Pagan

[Bit]

A new set of questions for us!

Do you prefer to make your own tools (wands, athames, cards, cups, etc) or buy them already made?

If you make them yourself, do you prefer to find the makings as you walk through an area, or to buy unadorned items and personalize them?
~~~~~~

My answers: I've done all of the above at various times. Sometimes I have found absolutely wonderful items in the shops, especially jewelry and cards--certainly, making one's own tarot cards is QUITE the daunting challenge for me, lol--and sometimes items have presented themselves to me completely unexpectedly.

My favorite example of the unexpected tool is a small geode I found once (now moved on to another owner, nonconsensually) that was naturally opened and bent back. It looked like a tiny shrine of the Mother from one angle and like a fish with its mouth open from another, and it served me well for several years.

Once in a while I make something just for the sake of creating, and then discover afterwards that it's become a tool. My favorite example of that is a small gourd I painted once to look like a curled up fox. It became my guardian while I worked in a haunted building by myself, until it broke in my pocket one day.

I find myself thinking that I *should* make all my own tools, mostly because lots of people have *said* so... but yanno what, if we all made all of our own tools, the Pagan artists among us would have to go out of business. So I think I like having a balance of both kinds of tools.

How about you?

[2myladyblue]

Originally Posted by Bit

A new set of questions for us!
Do you prefer to make your own tools (wands, athames, cards, cups, etc) or buy them already made? If you make them yourself, do you prefer to find the makings as you walk through an area, or to buy unadorned items and personalize them?

Great questions, Bit!
Of course, I would *PREFER* to make my own tools....but alas & alack, that rarely happens *eyes one of many piles of projects in process*...
I have made a few things out of clay. I love to personalize & consecrate something plain. And I love love love discovering the *perfect* thing walking through the woods or in some wonderful witchy store I've wandered into!
~Blue

[2myladyblue]

I really need to get some sleep, but I wanted to recommend a lovely selection from my bookshelf....
The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk

Has anyone else read it?
~Blue

[Nat]

I just saw these and think they are cute. They are three little beeswax candles.

[*Magic_and_Silk*]

Originally Posted by 2myladyblue

I really need to get some sleep, but I wanted to recommend a lovely selection from my bookshelf....
The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk

Has anyone else read it?
~Blue

I have read it and I recommend it to anyone who has not. It is a wonderful book!

[Bit]

Nat, I love the altar and tool pics! Also adore those candles *heartmelt* awww!

Blue and Magic, hello! Yep, I'm also one who always has piles of craft things in progress.

As for the book, well, that's one way I measure my growth as a Priestess, actually. The first time I read the book I was REALLY disappointed, could not BELIEVE that Starhawk would write such a "woo-woo" novel, couldn't even suspend my disbelief like I would for any other sci-fi novel, was SO turned off that I actually thought it was a badly written book.

The second time I read the book, I was like, "HEY! I can do that!!.... oh, I can do that, too.... HEY!! I think maybe I can learn to do that one if I work at it..." I was surprised that over the years I had done a complete 180 in my opinions about what is actually possible.... and I was also surprised what a good book she had written. *sheepish look*

I still have my reservations about the crystal communication for the computers.... but yanno what, I'm not dismissing it out of hand anymore. It might very well be that it will take considerably longer than the novel's time frame for it, but it also could still happen in my lifetime--you NEVER know, you just never know.

Also, now I'm the age of the grandmothers who took the pickaxes to the streets to break them up for gardens... and I can relate to them, oh I can relate! Even in my disability, I am stronger, more vital, more vibrantly alive than I was ten years ago, and that again is the opposite of what I believed when I first read the book. Age brings power, even to the disabled--who would have guessed that, living in this society??

I'm looking forward to the insights I'll find when I read it the third time. I hope I'll have made more progress!

[2myladyblue]

I'm watching an interesting show on Stonehenge. Apparently drumming inside the stones would produce sound at the proper frequency (5-15 hertz) to induce alphawaves in the brain & a state of trance (which would be further enhanced by firelight). They've also likened this experience to modern day raves. Not that this is surprising, but I love it when science 'proves' the validity of rituals/ceremonies.

~Blue

[Massive]

If you're interested in Stonehenge, did you know that further upriver, there is Woodhenge?
It's the start of the spiritual journey of the soul that Stonehenge is the culmination of. They celebrated the lives of the deceased at Woodhenge, then followed their spirits downriver to Stonehenge where the dead where allowed to go back to the beginning, so to speak, and pass on into the spirit world.
They've recently excavated Woodhenge, nobody even knew it was their until about a year or so ago.

[Nat]

Originally Posted by Bit

A new set of questions for us!

Do you prefer to make your own tools (wands, athames, cards, cups, etc) or buy them already made?

If you make them yourself, do you prefer to find the makings as you walk through an area, or to buy unadorned items and personalize them?

Most of my main items have been store/internet-bought, but I don't have a good connection to most of them (yet).

I am happiest with my pentacle (which I made myself out of self-hardening clay. it was at christmas time, and my mom asked if it meant that I danced naked in the woods. I told her, "not yet!")



I am also very happy with my chalice, which is actually a glass compote that I picked up from Goodwill. In that case, I knew what I wanted before I went into the store, and sure enough, I found exactly what I wanted and it felt right.

This was my altar on New Year's day - it was a bit crowded - but you can see the chalice back there on the right.



My wand is a plain willow wand, and I haven't really made friends with it yet, and my athame is a letter-opener. Unfortunately, I dropped it and broke a stone off of it, and I'm not sure how best to re-attach it. I also feel kinda bad that I dropped it in the first place. Somewhere I have a beautiful mermaid dagger but it's buried in my stuff. If I ever find it, I will probably make that into my athame.

I'm very new to the witchy and pagan worlds, so these are things I'm still in the process of feeling out. I do tend to collect things for my altar and also for my workspace. Acorns, fallen leaves, interesting sticks, seashells, ribbons, just stuff. I also have fantasies of creating little miniature altar kits. I love the idea of a tiny altar kit with a needle for the athame, a thimble for the chalice, a toothpick for the wand, birthday candles with spindles to hold them, a pack of match incense, a handkerchief for an altar cloth - but I never can think what to use for the thurible.