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Anyone Use Staffs?


Wanderer

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Hi All, 

    I was working in the garden and found a deceased holly sapling that I suddenly saw in a completely new light: as the perfect basis for a staff. I do use a walking stick when descending mountains (tendonitis - grr!), so it would have practical purpose as a stave, but the way the root bases curl around the handle... well, it called to me. It's currently in its raw state, but I'm thinking of removing the spindly root branch, and leaving the rest. Not decided yet on whether to partly polish, carve, embed a crystal, and so on... 

 

    But anyhow... does anyone actually use a staff nowadays? They're obviously a standard trope in fantasy, and presumably the idea has a pretty deep origin, but I've not seen them mentioned here. I understand that these should ideally be crafted by the user and that they're potentially very complex tools... but that's about it! 😊

 

    If anyone's interested, I'll post updates on how the process is going, along with the finished product. 

DSC_0446.JPG

DSC_0447.JPG

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Ooh, good find! That’s what we Norse people would call a proper Gand - a staff used for sejdr (sejdr is a form of old shamanic like divination, most often performed in a trancelike stage.) The Gand was a really important tool back then, and it’s getting popular again among neo-shamans. It can be made either from cast metal or from wood. I think wood is optimal for those who do shamanic type journeying and want something to connect them to the world tree. 

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Ooh, that does sound good! Off to read up on Seiðr now... and it does  sound intriguing. That's my next lot of research sorted - thanks, @Raggydoll:thumbsup:

 

I'm getting a definite feeling that I should go carefully here; it feels as if it matters that I don't ruin it by hasty actions. I might even ask the cards about it, and see what they have to say (if anything; they might regard it as competition...!), but will certainly spend some time thinking about it before leaping in.

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On 8/30/2019 at 8:26 PM, Wanderer said:

Ooh, that does sound good! Off to read up on Seiðr now... and it does  sound intriguing. That's my next lot of research sorted - thanks, @Raggydoll:thumbsup:

 

I'm getting a definite feeling that I should go carefully here; it feels as if it matters that I don't ruin it by hasty actions. I might even ask the cards about it, and see what they have to say (if anything; they might regard it as competition...!), but will certainly spend some time thinking about it before leaping in.

There’s a book you might find of interest called Nine worlds of seid-magic, by Jenny Blain. Jenny is a highly academic woman who is also performing sejdr herself and who is considering this practice to be part of her experiential anthropology. She has documented several contemporary practitioners and she is also writing about the history of sejdr based on all the ancient texts. I found it quite a nice read. It doesn’t necessarily represent my own views or experiences but perhaps that’s also part of what I enjoyed so much about it? 

 

 

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Brilliant - just downloaded it, thank you! :smiley:

 

Still curious whether anyone else has a staff of their own, and if so, what they do with it... 

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5 hours ago, Wanderer said:

Not decided yet on whether to partly polish, carve, embed a crystal, and so on... 

 

What a find!
I'd leave it as close to its natural state as possible. Clean it up a little, do some light sanding on the rougher areas, maybe give it a couple of coats of linseed oil and you're good to go. Text or symbols - OK, if that's what was traditionally done. But no crystals, IMHO. That could make it look like one more piece of new age etsy junk. It's too special for that.

Edited by katrinka
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Thanks, @katrinka! That's good advice, too - I'm also drawn to the same sort of lines, as the natural form is so wonderful... and I can't stand kitsch! That said, I am toying with setting a little (tasteful!) piece of black onyx into the end of the thickest root... but will consider anything like that very carefully before doing anything irreparable!

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Regarding crystals, I know that there are two that’s been used traditionally among native shamans all over the world: clear quartz and turquoise. Here in Scandinavia we have used clear quartz, and the aboriginal shamans did too. Many Native American tribes, like the Navajos, have used clear quartz and turquoise. Not sure what the Celtic druids did. Me, I’d use clear quartz if anything. I like to stick with what’s native to my peeps. I love clear quartz because it can be programmed and also used as a transmitter or a charger or even a memory keeper. But any rock can do that. My favorite ones tend to be ‘plain’ rocks that I found in powerful places. That is what was used in my family - that or possibly amber. Black onyx can of course be utilized for scrying as well but if you use your staff to connect with the lower worlds then you’ll already have all the protection and divinatory help you’ll ever need from the ancestral energies. If you’re just out to decorate the wand then by all means do what you feel drawn to do. It’s your staff - it called upon you for a reason! You could also ask the staff what it wants.. if you’re that way inclined 🙂

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