Early in my practice, I relied heavily on the use of tools to connect with the larger natural world. Without them I wouldn’t have evolved such a deep understanding of the interconnected web. When I was learning how to trust my intuition, I used divination as a means to verify what I thought I was sensing. In the pagan world, we often use divination as a means of interacting with the spirit world to help clarify events and situations.
In our daily lives, it’s difficult to be in a situation and see it clearly, so we seek advice from friends or mentors to help us gauge how best to proceed. When we’re asking for guidance on the human plane, the best place to look for it is spirit world. For me it’s almost a therapeutic interaction. In Psychology, Cognitive Touch Therapy is used to help your body ferret out truths your mind is trying to keep you from. Your muscles betray your subconscious lies. Just like that, divination helps me tap into my intuitive body and see more clearly things I already know.
I am not psychic, not at all. But I have a high-sensitivity to the spirit world, which is why I have the interactions with ghosts that I have. The spirit world is active around us all the time and the more closely you vibrate in accord with the natural world, the more you will see some of what remains invisible to others. Divination acts like a translation tool between the energies you tap into and our own human language.
No one can say for certain if the energy used for divination comes from an external spirit world alive around us or whether it’s from an internal ancient knowledge that lives within our bloodstream. I believe it’s both. We humans are the conduits between earth and sky, the vessel that meets within and without. In my practice, magic and science are close relatives. I see divining as a gift of guidance, accessible when our intuition is finely tuned to the natural world.
I spent years looking into and studying different forms of divination: tarot, runes, ogham, scrying, obi, palmistry, reading tea leaves. The more help the divination tool used to speak to me, with the use of elaborate visuals or concrete definitions, the more unsure I was as to what I was intuiting versus what I was interpreting, so it was clear that for me, a simple casting method would work best. I began to understand that the way I was intuitively communicating with the spirit world was not represented well enough with any divining medium I learned. The spirit world I interact with and the work I do is not bound to a specific culture. My own ancestral lineage spans multiple cultures. I needed something with both an ancient history and a broad scope. I had to find my own language.
I found myself drawn to the form of casting lots. Many cultures throw bones as divination. It was a simple enough concept and memories of childhood games of Yahtzee made it an enticing one. As far as connecting to spirit, stone pulls me in best and helps me reach that vibration. To me stones are the bones of the earth, the layer where the ancestors are buried. It is that layer within and without I am trying to contact so I looked to throwing stones instead.
I chose to throw seven, as it is a magical number for me and one that resonates with my ancestor work. One stone would represent the intention, situation or question. Then I chose six stones, three of one kind and three of another, two sides of a coin. I used snowflake obsidian for my intention stone, which I used for meditations often, and snow quartz and black obsidian as the six vibration stones.
You can’t just get stones and cast them and expect answers. You have to create a relationship with them first. I spent a moon cycle with the snowflake obsidian, wearing it in trance as a means of harmonizing it to my frequency. I spent a moon cycle with the snow quartz, charging them with clarity, with yes, with light and harmony. I spent a moon cycle with the obsidian and charged them with confusion, mystery, chaos and caution. Then I spent one last moon cycle charging them with the energy of web and interconnectedness, dedicating them to my ancestors. I made them all equal parts of importance in a hive mind.
When I cast them, I ask yes or no questions. I chose to interpret them in a common way, similar to obi (divination with coconut or cowrie shells). The closer my question stone is to more white stones, the more favorable/true/positive the answer. The closer my question stone is to more black stones, the more unfavorable/false/unknown the answer, with all the myriad of uncertainty in between. It suits me and allows me to trust myself.
I make petitions of my ancestors, when I need guidance from them, when I need them to send energy to a specific situation, and I use the stones to speak to them. What do they need from me? What do they ask of me? Am I doing enough to honor them? Do they hear me when I can’t hear them? Just like my candle is the lighthouse I burn to call on them, the stones have become the medium I use to hear from them. It works for me, part of the path I have built for myself. It’s important to me that everyone finds their own way to meet and engage with spirit. It is the experience of working on your spirituality that builds trust within yourself, so that you may learn to trust in what you are experiencing.
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