The Ramblings and Wanderings

Posts Tagged ‘Arts & Crafts’

I use a mixture of stones, bones, sticks and bits gathered over the years to practice divination and to talk to the spirits. Or rather to have them talk to me.

It began in the summer of 2002 when I finally broke down and admitted to myself that I am just not the kind of girl to use other people’s systems.

I worked my ass off with tarot through high school, meditating on each card, writing out their meanings, tried a few decks including an old Rider-Waite. All the stuff you’re supposed to do. I tried my hand at the Elder Futhark and Anglo-Saxon Runes; I gave a good try with Ogham as well.

No, I wasn’t lazy and I didn’t expect to be good at them right off the bat. I can honestly say I tried. None of them just really clicked, and none of them ever really drew me in. I was doing it for the sake of doing it, not out of passion, enjoyment, or a real strong interest or connection with the system. The Runes and Ogham were much better than the tarot, and Ogham perhaps my favourite but they just weren’t the right fit.

The way my brain works is a little odd and often more than a little frustrating. The main issue that has caused me such difficulty with the common divination systems is memorization. I am a person who learns best by doing and building, through creation. Memorization by rote is not amongst my stronger skill sets. With most divination systems you must start with memorization by rote, the names, shape and meanings of each piece plus the various layouts and drawing methods.

The main problem is that the other systems are someone else’s systems. They aren’t made for me, and I am not a one-size-fits-all gal. I am a total misfit, even my brain works differently than most people, and that’s diagnosable. So how can a woman who doesn’t think, learn, articulate and express like most people use a system that’s works for most people?

Basically I needed to make my own system. But of course, everything has been done before, so I had to find a system that someone like me created. Or find a system flexible enough for someone like me.

One of my first teachers had a set of semi-precious gemstones he used for divination, based upon their astrological correspondences. I had admired that set but found the system far too left brained and mathematical for my tastes. It also required too much memorization, the kind you do when learning the multiplication tables or something. I remember thinking at the time that there has to be a way to cast stones that was simpler and more intuitive.

I started with a set of stones and used them based upon colour correspondences and gradually added other correspondences as my knowledge of working with stones and crystals grew. This was satisfactory but not quite right. Also as time goes by I find that I am growing less fond of shiny ritual and magickal tools. Ten years ago I wanted a large and impressive shiny dagger for my ritual blade, now I am happy with a small homemade one with a plain wood handle. Many of the stones in the set were getting to shiny for me, too fluffy if I dare say so. The glittery goldstone was starting to annoy me. I tried replacing some of the stones with plainer versions, found stones, beach stones and discovered that they simply don’t cast as nicely. There are reasons why Tiger’s Eye does special things for Chakras and not some random yellow-ish pebble found on the side of the road.

Bone casting caught my eye a few years back but being a Gemini I couldn’t get rid of ALL my shiny rocks just to replace them with ugly old bones. Bone casting is also rather particular to certain traditions and cultures that I do not belong to nor am trained in. I’m not a big fan of cultural appropriation. But maybe, since I have lived on and off farms and such over the years, if a few bones found their way in amongst the stones that would be acceptable? I and my spirits decided it would be. So a few bones were added and few stones removed.

A few sticks from the old Ogham set found their way in when I decided that the stones and bones didn’t always have all the meanings and interpretations I needed. Later I decided I didn’t want anything in the set to be marked, no carvings or painting depicting what is what. So gradually the Ogham marked sticks were replaced with slightly more nondescript sticks.

Along the way other items have been added as well. The story usually goes like this: I decide I need something in the set that signifies something in particular and then stumble upon an item, or the idea for creating an item, that works. I try it out and see if it fits with the other things in the bag. For example, I needed something that would signify “danger, be cautious, playing with fire, taking risks, getting in over you head” … so why not three wooden matches tied together with bright red string?

The collection is always changing and adjusting itself. A Witch needs to be fluid. Many of the original pieces have been replaced. Items bought at a shop replaced by found items, items deliberately gathered for the purpose as well as gifts and so forth. This helps with the memorization issues, each item is known, loved, has a story, we share a history, and they develop little personalities. By this and through this, my spirits can talk to me.

For a long time I had been keeping many of the shiny and colourful stones in the set. Some of them are placed there for energetic or magickal purposes, protection or charging for example. While others had been kept in there for “flash and sizzle” meaning that when doing a casting for others, especially at a group ritual. I’ve found it’s more impressive to have lots of shiny stones in the set, even if they are not even used in the reading at all and merely there for show. However while talking about this with the gals in the book club a little while ago; I decided it was time to do away with that. If people don’t find my bones and twigs and odd bits and pieces impressive enough, that is their problem.

There were also a few new pieces I wanted to introduce to the set and a couple of pieces that need to be retired. I found I needed something to signify “language, communication, speech” and so forth, so I’ve added a molar from the jaw of an animal (which may be a small bison but probably was just a cow). The snail shell I had in there had gotten so beat up it was nearly disintegrated, so I found something else to symbolize “slow down, choose a good pace” and such a small turtle charm carved out of pale rose quartz, “slow and steady wins the race” and all that!

Now and then over the years the whole set has been rededicated and I figured it was time for that this past month. A few pieces were moving in and out, I’m turning thirty this month and it has simply been a while. I have also been having a hard time adjusting to practising in the city and feel that working with my set more often may be a way to kick my ass in gear.

So the pieces no longer to be used were given to the river with thanks and the new pieces introduced to the others. Wooden items were gently sanded and given fresh coats of linseed oil. Everything was pulled out of the bag and then the bag itself, the casting cloth and the bits all placed under the window of my sunroom starting with the peak of the waxing Moon, through the Dark and New Moons right up until the Full Moon. I placed a lock of my own hair in amongst them during this time, to keep the connection to myself strong and because it felt like the right thing to do. Since I adore my hair cutting a lock of it off (even from the nape of my neck) is a small sacrifice. To symbolize the renewal of the set I placed a bud from a lily with the pieces as well.

I should stop here for a second and tell you about the bag and the casting cloth.

The casting cloth I’ve had for some time now, I made it while living in Houston a few years back, it was made to replace a rather boring black piece of broadcloth I was never impressed by. This casting cloth is made of traditional homespun linen, though it is reasonably smooth as I need that sort of surface to cast upon. No I didn’t spin it myself I’m afraid. I hand sewed the hem around its edge and used fabric dye pens to mark out the four directions and the centre upon it. I had considered embroidery for the marking but figured that might influence the rolling and sliding of the bits during casting. Usually I use it right side up with the directions to help with reading the bits, but sometimes I flip it upside down and use it as a “blank slate”.

The first bag was made of rough reddish raw hide and sinew. It had a very Native American look to it, though that hadn’t been intended in its making. It was a little too small, to plain and sometimes bits got caught in its corners. A while back (a year ago, I did blog about it) I made the new bag. With black goat skin and white deer hide, a skull bead so there’s always a spirit house attached to it and a small thin bone bead as well. Purple ribbon as it is my favourite colour and a colour that I equate with spirituality. Since I was rededicating everything this time around, and this was the first re-dedication of the bag itself, I decided to reinforce the seam around the top with red thread. The bag now has a slight stain on one of the white panels, the result of a few drops of oil splatter that got a little smeared and though I do care for the leather it has never come off. It adds character though, makes it look as used as it is. Ritual and magickal tools should look as old as they are, well loved and cared for, but not new.

Back to the re-dedication … I kicked Bren out of the house for a few hours on the night of the Full Moon. I called the ancestors, my spirits and the gods and set to work. I cut my thumb and mixed my blood with a small amount of water in a bowl (actually part of a small mortar and pestle set). I then blessed and charged each item using my various bodily fluids (two kinds of blood if you know what I mean) as I whispered to each item what its name was, the story of how I got it and what it signifies. Then with a smudge stick of sage, juniper and pine, I blew the smoke from the smudge on each item, blessing and charging them with the smoke and with my breath. I said a few words, gathered everything up, gave them a gentle wiping off to get rid of the icky factor, placed them back in the bag and was done.

I have decided to try to do a casting nearly everyday for the next little while and I will try to blog at least once a week about it. So if you are curious about how I cast, decipher, read and what my spirits have to say to me you’ll have to stay tuned.

I have set up a section on the main website for this subject and about making your own Collection (click here)

I always thought that crochet was invented by an ADD woman, being one myself.

Once upon a time, long ago, probably in France, a woman with undiagnosed Attention Deficit Disorder was puttering around her cottage. Doing much but getting nothing done, of course.

In fact she was very busily working hard at trying to find the key to her chest full of yarn (and other odds and ends that had found their way into the chest). She tore the whole cottage apart and simply couldn’t find it anywhere. She did, however, find one of her long lost knitting needles in the process. Distracted by the find, she looked about for the other kitting needle. Alas she couldn’t find that either. (For the record, the key to the chest had wandered off to the barn and the other knitting needle was out in the garden having spent part of the summer holding up a young bean stalk.)

Suddenly remembering what she had been doing a few minutes before, our heroine return to her chest. Using whatever she happened to have in her hand, the single knitting needle, she was able to pry open the chest. Happily she dug through the disorganized tangle of yarn within. Unhappily, it seemed as though all her other knitting needles had also vanished (who know where they wound up) and the last remaining one was now bent at one end.

Thinking she ought to run to the market to buy more needles before winter came, and perhaps a few other items as well, she threw on her cloak and walked out the door. Into a snow storm! Oh no, winter had started and she hadn’t gotten around to knitting warm woolly socks for her family yet!

Somewhat panicked, our heroine went back inside her home and paced about. Her husband and sons would return from the fields soon and be very cold, when they found that she still hadn’t made them socks to keep their feet warm she would be berated and hollered at for certain.

So she took up her single, bent, needle and started to desperately mess around with her wool. After much cursing and swearing, and putting that creative, think-outside-the-box, mind to work she invented the art of crochet!

The End

Prayer/meditation shawls are worn in many faiths, you may have heard of Christian women making them for people who are down on their luck, or seen Jews wearing them while in mourning. Buddhists and Hindus wear them as well. You find something similar to these all over the world and in history.

I’ve wanted to make one for myself for years now. The idea was to make something I could wrap myself in during ritual, mediation, spell work and most importantly, shamanic work.

Cloaks and robes are fun and all. I like them, I like the feeling of wearing them, the idea of dressing like the ancestors I honour. I like having ritual or magickal garb. But still, they feel something like playing dress up to me. I like to wear them at a ritual with others, I find they encourage me to get up and dance and clap and chant. Depending on which ones I wear they can help me feel more light hearted or elegant or sorcererous.

However, robes and cloaks don’t help me enter into trance states, they don’t whisper of the otherside to me. They don’t make me feel like a shaman or Hedgewitch. They are also not very practical. It’s silly to throw on a ritual robe to make incense.

I find most Pagan-y ritual garb to not be very comfortable to tromp through the woods in, climb a tree, and sit in it all night in trance. I have a cloak that is soft, warm and light, like a blanket. But it is also volumous and long and deep hooded. This is great in full-on pagan ritual, snuggling before the fire at fest and such. Yet it just doesn’t quite work when I’m tromping around an alpine meadow digging up St. John’s wort.

One thing that has found its way into my spiritual wardrobe is head coverings, such as scarves and hats and headbands. They make me feel more priestess-like. They also act as an important reminder for me. You see, my hair is perhaps my best feature, my greatest source of beauty and physical pride. It’s soft, curly, long and usually dyed some shade of red, bright red. My hair is very attractive and also does a damned good job of making limp haired women jealous. Covering it in rituals, rite, and workings reminds me that the Craft and Spirituality I practice is not about my ego, nor is it about impressing other people.

Shamanic practitioners often have costumes, something they wear only when doing specific practices. Such as otherworld work, healings, or calling on specific spirits and energies. I decided a couple of years ago that what I wanted as a major part of my shamanic costume was something I could wrap around myself, a prayer shawl. Combined with my favourite head covering that hides most of my hair and part of my face, I feel this is (a pretty good start) for a (journeywoman?) Hedgewitch.

As I said, this is something I’ve been wanting for years. Yet, I have been putting it off. I wasn’t ready to embrace what I wanted my prayer shawl to be, wasn’t ready to make it and wear it in front of people. I knew in my heart what I wanted, but it took time to come to terms with it.

I’m sure many of you when thinking “shamanic prayer shawl” are picturing something very natural, organic. Something made of homespun cotton, linen or even leather. After all do we not teach that natural fibres are best? Of course we do, because they are! Being a very Nature-based practitioner, someone who has a bit of a reputation as a Witch who prefers to live hermit-like out in the woods somewhere, you’d think any prayer shawl I made would be %100 organic, all natural and brown … maybe green. Probably fibres made from wool I got off a sheep I raised myself, right?

Wrong.

I tried to want something all natural and beige. I even spent part of last summer making friends with a fibre artist and Quaker lady who lived near me. I tried very hard to want my shawl to be natural fibres and hairs, hand dyed, home spun, with leather and bone embellishments. I just couldn’t. So I kept putting it off and putting it off.

Let me get back to my ritual robes for a moment. I have two. One is made of pale green linen strips woven together, complete with frayed ends. It looks very “Witch who lives in a hut in the woods”-ish. It’s loose and comfortable and witch-y.

The other is altogether different, that’s my “temple robe”. The bottom layer is of expensive, midnight black princess satin, the top layer of high quality black cotton eyelet material. The bloody thing cost me over a hundred dollars to make. Yup, that’s right. Oh, and did I mention the neck-line that plunges almost to my belly button? It’s sexy, sultry, magickal, dangerous, ceremonial and dark, dark, dark. For the kind of woman who spends most of her time in whatever is good for the garden and bought at a thrift store, it is a very special treat. I am not the kind of woman who gets taken out to the opera, if you know what I mean. This robe is not about showing of my cleavage but creating a frame of mind totally different from the nature-y and green robe.

My cloaks tell a similar story, one is a light and soft green plaid flannel, the other is purple velvet.

Nature Witch vs Temple Witch, if you will. Summer and Winter.

I didn’t want my prayer shawl to be either, not homespun linen nor slippery satin. Not meant to help me enter into a different facet of my personality or slip into a certain kind of Witch-y or Pagan-y archetype. No, this shawl is meant to be ME. Just me. It will speak to the people who see it and they can make their own judgements, they will. But I find when I slip through the Hedge and walk the roads less travelled I am in some fundamental way laid bare. Stripped of masks and trappings and totally myself. It is not safe to hold onto illusions of who you are when dealing with the unseen and otherworldly.

It takes courage to go against the grain. To break stereotypes and to do not as what will be accepted by others but to do what is best for you, then to wear it on your back for all to see. I`ve been teased, mocked and downright insulted before for not doing it “right`in the eyes of my fellow Pagans and Witches. It might seem that going against the grain is easy for me, but its not. It can be quite painful in fact. It’s not easy being a misfit Witch, an outsider even among outsiders. Some days I grow weary of it, heart achingly weary, and oh so terribly lonely.

Part of me wanted to make the expected shawl. Something I could show to people and they would nod their heads and say “Yup, that’s a nice shamanic costume you’ve got there”.

However, I’m committed to making it the way that suits me best.

My shawl will be made of 60% wool and 40% acrylic inexpensive slightly fuzzy yarn. It will be ratty looking and full of holes. Haphazardly crocheted like an oversized, insane doily. It will have fringe and tassels and random threads hanging off of it. Beads, bells and gods know what else will dangle from it, making me jingle. It will be roughly rectangular but not perfectly so. It will be in a riot of colours, many of which will clash. Already it is shades of blue, green, purple and orange.

And it sparkles, that’s right, sparkly and shiny.

And it will be mine, and I will wear it with pride.

Left click here listen now! Or right click and select Save Link As to download!

Click here to go the Podcast’s website!

Show notes:

Opening Segment

Opening song is an instrumental version of Diaspora by Juni and Bren.

Juniper and Brendan introduce themselves and talk briefly on their Pagan (and philosophical) Paths as well as discuss the layout for the show and what we hope to do with it.

The incense for this episode is Juniper’s Lucky Number Seven and the Tea is Kusmi Chocolate Chai.

Bardic Segment

Opening poem is a piece by Rumi and a sample from Jethrol Tull

Juni speaks briefly about YB Yeats and reads his poem The Dedication to a Book of Stories selected from the Irish Novelists

The link she mentions to the Rattle and Silver Branch Workshop is here

Bren reads a sad love poem translated from the Irish called Grief of a Young Girl’s Heart

Standing Stone

Opening music is selected from Imagined Oceans by Carl Jenkins.

Dr. Bren reads to us from Cicero’s Discussions at Tuscullum and talks about happiness and Ancient Roman philosophies on how a simple life of pleasure is ideal.

Rants, Raves & Reviews

Juni and Bren take a hard look at gossip and the rumour mill in the Pagan community and Brendan reads to us about the value of gossip and reputation in ancient times.

Garden Gate

Opening Poem is selected from Juni’s Hedgewitch’s Poem.

Juniper looks at house blessing and new home traditions with a critical eye and shares what she and Bren did to bless their new home.

Ask Dr. Expert

Juniper asks Dr. Expert about the origins of Drawing Down the Moon. An interesting discussion on magickal history begins.

Dr. Expert reads from Ronald Hutton’s Triumph of the Moon, Lucan’s Pharsalia and Plato’s Gorgias.

Closing Segment

Closing music is an instrumental version of Diaspora by Juni and Bren.

We ask a skill testing question that can earn you a free Walking the Hedge Calendar, tell you about our websites, plans for next episode and thank you very much for listening!

Left click here listen now! Or right click and select Save Link As to download!

Click here to go the Podcast’s website!