A Deep Room Cleanse

The state of my room is extremely important to me. It’s a direct reflection of my mental health, so when it’s messy, my energy levels are low and I just feel yucky. There’s no way I’m getting any kind of work done, magical or mundane. When it feels good and clean to be in, it’s a lot easier to deal with my symptoms and be productive. You don’t have to do every step every time of course, but each step has helped me so I figured a list like this might help someone.

Change the lighting. Use natural sources of light (like pulling back the curtains and letting the sun in) over artificial ones. If you have salt lamps to turn on, those are still very nice. If you need artificial light to keep it from being too dark, try to prioritize light bulbs you like the color of, and ones that don’t whistle quietly when they’re on.

Change the airflow. Open a window, if you can. Often our rooms feel yucky because the air is stale. Get some fresh air moving. If it’s too cold, it’s okay to only keep it open for a few minutes or put on a coat while you work because you’re stubborn like me.

Change the sound. Put on your favorite cleansing music. Let it soak into the room. I tend to go or ambient spa stuff, or playlists that sound built for a rainy day. (Note: the music that helps you cleanse the best may not be the same as what you like the most. The playlist should keep you focused/uplifted while you work and reflect the vibes you want your room to have.)

Change the smell. Take out the trash, maybe refresh the sheets on your bed. Light a scented candle, some incense, heat up some oil, something to make your room smell distinctly different from the mucky-feeling room from before. (If your method of choice is something short like a room spray, I actually like doing it at the very end.)

Actually clean and organize. Nothing junks up the energy of a room more quicker than actual junk. Organize everything as much as you can (this might mean finally gutting your closet, even if you can close the door and hide it.) Wipe down any surfaces that need it, get everything fresh and functional again. Do some laundry while you work. If you have clothes or trinkets that are just collecting dust, extra points for purging them!

Cleanse any sacred spaces by themselves. A lot of us have altars or shrines in our rooms. A sacred space can also be just an extra important area of your room, like a reading nook. Make sure to give them extra attention! You don’t need to wipe the board energetically (and probably shouldn’t), but taking a little extra time to clean surfaces, straighten up, and make sure everything feels okay on them goes a long way.

Cleanse in your regular way. Bust out the herb bundles, the bells, the ribbons, the broom, whatever you usually do to cleanse a space! The room is SUPER primed for it now, most of the negative energy probably already feels removed if not broken down. A good once-over with your favorite cleansing method should finish it off nicely.

Refresh any wards or protections. Self explanatory. If you maintain energy borders in your room, now is a good time to check in on them and zhoosh them if needed. Keep the space clean for longer!

Practice self-care. Take a shower, a nap, eat some food, whatever you need. You’ve put in a lot of work and you deserve it.

articles that helped me as a baby witch

so i’ve been helping my friend @wholecashews get into witchcraft and this has given me a chance to go over all of the things I read when I was just starting out and think about the things that really impacted me, and I decided maybe it would be cool to post some of the links I sent to her on here as well :)

so I’ll start with the big one: this article, Sigils Reboot by Gordon at Rune Soup, MADE ME BELIEVE IN MAGIC. Like before I was kind of like, “Sure, yeah, this sounds fun to believe in and play around with” but after I read this article I felt like I’d just found the glitch in the Matrix or something. I highly recommend reading if you appreciate an explanation of magic that leans toward the psychological side.

this little blurb about witchcraft and the placebo effect also makes a good point about the psychology behind magic’s power.

this thread on skeptics trying to get into witchcraft again discusses several people’s experiences with the psychological approach to magic, and was very helpful for me to read. Looking at all of these different articles as someone just starting off and trying to figure out “how does this even work?” really helped me get a handle on how magic works (to the best extent that you can even try to understand that) and helped everything suddenly feel a lot more accessible and sensible. Suddenly I was like “oh ok yes you use a red ribbon in this spell because of your brain and how it works, not just because Somebody Said So”. as a beginner that was an important distinction to make because then I began to see how I could make witchcraft my own instead of just copying people’s spells.

to that end, reading this piece on aesthetics and mechanics of magic made a lot of sense to me once I had really considered the psychological aspects of witchcraft. it was also encouraging for me to think about my own craft and put more thought into building it.

all of those links^ came from @upthewitchypunx‘s diy witchery resources. that page is a treasure trove, thank you for compiling it!

all of that info also reminds me of something i saw around tumblr a few times that really confused me at first: spell paradigms, meaning the assumption behind how a spell works. lots of spells don’t explicitly say “this spell will bring you money because the green candle has supreme money power or the thyme sprinkled around will attract it or etc”. instead they just sort of tell you what to do without telling you how they make things happen. the subject of spell paradigms is definitely still interesting and maybe not entirely clear to me, but I think it is related to the whole psychology aspect of the discussion. personally i haven’t really even begun to think about deities but have thought more about chaos and energy. deities is a whole other can of worms if we’re going to to get particular about how magic works, so I haven’t gone there yet.

the witches’ workbook by @theoryofmagick is a great general primer that I really appreciated reading because it clearly lays out a lot of things that are good for a beginner to think about. unfortunately i can only find those first 2 chapters, but they are great and informative!

this post also provides a simple list of ideas for what to do as a witchling. sometimes you just need a list!

Eliza at @maddiviner has a really awesome and informative site in general. I really appreciated how well-written her new witches page is - she also does a good job just laying a lot of info on the table for you. she has a lot of good info on divination as well.

lastly, I <3 andi grace! this article of theirs on coming out of the woo closet really helped me see how witchcraft and social justice are tied. i came to witchcraft already having radical politics, so i was not super into the very white, eurocentric, binaristic, and blissfully-unconcerned-about-cultural-appropriation version of witchcraft that came up sometimes on tumblr. this is a great and motivating read for anti-capitalist witchbabes.

ok 2 more and then I’m done.

Pagans of Color! Important and much-needed resources on racial intersections and practices of witchcraft - as a white person I love reading this site to broaden my perspectives. They also have a really good set of articles on there that are targeted towards white people in the witchcraft community.

and through them I found this really great article (and here’s their notes on it too) about the toxic privilege and racism that underlies white spiritual communities and how to improve it. always good to be thinking about this no matter where i am in my craft.

phew! ok. that’s all. as you can see i did a lot of reading starting out, and i still do a lot of reading. that’s what it’s about! hope these help :)

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neobitchery

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I Wanna Have A Big Garden, Where I Can Grow My Vegetables, Fruits And Herbs, Spend The Whole Night Looking

I wanna have a big garden, where i can grow my vegetables, fruits and herbs, spend the whole night looking after my flowers and harvesting apples, listen to the bird's singing and relax under shade of trees

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neobitchery

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