DIY Ritual Tools and an Invitation

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S3E17 TRANSCRIPT:

Yucca: Welcome back to the Wonder: Science-Based Paganism. I'm one of your hosts, Yucca. 

Mark: And I'm the other one.

Yucca: And today we're talking do it yourself, ritual tools. So we've got a pretty big list of fun kinds of things that you can be doing. But before we do that, we actually want to get into the why maybe, why would you want to be making these tools yourself rather than just buying the really gorgeous one that you see?

Don Amazon or wherever it is.

Mark: Right. The the, the first reason is obviously expense. You know, there are some very beautiful, a cult ritual tools that are made out there and they they cost. If you have that money, then it's fine to spend on those. But beyond that, there's the environmental concern about the. Putting one more thing.

That's eventually gonna find its way into a landfill into the, the material stream and all of the associated packaging and shipping and all of those kinds of things. So those are, those are things to be cognizant of, but also there is that when you make something for yourself, you feel more deeply connected to.

When we talk about sentimental value, that's what we mean. We mean that something has a personal meaning to us. That's associated with the story, you know, the story of how you made it or where the materials came from or what was happening at that time in your life. All of those kinds of stories that sort of cling to the object and help you to to have a deeper emotional relationship.

All of which is.

rich material for doing rituals. 

Yucca: Right. Yeah. And they, and these are things that can. They can build on each other. Right? So you have the ritual in which you're making the tool and then the first ritual that you use it in. And then the next one, then the next one, and it starts to have this, this long relationship that you have with it that you have that association every time you pick that up, that, Ooh, it brings you back to those right.

Mark: Right. Yeah. So. I'm a big believer in this. And maybe some of that is because many times in my life I've been really broke. But. It's also, I mean, I've, I've said this quote before, but it really stuck with me, which is probably why I've said it a bunch a morning. Lori Zell once said to me, you know, if you can't do it with a stick, you picked up on the way to the circle.

You can't do it at all. And that may be a little broad, but I do think that rituals that are effective are a function of skills. Just tools, you know, the arrangement of a bunch of physical objects doesn't make for any emotionally powerful ritual. And so the tools that we make, if they're meaningful to us, they can be more impactful and can help us to enact a more, a more compelling, powerful ritual.

Yucca: Right. And we should note, you said skills, right? And skills are things that we build through practice. You don't start skilled at anything. Right. Humans start with a few instincts, you know, we can cry and we curl when we fall and we know to, to nurse and, blink, if something's coming our way, that's about it though.

Mark: Yeah. 

Yucca: The everything else, walking, talking, all, everything. Those are all skills and ritual is skill too. 

Mark: Yes. 

Yucca: And, and building your tools, creating, crafting those that's a skill as well. And you don't have to be some incredible artist or craftsman for that for you to still be able to build that relationship into your, your items that you're using.

Mark: Right. Right. And so. We've talked about the various kind of core ritual skills in podcasts before skills like drumming And movement and public speaking and singing those kinds of things that can be powerful. Movers of emotion in a ritual. Right. That's not really what the focus of this episode is.

This is more about, you know, what about the material stuff that you use when you, when you lay out a focus or alter in order to do a particular ritual? Well, what's there and. What does it say to you to see those items there? And one of the things that can help those items to speak more loudly is for them to have a real association with you.

So making it yourself can be a really cool thing to do. And in some cases, making it yourself can be as little as peeling the bark off a stick, you know, That's it. That's all that there is, you've got a stick and you like the shape of the stick and you, peel the bark off it and now you've got a want, it doesn't have to be, you don't have to put silver inlay in it. It's, it's just a stick. You like.

Yucca: And you, and it can be something that everything is meaningful to you to write in, because if you buy that beautiful silver inlaid one, maybe it has some particular symbols on it, or it's got some runes or something in it that. It doesn't mean anything to you or it does. And it means something very different to you than it meant to the person who made it.

And that doesn't quite have the right association, but that stick could be just the right curve for you. it could be the right species, or it just, just felt good in the moment. Right. Or you're designing when you're laying that out. Maybe you've got your cloth in and you can put it the way that is meaningful to you.

And it's going to be completely. To someone else, but it gives you that, that freedom that you wouldn't necessarily have, if it wasn't you crafting and creating it yourself.

Mark: Right. Right. And I do want to put in a shout out for artists. 

Yucca: Absolutely.

Mark: You know, it, it, if you want to contract with somebody that, you know, has a lave and turns beautiful WANs and have them do a bespoke wand, that's Exactly. you know, the way that you want it to be out of the materials that you want it to be, you know, more power to you.

We, we need to support our local artists. I'm I'm all in favor. But you don't have to have a sort of professionally crafted wand in order to have a wand that will feel good And work in the context of your ritual practice. 

Yucca: And you don't really need a wand either. Right. But if you do want one then awesome. Right. So, so don't think that anything we're saying here says you have to do this. You don't have to have a wand. You don't have to have, you don't have to anything. Yeah.

Mark: That's that's really kind of core to what our whole practice is about this. It's not science-based paganism is not authoritarian. You know, we, we think of religions very often in that context because the big mainstream religions are authoritarian, but that's not our orientation to things. Our, our spirituality is creative and expressive and so.

You know, doing something creative or contracting for something creative that expresses something that you feel that's all to the good now. If you want something that feels good in the hand and you can kind of point, you know, directing energy, it feels like or, you know, March around in a circle, cutting A line between what's inside the circle and what's outside the circle to define a safe space.

Then something like a wand can be a really nice thing to do. I have several of them that I use for different purposes. I have one that is just a stick from red, from a Redwood, and it's a very nice stick. I've had it for a long time. And there it is. It's a stick. I have one that is a piece of dried kelp from the.

And I mean, you can still kind of sea salt crystals on it and stuff. You know, when I'm, when I'm wanting to invoke that sort of primal power, like the ocean has that, you know, the, just the sheer force and, and power and history and life bringing capability and all those things that we associate with the ocean and with water, then that's generally what I use it for. I have one that's a human feet. That I, that I've used as a wand in in Hallows circles ceremonies. And I have another, that is an Oak branch that has a little silver dragon kind of twisted on to it that I, I put onto it. But it's a very special Oak branch to me because. It was part of a larger piece that I found in a state park and I took it off of that piece and I've seen the rest of it on hikes many times.

So it feels like it's connected to the land here. And so you.

see me telling these stories about these, these items. You can make items that have stories like that too. So, Something to consider. 

Yucca: Right. And just with wherever you are. So ones, aren't something that I do a lot, but I do have one that's actually made from a choice skeleton. So in the Southwest there's, we've got lots of different kinds of cactuses. And one is this one that they often grow these straight long stocks. And then when they die, it leaves behind this hollow wooden tube with holes in them.

And they're just, they're just. Beautiful. And we've done all kinds of things with them. One of my favorite things is actually to fill them with a sewage and give it to the birds. So they have a fun time with that. But one of these ones I took and it was a walk that I had done. Well with my, one of the first walks that my daughter was able to do, and she was big enough to do one of those and we brought it back and we boiled it.

And when you oil it up, it just becomes just so beautiful. And there are a couple of little spines left to take the mow those off. And so now that has that all of that association of the. The walk and the land and the birds, and then the oil, which was the tallow from one of our cows. And like, that whole thing there.

So it's just, it's nice to hear you talk about, redwoods and things that, your experience with that, because we're doing the same thing in very different places.

Mark: Right, right. Yeah. That's a wonderful story. And, and that's a great example of, you know, Part of what we always talk about here is paying attention and getting better connected with what's happening in nature. What are the, what are the, the natural artifacts that are sort of characteristic of where you live?

You know, what are the trees? What are the. The plants you know, if you're in a coastal area, are there seashells that are particularly characteristic? I have an abalone shell that I've used for many years for offerings, pouring libations, burning, incense, all those kinds of things. And that brings me to the next kind of thing you can make, which is a concavity that will hold a liquid. 

Yucca: So a cup or a vessel 

Mark: A cup or a vessel of some kind. whether it's a dish or a chalice. Generally speaking, it's, it's very common for people to put something liquid on there. Ritual focus. I mean, it might be a glass of wine. It might be a bowl of water. It might be a it might be a potion that you make, right. That you stir up with herbs and essential oils and, you know, whatever, whatever else needs to go in there in order to.

Put all the associations together, you can do that. In, you can do that in a large sense with a cauldron which is another thing that many of us want to have it, unless you're a really good black Smith. I recommend purchasing 

Yucca: That particular one.

Mark: that, that particular thing rather than making it, but you can also do it in a bowl or in a chalice one freaking. Activity in many pagan rituals is a period of eating and drinking usually after the main working. And it's kind of a, it happens during the time of gratitude when you're, you're enjoying the fruits of the ritual and of being alive. You're sharing, breaking bread with the other people that you're working with, if you are.

So there's a very community oriented feeling to that. So having some sort of cup or chalice or wine glass or whatever it is is another thing to have as a ritual tool. I have a chalice from a local Potter that I've used for many years. It has a motif of grape leaves on it for the, 

Yucca: What's your region is.

Mark: Yes, very famous for so, but you can make your own you know, you can, you can mold it And fire it, or you can

Yucca: And if you can dig the clay up too, if you happen to be somewhere. Yeah. We have several bowls that we've made from the clay that we dug up and then fired it. So we pit fired it on our own land as well. 

Mark: very nice. 

Yucca: Yeah. And so that, but you can also make things now, this won't work for holding liquid, that you can still make clay.

You can still dig up clay and just not fire it and use that maybe for, and we should talk about this one as well, for things to hold your fire or your incense or your candles or things like that.

Mark: Right, right. And that is another thing that.

very frequently goes on a ritual. Altar is some, some form of fire. There's something about adding fire to a ritual alter or focus. Kind of says this is alive. Now it has, it has this active dynamic chemical process happening. It's not just a static arrangement of objects.

It's something that is dynamic And alive.

Yucca: And what it does with the light, it just makes it look like it's all it's dancing and, and it can, it has that ability to just pull you back. At least to me, it feels like this pull back through time of the thousands and thousands of generations before us of just of us being. Gazing into fires, looking at fires, being around buyers, cooking, it's just, you know, back inside the caves and there's this really powerful, just instantly can transform the feeling.

Mark: For sure. Yeah.

I, I, I feel the same way. I mean, we've domesticated fire ever since homo erectus, which was well before modern humans and there's just, there's something very. And very we have we have a symbiotic relationship with fire in the same way that we have one with dogs in, in many ways.

We would not be where we are now, if it wasn't for our domestication of fire. So bringing that into the ritual space becomes very powerful. And especially if you're doing your ritual after dark, which which I tend to do for personal rituals and Not so much for seasonal observations. I like to do those during the daytime more except for Hallows.

And you'll the rest of them. I like to be during the day. 

Yucca: Yeah. You know, I share that and I wonder if it's like this for you for me the night, field's a little bit more intimate. 

Mark: Hm. 

Yucca: a little bit more, I feel a little bit more vulnerable, a little bit more open. And so when I'm doing any personal work the night, just, I just feel more. Present with it. Then during the day, there's so much happening there.

So, you know, I'm still able to create the separate space in this, away from it to do a ritual, but there's just something about it at night or at the transitions to the Dawn. And dusk are also time to 

Mark: right. 

Yucca: I'll do a lot, depending on what the ritual is.

Mark: Of course. Yeah. I think that's very well said. I, I feel the same way. There's something about, you know, standing naked in front of my altar with the candles burning and no other light in the room and it's just flickering and there's this sort of other worldly liminal space that gets created Bringing us reeling us back in from that long tangent.

That means you need to have a candle. Right. You need to have something. And that can be as simple as a flat stone that you melt wax onto so that then you can stick the candle down onto it, or it can be as elaborate as a candelabra or something like that. But you can make it. It's entirely possible to make your own in, in a bunch of different ways, sometimes people will use like a shot glass and Mount that onto some sort of a base to use as a candle holder. You just have to be careful that you don't let the candle burn down too far, because if it's not Pyrex glass, then, then the glass can break and that's no good. 

Yucca: Yeah, which is something that going back to the fire, just as a note if you are having some sort of fire, like a fire circle, something to be aware of is to be careful about putting rocks into your fire or next to the fire. 

Mark: Oh, yes. 

Yucca: if there's moisture in them, depending on the type of rock they can actually burst and you don't want to get hit by that.

So just as like a quick little aside there, that reminds me of it. 

Mark: That's a really good point. And

my, my experience with doing fire circle festivals has been that yes, you have rocks in the fire, but you let them burn for 24 hours before you have people gather around them. Right? So that if any of that exploding that was going to happen has already happened and you definitely don't want to be pulling.

Boulders out of a stream or from a, from a stream bank that's 

Yucca: Yeah, right. Cause it could seem like I see it being like a beautiful thing of putting the rock in and then you come and get it the next day. And it's more whatever, but like with all of these things, especially when fire is involved, whether it's on your, your altar inside your bedroom or whether it's out around a circle, you just, just to be.

Have that part of your brain still on, that's thinking about, Hey, you know, what's, how is this all connected? 

Mark: well, and you can help your, you can help yourself to feel less anxious and focused on that danger question by having the proper equipment to put a fire out. Immediately to hand. So, you know, if, if there's a fire extinguisher in your house, bring it into your room. If that's where your, your altar is and that's where you're going to do your work.

Just sit it against a wall somewhere. It doesn't have to do anything. 

Yucca: And you can get those little mini fire extinguishers. We actually have one in each room. I'm gonna, you all are listening, but I'm going to hold it up and show mark right here. That was right within here. 

Mark: There it is 

Yucca: is a little one and they have little not very expensive. I think this was like a $15 thing that, you know, you can hang them in your rooms and they're there.

They last for a long time. A lot of these you can get refilled. And if they are starting to go down, then you can save and you can look up some safe things that you can do with them in terms of making dry ice and things like that, which could be very fun for a ritual to have your dry ice to work with.

Mark: Yeah, I've used dry ice in rituals before. It's really fun because you, because I mean, you, you put it in sort of a a deep vessel 

Yucca: And 

Mark: and the fog just. Billows. up. 

Yucca: And the way it moves across the floor. Yeah. 

Mark: so cool. 

Yucca: So you could do some wonderful things with that. Going back to the candles though. Another thing that we've done now, this might not be the, a seasonally appropriate time, but we've done ice candle holders, so you can make ice.

And what we've done before is we've taken the. Like the muffin liners that are the silicone ones so that you can get it off really easily. So you fill those with water, you put it on a little trace, that'll then fit in your freezer and then take the, the silver line liners that come around tea candles and put something in them and weight them down so that it is in your.

Muffin liner that you filled with water, and then you put that in the freezer 

Mark: An ice freezes around. 

Yucca: freezes around it. Yeah. And then you bring that out, take the little silver liner out and you put the actual candle in there and then it it's beautiful. The way that the light dances in the ice. And you would, if you're using it on an altar, you're going to want to have a little plate underneath it because it does melt eventually.

But if you're having it like in an outdoor they could see people using this for like solstice or for February holiday. Right. And just out with the snow or the cold. And you've got the little tiny light in that vast darkness. And that's a really fun one too. If you've got kiddos and you can freeze things into the ice as well.

Mark: Ooh. 

Yucca: So that's a good one to do.

Mark: nice. I like that idea a lot. That reminds me of another thing that you can do With candles, which doesn't require a candle holder. It just requires a paper bag, which is to make luminaria which can be really kind of dramatic looking. If you make a bunch of them like to line a passageway or a path up to a place where you're doing a ritual you know, you, you put the little team.

In the bottom of the paper bag. Wait 

Yucca: SIM with sand at the bottom or dirt. 

Mark: Yes. Some sand or dirt to weight it down so that you know, a wind doesn't blow it over and then light the bag on fire, all those kinds of things. 

Yucca: And those are also known as farolitos. So you might've heard them called either way. 

Mark: ah, little lighthouses. 

Yucca: Yeah. The Illuminati say like, at least here that's like a Southern term and then in the north we call them 

Mark: Ah, 

Yucca: so 

Mark: I like little lighthouses. That's great. But I lead. 

Yucca: yeah.

They're the little ones. They're beautiful. So. That's something that might for Christmas Eve, my city does, it's an old tradition and of course it's got all the, like the Christian associations of leading Marianne and all of that, but it's still, it's still really very magical to be in the cold dark.

And hopefully that'll start back up over the next few years. It was kind of, it wasn't much of it the last few years. 

Mark: Well, I hope so. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: So you've got your fire container. Got your liquid container. You've got your pointer slash cutter. And we should talk a little bit about knives because a knife is something that is very commonly used in rituals. Almost always used symbolic. Just as sort of symbolically cutting the connections between two things or between a person and something in their life or something like that.

But sometimes you also use the knife to inscribe a symbol in the wax of a candle, for example, or a. Maybe to do a craft project in ritual space where you're carving a piece of wood in the shape of something particularly meaningful. So having a ritual knife is a good thing. I actually have two of them, one of which is my sort of utilitarian knife that I think.

Cut things with, and the other of which is a, an obsidian knife with an old candle that I made. And the, the point is sharp, but the edges are not. So it's definitely just a, just a symbolic knife. 

Yucca: I've seen someone I know had a, I think it was actually like a little letter Oprah. But it was a fancy, it was like an Excalibur, like repaid, but it's beautiful, you know, it's this little and it's not very sharp. So you could have, your knife could be an actual sharp knife, or it could be something that's just shaped like a knife or a sword or something just kind of in that, that vein, just depending on what your comfort level is with it and your purpose.

Right. So I would imagine the two knives that you described, you'd use those in very different circumstances, right? Whether you choose the obsidian versus your, your utilitarian one, 

Mark: Right, right. Yeah.

The utilitarian one doesn't even live on my focus. It it lives down with the supplies, cause it's just this sort of crappy old life that I use for this stuff. But the but the, the obsidian knife is on my focus and has been for 25 years or something. I don't, I don't remember when I made it.

Maybe it's a little bit less than that. 

Yucca: Now this isn't in the realm of making, but I could see someone having like a real nice Leatherman on their focus. Right. I can see that as being a real, having a real strong association for them, especially if they were using it for its intended purposes. And then you're also using it like, oh, this is the thing that I used to cut this, or to get it into this can or whatever it is.

And when, oh, and the car broke down, I had it. And here it is now I'm bringing all of that with me, into my ritual for this thing that I'm fixing in my life or I'm working on.

Mark: Yes. And it, it means I have all the tools available to do what I need to do. Right. 

Yucca: Right. And I've invested in. And I've invested in the really good ones, right? Yeah.

Mark: Yes. My Leatherman tool is a miniature one. It's about four inches long made by Winchester. Actually, it's the only thing I've ever owned made by Winchester, but it's very well machined as you would expect from a firearms maker. And it's, but it's identical to a Leatherman tool. It has the pliers and all that kind of. 

Yucca: Right. Yeah. And just, we are, we have no brand affiliations. We're all sponsored none of that stuff. 

Mark: no, 

Yucca: So that would be a strange twist. 

Mark: that would be a really strange twist. Yeah.

Yucca: some other things kind of classics is a broom. 

Mark: Yeah. 

Yucca: Okay.

Mark: I make a. Every summer solstice. I make a sunroom. I go out and I find a place where there's some tall, wild ride rowing and that that can get like five feet high, four, four feet, five feet high. And so I cut it off at the bottom. And then I use, and I, I unwrapped the cord from the existing sunroom and I have a handle that is this kind of natural piece of Oak that I found.

And then I use the new. The new rye and bind it with the cord, same cord again, and tie it off. And it makes this broom. I do this on the, on the summer solstice and then it sits out in the sun all day on the longest day. And the rest of the year, it lives in my house. And you know, along about January when it feels like there's never going to be sun again, I can pick it up and wave it around.

And. Symbolically bring the feeling of some sunshine into my house. 

Yucca: Nice. You have another kind of similar thing. Don't you have a. That you make an burn at you make one time of the year and you 

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. I use corn shucks to make a little doll. That's called the rain baby and that the rain baby is born. At river rain, which is the February holiday it's like in bulk or Bridget. But where I live, it's the time when it's raining cats and dogs and will be for a month, or at least when we're not having a drought, it will. And so I make this little figure out of corn shucks, and it sits on the focus for all of the Sabbath. Going forward until we get to Hallows and then it burns in the fire and dies. And then it's time for another one when we come back around to February. So, and people make little corn dough, little dolls or puppets for any of a variety of different kinds of reasons.

Some people make them to represent their family, you know, because. Feel really connected to their family and want their family members with them when they do rituals others do them to represent people they don't like, so they can do mean things to them. Just all depends on what you're trying to get done. 

Yucca: Yeah, so those are things right. And also going back to the. You know, the broom can be used for sweeping things away in ritual, right. For cleaning up or for breaking the ritual. Let's say you did like opening up the, the circle. Let's say you, you literally put something down like salt or a colored sand or something like that, where you drew in the dirt where you're standing, then you can take the broom and sweep that away.

Mark: Sweep it away.

Exactly what works really well for that. If you don't have sand, I mean, sand works really well and it's obviously completely benign, so that's a really good choice. But baking soda is it's very, it's it's, it's cheap. It's brilliantly white and it's harmless it. Won't. 

Yucca: well, and in this case, if you're working inside and you're on a carpet, then you can vacuum that up. Isn't that supposed to be good for cleaning your carpet? 

Mark: it's supposed to be good for the smell for any smells that have soaked into your carpet. It's supposed to be good. yeah.

Yucca: So if that happens to be the time that the landlord who should not be coming into your house without asking, but if that, if they are, and they find you sprinkling something on their carpet, you're you're cleaning, right? Yeah. Well, what about other things that you can mark with? Because that's something that you're often going to want to do, right?

You're going to be wanting to mark the ground or Mark A. Good candle, or maybe even your skin.

Mark: a sigil. Any of those kinds of things. I do have a old fashioned Squibb type pen, you know, with the Stephen. You know, the, that you dip in an inkwell and, and run and rub with. And, and the shaft of it is a bone. I bought it at a Renaissance festival a long, long time ago. And it's really cool.

So that's what I use when I'm doing like ritual inscriptions on parchment and stuff like that. I find that just having really. Quality materials makes a difference when I'm doing rituals. So I wouldn't use, you know, a legal pad. Instead I would get some good quality paper from like an art store to do that kind of work. And there's something that's just wonderful about, you know, dipping the pen into the ink and, you know, That's scratching sound on the paper and, yeah, it's great. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: But besides that, like, if you wanted to write something on yourself, for example, first of all, make sure you've got washable Sharpies that you're using. 

Yucca: Or Mada. Niemi not a Sharpie. I mean, what's your skin, but think about, you might want to use something like face paint or henna or something like 

Mark: Sure 

Yucca: Right. Because remember. 

Mark: the head is going to stain though. 

Yucca: Yeah, that that would be purposeful, right? If you were doing something like a sigil. But yeah, don't, I wouldn't suggest writing you.

Your inner most vulnerable thoughts on your arm and then go into work the next day with everybody reading that. But if you could, if you can put that into a single form or put it into, you know, something like that, but face paint is a great option or for a less toxic option, like the children's markers, there's still not 

Mark: That's that's what I mean. That's what I mean, the washable.

ones. 

Yucca: Okay. My 

Mark: not a regular 

Yucca: like a Sharpie, like a permanent marker, cause that 

Mark: no, no, no. That's, that's a really bad idea. 

Yucca: yeah. 

Mark: I'm glad you clarified that. Thank you. 

Yucca: Yeah. but, but some of them, so yeah, your, your kids markers, or you can actually get face paint markers still, they're probably not fantastic to be putting on your skin. 

Mark: Probably 

Yucca: But then you could also, you might not be able to write very well with these, but if you're thinking about trying to be connecting with your land where you live or the park near you, there's all kinds of plants and things that you can use to make little dyes with.

Mark: Yeah. They'd make pigments for sure. 

Yucca: And that can be just a fun rabbit hole to go down. Right. It's find out, you know, what are the 

Mark: just be sure you got the right? plants.

Yucca: right? Yeah. Well, it's better if you're, you know, you want to be careful when you're, if you're consuming any, any of those, but if it's just, if you're going to be staining paper or cloth, that's another one we should mention, right?

The fabrics. 

Mark: Yeah. Lengths of fabric that you can use to establish the surface for your alter or focus. And those can be a various different kinds of patterns and colors depending on the season or the purpose of the ritual. I have some that are, you know, sort of spiderweb pattern and black others that are, you know, red and colorful and more springy in summary. It just, it depends on what you're working to do, but having those different lengths of fabric is a good thing to sort of stock up on. 

Yucca: Yeah. And you can use them in, in so many different ways. You're seeing putting it on the altar, but you could use it in dance or as a symbolic curtain that you're pulling back, or, I mean, all kinds of things.

Mark: Right. Right. And they don't have to be super expensive. There are remnants at fabric stores for one thing. And also even. Sarongs for example, can be really affordable cotton sarongs and they have beautiful patterns on them. So that's another direction to look. If you have an international store somewhere near around you, 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Another thing that I have that I really like using is a seashell, an abalone shell because we have abalone that are native to the coastline near here where I live.

But also because abalone. Widely treated throughout the Americas. It was very prized by indigenous votes for use in various kinds of decorations. And it's been, you know, Pacific abalone. I'm pretty sure was found in the dig at Cahokia in the St. Louis area, you know, Southern Illinois So obviously it was really prized and really valued.

Otherwise why would you transport it over all that distance and, you know, 

Yucca: Yeah, you have to carry that, that somebody walked it there.

Mark: That's right. That's that's exactly right. So, I, I really enjoy having one of those shells. I can use it to burn herbs in or to burn incense. Abalone actually have little perforations in them, so it's not very good for holding a liquid. There. are little key hole things. In the surface. But other than that, they, because of that opalescent surface that reflects green and blue and all those wonderful colors.

They're So pretty. They, they really make a nice thing to have on an altar, but there are lots of different kinds of shells that would also make, you know, really be a nice thing for an altar. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: And I find that they are. Symbol of nature. Generally just have the beauty that nature can produce. 

Yucca: Yeah.

So, are there any other kind of big categories because it's gonna often depend on what kinds of rituals and the purpose and your specific, you know, individual tastes, but are there other big categories that people would be likely to, to want a tool in,

Mark: Well, another thing that we talked about that isn't really so much a ritual tool as it is kind of a seasonal marking that we talked about before we started recording is a reef. 

Yucca: right.

Mark: People often make Reeves on a seasonal basis, maybe for the five stations of the wheel of the year. What I find to be a useful approach to that is to go to an art supply store or a craft store, but not hobby lobby some somewhere 

Yucca: We don't go to hobby 

Mark: We don't go to hobby 

Yucca: We don't go to hobby 

Mark: Yeah. 

Yucca: We have a Michaels, but. Is there a little bit better, but they're not, 

Mark: they're not, they're not 

Yucca: they're not actively homophobic. They might actually be, but they're not actively 

Mark: They're not pouring money 

Yucca: people over.

Mark: into hurting LGBT people. So, but back to the 

Yucca: Yes.

Mark: you can you can buy a Wicker ring. It's a woven ring of Wicker that is serves as the base for a reef. And then you can decorate that wreath with seasonal flowers and with ribbons and with all various kinds of nice things that remind you of the season.

And then you can hang it on your door on your front door, or you can hang it up in your room or in. Living room in a prominent place, whatever, whatever seems appropriate to you. But what's nice about that is that it gives you a project to do every season and and it's sort of a declaration in a way, you know, okay.

Spring is here, 

Yucca: Yeah, but the new one

Mark: where I'm putting the new one up

It's no longer late spring. It is now summer. So. 

Yucca: and you can having that, that pre-made ring is really nice, but you can also. Make your own initial ring, right? So take your, the different trees that are meaningful to you and take some branches and, you know, do whatever that particular tree is going to need to, to treat it and then wrap that with wire and then you just swap out each season, you swap out what you have on it.

So you could, you could start with the, with that initial pre-made piece, or you can make it depending on what you were. Finances. And what materials you have, 

Mark: right. 

Yucca: It might make more sense just to buy it than to buy the wire that you would then need and the Clippers that you would then need and all of that.

So, yeah.

Mark: And we, we almost forgot the most important thing. Something to sit on. 

Yucca: Right. If you're going to be there for awhile, you might want your nice your cushion or your, what was the one who was the name of the.

Mark: Oh, the, the.

Buddhist meditation cushions are called zafu, 

Yucca: Yes 

Mark: for sitting Zaza in. Right. And they are very comfortable to sit on there. They're densely packed layers of cotton. As I get older, I find that sitting like cross-legged on the floor is increasingly painful. So I have generally gone to a chair at this point.

But it, it is nice if you're, if you're laying something out on the floor, it's nice to be down on that level and with all the stuff that's around you. So, you know, There are so many different ways to do rituals and so many different purposes for rituals that it's hard to generalize about what kinds of tools you might be likely to need.

But these are tools. The ones that we've been describing are the kinds of tools that you might come back to again and again, they're, they're they're multipurpose and they, they serve, they serve good uses in a lot of different kinds of rituals. 

Yucca: It's like building a kitchen, right? It's you know, your cutting board. You're not going to need your cutting board for every meal. You're not going to need that particular knife for every meal, but Ooh, probably a few times a week. It's going to be real nice to have the one that does the job that you want it to do just right. 

Mark: right.

I haven't bought or made a ritual tool other than. And a femoral craft. That's going to be destroyed at some point or burned or something like that in many, many years, but there is a real satisfaction in knowing that you have all that stuff so that if you need to, if you feel the need to do a particular kind of ritual, you don't suddenly find yourself.

Oh, but. This really requires a special knife and I don't have a special knife. 

Yucca: Yeah

Mark: That kind of feeling. Oh, I did think of one other thing that you can do with a chalice. There are, I have two, I have two fun things to do with fire. So remember the part of, remember the part about the the fire extinguisher?

The first one. And you can do this indoors. You just need to be careful. I, so propyl alcohol, 90% alcohol, not the 60% alcohol, but the 90% alcohol burns beautifully, and it burns at a very low temperature. So if you have a chalice or, you know, something else that can withstand heat, you can. A small amount of that in in that container and light it on fire and flames will leap up and make a beautiful dance until all the alcohol is burned away.

It's, it's really pretty dramatic. And especially for banishing work for dispelling things. I've done rituals for other people where they really want something to go away. And boy, you know, you, if you slip the symbol of that into the, the chalice or, or font or whatever it is, pour that alcohol and then light it up and it's all leaping and going, they can really see that it's going away. 

Yucca: Oh, that sounds lovely.

Mark: Yeah, it's cool. And the second trick, don't do this one indoors. Is the use of a handful of instant coffee creamer like coffee mate, which is basically just fat and sugar in a powdered form. And of course, powders and dusts are highly explosive because they have a lot of surface area. It powders and dust that are made of flammable material are explosive because they have so much surface area.

They burn very, very quick. So tossing a handful of coffee creamer into a campfire we'll make these sort of fireball that will burst up from the flames. And, you know, if you're, if you're in the midst of invoking something important and it's time to, you know, here's the climax of the ritual and then boom, you throw this into the fire and Kapow, the giant burst of flame comes up.

It's really dramatic. So it's one of my favorite ritual special effects. 

Yucca: Yes. Oh, that sounds fun. And again, I just cannot emphasize enough. My, my state is on fire right now and very right next to the. One of the largest fires we've ever had in the history of our state. So I'm just, just remember your fire safety, everybody fire is wonderful and incredible, and it can also just consume everything.

So make sure that whatever you're doing, you thought out and you're doing safely.

Mark: Right, right. Yeah.

And candles candles particularly can be deceptive because the flame is so small, but you don't want to get them too close to anything else. Or the flame gets a lot better. 

Yucca: Yeah.

Mark: Right. If you, if, if there's anything hanging over it put your hand. If, if there's anything over, you know, above The candle, put your hand underneath it.

If you can't stand the heat. From the candle that you feel coming up, then move the candle because it's too close. There's too much heat coming up. That's a trick you can use to be safe. I usually use chimney candles on my focus because they're stable. They're enclosed inside a glass cylinder.

And they burn down and get farther and farther away from the lip of that

Yucca: The chimney are those like the St scandals. 

Mark: well. It's at these don't have any saints on them. They're just call them columnar 

Yucca: but it's the same. I like, you would often find them with saints, but this is, it's the same kind of concept. 

Mark: Yes. Just a glass, you know, a tone narrow cylindrical glass filled with wax and the WIC. 

Yucca: So one of those was sagging on them once, 

Mark: Oh, I know 

Yucca: make him roll and roll in his grave.

Mark: there's a whole series of saints of science. And you can get other people to you. Can you get Ruth Bader Ginsburg? You can get Martin Luther king. There's a whole bunch of those. And I think that's pretty cool. I wouldn't mind having Ruth Bader Ginsburg on my focus right now. 

Yucca: Thank you. Someone gave my kids a little story book about her and they're really into it right now. They want to read, they want to read the Ruth book. So it was like, cool. Awesome.

Mark: Nice. 

Yucca: So, we didn't, there's so much, there's so much more, we should probably wrap up because we've been gone for a while now, but just thinking about all the different, like types of things that you could use and rituals and things that you can make. And we didn't talk about braiding things and books and all kinds of things.

Mark: Yeah. There, there is a lot to talk about. But the. core point of this podcast is, you know, look around and see what are the things that attract you? You know, a lot of times when we're pagans, we collect a lot of natural things, pine cones and bones and all that kind of stuff. Well, what can you make with those?

What, what, what might you put together, or maybe you don't need to make them, maybe you just use them as ritual tools by themselves. Like my Redwood stick. But, you know, be, be imagining in a different way, what those things.

are. Maybe they're not just decorative. Maybe there's something that can have a symbolic meaning for you as well. So, we need to tell you that next week is a very unusual Episode of the wonder, because we are going to be recording this at the century retreat that Yucca and I are going to next In Herson. 

Yucca: we'll only be a few feet away instead of a few thousand miles.

Mark: It is, it is hard to imagine, but that's actually going to happen. And 

Yucca: of you listening, we know are going to be there as well. So really excited for that.

Mark: You can, if, if you're in the atheopagan is on Facebook group, there's an event there for the Saturday mixer, which says, you know, pay attention. There's a different time for this particular week for the, for the 14th of May.

And what you'll do is you'll log into the zoom. And you can participate with us as we record the podcast, we're going to do a Q and a session and kind of a report about what's going on at century retreat. But mostly we're going to interact with people who call in and just have a good time. So, and then the audio from that will be posted on Monday as usual, or maybe a little later, because we may not have the ability to do that until after you get home yet. 

Yucca: Well, yeah, so it might, it depends on what, I don't know what the technical setup is. You said that there's pretty good wifi there.

Mark: There's pretty good wifi in the dining hall. Apparently it's a little spottier in the other buildings. 

Yucca: Yeah. So I'll, I'll bring everything and we'll, hopefully we'll get it up at our regular time. But if not, it'll probably be you know, Monday night when I get a drive back home. So it's, it'll be, hopefully it'll be the same time, but we'll, you'll get that. You'll get your little lit pop-up when it comes.

So depending on what app you're listening on, so.

Mark: All right. Well, I am really excited for that. It's been coming for a long time. We've been talking about it and it's finally upon us. 

Yucca: Yeah, you're about to leave too. Aren't you? Cause you've got a ways to drive to get, since it's in Colorado, near in 

Mark: In California.

Yeah. I leave Wednesday morning early. So I've still got a little bit of time. We're recording this on Saturday as usual. So I've, I've still got a little bit of time, but there's oh, there's just so much to do between now and then it's it's very exciting.

I'm just, I can't wait. Okay. 

Yucca: thank you so much, everyone.

Mark: Yep. Thanks everybody. And hope to see you on this, on the live zoom call next week. We'll post it in the in the podcast notes for this podcast, 

Yucca: Cool.

Mark: how to join next week. 

Yucca: Great. Yeah. So just look at that. It'll be right above the transcripts since as usual. And we look forward to seeing y'all 

Mark: Yeah. All right. Have a wonderful week.