Sharing a friend's blog

I would like to point you all toward my beautiful friend Sharon's blog. She is sharing a picture of a spirit board on this one. Yes, I did paint it, isn't it beautiful? It was a custom order and it now lives in England! I have art living in another country! How cool is that?

Anyway, go look at Sharon's blog. :)

Sharon's Blog

Just an update!

Hello everyone! I thought I would give you an update on what I've been doing. This time of year is busy for me because of several reasons:

1. I like to giveaway things during the Samhain Sirens October extravaganza. If you don't know what that is please go here. The whole month of October will be filled with blogs, recipes, crafts, fun, and giveaways from all sorts of talented and wonderful vendors.

2. I'm decorating my home for Samhain.

3. I'm getting the gardens ready for winter and harvesting the last of my herbs.

4. We take a family vacation during my son's fall break,

I thought that I would show you some things that I've painted and made these past couple of weeks.

The first thing to show you is one of the giveaway items for the Samhain Sirens. This one will be offered as the very first giveaway of the season! It's a handpainted Siren spirit board with a handmade starfish planchette! The planchette is very lightweight and glides easily across the board. The board has several coats of protection and is signed and numbered by me. One lucky winner will get this beauty! I'm not going to lie, I want to keep this for myself.

(c) Loren Morris

The next thing that I made was a custom spirit board. This one was a lot of fun. My client wanted a Day of the Dead spirit board. So many bright colors with which to work! Yes that is a skeleton hand planchette.

(c) Loren Morris

I also just made my spirit sister a birthday present. Rita of Lapulia Studios has a life that I wanted to turn into fairy tale. So I made a story all about her and painted a picture of her to go with it. 

(c) Loren Morris

And here is the story to go along with her picture:

"Once upon a time there was a beautiful Witch that was generous and kind. She lived deep within an enchanted forest in a beautiful home.

The Witch's most favorite thing in the world was magic. She loved seeing the results of the magic that she worked. In every aspect of her life, magic was used. It made her happy and she saw the importance of having it in the world. 
She loved to help people. People came from far and wide to be helped by the Witch's magic. She loved the happiness that her magic brought when she helped them. But, this also made her sad. She wanted to be able to help more people, but she could not possibly help all of the people everywhere.
The Witch sat and thought of a way that she could help more people. What could she do? She wanted a way to spread the magic into the world, for she saw that it was needed. Maybe she could make a potion? 
Maybe a spell? But for the potion to work, everyone in the world would have to drink it, and the spell would have to contain all of the knowledge that the witch had, for it to work. A spell nor a potion would work. The Witch thought long and hard. For days she thought and thought. And finally an idea came to her! She would create beautiful magical books to share all of the knowledge that she had!
The Witch was so happy to begin working on her idea! She began creating beautiful, leather bound grimoires in wonderful colors, with beautiful artwork. She made gorgeous designs on the covers and filled them with all of the magic that she knew. After she made each one she took it out in the light of the full moon to fill it with the power of the glowing orb.
Soon word spread about the witch's books and more and more people came to obtain the magical tomes. They knew the power that was held within each of the books' pages.
The Witch was so happy that she could spread her knowledge even further and help even more people! She made more and more beautiful books and lived magically ever after." 
(c) Loren Morris 2014

Today, I'll be working in my gardens, getting more herbs harvested and getting a few ready for shipping. I'm also making my son a Lucius Malfoy Death Eater mask AND I'm working on a tarot card set with another dear friend.

If you would like to order your own handpainted spirit board you can contact me through Lapulia Studios or my art page on Facebook. 

Please join me for the Samhain Sirens Samhain celebrations and I will see you next week in the Stew with a Mabon craft for your altar!

Brightest Blessings,

Saga

Spirit Communication Aids

*This article is also part of Kallan's wonderful Sunday Stew. Please hop on over there (when you are finished here) and read all of my friend's contributions. Trust me, you will love the flavor that each chef has to offer :)

Spirit board and matching planchette made by yours truly. This crow

and pumpkin spirit board will be a giveaway item in one of the upcoming

Samhain Siren giveaways that starts October 1st! Make sure that you don't miss out on it!

My oh my, when I started my blog I never even thought that I would be doing so many posts on spirit communication. I was making a blog for my artwork and maybe an occasional post or two on spirit communication......lol, so I thought anyway. I have been letting the spirits lead me and this is where they have gone. So, it looks like you will have another post on spirit communication boys and girls. After all, the veil is thinning. No time like the present to learn more, right?

Today's post will be about gemstones, crystals, herbs and incenses that will aid you in your spiritual communications. I will be adding pics of everything with the descriptions because I just hate to read about an herb or a stone and not see what in the world it looks like.

All of the pics are of my own herbs and my rock and gemstone collection.

Now, of course you don't need ALL of these. Just a couple will be fine. I'm just listing them so you can see what properties they aid in and you can make your choices. I have an extensive collection of herbs, because I grow them and I have been collecting rocks and minerals for 20 years.

BEFORE YOU BEGIN:

Sage and Myrrh

Before you begin you should cleanse your work area with sage. Myrrh is always a great addition to that because it aids in removing negativity. I use these before any spirit work that I do. During my work I burn herbs that aid in communication, these are discussed in a bit. Sometimes, I also add in a bit of frankincense. Frankincense is good for calming your mind and awakening your spiritual awareness. So, using them all together pre-work will get you in the right frame of mind and prepare your area.

Gemstones and Stones

Selenite

This beautiful stone helps you to attain higher states of consciousness by calming and focusing the mind. It fine tunes spiritual contact and it enhances the energies of any other crystals that you may be using. 

I love Selenite. It is a beautiful stone and it is also useful for cleansing your aura. This is definitely a stone to have in your communication collection.

Blue Lace Agate

Blue lace is a stone that is connected to the throat chakra and the third eye chakra, so that makes it a great stone for spirit communication. It aids in meditation and can also bring peace to an overactive mind. It also helps to cleanse your aura.

Quartz

Like selenite, quartz is an amplifier. However, quartz is the ULTIMATE amplifier. It trumps selenite.  It not only boosts the other crystals you use, it will concentrate your energies towards your goal.  It helps you connect  and speak with your spirit guide and it creates a bond to the spirit realm. This is one that you don't want to miss out on and if you could only pick one, this would be it.

Amethyst

Amethyst is my personal favorite......because hello? Purple! I love this stone! As you can see, it comes in a variety of purple shades, but that is not what makes it such a great little communicator. What amethyst does is open up your upper chakras so that you are able to reach higher states of consciousness, which in turn helps your intuition and clears your energy pathways. It aids in concentration and helps alleviate fears. This stone doesn't just cleanse the aura, it protects it.

Citrine

I named the big one in the back of this pic Coffee cake. It looks like a piece of coffee cake to me.

Anyway, this is a good stone to use when practicing automatic writing, because it helps to make you more intuitive by aligning your chakras with the ethereal plane.

Celestite

Here we have another blue stone. That's a good rule of thumb. Sky blue equals spirit communication. 

Celestite is a gorgeous stone, it just sparkles. It helps in opening your connections to higher realms by helping you to relax and clearing your thoughts. It will help strengthen your link to higher beings, like angels or your spirit guide. 

Prehnite

You probably can't see it very well, but this is a light green stone. It is a darker sage green color. 

Prehnite will help your receive communications from angels and spirit guides. It will also help you to listen to the wisdom from your Higher Self. Definitely a good stone to have.

Moldavite

The reason that I am holding the stone up in this pic is because moldavite is kind of translucent. So that when you hold it up, you can kind of see through it. It is a more rare and pricier stone. Even small pieces are a bit costly. Moldavite is a tektite. Meaning that it comes from a meteorite crash. Moldavite comes from Moldauthein, Czechoslovakia. It is glass bottle green. 

Moldavite works by elevating your consciousness to the highest of the spiritual dimensions. It also enhances the effects of any other crystals that you may be using by taking them to their highest vibrations. It also enables communications with your Higher Self and it promotes altered states of consciousness by opening, clearing, energizing and aligning your chakras. How is that for a stone? 

Sodalite

Sodalite puts you in touch with your Higher Self by raising the vibration of your conscious mind, which in turn raises your spirtual perception. Your third eye is also stimulated, which aids in meditation.

All of these stones aid you in raising your awareness, aligning chakras, and taking your consciousness to new heights. 

Now let's look at a couple that will bring you back down and help to ground you when you are finished with your communications.

Hematite

Black Obsidian

Herbs for Spirit Communications

Lavender

You carry lavender to help see ghosts and it aids in meditation. So it is a perfect herb for communication.

Roses

Roses are useful in enhancing psychic awareness and contacting spirit guides, so they are great added to an incense blend for communication.

Chamomile

Chamomile is good for meditation and helps you learn knowledge of your past lives. It is also very calming.

Mugwort

Mugwort is an excellent spirit herb. It aids in many things: astral projection, divination, intuition, meditation, psychic abilities, spirit guides, and visions. 

Wormwood

Since wormwood is in the same family as mugwort it does have some of the same great abilities for communication with spirits. You can use it to summon the dead, open your psychic centers, and divination.

Lemongrass

Lemongrass aids with communication by promoting visions and enhancing your psychic awareness.

Copal

Copal is offered to departed souls during "Day of the Dead" rites, it also clarifies the mind and holds protective influence.

Peppermint

Peppermint is sacred to Hades, so of course it will be included here. It aids in psychic development, dreams, divinations, exorcism, and spirit offering. 

Calamus Root

Calamus root is said to make the user be able to "travel for miles without touching the ground". This herb is highly revered by yogis and will enhance your awareness and increase communication. It's yogic name is "Vacha", which means speech. It works on your fifth chakra and helps you to speak from your highest level of consciousness. 

Sandalwood

Sandalwood has protective properties so it would be good to include in your incense if you choose to make your own.

Magaly from pagan-culture.blogspot.com graciously sent me pics that she took of her gorgeous Star Anise from the Dominican Republic! Thank you, Magaly. (I'm currently out and couldn't take a pic)

Star Anise 

Star Anise is good for not only psychic protection, but also developing and controlling your psychic powers. It aids in contacting other planes, divinations, and exorcisms. It is good for using as a base for any psychic incense.

I hope you have enjoyed all the information. Next week we will talk about making a medicine bag pouch with items for protection against spirits. I will also include incenses and stones for that. 

Brightest Blessings,

Loren