It’s Earth Day, and while my blog tends to be pretty eco-centric year-round, I wanted to write today about a particular topic that comes up a lot in paganism, particularly among newcomers: ritual tools. Now, it’s been said many times by many people that you don’t actually need tools to be a pagan. I do agree that you can perform rituals open-handed, with nothing but yourself and the spirits/gods/energy you’re working with to make things happen. However, some people just like having the tools themselves; they help heighten the ability to suspend disbelief. And some people feel their tools have spirits of their own, thus making them allies in ritual.
A lot of new pagans, especially young ones, look for inexpensive ritual tools since money’s tight. However, a lot of the suggestions I see made are things that are distinctly not eco-friendly. The most common one is some variant of “Just go to Wal-mart/Dollar Tree/other chain store and get your candles, candle holders, bowls and other tools there!” Sure, you could get a four-pack of taper candles for a buck, but what’s the real cost? Here are the likely reasons your candles are so cheap:
–The wax is probably petroleum-based, which means it benefits from fossil fuel subsidies from federal and state governments. The chemical company that developed the dye might also have gotten subsidies as well. This means that these companies are getting money for free, out of people’s taxes, and therefore can sell their products more cheaply. These companies are also usually not required to pay for the effects of the pollution that’s a byproduct of their processes.
–The candles were likely to have been made by underpaid, sometimes abused workers in a factory in China or another East Asian country, with inadequate protection against the chemicals and machinery being used. There’s a good chance that any chemical byproducts of the process are not properly disposed of, and may just be dumped directly into the nearest river, saving them the cost of paying for safer options.
–They were shipped en masse on a boat from their country of manufacture to wherever you are, again using subsidized fossil fuels. The shipping company doesn’t have to pay for the pollution their boats cause to the ocean and the air, so they can keep their costs down.
We don’t have a solid number on the real cost of pollution from the manufacture of these candles, but suffice it to say you’re getting your candles cheaply in part because the entities who made them and their components are passing some of the cost on to the environment. And we add to that, too, any time we burn candles made with noxious chemicals that add to air pollution in our homes and elsewhere. We speak with our dollars when we buy these cheap things–we say “We don’t care, so long as we save a few bucks in the name of practicing a nature religion*”.
So what’s a pagan to do when money’s thin on the ground? Here are some options.
Use What You’ve Got
You may already have the things you need for your ritual right at home. In generic Wicca-flavored neopaganism, common tools include an athame or other sacred knife, a bowl for salt or water, a wand, an incense burner, and something to put it on. A common kitchen knife may not be the most flashy thing in the world, but it will work, and you can decorate it if you want to dedicate it just to ritual work. If you have a favorite bowl in your kitchen, you can reserve that for your sacred work as well. Any stick or rod will work as a wand–I’ve even heard of using a ruler for one! You can easily make an incense burner out of aluminum foil; just make it into a bowl with a few layers, put some sand or dirt in it, and place the incense on that. Then put the burner on a hotpad or trivet, or even a very flat rock or thick ceramic dish, and you’re good to go. You can decorate the dish/hotpad/etc. if you like, though it’s not necessary (and make sure that anything flammable is kept well away from the burning incense!)
These are just a few ideas based on one particular set of ritual tools; you can get pretty creative depending on your needs, so treat it like a grand scavenger hunt! (Just make sure that you’re using only your stuff, or that you ask permission to use anything that belongs to someone else.)
Secondhand First
I am a huge fan of thrift stores and other secondhand shops. Sadly, here in the U.S. there’s a lot of consumerism, with much more stuff being produced for our demands than is absolutely necessary. I wrote a few years ago about the immense amount of clothing, housewares and other discarded stuff I found at just one Goodwill outlet store in just one city, and wondered how much more goes to waste every day. A lot of it is perfectly serviceable, too. I could easily build a dozen altars with the items found in one thrift store.
Yet there’s this unfortunate superstition floating around paganism that somehow you can’t cleanse secondhand items, that the histories they have will linger with them and will always taint them as ritual items–but of course, all a brand-new item needs is a quick cleansing! I call bollocks on that one. If you can purify a new glass bowl that’s been made in a sweatshop soaked in human suffering and death, created from materials that cause great devastation to the natural environment, and conveyed to your town while leaving a trail of fossil fuel pollution behind it, you can damned well purify the energy of a similar, secondhand glass bowl that sat on someone’s grandmother’s dining room table with wax fruit in it for thirty years. Most of my ritual tools over the years were secondhand, to include items that other practitioners used in their own rites, and I never had a problem making them ready for my work.
So get over that superstition, and start thrifting! You never know what kind of cool stuff you may find. (My only caution is that it’s really easy to come home with a cart full of secondhand tchotchkes for cheap, which may put shelf space in your home at a premium.)
Foraging At Its Finest
Many nature pagans like having sticks, stones and other natural items in their homes to remind them of what they feel is sacred. In fact, you can make your entire array of ritual tools from things you found outside. If you work with the four cardinal directions and elements, for example, you might have a stone in the north, a feather or bit of dandelion fluff in the east, dried wood or moss as firestarter in the south, and a vial of rain water in the west. The best part of all this is that, other than some containers for things like water, it’s all free.
Do keep in mind there are certain legal and other restrictions. Federal and state parks in the U.S., for example, prohibit the collection of any natural items found within the park without a permit (some cities do this as well). You’ll need to ask permission when foraging on private property. And some items, such as some animal parts, are illegal to possess regardless of how you got them; most wild bird feathers in the U.S. cannot be possessed, even if they were naturally molted, as one example. (You can access my database of animal parts laws here.)
Grow or Make Your Own
DIY is a wonderful thing. Not only do you get to cut costs, but you get to gain skills, too! For example, some folks like to use herbs in their spells and other magic, and luckily a lot of these herbs can be easily grown, even in a pot by the window. If you worry about having a black thumb, there’s plenty of information on the internet about how best to care for a particular kind of plant; the most common ways to kill your herbs is through too much or too little water and sunlight, the wrong sort of soil or not enough fertilizer, and disease or parasites. If you notice a plant isn’t thriving, you can research online or in books at the library what the possible causes may be, and you can ask garden shops or people on gardening forums for advice.
Other tools can be homemade, too. If you want to have a permanently decorated altar, maybe with a scene depicting your patron deities or symbols of the four cardinal directions, you can paint a secondhand table with acrylic paints**, or carve or burn the designs if the table’s wood. A well-worn broom can be decorated with dried flowers and ribbon, and even re-bristled with straw and other plant materials. A particularly sturdy branch may make a nice wand as-is, or you can choose to decorate it to your preferences.
Support Local Artisans
It’s okay if you don’t want to make your own tools. Maybe you don’t have the time, or you don’t feel your work is quite up to your own standards***. In this case, you may wish to consider supporting a local artisan. Of course, this may not necessarily be the cheapest option; an individual artist has to pay a lot more for their materials per piece than a factory, and puts a lot more time and effort into the creation, too. However, many artists will have items along a wide range of prices. Some may even have some items on sale or clearance, things they’ve had sitting around a good long while. And some artists are open to barter as well.
You’re always welcome to ask an artisan about their materials. I talked earlier about cheap, petroleum-based candles from the dollar store; however, there are candle-makers who specialize in eco-friendly alternatives like beeswax and natural dyes, and who avoid candle wicking with lead in it. And the same goes for everything from ceramics to woodworking to paintings; usually there’s somebody who specializes in greener materials out there.
(Shameless plug for my own recycled hide and bone and other natural materials art here, though there are many artisans within the pagan community and elsewhere whose works would be lovely ritual items. Try Etsy, Artfire, and Storenvy for some possibilities.)
Conclusion
I hope now that you see that buying ritual tools on a budget doesn’t have to feed into environmentally harmful processes and practices. In fact, taking care in one’s shopping choices can be an act of spiritual devotion in and of itself. If you feel nature is sacred, then let that speak not just through your rituals and special moments, but in your everyday actions as well.
* With the understanding, of course, that not every person who identifies as a pagan focuses their paganism on nature, and there are some pagans for whom the gods, for example, are central.
** While not without their pollutants, acrylic paints are some of the safest paints that are easily obtained commercially. There are more eco-friendly recipes for homemade paints out there, but acrylics are best if you don’t want to go quite that far in your DIY-dom.
*** The effectiveness of a tool, by the way, is not in how pretty it is or how perfectly crafted. Even if you don’t think you’re an artist, it’s the intent behind the creation that matters. So don’t let that get in the way of making your own tools if you’re so inclined.
Natural beeswax candles are expensive. $15 for a dozen tea lights? Can’t afford that. Something that I’m looking into to replace candles altogether is an olive oil lamp. There’s a load of sites which show you how to make your own. You could even color the oil with natural dyes or all the stuff people used to give clothing color before the 18th century.
*nods* One option is to simply use fewer candles. However, I like your olive oil lamp idea, too! Thanks for sharing it.
Last year I started doing a series on Pagan Activist called Greening your Magics, and I have been debating whether or not to revive it. This is giving me some inspiration to do so.
I say go for it!
What are your thoughts on using those same cheaply-made candles if they come from the thrift store? I tend to fall on the side of “sunk economic/environmental cost” just like anything else I’d buy there, but I’ve heard other people say that just burning them is bad for the environment so I shouldn’t.
Personally, I’m with you. If they’re already manufactured, then use them. But I tend to also recommend using candles sparingly; there are many alternatives to candle magic and the like that are more eco-friendly. It’s like when you have a partial bottle of a chemical household cleaner; use it carefully and sparingly, but then make your next purchase something greener (or just use vinegar and water).
Awesome post! I hadn’t given any thought to those cheap candles at the Dollar Store. I admit to not having an altar, or many of the tools that folks seem to think I should have. But I am proud to admit to thinking ever greener and honouring nature. Thank you for another thought-provoking post.
Thank you, I’m glad you liked it! And thank you for doing what you can to be greener, too 🙂 (Also, there’s no “should” in ritual tools; you have what you need and want, and that’s really all that’s necessary.)
I’ve always gotten cheap candles from the grocery store because it’s convenient, but now I’m definitely inspired to look for a better alternative.
I usually don’t work with a lot of tools, I often feel like they become more of a distraction for me, and most of my practice is very casual and informal. The tool I use the most is probably a wand, and I always use a roe deer antler I found in the woods a few years ago for that. My altar (which I haven’t set up yet since I recently moved in) is mostly filled with various things I’ve found at the nearby secondhand shop.
And now that I have a garden, I’m excited about being able to grow my own herbs for ritual use, as well as some food 🙂
I’ve frequently seen perfectly unused candles at thrift stores, so that may be an option if you need to stay on budget. I envy you your roe deer antler; it must make a lovely wand! and I hope your garden grows lush and healthy 🙂
Well I had a secondhand vs new moments about a year ago. Decided I wanted a traditional blackthorn blasting rod. My ceremonial maple staff not being all that portable. Well didn’t want a brand new one for financial reasons, thank gods for Ebay. The particular stick had been bought in Ireland many years before by a guy who used to work for TWA. Half the cost of new, amazing resonance and its saved me from a nasty fall more than once.
I love things that have a good story behind them!
I <3 you. I've been saying thrift is fine for years and generally get shot down. Never had the specific words to address why I thought it was such an incorrect statement. Generally I give people a simple rule of thumb, if you don't feel an urge to throw it across the room violently when you first touch it you'll be fine with using it, no matter where it came from. If you do, you probably weren't going to buy it anyway.
Honestly, I think some of that tendency to be anti-thrift is tied into the “saving the best for ourselves” thing I was talking about in my previous post. There’s a bit of….hmm…not snobbery, but the idea that it’s not good enough. maybe not a conscious assertion, but the sense that it’s tainted. I get the same thing when I tell some people I restocked my cooking supplies post-divorce at the thrift stores; it’s as though putting these items through the dishwasher wasn’t good enough or something.
I do make my own candles, since I still have access to beeswax as a former beekeeper, but I also use the marvelously easy oil lights for ritual at times. And all of my candle holders come from second hand shops! Every one of them! I am pretty tool-light these days, but I’ve made my own wands to wrap my mind around the idea, and hired a local metal-smith to make a sword I’ve since gifted elsewhere. I am absolutely in favor of yard sales, thrift stores and the like for supplies for all sorts of life pursuits!
Ooh, thank you for sharing your candle holders! I really like the mosaic, too.
Thanks! My son (online called The Manchild) and I made that in about 2001, we have some Welsh ancestry, but wanted the colors to mirror other shades in the house instead of being red and green. We broke tiles with a hammer, he drew the dragon and I put the pieces on…it is the frontspiece, of course, for the propane fireplace that heats the house in winter.
We thought the candles atop the mantle of the main hearth of the house ideal — fire with fire, so to speak.
Hello, I realize this post is a year old. I’m curious about some natural, earth friendly alternatives to candles/ candle magick. I live in a place where open flame is not allowed at all. Thanks. Great post! 🙂
Hi there! Pretty much any magical tools can be substituted for candles; candle magic largely relies on the symbolism of colors to work, plus the release of energy through burning. You could wear a particular color and let the energy of your movements throughout the day charge the spell, or throw a stone or leaf of a particular color into a river or stream, as to possible examples.
I agree totally, and if something is expensive, surely people can adapt their work to use it sparingly, or find an appropriate substitute? Making your own sacred objects is empowering, and buying things like glass bowls from thrift shops is a lovely idea – using less resources is good for the Earth… er, isn’t Nature the whole point of Paganism?
I buy candles from yard sales, you would be surprise at how many you can pick up for cheap. Cheaper than the dollar stores, and all that I do is re-melt them and make my own candles with what I put into them, works great.
I agree with a great deal of what you said, I go to good will to look for things I need that I know will be really expensive. I found a nice Suit for just 5$ so I could do interviews. I also dislike how much America reaches out to foreign countries for products and produce. If I were to use tools in any work I look around the house first.
I make most of my own candles with soy wax, essential oils, and I’ll only use the cotton wicks – not the ones that have the metal in them. I can only make votives and containers, though. I’d like to know more about making taper candles, but that seems like it would be really time-consuming. But I don’t want to go and buy tapers made from paraffin, either.
It’s really a messy choice between what’s convenient and possible, and what’s eco-friendly. Part of why Wal-mart is able to sell so many cheap paraffin candles is because people will buy them to save time.
Ellie, you might check out the booklet “Making Hand-Dipped Candles” by Betty Oppenheimer. This is one of the lovely $3 pamphlets in the Storey Country Wisdom series, and it takes you through all the steps for candle dipping.
The same author also has some longer books on candlemaking as well, but I’m only personally familiar with this one.
And on avoiding paraffin: A neighbor recommends making tapers from 50% beeswax and 50% tallow, no other additives. I’m planning to try this soon myself, and she says that this blend gets you the smooth appearance of tallow, with the clean burning of beeswax, for much cheaper (assuming you have a local farmer, who will probably be thrilled to sell you the tallow for next to nothing!).
I’m personally concerned with the environmental costs of most soybean production, but I know local beekeepers and farmers who raise humanely-treated cattle, so I go with those products. But seriously, just about anything else is better than paraffin!