Spyrit Dancers' Musings On All Things Wiccan

If you notice the set we made I posted about earlier, one thing that is missing is a goblet. We wanted to make one, but as far as my husband and I knew, there wasn’t any way to glaze the chalice and make it safe to drink out of without firing it.

We stopped yesterday at a local craft store and told her our dilemna. Both of us have worked with greenware in the past, but it was 20 years ago. We happily found out that times and materials have changed. And we found a glaze we can spray on that will coat the chalice and make it safe to drink out of. Whooo hoo!

So my husband carved a chalice last night, and it has the triple moon on the front of it like our cauldron does. We also have a triple moon tile that we can use to burn our self-igniting incense we will be coming out with in the next week in. This will give us a more complete altar set than we had before.

I’m also going to have him carve a Libations dish, and a bowl for water. Along with our wands that we make, that will give you everything you need for your altar, and it will be a matched set. And the best thing, it is all hand made in the USA by a practicing Wiccan and her helpful husband…not some factory in a 3rd world country.

I told him I want a purple set of everything. Have I mentioned I love purple? I tend to wear a lot of it, and my office walls are painted a light lilac color with dark purple flecks that have glitter in them. So I likes my purple.

Always great to be able to post that more products are coming soon!

My husband and I were out in the garage yesterday, getting some Mesquite ready to make more wands I plan on posting up to sell, and I told him that that title would make a good blog post, lol. Anyone not familiar with this tree, it has wicked thorns, and the size of the thorns don’t seem to be determined by the size of the branch. We had skinny branches with 1″ thorns, thick branches with tiny prickers, and vice versa.

So I was in work boots, pants, gloves up to my elbows, three layers of shirts and sweaters, getting the branches out of the pile we let them “age” in. (We cut them on the day of the full moon back in September), trying not to get stabbed. Then we take them in our garage and take really big loppers and lop off the parts we want to use, toss the other parts back in a different pile to be burned. Did I mention mesquite wood is also an incredibly hard wood? According to a site I found, Mesquite wood’s average density of 45 lbs/ft3 is equal to that of hickory and higher than that of most all other woods. Sooo sawing and cutting it, especially dried, is fun too.

Then comes the fun part. I had cutting pliers, diagonals? not sure the technical name, and cut the majority of the thorns off, then I handed it to him and he had a box knife cutting the rest off. It takes awhile, an average wand branch might have 50 thorns. Try doing all of this with really thick gloves on. Feels like you are wearing a baseball mitt trying to thread a needle sometimes, lol. Then he hacksawed off any oddly cut ends, then I took a hand sander and touched up the ends.

They are now all sitting on my kitchen table, waiting for me to decorate them up. Other than using a dremmel to drill a hole to embed the crystal points, they will be entirely made without power tools. We do them all by hand. My first wand I ever made is on my altar and I use it. I love it. We leave the bark on them…I never understood why people peeled the bark off for wands, that to me takes away a lot of the character of the wood. And Mesquite, which has a grey bark when growing, has a beautiful reddish/tan bark when dried.

These will be wands that will be harder than almost any other wood wands you could buy. Most sources say too that Mesquite is a healing wood. I don’t think a lot of magickal properties has been written about it, because most people that make wands have more woods to choose from, and Mesquite only grows in desert areas like we have here. I think most wand makers live where there are actual forests. I miss forests.

For me though, it is my only tree. I have 7 mesquites on my property, one kinda good sized one, the rest smaller. This tree grows VERY Slowly, and my largest tree is at least 50 years old and only 20′ tall max. Below is a pic of my three largest trees in my front yard, with some Texas ranger growing under them, an a Russian sage in bloom off to the side. You can see the size of the trunk on my largest tree compared to the rest.

We had to cut him back so much when we first bought our house…the old owners let it get covered in mistletoe, a parasitic plant that will eventually kill them. This tree is considered by some a pest, but for 2,000 years the Native Americans in arid regions relied on mesquite as food staple. The pods can be ground into flour that is high in fiber and good sugars and is sweet tasting. It can grow without any help of water, fertilizers or pesticides that might be used on other trees. The only thing we’ve done in the 5 years we’ve lived here is give them water.

When I get the wands all decorated up, I’ll post up pics and post about it.

Tonight is the full moon. It is called The Cold Moon, (apt name in most of the US), The Wolf Moon, or The Quiet Moon and occurs at 10:27pm EST.

According to Llewellyn’s 2009 Witches’ Spell-A-Day Almanac this moon name in the Elven path is called (translated) the Moon of New Fire, celebrating the return of longer days, and was alinged with Alue the Smith. (Sorry the u has a special character over it, but I don’t know how to type it) who lives in the ground and resonates with metals, gemstones and other forms of creation and crafting.

I read this after I spent the morning searching for gemstones to make rune stones and wands out of. I have always felt blessed by the Goddess and she gently guides me down the path I should take, and this is just one example of her working in my life. I love stuff like that!

I am planning on performing a ritual tonight to bring health and prosperity into my home. (always a good full moon ritual) but after reading today’s spell, I decided to also do the ritual listed to meet Aule and ask his protection and guidance on selecting the best stones to work with personally, and to sell to other Wiccans.

The ritual (paraphrased from Llewellyn’s 2009 Witches’ Spell-A-Day Almanac )goes like this:

Light a black, gray or brown candle, and hold rocks, crystals, gemstones or metal items. Sitting comfortably, close your eyes and visualize being underground in a cave. The walls glow, and you see the beauty of the exposed metals and gemstones are reflecting light from the fire inside Arda our Earth.

You then approach Aule, who is crafting in these fires a beautiful creating, and he asks you what you wish to mainfest this year. List your goals to him, and upon hearing your goals, he creates a symbol of these goals which he has engraved on a wonderful item. It can be a stone, or a piece of jewelry, or a metal work. When he hands it to you, he shows you the item, the symbols and tells you their meanings and you feel the strong powers coming from it. You know that the strength of that power will help your goal to become real. (written by Calantirniel)

Thank him for his blessing and gift. Come out of your meditation. I plan on visualizing his symbols and drawing them, or possibly etching them on some of my gem stones that I have all over my desk and altar. (I cannot resist pretty stones and rocks, lol).