Taking Root: Calling in Psychic Protection; Guest Blog by Ylva Mara

*Don't miss Ylva upcoming workshop, "Grounding and Protection Practices for Transitioning Into Fall" on September 3rd at 1pm PST on Zoom! You can sign up to join us right now!*

Whether internally or externally, if you are engaging emotionally or energetically charged circumstances or if you are working with spiritual forces, cultivating a daily energy clearing and protection practice is a worthwhile priority. It provides you the opportunity to check in with yourself, assess your own energy, expectations, and responsibility to your impact on others. These practices also help clear and deter non-self energies and influences from you and your environment; mitigating meddlesome and unnecessary distributions in our daily affairs. Daily protection spells in particular can help keep unwanted spirits and entities at bay. As you deepen in your community and spiritual work, you may likely grow more sensitive to the energies around you, protection will become even more crucial.

Energy Cleaning and Psychic Shielding:

Here is a simple energy clearing and psychic shielding ritual. It can help you draw upon the vital forces of earth and celestial source energy and wield it in your day-to-day workings. It will also guide you in creating a protective energy shield. I recommend doing this meditation at the beginning and end of your day as well as after any particularly charged experience. You can also pair this practice with the Daily Protection Ritual that follows. You can pulse your shield throughout the day to break up any harmful energies that may be accumulating around you.

1. Begin by invoking a sacred space around you. Call to you the elemental and spiritual beings that you have a trusting relationship with. Activate your inner altar. Once you have found your inner altar, make an intention to draw upon source energy through your altar.

2. Imagine that you have energetic roots that descend from your altar deep into the Earth and branches that ascend up into the celestial realm.

3. Allow these roots and branches to connect you to the most perfect and sovereign source of terrestrial and celestial energies. Draw these energies to your altar and allow them to form a sphere around your intention.

4. Invite them to continue feeding this sphere as they ascend and descend, respectively, until they form an energetic circuit.

5. In this gentle circuit, imagine the sphere at your altar growing and expanding until both you and your altar are within it. Continue to draw upon celestial and terrestrial source energy until this sphere expands to fill your entire body.

6. Allow the sphere to gather and push out of you any non-self and stagnant energy. Invite the sphere to gently expand until it pushes through and begins to surround your physical body.

7. Allow the sphere to gather and push away any non-self and stagnant energy from around you. Imagine this sphere expands beyond you until it reaches a comfortable diameter.

8. Invite the source energy that feeds this sphere to transmute into a shield of protection around you.

9. Under this shield allow a protective membrane to form around you. Allow this membrane to gather strength from the sphere until it feels like there is pressure forming around you.

10. Imagine swiftly expanding the membrane in all directions, shattering the shield, rapidly scattering the pieces outward from you in a psychic sonic burst. Allow this burst to clear harm and any unnecessary obstacles from your path.

11. Allowing the sphere of source energy to remain, draw the shield back in until it rests comfortably on your inner altar.

12. Draw your roots and branches inward back from the terrestrial and celestial source.

13. Allow the sphere to slowly dissipate throughout the day. Repeat this ritual as needed.

Note: You may be noticing intriguing sensations, such as spinning, dissolving, hollowness, or temperature shifts. Don’t be alarmed. Rather than shrinking away from the sensations, expand into them and trust that your ritual is working.

Daily Protection Ritual

Cast this spell in the morning before starting your day and in the evening before going to bed. Do this even if you do not leave your home.

You will need:

1. candle

2. matches or lighter 

3. 2 tablespoons dried mugwort

4. fireproof bowl for burning herbs

5. olive oil (or a preferred anointing oil)

6. small dish of sea salt

7. small bell

1.  Call in a sacred space in whatever feels Ian’s good for you. Summon the protective and guiding spirits that work with you. 

2. Light the candle and envision its light filling you with the magic of Fire. Will the flame to clear all blockages within you and return them to Source. Repeat this phrase three times:

1. Sacred Fire, cleanse, empower, and protect me. And so it is.

3. With your matches or lighter, light the mugwort. Allow the smoke to surround you. Envision the fragrance clearing your mind and thoughts. Repeat this phrase three times:

1. Sacred Air, cleanse, empower, and protect me. And so it is.

4. Pour a small dollop of oil into your palm. Rub your hands together and pass your oiled palms over your body. Apply the oil to the top of your head, your heart, the nape of your neck, and the bottoms of your feet. Invite the oil to form a protective bubble around you. Repeat this phrase three times:

1. Sacred Water, cleanse, empower, and protect me. And so it is.

5. Next, take a pinch of sea salt and cast it in a circle around you. Invite the earth to fortify your boundaries and fortify your bubble of protection in all directions. Ask the sea salt to pull all the blockages deep into the Earth below you to be cleansed and returned to Source. Repeat this phrase three times:

1. Sacred Earth, cleanse, empower, and protect me. And so it is.

6. Ring your bell in the four directions—North, South, East, and West— to honor and release all the elements.

7. Complete the ritual by extinguishing your candle. Allow the protection spell to remain active throughout your day and while you sleep.

About Ylva Mara:

I am a traditional witch, published author, artist, and herbalist. I am also a non-binary trans femme and a survivor of childhood incest and sexual assault. I currently live on unceded Duwamish and Coast Salish land, now named Seattle. I’m a white person of Slavic, Balkan, Romani, and Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. My ritual and art practice are intrinsically woven together; I believe that magic is art and that art is healing. Through art as ritual I attempt to explore and ground my experience living within diaspora as someone who also lives with CPTSD, Autism, and chronic illness.