Magic in the making

Greetings everyone,

I hope you had a great week, and a nice Valentine's Day.  I know it is not everyone's favorite holiday.  Still for some people it is a blissful day with the one they love and I can hardly fault that.  This week saw me on the road.  Once a month I have a craft day with my good friend Jenny the Bear (grr).  I go south to her farm and we visit and make things.  Currently we're working in wood making staffs and prayer sticks.

I remember from a very young age being fascinated with talismans and objects of power.  They appear in just about every mythology and folklore around the world.  Special items that hold their own power, a power that can be used to change and shape the world around them.  Examples range from the sword Excalibur to the Ring of Power.

When I first started a magical path I was obsessed  with  acquiring amulets and wands.  Terry Pratchett in his discworld novels has a very wry attitude about the magical supply trade.  One character in particular named Granny Weatherwax says it best, "She's one of them that thinks you become a witch by shoppin."

Over the years I have used fewer props and the ones I do make use of have been acquired in special ways:  a stone from a teacher, a cloth brought to me from a sacred site, a singing bowl bought in celebration of graduation.  The emotion was as important as the item.  In the past few months I started entertaining the idea of making my own tools for myself and others.  It started with a charm I made for a friend going through a rough time.  Having been involved in the arts for over a decade I'd finally felt confident enough in my craft skills to make something with focused intent.

There are two ways an item becomes enchanted.  The first is taking a chosen object and imbuing it with intent and some of either your power or an invoked spiritual archetypal power.  The second is to make something and put the intent into it during the creation process.  This is something favored by those who are creative with their hands because all the decisions in the process of making something can contribute to the overall meaning and energy of a talisman.  There is of course a third approach which is  a combination of the two.  You make your object with intent and then also ceremonially imbue it with energy.

So what does this have to do with you?  Well a lot really.  Talismans aren't the only act of making that create change.  Have you ever gotten so involved in a creative project that the energy of that alters your world in some way?  Maybe during the making your reevaluate a relationship.  Maybe you make a life altering decision.  Maybe you start to experience increased synchronicity.  I've had the experience when working on a highly personal piece of feeling like the universe itself was speaking.  So whether you are making an amulet or painting a space put your creative spark into it.  When we use our intent and create consciously we not only transform the material we are working on, we transform ourselves.

Happy making,
Thomas Mooneagle