Not sure if I mentioned it . . .

But my article on How to Make a Mojo Bag is in the current issue of Witches and Pagans (#22). It's the first article there!

Shameless Self Promotion

But first, a shameful confession. After much vitriol towards Timothy Ferris, I have realized that I use Etsy Alchemy as my first world sweat shop for stuff I probably could make myself, but am too lazy to. The trick to utilizing this properly (and to max the sliminess) is to set a price you can reasonably pay for something but not crazy below market value. Then you weed through the bids to find the people who are really good seamstresses (judging by their shops), jewelers, etc. but have not yet made many if any sales yet. They are willing to work for a lower price for you so they can start to make their name. The goal is to catch people who are *just* about to make it but haven't yet. I outsourced a capelet for a song made by a Jersey woman who specializes in jersey (fo' real!) and am currently in process outsourcing a set of cocktail party invitations for the party Miss Spice and I are having for our coterie at Arisia and having the designer in question not only make the invitations, but address them and mail them for about $20.

Here is the justification for those of you who need it like me: These people bid of their own free will and it's supporting small businesses/cottage industry and helping people make a name for themselves. So it's good, really!

Some of you may not know this, but handspinning yarn is currently my drug of choice. I'm hoping to graduate to an actual wheel in the next few months. Let's stretch things and say, yarn is magical. It's not really a stretch, actually. The Fates spun and did some bad ass magic with it. Spinning is meditative, one could definitely put intention into yarn. Yarn is often used in "low" magic for binding and making small dolls and tying off mojo bags.

Should you not need a whole skein of yarn but are interested in using yarn in your magic, I will hand dye one ounce of yarn in your color of choice, use 100% wool and can spin it with a general intention (to be approved by me of course) for your use for $8 USD. The transaction will go through Etsy using Paypal. If you're interested, drop me a comment. If you want a private discussion about it, email me at corvaxgirl [at] gmail [dottie] com with the subject line, "Charmed, I'm Sure: Yarn".

For those of you who perhaps crochet or knit or are just curious about my work, here it is:

Etsy sirenecorbeau

I'm telling you it's not a trick/ pay attention, don't be thick/ or you're liable to be licked . . .

So, admittedly, it takes a while for the idea that someone could be crossed or jinxed to permeate my brain meat that's hazy with too much Teen Moms and the nine billion things I need to accomplish in a day. But Jow gives me more credit by reminding me that my magical vetting process has more in common with the Vatican than with the Neo-Pagan movement, so it's going to take a whole lot for me to think that it's on the table.

Hoodoo Crossroads writes an excellent post on how to identify if someone has been cursed, which is helpful. My friend "Danny" always had shitty luck, some of it has been frankly of his own making. Poor decisions and whatnot. So generally, my advice was to fix x issue or y issue. But even when he was working on it, things had a way of spectacularly falling apart with unforeseen outside issues. He's really been hitting rock bottom lately and I was out of ideas about what he could do to fix it. After a few conversations where I just sympathized with his situation and new information on how an already bad situation got worse due to outside influences, I finally asked.

Do you think . . .it's *possible* you're, like, jinxed or crossed or cursed?

Danny only vaguely believes in a very vague sort of paganish paradigm and is not someone I would categorize as religious or into magic. I've never asked anyone that, but I was out of ideas and the more I thought about it, the more I thought, maybe it was *possible*. After a thoughtful pause, Danny said, it's really funny you should say that. There's been a family rumour for years that my immediate family might be, something about a neighbor who may have been practicing something years ago.

It's not that I'm sure Danny is cursed. He's not someone to think he's constantly UNDER PSYCHIC ATTACK or even particularly believe in it. But my thought was, well, if he is, then this could really help him turn things around. If he's not, no harm no foul. I don't wander off into well magic/the gods is just an archetype so you can use any herb for anything blahblahblah whatever, but I was a psych minor so while I dutifully use the proper herbs for whatever and believe the gods are separate (as much as anything or anyone is separate) beings unto Themselves, I also dig Jungian psych, NPL, etc. I think if Danny even allows for the possibility that whatever spell work I suggest is possible then a lot of subconscious and let's get crazy, magical stuff could go down. However, I also believe that if he really wants to fix this, he needs to take that big step and do the working himself, at least to start. If he tries it and it doesn't work, then I would step in and see what I could do from my side. At the time I gave him this spell work, he said he would give it a go. He has not yet done the spell work yet, but says he plans to. It was interesting to try to plan a spell using ingredients that a non-magical working/not too heavy into cooking household would have.

Him: Yeah, so I don't have a lot of room around the perimeters of my room.
Me: That's okay. It's only a sprinkle of salt/sage.
Him: Oh. Yeah. I see that now.
Me: . . .There's a saying in witchcraft, "To Know, To Will, To Dare and To Keep Silent". If there's a cup and a half of salt/sage spread around your room in big clumpy piles, that's . . .not very silent. A lot of people would ask a lot of questions about that.


Curse Breaking/Luck Bringing Spell for Danny

1. Take a shower. While showering, use some salt like a scrub and scrub your body with it. Imagine your bad luck going down the drain with the water.

2. Open your bedroom window and wave all the crappy luck out of it with a broom.

3. Mix about a tablespoon each of sage and salt together and sprinkle it around the perimeters of your room. Once you have done that, recite the 37th Psalm. While reciting it, keep picturing your crappy luck leaving.

4. Think about what you need in your life to be happy. Also think about what you can do to get them (the second part is important in magic).

5. Without your pen leaving the paper, write down the things that you want in your life. Be specific.

6. Sprinkle cinnamon and allspice on the paper and fold the paper *towards* you while saying,
Father Coyote*, this dog's luck is nothing but crossed
Please bring me what I've asked for before all is lost.

7. Put the paper on the reflective surface with the candle on top. Light the candle. Repeat the prayer to Coyote. When extinguishing the candle, don't use your breath. Use a lid or a spoon or a dish. When relighting the candle say the prayer. Do this until the candle is completely used up.

8. Take the piece of paper and the melty wax that melted on top of it. Put it in a small ziplock bag and put it in your dice bag with your luckiest gaming dice. You carry your dice bag with you all the time anyway, so keep doing that. Do your best to not show anyone the ziplock bag. Dab the dice bag once a week with good booze and repeat the prayer to Coyote.

* Coyote is Danny's patron deity which is why I picked him for this working.

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!

Question: Mojo Hands

I know no one is supposed to see it, but why? I mean, I know no one is supposed to touch it, which makes sense, but the not seeing it less so to me. I mean, if you wear it in your bra, you take off your bra to go to bed which means it has to go *somewhere* where theoretically it could be seen.

Can you use a mojo hand to do a working for another person? How does that work with the whole no one can see/no one can touch thing? I would assume it would need to marinade on one's altar . . . .

Note to Self

Dear Self,

Perhaps, in your exuberance to be the prettiest, wealthiest, most successful princess in the world, you may have overlooked one teensy tiny detail.

Like . . .your health. You remember that right! You have fibromyalgia every damn minute of every damn day which means you are in pain every damn minute of every damn day, how did this escape your attention? That's not even counting all your fun *auxiliary* problems such as occasional anemia, indigestion, and occasional lady bit problems. And that's *still* not even counting things like that wisdom tooth issue* that feels like getting repeatedly stabbed in the ear, migraine, or other plagueful health problems you incur.

Sigh. I will be doing another mojo bag soon for health, it will probably have a tiny spoon charm in it as well.

No love,
self

* Yesssssssssssss. I've been to the dentist, he said I could keep them or remove them since they're half in and I chose to keep them which will result in occasional minor infection that unless it keeps up for several days simply needs Tylenol, rinsing with salt water, and an occasional rinse with Mr. Patron.

Forget the things you thought you knew/ we'll make a very good girl of you . . .

So as Jow blogged, we had a spontanous Crafting night due to An Unfortunate Incident with the Washer Machine (and Dryer).

Now, coming from a Dianic background, I'm used to crafting in my Craft and the super secret teaching of, Make Shit Up As You Go. Now. I'm trying to learn to better educated and not just *completely* flying by the seat of my pants, I'm trying to have some . . .empirical evidence that things should work the way that it should work.

So, I did some research with Mme. Yronwode through her website and one of her books and checked in with Jow's knowledge base he picked up. And I learned, omg, hoodoo I love you! You have only a few of what could be be generously construed as "loose guidelines", the rest you figure out on your own. My favorite kind of working, whooo!

Guidelines that seem important* in making a Mojo Bag:

1. No more than 13 ingredients! Keep it down in there!

2. Bag must stay hidden! (If you are a lady-type who wears a bra, that's the place which is *awesome* because that's where I would stash my shaman bags)

3. Bag must be close to your person as much as possible!

4. Items in bag must be importante, not just a bunch of shit you throw in there. The bag is going to be a spirit, not a junk drawer, treat your bag accordingly! Dress the bag!

5. Remember to keep feeding the bag (. . .I haven't fed Ali lately, demonstrating my usual laissez-faire-the-world-is-my-tank-of-sea-monkeys approach to life which is not good for house plants or magical workings - she will be fed tonight!)

Hokay! Now a lot of bags seem to be for one purpose. My thought was, shit man, how many fucking bags am I supposed carry around on my person? I need varied shit to go down. I will experiment with multiple purposes and see what happens.

My process:

1. If me and the (heretoforth) unnamed are going to get along, I'm going to try to make it into a kindred spirit.

2. The bag being flannel seems reasonably important (though not super important). Whooo! I have cute flannel fabric scraps in omg pink! One side has little drawings of corsets and telephones and the other has pink stripes, perfect.

3. Make my list of shit I want, also referred to as: Petition papers. Some people say you should keep it a secret like a birthday candle wish. Me, I'm not too into sekrit traditions as a rule and I tend to believe if I'm shouting out my intention to the universe, my success rate will be higher. I picked (7) things I want because it's a magical number which may also help the bag. In no order:

a. To be pretty/thin - moonstone
b. To have happy relationships - shallot peel (substitute for red onion)
c. To be happy - a tiny goddess with a quote about being happy on the back
d. To save money and keep it - camomille
e. To have money for shit I want - irish moss
f. To be successful in my creative endevours - 3 bay leaves
g. Financial stability - clear quartz

Gathered items.

4. Sewed together the bag, listening to Rasputina. Used white cotton thread.

5. Wrote petition paper on a pink recipe card with a butterfly (transformation), trying not to have my pen leave the paper. Listen to The Money Maker as I do so.

6. Place items in the bag, making sure to charge each item appropriately.

7. Tie bag shut with green yarn I've hand dyed and hand spun. Seven knots and I chant a part from the Pierces' song, "Sticks and Stones" (Seven times I pierce my heart/ now I feel the magic start/ bind my will and soul to keep/ so I will it/ so let it be)(it's a hot vid, btw, ditto for Money Maker)

8. Dress bag with lavendar oil - front, back, top.

9. Gently spit good sipping Mexican tequila onto the bag (hey, if we're going to be pals . . .)

10. Think Evanescence lyric to "Bring Me to Life" to bring her to life.

11. Excited flurry of energy from the bag! I ask her what her name is, she tells me.

12. Realize I forgot to put petition paper in bag. Carefully jam paper in (I'm guessing she didn't want them to get wet from the life bring spit/tequila).


We did this on Sat. Results since Saturday:
* All of the designer suiting I liked at Bloomingdales went on massive sale, I had bought less expensive suiting at NY&Co. As a bonus, my boss got me the Bloomie's suiting. (shit I want)
* Let's just say on Sunday, Jow and I had a very nice evening in. ;) (relationship)
* If I'm interviewed for Secret Project going on, it would be accolades for my past work in a creative endevour (creative)
* Opportunity for overtime (stability)
* Spent less by a lot on groceries this week, a constant bane of my existance (stability)
* Feeling pretty good with all the work I've been doing on my appearance (appearance) and happy in general (happy)
* Was told by a friend that he envied my life (happy)

I will keep everyone posted!

* Usual caveats - this works for me it may not work for you, use at your own risk, don't juggle chainsaws

Ali

08 April 2009 @ 01:48 pm

I got a money hand from Jason Miller which seems to be helping. I read about it in his journal, and inexplicably i had this picture of a beautiful mehendi like picture of a hand that would be so beautiful by Yemaya's altar.

I suspect she put that image in my head. Having one would definitely
help so I thought, why not?

A few weeks later, Jow's like, you know it's an alligator hand clutching a pouch with things in it, right? And I'm like, omfg no! I never would have gotten it if I had known that!
But I think She was thinking oh, it's going to be so beautiful! And how that translated into my head was what I thought would be beautiful.

So we sort of compromised. I read Jason's letter that went with it, and did the spell work for it. We were worried about the cats getting it, so I got a small mason jar, Jow cut a hole out on the top, and I wrapped her in purple silk. Jason said the pouch is a living, working thing so I named her Ali and then it was a lot easier for me to handle the whole pouch full o' random bits and alligator hand. She lives on the bottom little saucer of Yemaya's altar, like they both want, which seemed to be working out.

It's easier to think of her personified as Ali who lives in a posh little downstairs apartment under Yemaya's place. We'll see if she likes it and if she works for me!