I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to post about all my adventures in between work, so you’ll get it all in one long post and with luck I’ll catch up with myself! Last week and the weekend was full of non-stop packaging of Stang & Cauldron orders to ship. I took a short break on Friday to have my own little celebration of Là Fhèill Brìde. I found roses the colour of flames for my altar and picked up some delicious local beer which I poured in offering to Brìde, my spirits, and the land and shared a little feast with them.

I came up for air from my work again on Saturday evening to spend time with my good friend Beki – a fellow artist and tarot reader. I love visiting her because not only are there cute bunnies to snuggle, but her place is always filled with the amazing paintings she’s working on. Right now she’s painting the major arcana for a dark bunny tarot and they are gorgeous.

We walked through the magical night-time fog to the Drive for burgers and beer and then headed back to her place after to read cards for each other. She did a reading for me with her beloved Fairy Tale Tarot and I brought out my vintage Gypsy Witch fortune-telling cards for hers. The meanings of some of the cards are backwards so I also brought my handy old book with English playing card meanings in it. Technically we played drunken oracle as we’d both shared a pitcher of local beer at dinner and then had homebrewed mead afterwards while reading the cards. Then it was back home to get some sleep so I could get up early on Sunday for an all-day Imbolc ritual by the sea inlet in Lion’s Bay.

The shaman picked me up bright and early and off we went to a gathering of others to share in Imbolc rituals and festivities. We all wore white and green and the hall was elaborately decorated in the same colours with an altar to Brighid in the South and a live apple tree in the centre on a cow hide ringed with primroses, fresh greenery, and feathers. Brighid’s doll and bed made, we brought her in and laid her by the open fireplace with offerings of bread, milk, and fruit. We made oatcake dough (for Bride’s bannock) and all of us shaped our own – one to share with each other and one to keep.

We listened to stories, we told stories, we sang songs, we feasted, we performed many little rituals adding up to one big one. We purified ourselves with smoke, water, fire, and milk.  The hall was filled with the intoxicating scents of sage smudge, rosewater, apple mead, the baking oatcakes, tobacco, and woodsmoke from the fire. We tied ribbons of wishes to the apple tree and we wove Brighid’s crosses to hang over our front doors for blessings and protection for a year before burning them next Imbolc. We each brought home a candle to use for magic.

The theme of the ritual was playfulness – to stop worrying about the mundane world and trying to control things and instead to feel the freedom and joy of what it’s like to be a child and let go; having no expectations but to find joy and wonder in all things. To learn to stop for a moment now and then and just play, just be. Considering how hard I’ve been working and how busy I’ve been it was a very necessary reminder for me that I need to stop and enjoy myself now and then. Everyone there radiated such tender joy and love that by the end of the ritual, when the sun was sinking into the ocean, we were all sleepy and content like kindergarteners ready for nap time after stories and warm milk. Home we all went into the sunset, still smelling of rosewater.

Then it was back to concocting and packaging magical goods for the shop on Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday evening was filled with more magic as it was the night of the full moon. February’s full moon is often called the snow moon, but I prefer the older name of “The Bone Moon.” Off I went into the sunset back to the sea inlet surrounded by impossibly tall mountains to circle with other witches and shamans on the beach under the stars. We met when only the faintest bit of dark blue remained across the horizon, the stars and planets shining down on the water, and the white pregnant moon rising over the  mountain behind us.

It was cold, but there’s nothing like celebrating the moon and nature actually in nature under actual moonlight with the bite of winter wind on your cheek. We poured out offerings and planted seeds. There was more storytelling accompanied by hot tea and mead. We stayed until the wind blew out all the candles but the one in the South. I dipped my hands in the Mother’s ocean and anointed my face and neck with the water for renewal. Then off we went back into the night and back into the city of lights away from the darkness of the sea.

I’ve been a very busy witch and have been spending most of my time in my kitchen cooking, crafting, and shipping for Stang and Cauldron rather than writing for my blog (though I did miss it!). All my supplies arrived so it was time to make new batches of fairy and flying ointments. I made my well-loved Aves Ointment for attaining spirit-flight and this time added the fat of wild birds blended with high quality grapeseed oil (very good for the skin) instead of my usual pure duck-fat recipe – the active ingredients of belladonna, mandrake, mugwort and wormwood are still the same. I made more of my insanely popular Porta’s Flying Ointment. I think you guys must all have datura and belladonna fetishes as you’re buying it up like crazy, but keep in mind they give you a hangover, belladonna can cause blurred vision for hours or a day after use, and henbane shouldn’t go near your sensitive bits.

Mandrake Ointment is also restocked (formerly known as Medea’s ointment/salve) which is a simple salve just with atropa mandragora root, grapeseed oil, and the best local beeswax. If you’ve never used a flying ointment before or are maybe a bit scared of them, then the Mandrake Ointment is for you. Mandrake is the most friendly of its poisonous solanaceae cousins and only has pleasant effects (think of it like topical weed). It’s also useful for a ton of different magical purposes and therefore excellent to have in your bag of tricks (read that as sex magic, baby, oh yeah).

I was finally able to make more of my fairy ointments too! My Forest Spirit Ointment recipe is used for seeing and communing with wild forest and plant spirits and contains the traditional European fairy-sight ingredients of fern seed, fly agaric, and oak, ash, and thorn along with enchanter’s nightshade and the herb of Robin Goodfellow – all wild harvested by me from the forest of course!

My Toadman’s Ointment, also made with fly agaric, is for those who work with toads and frogs as familiars and for shapeshifting. They make excellent allies for those who follow the poison path since they often contain their own natural poisons which some scholars believe were used in flying ointment recipes in Europe.

Amidst all this crafting for Stang and Cauldron I made a test batch of a flying ointment made with henbane seed harvested from my old garden and the bear fat I rendered with the shaman a few months ago. It’s not strong enough for me yet so it still needs some tweaking and more testing before I’m comfortable selling it. I did get some excellent dreams from testing it so far.

If you’re looking for info on flying ointments (what they are for, how to use them, what to expect, etc), I’ve written an article about their history and use called “On Flying Ointments” and also did a HedgeFolk Tales podcast episode with stories, poetry, and ancient literature about flying ointments.

As always I crafted more poisonous offerings for the shop on top of the flying ointments; poison plant spirit vessels of a night-blooming datura flower, black henbane, and bittersweet nightshade from my garden, genuine mandrake root, and fly agaric I wild harvested last autumn. People really love these little skull bottles full of poisons so, alas, only the Black Henbane spirit vessel is left looking for a home they’ve all sold.

I have an Ancestor Spirit Vessel with poison too – it’s layered with owl bone dust, graveyard dirt, althea root, yew needles, and owl feathers. The skull is handcarved from deer antler and hard to find. It would be an excellent tool for a necromancer, psychopomp, grave-tender or ancestor worshipper.

There are also roots available for those who want to turn them into fetiches or alrauns. I’ve sold out of the belladonna, yarrow, and rue, but I still have two large prize Black Henbane Roots available.

As if that’s not enough, there are more goodies! Blackthorns for cursing or reversing curses, Blackberry Witch’s Whisks for smudging a place to purify and chase away evil spirits, Rowan Berry necklace charms, Rowan Crosses handwoven with red silk and wool, protective Witch Ball charms of rowan berries, red thread, and goose feathers… You’ll just have to come by the shop and see what’s there!

It’s been snowing and raining here so it was nice to do a bit of sunny spellwork for a client for success, achievement, and prosperity. I use tarot cards to customize novena candles to a client’s petition as I’m all about simplicity and using what you have on hand. In this situation I chose the four of wands and the sun from the major arcana and bound them to the candle with red thread.

The sachet is raw yellow silk stuffed with a mix of herbs matching the desires of the petition and then stitched up inside golden felt with orange embroidery. A ritual, an offering, and some words later the candle and sachet were consecrated to their purpose. The sachet is to be tucked in the client’s pocket during the day and under the pillow at night. My sachets are good for a year and then need to be remade.

Now to let the candle burn down…

A very magical couple and dear friends (who I’ll call Thicket and Huntress) picked me up on Thursday and off we went to Granville Island to visit the market and the artisans. We saw dozens upon dozens of handwoven brooms with handles from every tree imaginable (can’t you just picture one in Baba Yaga’s hut deep in the forest?). They were so witchily tempting, but each of us already had their like at home and which we really do use to sweep our houses with. We played handmade drums and rattles in the music shop, made fun of the incense prices in the magic shop, and went to see the silk weavers’ cottage where I bought plied red silk for weaving rowan cross charms. Then we had dinner in the market and, all of us being dirty-minded, just had to pick the European sausage stall. There was bratwurst and sauerkraut and friend onions and at least half a dozen mustards to choose from.

Then it was off and away to Kits to visit Banyen Books & Sound (I’ve gone on about them before). Thicket went to look at books while Huntress and I went right to the drums and to fondle the tarot decks. It’s always so hard to leave there without a stack of books. I managed to get away with only one book, but Huntress (a herbalist) left with a good stack of books on mushrooms and Grieve’s herbal. After pawing over them, we now highly recommend The Fungal Pharmacy, Mushrooms and Other Fungi of North America (a really good identification guide), and both want (but didn’t buy) Chanterelle Dreams, Amanita Nightmares. I, of course, couldn’t leave without a book on sacred brewing that talked of a whole hive mead, the magical properties of bee propolis and combines my two loves of mead and beer; Sacred and Healing Herbal Beers by the poetic Stephen Buhner.  It is full of recipes for meads and beers: herbal, medicinal, psychoactive, and delicious brews. There are henbane recipes in it – I may have swooned.

Then we picked up their two wee ones and made the few hour drive to their place in an old gold rush town nestled deep in the mountains. The view late that night was black shadows of mountain peaks and every star imaginable shining down when far away from the light pollution of the city. I fell asleep next to a fire under a ceiling of stars. The next day Huntress and I drove through the gorgeous 360° views of impossibly tall mountains, wild forests, and a large snaking river.  When we returned we read aloud to each other favourite passages from Datura and Christian Rätsch’s Encyclopedia of  Psychoactive Plants while Thicket listened in amusement. We planned visionary plant journeys deep in the mountains’ wild forests for the spring where we will build a temporary structure of greenwood and a good fire, watch for wolves, and play our drums far away from the things of men.

What better way to finish such a lovely simple day than to drink her hubby’s 4-year old cinnamon-clove mead warmed over the stove by a roaring fire? We talked late into the dark of spirits, magic, herbs, poisons, entheogens, wildcrafting, and doing plant journeys in the forest. “My arm hurts. There’s going to be a blizzard,” says Huntress, and it snows all night long and then the next day and the next. Old Woman had arrived at last. The once-green mountains turned white, a blinding mist rolled through the forest, and everything was covered in a deep, heavy blanket of snow.

We all hid inside from the snow, watching Grimm and 13th Warrior. What do foody herbalists do when trapped by snow? We made all kinds of herbal teas – fresh lemon, fresh galangal root, and fresh kaffir lime leaves is amazing.  Huntress made us delicious lunches and snacks. Together her and I cooked a feast of roast goose with homemade cranberry jelly, bacon-mushroom stuffing, new potatoes, and sautéed mushrooms and asparagus (with more mead of course). There was so much rich goose fat you could feel your arteries harden, but it’s liquid gold and it was worth it.

Bacon-Mushroom Stuffing

1/2 loaf of sourdough bread, cut into cubes
6 slices of bacon, chopped
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 big handfuls of button mushrooms, quartered
pinches, to taste, of rosemary and thyme
salt and pepper
2 eggs, beaten

Sautée the bacon with the mushrooms, onion, and garlic until the bacon is crisp. Take the pan off the heat and add the bread, s&p, and herbs and mix. Beat the eggs and pour them over the bread, stirring quickly before the egg has a chance to cook – get it to soak into the sourdough. Push down the stuffing mixture into a loaf pan and baste well with roasted goose, duck, or chicken fat. Bake for 30 min. Leave it uncovered if you like the outside crispy or cover with tinfoil if you like your stuffing soft and moist.

More nights staying up late drinking perfect mead in candle and firelight talking of homesteading, gardening, foraging, brewing, beekeeping, and a thousand other magical and wonderous topics we all share a love of. But then, alas, it came time to say goodbye and make the treacherous drive in the snow back down to the city from the mountains and the forest. We passed semis and suv’s on their sides in the snow and saw many a car fish-tail and almost lose control. But we didn’t – sometimes it’s good to have two magicians in a car. It snowed and snowed until we reached the city and found clear roads and blue sky among the clouds. Old Woman’s hold is less away from the mountains and the wild. I already miss my friends, the fire, and the nights of mead and conversation, but I have a hot cup of tea inside from the snow,  there is a candle spell burning on the kitchen table, and I have my fat black cat who missed my warm lap. Life is lovely.

Moonlight streams through my windows onto the floor. Old Man and Old Woman are calling. I smudge myself with lavender and wing and walk sunwise around my home with the burning wand to cleanse and bless for another cycle of the moon’s renewal. I go to my altar of bone, horn, fur, wing, and wood and light the candles for the Old Ones.  I drop my silver ring into the dish of water from seven springs with the holed stone and anoint myself, washing my face, hands, and feet.

I burn sweet spicy sandalwood and pour the mead into the goblets – one for them and one for me. I say the words, I drink, I wait, and I listen. Oh, yes I see, that’s what that dream meant. I was taking it too literally. The bottle of mead with the masking tape labels on it saying henbane, mugwort, and sandalwood wasn’t a recipe – it was saying those are my intoxicants.

Mead brings me dreams and prophecies dripping from my tongue like honey. Henbane is my dark ally – its seeds found among the charms and talismans of buried völvas and in ancient recipes of ritual beers. Mugwort for the seer’s gifts and because thujone affects me so very easily. Sandalwood because its scent alone intoxicates me and takes me to a magical head space. I always have a large box of the best sandalwood incense by my altar and it is my daily offering.

I listen to their other whispers and then bring out the Wild Wood tarot cards for a reading to glimpse the present and the future. After, I sit with the spirits for a while and we share our mead and the heady scent of the sandalwood smoke filling the room. I say my farewells, blow out the candles, slip under my quilts, and dream of shapeshifting rituals and flying ointments.

If you want to be a spirit worker, you must die. Just like the child you were must die to become the adult, your human self must die to become a spirit worker. The initiated are half alive, half dead. We are souls stuck in between – not quite spirits and not quite human. We shapeshift between forms – now human, now animal, now spirit, now elemental force, now otherwordly being. We drift between past, present, and future knowing that time is a non-linear illusion and all is accessible.  We are possessed by spirits and the ones who possess others with our spirits. We are the dream-walkers, shape-shifters, psychopomps, seers, mediums, mystics, visionaries, and miraculous healers. We see the unseen, hear the unheard, and experience the impossible. We dwell in paradoxes within the suspension of disbelief. We dance on the dagger’s edge between life and death, magic and insanity. We are unnatural. Supernatural.

It all sounds rather romantic until someone loses an eye, or a soul, or their life. That is why we are so few – we have to die. Some don’t make it back from initiatory death, some don’t make it back in one piece, but most will never go because they fear death above all else. And we should fear it – we should respect death and fear. We should not be fools stumbling in the dark. We should know the danger that lies ahead, the pain that will come, and walk into it knowingly always pure of intent and heart. We should know why we choose to die. Is dying worth gaining power? No, it shouldn’t be about striving for power. We die to serve. Once we die we do not belong to ourselves. Spirit workers are servants to greater spirits than themselves and will always be haunted and hunted. Every spirit serves another and we too are spirits. Erase any romantic notions from your head – this is not about you or being special – you are one of many. Your body is on loan, a temporary vessel. As long as you serve, the vessel is protected from harm and from physical death. If you make it about you or about power there is no guarantee you’ll be safe or come back.

Do you really want this? Is it worth being able to see and hear spirits? Why do you want it so badly? Be honest with yourself and the spirits and maybe one day you will die and come back — joining this host of revenants called spirit workers. Some days you will wish you hadn’t and that you could turn it off and switch back to your old life, but other days your soul will sing and you won’t be able to imagine being anything else.

Truly seek the why and know you have to die.

That’s all for my full-moon mead ramblings this night. Sweet dreams little witchlings.

The witch has been charm making: stringing rowan berries, weaving rowan crosses, stitching leather and feather… Strung rowan berries are an old Scots charm to place around your neck or an object or over a doorway for protection. A cross of rowan wood woven with red wool of which no knots have been tied is another Scots charm hung in the house for protection – from spirits and spells of witchcraft. And lastly a bird foot fetiche with a feather and bone skull. These are for the lovely Snow, but I will be making more such delectable witchy things. I have more rowan berries to string, crosses to weave, and crow, wild hare, and toad feet to craft into fetiches.

The candle is lit in the window, it’s light shining out into the darkness through the droplet-covered screen onto the street slick with rain. Welcome spirits and welcome friends. It is warm inside and there is food, music, empty chairs and cups to be filled with mead.

Come all who hunger
Come ye rogue and restless souls
Come to the feast and
Let your greatest deeds be told
Raise up your voice and
let your songs be free and bold
For this night we feast with the Mighty

~ Written by Sharon Knight

Specimens of crow wings, crow claw, crow skull, and owl skull to illustrate

Inking the linework over the pencil sketch

Filling in the fine details and shading

Owl and Crow skulls for reference and inspiration

And it all results in two finished feathered illustrations with more to come for an article I’m working on for Witches & Pagans. My illustrations can also be seen in the latest Heathen-themed issue which is available for preorder now and will hit the stands in January.

The day before Christmas eve I let the shaman twist my rubber arm into going to his group’s Yule ritual. We stopped on the way at his friend’s in the steep mountains by the sea to craft crowns out of wild greenery. I wrapped a cedar bough with a vine of ivy and tucked wild goose feathers into the back for my crown while drinking my goblet of rum and orange. They unearthed defleshed wolf skulls from chicken wire in the backyard and put them in a bucket of hydrogen peroxide to clean and whiten them.  Then we all went to a pub by the sea inlet before heading to the ritual hall.

I recognized many faces from the shamanic conference, but many were also new to me – every head crowned in greenery and in every hand a candle.  There were three feast tables covered in food, big bowl of mead with fresh fruit, a crock pot of mulled cider, and evergreens everywhere. A fire was lit in the big stone hearth and in the centre of the hall was a bull hide surrounded by a large circle of evergreen boughs. Once everyone arrived, the ritual of storytelling, offering sacrifices, sharing of light, burning of the Yule log, and drumming began. After came the feast and I cracked open and shared the ambrosial bottle of clementine-maple-cinnamon mead my witch-friend had gifted me for Midwinter.

It was a good evening and a good ritual with a perfect mix of solemnity and mischief. The shaman sent me home with a large elk and smaller goat skin drums for me to paint and he’ll be making drums from a variety of animal hides to sell in Stang and Cauldron soon.

Christmas Eve I spent watching movies and wrapping smudge wands of cedar, hemlock, and juniper and some with all three. My bedroom was fragrant with evergreen oils and sandalwood incense and I was surrounded by drums as I store them in my room because I keep it warm which keeps the drums in tune. The smudge wands are in a paper bag to dry and the remaining evergreen boughs hung up to dry with the other herbs in my kitchen to be added to incense and smudge blends when ready.

Today a fierce storm is brewing, twisted over trees and beating rain in sheets against my windows. A good day to hide inside with a pot of hot tea and to work on illustrations as my deadline creeps up on me. Midwinter blessings to you all whether you are blessed to be with family or not this day.