New Year, New You: An Experiment in Magical Radical Transformation

Yeah. . .She's not this classy.  Trust me.

My muse and I have an on-going disagreement of sorts.  Well.  I do.  She is indifferent as usual to my thoughts and feelings.  She clomps into my bedroom, heels in hand, cosmo and cheese fries on her breath.

She (poking me hard):  Hey.  Get up.

Me: What?  It's bedtime and we're not talking friends --

She: Whatever.  I have an idea.

Me: Your ideas are disorderly and often inconvenient.  I'm going back to bed.

She: No, you're not.  I'm going to keep poking you in your brain pan until you listen.  Are you listening now?  Are you listening now?  Are you listening now?  Are you listening now?  Are you listening now?  Are you listening --

Me: JESUS CHRIST, I HATE YOU!

She: So it goes like this.

So, you're supposed to be, like, magicians, occultists, witches in the woods and the kitchen and on the soccer field, right?  Workers of wonder.  Dream weavers.  People who get shit done.  Isn't this the year to make your own luck?  You're feeling especially awful with the nights that never end and run over by the holidaze and you can't drink joie forever before needing a meeting.  So now's the fucking time.  Don't wait until that stupid glitter ball drops and you're already making drunk and/or sentimental mistakes, start now.  Start now when it's hardest.  Start now when you feel so weighed down with emotions better left to glittery and not so glittery vampires and when you feel like you could sleep forever.  Now is the time you need to wake up.  Get up, get up!  Don't miss this moment.  Create magics great and small, mundane and mystical.  Find everything you've been looking for, mysteries revealed in every form of divination and song and when you fuck it up, when you are too tired to try, bring each other up from bloodied knees to get back up smiling.  You are all made of stars and you have stardust in your veins.  Do something about it.

Here is what you'll do.  You'll write prompts.  You'll explore.  You'll fall down.  Sometimes you'll lay there awhile, finding things under rocks that you never wanted to know.  They'll pull you back, using yarn, glue, cajoling and stern words.  You'll keep sewing yourself into who you'll want to be and you'll tell them, sometimes too much, because that's your way and what's needed.  You'll find how far you can really fly when you've made wings to carry you and be breathless from your accomplishments.  Besides your words, you'll give something made from your hands.  

Here is what they'll do.  Form a community of tealight hearths and stories high bonfires.  They'll whisper their stories, spirials of success and failure.  You'll learn from each other, make each other laugh, piss each other off.  You'll get things done together and alone.  You'll be afraid together, so knees up.    

Here's how it will work:

There's a prize.  Of course there's a prize.  I will do a random drawing and whoever wins can chose  one item from my shop and I will ship it anywhere in the world for free.  The Drawing will take place on Valentine's Day.  

I will put everyone's name in a hat and have Jow chose a name from the hat.  If you are a fiber freak (yarn, Dream Ambassadors, felted soap), I will even hand dye that item in the color of your choice.

You get one entry when:

* You add the "New Year, New You" button to your blog

* You blog about the "New Year, New You" experiment to spread the word about it

* You blog in response to any of my "New Year, New You" prompts (one entry each time you do so!)

* You blog about your own "New Year, New You" experiment (one entry each time you do so!).  You are captain of your own ship, if you're ass deep in your own experiments in making yourself stronger, faster, braver and more magical, that certainly counts.

You must leave me a comment with the appropriate link so that I know you have done these things.

Last Sale Day at La Sirene et Le Corbeau!

Thanks to all of you Charmers for buying things at my sale so far!  Besides the terrariums, Dream Ambassadors, hand poured beeswax candles and handspun hand dyed yarn, I also offer an array of oils full of magic-y goodness:

Aurora's Mojo Hand Feeding Oil (Hand Infused Apothecary Style Oil)
Using a blend of dried herbs that include ginger and boneset this oil works to promote the prosperity, protection, attractiveness, luck and courage aspects of your mojo hand's spirit as well as working as an offering to the spirit as well with tobacco and rum. This oil is made with a high quality carrier oil and comes in a five milliliter amber glass bottle and is sealed with a cork and red beeswax. It has been made and consecrated using traditional methods.

This oil can be used on pulse points but can also be used for spiritual purposes such dressing candles, dressing mojo bags, dream pillows and poppets.

Rowan's Rose Love Drawing Oil (Hand Infused Apothecary Style Oil)
Using a blend of dried herbs that include rose and damiana to promote drawing a potential partner to you and increasing your attractiveness to prospective partners or your currrent partner(s), this oil is made with a high quality carrier oil and comes in a five milliliter amber glass bottle and is sealed with a cork and red beeswax. It has been made and consecrated using traditional methods.

This oil can be used on pulse points but can also be used for spiritual purposes such dressing candles, dressing mojo bags, dream pillows and poppets.

Britania's Basil Money Drawing Oil (Hand Infused Apothecary Style Oil)
Using a blend of dried herbs that include irish moss, honey, basil and cinnamon to promote drawing money and prosperity to you, this oil is made with a high quality carrier oil and comes in a five milliliter amber glass bottle and is sealed with a cork and red beeswax. It has been made and consecrated using traditional methods.

This oil can be used on pulse points but can also be used for spiritual purposes such dressing candles, dressing mojo bags, dream pillows and poppets.
High John the Conqueror Oil (Hand Infused Apothecary Style Oil) Using an olive oil carrier oil, this oil is infused with High John root for bringing success to your endeavors. It has been made and consecrated using traditional methods.

This oil can be used on pulse points but can also be used for spiritual purposes such dressing candles, dressing mojo bags, high john root, dream pillows and poppets.

Lucy's Lavender Healing Oil (Hand Infused Apothecary Style Oil)
Using a blend of dried herbs that include lavender and agrimony to promote healing for chronic conditions such as lupus, fibromyalgia, depression, insomnia and anxiety, this oil is made with a high quality carrier oil and comes in a five milliliter amber glass bottle and is sealed with a cork and red beeswax. It has been made and consecrated using traditional methods. I use a mortar and pestle to cold press the herbs by hand.

This oil can be used on pulse points but can also be used for spiritual purposes such dressing candles, dressing mojo bags, dream pillows and poppets.

Until 11:59p tonight, get 15% off at La Sirene et Le Corbeau with the code CYBERMONDAY.

Sale at My Shop!

 From now until 11:59p Monday, get 15% off at La Sirene et Le Corbeau with the code CYBERMONDAY.   All orders shipped on Tuesday!

Tiny terrariums, luxe soft hand spun hand dyed yarn, handpoured beeswax candles, Dream Ambassadors and Apothecary oils! Spread the word. ♥

[Pagan Agony Auntie] Still Moar on Honey Pots

If you have a burning question that you want my input on, feel free to drop me a line at corvaxgirl [at] gmail [dottie] com and I will keep you anonymous and dazzle you with my insight or not. Whatev. As always, you're the captain of your own ship and feel free to disagree with me as often and loudly as you like! 


Sorry, Reader, I know I'm super late getting back to you and I think you may have figured the answer out on your own but in case you want more input and/or anyone else wants to know, a Reader asks:


O hai, just wondering about the flexibility of the honey jar technique. I'm thinking of using it as a love-attracting element, rather than money-attracting or specific-person-sweetening element, with a change up in colors and herbs. Does this sound like a good or bad idea, given that you have way more experience and knowledge with this technique?


It's not a bad idea at all.  Honey jars are more of a slow and steady process so I can imagine that if you have a less specific target, it might be a longer process than just saying I want Person X to love me.  But depending on your own personal moral compass, not asking for a specific person to love you may have less moral ramifications.  Generally speaking, this is how I do my money honey jar work, I ask to make money from specific streams (writing, etc.) versus I want to be in X anthology.  Sometimes I will do the prayer/candle work over the honey jar before a specific event such as a craft show to assist me that way.  I would think the same would be true with your love-drawing honey jar, you could do your candle work before going some place that you might meet a suitable partner (club, bar, con, poetry reading, what have you).  


The real trick to honey jars is to remember that you are creating a spirit fetch essentially and if you forget to feed him or her regularly through prayer and candle work, there's no delicate way to put this, you're not only making it so  that it's going to be too weak to work for you, you're killing it like a houseplant/goldfish also.  If you are done with your honey jar, you need to ritually decommission it like I outlined here.


Think about what characteristics you want to draw to you and put them in your petition paper.  Be sure to roll the paper towards you.  You can't go wrong with adding dried roses to attract love, dried lavender to attract aspects of a long term partner and a bit of ginger powder to make things go faster/get a good attraction.  Pink or white candles would be good to use and you can make or buy a love oil or you could use rose oil.


Happy hunting!

Terrariums: Where My Crazy Is Currently Residing

Shiny!

So.  My adventures in building terrariums isn't maaaagic per se except for a few points:

a. I stained the benches that they reside on in the house with a door open and the fan going which was strictly forbodden by Jow but everyone else gets to make flying ointments and blow glass in their houses why can't I?  The cats and I enjoyed ourselves immensely for a good hour or two with that.

b. They will live in the Work Room where our magical practice will be taking place.

c. I am having an ongoing "discussion" with Jow about how these could honestly be nature spirit homes/altars.  He gets all blah blah blah you need to have corresponding herbs and other stuff which . . .is not necessarily true per se in my opinion.  1. Besides what the animal actually eats, in my experience at least there's not a huge herbal corresponding overlap. and 2. Sometimes, people need to not be lazy slags and do their own work imo.  I would see these altars as "blanks" with all the neat shiny components all set up inside them for *you* to do all that worship work.  Sometimes people need to do their own fucking spiritual work imo and not expect everything already set for them.  3. While New Jersey is not known for it's huge fairy tale mushrooms (which I sculpted) and its glittering trees, the fox seems perfectly happy to me.  Sometimes we need to use our imaginations some and allow for some artistic merit here.  4. He's never done Shaman work and freestyle breaks his delicate Hermetic brain, so . . . whatever.

Anyway.  Here are more pics of Mr. Fox's habitat as well as Madam Bird's habitat for you to enjoy.  Should you want one of your very own, email me with your little heart's desires and budget and we'll work it out.

I Long for Lazy Days of the Summertime: Must Be the Season of the Witch

I feel ya Becky.  All of Great Hestia's Xanax won't wash this
blood clean from my hand.

Things I should be doing:

1. Figuring out what to wear for Thanksgiving/hounding my mother to make sure there's enough wine to get through this hellish event.

2. Reminding myself how to brine the turkey.

3. Making more crafts to peddle.

4. Starting holiday shopping and crafting.

5. Cleaning my house which is a disgusting mess.

6. Starting Etsy exclusive occulty/pagantastic crafts to be sold and received before Yule.

7. Writing a smutty short story for an anthology with a rapidly approaching deadline.


Things I've actually done:


1. Got a better price on my soap related materials

2. Made my Xmas List of Demands

3. Made sure to fill out all my med related paperwork/obtain actual meds

4. Other Adult Paperwork Drudgery

5. Gotten dressed today (. . .yay?)

6. Made Thanksgiving shopping list

7. Will be baby sitting this evening for cash.

8. Realized with Jow that the thrift stores around here would require a v. intensive time investment and that we should realize who we are - middle class americans with aspirations of being French-Like (French-Lite?).  We did manage to get a lovely little offering dish and offering chalice in our thrifting adventures as well as a little flower sculpture like my grandma used to collect for the ancestors altar.  Oh!  And this awesome framed hanging sculpture of a door knob with a lock and a key.  Luckily for the rest though, there's no shortage of stores more than happy to cater to our aspirations.  We got all four of these for our elemental vessels and this candelabra for our offerings of light.  We're leaning towards this table for our altar which would mean we would need to use this chalk for any writing we need to do on it.

9. And of course I wander, even from just writing this but you have to understand, Jow and I deciding to work together magically has been a work in progress.  We found that our Model UN discussions go better over afternoon tea at a restaurant because then we can't flip tables or get into shouting matches and there's no sharp objects.  We have to laugh because generally speaking we get along nauseatingly well, we hardly ever fight but when it comes down to doing magic together I swear to the gods that it's like always two seconds away from someone getting stabbed in hand.  So you have to understand for us to even plot out what to buy /an outline of our rites together is like a peace treaty between two quarrelsome neighboring nations.  But we've been working hard and I just emailed him the last piece of the puzzle and if he approves it we have our whole outline done.  We've even agreed on our first bit of magic we'll be doing.   It's something that will be special to us but it's not, like, a revolutionary structure or anything (I don't think), it's just cobbling together stuff that we agree on.  We will be calling it bonne magie because it's french and made up and pretentious.

10. Spending a ridiculous time plotting my terrariums.  You have to understand that artistic terrariums are like tiny worlds onto themselves that you get to reign over as god/dess king/queen.  So if you're a complete psycho control freak like myself and are crispy fried to the point that you are hiding from literally everyone and everything and need a place to put your crazy, spending an unseemly amount of time on plotting the most minute detail of these little worlds is a good way to decompress.  If you would like to meander down my path of control freakiness, here is a good start.   Even better I can totes justify this because (a) it's going to be an integral part of building our Work room and (b) I've already gotten a commission request, just by blabbing about it on Facebook.  Justified.

Dream Ambassadors/Jow's Book Destash Jamboree

Tiny Sheep to Help You Sleep!

Firstly, thanks to all you Charmers who were kind enough to help us by buying some of Jow's precious books.  You all get 500 xp points towards your next incarnation!  We're shipping out the 30something we've sold so far today (. . .that's going to be fun trip to the post office) and have like 90 books to go!  So if you're sad about not having more books to clog your house up with and/or would like to get something for that hard to shop for occultist/gamer on your holiday list, there's still lots to chose from at the lowest prices on Amazon!

Speaking of impulse buying, I've finally had a moment to add some of my Dream Ambassadors to my Etsy shop.  I honestly sell these little guys as fast as I can make them at craft shows and I have two coming this weekend so if you want one, now's the time.

Dream Ambassadors are tiny sheep to help you sleep! As ambassadors from Lambieland, their job is to help people of all ages get a good night's sleep.

Each sheep is hand needle felted and hand sculpted so please allow slight differences in size, fleece coat, shape and facial features. Also allow for coloration differences as your monitor may show slightly different colors than the way your Dream Ambassador looks in person. Each Dream Ambassador is approximately 8 inches in diameter and 5 inches long. Felting is an intensive process and each Dream Ambassador takes several hours to complete.

If you would like your Dream Ambassador to be scented with lavender essential oil, please note that in your order instructions. Because of the small parts, Dream Ambassadors are not recommended for very small children to play with.