dianaandpansson asked: Hi! I have a spell request from a Lithuanian girl and I know nothing for sure about Lithuanian paganism! I've done a bit of research online for it but I was wondering if you knew anything about the practices deities or traditions of the area? thanks a bunch! c:
Hey lovely!
I’ve been sitting on this for a long time, actually - I’m sure you’ve already written something for this girl anyway, and so my feedback will be more or less irrelevant, but I thought I’d offer my .02 anyway.
I think what really struck me about this was that you assume just because the girl asking you for a spell is from Lithuania, she gives two shits about Lithuanian folklore/paganism. She might, she might not - she might be really into Hinduism or Egyptian lore. Just because a person is from somewhere doesn’t mean they identify with the traditions of that region. My advice would have been to figure out what her actual framework was before doing all this research into the folklore of her home country. I guess I feel weird about ‘spell requests’ in general, and I know that’s your thing, and you love to help people, and that’s super amazing, it really is. But I suppose what I’m saying is that maybe it might be good to think about how you can help people in writing their own spells, encouraging them to ask questions of themselves that might help something meaningful to them come into being. Whatever you write for her, even if you do know her spiritual framework, runs the risk of being entirely irrelevant. Different symbols mean different things to different people, and magic and spell work does rely largely on symbolism and visual/emotional signifiers. For instance, I see rain as being this incredibly positive cleansing energy, and other people might see it as this sad, depressing symbol. If you create spells for other people based on what these symbols mean to you (and I use the universal ‘you’ here, not specifically you yourself), you run the risk of making something that is a bit irrelevant in the long run. Why not empower people to create their own spells, rather than encourage people to buy into commodified easy-answer no-work-necessary religion? A lot of people come to witchcraft expecting it to be like a diet pill, pop one or two and you’re good to go without any actual effort other than minimal financial expenditure. Since you’re doing this out of the goodness of your heart, you’re not getting any financial compensation, and I’d probably say that some of the people you help are actually being negatively effected because they’re not encouraged to think for themselves. It benefits you because I imagine you’ll get pretty great at writing spells, but otherwise, what’s the point?
Anyway, that was a bit of a rant, lol! Please don’t take it personally, it’s not supposed to be a personal attack on you, because you are lovely. I just wanted to provide an alternate viewpoint, and perhaps some food for thought.
Best wishes!
xo
