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

They still grow wine grapes in England.

 

So Imbolc is a specifically Gaelic thing, not just a Celtic one. As Lib said it marks the beginning of Spring. While Imbolc has been picked up neo-pagans Imbolc traditions have continued into the modern day in the Gaelic countries as Lá Fhéile Bríghde. Celebrations of that day incidentally are where a lot of the practices recon polytheists use come from. It's also not quite New Year's. That honor goes to Samhainn actually, Samhainn being the mark of Winter among other things.

Anyway...Imbolc practices as I know them center very heavily around Bríghid, a goddess of the hearth, healing, poetry, law, blacksmithing and more. She and her magical cow that is white with red tipped ears basically walk around the whole world as spring comes. They stop at house to house, eating up and taking naps before continuing on their quest. Assuming they were appeased your stuff will be blessed. But how does that all work? Well, first off you make yourself an effigy of Bríghid, based on people making dolls of the Saint Brigit in Ireland and such. Unfortunately there can't really be any parading her about from home to home given how small a community we are. Still you make this doll of her and you give it a seat at your table. As with all the festivals a big meal is something very important and being hospitable to Bríghid is of dire importance. If you can manage it you burn the food you gave her for dinner. You also make the doll a bed and put it to sleep later in the night. Apparently someone is supposed to watch the doll all night but you likely won't be able to do that. Additionally you will also want to give Bríghid's cow a treat. I use apples.

Which then leads to the next bit. Blessings. On the night of you leave out items to be blessed. Things like tools, clothes, and the like. You can also leave out a section of cloth called the brat. The brat is to be given to pregnant women or women who will become pregnant. Helps ensure safe childbirth if I recall. It's worn as a sort of cloak. Another craft thing you can do is make crós bríde which, like other things, you can set out to be blessed. The Bríghid's cross is to be set up either at the threshold of your home or above the stove. Above the stove it protects against fires. Above the threshold it again protects against fires and is a multi-purpose fuck you to shit that wants to enter your home and be dickish to you and your family. The last bit of blessed items are the clootie rags. Basically take a bit of fabric and cut it up into ribbons. Then tie these to a tree. In the morning after you check on the ribbons. If they've grown at all Bríghid visited your home. The ribbons may then be worn in your hair or sewn into clothing or tied into jewelry or something. It's a sort of protective thing.

Another big thing I've noticed that people do is cleaning. Lots and lots of cleaning. A thorough cleaning of the entire fucking house. Spring cleaning, yo. Except religiously.

One final thing I can think of to do on the day is divination. Especially fríth. Fríth is basically a sort of ritualized omen seeking based divination. You call upon Bríghid's aid in finding an answer to a question and then read the omens she (possibly) sends. Given that Imbolc is Bríghid's big day you can see why doing this on Imbolc might be a good idea, yes?

All of this is done, as Lib said, to thank Bríghid for getting you all safely through Winter and to prepare for Spring and the warmer half of the year.

 

It's definitely an energy thing. In my mom's case she's by no measure a wix (she fooled around with oujia and hypnosis as a teenager, got scared, and hasn't touched witchy things since). I, conversely, am the witchchild of my generation (the youngest ladyshape of each generation of my mom's family is spiritual/witchy, it's a Thing), but I don't do the thing nearly as much as she does. Instead I have passive divination shit like haunted-iPod-syndrome and ghost type pokemon appearing on necromancy posts thanks to that Pokes xkit extension.

 

Cool! I didn't know that. :D

 

My whole family has... weird luck, for what it's worth; I think I've mentioned that before.

 

This is absolutely hilarious and gr9. Janus is the primary deity i worship and i can 10000% confirm that he is a snarky bastard. I love him lots.

 

[ipod plays a cat themed song while I read the Cheshire Cat arc of Pandora Hearts] see! see!!!!!

 

Winter is basically just starting here. :/

 

Some Gaelpols move the Quarter Days to match up with the seasons as they are where they live. Especially those in the Southern Hemisphere. I personally just go with the dates because ehhhhhhh I am shit at seasons.

 

Mrgh.
Being spiritual in some way is pretty important to me. But I am having trouble knowing where I fit, what I could do, what- if anything- resonates properly with me.
I have Sekhmet and Tyr and the small gods, sorta. But I keep having second thoughts like I just latched on to them not because they are actually right for me (well, except maybe the small gods) but because I was like 'look look me too i can play too!'
I don't feel like I'm spiritually sensitive, I don't feel like I have any Good Spiritual Inner Qualities. I once wrote on here about how I'd really like someone to do a sort of reading on me, but was afraid that I just wanted someone else to define what I was because I don't know- I still don't know.
At the moment I'm sort of in a place of turmoil in my life- things are ending, there are the potentials for beginnings, it's change and I loathe change and I'm scared and small. And have no spoons to do things, which doesn't help. I feel like this is the sort of time when 'real' beliefs become stronger, something to cling to, but instead they're just getting shoved to the back of my mind and forgotten because I don't have the energy to do anything fancy.
I just wish I knew where I fitted.

 

Heyyy, I'm in p much the same boat there. I've always felt kind of aimlessly spiritual but I've never been able to direct it towards anything because I can't make myself believe in gods the same way that some people do - I don't feel like anything can be flawless enough that I can just give it the reins like that. But at the same time, I feel like something is missing there - and also, I've begun to notice that in recent years my feeling of being spiritual (that's such a vague way to put it but I can't think of a better one :P) has been slowly decreasing or draining away. Like if I don't acknowledge it and use it, then I'll stop feeling all the life and possibility inherent in things around me. Something like that. I don't like it.

What I've been thinking of doing is starting a small indoor garden or terrarium. I don't currently have any daily rituals or practices at all - nothing more involved than "usually I make myself coffee after I wake up." I think gardening would be good for me because I'm not that great with plants. I don't have the attention span. So keeping a small garden would require effort, it would focus me and make me repeat the same activity every day, and it's also inherently spiritual in and of itself imo. I know my mom's garden is at least partly spiritual for her. I think it's a good entranceway for other spiritual things to possibly happen in my life, if they are going to? And regardless of what else happens I get some delicious fresh herbs and things.

 

I get something a bit like that too. I really don't like not feeling spiritual because it makes the world seem flat and pointless, but when I don't have the energy to think about spiritual stuff, it starts to get lost. I feel like it shouldn't be such a drain to do spiritual things; other people always seem to say it reenergises them. Something is wrong, somewhere. Wish I knew what it was.

Starting a garden sounds like a great idea! Green, fresh things are so... idk, green and fresh. I'm hoping that when I eventually manage the whole moving-out-and-getting-a-place-of-my-own thing I'll not only feel more grounded and safe because My Space but I'll also be able to set up some kind of shrine/spiritual area in a corner and keep it from getting overrun by other shit like the current sort-of-area I have in my room is, because my room is tiny and I have too much stuff.
I definitely need to unclutter a bit. ._.
I didn't really think of including plants but now you've said it I think having a few might be an excellent idea. Probably succulents of some kind because they're hard to kill. >>

 

This is absolutely not the case. There's nothing wrong with you, I've known plenty of people who are drained by doing spiritual/witchy stuff. It's like the introvert/extrovert difference - some people are energized by it, and that makes it meaningful for them. Some people lose energy and the energy they could have used on other things is meaningful for them. Neither is better than the other.

 

...Thanks. That's actually kind of cool.
Trouble is, I need all the energy I have at the moment for keeping going and doing other things. xD Which is sort of depressing. It's a good way of looking at it, though. It IS worth it to me to sacrifice energy, I just don't have any I can afford to sacrifice right now...
All of a sudden though I am pleased by the thought of maybe getting a window box or something for the nature spirits. I am a little worried for the nature spirit in one particular area I sometimes walk the dog through. It was an area of footpath that was so overgrown for ages that the established path ended up going round it, and every time they cut it back it got overgrown again really quickly, but I guess recently they got fed up of that and cut it back super savagely and it's been open for ages. Some of that is probably just that it's winter and everything is sleeping but I still worry.

 

No one worth your time is going to be mad at you for not giving what you don't have.

(This is incidentally one of the reasons Janus is important to me--because nothing is ever all one way or the other, because it feels like i always have one foot on either side of every line. So i know that if im in a barren season when i can't even feed myself much less make him offerings, then he still means that there is a seed of worship left in my heart, even if its small or sleeping. It'll come back, or I'll come back to it. And the same way, when im very active and involved in worship and spellwork there's that opposite pole reminding me to stay grounded in the real, to come back to the rest of things too. He's right there in the doorway coming or going, and he never holds it against me whichever way I walk.)

 

If anyone has been following along in this thread, my D&D dice are suddenly rolling terribly for no reason in this campaign. I'm probably going to stick them in a jar of seawater outside tonight and try to pour some luck into their bag. I should note that dice I buy for other people seem to be weighted for high rolls. To the point that when one player found out I'd picked out and bought my husband's (pink, sparkly, multiple-nat20-rolls-per-fight) set, he begged me to buy his set for him. If nothing else my dice bag will smell nice.

 

From what I'm reading in that thread, I'm kinda thinking (like, I'm being maybe 65% serious here) that it might be related to something your players did.

 

@Starcrossedsky
Did you know about the existence of this thing?

 

Yep! It's lowkey on my wishlist but it's generally a bit too much of a Pastel Watercolor Aesthetic Hell for me.

 

Fair enough! I know what you mean. xD It just reminded me of you!