Witchery: Embrace the Witch Within - Juliet Diaz 2019

Grounding
The Craft Unveiled

To be grounded is to be energetically centered; to have channeled your energy so that you feel focused, balanced, and strong. Without being grounded you may experience unwanted feelings or behaviors: you may feel disconnected, physically or emotionally drained, irritable, worried, restless, or anxious for no real reason. This can cloud your intentions when manifesting. Grounding is essential to Magick and to your craft, and is extremely beneficial in life in general. It’s a way to reinforce your connection to Mother Earth.

Grounding practices

Try any of these practices at least once a day to experience a deeper connection to the Earth and to yourself.

Rooting

Rooting is a simple grounding technique in which you visualize roots coming out of you and into the Earth. You can do it standing or sitting.

✵ Close your eyes and take three deep breaths. Now focus on the base of your spine. If you’re sitting, visualize roots coming out of your spine and traveling down into the Earth; if you’re standing, visualize the roots traveling down through your legs and out of the soles of your feet then into the ground.

✵ Journey with the roots deep into the ground, pushing and breaking through rock and dirt, deep into the core of our Earth.

✵ Once they’re in the core, visualize your energy leaving your roots to feed our Mother until you feel calm, reconnected, and focused.

Earthing

Connecting to the Earth’s natural energy is a vital part of a Witch’s life. Without this connection we cannot be connected to our Magick, our self, our truth — that we’re all part of nature. Earthing also has many health benefits: research such as the studies carried out by the Earthing Institute has shown that getting close to nature can increase energy, improve sleep, reduce stress, and reduce the time to heal.

Spend time taking our Mother’s medicine: walk barefoot on grass, sit under a tree, hug the tree, and don’t forget to enjoy the feeling of sand, rock, and dirt — anything that requires you to have contact with our Mother.

Working with crystals and gems

Crystals offer a fast and easy way to ground. Simply by holding a crystal in your hand you can remove any excess energy within yourself. Some of my favorite crystals for grounding are hematite, black obsidian, black tourmaline, and tiger’s eye.

✵ Visualize your energy flowing through your hand and into the crystal.

✵ Focus on letting go of the energy that feels uncomfortable, negative, and overwhelming.

✵ Cleanse your crystals of the negative energies they have taken from you, either with a mugwort bundle or with incense — choose one from palo santo, cedar, or sandalwood. Alternatively, put the crystals in a bowl of salted water for at least an hour. You can also cleanse your crystals by placing them on the Earth.

Listening to music

Music, particularly drumming, has a grounding effect. You can either listen to it or do some drumming yourself; either way, a steady rhythm is most effective. I love to listen to drumming while I’m doing my morning rituals. I also drum myself, on a small tambora, to elevate my spirit and ground myself to our Mother. Your drumming doesn’t have to be elaborate; you can drum on anything you like or have available to you.

Eating grounding foods

Foods that grow directly from the Earth — particularly vegetables — can help to ground you. Try to include grounding foods in your daily diet.

Using essential oils, incense, and herbs

The scent of essential oils, incense, and herbs can all help you to ground. My favorites include vetiver, patchouli, angelica root, ylang ylang, rosewood, cinnamon, and frankincense, all of which can be found in at least one of the above forms. I also make a tea with the herbs and drink this to help me ground.

Potion for grounding and centering

This potion is easy to make and works wonderfully to help release stress and anxiety, and to help you center. Put some in the bath or on your skin (always perform a skin-patch test first, to test for any adverse reaction) or use it to anoint candles.

What you need

A 10ml vial

A base oil such as jojoba oil (enough to fill the vial by three-quarters)

9 drops frankincense essential oil

9 drops lavender essential oil

9 drops cedar essential oil

What to do

✵ Add all of the oils to the vial, put the top on firmly and shake to combine the ingredients — that’s it! Whenever you need to ground, release stress, or come back to self, put 1—2 drops of the oil on your wrists, back of the neck, or temples, or increase all the quantities proportionally so you can put 2—4fl oz (60—120ml) in the bath.