PRACTICE WITH ENERGY

After a few attempt at drawing and grounding energy, we have a better idea of the similarities and differences, as well as how we interact with each type of energy. Now, we need to practice shaping and moving it.

Start by pulling personal energy into your dominant hand. Then hold your hands palms facing each other, about three inches apart. Send the energy from the dominant hand and receiving it with the non-dominant hand. Allow it to flow back into your center creating a loop of energy. Trying varying the distance between your hands. Try to decrease the energy to a trickle. Try to dial it up a little more than you have before if you feel confident controlling it.

Center and stabilize the energy.

Try the same exercises sending the energy with your non-dominant hand and receiving it with you dominant one.

After a few sessions of sending and receiving, it’s time to try shaping and molding the energy.

Pull personal energy into your dominant hand, holding it palm facing non-dominant hand. Instead of receiving it this time, use your hands to shape the energy into a ball. Expand it or contract it. Spin it. Toss it from hand to hand. When you’re done, allow the energy to be absorbed, centered and stabilized. Next time, try creating a square or other simple shape with the energy. Then try it with the other two types of energy.

Once you feel confident, try various combinations of energies. Pull earth energy and allow it to pool with your personal energy before sending it into your hand. When done with the exercises, do the same but with divine energy. Pull both earth and divine energy and have them both flow into your hand to work, bypassing your personal energy as much as possible. Finally, pull both divine and earth energy and let it mingle with your personal energy before practicing.
 

Ashlyn Hawthorne, Wiccan Basics: Solitary Suburban Pagan Guide

DIVINE ENERGY

We connect to divine energy in a very similar way to how we call on earth energy. Begin with centering and anchoring to the earth. Once stable, focus on the top of your head and feel the energy there, sort of like sunlight shining down on your head. Open yourself to it. Often, you will feel it flow down your neck and spine. Repeat the exercises with your dominant and non-dominant hand.

After you’ve finished, you’ll need to ground the energy the same way you did with the earth energy.

As before, note how it feels in comparison to the energies you’ve already worked with.

Ashlyn Hawthorne, Wiccan Basics: Solitary Suburban Pagan Guide

EARTH ENERGY

Start by centering and grounding, the same way as with personal energy. (We won’t be calling on personal energy directly in this exercise, but we will use it to ground, and we’ll also call on slightly to help direct the earth energy.)

Once you feel strongly anchored in the earth, see the connection thicken and strengthen a bit more. Feel the energy of the earth. Invite it to move up your anchor and into your body. Feel its movement as you draw it into your dominant hand and repeat the same exercise as you performed with personal energy. Then move the earth power to your non-dominant hand.

Note how the earth energy feels. How it’s the same and how it’s different from the personal energy in order to add it to your journal later.

When you’re done, send the energy back down through your body, along your anchor and ground it into the earth.

Don’t try to hold on to the earth energy. It can make you feel light-headed, ill or out of sorts.

Return your attention to your center, calming your own energy. Then release your anchor and allow your consciousness to return to normal.

Ashlyn Hawthorne, Wiccan Basics: Solitary Suburban Pagan Guide

PERSONAL ENERGY

When connecting with personal energy, we have to understand where, exactly, our own power comes from. We have to start by asking ourselves where we feel energy and emotion in times of intensity. Most feel it somewhere in the center of our body. The chest, the solar plexus, or the stomach.

Once we locate our personal energy center, we have to center ourselves. Start by concentrating on that spot and focus on keeping your awareness there. Breathe in and out, practicing extending the time when we can hold our concentration.

Next, we have to ground ourselves, anchoring our mental and emotional ‘bodies’ in place. Some people imagine tree roots connecting them to the earth beneath them, others see a line of energy. Choose whatever image feels sturdy and substantial to you. Once feeling anchored and secure, go back to your energy center and make sure your focus there is still strong.

Now, see that energy seeping/flowing/stretching/weaving itself out from the center and making its way to your dominant arm. Feel the warmth/tingle/movement as it expands. Allow it to pool in your dominant hand. Stretch out your fingers to expand it. Curl them back to condense. After getting comfortable with it for a few minutes, focus again on your center and pull the energy back until it has all returned to your energy center.

Repeat the same steps, but let the energy move into your non-dominant side. This may or may not be more difficult. It may feel different. Make a mental note of it while you’re experiencing it and write it in your journal later. Pull the energy back.

Once with this exercise, your energy center may feel larger or more active. Focus on calming it back to the way it felt when you first connected with it. You may need to ground some of the energy along roots, releasing it into the earth. Once you feel centered and stable, disconnect from the earth, allow your consciousness to release its focus on your energy center and return to normal awareness.

Ashlyn Hawthorne, Wiccan Basics: Solitary Suburban Pagan Guide

Energy Is All Around Us

We have to have strong focus in order to work with the energies around us. We need strong mental skills to sense, draw, shape, and direct energy. There are multiple types of energy around us all the time, but it’s easiest to look at the ones we use the most as falling into three categories:

Personal energy-energy that comes from within us.

Divine energy—energy that comes from the deities or other parts of the spirit world.

Earth energy-energy that we can draw from the aspects of nature around us, both in the ground beneath our feet and in objects drawn from nature like flowers, stones or wood.

Ashlyn Hawthorne, Wiccan Basics: Solitary Suburban Pagan Guide