Betsy Snow White Bibliophile

Tag: Witchy Things

  • My Favorite Fictional Witches 🧙‍♀️

    I love movies, books, and tv shows about witches. They are inaccurate, over the top, hyperbolic, and totally my preferred entertainment. Here is a list of 5 of my favorite fictional witches:

    1. Granny Weatherwax – Terry Pratchett wrote his non leader of the witches in discworld to be a complex, nuanced, no nonsense woman and I hope I can have half her moxie when I grow up.

    2. Willow Rosenberg – Yes, she went evil for a bit and yes, she is a little out of control, but I loved her for so many seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer before that, so…

    3. The various Owens sisters – It’s a cheat I know but I love the aunts and the sisters and the aunt’s aunt from the prequel. The Owens women make Practical Magic, well magical. Lol.

    4. Nancy Downs – The “crazy” member of the Coven in The Craft. She is the weirdo mister. Probably shouldn’t have invoked the spirit.

    5. The Coven – American Horror Story: Coven is still my favorite season and these girls are why. From the dramatic Fiona to the shy Zoe to the strong Queenie I love every one of these witches.

    Runners up: The Sanderson Sisters, Mildred Hubble, etc. I love witchy fiction!

    Who are your favorite fictional witches? Are there any you just hate? Tell me about it.

  • Welcome to Blogtober!!

    Welcome to Blogtober!!

    It is that time of year again, my favorite month and the month when I blog everyday. I have no idea what that might involve for 2020, but expect lots of fun fall, Halloween and other such content. Also some poetry, because that is what I am studying currently in school.

    On a gorgeous Sunday in mid-September I met with several members of the International Wenches Guild as well as The Witches of Willy-Nilly to record our version of the Hexenbrut. We gathered in the Sunhenge at the Renaissance Festival dressed in our witchy finery. After a few practice runs, we created a masked and socially distanced dance. The video was finally released by the Ohio Renaissance Festival, so I am free to share.

    This was an absolute blast to do, and it looks pretty good too! Dance along if you know it.

    Happy Blogtober!! Happy Full Moon!! See you tomorrow!!

  • A Haunting…or not

    This past weekend we went to stay in a cabin in Hocking Hills to celebrate my brother-in-law’s fortieth birthday. From the outside it looked just like a normal two-story house, but inside it had an amazing spiral staircase leading to the upper floor and beautiful wood beams over the kitchen. Outside on the property there was a frog pond, an old smoke house that was blocked off and an old well up close to the road. There was also a family cemetery further back on the property, which we would explore later in the day.

    My nieces, nephew and mother and father-in-law arrived a couple hours after Seth and I. I had already explored a bit and found a cicada shell and a pretty yellow maple leaf, so when the kids arrived I showed them the spots we had explored so far. Spotting the well the girls wanted to investigate so we wandered over and looked in. I jokingly shouted hello into the shaft and a head appeared in the space below as if peaking out to say hello.

    I jumped back so fast. And the girls looked at me with wide eyes. I asked if it looked like someone was in there to them too and they nodded. We sped walked back into the cabin and told everyone that we had absolutely been freaked out by what appeared to be a face in the well.

    My sister-in-law said that we could all go out in a bit and investigate since it had obviously freaked me out. And I was freaked out. Perhaps I have watched too many horror movies and read too many scary stories, but I was legitimately scared of that well.

    Later, Seth, my sister-in-law, nieces, and my father-in-law set out to hike up to the cemetery and before we left they investigated the well. My lovely scientific husband worked out that the well had water so still that the reflections went weird. It was our own faces we had seen in the well. I was the well witch. I am the well witch. 👻

    The rest of the weekend was relaxing, other than the fact that I have been suffering from poison sumac for over a week and it somehow just keeps getting worse. It started as a tiny patch on my right arm, and now it is all over my arm, on my stomach, a little on my left arm and a little on my knee. It is driving me insane and just keeps spreading. I am going to call my doctor tomorrow to see if I should go in to get it checked out. It itches, but it also hurts! The well witch is displeased.

  • Isolation Chronicles: Beltane Edition

    Happy May the First!!  This is a more subdued Beltane celebration than one’s past, but I can still feel the fire of the holiday. I have always loved Beltane, almost as much as Samhain, and there is a feeling that happens when May first comes around that just fills me with energy. Our job is to harness that fire energy and make things happen.

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    What can you harness the fire of Beltane into? Brightest Beltane Blessings!! 

     

  • Isolation Chronicles: Zoom Parties, Trivia and Porch Visits

    Isolation Chronicles: Zoom Parties, Trivia and Porch Visits

    The Ohio stay at home order has been extended to May 1, so we are sitting tight at home for at least a few more weeks. I can say that I think my anxiety is either leveling out or I am just getting used to it. Neither is probably great, but…it is what it is. I am working from home 87.5% of my week I am working at home now (Seth helped me with that math. I go into work for 5 hours in the evening on Friday.) I still get my Wednesdays off though, so that is a positive.

    Last Wednesday I was part of an amazing event hosted by Joanna DeVoe, Molly Roberts, Cris Ashburn, Joey Morris and Jessi Huntenburg on Zoom. It was an April Fools Day Witchy Town Hall and we wore costumes (tiaras, ears, flower crowns and fun glasses), talked about books, and had witchy trivia contests. I was the lucky winner of a call with Joanna DeVoe and a prize from Joey at Starry Eyed Supplies. I also put an offer out to send more Snail Mail messages and got several replies, so I will be writing more letters on Wednesday.

    I am so excited about the call with Joanna. I have been watching her Youtube and listening to her podcast for a long time as well as supporting her Patreon and chatting with her on Twitter, so getting to have a coaching call with her is an amazing gift. Our call is set for the 15th and I am beyond excited to chat with her about where I am headed and how to get there. She is such an absolute ray of light in this world and I feel blessed to be connected to her.

    On Saturday my Mom and Sister dropped by and we maintained a safe distance on our porch to have a short visit. They dropped off Seth’s Birthday present (his birthday was March 30) and brought us Soppapillas from Soppapilla Express in Newark. That is absolutely one of my favorite foods in the world and secures my family as completely awesome. They got Seth a Fitbit Versa and the boardgame Pandemic, which we all got a good laugh at. That night Seth and I played Pandemic a couple of times and played through Castle Ravenloft once.

    We are staying sane and keeping ourselves entertained. How are you faring in the isolation? Doing anything fun?

     

  • Day 9 of the Hostage Situation: Divination

    I love tarot and oracle decks. I have been reading since I was 16 and I have loved them ever since. I think they are a divination tool of such beauty, and each deck is unique with new insights to share. I am a bit of a collector when it comes to decks and I have well 6 right here beside me and an additional 8-10 more. I may be underestimating that amount as well. I might have a problem (nah!). In the last month I received a new oracle deck as a gift and I received a tarot deck my husband kickstarted for me as well. I am awash in new divinatory tools and I love it. I thought I would share my first impressions of both decks in case you were looking at them, or so you might want to.

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    Deck 1: The Literary Witches Oracle written by Taisia Kitaiskaia and illustrated by Katy Horan – The artwork for this oracle is lovely. The cards are divided into two types: The Witches and The Witches’ Materials. There are 30 witch cards with portraits of famous literary women and 40 material cards which are common images found in literary work like wolf, cauldron, white dress, etc. The deck comes in a sturdy box and has a guidebook that has basic meanings for each card as well as sample spreads. Here is a quick look through the guidebook.

    The cards are well made and solid, but a little large for my hands when it comes to shuffling. The imagery on the cards is gorgeous and lush for the Witches and beautiful but simple for the Materials. I love the idea of working with imagery as a divination tool and I look forward to using this deck. Here are some examples of my personal favorite Witches and some of the Materials I liked a lot.

    Deck 2: The Oriens Tarot by Ambi Sun – The imagery for this deck drew me right in when Seth showed it to me on Kickstarter and I knew I needed it. The artwork is stunning and comprised of animals and insects. The colors are lush. I have been waiting for this for a while. The deck came in a beautiful sturdy box, and I also got a reading cloth in the design from the back of the cards. The deck does not come with a physical book, but I was able to download a copy onto my computer and phone, and you can look at the meanings of the cards on the website.

    The sides of the cards are gilded in an amazing holographic silver that catches the light beautifully. The cards are of a nice thickness and fit really well in my hands. I could shuffle them all day if given half the chance. (I find shuffling super meditative and relaxing.) I am massively in love with the animal imagery and the beautiful colors. I am so excited to get into using this gorgeous deck. Here are some of my immediate favorite cards.

    Do you read tarot? Or do you collect them like me? What do you think makes a great deck? Do you enjoy oracle decks as well?

     

  • These Are Things that I’m Gonna Do.

    I had so much fun working through my bucket list for the last quarter of 2019, so I decided to do more of them in 2020. Here is what I have so far…

    • Create 2020 Vision Board – Done!! Photos Below.
    • Get prettied up for Shrimp’s Cocktail Party!
    • Meet Dirty Martini at Shrimp’s Cocktail Party! on Saturday.
    • Buy a pair of Veronica Lockhart’s rhinestone cockroaches.
    • Go with the Wenches to Pub Sing at Dub Pub.
    • Wench wine meet up in February.
    • Be under or close to 200 lbs by my birthday March 14.
    • Visit Prologue bookstore.
    • Sew new Viking garb for Seth.
    • Write 30,000 words in my work in progress.
    • Go to Mustache Ride Drag Brunch
    • Go to Archery Range
    • Visit Elizabeth’s Records
    • Set up new Entertainment Stand.
    • Set up Stationary Bike.

    Vision Board – The lovely Molly Roberts held a live event for her Patrons all about creating a vision board. I decided to get in on the action and began building up images and words for my board. I just bought myself a brand new Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (as previously stated my favorite dictionary) so my old falling apart one became fodder for my vision board. I found these battery operated lights I bought at Target a couple of years ago that have glitter in bulbs around the lights and I decided they would look amazing on my vision board. I bought a shadowbox style wooden box to use and painted the inside neon pink and the outside silver. I used glitter infused mod podge to place my images on the board. I began with bright colored images and then added words and pieces from the dictionary. I found some star shaped push pins and attached the lights to the edge with them. I am really happy with how it turned out. It is going to live on my new altar for 2020.

  • Looking into The Future

    I was gifted with my first tarot deck when I was 16. It was the Arthurian Tarot by Caitlin and John Matthews and it was a gift from my older sister Krystie. I fell in love immediately and I have been doing readings since. For the first year or so I carried the deck with me everywhere I went and slept with it beneath my pillow. I had a notebook where I would write down the meanings of the cards, and any insights I might have about the cards as I was reading. After a couple of years I no longer needed the book or my notes to read.

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    Currently I am waiting for a new tarot deck and an oracle deck that my husband backed for me on Kickstarter. One is The Oriens Tarot Deck by AmbiSun which is a Rider-Waite-Smith based deck that features animals on the cards. The art work is gorgeous and it will be coming to me from Australia. The oracle is the Witches of Legend oracle deck by Annabelle Lewis. It is still open for three more days, and the artwork on it is gorgeous.

    The tarot I use the most currently is the Deviant Moon tarot by Patrick Valenza. I was gifted the Crow Tarot by MJ Cullinane by my younger sister Traci for my birthday this year and the deck and I are still getting to know each other.

    Have you ever had your cards read? Do you read as well? Do you practice another form of divination?

     

  • Witch Baby Soap and My Favorite Bath Bombs

    Witch Baby Soap and My Favorite Bath Bombs

    I am a pisces and my watery nature makes it so I love to take baths. I would take one every day if I could. And in those baths I love to use bath bombs. I am particularly fond of the bath bombs from Witch Baby Soaps. My personal favorite is the psychic which has a chunk of amethyst inside. I also love the Rune bath bomb which has a stone rune inside and comes with a list to tell you what your rune means. I recently bought the autumn spell box which came with a bar of soap, three bath bombs (one for each of the full moons in fall), a body scrub, a pretty wooden spoon with moon phases burnt on it and an apron with their tagline “Get Naked. Do Witchcraft” on it. I love very piece. I have recently tried most of their Halloween bombs and recommend them highly as well. Here are some photos of bath bombs in use.

  • Do You Even Witch?

    Do You Even Witch?

    I have been a practicing witch since I was about 16 years old. It started for me, as it did for many people my age, with the movie The Craft. I was a sophomore the movie came out and I went with a group of friends to see it. I immediately began wearing short pleated skirts and button down white shirts. And from the Waldenbooks in the mall I bought two books one day that fall: The Witches Almanac and True Magick by Amber K. I snuck them into my house like they were porn rather than books, and began my secret education.

    True Magick by Amber K is not a bad book, in fact much of it is great in regards to Wiccanism, but it also suggested that you not wear makeup, wear only natural fabrics (I was super into vintage clothes and basically lived in polyester) and that if you eat meat you cannot be a Wiccan because you have no empathy for other creatures. I was very into the idea of The Goddess and The God, and polytheism, and spell work, and many more parts of Wiccanism, but I also loved makeup and polyester so maybe it was just not for me. This did not stop me from stupidly attempting a love spell however…but that is another story.

    Then I found out a local metaphysical shop was going to be hosting a Wicca 101 class. I asked my mom, and she said that she would give her permission for me to take the class since I was under 18. The class was taught by a lovely, and very pregnant, woman named Heather. She gave a lot of the basic information on creating a magickal name, calling the quarters, creating holy water, and so much more. I attended all of the classes except the last one, because it was a ritual and I was too nervous to be involved.

    After the class though, I began to read, study, and actually began to build a practice. I set up an altar (my mom nicknamed it Waltar and it stuck and my sacred space remains Waltar to this day.), I was gifted and began reading Tarot, and though it was on and off at the time I was becoming a Witch.

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    When I was 18 I took that Wicca 101 class again, and this time it did not feel so overwhelming. I felt like I belonged there as much as anyone else did. I was beginning to see myself as a Witch. I was still mostly using Wiccan guidelines, but I had begun reading about other types of Witches and what the difference between a Wiccan and a Witch is. I bought my first piece of witchy jewelry, a gorgeous silver pentacle ring that has been lost over the years. I finished the class this time, which ended with a beltane ceremony including maypole dancing. It was lovely and I knew I had found a place.

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    Over the years my craft has moved and morphed, I now consider myself an eclectic cottage art witch. I tend to make magic with whatever is on hand, rather than requiring special tools. I have been dedicated to Odin the All-Father for almost 7 years after years of him trying to get my attention. I work with a wide pantheon that includes traditional and pop pantheon figures. I firmly believe that magic works best when it reflects you, so if that means that the person you petition for beauty is Aphrodite or Rupaul both are valid.

    Are you looking for some witchy inspiration? I am a patron for several lovely magical ladies on Patreon:

    Molly Roberts    Youtube    Patreon

    Joanna DeVoe    Podcast     Youtube     Patreon

    Paige – The Fat Feminist Witch   Podcast    Patreon

    Cris Ashburn   Youtube    Patreon

    These women are inspiring, knowledgeable, fun, and all around gorgeous human beings. Check them out and be in awe and inspired! I cannot recommend them more.