Reframing Energy Clearing to Claim Energetic Accountability

You know how this story goes: light up your herb of choice or grab your selenite, wave it around, and PRESTO, the energy is clear. While this narrative is standard in many spiritual and magical spaces, it lacks the nuance and know-how to do much and can even be harmful.

Like so much floating around in spiritual, wellness, and magical spaces, the art of energy clearing has suffered tremendously at the hands of capitalism and other harmful systems.

By commodifying such a sacred practice, we've also lost its magic and subtlety.

It's not hard to look around now and see that this plane is undergoing massive transformations. Yes, it's intense right now, but this is precisely why I want you to be aware of your energetic field and fully in your power.

Instead of stopping at "I need to clear my energy," let's mine down deeper to discover what's underneath—a call to take accountability for your energy and find the gold hidden within you.

So, What is Energy Clearing?

First, it's important to note that energy clearing varies culturally and from practice to practice. If what I share doesn't resonate with your practice, that's okay. As always, come with an open mind, take what you like, and leave the rest!

Energy clearing is a vague phrase that means different things to people based on their practice and ancestry, so it's hard to define concisely. Many folks think of energy clearing as a technique to remove unwanted energy.

I prefer the phrase energy tending or maintenance because energy clearing is nuanced and usually needs to go beyond removing energy.

Does Energy Clearing Work?

The art and practice of energy clearing is absolutely a real and powerful practice. However, the need for energy clearing is often misidentified and misused. Why?

Not every uncomfortable feeling can or should be removed from your energetic field.

Of course, this isn't always the case, but it points to the truth that the cause of our discomfort is often nuanced, layered, and personal.

Think of a time when you experienced a difficult situation only to discover it was exactly what needed to happen because it clarified something, opened a new pathway, or provided a valuable lesson.

Oftentimes, what you feel inclined to clear away is an invitation to pause and go deeper, especially if it’s a sensation you find yourself wanting to clear away regularly.

Here’s the reframe: most energetic tending is energy balancing, not clearing.

The good news: real, powerful, and transformative ways to shift, balance, transmute, and clear your energy do exist.

They're not all quick fixes, and some require training or permission, but there are many things you can do to take your energetic well-being into your own hands today.

Let's get into this.

Energy Clearing vs. Balancing

In most cases, it's not a person, place, or situation causing harm to your energy; it's your response or reaction to them.

Clearing your energy or cutting cords from your field will usually do little to nothing. A more pressing and helpful approach is addressing the imbalances in your energetic field caused by your response to other people and situations.

This doesn't mean that bad actors and harmful systems don't exist. They 100% exist and cause harm on all levels, but trying to clear them away will be a constant game of whack-a-mole.

What I'm inviting in here is energetic accountability rather than an energetic blame game.

Next time you think, "So-and-so's vibes were off, so I need to clear it away." What would it feel like to approach it like this, "Wow. I had a response to so-and-so's energy. Let me investigate that."

Maybe after investigating a response to another person, you discover a wound within yourself that doesn’t require energy clearing but requires the soothing aid of water, or the grounding safety of earth to bring you back into a place of balance. (side note: eternal perfect balance isn’t the goal either, it’s the awareness of when you’re off balance and knowing how to come back.)

This approach requires accountability, time, possibly outside support, boundaries, and honest introspection.

When you focus on taking accountability for your energy, you get to identify the parts of you that need tending, better understand your energy, and work with it in ways that allow you to claim your personal power, and not the gross power over kind, but power with.

When you prioritize being aware of your energy and balancing it, it keeps you in your power.

Any good magician or healer knows that facing their shadows is necessary for healing or transformation to occur. Attempting to clear away every uncomfortable feeling won't work and skips over potential gold within you.

When to Use Energy Clearing

You might be wondering if energy clearing has a place. It does, and it's a practice I utilize with myself and others.

Energy clearing works wonders for residual energy, the energy you pick up in busy places, or maybe an old house with a lot of sticky energy hanging around. It can also work for entity removals and exorcisms, but these are very involved practices requiring training and/or permission.

Energy clearing won't help with the habitual personal, ancestral, and societal patterns that may have deep grooves in your energetic field or the soul lessons you might need to walk through.

Keep reading to understand more about the 4 key energy maintenance concepts I lean on in my energy maintenance practice with myself and clients.

4 Key Energy Maintenance Concepts

The good news is that countless energy maintenance methods and techniques are available, and you don't have to do it alone. Maybe the tips I share here will be enough to get you started. Or, you decide to take my Reframing Energy Clearing class here or work with me or someone else one-on-one.

An energy worker or healer can bring light to these things and begin the energetic balancing process. However, experiencing long-lasting energy healing will require honest introspection, which can take time, and sometimes, multi-pronged support (this is why I stopped offering single energy work sessions). To receive lasting results from energy work (outside of the rare Mary Magdalene, Buddha, and Jesus situations) requires an in-depth and honest process.

I approach the practice of energy maintenance through the lens of the four elements (earth, air, fire, and water), which provides common ground for many practices and is the lens from which I work.

Here are four key concepts to help you understand the basics of performing regular energy tending.

1. Assess what types of energies are present, e.g., residual, collective, personal, ancestral, etc.

2. Identify how each energy present best corresponds with an element (earth, air, fire, water)

3. Determine what approach is needed, e.g., clearing, balancing, transmuting, protecting, etc.

4. Build or utilize reciprocal and ethical relationships with practices to carry out the needed approach(es)

Energy Clearing is One of Many Tools

Considering these four key energy maintenance concepts, it makes sense that a simple wave of a selenite wand might not always do the trick when tending to your energy body. (Side note: this is 100% not a dig at selenite. Selenite is AMAZING, especially regarding energy work, but there are helpful steps that can make working with it more reciprocal and effective.)

The next time you reach for the herbal wand or crystal for a quick energy cleanse, pause, take a breath, and see if anything else wants your attention or if a different approach would better support you.

You deserve better than playing the energetic blame games. It's time to take full accountability for your energy, and I want to see you fully in your power.

Thank you for being here! If you enjoyed this post, share it with someone else who might enjoy it, or get in touch and let me know your thoughts. Join the Reframing Energy Clearing class here, and I’d love to see you in the Craft Your Own Magic Membership, where you’ll find monthly classes and much more.

Deep care,

Cassie

How to Dress a Candle for Spellwork

Candles are included in spellwork, and there’s a reason why. Fire magic is powerful — it can help transform energy, focus your desires, send intentions into the universe, burn away what you want to release, and more.

Candles are powerful on their own, but dressing a candle for spellwork can help amplify and intensify your spell. In this blog post, I’ll be breaking down how to dress a candle for spellwork. To get more of an intro to candle magick, check out this blog post.

WHY DRESS A CANDLE FOR SPELLWORK?

Dressing a candle spellwork can mean rubbing a candle in oil and/or rolling a candle in herbs. Using herbs and oils that support the intention you’re working with can help you amplify your spell, making it more powerful. 

Below, I share some correspondences for oils and herbs to help you decide how to dress your candles most effectively. 

HOW TO DRESS A CANDLE FOR SPELLWORK

Here are some loose guidelines for dressing your candles for spellwork:

1. Cleanse your candle. You can cleanse your candle with salt, smoke, sound, or any other cleansing tool that feels good to you.

2. Rub your candle in oil. As you do, focus on the intention of your spell.

3. Roll your oiled candle in herbs if you’re using them. Again, direct your energy towards your spell’s intention as you roll your candle. Stay present, breathe, and focus on connecting your intention to your candle.

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OILS, HERBS & CORRESPONDENCES FOR CANDLE MAGICK

Before I get into correspondences, a note about oils: you can feel free to use neutral oils like sunflower seed oil or coconut oil. When you work these oils, they act more as a vehicle for your herbs than an intention amplifier on their own.

Explore the Radical Candle Magic class.

If you want to use an oil that brings its own amplifying qualities, you’ll be using essential oils. If you decide to use essential oils, I invite you to be really intentional with them, buy small amounts only, and research as much as you can to find companies that are making them in the most sustainable and ethical ways possible. The same goes for herbs - do your research and make sure you’re gathering any herbs you use ethically. 

Featured deck is The Ritual Deck. 

For pleasure spells - Use red or orange candle colors. Use clary sage, lavender, or sandalwood oil with rose petals or other flower petals, ginger, or calendula. 

For abundance spells - Use green, brown, or gold candle colors. Use basil, cinnamon, or frankincense oil with cinnamon, basil, or ginger.

For creativity spells - Use orange, yellow, blue, or purple candle colors. Use tangerine or peppermint oil with verbena, bay leaves, or angelica. 

For intuition spells - Use blue, purple, or silver candle colors. Use myrrh, or clary sage oil with mugwort, chamomile, or rose petals.

For protection spells - Use brown, black, or blue candle colors. Use clove, cypress, or juniper oil with mugwort, mullen, or comfrey. 

For releasing spells - Use yellow, orange, or black candle colors. Use bergamot or geranium oil with cloves or rosemary. 

For love spells - Use red, orange, or pink candle colors. Use cardamom, jasmine or ylang-ylang oil with yarrow, oregano, or fennel. 

Want more on spellwork? Check out these blogs:

• Getting Started with Candle Magick

• Four Candle Magick Spells + Free Printable

• Spellwork and Witchcraft Ethics

• Your Spell’s Over, Now What? 3 Ways to Release or Repurpose Your Ritual Items

Sinking into acceptance // 4 Rituals for the Waning Moon + Card Spread

The waning moon phase is nature's way of calling you inward. How can you truly know what you need to release, shed, or let go of if you haven't allowed yourself time to go inward and fully experience your emotions? This phase is your invitation to feel and allow.

The waning moon phases occur after the peak of the full moon to the dark moon. Energetically this phase represents a time of allowance, acceptance, and shedding.

Growing up, most of us are taught to bottle our feelings up rather than sinking into them and accepting what is. Acceptance doesn't mean rolling over and taking it or being okay with the status quo. Not by a long shot. Acceptance of the current moment means allowing yourself to fully experience whatever is bubbling up in you at the present moment. 

If things in your life, or the world at large, are not aligned with your desires and want them to change, you don't have to accept them as they are. What you do need to accept is your feelings about these situations. It's in the allowance and acceptance of situations that healing, growth, and change can occur.  

There's an opportunity to grow from every situation you're presented with, and this phase asks you to be open to the learning and evolving process rather than pushing against it. Imagine the energy of this lunar cycle as a big unconditional and loving hug. 

Here are a few keywords to understand the basic energy of this lunar phase. 

Energetic Themes for the Waning Moon

• Passiveness

• Acceptance

• Allowance

• Releasing

• Shedding

• Letting go

• Resting

The rituals outlined below will work well together, but if you don't have the time or tools to perform all of them at once, that's okay, do what feels most aligned with your needs. Keep reading for four ritual suggestions for the waning moon phase. 

1. Candle Ritual for the Waning Moon

Candles are an ideal ritual tool for this moon phase because they can be used as a very passive tool. I suggest using this candle ritual suggestion in tandem with one of the ritual suggestions below so your candle can burn as you sink into a ritual. There's more than one candle color that will work for this lunar phase, here are three suggestions, go with what feels best for where you're at, or use all three!

Pink candle: Pink candles offer soft and loving energy. This candle color is ideal for bringing in self-love and acceptance. This candle color is often suggested during the waxing moon phase to call in romantic love. For the waning moon phase, its energy will be used as a tool to call in self-love. 

Blue Candle: Blue candles offer peace and respite. If you've been in a cycle of overwhelm and feel like you can't catch a break, this is your candle. The energy of this candle can help you soften into the present moment to access your emotions better. 

Purple Candle: Purple candles offer inner wisdom and perspective. If you're in a place of allowance with your emotions but struggling with accepting them, the energy of a purple candle can help open you up to a higher perspective and shed light on why you feel the way you do. 

If candle magick is new to you, and you'd like to learn more about how it works and the process I outline here, check out this past blog post on candle magick basics. 

Once you've selected your candle color(s), you may want to anoint your candle with a specific oil. I suggest lavender, bergamot, rose, or geranium work well with the energy of the waning moon. If you don't have any of these available, a simple carrier oil, like almond or coconut oil, will work just fine. 

Anoint your candle with your oil, hold it in your hands, and impress it with your energy. Repeat this intention or something like it that feels good to you, "I love and accept myself as I am. I am allowed to feel the fullness of my emotions and will let them flow through me. I trust that Spirit will show me what needs to stay and what needs to go. So it is."Light your candle(s) and stay with it as it burns. 

2. Waning Moon Meditation

If you're going to do any of these waning moon rituals, meditation is my top suggestion. I covered this topic in-depth in a previous post, so I'm not going to spend too much time discussing it here. But, if you've followed me for long, you know that I adore meditation. 

Meditation opens you up to your inner world, which is step one in allowance and acceptance. As I said above, you have to take the time to explore your inner landscape before you can truly know what needs to be released. Meditation and internal reflection is the first step in this process.  

Click here to get my free waning moon meditation or here to read my previous blog post on meditating with each moon phase. 

If you'd like to add some supportive crystals to your waning moon meditation, I suggest rose quartz and a grounding stone of choice like obsidian, black tourmaline, or garnet.

3. Waning Moon Card Spread

Use this card spread with your favorite oracle or tarot card deck. These questions can offer guidance on finding more acceptance in your life and suggestions for releasing anything holding you back from your highest good.

If you didn't begin with the candle ritual or meditation suggestion above, take a moment to connect with your breath and ground yourself. 

1. In what area of my life do I need to soften my resistance?

2. What lesson does my resistance have to share with me? 

3. Where can I focus my energy to bring more acceptance into this area of my life? 

4. How can I integrate these lessons into my life?

5. How will I hold myself back if I am unwilling to explore my resistance?

6. What old ideas do I need to shed to come into more wholeness?

Be open and honest as your cards reveal guidance to you. The next ritual can help you uncover any confusion you may have about your reading. If your reading is initially unclear, leave it, be open to signs from Spirit, and revisit it at a later time. 

4. Write and Release

This ritual suggestion works well after performing either the waning moon meditation or waning moon card spread because you should be fresh with emotion and insight. Take some time to write about what came up for you. Alternatively, if tarot and oracle cards aren't your thing, you can use the card reading questions above as journal prompts. 

Writing is a powerful tool for exploring, feeling, processing, and releasing your emotions. Here's a conclusion from a study conducted on the healing benefits of writing: "There is power in written expression and the personal sharing of one's story. Writing shows promise not only as a therapeutic tool during intervention, but as an ongoing avocational activity with many personal and health benefits." 

Try to write without judging what you're writing and let your thoughts and feelings flow. 

Choose to release your writing in a way that feels good to you. You can burn the paper in a fire-proof vessel, bury your text in the earth, release it into a flower body of water (ensure that your paper is compostable if you do this method!), or something else that feels good to you. You cannot do wrong; the purpose of all ritual is to bring meaning and healing to your experience, so trust that the releasing method you select is what will serve you best.

 I hope you feel empowered to love and accept yourself fully, emotions, and all. Dance with all aspects of your being. Know that in each moment, even the uncomfortable ones, there is an opportunity to go deeper and find wholeness.