belladonnaswitchblog:

~B.D: Every witch should learn how to shield. It offers great protection against every day negative energies, and more. It is especially great for empaths.

–There are many different ways to shield, and what works for one may not for another. The way you put up a shield is extremely personal and it will only work if you do it in a way that makes sense to YOU. It will only work if it is built in a way that it can stay present in your mind. You must will it to be there, in the same way that you walked around with a word in your head while you were preparing the evening supper. It should feel the same way.

–What makes shielding personal, is that you have to design the way it will look and feel. That is the only way that you will be able to keep it in your mind without effort. Here is an example: If I tell you to imagine yourself surrounded by a medieval armor, you may need to keep your attention very focused in the details of what such armor looks like. If it is not a familiar shield, your mind will want to keep going back to adjust this or that detail that is slipping your mind, like the way the face looks or how the hands are placed. It might even feel stiff and you movements will feel awkward. Anything that doesn’t feel right will break your concentration and decrease the effectiveness of your shield.
–Also, the kind of shield you choose will highly depend on the situation you are facing. If you are going into a battlefield, you want battle gear. If you just want to walk around the office and want to be impervious to negative energy, a nice bubble might do the trick. But no matter what, everyone needs to know how to shield.

–Take a moment to assess the situation. What kind of shield do you need and want? Right now, you are just practicing, so you can try out different shields. But in general, what will you need this shield for? Imagine the kind of protection you want. It should feel comfortable, easy to focus on, strong and it should make you feel safe. It can really be anything. It can be an extra layer of light, guardians that surround you, a tornado, a brick wall, a bubble, a Viking’s shield, a blanket… It all depends on you and on the situation. Imagine a few possibilities that you may want to keep in your ‘shield closet’. It will be easier to conjure them quickly if you have imagined them already. For the sake of this exercise, let’s try something light with some basic energy and shielding exercises.

–First Center and ground. Grounding is especially important. That is your best line of defense, even without a shield. Now that you are grounded and centered, we will try some simple energy exercise, as they themselves are the simplest form of shielding and are something you should learn to do properly in order to shield efficiently. 

1. Put yourself into your comfortable position.
Begin by RELEASING; close your eyes and imagine all of the worries and anxieties of your day just pouring out of you like water, down and out through the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet. Leaving your body, and entering down into the earth.

–Now place the palms of your hands together. Imagine a ball of white light between the two palms, radiating out from where they touch. Imagine it very strongly, see it clearly. Now pull your hands slowly apart. Imagine that ball of light stretching out between your hands as you separate them, becoming a beam of light between your palms. Hold this for a few seconds or longer if you can. Then slowly bring your hands together, shrinking the beam of light between them until they close together and it is gone.

–Clear and release all excess energy …Imagine a stream of white light or water flowing through you from the top of your head and carrying all excess energy away through the soles of your feet.
Practice this until you get good at it and then you will be ready to expand it.

2. This exercise begins with the ball of light in your hands do it just the same way until you come to the point where you have created the beam of energy between your two hands. Then, instead of stopping, imagine that beam growing and expanding to form a ball of white light between your hands. Hold that image as long as you can. Then slowly bring your hands back together, seeing the ball shrink between them, growing smaller and smaller until by the time your hands close, the ball is gone.
Clear and release when you’re done.

3. Now you have those energy exercises mastered, we can begin to shield. First test your energy field. Where does it reach? Do a quick scan of its margin. At the boundary of your energy field, imagine your shield being formed. 

–Visualize a layer coming in and surrounding your energy field. Draw up energy from your roots and direct it to the outermost layer of your energy field. See this energy transform itself to offer you protection. It may seem to harden, like the bark of a tree, or glow more brightly like a flame. Command this energy to do your bidding and protect your personal space. You should ultimately get a feeling of: ‘This is in here and that is out there.’ That which is outside should not come within.

–Once you’ve visualized your shield, draw back into yourself, but without letting your shield collapse. Your focus is no longer on upholding the shield. It should uphold itself, the same way the word lingered in your mind during the visualization exercise. Will it to be there, and that’s it! The minute you question whether it is holding, you are casting doubt into it and weakening its presence. Conjure it, know it’s there, and go on your business. This is not easy and it takes a lot of practice. Be forgiving of yourself and have fun with this.

–Once you’ve practiced this, you can go on to trying different types of shields. Your creativity is the only limit. The more complex your shield is, the more mental focus and attention will be needed. Try the basic shield above first so you have an easy option for ‘everyday wear’.

*References; adelinastclair.wordpress.com/ Witch School First Degree: Lessons in the Correllian Tradition by Donald Lewis-Highcorrell.

~B.D: Usually my shield is just a protective bubble that nothing can break through. If for some reason while I’m in the bubble I have a negative thought, I imagine the thought leaving my head as a black smoke cloud, and being sucked out of the shield, and being pushed somewhere else by the walls of the shield. I usually make the bubble if I’m somewhere where I feel loads of negative energy and I don’t want it to touch me.

-Sometimes if I’m actually scared of something (like a spirit or really negative energy) I will imagine an aura of white or gold light around me. It feels warm and welcoming. Nothing negative can touch me while this aura is glowing. If I become more scared or have a negative thought, I make it glow brighter and warmer. It pushes the negative thoughts/feelings away, and I’m safe again. I even make this aura when I’m doing a cleansing bath. I make it so that the negativity that leaves my body can’t touch me again, even though I’m in the bath water with it. Then the negativity gets flushed down the drain with the water and I let my shield down (see my cleansing bath ritual post). I also have protective jewelry I wear (see my post on amulets, charms, and talismans).

*Wild Witch.
**Images: (1) (2)

blackbearmagic:

Introduction

Scientific Fact: Witches love crystals almost as much as they love jars. 
Consumerism Fact: In many metaphysical shops, nice-looking crystals can be had for relatively cheap.
Ethical Fact: Many of those crystals are as cheap as they are because they are mined with no consideration for the damage done to the environment or the welfare of the humans collecting them.

So what’s a good, honest, ethically-minded witch to do, especially if he/she/they don’t have the money to afford crystals that were mined sustainably and responsibly, or the time to research which sellers obtain their wares from ethical mines?

Find their own.

I’ve been crystal hunting all my life, but only within the last year have I started doing it seriously. I’ve walked away from a creeking expedition with slabs of smoky quartz the size of my palm or calcite hunks bigger than my fist, and I personally think creek-crystal energy is much more vibrant and easy to work with; by comparison, the crystal points I’ve bought from metaphysical shops feel… inert, lifeless.

So let’s get straight into it!

What You’ll Need

• a good-sized creek or stream with lots of gravel spits along its length
• offerings to the spirit of the creek, if appropriate to your personal practice
• bug spray, sunscreen, snacks, water, and anything else you’d normally bring on a hike
• your trusty adventurer’s Bag of Holding
• your sweet self

Now let’s talk details.

When I say “gravel spits”, this is what I’m referring to:

These tumbles of stone are going to be where you’ll find your treasures, and the size of the stones themselves actually tells you what size of crystal you might find: When the conditions are right (ie, during a flood), the water flowing through that portion of the creek is capable of lifting and moving rocks of the size you see there now. 

In my experience, the crystal specimens you’ll find are typically half or one-third the size of the average rock on the spit. They’re usually larger than the smallest rocks, but much smaller than the largest rocks. Not always, though–I have found specimens larger. (See the introduction.)

Regarding offerings, if that’s part of your path, you’ll want to make sure it’s nothing that will harm the local wildlife or damage the ecosystem in any way. My personal go-to is water, ideally water from a bottle I haven’t drunk from yet.

In the same vein as offerings, I’ve had great success in making a sort of bargain with the spirit of the place: That in return for treasures, I will pick up and remove any litter I find in the area. It is, of course, always a good idea to remove any litter you see when you’re out in nature, but it doesn’t hurt to point out to the spirit of the place that it’s something you’re doing for it. Bring along a trash bag to help collect it.

Lastly, with regards to your bag, I would advise something with two shoulder straps. Rocks are heavy.

What You’ll Do

Once you’ve hiked to your creek and found a gravel spit with lots of good-sized rocks, it’s time to start looking. There’s two main approaches I’ve found that work well, and I tend to use both. 

The first is a broad sweep. This one works best if you’ve got good lighting on the rocks. All you do is stand in one spot and sway side to side slightly while looking over the gravel, looking for anything that glints, shines, or otherwise catches the light shining on it. If you see something, investigate it. Repeat.

The second is the more detailed search. Get down on the ground–whether that means kneeling, crouching, laying on your belly, I don’t care–and go over each rock one by one. Use your eyes and use your hands. I imagine this method is probably going to be unpleasant for a lot of you, but honestly, it’s like crack to me.

Once you’ve combed over the current gravel spit as thoroughly as you please, pack up and move on to the next. Continue for as long as you like, or until you feel it’s time to go. Just remember that as far out as you go is how far you’ll have to walk back!

Advice and Warnings

Tell someone where you’re going and when you expect to be back. If you godsforbid go missing, they’ll be able to give the police an idea of where to start searching for your poor, lost ass.

Keep a charged cell phone with you at all times. 

If you see something or someone iffy, do your best avoid it. Sometimes there are creepy people in the woods, and sometimes they do creepy things. Don’t get involved.

Make sure you’re not trespassing on private property. All of the creeks I hike on are on public land. If you’re in a state park or other protected environmental area, don’t go off the trail–you could cause damage to a fragile ecosystem.

Following the creek is a good way to get out and back without losing your way. 

Don’t stray too far from it if you’re in unfamiliar territory.

The best times of year to go hunting–assuming Northern Hemisphere, a temperate climate and deciduous forests around the creek–are the spring and summer. In the autumn, you’ll have to clear fallen leaves off of the gravel before you can look, and winter is too cold. 

The best time of day is the morning, when the sun angle is lower and is more likely to glint off of shiny rocks.

You’ll have your best luck the day after heavy rain. Rain will swell the stream and shift the stones around, and could uncover new treasures! 

Inspect anything that looks even remotely worthwhile. You’ll find a lot of duds, sure, but that will help train your brain to tune out what you don’t care about finding.

“What Can I Find?”

Exactly what sort of minerals and crystals you’ll find is highly variable. All minerals are not equally distributed across the planet, because many of them require very different conditions to form and the crust composition varies slightly from place to place. However, there are some stones that are pretty common all over the Earth, so no matter where you go hunting, you’re likely to find them.

Of course, for more specific identifications, please consult the internet, a book on mineralogy, or your local rockhounding club. 

Quartz

The chemical formula of quartz is SiO₂, or silicon dioxide. Silicon and oxygen are, by mass, the two most abundant elements in Earth’s crust; around 90% of it is composed of silicate minerals like quartz. Ever find a pretty, sparkly, mostly-clear rock on the ground? It was probably quartz. 

Quartz comes in a mind-boggling array of colors, from smoky quartz so dark it’s practically opaque to purple-and-orange ametrine to the brilliant clear of a Herkimer diamond (yup, not actually diamonds) but all of these varieties are still quartz. In my region of North America, clear and smoky quartz seem to be the most plentiful. 

Calcite

Calcite is calcium carbonate, CaCO₃. Like quartz, it is made of some of the Earth’s most abundant crustal elements (in this case, calcium and oxygen) and comes in a stunning array of colors. In my creeks, I’ve found calcite in yellow, orange, white, and even blue and red.

The biggest giveaway for rough calcite is its texture. If you pick up a rock and it feels like someone rubbed wax all over it, you’ve probably got yourself a calcite specimen.

Feldspar

Feldspar is one of the most abundant minerals in the crust, alongside quartz. It’s also a silicate, and it frequently finds its way into other minerals, such as granite. 

What sets feldspar apart from the other two minerals I’ve mentioned here is its fracture habit: It naturally fractures along cleavage planes which intersect at 90-degree angles. It doesn’t shatter–it shears. If you find a rock with a smooth face that looks like a polished stone countertop, it’s probably feldspar.

“But Bear, I Want Crystal Points!”

Oh. Yeah.

You can find those too. 

Every one of those pictures is of quartz points that I have found in my area. (In fact, they’re actually all from the same crystal-hunting hike, and represent only about a third of the specimens I found that day!) As you can see, they aren’t all perfect–and I have plenty of others that are, like, three facets and no point–but they’re all beautiful, and some of them really sing, if you know what I mean. 

Conclusion

Finding your own crystals can be pretty simple, when you get down to it. It can be a lot of fun to get down and dirty, and is a great way to get yourself out in nature for a while. And, of course, you can rest assured that your crystals were gathered in a sustainable, respectful, ethical manner–assuming you took care of yourself and the environment while finding them!

Best of luck! –Bear