A Bad Workman....

Having only recently started practicing I really don't have much in the way of tools as yet. I may be making things hard for myself but if they are for use in celebrating my faith then I want them to be the best I can make, buy or find. I would rather make them as I feel they then have more of me in them, even if this means they are of lower quality. Finding old things without current purpose and adapting them to what I want is the next best option and the option I like least is buying some ready made tool.

At the moment I have a few cheap glass night light holders and a big candle and that is about it. No cauldron, no bell, no wand, no athame, nothing. I am not comfortable with having machine made tools and want my tools to be as 'natural' as possible. I have a plain bowl I have used to put a few things in which acted as a cauldron for now but the tool I really feel is missing is an athame.

The books I have say that the athame is used for casting the circle and this is the first step. I thought about using a kitchen knife but it felt very wrong. I looked at quite a few athame's online and all the normal knifey metaly ones just didn't do it for me. I looked further and came across a place that supplies blank parts to be filed but I don't currently have the skills or tools for this. Then I found stone and wood athame's like these. The price is however a little out of my league right now. I also found some on this blog (look in the photo albums) and they are truly, truly beautiful and made by someone who leaves relatively near me. I like copper the most of all the metals I think.

Before people had metal they used to make knifes and spear tips etc from stone, mostly flint. Knapping flint is a bit of a lost art and there is little flint to be found near me. There is plenty of other stone and sources seem to agree that athame's don't have to be sharp. Half formed ideas of finding a lump of slate jumped to my mind...

A few nights back we walked on the beach after the sun had set and at first it was light enough to see the stones. A lot of them had been worked flat by the sea. I picked some up and let them go. One didn't leave my hand and came home with me. It is fatter at one end than the other and is triangular in shape. The fat end fits comfortably in my hand and with my hand closed only the pointy end can be seen sticking out about 2 inches at most. I like it and hope it will work well with me. If it doesn't then those lovely copper athame's will still be there.... I need to think further on whether to leave it as it is or add to it in some way.

As to other things, I want to set up a shrine. Upstairs on my landing I have a small but high table which used to live in my Dad's factory and has probably been with my family a while. Today I bought a long plain white silk scarf to act as a shrine cloth that falls down to the sides without covering the front and back of the table. I also bought black and silver gutta which is used to paint solid lines that act as barriers to the silk paint and some silk paints. This is not something I have tried before!

I also got some cheap newsprint paper for papier mache and maybe some touch drawing. I made a papier mache mask on a course which will go on the wall above my shrine. It is a mask for holding in the hand rather than wearing and is oversized. I want to make masks for Montol for next year among other things... Not sure what yet!

I like crafts and want to expand my repertoire...