Working spells with Earth Magic

Several types of magic lend themselves to working with the earth element.

Burying

Perhaps an obvious one.  Burying your petitions in soil is perfect.  Burying spells at crossroads is also very traditional.  Spell remnants can also be buried.  Just be mindful to only bury biodegradable items.

Planting

Planting seeds as part of spell work features heavily in a lot of magic, particularly in the spring.  But it also covers planting of ideas using more mature flora and fauna and trees too.

Magnet

It’s all about the attraction!  Using magnets to attract something towards you or keeping something, or someone together.

Image

Using photos or poppets work really well.  These are used to represent the target of your magic.

Stones

Using pebbles to absorb your negative vibe and throwing away to remove negative energy both work well.  Or using a stone to hold your petition in place whilst the magic works.  A petition can also be wrapped and tied around a stone to impart earth energy or keep things held in place.

Tree magic

Trees have their roots deep in the earth which is their connection to the Underworld/Otherworld, their trunks are in the land of men or the Middle World and the top branches reaching up to the sky making the connection to the Upper World.  In fact, a tree is an excellent focus point for journeying or as I do, Hedge Riding.  The tree is an access point to the three different realms.

There is a huge joke about ‘tree huggers’ but seriously hugging a tree does you the world of good and it can also lend you energy, healing, knowledge and wisdom.  However…don’t forget to ask permission first, not all trees want to be hugged and not all trees will be happy to work with you.  Ask first and respect the answer you are given.  Trees are also our seasonal compass.

Each variety of tree has specific magical properties and you will find on closer inspection that each individual tree has its own unique personality.    To discover what each tree means and what magical properties it can or is happy to share with you I suggest meeting each tree and asking.

Knot/cord magic

Long stems of grass really lend themselves to knot magic, but you can also use thin stems of plants such as ivy or even twine, string or ribbon.

If you have the patience you can ‘weave’ a ball of grass and hang it up in your home to provide protection, you can also plait the longer stems to make witches ladders.

Long stems of grass can also be used for bindings and to control a person’s movements, to stop them from causing harm or to tie something down, magically of course not literally…

You can bind pretty much any intent by sealing it with a knot.  If you want a new job, a new dress or maybe a holiday, pick your intent and tie the energy into a knot.

Tie a knot with the intent of prosperity, good health and luck and hang it over your front door so that every time someone walks in, they bring the positive energy with them.

If you are crafty you can of course take the knot magic a step further and crochet, weave or knit energy into something beautiful by putting the magic in as you create.

Need to boost your memory or remember something important?  Tie a knot in a piece of string and seal it in, when you see the knot you will know that you have to remember something…of course then you have to remember exactly what is it that you need to remember…

Then there is the flip side of binding and knot magic, in that you can undo it too.  You can unbind a spell, a curse, an influence or negative energy.  You do this simply by binding the intent into the knot and then unravelling it.

Curses and hexes can be bound into knot magic – just say your curse out loud as you tie each knot.

You can keep the knot magic simple by literally just visualising or saying the intent as you tie the knot or you can put on a whole ritual with candles, incense and plinky plonky music, the choice is yours.   You can even sprinkle the knot with corresponding herbs or dab with anointing oil.

Binding

This is a form of spell that binds a person or situation so that they/it can no longer harm you.  I have found this form of working particularly successful. As long as you are pure in your intent, it doesn’t actually harm the person or cause them any discomfort, it just stops them from hurting or harassing you.  But bear in mind that this spell does take away the free will of the person you are binding, so use with caution.

A binding spell can be very simple – you use an object that represents the person causing you harm – it can be a poppet, it could be a photograph or it just a lump of clay that you have identified as the person.  It can then be bound, with string, ribbon, ivy, or I have found that sticky tape works extremely well.  As you bind the object visualise binding the harmful energies of that person and speak your wishes, that the person can no longer harm you or harass you.  Bury the spell.

Garden & houseplants

Being in regular contact with your garden and what you grow, even with your house plants or a few pots of herbs, can help you to connect with the spirit of nature and recognise the subtleties of the changing of the seasons and your garden can also provide you with food and magical ingredients. It is also a perfect place to work and leave spells to ‘do their thing’.  Having that connection also helps you to keep in tune with the turning of the seasons.  The garden and plants within give you a direct source of earth elemental energy.  You could even design a garden around the element of earth; include lots of stones and pebbles and plants that correspond to the element.

Bottles

Witch bottles can be filled with soil, pebbles, flour, rice etc and also buried afterwards.  They are essentially a ‘spell in a bottle’.

Sigils

Symbols and sigils can be drawn on the ground or flat surface using soil or sand.  But also painted using soil mixed with water.  This also works with ashes from the fire mixed with liquid.

Sigils are a personal way of drawing a magical symbol and will be unique to you and each one will be different depending on what you want to bring in.  First you need an intent and a phrase that sums up your intended outcome.

Let’s look at “give me strength”

We will use the letters of the phrase to create the sigil but we need to simplify it first by removing both the vowels and the letters that are duplicated, so once you have done that you end up with:

“gvmstrnh”

Now you need to grab a pen or pencil and paper and draw the letters onto a piece of paper, you can draw them one on top of another or you can space them out linking them together – be guided by your intuition and be as creative or as simple as you want.

Once you have done that your sigil is done and can be used in magical workings, your intent is in the letters, so you can bury it in the earth, burn it in the fire or wash it away in water – whatever works for you.

Taken from Kitchen Witchcraft: The Element of Earth by Rachel Patterson

Adding to the Kitchen Witchcraft series, the first in a set of four books focusing on the elements. Each book will go in depth into one of the elements, this one will be all about the element of Earth; how to work with it, rituals, spells, correspondences, elementals, meditations and practical exercises.