This week’s Pagan post is again from a question on one of the spirituality Discord servers that I’m a member of rather than from the Pagan Perspective prompts on YouTube.  No real reason this week for the deviation from the PP prompts other than I just really liked the question.

Question for the week of April 6th:  If spirits or deities aren’t part of your practice, talk about how you connect to energy/the elements/a plant/whatever you connect to.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, I grew up in a Wiccan/Buddhist household, but I never connected with the concept of deity, so once I was out on my own it was the first thing that I discarded from my practice in the process of transitioning into something that worked better for me.

At that time, I first stepped into working with the energies of the elements and the forest, which felt comfortable and right. As time moved in, I had a good deal of time to think in depth about the concept of divinity, though, and over time I began incorporating a different scope of energy into my practice.  I now still work with the four elements combined with the energies and entities of the forest, but the foundation of my path beneath that is based off of the energies of creation, evolution, and balance.

For me, the energies just… feel right. Fit better than deity ever did.  That said, these energies are incorporated into my spellcraft and ritual in similar ways to how Wiccans incorporate the God/Goddess aspect. That is to say that these energies are called upon to add their blessing and their strength to the ritual or workings taking place.

I feel these energies of creation, evolution, and balance around me all day every day… all the time. Same with the energies of the elements and my very strong connection to damp earth and the forest. That connection to these energies is incorporated in everything I do, as it is something I am conscious of every moment of every day.

As for spirits…. I had a mediumship experience back last fall, and I realized after some contemplation that (for reasons of discomfort) I’ve been ignoring an ability that I’d now like to explore.

But, I want to do that safely, which I feel means I need a closer (and more conscious) relationship with my guides to accomplish. So, I’ve begun working on transitioning to a more conscious relationship with my guides primarily through meditation and a bit through some tarot experimentation.

I never really “connected” with my guides growing up or through the years since.  I understand that they’re there (although I have no idea what kind of guides they are whether they be ghosts or other entities of some sort).  I’ve always just sort of ignored their presence and let them “do their thing”… to wit I understand that they have probably been using the signals of my intuition (which communicates with me on a very physical level) and possibly also the tarot, to guide me without my awareness of their hand in things.

Honestly, I’m not even really sure what a more conscious and aware relationship with my guides might look like, but I feel that it is needed for safety if I want to explore the mediumship ability that let itself be known last autumn.

So I wanted to try and get back into my Friday paganism posts.  I’ve sort of been slacking off on those a bit since the new year and I think it’s time to get back on track.

Since the Pagan Perspective channel on YouTube is talking about a subject that I’m completely clueless about this week (that would be starseeds), I decided to pick up a question from one of the pagan servers I’m a member of on Discord.

Question for the week of March 30th:  Let’s talk about wands today! Who has a wand? What does it look like? How do you use it? If you made it, how did you make it??

I don’t really use wands in my practice all that often.  At least not in the traditional “wands are used to direct energy” sort of way.  I find that my hands do this just as well if not better in most cases.

In my practice, if I feel the need to use a wand, I most commonly use tree-fall sticks for wands when I need them, and then return them to the earth with an expression of gratitude when I’m done with them.

Outside of that, I have the following….

Left Photo: An amethyst crowned antler with the Inguz rune carved into it.  This piece was originally a pendant included in one of my Witches’ Moon boxes a few months ago.  I wear specific jewelry, though, and it just isn’t something I would wear.

I loved the amethyst setting, and the fact that it was made out of genuine antler, though.   So I chose to set it on my altar as an offering to the energies of creation, evolution, and balance.  I feel with the combination of the antler, amethyst and inguz rune (which stands for fertility and is the epitome of the phrase “life finds a way”) it is a perfect fit as an offering to those energies.

Center Photo: Selenite (the white stone) and Nuummite (the black stone) wands.  Selenite is a high vibration stone used for cleansing and dispelling negative energies.  It is one of few purification crystals out there that does not require cleansing or re-charging, and can also amplify the power of other crystals.  This selenite wand sits in a dish among a collection of my other crystals to help keeping their energies cleansed and balanced.  I also sometimes use this wand in energy purification in certain holiday rituals.

Nuummite is (to me) an extremely heavy stone.  Not in weight, but in its energies.  It is very powerful in assisting in grounding, which is not something that I need any assistance in (which is probably why I find its energy so heavy). Because of the overkill of grounding this stone can produce for me, it’s dangerous to my mental health to remain in contact with it for too long.  It is also a very useful as a protection stone, and I primarily use it for this purpose.

Right Photo: The “wand” in this picture is my father’s kila, which I inherited when he passed.  A kila is (in the most basic of explanations) a ritual item used in certain Buddhist traditions to dispel evil and protect against negative energies.

I personally do not use the kila in this way.  Instead, this kila sits upon my altar as a representation of my ancestors along with a deck of canasta playing cards that once belonged to my great-great-grandmother and were used for divination purposes.