Spirit Anchors Part 2
In part 1 of this series, I talked about what a spirit anchor is, in my terminology (any object that helps bring someone in closer connection with a spirit), and the spectrums of distinction that different ones can have (Is it a body or a home? Is it dedicated or flexible? Is it discovered or constructed?). These questions aren't just a way to catalog an anchor; they're intrinsically part of defining and understanding the relationship that's at the heart of the work. Considering them helps answer two much more complicated and central questions for any magical activity: how, and why.
First, the question of "body or home" requires knowing more than a little about the spirit or spirits you're reaching out to, and the sort of experience you will both have from the relationship. For myself, I've often enlivened plushies simply for the sake of having companions, folk I can talk to who I trust understand me, or who can be with me when others can't. But I've also had some plushies who arrive in my care as such bright and vibrant characters that I reach out to them as sources of inspiration, someone I might aspire to be more like, myself. In both these cases, the relationship benefits from a sense of embodiedness: someone to keep with me, someone to look to as an example. Having them inhabit their end of the relationship makes it clear that this shape of faux fur and fabric is them on a meaningful level.
Conversely, when my attention turns toward a spirit home, it might be because there's something about the space, a spirit already there, who wants to be recognized… or it's a place that I want to bring particular spirits to, enchanting or honoring it. For example, the Wanderers shrine in my front yard came about after I started doing morning tea offerings, and wanted a place to not just pour some out for my gods, but also sometimes to sit and simply be with them. In all cases of a home-like spirit anchor, the relationship I'm hoping for is a sense of presence, of meeting, of folk waiting or arriving at that location to spend time together. The embodiment isn't the point, the environment is.
Notice that in both these cases (and indeed when creating an anchor in general) it's not just about what I want. If I build a body or a home intended for someone else, but I do it without considering them, I've done a whole lot of work for nothing. The body is a place for them to be embodied, because that's the relationship they want. Likewise, the home must be a place that they want to meet at. The willingness to have that sort of relationship is fundamental, even before considering what sort of trappings might appeal to them.
The second question then, dedicated or flexible, provides a lot of nuance to that question of trappings. It's a different task to provide an anchor to a single spirit than to a broader group, and it's, once again, a different sort of relationship as well. A dedicated anchor is a real commitment to a single individual, one you either already know well, or intend to know better and better over time. You can put a lot of investment in making it just right for them, or customizing it to that growing understanding, with the anchor itself acting as a manifestation of that relationship. You can bet that if you see one of my plushies with a collar, a bracelet, or a piece of clothing, that it's emblematic of my greater understanding and connection to them.
But a flexible anchor is its own sort of commitment. Consider the extra work that goes into cleaning a shared hotel room, compared to one that someone lives in long-term. A flexible anchor suggests hospitality to a wider group, spiritfolk with whom you may not have a deep relationship, but who you still want to feel welcome. Seeing my Wanderers shrine as a gathering-place for a wide variety of deities whose names I know (and likely some I don't), I had to think a lot about what they all share in common. I focused on cosmology, and on a combination of animal forms, since for me all the Wanderers are theriomorphic. I called to all of them as I put it together, and now that it's made, I take special care to keep it ready for them with every offering, so that it's a place where I'm proud to meet with my gods.
The most complicated questions of spirit-anchor construction, however, rest in that third question: How much is creating the anchor a process of constructing something for a spirit, and how much is it discovery about a spirit? When I'm taking this question seriously, I can never phrase it as just an either-or; it's always some of both. It's simple to see how this is the case for a spirit-body: Denying any intrinsic nature of the form I'm creating feels like denying reality. As I've talked about before (link to servitor thing TK), I don't believe "servitor creation" is a thing I should pursue; I'm not even sure it's possible. Enlivening a plushie, or any other spirit-anchor is a collaboration between myself, the essence of the materials, and the nature of the spirit themself. Even the most open-ended process of discovery is shaped by my own experience, and even the most rigorous of constructions always results in a spirit with some unexpected aspect, because if they couldn't surprise me, would they really be a person?
The same is true though with spirit-homes, if only because in an animist world, nothing can truly simply be a vessel, without having some of its own person-hood, and the specifics of the materials again affect the sort of being the spirit-home will become. The bones and shell that I used to make the Wanderers shrine of course have ties to a prior existence, but so do the minerals, whether you see them as part of a long-ago ocean, or simply part of the earth itself. As I created the shrine (as I create anything), it was important to connect to them as themselves, first during selection, then during assembly. They speak to me in nudges, in where my attention falls, in how different things sit against each other and slot into place this way but not that way. There was a moment when they finally stopped being pieces, and started working together as a whole, when I knew we'd come to an understanding, and when I felt my gods come near to explore the place that had been made for them.
I started creating spirit anchors because I was curious and playful. In a world full of spirits, how could I not want to be closer to more of them? As light-hearted as those first plushie-awakenings were, they led me to much deeper thoughts, of ontology, of ethics, of what else the practice could mean. Even having written so much about it, I still feel like I'm only at the beginning of my understanding. Whether I'm playing with a friendly spirit-creature, or performing an act of devotion to my gods, I'm glad to have this way of exploring, relating, and deepening bonds.