TEUFELSKUNST Occult Art Blog
TEUFELSKUNST
Occult Art Blog

Beltane Illustration Prints + Incense

Several weeks were spent on this illustration and incense for the annual celebration of Beltane, exploring folkloric and mythical backgrounds of this important spring festival.

In European tradition it is the cuckoo that announces the arrival of spring. It is celebrated on the first day of May and often the evening preceding the celebration of light is filled with drinking and ecstatic dancing. It is also then that the maypole is installed.

This pole is at the center of the celebration. On top of it is seated the green wreath made of seasonal flowers, herbs and green tree branches. The pole itself is often a birch tree or spruce from a nearby forest. Around the wreath are tied colorful bands in white, green, yellow and red or showing local colors. The red may represent the blood of sacrifice – on such important festivals animals were sacrificed in the name of the gods and then consumed. The red could also stand for the blood of the virginal goddess of spring as she enters into union with the sun god Belenos (or Bel), the “bright one”. The pole and the wreath stand for a sacred marriage of Flora / Persephone and the sun god or the god of the wild. In their likeness the May queen, usually the fairest and most skillful of all the young women is elected together with her future spouse – the man that first climbs on top of the maypole. He then becomes the green man, as his body is painted green, his face blackened and wearing a mask of leaves. He also represents the Oak king (summer) that has defeated the holly king (winter).

Viewed from above, the circular shape of the wreath becomes the gate of the cauldron of the Cerridwen, inside of which is brewed the elixir that transforms the innocent boy Gwyon into the enlightened man Taliesen, the “bright one”, right on Beltane. Part of the brew are nettles and black henbane – perhaps the most important shamanic initiation herb of Europe. Noteworthy, it is only three drops that carry the magical essence – the rest of the brew is poisonous, and as Gwyon is shocked when accidentally spilling three drops on himself, he pours out the rest and poisons the surrounding rivers. Needless to say, Cerridwen is furious when she finds out about Gwyons mishap and chases him mercilessly. During a brutal transformative initiation marathon he turns in to a rabbit (earth), a fish (water), a bird (air) and finally into a wheat kernel = seed (fire). The Cerridwen turns into a black hen and swallows him. In her belly he is reborn as an utterly beautiful boy, who she cannot kill. She abandons him to the sea. Washed ashore he is found right on the first day of May and becomes Taliesen, the “bright one”.

The old Irish Beltaine is derived from common Celtic belo-te(p)niâ, meaning “bright fire”. Fire is often part of spring and May Day celebrations, e.g. for cleansing (burning) the old and making way for the new or as a simple reference to the return of the sun. The sun god was also known as Bel or Belenos.

Field flowers that carry the signature of the sun are the dandelion and daisy. They are often part of the flower crown worn by the May queen. Other flowers from which the wreath is made are ground ivy, which exposes the presence of any witches. The crown is often also made of hawthorn which blooms now or the fragrant (but poisonous) lily-of-the-valley.

The linden is another important tree in May day celebrations as it is often at the center of gatherings and dance. In some areas it is also costum to install green birch trees with a heartshaped sign on which the name of the adored girl is written as Maypoles infront of her home. It is then left to her to guess who the admirer is.

Entering the blue hour, the bats are out and the spirits of nature join the round dance, as the warm air is sweltry from the smell of blooming lilac, elder and broom. It is not hard to imagine how the dancers would transform into broom stick riding witches and their animal familiars. The Mayday customs were of course abhored by Christian church officials, who re-dedicated the feast day to Saint Walburga and renamed it into Walpurgisnacht and turned the sacred bonfires into pyres. But the celebrations continue unto this day and the nature spirits are there for who reaches out to them.

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Included in this offer are 1 black on black and 1 black on green A5 print + “Beltane” + “Walpurgisnacht” incense blends. Limited edition of 12 copies. Shipping now!

April 24, 2025

Posted In: Prints, Art, Feast Days

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Garden Calendar April 2025

In complete negligence of today’s partial solar eclipse and while recovering from another flu, here comes the lunar garden calendar for April!

See all those root days?

Also looking briefly at the time frame for planting, there are a couple of disturbances. The remaining good times should be taken advantage of!

April is prospected to be another wet month, with Mercury, Venus, Saturn and Neptune all wandering in the sign of Pisces, and Mars joining them towards the middle of the month. With Jupiter and Uranus in Taurus and the absence of any warm constellations this spring remains a cold one.

March 29, 2025

Posted In: Garden, Nature

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Garden Calendar March 2025

While March 17, the holy day of St. Gertrude, marks the official start of the garden year, the favorable time for planting and sowing begins tomorrow, March 7 and lasts until March 22. The month started out warm and sunny, but is predicted to be overall wet. Temperatures will drop again and it’s not yet the time for planting anything aside of tree cuttings, such as hazel and willow.

Faded flower stems and fallen leaves should be left for at least another month, as they provide a home to myriads of insects and smaller animals. Also they are the humus of tomorrow, even for the lawn. So just let them be.

Sowing: preculture indoors daturas, chillis, tomatoes, tobacco etc. for a timely harvest. Cold germinators can still be sown now and left outdoors.

Harvest: lesser celandine, ground-ivy, ground elder, cuckoo-flower, ramson

Symbols: flower = moon is in an air sign, fruit = moon is in a fire sign, leaf = moon is in a water sign, root = moon is in an earth sign, lunar nodes = avoid any garden or magical activity

Eclipses: March will see a lunar and partial solar eclipse in some parts of the world. Eclipses are generally considered ominous and unfavorable for any garden work or other magical activity.

March 6, 2025

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March 2025

A glimpse of spring. In focus: birch, bumblebee queens, cornel cherry

1st of March marks the meteorological beginning of spring. Nature is slowly but verily waking up. Like this bumblebee queen warming up in the midmorning sun. She found a place in the crevices of an old birch tree. If you look closely you may spot the birch lady’s facial profile outlined in the scales of her bark. Bumblebees are herolds of spring. They are among the first insects waking up and flying at temperatures as low as 6°C. She could start her new colony right beside this birch, in the former nest of a mouse or rabbit.

Bumblebees have ever since been considered emmissaries of witches, devils and the dead. Their drone sound signals the presence of underworld spirits. Caring for themselves and their own hive they produce only as much as honey as needed by them selves, so they always had a somewhat bad reputation compared to the altruistic (and domesticated) honey bee. However, bumblebees are important pollinators, adopted exclusively to the flowers of many traditional witch herbs, as well as food plants.

We have had bumblebee nests in our garden, right beside the lavender bushes, and I have photographed them on nearly all my witch flowers that I’ve grown over the years. I feel lucky and blessed whenever a bumblebee crosses my path and I am able to spend time observing it in nature.

On the green moss under the tree lay a birch polypore. This parasitic fungus may chime in the last quarter of the tree. Yet it carries a plentitude of medicinal properties, being anti-bacterial, anti-viral and anti-infallmatory. It was dropped right before my feet, and indeed I could need all of it after this winter. But I left it there. The simple sight of gleaming moss has its own salutary effects on the body, mind and soul.

Birch stands for new beginnings. Blossoming now is the cornel cherry. It is one of the slowest growing woods and therefore most resilient woods in Europe, and quite similar to Ironwood. Its sulphur yellow blossoms are evoking the spring sun. Its flowers are among the first to open in spring or late winter and open the buffet to bees and other pollinators. Its bloodred fruits provide food to jays, grosbeaks, nuthatches and bullfinches as well as dormice. Its heart-shaped root system reaches in all directions and stabilizes the ground.

Its hard wood was made into weapons. In Greek myth it is even metonymical for the speer. When Romulus thrust his speer into the ground upon which Rome was founded, it blossomed into a cornel tree. The Ziegenhainer cane is traditionally carved from cornel wood.

March 6, 2025

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Imbolc Box

->lasered with the image of the Spring Goddess riding on a bear and embracing the sun, carrying distaff / besom, torch and seed, accompanied by rich illustrations of flowers and folkloristic motives referencing not only Imbolc traditions, but also other festivals of February, such as Lupercalia, Perchtenläufe and Fastnacht

-> perfect for storing smaller sacred objects such as paper sigils, stones, crystals, amulets, spells, candles etc.

-> made of birch wood (sacred to Brigid), measures ca. 14 cm x 12,5 cm x 2,5 cm and comes including:

  • Imbolc incense
  • blessed white cloth
  • 3 beeswax candles
  • pressed lenten rose flowers
  • paper birch bark, for drawing spells upon
  • tumbled stones: purple-yellow ametrine, rutilated quartz (venus hair quartz), moss and tree agate
  • witch hazel phytograph (nature print 1 of 4)

3 of 4 available, shipping now

February 28, 2025

Posted In: Ritual, Boxes, Feast Days

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Garden Calendar February 2025

February ’25 is projected to be overall cold and dry. The 1st of February was cold, bright and sunny. The February full moon was overcast and temperatures remain around 0°C. Some places here in Germany were blessed with snow, while we are stuck in a gray cold and misty mud weather. The end of the month will get warmer and sunnier but may also see some rain.

A LONG WINTER IS OVERALL GOOD FOR NATURE IN THE GARDEN!

Garden activities in February: planning the garden year, starting a garden diary and calendar, noting down favorable days, pre-culturing warmth loving plants indoors, sowing cold-germinators in a cold frame outdoors, pruning vine, fruit trees and hedges, taking willow cuttings for fences and hedges

If you are tending a natural garden, then less is always more. In February the garden is best left alone for at least another month. February is still a good time for researching the overwintering places of various insects, ie in leaf axils or molehills, and observing the activities of overwintering birds. Owls may start breeding now. Note, once an animals is disturbed during hibernation it may not be able to return to hibernation state and dies of cold and starvation. This applies especially to dormice that overwinter in bird nest boxes. Should I clean nest boxes in winter? The answer is hence: NO!

Helping bumblebee queens: since bumblebee queens overwinter, their hiding places between old leaves or inside prior mice holes, should be left undisturbed, even if they start flying earlier than other insects. If temperatures rise above 6°C they get active and may search for food and a nesting place for their new colony. Early blooms, like snowdrops, crocuses, cornel cherry, lenten roses etc. provide important nectar and pollen resources.

February garden flowers: this year my lenten roses flower in mid February, later than during previous years, since temperatures have been constantly low. Snowdrops peaked out right on February 1st but remain closed for the most time. The sweet scent of witch hazel blossoms is intense in the cold February air. Daisies keep flowering. Cornel cherry started blossoming at the end of the month, so do winterling and crocuses. Sweet violets did not show up yet.

*This calendar and some of the projections given here are created with the help of constellation research by Maria Thun and her son Matthias K. Thun.

February 24, 2025

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Winter Boxes

These boxes are made during the dark stormy winter days and nights that bridge the old and the new year. They are lasered with the sigil of Winter (Sacred Deer) and the sigil of Frau Holle. Each box is filled with sympathetic materials evocative of the wild hunt of winter and its goddess Frau Holle.

These boxes are perfect for storing smaller sacred objects such as paper sigils, stones, crystals, amulets, spells, candles etc. and can for example be placed beside or under the bed for inspired dreaming. The boxes measure ca. 14 cm x 12,5 cm x 3 cm and come including:

Holle Box

  • ❄️ Holle Incense
  • ❄️ phytograph with Holle sigil, hand-drawn on the backside
  • ❄️ Birch bark, for drawing spells upon
  • ❄️ Snowflake obisidian, Turmaline quartz, rare Charoit pendant stone

Wild Hunt of Winter Box

  • ❄️ Winter Incense
  • ❄️ phytograph with Sacred Deer sigil, hand-drawn on the backside, imbued with bone white, antler dust and ashes
  • ❄️ Birch bark, for drawing spells upon
  • ❄️ Clear rock crystal, tree agate, dark blue hawk’s-eye

In addition, the boxes are accompanied by my respective essays on the Wild Hunt of Winter/ the Haunted Hunter and Frau Holle/Mother Winter.

3 available of each, shipping now

January 11, 2025

Posted In: Ritual, Boxes, Feast Days

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Winter Solstice Incense

This blend for the winter solstice smells like a walk through the winter forest – resinous, coniferous and aerial. It contains a number of precious resins such as high grade Hojari frankincense, sandarak resin, spruce resin and baltic amber. White birch bark and chaga mushroom evoke the self-restoring powers of nature, ash leaf, metasequoia and yew needles bring forth the circling life energies of above and below, holly, juniper, mistletoe and wormwood call forth the protective spirits, mugwort and labrador tea open the third eye. Oakmoss, resinous white fir cone scales, pine, fire and spruce needles all add up to an evergreen winter blend, perfect for lighting up and guiding through the twelve longest nights of the year.

Available here.

December 8, 2024

Posted In: Feast Days, Ritual, Incense

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