those people who lament "I threw an immense amount of paid currency down the drain and didn't get the limited-time anime .jpeg!".

Sure, it *seems* to work, but that's only confirmation bias at work. If I think about it, for every time I got the rare .jpeg (or two of them) in one or two spins, there's another time I wasted a whole five or six spins and decided to stop. (The time I really wanted a specific rare one but instead got two of the super-rare one comes to mind.) I don't actually believe I can somehow manipulate or predict the outcome of a random number generator on a server somewhere. That would just be silly.

 

(and yes, I am aware of what various traditions say on the subject of hubris, however, they're all a mite fuzzy on humblebrag.)

 

I know I'm almost certainly not actually able to move bowling balls into line by waving at them a la Homer Simpson ("Practice practice practice!... Real real real!"), but I still do it and it seems to work.

 

So, part of why I'm so excited to get a blending board (it's a fiber arts tool, I talk about it more here) is because I'm gonna do so much witchcraft with it! Literally the first thing I am planning to do with it is witchcraft. It doesn't arrive until Saturday, probably, but I got started today by dyeing the primary base fiber I want to use the appropriate color.

My approach to craft is at least half sprinting full speed on instinct and free associating correspondences. I knew I wanted green fiber, but it wasn't until I was adding drops of pigment to my mixing cup that I thought "blue water plus yellow sun equals life" and there we have it! So I have grass-green fiber drying, and I need to spend the next few days making sure I can find all the other ingredients I want to use and calculating weights.

I'm aiming for prosperity(stability+growth) - I'm going to make just one board of a specially tailored fiber blend, spin it up, and then knit the yarn into a cord bracelet-type thing, I think. Although I don't know if I would rather install the finished item somewhere in the house or not.

Spoiler: fiber details

Primary fibers:
• dyed-green (prosperity, growth) polwarth (development, bringing together disparate traits for an ideal, strength but also suppleness, lengthy value)
• natural Manx Loaghtan (heritage, survival, resurgence)
• natural grey Finn (heritage, multiplicity, domesticity)
Secondary fibers:
• natural gold camel/silk blend (wealth and how it is carried, brightness)
• peduncle silk (frugality, being one with the weft of the world, untraced)
• pineapple fiber (frugality, welcome, lightness)

 

yesss i love this

 

spinning is honestly such a powerful tool in witchcraft

 

My blending board arrived today, and after doing three boards of practice reprocessing chunks of an art batt into rolags for my sister, I embarked on witchcraft!

Spoiler: weighing fiber

Getting all the right proportions! On top is the camel/silk blend, which feels like something holy its like unearthly soft. I intentionally left it in bigger chunks in the blend for bright spots.

Spoiler: Blending

The act of brushing the fiber down between layers was surprisingly helpful for securing all the right energy

Spoiler: Rolags

Ready to spin! I'm taking a coffee break, then jumping right into it :D

 

I got a bigger candle and some new pens. I also lost my job. 20k words in a week, and I have an interview on Tuesday.

 

good luck with your interview!

 

A quick snapshot of a bit of the yarn spun up, and then the finished charm! I just knit the entire mini-skein into an i-cord, then tied a carrick bend knot with it. I'll consult with my family members about where it goes in the house. I'm super excited to make more like this - either more decorative knots to be put in appropriate places, or maybe some i-cord jewelry for wearable charms.

Spoiler: yarn

Spoiler: charm

 

i love everything about this!

 

Ok finally caught up on thread and done blowing up everyone's notifications, sorry/not sorry/ you're welcome, which means I can drop the post that Kit pointed out should go here in the thread!

Anyway hi I'm Kai, I am a GaelPol who primarily works with Flidhais and also dabbles in chaos magic. I am beginning to work with perfume oils as wearable enchantments (working so far!), and trying to build on the herbalism stuff I grew up with so I have more at my disposal than "this tea for upset stomachs, this poultice for bee stings, this tincture for swimmer's ear" etc.

Umm, what else. I read tarot and want to start learning the ogham but haven't really studied them yet, I'm an aspiring cáinte (GaelPol style poet specializing in satire), I'm no good with rocks but like working with metals, and i have a 20lb cat sleeping across my shoulders right now and am blaming him for not being able to remember if there's any other relevant introductory stuff that people have been putting in here. So, hi. c:

 

...so within a few days of finishing my prosperity charm, my wife's raise kicked in a pay cycle early, and a friend randomly found a high quality spinning wheel (aka captial for my fiber business) for a fantastic discount?

I am super not used to getting obvious results and it's throwing me, tbh.

 

Oh hey, so I almost tripped on the third cat that we don't have for like the third time in the past seven days again last night and was just thinking about it again today, so:

does anyone else have spirits/presences/suspicious series of coincidences living with them that they want to chatter about?

For me, this presence has made itself known in various places I've lived for the last... six-ish years, and its most notable features are 1) predominantly grey, luxuriously sleek/fluffy coat 2) roughly the size of a lynx (it seems to vary) but as far as I can tell seems to have a body shape more like a tiger or jaguar? 3) EXTREMELY LONG TAIL 4) large fluffy paws. Not sure how many claws it has but I'm not convinced it's the standard amount 5) consistent refusal to let anyone glimpse more than one part of it at a time (flash of big fluffy paws hanging out past the edge of furniture, or of a flank rounding a corner, or (more frequently) said VERY LONG tail whipping around a corner but still taking longer than it should to do so because wow have I mentioned long tail)

Some of my roommates when we first started noticing said quadrupedal presence started out by joking that it was a kitsune that had followed me home from Japan after studying there, but 1) distinct lack of people being sexed to death in my house 2) never really got a foxy vibe from it 3) consistent trend of guests and roommates asking about our other cat when both of the flesh-and-blood cats that we have are curled up in plain sight and not moving.

So. I live with (wouldn't really say "have") an Other Cat*


*not to be confused with @OtherCat

 

Wife thinks that the houses on our street are... not haunted... I guess, but vexed by fairies/angry nature spirits because the yards grow lovely fairy rings and the lawnmower dudes mow them over. And we have these just... awful bug-infested disaster houses where shit breaks all the tiiiiiiiiiiime

I am moving out v soon no worry

I personally think we are vexed by shitty property managers who charge us for things they said they would cover, making people unwilling to ask for help and improve the houses, since we get punished for it. But upon reflection it very really could be both. Burning incense at the stove and asking good house spirits to help for some time did nothing observable except things stopped breaking for a bit. There are either no good house spirits left or only one, working very hard but unable to manage the workload of managing this shit residence. I too am unable to manage this shit residence so I understand.

We have developed the habit of buying incense sticks at whatever pop up shop shows up at the events we attend together, like the renaissance fair, or pride, or street fairs. As a result we have a lot of small amounts of incense in small bags with funny names, because I exclusively buy the stuff with weird names to see what "Medieval Champion" or "Razz a Ma Tazz" smells like to an individual smellmongerer. Live a little.

 

D: yyyyeah, poor management of a space and shitty landlords is a great combo of violating hospitality and breaking contracts, great way to piss basically every house-inclined spirit I've ever heard of, wow. I'm glad you can at least get some mileage out of gifting reminders that #notallmortals until you get out of there

I get you with the temptation to pick up incense with interesting names though. I go through it super slowly and have managed to keep from buying any for a while, but having a stash of nice-smelling things is good :)