sunnuntai 23. tammikuuta 2022

G for Green Witch

Sometimes when you feel like you have been buried, you have actually been planted.

Grows lots of plants. Find their house cluttered with succulents and herbs. Their power grants them a green thumb so they never kill a plant

Green Witch:Is the practice of nature-based and earth oriented witchcraft, drawing on the folklore, folk religion and folk magic of ancient cultures as they connected to the forest; such as the tree worship of Druids, the kitchen craft of Italian witches or the keeping of sacred groves as presented in Gallic paganism. Green witches usually practice a traditional form of witchcraft in which the earth, trees, herbs, plants and flowers are consulted for their medicinal and magical value. They will grow their own herbs or Wildcraft them, and are very good at making herbal remedies. Belief in deities depends on the individual witch, though many Green witches acknowledge and earth mother or series of nature spirits as their deity. Usually, the spirits of nature, the dead (that of humans and animals) or the Fey have a large part in Green traditions. A form of green witchcraft which is better classified as Green Wicca was popularized by Ann Moura.



Green (Garden) Witch is a practitioner of witchcraft whose focus is on the use of natural items and places. The goal of the Green Witch is upon achieving magic through communion with Mother Nature and using Her energies. A Green witch is very similar to a Kitchen/Cottage witch with the exception that the Green witch practices in the fields and forest in order to be closer to the Divine spirit. The Green witch makes his or her own tools from accessible materials from outdoors.  A Green or Garden Witch, that works primarily with floral materials and flowers in their practice is often called a Flora Witch and one who works with herbs and other plants a Herbal Witch. 


Everyday Plant Magic 
-Draw sigils on your pots to promote growth
-Enchant circles in your garden
-Water your plants with moon, sun, or storm water
-Help your plant babies grow with songs
-Use crystals to charge your soil
-Charge the soil with your palms
-Whisper Positive Mantras to your plant friends
-Every time a houseplant graduates to a bigger pot, treat it as a coming of age ritual.
“Welcome to your brand new home.
Just look at how much you’ve grown.”




Herbs & flowers for anxiety and stress, that also help with insomnia

Chamomile - this herb is anti-stress and calming, inducing feelings of sleep and relaxation as it rids you of anxiety and improves your mood. This herb goes well in a cup of tea with lemon balm, which is used to promote relaxation and improve outlook.

Lemon Balm - this herb brightens the spirit as it relieves anxiety and gives you a sense of calm. It soothes the nerves and relaxes, making it an excellent herb to add to a nightly tea. Some studies show that lemon balm reduces alertness and processing speed due to mild sedation, so it might be wiser to use it more during the evening and night.

Lavender - this calming herb soothes anxiety and induces sleepiness as it is very relaxing, so it’s a good herb for a nightly tea taken an hour before sleep. It also makes a fragrant incense and a good aromatherapy. You can try putting some lavender oil on your pillow.

Turmeric - an excellent anti-inflammatory herb. It calms anxiety. especially anxiety associated with chronically activated stress response.

Rhodiola - this is an adaptogen herb; therefore it has a direct effect on your stress levels and your ability to control and manage stress. Relieves anxiety and encourages calmness and relaxation as it reduces your stress and anxiousness.

Passionflower - this is used as a natural medicine to help anxiety. It has calming effects, which will help those who feel restless and anxious. It induces sleepiness, so you can try it as a nightly tea.

Reishi Mushroom! Calming and relaxing, reishi mushroom is a great thing for anxiousness (and specifically one of the best adaptogens for it) and anxiety that causes sleeplessness.


Did you know?


-Cacti are some of the only plants to photosynthesize from their stems. Their needles are really just modified leaves.


-Avocados are only around because people pollinate and disperse them by hand. The large seed is indigestible to small mammals now. It was originally eaten by giant sloths who would poop them out far away from the parent tree so they can grow. This is called an evolutionary anachronism.

-Banana candy does not taste like bananas because it was designed to taste like the Gros Michel banana which was eaten in the pre-1950s. It was wiped out by a fungus called panama disease. Since bananas are asexual all of them are genetically identical making it easy to wipe them all out at once. However fungus is sexual so it evolves more quickly. This means eventually we may lose the modern banana, the Cavendish, to it as well.

-There are actually three different types of photosynthesis: C3, C4, and CAM. Which type is used depends on the aridness of the environment, and are increasingly more efficient as listed.

-Moss is amazing. The fuzzy part of the moss is called the gametophyte stage and it is haploid meaning it has one set of chromosomes like a sperm or an egg cell in humans. If you look closely, sometimes you will what look like little tiny seeds on stems coming out of the main body. This is the sporophyte stage and it’s diploid, or has two sets of chromosomes, like our body cells. Moss is the oldest type of plant.

-You can usually tell what animal pollinates a plant by the color and shape of its flowers. Red flowers are hardly ever pollinated by bees because bees cannot see red well. Butterfly flowers have long deep centers. Bird pollinated plants can bear weight and are wide and open. Bat pollinated plants usually smell strongly and are darkly colored.

-Almost all American native elms and chestnut trees are extinct because of fungi. Asian chestnut and elm have replaced them, because they are resistant to the strains.

-There is a type of fern that has over 1200 chromosomes. For reference, humans have 46.

-If you shine consistent low level red light on a plant it will grow extremely tall, because red light tells the plant it is being shaded by and competing with other plants. If you shine consistent green light on a plant it will not sprout or die (if already sprouted) because plants absorb red and blue light to use. This is also why plants are green, because the unused green light is reflected back out.




Home Green Magick

-An apple can be used for a simple house blessing; cut an apple in half, and eat one half in your home. place the other outside, in the backyard or front porch, as an offering to good spirits for protection and warm energy.
-Bay leaves can be placed in the corners of a room to banish evil from it and protect those within it.
-A cactus can be grown near a house to offer strong protection; even stronger protection is gained by planting cacti at all for corners of the home.
-Planting catnip in the garden, or hanging it above your door, will attract good spirits and good luck.
-Chamomile can be sprinkled about in the home to break curses and unwanted spells cast on or in the home.
-Cilantro brings peace and harmony to a home.
-Clover can be sprinkled around a home to banish unwanted spirits.
-Garlic can be hung in a home to bring its inhabitants closer together.
-Ivy plants can be hung to deter unwanted guests.
-Lavender can be burned and its ashes sprinkled about to cultivate rest and tranquility within the home.
-Orange peel can be placed in windowsills to bless the house with angel and sun energy.
-Peppermint can be burned as a smoke cleanser to remove illness and negative energy from a new home.
-A sprig of pine can be hung in the home to bless it and its inhabitants.
-Sachets of saffron can bring happiness to the home.
-Thyme burned or hung inside brings good health to its residents.


Window Altars

One easy way to create an altar is to take up a windowsill. Depending on the arrangement of the room you’re using, your personal preference, and the space available, the size of this type of altar varies.

This generally small altar space can be good for witches in the broom closet and green witches who like to keep their altars populated with plant friends. Because it is literally a window to the outside, these altars are also great places for charging things like crystals, spells, and water under the light of the moon.

Benefits:

Good for altars that are heavily planted (hello, sunlight!)
Generally discreet
Keeps your altar space contained (for all us witches that do not know when to quit.

Garden Altars

While pretty much any altar can include plants, there is something else to say for an altar that is almost completely plants. If you have some space indoors, why not design a witch’s garden that doubles as an altar space?

A small tray planted with succulents with offering bowls and candle dishes set into the soil and crystals scattered around can be a unique, and even moveable altar! You could also use potted plants so that you can change the arrangement or plants out whenever you need a refresh.

Benefits:

Deeply connected to nature and the earth
Pluck herbs for spells right off your altar
Generally pretty moveable



Witch tips
-Remember to pay attention to plants as you would pets if you want them to thrive. wipe the dust off their leaves, spray them with water, spend time observing their changes.
-Growing basil in your kitchen wards away negativity.
-The best time to plant herbs is when the moon is in Cancer, Libra, Scorpio or Pisces.
-Garden Witch tip: During the season of May 1 - Summer Solstice plant a circle of Sunflowers during a sunset around the time of the full moon. Sow the seeds clockwise then pack the earth counterclockwise. You will be greeted by a rather pleasant energy.
-Grow basil in your kitchen to keep the space safe from negative spirits



Similar Witch types


Flora - Much like a Green or Garden witch, those who work majorily with floral materials and flowers in their practice and in their spellwork! Their grimoire may be heavily associated with flowers rather than herbs, and likewise, one might use flower properties in spell or craft work.




Garden - While having a garden and/or working in any type of garden; magick that is mostly (if not all) herbal and botanical-related! Garden witches take pride and find it calming or invigorating to work the earth, harvest that which they have planted, and are closely related to Green type

Read more:

torstai 3. kesäkuuta 2021

G for Gaulish

Gaulish - A practice that involves worshipping Gaulish gods.

Gaul (Latin: Gallia) was a historical region of Western Europe during the Iron Age that was inhabited by Celtic tribes, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg, Belgium, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the Rhine. It covered an area of 494,000 km2 (191,000 sq mi). According to the testimony of Julius Caesar, Gaul was divided into three parts: Gallia Celtica, Belgica, and Aquitania. Archaeologically, the Gauls were bearers of the La Tène culture, which extended across all of Gaul, as well as east to Raetia, Noricum, Pannonia, and southwestern Germania during the 5th to 1st centuries BC. During the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, Gaul fell under Roman rule: Gallia Cisalpina was conquered in 203 BC and Gallia Narbonensis in 123 BC. Gaul was invaded after 120 BC by the Cimbri and the Teutons, who were in turn defeated by the Romans by 103 BC. Julius Caesar finally subdued the remaining parts of Gaul in his campaigns of 58 to 51 BC.

Roman control of Gaul lasted for five centuries, until the last Roman rump state, the Domain of Soissons, fell to the Franks in AD 486. While the Celtic Gauls had lost their original identities and language during Late Antiquity, becoming amalgamated into a Gallo-Roman culture, Gallia remained the conventional name of the territory throughout the Early Middle Ages, until it acquired a new identity as the Capetian Kingdom of France in the high medieval period. Gallia remains a name of France in modern Greek (Γαλλία) and modern Latin (besides the alternatives Francia and Francogallia).

Name:
As adjectives, English has the two variants: Gaulish and Gallic. The two adjectives are used synonymously, as "pertaining to Gaul or the Gauls", although the Celtic language or languages spoken in Gaul is predominantly known as Gaulish. Gaulish, a Celtic language once spoken across a lot of Continental Europe before being supplanted by Latin and finally dying out in the 6th century CE or so.




-The Gaulish worldview is similar to those of the other Celtic faith traditions. There is very much the sense of an Otherworld/Underworld.
-Reincarnation seems to be the post-life event of choice among the Gauls. But very specific in reincarnating as a human.
-The Gauls shared a common ancestry with whom Caesar called father Dis, who has been theorized to either be Cernunnos or Sucellos. Or perhaps father Dis is a different god depend on the region of Gaul.
-There are over 300 Gaulish gods!
-Shrines aren’t necessary, but an altar can be extremely helpful. From a modern standpoint, all that’s really required of is something that can symbolically carry prayers and offerings to the gods. An ashtray/incense stand to facilitate burning, or even something as simple as a symbol to Cernunnos in order to invoke Him in order to Open the Way. 
A Gaulish shrine can be to a certain god, to group of gods who are related in some way or as a shrine to the ancestors. These can be decorated in any way, if inspiration or ideas are needed just ask.
-The Wheel of Taranis. Taranis is one of, if not the most important god of Gaul. 
His wheel symbolizes the sun and the turning of the cosmos. The Wheel of Taranis has been used as offerings that were thrown into rivers and was also worn as an amulet.

Here are some neat Gaulish vocabulary words to get you started with that you can use alongside your practice! These words are Recon-friendly, meaning they are taken directly from source texts.
Dewoi = The Gods
Antumnos = The Underworld, where spirits & the ancestors reside.
Anderoi = The ancestors, are more often seen as a benevolent force that are happy to help. Sleeping over the grave/tomb of the ancestors would bring helpful dreams.
Galatis = Unmarried men in warbands who would go say hello to the neighbors (See the Sacking of Rome). I’ve used this in the modern context as an alternate name for Modern Gauls.

Did you know?
’-rix’ is a suffix that denotes ‘king’ in Gaulish, an ancient Celtic language. The names of some ancient Gaulish kings include Vercingetorix and Ambiorix. The childrens’ book characters Asterix and Obelix are named in this style, but for it to be completely accurate Obelix would have to be written 'Obelorix’.

As always we use English and sometimes Gaulish, the ancient language that was spoken by the Celts around the area of today’s Switzerland. Unfortunately this is a dead language, so all we can work with are scientific reconstructions (besides ancient inscribed texts, which have been found through archaeological excavations).
—  Merlin Sutter, Eluveitie





Little bit of history

maanantai 26. huhtikuuta 2021

April favorites

 Playing with friends in BDO and recording my games. Gonna make some videos for new Youtube channel soon! I have been so exited about it. Nääärrr, Atte!


Clothing design and drawing. I have been thinking about new hobby, which is making clothes. Yeah. I don´t have enough hobbies, right? Gonna go in fabric store tomorrow and check out some fabric and few little things I need. Also.. maybe this might be a bigger thing if I don´t loose my mind with the machine. Exited and very nervous.



Finnish folklore. Specially Hiisi obsession. Finnish nature. Finnish Swamps. Just Finnish stuff.  I wish I could go to forest or swamps again. Like, daily. Really want to take new pictures and get inspired by nature and use it on my music and art.


Hedgehogs! Specially Freddie. She/He came to sleep by the door every night. So cute!


Movie nights with my friends.


Making your own twist to already made clothes. This shirt got new hood.


My crystal deer skull painting obsession.


Podcasts. On Spotify. Obsessed. 

My art thing about depression has been on going art project aswell. Here is few what I have been working on lately.



Comic stuff. Still want to do some comics, but they keep taking time because I don´t like anything I make. This is sketch version about the time that my boyfriend was being himself again. I dunno.. wanna see my comics more?




Remember to keep safe!