@Phoenix_Rose Thankyou, I love your quotes. Here’s my favourite: If at first you don’t succeed try try again - The Rescuers Disney 
@georgia So true, climb that tree. 
@john1 Lovely 
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Great entry! I love that last quote. “You can live dying or die living”. This has been my motto for years!
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Love this! Do you also write on the bay leaf? I’ve done similar but just wrote on the bay leaf and not on paper. Also, (sorry for the questions) do you find spells work better using parchment paper or don’t it make a difference?
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Ooooohhh, I like this quote!!!
Great entry also. I can relate.
Thank you for correcting that quote. (My will is as strong as yours…) 
I felt something was off but it was late and as I said sometimes I paraphrase just enough to remind myself of the point. 
Nice spell @john1!
That is a great quote too @tracyS
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Challenge Entry - Wisdom of the Witches
The Freedom Spell
One thing I would like all witches to know is that there is a lot of negativity out there, and if you dwell on it, you will attract more!
I was looking for ideas for a spell to break a bad habit when I came across a book on Internet Archive called Everyday witchcraft: magic and spells to enchant a modern woman’s life by Kirsten Riddle (2007).
One spell said to write your bad habit on an egg shell, put it on newspaper and stomp on it, and then take it out of the house. I liked the idea of stomping, very physical. (Her chant was the inspiration for the second half of the chant for my spell below.)
What bothers me about banishing spells is that the atmosphere is negative, and the void created by the banishing might attract more negativity. Instead of telling the Universe (or your subconscious if that’s how you feel it all works) what you do not want, would it not be better to tell it what you do want? There would be more clarity and positivity in the working space.
Lately I have been having a litany of bad memories, nothing horrendous, just silly stuff from way back like the slights, bullying, mishaps, injuries, threats, insults, etc. I do not feel that strongly about any of it. I just daydream and then when I snap out of it, I think “well that was a waste of time, going over all that #$%&!”
I decided to do a two part spell to banish the negativity and replace it with positivity and happy thoughts.
I performed the Freedom Spell during Aquarius (Sagittarius or a Saturday or Sunday would also work).
I used:
a black candle for defense and negativity,
an orange candle for freedom, transformation, and well-being,
images of reindeer, owl, and butterfly for freedom,
a wand of hawthorn for defense, happiness and protection, and
a wooden tile painted half black and half orange with the Haglaz/Hagal 
rune for evolution and a positive result.
During my ritual I consecrated the tile.
I lit the black candle and visualized it absorbing all the negativity, while saying:
Of childhood mishaps and of old time regrets
Actions of bullies and memories of threats
I no longer think and I no longer feel,
My will is as strong as many bands of steel.
I snuffed the black candle, and lit the orange candle, and said:
Be gone from my life, I am no longer tied.
From this moment on I am free to decide.
Be gone from my life, be gone far away.
This is a fresh start, a brand new day.
I sat for a while and counted my blessings, and thought of some of the happy times in my life. There were many successes, accolades, and peaceful moments that I could be focusing on.
When I was ready, I snuffed the orange candle, and closed my ritual in my usual manner.
The spell worked. I found peace. May it work for you. 
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Bahahaha- I went to update my quote book and I have it right in my quote book. lol I must have been tired to have copied from my notebook and still got it wrong!! 
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LOVE THIS!!! I have booked marked it and will be doing it this week!!!
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This is lovely
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You’re fine. When we were young, we called forgetting details a “brain fart.” Now that we’re older, we call it a “senior moment.” It happens all the time at every age.
I think that’s what might be happening, here. Great point! At first, banishing worked well, but it did make a mess the more I did. I just thought the negativity was deeper than first expected. Perhaps every banishing could come with a reminder to do a positivity building afterward?
That happens. I like the George Bernard Shaw quote, too!
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Ah yes, I heard about that! Scary stuff
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I do write on the bayleaf but these past few readings i have not. I forgot to say I put a string of my hair with it to
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Yup! That is the point I was making. Fill the void you make from banishing the negative item by stating the positive item you are attracting.
Note the “are”. State intention in the present tense. To say “I will not smoke anymore” is a weaker statement than “I am smoke free.” Some of my research suggests that the “not” is missed by the subconscious which works more from symbols than words, so it is important to visualize what you desire rather than dwelling on what you are trying to avoid.
Also “I will” pushes the intention into the future causing delay or failure of the spell!
The “no longer” phrases in my spell bothered me, but I liked the cadence so I left it in. I may rewrite that part some day. The spell did work as it was, probably because the last three lines were strong.
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Filling the void is also a nice thing to do after completing shadow work, too. The kind where we address and let go of things. 
I particularly liked this one:
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Great spell! 
I just had a thought. Am I doing shadow work with every spell I do?
I was once told that every action we do can be traced back to fear.
Success spells because we fear failure.
Prosperity spells because we fear poverty.
Love spells because we fear loneliness.
On and on.
Without fear would we have motivation, courage, …
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Something I’d like to share is cut flower care. I stumbled on this by accident.
A neighbor was going in for heart surgery. He’d bought a dozen roses for his sisters in case this was his last chance to communicate with them. The doctor described the surgery as killing parts of the heart to strengthen others, and retained the right to go back in to do more if the initial procedure didn’t work. He had extra flowers, which he gave to several of us in the lobby.
All I had to hold water for the rose was a bottle which still contained a bit of Kool Aid. I didn’t rinse the bottle, just added water and the rose to it.
I’ve heard of people adding aspirin to a vase to help flowers last longer, but never sugar. Turned out to be a preservative which worked really well.
My apartment is kept at a steady temperature for my bird. This is also healthy for cut flowers. Since my windows face north, very little sunshine hit the rose.
If you watch the stem of a cut flower, it will change color to let you know when the water needs to be changed: the green is not as bright. When I changed water, I cut off half an inch of the stem, at an angle, to allow the stem to draw more water. Afterward, I could see the stem returning to it’s brighter color.
Meanwhile, the others who had received flowers came to visit. They had all lost their flowers long before mine faded.
The leaves dried and fell off, but the flower itself was still bright. I kept taking care if it. The petals began turning brown on the edges, but I noticed new leaves growing on the previous leaf scars! No roots, but I was willing to hope the stem could be planted and grow.
I don’t have a place to plant the rose. It was a rough decision, but I saw how the petals were crisping without falling or wilting, so I chose to pull the stem from its bottle and let it sit on a bookshelf, just to see what it would do. It held its shape!
The man who gave it to me found out his sleep apnea was causing heart trouble. The doctor refused to operate until the apnea gets under control.
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Good idea for research! This may be a personal feeling, though. I know my spells have been closely related to this idea, lately; but they didn’t used to be. My focus used to be future- oriented: what I wanted to experience, hope intent. That was pressed out of me, but it can return.
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Probably! I also feel like I’m constantly doing shadow work. It’s just that now I have a term to call how I approach my life often.
But sometimes the leap in growth we make is greater than it is at other times, so perhaps that’s when filling the void is most useful.
That makes sense to me, too. Even if it’s as simple as “I hope I can do this before it’s all over,” that’s a kind of fear, but a kind that helps motivate us.
I guess we often see fear only in its form of being crippling or negative. I call it anxiety synonymously, but it’s the same thing when I think of it. A little bit of anxiety, enough to keep us motivated and moving forward, is healthy. It’s only bad when it stops us from moving forward or obscures our ability to see things as they are or behave rationally.
Then again, how we phrase things to ourselves makes a big difference for us, so I try to voice it in the reverse, anyway. Like you were saying before about “I will” versus “I am” and that. If I find I’m using the fear/anxiety wording, I just switch it to what you were talking about before.
Aaand I’m kind of rambling now. I’ll stop for now. 
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That’s a beautiful rose. You’ve taken such good care of it. I think, as a result, you’ve been honouring your neighbour’s life well. (I hope their sleep apnea gets under control soon.)
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You weren’t rambling. You were saying what I was saying, but saying it better!
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