Tag: Solitary Witch

Over time you may collect all kinds of tools and equipment to use as you make magickal herbal items, amulets, charge candles for magickal purposes, and much more.

Here is a listing of the basics that you will want to have on hand to always be ready to practice your Craft!

Herbs.

You may want to have at least one herb or resin for each planetary energy so that you are prepared to create any incense, herbal amulet, or poppet whenever the need arises.

For example, Frankincense resin can be used for the sun (success, personal power),

Myrrh resin may be used for the moon (psychic ability, subconscious, dreams),

Red Sandalwood for Mars (energy, courage, protection),

Cinnamon for Mercury (memory, mental sharpness),

Cedar for Jupiter (abundance, growth),

Rose for Venus (love, beauty, art),

Patchouli for Saturn (grounding, protection),

White Willow for Neptune (inspiration),

Nutmeg for Uranus (change, health, visions)

Poppy seeds for Pluto (inner knowledge, karma).

Eventually, it may be an idea to purchase a Mortar and Pestle to Mix and Prepare your herbs

Essential Oils.

The following oils are merely suggestions in order to be able to create ritual oil blends and bath salts,  to add to your rituals.

Frankincense oil for the Sun,

White Sandalwood oil for the Moon,

Honeysuckle oil for Mars,

Lavender oil for Mercury,

Magnolia oil for Jupiter,

Rose oil for Venus,

Patchouli oil for Saturn,

Wisteria oil for Neptune,

Allspice oil for Uranus,

Musk oil for Pluto.

You may also want to have lots of jars, vials, and small containers in which to store your herbal creations.

Keep your herbs and herbal mixtures in a cool, dark, dry place and they’ll last much longer.

Candles.

Keep on hand these colors –

white (purification),

black (blocking),

green (prosperity, health),

blue (peace, tranquility),

orange (energy, vitality),

pink (love, beauty)

purple (spiritual evolution, meditation).

You may well be purchasing other colors as you develop rituals you want to do, however, the above colors will cover just about anything you may run up against within your rituals and spells.

You may also wish to acquire some candle snuffer matches as well as candle holders.

Incense.

You may wish to use a small box to keep your charcoal, matches, and lighter in. As well as your sand to set your hot charcoal down and your incense burner.

At times you may choose to burn just Frankincense resin or just Myrrh resin for purification purposes.

It’s a good idea to have an incense spoon to dish out a small number of your incenses so you don’t get incense stuck under your fingernails.

You’ll also want a few small containers to place your incense in on your altar at each ritual.

You may end up with more than one Altar cloth. If this is the case you may want to color-coordinate your altar cloths with the type of energy you’re invoking at various rituals.

It is an idea to have at least one black altar cloth around three foot square for general purposes.

Keep on hand sea salt and spring water for cleansing the energy of objects and casting your Circle.

You’ll need a small container to place your salt in for use on your altar.

Generally speaking, you’ll be using your chalice on your altar to contain your water for cleansing.

You’ll need parchment and a pen for drawing talismans and writing spells.

Some people like to use feather quills and magickal ink for this type of work but you can also use a good quality pen or Sharpies in different colors, too.

Crystals and Stones for General Spellwork.

Jade or green Aventurine for prosperity;

Hematite or Onyx for protection and grounding;

Carnelian or Gold Tiger’s Eye for healing;

Amethyst or Moonstone for meditation or spiritual work.

Get some cord or ribbbon ( possibly non-synthetic) in various colors for tying up herbal amulet bags or cord magick.

You’ll want at least one divination device so you can get information about various things.

This means information about what is going on in your life or to help you decide the best approach for a ritual.

The most commonly used divination tools are Tarot Decks, Pendulums, crystal balls and Rune Stones.

You may wish to acquire a Ritual robe or Tabard.

Ritual robes can be hooded or not as you prefer and tend to slip over the head.

Tabards are robes that are open in the front.

You can never have enough small Storage boxes for candles, incenses, stones, and all of the other accouterments you will collect over time.

Background music can be used to cover up outside noises of sirens, barking dogs, and so on while you are in Circle.

Of course, you’ll also have your Elemental Tools in your Witch’s Cabinet:

Athame (ritual knife),

Wand, Chalice (keep two – one for strictly ceremonial use and the other to mix potions in or scry with), and Pentacle.

You can use a Book of Shadows to record your workings and spells.

As well as a blank book as well for your ongoing thoughts and projects.

Once you have something worked out on paper, you can transfer the information neatly to your permanent Book of Shadows.

Initially, due to space limitations or budget, you may just store your tools and accouterments in a cardboard or plastic storage container that you can obtain at your local hardware store.

Once you have gotten out all of the things you need for a particular work, you can cover this storage box with your altar cloth and use it as your altar as well.

Eventually, you may need an actual cabinet, as it’s amazing how much stuff a Witch can collect!

An athame is, quite simply, a ceremonial knife.

You can obtain an athame from a specialist magical shop, but as I said before, any knife – even a letter opener – will do, although it should preferably have a silver-colored blade.

Athames are traditionally double-edged and black-handled, but a single-edged blade is better if you are new to magick, to avoid unintentional cuts.

There is a vast array of scouting and craft knives available, with black wooden handles on which you can engrave magical symbols such as your zodiacal and planetary glyphs with a pyrographic set obtained from an art shop.

You can also paint moons, stars, spirals, suns, or crosses with silver paint.

The athame is set in the East of the altar and represents the element of Air. Like the sword, it is traditionally used for drawing magical circles on the ground and directing magical Air energies into a symbol.

When you are casting a circle, you can point your athame diagonally towards the ground,  so that you do not need to stoop to draw (which is not very elegant and bad for the back).

With practice, the movement becomes as graceful as with a sword.

The athame can also be used as a conductor of energy, especially in solitary rituals, being held above the head with both hands to draw down light and energy into the body.

This uses the same principle as that of arching your arms over your head to create a light body.

One method of releasing the power is then to bring the athame down with a swift, cutting movement, horizontally at waist level, then thrust it away from the body and upwards once more to release this power.

If others are present, direct the athame towards the center of the circle.

After the ritual, you can drain excess energies by pointing the athame to the ground.

An athame may be used to invoke the elemental Guardian Spirits by drawing a pentagram in the air and for closing down the elemental energies after the ritual.

With its cutting steel of Mars, it is effective in power, matters of the mind, change, action, justice, banishing magick, protection, and for cutting through inertia and stagnation.

The athame is sometimes also associated with the Fire element.

If you don’t like the idea of a full-sized athame, there are some lovely paper knives in the shape of swords or with animal or birds’ heads.

Some covens give each of their members a tiny athame, to be used for drawing down energies during ceremonies.

The main athame is used by the person leading the ritual who may draw the circle, open all four quarters and close them after the ritual.

An athame with a white handle is used for cutting wands, harvesting herbs for magick or healing, carving the traditional Samhain jack-o’-lantern, and etching runes, and other magical or astrological symbols on candles and talismans.

Some practitioners believe that you should never use metal for cutting herbs but instead pull them up, shred them and pound them in a mortar and pestle, kept for the purpose.
Pearl-handled athames are considered to be especially magical.

The chalice, or ritual cup, used for rituals is traditionally made of silver, but you can also use crystal,glass, stainless steel or pewter.

The chalice represents the Water element and is placed in the West of the altar.

Like the sword, it is a sacred Grail treasure and is a source of spiritual inspiration.

The Grail cup is most usually represented as the chalice that Christ used at the Last Supper, in which His blood was collected after the crucifixion.

As such, it signifies not only a source of healing and spiritual sustenance but also offers direct access to the godhead through the sacred blood it once contained.

Tradition says that the original Grail cup was incorporated by Roman craftsmen into a gold and jeweled chalice called the Marian Chalice after Mary Magdalene.

In Celtic tradition, it became the Cauldron of Dagda.

In rituals, the chalice can be filled with pure or scented water with rose petals floating on top.

The chalice is also central to the sacred rite of cakes and ale that occurs at the end of formal ceremonies – the pagan and the equivalent of the Christian holy communion.

The offering of the body of the Corn God is made in the honey cakes on the pentacle, or sacred dish, and the beer or wine in the chalice is fermented from the sacrificed barley wine.

In primeval times, actual blood was used to symbolize the sacrifice of the Sacred King at Lughnassadh, the festival of the first corn harvest.

The rite goes back thousands of years.

The cakes and ale are consumed by the people acting as High Priestess and Priest in a dual energy rite or by those initiated in those roles.

Crumbs and wine are first offered to the Earth Mother or poured into a libation dish (a small dish for offerings).

Then the priestess offers the priest a tiny cake and then takes one herself and he offers her the wine before drinking himself.

The dual roles work just as well in a single-sex coven.

The cakes and ale are then passed around the circle and each person partakes of the body and blood of the Earth, offering a few words of thanks for the blessings received.

In some groups, each person has an individual chalice set before them, but everyone still drinks one after the other, offering thanks, unless there is a communal chant of blessing before drinking.

The chalice can be filled with wine or fruit juice or water, depending on the needs and preferences of the group.

The cakes and ale ceremony and the male/female chalice rite can both be easily incorporated into a solitary ritual.

The eye is considered to be the primary organ of sense perception.

It is closely associated with light, the spirit, and the sun.

The eye symbolizes spiritual and mental perception and is considered to be the mirror of the soul, the organ of spiritual and mental expression.

The right eye is associated with the activity, the future, and the sun.

The left eye is associated with passivity, the past, and the moon.

In some cultures and religions (such as Buddhism), a third eye is envisioned in the middle of the forehead, just above the nose, and is considered to be a symbol of inner vision and power.

In magick, heterotopic eyes are those that have been transferred anatomically to various parts of the body, such as the hands, wings, torso, arms, and different parts of the head.

These eyes are the equivalent of spiritual sight or clairvoyance.

When the eyes are situated on the hand, it signifies that the individual has great clairvoyant powers.

The most widely used eye symbol in magick is that of Horus.

In ancient Egypt, the right eye of Horus, the sky god, was his solar eye, and the left eye was his udjat eye, or eye of the moon.

The udjat eye symbolizes the power of light and was one of the most sacred and powerful protective amulets in Egyptian magic.

Depending on its employment, and surrounding symbolism, the single eye can represent the forces of good or evil as the single eye of god, or the destructive power of the Cyclops.

While the word “cauldron” may bring to mind images of Shakespeare’s three witches tossing all kinds of animal parts into a boiling stew for evil purposes, the cauldron is really a symbol of the Goddess and the creative forces of transformation.

Cauldrons appear in many ancient Celtic myths in connection with magical occurrences and continue to influence Witchcraft today.

Associated with the element of water, the cauldron may hold magically charged ingredients for a potion or may be used to allow spell candles to burn out.

It can also be filled with fresh water and used for scrying.

Cast iron is considered the cauldron’s ideal material, though other metals are often used.

Most rest on three legs, with the opening of the cauldron having a smaller diameter than the widest part of the bowl.

Cauldrons can be anywhere from a few inches to a few feet across in diameter, though larger sizes may be considered impractical.

While some Witches may actually brew a magical potion right in the cauldron, the practical constraints of lighting a safe indoor fire underneath it tend to limit this use—often, the “brewing” aspect of the magic is symbolic rather than literal