Ostata Alter, Blossoming Spread and New Moon Manifestations

Blessed Be everyone.

In my last blog I talked about a new moon manifestation ritual that I was trying to see if the moon and universe would help me to manifest my intentions for the month ahead. I asked for help with my mental health, finding the right job for me and for the continued energy to keep up my walking regime and I do seem to be moving in the right direction (mostly). When you ask the universe for help the expectation is that obviously that you put work in yourself too and job-wise I have been e-mailing every department in the building offering my services (I just realised how bad that sounds 👀) and I think I am finally getting somewhere - cheers universe!).

In other news I was finally able to build my first Sabbath alter for Ostara this week.

Luckily for me one of the suggested themes for the alter are rabbits to correspond to the fertility theme of the celebrations and as a bunny mum/slave bunny trinkets are not something I lack! Another suggestion that I read for Ostata alters are painted eggs and rather than starting a messy art project in my limited space I decided to put my cross-stitch skills into action and sew one instead.

Of course it was also an excuse for more bunny-related crafts!

Thank you to everyone who gave me such lovely feedback on my Twitter page I'm really excited to start planning my Beltane alter.

Last night as part of my Ostara ritual I used the Blossoming Tarot spread from Urban Witchery's Plannoire, you may remember I raved about it in my Making Magic Happen blog last month. 

Absolutely gorgeous just like the rest of the book

The spread asks us to review how the seeds of our manifestations that we planted at the beginning of the year are developing and what we can do to further nurture them.

I got some pretty interesting feed back from the cards including pulling the Five Of Wands and The Tower

Cheers Tarot Deck

The spread was essentially telling me that whilst I am on the right path with nurturing my seeds and am ready to develop my craft more and perhaps start casting my first spells! (I also pulled The Knight Of Swords, Two Of Wands, King Of Pentacles, The Chariot, The World, The Eight Of Pentacles, The Four Of Wands and The Sun) I obviously have a battle and a big change coming my way, which I'm not looking foward to since The Tower reflects a dramatic, potentially shattering change. Hopefully I'll at least gain wisdom from it as my Tarot Guide suggests. 

Let's see how this pans out.......

Blessed be and have a good weekend. 

Love Jen

XxxX

New Moon Manifestations

Hiya guys I hope you're all well?

Today I started a New Moon manifestation for the first time. I'm really excited to see how it turns out.

These were the instructions I found on Pinterest (basically one of my main Wicca teachers at the moment!).

1. Write your hopes, dreams and desires down on a piece of paper. Include as much detail as possible.

2. Read these outside to the New Moon.

3. Thank the universe and moon for listening.

4. Keep the paper in a safe place and repeat this nightly until the full moon.

5. On the night of the full moon read these aloud one more time before burning the paper.

Admittedly I mumbled my list to the moon and universe as I still find talking out loud to the universe and God and Goddess a little uncomfortable as I don't like the sound of my own voice. A lot of my communication is done in my head. My talking did however manifest Esme, my rabbit, who started doing laps of her run to hurry me up with her dinner!

I've placed my piece of paper in the centre of my alter to give it more 'charge'.

I'll let you know at the full moon how my manifestations are coming along. Have a good Wednesday.

Blessed be

Jen
XxxX

Urban Witchery - Making Magic Happen

As a newbie witch I'm always on the lookout for anything that will make my learning path easier or more straightforward so when I discovered Urban Witchery and their Plannoire (the website is currently being updated at the moment - exciting things are afoot!). You can also find them on Twitter and Instagram (so so many pretty pictures!)

The Plannoire is a fantastic tool for planning what you want to achieve over the year and tracking the progress of your intentions. There are northern and southern hemisphere editions so witches all over the world are covered!.

To start with it's just so damn pretty, shallow I know but it's absolutely gorgeous!

Making my alter even prettier!

The pages inside have a lovely, glossy texture to them -

The blurring is my phone not the text btw!

I'd describe it as a cross between an organiser, a journal, a book of shadows and a textbook. There's useful dates of the different sabbats, moon phases, tarot spreads to try and explainations of the celebrations throughout the year. 

Wheel of the year for 2019

All the Imbolc info you need!

Astrology for the year ahead.

Right at the beginning we are asked to think about what our intentions for the year ahead are, what do we want to achieve? What are our dreams?

Doodling space

At the beginning of each month we're asked to jot down what intentions we have for the month and also intentions for the lunar cycle - whichever feels more relevant to you (or of course both!). Not only do we note down our intentions but we're also asked how we'll make the intentions happen, what work do we need to put in? It almost works as a project planner as much as a diary.

This week's questions and moon phases

There is a week to a page starting with the week's moon cast and what it means for us; for example this week we have a new moon in Pieces which is focused on our dreams and intuition. There are questions for us to think about and answer over the week such as "What ways can you develop your intuitions and connection to the craft?". 

I'll admit that some week's the questions are easier for me to answer than others, a couple of weeks ago there were questions about how I saw my ideal future and I actually found this really hard to answer because I'm going through a very bad episode at the moment. But on the plus side it was one of the pushes I had to finally go back to counselling and address my problems. There was also a question about how your craft contributes to your community which as a solo witch wasn't really applicable to me but then lead me to create this blog and my @MuddlingWitch Twitter to try and connect with other witches. 

I also find that when I feel stuck or that I'm not moving foward with any of my manifestations I flick back over the past few weeks and look at my answers to previous questions and notice that yes there are little shoots of progress peeking up above the ground that need to be nurtured and encouraged. 

I'm looking foward to getting further through the year and looking back and seeing what progress I've made. 

I also really recommend checking out the Urban Witchery Coven on Facebook, it's full of lovely people who are really supportive and helpful with any questions I've ever had. 

I really hope that a 2020 Plannoire is in the works as mine has already proven invaluable to me and helped this Muddling Witch to see the path ahead. 

Blessed Be

Jen

XxxX