Clearing My Desk

 Now you wouldn't think this would merit a blog entry, but you haven't seen my desk!

    To be honest I don't think it has ever been clear of stuff since the day we put it where it now stands, in the corner of the living room, and it was put there around 30 years ago.

    Over the years more and more stuff has got piled on it, and I mean piled! Until I would have to clear a few square inches to do anything on my desk, and I worked at it a lot!

    I did my paperwork there (how?) I did all sorts of craft work there. Making wands, making magical oils and incenses, painting things, making talismans, making jewellery, everything from wood to metal work. And things very often just got left, or piles were added to.

    I knew where things were, I knew paperwork was in that pile to the right, recipes were in the files behind that box with essential oils in it. Gemstone beads were in the box with a drawer, other beads were in one of my plastic boxes with compartments. Another one of those had jewellery findings in (the bits of metalwork you need to create a necklace or earrings). There was a weighing machine at the back there with a calculator (usually) on top of it. A pot with brushes and dip pens in stood at the left, with the phone in front of it. The current calendar was somewhere towards the left corner, probably on top of the extension lead thing, which I had to feel underneath the pile to find. Various pairs of glasses of a variety of strengths were dotted here and there about my desk along with many pens, rulers, hole punches, spoons (?), at least one teddy bear and a single sock (why?).

    Oh and my desk light in the middle, although I usually had to hunt to find the on/off switch thing which would be buried somewhere nearby.

    The only bit of my desk that was clear, would be the bit I was currently working in. If I managed to get a space around the size of a paperback book, that would suffice.

    So since we stopped the business, one of my major, on-going projects has been to Clear My Desk!

    I have been at it for weeks - and I mean that literally.

    I have managed to get rid of loads of stuff and still my desk was piled high!

    When Mike visited on Sunday he commented that he could see more wood (my desk is an old fashioned oak one) than he had done for some time. But it seemed to be a never ending task.

    Then Graham suggested we get a large box and just put everything that was left, in that for the time being, and at least that way we could see to give the desk top a good clean.

    So we have managed that this morning. AND the desk top has been given a good clean with various household cleaning products - actually washing-up liquid seemed to be the most effective.

    I was so proud of the result I took a photo (I wish I'd thought to take a 'Before' pic)

    I still have to sort out what is in the box and then it will be on to having a go at the shelves above, but things are gradually improving!

Raven Recipes - Ruthvah

 Since we closed the business down I have had a few letters from people asking if I would let them have recipes for magical oils and incenses that we used to produce.

    I am quite happy to pass these on, as it feels nice that people enjoyed them, and want to go on using them.

    I actually have two very fat files of recipes and I have wondered about making these available somehow for people to have a go at. I know how difficult it can be to find either a recipe for a particular magical incense or oil, or to find someone who sells these things.

    I have to just mention that my recipes are unique. They will not be the same formulas as anyone elses, simply because makers have been very wary about passing around recipes, in case they do themselves out of business, so a lot of the time I have had to devise a recipe based on my own knowledge of the magical uses of plants, plus planetary magic and even numerology and astrology.

    Thankfully people have been kind enough to let me know that their spell workings etc have been successful using my oils, incenses and powders - and the number of repeat orders also tells me that.

    Some of my recipes (well most of them actually) have changed over the years, simply because there have been times when certain ingredients become harder or impossible to source, so I have had to find a substitute or in some cases rewrite a recipe completely.

    One that I was asked for recently was my recipe for Ruthvah.

    Now, Ruthvah was created originally by Aleister Crowley and his recipe is relatively easy to find and is:

Ambergris (Kether) 1 part

Musk (Chochmah) 2 parts

Civet (Binah) 3 parts

    Now I have a bit of a problem with this recipe in that all of the ingredients are animal based and in the main the animals have to be killed to obtain the perfume - Civet cats can be 'harvested' for their perfume, but it is not a pleasant experience for any involved.

    I know you can get artificial versions of Ambergris, Musk and Civet, but even these are not easy to find. So I chose instead to look at plant based essential oils, and my recipe is:

Benzoin 1 part

Patchouli 2 parts

Vetivert 3 parts (you can use Valerian as some or all of this part instead if you wish)

   Another problem you might spot is that there are no exact measurements here, all the ingredients are given as 'parts'. This is the old way many recipes were written whether for oils, incenses or medicines. This actually gives you some leeway about how you measure the ingredients.

    You could use spoonfulls. You can choose which size of spoon you use, but in the above recipe it is an easy one, two or three spoons. You may find that this gives you far too big a quantity. So instead I chose to use a measurement based on the numbers of drops and the size of bottle I was going to put the oil in.

    After some experimentation I found that in general 25 drops of essential oil is about 1ml, and the bottles I mainly used were 5ml bottle. So I would use around 40 drops of essential oil and top it up with a neutral carrier oil. So the Ruthvah recipe becomes:

Benzoin 6 drops, Patchouli 12 drops, Vetivert 18 drops - 36 drops of essential oil in all.