What ritual and spirituality mean to me as a young disabled woman

Yesterday, I crafted a wand out of a small, comfortably shaped branch of pine that my partner had found on one of our walks. I wrapped a handle of wax-coated thread, and attached a piece of blue kyanite to the top, bought from a wonderful crystal shop in Hogsback during our visit there in October 2019. Each of these things means something to me. Even the colour of acrylic paint I chose to cover the smooth grained wood. They come together to form this handcrafted thing, this wand, a tool of personal meaning and imaginative power.

Let’s talk about spirituality... My spiritual practice is of a more occult nature, and relies heavily on tools and ritual. I don’t self-identify as a witch or magician, but rather just an individual who follows a middle path of solo practice. Maybe one day I’ll fit in somewhere, but that’s a different, albeit related, inner journey I’m on. (Update 06.07.21: I have started getting comfortable with referring to myself as a witch, specifically a hedge-witch.)

Over the last 2 years, I’ve found it difficult to engage in my practices because the pain management medications I take for muscle, joint, and nerve pain cloud my mind, and being in constant physical pain greatly limits my energy. Devoting time and energy to crafting this wand helped remind me that having a spiritual practice that stimulates my imagination is important to and for me, and that it’s okay to find safe and effective adjustments and accommodations to my practice.

I learned about the ethereal and magical as a child. It later became a pathology in the form of dissociation, intrusive thoughts and obsessive compulsive behaviours triggered by trauma and distress, but six years ago, when I became aware of it as a separate part of myself, saw it as a tool, something outside of myself but also of within, something I could control that did not have to control me, it morphed and merged into a spiritual practice.

Working with the idea of magic gives me a sense of control in a world where I have very little, it helps me re-frame my experiences and find calm in the storm. It provides a way for me to visualise and contextualise my emotions, and helps me translate psychological processes into a language my very visual brain better understands. It has helped me with physical pain, trauma, grief, and anxiety. It has caused me those things as well... Yet it remains an integral part of my being, my reason and my truth.

I am grounded in the practical reality of material existence where my body is simply a vessel (not a very good one, but I’m learning to accept this fact) and I find hope, acceptance, excitement and wonder, creativity and courage in the natural world and ethereal realms where my imagination draws from bountiful fonts of holy inspiration and allows me to build mind palaces, believe in angels and create safe places.