Hello friends! Here is our question for the day: how are Chris Baty, Ancestry DNA, and animal bones all connected? You’re about to find out! So let’s take a journey and I’ll walk you through it.
I know it’s been a little while since I posted anything new. With the school semester and with family and several trips I’ve taken since it has just been a very busy few months! As those of you who have been following me for some time maybe aware, this is the month of our Lord and Savior Chris Baty! It’s NaNoWriMo Time!
You may be wondering what the title of this post and National Novel Writing Month have to do with one another but rest easy because I will explain it all.
This year I’m working on a series of short stories that are centered around North American cryptids (and for those of you who may not be aware, we have some weird and wacky ones, melting pot of the world that the U.S. is). Included in several of those short stories are bits and pieces of different Folk Magics, especially Appalachian Folk Magic or what is also called Granny Magic.
Weirdly specific right? But stick with me. Remember this is a journey!
When I started delving into my Ancestry DNA results and my family tree I noticed that, with the exception of a few outliers, the majority of my family has lived in the Appalachian region since my ancestors came to the US. It made me curious about what kind of traditions that they may have had and, as a practicing Pagan, what kind of belief systems they may have shared. This is what led me down the rabbit hole that is Appalachian Folk Magic!
Still with me?
Unconnected to my ancestry but still tied in with my own practice is the use of bone casting sets for divination and communicating with Spirit allies and Ancestors. My very first magical teacher other than my own intuition was a lovely lady whose own practice was very hoodoo based. Has anyone who has been a devout student of anything over time can tell you, we each end up collecting pieces of the teachings of those that have instructed us. It’s kind of like an ancestry on its own really. An ancestry of knowledge rather than blood.
So because of that influence, my own practice tends to lean into Conjure and root work just as much as it does Kemeticism and Indigenous Spiritually (thanks to my Elder, Standing Bear of the Fishing Lake First Nation).
Bone casting comes from the Conjure side of things originally. It’s something that I wasn’t very eager to get into because, and don’t make fun of me for this, it just felt very teenage edge lord for me. Like those try hard kids that try to convince people that bear real life vampires and spend too much time and Hot topic harassing the associates. If you know the kind of person I’m talking about, you know.
But regardless of my plans for my practice, Spirit will have it’s say at the end of the day and honestly the best we can do is just get out of our own way.
Now that we’ve seen how all of those things are connecting for me right now, let’s get back to the main topic at hand.
So magic systems!
What do I mean whenever I say something is a magic system? As I think of it, and Magic system is something like the use of crystals, the use of tarot or candle magic or runes. Methods of doing a working that each have their own set of rules and ways of use that are inherently disconnected from other systems and methods.
One of the things that my hoodoo teacher taught me during our first tarot class was that these magic systems don’t necessarily have to remain separate. She was a big fan of using dice casting and pendulums in conjunction with her tarot reading which I always thought was very fascinating! I’d never seen someone combine them in that way before.
Here is a picture or five of one of the spell workings I have ongoing right now.
This work has to be done consecutively for 7 days in a row for the first part of the Working and then another seven for the second part. As any good practitioner knows, I won’t be telling you what the Working is for because I don’t want to risk dispelling and undoing it after putting in so much time and effort! However that doesn’t mean that I can’t break down the pieces of the working for you to explain what’s going on and what you’re looking at.
This working in particular combines candle magic, crystals, my bone casting set, a bell and incense, the calling upon of Ancestors and Spirit Allies as well as prayer. At the base of the largest candle, between the amethyst and quartz, you’ll see I’ve left a little offering there as well for those who may come to aid me in the Working.
After all, not even Spirit wants to work for free! They will occasionally do volunteer work but everybody does their work more happily whenever they’re being paid for their services.
I’m using cards from three separate Oracle decks here: the Isis Oracle which has been a favorite of mine for many years now and was my very first Oracle deck; the Halloween Oracle deck, which is actually my go-to-deck right now; and in the center beneath my bones is a card from my Everyday Witch Oracle deck.
One of the first things you may notice about my bone casting set is that it’s not actually all bone! And it doesn’t have to be. Many bone casting sets include things like stones and fossils, both of which are present in mine, but also small knick knacks and curios. Two of the pieces that aren’t bone are actually from my great-grandmother’s sewing kit that was passed down through the women of my family and eventually made its way to me! In that way, my ancestors keep a solid foothold in any Works and castings that I use this set for.
Another piece is Blue Glass which is used for trapping nosy or invasive Spirits, and the last is a spent bullet casing. I didn’t realize till I picked it up but the small evil eye bead that is also part of the set was inside the bullet casing at the time so it’s not in the picture but it’s there! There’s also a bell because I’ve always been told that bells are the voices of the goddess on the physical plane.
The coral, stones, and fossils are pretty easy to connect with bones. The bleached coral piece and the fossils were once living things, the parts of them left behind after Time had it’s say, and what is a stone if not the bones of the very Earth itself?
Every practitioner is going to have their own opinions and beliefs as far as they’re chosen magical systems go. Some may believe that a bone set should only contain bones. Some may have no bones in their sets at all! Some may prefer not to combine methods like I do and some may combine methods that I’ve never heard of or experienced myself!
I’m always very curious to see what other people are doing and experiencing in their own practices so if you would like to please share with me here in the comments! I love learning about new methods or even new opinions on the same old tried and true ones and I’d certainly love to hear yours!
Sorry if this was a little rambly, it got away from me a little bit but I can’t help but have fun whenever I’m talking about these kinds of topics! It also doesn’t hurt that this blog post counts towards my nanowrimo word count. 50k, let’s gooooo!
Also, are you participating in this yearly writing chaos speed run? If you are, let me know and let’s do a word sprint or something!
Also also, sorry if there are any grammar or spelling mistakes. I usually try to be pretty diligent about them but after all, this is November. Editing is for next month. 😉
With Peace and Passion,
Ta! ✌️
Little Journeys Everywhere 