An ADHD Witch’s Writing Practice

Writing is a delicate art of the heart. How we form our practice looks different for each and every one of us, and is as unique as our finger prints. Outlined below are some of the steps I took to build my practice, and as I am venturing into writing a book — sharing some of my methods. 

I am an ADHD person who does have a difficult time focusing, but ADHD goes well beyond just being able to focus. It’s disruption in executive functioning, understanding how and what to prioritize, how to even begin a project like this (daunting) and how to follow through. Thankfully we’re gifted with what’s known as hyper-focus — and if an ADHD person is truly interested in what they’re doing, they will give it their all. Be sure to love what you’re doing.

I am a non-college educated person, so I do not have a background in proper writing etiquette. I have learned through being a voracious reader and following in step with the writing cadence of my writing ancestors and elders. You don’t have to have schooling under your belt to be a good writer! Not to toot my own horn as it were, but if I can do it, so can you.

So, let’s look at some foundational practices followed by some question and answering from a poll that I did on Instagram. 

1. Building the Practice

Make coffee, sip coffee, sit, write. This is my practice. I follow an outline for stream of consciousnesses writing inspired by the work of Julia Cameron, called morning pages. At first, I did this all by hand in my journal, as this is what she recommends. However, I moved it to my laptop into a writing program called OM Writer — a really beautiful program with adjustable backgrounds, typing sounds and even ambient music (that is actually good!). I did this because I knew I was approaching a writing project and that I would need to get more comfortable with typing effectively. I set a word count goal of 1200 words each morning. What do I write about? Anything and everything. I let whatever is lingering at the top of mind drift down into my fingers and onto the digital page I am working on. Sometimes this looks like complaining, worrying, feeling joy or love, sometimes sketching out ideas. Whatever it is, I just let it flow without any hesitation. You can literally write, “I don’t know what to write” as long as you’re writing it! Doing this practice has become like breathing air, I need to do it to keep the writing vitality moving. Sometimes I take very unconscious breaths, sometimes I practice my breathing and expand and contract with intention. Sometimes it’s messy, incoherent and rambling. A lot of the time it makes no sense whatsoever. Sometimes it is beautiful and becomes something that I expand upon later into another piece of writing.

If you want to improve your writing and make a good habit of it, this should be the first thing that you do. It will bring ease and allow you to move through those stuck points in your practice. It will teach you to focus and even become a source of solace. My morning pages have made my writing practice what it is. It skims off the layer of debris to make way for the real heart of the matter. 

2. Consistency & Self Discipline 

Doing morning pages has developed a sense of consistency for me. Because I show up daily there, I now write with ease for the most part. Doing morning pages has allowed me to lose the fear of starting on a blank page.

Developing consistency and discipline is multi-pronged. Let us look at some of these points to help generate that self-discipline. 

Make the time. Set up a time of day that you will engage in a writing practice. If you are serious, give yourself an hour each day, or a half-hour. It usually takes me about 20-30 minutes to get down 1200 words of morning pages each morning. The liminal hours of dusk and dawn are great hours to do some writing, but I also find that my most productive working writing comes during the mid-day hours when the sun is at their apex. There is something clarifying about the strong rays of the sun shining down on everything — giving clarity and vitality to my words. The point here is, to find that magical time that works for you. Feel it out. 

Create a schedule. Like making time, you can create a writing schedule for yourself. Jot down all that you must complete in a day and notice where you have open spaces to write. Organize your tasks by the hour and slip in that writing practice as a part of your to-do list. Carve out the time.

Show up. Showing up is a part of the process. I will discuss ways to make the showing up more pleasant. But show up at the same time, the same place every day. Writing is a ritual that one engages in. If we do not show up on time, in the right space, the magic will not happen. Sometimes we may drag our feet and you can do that, drag your feet all you want. But sit down and do the work. I know that when I am feeling creatively blocked around writing, if I sit there long enough words will eventually come. Even if it’s one sentence or one paragraph. Just write it down. When we show up with consistency, a flow will occur. It’s like working a muscle. 

3. Setting and Ambiance

This is a key part of my writing practice. I have a dedicated space to do this work. Now, mind you I live in a rural place with cheap rent, so I have been able to dedicate a singular room of my house to writing. My writing desk is also my main working altar. Writing is magic and I do not separate the two. Dichotomies do damage in my opinion. 

Much of my writing is dedicated to ancestors, spirits and deity. Inviting them in and occupying the same space allows me to connect more deeply to my practice and have them guide me. 

Candles and incense are key here as well. While I do burn magical candles centered around creative writing work, I also burn scented candles for pleasure. The olfactory sense triggers me into a space and helps create the ritual of writing. Incense, candle, my glass of iced tea and a good playlist allow me to slip into an altered state to write. Generating this ambiance lets me move into my place of power, an internal landscape that supports my writing. Overall, I am chasing after a feeling. With time, I have understood how to capture this feeling with scent and sound — so that when these cues are activated, I am too. 

I use Boy Smells, Cowboy Kush.

Benoit Pioulard playlist on Spotify is great. Most of the music is non-lyrical — and sweeping repetitive sounds that allow for a trance like experience. 

Both of these transport me to the desolate sagebrush steppe that I inhabit — allowing me to access a portal from within my home and writing desk. 

4. Generating Focus

As an ADHD person, focus can be a difficult task. Sometimes, I am writing while I am pacing my house. Or when I am washing the dishes. Or driving. Or taking a walk. I am always writing. Writing does not have to look like writing proper. At most, I will write for only one hour at a time, or 45 minutes. I do not slog through hours and hours of writing. It just doesn’t work for me. If you have a hard time focusing, set a time limit and focus only on that. Shut the door, silence and put away your phone, tell your partner not to bother you, put the dog in their kennel. Do everything possible to not get distracted, even if for 15 minutes at a time. Short bursts are better than long slogs. Get in and get out.

There is some romanticism over a writer fretting over their pages for hours at a time. If you’re that kind of writer, props to you! I envy that style, but it doesn’t work for me. Usually, I will only generate that kind of fevered writing when I am working on an essay, sometimes I will spend 3-4 hours writing because there was a deep urgency in me. With writing a book, I will work on it for only an hour, maybe two each day for a set period of time. In this case, I have had 6 months to work on the project — I will maximize every bit of space I get within that time, and an hour or two each day will do me right in the long haul of that project.

On the magical tip, a rock or root makes a fine ally to work with in your writing projects. Keeping it nearby to remind you, and for it to have an influence on your work. I use a small quartz I was gifted that fits perfectly between my thumb and forefinger. I spent about 15 minutes charging it with the energy of clarity and focus while holding it in my left hand with my right hand cupped over it. I generated a ball of energy and pushed it into the stone. When I pause and reflect on my writing, I hold it. While I write, I keep it right next to me. 

5. Imposter Syndrome & Writers Block

The cure for imposter syndrome is to not make your writing about you. It’s about being of service to others, even if the writing is indeed, about you. You are sharing something that will land in the ears or eyes of another who needs to see and read it. This isn’t about you, it’s about being of service to a community, no matter how small of a niche it is. 

In writing my book, I was deathly and I mean, deathly afraid of the imposter syndrome stopping me in my tracks. It hasn’t yet, because I surrendered my will over to a power greater than myself. This might sound familiar to anyone in a 12 step recovery program and indeed, that is the inspiration that I draw upon. When I began my book, I went into 12 step recovery from drug and alcohol abuse and it changed my life. No longer were my actions about me, but about helping others. When I came from this place of service in my writing and work, all feelings of blockages and imposter syndrome literally melted away — and I have, through the grace of Our Lady, maintained my sobriety.

Find a higher power, a power that is greater than yourself. Be of service to them, and dedicate your project to them. Mine is our Holy Mother. Innana. Mary. Babalon. To her, I give all of my work and to her, I am in service to. This can look however it needs to for you. A higher power can be a river, your landscape, an ancestor, your community. Remember that it is not about you, but who you’re in service to. Coming from this place will change a lot. I know it did for me, as I am literally the Queen of Imposter Syndrome. Especially with being a person who has had little to no proper and conventional education. Who am I to write a book? Well, it’s not about me. It’s about you, my writing is for you. 

6. How to Approach the Beginning of a Project + Organization

Brain dumps and outlines. My method here is to do a full brain dump on a piece of paper. It can be tempting to order your brain dump about your project, but I advise you to just let it flow and organize later. An aspect of ADHD is that we have a hard time knowing which things to prioritize or how to order them. What I like to do, and find helpful is to do the brain dump and then highlight anything that really needs to get done for the project.

Outlines work really well, and it’s what has given me structure with my book. With the support and guidance of an acquisitions editor, they helped me outline my project to build the bones of it all. 

I brain-dumped for each chapter title, not worrying about the order of the chapters and how they should build on one another. Detailed in short what each chapter was about and then, I set to organizing and ordering the chapters in a way that made sense to my brain. Then I plugged it all into Scrivener. Which I am using now to write this very blog post. Scrivener, who I am not affiliated with in any way, is an incredible writing tool if you don’t use it already. It allows you to have various projects and organize them by chapter, and then pages if that makes sense. Once you get in the program you’ll see. It takes a tiny bit of learning to understand the system (and believe me, I struggle with learning new computer software systems) but it’s quite intuitive. From there, I can move things around if need be. It keeps track of my word counts and helps me keep things tidy. It also has a unique function of organizing chapters by sticky note style. Give it a try if you don’t use it already. It’ll change your life. 

I also do digital brain dumps in the program called OM Writer. A beautiful minimalist program for writing. Complete with changeable backgrounds, typing sounds, and music. I really like having my writing take up all of my screen so that it limits distractions. Both OM Writer and Scrivener have this function, which I find valuable. 

7. Tarot, Prompts & Spirits

The fun stuff. Often I will pull a tarot card to set the tone of my writing, or to generate a prompt to work with. Or, alternatively, I will pull a card to meditate on while I write. I particularly like The Hermit, The Sun and the High Priestess for this kind of work. Laying out your cards can be a magical act, as they do alter how we view things and think. The tarot can act as a prompt for your writing as well. Study the card and see where it takes you and what it brings up.

The card I pulled for this blog post was The Hierophant. Teaching! Learning, and sharing with folks the keys and knowledge that I have gleaned from in my experience of writing as a ritual practice. 

Spirits can be a wonderful point of guidance and inspiration. I have spoken to more than one fellow witch writer who often sets up a small shrine, or places books of their favorite authors around them, hoping that some of their magic rubs off on them! Who you work with for guidance and inspiration doesn’t have to be a writer. One of my favorite folks in the whole world is David Bowie. For his flair, expression and utter uniqueness. Placing a small photo, along with a white candle, glass of water and simple prayer can be a great way to connect with their spirit. Another writerly spirit that I have been interested in working with is Henry Miller. What I was inspired to do here was find a copy of one of his books that he has signed, along with a photo and a glass of water, and of course a candle. Working with his spirit as I write. Calling in and communing with him as a source of guidance and inspiration. Takes a little work, but I feel it will be worth it. 

8. Nurturing & Support

Community matters. Finding folks to be in community with can be rewarding and valuable especially when it comes to accountability. Recently I had the experience of joining a writing group. A space was held in zoom to come together, chat about our projects and then set a timer for an hour to work on said project. At the end, we all came together to discuss what we’d gotten done. There was no reading of our material, or critiques — it was simply a space generated to help us focus for a set amount of time. Be on the lookout for writing groups! You can find them through social media and if you can’t find one, make one! 

Speak with other authors and published writers. Very often they will be all too happy to share their experience and style, as well as bitch and moan about the process, because indeed, sometimes writing is a slog. Having a mentor of sorts, or someone to talk to who’s gone through the process can be a great source of understanding. 

If you’re ready to publish, pitch your book and listen to your editor they can be an incredible source of learning. As Stephen King says, “the editor is always right.” — sometimes.

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I hope this helps anyone out there wanting to develop a writing practice, or if you’re wanting to start writing that book. Do it, we need your work, we need your words.

on conflicts of whiteness, belonging, land & witchcraft

Walla Walla, Nez Perce, Umatilla, Paiute and Cayuse land. Original Oregon trail ruts to the left. Conflicting intersections.

I would like to preface, that I am not a sociopolitical expert or politically correct persons. I am not an academic on these topics, I am not a historian. I am not interested in using coded and exclusionary academic laced activist language that is largely inaccessible to many without profuse googling of words and tip-toeing around rapidly changing meanings. After all, it’s more anarchist if you use language people understand (Jake Stratton-Kent I believe). I am a simple neurodivergent autodidact who thinks about these topics and then expresses them on my personal social media platforms. I will speak plainly and from my own experience, because that is all I have. I also realize and am in recognition that I am just another white voice in the void. What I have written is not perfect, but it is from the heart.

This post is a reply of sorts to the recent words of Carolyn Elliott on being white and being, as she put it, also indigenous. I recommend reading that before proceeding any further. Furthermore, I do not participate in cancel culture. I look on Elliott’s words and am responding with compassion and a sense of internal urgency of my heart’s expression.

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Hi, I’m not indigenous — but my ancestors were once, a long long time ago. My DNA is a fun mix of Scots, Irish, British, Germanic, Sardinian, Dutch, and Saami. There are large and missing gaps in my knowledge of my ancestry because of movement, famine, blind assimilation, broken marriages, abuse, religion, and the more obvious factors of colonization, imperialism and the one that opens the road to much of this shit storm, that so many overlook: is civilization. Long long ago, my ancestors were colonized by outsides forces, such as the Romans, or maybe even the Vikings. My lines of connection are broken. That wound is very old, buried very deep and I will never heal from it in my own lifetime, nor likely will my descendants — should I choose to have any of my own. This belongs to me, this is my work.

I live and was born on a continent, that has been colonized by my people and I am a benefactor of this movement and violence. I am a part of the dominant group. I am not, in the traditional definition of the word, native or indigenous to the place I was born. As a matter of fact, I had a very nomadic youth — which further perpetuated a sense of displacement. I settled in so-called Oregon, 13 years ago. The longest place I have ever lived in my life and the first place I was able to say, “home” and feel a sort of peace in the familiarity. But, you see, I am still an uninvited guest (which would imply some rudeness). I was born into this storm and as much as I desire to resist it, it is inescapable. Do I long for a return to my ancestral ways of being? Do I long for the stories, myths, food, plant knowledge and tools that my ancestors once held knowing of? Of course I do. Part of our wound is a lack of belonging, lack of community, lack of mutual care — you’re very lucky if you have those things. The cult of alienation seem to grow stronger with every wheezing breath that the bloodied machine takes.

Am I native to the earth? Yes, obviously. I wasn’t born in space! Does this give me the right to claim indigeneity? No. Especially in the context of the social-political climate I find myself in. I accept that I am a lost child of the earth, who longs to find belonging and community, culture and ceremony that connects me to something solid and foundational. Does this absolve me of my ancestral inheritance and the ills and spiritual disease of colonization that I am a part of and that I have also benefited from? Abso-fucking-lutely not. There is ceaseless work to be done. I will do the work until I die. I am not shaming myself, and I am not interested in self-depreciation. This is my inheritance like we all recieve in one way or another within family and blood. Like my alcoholic father, I too, carry the curse of alcoholism. It is my duty to face it and heal it and to not shame or guilt myself or hide it. Or worse, bypass it —  a festering wound that desperately needs the salve to heal.

Like the Three of Swords, healing happens through, not around. Allowing oneself to grieve, softens the brittleness, and makes way for supple flexibility and future resiliency, gentleness, and understanding. Perhaps it is time to acknowledge our collective need to grieve. In trying to connect to a line of my ancestors recently, I discovered that some of them didn’t even mark the graves of their dead. They left them and willfully forgot them. My dead are lost to me and I cannot find them. They buried them and forgot, buried them and forgot to cry, buried them and did not grieve. What is the learned genetic effect of this? The question is rhetorical. It is generation on generation on generation and it is time to untangle the knots. This is my work.

My soul hungers for medicine and ceremony and culture that I do not have, just as Elliott expressed. I get that. So do I adopt and capitalize off of the shared knowledge of native people of my locale — should I be so lucky to be invited to experience their lifeways? No. That is cultural appropriation. I do not throw that word around lightly. To do so, does violence to those on the frontlines of colonialism, who are still defending, protecting, and standing up for their lifeways, with their very lives.

The questions feel crucial, they feel critical and I feel them with urgency and great need. How do I connect? How do I make ceremony? How do I find belonging? Where am I invited? How do I find sacredness? All amid ecological collapse, global pandemics, ever-present and growing uncertainty, on land that was stolen from the original inhabitants. I feel lost.

What feels most overlooked by my fellow lost white folks, as we search for some anchor to ground us, to moor us into belonging and while we often reach for cultural practices that do not belong to us — is right beneath our feet and in front of our eyes. The land. Why has our birth rite to be in communion with the land been ignored and even demonized? Why do we seek to fill the insatiable maw within us by theft or willful ignorance? It’s in our DNA to do so. We can rewrite the codes, we can heal. We can remember.

Some have suggested that white folks in America shouldn’t touch native plants, that they shouldn’t interact with land that has been stolen. Overwhelmingly I hear this horizontally from other white folks. Should I continue to perpetuate the puritanical colonial ideology that “out there” is where the Devil lives? That, “out there” is where I become impure? Should I build a white picket fence around my rented land, rip open the soil, force my seeds into them to grow plants that are not meant to even be here? Or do I turn to support the very land base that desperately needs our attention and hands on the ground, right now?

bitterroot a first food, who require digging to proliferate and survive.

Witchcraft defies dominant, puritanical social orders of religion, state and polarities within politics and this is where I weave in the red thread. Witchcraft will defy even your politically correct ideology. Witchcraft is what lies beyond the hedge and fence, witchcraft is what is on the other side, witchcraft is “out there”. Witchcraft is not here to serve you in your solipsistic self-empowerment feminist journey, you, witch are here to serve the land from where you orient yourself.

I cannot, in good faith and in good intention, sit on my hands behind locked doors and garden gates. I will create my own ceremony, I will ask my ancestors for guidance, I will ask the land to show me the way, I will go out there. I will fuck up, listen and learn and try again. I will address the wound and heal it.

Why do we trust that they (land, plants, ancestors) will not illuminate the path? We grasp at something else, we thieve and appropriate because it is easier than facing our deep wound. I feel it is possible to do this work while being respectful of the original inhabitants — and in all my conversations with native folks, connecting with your local ecology is encouraged. It is needed more than ever, no matter your location.

While Elliott’s post was, in my eyes, intentionally inflammatory for the hunger of algorithmic reach, she was missing this piece and she was missing humility. And through deleted comments of black people, indigenous people, and people of color — showed the still rawness of this wound and how much it needs healing. How much we need healing.

It is just after the new moon in Aries, and soon, my solar return in Aries. Chiron the wounded healer is astride my Mercury/Venus conjunction in Aries, and the Moon activates my Mars in Taurus. I step far outside my comfort zone in writing this. Action, “what’s next” is always on my mind. So what is next? What is the next step?

It starts with noticing our orientation in the landscape we occupy and then with presence. It starts with surrendering and acceptance. You can begin by going outside, and breathing, and noticing. I understand, even this act has been one that is controversial to do and at some times of the year even hazardous (I live in wildfire country). Who, of the non-human inhabitants grab your attention? Ask, listen and let them guide you. You know how to do this.

Let land lead, let indigenous folks who have knowledge of the land you occupy lead, listen, engage, rest, address the truth of your lineage and respectfully, do witchcraft.

sagebrush buttercups & spring is come

I am not lithe, I am not nimble as I load myself and my dog into my silver 4x4 truck. The date is March 16th, 2021. A year of viral pandemic, a year of deep loneliness, a year that has left me feeling beyond frayed at the edges, stretched thin, and contracting and expanding. A breathing, heaving thing — my body. My eyes squint, the sun is absurdly bright and it heats up the inside of my truck, and my truck, purrs gently — my silver ally and steed to take me into the steppe, hills, canyons, and mountains. My dog, well, she’s not so content. She hates truck rides and I try to convince her that the destination is worth it, but I do so in vain. She drools, shivers and pants. Its the way she goes. She’ll be happy once we arrive at our spot and she’s free to roam among the sagebrush.

I drive through my tiny town, filled with flatbed trucks and cowboys, working folks, and the odd tourist waiting in line at the popular bakery. It’s still winter, and town is still sleepy. Town has been asleep all year, with dead and dusty streets. Sometimes while I run errands and the wind is really kicking up, it wakes up dust demons in the ally’s and streets, it feels apocalyptic — and I have to remind myself that it is. It’s real. We’re in it. Not a Mad Max fantasy future, not here at least. The way it arrives, the way it plays out, the way we live in it will never meet our expectations, our daydreams or desires that are so influenced by pop culture. The gore in all it’s shapes and form — of this apocalyptic spectacle is a taboo shadow we wish to lie with. We should admit this.

Getting to the outskirts of town takes only but a moment and I am met with deep blue skies and a glorious mountain scene that takes up most of the skyline. After three years to the month of living here, the mountains never bore me, they only always titillate me into ecstatic joy. Sometimes I wish the land would rise up in some human form and make love to me. I imagine that they would come to me with horns of an elk, the face of a wolf, cloven-hooved, with heaving breasts and a cock — and that they would take me somewhere on a hillside. I imagine that like the way Isobel Gowdie took the Devil, that their nature would be as cold as spring water. Or like mountain snowmelt in a swollen creek in the springtime. The ringing singing of the rapids, with shaking alder branches and red osier dogwoods trembling in the wake of endless waves, the song of sparrows in the undergrowth somewhere a doulas squirrel yelling about something, and snap! A dead branch falls and all falls silent.

I am back in my truck and turning onto a dirt road and endless sea of sagebrush before me, snow-capped hills roll along all sides of me. With the ever-present mountains to the northeast of me. I park my truck in a dirt roundabout and near a massive water holding tank that a rancher must of dumped here recently — made of plastic, it has a huge crack in the top.

My dog’s attitude transforms when I let her out. Joy and glee fill her visage and I sigh the kind of relief that any parent would for a child who is no longer under duress. 

I am here to walk, in the sagebrush and in the wind. I am also here to look for something. I am here for a sign. A sign that spring is well and truly here.

I am looking for, Ranunculus glaberrimus also known as the sagebrush buttercup.

This small flower is the rebirth and beginning of everything in the sagebrush steppe, particularly in my locale. When they appear, it means that spring has arrived. It means that maybe, just maybe we’ll get one more light snow, maybe two. 

While the equinox and the moon hold the powers of celestial spring marking, this seemingly innocuous flower is the star that shimmers all hope and optimism that winter is fading and spring, blessed spring has arrived.

The wind is a bit bitter on my cheeks, but the sun warms my back and face — my dog leaps through the sagebrush, sniffing for ground birds and jackrabbits. She’s a pointer, and knows how to flush out any critter that’s hiding. With the exception of coyote.

Coyote we watch and leave alone. 

However, sometimes we dance with them when the time and moon are set just right on the horizon.

My eyes scan the ground for anything that is small, green, and yellow. The sagebrush hum a low wind song and because the wind varies in its spatial occupations — you can hear higher whistles and low rumbles throughout the landscape. Sagebrush have a song and you must show up to be in witness. You must listen deeply. 

Everything has a song.

There! My heart leaps. A singular small yellow flower lies gently in the contour of the dirt, right under a sagebrush. I must get eye to eye with this little creature. So I bend down, knees and thighs in the dirt, and take a closer look. Waxy yellow petals, the leaves, mimic the tips of the sagebrush leaves, they are tri tipped. Tridentata — I lean in for a smell, again, waxy and soft light florals but you must draw very close to get a whiff.

I stand up, dusting the dirt off my carharts. 

It is done. Spring is officially here — and as I meander down the dirt road, I find patches, here and there of these delightful little buttercups. I sit with the sagebrush, I sit with the buttercups. This is my vernal equinox rite. No glitter, no candles, no indoor rites rooted in a fantasy past.

As a witch and in my practice I have tossed out the traditional following of the Wheel of the Year. A term coined in the 1960’s in the wake of Gardnerian Wicca — it’s not as old as you might think.

I follow the sun, the moon, stars, and listen to the land. I find it trite and disconnective to celebrate a witch’s holiday that has it’s roots, basis and influence in a land I have never step foot on. While I have some connections by ancestry, following the Wheel of the Year has never sat right within me. One might find it far more connective, if you’re paying heed to the signs of your own landscape — so many jewels in the dirt waiting to be acknowledged for the power they hold in heralding the seasons.

Sometimes the cross-quarter observation is quiet, especially if you’re a lone witch. Sometimes it’s just you and the sagebrush and a handful of buttercups welcoming in spring.

goldenrod (Solidago spp.) a magical, medicinal, folkloric & ecological profile

In this post we’ll be exploring what I would consider an overview of Goldenrod, or Solidgo spp. from a magical, ecological, medicinal and folkloric perspective. There is so much more to know about this plant and this is only the information I have gathered from experiences, copious booking on herbalism, ecology, plant magic, research, conversation and the like. Goldenrod medicine I imagine has its own unique culture in certain parts of the world and more specifically in the United States, where I reside.

If you’d like to explore this plant and other plants in greater depth, check out Praxis of the Witch — where you can learn to build a daily witchcraft practice and engage in plant spirit work every new moon.

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NAME & LATIN:

Solidago spp. or Goldenrod, is the common name for the genus Solidago who are in the Asteraceae family. Other names for our goldenrods are, woundwort, wound weed and blue mountain tea. The etymology behind Solidago is, solidus + agere (causes to solidify or bring together). This plant was one of the original woundworts of the “old world” (Europe)*.

RANGE:

These gorgeous plants grow predominantly in North America, South America, Europe, parts of Eurasia and have also been introduced to other parts of the globe. Depending on who you ask, there appear to be between 77 and 177 different species of Solidago. I’m not joking, that’s data pulled from the USDA.

The Solidago’s are split into two different groups, one enjoys moist soils and those who prefer more dry and disturbed sites.

Their flowering time may depend on elevation and range, but commonly August to September.

For the sake of this plant profile, I will be speaking to the plants I have interacted within the particular region that I roam, which includes the Pacific Northwest coast and coastal mountains, Cascade mountain ranges, the interior mountains of Eastern Oregon as well as the deep canyons, scablands and river basins.

To my understanding, the greatest variance in these plants seem to be in the central and north-central states of the US

While I am no botanist, it is my belief that I have primarily encountered Solidago missouriensis, Solidago canadensis and S. elogata. However, these plants are well known to hybridize, so lord knows who I’ve actually encountered - goldenrods for sure, but who within that genus is unknown to me.

To ensure proper identification, use your wits! Bring an ID book relevant to your region and when you feel confident, touch, smell and taste (with care and caution). Pinch a leaf, or flower between your fingers and smell, it should be aromatic to a degree. Goldenrod smells like goldenrod and tastes like it too. With these plants, you’ll often find many pollinators about, engaging in ecstatic rituals - they can be quite fun to watch.

The strength and aromatics of these plants can vary depending on where they’re growing. Goldenrod I have found roadside in the Blue mountains is more (interestingly) aromatic than goldenrods I have found along the Cascade crest. I personally favor more aromatic plants, as their medicine feel stronger to me.

FOLKLORE & MAGIC:

Contrary to the sol we see in Solidago and the yellow flowers, this plant is within the auspices of the planet Venus. The primary organ of the body associated with Venus is the kidneys, which to no surprise is where we might find this herb acting in a medicinal sense.

Venus is kidneys and, the skin (and much more). Venus is also money and love and we find those associations here too.

Goldenrod can bring luck to your money situations, indicators here are the deep green and bright golden yellow. Flowers sprinkled in a wallet are said to draw in more money.

Some folks seem quite keen to use the plant as a dowsing rod. When held in the hand, whichever way the flowers droop is where there may be buried treasure. So, perhaps helpful in showing us where our efforts and direction are best put as well as for dowsing practices.

For love, it is said that if one wears goldenrod near to their body, their future lover will appear to them the next day.

MEDICINE:

Solidago has a wide and fascinating range of uses.

Constituents: (I imagine will vary from plant to plant) Saponins, clearodane diterpenes, phenolic glycloseides, flavinoids, acetylenes polysaccharides, tannins.

Actions: analgesic, anti-microbial, anti-inflammatory, anti-lithic, astringent, anti-catarrhal, diuretic, hepatic, immunomodulator

Energetics: Warmish & neutral leaning into dry.

Parts used: Leaves, bitter. Flowers, aromatic, sweet, bitter. Roots, pungent, bitter and more aromatic than flowers.

Contraindications: May cause an allergic reaction for those sensitive to plants in the Asteraceae family.

Solidago is truly an all-purpose plant. You can find use from mouth gargle, lung support, wound healing to urinary support. Goldenrod seems to have fallen out of favor and you can see this within historical texts and on through to more modern herbal texts. Through my research of this plant in the medicinal lens, it was once right up there with yarrow and was one of the “woundworts” meaning, plants that have great capacity to heal.

Goldenrod has taken a bit of a backseat compared to other herbal medicines that one may have access to. But don’t let inhibit your use and regard for the plant. Goldenrod is a wonderous ally to have access to.

According to Hoffman, Goldenrod is the first you’ll want to reach for catarrh. Meaning, mucous in the sinuses and lungs. Goldenrod also is helpful for allergies (cat especially, and pollen) and I imagine mucous buildup from allergies as well as colds that have moved into the lungs, also bronchitis. Goldenrod can also be used in a protocol for influenza.

Goldenrod also carries with it some bitters, which do act on the digestion. I find it helpful when transitioning to a higher fat diet and when too much fat makes you feel a bit strange. The species I encounter here in NE Oregon is especially bitter compared to plants on the Cascade crest. So, I think that when working with Goldenrod, it’s important to taste to indicate where the medicinal actions may be the best put.

Pacific northwest herbalist Scott Kloos strongly indicates goldenrod for urinary support and likens the flowers to streams of urine, and when you look at them, it’s true! I can also attest to goldenrod working for lower UTI related issues, it works. Goldenrod also supports the kidneys, and UTIs left untreated can move upwards — and I’ve experienced this. Best to jump on goldenrod medicine the moment you feel the burn.

SPIRIT & VIBRATIONAL INDICATIONS:

I know, vibrational is rather a washed out word. But when I use it, I really do mean the actual vibrational aspects of a plant when sitting with them. Are they subtle? Are they steady? Strong? Smack you upside the face in their presence? What feelings and emotions do they instill within you?

This is a vibrational quality.

Now that that is out of the way, I feel it’s plain to see that Goldenrod speaks to the warmth and vitality of the sun, very much like The Sun in the tarot. Here we see rooted supportiveness along with pure and unfettered joyful expression.

Goldenrod stand on their own within a community. Connected, but confident in their own expression as they reach up to the sun.

When we look at the flower essence indicators of Goldenrod, we see something similar: strong and secure sense of our individuality within groups or communities. It helps delineate our thoughts and expression from that of a group or culture we may be attached to.

Another interesting thing to note is their rhizomatic nature. In summer they root deep and in winter, they spread out horizontally creating shallow spreading roots. This speaks to knowing when to shift and transform our energies and where we should be reaching. Deep earthly nourishment, and then outward into community and support from our neighbors. And again, without creating energetic identity attachments to others.

Goldenrod teaches us to stand and shine in our individuality within the collective. 

PERSONAL NOTES & OBSERVATION:

The goldenrods that grow near me are quite aromatic and the flowers, sometimes sweet. Flowers when nibbled tend to act on my lungs, and I breathe a little deeper - these are the aromatics. The leaves, more bitter and help stimulate digestion. I do not have experience with the roots.

This has been the only and most effective herb to help clear a lower urinary tract infection for me. I used it along with a protocol to help support my urinary tract (nettle, uva ursi, minimal coffee, no sugars, low carbs, no alcohol, lots of water and rest). It took some time and persistence but did indeed help clear up my UTI. As such, it’ll be a medicine I reach for in the realm of urinary tract support.

Last but not least, goldenrod makes a fantastic dye.

* Matthew Wood, on Goldenrod

REFERENCES:

Medical Herbalism by David Hoffman

The Book of Herbal Wisdom by Matthew Wood

Medicinal Plants of the Pacific Northwest by Scott Kloos

Range Plants: Their Identification Usefulness and Management by Ben Roche

Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast by Pojar and MacKinnon

Alchemy-Works on Goldenrod

Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs by Scott Cunningham

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If you’d like to explore this plant and other plants in greater depth, check out Praxis of the Witch — where you can learn to build a daily witchcraft practice and engage in plant spirit work every new moon.

Strawberry Moon in the Sagebrush

It has been some time since I wrote in this space, wrote from my person and from my heart. So why not on this Sagittarius Strawberry Rose full moon? When the sun opposes the moon, it can be a good time to reveal and to allow that light to work into dark and unkempt places.

Working for Social Media, takes away a lot. The allure can be captivating: to build a space, to share an aesthetic and can indeed be helpful and connective in some ways. But it is not real life, but distorted fraction of it. A constant need to prove you’re Doing the Thing, Being Good. Signaling my virtues from places of insecurity to people I have never met, yet, find myself caring what they think of me. Social Media saps, it steals and monetizes and manipulates. Writing here is an exercise, it’s taking something back and remembering parts of myself. But I am not here to write about that…

I am in a different land now, than I was a year and a half ago. 

For 11 years I knew moss, dangling lichens and forest so dense with green life that it overwhelmed me at times with pleasure and joy and otherness. There was fog, mist, rain that would last a month or more. There was frog song so dense it would lure you into the underworld. There I had people, community and chosen family. So-called western Oregon grew me up, held me and taught me so much. I loved it, but I longed to run away from it — I knew that something extreme needed to happen.

western rain forest, in a waterfall bowl.

Now, I am in the high deserts east of the Cascade mountains. I came here like the cottonwood fluff that swirls around my house and street. I drifted on a wind and landed and, I think: am taking root. It is still unclear to me, but I pray daily about this.

I came out here because of love but soon discovered that as quickly as it formed, it fell apart. I found myself interestingly outcast and ostracized in the fallout of that relationship — and while there was sadness and pain there, I leaned into it. I was disinterested in feeling a victim. I never chastized myself for the seeming failure of that relationship, I did, to my truest Aries heart come here with pure and loving intentions.

Love you have and love lost is always a catalyst.

I knew that leaving the Willamette valley was going to happen for me and I knew that the other side of leaving was going to look like the desert.

Here I am.

I spent three years living in rural settings, far from traffic or the sound of neighbors laughing and having a Memorial Day barbecue. Now, I am in a small town rural town ruled by a ranching economy. As I type I hear the incessant buzz of electricity from the substation across the street. Deer and quail live there, coyotes trot down orange lit back streets and up into the hills that are named after them, magpies squwak from powerlines over the hills. I hear cows calling out on the hills they are not native to. Somewhere, reaching a little further east, near the canyons named for Hell are the shunned wolf people. Dodging bullets, picking off calves. The sun, who nears their apex reaches over the hill east facing and pours light and warmth into my face as I write.

I spend a lot of time walking in aromatic sagebrush, asking questions, asking questions and crying. Asking for acceptance and belonging. Asking where I fit in here. While I do this, I walk old wagon ruts created by pioneers, white settlers looking for new lands. It feels ironic, it feels uncomfortable that my own footsteps trace their wheel tracks so worn in, they still exist. It is from this place I often call to the land to lead me in ancestral reperation, strangely. I feel the tension and anxiety of my presence here, in my body and in the land, in this socio-polictical climate I am am keenly aware I do not belong, but I need belonging — I need to be present and dig here.

I look to Lilitu in her outcast wandering of the desert, to give birth to demons. To give birth and scream.

Lilitus swirl here in the sagebrush I feel. Devils of the wind who collect dust make spirals in the sky over an earth who has been cut open and forced to be a way. Beaten into submission and drugged. The wind gather the restlessness of the earth and put them into movement — and I should say, these wind devils are always red…

Sometimes you’ll be walking and hear her coming in the dead silence held by silver sagebrush. It starts at a rocky hill point and whip-rips their way down slope, invisible, visible wind — and this makes a shocking sound. One I cannot describe here. You must be in witness.

I have been on this land and in this area for a year now: in deep observation, reverence, awe and adoration to a degree that make me weep. What I know now, is that I did indeed come here for love. I came here, to hear myself again and collect lost parts, to court the land, to listen, to learn slowness and shed skin. To understand the innerworkings of establishing relations and connections to more than human-kin. Land and place is my lover. They are changable, angry, loving and so giving. Always I am asking, how to be in this. To see and hear where they want me.

There is no foot path I can see in sagebrush.

There is no path.

So I surrender to this realization.

I laugh and I scream into it, like Lilitu.

Best Tarot Books for Beginners & Everyone

So, you’re looking for the best tarot books for your beginning or current tarot practice? I’ve created a list of some of my most treasured tarot books in my own practice.

I'm gunna start off light and easy here and cover books and resources because this is a question I get asked the most.

Since books, websites and resources are a huge help when getting started with your tarot practice, I want to do this first. This is by no means a super comprehensive list, but a great place to start. You don't need a lot of books on the tarot to learn how to read it. These are books I have read myself, know of through other folks who opinion or publishing I hold in high esteem.

This list is short and sweet, as too much will muddle your mind. Books and resources are great, because they can open you up to new ways of seeing the cards and diving deeper into mythological and historical meaning. That said, the best way to learn the meaning of the cards is so simple: look at the card and notice what you see and feel come up around your situation. There's your meaning.

THE BEST TAROT BOOKS

78 Degrees of Wisdom by Rachel Pollack

The Easiest Way to Learn the Tarot - Ever! by Dusty White

The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by A. E. Waite

The Ultimate Guide to the Rider-Waite Tarot by Johannes Fiebig 

Tarot for Yourself by Mary Greer

21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card by Mary Greer

Holistic Tarot by Benebell Wen

The Game of Saturn by Peter Mark Adams

WEBSITES

Biddy Tarot  

The Tarot Lady 

Little Red Tarot (Queer friendly!) + Alternative Tarot Course! 

The Queer Tarot Project 

Learn Tarot (so simple and wonderful)

The Wild Unknown One by One 

And there y'all have it! Let me know if you have any questions at all, or if there's something very specific you'd like for me to cover around tarot for my next post. 

ENGLISH DAISY FLOWER ESSENCE: UNION + TRANSFORM + CARRYING A LIGHT INTO THE DARK

In my daily walks to and from my yurt my eyes are caught by various little beings. Some more vibrantly and shockingly than others. In our mixed days of spring, where the air is cool, then warm, then the sky cloudy, heavy and sometimes sunny, warm rains and some cold mists... a small flower kept catching my eye. Small white flowers, pink and purple at the tips dot the landscape, like clusters of stars in patches of grass, here and there. Simple daisy flowers. Continually they caught my fascination. Each soft petal of perfection, with a bright yellow center. They appeared soft, joyful and gentle.

I had long been holding the desire to make a flower essence. Something about the process seemed weirdly complicated to me, or like I would need the necessary supplies and perfect conditions to make my fragile essence of soft white flowers.

Each time I walked by them, the desire and call to make an essence grew and grew, to a fevered pitch that would not be ignored. I took this as an indicator that the plant was indeed calling, and we were reaching out to one another, to unify in some way.

Without my perfect conditions, tools and supplies I found the following: a unmarked glass bowl, a pair of regular scissors, a pretty bottle I bought for future (flower) mother essence holding and a skunk cabbage leaf to hold the snipped flowers. I checked the time and planetary hour. It just so happened to be the hour of Venus, on the day of Venus, while she is stationed in the sign of Gemini. The sun had three hours left on the day and was beaming golden and warm as it set in the west. The moon, waning, indicative of a time where we begin to shift inward as the moon becomes increasingly dark.

Medicine happens out of necessity.

And so I went to the most vibrant little cluster of flowers and asked them to impart their wisdom, healing and essence into the water I had collected from our tap, that comes from our clean well. I whispered my words over them and then went about the task of snipping the flowering tops while collecting them without touching them into the wide skunk cabbage leaf. I was mindful of my thoughts and turned them towards a soft childlike curiosity. I placed them carefully on the surface of the water, one by one in the waning golden light. Once the surface was covered, I set it up high on some bricks, surrounded by sage and yarrow to collect the light and then collect the shifting lights, the light of dusk and darkening hours. Carrying her soft medicine into shifting tides.

The time had come to collect it, it was in the crepuscular hours, when many creatures emerge, when the air shifts, when a coolness descends upon our little valley... I decanted the magical water into my beautiful bottle and topped it off with some vodka to preserve it. Brandy seemed too dark, to off a color for this delicate little flower and her pure clear essence.

My emotional state surrounding all this had been quite anxious. A sense of darkness and doom surrounded me. It was not halting me from operating in the day to day, but it most certainly created obstacles for me in my focus an general well being.

The next morning while it was quite early, I sat over my ritual of journaling, meditation and coffee. The bottle shown clear and shimmering at me from my table. I decide to take a strong dose of the mother essence and see what came up, with no prior knowledge to this flower in essence form.

I quieted myself and tuned into my body. I was feeling frustrated towards social obligations, behind, anxious, a little gloomy, emotionally drained and tapped out.

I took three drops under the tongue and let it settle there. I breathed deeply.

A soft radiant warmth washed down from my clavicle, over my heart and settled neatly into my pelvic bowl and gut. The feeling was that my whole torso was enlivened with a warmth and bubbling feeling in my gut. Slowly, amid my responsibilities I had for the day, a joy surfaced and I was able to smile. Even though I had tasks to attend to, I was much calmer about them. It reinstated my joy in being.

The more I sat, I got the sense of being held very gently at the back of my neck. Like a mother would support the neck of her young infant child. My thoughts turned to the gentle pinks and purple splashes of color on some of the flowers and loving femme nature this flower possesses. The intention of this being made and gathered under the guise of Venus should not be lost on the user. There is very much a nurturing femme quality to this blend. Encouraging us to soften where we may harden off, or close our eyes.

My worries did not dissipate, but it gave me a soft nurturing and joyful influences with which to approach and carry forward with in my condition, in a more constructive way.

A few scant drops lingered in my glass dropper and I rubbed them into my hand and began to shuffle my tarot cards to see if this little English daisy would like to speak through the cards.

Two of Cups + The Hermit

The Two of Cups suggests a unification within us and outside of us (as within so without) like a reconciliation of our parts. We all desire to merge and I believe that a good practice in this work starts with ourselves. This card also holds quite a bit of joy in that unification. This is the erotic, sympathetic attraction. Which should be recognized that when we are called strongly to make a medicine, this is eroticism in action... The Hermit speaks to carrying this light, the light that this particular flower collects into the darkness. That this then generates an ability within us to hold on to this guiding light and joy and not become lost, as we are in transition or undergoing transformation, or quiet introspection.

All flowers are naturally of the realm of Venus.  

Daisy may be a corruption of “day's eye” and can be sourced from the Anglo-Saxon doeges-sege meaning “eye of the day” as the flower is open during the day, and closing at night. Bellis seems to have its etymological roots in the word, “pretty” and perennis meaning “everlasting” - so here we have Beauty Everlasting, Eye of the Day. Who would not want to carry her into the night in a lovely safe container, or lantern such as the Hermit carries?

There is also perhaps a legend, but I cannot find any proof if it in classical texts of the Roman god Vertumnus giving chase to the nymph Belides of who the genus of this was named after. In his quest to dominate and seduce her, she transformed herself into a daisy, thus escaping him.

In this, it made me wonder these stories of women and nymphs transforming themselves into a plants, flower or bird to escape their oppressor. Why do we have these stories and myths? To give solace to the oppressed, to find wisdom in our traumas be they personal, collective or handed down through generations.

Upon further exploration of the Belides, we find that this is another name for the Danaides. The 50 daughters of Danaus. Ovid gave them the name Belides, which stems from the name of their grandfather, Belus. These daughters were made to marry the sons Aegyptus, a king born of a river god and watery nymph, and then compelled to to murder their husbands on the first night. All of them did this with the exception of one. The 49 daughters who did commit the crime, were subsequently punished, and made to pour water into a bottomless vessel. 

There's much to explore from such a humble low growing flower...  

And so, after having sat with this delicate medicine this is what I feel it has to offer those who have need of her wisdom, grace and gentleness.

• To reinstate soft, compassionate joy.

• Holding a light while going into darkness.

• Exploring purity and innocence of our being.

• Warm gentle Venusian support.

• Joy amid our responsibilities.

• Maintain a tether to joy and softness as we shift into deep introspection.

• Sweet bubbly feelings in the gut.

• Turning into our torso: clavicle, heart, gut and pelvic regions.

This essence will be available in my shop. Presented in a small ½ ounce bottle with a dropper and a hand-painted label infused with the daisy essence itself. Just a reminder, all Patreon supporters receive 5% off in my shop, no matter the donation level $1-$20.

References

• The Herbal Medicine Makers Handbook by James Green

• Theoi.com

• Alchemy-works.com

• Native American Ethnobotany by Daniel Moerman

Witch Hovel in the Woods, the Light of Usnea: Home Now

After sleeping in a warehouse for three weeks after my 5 month hike on the PCT, I find myself driving to Eugene one sunny fall afternoon to look at a home. I found it on a whim on Craigslist while dreading reintroduction back into "regular world." The people who lived on the property liked me immediately and in our email changes we communicated with a familiar language. 

I am greeted by M, who shakes my hand and the shirt he is wearing tells me I am with my people. Local environmental activism. We walk around the property and he picks up acorns which he will dry, leach and grind into flour later. We talk about lichen and fungi dyes.

My heart breaks when I enter the main central building on the property. Filled with skylights, wood panels and that smell. Why is it that us more feral folk have that smell? A large wood stove anchors the room together and the walls on the southeast facing part of the building are just windows. A nuthatch crawls on the oak outside the window, chickens peck in the yard and a bobtailed cat suns itself on the couch.

I leave with my heart pounding and my fingers crossed as I drive back to my warehouse couch. 

I move in a month later.

And, I sit. I sit and I stare out the window of my small yurt dwelling, perched up on a hill, surrounded by oak, pine and swaying usnea. I make a small altar at my own southeast facing window, where I watch the glow of the sun come up over the far hill. Sometimes, it lights the lichen up in the canopy first. Setting the whole place aglow, with brilliant shimmering mossy light reflected out of billions of dew droplets.

I pull out my old friends one by one, my crow bones, my squirrel bones and fox from a box labeled "WITCH SHIT". They feel cold, as we haven't seen each other for almost 9 months. My bone throwing set feels coldest of all, I breathe on them and they stir a little. They need fire, warmth, touch.

And so I make fires, as it's my only source of heat. I set the newspaper up, the kindling and wait and watch. "A watched fire will never lite correctly," I tell myself. 

I track mud into my room, lichen finds its way in and into my hair, alder sticks in my bed.

At night the rain hits the oculus skylight in the center of my roof. I panic, my trail mind going into survival mode. The drops sound like a leaking tent wall, and it takes me a little while to find the rain soothing during cold times. But isn't that for the domesticated? I ask myself. 

How to I keep my feral creature awake? 

The deer family, a small herd of doe and their young, greet me on my dimly lit morning walks down to the main house for coffee. Fine mist swirls in the air and fills my lungs. I hear them bounding off in their elegant leeps thunk! thunk! thunk! Hearing the ground bear the weight of their lithe prancing bodies, they look back at me with caution. My favorite is a young buck, the cutest of all.

I brew coffee and watch him out the window eating the usnea and the fallen lichen. His fur is thick and ruffled in some spots. He turns away and follows his mother up the hill and into the forest. My landmates wake and they make bird calls to each other in the morning, while coffee brews and eggs turn white in bacon fat and well conditioned cast iron.

The anxiety of the rain never leaves me, I still wake sometimes at night and panic a little. 

Going To Town becomes an ordeal of maintaining my anxiety levels. I can breathe right when I finally get home again. But the town holds me better than Portland did. I see the usnea hanging from rearview mirrors. At the small grocery store, I buy dried pineapple and the old man behind the counter wishes me a happy solstice, instead of happy holidays. 

Eugene was an old bastion of green anarchism and radical environmentalism, since gone silent. Much that is wild and feral seems to be going silent as time passes. You can see see it though persisting like dormant seeds in the soil: in the bathroom graffiti, on the street corner, in quiet passing conversations, back patches and zines left to be seen.

Waiting.

On the solstice night, coming up from the house after a shower a wren flies into my room - in the pitch black dark. I try and try to shoo it away, but instead it roosts in my oculus and blinks at me. I shrug and eventually put myself to sleep. All night the little wren sleeps quietly. We wake at the same time, right as the sky begins to shift into light. I open my door and it flies away like nothing has happened. I feel it was an omen, but of what I have no clue.

I keep sitting, for a month. I cry a little, I develop a romance with someone to distract me, I try to write but I cannot, I sit in hot springs and see the decaying leaves of Aralia californica, drooping weeping, my body aching for warmth and I stroke the lines the sun made on my body, remembering. Nothing can come out. Nothing wants to come out. 

Every night I dream about being on the PCT. Sometimes, it's snowing and I am still out there. Waiting in some warm building wondering to myself why am I waiting? It's done. I did it. Go home. Then I am filled with sadness and the deepest longing.

Sometimes I accept and refuse my post trail depression. Mostly, the sitting was deep metabolization of... everything that happened. And I loved it, I swam in it, drank deeply from it.

In those last cold Washington days, as I approached the Canadian border I knew, I was going to find my witch hovel in the woods. Where I would incubate myself with plants and spirit and fire.

And they must have agreed, because here I am.

My mornings now filled with incense and water in offering to the spirits of this land, to my own spirits that watch over me and walk with me, and to my ancestors. I write my dreams down and pray for more rain, as our winter so far has been so dry. It makes my nerve endings feel sapped and brittle. Like usnea left to dry. 

I snap dried alder twigs for tincture and pour pine pitch salves, I set the florida water out under that Cancer full moon. I find my flow. I let myself sink into the difference of now vs. then. I manage to find ways to make myself suffer for my pleasures. For the goodness I have.

Funny, how for some of us, we feel we must suffer to have good things and so we create this ourselves. "The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven," I mock to myself. "So the John Milton says." Sometimes I tip my head back and cackle at myself.

I find my plant allies that will help me with my mind and they soothe me. 

A wind rattles through the trees one night, leaving piles of usnea glowing on the ground. They mesmerize me. If I am so attracted to them, they must be attracted to me. So I collect them, they fill all corners of my room. Leaving the scent of air, the trees, the wild.

Which I try so hard to keep within me.

A Reading & Resource List for Every Witch

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The best books on witchcraft, witchcraft 101 and beyond. These are the titles and books that every witch should have in their collection, or somehow get their hands on and read. I am sharing this in reference to the questions I have received from Instagram on book/resource recommendations. I have read many of these books and there are many that I have not read yet myself but are on my never-ending to-read list. This is by no means super comprehensive, or an end all be all list, but it's a good jumping-off point for those looking to expand their knowledge. 

My reading list leans towards traditional witchcraft of primarily European origin. I lean in on my heritage and understand my ancestors and their pre-Christian traditions. Our ancestors are our greatest guides, they want to see us do well and we need to remember them because they are being forgotten. Folk magic is a huge part of my practice as well, so I do have an emphasis on reading about folklore and low down dirty magic. As well as Shamanism, mythology and working with spirits and gods. I'm a dirty ol' witch, pagan, animist and polytheist if you were wondering. 

This list will also include books that have influenced my craft and some recently discovered zines and small independent publishers that I am super excited about! If I am missing anything of note, please leave a comment and I will add it.

Classics

• The Golden Bough by James George Frazer

• Aradia or the Gospel of the Witches by Charles G. Leland

• The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries by Evans-Wentz

• Dig through Sacred Texts and read up on Legends & Sagas, Animism, Neo-Paganism & Celtic Folklore

More Modern Classics

• Apocalyptic Witchcraft by Peter Grey *the MOST critical book on modern witchcraft

• Rebirth of Witchcraft by Doreen Valiente *a must read to understand the origins of modern resurgence in Witchcraft

• Craft of the Untamed: An Inspired Vision of Traditional Witchcraft by Nicholaj De Mattos Frisvold

• Natural Magic by Doreen Valiente

• Witchcraft for Tomorrow by Doreen Valiente

• Mastering Witchcraft: A Practical Guide for Witches, Warlocks & Covens by Paul Huson

• Fifty Years in the Feri Tradition by Cora Anderson

• The Spiral Dance by Starhawk

• THE BLACK PULLET by anonymous

Witchcraft & Practices

• The Sorceror's Secrets: Strategies in Practical Magick by Jason Miller

• Protection and Reversal Magick by Jason Miller

• The Witches Sabbats by Mike Nichols

• Spiritual Cleansing: A Handbook of Psychic Protection by Draja Mickaharic

• A Century of Spells by Draja Mickaharic

• Crones Book of Charms & Spells by Valerie Worth

• Treading the Mill: Practical Craft Working in Modern Traditional Witchcraft by Nigel G. Pearson

• The Robert Cochrane Letters: An Insight into Modern Traditional Witchcraft by Robert Cochrane

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American Witchcraft, Southern African American Hoodoo & Conjure

• Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic: A Materia Magica of African-American Conjure by cat yronyode

• Pow-Wows, or Long Lost Friend: A Collection of Mysterious and Invaluable Arts and Remedies, for Man as Well as Animals by John George Hohman

• The Silver Bullet & and other American Witch Stories by Hubert J. Davis

• The Candle and the Crossroads: A Book of Appalachian Conjure and Southern Root-Work by Orion Foxwood

• Fifty Years in the Feri Tradition by Cora Anderson, 2005

• The Art of Hoodoo Candle Magic by catherine yronwode

• Hoodoo in Theory and Practice An Introduction to African American Rootwork by cat yronwode

Magical Spiritual Herbalism & Witchcraft

• Witchcraft Medicine: Healing Arts, Shamanic Practices, and Forbidden Plants by Claudia Müller-Ebeling, Christian Rätsch, and Wolf-Dieter Storl

• The Pharmako Trilogy by Dale Pendell

• Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs by Scott Cunningham

• Herbal Medicine-Maker’s Handbook: A Home Manual by James Green

• Magical and Ritual Use of Aphrodisiacs by Richard Alan Miller

• Magical and Ritual Use of Herbs by Richard Alan Miller

• The Book of Herbal Wisdom: Using Plants as Medicines by Matthew Wood

• Plant Spirit Shamanism: Traditional Techniques for Healing the Soul by Ross Heaven & Howard G. Charing

• Plant Spirit Medicine: A Journey into the Healing Wisdom of Plants by Elliot Cowan

• Medicinal Herbs of the Mountains West by Michael Moore *if you live in the western United States

• The Green Book by Heliophilus

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Spiritwork, Ancestors & Gods

• Cunning-Folk & Familiar Spirits: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic by Emma Wilby

• The Visions of Isobel Gowdie: Magic, Witchcraft and Dark Shamanism in Seventeenth-Century Scotland by Emma Wilby

• COMMUNING WITH THE SPIRITS: The Magical Practice of Necromancy by Martin Coleman

• Communing with the Ancestors: Your Spirit Guides, Bloodline Allies, and the Cycle of Reincarnation by Raven Grimassi

• Dwelling on the Threshold: Reflections of a Spirit-Worker and Devotional Polytheist by Sarah Kate Istra Winter

• Hekate in Ancient Greek Religion by Robert Von Rudloff

• Gods of the Greeks by Karl Kerenyi

• Hekate Soteira: A Study of Hekate's Roles in the Chaldean Oracles and Related Literature by Sarah Iles Johnston

• The Viking Spirit: An Introduction to Norse Mythology and Religion by Daniel McCoy

Womxn, Goddess & Menstrual Mysteries

• The Wise Wound by Peter Redgrove and Penelope Shuttle

• Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés

• Pomba Gira & the Quimbanda of Mbùmba Nzila by Nicholaj De Mattos Frisvold

• The Red Goddess by Peter Grey

• The Brazen Vessel by Alkistis Dimech & Peter Grey

Small Presses, Zines & Publishers

• Hadean Press occult books, journals, and pamphlets in standard and handbound editions.

• Scarlet Imprint "Our work is intended to support practicing magicians, students of the occult arts, the esoteric community, and the fine book arts." Hands down one of the best publishers right now in the occult world. Incredible work and fantastic blog as well.

• GODS & RADICALS "Gods & Radicals is a non-profit Pagan anti-capitalist publisher. Our focus is simple: inexpensive print and digital works to inspire hope and rebellion." Fuck yeah!

• Three Hands Press The premier publisher of contemporary occultism and metaphysica, representing the new generation of esoteric scholars, artists, and practitioners.

• Contagion Press - esoteric, queer, anarchic!

Blogs, Podcasts and Fellow Witch Folk

• Sarah Anne Lawless If you're looking for a much more organized and comprehensive witch reading list, hers are the best and she is far more academic in her approach than I.

• Blood and Spicebush Becky is rad as hell and has great resources on her blog.

• Banshee Arts

• Briana Saussy

• The Starry Cave

• Rune Soup

• Witches and Wine

• Wolf and Goat

• The Woman Who Married a Bear

• Carolyn Elliott/WITCH

• Kymia Arts

And that my friends, is all I've got right now off the top of my head! I will likely update this and add to it over time. Again, if you feel there is something to add here, please leave a comment. 

A WITCHES RESISTANCE & ACTION LIST

yarrow demonstrating its resilancy, strength and potency when growing in a harsh place

Just last Tuesday, like so many others I saw the headline that Trump silenced the EPA, USDA and it's scientists and a whole host of other horrifying events. I found myself hunched over my laptop or over my phone, white knuckled, jaws clenched, shoulders caved in, knots in my stomach. I went to bed that night my mind a swirling chasm of dread. Crushed under the weight of what to do, how to act, we're doomed I thought. It's happening. 

It's happening. And so very fast.

Times are fucking scary and very intense right now. For all of us, and even more so for so many other people. As I laid in my bed, unable to move from anxiety and the depression I have felt the past several weeks I realized, this is the exact reaction they want. Several people and friends I follow on Instagram talked about this very crushing weight we're all feeling right now and that we need to take care of ourselves and each other. We need to connect with each other and reach out. Build community or further strengthen those bonds, however that manifests for you.

Yesterday morning I woke up and dove into the news first thing, not the best idea for mental health. Somehow I surfaced from the deep current of it all and grabbed a breath of air and began a list for myself. I'm sharing this list with those who will pass by this. It's a reminder that small acts, the tiniest acts do in fact have an impact. Even if it means taking a hot bath with crushed red cedar leaves you found in your local forest. Resistance can be as subtle as a weed growing out of a crack in the concrete, or as bold as hanging signs in front of the White House and defying orders to stay silent.

So, this is my list of actions, prompts for more learning and understanding and self care for the witch in these times.

• Buy plant and tree guides for your bioregion, study them, touch them and listen
• Learn how to save seeds
• Make and drink bone broth, share it with loved ones, teach them how to make it
• Support your local CSA
• Buy goods from herbalists and better yet, herbalists within your local range 
• Protest works
• Get involved with your local community garden if possible, or volunteer
• #slowherbalism
• Learn how to make your own safe plant medicines. Some great safe starting books here
• Understand what it means to be a good ally
• Make some fire cider and share it (scroll down for recipe)
• Get a tarot reading, or learn how to read tarot for yourself
• Getting into activism? Learn what to do and not to do in intersectional feminist spaces
• Make gentle everyday herbal infusions and drink them (consider nettle, skullcap, passionflower)
• Join or make a donation to United Plant Savers
• Remember to get outside and move around in nature as often as you can, even if it's just in your neighborhood
• Don't beat yourself up you can't do everything, pick your battles
• Remember that self care is an act of resistance
• Read Rewild or Die: Revolution and Renaissance at the End of Civilization
• Find or carry your herbal ally with you, sleep with them under your pillow
• Learn and practice breathing techniques that calm and sooth you 
• Reach out to friends and loved ones, in real life or on the internet for connection and support when you feel bad
• Know that you are not alone
• Practice mindfulness right now
• Show up, or don't, know when you're over extending yourself
• Learn resistance/resilience and potency through weeds and wild plants (see: yarrow & research pioneer species)
• Nice Girls vs. Kind Women
• Read the news from various sources, but be mindful of becoming consumed & crushed by it (that's what they want)
• Don't start you day by reading the news! Meditate, drink your infusions, breathe
• Exercise and take care of your body in ways that feel right to you: yoga, lift weights, walking, running, etc.
• Watch Pema Chodron videos 
• Call and contact your local elected officials when shit goes down, here's an easy way to find them 
• Get your hands on some great plant/witchy zines: Herbal Roots, The Cauldron, herbal zine list from Microcosom
• Reclaiming Our Ancient Wisdom: Herbal Abortion Procedure and Practice for Midwives and Herbalists
• ResistanceManual.org
• Connect with your ancestral heritage if that is available to you, honor them
• Respectfully learn about the land you live on and its indigenous peoples that were here before colonization 
• Sign up to Plant Healer Magazine 
• Honor your land spirits, spirits of place and leave them offerings, speak to them
• If you have spare dollars, donate to Planned Parenthood, The Sierra Club, Black Lives Matter, National Parks Service, Standing Rock 
• Read the books, Apocalyptic Witchcraft & Blood of the Earth
• Read the essay Rewilding Witchcraft, by Peter Grey, all this is happening now
• Also see, Forging the Body of the Witch, Raw Power: Witchcraft, Babalon and Female Sexuality

• Read works by Nicholaj de Mattos Frisvold: Civilized Witchcraft, The Pointed Finger of Freedom, On the Itch within Witch

If you're reading this and have something to add, please leave a comment. This is by no means a list of perfection. Its things that feed and placed to start.

Be well, be strong.

Leaving For the Oregon Coast Trail + What Do I Need?

It's 100 degrees here in Portland this weekend. I sucked in all the cool air last night, shut up all the windows before it crept over 70 degrees this morning and I am sitting in fine comfort, for now. I am cool blooded though, so I enjoy the heat for the most part. Sipping holy basil and mint tea, with a little watermelon on the side. Good refreshing things.

My mind keeps drifting back to this this picture I took almost a year ago, when I was on a camping trip with my herbalism school. It was such a hot and dry summer last year...

It's always cool on the coast, or at the very least there will be that persistent breeze rolling in off the ocean. Filling you up with the sweetness of negative ions, salty skin and tousled hair.

My stomach flips a little in that good way; when I look at my calendar and see July creeping up faster than I thought possible. In less than a month now, I'll be living on the Oregon coast for a month.

My home and all that I'll need to live outdoors will be on my back. I'll be avoiding lingering in towns and spending as much time as I can out on the route that will take me to the California border. From there, I'll have to find my way home. Likely by a mixture of bus and train.

It's going to be super amazing. But I am also kind of preparing myself more for the uncomfortable aspects of what I'm doing. The word for it is called thru-hiking - when you hike one long continuous trail from beginning to end. It's my preliminary step towards finding my style for when I take on the Pacific Crest Trail next year. To know what I am comfortable with, what I need and don't need, what I want and don't want. 

I don't know what to expect. I have never done anything like this in my life. I've never even been on a trip this long before, as I have spent the majority of my adult life... well, adulting. Running a business, tending to the day to day.

It's been both easy and hard for me to set aside time like this, for a big endeavour. It feels kind of like a chink in my mental calendar year - I'm excited and a little irritated by it. Aries don't like to slow their roll and I can't get rolling on some projects I've wanted to pick up. My ingrained scheduling will be disrupted and I feel like I can't begin anything right now. 

It's a preparatory limbo.

What I do know is, my constant companions are going to be the ocean, trees, plants and the moon as she moves the tide back and forth. Controlling my movements of when I can and cannot hike. When I can and cannot pass around a point, or make it to the next headland, to my next camp spot. 

I keep thinking about how I should prepare for the spiritual aspect of this hike and I think about how I am going to do that when I am on the PCT too. I think about physical tools I would need to engage in spirit work, pay homage to the moon in her phases, or to honor a spirit of place. I think I need these physical accoutrements to make contact, to do the work, to engage. Then I realized I don't. I realized...

All the tools we need are in us. 

So I decided to stop stressing about that part. Because either they'll find me, or I'll find them... we'll find each other somehow. I'll figure it out when I get there. I keep telling myself that.

---

If you're wanting the more detailed and nitty gritty aspects of my hikes and the preparation that I do for them, you can follow me on my other blog, Witch Wandering (which, there are no posts yet, but soon). In that space I will be keeping a daily trail log (updating on trail when able to do so) and posts on what I carry gear wise, eat, prepare, etc. I do hope to squeeze in a from the trail post here too, if possible. We'll see how it goes.

Bone Reading Intro & Starting Guide

In this post, I wanted to talk a little about my own methods and share some resources on reading with bones. Before I begin though, I want to state that I am not an authority on bone throwing as a form of divination. I have been working on this form of divination for roughly three and a half years now. Each diviner, whether it be tea leaves, tarot, smoke, water, fire... you name it, will have their own personal methods. These are mine, they are by no means rules! But hopefully a way to inspire those I know who are interested in this lovely form of divining.

A heads up if you're squeemish: I will be discussing dead animals.

HOW I CAME TO BONE THROWING

Before I began working with the bones as a form of divination, I had been quite fascinated by collecting animal bones and parts. Roadkill was a subject of photography for me in my late teens and early 20's (sadly, all lost). I always felt that it was unfair for an animal to get ground into the asphalt, no one there to care or honor their body. When possible, I pick up and care for roadkill or dead animals I find in my wanderings.

I came to this form of divination via cat yronwode of Lucky Mojo. In the radio show that she hosts, sometimes she'll read with cards and other times, she'd read with bones. I do believe she is the individual who brought bone throwing as form of divination to the internet. After listening for some time and becoming entranced by the stories of how she came by some of the items in her sortildge set, I was determined to start one of my own. Luckily around that time, miss cat wrote a book Called Throwing the Bones in 2012 and sells great little starter sets.

FINDING YOUR PEICES

I found that buying a starter set and reading all that I could on the subject was best for me. I liked having the “foundational” set to get me going right out the gate. Once it arrived, I went through all my collection of small random objects, bones, plants, woods, stones, etc. I grabbed whatever spoke to me and added them in. If something didn't work, or didn't feel right I'd pull it out. Or, it'd find its own way out.

For some pieces of my set, I have collected my own roadkill and processed animal parts, or I have come upon animal parts already cleaned by nature. Various birds and small critters. Each has their own story and for each, I asked permission to use them. Most animals will be agreeable with kind words, offerings, respect and such like.

While buying already cleaned bones on the internet is really handy and great, there is nothing quite like processing a found bird or animal by your own hands. I have found that my connection to the animal is stronger and I understand them more, because I know where and how they lived and usually, how they died.

Magical plants and trees have been an interesting addition as well. Do not overlook your plant allies! They can lend a strong healing voice to a reading and can even help in remedial work post-reading.

Anything can be added as long as it fits and be mindful of pieces coming to you, because they will when you open yourself to this kind of work.

Your collection is usually never static. It will change over time just like we do - an ever evolving process.

MINDSET

I must admit, that it was quite frustrating at first to learn. You take a handful random objects, chuck them in a general direction and then attempt to read them based on their landing placement. If you come from a tarot background, this can be a total mind fuck. You'll want to assign tarot meanings as a way to compartmentalize the pieces and their meanings – I kind of did this in the beginning myself. I do not recommend it. Tarot is tarot. Bones are bones. They speak! But you must find your own way of listening.

EVERYTHING CONTAINS A SPIRIT

A common thread I have found among bone throwers is animism. Which is the belief that all things, plants, animals, rock, inanimate objects, contain a spirit. I find this mindset and belief basically necessary to reading bones in my own practice. Each piece contains its own wisdom, its story and all the pieces together create this collective, unique being. Like humans and many other things, no two are alike.

THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND

• Sometimes a piece will change its meaning.

• Sometimes, a piece will decide to leave.

• Sometimes a piece will always want to speak (usually of corvid origin, ahem).

• Sometimes a piece will never speak.

• Sometimes, a piece will break.

• Sometimes, everyone wants to speak!

I have found that being flexible and open is necessary. Every cast is an invitation to discover something new and to hear the voice of spirit. The moment you become rigid, movement and flow of voice is lost.

Trust yourself, be fluid.

BONDING

Your bone throwing set is a living breathing thing and it is good to treat it as such. A few ways I have bonded with my set is as follows:

• Talking to them

• Giving them my blood, usually menstrual 

• Sleeping with it under or by my pillow

• Carrying a piece with me through the day

• Periodically smoking and "watering" them (see in Care and Feeding)

• Leaving pinches of tobacco and mugwort in their resting place

• Working with them regularily 

CARE AND FEEDING

I use a scarf my grandmother gave me to hold my bones. I have found a soft container is best and I feel that my set enjoys a warm gentle place to rest when not in use. You'll come to know the particularities, wants and needs of your set with time. If ever in doubt, just ask, be open, listen and experiment with what works.

I like to feed my set both periodically and before I begin a reading. Most often this comes in the form of homemade Florida Water, western red cedar smoke, wild mugwort and tobacco. Florida Water is a favorite. I just sprinkle this over the bones before a reading, stir them with my hands and talk to them, letting my breath warm and touch the bones while bundled up in their scarf. A pinch of tobacco or mugwort added to them while they're wrapped up and not in use is nice too. Western red cedar is a nice benevolent, clearing and blessing smoke, between uses or after a reading is done. Use what calls to you, listen to what they want.

DOIN' IT

Ancestors, helping spirits and the spirits within the bone set itself are key to call up before beginning a session. Before I throw, I rattle them around a bit, “wake up, time to wake up!” I will say them close to my face and allow my breath to touch them. I like to “warm” them, stir them alive again. They hear me and begin to stir... then with smoke and perfume I feed them, speaking aloud my question and situation. I then take a handful of bones and give them a gentle toss

• Grounding and centering myself, light meditation, entering an altered state

• Anointing a candle, lighting it and setting out a glass of water to open the way to spirit.

• Calling upon my ancestors and helping spirits to aid me in receiving messages loud and clear

• Speaking to my bones and allowing my breath to touch them as I speak aloud my question/situation.

• Cast the bones and read away!

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THROWING SURFACES

Currently I have my witchin' table, or, my divining table that I cast on. Basically an Ikea table covered in the stains of witchcraft. On it I drew a circle in chalk. This is where I do my casting. Goat skin would be my first choice, but I have yet to seek one out for my needs. Animal skin is a common casting surface among bone throwers as are mats made of natural materials, or cloths. Whatever suits your needs, it doesn't have to be fancy. A finger drawn circle in the dirt works just as well. 

BOOKS AND RESOURCES

Throwing the Bones: How to fortell the future with bones, shells and nuts by cat yronwode

Bones Shells and Curios by Michele Jackson, who also runs a great blog on the topic and teaches classes!

Walking the Hedge - Introduction to Collection Divination - this is an oldie, but a good one.

CLOSING

If you have any questions at all, please leave a comment! I would love to know what you think or if you have anything at all to add. I hope this inspires you to begin your own set. It is a most rewarding form of divination that I think has the power and ability to help us learn to trust ourselves and the messages we receive through spirit. Which I think can be a huge hurdle in the realm of learning divination, no matter your medium.

Did you like this article? Please consider supporting me on Patreon where I will be working on more content like this in the future!