Witchcraft Wednesday - Snake Skin

So in my own craft I use some....unusual, I guess you could say, ingredients. Some are just things I can get my hands on through various circumstances and others are household items that I think many in the craft don't think to use but due to my time as a closeted witch I had to get a bit creative. And now I'd like to share these things with everyone :D

WARNING! The following image will be of shed snake skin, acquired from our morph ball python recently as she shed it naturally. If you have trypophobia or are generally creeped out by snakes, snake skin, or anything of the like I suggest you don't scroll down and read beyond the next divider because I have provided a photo while the skin was laid out to completely dry before being stored away.

Look at that beautiful skin! We knew our baby was going to shed soon when we picked her up on Monday, so I spent a lot of time researching snakes and snake skin in relation to witchcraft and then found my own associations as I helped uncoil the skin to lay out because it was in a coiled ball in the corner where she'd shed it.

If you're Christian or similar origin, snakes obviously have association to the Garden of Eden and all that jazz. But just like every other thing in the world, snakes are either a symbol of evil or a good omen depending on the culture you grew up in.

In my own craft a Goddess I work with is associated with things humans would normally find repulsive - most notably animals such as bats, rats, slugs and spiders. Snakes I think also fall into that category, as it seems people's reactions to us getting snakes range from "Oh cool!" to "Oh hell no!", though to be fair I think the same thing about people who keep tarantulas as pets so I get that mind set. I'm sure snakes as a general animal fall into some aspect of various deities of the world and if you work with one or many their ethically sourced parts such as shed skin might make a wonderful offering or altar decoration.

Snakes shed their skin so they can grow, making an obvious association with things such as casting off dead energy and rebirth in a sense. Leaving behind the past so you can have a better future, things of that sort.

Because this was a part of the snake at some point amulets for protection for pets that ask for a taglock are great for this. Generally more potent than written names or pictures because they generally contain actual DNA from the snake.

Finally, my personal favorite, curses. Boas like the lovely girl who gave us this skin don't have venom, so they constrict their prey to death before eating it. Great for curses about constricting people literally or figuratively. If that person doesn't like snakes, curse them to encounter snakes wherever they go or have nightmares about snakes, things like that.

That's just my personal associations with this kind of thing, and every witch is going to make their own. But if you've got snakes or can get your hands on some ethically sourced snake skin and want to use them in your craft hopefully this can give you some ideas of what to do or where to start making your own personal associations!