Thursday, June 30, 2011

Road Work Ahead

One of the pieces of magic that I've picked up over the years is working with road, street and highways. Often when discussing spirits of place, we talk about lakes or rivers, trees or forests or even whole cities, but not often roads. 


Of course working with road just to be different to be silly. For me though, it was a natural outgrowth from doing some crossroads work. Crossroads and every street has the potential for change, movement, adventure, journeys and growth. We often use "path" (the rural cousin to the street) and "journey" (what one does on roads) as spiritual metaphors.

From my experience road spirits can help me do a few things. They can help me arrive to a place safely and on-time. They can help me find the store or home I'm looking for or otherwise help avoid getting lost.  More deeply, they can help with feeling blocked on your path by finding alternative routes or get you out of a jam.

While modern witches like using the Internet as a model for our interconnection, what about our road system. The spirits of the road connect whole hemispheres of people. With few exceptions, the road in front of my house connects with people all across the US, Canada, Mexico and Central and South American countries. Almost every person walks along or drives on a road on any given day. So the roads can help you do distance magic as well.

More importantly, the roads are an important piece of urban magic. As are buses and trains and all that good stuff. If you're on road much at all, try cultivating a relationship and see if you notice a difference in your travels.