​Some nights the moon just doesn’t show her shiny face for my rituals, tonight was completely overcast.  Overcast doesn’t matter to high levels of gamma provided during this time, and having a little indoor ritual is nice too!  Vaporizer with vanilla, table candle and moon water to set the mood. 
Doing many little things in anticipation of Imbolc, this tired witch is keeping it short tonight.
Refocus, realign and renew those shields, that intent, that prosperity bowl, that love of self.  Time to rest, tend and maintain for the new 14 days.  

The only thing you really need for this is some sort of three-minute timer and a glass of water.
The timer I use on my phone is free, easy to use and has multiple settings including intermittent adjustable times.  I have included an image of the app in google play store so you can find it easily.
If you wish and are in a comfortable location, you can light a candle.  A small birthday candle is nice, as it will be burned out by the time you are done.

Set the timer for 3 minutes, I have mine set to chime every minute.  Get a glass of water and sit.  Sip the water slowly and constantly, while thinking of only things in the room with you.  The water, the seat, your feet on the floor, the sound of the fan, etc. 

Reset the timer for 3 minutes and stand, feet flat on the floor.  Move your upper body slowly and comfortably.  Rotate your neck, stretch your arms and back, dance in place, bend and stretch, whatever feels good to you.  Keep your feet flat on the floor.

Reset the timer for 3 minutes, sit, eyes closed.  Focus only on your breath, your body, your skin. 

It’s a basic short reset for your mind.  It’s difficult for the brain to have an anxiety reaction while drinking water.  It starts calming your system.  When you get up to move, you engage a different portion of your mind, further removing you from the focus of the anxiety. 
​
“The mind is like water. When it's turbulent, it's difficult to see. When it's calm, everything becomes clear.” - Prasad Mahes

Imbolc 2024 : Part 2 Jan 23th         Wheel of the year series

The ritual spell is almost complete and I decided to do a call out for a blessing from Brigid as part of the spell.  I believe the collective mind of so many people call out to their universal connection in the same way (Through Brigid), it lend power to the intent and thought process. 

The last week has been filled with multiple threads on the same path.  A Barbados Cherry tree has been brought in, and my first attempt at canning fruit was a great success!  Star fruit, a sweet tree fruit in full production in the SE US right now lent itself well to the marmalade.   Cantaloupe seeds have been planted in their new hydroponics home.  My quest to produce fruit in a controlled environment begins today!

I finally wrote up my 10 minute anxiety / reset meditation and set it to post on Monday.
​
Full moon is Jan 25th around 1pm for me.  It’s getting very lovely and round!  

​Imbolc : Part 1 Jan 20th
The wheel of the year are seasons, not specific dates, however in today’s world it does make it easier for us to celebrate as a “group” if we pick a day.
Imbolc is the celebration of the start of Spring, around the first of February.  With the continuation of global warming and the shutting down and slowing of the polar vortex on the north pole, the freezing temperatures and harsh weather continue in the northern hemisphere.  Hardly spring anymore, the basic celebration, the start of growth and fertility, is something I have spent a lot of time thinking about lately.
Most of the year I live in a Zone 10 growing location in the Southeastern US.  Next year I will be in a Zone 6 mountain climate for at least half the year, the growing half.   For several years I have been trying to stabilize my food supply to prepare for the coming issues in worldwide shipping.  I have purchased fruit trees that work well in containers, vanilla beans and cocoa trees, eucalyptus and coffee beans, just to name a few things. 
This Imbolc my ritual is focusing on my upcoming year and building my foundation for the gardening and food storage technics I will require in the coming decades to live a happy life with tasty things. 
I started early this year at the end of January.
I have transplanted a spring of Bay tree to create a new ancestorial tree in the new location.  Bay Trees were munchy food for dinosaurs long before mankind was running around.  To me, these leaves represent ancestorial lines.

The ritual spell is starting to construct itself in my mind, as well as the garden space on the mountain. 

Building rituals isn’t a single day moment, nor is it done in a single sitting.  It must develop and grow with your wants and desires.  This year’s Imbolc will not be next years, although it’ll be based on the same premise, spring.  

Elementals (4th dimensional entities?) are attracted to different stimuli on our three dimensional plane.  The water is a representation to our minds of a moment in time for us that is connected to an event, place or intention.  We use the water like a telephone to re-connect to the elementals that are associated with it.   The water you collect on the morning of your wedding before the sun comes out is very different from the water you collect during a hurricane.  The meaning, the representations and even the elementals themselves are completely different, but yet, it's still water.  The elementals that hang out in the little stream in the forest are not the same elementals who are attracted to Niagara falls.  Just like any entity they have their own "style" and "personalities". 

The image is of "Intention Water".  The first new moon of 2024 was magnificently aligned for setting and attaining new intentions.  The New Moon occurred at 7am for my location on Jan 11th, during a powerful rainstorm that created massive tornadoes and torrents of rain.  I did a ceremony that morning for my yearly intentions, during that storm and collected this water.  For the next year, whenever I do a new moon ceremony and reset/readjust my short term 28 day goals, I will use this water to re-connect to the moment and the elements I was welcoming in at the time.  Air and Water.  Always be sure to label your jars!  

As I poke around facebook one of the biggest things I keep seeing are people asking for help getting things out of their house, or having to smudge constantly, something bad in my kids room, people sending bad curses or energy their way, etc. 

One of the first things I learned as a child was how to shield.  One of the first spells I was taught to write was for protection over my entire room.  The entire wiccan circle thing; a religious representation of shielding a personal workspace; never heard of that till I was well over 25 and my first thought was – WHY?  If you are in your house, that is “obviously” already shielded, what are you building the second shield against?  Perception is a funny thing.

If you move or directly engage with energy and especially other people (like I’m doing right now with you the reader) you need to have your shield game on and up and running as if it was just as important as cleaning out the fridge.

I do my home and property shielding about once a month with my new moon ritual.  It’s my sit and reflect over the last 28 days, and get ready for the next 28 days moment.  Boost the shields, maybe redo the prosperity bowl, and some self love in the dark of the moon when the gamma is lowest.

This year, 2024, I decided to write up house shields 101 and create a ritual with a visual representation of the shield work.  I wrote this ritual for you all.  Mine is personal and intricate with my ancestors and the elements so wouldn’t be appropriate and actually the reason I haven’t done one of these before.   

I work heavily with the elements and see them as a representation of the 4th dimensional beings (spirits).  Shield work is an excellent way to build bonds and friendships with these types of spirits, as it includes all of them. It is really sort of a low grade spell with general intent and easy for smaller elements to handle on the day to day.  I consider this high magic as you are requesting assistance from outside yourself.  In this case ancestors and elements. 

I performed this ritual on Jan 11th after 7am, the first “day” of the new moon for the year.  You can do this ritual whenever you feel you need it, want it, or are “feeling” your energy and in the mood to ask spirit for help.

I have a large glass bowl that will be my vessel.  This bowl fits neatly under my working alter.  I suggest you find a bowl or container that is open topped or see through so you can boost your shields and see your components as a reminder.  I suggest a re-read and a shield boost at least once a month.  You don’t have to do the entire ritual again, just get out the container and read the spell again.

My components –
5 pieces of origami paper (6” square paper)
Pen for inking runes and shield on paper and bay leaf – mine is glass and I use different colored inks, but you can just pick a favorite writing tool
Water for dipping ink pen – Collected on full moon, Dec 2018 Ursids meteor shower winter solstice. 
Rosemary - Protection
Red Peppers – collected for Yule each year – protection and Winter Solstice power (black pepper works just as well just without the ancestorial connection of my ingredients)
Water from my properties – if you don’t have open water, get some out of the faucet.
Rose (my mother’s Rose bush, pick something with ancestor attachment meaning for you)
Black Tourmaline - protection
Bay leaf – ancestorial power tree. 
Red candle (if you don’t already have one representing your elements or on your alter) – Representing fire. 
​
I started by writing the spell (provided below).
I chose four runes to make my shield representation from. 
Othila – Earth – Homeland and family
Algiz – Air – Protection
Thurisaz – Fire – Strength
Hagalaz – Ice – Weapons of War
I combined these together to create my shield.  See image below.
 
I dipped my ink pen and drew a rune from each element onto a piece of paper, the fifth piece being an image of the combined runes to make the shield.
 
I then took each paper and folded it into a crow’s head except the last full shield paper, which I folded into a crown.  The representation at the end will be of four crow heads surrounding a crown.   You don’t have to fold the paper, or you can fold it into something more meaningful for you.  I just thought a murder of crows would be a great representation for protection, home and ancestorial family.
 
I meditated and connected to my power and the universe in alignment with my beliefs, you do you here.
 
I then started to read the spell slowly, adding first the shield, then my crows, slowly adding the materials to the bowl.  I read the spell four times, once for each element.  I dripped red wax over the entire bowl.
 
I meditated for an additional 30 minutes as my alter candles burned out.
 
I will repeat this shielding every new moon, or when I feel the need.  

** note - these images were done and staged for you. These are not images of my finished protection bowl, only the parts in the bowl. The crow is not part of my shield, just an example for the photo. I highly suggest you NOT share your shield bowl as it's a personal item.
​

3 days = 72 total hours - 36 hours prior to the moment you have full moon at your specific location on the planet lasting to 36 hours after that time. Google "full moon Nov 2023 exact time location". Full Moon is the exact second the Earth is directly between the Moon and the Sun from your location on the planet.
This moment you get the most gamma radiation (transformed space radiation) and the height of gravitational pull and who knows what else we haven't figured out yet. The full moon is just a mundane / visual representation of forces we can't see.
These forces don't care about cloud cover or wooden roofs. They don't care about glass of if the water has touched the sunlight. Half the time the full moon occurs in daylight, you just can't see it from the solar radiation (sunlight). Gamma radiation is affected by metal and dirt. So if you are in the core of a skyscraper or a cave, no gamma for you.
Water "charged" or "gathered" is just a mental and visual representation of a moment in time and space. Hurricane water, full moon water, river water from that special place, rainwater from your wedding, etc. In your mind, these all have associations that come out in your work.
If you work with elementals, like all spirits they have their own personalities and their own likes and dislikes. The water elements that come out to play in a hurricane are not the ones that hang out in the little fairy stream 2000 miles north. We choose different waters for different purposes, different intents, like you would choose any tool.
Nothing in nature is a do or don't, what is poison is also often medicine. Nature balances all things.
Stop listening to the “you can’t people” who don’t give you a reason why, a reason that makes sense to you because you have thought about it, not just because it’s regurgitated 100 times a day.  The speed at which misinformation is spread without reason or correction is astounding.  

Clear sky’s above and a lovely day made the Solar Eclipse very noticeable as the sunlight dropped down.  My location only had 68% coverage, but it was enough to light my enthusiasm for this new moon and the wonderful and uplifting things that are coming my way. 
I did my new moon ceremony of realignment and assessment and pulled some cards.   An odd thing in the sunny afternoon, but so enjoyable. 
The photo is a pinhole in another piece of paper, the shadow showing through the hole.  The water is my solar eclipse water bottle, I’ve had it for over a decade and recharged it in the shadow of the moon.
May you all have a wonderful next 28 days!

Magic being 100% your intent is just crap.  The internet is filled with people telling you it’s ALL YOU, NOTHING BUT YOU.  YOU make the correlation; YOU can decide what you want to use to represent this or that. 
Just utter crap.  I’m not saying that your correlations don’t matter, or that your intent isn’t the fuse that lights the spell up to activation.  It is, Just like holding a fuss up to a rocket, you are intentionally catching the powder on fire; but once that rocket goes off, it’s all on the rocket.   If Grandma’s favorite color is yellow, maybe your love color is yellow; and that’s great.  But even that, you are choosing a correlation that sets your mind up to remember your ancestors or your family power. 
If it was all your intent, you could use sage to attract energy to you.   Why won’t that work?  Because for thousands of years human’s have recognized sage as a cleansing herb, removing energy from an area.  Your single intent, your single belief, doesn’t mean anything next to 5000+ years of human’s all believing the same way. 
If it was all intent, why bother with Deities??  If it was all you pushing that energy and making it happen, why give thanks to spirit, or ask your ancestors for help?  Why would you build a relationship with things you can’t see or hear or smell?  Why would you pray or give offerings?  You wouldn’t, because there would be no need.  We ask for help from beyond, we practice in groups, we do this because it boosts our power, it increases our energy and it’s reach.  Our intent is a rudder that is steering a ship on waves of energy.  Without our ship, a rudder is just a floating hunk of wood adrift in an ocean subjected to it’s currents and winds.  A ship without a rudder is the same.


Balance in all things.