Witch At Work

Your Environment

If your workplace is anything like the one from which I've just extricated myself, it's noisy and difficult to work in (and in my case, filled with crappy techno music and Madonna posters). So the first thing you'll want to so is to have a teensy space you can personalize with your own witchy stuff which will not only remind you of who you really are under the workaday persona, but will also give you something to feast your eye upon in times of stress. I used to have a hunk of rose quartz and one of amethyst on my desk - the quartz to instill a love of the job, and the amethyst to clear my head and keep me calm during the many stressful phone calls I had to make and take.

Other nice things to keep on your desk are: pictures, especially of natural settings; tiny God/Goddess statues; shells; geodes, which aid grounding; growing plants. You might like to have something to represent each of the four elements on your desk; a shell for water, a geode for earth, an air plant for air and a candle for fire, for example.

I also had an oil burner on my desk. Unfortunately my supervisor claimed that citrus-scented oils gave her hay fever, but we managed to burn them during her frequent plastic-surgery absences. Here are a couple of oil blends which will improve your mood, mind and productivity.

Oil Blend for VDU Users 
1 tsp cypress oil
1 tsp cedar oil
1 tsp pine oil
2 tsp lemon oil
Blend in a bottle and add a few drops to an oil diffuser - or put a few drops on a tissue and wipe over work surfaces. This blend will create a fresh atmosphere in the office and the lemon oil will encourage alertness.

Anti-Exhaustion Oil
2 drops each lavender and peppermint oils OR 1 drop lavender, 1 drop lemongrass, 1 drop bergamot

Anti-Stress Oil
Use this to calm the atmosphere during very stressful periods, when everyone's panicking
1 drop camomile, 1 drop clary sage, 1 drop lavender, 2 drops rose geranium.

Clear the Mind Oil
2 drops lemon, 1 drop basil, 1 drop rosemary.

Harassment
OK, so it's not exactly ethical to practice magick to influence someone's mind, but sometimes there are those in positions of power who use their position to unfairly harass their employees. Here are a few ways of evening things up.

Candle Spell to stop Harassment at Work or School

This is a really cool spell from Z. Budapest's 'The Holy Book of Women's Mysteries'
Do this during the waning moon. Use a brown candle (an image candle, if you can) to represent the person who is harassing you. Write the person's name on the front and back of the candle. On a small piece of parchment paper, write: 'From now on, (name) will say nothing but sweet words about me and to me. By the power of Aradia, so mote it be!'

Put a drop of honey in the middle of the paper and roll it into a ball. Heat your athame, make a gash in the candle (in its mouth, if it's an image candle) and stuff the paper ball into it. Let the candle burn a little while every night for an odd number of nights, to a maximum of nine nights. Throw the remnants into flowing water, but save some candle drippings or ash to sprinkle in the path of your oppressor.

Silencing the Lion
My supervisor was one of those people who spends most of her time yelling. In fact, she used to yell four-letter words while we were on the phone to clients but as her dad owned the business she was never disciplined for it. Anyway, here's a little trick I used to prevent her habits from putting me in a bad mood. I used to visualise her with white cotton wool wrapped around her mouth, so that the sound was muffled and neutralised from causing me harm. She still shouted, but the shouting's effect as a stressor for me was greatly reduced.