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🔔 BELLS IN WITCHCRAFT 🔔

Bells might just be the earliest form of superstitious practise that I remember. My baba attached three sakura-patterned suzu bells on my schoolbag as a kid, purportedly for good luck and protection from evil spirits – and Japan is far from the only place to have associated bells and bellringing with mystic practise. They’ve been used worldwide to ward off evil and carry messages – and in a more metaphysical sense, sound is the movement of energy through substance. Sounds have the potential to work powerful magic.

Here are some of the ways I’ve found utilising bells to be helpful to my craft. While I’m more likely to use traditional suzu type bells, your own background, path and culture will likely have its own types of bells – and as ever, bells can be ornate antiques or they can be a bottle cap in a tin can, as long as they’re used with intent.

GETTING STARTED

🔔 As with so much of the craft, if you’re new to the witching bell, it’s a matter of exploration and experimentation. Get a “feel” for what works for you and the specific bell you’re using.

🔔 It’s good practise to ensure that the bell itself is cleansed, warded and protected – you don’t want anything nasty tapping into that power. All witching tools can do as much harm as good, intentional or accidental.

🔔 A good way to begin incorporating bells into your craft is infuse them into any typical ritual that you’re comfortable with, or even just a prayer or moment of contemplation at your altar if you have one.

🔔 Give the bell a soft ring while focusing on the energy it’ll ripple and move, try to track the movements it creates and what it touches. The tone it’s sending out.  The most primal and versatile use of the bell – and what many of the below come down to – is simply another manner of physically channelling energy, giving it shape and direction.

PROTECTION

🔔 “Passive” bells such as windchimes or small bells attached to belongings you don’t want disturbed are a starting point. They will scare off some forms of spirit all by themselves, especially if appropriately blessed, charmed or enchanted. Or cursed.

🔔 Gently tolling can draw energy into a ward or circle you are forming and enforce its protective properties, or for a simple cleanse, letting the sound travel to every corner of the area you are protecting. It’s a little more “cutting” than a smoke or incense cleansing, which I view as more “gentle” forms of cleansing. Both have their uses.

🔔 Harder tolling is, in my opinion, one of the most powerful ways in which to enforce a banishing – however, it’s best to you know what you’re doing with the bell before you go bashing it about.

DISCERNMENT

🔔 Bells can have quite the effect on your perception and awareness. Ringing and then stopping, listening to the silence left in its wake, can bring you new perceptions or make things you’d previously missed obvious. Let it attune your mind and senses to something new, whether that’s in your thoughts or something with a little more presence. Visualise travelling with the sound, taking heed of the energies it touches and disturbs. Take note of the echoes – you’ll learn what they mean with experience.

🔔 A set of windchimes can let you know if something is passing through or if there’s some unusual energy afoot – and, yes, it may also just be letting you know that it’s a particularly breezy day, but that’s witchcraft for you.

CONJURING

🔔 This can be as simple as calling good energies to witching tools, spell jars, tarot decks, crystals, altars and shrines, your favourite teddy bar, anything at all.

🔔 With spirit work, it can truly help to magnify your “calling”. This can range from gently bringing your latest offering to the attention of your friendly neighbourhood house spirit – all the way to trying to catch the attention of something more. Be mindful, however. As I said, I consider bells pretty powerful tools and a call that’s too loud is not good spirit work practise for the spirit worker’s own sake. It can really help coax something out of hiding if you’re gentle with it, though.

COMMUNING

🔔 Some use bells to mark the beginning and end of a ritual, and I’ve read that in Wiccan practise an altar bell can be used to invoke the Goddess, although as a non-Wiccan, I’ll welcome corrections on that if I’m wrong.

🔔 In my experience, very simple forms of communication via bell work a lot better than anything too complex – “come here” and “stay away” have already been covered, and other than that they can serve as greetings or signals of a start or end of some practise or ritual, the opening or closing of a door, etc.

🔔 They can also serve as a warning or a litmus test regarding spirits, a signalling of your presence and awareness, lack of fear, or willingness to defend – but be prepared to deal with whatever responses these garner.

BINDING

🔔 Bindings are where you most often see that famous (clockwise) circular motion of the bell, embodying the meaning of the spell. This can be a simple binding to seal a spell or charm or enchantment, or a spirit-binding.

🔔 Personally, spirit-binding is something I do as little as possible simply due to my beliefs holding the autonomy of spirits in very high regard. However, sometimes situations arise that call for it, and I’m aware that not all bindings are unwilling. Far from it – and some spirits are dangerous when unbound.

🔔 As an animist (believing that all things, including inanimate objects, contain a spirit of their own), I consider gently nudging a spirit back into its physical form a sort of semi-binding, and that can be useful.

I’ll leave you all with a note that I am an urban apartment-dwelling witch through and through, so I understand that we can’t all be jangling away at all hours. I myself have a glass windchime in my front window that makes a distinct but muted sound when disturbed by passers-through, and highly recommend wooden ones also. I also only use my small and relatively quiet suzu bell for my crafting – one given to me by my baba herself.

Feel free to add any of your own findings, and happy tolling.

I've referenced this post before in my own practices, way back before I had a Tumblr account. Now that I'm here, let me reblog it so I don't lose track of it!

🗻🌊Skye’s Landlocked Sea Witch Tips🌊🗻

I’ve seen a lot of aspiring sea witches being discouraged due to not living anywhere near the ocean. And I’m here to tell you that you can still be a sea witch and be landlocked! Being landlocked will only hinder you if you let it.

So, let’s get going!

🌊Making Your Own Sea Water🌊

You will need:

🌊A jar/air tight bottle. I find a swing cap bottle works best

🌊Sea salt, eyeball amount depending on jar size

🌊Warm spring water

Ground and centre. Listen to ocean sounds and visualise and feel the power of the sea. Connect with the ocean by doing a Sinking/sea centering.

Pour the water into the jar. Add the sea salt. Mix until the salt has dissolved.

Hold the jar in both hands in front of your heart, saying:

“🐚 Mother ocean, from whom life flows, Bless this water with your love and nurturing power, your endless beauty and strength, For this I am grateful. So mote it be 🐚”

(Feel free to replace mother ocean with the name of your sea deity, if you have one)

Close your eyes. Continue to hold the jar at your heart and visualise the ocean. With your hands, feel the sea’s energy emanating from the jar. When the feeling is strong, open your eyes. Your sea water is ready to use.

🌊🔊Sea Sound Scapes🔊🌊

Your sea water can be placed in a bowl and you have the ocean right there. Combine that with the sound scape, listening to the waves coming in and going out. Synch that with any spell work you want to do regarding waves, tides, giving things to mother ocean etc. With me, I place things in the bowl and then pour the water and item (if it’s eco friendly) in the stream near my house.

I also use this technique to place myself at the beach through the senses. Hold a seashell or touch some sand, taste some salt, listen to ocean sounds, have an image or video of the sea, and if you can (I struggle with this) have a scent that’s ocean themed. I’ve struggled to find one as most scented candles labelled sea breeze smell like soap… And with this, you can perform rituals and workings centered around that water you made. Through your visualisation skills you can be by the sea, even when you physically aren’t. Cool, huh?!

💙You Are Ocean💙

The ocean is within you. It’s your blood, the sweat, your tears, your breath, your pulse. The ocean has a rhythm, so does the human body. We’re 65% water. And what’s even cooler is we also have a tide. The moon affects the body’s fluids, just like it affects the ocean. These ideas have really helped me with my craft because being landlocked, I’m sometimes like “how can I connect with the sea?” So knowing I have a tide and the rhythm of the sea, which is like the rhythm of pulse, just totally blows my mind and amazes me!

💧💦Inland Water💦💧

Now this is something that kinda quenches my sea thirst. If you can, travel to a nearby lake, river, stream etc. Sit near it. Connect with it. Follow your intuition and connect with its energy. Ask Mother Ocean/Your water deity to help you.

Honestly, I’ve been in meditation near freshwater and the smell, if I focus enough, reminds me of the sea air and it literally transports me in my mind and senses to the beach. And that’s one of my vital tools in my craft. (talk about water being adaptable and water witches doing the same, eh?!)

🛀🚿Bath & Shower Magic🚿🛀

🌊Bath bombs. Look up their ingredients to know the correspondences, or, just make up your own. Lush are honestly amazing and their products have been used a lot in my bath rituals

🌊Sallllttssss! You can make a saltwater bath, meditate and relax and really tap into that ocean energy

🌊Bath tub altar. Have a little altar going on when you take a bath. Shells, candles, incense, trinkets you’ve collected or purchased, statues. Anything you have that makes you feel connected with the sea

🌊 You can use crystals that correspond to water if you like. Aquamarine, moonstone, fluorite, amethyst, labradorite, selenite and rose quartz are just a few examples. If you’re putting crystals in your tub please research which ones are water safe!

🌊Herbs and oils. You can add these to your bathtub. Please research again. Some herbs are toxic and some you may be allergic to. The same with oils, as some people have allergic reactions to them! I don’t often use herbs and oils for this reason. I get irritated skin very easily. I use coconut oil in my bath for purification and I just looooove coconut oil and the scent. Also its amazing for your skin! I use lavender oil and that’s literally it. I use oils outside of the tub, though. For candle dressing and other spell work.

🌊And if you don’t have a bathtub, all of those above ingredients and can be made into shower scrubs! They’re super easy to make and there’s a tonne of amazing tutorials around online!

🌊Meditate or work in the shower. Feel that water flowing down and through you, allow it to cleanse and charge you. Go with your intuition and explore the possibilities

🌩🌪️☄️Weather☄️🌪️🌩️

Weather. It all begins at sea. Snow, rain, thunder storms, winds, hail. Its all from the sea. The water is ocean water that’s traveled to the land. Weather magic is just a more expanded form of sea magic. Go out and let the rain cleanse you, collect weather water of any kind and make your sea water with it! Feel the power of a storm and focus on how much energy the sea has during that time. Feel her with you when you are on land! Remember to stay safe when practising weather magic, too.

🐚✨Seashell Magic✨🐚

And if you have seashells, they have amazing uses and correspondences. Offering bowls, amulets, charms, talismans, runes, charging items and so on. I highly recommend the book Sea Magic by Sandra Kynes as a lot of the tips I’ve given you were inspired or taken from that book :)

A quick PSA regarding seashells:

If your shells are store bought, they may not be ethically sourced. Some craft stores sell them by the many so try to be wary of this. It’s down to your moral compass whether or not you decide to use them in your craft. And if you do choose to use them, I advise cleansing them before any magical use. Furthermore, do not purchase nautilus shells, starfish or seahorses. Nautilus shells are endangered. Star fish and sea horses are taken alive, then killed to be sold in stores.

I really hope this helped! Have a swishy day! 🌊💙And if you have any questions, feel free to ask :)