Let’s Talk Witch – Working with Energy
To really feel magic, to make spells work and to get the right result from a ritual you need ENERGY.
Every living thing has its own energy, whether it is a flower, a crystal, a person or a pebble. All of the ingredients you might gather together for a spell will have their own individual energies and characteristics. If you use a wand, that has its own energy too, but the real energy comes from YOU.
Working with energy is really a combination, you can draw energy up from the Earth or from an item such as a crystal and you channel it through yourself, but you also add a bit of energy from your inner self as you do so. When you are in ritual you might also call upon the God and Goddess to lend their energy to your workings too, you can raise energy from other sources as well. The elements can provide us with energy too – Earth, Air, Fire and Water all provide sources of energy that we can tap into.
But generally you are also the conduit, you summon the energy, you gather it, you add to it and you direct it.
Everyone has energy within them, everyone has the power to access it, to tap into it and use it. Unfortunately most people have no idea how to do so, and boy are they missing out.
The energy created by our bodies and by the spirit within our bodies is generally referred to as the aura. The energy that flows around and through our bodies is usually referred to as chi.
I would like you to try something now… yep right now… rub both your hands together (palms together) quickly for a few seconds, then very, very slowly pull them apart. Can you feel anything? You should feel a slight pull or a tingling sensation. What you can feel in between your hands is energy, that’s the stuff we want to work with.
Another exercise to try is to hold your hands a couple of feet apart, palms inwards and slowly bring your hands together. You will hopefully start to feel a pressure as your hands get closer, a resistance – again this is energy. (Don’t worry if you don’t feel it at first, sometimes it takes some practice.)
Part of being a witch is to be connected to the Earth, her plants and her creatures, to be aware of the energies around us so that we can connect and interact with them.
You can form the energy and one of the most well used forms is the cone of power. This usually happens within a circle, the energy is raised by chanting and/ or dancing in a circle, the energy builds and forms into an upwardly pointing cone that shapes itself in the centre of the circle and rises skywards. Once the cone is ready and it is felt that no more energy can be added, it is released and sent to its destination.
On a smaller scale we raise and direct energy when we work a spell, for instance a candle spell. We would take the energy from the Earth, channel it through our body and out through our hands and into a candle, this will charge the candle with energy. We add our intent and any other ‘ingredients’ such as herbs and oils. Once the candle is burning it releases the energy we filled it with, that energy then goes on its merry way to fulfil the intent that it was meant for.
Pagan Portals – Kitchen Witchcraft: Crafts of a Kitchen Witch
Rachel Patterson
Witches Of The Craft® 