🌚Tonight is the new moon!🌚 a time to set intentions/goals for yourself, and to take time to leave the bad in the past. Picture what you want to come true for yourself in the next coming months! And remember to always say what you are grateful for. ❤️ happy new moon! ✨🌙
Transitions between the Wheel (For the four seasons)
This is from my personal practice with observing the wheel of the year and my focus on each transition between the sabbats. I honor the current seasons in between. Each transition has it’s importance to self care and managing the home and garden. I will probably add to this later cause some paragraphs I wrote I feel like are a bit vague. Some of these transitions are not meant to be 100% literal and static but I feel like they are good areas to focus on for that moment in the year.
Yule->Imbolc Resting
During the thick of winter when it’s too cold to do anything and always dark, it’s the perfect moment in the year to rest. The focus is on relaxing, taking extra time to sleep and care for the body especially to not get sick. Winter is also ‘spa’ season because the air is so dry and harsh it’s a good time to soak in hot baths and scrub away dead skin and moisturize with protective lotion. Do not try to make new plans, yet sit home, rest and reflect.
Imbolc -> Ostara Cleansing
When winter thaws it’s a great time to clean the home and prepare for spring. Personally, I also like to do a body cleanse since I tend to eat a lot of processed (yet delicious ;-;) foods all year round. This also makes up for all the heavy foods I’ve been eating since Summer (all the BBQs) to Winter comfort foods. As I clean the home and get rid of stuff that has accumulated over the year, I clean the body. Also the focus is on cleaning the home as well. Breathing in the same air, especially if its full of dust, is really unhealthy and it’s good as the days are getting a little warmer to open up the windows for a few minutes to allow in fresh air to circulate. This is also the time of year I throw out old furniture, accumulated things and rearrange furniture in the room as well.
Ostara -> Beltane Sowing
Spring is a great time to germinate sprouts along with other seeds and clean the backyard or garden to grow plants. If you like to compost it’s a time to start mixing in the vegetable/fruit/plant scraps with the soil. Spring is also a great time to sow bigger changes in life as well. Something about the warm new season brings an air of flirtatiousness and ‘socialness’ that makes it perfect for making new friends or finding a partner. (Probably because people can finally come out of hibernation). It’s also a fantastic time to work on your image and portfolio and apply for long term jobs that begin in the summer or fall. Spring is the season for new beginnings and putting long term plans into action.
Beltane -> Litha Growing
A tradition I like to do on Beltane is repotting of plants and gardening. Repotting plants is a tradition I try to focus on every year because it’s very easy for house plants to die due to dead soil. Plus it makes the inside of the house super vibrant and lively to have fresh new soil in pots. From this point to summer solstice is the point of growth. Growth in the garden but also growth of personal goals. May and June feel like hectic months where there are so many events and opportunities to advance your work or change your social scene, that if I am not personally progressing, I focus all of my attention on my growth.
Litha -> Lughnasadh Thriving
Its the heat of summer! It’s time to get out and feel the intense hot energy and use its power to focus on goals and networking! Where I am there’s usually an exciting event every week where it’s an opportunity to make more connections and meet more friends but also since its warm and nature is so vibrant it’s time to take some days to relax and get away to enjoy the heat and life of nature. Go to the beach, go hiking, swim in a lake, sleep under the stars. Be active since the efforts will pay off.
Lughnasadh
-> Mabon Reaping
This is the time you earn what you’ve sowed both literally and metaphorically. If you have a garden its the time it will start giving back. If you are an active goer of a farmers market you will notice how beautifully abundant the stands are. If in Spring you’ve sent out tons of job applications, and in Summer got the job you’ve wanted and worked hard, then by now you should start seeing some results. If there are no results being seen it’s a time for reflection and re-strategizing. There is a second chance in this time to start again before the cold and the holiday season bulldozes through.
Mabon -> Samhain Harvesting/Gathering
This is the time to gather and harvest. Usually family tends to gather now since it’s the holiday season. There’s not much other than gathering to be done since family and holidays are bombarding you from all sides. Also there is an abundance of food. This is great to store for the next transition which is
Samhain -> Yule Preparation
This is the moment to prepare for winter. My warddrobe completely changes here, I take up knitting projects that were abandoned last Imbolc, and I store food and herbs for the winter to use. Also making preserves from things in the garden or hand knitting clothes make great presents for the winter holidays. This is also a time to prepare the garden for hibernation. Take in potted plants, harvest the last of the herbs and food (that are not potted). Make sure plants you do not want to die have a place to chill in the house.
Not enough witchy attention gets paid to the time in between festivals. This post is gold.
When I started practising, one of the first things I did was put correspondence lists into my grimoire. Or, I tried to. You see, correspondences are individual. To some extent, they’re based on history, folklore, mythology and medicine - but they’re also highly personal. You can look at ten different correspondence tables for the same herb, and depending on the herb, you’ll get similar answers - but you can also get highly divergent ones. The result? I ended up writing 5-20 different correspondences for a bunch of herbs and crystals that I had never even heard of. Do I remember them now, 7 years on? Hell no.
There’s a few problems with this:
You don’t know which source to trust.
Sources may totally conflict.
You don’t know why those correspondences are listed.
You won’t know what you can and can’t swap out of a spell.
Correspondence tables often don’t provide sources or reasoning.
You may not have those associations, so they may not actually help you.
Correspondences are tools. They help you to focus your intent in your craft. What’s the point in getting the “right” colour, herb, crystal, element, and moon phase for every spell when you don’t understand why you’re using them, or they don’t help you focus your intent?
So, what’s the solution? Figure out your own correspondences.
This doesn’t have to be difficult! Let’s say I’m doing a spell because I have a cold. For me, being sick is associated with soup, lemon, orange, honey and ginger - because my Nan used to make me a hot drink with the last few ingredients in it. So maybe I’ll make that drink, or maybe I’ll make soup with fresh ginger in it. I’ll stir the pot widdershins first, to “banish” the sickness (because I associate counter clockwise with banishment or getting rid of something), then deosil to “bring” or “grow” my health (because those are my associations for clockwise). See? Easy!
Okay, so how exactly do you come up with correspondences?
Well, some of them are pretty immediate. Think associating mistletoe with Christmas, or plants in your area that only bloom at certain points of the year. You can also consider:
history, mythology and folklore: throughout history, there have been associations with certain plants, colours etc. that you can read up on. Some examples include associating purple with wealth or success because the dye for purple clothing was highly expensive (Roman emperors wore it) and associating rosemary with remembrance, as mentioned in Hamlet.
medicinal properties: even if you aren’t interested in herbalism, you could include plants with medicinal properties in healing spells.
local associations: this is pretty likely to cross over with history and folklore, but considering local associations is important, too - especially since associations in world history and mythology may not apply to you and your path. You might also have certain associations with “local” in a general sense (see my post about food correspondences below).
cultural associations: think “pumpkin” for October, even in countries where aren’t particularly common. Are there any cultural associations that you have with particular things? (These may be some of your “stronger” associations.)
personal associations: what’s your personal experience? Did you fall into a rosebush as a kid, so you’d rather associate roses with pain than with love? Did your first crush give you a green handbag, so green is a colour of love for you? What do you find comforting?
These aren’t the only aspects to consider, but it’s a starting point. Depending on the type of correspondence you’re looking for, you could consider other aspects, too (like farming calendars for month associations and seasonal foods).
This isn’t to say there’s anything wrong with using or posting correspondence lists - I’ve posted some myself. They can be really useful - but be aware that those are someone else’s correspondences, not yours, and they may not work the same way for you as they do for someone else - and that’s okay! You have your own resources and your own experiences, and it’s your craft.
I hope this helps! Check out my other posts about coming up with your own correspondences:
TO BIND- wrap in black thread, drip wax over, or seal in a jar and hide it in the dark.
TO BANISH- burn an effect to ash and sweep off the back door step, cast it out a window, or bury in the ground and spit on it
TO ENCOURAGE- plant it by the front door/steps, bury by a window, or place it on a windowsill
TO HIDE- place in a jar painted black, cover with cloth and bury, or wrap with a ribbon
TO CLEANSE- bury it in a bowl of salt, burn herbs and pass through the smoke, or lay it in a moonwater bath
TO GLAMOUR- leave under the full moon, hold its reflection over a mirror with herbs, or
TO WISH- place before a candle and blow it out, drown a coin in water, or let seeds blow into the wind
TO COMMUNICATE- (with a spirit or deity) - anoint a candle, leave out offerings, or open the front doors and windows
TO WARD- leave part of the spell in four corners, draw lines around the protected area, or plant an object of projection in the north, east, south, and west edges
TO CURSE- spit on it, drag your nails down it, or stick sharp things in it
TO DISCOURAGE - plant or bury by the back door, or burn to ash
TO JINX- say it three times out loud, or say a word the same time as someone else
TO MANIPULATE - use wax, use poppets, or tie several strings to pieces of an effect
TO BENEFIT - light a candle, charge a crystal, or create a talisman
