Saturn has turned direct and brought with it many messages for me. Clarity started to rush in late last night and this morning all of the messages have coalesced. In the spirit of jumping right in I’m going to take a risk and offer some services to my readers. If you join my FB group The Temple Within I will pull a card for you regarding Samhain. If you also follow me on IG I will pull 3 cards for you regarding Samhain.
Now for the nitty gritty, every year I choose a tree, animal, rune, and tarot card for the year. These are guides that I work with all year starting at Samhain. This year I’m going to be offering this service to you.
For $5 I will draw a tree and animal for you.
For $10 I will draw all 4!
For $15 I will draw all 4 and have a 15min FB messenger chat with you about what came up and how you can learn to draw these helpers for yourself.
If you are interested please email me at wiwitchycrow@gmail.com
Let me help you get the new year started off right!
Today is the new moon in Libra and I wish I could say that I am feeling energized. The reality of the situation is that I am feeling drained. This Mercury Retrograde hasn’t been earth shattering but it has been depressive. I’m trying to work up the energy to clean up my ritual space and also work some new moon magick. I know I will feel better if I just do it.
Normally this is my favorite time of the year, but this year I’m struggling to get into it. I really miss meeting with other witches in person and working ritual and just celebrating together. My groups are very quiet and I have been unable to raise engagement so even online interactions have been hard.
For right now I’m just trying to listen, listen for the voice of the goddess, reaching for clarity. I’m hoping after Mercury goes direct this will all get better! How is your October going so far?
Happy Samhain Season! I know that it might seem early for some folks but I start celebrating Samhain right after Mabon has passed. October is almost here and for me it is a time of deep reflection. I tend to slow down and turn inward. It is the time when I work my most powerful magick and it is when I experience my most powerful transformation. Part of this work is choosing my word of the year. This is a word I will start to work with on Samhain and then continue till next Samhain. At this point I am writing possible words down in my journal and then revisting them every few days to see if any of them has bubbled up to the top. When I first sat down to do this nothing really came to me. But as usual, after a few days words started to come through to me. The one that is the highest on the list is FREEDOM.
Ok this makes me kinda angry…lol. I had freedom like 3 times over a 5 year period and now I can feel it returning. It makes sense when I really think about it, especially with Mercury causing me to want to look back. If freedom ends up being the word for next year I think it will hit a different part of my life than it did before. This time it will be all about releasing myself from childhood trauma and starting to live my life more in the present. It will be heavy work. It will be interesting to see if this all changes when Mercury goes direct. My gut tell me that it will not change but you never know. Usually about three days before Samhain I know for sure, it just comes to me.
Another activity I plan to do around Samhain is to create a vision board for the year. I like to do this as a meditative activity and then I can use it all year round as a backdrop to my work.
I am excited to kick off all of my favorite Samhain season activities. My husband and I will be traveling this weekend and so I won’t be able to hit the ground running till Monday. I will keep you posted!
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It is almost time for fall equinox here is my little corner of the world. During this Mabon/Fall Equinox time of the year I often think of apples and grapes. When food and wine are not on my mind I consider balance. In the chaos of our current world situation it can be hard to find balance and I feel it does me a world of good to stop and make some adjustments. This means taking a hard look at my habits and asking myself where am I giving too much energy and where do I need to give more? Fall equinox is also the last turn of the wheel before Samhain and so I see it as prep for October and November, the most introspective and powerful points of my year.
We are almost midway through the main three harvest holidays I celebrate. I can feel something big is coming but I do not know yet what it is. I have been doing some letting go and releasing to make room for my September harvest. My husband and I have been doing things a bit early this year and I wonder if that isn’t part of the making room process. While we wait to see what the season ushers in I plan to enjoy a few more appletinis.
When thinking about things I can do to bring myself into balance the first thing that pops into my mind is self-care. Don’t start groaning at me, I’m talking about real self-care not the meme version.
Here is a list of what I’d like to work on:
More time outside. Now that my allergies are a tad better and the temperatures are improving I’d like to do some more hiking and spend some more time outside with the dogs.
I’d like to take better care of myself. Sleep as much as I can and eat good food, which leads me to…
Cooking more. My husband does much of the cooking and I love him for it but whenever I cook dinner it makes me happy. I’d like to try more new recipes and branch out a little bit.
More yoga. I always need more yoga. It makes my body feel better and it helps me to…
Meditate more. Why is this always a goal? Why is it hard to achieve? Probably because it feels superfluous.
I have started holding my breathe again. This is caused by the C-PTSD that I suffer from. I’m going to try to take three deep breathes whenever I catch myself holding my breath.
Do you have equinox goals? If so, what are they? What will you do to celebrate?Fall Eq
Happy end of August! I’m intending to start my fall festivities on September 1st. Autumn is my favorite season and I feel like a kid at Christmas watching the clock for Santa Claus only I’m watching the clock for falling leaves and pumpkin everything. Black-eyed Susans are blooming everywhere and they bring so much happy energy with them.
I have been enjoying an unexpected harvest during this early part of the harvest season. I have been experiencing a freshing up of my practice. Over the last year I have been able to be more open to my ancestors and that has brought with it opportunities for new ways of communicating with them and also opportunities to work with some new deities. This has been very exciting for me and I’ve been able to reach some long sought after goals.
All of this has inspired me to be more focused on my spirituality and that has in turn deepened my connection to all of my practice. One thing I have been trying to do is bring more creativity into my magick and also into my Book of Shadows. I am a very artistic person but that doesn’t always shine through in my practice. I tend to be down and dirty when I work magick and now I’m inspired to pretty everything up a bit. Change is good and it can be so easy to allow your practice to become stagnant. I find that when that starts to happen it becomes harder and harder to do all of the spiritual things that I know will make me happier and make my life better over all.
So far this harvest season has been a mixed bag of ups and downs. At times I have been very frustrated by mundane things like my health. On the magickal front I have no complaints and having everything being so good in that area is just making everything else easier.
Soon fall equinox will be upon us and after that Samhain. I’m in no rush to get to Samhain, I intend to breathe deep and try to savor every minute of this coming fall season.
Witchy things I like to do in September:
Go to the local winery and celebrate the harvest of the grapes.
Apple everything! I already like to share apples as offerings and this is the perfect time of year to lean into that.
Get outdoors! Once the rough allergy season passes and the weather cools down I like to get outdoors and do some hiking or just spend time collecting leaves. Once the trees start turning it is a lovely time to commune with nature and drink in the beauty of it all.
“Hoof and horn hoof and horn Those who die shall be reborn Corn and grain corn and grain Those who fall shall rise again”
I’m not sure the origin of the chant above but I learned it when I was a new witch. I’ve been thinking about it this morning. I posted in one of my witchy groups about mourning and sacrfice. I believe that even when you work magick to assist you in meeting a goal you have to be prepared for sacrifice. Will that goal require time, money, and energy? Nothing comes for free. The sacrifice could be as small as throwing some of your favorite plant into the fire to assist with your spell. At the last full moon I threw some of my precious lavender flowers into the fire because I have found my magick works better when I use materials that are sacred to me. When thinking about the harvest I’m bringing in for this turn of the wheel I was reminded of the sacrifices I had to make to get here. I had to leave my home of 50 years and move. In doing that I lost many friendships and connections and even angered some of my family. I’m in a smaller community which means a loss of opportunity. That being said, I have gained a back yard to practice my spirituality in, a studio where I can work on my business, and a safer community to live in. Oh yes and a lovely dedicated temple space!
Another thing I have been focused on is mourning. Here in Wisconsin, if you haven’t planted most things by now you are out of luck till next spring. If your crops have failed you have to just mourn the loss and look ahead. I feel it goes that way for goals as well. What goals did you plant in the spring? Did they all sprout up and grow or did some of them never get off the ground. It might be time to allow yourself to mourn those goals and let them go until you can plant them next year. I know not all witches live on the wheel but I do for the most part. Right now I am focused on harvest not planting. When the wheel turns again to Imbolc I will be ready to start thinking about new goals or old goals I want to restart.
Lughnasadh is one of my favorite turns of the wheel. We celebrate by playing games and having a big feast. We remember the sacrifice of John Barleycorn and we honor Demeter as the mother of grain. Usually we have pretty good weather this time of year, although it can be humid. It is always a great day. Underneath it all the energy calls on us to recognize we are turning towards the dark time of the year. The god of the grain will be cut down and Demeter must prepare to be without Persephone soon. As with everything there is light and shadow, harvest and sacrifice.
I can feel the energy shift towards the darker season. This morning when I went out to my backyard I saw two yellow leaves resting on my deck. It was just a glimmer of what is coming.
What will you be harvesting? Do you have things you wish to mourn?
Whew…this Mercury Retrograde has been brutal. That being said the new moon always brings a fresh opportunity to get things done, so here I go…
This month I’m thinking about things in a broader sense. Instead of working on goals I am working on fire and power. By power I mean the power that comes from within. I think I am just now starting to feel the real cost of the past year. Now that the physical pain is starting to pass away I am coming to terms with the emotional pain.
Both Thor and Freya have showed up over the last couple of days. I have worked with them before but I do not work with them all the time. I’m going work with them for this lunation and see where it goes.
How are you doing and will you be doing anything special for this lunation?
Here I am again near the end of another solar year. I am more than ready to wave this year goodbye. Everything about my 50th year has been hard and it turned out nothing like I expected. I am ready to let that all go as I try to envision a new solar year.
I was born on June 21st. I am a summer solstice baby. I like the summer season even though it always feels so busy. By the time I reach Samhain I am more than ready for the rest that comes with the darkness. Over the past year I feel like the soil of my spirit has been tilled over and over. With the shock of each trial I had to find the strength to get up and start over.
I don’t have a ton of fire in my chart and I’m always seeking ways to cultivate it. The gods have given me a powerful message about this. They have shown me that the fire I seek is within me and that all I have to do it release it and let it flow out of me. This seems like something I should’ve already known but somehow in my frustration I just could not see it. So over the next year you are going to see a lot of fire coming from me.
I also want to work on my relationships. Covid really did a number on my ability to connect with other like minded people. I want to get out to more witchy events and I want to meet some new people. Because of past pain I let go of much of the local pagan community. Stepping out can feel scary but I am ready. The hard part is discerning who is safe and where is a good place to start.
Between now and my birthday I am going to work on pleasure, my word of the year and then I will hit the ground running when Solstice rolls around. Thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts today. How do you celebrate the longest day of the year?
Whew! I have been going through it lately! I have experienced this before and I know that this is the tilling of my life that preceeds a huge season of growth. Whenever the soil of my inner life is worked, turned over, over and over again, it is a very painful process. Things are cut off and pulled out, displaced and disguarded. My nights are sleepless as my body vibrates with anxiety and vigilance. Typically I view this vigilance as a by product of my childhood trauma, now I’m trying to see it as the vigilance of my spirit awaiting the new growth about to arrive.
Beltane is coming soon and I can hear and feel its song in the distance. It will bring with it flowers and sunshine, dancing and a bursting forth of new possibilities. This soil that has been painfully turned over will create space for my new self to push through. So for now, I’m trying to embrace this season of pain and struggle. I trust the universe that the wheel is always turning and soon the rewards of hard work and endurance will come to me.
Spring is a messy season and I’m feeling kind of messy right now. It has been rainy this week but every so often the sun peeks out to remind me that it will not always be gray.
With Ostara arriving soon I have been thinking about my inner child. I celebrate the young maiden Goddess for this turn of the wheel. When I imagine myself at that age it often brings sadness because my childhood was very traumatic. Luckily I have fairly good memories of Easter and so I can use them to fuel my Ostara work. My mother would buy me an Easter basket every year and I was always so excited to dig through the fake grass hoping to find the perfect piece of candy. When I grew a little older my mother would buy me a lily to wear to church. I felt like a big girl and I would spend most of the service smelling my flower. Sometimes my basket would have bubbles or a jump rope, or maybe a new Barbie doll. No matter what was inside it was magical! Every Easter would bring a new dress no matter how little money we had. I don’t know how my mother did this, again like magic she made miracles happen.
During this week leading up to Ostara I intend to indulge my inner little girl. I’m going to try to capture her sparkle and way of looking at the world. I’m going to try to call some of her sweetness back to me. She is who I was before I became so guarded. She is wild and affectionate, she is the part of me who loves freely without worry. She is dandelion chains and frilly socks, she is about to bloom and unaware of what is coming.
How will you celebrate Ostara? I’m going to put up some of my decor today and this weekend I will cook some delicious food. I will probably play with my puppy outside just like I did when I was a girl. Some things never change and I can hear the echos of her, my child self calling me to come outside and play.
