Using an Oracle or Tarot Deck to Establish Sacred Space

Plant Spirit Oracle

As some of you may know from my posts on Facebook and Instagram, in early 2020, I’ll be releasing the Plant Spirit Oracle as my second self-published divination deck (if you want to support the project, see link in the right sidebar with the Oak image). I described the Plant Spirit Oracle project a bit in an earlier post. For today’s post, I wanted to share a ritual space strategy that I developed as part of the PSO project–how to use a tarot or oracle deck to establish a sacred space.

The idea in a nutshell is that rather than calling in th elements or powers in a more static way, you can use an oracle deck to draw upon them in a more dynamic way. Thus, each time you create sacred space, you will be asking the cards to help you select the right…

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Skull and Crossbones

Thornapple, Gender and Ritual Application | Coby Michael Ward

Good Witches Homestead

Cultivating the Devil’s Apple aka Thornapple

I spent part of this afternoon harvesting my Thornapple plants. One of them grew to be close to five feet high! The Thornapple I grew this year is a Datura stramonium var. tatula; similar to the common Datura stramonium only it is less shrubby and has lavender-purple flowers. I harvested leaves, seedpods, and stems. I have a few workshops coming up over Samhain season on different aspects of the Poison Path and like to have the actual plants on hand for anyone interested in working with them. Part of my bargain with said plants is to make them available to others and teach people how to use them. All parts of the plant are going to be put to various uses. The leaves are dried and used for spirit offerings, intense personal cleansing and as spell ingredients. The stems, when dried become hard…

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Earthen Nature Spirit Statues with Cob

The Druid's Garden

An earth spirit statue in my greenhouse, freshly made with sticks and an oak gall

A lifetime ago, myself and a dear friend dug some clay out of a hillside. We each took half of it. My half of the clay was used to form an earthen statue, a guardian statue, for that same friend who was struggling with terminal cancer while still in his early 20’s. It had a wooden tree knot head, stones for its belly, a stick staff, and an earthen body. My friend accepted it reverently, and it went with him everywhere, even till the end. As he struggled with his battle with cancer, it grew nicked and chipped. The wooden head fell off, just as my friend’s brain cancer grew more serious. When he passed on, the earthen statue passed on with him, returning to the earth. This statue was an impermanent being; fashioned of…

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2019 Harvest Moon Mabon Ritual

Happy Full Harvest Moon!

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” … Albert Camus

The new season is almost upon us and soon the trees will shed their leaves and prepare for the darker half of the year.

Mabon is the threshold for the darker half of the year. A balance of light and dark, the Autumn Equinox gives us a balance of day and night and is a beautiful reminder of balance and harmony within and without.

This year the Autumn Equinox falls on Sept. 21 or 22nd depending on your location and this Full Moon opens the Mabon portal.

Like the trees, we can prepare and shed our leaves too… anything weighing us down, limiting beliefs, habits or patterns that no longer serve us.

This ceremony will help you shed what no longer fits into your life and help you invoke what you truly desire for the rest of the year and darker half.

The Full Moon Ceremony tonight can be done anytime within the Mabon portal between today, 9/13 to 9/22. You can do the first half of the ceremony tonight on the Full Moon tonight and finish the ceremony on Mabon as well. What does your intuition guide you to do?

Read complete articles at Spirit de la Lune 2018 Harvest Moon Ritual

Moving Forward With Clarity; Full Moon in Pisces

Good Witches Homestead

Friday, September 13, 9:33 pm PST (Saturday, September 14, 12:33 pm EST)

Tomorrow night we have a Full Moon in gentle, compassionate Pisces. Pisces is the last sign of the zodiac. She is a feminine, mutable, water sign ruled by the ethereal planet Neptune, and is the ruler of the feet. A Moon in Pisces reminds us to connect to our spiritual side and to remember that we are all born of the stars.

I want to focus on the feet for this Moon, to remind you of the importance of these beautiful body parts that play a significant role in your life.

The health of your feet is directly linked to your ability to become grounded inside of your physical body. Our feet are receptors of the grounding earth and her magnetic energies…did you know that your feet contain 8,000 nerves? They are the manifesto’s of the spiritual skill…

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The Ways of our Ancestors: Review of the Mountaincraft and Music Gathering

The Druid's Garden

Here, in the center of our camp, the sacred fire burns. This fire is tended for the four days we are together, never being allowed to go out. This is an ancestral fire, and all of us at the Mountaincraft gathering have the responsibility of feeding it. This is where we remember that learning primitive and earth skills is the work of our ancestors. This is where we gather for a quiet moment to commune with those ancestors, and will our bodies and hearts to remember. This is where, each morning, we gather as a group to hear about the day’s classes, call to the directions, hear a word of intention, and recieve a water blessing from Nancy Basket, a tribe elder. This is where, at each meal, some of us may find ourselves, talking with each other or engaging in quiet communion with the flame. This is where, each…

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Spiritual Initiations of Neptune and Neptune in the 12 House

September; Dancing With The Moon

Sapphire: The Corundum Conundrum

Good Witches Homestead

Blue Sapphire likely derives its name from the Sanskrit word sanipriya meaning “dear to the planet Saturn,” and is considered one of the few precious gemstones. By definition, a gemstone is a rare, beautiful and durable stone, and since Sapphire has a beautiful blue hue, a Mohs hardness of 9 out of 10 and no cleavage planes it is considered one of the most precious gemstones.

In addition to its physical traits, Sapphire has considered precious because of the belief that it makes one “favorable to God” according to the ancient Greek historian Damigeron and is said to protect against envy and regulate all bodily functions. A great stone for meditation, Blue Sapphire guides one in spiritual endeavors. Judy Hall states in The Crystal Bible that it “facilitates self-expression and speaking your truth.”

Did you know that Sapphire occurs in a rainbow of colors?

To provide some disambiguation Sapphire can occur in many colors and…

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