A Wise Word:

Witchcraft is all about living to the heights and depths of life as a way of worship. --LY DE ANGELES

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Diaper Rash Bath Time Infusion


 Earlier this week, I tried some all-in-one diapers with little man and the results were unfortunate.  When the rash wasn't healing up quite as quickly as I expected, I pulled out my skin soothing herbs and made a wonderful infusion to add to his bath water.  It worked wonders.  The herbs started soothing on contact and with in a few hours the inflammation and redness had reduced significantly. I gave him two of the herbal baths, but in reality one would have been sufficient.   

Diaper Rash Bath Time Infusion

  • 2 TBL chamomile
  • 1 TBL nettles
  • 1 TBL green tea leaves
  • 1 tsp Epsom salt
  • 1 quart boiling water
  • 1 TBL slippery elm
Measure the chamomile, nettles, tea leaves, and Epsom salt into a one quart, heat proof container. If your child has any broken skin, omit the Epsom salt.  Fill container with boiling water and set aside to brew.  When the mixture cools to room temperature, stir in the slippery elm.  Let stand at least 30 minutes longer.  Strain the herbs and add liquid to warm bath water in an infant tub or the sink and give baby a good soak.  Do not rinse and allow baby to air dry.  Apply Soothing Salve or coconut oil just before re-diapering.  

For magickal results, don't forget to charge your herbs before starting.  I also charge the bath water when I add the infusion.  



Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Paint Me a Spell

 


In my life simplicity is a necessity and often times, magickal practice is far from simple.  We buy herbs and candles and books like they are the keys that make spells work.  Then we have to store them.  Sometimes we forget that the power is all around us waiting for us to be the key.  In implementing this truth into my practice, I gravitated toward sigil magick which has since turned into art magick. 

It all started with a blank canvas stashed in the back of the closet.  Then I started having an intense feeling of disconnect with my four older children.  Its a long story, but as a single mom I allowed them to go to my mothers for the summer and never got them back.  I felt that no matter how often I told them or tried to demonstrate my love, the energy was getting lost before it reached them.  I wanted to create a spell powerful enough to bridge the miles and follow them through out their daily lives.  I wanted them to know that I was always holding them in my heart.  Then on one of my walks, I was inspired to paint my love.

Everyday for a month, I worked on the painting. While I painted, I focused love toward my children, letting the canvas take on a life of it's own.    I painted a large soft mother Superman calls her "mustard woman" because of her color  holding her children to her heart.  I made each child figure in the painting as unique as my own living children and painted a binding love seal over the mother's womb.  Then I started the background in aboriginal designs.  When the month was over, I knew that the painting was not even near being finished.  The painting will never be finished. 

Whenever I feel the need coming from one of my children, I add to the canvas.  When I feel the energy of the painting starting to ebb, I douse it with strong coffee and allow it to dry in the sunshine.  Between times, it hangs in our hall. 

Since the time I started the painting, my communication with the older children has improved significantly.  They have started initiating phone calls and email conversations again and I find we never run out of things to discuss.  I have also finally been able to accept our separation without intense, unwarranted guilt.  If it is possible, I almost feel as if the magick has allowed me to love each of them even more than before. 

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Taters? You Know, Taters

...boil em, mash em, put em on a burn.




Yesterday, Miss Busy decided to put her bread into the warming oven and burned her forearm.  It wasn't a serious burn, but my immediate response was to slap a slice of potato on it. That's what my parents and grandparents would have done, plus it works.  Laying a bit of potato over a burn provides immediate relief and prevents the blistered, pussy mess many burns turn into when treated with other methods. 

Here's the deal.  For household burns, simply lay a piece of fresh potato on the damaged skin as soon as the burn occurs.  For small ones like Miss Busy had the other day, I simply cut a slice and score it so that the juice is released.  For more serious burns like when Superman spilled a whole bowl of boiling soup on his leg I grate about half of the potato and spread it across the area as a poultice.  The potato will provide immediate relief and begin cooling the burn.  As this happens, you will notice the temperature of the potato raising.  When the potato is no longer providing relief 5 to 10 minutes, remove the first one and apply a second. This second application will provide more extended relief and can be secured with a gauze bandage if the patient wants to get about doing their planned activities.  Like before, it should be removed once the potato warms and is no longer soothing.  I am sure that the poultice could be removed and reapplied several times through out the day, but have never found it to be needed more than twice.  Simple.  Effective. Always on hand.

Folk remedies are great and this is one of my favorites, but I got to wondering why it works.  Unfortunately, nobody with an advanced science degree has wondered the same thing or at least not cared enough to find out why.  The obvious reason that it works is because it cools the burn duh, but I simply cannot find any source to provide the why.  Therefore, I am just going with the "because my Papa said so" answer.  Give it a try,  it works and even if I was lying, you wouldn't be out anything and could just go run some cool water over the injury.

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Green WitchCraft by Ann Moura (Aoumiel)



I can't believe I am just now getting around to reviewing Green Witchcraft by Ann Moura (Aoumiel)!  It is the third book I delved into when first exploring my own witchy-ness and it runs neck and neck with Scott Cunningham's Earth Power in the race to be my favorite book.  For a magickal person looking for an intuitive, earth based path this book is essential.  Aoumiel shares three generations of witchy wisdom and lays out an easy to get started outline for ritual while sharing bits of witchy history along the way. 

When I opened this book, I knew that I had no interest in organized Wicca.  It just didn't suit me, but I had no idea where to go from there.  This text is what gave me the confidence to define myself as a witch and to initiate ritual practices.  I refer to it often and have used it in conjunction with another of the author's works as a magickal textbook of sorts.  There is so much to learn from this book, that it is once again on my reading list for summer. 
 

Friday, April 1, 2016

Update on Everything Under the Moon

Hello, Magickal People!  I have been pretty much MIA here for the better part of six months and I'm sure I have some 'splaining to do. Hopefully, you all haven't abandoned ship and this post is being read by someone! 





Let's start way back with last summer.  Most of you know that we had just moved and were settling in nicely here on campus.  The girls were keeping me busy and we were growing a lovely little garden.  I thought I was done with the baby business and was getting into the rhythm created by our little family.  Then Superman had a premonition.  I know. I'm the witch. That's suppose to be my department, but Superman holds his own pretty well in that particular area.  He just knew that if we were to have one more child, he would have a son.  The man has 5 daughters.  Well, I can't deny him anything, particularly not a son, so we decided to try again.  I was tandem nursing the girls and thought that would buy me some time, but with in two weeks I was pregnant with our little boy.  At the time of this post he is now three weeks old and completely amazing of course.  Miss Busy is a great helper when she wants to be and even advises me on how to do my job.  Little Moon loves "bruber," but is feeling a bit out of sorts with her new position in the family line up.

 

 
 


Because we were becoming a household of five, the campus housing regulations required us to move into a larger apartment.  Initially, this move occurred back in November and was a smashing success.  At first.  Soon after Christmas it became apparent that there were some major problems with our new apartment and after trying for over two months to rectify them with us in residence we had to move again.  Thankfully, the apartment across patio was open and we were only required to move next door.  It is safe to say that we cut things pretty close though.  Our first night in the new apartment, I went into labor.  This time I had the premonition and knew it would happen that way.





So, on to my locks.  To tell the truth, they are still significantly more of a mess than I expected them to be at 13 months old.  I love the wildness of my dreads, but some days it seems like I have the "woman lost in the woods" look going on.  Note: I am not very good at this selfie business and just make random faces at the camera while trying to capture the state of my dreads with out looking like a total idiot.  A good portion in the center of each dread is knotted up nice and tight, but there is an inch of loose hair at the top of each another 2 to 3 inches at the bottom just whisping around. Back in January, I bought a dreading hook tiny crochet hook with the goal of having them all tidied up before the baby arrived.  Unfortunately, I didn't do a very good job of figuring time into the equation.  I am rather slow at the business of crocheting hair and with the girls to help me out, I'm doing good to get one dread tidied in the span of an hour.  So at this point, I have 8 rather neat tidy dreads and about 25 very messy ones.  I'm not going for perfection, just manageable.  Maybe I'll have the look cleaned up in time for a 18 month update. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
***It took me three days to write this blog post and it is now April Fools Day.  No tricks here, just my own lack of foresight.