ritual tools – Poeaxtry's Prism

The Story Behind Creating the Brand Name- Poeaxtry

Poeaxtry_ began as poetry, grew into ritual craft, lapidary art, and community care. All layered with me, Ax (me), at the core of every creation.

The Story Behind Poeaxtry_

Poeaxtry_ started as an idea, a name, a whisper. In 2022, my sister, my friend Dea, and I were brainstorming branding names. Just spit-balling, on snapchat what we thought would eventually be my poetry brand. I wanted a name that carried my voice, experiences, and survival. We landed on Poeaxtry_. Poetry with Ax (me) intertwined. A simple truth that has only rung more true with time.

At first, it was just supposed to be for my poetry collections. Explore themes like (but not limited to): queerness, recovery, identity, and grief. But Poeaxtry_ is stubborn, and begged for more.

From Poetry to Full Creative Practice

Now, Poeaxtry_ encompasses not only my poetry, but handmade lapidary art and rock-hounded creations. Stones I’ve tumbled, polished, sliced for lapidary, slabs that hold texture and story. Ritual tools, wands, spell jars, pendulums, tarot readings, natural sprays, tinctures. Fossil jars and specimens that whisper the histories of the earth. Wreaths, wind chimes, altar decor, and other hand-crafted decor. Journals, zines, and collaborative publishing for marginalized voices. Every piece, every poem, every creation is layered with me, my hands, my heart, my history.

Even as it grew, the Poeaxtry_ branding name still fit like it was made for this life. Poetry, craft, ritual, and community all intertwined. Each item, poem, ritual is a form of poetry itself. A record of what it means to live, survive, create, and witness.

While you’re here, think about your own connection to poetry and craft. What do you create that carries you in it?

A journal entry that tells your story? A handmade object you poured meaning into? A curated ritual, spell, or piece of art you crafted. A poem or reflection that sits in your chest.

Comment below and share what feels most like you. I always find joy when I am able to see how art lives in other bodies.

Poeaxtry_ is about more than what you see in any online shop. It’s about presence, survival, ritual, and care. Not only for myself, but for community. It’s about only leaving traces when ethical. It is a whisper. A chill. a silent look or a shared moment. Standing as proof that you exist at this moment, and that you matter.

Share this post with someone who needs a little creative or spiritual inspiration today. Someone who wants to see poetry and art that live. Stones that speak. Crystals the cry. Rituals that are reminiscent of the care used to create them. Let them know Poeaxtry_ is a space that holds beauty, complexity, and truth.

Check out Poeaxtry_ shops, portfolio, & internal links

Etsy. Payhip. Gumroad. Ko-Fi. Amazon.
Poeaxtry’s Links. Best of Poeaxtry. Journal. Poem

Want to explore more?

Visit Poeaxtry and the Prism’s Archive Cheat Sheet. Discover all post categories, with a blurb and link to full post archive for each. Then find every post in that category in chronological order.

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January 11, 2026

How to Set Up a Witch’s Altar with the Five Elements | Beginner Altar Guide

Build your altar with purpose 🌿 This layout aligns your sacred space with the five classical elements. These elements are earth, air, fire, water, and spirit. Each spot holds its own energy and meaning, so you can bring balance and intention to your practice.

Use simple, natural tools you already have at home. Swap them out seasonally or whenever you feel called. Remember, your intention is the magic powering the whole thing.

🕯️ Center -Spirit:

This is the heart of your altar where your connection to spirit or higher power is focused. Place a candle here for illumination and presence. You can also place a deity symbol or statue. This will honor the divine force guiding your practice. You can also use a crystal cluster, sacred object, or meaningful talisman that helps you feel spiritually rooted. This spot grounds your intention and centers your energy, making it the spiritual anchor of your sacred space.

💧 Left -Water:

Water represents emotion, intuition, and cleansing energy. Use a small bowl filled with water, a cup, a shell, or even a vial of rain or spring water. This element invites flow and adaptability. It reminds you to listen to your inner feelings. Wash away what no longer serves you. You can add fresh flowers to highlight flow. Include sea glass and blue crystals like aquamarine to emphasize depth. Use a small fountain to accentuate water’s movement.

🔥 Right -Fire:

Fire fuels transformation, passion, and courage. Place a candle, wand, incense burner, or even dried herbs like cinnamon or rosemary that burn easily. Fire brings light and energy, helping you ignite your inner spark and bring boldness to your magic. Symbols of the sun, red or orange stones, or matches and lanterns can also amplify this energy. This is where your drive lives, the motivation, and power behind your spell work.

🌬️ Top – Air:

Air represents communication, clarity, and mental energy. Use feathers, incense, dried herbs like lavender or sage, bells, or even a smudge fan here. Air helps you connect with thought, breath, and inspiration. You might also add a quill pen, scroll, or even paper for affirmations or spells. This space invites new ideas, clears the mental fog, and opens the way for honest self-expression.

🌍 Bottom – Earth:

Earth offers stability, grounding, and growth. Place salt, crystals, herbs, soil, stones, or even a tiny potted plant. Earth holds the energy of protection and abundance, helping you root your practice in something real and lasting. You can also use pinecones, green or brown cloth, or seasonal produce. This spot connects you to your foundation and reminds you of your place in nature’s rhythm.

⸻

Seasonal swaps

Keep your altar fresh and in tune with the world around you:

In spring, add flowers, pastel stones, or seed packets.

In summer, try shells, bright candles, or sun symbols.

For autumn, dried leaves, mini pumpkins, or warm-toned cloth.

In winter, use evergreens, pine cones, white or dark candles, and cinnamon sticks.

Use what you have, follow your intuition, and let your altar grow with you. It doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to feel right.

Beginner & Advanced Usable Altar set-up with Seasonal changes

Gumrode Free PDF Payhip Free PDF

🖤 Find all my work across platforms — zines, ebooks, spellwork, and more:

🔗 Links

May 30, 2025

A Beginner’s Guide to Witchcraft: Tools, Types, and Grounding Rituals

Introductory guide to Witchcraft.

Your grounding guide for the curious learner, the new witch, and the wild-hearted human.

Popular Types of Witchcraft:

📗 Green Witch:
Focuses on plants, herbs, and nature-based energy. Earth Magic, healing, and growing things with intention.

✨Hedge Witchcraft:
Spirit work, intuition, and journeying beyond the veil. Often solitary & rooted in ancestral magic.

🥄Kitchen Witchcraft:
Magic happens in daily life. This can look like tea spells or bread rituals. It involves using specific herbs and stirring intention into meals, etc. The hearth is the altar.

🌌Chaos Magic:
The tool is your belief, less about traditions & more about results, highly adaptable & intuitive. Experimental, individualistic practice.

🌟Eclectic Witchcraft:
No strict rules, pulls from many paths and systems, personal, and fluid. Think if it works, work it.

🕷Wicca:
Modern Pagan religion, has deities, ritual structure, and seasonal celebrations. Not all witches are wiccan.

✍Traditional witchcraft:
Rooted in old folk practices. often ancestral, regional, and passed through knowledge.

🔮Divination Focused Witchcraft:
Uses tarot, runes, pendulums, and other tools to access insight and hidden knowledge.

💧Elemental Witchcraft:
Works directly with the elements. Earth Air Fire Water Spirit as living forces.

🔨Common Tools & Their uses.

Wand: Used for channeling energy and directing it during rituals.

Cauldron: A vessel for burning incense, herbs, and other materials, and also for brewing potions and activating spells.

Pentacle: A disc representing a star, often used in rituals for protection and consecration.

Chalices: A stemmed cup for holding liquids like water, wine, or cider, used during rituals.

Athame: A ceremonial knife, usually with a black handle, used for ritual purposes like directing energy and creating sacred spaces.

Boline: A knife, typically with a curved blade, used for harvesting herbs and other cutting-related tasks.

Kirfane: A knife, often with a white handle, used for inscribing candles or cutting ritual cords.

Book of Shadows: A personal record of spells, rituals, and other important information.

Altar: A sacred space where rituals, offerings, and other magical work are performed.

Broom (Besom): Used to sweep and clear areas before rituals, both physically and energetically.

Candles: Used for various purposes, including spell work, focusing intention, and illuminating sacred spaces.

Salt: A purifying and protective substance, often used in cleansing rituals and spell work.

Crystals: Used for their energetic properties and healing qualities.

Mirrors: Can be used for divination (scrying) and other purposes.

Bells: Used to ward off negative energy and unwanted spirits.

Mortar & Pestle: Used to grind herbs and magical ingredients; blends the practical and the sacred

Herbs: Core to most craft. burned, brewed, buried, or scattered for purpose.

Censer: used to dispense incense

🔊Preparing Mindset & Space for Spell work:

1. Clean your space & clear the air. Physically tidy up, burn herbs, open windows, clap in corners, and move stagnant energy. Can use tools like bells, chimes etc.

2. Get Grounded. Touch Earth, skin to skin. Breathe deep, hold a stone, anchor into your body and Earth.

3. Set intention. Out loud (important) Speak what you are here to do with conviction. let your voice make it real.

4. Gather tools not with expense but with meaning. Use what resonates with you, a matchstick with your energy is much more magical than some expensive wand.

5. Cleanse your tools. Smoke, Salt, Moonlight, Sound, and even water not to purify but to charge and align.

6. Hydrate & nourish. Don’t cast on empty, water and food keep your energy stable. make sure your filled up with your drink nearby.

7. Sobriety Matters. Be clear-headed unless altered states are intentional and sacred. Clarity helps you channel, see more clearly, and keep safe. Presence = Power. Medicines from doctors and Marijuana not included.

8.Shun the self-doubt. Believe in your work. You can envision yourself getting somewhere. Act, think, and live in the headspace that you are there. Skepticism in a spell at any point weakens it. If you aren’t 10000% sure don’t do the working yet.

9. Again, see the goal as already being received. Never cast from a place of lack. Feel the results like they are in your bones.

10. Cast your Salt Circle. Gather any kind of salt like black, pink, sea, or Mortin. Stand where you want your working to happen. Just breathe. Pour salt in a full circle around you clockwise. Speak aloud or think protective words. Encompass yourself in a mass of white light if you know how. If not, we will visit this soon. If you can’t do the bonus step above, that’s fine. But this one you need to master before doing spells. Visualize the light sealing the circle as you complete it. If you need to leave, make a door and reclose the door when reentering. See memo below list on steps to open a door.

11. Setting intentions and starting your spell work. Light candles, speak clearly, move slowly. MEAN EVERY WORD. You aren’t simply asking you are shifting reality.

OH NO I HAVE TO TAKE A PEE WHAT EVER WILL I DO?

Pause Cut a Door, imagine unzipping or parting the circle where you plan to exit.
use your hand wand or athame and say: “I open this doorway with respect I shall return in Peace.”

Now step through the gap slowly and mindfully.

After you return and step back through the gap in the circle, retrace the salt line at the gap. Say “The circle is whole once more.” Then say, “My work continues protected.”

When all the work is done:
Thank Spirits, energies, and or guides.
Sweep or dissolve the circle counterclockwise and say, “The circle is open, but never broken. May the work be sealed in truth.”
Dispose of salt responsibly and respectfully. Never scatter in grass as it dehydrates and ruins Mother Earth. Rinse it away using water if possible.

If you have any questions, I have a contact page. It has every place you’ll ever find me. Alternatively, you can email me at poeaxtry@gmail.com