The latest rant from the occult consultancy! When people
talk about the magical landscape 9 times out of 10 they are referring to
knowing where the special sites around you. Knowing where your local crossroads
is, your grave yard or cemetery, finding out the history of old buildings,
looking for a special T junction or a site where people were once hung. This of
course is so important to any folk tradition, dirt, stones and other items
employed in tricks can be gathered from such places or tapped in to in order to
communicate with spirits, leave offerings or dispose of spent items.
Walking through the land I can point out numerous tree’s, herbs and flowers and know their magical applications. I frequently gather items from walks, I am of course lucky enough to live in Glastonbury, a holy place, littered with sacred wells and springs, ancient religious sites and the resting places of numerous Saints. The chapel on the Tor is dedicated to Michael the Archangel, the hedgerows are packed with useful plants and I make it my business to know what’s in season when. Practising folk magic means needing to have an understanding of the seasons, knowledge of plant lore and an insight in to the history of the place you are living. All of these things help to empower your magic.
However I have not always lived in a little country town surrounded my mystical places and endless lanes of hedge! When I lived in cities the same principal applies. Knowing where your graveyard is and where to find the old man at the crossroads is important but so is to know your shopping centre. We live in an age where you can buy, you can walk in to a town and know you can get food, drink and basically anything else you might need. Knowing the landscape is equally as important as knowing where the local craft shop is, what herbs are for sale in the supermarket, what flowers your florist carries or can get hold of, even where your nearest butcher is.
Sainsbury’s can provide just as much of an occult booty haul as a well stocked Botanica! Ethnic supermarkets sell a huge variety of herbs and spices, florists and garden centres often stock baneful flowers for decorative arrays and let us not overlook the Aladdins caves of the occult world, charity shops. Charity shop shelves are filled with pots, baskets, trinkets and the occasional discarded idol or statue. With a little clean up physically and spiritually these items are good as new and so very useful. Over the years Charity shops and car boot sales have provided me with more of a wealth of esoteric and Occult items than anywhere else. I noticed while shopping last week high street stores were selling hands of Fatima, eyes of Horus and numerous other amulets as “teenage fashion jewellery” that’s a lot of safe girls out there!
The point I am making is that it’s so important to utilise what’s around us, to look in the most obvious places. I once told a woman how to prepare a spiritual bath and said “get some basil from the supermarket” to which she replied “don’t you sell it? It won’t be magical if it’s from TESCO”. Sometimes it’s nice to eat at a restaurant, to buy readymade sauces or have someone else cook for you. That said sometimes it’s nice to seek out the spices, to prepare your meal from scratch and most importantly to know where to get the items from!
