\tI keep this little black faux-leather pouch, which originally came with a pill sorting thing in it, you know, one of those ones with daily containers for the week. Only instead mine has a polished ocean stone, an acorn, a horse chestnut, a cowry shell, a piece of maple bark, a chunk of shell so worn by the sea that it\u2019s pretty much a rock, and other things like that. It\u2019s for employing earth energy in rituals, or in some cases, helping me reconnect when weather traps me inside for days, which can get kind of depressing.
\n\tOne of the things I was looking for at PSG, which I am still looking for, is a piece of bone. Preferably some kind of bird or mammal. I\u2019m just looking for a small flat piece or two to keep in that pouch, and to help with animal magic. That\u2019s how this little adventure came about.
\n\tI asked around and asked around, and was finally directed to a rather quiet little booth, the name of which I couldn\u2019t recall even right after the moment happened. They had some bone chimes out front. I asked the woman sitting toward the back, and a man came up to me and handed me a beaded bracelet on stretch cord. I tried it on, and beside the fact that it was one: not what I needed, two: pretty chunky for jewelry I would wear, and three: a little snug, I got a really weird energy from it. The beads were very dark in color, probably painted or stained that color. I don\u2019t know how bone is given a different coloring during a creative process.
\n\tI asked the guy what kind of bone this was.
\n\tAnd then I asked him again because his response was such a surprise it was as if I couldn\u2019t take it in, it kind of got scrambled in the transmission.
\n\t\u201cHuman.\u201d
\n\tI can\u2019t say the exact emotion I felt. Shocked? Alarmed? Yes those, but something else. Knocked off balance on such a base level. Holding animal bone or fur, there\u2019s a sense of the energy of their environment, woods or fields, and a very peaceful, largely simple existence. But this was different.
\n\tSo, feeling all embarrassed about my reaction, I said, \u201cthank you for showing me, it\u2019s not what I exactly was looking for,\u201d and handed the bracelet back.
\n\tI think there were a few exchanges that followed that, the highlight of them being the guy I spoke to explaining that some people donate their bones to this company to make things like that bracelet. I think I asked him what human bone was used for, and it\u2019s for repelling negativity or something.
\n\tI have nothing against the use of human bone on a moral level, nor do I completely avoid that side of Paganism, where things are a bit more primal, based around old folk practices, such as Hoodoo or Appalachian Granny Magic, both of which have aspects I weave into my own practice. I just wasn\u2019t prepared for that.
\n\tAnd here\u2019s something else. I am a medium, as much as the ability frustrates me. With human spirits, I can generally sense them and get intuitive information about them. Cemeteries can be interesting places because they all run up to me like a pack of teenagers mobbing a movie star wanting to be friends and I have to kind of tune them out. But whoever donated that bone died of cancer. They were old, they had many stories to tell. I knew that much from touching that bracelet. I\u2019m not actually completely sure I tried it on, or if I just held it. Doesn\u2019t matter much, I could see it wasn\u2019t my size or style.
\n\tIt\u2019s one of those stories you just have to laugh at. I\u2019m kind of adventurous, and a shock like that is no deterrent to moving on to other new experiences. I couldn\u2019t process it well in that moment, then it was kind of a weird, kind of unsettled feeling for a while. Now I look back, and my reaction looks really funny from a distance. I mean it\u2019s one of those things where you have to laugh, because you\u2019re sort of tickled in an unpleasant way, a way you just cannot understand.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I keep this little black faux-leather pouch, which originally came with a pill sorting thing in it, you know, one of those ones with daily containers for the week. Only instead mine has a polished ocean stone, an acorn, a horse chestnut, a cowry shell, a piece of maple bark, a chunk of shell so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1971,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,19],"tags":[1918,818],"class_list":["post-3465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","category-share-your-story-information-or-ideas","tag-human-bone","tag-pagan-spirit-gathering"],"yoast_head":"\n