Smoke cleansing. Ritual baths. Kitchen magick. Protection Jars. So many ways to use protection magick!
Let’s talk about protection and why it is crucial. In our modern world, we are bombarded with negative energy daily. This can be from global, wide-scale shifts–think, pandemic, climate change, and political uncertainty–or from interpersonal interactions–like a person who doesn’t have our best interest in mind or the argumentative energy left behind from someone in your space. Protection magick is a great tool to help you banish bad energy, ward off unpleasant people, and defend your spiritual energy and your space.
There are multiple ways to protect your energy–and some really should be a daily practice. It is important to keep in mind that cultural practices, religions, and personal history will differ from person to person, so you may need to build your own foundation based on the basics and do a bit of soul-searching and ancestral digging to build a practice that is best for you. It is important to do protection magick only after cleansing and after banishing. If you haven’t cleansed your space, you will only seal in all the negative energy that was lingering there in the first place–kind of like spraying perfume over poop. Some great ways to cleanse include smoke cleanse using incense and auditory cleaning with a sounding bell–both of which are practices that some of us in ATA use.
If there were one daily practice I would recommend you make time for, it is meditating and asking your guides for protection. Another great practice–and one I enjoy as an artist–is using protective sigils. You can write them on your skin using markers, use foundation to draw it on your face as glamor magick, or you can carry them around in your pockets or purse if you have one.
Crystals are another great form of protection, you can wear them as jewelry, carry them around, put them on your windowsill, so many possibilities! Protective crystals like tourmaline, hematite, obsidian, labradorite, and amethyst are affordable and useful stones to have around. There are more protective crystals out there that I could name, so I encourage you to do your own research to find one that could fit for your needs!
For those who love to cook, there is kitchen magick, where you can set intentions into the meals and drinks you consume and use specific ingredients to help protect you. (Hannah suggests black pepper, dill, garlic, paprika, and sage for savory protection dishes–but don’t forget about the ingredient in every kitchen: salt! It is also great for protection)
If you don’t want to eat your protection, you can soak in it. Baths are also great ways to cast protection using a couple of ingredients usually found around your home. An example of this is using epsom salt and some dried rosemary–and if you have sandalwood essential oil, add that too! When mixing the ingredients, set the intention that you are protected, relaxed. When drawing the bath let the ingredients imbue the running water. When enjoying the bath, release any negativity and soak in all the positive energy as a shield. When done soaking, imagine all the bad energy going down the drain. This is one of my personal favorite practices for cleansing.
Keeping plants is also a great way to protect your space. Having plants around can protect you with their earthly, grounding energy. If you give to a plant, it gives back to you. But if a plant is dying it, may signal that it protected you from negative energy sent your way. (Unless you’re a real black thumb, then you probably should stick to other forms of cleansing and energy maintenance.) For a decorative, but no-responsibility option, hang witch bells on the door to use sound cleansing every time someone opens the door. (It’s also a great way to protect from outside energies when coming in. And keep unwanted energies/people out, or at least not in your space quite as long.)
Lastly, I want to talk about protective spell jars. You can craft a spell jar with protective ingredients and intentions and keep it in your space to help you ward off any low-vibrational energy. To make the spell jar pictured to the right, I first cleansed my space using frankincense incense, and then I cleansed the jar, meditated, and cast a salt circle around my jar and ingredients. To make the jar, I used:
- Small jar with a cork
- Eggshell
- Black salt and ash
- Sea salt
- Small amethyst crystal
- Bay Leaf
- Basil
- Rosemary
- Written note with intention to protect myself folded three times towards myself
- One black candle, wax used to seal the bottle (the color black is great for protection)
Preventive magick is the best type of magick. There is also a good quantity of protective magick out there–more than I listed–so stay curious and open to researching and developing different ways to protect yourself.