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

http://www.tarot.com/tarot/decks/hermetic/box
oh yeah and this is my tarot deck. I like it cause it's packed full of symbolism lol

 

Ratatoskr is an amusing bit of the Norse cosmology, so cool alt name to pick!

(For those who don't know, he's a squirrel who runs up and down the great worlds-tree Yggdrasil, and his primary attested behavior is that he carries messages and insults between the eagle that lives at the top of the tree and the wyrm Níðhöggr, who chews at its roots. He's said to deliberately antagonize both of them by his manner of telling, exaggerating things.)

 

I love Ratatoskr
To be honest he's my favourite bit of Norse myth canon
I don't have any idea why because he's a little shit. xP

 

Some people really are just like that. I'm pretty sure I mentioned upthread that my mom is disruptive to electronics. My friend's mom is disruptive to plumbing. So, you could have it a lot worse. Being disruptive to magical energy actually can be useful, mostly for things like aforementioned curse repelling or making ghosts fuck off.

 

Making things fuck off sounds like it would be nice. I'm not often bothered save when the gods are trying to tell me to do/stop doing a thing or something. But shit goes missing a lot???? A variety of metal things would just move around at night or get stolen and never fucking turn up. Please stop taking my scissors ;-;

 

re: sigils: I like the aesthetic of Everyday Sigils. Not quite my thing though.

(I'd probably use ancient Chinese, if I wanted to do sigil practice, but that's because I know enough modern Chinese so that I won't accidentally end up using characters that mean "suck eggs". I don't say using Chinese is cultural appropriation, so much as unless you've done the research you're quite likely to make mistakes that embarrass yourself.)

 

Aondeug, that does sound to me like you are attracted to those beings that are small, local, and attracted to shiny things, whatever name one wants to put on them.

 

What do they want with me and my scissors. They wouldn't even take a different pair of scissors in exchange for the kitchen sheers. At least the fabric sheers were left alone beyond just being moved constantly. For. Some reason. They'd seriously be in different parts of my room all the time and I have no idea why.

I would say Grandma's house is better but other different things go missing instead.

 

everydaysigils looks a lot different from the stuff i draw, i guess those lines with bubbles are meant to represent energy flow or something? the shapes he uses are a bit different but i can kinda see the language. i'll have to draw one and post it sometime when i'm not tired and on pills

 

I am feeling chatty, so I come bearing experiences with Andean Witchcraft/Folklore/Mythology.

Now, Andean generally divides the universe into three worlds: Ukhu Pacha, the Underworld, Kay Pacha, this world, and Hanan Pacha, the Upperworld (mostly the astros, like Sky and Sun and those associated Gods). It isn't... quite matching to concepts we have of underworlds and upperworlds, but the underworld roughly parallels concepts closer to the Greek Underworld. But Ukhupacha is also related to life, not just death. Still, when missionaries came, these concepts were associated with Hell and Heaven, to varying degrees.

Supays, which are demons that generally live in Ukhupacha, became well, Catholic demons, or in some case the Devil himself. Sincretism here results in weird mixes and traditions around different areas (Andean mythology is very, very regionally based, with many Apus or spirits only worshipped in some areas because they are tied to geographical landmarks and the people that live there), but as such, modern imagery includes devils.


This can be seen clearly in carnaval traditions, which have many masks and outfits surrounding the supay.

Entering Ukhu Pacha happens when entering caves and tunnels, and one of Bolivia's biggest industries is mining, and has been for a long time. When you mine, when you enter this world, you leave Pachamama's protection, in a sense, and open yourself to meddling and tormenting by supays. Mining is very, very dangerous, especially if your company cuts corners. To try and avoid the dangerous cave ins, floods, and explosions, miners provide offerings to the Tio de la mina (Uncle of the mine), asking for permission and safety.

A Tio is basically a statue of a devil, representing the supay, placed in a mine, to whom miners make ritual offerings. Different miner groups have their own Tio, but generally the offers consist of coca leaves (very importantly religiously and culturally in Andean countries, as well as helping labourers keep their energy up through the chewing, but no swallowing, of the leaf WHICH IS NOT A DRUG BTW the chemicals in cocaine are very concentrated and have no effect like that in leaf form. Coca leaf, and coca leaf tea, gives energy, reduces hunger, keeps you going, and helps fight against altitude sickness), cigarettes, and alcohol.

One interesting thing, is that women are not allowed in the mines - usually. I am very sure that miner's women are never allowed in and don't work there, even if they bring food, as it is considered bad luck and makes supays mad. But my family and I, while travelling through Bolivia so my dad could show us our heritage, took us to a mine in Potosi. We got a tour of the mines organized by one mining group (not an official group, as apparently the miners get very little of the fees paid by tourists, and my parents decided to support the miners themselves), and my mom and I were allowed in. Apparently the Tio likes for Other women to visit, but only outsiders, and generally foreigners preferred.

This makes sense in that, when I walked into the mine I was in general awed, if a bit intimidated, but eager to see more. When we were brought to the Tio's chamber, I felt incredibly skeeved out, intimidated, and wanted to get out, but stayed quietly respectful while the miners offered cigarettes, coca leaves and some spirits. I was... roughly eight, nine at this time, and frankly was ready to get out super fast. You know that feeling on your spine? Creepy unease, aw good remembering is bringing the feeling back right now.

Spoiler: Picture of a Tio under the cut because it still skeeves me out and makes me uneasy.

Not pictured: the hugass penis the tio I met had. Those are pretty normal, too. That tio was blue, too. You can see the bunch of coca leave littered around, cigarettes, and alcohol for offerings. And the hole in his mouth so that the miners can stick a cigarette, light it up, and let the tio smoke it.

I just asked mom what she had felt there, and she said she felt fear.

The mines are interesting, scary places.

 

Witchy thought of the night: Why don’t more witches use pearls in sealing spells? That’s the biological function of them - they seal up an irritant in that’s gotten into the creature’s flesh so that it doesn’t do any damage.

And yet people use them as a symbol of purity. >_o

#this has been a message from your resident sea witch

 

*arrives to sigil talk several days late with tea*

My sigils tend to be organic-looking and round. They also look very childlike and are a bit pictorial. Like, as I simplify the sigil I start turning bits of it into arrows, birds, hearts, flowers etc.

Spoiler: crappy pic of sigil

So for instance, this one is to ward me from my father's insane and often abusive romantic partners. And it ended up being a tiny sprout being enfolded and having room to grow.

Spoiler: crappy pic of sigil

And this one is "my grandmother is warded from pain in life and ascends to heaven after death" and it has a very ascendant movement, a shape on top that is God/Heaven, and a heart that is my grandmother.

 

Seems to have a lot in common with the magical runic designs of Norse tradition in Iceland and elsewhere ... fascinating!

 

This is totally what I was thinking poking at the photos.

 

Oh gods. Where to start with me. I guess with the fact that I'm coven-born? My maternal grandmother was the leader of a Lillan coven. My mom was conceived in a ritual for the purpose of being the next leader. Mom decided "aw naw hell naw" when she was coming of age and left. At the time I was born she had a small coven with my dad and members of various practices. I was always allowed to choose my own path (after mom's whole "You were born for a purpose and I will disown you if you don't fulfill it" thing with HER mom, plus my being kidnapped by the same as a replacement when I was a baby [yeah, that happened] she really didn't make me want to feel trapped in anything) but I grew up around wixen of various faiths and practices and honestly can't really imagine myself as anything else.

Mom's still Lillan despite her bad history with her mom's coven; it's, I believe, a variant of wicca based on the Cult of Lilith that worships her as the Sumerian protector of women as well as the first wife of Adam/the original succubus. Nana (maternal grandmother) believes her line is descended from Lilith herself when she was a Sumerian goddess who sometimes fucked her priests. Dad's a chaote ceremonialist with Crowleyian leanings.

I'm mostly a chaote, though I don't practice as much as I used to. Magic has become my last resort because once I decided it was the path I wanted to follow both parents drilled the gravity of affecting the world into my head. I have a lot of simple spells I still use for mindfulness and grounding and such, and I ward my private spaces and guard my friends, but most of my energy goes inward and I only send things out when I feel trapped, cornered, or threatened (or one of my friends are feeling such). I am apparently very good at warding though.

I tend to pick up bits of other faiths and practices, or make things up as I go. When it comes to gods I tend to use them mostly as archetypes or symbols. Except the Mórrígan, who has a rather distinct hold on me and I really would like to learn more about her. I don't really know how to describe it, but since I connected the odd feelings I'd been having to her I've been a lot more centered.

When I was a kid I used to play with the local nature spirits. They seemed like faeries to me, but that might have been a cultural thing affecting my perception of them. I can't see them any more but there are still places I used to go that I still feel safe, like I'm being protected. One of my favorite gathering spots was destroyed recently- a huge tree at the nearby park that was low enough for scrawny little me to climb, it had a U part that was big enough to fit myself and three of my friends when we were teens. There was only the one spirit, the tree itself, and (he?) never showed (him?)self to me but we used to talk for hours. Recently a blight's hit a lot of the local trees and they've had to cut them down: my old friend was one of them. I still have a bit of bark that flaked off into my hand when I was saying goodbye before I moved. I do still talk to trees, and sometimes they still answer back.

I have seen some weird shit. Ask me about it sometime: I hate sitting on some of these stories because I live in a small, predominantly Catholic town and my family is SUPER paranoid about being outed because it could lead to a lot of hassle locally.

 

@Lazarae I'd love to hear some of your stories. I myself have had only a sparse few experiences of anything, and they could probably be passed off as something physical and/or overactive imagination, but I find stuff like this intensely interesting.

Oh! Anyone who posted on my couple-months-old thread about how I am piss-scared of one particular footpath that I was worried I would have to start walking down a lot might be interested to know that while I haven't been down there since (I haven't scraped up the courage to do so alone/only with dogs. I'd need a human friend and I am short of those in the immediate area), I have taken up murmuring something like 'respect to you, respect to all that is yours' when I'm out on a walk and I get creepy uneasy feelings, and it seems to actually work, which is great. Don't know if it'd work on the three places I'm most scared of, though (one being the footpath I already mentioned, one being a particular wood where once on a family walk we discovered two seperate half-eaten deer fawns wedged up trees- and there's nothing in this area of the UK that would lunch up trees that I know of- and one being a country lane where a girl once disappeared and was found murdered months later in a wood across the valley).

 

Guessing you'd want to hear the more... eh... noticeable stories then? I dunno which to tell... There's "DAD LEARN TO WARD MORE THAN YOUR ROOM and also stop pissing off the few other wixen in the area you ass" which I wasn't there for but have heard the story from several reliable sources, "mom scares a baby Satanist" which I also wasn't there for but heard from both parents (and dad doesn't talk up his experiences), "good luck ever selling that house" which I only saw the before and after of but heard the story from dad, a story about the willow tree in the yard, and "Laz and its friends discover something Terrifying" which you will probably have to wait to hear if you pick it because I have to be sufficiently stable to tell it because I got the bajeezus scared out of me and it still gives me crawlies. We never found out what was up with that.

 

Dude I will listen to whatever you want to tell me and I'm not even joking. =o

 

Not helping! I want to tell ALL of the stories. But then wall o' text.