"Whatcha doing in the woods?" "Oh, nothing. Just findin' wands and stuff ..."

The air had just enough autumny crispness to make things interesting - and to encourage me to wear socks.  The sun was warming but not sweat-inducing.  The leaves had started falling, but none had turned brown yet.  Early Autumn.  Pre-Samhain, but just a bit after Mabon,  And all the stinging insects seemed to have gone back to their special little insect hells..  All in all - a perfect day.

I set out on a hike in the woods.  Had some beautiful Native American flute music playing on Pandora.  Set the perfect tone for me to communicate with my angels and spirit guides.  Sometimes when we talk, the right side of my head feels tingly and warm.  This was one of those times.  My guardian angel was particularly chatty.  And suddenly, I felt the urge, nay, the directive, to look down.  There, before me, lay a fallen branch the perfect size to be turned into a wand.

It had just enough craggyness, just enough of a feeling of a singular history, a feeling of knowingness.  In this one broken branch, I felt connection and a sense of play.  This one little branch.

"But what if another one speaks more loudly?", I asked my guardian.

"You'll know.  Keep looking".

So I did.  I only felt compelled to pick up sticks that were on the right side of the path, and only ones that were not sticking out of the wet leaves piled to the side of the path. I saw a couple "contenders" on the left side of the path, but did not pick them - they weren't the proper vibration.

Then another branch came into view.  I picked it up and crossed it over the other branch, knocking them together with three raps - "clack, clack, clack!", because three is a divine number.  This I did as I walked along, beating a rhythm in the stillness of the forest.

"Clack, clack, clack!"

This seemed to empower them.  It also helped me clarify if they were worthy or magickal work.  I felt this intuitively.  The rhythmic beating also came intuitively.  "Clack, clack, clack!" went the Mystic, striding rhythmically through the forest.

Then a third branch, then a fourth, fifth, and sixth.  At this point, I held three branches in each hand and went "Clack, clack, clack" with three branches hitting the other three, reversing the right-hand branches over the left-hand, and back and forth, back and forth.

I intrinsically knew I'd  find seven would-be wands that day - another holy number.  Number seven then came into view.  And then my walk had ended, under the canopy of towering spruce trees, my cathedral in the forest.  I thanked God, Father Sky, and Mother Earth.  I thanked my guides.  Gratitude was pretty much sparkling through the trees with the glimmers of afternoon sun, dancing around me.

Here are my beauties.  Interestingly, all are just about the same length - that's just how they came to me.  None are brittle; they'll take well to whittling and sanding. I'm still leaning more toward the first branch I found to be my new wand (5th branch from the left), but I think I'll truly know more when I start working with them.

This is what the Mystic did in the forest last week.  Now, the blessing. consecrating, and FUN begins!