My first teacher taught me to use my brain as the ultimate tool.
In fact, I knew nothing of casting circles-- I had learned how to
go on those soul voyages in dreaming, the care and feeding of
gris-gris bags, and rudimentary protection skills using bath salts.
[Conjure bags filled with common kitchen herbs and stones, and
bath salts were the only things she allowed me along with a tarot
deck. Since I didn't know about other tools or altars, I didn't mind].
I had no official altar for many years.
My first physical altar was a piece of wood onto which I had
used magic markers to designate the four directions and had
also inscribed some astrological symbols on.
I had run into a description of how to set up an altar and that was
my result. I kept it in the bathroom and laid it over the sink when
I wanted to use it to light candles or burn incense for specific
things I perceived I needed or wanted.
In this house, I have a circle altar where I do circle work, a moon
altar, an ancestors' altar all in one room which is warded. Also
a mini-shrine to Yemayah in the bathroom. Rocks all over the
house. [I love rocks.] A room of frogs which I also consider
to be sacred space [though not exactly what the authors of
all those books I got had in mind]. And a "witch tree"
with stones around it in the backyard. And gris-gris in my car.
After my car accident and traumatic brain injury, there was very
little I could do. I spent a couple of months sleeping twenty hours
a day. During that time, any spiritual work I did was basic. I found
a fondness for classical music and insisted that the radio station
playing it be left on all night long. I envisioned Kwan-Yin helping
me to heal up when I was laid up. I renewed my acquaintance
with the blessed darkness and shadows. What I didn't know then
was that I was experiencing photophobia from the brain injury
itself. What I did know was that the sunlight outside the window
was too bright.
As my healing progressed, I became gradually able to return to
a bit of circle work while vertical. And now I can once again enjoy
my surroundings. I no longer curse the sunlight daily. [I got prism
lenses/prescription sunglasses]. Today I still retain that sense
of my surroundings being my altar. My brain remains the
only tool I truly need.
sapphoq healing tbi
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