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Not Quite Ollivander's Wands

July 3, 2008
by Jeffrey Pierce

One of the products that I'm making is a line of hand-carved magickal wands. Each is radically unique. And each "wand" is more than "just" a wand.

For starters, as you saw in the blog Tool Hunting, I place a lot of care into finding the raw materials that I use to craft the wands. The vast majority of the wands start from wood that I carefully gathered myself following shamanic guidelines at sites that I have worked with and have an established connection with the spirits who inhabit the place. The rest of the wood is given to me by close pagan friends, sent from all over the world. Nothing is purchased. And none of the wood that I collect myself is harvested (cut from a living tree) although some of the wood that's given to me is from the land of fellow pagans and cut from their land according to phases of the moon and such

When a shaman crafts a tool, the first thing he does is connect with the tool's spirit, communing with it and speaking with it until he can clearly see what the wand will become. Because of this, each finished wand is radically different from all the rest (as you can see from the two roughed out examples below.) The communication continues throughout the entire crafting process and the tool's spirit is slowly brought to life. There are other principles to follow, and I adhere to each and every one of them while crafting the wand. For instance, when carving a wand all of the whittling motions should go in the same direction (from base to tip) and I follow that rule without exception.

A Pair of Wands - © Jeffrey Pierce

Roughed out forms of two wands, measuring 8 ½" and 13" respectively.

Each wand also comes with a user's guide (seriously - I've actually written a manual for wand use), a bag of the shavings from the wand's creation and a ritual to use those shavings to develop a bond between the user and the wand, and a small scroll containing the wisdom that the wand shared with me as I was crafting it. (A shaman believe that all things - even tools - are alive and just as the tools spirit speaks and directs the crafting, so it also imparts a lesson while the wand is being shaped.) I've developed specific packaging, a logo, and a name for the line - Graelantyde Wands. (Long, long ago, I had the Craft name Graelan Wintertide and the name of the line is in honor of that chapter of my journey.) And when each of these wands is finished (the still need some minor shaping and sanding before their anointed with ritual oils and blessed) it will be a tool that I've prepared as if I were going to use it myself.

The wand on top is a 13" Douglas Fir Moon Wand. The wood is from Oregon's Nestucca River (within walking distance of where I performed my vision quest years ago and the exact location where I did my submersion ritual in the midst of a snow storm.) It's called a moon wand as it's carving began on the new moon and the crafting process will be extended and end with the full moon. This one is specifically designed for use by someone who has a strong natural path (I can see the owner that will eventually hold each wand) and its shape (this is not the best photograph to illustrate it) follows the natural flow of the original piece of wood.

The second wand pictured here is an 8 1/2" Wild Rose Moon Wand. The wood came from the Czech Republic. It's a much more delicate, artistic, and intricate piece, but that was what it's spirit directed. What's interesting is that the same piece of wild rose is giving birth to two wands, each radically different. The sibling of this one is rough and wild. I'll share it with you later - and will give you a glimpse of these two once they're finished.