Soap, Lotion and Candles

I promised my wife I’d put this up on my blog, and haven’t got around to it yet!

As a witch and shamanic practitioner, I love scented oils and candles. Many months ago I began making my own flying ointment, and that progressed into making moisturizers, soap, candles, and other bath and beauty products.  It really is great stuff, and we love making it! So if you’ve ever wanted a moisturizer, soap, or candle in your favourite scent, we might be able to make it for you. I made an autumn scent that I absolutely adore, and we’re working on new witchy scent combinations too. Have a look: http://journeytreehedgewitchery.weebly.com/products.html

Throwing Bones

I felt drawn to create a divination set with teeth and claws and stones. I’m finding it wonderful to work with, so liberating since it all came from my heart — even the symbols are from a 500-character code/language I created years ago.

More on Flying Ointments

I have refined my ointment-making skills, now that I have proper ingredients like grapeseed oil and beeswax. My wife came home with belladonna a week ago and I’ve been playing with it (carefully) ever since! I’ve also found that passion flower does nice things for me, which was unexpected, and the result is almost a spiritual ADHD remedy. I’ve been making mystical lip balm as well, with milder but still potent herbs.

Here’s a small jar of flying ointment I made for a friend:

Here is some ‘mystic’ lip balm and ointment:

Totem animals

One way to honour your totem animals, or spirit guides, is to make representations of them as reminders. This can be as simple as painting a sketch on flat stones. This weekend I made some clay animals for my altar.

salves and lip balm

Today I made some lip balm and an amber-scented massage lotion with beeswax and grapeseed oil. It’s so easy and so fun, and makes great home-made gifts for kitchen witches!

Magic Kitchen Candles

My wife and I are spending the afternoon making candles. Some done with ice, to achieve a holey effect; some done with herbs, stones, and magical intent.

Here’s my wife in the kitchen:

And the finished products:

Altars

I love looking at altar pics. My own household altars follow no rules and tend to grow beyond their boundaries, organic as the plants that make my living room into a jungle.

This is the main altar in the living room. It is shared between my wife and I, and much adored.

A moose skull I found on some rocks up north, for my wife.

This is a work-in-progress altar in my meditation room.

Crossing the hedge

Up to now I’ve used my rattle and drum music by Sandra Ingerman to ease the passage of my shamanic journeys, but I am beginning to experiment with incenses and ointments to enhance the experience and add to the ritual quality of the work.

My first incense blend is rich-smelling but gentle, using the herbs more as a vessel to carry my intent.

Sojourner’s Smoke

• juniper berries
• cloves
• sage
• star anise

My new blend is a gift from my wife, who surprised me with sachets of wormwood and mugwort from the local metaphysical store. These herbs I consider more powerful in themselves (and potentially dangerous), so please do your research if you wish to use them. In addition to burning them as incense, I have mixed them with an ointment base and cedarwood oil. This is not a refined way to make a flying ointment! It’s messy, but I like the rustic quality of whole herbs in the ointment rather than an herbal infusion. It may, however, prove to be a disaster.

Giving due respect to the herbs, I will pick an evening to journey with them when I can devote my full attention and intention to creating sacred space and enacting ritual. I think it’s important to look forward to it as a deepening of my practice, not an attempt to fly around the room.

Medicine Rattle

Made from a real turtle shell, with duck feathers.