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This candle spell involves creating and consecrating a lovely oil you can use to instill a greater sense of peace within your mind and heart. Into a blue bottle, pour almond, soy, or any other unscented base oil, then add two drops each of neroli, chamomile, and Turkish rose essential oils. Shake the oils together to blend them. Next, take an orange and place it beside a lit lavender candle you have anointed with the potion. Chant aloud:

By my own hand, I made this balm.

While a bowl is not a tool in and of itself, you can utilize bowls in your spellwork often, anytime you are inspired to do so. Three simple ingredients—a red rose, a pink candle, and water—can bestow a powerful blessing. The rose signifies beauty, potential, the sunny seasons, and love for yourself and others. The candle stands for the element of fire, the yellow flame of the rising sun in the east, harmony, higher intention, and the light of the soul. Water represents its own element, flow, the direction of the west, emotions, and cleansing. This ritual can be performed alone or with a group in which you pass the bowl around. Float the rose in a clear bowl of water, and light a pink candle beside the bowl. With your left hand, gently stir the water in the bowl and say:

I give myself life and health, refreshing water for my spirit.

We all need a health and happiness boost sometimes. This spell, aimed at supporting mental and emotional well-being, is best performed when the hardy spirit of Thor is in ascendance. On any Thursday, take a blue candle, dress it with cedar or bergamot oil, light it, and say nine times:

Fears and woes, I take respite;

To clear energy and prepare for a week of calm clarity, find a blossom of your favorite white flower—iris, lily, rose—one that is truly beautiful to your eye. Monday’s setting sun is the time for this spell, enacted immediately after the sun goes below the horizon. Anoint a white candle with clary sage oil and place it on your altar. Take your single white blossom and add that to your altar in a bowl of freshly drawn water. Place sage leaves on a glass dish in front of the lit candle and speak aloud:

This fire is pure; this flower is holy, this water is clear.

So I saw a meme recently with a close-up of the infamous Wicked Witch of the West from the original “Wizard of Oz” classic film. It read, “You call it September, I call it October Eve.” Of course I shared it immediately—what Halloween fiend wouldn’t? I have found that I spend the better part of September in anticipation and excitement of what’s to come right on the next page of the calendar corner. I mentally prepare, I scout out fun local events happening and mark the ones that I’d like to attend as “interested.” In many cases, I pencil in all the things I want to do, books I want to read, movies I want to watch (and in many cases rewatch as an annual ritual) all over my Llewellyn Witches’ Datebook. I’m truly a kid at heart when it comes to this time of year—as I’m sure many of you are—and I hope to be until my dying day. In fact, when I was earning my journalism degree and one of our early semester assignments was to write our own obituary, I imagined that I would be found watching scary movies on the 31^st.

October Eve Ritual

Next September 2023, why not start your own, “October Eve” ritual? Haul out all of your favorite decorations (I always like to add a few new ones each year, too) and take your time putting them up and hanging them just so. Play some spooky music as your soundtrack as you do so. Sip some nice fall wine and enjoy the experience as a sensual/sensuous one. You may want to do this the night before October 1^st, two nights before October 1^st, or heck, as early as you want in September, whatever floats your ghost ship! You might want to mix it up and put different decorations in different rooms or create different arrangements each year. I tend to be a traditionalist like my dear grandmother was and put the same pieces in the same spots annually. I even have themed rooms for the types of decorations: Kitchen witches, black cat back bedroom, vampire bat bathroom, you get the idea. If you’re lucky enough to have a home with a nice front yard and love to go all out with your transformation theme, by all means, go for it. Nothing makes the majority of your Halloween fan neighbors more delighted than driving or walking by a wickedly clever front yard and house display all season long.

In July I picked almonds, early in the morning, up a ladder with a basket in my front yard. The almond tree is a nonpareil which is supposed to be an ornamental or pollinator, not a nut bearing tree. We, my mom and I, had planted the nonpareil tree along with another variety of almond tree that was supposed to be the nut bearing tree, but the other tree had died, and one day mom had come home with a "white pomegranate" for me to plant where the other almond tree had been so we only had the nonpareil. It made beautiful flowers every spring, but mom wanted nuts. One year mom told the tree she wanted nuts and it bore nuts. It has borne nuts every year since.

I rarely do any spells anymore, but there is one I do almost every day in the summer. When I get in the pool I splash the water and say "No f*ing wasps! No thing that stings belongs in my pool!" So far so good, knock on wood.

This post was prompted by the outpouring of support for Ukraine I've seen on social media. It could apply to any future emergencies too, though. I have seen some very well intentioned people calling on Slavic deities with whom they do not usually have a relationship and I just wanted to write a little guide to how to craft supportive prayers or spells outside one's usual area of practice to respond to current emergencies in the world.

I'm not going to get into political analysis here because it would be off topic for my blog which is about my personal gnosis and experiences with the Asatru religion. If any of my readers would like to see my commentary on military and intelligence matters, I have some posts on my social media about it, as I have been asked to comment because I studied the Soviet Union. This post is just about writing prayers and spells. Writing is my thing now.