Wish Bottle

Since I had a bit of interest in the wish bottle I made I thought I would write up a post giving a few more details about how I did it. (Either follow my example or make it up yourself)

The idea of the wish bottle comes from several different sources.

First, the idea of wishes. Everyone knows that if you blow on a dandelion puff while making a wish, it will come true if all the seeds are blown off. (Or, it will come true in as many days/weeks/months/years as there are seeds left on the stem.)

In Cecelia Ahern's book If You Could See Me Now (fiction), there is a part where the three main characters are catching (if I remember correctly) some sort of floating seed, telling it their wish, then sending it off where the Imaginary Friend Community (or whatever, it's been a few years since I read it) receives the wish and grants it or not. Since then, Camden and I have been wishing upon floating seeds of one sort or another and sending them to the fairies.

Also, the idea of the bottle came from some (non-magical, but very lovely) jewelry I saw on Etsy. I saw it and thought the idea of bottling a wish was clever. And I have a thing for glass bottles. They're just so pretty! Also, bottle spells in general aren't unheard of (a witch's bottle, anyone?), and they're fairly common in hoodoo. So, yay.

Anyway, on to the actual creation of my bottle.

Stuff needed:
Bottle of any size (I used a small glass vial, about 3 inches tall).
A small feather
A floating seed

Clean and purify your bottle. If it's actually dirty and you have to wash it, you might want to do this a day or two before working the spell to give it time to dry.

If you cast circles to work your magic, go ahead and do that.

Keeping your wish (for a specific thing, or a general idea like happiness, health, etc) in mind, put the feather into the bottle and say "Give my wish wings that it may soar to where wishes come true."

With your wish still in mind, put the seed into the bottle and say "Help my wish take root and grow so that this may be where wishes come true."

Speak your wish to the bottle. "I wish for a job/happiness/health/cool funky socks/what-have-you." Quickly cap or cork the bottle.

You can keep the bottle on your altar or display it elsewhere (mine is in a shadow box in the bedroom).



Or, for a simpler version (or if you just can't find the right bottle), pluck a dandelion seed whisper your wish to it, and let it go on a breeze.

My week is AWESOME

This week has been surprisingly good. I think I owe it to the wish bottle I made on Tuesday. In it is a little feather and a flying seed. (Ever since it got warm, Cam and I have been picking up these seeds, telling them our wishes, then sending them off.) I didn't make any specific wish, just made this be a focal point for growing happiness, love, etc. So maybe it isn't a wish bottle, per se, but, eh, whatever.



And the same night I made the wish bottle, Camden decided it would be fun to help me with dishes. So I let him rinse. I tried letting him actually washing stuff (he wanted to), but he wasn't doing so well with that.

And today, I passed my prelim! My senior percussion recital is this semester (in three weeks, actually) and I had to play through everything today for three faculty, who then told me that I was free to continue on to my recital! I have no idea what would have happened if I hadn't passed, but it doesn't really matter now! This has been a big cause of stress for me this week, and I'm just happy that I did well and passed. I still have some stuff to work on before my recital, so I'm not quite out of the woods yet, but I'm closer.

(I also had a good week at the thrift store... Finding two tee-shirts, a dress shirt, dress slacks, skirt, ACORN earrings (these are just amazing!), and a dainty little bird necklace. Usually my finds are not this great, or as plentiful.)

Of course, the week hasn't been all great. On Ostara, it was close to 80 degrees outside. It was beautiful. Last night, it snowed. And the snow stuck! Well, it stuck to trees and grass and bushes and cars. Okay, it was actually kinda pretty and I wish I'd gotten a picture of it. Hopefully this taste of winter won't last too long and we'll be back to the beautiful spring weather.

Magic

Over the last few months, I have been working towards being a more of a practicing Witch. I've said in previous posts that "I don't DO magic. I'm a religious Pagan." And, well, that was true. But I've always felt a little... I dunno. Bad about it, I guess. Magic was something I always intended to do, but I always had trouble with visualizing what I needed to visualize or feeling what I was supposed to feel. It always felt like I was just going through the motions of the spell, with none of the power. I couldn't feel or see or comprehend the energy being raised. It's funny, because the spells I cast usually worked. But I felt so incompetent during the casting, that I just decided to lay off. But I'm trying to get back into the habit. I'm trying to make my life magical. :)

I've been thinking about how magic works. How my magic works. I've been doing a bit of study on psionics, or energy manipulation. I can raise energy between my hands (like I'm holding a ball with two hands), but the moment I take one of my hands away, the energy seems to dissipate. (I do this mostly by feel; I can't see the energy structures.) But in general, my magic requires props. Rocks, or bottles, or a twig, or chanting, or a bit of string, or whatever. I guess, I need something to focus on, something through which I can channel the energy/magical intent I raise. And of course, magic through actions, or living with magical intent: rather like a domestic or kitchen witch, but without the fancy title.

Okay, this is scattered... And not particularly well written. I'm just trying to get my thoughts down. Maybe I'll come back and make it more coherent. Or I won't. ^_^

What I've learned this day

Today, I learned a very important lesson. One that I'm surprised isn't brought up, as far as I can tell.

Anyway, if you are planning on doing a knot spell that requires you to untie the knots to release the energy...

Don't be a dummy and tie the knots so tight you can't untie them.

... We shall see if cutting the knots with ceremonial sewing scissors releases the energies just as well. lol

What is needed

This morning, Cam and I were out sitting on our porch/overly large step enjoying the air. It was light and chill, but damp with the morning's dew. Camden was playing with a cafe rod, meant to be hung with curtains in his room, but since the curtains have yet to be made, it is his walking stick. His idea, not mine. He went off to the sidewalk with his stick, and was turning in a circle saying "Go away wet" or some such. I smiled to watch him, and asked, "Camden, are you doing magic?"

And you know what he says to me? "No. Me no have wand." And I couldn't help but laugh. My son, the ceremonial magician.

I don't have many tools for working magic. Well, as I've said before, I don't work much magic, so I don't need many tools. :) But I have some crystals, I have a small (copper?) cauldron, and I have a chalice. Oh, and a broom that stays in my car. (So I can say I took my broom to the store. haha) When I was younger and first starting out in the Craft, I just knew I had to have an athame, a bolline, a wand, and whatever other tools the books told me were absolutely necessary to have. But, I was in the closet. And I was poor. And I was selective. And so it has taken me nearly ten years to amass a grand total of zero tools, not counting my cauldron and chalice. One of these days, I might just find the perfect knife. I might just find the perfect stick to make into a wand. I might fill a large leather-bound tome with all the "secrets of my Tradition" and call it my Book of Shadows (or Grimoire, which I find to be much more Romantic-sounding.) For now, though, I guess I'll just make do.

And giggle at the temerity of my son, the Proper Witch.

A Little Knot Magic for Lost Things

I don't normally do spells. Perhaps that's an odd thing for a witch to admit, but there it is. I just don't usually have any reason. If I'm worried about my grades, I study, if I'm worried about making money, I start looking for a job. Sometimes magic is useful to get a witch into that mindset, but usually, I don't need it.

Until I lose something.

I lose things all the time. And generally find them in the damnedest places. Once I lost my television remote for more than a week, only to find it in plain site on top of the TV stand. *grumble* Tomorrow, I'm taking Camden to the circus and I want to take pictures. But my camera battery was low, so I was looking for the charger. Could. Not. Find it. Despite the fact that a few weeks ago it had been floating around on my living room floor. (Yes, I live in a messy and cluttered apartment. Bad me.) I looked *everywhere* in my apartment for this thing. And finally decided to do something I rarely do: a spell. And more than that, it was knot magic.

A little knot magic for lost things
Cut a piece of string or cording (I used white cotton yarn because it's what I had handy) to a length of about 12 inches. Some people get really technical with the 9 inches or 13 inches. However, I just snip snipped. ^_^

Throughout the rest of the spell, visualize finding your lost object and what you'll be using it for (why you want to find it.)

In the middle of the cord, tie a knot, reciting,

What was lost, shall be found.
With this knot, it is bound.

Tie a knot on one end while reciting the couplet again.

And a third knot on the other end, again reciting the couplet.

Tie the cord loosely around your wrist until you happen to find what you're looking for.

Once you find your object, remove the cord. Then do something with it. Some people suggest burning it, others suggest keeping it. Right now, mine is hanging out with my goddess-figure on my altar.


I ended up finding the battery charger about 20 minutes after I performed this little impromptu spell. In the back seat of my car, hiding under some papers. Go figure.

Happy knotting!

Good night

Tonight has reminded me why I love having Camden around, not that I really have much of a choice. Actually, today in general has been pretty good, for what I expected it to be. This morning I went into my Tuesday/Thursday classes, having missed ALL of last week, knowing I had two compositions due, but not having them finished. (Prof never emailed the specifics, and I couldn't find anyone else to tell me.) However, I talked to him, and although he has a history of being a bit of a (&(#(&$#, he gave me an extension. Huzzah!

And on to the praising of my lovely son! When we got home from my night rehearsal, he was content to play with his board games. Normally there's a rather large fight: he wants to watch a movie online, but I want to blog so I tell him no, etc. And tonight, I was actually trying to do something semi-productive (make a back-up copy of one of my movies), so I was NOT looking forward to the usual argument. But he went straight to his board games! We played two rounds of one, then he decided he wanted to play Chutes and Ladders (which I'd hidden away in my closet because he doesn't quite understand the rules), so we "played" it. It was more me explaining the consequences of certain actions (look, she cleaned her room, so she got to go to the movies) than actually playing. He finally decided that was too hard, so he put it away (!) and got out Candyland. He normally does pretty well with this one, since there's no counting involved, but tonight he just wanted to play with(and eat!) the gingerbread-men game pieces. He used the cards as beds and blankets, turned the board into a tent, and tried to convince me the game pieces taste good.

And after he finished with that, he played with his magna-doodle, drawing rainbows. I played with that with him for a while, drawing different animals/things and seeing if he could tell what they were. Not because I don't think he knows his animals/things, but I wanted to know if I was drawing them well enough to be recognized. lol

All in all, we had a very enjoyable evening, with no TV and no computer. We don't really have very many of those, so when we do, it's like... magic. :)

Icy

I wish I had had my camera last night. I was filling out the FAFSA and remembered I needed something out of my car, so I slipped on my boots and coat and ran out to get it. As I stepped out of the doorway to the building, I turned and through the light mist, I saw a tree, covered in ice, lit from behind by a street light. It seemed to glow in that cold, orange light, while the stoplights behind me left the street gleaming red, then dark, then red.

Although much of the effect was a construct of man, I felt the Goddess in that moment. For is she not within everything? Is she not All That Is, including the flashing red lights and glowing street lamps?

This morning as I got to campus, I heard the wind through the trees, which were still icy. It sounded like snow falling. Have you ever sat in a snow covered field at night, lit only by the glowing moon above, and listened to the snow fall? The first (and probably only) time I did this, it was before I was Pagan, before I even knew what a Pagan or Wiccan was. Probably before I knew that there was a choice. But even lacking that knowledge, I felt the magic. I felt the connection. Now, when I'm lucky enough to actually hear the snow fall (not often, living in town), I still feel that connection and peace that I associate with that first time.

As the day moved on, it warmed a little, and the ice began falling off the limbs whenever the wind blew, so by the afternoon most of the trees had faerie circles of ice around them.

Wow, this has been a random post! Well, suffice it to say, that although I find winter to be a very magical time, I would much prefer it to be spring or summer! Bring it on!