A Crash Course In Warding

A Crash Course in Warding

Let’s just start a series of crash courses in witchcraft, since sometimes we need to learn things the quick and dirty way. Today, let’s talk about wards.

What are wards? Wards are protective energy barriers. They keep things out. You can place them around your home, certain rooms, even on certain objects. With practice and clear intentions, you can focus the wards to block out everything or only certain things. We’ll get to that in a bit.

Why should I ward my space and my things? Wards can keep out all sorts of things you don’t want in your home. They can block out negative entities, wayward spirits, mischievous entities, demons, and (if you’re really good at what you’re doing) even gods. Some people ward their divination tools so they know there are no spirits tampering with the results.

So what do I need to do first? Cleanse. This is very important. Wards are kind of like walls, or perhaps more accurately, bubbles. If you don’t clean the space first, you might trap things inside your ward bubble. You do not want that. There are lots of methods of cleansing, from burning sage to spritzing oil-infused water. Find a method you’re comfortable with and cleanse everything you’re going to be warding.

I’ve cleansed my home/item. Now what? Now we ward. I’m going to give you a couple methods. Let’s start with my favorite, incense warding.

Incense warding can also be done with spritzes of water/essential oil blends or herb-infused water if you can’t have smoke in your space. Whichever you’re using, you want to have a blend of protective herbs. Bay leaves, cinnamon, ginger, mustard seed, and salt are some great options that you can find in the grocery store, no fancy witch shop necessary. If you’re using incense, make sure you’re using natural incense and not super cheap stuff that’s artificially scented. The magic is in the herbs, and you won’t get that from fake scents.

How to Incense/Spritz Ward an Item

Smoke or spray item.

Visualize the smoke or spray clinging to the item and wrapping around it like a tight blanket, protecting it from anything that would cause harm (or interference, etc.).

How to Incense/Spritz Ward Your Space

Pick a place to start. I always start at my altar, but it’s up to you. If you’re doing multiple floors, start either at the top or bottom floor.

Moving continuously to your right, smoke or spray along the walls and door frames. As you go, imagine a barrier being formed around the walls, ceiling, and floor, pushing outwards to fill the room. Visualize the smoke or spray forming the barrier to keep out anything that will do you harm. [If you have a hard time with visualization, you can simply focus on the intent of the smoke or spray keeping things out.]

Keep moving right, following the layout of your home, making sure you get all the closet spaces. You basically want to outline the entire area you’re protecting, whether it’s you’re room or your whole house.

For multiple floors, repeat on each level.

For big layouts where there are rooms in the middle, go around those rooms as well.

I like to reinforce the wards over outside doors, windows, and mirrors. These are all passages of sorts, and when I reach them, I use the incense to draw a pentagram in the air over them. This is entirely up to you.

You’re done when you’ve reached the point where you began.

So why do we go to the right? Is that important? Kind of. Going to the right is like going clockwise. It’s about making things and progression, where going to the left or counter-clockwise is about deconstruction or reversal. [I read this idea in a witchy book a long time ago and will try to find a source when I can. If you honestly don’t feel it makes a difference, do whatever you’re comfortable with.]

Can I place wards that keep out certain things but not others? Sure. When you’re going around your space/warding your item, your intent is what’s important. I like to ward out entities that mean harm - it’s nice and general and doesn’t keep the fae out. Some people might want certain spirits and not others. Have your intentions clear in your mind as you place your wards.

That’s neat and all, but what are some other ways to ward? Let’s list a few.

Symbol/Sigil Wards

Choose (or make) a symbol or sigil that has protective properties. I’ve done this with Pluto’s astrological symbol because I worship him and it’s my way of being like, “Hey, Pluto. Please protect me, kthanxbai.” Pentagrams are nice and basic witchy/pagan symbols if you like them.

Draw the symbol over doors and windows. You do not literally have to draw it. It can be in water, incense smoke, or just your finger against the surface if you want.

As you’re drawing, make sure you have your intentions in mind - that nothing harmful can pass through this door, that the windows remain closed against entities, etc.

Energy Bubbles (if you have control over your energy)

Pick an item - any item.

Get your warding intentions in mind.

Channel lots of energy into the item. Visualize it emanating from the item in a bubble to fill your space.

If you’ve got mad skillz, you can form the bubble to the walls and be super exact with where its barriers are.

Vocal Wards

If you like spoken (or thought) spells, come up with a small chant to protect your space.

You can repeat this chant as you focus on your item being protected or as you walk around your home, protecting every room.

This is really great to incorporate into basically any other form of warding and gives your magic an extra bit of oomph.

I’ve heard wards can “fade” over time. True or false? Wards are just energy. Like all energies, they can disperse and weaken over time, or if something particularly nasty puts effort into destroying them. Redo your wards every so often (I do mine every few months, but it’s up to you), and especially before spiritual interactions. I also like to do mine after I’ve had lots of company, to kind of clear out family’s lingering energies and reinforce what I don’t want in my house.

In general, the intent of your wards is the most important part. Know what you want to keep out. This concludes our crash course on warding. Now go forth and protect some stuff!

More Posts from Oceangodz and Others

4 years ago
Nordic Sea Witch Aesthetic Requested By @moonkissedsin
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4 years ago

Norse Small Devotional Acts Masterpost

Æsir Baldr Bragi Eir Frigg Heimdallr  Lofn Máni Nanna Njörun Oðin Rán Sigyn Sól Thor Tyr Üllr Víðarr 

Vanir Freyja Freyr Njörðr

Jötnar Ægir Jörð Skaði Rökkr Hati and Sköll Hel Fenrir Loki

*This list is a work in progress and I will be creating more in my future free time!* Feel free to message me requests, just know I won’t necessarily get to them immediately. Updated: 03/29/2020

6 years ago

If you ever feel like you must be the most unobservant person in the world, remember: I once spent half a year failing to notice that my new favourite restaurant was a money-laundering front for the Ukrainian mafia.

(I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but in retrospect, the fact that it was always dead no matter the time of day - I think the busiest I ever saw it was five people, myself included - well, that should have been a tipoff. Also, the waitstaff kept calling me “Mr. Prokopetz”, which I had assumed was just part of the restaurant’s gimmick, but given that “Prokopetz” is a Ukrainian surname, I’m now force to wonder whether they’d thought I was, you know, in the business. I just liked the pierogi!)

7 years ago

“i forget how we don’t pass as straight” @toomuchducky

4 years ago

Use your craft to help the protesters

Now normally, I don’t make big posts or have calls-to-action. I’m supportive of the ones I see, and share posts on my social media’s, but don’t often make my own posts about them. But this is too big for any of us to remain silent about. The murder of George Floyd is yet another example of the society we’re living in. It’s one where marginalized groups are constantly attacked and subdued by the actions of the ruling (rich, white) class. We can’t just sit by and let this continue. BLACK LIVES MATTER and to not speak out or act when something so heinous is happening in front of our eyes cannot continue. Want to help the protesters, but can’t march or donate? Use the skills you’ve learned to make a change.

Cast protection and prosperity spells for the protesters:

If you’re able to cast spells, use what you’ve learned to protect the protesters from the violent tactics of the police. Give the protesters the strength and reassurance they need to continue the fight. Help them in gathering the courage needed to face such horrible backlash. Protection is one of the best ways to help if you’re hesitant about directing your spells towards the violent police forces. Let your spells be felt in some way rather than not acting at all.

Bind the police to prevent them from causing more harm:

This one is something many of us can do and if you’re against cursing then this can be a way for you to help even further. Binding the police who are attacking protesters can help protect them even more. Stopping them before violence starts or continues will be incredibly helpful for the protesters who are marching in the streets. It’s been seen that in many instances during these protests, police officers have been the ones instigating violence or harassing protesters to the point where they have no other choice but to react in a way police categorize as violent. Don’t let them do this. Bind their actions to where they can’t continue the violence we’ve been seeing.

Cast curses and hexes directed at police attacking the protesters and causing them serious harm:

Now I’m pro-cursing, but I make sure I have a clear target in my mind whose face I can clearly see. It’s important to also get a name of the target of your curse if you can. This makes it so curses can’t rebound somewhere else or harm the people trying to make a change. Make your target feel the negativity their actions are causing. Make them realize the hate they are causing and the grief they are responsible for. Demoralize them and give them repercussions for attacking protesters

Create sigils that you can share with your friends to family to protect them if they are protesting:

Protective sigils made by you with the intent to help the people around you are a great way to have your work out in the protest. They can help those around the person carrying the sigil and spread the intent of the sigil throughout the protest. You can also create a sigil to do the same thing and burn it or dispose of it in a way which destroys it to send your intent out if someone can not carry it in a protest.

Work with your gods and goddesses to protect the people marching:

Pray to the deities you work with, especially the ones who are associated with protection. In the Norse pantheon, these can be deities such as Thor (especially), Tyr, Freyja, and Odin (among others). Look into the pantheons you work with and the deities you know to see if you can ask them to give their blessings to the protesters. Always be respectful when you’re doing this and give them offerings if that’s how you honor you deities or dedicate some actions to them as thanks for their help.

As people who are part of marginalized communities, it is our duty to support these protests and bring about the change that is so desperately needed. We need to stand with our brothers and sisters to fight against the brutality that is so prevalent in so many areas of the world. Even if you don’t identify as part of a marginalized community, not speaking out against the brutality happening is the same as supporting its continuation. We need to do what we can. Add ways to help the movement that I haven’t mentioned. BLACK LIVES MATTER

7 years ago

At work I review a lot of signatures and today it just clicked.

Scribbles.

Imagine if aliens come to us and realise that instead of difficult to fake dna, or fingerprints, or retinas, we have this scribble.

This is my scribble. No one else can use it because its mine.

Not so much as Humans are Weird as Humans are Toddlers…

4 years ago

I don’t speak with anyone for a week. I just sit on a stone by the sea.

Anna Akhmatova, from Plantain

… and there is something about the achingly bright expanse of blue that makes me feel infinitely placid, infinitely calm, infinitely spacious. Something there is about the ceaseless, unperturbed ebb and flow … about the vast masses of green-blue water … that heals all my uneasy questionings and self-searchings.

Sylvia Plath, from a letter

You would rather have gone on feeling nothing, emptiness and silence; the stagnant peace of the deepest sea, which is easier than the noise and flesh of the surface.

Margaret Atwood, from Eurydice

The sea has many voices, Many Gods and many voices.

T.S. Eliot, from The Dry Salvages

Look there: how she approaches impatiently over the sea. Do you not feel the thirst and the hot breath of her love? She would suck at the sea and drink its depth into her heights; and the sea’s desire rises toward her with a thousand breasts. It wants to be kissed and sucked by the thirst of the sun; it wants to become air and height and a footpath of light, and itself light.

Friedrich Nietzsche, from Thus Spoke Zarathustra

The sea is working, working in my silence.

Pablo Neruda, from Nothing More

She knows what she wants: she wants to remain standing still in the sea. And so she remains. The woman neither receives nor transmits. She does not need to communicate. She knows that she is gleaming from the water, the salt and the sun. In some obscure way her dripping hair is like that of a shipwrecked person.

Clarice Lispector, from An Apprenticeship, or the Book of Delights

I wish you a kinder sea.

Emily Dickinson, from a letter

4 years ago
Trigger Warning For Nazis And Antisemitism.

Trigger warning for Nazis and antisemitism.

I came across the above image being shared by a friend, and I would like to point out some problems with this simplistic approach.

For context, I am a Jewish man, I read and write elder Futhark fluently, I am familiar with runic divination, and I have MANY close Norse neopagan friends: even my sister is a Norse pagan. This post is not an attack on the pagan community. It is a reminder that we MUST address reality, not fantasy.

I understand the sentiment this image is trying to convey, and if you are a Norse pagan, you should resent and defy Nazis for abusing something that is important to you.

However, the reality is that symbols carry meanings given to them by humans, and Nazis have given hateful meanings to Germanic symbols, beginning under the third Reich and continuing to this day. Those symbols include the Futhark runic alphabets, specifically odal and sowilo, as well as symbols like the equal armed cross, the valknut, vegvisir, and mjolnir. These symbols have carried deeply hateful antisemitic meanings since before you, and most of your parents, were born. You CANNOT ignore that, or make it go away.

It would be blind to assert that the swastika does not belong to Nazis, has no antisemitic and evil meaning, and is not tainted by their use of it. Indigenous people groups who value that symbol in their own cultures have reacted differently. For example, some Desi cultures still use it, but the Navajo people do not, because of the Nazi implications it now irrevocably carries. If you are white, you DO NOT get to "reclaim" the swastika, no matter how much you love other cultures.

While I understand that these symbols and others are important to my pagan and wiccan friends, you can't deny the darker meanings that they carry. If you are going to be using them, you are accepting upon yourself an obligation to educate people about their meanings - ALL their meanings - and to make it abundantly clear that you are an ally of the Jewish people.

Unfortunately, when I see people wearing or using Germanic symbols, I WILL think "I wonder if they're a Nazi" every single time. Every time. It is an inescapable reality that these symbols are being used as silent dog whistles for hatred of Jewish people and other "non-whites."

If you don't want people to suspect you of being a Nazi, you have ONLY two options.

1: Don't use Germanic symbols

2: Make it FIERCELY evident that you are an ally to Jews, POC, and queer people

Gentiles, you are invited to reblog this post.

Antisemitism will not be tolerated on this post: specifically, do not speak over Jewish voices on the issue of antisemitism, and do not assert that the claims in this post are false.

7 years ago
Has This Been Done Yet

Has this been done yet

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oceangodz - yell into the sky
yell into the sky

open water hears nothing

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