Enchanting Your Fiber Arts Practice: Spell Work for Beginnings

Here we be at a threshold I have longed to cross over and into to: the description of the spell work I do in the pulsing, enchanted magical realm I travel to while weaving. I wanted to invite you into this sacred portal with me, so I may make concrete the shimmering mundanity with which this sort of magic crossing may occur. I take seriously the good wisdom of Risa of the Missing Witches Coven when she recently shared:

“(It was) ritualistic in the way that I really think is so core to the way I practice where it is totally improvised and just in the stream of the moment like you just …noticed it was happening. For me, magic, in the way that I feel it or experience it, is just noticing that its right there, its happening.” Risa from Missing Witches Podcast Episode 158, timestamp: 5:27

Yes, just beneath the hulking weight of this corporeal existence is another weightless, limitless realm that we can access the minute we pick up a loom, spindle, or crochet or knitting needles (or any tool we endow such power with). Its presence has never waxed or waned over time. Over the last five centuries, it has withstood a futile attack from the dominant patriarchal, capitalist culture1 (seriously, f that noise) to eradicate people’s knowledge of it. Yet, still it persists. That dimension is just waiting for you, for as portal wizards Blood Incantation counsel, “You are the stargate.” We just need to awaken our minds to the possibility that we can travel across time and space with the aid of these ancient fiber divinatory tools.

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Given the hushed tones and ciphers that such messages have been expressed through in the past, it may be easy to think that casting fiber spells is the work of a small elite, but that cannot be further from the truth. Fear not, dear reader, this is not an exclusive club. One does not need to be a seasoned practitioner of magic or even call themselves a witch. Nor does one have to spend hundred of dollars on books and classes to practice fiber magic. One just has to set the intention and participate in the work, because this is your birth rite. The use of fiber spells is perhaps one of the oldest and most common forms of magic there is. From the moment our distant ancestors spun a bit of wool into yarn or twined some flax fibers together to make rope, we were working outside the functional, materialist realm and entering the mythopoetic realm of creation. Yes, we were taking seriously our own divinity by bringing new things into being, breathing life into matter itself. We were more than mere assemblages of clay. Yes, we were divine beings playing a role in the myth-making of the entire world. So, dear reader, I invite you into the mythopoetic realm with me as I journey across time and space to a dimension where we are still divine beings and our words have the power to move mountains.

Grounding The Spell Work

We ground our work where my Irish wheel of the year begins: in darkness. Like the winter earth, our empty loom is resting in a state of dreamtime with the seeds of our weaving waiting for clearing work to be conducted and the fires of creation to be kindled. We begin from this placement grounded within a wheel of creation, because all our work follows that same rhythms that we see reflected in the wheel of the year that we traverse. Consequently, imagine your loom submerged partially in the sleeping earth with the top beam enwrapped in mycelia beneath the earth. Feel the quiet potential pulsing down from the top beam into the frozen earth below. With your minds eye, unscramble that energy to reveal the signs and sigils that the loom is dreaming in its slumber. As the magic practitioner, we will collaborate with the loom to prepare it to bring those signs and sigils into being. We will usher it across the threshold from winter into the firsts breaths of spring, helping it to be born into a new creative cycle.

From our looms barren beginnings in the darkness of Samhain season, we will use our spell work, herbal allies, and elemental magic to cleanse and open our loom for its work to come with warping and weaving. For this work, we will draw upon lavender smoke to provide a gentle, soothing cleansing and clearing power. We will work with mugwort (specifically its smoke), our master of crone wisdom, lunar cycles, and dreamtime, to open the portal of the loom to the realm of the Morrigan and the ancestors for their guidance. Rose water and the flame of a white candle shall be used to draw in what we in the Irish tradition call in healing and the divine inspiration of our goddess Brighid. Finally, we call upon the fortitude and strength of the oak through an acorn gathered from my guide, a 100 year old bur oak tree nearby.

The specific divinatory power and significance that each herb and elemental holds for me was derived from a combination of trusted external sources and my own personal gnosis with these tools. In my practice, I draw on two primary external sources: the classes and writings of herbal alchemist Tonja Reichley, who offers teachings regarding the herbal lore and divination in my ancestral Irish tradition and the death work practice of Hannah Haddadi, a Persian Death Witch. I have “wildcrafted,”2 or integrated, the knowledge I have learned from them into my own practice via incorporating it into my own ritual and spell work practices (forms of “esoteric/inner practices”). Consequently, the taste and flavor of how I use these herbs and tools is within the heart of their teachings but may diverge due to my own personal relationship with those herbal allies. As a solitary hedge druid, this constant dialectical relationship between reading and learning from trustworthy external sources in my ancestral tradition and beyond and finding my own relationship with the divine through their use in my esoteric practice has resulted in my own grounded body of wisdom that is in alignment with my own local witchcraft community.3

For any magic-curious fiber artists out there, you should feel empowered to go out there and read, take classes, and try to use what you learn within your fiber practice. Yes, create your own wildcrafted fiber magic practice and use my example as exactly that, just one of the billions of possible permutations or forms the divine spark of magical inspiration has taken in this world. This is not the bible of fiber magic, no its a manifesto calling you to run to the barricades to save our dear magic from the cascading forces of capitalist, christian patriarchy. (Seriously, again, duck that noise.) No doubt, you will find your own unique shining light of magic that only you can conjure. You too will have spells floating out of your mouth like a dew drop materializes upon a blade of grass on a crisp spring mourning. You don’t need any ones permission to turn your weaving into a fiber spell or imagine yourself as an all powerful spider, weaving the fates, as you spin. “You do you, DAWG,” as the kids used to say. You will refresh this world with your magic. You just have to be willing to try. You just have to be to, as the late Hunter S. Thompson would say, “Buy the ticket, take the ride.”4

The Journey

I took a deep breath and let it slowly escape through my nostrils. I eased my body into my creaky office chair, settling into my dimly lit, subterranean hermitage. I lit my black lighter with the flick of my finger and allowed the tiny flame to take to the wick of the white candle on my altar. I sprayed my clearing and grounding spray,5 whose formula was crafted by Hannah of Mourning Light Divination years ago, in three directions, signifying the three center points of a triskelion. I started with a gentle humming and chanted, “Awen,”6 three times. Each chant was timed to a separate swirling of the vapors with a graceful motion of my hand, seeing the triskelion moving with the movement of my hands and tenor of my voice in my minds eye. I ended my ritual circle preparation by anointed the nape of my neck (a powerful sensing portal), my Brighid candle, and Morrigan beads in rose water to bless our connection.

With the physical work of setting the circle complete, I turn to the inner realm to open my oaken door to the Otherworld. I allowed the glowing white light at the core of my being to travel down through the lifeline tattoo that wraps around my bicep and tricep and continue down through the channeling portal on the back of my forearm.7 I tap each of my spiral tattoos on the front of my forearm three times, ending each Three-part tap on a more decisive tap. With each decisive tap, the white light poured out of the three spirals on my forearm. When each spiral is in place in my minds eye, I connect them into a triskelion and used my hand to turn it to the left (as we are in that portion of the year where light is receding). I saw the triskelion glowing in radiant white light moving slowly in leftward cycle and the oaken door to the Otherworld unlocked.

With the door open, I descended across the portal into the otherworld with my Gardner Family Grimoire,8 where we do our weaving spell work. I pushed the oaken, Ogham feda-filled door open, walked down a earthen staircase, and entered into an open cave below. My mom, maternal grandmother, druid ancestors, goddesses, and land ancestors were all there. We opened our circle together, weaving ourselves into the mycelial web of life below and the great spider web above. With our circle opened, we began our spell work. I took a bit of charcoal and lit it with our white candle. We sat together quietly and waited for the charcoal to be consumed by the fire. Once its embers were prepared, I placed some dried lavender on the coal, letting its smoke grow to a tiny plume. Together, my ancestors, goddess, and we held out the empty loom as one community and let the lavender smoke cleanse it, reciting together,

“Let this lavender smoke cleanse the loom of any previous energy or magic, clearing the way for this new spell to begin.”

With the dried lavender exhausted, I took a generous pinch of dried mugwort and placed it on the coal, letting it create its distinctive thick, aromatic smoke. Feeling the headbuzz of the plume of mugwort, we held my loom over the fog of mugwort, reciting together:

“We invite in the wisdom of the Cailleach and the great mystery of the darkness into the loom. May we be guided in our work by the Morrigan and ask for her strength in helping us stand in our own sovereignty while passing through the portal from death to rebirth.”

With the veil of mugwort lifted, our ritual circle turned from our smoke magic to flame and water. I dipped my pointer and middle fingers into the rose water basin. I ran my fingers along the wood grain of the top and bottom beams of the loom and then held the loom out toward the white candle flame with a bowed head. Our ritual circle chanted:

“Let the healing power of rose anoint and bless this loom. May top and low bar be healed of any previous burden they held in the warp they held outstretched. May we call on Brighid to inspire us to create a work that is as beautiful as it is healing. Let the sacred flame of her divine inspiration guide us through this sacred death work.”

As the vibrations of the last word dissipated from the room, I placed the loom on my lap and set the acorn to rest on its bottom beam. I let the acorn’s energy merge with that of the wood of the lower beam for a moment. Then as a circle we intoned,

“Like the oak who birthed this seed, may we enter this portal of death and rebirth with the strength and the unblinking fortitude to see our journey through to its end, no matter the obstacles that we meet along our path. Yes, may all this be with harm to none.”

With our intonations complete, we closed with a final sealing and blessing from the circle. I rested my hands on the loom and invited my ancestors and goddess to join me. Then, I invited the mycelial web from below to rise up and wrap itself around the loom, pulsing with a gentle green glow. With the mycelial web enclosed over our hands and the loom, the great orb weaver spider guide descended from the heavens. In an effortless, graceful fashion, my spider guide wove a beautiful web, pulsing with a gentle golden glow, connecting the mycelia, our hands, and the loom to the great web of life above. In turn, each of us, earth, spider, and human/goddess, poured our unique light into the loom to bless it for its work moving forward. The loom was bathed in green, white, and golden light, spreading out in rays in all directions. As we closed our work with the loom, we chanted Awen again three times to seal the spell into the loom.

With our work complete, I closed the circle down and departed, squeezing my mom’s hand as I left. I walked back up the earthen stairway and closed the oaken door behind me. I set the loom down on my altar and closed my ritual circle as I had opened it. I sat back in my chair, and its characteristic creak brought me back to this reality. I looked upon my loom, resting on my alter, and admired it. The loom felt refreshed and energized. Our spell work was a success. We opened the way for the work to begin.

Where You Could Go From Here

Rather than provide you a recipe, I gifted you some seeds in the form of an enchanted fairy tale of fiber magic. As a creative, clever human, I know that you will plant those seeds in your own story if you so choose. However, if that seems daunting, let me simplify it for you. One does not need to use a multi-layered, goddess-centered spells to practice fiber magic. This spell work is the result of years of practice with each iteration of the spell building on its previous use. Its also the product of a dude who may just like smoke magic and his goddesses a bit too much. (HAHA) If that sort of multi-layered depth tickles your fancy, then have at it, HOSS. We love you for it, and we want you to fulfill all your intricate magic dreams. However, depth is not necessary and does not make a stitch/fiber witch. Sometimes the bit of simple, quick magic we use in the flow of our day is the most profound and most powerful.

If this is to be your first bit of magic, let’s keep it simple. Try one of these two simple little magical practices to cleanse or heal when readying a loom, spindle, or needles.

Lavender Cleanse

One can start with a simple cleanse with lavender. This can be in any form you have handy. It could be a lavender essential oil, dried lavender from an apothecary, or a sprig of fresh lavender from the garden. One could apply any of those form of lavender to the top and bottom beams by spritzing the essential oil on the loom, placing the dried lavender on the loom, or rubbing the fresh lavender sprig on the loom. While doing so, you can recite, “With lavender, we cleanse.”

Rose Water Healing

As we discussed above, loom beams hold a lot of weigh both physically and spiritually when we weave with them. To help ease the burden of the loom and ready it for its next task, one could anoint the top and bottom beams with rose water. While doing so, you can recite, “With rose, we ease the burden and heal.”

Doing either of this simple little practices will help your loom feel lighter and ready to begin again. I know I can always feel the difference. Working either of these simple little spells by candlelight is always nice, as it sets the ritual space and mood. However, do what you think is best. Begin to develop that trust in your own intuition at this early stage by honoring what you feel in your gut. If you want to improvise your own words or use your own herbal allies, go forth. I implore you to make all this your own.

This is the first in a three part series on spells for fiber art. Next week (9/16), we will delve into the work of spell work for warping and weaving, noting how we move our burgeoning fiber spell through the spring and summer of a weaving. At the end of the three-part series, I will put the entire text together and develop a short zine on the the topic. If you are interested in supporting this zine as a e-book or paper zine, please do let me know if the comments below. I would like a general idea of people’s preferences before I put a bunch of time into either format.

Also, I know that I am not alone in this use of fiber magic. I would love to know what sort of practices other folx use when cleansing and preparing their loom. If you feel bold, please do share below in the comments. I am always interested in sharing information and wisdom with other folx.

Until next time,

James

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