Songs as Spells: I ain't got much book learnin'/ but I've got charms to win the race . . .

So, here's where my Hollow Ones methods really come to light. True confession time, Charmers (that's what I'm calling you from now on readers, hope it's cool!), my biggest stumbling point with Hoodoo is the use of Psalms. It . . .just does not do it for me generally speaking and really doesn't do it for me with the Psalms typically used. They just don't resonate with me and if it doesn't resonate then . . .how do I complete the spell?

Sure, as a writer I can occasionally come up with clever rhymes of my own but . . .it's limited to a certain extent. It can be hard for me to really raise energy that way sometimes to put into the spell and to focus since I don't have much of a meditation background. Well, you know what helps? Songs. Preferably modern songs. Think about things like Bards and how powerful their words can be. A really good song writer/singer/musical arrangement can be uberpowerful and really add a punch to your spellwork. It also really helps me focus because the song (I usually either "play" it in my head, actually play it or sing it, depending on the work) keeps my monkey brain busy enough to really focus on the work at hand. And as the words really crescendo, so does the spell. My suggestions are going to be v. based on what I'm into, you can substitute whatever you like and whatever works for you.

If you give this a try, drop me an email or a comment and let me know how it goes!

Trancing
Florence + The Machine: Cosmic Love
Relevant Lyrics: The stars/ the moon/ have all been blown out/ you left me in the dark/ no dawn/ no day/ I'm always in the twilight in the shadow of your heart/ but in the dark/ I can hear your heart beat/ I tried to find the sun/ but then/ I was in the darkness/ so darkness I became/ The stars!/ The moon!

Florence + The Machine: Raise It Up (Rabbit Heart)
Relevant Lyrics: The looking glass, so shiny and new/ How quickly the glamour fades/ I start spinning, slipping out of time/ Was it the wrong pill to take/ Raise up it!/ We raise it up, this offering/ We raise it up/ This is a gift/ it comes with a price/ Who is the lamb and who is the knife?

Money/Prosperity

Hole: Doll Parts
Relevant Lyrics: Yeah, they really want you, they really want you, they really do/ Yeah they really want you, they really want you, but I do too/ I want to be the girl with the most cake

The Tiny: Everything is Free Now
Relevant Lyrics: I could get a straight job/ I've done it before/I never minded working hard/ It is who I'm working for/ Or I could get a tip job/ gas up a car/ or try to make a little change/ down at the bar/ Every day I wake up/ Am humming this song/ and I don't need to run around/ I can just stay at home/ and sing this little love song/ for the love in myself/ if there's something that you wanna hear/ you can sing it yourself/ Cause everything is free now/ That's what I say

Love/Lust Related Spells

Florence + the Machine: Drumming Song
Relevant Lyrics: Louder than sirens/ Louder than bells/ Sweeter than heaven/ And hotter than hell/ As I move my feet towards your body/ I can hear this beat/ and it gets louder and louder/ I run to the river/ I pray that the water will drown out the din/ But as the water fills my mouth/ It couldn't wash the echoes out/ But as the water fills my mouth/ It couldn't wash the echoes out/ I swallow the sound and it swallows me whole/ Till there's nothing left inside my soul/ As empty as that beating drum/ But the sound has just begun. . . .

Fiona Apple: First Taste
Relevant Lyrics: I do not struggle in your web/ for it was my aim to get caught/ but daddy longlegs I fear/ That I'm finally getting weary/ of waiting to be consumed by you/ Give me the first taste/ heaven cannot wait forever/ Darling just start the chase/ but you must make the endeavor . . .

Rasputina: If Your Kisses Can't Hold the Man You Love
Relevant Lyrics: Every time that I hear a woman cry 'cos her man has left her flat
I just feel like saying, "don't be such a fool, you fool."/ Better dry your eyes, can't you realize/ You gain nothing by that/ Well, that's no way to keep his heart warm, baby,/ When his love grows cool/ Don't cry for him or chase him/ Just go out and replace him/ With some good looking Tom, Dick or Jack/ 'Cos if your kisses won't hold the man you love / Then your tears won't bring him back

Hexing

The Pierces: Ruin
Relevant Lyrics: I do not want for you to be happy/ I do not want for you to be happy/ All that I want/ is for you to come to ruin/ all that I want/ is for you to come to ruin/ I want you to come to ruin/ I want you to come to ruin. . .

April March: Chick Habit
Relevant Lyrics: hang up the chick habit / hang it up, daddy, / a girl's not a tonic or a pill / hang up the chick habit /hang it up, daddy, /you're just jonesing for a spill / oh, how your bubble's gonna burst / when you meet another nurse
she'll be driving in a hearse / you're gonna need a heap of glue / when they all catch up with you and they cut you up in two / now your ears are ringing / the birds have stopped their singing /everything is turning grey . . .

Amy Winehouse: Back to Black
Relevant Lyrics: He left no time to regret / Kept his dick wet / With his same old safe bet /Me and my head high / And my tears dry / Get on without my guy / You went back to what you knew / So far removed from all that we went through / And I tread a troubled track / My odds are stacked / I'll go back to black / We only said good-bye with words / I died a hundred times / You go back to her / And I go back to black

Dresden Dolls: Backstabber
Relevant Lyrics: you always struck me as the type to take it lightly /but now you’re gonna have to shut your mouth or fight me/ backstabber, backstabber/ show us what you’re good for / stick it to the noise board / come on join the bloodsport/ backstabber, backstabber, backstabber . . .

Spell Sealing

The Pierces: Sticks and Stones
Relevant Lyrics: Seven times I pierce my heart/ and now you feel the magic start/ bind thy heart and soul to me/ As I do will/ so let it be. . .

Evanesance: Bring Me to Life
Relevant Lyrics: Wake me up inside/ wake me up inside/ call my name and save me from the dark/ bid my blood to run/ Before I come undone/ Breathe into me and make me real/ Bring me to life/ wake me up/ Wake me up inside. . .

Thoughts? Additions?

Cooking Dinner Does Not Make You a Kitchen Witch (subtitled: Making Friends Where Ever I Go)

Perhaps I am a miscreation,
No one knows the truth,
There is no future here.
You never know who's still awake,
You never know who understands and

Are you out there, can you hear this,
I was out here listening all the time,
And though the static walls surround me
You were out there, and you found me,
I was out here listening all the time. [Dar Williams]


DISCLAIMER: If I follow your blog, if I've made nice comments to you, etc., etc. I obviously don't mean you in this entry.

I'm having a shitful day today, so why not alienate some readers!

I sort of spent my twenties fighting against who I really was in oh so many ways. I didn't want to be a kitchen witch. I thought that was the least impressive, most Holly Hobby branch of magic there is.

Jow and I were talking about why I fought this yesterday, he said it doesn't make me lesser. But I said, it does. I've just grown not to care and to honor who I am. It makes me LESS formally educated, LESS full of hermetic/goetic/golden dawn occulty goodness, LESS theory based magic, LESS plugged in to having 24/7 chitchats with my gods, LESS inclined to have some kind of formal magic fancy dance, etc., etc.

Now, I've never felt in this fabulous blogosphere that any of *you* have ever made me feel this way, but you have to picture me from ten years ago: I'm constantly listening to NIN! I wear boots with sparkly laces to my corporate gig! I'm thrashing around on top of tables pumped full of piss and goldschlagger! I'm trying to break glass ceilings! I'm smoking cigars with the boys! I'm demanding my place at the occult table at occult events! I'm getting tats! I'm going through Shamanic trials! I'm fucking punk rock and . . . you want me to bake a cake? Really? Really? So I fought against it for while which is why I wasn't terribly successful in my own personal magic for quite some time. Somewhere around 27? 28? I started really embracing it. Once I bought my own home, my own hearth, I *really* started embracing it. I had the tools all along, it turns out, I just needed to know how to use them.

When I first joined the blogosphere, I wanted to bff a variety of people in the magical world. But let me be honest, most of all I wanted to befriend fellow kitchen witches. Sisters/brothers unite! Let's get some spit, blood, hair, dirt, and basil and get this party started!

But I didn't find too many. The fabulous Mrs. B of course. A little later I demanded an introduction to my PEH, who while not a kitchen witch per se, at least does magic similarly, Lavannah who has land that I covet.

I googled. I tried tracking down people. I tried a lot of different key words. And honestly, I found a lot of people who claimed to be kitchen witches, but in scanning their blogs all I generally found were recipes and chatter about their kids. Now, there's nothing wrong with any of that. But that doesn't make it a magic based blog because you need, like, magic in your blog at least some of the time to qualify.

What Doesn't Make You a Kitchen Witch Per Se

A recipe isn't magical in and of itself. Just dumping a bunch of recipes on your blog doesn't make you a kitchen witch anymore than it makes Wolfgang Puck a kitchen witch. If you said I use honey in my Chocolate Lavender Mousse to sweeten my mother-in-law towards me because she's a complete bitch on wheels to me by that point in the meal or I put menstrual blood in my spaghetti sauce so my husband still thinks I'm dropping it like it's hot even when I'm tired and in sweats, rock! Those are magical acts. Bring on the recipes!

Having children. While yes, it is a v. specific way to mark your transition into motherhood (sometimes), kids don't really make you a practicing magic type person any more than it makes SuperNanny Mary Poppins. It's okay to talk about other things in your magic based blog besides just a never ending compendium of your magical practice, but if you're not talking magic at all then . . . it's not really a magic blog then, is it? Things that would: Using magic to help soothe a baby/get a baby to sleep (I will only slightly guiltily confess to having done this before), protection magic, detailing tiny rituals you do with your kids.

Being a Homemaker. I do very much think that unpaid labor in the home needs to be appreciated and ideally compensated (please see here for more clearly articulated thoughts on the matter, it's applicable for both mono/poly people), but it's a job. And just like going to work in an office is not a magical act in and of itself, neither is taking care of your home. If you were talking about cleaning/organizing in a magical blog and discussing how to be more green (because we need to take care of Mother Earth of course and she's a goddess in and of herself), discussing what oils you use to scent your house and why, what you do to keep the house spiritually/magically clean, rock on.

What Qualifies You as a Kitchen Witch/Hearth Wo/man/Someone Who Does Hedge-Like Magic

If the Personal is Political, then the Every Day is Magical. Look, you don't have to cast +5 magic every time you make hotdogs for dinner on a Tuesday night. But what can you be doing in your every day life in your hearth to make it more magical? Smudging with sage every few days to clear out the energies? Spray bottling your bed with a water based mist you made that has come to me oil in it? Choosing your cooking herbs based on magical purposes? Go crazy.

Deb's Example Rit for Making the Every Day Magical
I had been hemming and hawing about starting my current novel because (a) I've never finished writing one and (b) it's a little silly in a genre that's already a little silly. But it came to me in a dream and it feels right. So I started by not just slapdashing it together, I took my time. I did research on names, other books in the genre, brainstormed and I made a mood board for it. When I knew it was time to start writing, I wanted it started right. I wanted my surroundings perfect, like giving birth (which is what I do with writing). We've been getting pretty awesome about keeping the house tidy. We made sure everything was clean, went to brunch (appropriate for the kind of novel it is) and then I put on mood music and wrote, drink in hand. When I finished the beginning, I sealed it with eating a really posh chocolate (salted dark chocolate with balsamic and caramel) from the best chocolatier in NJ which was also appropriate for my novel's genre. It wasn't about me putting together a mojo bag in this case, it was about choosing my actions carefully and doing everything with intent. There would have been nothing wrong with making a mojo bag, but it was more important to write in a magically charged environment for me to get this show on the road.

Get a Base Education in the Lower Arts. Yeah, yeah, you like to put on your robes and call on all the archangels and whatever. Cool. But sometimes for whatever reason, you'll need to know how to do things quick and dirty, so learn how. Learn what salt and kitchen herbs can do for you, learn about mojo hands and honey pots and spirit bottles. I recommend of course the incomparable M. yonwode's Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic as your Idiot's Guide. Test yourself if you're super structured magically, pretend a friend needs a fertility charm tonight and you need to get to her just using stuff around your house. What do you do?

Get a Base Education in House Wifery. Some men back in the day got married because they had no clue how to take care of themselves. While that's not so common in this day and age, you still need a base education in house wifery to be a successful hearth wo/man. Thanks to most of the first world being a conveience culture, you may have been getting by on relying on take out, a dry cleaner, and a cleaning service. That's all well and good, but you're missing pieces you need to be a successful hearth wo/man. If you are missing any of these things, that's okay, don't feel bad about it. But a lot of people cry, Oh I'm no good at it! Or, I don't know how! Ignorantia juris non excusat. Ignorance of the law excuses no one, so get to work. It won't be perfect from the gate, but nothing is. Ask someone better versed for help, if you know someone. Worst case you burn a few casseroles and shred a few shirts, it's no big deal. Even if you won't use it for a while or you think ever (though you'd be surprised), these are all good life skills to have that will translate over into your magical life. Think of them as Hearth Meditations.

Can you:
* Do your own laundry?
* Have your house clean enough to have your mother or mother-in-law or Miss Martha over without them making a face?
* Cook a dinner for yourself and others?
* Meal plan?
* Budget and financially plan?
* Be able to make a casserole quickly for an emergency?
* Host/ess a party?
* Know how to bake something from scratch?
* Know how to do your own grocery shopping that's more than just "box food"?
* Know how to do basic clothing repair?
* Know what to bring as a hostess gift?
* Know how to conduct yourself socially at various social obligations?
* Know how to give yourself self care?
* Know v. basic first aid?
* Know how to care for small children for a day?


Hearth Wo/man's Tool Kit
* First aid kit
* Disposable tupperwares
* A bottle of wine in a festive bag, ready for a party
* Generic gift for a male and female recipient just in case
* Funeral clothes, hung up, pressed, ready to go
* Small bits of flannel for mojo bags
* Empty, clean, and lidded bottles and jars for spirit bottles, honey pots, etc.
* Cooking herbs including: bay leaves, cinnamon, basil, dill, allspice, sage, lavender, etc.
* White candles (can be used for anything)
* Pins for inscribing candles
* Olive or Grapeseed Oil (for making dressing oils)
* Fragrance warmer (for making dressing oils)
* Sewing kit
* Sterile disposable lancets for any blood offerings needed
* Tealights for deity offerings on the fly
* Grave yard dirt
* Calendar
* Notepad
* Hand Sterilizer


I will be expanding on some of this in future entries. If you have any specific questions, shoot!

Building an Amazon Bad Ass . . .Through Books.

My PEH, Gordon asked us what 10 books would we use to try to build a mage/witch/magic user/whatever of a specific bent. I decided to build an Amazon Bad Ass (specializing in Hearth Witchery). I liked that Gordon allowed for fiction. In the comments, as you can see, everyone (my Jow included) picked v. lofty books for their lists, I only really overlap with people on my choices for #2. and #6. I would be curious to see what would happen if the challenge happened (someone has access only to the books we've given them and no previous knowledge of what we're trying to impart onto them). I'm guessing she would be confused by my choices, probably. ;p But it's a sincere look into my brain and how I became the kind of pagan/magic user/hearth woman I am.

I am building a Bad Ass Amazon (specializing in hearth witchery)

1. Someplace to be Flying (Charles Delint) (fiction) - a must have for the urban shaman

2. Evolutionary Witchcraft (Thorn Coyle) - her Iron Pentacle Meditation is unbelievably hard core. An amazon needs some reclaimst in her.

3. Eat, Love, Pray (Elizabeth Gilbert)(memoir) - for her inevitable identity meltdown. It made me want to run off to an ashram and started me on my daily japa practice.

4. Palimpsest (fiction) (Catherynne M. Valente) - a book about a sexually transmitted dream city you visit in your sleep. Need I really say more? Okay. It opened my heart up in ways I can't even describe. I tell Cat she makes me cry more than anything else. It was a bit embarassing seeing her tour with SJ Tucker when they read a piece from the book about the opera and Sooj sang and I just cried and cried in a full room full of people. It made me see the world more magically again.

5. D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths (Ingri d'Aulaire & Edgar Parin d'Aulaire) (children's book) - This book made me a pagan, it planted the seed in the children's room in the library. Other pagans have said the same thing. Concisely lays out the Olympians.

6. Hoodoo Root & Herb Magic (Cat Yronwode) - A must source book for all of one's charms and hexes

7. Miss Abernathy’s Concise Slave Training Manual and Training With Miss Abernathy (Christina Abernathy) - Even if you're not kinked, it's a good primer on how to be service oriented. As someone who has kitchen witched for rituals, Thanksgivings, and funeral repasts great and small, it helps to get organized.

8. Real Simple magazine: A monthly magazine that teaches organization, budgeting, meal planning, etiquette, and other day to day life must haves. I cut out articles and recipes. You will need this for anything from knowing what to bring as a hostess gift to what to make for dinner on a Wednesday on a budget to how to start investing.

9. The Spirit Ways (Eric Taylor, Rachel Barth, Scott Cohen, and John Snead) (WW RPG) - How shamanism makes sense to me.

10. Spiral Dance (Starhawk) - You always remember your first. I *love* that she revises it every five years to be like, this was wrong, this was totally fucked up, I do this now, etc. It's also a really good Dianic primer.

What would you pick?

Seven times I pierce my heart/ Now I feel the magic start . . .

Kenaz had a great post on Cursing and RO followed up with a great post on personal responsibility and cursing.

Dark secret time: I am a complete pussy when it comes to cursing.

It's true! I was raised Catholic where God was supposed to dyg (do it your godself) all your cursing for you and you were supposed to turn the other cheek like a Certain Awesomely Chill Child of the Big G. And then, I was Dianic Wicca where it was all, rule of three! Rule of three! Fingers point back to you! Black magic is for Bad Ponies!

Then I started hanging out with the bad kids or at least more magically neutral kids over at GoG and our Señora Druid said, some of the worst things I've done magically was to try to help other people and some of the best things I've ever done was in being selfish or doing "gray area" magic. And I started thinking, hmmmmm. Maybe cursing is something I should be able to do.

But I hesitate. I've done a few things that can be construed as "light grey area" stuff, but how does one go from a Good Girl Catholic/Wiccan to a Curse Slingin' Dilettante? That was always what caught me, okay I do totes agree cursing is a sometimes food, but when exactly is that sometimes?

After pondering both K & RO's entries, I came up with a model that works for me. Now, those of you who don't know me, I am a *huge* crime show/Judge Judy junkie (hey! we're here to bitchily judge my magical practices, not my tv consumption).

My model is sort of L&O based and as Jason cautioned us both on modeling and what happens when you drink & blog, it's subject to change.

1. Egregious crime is committed!
2. Investigate said egregious crime, what happened? What evidence is there that this person's narrative sounds right? Is my own narrative correct? Ideally cross check with someone.
3. Prepare case to go to gods "court" with.
4. Go to trial! (i.e. commit curse)
5. Await judgement by the gods to see if this was a correct action or not.

So okay, in this scenario, I'm one of Jack's omg hot, young, plucky ADAs. Since I'm young and boffing Jack, I need to really genuinely believe in my case because I'm young and passionate and still have morals and shit and have not yet been broken down by the system. If I really believe in my "case"/curse, I can go in with mundi manus, clean hands, in my own eyes. If I really believe in my own case (i.e. I'm not just mad and being ridiculous) or someone else's case, I really feel like then I am willing to commit the curse because I'm willing to put my own ass on the line with my gods and do the work to make sure this is the right thing to do.