Winifred Hodge Rose

Many people enjoy and benefit from having material objects to use as part of their spiritual, religious, esoteric, or magical practice. If this appeals to you, here are suggestions for creating one or more soul-tokens for your use in Heathen soul lore practice.

A note about the word ‘token,’ which I’ve chosen carefully for this purpose. In Anglo-Saxon, a tacn or token has these meanings, among others: a symbol, sign, signal, portent, marvel, wonder, and a banner, flag, or other type of symbolic representation of meaning. A tacnbora was a standard-bearer or flag-bearer, the one who went ahead of the tribe during outfarings, and around whom people would gather during ceremonies, battles, or emergency situations. As another example, an unusual astronomical or weather event was considered as a tacn, a wondrous portent that carried some important message.

The Anglo-Saxon rune poem for Tiw , symbolizing the Tyr-star or North star, expresses the meaningfulness inherent in a tacn: “Tiw is a tacn, holding troth well with aethelings (noble persons); always shows the true path over the mists of night, never fails, deceives or betrays” (my translation). The Tyr-star is a token of wonder, of guidance, inspiration, and trust; it is something to guide us through all the confusions and difficulties of our lives. As you can see, a ‘token’ is much more than some trivial trinket, and that meaningfulness is what we want to capture in our soul-tokens if we choose to make and use them.

Here are suggestions for various forms your soul-tokens can take.

The Soul-Cord or Braid:

Use either one or three strands of yarn, cord, or embroidery floss to symbolize each soul, using the same colors or different colors, whatever you feel represents the soul you are working with. One strand works fine for thicker cord, while three strands is best for thinner floss. If you use three strands per soul, braid them together to make one braided token for each of your souls as you work on them in turn.  While you are working on that soul, you can wear or hold that soul-braid, to work your power into it.  Whichever soul-braid you are currently working with can be blessed and dedicated during the initiation ceremony for that soul, if you choose to have such a ceremony. (The script for each soul initiation will soon be posted on this website, or may already be there by the time you read this.)

Here are the strands that Creel selected for her soul-cord, ready to be used as she works on each soul in turn. She used the top nine strands, marked “All,” for the Opening Soul Initiation Ceremony.

When you have worked through all the souls with their respective braids, you can braid all nine of them, taking them three by three, into your complete soul-cord token.  Or you can gather them together in another way, twisted and knotted at the ends, or held together with rings, as you please.

As you begin, consider whether you want to have the soul-cord of a size to wear around your wrist, neck, waist, or draped over your shoulders, and cut the strands to be somewhat longer than the final length you want, since braiding will shorten the overall length.  For my soul-cord, I measured my own height and a little extra, and wear it draped around my neck.

The Tally-String:

You can buy wooden, glass, or (gem)stone beads at a craft store, of whatever size and color you wish, one bead for each of the nine souls, plus one extra which will be your compass bead or ‘soul leader’ (see more about this, below).   You can dedicate each soul-bead during your ceremony for that soul, then keep it with you as you work through the lessons on that soul. 

When all the souls have been covered during your study, you can string the beads onto a cord, making a necklace or bracelet, a rosary, altar-item, or a dowsing-cord (see below).  If you wish, you can carve or paint runes on the beads. A good choice of a rune for the compass-bead is the Tiw or Tyr rune, as I explained above, and if you wish you can put the bindrunes for each soul on the beads. 

When your bead-string is complete, you can ‘tally the beads’: move them around on the string as you meditate on the soul that each bead symbolizes. The compass-bead can go on the trailing end of the cord holding the beads together.  You can use this for dowsing, if you like to practice that, where you ask a question that you want your souls to answer, and hold your bead-string over runes, cards, slips of paper with different choices, or whatever else you come up with, and use the motion of the compass-bead to lead you to answers.  Or if you want a bead-string on a continuous loop, without a knot and trailing end, then your leader / compass bead can just go on the string with the others and be their ‘guide’, their Tiw-token.

Here’s a photo of my soul-cord and tally-string, though this tally-string is actually for rune-meditations, not soul lore work, and does not have a compass-bead. I’m showing it here as an example. The soul-cord is woolen yarn, braided at the ends and twisted in the middle, made of 3X9 = 27 strands of deep, mottled shades of green, turquoise, blue, and purple.

The Amulet:

If you have experience, or choose to learn how to make a magical amulet, you can adapt the method and the timing to correspond to your soul-lore studies.  For example, with a bag-amulet, you can bless an herb or other token for each soul during that soul’s initiation ceremony and add it to the bag as you are working with that soul.  Or create a knot-amulet with nine knots for the souls, or use rune-staves, or gemstones, or spagyric tinctures, or whatever method and ingredients you choose.  The amulet-ingredient for each soul can be hallowed during that soul’s initiation ceremony.

The Pendant or other jewelry:

Another approach is to use a single token, perhaps a pendant, necklace, or ring, and imprint the blessings for each soul into that token in layers.  Thus, in the end you will have that single token, with multiple layers of soul-energy imprinted into it. 

Other ideas:

You can also combine some of these methods if you want, for example, create an amulet or pendant and hang it from your completed soul-cord when you are done. If you’re a spinner, spin the yarn for your soul-cord, for your tally-string, or the string to hold an amulet or pendant. Another idea is carving or painting a rune-staff or ceremonial staff with one rune or bindrune per soul. You could compose an original poem or song, with one verse per soul, and sing it during your ceremonies. Some people have made amazing paintings or other artistic media to express their souls. Feel free to use any skill or talent you have, to make your own unique soul-tokens!

Cleansing your Token:

I suggest cleansing token materials beforehand, using a suitable method depending on the material you’re using.  Water with a sprinkle of salt in it works well for many materials, followed by a rinse and drying in the sun.  Other options are laying it in sunlight and / or moonlight for a day or night, or passing it through smoke above burning incense or a small fire of twigs in a fireproof container.  You may have your own preferred method of cleansing. Then use a suitable container to store this token when you are not using or wearing it: a cloth bag or wrapper, a small bowl, jar, or box. 

Using your Token in the Opening Soul Initiation Ceremony

A word about ‘initiation’ in this context. This is not a ‘magical’ initiation, it is a spiritual one. All the soul initiation ceremonies are simple, meaningful but undemanding, serving the literal purpose of initiation, which is ‘beginning.’ You are beginning to learn and know your own souls more deeply and truly. Each soul’s ceremony is intended to serve as a wake-up call, for your conscious awareness and each of your souls to come closer together into full awareness of each other and become more fully integrated in your life and being.

Combining soul lore with magical, esoteric or occult practice is full of excellent potential, I assure you. But these beginning soul-ceremonies are not the place for that. It’s important to get to know your souls well, before you begin any effort to integrate soul lore with whatever your magical or esoteric practices might be. To emphasize the difference between magical and spiritual initiation, I use the words dedicate, bless, or hallow, rather than ’empower, charge,’ and the like, when describing what is happening with your soul-token during the ceremonies. That being said….let’s move on with the instructions.

Each of the souls has their own Initiation Ceremony, but there is also an Opening Ceremony to kick off the whole endeavor. If you have your materials, or some of them, for your soul tokens you can hallow them during this ceremony.

If you are making a soul-cord out of strands that will eventually be braided together, you can take 9 strands, one from each of the colors you plan to use for your individual souls, or a single color if you wish. Dedicate and bless these 9 strands in the opening ceremony. Then, as you work with each soul in turn, use one blessed strand from the opening ceremony, add the other two strands for the individual soul, and hallow them together as you braid them in the initiation ceremony for that soul. If you look at the photo of Creel’s strands, you’ll see that the top of the card holds her 9 strands, hallowed in the opening ceremony, that will be combined with the strands for each of the souls individually.

If you are using a compass bead with a tally-string, dedicate the compass bead in the opening ceremony., and the rest of the beads during each soul’s ceremony. Likewise, dedicate your pendant or other jewelry during the opening ceremony, if you are using that, to begin the process of layering a token of the energies of each soul into it. If you are using carving tools or other tools for your token, hallow them in the opening ceremony. If you are carving or painting a staff or other object, hallow your as-yet uncarved staff during the opening ceremony. If you’re spinning your own cord to use for a token, hallow your flax, wool, spindle. Basically, use the opening ceremony to lay the groundwork of dedication and blessing for the materials you’ll be using to create your soul-token.

(The soul initiation ceremonies will be posted soon.)