Sparrow Queen

Witchy Twitter Round-up

Hello my darlings,

I just started a new Twitter account for my magical workings and this persona (to keep it somewhat separate from my other accounts).

Please reply or reblog with you Twitter handle if you are a witch, pagan, alchemist, rootworker, magician or otherwise so magically inclined.

Hope you had a lovely weekend!

~sparrowqueen ♥
(@SparrowQueen)

50 Ways To Make Today (and Every Day) Magical - From Waking to Sleep

Hello lovelies, I think I certainly could probably do a list of at least 50 more things, so let’s call this Part 1 for now. This list is meant to be a guide to easy, practical things you can do every day to honour yourself, strengthen your connection to divinity and your connection to nature. Without further ado, I give you “50 Ways To Make Today (and Every Day) Magical - From Waking to Sleep”.

1.) Allow yourself to wake naturally (e.g. without an alarm), if possible. Write down your dreams as soon as you are awake. Spend a few additional minutes writing down any additional messages that come to your mind.

2.) Meditate.

3.) Do Yoga.

4.) Pull a tarot card of the day for the insight of a daily message. I like to ask the deck what message do I need to need to know for today?

5.)Say a series of positive affirmations aloud upon waking. Some examples of strong affirmations are: “I know that I deserve Love and accept it now”, “When I believe in myself, so do others”, “My body heals quickly and easily”, “I manifest abundance in all aspects of my life”.

6.) Read Your Horoscope, I like Free Will Astrology and Rick Levine’s Daily Scopes.

7.) Light some incense or a candle on your altar and greet your personal deities.

8.) Use dilute essential oils in your bath or shower, or use natural products infused with them. Choose appropriate correspondences to your intentions and what you wish to manifest for the day.

9.) Eat natural foods, and avoid unnecessary chemicals / processed foods in your diet. Be contentious about what you are putting into your body. Use fresh herbs, fruit or vegetables from your garden in your cooking. If you don’t have a garden, try to buy from local and in season (e.g. from a farmer’s market).

10.) Cleanse and charge a crystal to carry with you in your pocket or bag.

11.) Wear clothes that make you feel fabulous and beautiful- if it doesn’t make you happy/comfortable, ditch it! You can also try match your colour scheme to specific intentions (e.g. if you associate green with abundance and prosperity, wear it strengthen your money attracting abilities). Or if you’re like me and wear 95% black, add a punch of colour with an appropriately coloured accessory.

12.) Spend 10 minutes de-cluttering your personal workspace every day.

13.) Hang art that inspires you in your workspace and throughout your home.

14.) Make a vision board, or if you already have one spend a few minutes concentrating on the images, and perhaps adding a few more.

15.) Ride your bike or walk instead of taking the car.

16.) Go sit under a big tree in the park with your journal, or bring a good book.

17.) Send a thank-you note to someone and express your gratitude to others.

18.) Listen to music that makes you feel good and connects you to Source energy.

19.) Dance for at least five minutes every day. Even if it’s in your skivvies and all by yourself.

20.) Take a notebook and pen with you everywhere, you never know when a brilliant idea might hit you!

21.) Brew yourself a cup of herbal tea. This can be a great and discrete way of smudging your cubicle if you work in an office environment.

22.) Kitchen witch it up - put your magic and your intentions into your cooking. Try to choose herbs, spices and ingredients based on their correspondences, or where we are in the wheel of the year.

23.) Adorn your body with jewellery, body art and/or modifications and other personal talismans. These are all powerful methods of asserting your power, protecting yourself, and setting magical intentions.

24.) Go for a leisurely walk, enjoy the sights and sounds of nature and your neighbourhood or explore an area you’ve never been to.

25.) Leave a small offering outside for the faeries or your deities- it might be physically consumed by feathered, scaled or furred helpers but it will be appreciated.

26.) Practice small acts of divination. For example, try bibliomancy - open a book to a random page and you just might find the answer you’re looking for. Alternatively you might try kledon, the Greek form of divination from overheard conversations or communications. To try doing this go for a walk, or sit in a coffee shop. Stop for awhile, clear your mind and listen to conversations your might hear around you. You never know when you might just hear exactly what you need to hear.

27.) Spend time playing with, and/or cuddling your pet(s). If you don’t currently have a pet and are able to care for one, consider adopting one from a rescue organization. Petfinder.com aggregates animals in shelters/foster situations that need forever homes! If you can’t have a pet, consider donating your time or money to such a rescue organization.

28.) Tell at least one person you love them every single day.

29.) Go to a second-hand store, a flea markets, a garage sale or a clothing swap. You never know what treasures the Goddess might have in store for you.

30.) Listen to your intuition and inner guidance systems. The more you listen to them, the stronger they become.

31.) Infuse white wine with lavender, mint and other sweet herbs and then chill for a few hours before enjoying.

32.) Recharge your batteries and cleanse your body by going for a swim, or having a long soak in the tub.

33.) Relax and escape into a whimsical or fantastical film or TV show.

34.) Go see live theatre, music and local art shows.

35.) Give at least one sincere compliment per day. Accept compliments bestowed upon you with grace.

36.) Make your bedroom a luxurious refuge and retreat. Keep it clear of both physical and psychic dust bunnies. Cleanse the area frequently in your preferred method (I like ringing bells and smudging. Also, burning menthol crystals is like psychic bleach!) Make the space your own and as comfortable as possible. Have bed sheets, blankets and pillows made of of materials you adore. My duvet cover & pillow shams are made of plush burgundy velvet and I love crawling into bed because of it.

37.) Spend time only with people who make you feel good. Cut out negative influences, haters and frenemies. The five people you spend the most time with are a reflection upon yourself.

38.) Language has power. Choose your words carefully and speak deliberately.

39.) Create sigils to help you manifest your desires.

40.) Give yourself a totally natural facial - mix 2 tbsp. of raw organic honey, the juice of 1/2 lemon and a pinch of cinnamon. Use this mix as a spot treatment overnight to bring blemishes to a head, or all over your face for 1 hour for soft, glowing skin.

41.) Even if you don’t have room for a garden, you can bring earth energy into your home with house plants. Some non-toxic plants (pet & children safe) you might want to consider bringing in include Jade, Orchids, Ferns, Spider Plants. If you’re unsure if a houseplant might be toxic, check this searchable ASPCA database.

42.) Use environmentally friendly, non-toxic cleaning products in your house.

43.) Put out a bird feeder and/or bird bath in your backyard, porch or deck. Seek out a good book on native bird species from your local library and start keeping track of the different species that come to visit!

44.) Carry small mojo bags, or sachets with you under your clothing or by tucking it into your sock or shoe. You can also leave them under your pillow as you sleep.

45.) Wear naughty, fancy, or just plain pretty underwear under your everyday clothes. You’ll be coyly smiling to yourself all day, and it will add a certain je ne sais quoi and make you sexy self all that more alluring. Trust me, done with the right intention it will make you irresistible to your lover.

46.) Create an astral temple for yourself. This is a place you can visit any time you need to do some magic, but are unable to do so in the physical plane. It is also a safe place for you to use a ‘home base’ when doing astral travel. For an excellent overview of creating an astral temple, see Patrick Dunn’s Postmodern Magic.

47.) Subscribe to an astronomy newsletter or RSS, and go stargazing!

48.) Give yourself an orgasm as often as you want - either with a partner, or on your own.

49.) Put up a dream catcher near your bed, ideally near a window.

50.) When you lie in bed at night, before falling asleep, mentally (re-)charge all of the protection wards in and on the outside of your house.

~sparrowqueen ♥

it’s the time of the season when the love runs high

Hello darlings,

I haven’t been online much in past few months because school has been totally kicking my butt, but the spring semester is finally winding down. Classes are done until September, but over the next two weeks I have all of my course work due.

I just am trying to buckle down and finish this shit so I don’t have to think about it anymore. I have July and August open at the moment and am looking forward to some serious me time. In addition to hopefully getting all of my health issues under control (chronic pain FTL), my plans include going to hide out at my family’s cottage for at least a week, serious amounts of yoga & meditation, riding my bike all around town, mega witchery, taking lots of photos and preparing for my performance at the Toronto Burlesque Festival.

…

In other news, this past week I lead a Summer Solstice/Midsummer/Litha ritual with my not-coven (aka the autonomous withches’ collective), plus some new & special guests who were also in attendance. I was a bit nervous about leading, because the responsibility fell to me at the last minute, and I didn’t have very much time to prepare. I think it all came together pretty well, aside from nearly being ko’d after casting. (As part of my cleansing, I usually fast for the day prior to celebrating a sabbat and then we have a huge feast after ritual. However, this is the second time I’ve almost fainted after casting the circle, so I think I’m going to have start breaking that rule and eat before hand, as well as continuing to work on grounding, which an ongoing issue I’ve been working through.)

I only managed to take a few pictures of the altar while we were setting up. Some items of the altar (aside from the obvious) included: Wonderworks house blend Summer Solstice incense, my antique brass pear-shaped handbell, some gorgeous roses from our hostess’ garden, citrine and quartz crystals, a multitude of candles, statues of the Virgin Mary and a Crone, fancy ribbons and golden material for sachets, a number of seasonally appropriate herbs and plants (not all are in the photos) such as mugwort, chamomile, rosemary, St. John’s wort, lavender and vervain.

Ideally we would have done the rite in the afternoon of solstice proper, when the sun was as its peak, but since we all have various work and school commitments, we celebrated the Midsummer’s eve. The main work of the ritual included three sections, for the first two were inside and then we moved outside to the backyard. (When we cast the circle, we visualized including the entire property. I am of the opinion this is totally acceptable, as I do this all the time but some people may disagree with me.)

First, we made some herbal sachets to put under our pillows for prophetic Midsummer’s eve dreams, then I lead a guided meditation on the changing seasons. Next, we moved outside had a lovely bonfire and did some candle magic, based on the guidance received in the meditations. We all lit our candles off the fire and were able to set them up strategically on patio stones just outside of the fire pit, so we could watch them burn and observe the shapes of the wax as it pooled. I’m not sure that form of divination has a formal name, but I’m certainly a fan.

In the future, I think I’d scale the ritual back and make it more focused, because it ended up being a bit too long and after opening the circle again, socializing/feasting, watching our candles burn all the way down, clean up and trekking across town in a cab, I didn’t get home until almost 3am. But we ate lots of delicious foods, drank lots of wine and a good time was had by all!

~sparrowqueen ♥

scar-lip-deactivated20120709 asked: I apologize if this is the wrong person to ask, I'm supremely new to this.
You said that Athena is your patron goddess- how did that happen? I've read some things saying that patron deities choose you, not the other way around, how can you tell if one has or encourage one to?

Thanks for the awesome question!

This is a really complex topic and I don’t pretend to be an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but here are some of my thoughts on the subject:

I don’t think there is any one right or wrong way to find a patron goddess or god. Some pagans chose a deity that they feel an affinity for, or some would say that they feel the specific goddess or god chose them. Everyone is different, for some it might take a lot of work and searching to find energy they connect with, for others it might be quite easy.

It’s also worth noting that patrons can change over time, you may have a really intense relationship with one deity for awhile and then it peters off. Conversely, it’s also possible to simultaneously have more than one patron.

It also really depends what you believe in. Some pagans see all gods as different manifestations of the same universal energy. Others see each deity as completely separate and its own entity.

In any case it amounts to same thing in the end. By having a patron goddess or god you are making a commitment to pursuing, working at and maintaining a relationship with that deity (or energetic pattern).

In my case, I’ve felt a connection and pull toward Athena since childhood. In one way or another symbolism relating to her kept popping up in my life. So that was the start of this relationship, but it has developed over time as my practice has grown. When I had my formal initiation rite, the name given to me was one of Athena’s epithets. That really solidified the relationship and signalled the beginning of my formal commitment to her.

I get a lot of my spiritual guidance from dreams, so that was also definitely a factor in my decision to dedicate myself to Athena. She appeared in a series of dreams I had and I knew that was her way of inviting me to follow her on this path. I think you always have free will, you can choose to accept the offer being put forth, or to reject it.

If you are at all skilled with lucid dreaming, it’s definitely worth trying to set the intention of meeting with deities you are interested in working with, or who are interested in working with you.

You certainly don’t have to dedicate yourself to any deity the first time you work with them, like any relationship it needs to be cultivated over time. More than anything, you need to commune with the deity you wish to work with in ritual space. Invite them to witness your rite, do an evocation, maybe work up to an invocation if you feel comfortable with that idea. Make offerings to that deity, don’t just ask for petitions or help. Light a candle in the deity’s honour. Meditate on the energy you are trying to reach within circle or in ritual space.

You could also try building an astral temple. (For an invaluable explanation of how to do this read The Art of Psychic Protection by Judy Hall.) This take time, but once it is established, if there are any deities who want your attention they could show up for a chat.

You could also try using forms of divination, e.g. tarot, runes, scrying - whatever you connect with in order to find a patroness.

Whatever you decide to do, keep detailed notes of your experiences. If your dreams, or divination doesn’t make sense at first it might mean doing some more reflection or research into the layers of symbolism you have encountered. If no deity that you currently are aware of is jumping out at you, do more research corresponding to the symbols and signs you are coming across and see who they correspond to.

I hope this helps!

~sparrowqueen ♥