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Interview with Author Rose Orriculum

Interview with Author & Spell Writer Rose Orriculum

 

 

Rose Orriculum is the author of Pastel Spells & Of Witchcraft and Whimsy. She also hosts a blog on Tumblr with links to pages of great help and information from herself. She also has a YouTube Channel and her own Etsy. Her books, and the spells used in them, are from Rose’s personal collection. After reviewing her 2 books in this issue, I had the chance to interview her.

Deanna (D) – You currently have two books published, Pastel Spells and Of Witchcraft and Whimsy. Do you have any other projects in the works?

Rose Orriculum (R)- There’s one witchy project that is going very slowly, a potions recipe book. It keeps getting pushed to the back burner by other writing projects and schoolwork. I hope to dedicate some time to it soon.

D – Pastel Spells is full of different spells, “most of them centering around the concepts of love, self-care, and healing”, although there are a few curses towards the back. Do you find that it is important to know how to curse even if we never use them?

R – I think it’s important to be familiar with structure and practice of curses, if not for your own use but to be aware of how to recognize one in effect and how to respond. Just because someone never intends to, say, be an accountant, doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have a working understanding of taxes and the math behind it, because the need for at least some basic knowledge of those comes up in life every so often.

I know relationships and self-care seem sweet and clean, but I think healing is more complex than that. Healing involves expelling bile and sweating out fevers, and strong emotional scars that need to be processed are no different. Jumping immediately to forgiveness and happiness isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and not every situation calls for it, so sometimes healing is ugly and involves holding the people who hurt you responsible, sometimes healing means being proactive and binding them from hurting others the way they hurt you.

D – I was surprised to see how simple these spells truly are. The ingredients can mostly be found around the home, and the spell itself doesn’t seem to take very long. Pastel Spells really brings magic back to its simple core. What would you say to someone who believes magic should be more complicated?

R – I suppose I’d ask why they feel it needs to be complicated, what do we gain by making things needlessly complex and inaccessible? Does the same logic that more components to a spell will make it stronger rather than filled with redundancies or conflicting intents lend to the idea that simply more is better? Should then I stuff my spells with, say, several cups of salt rather than a teaspoon? What motivates the need to complicate things? Is it an agenda of aesthetic and pride or is it purely based in research?

While I suppose some spells may demand particular nuance in the correspondences of the ingredients and therefore demand several, not everything needs to be a strenuous production, not every spell is a goetic summoning. In regional and folk witchcraft, there’s a simplicity to them with practices that are so small they become ingrained in everyone as superstitions. Tossing salt over your shoulder, painting the porch ceiling faint blue, sprinkling a pinch of cinnamon out the window, all those little things. I really think that is the core of magic, a collection of little things that ease the way and blend witchcraft into everyday life.

D – In the foreword of Pastel Spells, you mention “blowing out birthday candles and hoping it would draw whatever student I had a crush on that week closer”, it seems that you have been practicing magic from a young age. How old were you when you started practicing?

R – Ooh, hard to put a number on that. I think children tend to believe in a more fairy-tale idea of magic being inherent in the world, and as a child I really tried to hold onto that. It was definitely somewhere in high school I discovered witchcraft was practiced by real people in real life, and I began to ease into that.

D – Out of all the spells listed in Pastel Spells, do you have a favorite one or one that you seem to cast more than others?

R – I think it’s called the “sweet and salty love spell”, probably because I have all the ingredients on my desk. It happens more by accident than anything else, I think to myself I’ll do a little impromptu magic, cobble together some things within reach, and then oh dear I’ve made that one again, sugar, salt, and rose petals. It’s a weird habit now and I’m too embarrassed to count how many jars of that I have lying around.

D – Of Witchcraft and Whimsy is listed as a beginner’s guide to witchcraft but it is truly more than that. What were you hoping to accomplish with this book?

R – Honestly all I ever intended it to be was just a beginner’s guide. It was a summation of the general basics that seemed to be agreed upon the pagan and witchy people I’d come across, a series of notes and a rundown of topics in witchcraft that I might as well put together. It still doesn’t feel like much of a book to me, maybe a pamphlet. Someone remarked to me that it felt like a very brief overview on a bunch of smaller topics, and I wish I had put more into it and gone into the depth each topic deserved.

D – One of my favorite sections is on coffee, tea, hot chocolate and infused water. “There are plenty of ways to work a little magic into your day without doing a full-on ritual…”, this is a great reminder that spells can be very simple but effective. Do you have a go to drink concoction that you use daily?

R – It’s a little silly but the two main things in my life I focus on are my projects and love in all things, so coffee with chocolate. That’s a Capricorn sun and moon in the fifth house for you. Also doesn’t hurt that it’s just a good drink.

D – Witchcraft is never just white and black, and there are many different areas, sects, and branches. However, witchcraft always seems to teach us something. What is the biggest lesson that witchcraft has taught you?

R – The power of names and the act of naming something. Those hold more weight than we think, but rarely do we take on the power of naming, of deciding and designating, but it definitely starts when someone first chooses to call themself a witch. That’s the beginning of discovering what personal agency is, and it lends to just how much control you have over yourself, inside and out, that I don’t think we’re ever reminded to stop and consider.

D – If you could give a beginner a piece of advice, what would it be?

R – Well, a question I get a lot is always where specifically to start, so I’d say to take time to assess what you are already, because the dearest parts of your craft will grow from what’s already in you, whether they were childhood superstitions, or a topic you’ve always found fascinating. Your craft isn’t a performance for other people, it’s a celebration of yourself, and an exercise in introspection.

D – In Pastel Spells you mention a blog. How can people get in touch with you?

R – The easiest way might be my blog Orriculum.tumblr.com, but there is also an email [email protected].

 

We’d like to thank the beautiful Rose Orriculum for sharing some of herself with us and our readers!

 

Where You can reach Rose Orriculum:

Email: [email protected]

Tumblr Blog: Tumblr

YouTube Channel: YouTube Channel

Etsy: Etsy

 

Her Works:

Of Witchcraft and Whimsy: A Beginner’s Guide to Basic Witchcraft on Amazon

Pastel Spells on Amazon