Basic Protection From The Monsters Under Your Bed (Protection 101)
Howdy y’all it’s your favorite neighborhood witch here! Instead of studying for my stats midterm, I will be writing a catch all post about how to best protect yourself! I have made posts similar to this (wards - sigils - cleansing) but this will be a cover-all post about protection!
GENERAL SAFETY FOR BEGINNERS
So when starting out your craft, you are always told to research and understand protection, but no one really tells you what that means or why it’s important. It’s super important to research, but I take a stance of: research as you go. Of course understand protection (what I’m gonna talk about today) but as you do new projects or specific things within your craft, research as needed. This makes it a lot more manageable and “bite size.”
WHAT IS PROTECTION?
Protection, in a spiritual sense, is a layer of protection from any unwanted energies. This can be done many ways, and it’s recommended that you do multiple things to protect yourself, especially when diving deeper into your craft (ie: cast a circle when preforming a spell)
PROTECTION IDEAS
The type of protection you do is up to you, but here are some ideas to get you started:
A very important one would be to ward, here is a post I made about warding if you need a refresher
Make an onion braid! This is a bit more traditional and rooted in folk legend but you need quite a few onions (long ones, with the green still on the top) and a bunch of twine. Fold the twine in half and tie a knot near the end creating a loop. Lay the twine on a flat surface and place an onion upside down so that the greens of the onion form a third "string", along with the two free ends of the twine. Using the two free lengths of twine and the onion stem, form a tight braid. Repeat this until the onion is securely in place. Repeat the process with the rest of your onions, braiding them in and out between the other stems and the two strands of twine. As you do so, focus your intent. Here is an article with a bit of a better explanation on an onion braid. This article is focusing on braiding onions as a means to elongate their shelf life, but an onion braid is an onion braid.
CRYSTALS! Crystals are something many practitioners are comfortable with very early on in their practice as they seem very approachable in comparison to other forms of magick. Some crystals with properties to protect you or your space are (generally) any black crystal! You can put a crystal like obsidian or black tourmaline in the four corners of your room or space (or even your altar) as a means of protection! Some other crystals with protection properties include: amethyst, clear quartz, pyrite, labradorite, carnelian, and any black crystal. There are obviously more than this, but these are the most common
Putting a layer of salt/black salt around the perimeter of your house can help ward off malicious energies while also keeping slugs at bay! (the slug thing was just a joke but genuinely this a very big problem in my area and slugs have gotten into people’s gardens and they clogged our pipes last spring....could have used the salt protection then haha)
SIGILS! Sigils are one of my favorite ways to protect my space! If you want to know a full run down on sigils, check out my sigils post!
There are quite a few other ways you can protect yourself, so here are a few lists of more intensive ways that you can go about your protection:
Ultimate protection masterpost part one (this includes spells, so be wary if you are not yet comfortable with that)
Ultimate protection masterpost part two
Protection Ideas List
Protection Rooted In Folklore
OTHER SOURCES/INFORMATION
Remember it’s always important to cross reference your information, for this post I used multiple sources I knew have been vetted by much more experienced witches than I am- but still! You need to make sure what you’re reading is credible
Safety For Beginners
The True Validity of Tumblr As a Resource
Basic’s of Protection: Chaotic Witch Aunt
Protection Magick: The Witch of Wonderlust
Sigils 101
How To Cleanse
What In The World Is Warding
Witch Discord Server