A Spell a day ~ New Job - Successful Business Spell

Apple & Cider Spell

As It is that time of year, harvesting your produce and putting it to good use can be a pretty daunting task. Why not use your apple harvest to create something special. 

Before I go to the spell, here are a few ideas for your apple harvest. 

Apple juice, by simply juicing with a juicer.

Apple cider, there are two versions of this, alcoholic or non alcoholic.

For the non alcoholic version, collect upto 4 - 5 times more the amount of apple cider you would like to make.Wash, remove bruises and core the apples. Once this is done place them into a blender and blend until it gets to about the consistency of apple sauce. 

The next step is to place the pureed apples into a muslin cloth and strain out the liquid. You can now refrigerate your liquid. Or freeze to keep for a longer period of time. 

Alcoholic Apple Cider. Here you will also need cider yeast or wine yeast.  You will need to make starter yeast the day before you add it to your apple cider. To do this add half a cup of fresh apple cider to one pack of cider yeast, seal the jar and give it a good shake to mix thoroughly. now leave this overnight in your refrigerator. The next day check your jar for bubbling, this shows the starter is now ready, release the pressure in the jar slowly so you don't get a volcanic eruption!!  This really didn't happen to me honest! lol :) 

Now place your fresh cider into a pan and with and over medium heat keep at a slow simmer . Simmer for at least 45 mins. The reason for this is to kill off and bad bacteria, and wild yeasts that could alter the flavour of your cider. Add honey or sugar to taste

Now get your fermentation bucket make sure its clean and sterilised, pour your Apple Cider into the container, allow to cool to room temperature and then add your prepared starter. Give it a good stir with a sterilised spoon and seal the container and set the airlock. 

Place your container in a dark place for a couple of days. Check to see if the airlock is forming bubbles, this means the carbon dioxide is being released, this should continue to bubble for the next two weeks. When the bubbling stops your cider is ready, bottle into sterilised bottles and store. As with wine it improves with age, the longer you leave it the better it tastes.

Apple cider vinegar. This is another favourite of mine, and so simple to do! All you need is your apple offcuts, or if you have fresh apples you can use those. Place your offcuts into a bucket, now cover with water till it gets to the point where you can submerge them. (there is no wrong or right amount of how many apples or water to use here) then add one cup of sugar to the mix place a plate over the top to keep the apples submerged under the water cover and forget about it for the next two weeks. 

Once the two weeks are lapsed strain the liquid from the apples, you can now smell the apple vinegar in the liquid. Sterilise some glass jars and pour your now vinegar liquid into them. Cut a piece of muslin cloth to cover the mouth of the jar and screw the lid on top. This allows the vinegar to continue to breathe. 

Now if you want to get quite crafty and make some gifts for Yuletide gifts, you can add herbs and spices to your vinegar to infuse the flavours, my favourite is rosemary and mint. Remember to label and date your jars! Enjoy

There are many more things that you can do with apples, they are so versatile. Get experimenting with different recipes, and don't forget to come back and let me know!

Now for the Apple and Cider Spell for a new job - successful business:

Ingredients: 
5 Orange candles
An apple twig
A small knife
An apple 
A bowl
A symbol of your work
Cider

On a Friday night, place the lit candles in a large circle. Use orange candles as orange is the colour of optimism and determination. Put all the other ingredients in the centre of the circle. 

Take the apple twig and draw an inner circle on the floor, working in a clockwise direction. You must remain within this magic circle to perform your spell. With the knife, cut the apple into 22 pieces, the number 22 incorporates all the other numbers. 

Drop each piece of apple into a bowl, wishing for luck in your venture as you do so. Place the symbol you have chosen to represent your work on top and sprinkle with a little cider. Stir the pot in a clockwise direction. 

As you put in the effort, so your life will bear fruit. Close your eyes and wish for success before drinking a toast of cider

Blessed Be

~Opal Storm )O(

Please note, for any spell castings please contact me direct at opalstorm@witchywoowoo.com. I work on donation, so please respect my time as I use my energies and ingredients for each spell cast. Thank you 

How to make your own Mabon Soap

Mabon Soap Creations

I really do love this time of year. With the changing of the seasons, the autumnal colours, the smell in the air from the earth when it rains, what is there not to love!

Change in seasons always inspires me to get creative, with my beliefs and to what I have to hand with natures gifts. So here we have another creation of mine to follow suit... MABON SOAP.

This is a hot process soap, and you would need to take appropriate caution as with anything that handles lye. 

The utensils you will be needing are:

A crockpot/slowcooker

Stick blender

Spatula

Metal spoons

Glass bowls

Scales

gloves

protective goggles

newspaper

2 candy thermometers (this is only needed if you don't let everything cool to room temp to mix) 

silicone moulds or wooden soap box moulds, whichever you prefer. 

Ingredients:

3oz Apricot Kernal oil

2oz Castor Oil

7oz Coconut oil

15 Olive oil

3 Sunflower oil

Total weight of oils 30oz

13oz Hibiscus flower tea infusion (I always make slightly more than is required, as when you strain the flowers out of the liquid there always is less than what you started with) 

4oz of Lye

1 tbsp of myrrh and sandalwood essential oils

To start: 

Cover your table with newspaper to protect it from any spillages that may occur

Put your gloves and goggles on. And start measuring out all your ingredients.

I now open up a few windows for this next step, as the lye solution creates fumes that can irritate your eyes nose and throat. Once this is done measure out 10oz of the hibiscus tea infusion and compost or discard the rest. Then take your lye and pour it SLOWLY into the tea whilst stirring. If you don't do this step carefully you may have a volcanic eruption lol. 

Once the lye is fully dissolved, put it to one side near a well ventialted area away from pets and children and allow to cool between 95 - 105 degrees F

While this is cooling measure out all your oils into your crock pot and set to low to melt them. Once these have melted, switch your crock pot off and allow to cool to 95 - 100 degrees F 

When both your Lye liquid and oils are between 95 - 100 degrees F you can mix the two.

Again here you need to proceed with caution, pour CAREFULLY & SLOWLY your lye liquid into your oils which should still be in the crock pot, and stir with your metal spoon to mix. Do this for a couple of mins. 

Now take your stick blender and immerse fully into the oil and lye mixture and mix again, this should take another few mins for the mixture to thicken to 'trace'. Trace basically means your oils and lye water have been thoroughly mixed. It should look like pudding texture. 

Next switch your crock pot back on to the 'low' setting and cook the mixture for a further 60 mins. Keep coming back to check and stir on regular intervals. At this point it should start to look like thick honey and look 'gel' like.. this is perfectly normal. 

Once 'cooked' switch off your crock-pot and add your essential oils, and mix thoroughly. for Mabon purposes I use myrrh and sandalwood, you can use other essential oils that are associated with Mabon, I just like these :) 

Once your essential oils of choice have been thoroughly incorporated into your mixture you can pour it out into your molds of choice. At this point you can add your dried flowers for decorative purposes. I use hibiscus and rose petals. Cover with cling film (this is to prevent any soda ash forming on your soap), and then wrap up with as many old towels needed to keep the heat in for the saponification process to occur. Put to one side and leave to set for 24 hours. 

After the 24hrs has lapsed check your soap, if its not too soft you can un-mold it now if not leave for another day. 

Unmold your soap and cut to desired thickness..

You can now use your soap, or wrap to give as gifts!!

Now If you don't have time or the inclination to make it yourself please visit my shop and purchase yours here

Happy Mabon Witches!!!!

~Opal Storm )O( 

Mabon

Mabon

How are you going to be celebrating this years Mabon? I have been busy leading up to this point, either drying, pickling, cooking and freezing all my herbs medicinal, culinary, and magickal not to mention my vegetables... put it this way we will be eating plum jam till next mabon 2015! 

The changing of the season is upon us, and the Autumn Equinox is here. As we come to mid flow of our harvesting, the fruits of our labors have been picked, and plucked, harvested and stored for the the coming months of winter. As the saying goes 'You reap what you sow'... literally. 

Mabon is the mid-harvest festival where time is taken to honor the changing of the seasons. Celebrations, take place to give thanks for the harvest, and for the gifts the earth has provided to us. It is the Witches Thanksgiving, as the earth is being put to rest when the colder weather starts to set in. This point of the year is also a time to reflect on the past events, finishing up any projects, to plan ahead for the future and for change. 

It is the day of the year where day equals night, where nature gives an equal balance. From an astronomical view point the date may vary slightly from year to year. This year the actual date and time of the Autumnal Equinox is at 20.44 on the 22nd of Sept 2014.  

I do love this time of year, with the changing of the colours, its just so beautiful. The smell of the earth in the air when it rains is now very sweet, as a telling sign that the ground has given all its vitality to our fruits and is ready to go into hibernation, until next year. 

Mabon is a great time for casting spells for balance, harmony and protection. 

Here a few herbs that you could use, for rituals, washes, spellcasting etc:

Mabon Magickal Herbs

Rue, yarrow, rosemary, marigold, sage, walnut 
leaves and husks, mistletoe, hibiscus, saffron, chamomile,
almond leaves, passionflower, frankincense, 
rose hips, bittersweet, sunflower, wheat, oak 
leaves, dried apple or apple seeds.

Incense

Pine, sage, sweetgrass or myrhh. You can also mix 
marigold, passionflower, and fern, using 
frankincense or myrhh as a resin for Mabon incense




Mabon Magickal Stones

During Mabon, stones ruled by the Sun will help 
bring the Sun's energy to you.clear quartz, 
amber, peridot, diamond, gold, citrine, yellow 
topaz, cat's-eye, adventurine.






You can even make your own mabon oil, here is a simple recipe:





4 drops Rosemary
4 drops Frankincense
2 drops Apple
1 drop Chamomile
Use Almond oil as a base






If you don't have the ingredients to hand let me do the work for you just order yours here today and have it ready for your altar in the next few days.






My family recipe is different to the above and has been magickaly charged for your convenience :) 

Another way to incorporate Mabon is with a ritual bath, I have designed a Hot process soap for this purpose. Please order yours today by visiting my shop here, and request a custom order with the word 'Mabon Soap' in the title 

Entering the Magickal World of Mother Nature

Nature excites me, herbs specifically excite me even more!!!

I cannot tell you how I felt just by walking along the grasslands and by the lakes and through the woodlands. My two girls came with me, all be it reluctantly wanting to leave their xbox at home, as the summer holidays are now in full force. Soon they were running around, climbing the trees and helping me gather my supplies (They are the right height after all lol!)

 Nature has always provided us with what we need, and with consumerism we have forgotten the art of whats real and whats not.. Understanding the world around us, takes patience and and the will to learn. We blindly accept that what is sold on the shelves of supermarkets is safe and good for us. This is not entirely true. It has been droned into every modern person, we are a throw away culture, with no real knowledge of the 'actual' world we live in... what happened to us?

We don't know how to make the most basic healing remedies with items that maybe already in our kitchens, or even in our back yard.

Nature on the other hand cannot be downloaded onto a disk, it is felt, it is a knowing, an understanding, a nurturing two way street. Its passing down the knowledge from one person to another.

I went for a wonder to the commons grasslands today to collect what I needed to start what is the beginning of something magickal.

Some may call it hoodoo, others witchraft, alternative, a load of crock or even hubble bubble time... I call it doing what nature knows best; 'Magic'.

Against all odds we are a living breathing planet, that in itself is magic to its highest degree.

Lets go back in time to a place before supermarkets were invented, lets go back to nature.

Today I'm going to share with you the magickal and attributes of these powerful healing herbs that I collected today for different purposes. Click on each link below to take to to the explanations of uses Magickal and Medicinal.

Plantain
Yarrow
Comfrey
Rosemary
Marigold flowers (Calendula)
Echinacea root

(Click back here soon as I haven't updated all of the above herbs with their links yet)

How to make your own triple antibiotic salve, that works way better than the over the counter or prescriptive medications. For all bumps, scrapes, burns, bites, swelling, bruising, stings, poison ivy, eczema, psoriasis.... etc you get the gist :)  

2 cups Almond oil (If you have nut allergies substitute with olive oil)
1 tsp echinacea root
2 tbsp comfrey leaf
2 tbsp plantain
1 tbsp marigold flowers
1 tsp yarrow flowers
1 tsp rosemary leaf
1/4 cup beeswax
1/2 tsp vitamin E
Place herbs in a jar and cover with the oil, and let it steep for 3-4 weeks or in a double boiler for 3 hours on low..
Once this is done strain the herbs through a muslin cloth, put it back on the heat and melt the beeswax.
once done add the vitamin E oil and place in small jars.

This is the natural equivalent to a triple antibiotic cream that will be prescribed by most doctors here in the UK for skin complaints. In the US its equivalent is an over the counter purchase under the name of Neosporin.

This natural herbal healing salve contains no chemicals, no parabens, no petroleum, no artificial fragrances... just oils and herbs and twice as effective.

If you don't want to have a go making your own, let me do the work for you.
Buy your all natural Healing herbal Salve here

BB ~Opal Storm )O(

This post is to guide you with the magical properties and uses of herbs. This is not intended to replace any medical advice, please consult your Doctor before any consumption.

Green fingers love spell

For all of those who have loved and lost, and tried again to to the point of giving up... here's a little helping green fingered hand.

Sowing the seed of love, to attract a special kind of lover :

This spell demonstrates how pouring your love into a little basil plant will ensure a strong love with someone. 

You will need:
A small pot
some earth
some basil seeds

On a waxing moon in late spring or summer, take a few basil seeds and sow them carefully in one or two small pots or containers. As you sow them, sing a sweet song or think loving thoughts, and feel the love entering into your life. Water the seeds lovingly each day until they germinate, saying as you do:
"Sono innamorata, Grazie"

When the seedlings appear, take great care of them, especially if the weather is cold. Place them on a suny windowsill. You mustn't let them die and never use these special plants for cooking, for they are sacred to love.

You will meet a special love within a few months - perhaps the love of your life...

~Opal Storm )O(

#Pagan #Witchcraft #wiccan #spell #magic #themagicofnature

Its all about the laundry

Finding a good laundry detergent has been an absolute mission for both myself and my youngest daughter.

We both suffered badly from eczema, to the point were my daughter at the age of 4 had to have her arms bandaged to stop her from scratching her already cracked bleeding skin. I might as well be dragging her through a bush of nails and needles, that was how bad it had got.

We tried everything the Doctors told us to use on and off prescription. Nothing seemed to work. So I started on a Mothers mission to find a solution.

From diet to creams, from shampoos, soaps and laundry detergents. Since then I haven't looked back.

I now have a healthy, happy 9 year old that can now get on with her day normally, without screaming out in pain.

I am going to share with you all the laundry powder that I now make from scratch, as we don't want to use all those nasty chemical based products, especially on our most prized possessions that have the  most sensitive of skins... our children.

What you will need:
Borax Substitute... this is not BORAX and is completely safe 2.5kg you can find this down the laundry isle
Soda crystals 2kg ... laundry isle
Bicarbonate of soda. (not the baking soda as this has other things in it) try looking on eBay or Amazon to buy this item in bulk as its cheap)
1kg chlorine free oxygenated bleach (this one is optional)
125g - 150g natural soap (for a natural soap you can find this in my shop here:

I shall write up a later post on how to make your own natural soap.

For fragrance you can use whatever essential oil of your choice, I like sweet orange as you can get this one quite cheaply. I add approx 40 drops per wash.

Well there you go! Natural laundry powder!!