Building Relationships with Metaphysical Entities

Having strong relationships with metaphysical entities is the foundation for fluid communication and developing working agreements.  Many practitioners know they should build these relationships, but a lot of them are at a loss as to how.   Be they ancestors, spirits, fae, gods, demons, or anything else: build relationships with metaphysical entities the same way you would with people.  It seems like common sense, but developing relationships with metaphysical entities requires you to push through the mysticism and confusion surrounding them and just treat them like any other thinking, feeling being. 

Be a Good Neighbor

To start building a relationship with a metaphysical entity you need to be appealing to them, to be the kind of person they want to have a relationship with.  For most positive entities this means being polite, respectful, and amiable - treat them as you would want to be treated if your positions were reversed.  (Negative entities are a whole different story, but that’s a discussion for another article.)  No one wants to be friends with the obnoxious neighbor that is too loud at the wrong times, leaves trash all over the sidewalk, and has no consideration for others.  Don’t be “that guy.”  Further, remember that relationships require consent on both sides.  Just because you want a relationship with a spirit doesn’t mean they want one with you.  If you get indications that the spirit doesn’t want to talk, respect that and don’t harass them.  Don’t start relationship building from a deficit. 

Know Your Entity

You approach relationship building differently with potential friends, coworkers, bosses, and relatives (you wouldn’t introduce yourself to a potential employer the same way you would Billy from down the pub); so too you should modify your approach according to the nature of the entity with which you’re pursuing a relationship.  Some entities, like many land wights and spirits, can be approached you would a peer and potential friend.  Other entities, such as high fae, loa, and Gods should be approached with a certain degree of deference and formality.  Take some time to research the entity you’re trying to befriend and learn what type of behavior they expect.  If you’re trying to build a relationship with a known entity, such as a god or loa, there will likely be established procedures for introducing yourself.  If it’s a spirit or ancestor, try to find out if they had particular preferences in life (this won’t always be possible depending on what memories/records are available to you).  Learning, or at least trying to learn, these preferences is a sign of respect.  When in doubt, be more formal than you think is strictly necessary and you should be fine.  

Equal Exchange

Relationships with metaphysical entities are about mutual benefit.  Both parties should get something from the relationship, be it offerings, aid, companionship, affection, entertainment, etc.  You’re not going to get something for nothing - that’s not how it works.  Throughout the relationship make sure the exchange continues to be equal - if you ask for something you must give something and vice versa.  If you’re just making offerings and not asking for anything specific, be sure to acknowledge the value of the entity’s time and the deepening of the relationship.  Keep in mind that friendship and affection are things of value and that they can be the “commodity” being exchanged.  If you find your relationship becoming unequal be sure to do something to balance it out - if the entity resists this, you need to take a deeper look at the situation. 

Offerings

In most traditions, offerings are the backbone for building relationships with metaphysical entities.  An offering is something given to an entity that the entity wants - given either to build good will or in exchange for specific favors.  Offerings can be almost anything, ranging from a small gift of energy to building a temple.  If you know that an entity prefers particular offerings then that is what they should be given if it’s reasonable for your circumstances.  (An entity’s preferences can be learned through research, divination, gnosis, spirit communication, etc.)  If you’re unsure what to offer, there are many general offerings that will serve until you get to know your entity’s preferences.  General offerings commonly include: incense, flowers, food, water, alcohol, candles, energy, art, effigies, and relevant community service.

Altars and Spirit Houses

If you want a long term relationship with an entity, give them a formal place in your home.  Just as a friend has a favorite chair when they come over, metaphysical entities like something to call their own when they visit.  For ancestors that place is often a photo on a special shelf; for deities it’s often a statue on your altar; for fae and spirits it may be a sigilized patten or a spirit house. These things are essentially a physical anchor that becomes imbued with the essence of a metaphysical entity through repeated visits that make it easier and more comfortable for the entity to remain in our space.  Such anchors become the place where you make offerings and visit with the entity with the greatest ease.  While not required, a physical anchor can facilitate relationship building with any metaphysical entity.

Crisis Relationships

In a perfect world we would always have time to develop strong relationships with entities before calling on them for help, but we don’t live in a perfect world.  In times of dire need most friendly entities will help you out regardless of your relationship.  Think of a Good Samaritan that witnesses an accident: you call for help and they’ll do their best to help you simply because you’re in need and they have the ability to help.  Don’t worry too much about etiquette in this kind of situation.  Most entities will understand that you didn’t have time to build a relationship beforehand and that you’re probably not at your best.  However, once you have a reasonable lull or the crisis is over the entity will expect some acknowledgement and gratitude.  It’s just polite; they were generous so now, within reason, you owe them.  If you want to continue a relationship with the entity afterwards once the crisis has resolved you’ve got something to build from.  The only caveat to this is to use good judgment in from whom you accept help.  There are unscrupulous entities that will take advantage of your distress in order to trick you into owing them more than you want to give. 

Overall, building relationships with metaphysical entities is just like building any other type of relationship.  Treat the entity with respect and make sure the give and take in the relationship is equal.  Know your own boundaries and maintain them.  Just because an entity is something otherworldly doesn’t mean that your relationship should be manipulative, coercive, or otherwise unhealthy.  When in doubt, talk to your friends and get an outside perspective.  Building a relationship with a metaphysical entity can be exciting and, when done well, it can give you a powerful ally in your work.  Treat these relationships with the same care and discretion as you would any other relationship and you should have success.

On Offerings and Sacrifice

Over the last few weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about my relationships with the deities and spirits that I work with on a regular basis.  I’m always looking for ways to strengthen and be more authentic in my relationships with my allies.  During this time of the year the walls between the mundane and metaphysical parts of reality are thin and I feel a lot closer to my non-corporeal allies, making it easier than usual to do workings with them.  That makes this time of year a great one for doing a working specifically designed to strengthen those relationships.  One of the easiest traditional way to improve a relationship with a metaphysical being of any kind (deity, spirit, ancestor, fae, etc.) is to give them some kind of offering or sacrifice.

An intricate handmade candle makes for a decent offering.

Let’s take a moment to think about what exactly offerings and sacrifices really are.  Some sources might use the terms offering and sacrifice interchangeably – as they are both something that you give to a being as a gesture of appreciation, supplication, or appeasement.  However, I find a crucial distinction between them – what they mean to you as the person giving them.  The way I look at it, an offering is something you give a being that you know they want.  One traditionally offers things like incense, favorite foods, flowers, energy, attention, etc.; things that tradition or gnosis tells us that the being we’re making offerings to wants from us.  An offering doesn’t really have to mean anything to you personally, it just has to be pleasing to the one you’re offering it to.  A sacrifice is something that is meaningful to the one doing the sacrifice that is being given up in a way that it takes away from the sacrificer in favor of the one being sacrificed to.  You do this as a sign or devotion or respect; essentially putting the needs ot the recipient above your own.  For example, if I, as a non-smoker, make an offering of tobacco to Baron Samedi (something that he is known to enjoy) I am offering him the tobacco and sacrificing the money used to purchase it.  However, if I were a smoker and was giving the Baron some of my favorite tobacco I would be both offering and sacrificing the tobacco itself – as the Baron wants it and I am giving up my own use of it.  Basically, an offering is something you give because the receiver wants it and a sacrifice is something that you’re giving up in order to show how important the one being sacrificed is to you.

Different beings and different types of beings often have preferences for the offerings and sacrifices they receive.  Some entities want offerings and don’t seem to have much of an opinion on whether they involve a sacrifice.  In my experience, ancestors and many fae appreciate offerings but don’t really care whether a sacrifice is involved in procuring them.  Other entities place great importance on sacrifice, sometimes to the point where the amount of sacrifice is more important than the suitability of what’s being sacrificed.  For example, some deities or spirits enjoy when a supplicant makes a vow of austerity (e.g. I will forgo consuming alcohol for a month) because of the devotion this shows, even though it doesn’t really give anything concrete to them.  This is most common with deities that demand explicit showings of devotion and spirits that want you to abstain from something for your own good.

In the past I’ve given a lot of offerings but haven’t really made many sacrifices.  Sure, I buy high quality incense to offer and go out of my way to get the good rum for the Baron, but I honestly don’t see that as much of a sacrifice.  The only time I really feel like I’m giving something up is when I offer really good food.  I have a tremendous amount of respect for the many allies that have helped and continue to help me and I feel like they deserve more from me than a bit of incense and burned beeswax.  Most traditional offerings are things that everyday people had around the house, that they used on a regular basis, and that those without excess income would miss: food, alcohol, herbs and spices, etc.  In my comfortable suburban existence giving up a bite of food or a pinch of dried herbs doesn’t really feel like a sacrifice.  I don’t really drink, so I could pour out a whole bottle of liquor without much pause (unless it was super expensive).  I have a fair number of little luxuries in my life: fine food, high quality tea and treats, electronics, toys, etc., that might make a more authentic sacrifice than more traditional offerings.  I particularly enjoy having a cup of fine tea and a sweet in the afternoon, so sharing that would be much more of a sacrifice to me than a shot of tequila.  Another good sacrifice would be putting my phone and iPad on my altar for an hour or two and not touching them or my computer (I have a media addiction.  This should shock no one.).  Of course, if I were to ask for a big favor the sacrifice would have to be larger and more meaningful.  For everyday offerings, something small should suffice.

Some of the finest chocolate you can get 'round these parts

I feel like one should find a balance with offerings and sacrifice.  It’s important to offer spirits/deities/etc. things that they want.  It’s also important to make a show of effort/sacrifice in the making of those offerings.  If the offerings your allies want are things that you want as well then they can easily be both offerings and sacrifices, but if they aren’t then you should go the extra mile to also offer something that is a sacrifice to you.  For me that means I’ll give the Baron his weekly shot of rum and pinch of tobacco while also sacrificing some dragonwell tea and a bit of organic fair trade dark chocolate or a macaron.  It also means that when I make offerings to the ancestors I’ll be sure to give them things I like or things that required my own effort to make, not just purchase (think baking cookies vs. buying them).  It doesn’t have to be a lot, and it doesn’t have to be every day, but adding a bit of real sacrifice to regular offerings makes them more meaningful and a lot less routine. 

Shadow Offerings

As I have said many times, the essence of shadow work is the act of accepting and integrating your own shadow.  Doing so makes you a stronger, more whole person with fewer chinks in your armor and more control over your self.  One mechanism for helping make such integration possible is to make regular offerings to your shadow.

The purpose of making an offering to your shadow is not to strengthen it, but to acknowledge it and to recognize its importance.  It's mostly about keeping your self-awareness sharp.  Taking a little extra time to think about and recognize your shadow will make you more comfortable with it, help you to recognize it in action in your life, and ease your working with it both spiritually and magickally. 

Oftentimes offerings are made in gratitude, but that can be a rather difficult emotion when it comes to the shadow.  Our shadows are often difficult to deal with and can cause us to do things that make our lives more difficult than they need to be.  Our shadows are often the catalyst for learning unpleasant life lessons, and it can be really difficult to be grateful for that.  However, those hard lessons are what shape us and help us grow, so we should be grateful for them - however uncomfortable they may be.  It's your choice on any given day whether you want to add the emotion of gratitude in your shadow offering.

My favorite thing to offer for this purpose is incense.  I like to get the highest quality resin sticks that I can find (like Mountain Natural's Palo Santo Resin Sticks) and use them.  Yes, I know actual resins on charcoal would be better but I find working with the charcoals to burn them to be a huge pain (you try keeping them fresh in the incredible dampness of the Pacific Northwest!) and if something is a pain I'm less likely to actually do it.  An offering of energy would certainly work too, but it would have to be very clearly tuned for shadow work.  I generally only do energy offerings when either a) I'm in a place where burning things isn't appropriate/allowed, or b) I have a very specific purpose I want to accomplish with my offering, like recognizing a particular thing that happened or an important lesson I've learned.  In the end, what you offer isn't nearly as important as the fact that you're offering something on a regular basis.

I like to do my shadow offerings once a week on a Saturday in the hour of Saturn.  As I am both a tech and lazy, I use an app on my phone (Planetary Hours) to determine when the hour of Saturn happens. If something particularly shadowy comes up during the week I might add in an extra offering here and there as necessary.

To perform the offering I light a black candle (sometimes it's a tea light or taper, sometimes it's a big fat pillar that I use over and over again - doesn't really matter) and light the incense from the candle, rather than from a match.  As the incense lights I like to say a short incantation that varies depending on the day.  It's usually something along the lines of:

This day I make an offering to the shadow;
May I always see the truth of the shadow in my life;
May I always absorb its teachings;
May I learn to integrate my shadow and be whole;
As I do will so mote it be.

 I find making these regular offerings to be strangely grounding.  The act of preemptively accepting whatever weirdness life may throw at me is oddly calming.  Maybe it's just appeasing my Virgo nature to always be prepared for anything ;)

Urban Offerings

Here in the States it's almost Thanksgiving; that wonderful time of family "togetherness" and gorging yourself until you pass out.  I'm not always as grateful for my family as I feel like I should be, so I like to look at Thanksgiving more as a time for making offerings - particularly to the spirits of the place where I live.  It's fairly easy to remember to make offerings to the beings that we ask for help, but it can be quite difficult to remember to also make offerings to the spirits that just happen to be where we spend our time.  The spirits inherent to the places where we live and work can make our lives easy or difficult, almost without being noticed. 

I live in the suburbs and work downtown, so I like to make three special offerings around Thanksgiving: to the spirits of the area where I live, the spirits of downtown Seattle, and the spirits of I-5 (on which I travel every day). 

The easiest offering for me to do is always the one to the area where I live (a slightly betwixt and between bit of Snohomish County). The spirits of the place where I live are used to me and I don't really have to go out of my way to get their attention (doing magick in any place for a prolonged period of time draws spirits like moths to a flame).  It's also easy because I can give the same kind of offerings that I usually do, since I have an altar on which I can burn incense, place sacred objects, etc.  I also have the good fortune to have a yard so if I want to make offerings of food or flowers outside I can very easily. 

However, I do like to make a little extra effort when giving special offerings by trying to make them more relevant to the spirits I'm making the offerings to.  I try to think about what spirits are in the area and what they'd like.  The area where I live used to be quite rural (it was chicken farms when it was first settled and forest before that).  There aren't a lot of ghosts that live near me (fields and forest don't exactly hold on to human energy), but there are some nature spirits and the spirit of the land itself is fairly strong.  One of the things I've done as a sort of permanent offering to the land is to promise not to use chemical pesticides or fertilizer in my yard, making it more hospitable to nature spirits, as well as slowly replacing the plantings with native species. 

For Thanksgiving I like to put out a small offering of organic, local fertilizer in the part of my yard where I do workings.  It's a large clear space under some big cedar trees and I put the fertilizer right in-between them.  I'm always careful not to put it right on the trees as some fertilizers can actually burn plants in high concentrations.  I also try never to user too much, since I don't want to encourage weed growth - they do that well enough on their own thank-you.  Although it would make sense to make an offering of food (like home baked bread) I have to be careful not to put out too many offerings of food because my area has a bit of a rodent problem that I don't want to encourage.  I also tend not to make offerings of bird seed because I have an outdoor cat that is a ferocious hunter - the birds do not need to be brought to her.

Making an offering to my city is always a bit more challenging.  I do a fair bit of work with the spirits of my city's founders, so I like to go up to Lakeview where most of them are buried and give them some attention.  Most of them are fond of offerings of whiskey and the rest enjoy a good cup of coffee, so they're easy to appease.  I also like to make an offering to the spirit of the city itself, which is a little more complicated.  Sure, I could do a symbolic offering of incense or flowers on my altar but that doesn't really do much to help the city itself (it's spirit is well fed and doesn't really need it).  I prefer a more direct approach for offerings to my city.  If I were less lazy going out and doing charity work in the city would be an ideal offering, alas I am not less lazy.  So I like to give donations to the local food banks.  Many food banks get the majority of their donations during the holiday season, so I make sure whatever I give has a really long shelf life (I tend to go with canned fruit and big bags of rice - lots of nutritional value and very shelf stable).

Offerings to the spirits of I-5 is also a little funtastic.  The interstate is an interesting beast because it's energy is so fluid, influenced by the people constantly moving on it - never staying in one place for more than an instant (unless there's gridlock).  There's also a fair amount of negativity on I-5 from road rage and accidents.  Although I take the bus for my commute, I do drive on I-5 several times a week.  The best offering I've been able to come up with is to make a drive where I'm particularly attentive to being a polite driver and where I have a good time on the drive.  Putting out a little positive energy on the road is really the best thing I can do, so that's what I go with. 

Protection at Work

If you work full time you probably spend more time at work with your co-workers than at home with your family.  As a result, the energies in your work environment can greatly affect your well-being.  Most of the practitioners I know have good solid shields for when they're at work, but that's all.  If you work in a high stress environment, like say a high volume law firm, then shielding alone might not be enough for you.  In that case, you might want to take some more active protective measures.

If you have a permanent workspace (desk/cube/office/etc.) then you can set up basic wards on your space.  Traditional wards are often worded along the lines of "nothing intending me or mine harm may pass these bounds."  This type of ward really only works if you have absolute control of your space; if you don't necessarily have control over who comes into your space (like your belligerent boss or conniving co-worker) then other wording is necessary.  I find that my work wards are most effective when I'm reasonable with them.  Rather than saying "Co-worker X cannot come into my space and spew negativity on me," I would say "Limit co-worker X's entrance to my space to when it is absolutely necessary to complete a work task and s/he will depart as soon as our business is concluded."  Part of being an adult and holding a job is learning to deal with people we don't like.  To have our magick geared to make everything go "our way" all the time is tantamount to having a magickal tantrum - no wonder it's ineffective.  I have wards on my desk to keep a particular co-worker from stealing my pens (and chewing on them like a beaver - so gross!) worded as "When Y needs to use my pen he will use it, not chew on it, and then put it back."  I could have worded it as "Y shall not touch my pens!" but I really don't care if he uses them as long as he doesn't chew on them and walk away with them. I like to keep my wards at work to the bare minimum necessary to meet my needs because I really don't feel that I have the right to put my needs above the genuine needs of my co-workers. 

Another reason to be minimal in your office protections is because many companies actually have office spirits.  By that I don't mean that they're haunted, but that the culture and ethos of a business can actually create a thoughtform that embodies the espree d'corps of that business: its spirit.  The older and more established the business, the stronger its corporate culture, the stronger its spirit will be.  If you model your protections so that they work for the good of the business (e.g., asking for the ability to maximize your efficiency or to get critical work done before being bothered with the less important - thus minimizing your stress and making you a happier and better worker), you can tap into the power of this spirit, making your protections stronger and more effective.  You can take further advantage by giving specific offerings to the spirit of your office.  I've found that work spirits seems to really love offerings of service like bringing in cookies for the office, being the one to always make a fresh pot of coffee, or other "extra mile" services that make your office a more pleasant place to be.

I like to enhance the protections on my workspace by filling it with subtle, yet powerful objects that give me positive energy and a sense of refuge.  One of the most important objects I have at my desk is my mini-altar.  To the casual observer my mini-altar is nothing but a tin of altoids.

However, when you open the tin it's a very small altar geared towards protection.

It has a tiny candle, match, an obsidian, a small vial of salt, and a small vial of war water. It's nice to know that should an emergency ever arise I've got everything I need to do a full protective ritual; though I hope to never really need it. (A big thanks to Moonwriter for teaching me how to make tiny altars!)

The other thing I keep on my desk is a large stuffed bat.

His name is Bert (don't ask me why, it's just what came to me) and he sits with my tea.  He was given to me by my husband and I find that giving him a squeeze is a great stress reliever.  He may not be strictly magickal, but anything that can give me a sense of love and well being just by looking at it is magickal enough for me. 

It's possible to have many seemingly mundane objects in your workspace that do double duty in both strengthening your magickal intentions and making the space your own.  Pictures and postcards, stuffed animals, quirky coffee mugs, tea jars, pretty rocks (aka crystals), desk toys, hand lotions, lip balms, snacks and candies, pens, etc., can all be imbued with intent and can serve as reminders of your intent or even charged anchors for spells.  Get creative with bringing magick into your workspace as subtly as possible.  Even if your co-workers are open and understanding of your practices, subtle is better.  Other than making certain muggles uncomfortable, having your magick out in the open can actually drain it of its power.  Of course, you also don't want to be so subtle that your objects get fiddled with or thrown away by well meaning co-workers.  Use your common sense; you know what is and isn't acceptable in your workplace, and if you don't check with your supervisor.