Eoten

Animist poet

Wild poetry, untamed stories and animist teachings from Eóten

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boundaries

Protection

Protection is another umbrella term; it covers all the animist practices that can help us reinforce, heal and recover our boundaries.

Protection works on the physical, emotional and energetic levels, and can include anything that helps us manage our boundaries, whether it seems ‘protective’ or not. Some examples of protection methods are power reclamation, sigils, altar work, deity or animal work, shadow work and sacred space.

Protection is helpful when:

  • We are recovering from abuse or trauma.
  • We are striving to be more creative or expressive, as protection allows us to be more visible and vulnerable.
  • We need to seek shelter from an abusive situation.
  • We are learning to enforce our boundaries with others or with ourselves.
  • We are developing trust in our animist practice.
  • We are engaging with difficult or challenging energies.
  • We are working with the land or other non-human spirits.
  • We are developing our trance practices.
  • We are learning to hold and use our personal power.

Protection is such a varied practice that encompasses so many tools. Almost any animist tool could be included under this umbrella, because the best protection is to be healthy, whole and comfortable with our own power.

Protection

Protection is an umbrella term for a variety of tools that animists can use to strengthen their boundaries, heal any wounds that are attracting interference and ask for help in dealing with intrusive energies.

Protection allows us to face the darker and more challenging aspects of being alive with courage and grace. When we feel able to choose the energies that we engage with, when we have privacy and are in control of how and when we interact with the worlds beyond our everyday lives, we can be more outgoing in our animist practices.

If we feel overwhelmed or threatened, it’s very hard to see clearly and act wisely. Protection gives us the chance to aclimatise to the full spectrum of existence at our own pace, as well as provided a valuable safety net while we gather and learn how to use our own power.

Protection is best used when:

  • We are working with an energy that we feel threatened by and need a particularly strong boundary.
  • We are finding that our animist experiences are bleeding into our daily lives in uncomfortable or distracting ways.
  • We aren’t in control of when and how we interact with the spirit’s we’re working with, or spirits in general.
  • We feel our energy or life circumstances are being interfered with without our permission.
  • We feel that one of our relationships has become damaging or unhealthy.

There is a vast spectrum of protection methods, ranging from the formal tools of folk magic to the intentional techniques of energy work. Each method has it’s best uses, and practice with all of them is a good idea for anyone starting out in animism.

However, the best protection will always be maintaining healthy boundaries and claiming all of our own power; which is exactly what animism practice guides us to achieve.

For more about sacred space, ceremony and crafting – the foundations of many protection methods – join the free 12 week Foundation in Animism course here: