Spirit Anchors - Part 1
I have a lot of plushies. Anyone who's visited the Eyrie for one of our seasonal rituals has at least seen them: watching over the goings-on in the gameroom, providing cozy spots to recline in the greatroom, or practically blanketing the Junction. Given I'm an animist, I'm sure it's not surprising that I have a sense of them as people. It may not even be surprising to know that I've explored some magical practice involving that. But it was surprising, even to me, that playfully exploring the question "how do I get to know my plushies as people?" led me to a deeper understanding of spiritworker practice more broadly.
Because I'm both fantasy-prone and an esoterica nerd, my initial efforts along these lines bounced back and forth between two different approaches to that question. One was classically 'magical': a ritual operation to shape spiritual energy into something that feels like a person, as I described what sort of critter I wanted them to be. The other was very simple and straightforward: Just treat them like people. Ask them their name, talk to them to find out about what they like and where they came from, imagine them hugging back when I hug them. Both these approaches were successful, if only in terms of being a rewarding exercise of imagination. A plushie, focused on in such a way, felt more "real", more salient, more like a friend than simply like something I bought at a store.
But also, because I'm the sort of critter who overthinks pretty much everything I do, a question crept up on me, the more I did this. Aren't those two approaches fundamentally incompatible? One imposes an identity on an object, the other asks for one to be revealed. If everything has a spirit… is it based on my relationship, or on something innate? And this is where the question expanded to touch the rest of my spiritwork as well: if material objects have their own spiritual dimension, what part do they play in reaching out to the imaginal spirits that we so often want to know better? What are we really doing when we try to make a place for the imaginal among the material?
This is one of the core questions a spiritworker faces when taking on the practice of creating a 'spirit anchor', which is the term I've taken on for any physical object that helps someone get better in touch with a spirit. Of course, these have many other names and come in many other forms in many other traditions. My intent here isn't to subsume any of those, just to explore my own understanding. By this terminology, the plushies I talk to are spirit-anchors, as is the Wanderers shrine in my front yard made of deer antlers and a coyote skull. But the field of possibilities for these objects is fast. Even considering those two examples, there's a fundamental difference in feel between them that's worth exploring, because it helps us explore what these objects are doing, and how we can help them do it better.
One of the methods I've used to think about this is a sort of taxonomy, though one that operates more by describing a space by its axes, rather than by defining specific groups. It asks three questions about anchors that probe the specifics of what it means to craft animistic experiences. And since these are axes, the answer to any of them may fall somewhere along a spectrum, rather than a simple either/or.
First: Is the anchor meant to be the spirit, or a place where the spirit dwells? This is one of the most obvious distinctions when looking at spirit-objects, since people of many traditions craft both spirit-bodies (such as icons and statues) and spirit-homes (like shrines and altars). Both sorts are things that a spirit can 'inhabit', but in two different senses of the word. Both are likely to receive offerings, but one is fed directly, while the other is filled so that the inhabitant may serve themself. And, of course, what they show about the intended 'occupant' is different as well: A spirit-body should match the spirit's form, and a spirit-home is aligned with the spirit's desires.
Second: Is the anchor used by a single specific spirit, or a broader group? A forest shrine might be meant for any passing spirit, or dedicated to a specific deity of the hunt, and that purpose and scope will make a big difference in what it looks like, or what will be left there as an offering. Spirit-bodies at first seem like they might be more likely to be dedicated, but consider the ideas of bodily possession or aspecting; many practitioners seek to make themselves conduits for more than one spirit. And both dedicated and flexible anchors are valuable: one supports deep and long-term connection, the other provides versatility, and the potential for serendipitous experience.
Finally, the question that gets back to the overthinking that I mentioned earlier: Is the spirit already there in the anchor, or is the spirit being brought in from somewhere else? This is subtler than it seems. As I touched on before when talking about animist ethics, we can't live in the world without affecting other spirits, but it's important to consider effect and relationship. It's reasonable for materials to want to be something, to be built into a shrine with a greater purpose. It's also understandable for an altar-piece to arrive with its own set of opinions, giving the practitioner the sense that it will be offered to this way and placed in that location, as part of a strong working relationship. The process of establishing an anchor can feel like construction, but it can also feel like discovery, understanding more about the spirit that's already there, enabling them to become more fully themselves. Going back to my original example, I'd claim that some plushies "expect" to be used as vessels for imagination… and others have a strong sense of themselves already, that one has to get to know.
This model helps me think and talk about the interplay between the physical and spiritual as I understand it. My plushies, in general, are bodies, dedicated to the spirits I discovered within: they are simply themselves, and I understood them better by getting to know them (maybe with a little extra energywork to feel them out better). My Wanderers shrine in the front yard is more like a home, flexible enough for many deities to visit, and of course constructed, though even there I took care to get to know the materials before crafting them into that shape. So there's more to it than picking answers from three lists; the real work is in understanding the needs and expectations of the spirit I'm building an anchor for. Like anything else in animism, it's about building relationships. In part 2, I'll go deeper into just what that work looks like for me.