paganism & my craft

i've struggled for months on how to start this section of the website, and have come to the conclusion... maybe i should just start! so welcome to my cozy den of incense and candles; it's probably not very impressive. however, every grimoire starts with a blank page and wet fountain pen ink, i suppose.

this is the landing page for the rest of my pages about hellenism and witchcraft; if you'd like to skitter to the table of contents below, feel free to.

i am a hellenistic pagan; i do consider my paganism and witchcraft to be intertwined in a lot of aspects, and different in others! however, i do a lot of my craft from the power of the spirits around me - i'm an animist, as well - as well as my own power; i try to only ask the gods for favors when i feel especially out of control, and like i could use a guiding hand. i'd say we have a very casual yet formal relationship, and i operate exclusively under the assumption that if i ask for anything, i must give something back - it's only polite.

i consider myself something of an autumn witch; my primary workings are with air and fire, i feel the most in my element during the autumn season, and samhain + mabon are the most important sabbats of my practice. i've struggled a lot with what type of witch i am, truthfully; most of the well-known labels do not apply to me. i'm an awful green witch (my fiancee, on the other hand... how incredibly skilled he is with growing plants. it's so endearing! meanwhile, my two ESP (emotional support plants) are succulents because they're the only plants i can keep alive...), the polar opposite of a sea witch, and kitchen witch never feels quite right - cooking is absolutely fundamental to me, but not in a way that feels particularly connected to my craft very much.

and while the spirits and afterlife and i are basically inseperable, i don't consider myself a psychopomp; i'm a witch who is dead and ghosts just kind of gravitate towards me. they're my weird little roommates until they can move on, not so much entities i call on or work with - it'd be like turning around and randomly asking your cousin tanya to help fuel a spell out of nowhere. (although i won't deny i do seem to somewhat accidentally help a lot of the spirits i've encountered cross over, i'd like to think that it's just a positive effect of cohabitating with a ghost stuck haunting a human body.)

am i a divination witch? not really! pendulum and tarot are very close keystones of my craft, sure, but i actually make it a key habit to not dabble in direct divination so much as using them to communicate with spirits and entities, or to get guidance for myself or others - or interpret the past better. truthfully speaking, no label has really felt correct for me; i would broadly consider myself closest to ecclectic.

my craft centers around the elements of air and fire first and foremost; while i have a small collection of crystals, earth and water workings have proven extraordinarily less effective for me, and i typically use stones and herbs to strengthen a spell rather than the cornerstones of them. sigils and banishing works are some of my strongest spellworkings, and while i do incorporate a lot of traditional bits of more well-known paths, i can't say any label i've found fits very well. candles and incense are taken for granted as used in almost every path, not being the cornerstone of a path itself, and i've chosen to label myself an autumn witch in the meantime due to my associations of air and fire being strongest in the almost-always smoke season filled pacific northwest during september. (it doesn't help that my entire life i've wanted to be like the witches in kiki's delivery service, using my magic to help community; maybe that's a folk witch? much to consider.)

my animism is definitely foundational to my craft, though; i pull energy from the spirits of objects and elements, and cultivate a very strong working relationship with the world around me. not a spell goes by where i'm not holding a conversation with an herb i'm pulling energy and associations from, or murmuring gently to a candle about to shine very brightly to seal a spell; i've described myself in the past as someone who gets deeply emotionally attached to items and objects, and that is a good recipe for working with the spirits of things. i keep a physical grimoire and i'm a stickler for details and rituals, although i don't have the spoons for the most elaborate types you could imagine - most of my rituals tend to be a bit informal and laid back, but they have a specific order to them. i try to keep notes on spells and their effects, and i love working with jars and physical charms be it hand-sewn charm bags or clay charms lovingly carved and painted!

my primary tools are:

● incense (stick & cone)
● candles (birthday & tea lights especially.)
● sigils
● fountain pen & inks with corresponding colors
● pendulum + a pendulum board
● tarot
● crystals
● fragrance oils (no essentials, because i'm super allergic...)
● herbs & powders
● twine & cloth
● jars

... buuut there's always more i'm incorporating into my practice, and a lot of my spells are done using just incense, candles, and paper.

table of contents;

this is a work in progress!

● hades
● persephone
● dionysus
● apollo

● working altar
● tarot
● grimoire