All the ingredients in this spell feature measures we take to protect ourselves, sometimes practical, often magical, or spiritual which help us to feel more in control.
It all begins with blackthorn. Depicted here in autumn with its bitter sloe fruits. It’s a hard wood and large very sharp spikes make it an excellent boundary. A natural precursor to barbed wire, perfect to keep in livestock, or keep out intruders.
The light brocade moth was painted from direct observation, caught in the moth trap in early summer. It stays safe by overwintering as a pupa, emerging a single generation on the wing in May or June. We too can choose the safest time to surface. Resting and recharging enough to enable us to emerge strong
The false oat grass is the wonderfully tactile grass you will have caught between your fingers and stripped the seeds off. Its roots stabilise soil and sand dunes. Use this as inspiration as you consider your own roots. Connection to place, community and your own history can stabilise you too.
This is a witchbottle, painted on location in The Museum of Cambridge. I love the warped logic of protection against witchcraft. The actions people took look exactly like witchcraft themselves. It was thought that iron and salt had protective properties against the havoc and chaos witchcraft could reap, but people also created their own natural concoctions to safeguard their houses, also placing shoes, dead cats, rats or witchbottles up the chimney to stop witches gaining access to the house.
This extraordinarily shaped bottle was found very locally to me, in Cottenham Cambridgeshire when an old manor formally housing Catherine Peyps (a relative of Samuel Peyps) was demolished in 1947. Inside it has strands of silk and cloth which are now adhered to the walls of the glass. Such a mysterious object, and unusual shape with rich colours and reflections.
This key was painted in Cambridge nuclear bunker. The store for Cambridge Museum of Anthropology and Archeology. I was spoilt for choice, presented with a vast collection of keys, beautiful objects in themselves. One can’t help but think of the impressive doors these must have allowed access to. Just think of the power of having such a giant key dangling around your waist! What a status symbol! What control, access to forbidden places. This 15th Century Medieval key was found in Cambridge. The door that it opened is long since gone. It’s funny how the keys outlast the locks and doors. Even my own (much less impressive) key collection contains keys, the locks for which are broken, or no longer exist. It feels wrong to throw away a key. A powerful object granting access to forbidden places!
Here is a goose feather for my Spell For Security. If you have ever encountered a gaggle of geese, you will know at your own expense, they are excellent, persistent and un-placatable guards! Even better than dogs. Geese were a favourite Roman security measure. In the 1950s a gaggle of geese was used as protection outside a Scottish whiskey distillery Ballantine’s. They were known as the “Scotch-watch” and were used until as recently as 2012.
Hanging a rope of hagstones, which are pebbles with a hole all the way through, outside your door, is a Suffolk tradition to ward off bad luck, evil spirits and witches.
Like the witchbottle, I'm always tickled by how these "anti-witchcraft" practices actually look a lot like witchcraft! In folklore Hag stones are credited with an astonishing array of properties: A porthole to a fairy dimension, protection from evil and nightmares, potent fertility symbols, a way to treat ailments, a method of preventing livestock being bewitched, insurance against storms at sea, a snake repellent…the hole is thought only to let good pass.
Known as Hag stones, Witch stones, hex stones, adder stones, snake eggs, fairy stones, eye stones, holy stones, whatever you call them, for me they are wonderfully tactile objects, created by the boring of a bivalve mollusk called a ‘piddock,’ or from coarse sand and/or smaller stones repeatedly grinding into a stone’s surface. This particular stone has two holes one of which is blocked by little pebbles. Imagine the fat, smooth, round weight of this stone in your hand as comfort.
We humans long for security, predictability, certainty. But ironically, the ONLY thing that is certain is change. Everything changes and nothing is guaranteed. That truth can be very stressful. And so throughout history, we have searched for ways to feel more secure. From keeping out intruders, to protection from the supernatural, we invest in objects and items to make us feel safer.
This Spell is for you if you find uncertainty unsettling. Use the security measures of those who have gone before you as comfort. Your predecessors felt this discomfort before you. And use the items in the Spell to give you permission to relax and blossom in this present moment, the ONLY place you can control.
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