Since my last post on dirt ran long I decided to split it into two sections. Previously I talked about grave dirt, this time I’ll talk about goal dirt. I wish it had a better name, but it’s simple and gets the point across.
Goal dirt is dirt from a place related to a specific goal. Need a loan, or money? Get dirt from places like your bank, or your city’s financial district. Healing? Dirt from hospitals and temples. Hexing someone? Get dirt from their property (can also be mixed with dirt from places like dumps, prisons, cemeteries, major highways, and unfortunate places). Want a job, dirt from the building. Your imagination is the limit, as is how you use the dirt when you have it.
Goal dirt is a great way to add a physical anchor to your working, how to link it into a place and concept, to target your working and connect with it. Don’t underestimate the usefulness of linking a spell that is tied to a place into that place through the physical foundation, the earth it rests on.
To collect the dirt you need the same three things mentioned for collect grave dirt: offerings, spoon, and container.
Now offerings can be a bit tricky depending on where you are getting dirt from. While it might be a touch uncommon for someone to light incense or a candle at a grave, or even bring food, no one is going to question it. If I sat down in front of my bank though and lit a cone of incense, I’d get weird looks. On one hand as sorcerous people we should be fine with being weird; on the other hand, we don’t want attention sometimes. In this case things we can make use of smaller food offerings, or water which can be poured out of a bottle, or my favourite stealth offering, cigarettes.
My Jovian offering case.
You do pretty much the same thing as you would at a grave. You have the option of either trying to see if there is a spirit of the place you can talk to, as you did with the grave owner, or just work with the energy of the place. I prefer to find a spirit if I can, if not I just work with the flows of energy. Try to find a place, if possible, that is both out of the way, but also connected to the place. So maybe a side path to the building, or out by the sign rather than the door, but still where there is some dirt. Reach out to the spirit, or just gather in the energy. This works well while fake smoking if you take that route.
Again tell the spirit why you want the dirt, what it is for, even if it’s just the energy I find it helpful to clarify the intent out loud. Continuing the stealth sorcery here is where a cellphone comes in handy, cigarette or bottle of water in one hand, cell against your ear, you look completely normal, meanwhile you’re chatting up the spirit/energy of the place. Getting the dirt is a bit trickier. I’m sure you can figure out a way if people are around. One time after tying my shoe I “weeded” a dandelion near my foot growing out of the crack in the sidewalk, looked normal, tossed it in my pocket as I turned around, and then later just took the dirt from the roots. Other times if I just don’t care I reach down with my spoon, just take a scoop and walk off. It all depends on where you’re taking it, your comfort level, and things like that.
If you’re collecting dirt from someone’s place to use against them you might have to collect it quickly, and without asking the spirit of the place. It’s not as powerful, but you do what you can, and a spirit of place might feel protective of the person that lives there. (Usually the energy won’t have the same qualm, which is why meta-modeling is a good thing.)
Use the dirt however you want, mixed with other components, stuffed into poppets and boxes, combined with ink and paint for sigils, whatever.