Went down to the local Hobby Lobby to check the prices on their leather craft stuff. Found a belt buckle kit, a belt blank, and a small knife pouch that might fit my wands. All I need to find now is a couple of nice pouches, not that I can't make them myself. What's neat is that all this stuff is customizable, so I can cover them with whatever designs I want, once I figure out how that sort of stuff is done (I've never tooled leather before).

They've also got a good price on parchment paper. I've got a 3-ring binder that I plan on turning into a personal grimoire (despite all my previous plans on grimoire creation that flopped). I have multiple dividers for this one so that I can store more topics. It's also a window binder, so I get to design my own cover and spine XD Yay craftiness!

And in other news... I just realized that I could print off a page of secret messages and then cut the paper into strips, then fold the strips up into wishing stars, rather than taking the strips and trying to write the messages on them by hand. Faster, neater, and the writing will come out much more legible. Plus I get to play with fonts and font effects. :D Time for some more glamourbombing!

For this part of the tour, we take a look at the magickal bookshelf.

 

Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard by Oberon Zell-Ravenheart

This has a lot of stuff on the basics for just about... everything. Very easy for me to pick up and start leafing through, hard to put down as I could be browsing through this title all day reading. Oriented towards young people wanting to begin magickal study and offers a pretty good starter course. I often refer to it for correspondences and astrological info.

 

Companion for the Apprentice Wizard by Oberon Zell-Ravenheart

I had purchased this one first when the former wasn't available. Basically an add-on to the Grimoire, includes lots of activities and craft guides, and a few more chapters on social matters, magickal practice, and other nifty stuff.

 

Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs by Scott Cunningham

Extremely handy as it includes a wide range of plants, spices, and herbs with their correspondences and various uses in magickal work. Small enough to hide in a backpack or purse.

 

The Encyclopedia of Crystals by Judy Hall

Big book, but they need to be able to show clear color photos of crystals somehow. Great resource for finding out the function of various crystals, although it's a bit hard to navigate without using the index. Includes astrological and chakra correspondences.

 

Magical Spells for your Home by Anne-Marie Gallagher

My first book on magick; basically a book of spells for use on the various rooms of the household and property. Some protection, some personal empowerment, some healing... basic stuff.

I don't have enough pictures of my stuff. Here are some more pictures of my stuff.

 

These are the wands I use. I had tried wooden wands for some time, but for some reason they just weren't practical enough, and I really needed something I could hide in my pocket and work more like a pencil or stylus rather than a conductor's baton. The crystal on the left is a quartz, which I have various uses for including storing energy and information, acting as a crystal trap for minor negative entities, and as a physical form for a servitor. The wand on the right is green/purple fluorite and is used mainly for healing and cleansing the aura.

 

This is a talisman... or probably an amulet... that I "constructed" out of an old necklace that used to belong to my Sagittarian grandmother. It came with three colored plastic eggs that fit inside of it, but I figured that by itself it could be used to contain anything that wouldn't slip through the spaces in the filigree. It is made of brass, which basically has all the magickal properties of gold and is a cheaper alternative to such. Recently I have taken to keeping a tiny lapis lazuli crystal inside of it, which makes it really powerful in terms of empowerment and protection capabilities. I also have a clear quartz, a citrine, a black tourmaline, a mookite, an emerald, and a botswana agate that are small enough to fit inside the egg.

 

Sorry this photo came out a little blurry. This is a candleholder cut out of a geode. It takes votive candles. When the candle is lit, the light refracts out through the crystal in the geode and looks very pretty. I use this to burn the single mandatory candle that I light for all magickal work.

 

This is a candleholder designed to take spell candles. Of course I only use this when I need to burn one of these candles for a spell working. It gets really hot when I do this, so I have to place it on something to protect the table from getting singed. This holder is somewhere around an inch tall.

 

And this is my incense burner, which takes cones. It's one of those that you find at Wal-Mart besides the Buddha one. I interpret it as the five-headed dragon goddess of chaos, Tiamat. Usually only the top head emits the smoke, but if I have three cones burning at once, I can get three to four heads to put out smoke.

 

This concludes part one of our tour.

I've seen this often when reading up on totem info, and just recently came across it on Whispr's blog. I'm going to give it a shot here.

 

Answer these questions to help you discover the Animal Totems in your life. For Journey and Message Animal Totems you will have to often ask yourself the same questions. Remember that you may not currently have a Journey or Message totem. And finding out your Life animal totem is not always easy. When answering these questions you may have more than one answer per question, just don't start listing out all animals - only the ones that are really important to you. Follow your instincts when answering the question - when in doubt, don't.

 

Life Long Animal Totems

When you were a child, what animal did you collect or obsess over that you are still attracted to today?

Dragons, dragons, dragons.

Of all animals if you could have any animal as a pet or companion what would it be?

As of right now, African pygmy hedgehog, but I think they're banned here.

When going to the zoo, which animal do you spend the most time with or are drawn to?

I don't go often at all... Definitely the pandas, though I like the herpetarium too.

If you could be any animal what animal would it be?

Besides the one I am? Oh... dragon.

What animal is in your dreams that you have had since childhood?

I don't recall dreaming of animals much. Cats have come up once or twice.

What animal are you afraid of that you have no idea why you are afraid of it?

Most animals I'm afraid of, I have a reason. Probably adult junebugs.

Of all animals what animals are you most attracted to?

Cats.

When you are out in nature, do you often seem to run into the same animal?

Bugs, definitely. Birds, sometimes. Anything else, rarely.

What animal have you bumped into over and over throughout your life?

Panthers.

What animal have you watched for hours?

Definitely fish.

 

Does art work or jewelry with a certain animal always attract you?

Dragons.

 

You Life Long Animal Totem will be the animal that you answered at least three times out of the eleven questions. The more times the same animal is listed in your answers the more important and stronger it is in your life. The one that appeared most is your current Animal Spirit totem.

LOL, dragons. XD

Journey Animal Totems

 

What animal have you started to see occasionally that you never saw before?

Hedgehogs don't count. Maybe... crows.

What new animal are you attracted to?

Dolphins.

Are you dreaming of an animal lately?

Last night it was a hedgehog. Rather recently, actually, hedgehogs.

Are you thinking about an animal lately?

Haha, hedgehog...

In the past two weeks what animals have you seen or dreamt of several times?

I don't remember any of my dreams from that time period, besides the hedgehog ones.

If you have a Journey Animal Totem you will have answered at least three of the questions with the same animal. Blessings on your new path.

@#$% it, Sonic... XD XD XD

 

Message Animal Totems

 

What animal surprised or startled you today?

Butterfly, maybe.

What animal that you don't usually see, have you seen a couple of times today?

Hum... one dead raccoon...

What animal entranced you today?

None.

If you answered the same animal to two question then this animal is your Message Totem with a very important message. Heed it's word quickly for the message is for now and today. If you only answered one question then this is a message you should still consider.

Aw darn.

 

Shadow Animal Totems

What animal attacks have you been in?

Cats, dogs, nothing out of the ordinary.

What scary or traumatic animal situations have you been in?

Can't remember any (too traumatic, probably).

Does seeing a certain animal bring up feelings of fear?

Wasps.

What animal do you run from?

WASPS.

What animals do you have reoccurring nightmares about?

None.

Does just watching TV with that animal appearing scare you?

...Yes.

 

Answering two questions with the same animal means you have a Shadow Totem you must address. Remember that the Shadow Totem will continually test you and work against you for you are it's prey. You must embrace the lesson of the animal totem and conquer your fear, accept the power of the Shadow totem, and bring it into the light as your spiritual totem. Now that you know what your Animal Totem is, you need to work with it.

Damn wasps. ><

Sorry I've been gone so long. I hope I didn't frighten anybody with that post about Bear's death and then disappearing for months on end. I've just been... concentrating on other things. Mostly artsy things.

 

I don't do much magickal or pagan art but if I ever get the inclination, I'll post whatever I do.

 

I've been focusing mostly on thoughtforms and tulpas recently. They mostly feature in Chaos magick and Tibetan mysticism, but the concept can be applied to just about any path, the way I see it. Traditional magickal spells generate thoughtforms, for example, when you charge up energy and send it out for a specific purpose. Prayer and group meditation create such critters as well, though we don't often focus on that as the purpose for doing so. Rituals and dances and other such major outpourings of energy for various purposes create critters from our focused thoughts and movements. And so on and so on.

 

I've started keeping a journal on thoughtforms I come across. I'm sensitive to such stuff as an empath, and I have really strong visualization skills, and I want to use them to see how well I can detect these critters and perhaps interact with them. I gave it a shot yesterday as I had to go around town running errands; on two instances where I had to wait for a while on something (an order of hummus at a restaurant, then standing in line at a supermarket) I meditated with a quartz wand and was able to visualize what I perceived to be a thoughtform. Not sure if I should publish the full extent of what I "saw" as I feel like I should get the critters' permission to do so, but I can go so far as to say I had an experience.