Whenever I Feel Happy For A Longer While, I’m Absolutely Terrified That This Somehow Makes My Depression

the best thing about vampirism is that you don't ever have to choose a meal ever again because it's all blood

i keep seeing a little bat hanging from the ceiling at the train station i use every day and it lifts my mood every time :)

black stilettos are my fav // ig @ mikaylajade444

one song can make u remember a lot

Self Love Potion💖💕

Sometimes, we get down on ourselves. It happens to most of us, and when it does it’s nice to have a pick-me up. Self-love is one of the most important kinds of love--we need to take good care of ourselves emotionally, spiritually and physically in order to live our best lives. This little potion isn’t going to cure your self esteem or image issues overnight--or at all without work on your part. But it is a good start, and can facilitate the actions you need to reach your self love goals.

Make the making of this potion a self love ritual. Dress up in one of your favorite outfits before you make it--lingerie is nice, but so is something that just makes you feel secure and comfortable, like a good pair of sweatpants, a big fluffy robe or a big t-shirt! Hell, you can even put on a big fancy dress and do a full face of makeup if you like. Or do your skincare routine. Take a good long look in the mirror and pick out something you like about yourself. Write it down somewhere you can look at it before bed. Then, go and gather the following ingredients:

Self Love Potion Ingredients

Water (moon water would be a good addition!)

Rose bud tea (beauty, love)

Strawberries (love, happiness)

Apples (beauty, love)

Peaches (youth, happiness)

Basil or Mint (healing, banishes negativity)

Honey or Agave

Making Your Self Love Potion

Heat your water. Finely chop your strawberries, apples and peaches. Allow it to boil until the fruit is soft and has infused its essence into the water. Add the rose bud tea, and mint. Remove from heat and allow everything to steep for a while. Strain the fruit, flowers and herbs from the tea and pour it into your favorite cup. Sweeten to taste if needed (you added a lot of fruit, so it might be sweet enough!). Allow your self love potion to cool. You can even serve it over ice if you like.

Find somewhere comfy to sit and drink this--preferably before your potion is ready, or at least done cooling. Light a few candles--pink and white are good color choices, in whatever scent you find comforting that makes you feel luxurious. Open a few windows if you’re able. Take your potion, sit and close your eyes. Focus on those things you like about yourself, what you envisioned what you looked in the mirror. Envision your goals and your ideal self--but be realistic about it, and be kind to yourself. Drink, and continue to envision these things as you do. Continue doing so until your drink is finished. Relax as long as you want to, and take it easy on yourself. Doing this before bed is ideal, so you can go lounge in bed right afterwards.

Be kind and gentle to yourselves. Remember that where you are now on your journey is still progress, and one day soon you’ll be where you want to be.

(I'm cleaning up my blog and reposting some of my spells/etc that were once hosted on my website. Here's the first!💕)

i have approximately three liters of fake blood at home and i've got no clue what to do with it

Witch Positivity Culture is Toxic

A wild unscheduled post appears. I’ve just been seeing a lot of something lately that’s been bugging me and I wanted to put it into words, mostly for my own sake. Though my frustration here is rooted in my path as a shadow worker which is the topic I’m writing about this month so maybe it’s more of a prelude.

It’s really just a riff on what plenty of other people have put more eloquently – positivity culture is toxic – but with regards to the witchcraft community in particular. I see so many feel good posts about “When you don’t feel witchy enough…” followed by a list of affirmations. I watch people get responded to blithely when they ask questions about witchcraft with “everyone’s path is valid.” 

This, quite frankly, is incredibly shallow.

Feeling bad isn’t a bad thing. It’s positivity culture adding pressure to feel good about yourself and your practice all the time that makes these totally normal and helpful feelings into things that need to be soothed away, into feelings to reject. Feelings – even bad ones – exist to try to help us. This is more complicated in cases of mental illness but, for the most part, feelings exist to help you.

Your bad feelings about your practice help highlight an area that isn’t working for you. If you just try to affirm the feelings away, you’ll never figure out why the practice isn’t working for you in the first place. What I wish those posts would say instead is to look at why you don’t feel witchy enough and be honest with yourself. Are you actually doing the work of studying and practicing witchcraft? If not, then what could you do to improve it? If you’re not in a place to work on it right now, how can you practice acceptance for the season of life that you’re in?

That takes work and a willingness to reflect and change, but it does begin to actually resolve the underlying issue at hand. I find it preferable to having to reapply affirmations ad infinitum.

And I would chalk this up to a difference in taste if it weren’t how it works its way into all aspects of the witchcraft community. I have frequently been greeted with hostility and “all paths are valid” when I ask questions about how other people think through their witchcraft. The very act of asking questions – especially ones that are beyond a beginner’s level – gets treated as if people are invalidating whatever it is they’re seeking to understand. I’ve watched as some communities take a more aggressive stance with practical questions about intermediate witchcraft than they do actual racism, sexism, and homophobia.

Validation, like affirmation, is the easy and temporary way to cope with discomfort. “All paths are valid” is absolutely meaningless. It is a non-answer in almost every case I’ve seen it used. It’s also untrue. Paths that appropriate closed practices, have misogyny and racism imbedded in them or as part of the goal of their craft, that are used to justify and further transphobia – not fucking valid. The fixation on not invalidating anyone is wild to me. Why is it that in so many spaces that is valued over open discussion what our personal values and paths actually are?

One of the reasons it took me so long to call myself a witch and to practice more regularly is how this sheen of validity covered up everything useful from any sort of scrutiny to figure out whether it would work for me. It wasn’t until I finally found people who could be comfortable with their practice, did not seek my validation, and could answer my questions freely that I ever got anywhere.

I can’t control what other people do, but I since I’ve gotten a flurry of new followers I thought it might be good to restate one of my main principles with my work here on this blog – I will never make you comfortable with my materials at the expense of your well being. I will never affirm you staying the same when change is absolutely necessary.

This community wide discomfort with discomfort is toxic, stunts people trying to be become more skilled, and creates a haven for people reproducing systemic oppression in the community. If we don’t accept discomfort as a natural part of learning and growing, we run the risk of creating a space that is more focused on feeling like witch than actually being one.*

TL;DR – Feeling bad isn’t a bad thing, stop trying to affirm it away. Saying “every path is valid” gives racists, sexists, homophobes, and transphobes a pass and keeps people looking to learn in the dark. Discomfort with discomfort is toxic.

*I want to be clear that my definition of a witch in this case is someone who studies and uses witchcraft and isn’t tradition or skill dependent.

i open my window for the hot sexy vampires to come in but instead i just get every single bug known to man