There are sea organisms and fungi which glow in the dark and there’s fireflies and jellyfish which glow in the dark. It doesn’t do them any harm nor does it do the people around them any harm. I would say its pretty healthy, as well as it would mean more photosynthesis happening in cities which mean cleaner air.
I was just curious about how they were doing it and for some reason I didn’t think to click the link. But thanks! It makes more sense now. I was afraid it was some kind of chemical thing.
nah just genetic modification using existing bioluminescent genes. Genetics is really cool, and so is bioluminescence. I mean they’ve already made pigs glow using jellyfish genes and pigs are waaay more complicated than trees iirc. So they’re actually (i think) less likely to muck it up with trees.
Music is the strongest form magic.
– Marilyn Manson
Love him or hate him, the Antichrist Superstar is actually on to something with this well-known quote. What other artistic medium do you know of brings thousands of people together for one cause and a massive exchange of energy? Concerts are sometimes exhausting to go to because of that energy exchange. It doesn’t just happen between the audience and the artist, but amongst audience members as well.
Everyone has their favorite song or artist for when they’re feeling a certain way. Did you know that emotion you invoke while listening to music can be used in witchcraft and magick work? Of course it can! The purpose of this post is to give ideas as to how go about doing this rather beautiful practice.
Let’s begin, shall we? 🎵
There have been some posts floating around listing music genres and their correspondences for witchcraft and magick work. That’s all well and good, but these posts are essentially pigeonholing the many subgenres and songs one can use for any given intention in magick work and witchcraft. Why is it pigeonholing? Music, as an art form, is up to the listener to interpret. What one person feels while listening to a song may be completely different from what their neighbors or friends feel. No one genre or song is definitively assigned a correspondence. To pretend they are is rather misleading. Even love songs are not always exclusively about romantic love. They could be about friendship, protection, and self- love. Bottom line: The message of a song or piece is up for interpretation by the listener. No one has a right or wrong way of comprehending or corresponding the message of a song or piece.
What you’re about to read is my own technique I’ve developed through both personal and professional practice.
How do I even begin figuring out my emotional connection to a song?
It would seem as though this is a simplistic thing to do. Not necessarily. Think of every song you listen to as being personal and emotional journey.
The way I recommend approaching this, even to work Clients, is to begin by listening to a classical instrumental piece. I usually have Clients start with Debussy’s Clair de Lune. Obviously, there are thousands of well-known classical instrumental pieces available. No matter which one you choose, the goal of the exercise is the same: Truly listening to the piece and connecting to it on some emotional level.
As with much of magick work, there is a great deal of visualization, meditation, and self-awareness that can go into listening to a piece of music.
*Begin by finding a quiet and calming place to listen to the piece.
*Get comfortable and relax your body.
*Start playing the piece.
*As you listen, let your mind wander and become lost in the piece. Let images form and memories be recalled.
*Try to notice where you feel the music within and throughout your body.
*If you don’t like the piece, do your best to identify why.
It’s usually best to document your experiences and the piece you listen to as you may listen to the same piece several months later and feel something completely different, which is perfectly fine!
REMINDER: Should anything traumatic or unpleasant come up while listening to a piece, make note of it and stop listening to the piece. Walk away, take deep breaths, get a drink of water and do what you feel is comfortable to ground yourself again. There is no competition or timer keeping track of how quickly you are able to connect with a piece. Move at your own pace and always stop what you’re doing if things suddenly feel uncomfortable or overwhelming.
Ok, I got that down…So how can I incorporate the actual pieces into my practice?
Once you get the hang of truly connecting with a piece, you can try connecting with songs that have vocals. Try the exercise discussed above with your favorite song. Do your best to identify why you enjoy the song. What emotions do you feel? Where do you feel the energy? During what part(s) of the song do you feel the most emotion and energy? What memories (if any) do you recall? No matter the artist, genre, era, and/or title, there is always a correspondence one can use for magick work. For example, I love using the song The Nameless by metal band Slipknot for curses. The raw anger and hatred this song invokes is perfect for giving me that extra dose of FUCK YOU to my target.
When wanting to conduct magick, playing the song/piece in the background is helpful. As you begin playing the piece, ground yourself and let the emotion(s) you feel grow. You can also use the lyrics from the chosen song as your incantation (they can be tweaked for any reason such as changing the tense or pronouns).
Creating a playlist (whether it’s on iTunes or YouTube) of songs that you know are effective in channeling energy for magick and spellwork is also a wonderful idea. Here is my sample playlist of songs I use all the time. I break it down according to correspondence. You can break your playlist down however you want. You can even have multiple playlists dedicated to each correspondence. Do whatever feels right for you.
Something else you can do to Incorporate music into your practice is to use song lyrics to create sigils. Try to find one sentence or phrase that captures the intention of the sigils and use your favorite sigils craft method. Here is an example of how I use lyrics to create a sigil. I also know @violetwitchcraft has this post explaining how to use lyrics to create sigils.
I truly hope this post has been helpful in learning how to incorporate music into your practice. If anyone has any additional suggestions, feel free to reblog and add them!
Did you know that you can reuse eggshells for your craft?
Instead of throwing your eggshells away, rinse them out, let them dry, and grind them up into powder!
Powdered eggshells can be used in strong protection and binding spells as it has similar properties to sea salt. In fact, a mixture of equal parts eggshells and sea salt can be used in lines around your home during Samhain to prevent evil spirits from entering.
Powdered eggshells can also be used in your garden. You can mix them directly into the soil to help aid in the healthy growth of your witchy plants, and you can sprinkle it on top of the soil to deter pests.
Another use is for cosmetics and beauty: add the powder to almond oil to help strengthen fingernails or make it into a facial scrub with equal parts raw sugar and sea salt.
Remember that most of the things you’re throwing away in your kitchen can be reused for your magic and rituals!
No, no, you have no idea. It actually IS the beginning of the whole so-called “kawaii culture”. And it started because girls started using mechanical pencils, which provided fine handwriting. After being banished (more precisely, during the 80s), this kind of writing started being used in products like magazines and make-up. And, during this time, icons we usually associate with the whole kawaii industry (like the characters from Sanrio) came to life too.
And what many people don’t realize is that this subculture was born as a way for young girls to express themselves in their own way. And it was also used as something against the adult life and the traditional culture, often seen as dull and boring and oppressive. By embracing cuteness, these young girls (and adult women, after a while) were showing non-conformation with the current standards.
So yep. Kawaii is important, and it all started with cute, simple handwritting a few hearts and cat faces in some girls’ school notebooks ❤
!!!!!
NO OK THIS IS SO IMPORTANT!
This is also how the kawaii fashions started! Girls began dressing in cute and off beat styles for themsleves, they were criticized by adult figures telling them “you’ll never find a husband if you dress that way!” to which they began to reply “Good!”
All the japanese subcultures and fashions that evolved out of this became a rebellion to tradition and the starch gender roles and expectations the adults were forcing on the younger generations. As early as the 70s and still to this day you’ll see an emphasis on child-like fashion and themes in more kawaii styles and the dismissal of the male gaze with styles like lolita (a lot of western people assume lolita is somehow sexual due to the name of the fashion, but ask any japanese lolita and they will tell you that men hate the style and find it unattractive which is sometimes a large reason they gravitate towards the style – they can express their femininity and individuality while remaining independent and without the pressure to appeal to men)
Its so so so important to understand the hyper cute and ‘odd’ fashions of Japanese girls carry such a huge message of feminism and reclaiming of their own lives.
so are you telling me that Japan’s punk phase was really the kawaii phase
Yep. Kawaii has a lot in common with punk when you think about it. Fun quirk in cultures.
Aries: “But his heart was in a constant, turbulent riot.”
Taurus: “I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find you are not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.”
Gemini: “her philosophy is carpe diem for herself, and laissez-faire for others”
Cancer: “And in the end, we were all just humans, drunk on the idea that love, only love, could heal our brokenness.”
Leo: “You mustn’t confuse a single failure with a final defeat.”
Virgo: “A well-chosen book saves you from everything, including yourself.”
Libra: “She was beautiful – but especially she was without mercy.”
Scorpio: "The fire blazing in her dark and injured heart seemed to glow around her like a flame.”
Sagittarius: "I’m a slave to my emotions, to my likes, to my hatred of boredom, to most of my desires.”
Capricorn: "There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired.”
Aquarius: “Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.”
Pisces: "No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.”
As people know, herbs have certain properties and correspondences They are traditionally used either fresh or dried for spells.
Here are where my questions comes in:
What if herbs were used when they are rotted and decaying…Would the herb’s correspondence change or be opposite to the original correspondence? Would the correspondence stay the same but not as prominent?
I think rather than reversing the correspondence, rotting and decaying herbs would twist the original correspondence. If you rot love you’re left with bitterness or obsession; if you decay wealth you’re left feeling unfulfilled or consumed by greed.
This post is going to be really long. I made this on another blog over a year ago, though it never got attention. So I updated it and decided to share it over on this blog. For those of you interested in past lives and looking into them this is the post for you.
DISCLAIMER
I would like to lead off with a little warning. Past lives are fun to know about. Its interesting and intriguing to see if we have lived before and as whom. However going in and understanding past lives is not all sunshine and roses. When you open the door to past lives you are opening an inner door to yourself. Within yourself are all the locked emotions and experiences from the past. Not all these emotions will be happy and joyful. There will be hurt and pain. Do not ignore these emotions. You can set them aside and work on understanding and healing these when its easiest for you. Sweeping them under the rug to be forgotten will cause them to come back up at unexpected moments.
Also do not let yourself be ruled by your past lives. You are a current being leading your current life. Learning about past lives is meant to be a healing experience to help you live in the present. If you feel yourself being absorbed by the past, please stop. I have seen too many old friends let their past lives rule them. They lost their way and sadly have not come back to the present. Do not let this frighten you though. Understanding and learning about your past lives can be a very rewarding experience. It can help you understand why you fear something. It can mend that and help you fight your fear. It can also heal a part of your soul and move you forth in life.
READING
Do lots of reading about ways to learn about your past lives! I have a few books on this topic. Some were whim buys that did not turn out to help me. Here are some good books to read:
“Discovering Your Past Lives: The Best Book on Reincarnation You’ll Ever Read… in This Lifetime!” by Gloria Chadwick. (The title is kind of cheesy but it is amazing.) Though there is one book that helped me a lot. It is a little outdated and in spots a bit hard to read, yet it has great meditations and some awesome exercises in it.
“Many Live, Many Masters” by Brain Weiss. Its more of a story about a psychologist who started doing past life regressions. Its a great book in seeing it from a person, who never believed in reincarnation. It shows the healing process we can go through when delving into this.
“How to Uncover Your Past Lives” by Ted Andrews. Its an easier read than the other books and has some good ways to looking into your other lifetimes.
TAROT
If you have a deck of tarot cards you can use those in helping you find out past lives. Here are some spreads that are great for past lives:
Meditation is great for unlocking past life memories. Recalling past lives through meditation is difficult and should be done once you gave a hang on meditation in general. The first book I recommended above has some great meditations in it. However there are two meditations I use when trying to recall memories (I also get memories not just this way, which I will mention later):
The first is actually recalling a memory:
I’ll get deep into my relaxed, protected state. I have a specific door that is for my unconscious mind. The unconscious mind is where our knowledge of our past lives is hidden. We only have knowledge of them when we need to understand and learn a lesson that parallels that life. So once that door is in front of me I say something along the lines of “I am here to learn and understand myself from before this lifetime. Show me the doors to gain this knowledge.” Then I open the door, before me is usually a hall of doors (many…. many… many… doors). Mine usually have names and dates written upon them of who I was. Some of them are blurred or in another language. I take this as lifetimes I am not ready to know about yet, because once I do they will become clear or I will understand the language written.
As I walk down this hall of doors I look at each of them. Most times I’ll head to one I was currently working on understanding. If you are just starting out I would walk to one that you are most drawn too, or one that might be slightly open. Do not feel like something is wrong when a door is slightly open. That just means there is a lesson in that life time that you are going through in your current. You can go to that door if you want as well.
Once at the door I would like to get a memory for I will state, “Please call forth a memory that will help me heal and understand myself. I am not currently living the memory I am about to see. That was me once upon a time, but I am different and only a specter now.” Then I open the door and let the memory play before me. Sometimes I will actually be in my body of that time. Others I will be viewing it as a third party. It just depends on how I need to learn and understand it.
I usually let the memory play out and once done I will be before the door again. I will sort of thank my unconscious for granting me this knowledge of myself, before leaving. The door to the past life will always be open now. For once you open a door you really can never close it. You may try but the ones I have visited before are always slightly ajar. I do however close the door to my unconscious mind. I want to keep my present life separate from my past. This way I can deal with it at my own pace.
The second meditation is in a memory form:
I am a very visual person and like to understand myself, from every event to every scar… to even my hair color and stature. I like to draw all this too in a picture just for my own reference. So the second meditation goes like this:
Once in that relaxed, protected state again I will visualize a full length mirror instead of a door. If I just want to see my face then it will be a hand mirror. I stand in front of the mirror. At first it will usually just be my metaphysical body (astral body), which is usually slightly different than my physical body. The difference is usually I have elf ears. Anyways…. I look into my own eyes and say “I am here to see myself. Not as I am but as I was. I would like to see *Insert name of Past Life Here*.” I will concentrate on that lifetime and pull it forward. Then I will look at the whole mirror instead of my eyes. Sometimes it will be an instantaneous change, other times it will be a gradual morph. If the image on the mirror does not change do not be upset, sometimes it takes awhile.
These are only a couple meditations that I use. If you need to change something about them to help you, please do. Use a meditation that will best work and help you out. These are about your past lives, not mine. So whatever is comfortable and easiest for you will be the best.
RESEARCH
Once you get flashes of memories do some research. This might help you get more confirmation on what you saw. It also might help you figure out more about yourself. Also if its a more recent lifetime you may be able to find a record of the person.
Research into cultures you are drawn to might also help spark memories. Sometimes when we are drawn to a culture or time period, it might be because we once lived there. I would like to say most past lives anyone lives are going to be mundane. They will all have their ups and downs, and be special to you. Not everyone was Cleopatra, King Arthur, or Merlin. You may have a famous life, but not every lifetime will be like that. Also not everyone lives a lot of lifetimes. I do not think its rare but uncommon.
DREAMS
Dreams are an amazing way to get past life memories. I think it happens more than people realize. Some of my past life dreams will have elements of my current life in them, like the setting. Since it is the easiest for my mind to get a message across. There are ways to help increase past life memory and dream recall. One is placing crystals in a little bag under your pillow (or placing the bag in the pillow case so it does not get knocked on the floor). Here is a list of crystals and their attributes, you do not have to use all of them a couple will do (I always add a crystal of protection so as to keep myself protected while dreaming):
GEMSTONES
Creating a gemstone bag is helpful in recalling. You can stick it under your pillow if you want to have dream recall. Or you can hold it while you meditate. Her are some crystals good for past life work.
Carnelian – this orange-brown semi-precious stone helps us tune into our past life physical bodies. It helps us remember influences that shape our bodies now. It also helps us see how we can use past life information to better our present life.
Lapis Lazuli – It is a powerful third eye stimulator which opens us up to profound past life visions. It helps us recognize old wounds, blocks and pains and to release these.
Amethyst – this purple crystal is a profound bridge between the spiritual and the physical. It helps heal us of our inner hurts and inspires us to reach for higher levels. It helps us see the higher purpose of our consecutive lives.
Clear Quartz Crystal – these remarkable stones restore balance within our auras and deeper energy fields. They awaken memories within us and help to harmonize our past lives with our current one. They help us to recognize why past life recall is important and worth the effort it takes.
Hematite – stone that helps us reach a light state of reverie during our past life recall sessions. It is particularly helpful during hypnosis sessions for recall purposes.
Jade – In past life recall it can help us to ground ourselves and to see the undeniable threads that weave in and out of all of our lives across time.
Turquoise – this light blue stone can help us connect to naturally based lifetimes in ancient tribal settings. Helps us to speak our truth from across the ages.
Double Terminated Clear Quartz – Stimulates awareness of how the past is reflecting in the present.
Tabular Crystals – Balance emotions related to past life revelations.
Serpentine – helps with clearing psychic debris from the past, whether from this life or past ones.
Labradorite – increases extrasensory perception and may stimulate recall of past lives, clairvoyance, and other psychic abilities. activates a sense of multiple levels of consciousness.
Jet – a good grounding stone. Also helps improve memory and with the recall of past lives and healing past life issues that persist in the present.
if you want to do dream recall you might want to throw in some of these crystals.
Amethyst for Dream Recall -This stone is useful for dream recall.
Ametrine for Dream Wisdom – Ametrine will aid you in accessing your higher wisdom in the dream realms.
Azurite for Accessing Intuition through Dreams – Azurite heightens psychic awareness and intuition. It will aid you in opening up to the intuitive potentials of your dreams. This is an excellent stone for use with dream work.
Clear Quartz for Amplifying Dreams – Clear quartz is an amplifier. It is especially beneficial for use in dream work to amplify the vividly of your dreams and the recollection of your dreams upon awakening.
Lepidolite for Nightmares and Insomnia – Lepidolite is a calming crystal. Lepidolite is useful for people with bad dreams, interrupted sleep patterns,anxiety or insomnia.
Moldavite for Transformative Dream Work – Moldavite is a powerful stone of transformation. If you are wanting to do some serious dreamwork, use moldavite in conjunction with any of the stones listed above. Moldavite can change your life,it will help you to facilitate faster growth in any area you are focused on, whether dream recall, lucid dreaming, or astral travel.
Red Jasper – encourages lucid dreaming when placed under a pillow. Also stabilizes and balances energy. Protective, energizing, grounding and strengthens energy field. Promotes courage.
Prehnite – helps to encourage soothing dreams. helps release emotional pain from the past and encourages new beginnings.
Green Calcite – placed under a pillow can increase the clarity of your dreams.
Blue Tiger’s Eye – can aid in lucid dreaming. protective effect and shields aura from unwanted influences. soothes headaches too. opens third eye chakra and aids conscious clear thinking.
Sugilite – opens third eye and crown chakras, enabling deep perceptions of one’s place on the earth and spiritual destiny. clarifies and intensifies dreams. eases insomnia, especially that caused by mental overload.
Each crystal will work differently for each individual. Pick ones that you are drawn too or you have known work best with your energy.
MEMORIES
I wanted to take a brief moment to explain how I see my memories. For me memories come just like remembering past events in my current life. Someone will say or do something and it will trigger me to remember an event of a past life. I will see, taste, smell, and feel like it was yesterday. Its very vivid for me, but not everyones will be like this. This is just how mine work and I have grown accustom to them working. Do what ever feels right for you and will work best for you. Everyone is different in the way they learn, so everyone’s experiences will be different.
Also memories are skewed by your ego and perception. They will have emotions and your thoughts. It may take a wider view of a specific memory (like a third person view) in order to understand what went wrong, how you can best heal and learn.
DISCERNMENT
Make sure to read up on discernment. Past lives are hard to prove or disprove, so there is a good amount of discernment involved. I have used all the above methods and even more to help in making sure it was an actual memory/past life I had before jumping to the conclusion that that is what I had.
I hope all of this helps! If you would like to ask questions on any of this or want to talk past lives drop us a line at The Infinite Threads!
teakepp 