Full Circle

We talk a lot in most Pagan groups about spirals and circles. Sometimes, things actually do come “full circle” though, and that story is sort of the lead in to something I’m going to start trying to do over the next few weeks.

A long time ago, when I was just a newbie Pagan, I got interested in using a pendulum. I was in college at the time, and every few weeks, we’d make a trip into St. Louis (about an hour and a half away) for some stores that weren’t Wal-Mart (Rolla, Missouri, is not known for being all that exciting). I often made a habit on these trips of stopping in at a couple of Pagan shops, because there was nothing at all like that in our little college town. And on one of these trips I acquired a pendulum that I really liked. I used it quite a bit to ask yes and no questions, and I thought that was pretty cool – after all, even before I knew that there were religious options beyond types of Christianity, I’d heard people say that you could tell if a baby was a boy or a girl with a pendulum, and that this sort of thing is sometimes called dowsing, and I was familiar with Water Witching (a type of dowsing using 2 L shaped rods or a Y-shaped tree branch, frequently used to find water to dig wells).

But on a subsequent trip to the big city, I found a book that was full of semi-circular and pie-graph shaped charts, which you could use with a pendulum to discover things beyond yes and no. It was fascinating, because there were charts for tons of things I’d never heard of before, and that gave me plenty of ideas on what to go seek out for new learning.

One set of things the book covered was “health” – and there was a chart of numerous types of holistic health practices and treatments that you could use your pendulum to determine which one would be most helpful. One of the things on there was Bach Flowers – I had no idea what they were, but that was an interesting sounding thing.

So, I started reading. Bach Flower remedies themselves were hard to find back then, or maybe I just didn’t know the right places to look. The internet was barely a thing, so it wasn’t like I could just order them. Truthfully, there weren’t a lot of options for any sort of tools then – it would be a couple of years before I even found AzureGreen, who was the closest thing to a J.C.Penny catalog for the occult crowd even then.

Eventually, I found some. And I tried them out. But they were so darn hard to locate, and I was always second guessing what I should use, and they were expensive on my college budget, so having one of everything was sort of out.

…until I was a little older, and out of college, and living in a major metropolitan area, with both Whole Foods and older “hippie” natural food stores to peruse. And, of course, the internet.

So, I got some Rescue Remedy, and then a few more. And I used them a few times, but not very specifically. And then…life happened. (I know, I know. But I think this happens to a lot of us – we know this stuff can be used in certain ways to help certain things, and if a friend asked, we’d make suggestions, but we never think of it for ourselves.)

About a year and a half ago, a friend invited me to a group run by an herbalist to learn more about herbal treatments for ailments. And that led me to opening up my cabinet and remembering all the stuff I’ve collected over the years and not really used.  And to (finally, 8 years after my first attunement) getting my Reiki Master/Teacher attunement. And I took a class on crystal healing, and one on aromatherapy, and one on flower essences.

When I decided to get my pendulum out to test which of my current stock to use, and what new things to order, I couldn’t find it. I knew it had to either be in my altar (a re-purposed microwave cart) or the walk-in closet I use as a library and office. I went through everything, and couldn’t find it anywhere. So I went through everything again, and still didn’t find it.

Irritated, I went on with life, and ordered a few things that sounded interesting. And a few months later, looking for something else entirely, I discovered my pendulum in the box I was sure I had put it in, that I had searched several times. (Yup.  Universe to Janet….)

Score!

Of course, I couldn’t find the thing I was actually looking for…so I turned to the bookshelves to pull out the book of pendulum charts and review them…only to find the book gone.

So, let’s review: Pendulum leads to book. Book leads to Bach Flowers. Eventually I get back to Bach Flowers, and both my Pendulum and the Pendulum chart book go missing. Clearly the house elves or sprites or brownies or whatever they are needed some humor at my expense.

Over the next few weeks I want to talk more about using pendulums (especially because I think they’re great for kids to work with in developing their intuition) and about Bach Flower remedies and other flower essences. And I’d like to know about your experiences with pendulums, and with flower essences.  I’m thinking through ways to make getting the whole set of Bach’s 38 remedies + Rescue Remedy more affordable too.

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