“ Ah, how shall I do it? Oh, I know. I’ll turn him into a flea, a harmless, little flea, and then I’ll put that flea in a box, and then I’ll put that box inside of another box, and then I’ll mail that box to myself, and when it arrives… …I’ll smash it with a hammer! It’s brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, I tell you! Genius, I say!”
1. Make a poppet or something in the likeness of your target. Make it very small.
2. Put poppet in a box and mark it ‘flea.’
3. Put the box in another box.
4. Mail it to yourself or have another friend deliver it.
Clay/mud/something you can mold and that hardens but isn’t harmful to the environment
A picture of the person/their full name and birthday
Any herbs/oils/salts/rusty nails/war water/whatever else you feel would enhance the spell
A ‘Fuck You’ song
Rage
What you do:
Take your picture and rip it up into large pieces that can be put back together like a puzzle.
Then take your clay and just abuse the hell out of it. Pour your anger and frustration into it. Tell the clay all the reasons you want to fuck this guy’s life over. Eventually start to form two halves of your grenade (like when making one of those round bathbombs).
Between the two halves, place your ripped picture as complete as you can make it. Add your extra stuff at this point as well. Bonus points for if you add bang snaps.
Fit the two halves together so they stick and let the whole thing dry. If you want to carve sigils or other words on the outside, now is the time.
It’s generally going to take at least 24 hours for this thing to dry thoroughly, so now would be a good time to charge it under the sun/moon/your chosen sigil, if you choose
Go someplace that’s really good for throwing shit on or at. A brick wall, a tall place, whatever. Pick a spot to throw your grenade at, visualize that person standing there, and sing the ‘Fuck You’ song at them.
When you’re done, make a promise to them that their life is gonna go to shit to reflect the shit human being they already are and hurl the grenade at that place as hard as you can. Watch it smash. The picture inside should break apart and your grenade should be in pieces.
Sit back and watch their life fall apart around them
Witchy ceramicist here! If using clay, when you put the grenade together, go ahead and take something sharp (like a needle, twig, whatever) and score slashes all around the seam of the two halves. Make sure they are deep. Then really smooth is all over with your fingers until it looks like one cohesive piece.
Clay has a habit of cracking where there are air pockets in the clay when you dry it as rapidly as in 24 hours. While small cracks would obviously not be a problem, you don’t want it to be big enough to break your Fuck You Grenade open and ruin the spell. Plus, stabbing the fuck outta it with something sharp would probably feel very good. Just be careful of your sweet hands.
SIDE NOTE: Clay is very drying. Make sure you put some lotion on when you’re done. ❤️❤️❤️
Looking for an easy to travel with, discreet alternative to spell bottles/satchels?
Allow me to introduce Spell Pods!
After removing the chapstick, cutting out the plastic separator, and thoroughly cleaning the container, EOS chapstick containers are an excellent substitute for bottle or satchels.
They are easy to carry, can hold a lot of ingredients, and are not suspicious.
ouija board or crystal ball? crystal grids or spell jars? moon water or rain water? tarot or palmistry? dusk or dawn? blessings or curses? sea or mountains? full moon or new moon? altar or grimoire?
My practice is eclectic. I use what works and I draw from as many sources as I can get my hands on, with some limits. But I think at its root, my eclectic practice is due to having a distinct loss of culture after a few generations of erasure, usually self-imposed.
That’s the tl;dr. Let me back up.
I’m an American, but my genes are mostly Norwegian. The other major inputs are English, German, and Scots-Irish. I am in the unlucky position where most culture that my family had was buried in favor of becoming Generic White American to try and make their children successful. It seemed to have happened almost universally, across all sides of my family, between the generation of my grandparents and their parents. What culture bits I do have, I have had to either pry out of family hands, or learn as an adult that something I’ve always done is a cultural thing.
At the same time, I know that no matter how much I learn about the European-American cultures that “belong” to me (or at least my genes, anyway), most of their traditions won’t be a part of me because I wasn’t raised on them. It’s a strange kind of hurt. I can adopt them, I can revive them for the family, I can try to reconnect us for future generations. Those future generations will have that culture. I won’t.
As a result, what cultural things I was raised with I am holding on to with a white-knuckle grip. I try to accept the localness and newness of the culture I was raised in, just being here, in my state. It’s me, after all. I am who I am; I’m not the things I want, no matter how much I wish I were. I’m still the result of my ancestors and what they did, and I can’t lose that. I’ve come to terms with who I am and the culture I’ve got already.
The problem: that culture has fuck all to do with magic.
So where do I go for my magic? Where do I find those traditions? Eclecticism. “Cherry-picking,” to those who hate it. Things from my own familial background and open practices and long-dead men. Gods that find me. Whatever works. Try it all, find what works, write it down. Try it all, try it all. Building my own practice around nothing but me, because when it comes to magic, I’m all I’ve got.
I see eclectic witches criticized a lot, and I do get it. I’ve been annoyed by people who do it with a flippant attitude (but I leave them alone). Consider, however, a lot of eclectic practitioners are people like me! A lot of them, perhaps most of them. My experience is far from uncommon. People whose grandparents spoke a language they never taught their children. Whose grandparents were too caught up in The War to pass on traditions. Whose great-grandparents completely forbade their children from speaking the old language except on holidays, and even then only for prayers or speaking to elders who didn’t speak English well. Whose great-grandparents left the deep mountains for the city and left their rootwork behind. Whose family tried so hard to neutralize, neutralize, neutralize their children in the desperate hope that they won’t seem too weird for that job they want.
(And there the generational timing comes into play: my great-grandparents, apparently on all sides, influenced by the Great Depression, did everything they could to un-Other their children to give them even the slightest perceived advantage, heritage be damned, because it was more important to eat and survive. White people could be un-Othered, besides a name or distinct face, so they did it.)
They thought they were doing the right thing. I’m not going to judge them for it. Perhaps they really did impart an economic or social advantage to their children. Regardless, it’s a strange feeling to have culture denied you by your own family. Others have had their culture erased under far more horrific circumstances by enemies and conquerors. By no means do I feel disadvantaged or something, I just feel sad and empty over it, since it was my own family who did it. Whether it was right or not, it happened, and here I am now, a smudged blackboard of hastily hidden peoples with hints of the words my family wrote.
With magic, I have no choice but to be eclectic, especially if I want to try and honor the different sides of my family. I have to study it by myself too; don’t think for one minute I could have found a traditional practitioner from one of the old countries, or even German Appalachia, to take me in and teach me like I belong there. I’m a foreigner, regardless of heritage, and especially because my family didn’t keep the traditions. When it comes to magic, I’m on my own. I’m all I’ve got.
And that’s okay.
Shit, this is me. My grandparents and parents did absolutely everything they could to remove ALL traces of our Irish and Romani heritage when they came here. They changed our names. In some cases they literally burned the evidence.
I’ve always considered my practice very eclectic, because what I have is what I’m able to teach myself. My foray into Irish polytheism is an attempt to get back some of what was lost.
Damn that’s awful. I hope you can find more of what you lost.
I honestly don’t know what it is my family lost. There’s just nothing there. Mine is eclectic because of that and because even though I am the product of my ancestors, I am not them. I will learn and grow on my own path. Whatever is to come, I will at least know I am who I made myself.
My practice is eclectic. I use what works and I draw from as many sources as I can get my hands on, with some limits. But I think at its root, my eclectic practice is due to having a distinct loss of culture after a few generations of erasure, usually self-imposed.
That’s the tl;dr. Let me back up.
I’m an American, but my genes are mostly Norwegian. The other major inputs are English, German, and Scots-Irish. I am in the unlucky position where most culture that my family had was buried in favor of becoming Generic White American to try and make their children successful. It seemed to have happened almost universally, across all sides of my family, between the generation of my grandparents and their parents. What culture bits I do have, I have had to either pry out of family hands, or learn as an adult that something I’ve always done is a cultural thing.
At the same time, I know that no matter how much I learn about the European-American cultures that “belong” to me (or at least my genes, anyway), most of their traditions won’t be a part of me because I wasn’t raised on them. It’s a strange kind of hurt. I can adopt them, I can revive them for the family, I can try to reconnect us for future generations. Those future generations will have that culture. I won’t.
As a result, what cultural things I was raised with I am holding on to with a white-knuckle grip. I try to accept the localness and newness of the culture I was raised in, just being here, in my state. It’s me, after all. I am who I am; I’m not the things I want, no matter how much I wish I were. I’m still the result of my ancestors and what they did, and I can’t lose that. I’ve come to terms with who I am and the culture I’ve got already.
The problem: that culture has fuck all to do with magic.
So where do I go for my magic? Where do I find those traditions? Eclecticism. “Cherry-picking,” to those who hate it. Things from my own familial background and open practices and long-dead men. Gods that find me. Whatever works. Try it all, find what works, write it down. Try it all, try it all. Building my own practice around nothing but me, because when it comes to magic, I’m all I’ve got.
I see eclectic witches criticized a lot, and I do get it. I’ve been annoyed by people who do it with a flippant attitude (but I leave them alone). Consider, however, a lot of eclectic practitioners are people like me! A lot of them, perhaps most of them. My experience is far from uncommon. People whose grandparents spoke a language they never taught their children. Whose grandparents were too caught up in The War to pass on traditions. Whose great-grandparents completely forbade their children from speaking the old language except on holidays, and even then only for prayers or speaking to elders who didn’t speak English well. Whose great-grandparents left the deep mountains for the city and left their rootwork behind. Whose family tried so hard to neutralize, neutralize, neutralize their children in the desperate hope that they won’t seem too weird for that job they want.
(And there the generational timing comes into play: my great-grandparents, apparently on all sides, influenced by the Great Depression, did everything they could to un-Other their children to give them even the slightest perceived advantage, heritage be damned, because it was more important to eat and survive. White people could be un-Othered, besides a name or distinct face, so they did it.)
They thought they were doing the right thing. I’m not going to judge them for it. Perhaps they really did impart an economic or social advantage to their children. Regardless, it’s a strange feeling to have culture denied you by your own family. Others have had their culture erased under far more horrific circumstances by enemies and conquerors. By no means do I feel disadvantaged or something, I just feel sad and empty over it, since it was my own family who did it. Whether it was right or not, it happened, and here I am now, a smudged blackboard of hastily hidden peoples with hints of the words my family wrote.
With magic, I have no choice but to be eclectic, especially if I want to try and honor the different sides of my family. I have to study it by myself too; don’t think for one minute I could have found a traditional practitioner from one of the old countries, or even German Appalachia, to take me in and teach me like I belong there. I’m a foreigner, regardless of heritage, and especially because my family didn’t keep the traditions. When it comes to magic, I’m on my own. I’m all I’ve got.
may the bridges I burn light the way 