Witchcraft and Video games

Goodness, I’m so sorry I haven’t been here! I don’t even have any excuses I legit just forgot this was here. I have several updates, including a new charm spell! That will be near the bottom. Firstly, I know my last post (from back in May wow, ugh) was about my mom being kind of awful. She’s been less awful since then, which takes a lot of stress off me. Although she said something super transphobic the other day and just, ugh, I don’t even want to get into it.

In addition to that, we had to put our dog to sleep last week. Everyone is missing him dearly, but especially the kids. It was really hard. But he had multiple health issues, he was losing his hearing, had pretty bad cataracts, couldn’t handle the stairs so much anymore. We didn’t want him to suffer needlessly. We still look around for him out of habit. But I don’t really want to dwell on that here too much either.

Let’s move on to happy stuff.

My son is getting a little bit interested in Shinto! Mainly because he sees me praying and making offerings everyday. So we’ve just started with that for now since it’s not particularly difficult for a seven year old. This is after catching him twice poking at things because he was curious lol. He’s not consistent yet, but I’m not forcing him, if he decides to join that’s up to him. I think he deserves that option.

Amaterasu-omikami definitely seems to be more approachable in dreams to me, which is not really unusual for me as I tend to lucid dream a lot. I may post the last time she spoke to me in a dream on here if there’s interest.

I have not been able to do a lot of drawing though. It’s summer, and I’ve got two kids in the house, so I rarely get much time to myself!I think I’ll have a better time of it once the school year starts back up again. We’ll see!

That’s actually all of the noteworthy stuff, which leaves us with the charm spell I mentioned earlier! So without further ado, the spell is below.

Hylian Shield Protection Charm

– Hylian shield necklace
– white or yellow candle
– salt
– sage
– rosemary
– black pepper
– small tree branch, with leaves
– hematite or obsidian
– a bowl or cup

Begin by lighting your candle. Next, mix your herbs together in the bowl using your branch. Let your energy and the branch’s mix together with the herbs.

Bury the necklace in the bowl, carefully laying the obsidian on top of the necklace. Place the branch on top of the bowl as well.

Hold your hand over the bowl and say “by the might of the Triforce and the three Goddesses, by the blood of the Goddess Hylia and the Spirit of the Hero, may the Hylian Shield protect me in all its capacity”

Blow out the candle and let it charge one full day and night, preferably when it’s the full moon. Repeat when you feel it’s energy wane.

Things in my life seem to be flying in multiple directions at once lately. Things that were in a slump have picked up, and things that seemed stable are crashing like too many pans on an unstable shelf. I don’t know what to make of it all really. I may even be reading too much into it. It could all just be a series of really weird coincidences. Maybe things are changing because the seasons did. But it feels like this all started a couple months ago after choosing to worship Amaterasu-omikami.

My relationships have all made twists and turns. Fiance and I were in a slump for awhile. But idk, things have seemed to be picking back up and we’re both happier and reconnecting. Which is so good. I’ve made new friends online and they’re cool people and I get the opportunity to learn from them about Shinto and have a community. Pups are doing great. I haven’t seen any of my offline friends in forever and they’re rarely online but like, they’re living their own lives, they work, a couple of them have kids too, and honestly we haven’t been that connected since high school anyway. I miss them, but there’s really not a whole lot I can do about it.

Some relationships have gone south though. Mostly with my parents which sucks. My dad is getting deep into flat earth conspiracies and has been posting annoying ass “I’m so woke” type memes. It’s so condescending, but like, I know him well enough to know he’s not intending to be that way. Like “everyone is at a different level of consciousness, if they don’t want to hear your truth move on”. Like dude shut up! You’re logic is circular and depends on laypeople not knowing how advanced physics works, and you don’t know how that shit works either! And you try to shift the burden of proof away from you when you’re the one challenging the science! It’s exasperating.

But the biggest difference has been my mom. I don’t know what happened in the last couple of months, but her emotional abuse has skyrocketed. It’s bizarre and awful and just continues to get worse. She’s just mean to be mean. She refuses to respect me or my sister’s spiritual journey or autonomy. She doesn’t really want to interact with the Pups even though she likes to claim the grandma title. Her behavior had improved somewhat, and then she got into this whole Black Hebrew thing and just ran headfirst back into her toxic behaviors.

She staunchly refuses to accept our boundaries, demanding both overt and in coded language access to every detail and control over my sister and I, she expects us to comply with her incredibly rigid boundaries. This has manifested in her demanding we never speak about our spirituality in anyway where she might see (including our own Facebook pages), but we have to listen to her and whatever new thing she discovers and “evidence” as she tries to convince us to join her, including sharing antisemitic videos claiming Jewish people are not the true jews, and tons of antivax propaganda.

If we don’t comply with this hypocritical and outrageous dynamic, we’re being hateful and attacking her. Even if all we did was calmly explain something, or ask her to stop sharing with us because we have no interest in leaving our spiritual path. And according to her, we’re not her equals even though we’re both intelligent, critically thinking adults who can make our own decisions. But we’re grown enough for her to gossip at us, share her marital problems with, and extract free therapy from. But we’re supposed to never question her and treat her as an absolute authority and never talk back or in anger.

More like an absolute nightmare to be honest.

It just feels like all of a sudden, people around me are showing their true colors in such a profound, obvious way that it makes me want to either build a stronger bridge, or throw them off of one. Like I’m really ready to cut ties with my mother in a way I never was before. Because her behavior is so obviously egregious. I don’t deserve to be treated this way! My friends don’t treat me this way. My significant other doesn’t treat me this way.

Injust had a thought. In the Kojiki, the story of ama-no-iwato, Amaterasu-omikami initially tolerated Susanoo-no-mikoto’s rampage, trying to calm him down and get him to stop tearing up her rice fields and defiling the canals. But he continued until he flayed the heavenly pony, destroyed the weaving hall and killed one of her priestesses. She fled because it was all too much and hid away in the cave. And the other Kami later drew her out with laughter and joy used in a healing way. Amaterasu-omikami didn’t deserve any of what happened, especially after welcoming Susanoo-no-mikoto. I don’t have to tolerate someone destroying me or the things sacred to me either!

And I feel like Amaterasu-omikami is pushing these things to the forefront so I don’t run and hide away, but instead put them out of my life. To be free of it.

Then there’s her pushing me to draw again. Something that I used to love doing but that toxic, abusive people took from me as well. And suddenly i have cheerleaders, friends who are excited about me getting back to it! Who are actively encouraging me.

Like I said, maybe I’m reading way too far into it. Maybe it’s just coincidence. But it sure feels like too many coincidences piled together to not be something. We’ll see how much further down the rabbit hole it goes.

Welcome to my couple of recent followers! I’m sorry I haven’t been here in a bit, I haven’t been super active on social media recently. The fluctuating weather has been wrecking havoc on my health, the Pups were beset by allergies or (an early spring cold) last week and so most of the time I’ve just been resting, taking care of them, and playing Okami. So there hasn’t been much going on here, much less to write about.

Hopefully I’ll be able to get in the swing of things soon!

I am only just starting this journey with you Amaterasu-omikami, and we have barely talked and I have no kamidana or ofuda or offering dishes. but I want to have sincere faith in you and your shining heart. I have had poor help in the past and my trust is weak and full of sadness. but I am trying all the same because I believe in you. I don’t know the best way to ask for help, only that I need it and my family needs it. The roof needs to be replaced, and it leaks in my bedroom when it rains. But a retiree, her disabled granddaughter and two great grandchildren don’t have anywhere near enough money to fix it. I don’t know if I should setup a GoFundMe or something. I need guidance and a little luck. Or maybe a lot of luck. Please Amaterasu-omikami, I don’t know where else to turn.

Today I was really feeling the “beginner space”. If you’re a witch or pagan, you probably remember your own beginner space as a baby pagan/ witch. Trying to figure out if you’re looking at the gods that are right for you, or if that dream you had was somebody contacting you. But also what if it’s a different god contacting me and I’m mistaking them for this god? What if I’m doing everything wrong and I never figure it out? Then floundering trying to figure out which sources are good, and then finding time to read those things, and trying to reign in your self-doubt and lowkey fears.

It’s awful right? I’m right back there after seven years as a pagan and witch and this shit sucks!

But I can already tell it’s too late to turn back. The sense of stagnation and agitation is the only thing awaiting me if I stop and go back to how things were before. This time as a newbie is short, it will be over soon enough. I simply have to get through it.

So one of the things that reading tarot has taught me is to pay attention to repetitive themes and cards. Cards that stalk you by showing up in every reading, and cards that repeat the same theme over and over usually denote either bad shuffling or an important message you’re not getting (or, let’s be honest, sometimes actively avoiding).

For me, the Pentacles suit has been dogging me since the beginning of the year. The main theme is twofold. One, and this one comes up the most, is that it’s okay to ask for help, I shouldn’t feel guilty for asking for help, I need to let go of my baggage around getting help so that I can accept help when it’s offered, and that I will be so much more successful by accepting help and knowing when to ask for it instead of burning myself out trying to do 10000 things at once.

The second theme is that success is in store for me and that a new path is part of it and that I need to let go of my fears around both, especially because it’s setting a strong foundation. Both themes are something I struggle with, because trusting the process hasn’t exactly borne out well for me in the past. I realize that I need to work on it and I’m pretty sure this is why it’s coming up now, when I’m trying somethingfor teen minutes please new and actively trying to build up my ability to trust and not fear the unknown and expect failure around every corner.

But you know, it’s also like, cards, can you not drag me for ten minutes please lol