New Moon In Leo 2016

"More radiant than the Sun,

Purer than the snow,

Subtler than the ether,

Is the Self.

The Spirit within my heart.

I am that self.

That self am I."- Alice Bailey

With the new moon in Leo comes some dramatic happenings especially concerning emotions and being the center of attention. This is a moon of exuberance, vitality, and the best time to successfully work out issues with people who are in authoritative positions of power. Now is the time to take the direct approach and assert yourself. It is high drama with this moon, as she is going to step out onto the stage to entertain us once again. You may be tempted to act out the “drama queen” aspect of yourself, or you may simply just want to be romantic. Either way, this is a time of vital energy, affection, and again romance. A fiery Lion extravaganza! “Everybody is a star” and everyone will be recognized for his/her particular Goddess within.

You will want to spend money during this moon transit as it’s a bit hard to recognize limits when the moon is in Leo. This is also a time for power issues to ERUPT! Who will be the center of attention? Ambition + leadership can become very important issues as we are all well aware that Leo has great pride, which can become extremely evident right now. As our moon moves to Virgo, the ambitious energy of Leo will become unassuming. Try enjoying the warmth of kindness and generosity, excitement and exuberance with parties and celebrations. Renew & invigorate yourself this New moon.

Sun oil

Our beloved moon falls into the fiery sign of Leo, and Leo knows all about confidence so be ready to be the center of attention with this amazing "sun oil" potion.  Use this oil to bring out all of the benefits of the sun. This oil will have you feeling invigorated, powerful, sexy, and ready to take center stage!

Ingredients:

• 4 drops essential oil of Frankincense
• 4 drops essential oil of Myrrh
• 1 drop Essential oil of Chamomile
• 1 Essential oil of cardamon

Add the oils to a full bath just prior to entering. *If you do not have a bath tub, you may use these oils blended into your favorite carrier oil (grape-seed, jojoba) and worn as a body oil, or infused with salts to make an invigorating scrub.

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Thank you so much for reading! If you enjoyed this New Moon article please share below or shop now>

Coming Back To Life: Healing Through Crisis With Ritual + Action

"Overcome any bitterness that may have come because you were not up to the magnitude of the pain that was entrusted to you. like the Mother of the world, who carries the pain of the world in her heart, each one of us is part of her heart, and therefore endowed with a certain measure of cosmic pain. You are sharing in the totality of that pain. You are called upon to meet it in joy- instead of self pity" - Sufi Saying

In the wake of more violent tragedies that have taken place in the United States,  many of our readers have reached out to us for healing and energetic empowerment. The bombarding of graphic video content, the relentless media headlines,  the racism and the chaos all becomes too heavy to hold. What we need now is healing: How can we help each other in time of crisis? is it through creating meaningful ritual? by protesting in the streets? or is donating money to just causes working towards the prevention of murder and the advancement of POC? we can't give you any of those answers, because only YOU can decide where to begin to make those changes.

The Zen Poet Thich Nhat Hanh asked "What do we need to do to save our world?" his questioners expected him to identify the best strategies to peruse in social and environmental action, but Thich Nhat Hanh's answer was this: "What we most need to do is to hear within us the sound of the Earth crying."

Healing starts within each and every one of us. "In despair work, we learn to uncover our pain for the world and we honor it." Says Author's Joanna Macy & Molly Young Of "Coming Back to life: practices to reconnect our lives, Our world"  How can we do this?

• Acknowledging our pain for the world (verbally or silently)
• Validating it as a wholesome response to the present crisis
• letting ourselves experience this pain
• being able to express it to others
• recognizing how widely it is shared by others
• and recognizing that it is NOT "crazy" bu that it springs from our caring and connectedness.

GROUNDING & PROTECTION: A Visualization Exercise

To ground yourself: Visualize a ball of white energy inside the top of your head. This ball of energy is going to move down right through your body, as it moves down it collects all the negative energy that your body and your aura is already holding. So imagine that the ball of energy is like a magnet.

Move that ball of energy down through your head and into your neck. Gather all the negative energy to that magnetic ball of energy. Continue the energy down through the upper body, and into the lower body, absorbing the negative energy as the energy ball moves downwards. Into the legs and down into the feet. When the energy reaches the feet, you visualize roots growing deep into the earth. The negative energy is then going to be discharged into the earth where it will be neutralized.

Once all the negativity has been released, grow the roots further downwards, or outwards. Then from these roots draw up white or silver energy from Mother earth. Draw the white energy up through the roots and into the soles of your feet. Visualize that pure white energy moving up through your legs and into the lower body. Moving upwards to the upper body, then into the neck and head. Ask then that the energy be used in whatever part of your body, mind or aura that the energy is needed.

If you are feeling particularly vulnerable and need extra protection, Utilize this cleansing aura bath that can be practiced once a week, or daily. 

Quick Fix Aura Protection Bath

You will need: 

• 30-40 minutes of undisturbed time for yourself.
• bathtub
• 2 cups of sea salt
• 2 cups of White vinegar Or Apple or Lemon Vinegar

This is the easiest aura cleansing bath of all. Toss the ingredients into a tub of warm water and relax. Focus on releasing any negative thoughts into the water. You should allow yourself time to soak in the warm water for at least 30 minutes, and to allow the water from the tub to drain completely as you envision any negativity swirling down the drain and out of your bodies energetic fields . This recipe iscompletely effective as is, but feel free to add essential oils or herbs of your choice.

Overwhelming Anger Bath

This bath should be used when our own rage overwhelms us and we need time to relax and re- focus.

You will need: 

• A Bathtub
• Chammomile
• Catnip
• Lavender
• 4 drops of cherry plum flower essence (Bach, Healing herbs, Pegasus)

Use either herbs or essential oils for this ritual bath. Whatever you have on hand or whichever you find the most soothing.

1. if you're using herbs make an infusion using a fistful of each herb and add it to your bath.
2. If you're too overwhelmed to go out and buy herbs, you may alternatively use 3 drops of the essential oilsin your bath. Essential oil of catnip exist it's just marked sometimes with different names (i.e French Marjoram, catmint, mountain balm, or nepeta) do not use this during pregnancy, and if you can't find it, just leave it out the recipe or supplement with any of the suggested protective herbs on our list.
3.   Place the cherry plum drops under you tongue, or rub them into your forehead. these can be purchased at any health food orspecialty store including Co-Op.
4. You can add cherry plum drop into spring water in a spray bottle to keep on you and to cool yourself off.

• Protective Herbs & Essential oils: Rosemary, Frankincense, Lavender, Sandal wood, Clove, Ylang Ylang, and basil.

• Gems: Black Tourmaline, Obsidian, Onyx, Smoky Quartz, Hematite.

• Donate

Issa Rae of Inglewood, CA created the "Justice For Alton Sterling family scholarship" Where ALL of the funds raised will be donated to ll of Alton's 5 children.

There is also a fund for the family of Philando Castile, the young man who was shot and killed by police in front of his partner, and 4 year old child in a traffic stop. The Philando Castile Fund

• Get Involved

NAACP LDF: Donate to the NAACP legal defense and education fund.

ACLU: American Civil liberties union

Start Your Own Healing Circle

Written by S. Wolf

Whether you're practicing by yourself or with a group of healers, the main process for setting a circle is the same. It can be as elaborate as you'd like, or as simple. Don't underestimate the simplistic, it's often the more comfortable and therefore can be most successful.

You'll need a few supplies.

•  Incense or smudge sticks

• Make sure no one has allergies first. I prefer to use a sage and cedar smudge stick.

• A green or white candle.

• It can be any color of green you choose, but it should be a little larger than a votive candle.

• Something to light them with

• Something to safely put them in

• An Ipod, CD player and healing music to provide some soothing to help drown out outside noises and distractions.you may even take this a step further and incorporate singing bowls.

• A list of those who have requested healing.

• The list should have the person's name, their location (city, state, country) and ailment or need for healing.

 You can read the names and conduct healing on each person individually. You can have each person and their ailment listed on individual pieces of paper and everyone in the circle takes a person to focus their healing on. Or you can focus on the entire list as a whole group. But decide what you're going to do, before you enter the circle.

The Circle

A healing circle is typically set in a specific diameter.

• If you are alone, you'd set your circle about 3ft in diameter.

• If you have a small group, you may want to set the circle 6ft in diameter.

• If you have a larger crowd, a 9ft diameter would be used.

• If you have a large enough crowd, you'd simply add 3ft to your circle to accommodate the number of people who have come to participate; 12ft, 15ft and so on.

The circle can be made on the floor with rope made of natural fibers, such as cotton rope. Or it can be outlined with chairs. Wooden chairs are best, but if what you have available to you are metal folding chairs, then by all means go ahead and use them. None of this is written in stone. But when you lay out the circle, leave a small entry into the circle resting in the north side.

Before anyone arrives, enter the circle from the north. Stand in the center and face the north. Then light the incense stick. Hold it out in front of you and move in a clockwise direction saying a prayer to your form of the Divine and ask for clearing, cleansing and divine protection in this circle.

You can replace any of this with the labels you feel more comfortable with. For instance, The Great Spirits which is the label I give to the divine force in my beliefs. You might prefer to use God, Jesus, Goddess, Abraham, Buddha or some other name for your beliefs. The point is to choose the label that feels most comfortable to you and your healing partners.

For instance I might say:

Great Spirits, I ask for your help to clear and cleanse this space for our gathering to provide healing to those in need. To send your love, energy and protection to bless our work and empower our working with your divine light and energy. So Mote It Be.

If your circle is large, you might want to start in the center of the circle, then move outward until you have encompassed the entire space with your incense. You want to move around the circle in a clockwise direction. Just make sure you stop in the same direction as you started so you are sealing the energy.

If your circle is large enough to set a small table in the center, that would be a perfect place to safely set your incense and the green candle, along with the matches. Word of advice, make sure the table is sturdy and can take a little knock of someone accidentally bumps into it. Nothing can ruin a circle more quickly than an unexpected accident. So TV trays, and talk decorative tables usually don't work well.

Conducting A Circle For Healing

There are many ways to conduct the mechanics of a healing circle. The following method is one I like to use and is based on a circle I attended at the Edgar Cayce Institute many years ago. You can use this method verbatim, or use it to inspire your own process. This method can be performed by one person, or a group of people. It's very flexible and effective for any number of healers.

When your healing partners arrive, keep everyone out of the circle until you're ready to sit down and focus. When you are ready, turn on the music to a comfortable volume. You don't want it so low that you can't hear it and it becomes distracting. You don't want it so loud that it over shadows the person who will be leading the healing visualization. So check with your guests and make sure everyone is comfortable with the volume.

Now you and your healing partners can enter the circle from the north. Enter in single file and move clockwise around the circle until everyone is standing before a chair. When the last person enters, arrange the chairs so you're closing the entryway of the circle.

Before everyone sits down, one of you should light thecandle and as you do everyone should say a prayer to the Divine asking for help and guidance in performing the healings that are about to take place. You can pre-write the prayer, or say it off the cuff. But this is an important step to bring everyone’s focus to the work at hand. Prayer said, have a seat.

Technically, this method to raise energy is called a "Cone of Power". Through this method you will connect with your healing partners, center your energy, and direct the divine, loving healing energy out to those on your list.

You can write your own visualization script, or just use the following. Just make sure you and your healing partners are comfortable with what you're saying and doing in this visualization.

• Everyone close their eyes and place their hands, palms up, in their lap.

• See a light of love, a pink light, coming from your heart and moving to the center of the circle and the flame of the candle.

• There our energies join together and rise up, gently swirling together in a clockwise motion like a giant spiral column.

• As it joins together and rises visualize the light slowly changing color to a beautiful crisp and clear dark green. Like a clear emerald gemstone.

• Everyone see this loving healing energy move up and through the roof of this building and quickly travel to (the location of the 1st person on your list).

• Visualize this light finding (state the person's name) and providing healing for (state their ailment).

• See (state the person's name) basking in the love and healing sent to them by this circle and the Great Spirits. See this energy fighting the disease that has attacked their body and returning them to good health.

• Visualize in detail the green healing energy consuming the atoms of the disease and destroying it forever.

Continue the visualization for about 1 full minute. Depending on the ailment you may want to hold this visualization for 2 minutes or longer. When you're ready continue with the following.

• We give thanks to the Great Spirits and offer prayers of health and strength to (state the person's name).

• We release the energy to them and see our love and healing light return to our humble circle and the light of our healing candle.

• We know that the Great Spirits will continue to light their way as long as needed, as we move our divine healing energy to (state the next location).

• We watch our love and healing light travel once again through the roof of this building and to (state the name of the next person on your list) to provide healing for (state their ailment).

From this point you just keeping performing these steps until you get through your list. When completed your healing work, you will need to bring the energy back to the healers, close the energy and the circle.

• Everyone see the healing light gently fall into the flame of the candle before us.

• Now we see the light of love and healing release it's connection of unity and gently travel from the flame back to our own heart and bodies.

• We welcome the healing and love we shared with each other, and see it replenish our own energies so we feel refreshed and revitalized and full of energy.

• We give thanks to the Great Spirits and to all those who came here today to assist in these special spiritual healings. We share our joy and love with each other as we close our healing circle.

• Many Blessings to all - So Mote It Be.

• You could also say - Peace be with you all, Amen.

• Everyone open their eyes and have a good stretch.

At this point you can remain in the circle and share your experiences. Or you can leave the circle.

Clearing The Circle

When you're ready to leave, everyone should rise at the same time. In a single line follow each other out in a clockwise direction and exist to the north in the same location you entered. If possible leave the candle burning; as long as it will be safe to do so. Once everyone is outside the circle you can move the chairs and take down the circle. Move the candle to a safer location if you need to.

it's also a good idea to have some healthy snacks after this kind of healing gathering. For some people sending out this kind of energy can drain them. Getting a little snack helps to revive everyone and it's also a good time to share with each other.

Finally, it's always a good idea for people to keep a log of their workings. Even in group situations, there can be a lot of information written and shared for future workings. It's also a good idea to record the names of those who were sent energy, including their location and ailment. So here are some things you might want to keep in your log.

• The date and time the healing circle began and ended.

• The weather (yes it can be an important bit of info).

• The names of the healers who attended.

• Count them up and record the number of healers.

• The structure of the circle. How was it set and what items were used.

• Did you use rope to create the circle, or chairs? Was the rope made of natural fibers, were the chairs metal or wood? Describe your circle.

• Record the names, locations and ailments from the list.

• If you remained in the circle and shared your experiences, you might also enter descriptions or summaries of those as well.

• Sometimes people will receive feelings or visions about the person they're healing. It's a good idea to record these and refer back to them when you learn about the condition of the person in the healing. Often times you will hear back from people who know you were scheduled to send them healing energy.

• Finally record any additional happenings after the healing circle was closed.

• This might be something you go back to the next day, or before the next healing circle session.

Moving Forward

While we can't live in a bubble to protect us from the atrocities of the world, we CAN protect ourselves and our energy. It is ESSENTIAL that we care for our minds & bodies on the physical plane during these triggering and often confusing times. For those who want more solid answers on how we can "fix" the problem , there is no one size- fits all answer. We are just like you,  doing the best we can. These are steps that we can all take towards healing ourselves, reclaiming our personal power and healing our communities. Sending peace, wellness, and love to everyone in need.

"It's Ok if all you did today was survive"

-Unknown

From Teen Witch to Techno-shaman: An Interview with Tina Hyland

Photo by TheHoodwitch.com

Written by Yesenia Padilla

Tina Hyland is a brilliant poet, published in The Best American Experimental Writing 2015, among other publications and journals, as well as a masterful performer. Tina’s command of her audience while she performs is skilled and nuanced; she is graceful and astute, engaging listeners at every turn, making each of her performances a uniquely powerful experience. And, on top of all of that, Tina is a skilled witch, incorporating her extensive knowledge of magical practice into her academic work as a Master of Fine Arts candidate at University of California, San Diego (more on that later). So, it almost goes without saying that the first time I met Tina Hyland, I was basically blown away by her presence. Fortunately, Tina is also extremely gracious and kind, and agreed to sit down for an interview about her art, her magical practice, and more. Enjoy!

Thanks so much for sitting down with us, Tina! Can you describe your introduction to your magical practice? Were there any experiences that you care to share that moved you toward your practice today?

I come from a generation raised on The Craft, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, a whole lot of magic and witchy prime time moments. When I was 14, my first job was at a shoe store in a weird Florida mall. The manager, Debbie,was a 40-something solitary witch of the Scott Cunningham brand, and that was a huge deal to me. Witchcraft wasn’t just the stuff of television, movies or daydreams—it was something adults could take seriously, and something I could live and practice. At the same time, it was rebellious and needed to be hidden from my parents. Basically, perfect. Over time, I asked a lot of religious questions and soaked up her answers. I wanted to be Debbie, and I followed her magical lead from books to tarot decks to deities. She told me her cat was a familiar named Taboo, so I named my first cat Taboo, and I didn’t really know what that meant—I only knew that when she told me her cat’s name, she smiled like it was mischievous. That was enough for me.

Like a lot of young witches without covens, I had a marked up copy of Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner and a small fleet of Llewelyn titles. Llewellyn books make me feel nostalgic, like I should bust out some black lipstick and bad attitude, get back in touch with that mall witch teen vibe. I’ve never put it that way before, but I totally was a mall witch. My supplies and my knowledge came from malls and mall store managers, and that’s where I met other witches too. I would sit in the New Age section of a Barnes & Noble for hours, just waiting ’til someone cool was in the aisle. Before the internet was ubiquitous, everyone was a bit of a creepy lurker, I guess.
Aside from the tarot, most of that is in my past. I still reference a few of those Llewelyn books. Especially Cunningham’s encyclopedias of stones and herbs. I’m also powerfully attracted to a good rhyming couplet.  

Can you talk a little bit about your current practice? What traditions/experiences are you currently drawing from, what is the focus of your practice? What are some of your favorite tools within your practice now?

I’m a neophyte in the IOT, so currently, I work a lot with chaos magic. That means different things to different people, but for me, it’s a kind of ritual flexibility—a willingness to experiment outside my comfort zones and to create new magical and collaborative experiences with fellow chaos magicians. I have adopted, tried out and discarded a lot of magical paradigms and practices, and I’m very influenced by what other pact members are doing and thinking. It’s a lovely community, and I’m grateful to be a part of it.

As for my own practice, I’m interested in objects, the ways they are alive and interactive, and how I’m able to enter into conversation with them through magic. Lately, I’ve been collecting Victorian mourning jewelry. I’ve got buttons that were plaited with hair and taken from a moth-eaten dress. They feel like holy objects, full of love and care and grief. I’ve also got a locket with a beautiful woman’s image set across from a braided section of her hair. I’d like to be haunted by them. I’m thinking about ways to incite a haunting with these “objects” that are very alive to me, maybe visit with them in my dreams.

Tina Hyland showcases her Victorian hair button. 

Tina's hands holding an antique locket.

I do that often—find objects that speak to me and set up rituals around them. Recently, I was working a lot in sex magic, and I found a 2nd century Roman eyeliner tool. It’s bronze, with a swan sitting on top, just above a talisman to protect against the evil eye. Through that, I constructed an idea of who had owned it—I imagined she was a wealthy pagan prostitute. Pliny the Elder wrote that if you have too much sex, all of your eyelashes fall out. For that reason, prostitutes were very much about emphasizing the eye, as though the lushness of the eye correlated directly to the freshness of the vagina. Then there’s the swan, a symbol of Venus, goddess of whores, and the evil eye ward. Something about the owner’s beauty regimen was drawing in envy that she needed to deflect. Together, those facts built a beautiful Roman prostitute in my mind. So, I spent a night burning almonds and mixing them with oil to make my own kohl. Now, I apply that kohl with the eyeliner tool whenever I need to muster some serious sexual energy and allure.

Because of that tendency to find and honor objects, my favorite tools change pretty often. There are a few staples I’m always working with: tarot cards, stones, candles, herbs, high tech devices and the internet.

You're an academic (soon to be MFA - Congratulations! Next year, you’ll be a PhD Candidate in Literature), and a poet, and your magical work shows up quite a bit in your academic/literary work. How do these two seemingly-separate worlds play with one another? In what ways do they gel, and in what ways do they experience tension? How do you react to those areas of tension?

All of those things have become entangled for me. I can’t really imagine one practice without the others. A lot of the theory I read in a seminar space inspires me toward new conceptions of magic and practice and writing. Just as an example, right now I am thinking about an affect theory of magic, drawing mostly from Deleuze and Guattari, and Jane Bennett’s Vibrant Matter. For them everything is made of the same energetic material. The main difference between my body and a rock is that we are moving at different speeds and intensities, with different affects or ways of interacting in the world. I’m moving so fast, in my human speed, that I perceive the rock as inert. But it’s moving too, in geological time. We all have a series of tendencies, ways we act in the world and on each other; when things meet at the same speed and intensity, they can enter into an assemblage, or a temporary and unnatural union. Applying that kind of thinking to magic, Cunningham’s encyclopedia of stones and metals reads like as a list of affects particular to each stone. Clear quartz has a tendency to hold and direct energy, amethyst has a tendency toward sobriety, bloodstone tends toward healing, etc. If I want to enter into assemblage with a stone, so that the stone and I can truly interact and see how our affects blend, the magic ritual becomes a speed matching game. I am going to slow myself while the stone is excited. Taking that out of a speculative interaction with a stone and into common magical techniques, when you do group workings—maybe you’re all panting or chanting or drumming to enter a trance simultaneously—this can be seen as a way of matching speed and intensity to achieve a desired effect in the room or in the world.

So academic work easily moves into the magical, but the reverse—being a witch with witchy contributions in a seminar, that’s not always as smooth. For the most part, grad students are curious and kind people, and if you know what you’re talking about, they will listen and jot a few notes. But there are definitely times where I’ve gotten some eye rolls. Recently, I was in a great seminar with Page DuBois, whose book A Million and One Gods should be on every pagan’s required reading list. It was a course on New Materialism, which is a movement rethinking the roles and capacities of materials in the world. We were talking about objects that act—something that is a major part of any magical practice and especially dear to mine. I brought in a few Roman objects, like evil eye talismans and a fascinus—which is a little penis hung around the necks of children or soldiers to protect them—and passed them around the room, making a case for how in the Roman world, the gaze or a feeling of envy had real consequence, was a thing that could penetrate you, and to protect yourself, it was crucial to have an object that acted as concretely on the world as that gaze. Some people were into it, other people were like, oh my fucking god, this witch. But really though, New Materialism is the world of the witch, and it’s the academic who should enter it with the humility of a guest. Not the other way around. Academics can forget how often they are intellectually vacationing in the spaces where others have built a life. One of the great ironies of being both a writer and a future scholar of literature is seeing just how often PhD students think that MFA students are not as smart or as serious. It’s outrageous. We write the kinds of materials that students of literature devote their lives to studying. But some have an attitude. They seem to think writers are accidentally brilliant, and that it’s through analysis—or being selected for analysis—that our work is given meaning. As a writer, let me just say—the smart stuff I’m trying to put in my art, I’m trying to put it there on purpose, with intention, through thoughtful engagements with a lot of ideas and a carefully developed set of tools.

As for the art itself, that’s my preferred mode for communicating all of this stuff. And as an artist, I get away with a lot of shit other people don’t. I’m a cross-genre experimental writer—that gives me a license to be weird. People expect it. You could even say it’s my job to be weird. I might not be so willing to say, for example, that I’m in the IOT if I were a lawyer or a social worker, or some other profession where people have a very different set of expectations for how you should be in the world, which is why the secrecy of a secret society is so important. The only people I have to worry about insulting are my family, most of whom think I’m wild. And that’s just fine. I am fully committed to being the weird aunt who reads your tarot at the family reunion. Amor fati.

You're currently working on a Grimoire of Internet Spells; can you tell us a little bit about the project? What draws you to technology in your creative and magical practices, and in what ways do you think technology has changed magical practices as a whole?

My manuscript-in-progress is The Technoshaman’s Grimoire. It’s a cross-genre work: a sometimes practical and other times impractical manual for magic colliding with poetry, parable, speculative fiction, and tied together with an old internet aesthetic. If you’ve seen the cover of Donna Haraway’s Simians, Cyborgs, and Women—my project lives in that image. That woman’s voice is the one I’m listening to and attempting to translate. Imagine technoshamans working through social media and search engines. Then try to remember the forgotten corners of cyberspace, like StumbleUpon, LiveJournal, ASCII art galleries. Picture those places being squatted by witches and harvested for spell materials. That’s more or less my grimoire.

I can divide my life into two distinct parts: before and after the ubiquity of the internet. Right now, I am writing, talking, acting as a fully post-internet human: I am inflected by search engines and links, and some aspects of my life exist as much online as they do in the analog world. It wasn’t so long ago that I had a beeper, and when my mom sent me a 911, I knew I should find a payphone and jam a whole message into the collect call name prompt. Now, my mom texts me pictures of the birds at her feeder and is fluent in text abbreviations. I think that’s wild, how quickly and irrevocably the world has changed, and I’m not ready to give up that tension of being born between low and high tech worlds. My grimoire tries to act as a collision space for the pre- and post- internet, filled with updated versions of real or speculative ancient practices.

I also think it’s important to bend these internet technologies away from their intended use—as advertising and commercial platforms. In that, I’m inspired by Evan Calder Williams and his work on salvagepunk, and the artist Jesse Darling, who thinks a lot about the internet as something we produce by doing and living. A space is created and defined by how it is used, not by its intended use. I take a lot of branded websites in order to reconstruct their use and steal them away from their intended purposes.

It’s a bit of a gambit, really. Google, for instance, is an advertising platform that pretends to be universal information access. It would like us to think of it as a mere and humble tool that anyone can use for whatever purpose they see fit. So, a lot of my spells do that—they take the advertiser’s platform and force it to embody its mystifications through another kind of mystification, the spell. If the tools are indeed as open as Google would have us believe, then they can be put to uses other than googlebombing or mutually-destructive advertising wars. If a spell fails, or fails to become a legitimate use of the technology, then the ideological construction of the device fails with it. There’s something Evan Calder Williams said that stays with me as I work: “[T]o put the punk into salvage is to occupy it too well, not to stand outside the logic of the game, but to track it to its far horizons. There we see the frayed hems of a mode of thought.” And I hope my spells can do that, play Google’s own game so hard that we can see what it’s really made of.

And the ways we’ve already bent technology to serve radical communities is under attack. Like I said before, it would be incredibly weird to sit in the New Age aisle of a bookstore and hope to make a new friend. It’s weird because, of course, we are making those connections across social media. But when websites are deciding whether or not to release deleted posts so activists can be legally pursued and punished, I feel it is incredibly important for us to define and defend this practiced commons we have built. And I happen to think that turning the whole internet into a magical space is a fine way to go about that. While my manuscript can be read passively, as a work of weird literature, I also that people will try some of the spells.

One of my favorite spells I've seen you perform/cast (as magical work does contain a performative quality, I think, it's definitely one of the things that draws me to it, anyway) is your glamour spell.  The spell uses selfies, which have become a tool of empowerment for many of us in Gen Z/Millennials. Can you speak to the ways in which performing that spell can be empowering for you? 

 There are all these competing messages about how to have a body in the world.  You should love and be comfortable with yourself--but don’t love yourself too much, never be too comfortable. You should look in the mirror, but not too often or for too long and always with a purpose—to check and correct, to fix or fixate. So much of how we feel and deal with our bodies circulates around a panoptic sense of how we are seen by others, that we are seen by others. A selfie is a radical grab—it is taking control of your image and its curation and distribution. It’s deciding how you will appear, how often, and where. That’s powerful stuff. I don’t have to wait until someone tags me in an unflattering photo that I never saw coming, mouth full of half-chewed food and eyes closed in a blink. I can capture and present what I feel is my best self, with my own vision and full ownership of my image. When people complain about selfie narcissism, they are saying someone has strayed too far from that panoptic sense of what’s appropriate, that my image and its distribution belongs more to someone else than it does to me. I think that’s nonsense. I love selfies, and I love the sudden communities of care that spring up when a selfie is posted on social media.

My spell attempts to push what’s great about selfies a step further. It is as much about the process as it is the product, the selfie. I ask people to stare into their reflections, to gaze into their eyes. To really look at themselves as they meditate on how beautiful they are. And that’s different from the functional gesture of posing. It makes some people uncomfortable, to look at themselves with love and to pause there for a while, suspended in that moment. I think it’s important to rest in those moments of self-love, to give them time to really penetrate.

Speaking of power and performance, what are your favorite looks for when you're really feeling yourself, or feeling really powerful?

I’ve got different answers for the magical and the mundane. First of all, I think everyone should have a ritual robe. It doesn’t necessarily need to be the standard black hooded thing you might think of when you imagine a magician. What’s important is that you have a designated piece of comfortable clothing to help transport you from the mundane to an elsewhere. By putting it on, you are agreeing to leave your usual world for a bit, in a particular and intentional way. It is something for every closet, every life—like a textile transition or a soft escape hatch. Alternatives for the standard ritual robe could be your nude body after a decadent bath, an elegant nightgown that makes you feel royal, or a cozy bath robe and slippers after a warm cup of tea or cocoa. All of these things work very well.

When I’m feeling powerful in the mundane world, I’m definitely wearing makeup. I love to play with cosmetics. I’m also really into braided updos and how they can be used to signify both youth and something more matronly. I can braid that updo playful or severe, and sometimes I try to do both at once. In clothes, I usually wear dresses and skirts and am very into vintage looks. I like to combine contrary time periods, playing in a space between the anachronistic and the contemporary, which is kind of my whole vibe—visually, intellectually, creatively. That might look like 1960’s styled dress in a bold print with an ancient artifact as a pendant, some bright lavender lipstick and a turn of the 20th century braided updo . Like I’m unstuck in time. I really want to get unstuck in time.

What are some tips you'd like to share with our readers about developing their spellwork and magical practice?

Be creative. Know that every time you look at an established book of spells, you are looking at something someone created, and you have just as much ability to build your own practice and magical style. That said, explore a lot of existing practices, so you have some magical grammar and inspiration. If you find yourself stuck in particular dogma, it’s time to experiment, play, get weird. Also, if you can, find a group of people to work with, who are ready to listen and aid you and try things out. I could as easily say, “If you like masturbating, just wait til you try sex.” Because it’s a lot like that—solo vs. group work. Both are nice and both are necessary, if you’re really into experiencing what magic has to offer.

Tina shared a few of her spells for ourreaders and they can be found here:  SPELLS

Five Ways To Let Out Your Inner City Witch By Gabriela Herstik

photo by Gabriela Herstik

Witchcraft takes skill, it takes practice. It takes creativity and an overwhelming sense of trust in your own intuition. And although a part of the mystique of the path is the beautiful and wonderful tools used to create magick, they are often unnecessary and expensive or inaccessible depending on where you live.

Many of us aren’t lucky enough to live in a spacious cottage in the middle of the woods with herbs and a hearth at our disposal. Maybe you don’t have an oak tree in your backyard or a flowing stream in which to release your spell- that’s okay. Thanks to the vastness and power of living in a city, you can still channel this modern sensibility in your magick by incorporating parts of your urban landscape into your practice.

Being a city witch isn’t all bad- here are five ways to work with what you’ve got (and you’ve got a whole lot, babe!)

photo by Gabriela Herstik

Use the correspondences that surround you
First things first, cities still have animals and their own energies. Okay so working with a pigeon or crow may not as sound as whimsical as working with a raven or fox, but it still does the job. Need a correspondence for determination no matter the obstacles in your path? Work with the pigeons.  Need resilience, adaptability and endurance? How about working with a cockroach? The key here is creativity, being able to adapt your surroundings to serve in your highest favor (which sounds a lot like witchcraft itself, doesn’t it?) You can even work directly with your surroundings, ie the skyscrapers and overwhelming vastness of whatever city you live in. Weave the stature of those buildings into your own magickal working, charm or sigil and you’ll be reminded of your own strength every time you step outside. Oh and don’t disregard graffiti and street art- channel that as some major sigil inspiration.

Find your own sacred space
Although sacred space is in less abundance in a metropolitan environment, it’s still there- you just have to search for it. Explore, wander and adventure your way to a park, field or cemetery that holds your fancy. Be smart- don’t go to a sketchy area, especially alone! It’s sad, but especially as women, we have to be on our toes when it comes to safety- you want all of your energy to go into your magick, and having a SAFE sacred space will make this so much easier. Finding a special place that’s yours is the goal, but even if you’re sharing a park in NYC with hundreds of your closest friends, you can still tap into the energy and work in the astral to create some magick. Cemeteries are a really beautiful space to tap into the transformative nature of death, and often they are safe but not very busy. Wander and find a space that holds your passions.

Shop the shops
Here’s where living in a city can play to your advantage: you’ve got the shops! You’ve probably got at least one Whole Foods, Trader Joe's or Earthfare. You may even have a local metaphysical shop (or ten if you’re in Brooklyn). USE THAT ISH TO YOUR ADVANTAGE. Even if you’re just heading to the nearest health food store for some Nag Champa incense and some dried herbs, you’re still harnessing the modern powers at play, this time through shaking what the universe gave ya, so to speak. So do YOU, head to that crystal store or weird bookstore and get yourself the Carnelian, Quartz, and Book of Shadows of your lucid dreams!

photo by Gabriela Herstik

Bring the outdoors, indoors
Even if you have a black thumb and can’t take care of ish, adopting a plant, even if it’s a succulent or an orchid, is sure to enhance your witchy experience. Working with elementals in your own space is especially important for the city witch who doesn’t have easy access to nature- but wants all the jujus that a plant babe will bring. Start a windowsill garden, adopt a few different plants in potters or have a single pot with multiple compartments for an herb garden of your choice. By working with the faeries and correspondences of your chosen plant you’ll not only develop a relationship but also reap some beautiful rewards.

Use that luck(y penny)
One of the coolest parts about living in a city, no matter how big or small it is, is the array of humans that it brings along. Think of all the stories, all the wisdom, all the hurt, all the heartbreak and all the LOVE that are suspended in the single city you live in. We are all souls with our own stories and being aware of that fosters connection and friendship and the most beautiful of things. So, city witch, use the energy that surrounds you to really amp up your magick game. Collect pennies you find in a jar for a luck charm, buy flowers from different vendors each week and dry them, collect the cool and pretty things that people have left behind as a reminder that your story is never ending. Use the pieces of peoples stories that they are willing to share with you to create your own story and magick and you will never be alone.