For the past week my home has been filled with poisons; poisons covering the dining table in the form of my black and white illustrations to be shipped out, poisonous specimens arriving at my door, and poisons infusing into oils and animal fats for new batches of flying ointments. Amanita muscaria caps, white speckled and red, smelling like the sweet rotting leaves and fallen evergreen needles of a forest floor. Henbane seed pods, crushed in my fingers like egg shells, spilling out tiny brown pearls. Dried belladonna covered in huge green leaves and blackest berries.
I experimented with new recipes: a pure belladonna ointment with a menstruum of pig fat and an ointment of fly agaric mushroom caps and mandrake root with a menstruum of bear fat. The belladonna ointment is still undergoing testing to see if it is safe for use, but the second one is now available in the Apothecary as Soma Flying Ointment. It is excellent for ecstatic rites of intoxication, drumming, and dance. Use for sacred ceremonies and spirit work or to work with the World Tree.
I filled a big order for Ixaxaar who requested flying ointment samples to go with the forthcoming issue five of Clavicula Nox which will be focused on experiential witchcraft. It will include an article I wrote on seership, intoxication, and ecstatic ritual along with my original illustrations.
I crafted a new batch of Forest Spirit Ointment for the first time in a year. A dark fairy ointment of toadstools, enchanter’s nightshade, oak ash & thorn, fern seed, the herb of Robin Goodfellow, rowan berries, and other folkloric herbs of seeing and working with spirits. Many customers have had success using this ointment to the aid of searching for bones, plants for specimens or foraging, and seeing wild creatures and otherworldly spirits normally unseen.
Porta’s ointment has been renamed as Sabbat Flying Ointment to reflect the folkloric nature of its solanaceous herbs for flying out of body to an otherworldly witches’ sabbat. It is available in two sizes: the usual 30 ml tin and a smaller 15 ml tin. Witches’ Ointment is also back in stock – our most beginner friendly ointment excellent for use with divination practices such as tarot, runes, scrying, bone throwing, or seidr. It is also an excellent choice for hedgecrossing, protecting your body in this world and your spirit in the otherworld.
Now to finish a double-strength mandrake and bear fat unguent for the Shaman to incorporate into a men’s mystery ritual, and to finish testing the belladonna ointment and perhaps consider creating a pure datura ointment as well…
