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

my time has come

 

Started the god list. It is obviously woefully incomplete because there are a LOT of gods. It also includes heroes and ancestors who while not necessarily considered gods are still venerated. Feel free to add to it or correct it.

 

Note that some folk Catholic practices are even more closed. In Corsica, there are prayers that only women can learn, and only at midnight on Christmas day. The current bishop hates this because witchcraft, but then again, no one can stand him either.

 

Wanted to write down/record this spell that I did on a whim. A friend-wix is doing a heavy curse on misogynists, homophobes and dictatorship apologists, whose hate speech has been rampant this week in Brazil, and I'm not comfortable with cursing but I thought I could help by making an impromptu protection spell for queer people, like I'd been meaning to make.

I made a little altar with a yellow candle in the centre - fire, light, a place in the sun. I placed that atop candy wrappers from my friend Gui's going-away party, which was the one moment in the past few months in which I felt a sense of hope, strenght and queer solidarity, and wrappers from gifts given by my ex-girlfriend, who's been having panic attacks in which she fears she'll be a victim of homophobic violence. All cute and colorful too because I really wanted a sense of color and joy. Next to that, I made a circle out of doll-sized porcelain tea sets I got from my mom when I was a child - for home, family and familiar comforts. Behind that circle I placed a nice perfume with a pretty, colorful bottle - for love, color, air, sexuality. Along the circle I placed 3 red candles shaped like apples - nourishing, light, heat, intensity, color again. Then I took two crude ceramic figurines I made myself, one a delicate man with deer antlers and soft yarn hair dreamily holding a rose, the other a girl with cow ears and horns, her body made of stars, her torso wrapped in a long red plait, her neck covered by a lace scarf, and placed them on each side - gender, mother and father, the earth and the stars, art, soft dreams. Last I took a crude bowl mug I made myself, which hasn't even been glazed, filled it with water, used it to fill all the teacups and dishes in the porcelain tea set with water, put a tiny tiny tiny moonstone in the dish closest to me, submerged in the water, don't ask me why, just seemed neat.

Then I sprayed the perfume over myself and the circle, did the kinda modified sign-of-the-cross I make, which ends with a hand upon my heart rather than two hands joined together in prayer, and I told God* I needed to do a ritual because just speaking didn't feel as powerful, because my faith has been very shaken by recent political events. I told him that as he well knows I operate on the principle that God created me as I am to be a spokesperson and a trailblazer for queer people just by virtue of living a good life, and to make art; and that even if I feel he doesn't actually want me to do that, if I feel he abandons me and I'm alone, I'll still do that with whatever power I have left, because my heart is dedicated to the task - and I believe he made it so, because even if I feel forsaken, I never truly am. And then I contemplated the altar, rambled and begged and called for protection for queer people's homes and hearts - all the things I put on the altar; their art, their homes, their objects of affection, their dreams and their world and their comfort. Activating the spell with tears and with song and with laughter, I said that as long as God gives me courage when I falter I'll contribute to that protection with everything I can give.

Then I poured the water of all the tiny porcelain teacups and dishes on my body - from my left wrist to my shoulder, from my shoulder to my right wrist, on my shoulderblades and down my chest and belly, from my hair dwn to my forehead and face, and down my back. I sang a song that was stuck in my head this morning even though I'd only heard it once, several weeks ago, and can't even find it on the internet, and drank the water on the clay cup. I choked on it when I took the first gulp and it made me laugh a bit - it felt, somehow, like part of the "price" required to activate the spell, along with the tears and laughter.

Then I put all the stuff away, smiling. I'm feeling a lot safer and a lot better already.

Edited to add: the song I sung was Estrela D'Alva, by Antonio Nóbrega:
Ó estrela d'alva, olha a luz do dia [O morning star, look at the daylight]
Ó estrela d'alva, olha a luz do sol [O morning star, look at the sunlight]
Ó estrela d'alva, não me deixe sem meu guia, [O morning star, don't leave me without guidance]
Ó estrela d'alva, não me deixe só [O morning star, don't leave me alone]

 

So I still haven't abandoned my shitty Homestuck magic project. I've gone and designed a Homestuck mandala. For those not in the know as to what exactly mandalas are they are basically diagrams of the universe. Symbolically but diagrams nonetheless.

The Homestuck mandala is contained entirely within a universe frog, whether we are going with simple or complex forms. We'll be assuming complex for this post I guess. Anyway. In the eyes of each frog is a galaxy, one green and one red. These represent the universes A and B created by John and the others. In the middle of the frog's belly is the Aspect Wheel, which is a circle split into twelve roughly equal chunks. At the center of the wheel is a smaller circle which is Skaia. Surrounded the wheel in a circle are the constellations and the Twelve Troll Families. In the "corners" of the frog there are four small moons. There are 2 moons for both Derse and Prospit. I am undecided on how many pillars each will have but I like the number three a lot. To the tops and bottoms of the frog's belly are the kids. The Betas are on the top and the Alphas on the bottom. Surrounding all of this meanwhile are the two cherub snakes circling one another in an attempt to eat each other. I might also stick the planets in between the players and the cherubs.

For some additional shit the Aspect Wheel is split into two halves, so to speak. The Space half, which is the self and form, and the Time half, which is movement and the passage of time. The Space half's aspects are Space, Blood, Hope, Life, Heart, and Light. The Time half's are Time, Breath, Rage, Doom, Mind, and Void. Though I might switch Light and Void's positions on the wheel...I want to get it set up so that where Space ends Time begins and vice versa. In terms of how I want the symbols arranged on the wheel.

Which brings up the matter of trolls. The families will be arrange in zodiac order. So Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces. Not the orders that stick the cancer trolls at the bottom or some other fucking place. I am undecided on what order I want the kids arranged. Though I might go Jade, John, Rose, Dave and Jane, Jake, Dirk, Roxy. Maybe. My reasonings there being "it is neat and orderly to me".

A write up of why the fuck all of this is even going in a frog will come at some point.

 

Final planet order in the B2 session?

Gonna do anything with the homestuck house/door?

Also, are you using the aspect symbols proper or the fraymotif circles or both?

 

Going to be using the aspect symbols proper. Fraymotif circles seem more like...actively doing a thing as opposed to simply representing something.

Also final planet order might work yeah? I will have to look that up exactly though...

 

As far as the door. I don't really know? I might stick the door outside and around the frog though.

 

So, how am I adding to this? Do I go adding gods and heroes and ancestors that I know about, that I have had interactions or experiences with, or just like, 'ones I can think about that i don't see on the list?'

 

Just ones that you can think of to add to the list. Also if you know that some gods are present in other traditions feel free to go ahead and add them. So like there's a lot of crossplay between Hindu and Buddhist deities. Visnu is present in both mythologies, though he is conceived of differently.

 

hhh i feel like talking about my weird casual neopagan leanings so ???

Spoiler: idk why im spoilering this lol

im still not sure what i believe, per se, but i sorta realized that ive gradually begun liking the idea of certain deities, specifically hermes and athena. i have what i realize now is a lil athena shrine on my desk, my SO got me a super nice stone statuette of athena and ive flanked it with a tiny hourglass and some aspirin in a tiny jar that i made in chem class. i have a cinnamon-scented tea light in front of it but cinnamon really isn't her i dont think, ill have to go invest in one of those sea-breeze type ones because ?? that is where my mind goes i guess. ive found that having her there makes me more conducive to actually....study and work, i guess?

i have a mercury dime necklace that i wear....pretty damn near always, and ive been thinking of ways to make a portable type shrine for hermes, probably out of a mint tin that im currently working through. (this is why i asked about plants before btw :P) ive actually filled the tin with altoids bc for some reason hermes is very wintergreen to me, so. neato! (ive also designed a sigil for him and its everywhere now help) i just really understand what he...stands for, i guess? it speaks to me in ways that i find surprising

ive done almost all of this without even really consciously thinking about it! so. i guess it's a thing??

also, tarot ramblings:
i did a basic get to know ur deck type of reading a while ago, plus some generic questions - the deck is definitely nice n willing to help, which is good, but MAN is it blunt af. i asked it various open-type questions about the future and pulled "the hanged man" as an answer 5 times in a row, with shuffling in between. so. that was definitely a Thing.

 

I've got a mint tin portable shrine to Manannán. Can confirm that they are lovely things to have around.

And yeah gods can be very much swooping down and integrating themselves into your lives without you noticing them!

 

thinking about it, I have what is basically a tiny Bastet shrine hidden away in my closet, and I mean, if you've seen my selfies you've probably seen the necklace I always wear.

Spoiler: said necklace

I don't really think I'm particularly religious, I guess. It's just an important Em thing, I guess. Like, since I was super little.
My first Bast necklace broke right before high school, and I was super upset until I managed to get a replacement.
I don't know.

 

Honestly, my religion/spirituality is basically just "I make shit up as I go along".
Like, I've included stuff from Undertale and Hatoful Boyfriend. Gods and OCs are about on the same mental level. I have no idea what I'm doing.

 

If it helps any I have one very structured thing and one much less but still pretty structured thing and I still have no idea what I am doing.

 

I mean, yeah, fair enough, that is true.
It's always been just, my thing is egyptian mythology, like as a special interest, and then Bastet as a very specific thing.
Like, this is the one I have latched onto, for no real apparent reason. I mean, it could just be another facet of the Em Really Likes Cats And Basically Acts Like One thing, but who knows.
According to my mom, baby me would put down their religion as egyptian mythology. Go you, baby me.

 

The Kemetics on Tumblr are... Weird, though. I'd say it's the one religion which makes rule 34 artworks of its gods, but it has not to be the only one.

 

Tumblr Kemeticism is a thing yeah.

And there's no way it's the only one. No damned way.

 

I accidentally wrote "the Kemetic fandom" when I wrote the last post, and considered keeping it that way, but then I remembered it's how some of them actually call themselves.

 

Honestly the thing that stands out to me the most with them though is calling themselves a fandom. It seems to be some sort of injoke thing. Or at the very least they will get offended when people outside the group call them that dismissively. Because fucking obviously if it is being used as an insult it is rude.