Posts Tagged ‘crystals’

Obsidian is a stunning and glassy volcanic rock. The name obsidian is derived from the name of a prominent ancient Roman, Obsius. It is most frequently black or very dark; however there are many variations of obsidian.

Black Obsidian is traditionally used for scrying, gazing, and seeking insight into the future because it is a natural glass from Gaia. It also is a powerful elminiator of negative or harmful energies both from the self and one’s environment. With the strong connection to the removal of disharmonic energy it is often called on to be a stone of protection.

Using black obsidian spiritually can aid in recognizing where you are holding negativity and help to eliminate those negative or harmful emotions and attachements.

An affirmation you might use with Black Obsidian could be “I cleanse myself of disharmonic energies and ground myself in light to the heart of the Earth and Gaia so that I can see clearly as I move in my path”

You can find some beautiful Obsidian pieces at the Sacred Mists Shoppe:
Black Obsidian Scrying Sphere:

http://www.sacredmists.com/obsidian-scrying-sphere.html

Black Obsidian Arrowhead:

http://www.sacredmists.com/obar.html

Black Obsidian Pyramid:

http://www.sacredmists.com/blobgepy.html

Obsidian – Nature’s Power for Protection Amulet:

http://www.sacredmists.com/slg-np-obsidian.html

If you’ve ever been to the Sacred Mists Shoppe website, you’ve no doubt seen the Fully Stocked Chest of Witchcraft.  Sacred Mists was the first and original creators of this beautiful offering for an altar.  This was born from Lorien’s (Lady Raven to her students) creativity that said to her that she should put together something completely unique that could be used as an Altar starter for people just embarking upon the path of the Witch.

This product was originally only available in the Pentacle design and just last year expanded to new designs including Triquetra, Triple Moon, Tree of Life and Om making this the most diverse design offering of this type ever. All the images you find within this review are from my own altar and my won Triple Moon Fully Stocked Chest of Witchcraft that I just recently purchased.  You see I’ve wanted one ever since we started with this new design and I finally saved enough up for one and I am so very glad I did.

First we will start with my altar picture with everything buttoned up and set just the way I like it.  You see my primary altar is located on my desk.  I set it up this way because I spend the most amount of time at my desk and like this to be sacred space.  It keeps me at peace no matter what may be happening during my day.  You can see on the left the Pentagram of the Elements Altar Cloth.  This altar cloth is perfect for my desktop at a cool 12×12 in size and eliminates the need for me to have a separate altar tile/paten on there.  These are made by a good friend of ours exclusively for Sacred Mists.  Decorated for Litha with bright colors and butterflies and surrounded by crystals my altar is my refuge and my working space for magick throughout the day and on the fly should something need to be done suddenly I can just turn to the side and voila!

Onward to the original purpose of this post today and that is to review and share more pictures of the Fully Stocked Chests with you.  These are stocked to the rim with fabulous items to either get you started or to add to your already existing altar tools.

The chest itself is a great size for on the altar and can be filled again and again with items you use to keep them tucked away for when you need them.  Inside each chest you receive an Itsy Bitsy Witchy Cauldron, a set of 6 ritual/spell candles, two candle holders, a set of 5 herbs (this varies by season and availability), a bag of blessed offering stones, charcoal tablets and altar oil.  As a special gift I received a pack of Sacred Mists Matches with mine, which are just beautifully designed and make lighting those candles so much easier (when you don’t always have a lighter handy).  I lit my candle (Dance of Crystals Fluorite) with my matches yesterday when I took these pictures.

I laid everything out and peeked it out of the top so you could see the contents quite nicely.  The candle holders are absolutely adorable.  Sacred Mists Shoppe uses the Bubble Magick Glass Mini- Candle Holders in the chests, this is a recent change to a much nicer and more functional holder.  I say this change is a winner!  I have a Dragonfly Urn Incense Cauldron on my desk so I am using my little cauldron for storing my blessed offering stones.

For me I used the top part of the cabinet to store my bags of herbs with the drawer holding my matches and charcoal tabs.  In the bottom I placed the mini candles and the candle holders and oil.

All in all I think this is one of the best put together little kits I’ve seen in a while and it’s always evolving with new additions and changes to presentation and offerings of within it.  No matter what your tastes are it seems that this chest has a design to suit nearly everyone.  I, obviously, am partial to the triple moon design.  Each of them are truly beautiful and works of art.  Hand-crafted with care and then stocked carefully by Sacred Mists just for you.

I hope you have enjoyed this little tour of my own Fully Stocked chest and if you ever have any questions you can reach me Monday through Friday between 8a-3p Pacific at our toll free number 866-918-2437 or via email help@sacredmists.com

Tuesday is ruled by Mars. The energies are perfect to work with male energies such as strength, endurance. With that in mind, today we celebrate the Warrior spirit. Many Gods and Goddesses carry within them the warrior spirit, as humans on a spiritual journey we see this. We walk with the warrior spirit deep inside and we carry within us the ancestral memories of fighting for our freedom, fighting against invaders, protecting our families and homes from those who would take them from us.

However, what marks the Wiccan Warrior different from warlike invaders is that we carefully weigh how our actions will be seen and taken after “the battle”, we battle to protect those who cannot protect themselves, we battle for justice and equality in a world filled with tragedy and hardship.competition and conflict. We also have the Moon entering Aries for a double whammy of that warrior energy.

Today, we will light a red candle and state our affirmation. My choices in materials for this are twofold. I use the Dance of Crystals Bloodstone Candle for it’s brilliant red color and because bloodstone represents courage and strength (as does the color red). I anoint this candle with Hekate – Keeper of the Crossroads Oil. The combination should move me with the conviction and strength to accomplish my goals and not be held in the past or present but passing through the crossroads into the future. While anointing my candle I will state the following in a chant:

“I fight for right. I defend myself and my family against the evildoer, I protect those who cannot protect themselves, I am involved with shaping the future of my world. Blessed Be!”

If you wish you can easily write this on parchment or Color Magick Sizzling Spell Paper to give this affirmation and spell a little extra oomph.

Supporting our magick with action, we will fight for something we feel is right today. Sign a petition to protect wildlife, write to your Congressperson about an issue about which you feel strongly, set wards around your house or place of business, place shields of protection against someone who wishes to harm you physically or psychically, become involved with the battling forces of life and liberty somehow.

Ask yourself “how can I defend someone’s freedom today?” What have you battled for today?

Monday is ruled by the Moon and it is in the sign of Pisces today. Pisces is the sign of psychic power, creativity and is considered the sign of “old souls.” The Moon rules the dream world. Today we will allow ourselves time to rest.

Traditionally, witches do not work spells during the 4th quarter or Dark Moon. We will draw on this tradition today, to allow our souls time to rest and receive psychic messages from the dream world. We will not focus on the types of messages we would like to receive but simply allow the messages to come to us.

I am setting my altar now and will be performing this before bed tonight with the following items:

Silver Spell Candle
Two Moonstones & One Quartz
Moonstone Ritual Gemscent Oil
Natural colored sizzling spell paper (or any available paper/parchment)
Pen/Quill

On the Color Magick Sizzling Spell Paper I will write:
“Tonight I rest so that I will be at my best”

Again simply rest tonight. Do not focus on receiving messages, do not focus on what you did not get done, what you need to do. Simply be and rest.

In preparation for doing this I will turn off my computer at my desk altar and begin the process of relaxation by lighting a stick of one of my favorite incenses (Lotus Moon) and will release all my stresses through a simple visualization of opening a flow or cord to the universe to allow it to come into me through my crown down through my body and as it fills me I will release stresses down through my body and feet into the earth. This takes but a couple of minutes and is very relaxing. When I feel relaxed I will anoint my candle and light it. Taking the spell paper in my right hand I will fold it up into a small ‘football’ shape and then light it with the flame of the candle.

All the while I will be continuing to relax and simply be. After a few moments at the candle and altar I will extinguish my candle and then head to bed.

How much better will you be on every level, when you get the rest you need?

Monday’s are all about home, family, love, health, magick and dreams. These last two, the association is hard to ignore with the ruler of Monday being the Moon. The colors today are silver and white.

With this in mind today’s magick is going to be postponed to be called tonight’s magick
and one that I will be doing before I lay down to bed tonight.

The moon for today is in Taurus making it a fantastic time to work with inner peace, love,
creativity. These are the spells that take the longest to manifest but the results are
stable and long lasting.

My primary altar is on my desk, I use this altar every day. I do have a secondary altar
on my nightstand next to the bed that houses gemstones and a spot for a candle should I want one and an incense burner with either a small stone offering bowl or a stone goddess in the center.

Materials for tonight’s magick:
White Votive Candle (I am using a Sacred White Sage Votive)
Incense with Sandalwood or Jasmine (I am using Hari – Amber/Sandalwood)
Moonstone gem (if you have one)

Set your altar or bedside table (if safe) with the votive, incense burner and gemstone.
If you have an oil you use before sleep please anoint your votive with it. I will be
anointing mine with what some may believe to be an odd choice, nevertheless; I will be
using the Ostara Creamy Petals – Spellbound Potion on my candle. The scent relaxes and
opens my mind to the possibilities before me.

Sit before your altar, light your candle and focus on a challenge in your life right now.
Something you need to find resolution to, something that blocks your way, something that needs divine inspiration to help you find a creative solution through. Be very specific
in your thoughts. For me personally, I will be working on resolving challenges presented
before me in an effort to relocate with the ability to maintain my bills and life while
simultaneously improving it for the better.

I am looking for inspiration and creativity to help me find the direction, by using the
dream-state to lay the groundwork needed.

You may enter a meditative state while thinking about your challenge, this is perfectly
fine and normal as you will begin to receive visions of symbols by letting your conscious
mind go and allowing your inner-self take over to give you ideas and directions.
When you are ready, dab a little of the anointing oil on your temples and third eye then
lay down for sleep.

You may find your dreamstate to be more active. Before your feet hit the ground in the
morning, write down the symbols you are able to recall from your dreaming. These will
help you find your way through your challenge and bring your goals to fruition.

Putting together a set of stones for divination can be a really simple and inexpensive way to create a divination tool that you can take with you pretty much anywhere.  From creating a yes/no set of 6 stones to a larger set that mirrors the major arcana in the tarot deck, stone divination is a great way to use your crystals on another level of healing.

The first thing to do is decide on how big of a set you want to create.  You can always put these sets together on the fly when you need them from your collection of crystals, but if you want to create something specifically dedicated to divination, you’ll want to decide how big you want to go.  Do you want this to be something that fits in a small pouch that can go in your pocket?  Are you looking for something that can sit in a nice velvet lined wooden box on your altar and be part of your ritual divinations?  Let’s talk about both scenarios and then you’ll see that you can create anything in-between. Your creativity is your only limitation with this!

First, let’s look at simple, small sets of crystals which consists of 10 or fewer pieces.  A very simple one consists of 6 stones and is a yes/no bag.  All you need are 3 white and 3 black stones.  I would recommend for the white stones I would recommend:

• White Howlite = helps to calm, relieve stress and anger, and is said to also help gain insight from past lives.  (Howlite comes in a few different colors, including blue and green so you’ll want to seek out the white, which usually has black or gray veins through it.)
• Milky Quartz = helps with diffusing issues, relaxes and soothes.
• Moonstsone = connects to empathic energy, brings emotional balance, helps to release unwanted thoughts and emotions (Again, like howlite, moonstone comes in many colors.  Try and find ones that are as white as possible.)

Next you’ll want to find 3 black stones. Here I would recommend:

• Onyx = helps to ground and center, has a calming effect, helps to reveal underlying causes in difficult situations.
• Jet = brings stability and perspective to situations and puts the mind at ease.
• Black Tourmaline = very grounding and protective, helps to strengthen our grip on reality.

While seeking out your stones you’re going to want to look for pieces that are all somewhat uniform.  They don’t need to be the same size, but they should all be close (either all really small or all really large).  You also don’t want to mix raw and tumbled pieces, so either get all 6 as tumbled stones or all 6 as raw stones.  The reason for this is that when you have  your hand in your bag and you’re looking to draw a stone for an answer to a question you don’t want to be using your hands to search out familiar stones, even subconsciously.  You want to use the energy of the stones to draw you.  If you know that all the white stones are larger than the black, for example, you might be tempted to draw one of them just because of what you’d like the answer to your question to be.  By having stones that are all similar this is far less likely to happen and you’ll be able to focus more on how the energy of the stone feels.

Once you have your stones, properly cleanse and charge them, then give them intention.  Take the white ones and charge them for giving off “yes” answers and vibrations and the black ones for “no”.  If you feel for any reason that it should be the other way around, do that!  But charge them with their intent and their new “job”, so to speak.  Then put them in your bag.  Give them a gentle shake while thinking of a question that you already know the answer to.  Then put your receptive hand in, close your eyes, and take a moment to really feel around and let your hand be guided by the stones.  Draw our three stones, one at a time (I like to do this with my eyes still closed) and then see what you have.

• All White = Yes
• All Black = No
• 2 White, 1 Black = Most likely Yes
• 2 Black, 1 White = Most likely No

And there you go!  Really simple and depending on how small the stones are that you chose you can even carry this with you in your pocket all the time and you’ll never be without a quick divination tool.

For a larger set of stones, you can decide to work with a few different ideas.  I once had a stone reading with a woman that had a large Lazy Susan (one of those round spinning trays you might find on a dining table) filled with stones of all colors, shapes and sizes.  She had you think of a question and pick a number of stones with your eyes open.  Then you did it again, this time with your eyes closed.  The idea here was that the stones you picked with your eyes open indicated what you desire, what you were working toward, or even your expressed worries or fears, while the ones you picked with your eyes closed were more your higher self’s answers to some of these questions.  It was really interesting and quite accurate too.   The other method is to take stones that related back to the major arcana of the tarot and then you can use the stones to basically do tarot layouts like the Celtic Cross.

What I’m going to do is give you a list of stones with their meanings and tarot associations.  From there you can decide how you’d like to read them.  You can either just draw them like tarot cards or do the method like the woman that read for me did.  Either one I think works great.

Again follow the same rules when picking out your stones here.  Try and find ones that are somewhat uniform.  When you do the pick from a plate of stones method you can add in other stones that you might not otherwise use in a bag that you pull from, like geodes and points.  Once you have your stones, cleanse them, charge them, then place them in either a bag or box that you will work with them from.  Depending on how big of a collection you work with in this method, either with 22 to represent the tarot cards or with even more from just your personal preference, you will want to decide on a bag or box that will be big enough to hold them while also giving your hand room to move and work with them.

Stone Divination Meanings and Tarot Associations:
(this comes from Scott Cunningham’s book “Cunnignham’s Encyclopedia of Crystal, Gem and Metal Magic”)

0.The Fool=Agate – Scattered energies, waste, extravagance, imbalance, pride, ego, vanity
1.The Magician = Quartz Crystal – Magical attainment, control, power, balance, center, unification of spiritual and physical, self-knowledge, depth and confidence
2.The High Priestess = Emerald – Spirituality, secrets, power, Earth religion, the unknown, female mysteries.
3.The Empress = Peridot – Receptive energies, women, cycles, fertility, abundance, creativity, growth, female sexuality and love.
4 The Emperor = Ruby – Projective energy, men, compassion, force, movement, aggression, male sexuality
5.Hierophant = Topaz – Authority, Captivity, Confinement, Advice, Employer, honor
6.The Lovers = Rose Quartz – Love, sexuality, relationships, friendships, duality, polarity, balance and beauty
7. Chariot = Staurolite (crossed stone or twinned crystals) – Earth power, nature,self-control
8.Strength = Diamond (Herkimer Diamond or Garnet) – Power, courage,will power, activity
9. Hermit = Sapphire (blue tourmaline) – Wisdom, Knowledge, Mysticism, enlightenment.
10.Wheel of Fortune = Sardonyx (black opal) – Transformation, fortune, luck, unknown factors
11.Justice = Carnelian – Law, Legal matters, dominance, submission
12.Hanged Man = Beryl (aquamarine) – Introspection trials, tests, sacrifice
13.Death = Amber – Renewal, beginnings, endings, health matters, Trials
14.Temperance = Amethyst – Moderation, Scattering of energies, nonfocused, disciplined, balance
15.Devil = Black Diamond (black tourmaline) – Addiction, delusion, pity, depression, pettiness, lack of vision, violence, control by others, submission
16.Tower = Lodestone Adversity, accident, oppression, challenge
17.The Star = Meteorite – Universal energies, astrology, eclipse, travel, hope
18.The Moon = Moonstone – Psychism, emotions, night, winter, sleep, dreams, tides, depression, water
19. The Sun = Tiger’s-eye – Mental activity, thought, visualizations, contentment, day, summer, the seasons
20.Judgment = Fossil – Reversal, outcome, evolution, growth, life, childbirth, lessons
21.The World = Opal – Interplay, success, harvest, movement, overview, ability, completion, higher forces.

Another great book to check out for information on stones and crystals for divination and magick is “Dunwich’s Guide to Gemstone Sorcery” by Gerina Dunwich.