Utility and spirituality
(Nimue)
Archaeologists are most likely to identify items as potentially spiritual when they cannot identify a practical use for them. The idea that spiritual things must, by their very nature, be separate and different from worldly things is both longstanding and widespread. I don’t think this is an approach that is reliably true from a modern, Pagan perspective. I’m not especially convinced it helps that much for thinking about the past, either.
Perspectives vary on whether you need special tools set aside for your practice, or whether you use what you have. Cups, knives, and brooms are often an issue. Do you do ritual in regular clothes, or special clothes? Do you have special candles, or incense, or any other item that is in some senses ordinary, but set apart for use? Different people have different approaches.
Sometimes the answer depends on what you can afford, and what you have room for. There are matters of style, too. Folk magic tends to use whatever is close to hand. The more ornate and ‘high’ your ritual is, the more likely you are to use dedicated gear for it. We need what we think we need.
As an animist, I find the idea of non-magical items a bit tricky. Everything potentially has spirit. Anything can bring inspiration, ancestral connections, a history involving the living world. I don’t experience life in a sacred/non-sacred way so what I do spiritually isn’t hived off from other things I do. I don’t feel any need to dedicate things in specific ways in order to work with them. Increasingly, what I’m drawn to is the Druidry in my everyday life, not the fancier stuff.
I don’t think anyone’s take on this is wrong. It’s important to do what feels resonant and meaningful. At the same time, I think a lot of Pagans are persuaded that they need to buy special things to be able to do the Paganism properly, and that just isn’t true. It might be more relevant to think about the history of an item – who made it and in what conditions, and with what impact on the planet – rather than whether it has a nice symbol on it.
