Category Archives: Sacred Symbols
Pagan Blog Project: G is for Grounding
Grounding
Returning to reality
I promised this week that I would have a post containing information and a few exercises on contacting your spiritual guides. I was not lying. I realized however that at the end of my work on trance states I never explained exactly why I had the plate of cheese or nuts by your side at the end of the exercises. To be honest this entry has come out of a need for my to do exactly what this essay is about.
Grounding is the last part of any trance, ritual, magic, or energy work that I do. It is the also the first thing that I do. In this way my concept of the circle being the symbol of perfection does into play. Grounding is what allows us to switch gears and allows us to focus on one specific task or goal at a time.
In some ways I see the techniques of grounding as techniques of getting into a trance or at least of altering ones state. This is why grounding is the first part of getting into a trance and it is the last part of getting into trance. For people who suffer from anxiety disorders or even who wish to learn how overcome anxiety before tests, interviews, presentations, ect grounding is a good skill to learn. It is something that really applies to every day life and all parts of life.
I have somewhat of an anxiety disorder. When I have worked in fast food I have had the problem of beings one of the few employees who would try and do everything they could. In many ways this made it harder for me to do my job which was always to take the orders at the front counter. I ended up over coming my anxiety at being overwhelmed by imagining one leg being a root taking in new energy and the other leg being a root pushing out my anxiety.
What I have just illustrated is a practical use for grounding that allows me to work and earn my own income. That is a technique that for me connects me to how I truly see the concept of being both grounded and centered, That illustration for me is that of a tree. For me the image of a tree becomes very important and you could say that the trees are the the central key to the mysteries as I understand them.
So why are trees sacred to me and why did I use that specific example for grounding?
The first thing that comes to mind for me is my location. Location and land relationships are very important to me. I live in Maine. I constantly see the trees taking nutrients from the ground up to the crown to be filled with the light from the sun back down through the heart to the roots and back into the ground. For me that is the perfect example of how life is constantly changing and being recycled. The best form or grounding is one where you don’t remove the energy and emotions that bother you, but transmute it by changing it’s vibration and polarity. It goes from one state into another at your will.
The manipulation and change of energy from one form to another is the definition of magic. The only real difference here is that instead of directing the energy out into the world you are directing it through yourself, into the ground and back up into yourself in a different form. They say that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it simply changes forms. That is grounding.
So here is your first exercise:
Grounding energy 1:
Get seated in a comfortable position. Close your eyes and breath deeply and relax. Take a few breaths with an inhale of five and an exhale of five. This will get you ready to focus on the exercise at hand and clear your mind of everything that you have experienced that day.
Place both feet flat on the floor. From each foot visualize a set of roots connecting and digging you into the earth. Once you feel as if you are connected with the earth see any energy that feels “off” (anxiety, anger, exhaustion, ect) into the ground through your right leg. Direct that energy back into the ground around and between your feet. Once the energy has been reenergized so to speak pull it up with the left body and direct it up towards you crown and into your hands. With your next exhale release the energy into your body and feel the changed energy.
And there you have it. Your first exercise with magic.
The Reflection & modifications for other exercises
Now once you have done that exercise a few time write down in your journal how you feel. The out come of this exercise should be that you are reinvigorated and ready to go. This is an exercise to relax as well as a grounding exercise. It’s a grounding exercise because you have come from one state to a more centered state by directing and manipulating various energies. You have performed a small bit of magic.
The why this exercise works will be discussed in an upcoming post when I deal with the basic Hermetic Philosophy laws and how they apply to magic. For now I will leave you this photo which describes magical practices perfectly:
Lore-What it is and why it’s important
Lore
Many people talk about mythology and folklore and how they study them to gain ideas and insights about their religious paths and practices. Today witches actually have a plethora of lore that we have access to. For many people this is a problem as there is so much lore out there they don’t know where to go looking for lore and they don’t know what to do with it once they have found the lore. This blog entry is going to cover a few of those concepts.
The goal of this blog is to help witches and pagans know just how much lore there is for them to sort through. Part of that process is going to be giving examples of lore and how I have started to study and interpret folklore. The following concepts will be outlined and discussed in this blog entry:
- What defines Lore
- Where to find Lore
- How to decide what lore to use
- Interpreting Lore
- Why we use lore
- Applying lore to practice
- Writing your own Lore
What defines Lore
There are many different ways that people define lore. For myself I define lore as sets of oral and written stories and practices that inspire the practices of various witches and pagans. Many people often forget that family recipes and traditions are also different types of lore that can be included into their practices. For myself there are family traditions that I have started to incorporate into my practices. For example every year for Christmas my mother makes Meat Pie which is a throw back to her family’s French Canadian roots. As a pagan and witch I have added this to my Winter Solstice as well as my Yule celebrations. Freyr was worshiped by the Franks (French and Yule is his holiday) and meat pie as made by my family mixes beef and pork. So for me baking a pie for the Solstice and for Yule are perfectly acceptable lore additions to my practice.
Where to find Lore
One of the things when I first started to practice witchcraft I found was that there were no specific myths for my practice. While many neo-pagan witchcraft books contain a basic mythos for the sabbats and the wheel of the year I often found that concept to be rather incomplete. There were no specific myths written out that I could find that described the events in the wheel of the year. For a time I went with what was told and figured that was all there was to the concept. Then when I started to actually do more in depth research I found a few authors who actually gave a few of the fairy tales and myths associated with various spirits and analyzed them. Then I started to really look.
So where can you find lore? The answer is every where. There is lore in poetry, songs, plays, little sayings, old traditions that no one seems to remember where they come from, history, and anything far and in between. Fairy tales are rich sources of lore. Myths from various cultures can be fascinating pieces of lore as well. Old stories and tales often considered “legends” often have deep traces of lore in them. Believe it or not the book “Hammer of the witches” along with the accounts of the witch trials are actually full of lore. Some of it can be pure hate based, but there are aspects of gold in there.
yes I did just say that you can use the witch trials as sources of lore. Now why would I as a modern witch even think of using hate based lore? The simple fact of the matter is that the stuff about witches shape shifting is true, but not in the literal sense. The same thing goes about the witches sabbats. Often times there were and still are sexual themes and uses of substances to enhance the ritual trances and achieve unions with the divine. You just need to know how to read and look through the lore.
Deciding What Lore to use
This is a very personal thing that only you can really decide. There have been bits of lore that I have accepted and there are bits of lore I have not accepted for my practice. In the end while I can give you some advice it is a personal choice what you use for the lore that make up your unique practice. No matter what any one else says there will always be something unique about your practice. So now on to how we pick out which lore you will use.
The first thing you need to do is read any and all lore that you can get your hand into. Once you start reading the lore you need to pick up a notebook to write down any and all thoughts that you have after you read the lore. After you read the lore look at your thoughts and your emotional reactions to the lore. If the symbolism in the myths and lore relates to how you view and understand the world than you should add it to your personal collection of lore. If the symbols and the theme of the tale doesn’t relate to your views than you can simply not work with that lore.
Like everything else you need to work with that which makes sense and works for you. One of the first things you will need to do before you can work with lore is have some sort of understanding of your own beliefs and views of the world. If you dont know what you believe you wont be able to gain insight from lore. our beliefs are what form the basis of our practices and the understandings we have about the world around us.
Interpreting Lore
Over the last few years I have spent several semesters studying various stories and myths. One of the things literature classes teach their students is how to analyze the literature that they read. A key thing in analyzing and interpreting lore is being able to back up what you get from the tale. For example I did a paper on Poe’s story “The Fall of the House of Usher” and I compared the story to Poe’s real life and I used it as an example of sickness. Through out the paper I used quotes from the story and his own life to support the views.
When a person starts to interpret lore there are many things that need to be taken into consideration. The first thing is cultural research and historical information. By looking into the history and culture of an area you can gain a better insight as to what they symbols may have meant to the people who originally read or told the stories. By looking at the culture context becomes clear and the meanings of stories become more obvious.
Context is key in interpreting lore. Once you have context you can start to apply personal meaning to the deeper messages and thus start to gain a deeper practice. Personal meaning comes from the reflections and thoughts that a person has after they read or hear the lore. Interpreting Lore is something that takes a bit of meditation and work, but the rewards are worth it.
Why we use Lore
There are many reasons why witches and pagans use and study lore. The most basic reason is that lore provides insight as to why things are done the way they are. Lore can also provide keys for the deeper mysteries that provide the gateway to ascension and higher spiritual evolution. Lore provides understanding to the personalities and the interests of the various spirits. It gives ideas as to what we can use for offerings and what is sacred to these beings.
Applying Lore to practice
In the previous sections I mentioned that one of the uses of lore is to gain an understanding as to what the various deities and spirits may enjoy for offerings and sacrifices. One of the things that is essential to have a successful practice that is very fulfilling you need to have a connection to the deities and spirits. The best way to establish these relationships is through sacrifices, offerings, prayer, meditation, and contact. The best way to learn these things is through reading and researching lore.
Once you start reading the lore you will find some practices and myths that relate to your practice. You take your information gained from reading and your own thoughts and combine the two together. Once combined you are then well on your way to having a nice and well rounded practice that will be supported with references and research.
Writing your own Lore
One of the things I have started to do is write my own lore based on my experiences in my trances. I use these experiences to create the myths that work for myself. I use these myths to round out my practice. It takes a long time of piecing together experiences and rituals to have a setup where you can write lore that works for you.
What counts as writing your own lore? writing poems, stories, and anything that is done in honor of the spirits and deities that you work with. Once you start writing your own lore you’ll be able to really piece together your own practice based wholly on your own personal experiences and nothing more or less. The first and most important step here is for you to write down all your thoughts, experiences and the like.
Additional reading and sources:
Hedge Rider by Eric De Vres
Witching Way of the Hollow Hill By Robin Artisson
Pagan Buisness Network
Mystic Echoes 