I keep seeing people approach spirit work like it’s no big deal. They’re drawn to it through companionship, demonology, angels, contact with the dead, faerie craft, tulpamancy, servitors, thoughtforms, deity worship, etc. There’s a lot that can fall beneath spirit work or be related to it in some form where people eventually end up looking at spirit work eventually.
What is spirit work?
Spirit work is the act of working with and communicating with spirits. Spirits can range in variety from fae, mermaids, demons, angels, dragons, etc. Then there’s subspecies of whatever species you may be able to come up with off the top of your head. They can be malicious or benign, humanoid or inhumane, lifelong presence in your life or a passing existence. They can be immortal, deities, sexual or nonsexual, weak and strong. Spirits are so diverse, it’s hard to label them all as a whole because of how many different species there are and societies with their own politics and way of life. They’re incorporeal and can be found around you or in the astral, some even within your dreams. They are as real as you and me. Generally, you want to be respectful and not treat them like Pokémon to be tamed. They are wild and free. This doesn’t mean you should let them walk all over you especially when they become a negative influence in your life.
Do you need to do spirit work?
Even if a lot of the craft comes back to spirit work in some shape or form, you DO NOT have to get into spirit work. When you get into spirit work, it’s like opening a door that’s near impossible to close once opened. You invite one spirit into your life, twenty more will come knocking on your door. It’s perfectly possible to cohabitate with a spirit and you not even know it was there. Especially if you’re not looking for them or actively working with spirits to learn to recognize its presence. Like any other skill, there are pros and cons to spirit work. It can be rewarding just as much as it can be dangerous. It’s very dependent on you and what you plan to do while exploring spirit work. Just because they are generally incorporeal doesn’t mean you’re invincible or immune to the consequences that come with working with spirits. You’re not a god and so long as you exercise caution, spirit work can be a great skill to have. If you choose not to get into spirit work, then awesome! Your path isn’t any less than anyone else’s just because you decide this line of work is not for you.
Discernment
Before you run off into the magical land of spirits, you need to be sure that what you see or experience is real. This is the single most important tool anyone can have and that is to be skeptical, to exercise critical thinking, and test it. While it’s nice to take people at their word, you should be questioning their information and confirm it with other sources and/or with personal experience. Research and understand what it is you want to get into and what it is you’re trying to interact with. Spirits can be tricky beings and lie or change their form to appear as other things. They will try to scam you for offerings or even mess with you because they’re bored and think it’s funny. Not every spirit is going to be like this yet it happens. And being able to discern between the lies and what you deem as real will be essential in your interactions with spirits.
You want some form of physical communication with spirits that’s beyond only using telepathy or what you think you heard. Two or three different forms of divination would be ideal to check your results against and even confirm. Personally, I like to check and double check for personal assurance. I use tarot/oracle as my main form of divination and check if what I’m interpreting is correct with my pendulum. I use this a lot to confirm that what I’ve experienced happened and to gauge a spirit’s wants or needs.
How adept are you with protection? This is personal protection, wards of a space, more wards to prevent lying, glamor, teleportation, etc. Finding just the right amount of protection because there is such a thing as too much. Protection is a huge part of what you want to have around you to avoid a lot of potentially large problems before they can become one. There are preventative measure for a reason. There’s loopholes you want to avoid in the making of your wards like ‘only beings with positive intentions can come through’ or using only light as protection. The problem with the first notion is that it’s too open. A spirit with the intention to ‘fix’ you can be considered positive because this being has the intention for the highest good for you by its standards may not be the highest good by your standards. That’s a very weak premise to build a ward. The problem with the latter is that it won’t stop a being of light from just walking right through your ward. Again, it’s weak. Wards can be tricky business. The best way to build them is to write them out on paper and then try to find a way around them to break your own wards.
Banishment
If you’re going to be interacting with spirits, you want a way to banish them if they break your rules or become volatile. Why would you interact with a spirit you can’t get rid of? It’d be pretty asinine to willingly come into contact with a spirit you can’t banish and then have that spirit refuse to leave. How can you get it to stop escalating and becoming a worse situation? You want different methods of banishment as well from energetic intent to physical means of banishment. You want tailored banishment methods for the spirits you plan to contact. If you don’t know how to banish a spirit, then you probably shouldn’t be looking to interact with them.
Spirits can leave behind residue that can attract parasites. They can bring parasites. What you’re doing can attract more spirits or more parasites. It’s a good habit to get into to cleanse a space before and after interacting with spirits. It keeps you energetically clean as well as your space.
Energy Work
I’ve heard of people weak at sensing energies being able to do spirit work. It can be very hit and miss. Energy work is what you use to be able to sense a spirit and identify them. Personally, I recommend you have some basis in energy work before getting into spirit work. It’s an invaluable skill that’d provide an extra form of protection and open up new avenues of interacting with spirits. It’d help to learn what a spirit feels like, their energy signature, and alignments to better be able to single them out.
This is a skill that’s more optional yet I always recommend having it in your skillset if you wish to get into spirit work. A lot of what you learn when getting into astral travel overlaps with spirit work since you’re opening yourself up to traveling into different realms that may have spirits. Much like spirit work, you’re opening a door that’s near impossible to close once opened. Astral travel provides you with a space you can work in, to be able to travel to a spirit’s homeland, observe their way of life, direct interaction, and being able to ‘see’ what the spirit may look like.
Like I’ve touched on throughout this post, there are dangers to spirit work. You’re opening yourself up to spirits and allowing yourself to interact with them. You don’t know this spirit and they likely don’t know you. They can and will mess with you if it strikes their fancy. Spirits can hurt you in creative ways, pose as a deity, pretend to be from your past life, abuse you and use you. Spirit’s personalities and motivations are as diverse as interacting with people around you. You can’t predict how a spirit will act nor how things will unfold between you by beginning interactions. All you can do is take the precautions to protect yourself, your space, and those that matter to you the best ways you can. Be cautious and don’t put yourself in unnecessary danger just because you decided to see what happens. If you go out looking for danger, you’ll find it.
I hope this post has been helpful. I’ve seen different answers to this question of what you should or shouldn’t know when stepping into spirit work. I was never satisfied with the answers I’ve seen and often disagree with them. I hope that this post puts it into perspective what you should know if you so choose to get into spirit work. Better to go into it informed than to lack a basic skill because you were overzealous and ran ahead before you were ready.
It’s honestly really creepy the way biphobic radfems fixate on the sex lives of bi women.
They can’t just say “bi women are attracted to men” or “bi women date men.” It’s always about sex, it’s always about how gross it is that we fuck dudes, how nobody wants to kiss a girl that had a dick in her mouth last week, how gross our pussies are for having been in contact with a cock. How we’re dick-worshippers and cocksuckers and bisluts. It always, always comes down to having sex with men, and it’s always just assumed that any given bi woman frequently has sex with men.
There’s a lot going on with this gross trend but I’m too tired to get into it, I just wanna say that it’s really, really skeevy to me how obsessed people are with bi women’s sex lives.
And to clarify, if any given woman, bi or otherwise, wants to be sucking five dicks a day or whatever people think it is we do, you know what? There’s nothing actually wrong with that. What consenting adults choose to do behind closed doors is completely their own business and is not a statement on their morality.
But it’s just this absolute obsession with the idea that all bi women are, in fact, sucking five dicks a day, and that it’s a bad thing, and the assumption that all bi women–by virtue of being bi–have consented to public discussion about that dicksucking.
It’s like people think by identifying as bi, we’ve given up our right to privacy and dignity and choice, that our sex lives are now acceptable fodder for public debate, a political statement open for criticism, by whoever feels like chiming in, whenever they feel like it.
It’s disgusting, it’s violating, it’s dehumanizing. It’s a stone’s throw away from the “sexually available to men” rape apologist bullshit, and I’m tired of it.
And just so we’re clear, cause I didn’t mention it bc this was mostly a vent post, but like: it’s obviously grossly transmisogynistic as well, given the fact that “has a penis” does not inherently equate to “is a man” but like, these are radfems, what do you expect.
I’ve compiled a list of types of herbal remedies, with brief instructions on how to make them. Choose your herbs carefully, as some are poisonous, some will interfere with health problems and medications, and some can cause allergic reactions.
If you are concerned about any health issue you have, or worried about herbs reacting with your medications, go talk to your doctor. This post is not intended as medical advice.
Compress
This is usually cloth that has been soaked in a herbal infusion so that it can be applied topically. Useful for skin issues, muscle pain, joint pain, and general aches.
You can make one by soaking cotton wool in a warm infusion of your choice, wrapping the balls in a piece of clean cloth, and applying to the affected area. Once the cloth cools down you can soak it again in the warm tea and reapply.
Infusion
This is basically the herbalist term for tea. The herbs are usually dried and ground before being steeped in very hot water and then strained out. If you use a bag then you can skip the straining.
Tincture
This is similar to an infusion but much stronger, and with alcohol instead of water, which helps to preserve it.
Put your herbs in a jar. Cover them with alcohol (most people I know use vodka). Put the lid on the jar and shake it daily for a month or so, then strain the herbs out. I tend to keep mine in the little dropper bottles, as you normally don’t need to take much at once.
Decoction
I like to think of these as a stronger infusion. You need four times as much boiling water as dried herb, and you want to simmer the mixture for about half an hour before straining.
Syrup
These are herbs mixed with a sugary substance, which makes them easier to consume and helps to preserve them a little. They’re a good way to get your herbs in if you have a sore throat, as they are often quite soothing.
You’ll need a couple ounces of fresh herb per pint of water. Put them on the stove and heat until about half of the water has evaporated. Then you need to add about five tablespoons of sugar/honey/maple syrup per pint of water you used originally (so if you put two pints in the pan, you need ten tablespoons). Keep stirring for about twenty minutes, then take it off the heat and bottle it up. You need to keep syrups in the fridge, preferably in a dark coloured jar or bottle.
Balm
Essential oils and beeswax, basically. Add about twenty drops of essential oil to a cup of melted beeswax, stick it in a jar, let it cool, and there you go! You can mix in juiced herbs if you like, but that’s optional.
Salve
A salve is basically essential oils mixed with beeswax, oils and herbs. I have seen them made with coconut oil, though if you live in a warmer environment then coconut oil won’t work for you as it melts. You need about fifty/fifty dried herbs and beeswax (if you live somewhere warm) or use a mixture of beeswax and an oil like olive or safflower if you live somewhere colder, just so it’s soft enough to use. Use about twenty drops of oil per cup of beeswax. You’ll need to melt the wax in a double boiler, and let the herbs infuse in the molten wax for about half an hour. Then you add your essential oils, and pour the molten salve into the containers and let it cool.
Ointment
This is basically a liquid balm or salve. Follow the methods above, but use oil instead of beeswax.
Bath
When taking a herbal bath, you are basically making a giant cup of tea! Fill an organza bag with your chosen herbs, and put it in the bath while you run the water, then remove it before you get in. You can reuse the bag of herbs, but they lose potency with each use, so I try to avoid doing this.
Poultice
This is a paste of herbs and sometimes other things that is applied to the skin. Used for infections, splinters, burns, boils etc. They’re pretty simple to make, you just mix some dried herbs with a tiny bit of boiling water to form a paste, put it on the area, and use a piece of cloth or gauze to keep it there. If you want to use fresh herbs you just mash them up.
Im still unpacking from the move and I am wanting to get a coffee table for once everything is unpacked and set it up as a little altar space. Just need to unpack first and figure out furniture placement :L right now I have just a mountain of boxes and furniture thrown against a wall *sigh*
Someone told my ex-dad (not a sex thing; he just disowned me) that I’m trans and now he’s threatening to come to work and make a scene, and I know I should be upset, but like. What’s he gonna say exactly? And to whom? Because imagining a haggard and likely shitfaced Pennsylvania construction worker barging through the grocery store like, “HEY!!! THAT BROAD-HIPPED 5’3” EFFEMINATE KID WITH THE CONSPICUOUSLY BIZARRE NAME WHO SPEAKS IN A CARTOONISHLY AFFECTED CARICATURE OF MASCULINITY AIN’T GOT NO DICK!!! YOU GONNA BUY SCRATCH OFF TICKETS FROM SOME KINDA DICKLESS ABOMINATION??“ is wild. What’s it going to accomplish? Or is he gonna call my manager? “HELLO, I’D LIKE TO REPORT A FRAUD IN YOUR DELI DEPARTMENT. THERE IS NOT SAUSAGE AS ADVERTISED.” What the fuck.
Odds are he’s more embarrassed of having a trans ex-kid than I am of being outed at work, so what if I go to his job and tell everyone I’m trans first? What then, coward?
Dick or no dick, this post has some of the biggest dick energy I have ever seen.
I’m so thankful this exists. I think that many people with mental health issues (myself included) downplay what they’re going through.
I’m an 8 right now. If I hadn’t seen this chart tonight I’d keep denying my struggle. Now I have to face it.
i’ve seen these for physical pain all over the place. never one for emotional pain, till now. thank you!
Image description: A chart with cartoon faces down the left side and descriptions on the right. They are numbered 1 through 10 from top to bottom. The #1 face at the very top is green and smiling widely. The #10 face at the bottom is red and frowning with tears running down its cheeks. All the other faces are colors in between, from green to yellow to red, their expressions representing a scale from happy to miserable. Each face has a description accompanying it, and is classified as mild, moderate, or severe.
MILD
1 Everything is A-OK! There is absolutely nothing wrong. You’re probably cuddling a fluffy kitten right now. Enjoy!
2 You’re a bit frustrated or disappointed, but you’re easily distracted and cheered up with little effort.
3 Things are bothering you, but you’re coping. You might be overtired or hungry. The emotional equivalent of a headache.
MODERATE
4 Today is a bad day (or a few bad days). You still have the skills to get through it, but be gentle with yourself. Use self-care strategies.
5 Your mental health is starting to impact on your everyday life. Easy things are becoming difficult. You should talk to your doctor.
6 You can’t do things the way you usually do them because of your mental health. Impulsive and compulsive thoughts may be hard to cope with.
SEVERE
7 You’re avoiding things that make you more distressed, but that will make it worse. You should definitely seek help. This is serious.
8 You can’t hide your struggles anymore. You may have issues sleeping, eating, having fun, socializing, and work/study. Your mental health is affecting almost all parts of your life.
9 You’re at a critical point. You aren’t functioning anymore. You need urgent help. You may be a risk to yourself or others if left untreated.
10 The worst mental and emotional distress possible. You can no longer care for yourself. You can’t imagine things getting any worse. Contact a crisis line immediately.
The Mayans had mastered water pressure and had fountains and toilets as early as 750 AD.
Aztecs had running water and sewage.
The Victorians In the mid-1800s were dying of cholera because they just dumped their raw shit in the river Thames. They wouldn’t shower for months at a time because they were afraid of the polluted water.
Incans had created aquaducts in the slopes of the vast Andes mountains to reach the emperor, cities and farmers who used agricultural terraces.
Mayans, Aztecs, and Incans were far more advanced than the savage Europeans.
“A witch is a woman who emerges from deep within herself. She is a woman who has honestly explored her light and learned to celebrate her darkness. She is a woman who is able to fall in love with the magnificent possibilities of her power.
She is a woman who radiates mystery. She is magnetic. She is a witch.” — Dacha Avelin
not to sound like a baby boomer or some other bullshit but the internet really has given children access to things they absolutely should not see. i just heard my ten year old brother make a daddy joke. this really has to stop.
like i’m not joking. i’m like. just so angry i can’t articulate it right now but i’m so upset, especially with adults/older teenagers who egg children on in making jokes far beyond their age because they think it’s funny.
Not only that, but they look up their favorite shows and see porn of their favorite characters
^ This point is crucial. This is not as simply avoided as “don’t like don’t read/watch” disclaimers advise and there is not adequate safeguarding against children accessing sexually explicit material even so much as third-party websites that require a user to agree that they are over the age of 18.
~ * WHICH IS THE RESPONSIBILITY OF PARENTS. * ~
Not J-Random-Person-On-Tumblr-or-Ao3-or-YouTube. The child’s parents.
And I am saying this as a) a parent involved in assorted fandoms with b) two children of various ages who are c) also involved in assorted age-appropriate fannish activities. We fan together. I critique and edit my eldest son’s Transformers/Loud House fanfic. I help my youngest son design some of his Pixel-stuff skins. We decided mutually which YouTubers they were allowed to watch. We play games together, read many of the same comics, buy each other Funko Pops and Nerf weapons, squee over many of the same fannish things – not all, but many, because I have grown up things that I’m interested in and they have not-grown-up-things that they’re interested in and there the twain does not meet. Because I’m their mother and it’s my responsibility to monitor what they get into and up to online as much as it’s my responsibility to make sure they don’t play in the middle of a four-way highway.
It is not the responsibility of random strangers on the internet to monitor your child’s online activities. It’s just not. And it’s not even remotely reasonable to expect them to do so.
Parental content filters are a thing. Use them.Don’t buy your children M-Rated video games and then clutch your pearls about it. Pay attention to what they’re reading, drawing, watching, and doing online. This is literally your job as a parent.
And also? Don’t act like someone else is doing something wrong by being an adult on the internet. Because they’re not and behaving like an adult in adult-oriented fandom spaces is only to be expected. 18+ Only warnings exist for a reason. M-Ratings exist for a reason. Do Not Interact If You’re A Minor warnings exist for a reason. And it’s not the fault of the adults who employ them properly if a minor chooses to ignore them. That child’s parents should be monitoring their activities and teaching them to respect those boundaries.
please be respectful of cultural boundaries when working with mermaids from various cultures and traditions, and be mindful not to intrude.
🌊 Rusalkas – slavic in origin, disturbed spirits of the “unclean dead”, ghosts of women who died violent deaths, with a penchant for drowning young men. they live only in rivers and lakes, and are known to have green hair like aquatic plants, only appearing in the night.
🌊 Melusina – a mermaid that walks among humans, but returns to their two-tailed form during baths and when they bathe their children. often a water spirit of a nearby lake or river. french origin.
🌊 Siren – greek mythology. servants and companions of persephone, whom searched for her when she was abducted. they are known to sometimes have the body of a bird, and for their song, which lured sailors to their doom. cannibalism implied folklore. have the power of prophecy.
🌊 Merrow – irish mermaid. known to have green hair and webbed fingers. particular noted love of music and their red cap, which when stolen, they will live with the thief until they find it, and then return to the water, leaving even a whole family behind.
🌊 Ben-varrey – from the isle of man, known to bless those that are kind to them with prosperity, gifts, and even the location of treasure.
🌊 Aicaya –
Caribbean mermaid, humans who become mermaids when they are shunned from their community and go to live in the sea.
🌊 Amabie – japanese merpeople, with birdlike torsos and three legs and scales. they are gifted with prophecy, usually foretelling abundant harvests or epidemics
🌊 Ningyo – “human faced fish” known to have golden scales, that brings bad weather and misfortune when caught, but when their flesh is eaten the consumer is granted youth and beauty, even agelessness.
🌊 Finman / Finwife – magical shapeshifters that disguise themselves as sea creatures or plants to lure humans, unlike most mermaids they kidnap people from the shores to be their spouses or servants. they have a greed for jewelry and coins, particularly silver, and prefer humans over other finfolk.
🌊 Sirena Chilota – considered the more friendly mermaids, caring for all fish life and rescuing drowned sailors to restore life to them. known for their human-like beauty and youth, according to legend they are the child of a human and a “king of seas”, tears are a powerful substance. from chilote mythology.
🌊 Cecealia – sometimes known as “sea witches”, they are half human and half octopus. origins in native american and japanese mythology.
🌊 Sirena / Siyokoy – the philippine version of mermaid and merman respectively. also called “magindara”, they are known to protect the waters from raiders, and protect the boy moon from sea monsters. Siyokoys can sometimes have legs however, covered with scales and webbed feet
🌊 Sea Mither – scottish/orcadian mythology, a spirit that personifies the sea during spring and summer, battles along scottish isles using storms to bring the summer about. a mother figure to all aquatic life.
🌊 Ceasg – a fresh-water mermaid, specifically half-salmon, said to grant three wishes if captured. sometimes called maighdean na tuinne (maid of the wave) or maighdean mhara (maid of the sea). scottish.
🌊 Selkie – though somewhat different from the typical mermaid, as they are not cold-blooded, have the body of a seal in the water and are human on land. in legends their skins are often stolen and they are kept by fishermen as spouses, or become lovers to fishermen’s wives who shed tears into the sea.
The fact that Andre Braugher has still not won an Emmy and hasn’t even been nominated in recent years for his portrayal of Captain Raymond Holt is an absolute travesty.
I’m so happy for Sakurai-sensei, and so appreciative to all the wonderful fans of Ojisama to Neko for supporting it! Just seeing how much it’s touched the community here on Tumblr, I can only imagine how deeply it’s affected animal lovers in Japan and around the world. I wish Sakurai-sensei continued success and can’t wait to read more about Fukumaru and Ojisama in the future!
Tumblr, this isn’t healthy. At best it leads to confusion about boundaries; at worst it leads to abuse.
“I like being by myself and am comfortable in my own company. If you want to spend time with me, spending time with you has to feel better than being by myself. I won’t spend time with you if it makes me feel worse than being by myself.”
What is unhealthy about this? How could it ‘lead to confusion about boundaries/ abuse’? I find it very healthy, and in fact, it’s setting excellent boundaries: “If being with you makes me feel worse than not being with you, then I choose feeling better and not being with you.”
Here’s a funny thing. This isn’t the first person I’ve seen reacting negatively to a post where someone points out that there’s nothing wrong with being alone / actively choosing to be alone / not chasing relationships just because ‘you gotta’ or ‘everyone else is having one.’ I can’t find the other post right now, but it was advising people to become more comfortable with doing things by themselves, when not in a relationship (going to the restaurant, to the theater, etc). And in comes some twit, with ‘hurr durr, an asocial serial-killer wrote this.’
[inert GIF of someone flipping the bird here]
I’ve noticed that a hell of a lot of people feel actively threatened by the existence of highly introverted people, who don’t have problems with being alone and who might actually prefer that state of being. Even when all we’re doing is existing and minding our own lives, with little to no fuss.
I don’t know how to put this more clearly than the fact that there’s absolutely nothing healthy about someone going against their own nature, just because ‘society says so-and-so.’ And this can range from getting involved in a relationship one isn’t actually interested in, just because people are pressuring one for being ‘lonely’, all the way to having unwanted children, just because ‘everyone else is doing it’, instead of any genuine desire to be a parent.
Even when pharmacists do let people access contraception, whether emergency contraception or condoms or prescription birth control pills, the process isn’t always free of judgment. In a series of recent online discussions, people across the country have begun to share stories of the stigma they’ve experienced. As many have pointed out, this can be especially damaging to teens.
DO YOU SEE THIS? PHARMACY EMPLOYEES IN THE U.S. ARE NOT LEGALLY ALLOWED TO DO THIS. THAT GOES FOR THE PEOPLE AT THE FRONT AS WELL AS PEOPLE IN WHITE COATS BEHIND THE CAGE.
If an employee in a pharmacy makes a snide comment – Front store workers, pharmacists, or Pharmacy Techs give you shit? Gently (Or not so gently) remind them that the waiver they signed upon being hired legally binds them from commenting on your purchase, as it is a violation of privacy laws. Doing so is grounds for INSTANT termination and hefty fines.
Pharmacy workers (white coats) are legally obligated to ASK if you need an explanation of how medication works and any side effects, any medication conflicts etc. If you decline, THEY ARE NOT ALLOWED AT ALL TO MAKE SNIDE REMARKS OR FARTHER COMMENT ON YOUR PURCHASE. FRONT STORE EMPLOYEES CAN NOT AT ALL COMMENT IN ANY WAY, IN ANY STORE WITH A PHARMACY IN IT.
Know your rights. If this shit happens? Call them the fuck out and ask to speak to a manager. Get worked up. Cause a scene. Threaten a Lawsuit. If you see this happening to someone else, and they seem to be struggling, speak up for them.
As a Pharmacy worker, you bet your ass I’ll protect you and your privacy. IT’S MY JOB.
Remember that time Gandalf convinced the whole party to flee so that he could take out the Balrog and not have to share any of the XP? Shows up the next session with fancy new robes and everything. What a jerk.
Willow Wisp's Witching Corner 