Creating a catch-al thread for these areas. Partly to clean up my other catch-all thread a bit and keep these sorts of things in one-ish area. Who wants to go through hundreds of posts for these specific areas?
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Not all bones are dead. Well, what else would they be? Alive? Not quite, but we’re getting there.
The Unihipili ritual talks about selecting bones/carcasses and using those that are willing to work with us. While it is also a very good way to also bolster/empower a spirit willing to work with you, there’s something mentioned in those posts that isn’t talked about much, since it’s outside the scope of that ritual - the bones where the spirit is as “present” in.
Dead bones. Not just bones, but this could apply to antlers, horns, shells, etc… Dead bones are those bones where the spirit isn’t felt in them anymore. New or old, but newer are more likely to hold obvious linkings. Dead bones are where you can no longer sense that the animal (humans are animals, too) isn’t clearly present within or has an obvious link to the remaining spirit to those bones.
I have to mouse/rat skulls I got from my son when they were examining owl pellets. One is dead, one is not.
Both are (immediately) useful for different reasons. With the non-dead skull (left), there is an active link and in this case, the spirit is ready to interact. This would be a use-case for the Unihipili ritual, where the spirit and I would both benefit from the other, over time.
The skull on the right is dead. The link is so faint that it will be easy to sever the link and then use the skull for an appropriate house for a spirit or two, a link (like a portal, gate) to a defined group or energy type, or ground up and used in place of human bone powder for rituals.
Soon, I will be using the right one as a housing for something, not sure which yet. I have to books that want a skull for a spirit house and as a place for spirits to come for divination purposes. If you have open-ish clairs or a means of communication, you don’t need a skull for this, but I could see it helping for the ambience of ritual.
Over the years, I’ve mentioned releasing spirits from bones that were still attached to them, but didn’t want to help me with my work intended with that bone. A magpie skull comes to mind. The magpie didn’t care that I was using the skull, but didn’t want any part in what I was going to do with it. Fair enough. So, how do I clear that out?
First, the process of selecting a non-dead bone for Unihipili is similar to clearing a bone of an entity still attached. Place your hand over it, feeling for any sort of link, a sense of “Life”, or energy attached to the bone. It doesn’t really take much effort, as this is a passive part of the operation and you’re using your intuition/clairs to sense if it’s dead or not.
If you’re looking to cleanse the bone, there are several ways to do it. You can ask an entity to do it for you, but I would encourage you to practice a few things before resorting to that.
First, I would sense where the connection is and, using your Will, move it to the end of the bone, wherever that is and feels right. You have a few options at this point. You can push the energy out of the bone, thereby removing the link to it. You can do a cord cutting on the cord connecting the entity to the bone. You can also dissolve the connection, if you’re into that. You can push energy into the bone to push the connection, linkages out.
Afterwards, regardless of method, with or without entity help, you should smoke cleanse the bone. This is less about purification, as it is removing the remaining energetic traces. The incense would be the active agent here and you would charge the incense with the task of removing and carrying off the remaining energy. The intent and pushing that intent into the incense is what will turn it from a (maybe) nice smelling burnable thingy into a genuine ritual tool to be consumed with a purpose.
I could continue, but it’s getting late. Gotta start shutting the brain down a bit so I’m not up thinking all night long.
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My fiance brought me a dead mouse that drowned in a pool at his work yesterday. I planned on using it in a sour jar against a shit teamleader of his. I suppose I could…see if there is a little bit of spirit left, ask it to stick around to help at work, and if it’s not interested in that, help it move forward?
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Could, yes. That’s how I would go about it.
You could make a single bone dead, if you wanted to. I would ask the spirit first, but I take a more respectful approach. Maybe overly so. I have a deer rib I did this with and plan on using it as a ritual writing implement, if I ever get around to experimenting with it.
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Let go into some detail here, because there was an important thing I’ve noticed before, but certainly did here that bears mentioning in more of this type of thread.
I mentioned in the last entry that I had an honor guard of sorts as I made my way through the cemetery. This was one of the most active cemeteries I’ve been to and there were only a few spirits I noticed as I started walking through it. Yet, there were over a dozen walking with me as I made my way through the place.
Graves are a marker or sorts to connecting with these spirits, but it’s not like they largely reside there. Only a few there when I started, but that doesn’t mean they were there like that all the time. One of them felt more residual than coherent, but this could’ve been me and my focus to find the little grave I was looking for.
I did want to bring up that I have good responses from most former soldiers. I’ve had some not be interested, but nothing hostile (yet). I chalk this up to them sensing that I was one and served overseas. They seem to know this. I had several dozen show up to volunteer to help with things they agree with. Absolutely. I salute them as I come to their areas or them come in groups like that.
So, WHY did they come when they weren’t initially there? My opinion here, based on experience and plain old analysis. May change over time. I will struggle to find the words, too.
Graves act as a sort of binding/linking to this plane. When a necromancer or similar comes through their area, you can feel their attention or eyes on you, if they’re still coherent and not heavily focused. The necromancer acts like a beacon or sorts, a sort of light in the darkness between the planes. If they agree with the type of light(s) the person exhibits, they can choose come forward. They can also ignore it, of course. We’re not talking about calling them specifically here.
I’ve seen some of them in my ritual space as I called out to them (non-forcefully) last night to present an incense offering they could enjoy. I did two different joss sticks, since there were so many new faces.
I guess that’s really what I wanted to relate. That there’s a link and just because you don’t see a bunch of activity up front, doesn’t mean it will stay that way. If you’d like to get a sample of how receptive the spirits are in any particular area, then send your consciousness out into the cemetery as a whole and beacon outwards with an intent like “to all of the spirits that would be willing to work with me”. Presenting offerings can definitely goa long way, too. So, I would beacon after doing that and would be sure to give the offerings being genuine and honest that they are for them without strings. They will know.
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Santa Muerte asked if I would set her offering cup outside to collect the rain water.
Water is the typical offering I give her, usually several times a week. Distilled water from a jug or from the coffee maker when I’m doing my “Jade Wine” for the Fox Immortal. There are several times where she indicated she was more interested in additional water than incense or blood.
But why?
Well, we typically give the dead offerings of alcohol or teas and call it good. Can’t they just get water when it rains? Sure. And that isn’t the same.
Water is also considered one of the mediums through which entities can interact with this world. Water is one way to bolster a spirit’s presence and give them more agency in a space. Liquid offerings are mainly composed of water, but with other things in them that support Life in some way, like milk and blood. If there’s a liquid involved, it’s still a partial offering of water.
Fresh water is part of the Santa Muerte practice. While I do not have a cultural inroad into the different forms of that, it is clear that fresh water is an appreciated offering to her. From my own practice, I’ve watched as she then allows the other dead in my space to drink from the cup as well. I don’t recall reading that anywhere and was a bit surprised when I saw her gesture to them to feel free to drink from the offered water.
So, budding necromancers and ancestor worshippers may consider that “plain old water” just might be a larger gift than they realize and not feel like another gift was rejected if it is asked for instead of a more traditional offering.
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The local cemetery here has a rain water collector and dispenser; I always spill a little out as a libation for the spirits when I stop by. Plus there is no gate and it doesn’t having closing hours. An amazing graveyard!
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That is awesome! Wish we had anything like that around here.
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You know, I’m watching an old film atm (The Crooked Web, 1955). I read your comment and thought, I should go by the cemetery at night. One of the characters said, “at night is better”. Then they drove off to a cemetery in Germany! Lol 
Erm, as grave robbers though. Not quite what I had in mind!
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Sounds like I just need to move to Germany or somewhere else in Europe, so I can feast on all of the graveyards there.
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So, a few thoughts on my latest journeys to graveyards in Tennessee, as it relates to this thread. These are more musings and shouldn’t be taken as any sort of “final” thoughts or opinions.
Most of the graveyards I went to this time around had a lot of family clusters in them that I haven’t seen a lot of in my journeys here in Maryland and Virginia. They absolutely exist, of course, outside of smaller, family-only burial sites. I’ve largely just found myself in places where there were a lot of different families or single people buried in them.
In this most recent jaunt, the theme was mainly a family headstone and smaller individual plaques or flat stones marking the individual’s name. Those graves where they still felt “active”, there was a sort of communal feeling to them, a current that was across the family. Even when some had married into them. I don’t believe this was a psychological thing on my part, but there is always that possibility. There were some unmarked graves and some of the family currents ran to them, so I will lean with it not being only psychological. It wasn’t something I was looking for, but rather observed it while feeling the yard.
Good job, Norse, you just wasted my time thus far on an existing observation called ancestry. Hehe, not quite. The dead graves didn’t have the currents running. Why?
Because they have a new ancestry line, I’m betting. Or they’ve moved on in another way none of us will likely really agree with (views will always differ). But that link isn’t there like an active grave’s is.
I’ve always been so-so about ancestry and felt that it wasn’t quite the “your soul has/will always belong to your family (current)” that the Mormon’s espouse. I’ve never fully agreed that you reincarnate within the exact same family for the obvious issue of a lack of learning diversity for the soul. I don’t pretend to know the “rules” and largely don’t believe anyone else does either. I’m certainly not going to take the word(s) of several thousand year old games of telephone, though.
When I started making offerings to ancestors, some from quite long ago have come to accept them, all related to my current incarnation. I certainly cannot deny that and am quite pleased to have them here and accepting. I did notice that it was only family from this incarnation’s bloodline over time. This was several years ago, but it wasn’t until I came across those plots and the dead graves that really made as close to a solidifying belief as I’m willing to go without dozens more examples. It will be interesting to see it play out.
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