Psychic Medium and Norse/Anglo-saxon witch

I'm Fern! (They/them). I'm a practicing psychic medium and norse pagan/witch. I help people connect with their animal/plant guides, deities, ancestors,and passed loved ones. My practice centers around nature and animal spirits along with ancestor work. I also offer fun readings like my cryptid readings, and I love encorporating my love for all things weird and nerdy into my practice where I can. 

[fernsgrove]

Images I see in the photos: 1) griffin and horse 2) blue jay and a man holding a spear 3) bird  During fire scrying sessions, it is really easy to worry about missing things or feeling overwhelmed by how quickly the flames move. Here are some tips for when the fire is lit! 

First, don’t stare into the flames for long periods of time and protect yourself from smoke. Fire safety really is important, and you should always have a few ways to put out your fire. If you add wax to it, have a way to snuff the fire. Do not throw water on it!! I suggest having either a water source, something to cover the fire, and a fire extinguisher. That way you always have a few options if the fire does get out of hand. 

I really think that humility is the most important aspect of all readings. Be open to being wrong, to not knowing what something means, and to having to come back to the reading later. When you come into a reading, you will have biases. This is unavoidable. Over time, you’ll become more aware of what these biases are, and it’ll be easier to course correct during a reading. However, being aware that they exist can help immensely from the start. You are going to get things wrong. That’s the beauty of divination. You are cultivating a relationship with the medium, yourself, and spirit. It’s not black and white. (I could talk about this forever, so let me know if you are interested in hearing more about finding and working with those biases.) 

I recommend recording your fire sessions as opposed to trying to scry in real time. I usually do a mix of watching the fire and video recording. I get overwhelmed by the speed of the flames sometimes, so it relaxes me to know that I can always look back on the footage later. You can take one longer video, or you can take a few videos, each after every question. I typically will add in herbs while asking a question to create a physical boundary for me to better separate the information I gather during the fire. Other times, I will simply look away, reground and center myself, and then look back at the fire in between every question. 

I encourage you to treat the scrying session as a conversation, not a question and answer. Talk to the fire, to the spirits, and just to yourself. Allow the experience to be three dimensional, and be open to whatever messages want to come through. Sometimes, despite setting up the entire fire for one intention, you’ll get information for something completely different. Trust spirit in this. There is always a reason for what they share with you. Also, allow yourself to let some messages just sit with you for a while. We often have preconceived meanings attached to images, and this can sometimes get in the way. For example, butterflies mean spirit is listening for me. But if I ask for insight on my relationship, and I keep seeing butterflies, they can mean something else. Instead of trying to make “spirit is listening” make sense, I have to sit with the butterfly imagery and allow my intuition to take over. It may take a few minutes, a few days, or even longer, but do your best to be patient. It’ll make sense when it needs to make sense. Push yourself to be flexible in your interpretations. 

Take stock of your surroundings as well. How have you been feeling all day? What is the weather? How is your connection with other people going? Are there certain animals, symbols, or other signs around you today? These could all give you really important context to your scrying session. Not only can it add to your session, but it could also change the context entirely. Have you been really on edge recently and not sleeping well, and your scrying session you keep getting the feeling that something bad is coming? Take a breather and review the video on a day where you feel more grounded and at peace.

Pay attention to how the wood is breaking. If you set up the pieces in a specific order, watch them. If one branch that represents taking a new job breaks first, that could be the answer you are looking for. If both branches snap at the same time, consider asking for clarification. If you have certain herbs in the fire (all in the same distances from the fire….) that are burning at different rates, take note of it. Everything and anything can help. 

Now, for the actual images: take a deep breath and ask your imagination and intuition to come forward. Do whatever steps you do before any reading, and encourage yourself. You can do this. It may be hard at first, but you will be able to scry. It doesn’t require any specific or special ability. The flames may not look like perfect images, so you have to trust yourself. If you see a group of flames, and you think “that’s my dad.” Trust yourself. Even if no one else sees that, it’s because that message is for you. If you see a bird, trust it. You can trust yourself, and your experience is just as important as the actual flames. 

When you look back at the video, I recommend taking as many screenshots as possible, watching the video in slow motion, and reiterating the questions you wanted answered when you review the footage. Trust that you will see what you need to see regardless of when you view the footage. Readings develop over time, and your interpretation may change with any type of reading. That doesn’t mean the meanings that fit before were incorrect. 

 Now for the hardest thing to do: I really really recommend not supplementing your first few scrying sessions with other methods of divination. You may think you’ll be able to understand more if you use a variety of tools, but in my experience, it prevents you from fully trusting yourself. You begin to look for validation in tools you are more comfortable with (which is fine btw, but if you seriously want to learn scrying, let yourself be bad at it.) You can use symbol dictionaries to help if you are really really struggling, but do your best to develop your trust.

[fernsgrove]

I absolutely adore scrying as a method of divination especially as someone with aphantasia. I simply cannot see things in my head, but I can see the most clear, beautiful images when scrying. I will literally scry in any medium I have available. I’ve done carpet fibers, clouds, orange peels, water droplets on m y shower, the way my hair falls during a haircut, etc. Still, my favorite is fire scrying. As a little pyromaniac, the joy of having a fire plus using it to connect to spirit around me is unmatched. 

When I was learning it, I found a lot of resources on scrying lacking. I might make this into a series because I do feel like there are a lot of factors that we simply do not give a second thought when it comes to scrying. This post is going to focus on setting up before a scrying session. 

Before I even start building the fire, I start with my intention. Very often, I’ll have a vague question or goal, and I ask that Spirit guides the session to lead me to the answers that are most important or  relevant to my current situation. Some examples I’ve used in the past are: “What should I focus on during this period of my life?,” “What spirits (if any) are around me that want to tell me something,” is there anything I need to be watching out for?,” and “what symbols should I be paying attention to right now?” I personally recommend keeping the question vague and allowing for a lot of room for interpretation. Scrying, in my experience, is great for big picture questions as opposed to more specifics. Especially since you can start vague then follow up with other forms of divination or communication to get into the details. 

Now that you have the goal in mind, you can begin to think more about the actual fire. If you want to use herbs or other ingredients in the fire, gather them now. Think about both intentions that you are bringing to the fire but also what is safe for me to burn. It’s all fun and games until you are inhaling smoke or your fire is much bigger than you want. If you want to add herbs, I always suggest holding them in your hands and throwing them into the fire after you get it going as opposed to including it into the fire while building it. Get super creative when adding things to a fire though!! I add in paintings I made, braided ropes I made with the same intention, my own hair/nails, and even candles! (I can make a post about any of these additions on their own right too honestly.) 

[This is my favorite thing to consider.] When you pick your wood for the fire, play around with the shapes of the wood! If you are doing a fire on choices/decisions you have, pick a branch with multiple breaks in it to represent each path, or you can layer a few on top of each other with each piece representing separate paths. You can choose specific trees that align with your intention (after researching the safety of burning them…), and you can add leaves, pine needles, pine cones, flowers, etc. If you have wood from a store (which is normally what I use as a base and add smaller branches I dried myself on top to make the above symbolism), you can cut them into smaller pieces to play around with. 

When you are choosing kindling, you can write intentions, incantations, and sigils on pieces of paper that you include in it. I make my own fire starters with colored wax that I charge with energy and intention for each fire to continue to layer the same intention behind that scrying session. 

So now you have your kindling added, any additions, and your wood placed in the way that makes the most sense for you. I’ll use the charcoal from other fires to draw sigils/bind runes under the container for protection and to further amplify the intentions. You can also add the same runes on paper into the fire. I might add salt around the fire inside the container or simply push the charcoal in the dish around to create a circle. 

When I scry, I usually make it into a whole event, so I’ll set up a blanket, make some tea with similar intentions, maybe bring some candles, or set up sigils for my guides as well. Then you can start the actual session! I might make this into an entire series where I detail the actual fire and how I close sessions.