The Truth About Mabon, Hekate, and Persephone's Descent

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! In The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow, June says proper witching only ever takes three things: the will, the words, and the way. This episode is how I actually write my own spells, through those three: listening for the feeling that lingers, finding words that feel right in your mouth (borrowed, rewritten or talked out with someone you trust), and putting it out into the world as simply as you like. Along the way: the sisters of the book, the maiden, mother and crone, why a spell doesn't need a perfect setup to count, and what spell work has done for my own voice. (Recorded while I was sick, so bear with the voice.) Chapters 0:00 It's still your spell 0:25 The will, the words, and the way 1:09 A conversation with the red heartbeat 2:03 The sisters, and the maiden, mother and crone 4:07 Spells as small as nursery rhymes 5:04 I. The will: the feeling that lingers 6:41 The moment June's will changed 7:59 II. The words: rhyme, scraps and grimoires 8:55 Borrowing spells until they feel right 10:41 III. The way: putting it out there 11:40 It doesn't need to be a full ritual 12:19 Saying it out loud 14:09 Start with the will If you've been wanting to write your own spells but felt like you didn't know enough, or like it had to be complicated to count: start with the will. A rhyme and a match is enough. Join the conversation in the Discord (free): Salt & Sovereignty Patreon: Salt & Sovereignty Instagram & YouTube: Salt & Sovereignty If this meant something to you, following, rating and leaving a review really does help the next person who needs this find us. Until next time, honor the truth that keeps you sovereign. #witchcraft #spellwork #howtocastaspell #theonceandfuturewitches #paganism #saltandsovereignty

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! I've been dry for months, and I suspect some of you have too. This is an honest look at a long quiet season in my deity work with Hekate (Hecate): why I came back to her wanting something, what happened when I tried to audit a month of results, and why a practice built to be unfalsifiable can't tell a gentle absence from a dead one. Along the way: ancient Greek religion's indifference to belief, the healing sanctuaries that carved their cures in stone and never their misses, the monthly supper rite and the one rule I've never broken, and where faith ends and stubbornness begins. (I've been a practicing witch for years; Hekate has been my patron for about a year.) Chapters 0:00 A living relationship, or a dead one? 0:37 I've been dry for months 2:18 An introduction, then a relationship 3:25 Two questions, thirty days later 4:46 Auditing her 5:36 Unfalsifiable by design 6:35 The prediction I wrote down first 7:38 What a long dry stretch is actually like 8:38 Is it all in my head? 10:14 Right practice, not right belief 11:42 The stones that only recorded the hits 13:19 The supper, and the rule I never break 15:12 The cost of being gentle with yourself 16:53 Empty rooms, and the one piece of evidence I have If you're in a spiritual dry spell right now: it doesn't mean you did something wrong. Keep the practice if you can, and let it go if you can't. Neither of those is a verdict. And come tell me, especially if you presumed you were the only one sitting in a quiet stretch. Join the conversation in the Discord (free): Salt & Sovereignty Patreon: Salt & Sovereignty (new Patreon-only show starting the week before Halloween: real paranormal stories, told in the dark, every week) Instagram & YouTube: Salt & Sovereignty If this meant something to you, following, rating and leaving a review really does help the next person who needs this find us. Until next time, honor the truth that keeps you sovereign.

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Most of us speak more than one language to the people we love: the careful voice we save for occasions, and the plain one that shows up at two in the morning. At the top of every ritual I write a line of ancient Greek, one of Hekate's (Hecate's) epithets, and I'm not confident I pronounce any of it right. So what is that line doing on the page? This episode follows that question through the old Egyptian spell books and her many names (Triodītis, Enodia, Phosphoros, Chthonia, Polyōnymos, the "many-named"), the strange "words that aren't words" in those prayers, and an ancient argument that the power was never in the meaning but in the sound. Then three honest answers about what ritual words are for, the one I don't like, and what I call the emergency voice: the one that shows up when there's no time to be heard properly at all. Chapters 0:00 Cold open 0:33 Two voices for the people we love 3:25 Talking to her like an old friend 5:17 One woman, two languages 6:09 What the oldest books say 9:07 Words that aren't words 11:31 Three answers 14:52 How do you tell which one you've been doing? 16:01 The emergency voice 17:33 Borrowed words and the workbook 19:54 The traffic between us 22:38 Something to try 24:14 What's still there when we haven't prepared Something to try: think of who you talk to when nobody's there. Notice which voice you use, and which one comes out when something is genuinely wrong. Then come tell me which voice showed up. Join the conversation in the Discord (free): Salt & Sovereignty Patreon: Salt & Sovereignty (spelled with the ampersand) Instagram & YouTube: Salt & Sovereignty The show is on video on Spotify and YouTube. If this meant something to you, following, rating and leaving a review really does help the next person who needs this find us. Until next time, honor the truth that keeps you sovereign.

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Two weeks ago I walked you through a road opener spell with Hekate (Hecate) in detail. This is the honest follow-up: what happened, what didn't, and the part I skipped. I changed the rite at the altar, the birthday candles went out in their own order, and every photo I took of the working came back as an even, unbroken field of brown. Then I look at the vow I was meant to speak aloud and only thought instead: why saying something out loud is different from thinking it, the one commitment I was protecting, social anxiety, choosing versus avoiding, the stranger who reached out mid-ritual and apologized before hello, and why the cheapest road opened first. If you're wondering how to know if your spell is working, this is what two weeks of watching one actually looked like, including the signs, the silence, and the prediction that didn't come true. Chapters 0:00 The photo that came back brown 0:34 What I did instead 2:04 The night the roads were lit 2:40 The brown photograph 4:11 The second half: a set of commitments 5:04 The vow I thought instead of said 5:42 Why you have to say it out loud 6:40 The room I was protecting 8:11 Choosing not to, or avoiding? 10:58 Did anything move? 11:54 A stranger, before hello 14:36 The arithmetic 16:23 Two weeks in, and tonight's full moon I recorded this on the night of the full moon, the final working of that spell, and it was time I said my vows out loud. If you've ever made a promise to yourself so softly that nobody heard it, come tell me about it. Join the conversation in the Discord (free): Salt & Sovereignty Patreon: Salt & Sovereignty (a free tier and three paid ones; new patrons-only show starting the week before Halloween: real paranormal stories, told properly, in the dark, every week) Instagram & YouTube: Salt & Sovereignty If this meant something to you, following, rating and leaving a review really does help the next person who needs this find us. Until next time, honor the truth that keeps you sovereign. #hekate #roadopener #witchcraft #spellwork #hecate #deipnon #saltandsovereignty

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! I spent the better part of an hour in front of an empty box, unable to type a price. It wasn't my principles that stopped me. It was a much older sentence about the kind of person I am with money. In this episode I look at what I found when I went back to the thing I'd been building: layer after layer of extra promises, piled on so that nobody could say I was asking for too much. I've started calling it the stack. It's the favor returned in advance, the apology before the question, the explanation nobody asked for. It's everything we pile on top of a request so we never have to make it plainly. Along the way: money shame that got passed down without anyone meaning it to, the quiet rule that says being paid for spiritual work makes it less real, and why a lifetime of yeses we worked for leaves us with no clean evidence about our own worth. Chapters 0:00 If every yes came after you'd stacked something 0:29 Beliefs that sound like principles 1:39 An hour in front of an empty box 3:47 An old sentence about money 6:43 The scaffolding I built instead 9:20 The stack 12:08 Not one clean data point 13:07 When "free" is also a hiding place 14:05 When your principles and your wounds agree 16:05 The rule nobody agreed to 17:14 I want this to be my job 21:21 Something to try 22:21 What's changing, and what isn't 23:11 A much older habit Something to try: think of something you'd charge for if somebody else were doing it. Put an actual number on it, quietly, in your own head. Then notice what your body does, and whether you start stacking. I'd love to hear what happened. Not the number. That one's yours. The free feed stays free, and the rite I write each month still goes out to everyone. Join the conversation in the Discord (free): Salt & Sovereignty Patreon: Salt & Sovereignty Instagram & YouTube: @saltandsovereignty If this meant something to you, following, rating and leaving a review really does help the next person who needs this find us. Until next time, honor the truth that keeps you sovereign. #selfworth #peoplepleasing #moneyshame #spirituality #witchcraft #paganism #saltandsovereignty