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Discussion
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I know this type of thing has been posted, but I’m posting this so anyone who hasn’t seen the message before can see it now.
\#1. You don’t need to spend any money at first: Go to your spice drawer and pick out some essentials, like rosemary and salt. Buy some clear quartz. Use that old candle you have lying around, or not! Candles are not necessary for spells, so if you’re a closet witch, or you’re not able to light candles, you can practice without them. Spend a few months on witchcraft to see if it’s fully you, and if you feel it is, try to find what you’ll really be using. I doubt that you’ll be using really rare and interesting ingredients every day, so slowly find out what you want for your practice, and stick with that.
\#2. You don’t need all the tools people are talking about: Wands, athame, boline, chalice, besom, all of these are optional. I find it more fun personally to build up to getting those from thrifting trips, but if you’d like you can make them. However, you don’t have to have them to be a witch, and you shouldn’t have them if you are in the broom closet and something like that will get you kicked out/alienated.
\#3. Moon water: I keep seeing posts asking how to make moon water, so here is a guide for those who want to know how to make it, and what the different phases mean. Waxing Moon: This is a moon for manifestation, motivation, and altogether achieving things. If you need to get your room clean but you lack the motivation, make some waxing moon water. Waning Moon: This is a moon for anything getting smaller or lessening, making this the perfect moon for banishing. If you are making a purifying spray, you may want to use waning moon water as the base. Full Moon: This is useful, I’ve found, for divination. Stare into your full moon water and use it as a scrying bowl, or, how I do it, spritz it around before you do a reading. This can also be used to add power to a spell, this can be done by soaking the ingredients, like crystals in it (Some crystals cannot be in water, and it is a surprising amount so make sure you do your research. Fluorite is one that I know needs to stay dry). There are other uses, but I have to water my plants after this post and I need to keep this simple. The way you make moon water is by leaving a clear jar out in the light of the moon and leaving it for the night.
\#4. Nature is not your trash can: One of the ways I like to help the world is by picking up all litter I come across when I’m on nature walks/out and about. You can help by doing the same, organizing a litter cleaning team to help clean up your area. But most importantly, please don’t dump anything but non-toxic herbs into the rivers and oceans. Wax is harmful to fish as it can give them blockages and if it’s scented, it can kill them. Any poisoning you do of fish could end up hurting a person if they eat it, so keep that in mind as well. I’ve made a post about this, but here’s a list of spell wrappings you can use if you want it to degrade in nature: large leaves tied around ingredients, corn husk, coffee filters, origami boxes and envelopes (My personal favorite). For reusable alternatives to jars we have, drawstring bags, crochet bags, gourds, clay containers (can be handmade) and mint containers (The little tin ones). Do not leave metal or anything non-biodegradable outside. Edit: Do not bury or leave salt in nature. It’s incredibly harmful for the environment. A wonderful user suggested using any clean and dry salt for baths, and I agree, this is a wonderful idea for getting rid of unneeded salt/herbs.
\#5. It’s okay to like the witchy aesthetic: I’ve seen a lot of people that are scared of liking it because it’s stereotypical. But in the end, when you’re sixty five years old, are you or anyone else going to care? When I head to my altar after a really tiring day and see my witchy decorations, it makes me feel like even though I haven’t done anything witchy, I’m still a witch. So go ahead and buy that crescent moon shelf, you’ll be accepted and no one will blame you.
I hope this post was helpful, I really hope if you’re a young witch that these tips will save you from what I did (Go nuts and stock up stuff like a squirrel and get stuck with a butt ton of poppy seeds, if anyone knows what to do this them please tell me, I’m up to my ears in them), please let me know if anything needs clarifying, I’m half asleep so I may have said something that didn’t make sense. Have a nice day!
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A small guide for fledgeling witches
updated 2 years, 2 months ago
2 Members
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Good post! Important addition to 4: never dump salt into nature. A lot of people don’t know or underestimate how much salt can fuck up nature and soils. Salting the earth used to be a war tactic to prevent farmers from using their fields in the foreseeable future.
If you have salt you need to get rid of, do the environment a favor and don’t bury it in the ground. Instead, for any salt that is still dry and clean or that has only been mixed with herbs, you can use it for baths, hand/foot rubs, exfoliation and steam inhalation 🙂 anything that has been contaminated by mold and such should be tossed into the garbage.
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“poppy seeds, if anyone knows what to do this them please tell me”.
Plant them. And birds love them, so they need a screen to protect them until they get going. And they are VERY difficult to transplant, so put them where they can stay, as in the ground, or a 1 gallon pot or larger. Have fun. BB.
P.S. They also have uses in mild hexes, to sow confusion.
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One thing I’ve decided to do that’s both environmentally friendly and saves money is growing my own herbs. It helps from having to go out and constantly buy herbs, plus growing them myself helps keep from having too many harvested from nature.
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Well said. When I first started out, I felt so overwhelmed by all the items I thought I needed and spent more money than I should’ve on tools.
Nowadays I mostly use stuff I already have. You can do a lot with pen and paper, water, string, foods and kitchen herbs, and other common household items.
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Great advice. I would also add to study as many flavors of magic as possible before settling on one (or, practice them all). If you’re practicing a certain belief but it doesn’t ring true for you, or the methods and practices are a chore instead of fun and enlightening, you should probably be on a different path.
You can make your own spells, kids! Some people get so caught up in matching a spell exactly or whether or not they have the precise ingredients. Substitutions are available with every herb. And making your own spells give them special meaning to you, and that alone could make them more successful. All of your tools should have a personal spin on them, whether carved or painted by your own hand, for example. The more effort you put into creating it, the more energy it carries for you. There may be some trial and error at first, but this was not the case for me personally. I found witchcraft at age 13. I didn’t have money to buy LITERALLY ANYTHING I needed. I didn’t know what things like lions mane and dragons foot meant. I just looked up the correspondences and chose an appropriate herb, color, etc, I wrote my own incantations, and it didn’t matter if they rhymed or not. My own spells have worked EVERY TIME! That has rung true for 24 years now. Sufficient intentions and clarity of mind is all that is needed for a spell to work.
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Poppy seeds, I used them for an Imbolc cake. They represented new beginnings.
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If you’ve access to red clay soil or some form of loamy soil, you can make clay things out of the mud, bonus points if you can sift it very finely. Works very well for creating biodegradable containers or, if you’re like me, clay poppets!
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Thank you so much for the tips! This is very helpful.
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What can I do with rosemary? (I don’t have anything else except crystals)
