When you bring home new bones and skulls (or other animal parts), and before you add them to your altar or craft fetiches or tools of them, you should first cleanse them. This prevents energies from past owners or negative energies from the spirits of the bones themselves from effecting you or cursing you. I cleanse with holy water and incantation, I bless and consecrate the creature to its desired purpose, I formally introduce it to my other spirits, and then I feed it offerings.
Cleansing of the Bones
Many of the creatures that come my way as a bone collector have died violent deaths. Life is messy and nature isn’t gentle – animals very seldom die natural deaths after long lives. They are killed by their own kind, killed by natural predators for food or territorial disputes, hit by cars, culled by humans as invasive species or pests, or hunted by humans for sport or for food. Such is the way of things, and I cannot change it or pretend it is not so, but what I can do is ease the creature’s passing by treating it with honour and respect after its death. I can ease its angry or confused spirit with sweet words, offerings, and songs so it calms and either moves on or chooses to stay in its bones as a guide. I can wash the bones in water from sea, river, or stream to wash away its pain, cleansing its spirit, and returning it to the well of souls to be reborn again.
To cleanse the bones, wash them with water you have made holy (for instructions see: How to Make Pagan Holy Water). To cleanse other animal parts (hides, claws, feathers), sprinkle them with an aspergillum of purification herbs dipped in holy water while reciting a purification charm or singing a chant. Herbs suited to this include any evergreen trees, rosemary, bay laurel, lavender, avens, fennel, sage, or vervain. Water chants are best for this with the water element’s association with cleansing, death, and the underworld. Sing over the bones for as long as you need to – until there has been a shift in the energies. Singing heals the heart and soul. Singing restores harmony where it has been taken away or disturbed.
Aphrodite
Ariana Lightningstorm
(click to hear music)
Strong like the ocean
Gentle like rain
River wash my tears away
Aphrodite
The River is Flowing
Diana Hildebrand-Hull
(click here for music)
The river is flowing
Flowing and growing
The river is flowing
Down to the Sea
Mother, carry me
Your child I will always be
Mother, carry me
Down to the sea
Appeasing Angry Beasts
Sometimes a gentle song, holy water, and offerings aren’t enough to appease the spirit of an angry beast. Roadkill are usually confused, not angry. But the spirit of an animal that has been hunted and killed in a disrespectful manner for sport, money, or just because, is often raging in the remains of its body. Even if you cannot see or hear spirits, the angry ones are easy to find as being around their remains will make you feel uneasy, upset, nauseous, sick, irritable, or angry yourself. If you can hear them, they’re usually the ones swearing at you and cussing out all humans. You need to regain their trust. Apologize for what happened to them, tell them that not all humans are like that and you will show them through your good deeds. Apologize to the Lord and Lady of the Beasts (Old Man and Old Woman to me) for life being taken without their permission – for spirits being stolen from them. Try to sweeten their disposition and that of the animal(s) with sweet offerings. For creatures here on the West Coast, honey and burnt offerings of sweetgrass and good tobacco are well-received.
If you can walk between worlds to speak to spirits, do so, and talk to the spirit and ask it what it wants or needs to be at peace. It may be something simple or something impossible. They may ask you not to use their parts in your magic and ritual, but to bury them and let them go. Agree within reason, but if the demand is too high, know you can bargain down to something simpler and doable – be honest and don’t make any promises you can’t or won’t keep. If you cannot speak with spirits, smudge well the bones with juniper tips or berries and bathe well its bones or flesh with holy water steeped with juniper. I also find this prayer from the Pagan Book of Living and Dying to be incredibly useful even though it is meant for humans; instead of saying “him or her” say the name of the animal (i.e. cat, deer, crow…):
For One Who Has Died Violently or in Great Distress
Starhawk
Mother of healing,
help us to believe in the
place where wounds can heal.
Mother of weaving,
show us what has been torn
can there be mended.
The worst has happened.
How can we believe again
in hope, love, kindness?
[name the dead three times]
Boatman, Ferryman,
she/he has had a rough crossing.
Carry her/him gently.
Comfort her/him, Mother,
in your warm arms of
night; rock her/him to sleep.
And by our rage,
Mother of Justice,
May justice be done.
After the angry spirit has been appeased and calmed, then it is ready for cleansing with the gentle songs of water and the sweeter holy waters of blessing. Wash away the last remnants of anger and pain leaving peace and calm. Perhaps, by the end of it, you will have gained a new ally who will speak well of you to its kind.
Consecration of the Bones
After cleansing, the bones, skulls, or other parts are ready for consecration. To consecrate is to turn into a sacred object and to enliven it with purpose – to give it animus. If the bones will only be used for display, or will be given away to another, or made into something to be sold – do not consecrate. Consecration turns something into a living fetiche that must be always be cared for and regularly fed energies and offerings until one’s dying breath or until it is passed on to another to care for in the same way of reverence.
In your ritual space, during the waxing or full moon, leave the bone, skull, tooth, claw, or wing in darkness by wrapping it in a dark cloth or burying it in earth. Pray or sing over it – calling it to life and singing it a song of what it will be. Unwrap or unearth it and anoint it with holy oil or holy water, drawing an equal-armed cross upon it with your finger. It is newly born. Charge it with its intended purpose by speaking it aloud. Invite a spirit into it who will match its purpose, to bind itself willingly to the item, but be free to come and go from it as it pleases. Bless it with the elements – with dirt, with water, with flame, and lastly blow your breath across its surface three times, emptying your lungs each time. It is done. It can now be used in your magical practice, placed upon your altar, decorated, or turned into a ritual tool or jewelry.
