cecillias-garden

[cecillias-garden]

Just a reminder if you come across this blog I'm more active over @hippieghost nowadays

[cecillias-garden]

If the weather is good eat a berry

If the weather is bad eat a peach

Hehehe hohoho!

You heard it here folks!

[cecillias-garden]

without any sort of taglock it would be very difficult to set up an effective curse. In theory you could set up something akin to a ward where it's an if/then situation, but I feel like a single practicioner doing something that broad would be pretty ineffective. I would say you'd be better off putting that energy into finding more mundane ways of handling them, spreading awareness, and focusing your spells on avoiding those kind of scams. I'm all for casting curses, but without doxxing your targets you probably won't get very far.

Of course, any information they put up online for the sale could theoretically work as a weak taglock, but you'd have to put out a pretty strong curse for it to be effective.

Is there a way to hex/otherwise strike back at a general group of people who suck? I'm specifically thinking of ticket scalpers. I have no way of identifying individuals so it's hard to come up with ways to get at them.

Hey Anon I've been sitting on this trying to think about if I had any good ideas and I don't.

For a variety of Reasons I think this would be difficult to pull off sorcerously speaking, but I also could be wrong because I've never tried it.

Does anyone on the dash have any ideas?

[cecillias-garden]

Half the time I use sigils I intentionally remember, with repeated castings to further cement the spell or as a simple one-off spell that I can easily access (example. I need a quick ward cuz I feel bs coming)

Then sometimes it's like

Witch brain: Hey draw this symbol and burn it

Me: why

Witch brain: you gotta

[cecillias-garden]

look, my main takeaway from the upcoming rant is that no, it is not a five-card spread.

it is five 1-card spreads for five different questions related by a single theme.

#this is why if I have more than one question I do more than one reading #and I order them so that if one reading leaves the rest of the questions moot I'm not wasting my time

[cecillias-garden]

If you don't mind me adding into this as a neurodibergent practitioner - but more often than not when I find myself hitting a wall with my magic it's because at some point I shifted my attitude from "practicing magic" to "practicing magic correctly". Suddenly I'm looking for results and big spiritual significant moments instead of just enjoying the practice for what it is. A step back can really help with that tbh.

Any suggestions to help with blockages I have been told that my blockage stems back to my ancestors as a form of protection

Okay so, this probably isn't going to be quite the exact answer you were looking for, but please bear with me.

This whole "blockages" thing is... kind of a fad in pop psychology and the occult right now, and people are told they have blockages of some sort when that may or may not be the case. Other potential causes for "can't do the thing" such as autism or ADHD are often ignored. (And speaking from personal experience, trying to hunt down a nonexistent "blockage" when your actual issue is Too Neurodivergent To Do The Thing is an extremely frustrating way to waste your time.)

I also haven't seen any actual blockage that couldn't be explained by some sort of mundane trauma from this life. Many of us are far more traumatized than we realize, because we don't believe that the things that happened to us were "bad enough" to be traumatizing. This thread over here elaborates on this a little more.

[cecillias-garden]

Average person able to manifest anything into being factoid is actually a myth. Loamanifest Georg, who lives in a cave far in the lands below and has been constantly manifesting everything in the universe through his dreams since the dawn of time is an outlier adn should not have been counted

When you think about it, urban legends disprove of the Law of Assumption.

Goddard claims that due to the Law of Assumption, your fears will manifest into reality because reality must conform with your belief.

And the thing about urban legends is, many people believe in them. Yet despite this, we haven't seen instances of the Hookman manifest anywhere. Nobody's cactus has ever exploded with spiders. Nobody has ever been cooked on the inside by a tanning bed.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of the strange things that people actually believe happen, yet don't manifest.

And before anybody tries to play the "well uh obviously it manifested in their realities because something something multiple realities" card, lemme remind ya that this isn't how it works according to Goddard. Goddard literally claimed that the Titanic was manifested by a fiction author.

If a fiction author could manifest an entire cruise ship, then manifesting a few urban legends into reality should be no biggie. But this never happens, which demonstrates that Neville Goddard was full of shit.

#source: i made it up

[cecillias-garden]

Trying out a new thing - video tarotscopes. Tonight's is a test for those interested. I'll try to have another out tomorrow <3 Text version under the cut

Aries: You do not deserve the punishment you inflict upon yourself, dear Aries. You have already suffered enough. Show yourself kindness in the face of this hardship, whether you are responsible for it or not. We must forgive ourselves if we have any hope to heal.

Taurus: You are in for a pleasant surprise today my dear. Something good will come of today, perhaps when you least expect it.

Gemini: Your happiness will come on your own terms, so fret not about the hardships you face. You still breathe, and so you have the chance to make things better for yourself. Step forward and claim your desires.

Cancer: Today carries with it a lot of potential, and you may find yourself in a position to make lasting changes for yourself and the people around you. Use this power responsibly, and consider the outcomes you want.

Leo: Mind your temper today Leo. Your passion is your strength, but it can be blinding when tension is high. Look to the things you might be neglecting. There is something far more important for you to focus on right now.

Virgo: Beware of bitterness today, Virgo. You and those around you may find yourselves more susceptible to it this day. Try to find joy in the joy of those around you, and encourage others to do the same if you can.

Libra: You do NOT want to know what the cards have to say about today. Everything is fine. Really. Don’t- don’t worry about it.

Scorpio: You need a change of pace, Scorpio. Life is too stagnant right now, and so its time to find yourself some enrichment. Do something you wouldn’t normally do today. Take a risk.

Ophiuchus: You’re better of following the path of least resistance today. Don’t fight the current, adapt, and let your plans adapt with you as the day unfolds.

Sagittarius: You have the opportunity to give someone hope, to be the hero that someone needs. Now is the time to act, so reach out, and help those in need where you can. They will be thankful that you did.

Capricorn: The uncertainty that surrounds you today is uncertainty about who you are, my dear. Sit with yourself, reflect. You have wonderful things to discover if you will only allow yourself the chance.

Aquarius: You’re not seeing the big picture, Aquarius. Take a step back and look at everything as a whole, the good and the bad. Consider all of it, and you’ll find that things fit together in a way you may not have noticed before.

Pisces: Warm light shines on you today, melting away the stress and worry you may be feeling. Appreciate it if you can. Better things are coming your way.

[cecillias-garden]

Trying out a new thing - video tarotscopes. Tonight's is a test for those interested. I'll try to have another out tomorrow <3 Text version under the cut

Aries: You do not deserve the punishment you inflict upon yourself, dear Aries. You have already suffered enough. Show yourself kindness in the face of this hardship, whether you are responsible for it or not. We must forgive ourselves if we have any hope to heal.

Taurus: You are in for a pleasant surprise today my dear. Something good will come of today, perhaps when you least expect it.

Gemini: Your happiness will come on your own terms, so fret not about the hardships you face. You still breathe, and so you have the chance to make things better for yourself. Step forward and claim your desires.

Cancer: Today carries with it a lot of potential, and you may find yourself in a position to make lasting changes for yourself and the people around you. Use this power responsibly, and consider the outcomes you want.

Leo: Mind your temper today Leo. Your passion is your strength, but it can be blinding when tension is high. Look to the things you might be neglecting. There is something far more important for you to focus on right now.

Virgo: Beware of bitterness today, Virgo. You and those around you may find yourselves more susceptible to it this day. Try to find joy in the joy of those around you, and encourage others to do the same if you can.

Libra: You do NOT want to know what the cards have to say about today. Everything is fine. Really. Don’t- don’t worry about it.

Scorpio: You need a change of pace, Scorpio. Life is too stagnant right now, and so its time to find yourself some enrichment. Do something you wouldn’t normally do today. Take a risk.

Ophiuchus: You’re better of following the path of least resistance today. Don’t fight the current, adapt, and let your plans adapt with you as the day unfolds.

Sagittarius: You have the opportunity to give someone hope, to be the hero that someone needs. Now is the time to act, so reach out, and help those in need where you can. They will be thankful that you did.

Capricorn: The uncertainty that surrounds you today is uncertainty about who you are, my dear. Sit with yourself, reflect. You have wonderful things to discover if you will only allow yourself the chance.

Aquarius: You’re not seeing the big picture, Aquarius. Take a step back and look at everything as a whole, the good and the bad. Consider all of it, and you’ll find that things fit together in a way you may not have noticed before.

Pisces: Warm light shines on you today, melting away the stress and worry you may be feeling. Appreciate it if you can. Better things are coming your way.

#tarot #horoscope #astrology #zodiac #tarotscope #astroblr

[cecillias-garden]

The Journey:

Level 1: Dude what if we combined every religion

Level 2: Oh wait, cultural appropriation is bad

Level 3: Oh wait, so is cultural chauvinism

Level 4: Oughh it is the nature of cultures to mix and interact in endlessly unique ways

Level 5: accidental graduate degree

Level 6: Dude what if we combined every religion

#(sighs) #yeah

[cecillias-garden]

Trust your higher self. Trust your divine intuition. Never let people tell you you're wrong. ❤️

No no no no I do occasionally need to let people tell me I'm wrong, because sometimes I really am wrong about things that really matter!

#honestly this is one of the most dangerous things about new age thinking

[cecillias-garden]

Im thinking a lot about LOA this morning, in part thanks to @creature-wizard and their posts about the subject, and I think there are a lot of you in the tags that may be very hurt by what your seeing, but I want to talk as someone who practiced loa for a time, and has since moved on to other practices, other ideas.

A lot has been said about the appeal of LOA and other forms of "new age" mysticism for those who are in hard times, for those who are struggling and looking for hope, but there's an underlying central idea to New Age mysticism that I think needs to be touched on - one that I think a lot of us have trouble talking about.

The idea that the nature and the universe is fundamentally good.

We see it in the way "all natural" remedies are pushed, in the way that positive thinking and manifesting is sold as a way to be in-tune with the fundamental peace and understanding of the universe. We're told that being in-tune with the good intentions of the universe as the solution to our troubles. Let go and float downstream. Ask and you shall receive.

But all of this relies on that good intent to be real.

All of it relies on their being a structure, guidance.

We think we need that structure to make sense of all of the chaos around us.

Even recently it gets hard for me not to fall into the trap of magical thinking of aligning one's self with the intentions of the universe, to be one with God or source or whatever you may call it, but I'm sorry to say that these "intentions", this alignment, isn't real.

Hardships will come to you. They will hit you when you least expect it. They will hit you when you least deserve it. Some will be natural, and others manmade. They will come and it will hurt. God, it will hurt. I should know, I've seen it. I've felt it. I've lived it, and no amount of alignment or spiritual thinking was enough.

It is not the job of the universe or any god to shield us from hardship. It is not up to any movement to ensure our happiness. Happiness is something to be made for ourselves, in spite of our struggles. Its up to us to separate ourselves from what we think we deserve, and work instead towards what we want one step at a time.

It isn't going to be easy.

I'm fact, I'm afraid it will be quite difficult.

But there is hope without LOA. You can find that hope everywhere you go.

We are humans, a social species meant to rely on each other.

Let others rely on you, and allow yourself to rely on them when you need it.

And if you are to practice any sort of spirituality, understand this:

The goal of spiritual practice is in the practice, not the result. If you like meditation, if you like casting spells or feel good when you pray, keep doing that.

The goal of this post is by no means to cast doubt on spiritually as a whole.

Instead, think of it as a gentle warning, from someone who may have once been like you.

LOA advocates will claim you need the practice to be happy. They will tell you that things are so very simple. They will tell you that all you need is to align yourself with your happiness and everything will be okay.

You deserve better than that. You deserve the truth. You deserve to be able to look the world in the eye.

Happiness is something that each and every one of us has to discover for themselves. There are places to start - setting strong boundaries, setting goals, and finding fulfillment through whatever work or play we might enjoy. But you don't need someone to tell you how to be happy, and that includes myself. All I ask is that you listen to what others are saying, and understand why loa can be so harmful. There's a lot of nuance to the world and how things work, but if you made it this far... I think you can find yourself on a pretty good path.

I will give one parting gift that helps me. Take it if you want, but you don't need to if it doesn't fit with you. Its just a phrase that I find helpful whenever things go wrong:

"Well, that sucked. Now how can we make it better?"

[cecillias-garden]

Im thinking a lot about LOA this morning, in part thanks to @creature-wizard and their posts about the subject, and I think there are a lot of you in the tags that may be very hurt by what your seeing, but I want to talk as someone who practiced loa for a time, and has since moved on to other practices, other ideas.

A lot has been said about the appeal of LOA and other forms of "new age" mysticism for those who are in hard times, for those who are struggling and looking for hope, but there's an underlying central idea to New Age mysticism that I think needs to be touched on - one that I think a lot of us have trouble talking about.

The idea that the nature and the universe is fundamentally good.

We see it in the way "all natural" remedies are pushed, in the way that positive thinking and manifesting is sold as a way to be in-tune with the fundamental peace and understanding of the universe. We're told that being in-tune with the good intentions of the universe as the solution to our troubles. Let go and float downstream. Ask and you shall receive.

But all of this relies on that good intent to be real.

All of it relies on their being a structure, guidance.

We think we need that structure to make sense of all of the chaos around us.

Even recently it gets hard for me not to fall into the trap of magical thinking of aligning one's self with the intentions of the universe, to be one with God or source or whatever you may call it, but I'm sorry to say that these "intentions", this alignment, isn't real.

Hardships will come to you. They will hit you when you least expect it. They will hit you when you least deserve it. Some will be natural, and others manmade. They will come and it will hurt. God, it will hurt. I should know, I've seen it. I've felt it. I've lived it, and no amount of alignment or spiritual thinking was enough.

It is not the job of the universe or any god to shield us from hardship. It is not up to any movement to ensure our happiness. Happiness is something to be made for ourselves, in spite of our struggles. Its up to us to separate ourselves from what we think we deserve, and work instead towards what we want one step at a time.

It isn't going to be easy.

I'm fact, I'm afraid it will be quite difficult.

But there is hope without LOA. You can find that hope everywhere you go.

We are humans, a social species meant to rely on each other.

Let others rely on you, and allow yourself to rely on them when you need it.

And if you are to practice any sort of spirituality, understand this:

The goal of spiritual practice is in the practice, not the result. If you like meditation, if you like casting spells or feel good when you pray, keep doing that.

The goal of this post is by no means to cast doubt on spiritually as a whole.

Instead, think of it as a gentle warning, from someone who may have once been like you.

LOA advocates will claim you need the practice to be happy. They will tell you that things are so very simple. They will tell you that all you need is to align yourself with your happiness and everything will be okay.

You deserve better than that. You deserve the truth. You deserve to be able to look the world in the eye.

Happiness is something that each and every one of us has to discover for themselves. There are places to start - setting strong boundaries, setting goals, and finding fulfillment through whatever work or play we might enjoy. But you don't need someone to tell you how to be happy, and that includes myself. All I ask is that you listen to what others are saying, and understand why loa can be so harmful. There's a lot of nuance to the world and how things work, but if you made it this far... I think you can find yourself on a pretty good path.

I will give one parting gift that helps me. Take it if you want, but you don't need to if it doesn't fit with you. Its just a phrase that I find helpful whenever things go wrong:

"Well, that sucked. Now how can we make it better?"

#loa #manifesting #spirituality #ex loa

[cecillias-garden]

"Drink a potion of wine and fox blood to get better at speaking" This is a single axiom. Do A to produce B. Its just a superstition at this point. You might be following magical logic, but its not necessarily considered magic.

"They say spirits taught an old king how to make this potion" Now you have methodology. Do A to produce B, it works because mythology C. Now you can start expanding on the practice. Maybe the spirits taught the king other things?

"If you want to speak before a king, you should swap out the fox blood for the blood of a young lion." Now you have systematization. Because of mythology C, A will produce B, and X will produce Y. Now you can make guesses on what might happen with new additions to the system. Now you've proper formalized magic.

[cecillias-garden]

honestly even the act of building a deck is a journey. Figuring out the cards and what they mean is part of it, but moreso to me is the way the deck sort of naturally grows this "personality" as you build it. More than once I added extra cards to my deck because it "felt" right, and a few times it happened because I messed up the drawing and the deck was like "Keep it".

Hi CT. If you were to shorten all the Major Arcana to just 16 cards—while still trying to capture the full journey—which cards would you pick? Would numerology come into play, or just general vibes? Has a wizard done this already and it's just out there somewhere?

(Thanks!)

That's a bit like asking "If you were to shorten a car to just two wheels, how would you do it? What parts would you keep? Would engineering come into play, or just general design?"

At that point, you're making a fundamentally different object. Yes cars and motorcycles are both things that can get you to work, and the way their engines function relies on the same physical principals, but the underlying design of their guts is gonna be radically different.

Its like you said, a tarot deck is a journey. You can't really cut pages out of a book without changing the story to the point where it becomes something different.

#CT bringing up tarot awakens my sideblog from its slumber

[cecillias-garden]

me out loud: "the rules are what you make them!"

me under my breath: "the rules are what they are"

[cecillias-garden]

On Witchcraft as a spirituality

Sometimes people hit me up like "I need verification, but practicing spells is so tedious, and I need validation" and I am here to tell you that

In my personal opinion you know that

You're never going to finish crochet projects unless you love making stitches.

Letting the yarn slip over your fingers and the hook goes over under over under, stitch stitch stitch, turning chain,

That is the part you've got to love, I think, because the problem is if you only love the amigurumi, or the bag, or the blanket, you're never going to get there,

because crocheting isn't having a blanket.

Crocheting is making a blanket.

"I just need to see my spells manifesting before I can have proof, I need that validation" is bullshit

because you can cast a spell that goes off so incredibly well and then you look around and all you can say is "well that just means the situation was already going to go fine and I never needed to cast, there's no way I could have accomplished that"

and all the while there's this little bit of hollowness and stress and frustration, like you're looking for the thing but the thing never presents itself,

so now the question is still there and it just switches from "I need validation," to "I need faith"

and this is exactly like finishing the amigurumi and looking at its soft squishy face and setting it aside and saying "I need a bag"

but in all the cases, you know, the answer is just about stitches.

Do you need a bag? Or do you need the quiet, repetitive, counting, soothing, structure, activity, progress, and then, by total coincidence, after a while a bag appears?

I think this way often about witchcraft as a spirituality. My blog is mostly practical sorcery based. And when you approach witchcraft from that perspective I think it's pretty much, "I need a result."

But witchcraft isn't having a result.

Witchcraft is making a result.

and I think for those of us who use witchcraft as a spirituality, as a damp and safe terracotta pot within which we can unfurl our roots into the rich soil of the underworld,

It is the joy of the process itself which waters the soils - not the end result.

When you engage in your practice - the literal, physical, mental, and emotional actions you engage in, the ways you've ritualized your behaviors, the series of behaviors you engage in which allow you to interface with your path -

Do those parts, in and of themselves, serve you?

So anyway love your results but fuck results at the same time, if the actual moment-to-moment doesn't serve you, if being there doing the actions in and of itself doesn't bring you something,

perhaps there are adjustments to be done.

It could even be time to switch to a new fiber art altogether.