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hillbillyoracle · 4 years

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Crafting a Reading List

This post is for 102 folks who are struggling to progress beyond the beginner's material but aren't quite intermediate yet. This is where I got stuck - for years. It's an incredibly frustrating spot to be in and where I see a lot of practitioners either stagnant or drop off entirely. What ultimately got me through to intermediate was being in communities with folks who were more experienced who could recommend resources when I managed articulate the kind of questions I was having.

What I desperately wanted though was a syllabus or a reading list. The trick was that once you're beyond the basics, it's kind of a free for all. Pretty much everything comes down to personal interests.

This is where Tumblr really has a tendency to trap folks. All that energy folks had for learning in the beginning tends to get directed toward playing out an aesthetic. I think this is in part because it's something to do, you feel like you're in motion even when you're not.

Or maybe you're like me. You've got one skill you are incredibly competent in but when it comes to the rest? You've got a foundation full of holes. That's why I decided it was high time I admitted that even a decade into this practice, I needed to begin again.

So I decided to write through my process of selecting a reading list for myself I want to use over the next year or so in the hopes that it would help other people design their own.

Take Advantage of Free Materials and Read Widely

I absolutely recommend taking advantage of what people are putting out for free to read and listen widely. One way I'm hoping to help with that is I'm going to begin to put out monthly or quarterly posts about people I'm learning from. It's something we've struggled with as a community. But do the best you can. If there are "big" people or groups in the fields you're interested in, be listening to their stuff regularly. Ask friends who they would recommend for resources for what you're trying to expand in. Just try to consume a wide variety of people instead of sticking with the same few. You'll begin to see commonalities in what these folks recommend to read even if they're in totally different parts of the internet. That's a good indication that those titles are worth checking out.

Also many authors who are recommended do podcast interviews and write there own blogs, so start with their free materials to see if they are speaking to the areas you're trying to improve in.

Determining Goals < Targeting Skills

Beginners materials leave a lot to be desired, lets be honest. And one way they tend to let readers down is that they spend more on describing what can be done than outlining how to do it. That or they focus on the most basic practices without a scaffolded plan for leveling up. This tendency can become a mindset; it can lead you thinking of books in terms of things you want to accomplish rather than skills that can be honed.

So when you're looking to develop your reading list, it's not a bad idea to look at what you might want to accomplish but you absolutely will have better luck finding texts if you can think of what skill underlies that. For example, I wanted to be able to include more astrologically minded materials as part of my consultations. So thanks to reading widely, I'd begun to take note of texts that were considered classics or were recommended by people I liked often. All of the astrology texts on my list come from people I'd been listening to or read for a while. For many, it was clear to me that they were using the skills they learned from these texts so it was a good indication I would be able to gain them that way too.

My List

Core Secondary Source Texts

Hellenic Astrology by Chris Brennan

On the Heavenly Spheres by Helena Avelar and Luis Ribeiro

The Eagle and the Lark by Bernadette Brad

The Horary Textbook by John Frawley

Tarot Correspondences by T. Susan. Chang

The Art and Practice of Geomancy by John Michael Greer

Ancestral Medicine by Daniel Foor

A Modern Angelic Grimoire and A Modern Goetic Grimoire by Rufus Opus

Planetary Magic by Melita Dennings and Osborne Phillips

The Chaos Protocols by Gordon White

The Elements of Spellcrafting by Jason Miller

Protection and Reversal Magic: A Witches Defense Manual by Jason Miller

Core Primary Texts

Carmina Gadelica

The Long Lost Friend

The Greater Key of Solomon

The Greek Magical Papyri

The Orphic Hymns

The Morrigan's List of Myths

My Thought Process

I decided to zero in on 4 skills that I thought would make me a better witch - astrology, divination, spirit work, and spell work. I thought they would each roughly correspond with a quarter of the year but I found quickly that I wanted to focus on more skills than others. I already feel very comfortable with tarot but I had seen many places that having two forms of divination is ideal and decided to focus on geomancy. I wanted more for spirit work but I had difficulty finding texts I both trusted and was excited about. I also very badly wanted some trad witchcraft books to include but the secondary sources left a lot to be desired, so I decided to try to read through some primary texts during this process as well.

I also wanted to make sure these materials would be a firm basis from which to head toward any ideas I have as to where I want to go next in my journey. I'm realizing that making spirituality a full time meaningful practice that can support me will be a very slow but rewarding process so I wanted to be set up for whatever I decided to work on next. Since I worked in long term care for a few years, I have wanted to get death midwifery training for a long time. I also badly want to study medical astrology and herbalism - and possibly get certified. I also want to support my current projects where I write about shadow work and queer spirituality. So that was an important consideration as well.

Conclusion

So I hope this is helpful to someone. I know it's not as nitty gritty as I normally go but I wanted to show that I'm learning too and give a little insight in to how I go about that. Also wanted to introduce some folks to texts that they might not be aware of in case it'd further your studies.

Want to help me buy these books so I can review them for y'all? Consider joining my patreon, tipping me, or buying something from my shop.

#waking witchblr #witchblr #witchcraft 102 #witchcraft books #witch

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askthetrad · 5 years

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Your ask won't let me submit a question.

It says you’re from the East Coast of the States. WHat spirits do you “work” with(for lack of better term) and how did you come into contact? I ask because I live in Northern California and although I have Cherokee ancestry there are little references to local spirits save the wetlash and the tribal spirits are not ones of my Nation.Besides I’m mostly European.

[We’ll look into why it wouldn’t let you send an ask!]

Mother Mercy here, speaking as someone with tangential Cherokee heritage myself. I would not count myself as Cherokee unless you can name the ancestor in your bloodline who makes you so. This is the basic requirement to gain your tribal card. (Even with the ability to get my tribal card personally, I hesitate. I haven’t lived on a reservation. I don’t know the language. There is no current relationship with that heritage for me.) If you’re “mostly European,” and don’t or can’t trace that heritage with confidence, I’d say let it go. Regardless, pursuing a connection to Northern Californian spirits with Cherokee heritage is fruitless. The Cherokee Nation never lived so far west or north.

Father Farthing here! Mother Mercy covered the native blood part, which is something I have no experience with, so I’ll focus on the other. The spirits I work with – which, I personally would consider “work” to be an appropriate term, because our relationship is one that is based on reaching goals – are land spirits. These go by a variety of names, the most popular of which are genius locii and landvaettir. The latter is a Norse term, the former with Roman origins and more commonly used.

Each place is influenced deeply by its ecology, environment, and history – both human and natural, and these shape and give character and form to the spirits that inhabit and oversee them. They are everywhere, in every city and every field and every biome. A land spirit may be that of a forest or of a single city block, and are tied to an animistic perspective of the world. Just as each stone, book, card, and home has a spirit, so does every place.

I’ll be publishing a post on calling and courting spirits in my practice sometime soon, as my work allows, but the shorter version is two-fold.

First, I have (and you have) always been in contact with land spirits by virtue of living, working, sleeping, and interacting with the places you do on a day to day basis. You share the same home. You have never truly been alone.

Second, to call and formally meet for the very first time, I had spent a great deal of time researching and reading texts on spirits and in particular familiar spirits. I purchased a small jar of local honey and some full fat milk and mixed a portion of the former into the latter. I chose my place, with the spirit I felt closest to from my affection for the area and for my learning and understanding of it and its seasons and processes, and I sat in a place where water met land and sky.

I poured half of the mixture to the earth and offered it, and sipped the other half myself, a sharing and a savoring. I fell into a trance state after a couple of attempts at meditation, watching the ripples on the water, until I felt the spirit come. A pressure that welled up, and shadows across my mind’s eye, and an unmistakable presence. I greeted it, and I claimed kinship with it and I bound it by things we shared and things we did not share.

I asked it for three gifts and I made it three promises.

I also shared and gave away a piece of my soul for a piece of its own. I tell you this as a cautionary point. Land spirits are not so easily researched and read as Goetic ones, and some would argue that they are not so strong. I personally disagree, based on my experiences. I would warn those who seek land spirits that while they can offer great gifts, it must always be remembered that they are and will always be first and foremost of their land.

They are wild. Some are more human in mannerism than others; some are more curious or more bold or more apparently friendly; some are malicious. I do not regret the deal I made with my devil, but it has had consequences and continues to have consequences sometimes when I least expect them. I was significantly younger, and more foolish. I am still humbled by the things I did not and do not yet know, so I tell you this: be bold and seek them out if you wish! Bring milk, and honey, and eggs, and apples, and sweet things or fresh meat or strong drink – coffee, tea, or liquor dependent upon the spirit in question – or smokes. Ask and receive. But take care to know what exactly you have traded away for your power and your sovereignty, and learn how to manage the consequence.

I currently work with two land spirits, primarily. One presides over my bioregion, and the other is sunken deep in a very human place near my home, seeped into the earth and pervading the air and pounded in by the intensity of human life during World War 2. They are very different creatures. Others I have met and greeted and started and been startled by on my travels and around my home, and we pass amicably or one of us respectfully keeps our head down. The world is wide and deep and rich, and I love it. Find your ancestral roots if you wish, and learn about the ways that they went about interacting with spirits – look to the myths and legends and little scraps of folklore and idiom that you have lived with and never thought twice about! Or grab a book or three and see how people you don’t know have done it, and dare to try.

Fair fortunes.

Mother Mercy here again. I just realized I’ve been sitting on this for a while like a derp. Sorry about that!

As for me, I’ve had great experiences with the Irish pantheon. But when I worked in Ireland, the deities that were loudest there were Norse gods. (I was in Dublin most days, so that made sense.) That experience illustrates an interesting point. You’re so used to the gods and spirits that already walk your world, you probably aren’t even noticing them. Open up your mind to what the sensation would be for you if you were able to look up and see writing in the tree branches. Don’t assume that everything will be loud and flash. You’ll know in your bones when you’ve made a connection. There is no denying it.

As for me now, I’m slowly building a good flow with the Black Man (or Man o’ Black, as I prefer to call him), the local devil around my neck of the woods. I definitely work more with historically attested gods and spirits right now, because of where I am in my research and practice.

Not to plug books, but I’ve seen good reviews coming down the pike for Besom, Stang and Sword, which hopefully will speak to your plight.

Best of luck!

#traditional witchcraft #genius locii #submission

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