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Man, where do I start?

This trip came right when I was in the middle of a thirteen-day uncrossing. (It’s something I like to do periodically to ditch other people’s accumulated nonsense, in addition to regular clearing and protection stuff.) Fortunately, I was able to take it with me. This got me thinking — how do you perform spells or rituals on the road?

We were going to be gone for a week, so I knew I wanted to be able to handle whatever came up. Since we’d be in hotels every night, whatever I used had to be:

• Discreet.
• Transportable.
• Smokeless. Not all hotels have smoking rooms anymore, and almost none have windows that can open. It’d be really rude of me to light a bunch of incense or diffuse oils in a confined, temporary space in a non-smoking room — what if the person after me has severe asthma or allergies? It’s one thing if I accidentally give myself a headache or trigger my allergies, but another thing entirely if I accidentally smoke out my cats or the poor unwitting soul who’s going to occupy the room after me. (Also, some places will heck of charge you if your room smells like smoke when you leave.)
• Difficult for me to forget. This is saying a lot — I have a neurological disorder that makes me forget things very easily. I’m not even supposed to do things like cook, because there is a significant chance I will lose track of what I’m doing and burn my entire block down.

In the end, I settled on a couple of key items that I could use for pretty much whatever I needed to do.

Like a portable altar.

The altar structure I use only really needs three things: a tree, a well, and a hearth. These are somewhat malleable. The tree can be any representation of a tree, or even an upright stone. The well can be a cup. The hearth can be three candles. With a quartz point and three tea lights stored in a glass food saver, I had a tree, a well, and a hearth that could travel. (And I brought along a wand I made recently, so I could both have it with me, and see how well it traveled/held up to being in my purse for days at a time.) Score.

I also wanted to be able to do some more specific work in contexts where busting out an altar (even a portable one) and lighting candles wasn’t exactly… doable.

Enter my tiny collection of sprays.

I keep a small bottle of lavender hydrosol in my bag at all times. It refreshes my skin, cools me off on days when the heat gets to be too much for me, and lavender itself is one of the most versatile magical herbs there is. It’s good stuff.

I also have some more specific sprays that I use. In this case, I made sure to pack along a Clearing spray by Enchanted Botanicals, and a Protection Spray by spirit scents (as far as I know, the latter is only available in a shop local to me. Check here, here, and here for items I think would be good equivalents). They’re powerful stuff, but the scents themselves are light, natural, and don’t stick around as long as perfume, body spray, or incense does — perfect for places where I wanted to avoid using anything too intrusive.

Also a protective amulet.

Remember this guy? I had some copper wire and scrap leather leftover from wrapping wands, and one of the suppliers I work with was kind enough to send me a little drilled purple aura quartz as a “thank you” for my last order. After I put them together into a pretty rad necklace, I got to thinking.

 

 

I could totally enchant this.

I do that with most of my jewelry, for various purposes. Some I wear every day, others are never worn outside of sacred space. Since I was headed on a long car ride, what better time to make something for protection on a journey? Granted, there are other stones that lend themselves better to protecting you during travel (when I was a foreign exchange student, the lovely Swedish family I stayed with gave me an amber button for just this purpose), but I had a quartz necklace and time to experiment.

The experiment was a rousing success, by the way, but more on that later.

And bath bombs.

Remember the uncrossing I mentioned? Luckily for me, I did it in the form of a bath. This isn’t too unusual — spiritual baths are very effective for either clearing away what you don’t want, or imbuing you with what you do. I made mine out of coconut oil, sodium ascorbate (vitamin C), sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), and a selection of herbs and oils chosen to get rid of other people’s negative energy. (I’ll provide the recipe in another post because, if I put it here, this is going to be a seriously long entry.)

If you are able/willing to make your own, they’re a good way to carry a spell with you. If you can’t crank out your own, I recommend these protection bath bombs by Lilythes Laboratory, these aura cleansing bath bombs by Ritual Elements, or these peace, tranquility, and healing bath bombs by inspired by intent. When you’re dealing with traffic, people who don’t use turn signals, and hotel rooms that countless other people have passed through, protection, cleansing, and tranquility are pretty much the Trio of Maintaining Sanity.

All told, I was very satisfied with my efforts here. I could do what I needed to do without intruding on anyone else’s peace or safety, and we all got home alive and whole despite the highway’s best efforts. Good show!