Blessings Wildlings! As those of you who follow the Wheel know, Imbolc is just around the corner. The exact date varies depending on each individual practice, but I personally celebrate on the 1st, which seems to be the most common date I see others celebrating. For me and many others who follow a Celtic path, Imbolc marks the beginning of the year.
Imbolc is a celebration of the Celtic goddess Brighid, and embodies the energies of renewal, gestation, and the spark of new life flickering into existence. Brighid herself is a powerful goddess of healing, feminine power (especially fertility), poetry, and love. She is also often associated with the art of smithing, and can be seen as a patron of warriors from this perspective. Imbolc itself marks the arrival of spring, and rests between the solstice and equinox periods of Yule and Eostre.
In honor of the upcoming day, I've made Wish Eggs! Wish Eggs are magickal eggs that have been filled with intention and an individual wish, and are intended to help grow and manifest these energies throughout the year. Eggs are often associated with Eostre, another ancient Celtic goddess, as well, but I personally also feel like they embody the fertility and feminine aspects which Brighid is so well known for. In this post, I will teach you how to make your very own wish eggs to welcome in the swiftly arriving season of spring with a bit of magick and whimsy.
Are you ready? Let's get started by getting all our materials together!
What You'll Need:
A candle or some melted wax
Ashes from incense or hearth
A bowl to catch the egg contents
Colored pens or pencils
Crystals and herbs to help symbolize your wishes (optional)
Eggs, one for each wish
Mortar and pestle*
Paper
Paintbrush or toothpick
Salt
Scissors
Wand
* If you don't have a mortar and pestle, the black salt we'll be using to decorate the eggs in the instructions below can be replaced with acrylic paint or markers.
1. Hollow the Eggs
If you're using farm fresh eggs, like I am lucky to be able to, you'll also need to clean them first! Otherwise, take a pointed and hard object (the tip of your scissors or a knife work well), and carefully poke a small hole in one end of the egg. While holding a finger over this small hole to ensure the vacuum holding in the contents of the egg is intact, on the other side of the egg, poke a slightly larger hole, which will be large enough to fit your crystals, herbs, and wish into. Be gentle and patient while taking on this process - they are eggs, after all.
I've included some pictures below to give you a better idea of what I'm talking about! Don't worry too much about the holes being perfectly round or pretty - we'll be covering them up later on, anyway.
Once you've poked the larger hole, you may have to use a pair of tweezers or something similar to carefully pull out the membrane if it has not broken away on its own while you made the hole. Otherwise, place the large hole towards your catching bowl, and blow the white and yolk from the egg into it. You can do it either way, really, but it's much easier to get all the egg insides out using that larger hole!
I personally give the eggs to my dog (he loves them), but it also makes a wonderful treat for the many critters out in nature if you would like to make them part of your offering. Everything from bugs to birds love eggs! Please make sure you cook the egg, as raw egg can carry salmonella bacteria, which is dangerous to a wide variety of animals, including dogs. Crows, ravens, and other corvids, seem to especially love finding a bit of scrambled egg outside from my experience, because they are very high in protein, and quite rare in the wild, especially in February.
2. Make Black Salt for Decorating the Eggs
While you may already have some black salt made up, the size of the salt granules will make the next part of the Wish Egg process more difficult than necessary, and possibly even impossible! To have the best results, powder the salt before adding your ashes. As fine as possible is best. We'll be using the black salt as a sort of painting pigment, and as a means to keep negative or disruptive energies from effecting our magick within the egg itself.
I use a blend of incense ash and ash from my hearth. However you make black salt will be wonderful! For a bit of extra oomph, herbs and crystals can also be added to the powder, or specific boughs, herbs, and incense types can be burned to make your ashes.
Did you know? The color Ultramarine was historically made from crushed lapis lazuli stones! It was popularized throughout Europe by Italian traders importing this beautiful stone from Afghanistani mines during the 14th and 15th centuries.
3. Decorate exterior of the Egg
Remember our wax and/or candle? It's their shining moment! Whether the intended design is free handed or pre-drawn on your egg (it's really up to you!), we'll be using this common witchy tool to add some additional symbolism and meaning to the exterior of the egg.
Using a small paintbrush or a toothpick with one end frayed to be used a paintbrush, daub up a small amount of the wax and black salt. If you don't feel confident putting ink to egg just yet, feel free to do a bit of practice on paper. How you design and decorate the egg is up to you, but I highly recommend that your imagery matches the wish that will be contained within.
Using small and deliberate strokes, begin decorating. Your lines will likely be thick, and should be raised off the surface of the egg. This is a relatively slow process, because the wax cools quickly. Intention and focus are key! Any mistakes or undesired lines can be easily removed by chipping off the undesired wax, so don't worry too much about perfection.
Cover the entire egg or as much of the egg as possible with your design. As mentioned above, the black salt is serving a shield against negative energies, and will be protecting your wish as it grows into fruition. By covering as much of the egg as possible, the level of protection is increased. I usually wind up covering up the small hole on the egg during this stage, as well, by working the design over it. The black salt does a really good job of hiding it away all together.
On each of my Wish Eggs, I've included a bind rune made of Berkana inside of Ingwaz. I can't think of a more fitting symbolism, to be honest! To learn more about the runes, check out the Runic Wisdom section here in the Bard's Corner, or give my Instagram a follow! I talk about them there every Thursday.
4. Making Wishes
On small strips of paper, record your wishes. These can be written affirmations, bind runes, or chaos sigils - anything, really! I suggest sticking with what comes most easily and naturally to you. I personally use a combination of bind runes and written requests.
Using color is important at this stage, because it adds another layer of intention. Some additional things you can do to amplify the energy and intention of your wish include using handmade paper imbued with herbs, daubing oils or moon water onto the paper, or charging your wishes beforehand on an altar or using the moon.
Fold each wish into a long and thin shape when you're ready to move onto the next stage. It needs to be small enough to fit inside the large hole we made in our egg during step 1.
5. Fill the Egg
Using the larger of the two holes on your egg, begin adding some herbs and small stones that help amplify the energy of your wish (if you are adding them at all!). When the egg is about halfway full, add in your wish slip, and then continue to add in more herbs and crystals. I make my eggs just full enough to make pretty rattling sounds as the crystals shift inside of them, but how you make yours is up to you!
In addition to physical things, you can also whisper affirmations, sing a song, or speak or blow the wish itself into your egg.
Intention and mindset during this stage is important, especially if you are only adding the wish slip, because these energies are being placed inside the egg with your wish.
Be careful while slipping things into your egg. The shell will be structurally weak around the hole, especially, and it's very easy to accidentally crush or damage the egg (and subsequently, find yourself starting over) at this stage especially.
6. Seal the Egg
Using your plain wax, seal up the holes! It's much easier to do if your egg has a good amount of herbs and other stuff on the inside, but patience and a gentle touch should do the trick either way. Technically, this is probably the hardest part! The goal is to make sure that the hole is completely sealed, allowing a safe and cozy space for our wishes to gestate into fruition.
Once the wax has slightly hardened, as shown to the right, you can carefully scrape away unnecessary or overly thick patches in the wax.
If you're using a white egg, the seal will be mostly invisible. I have cream eggs available to me, and so the seals are easy to see - but that ultimately is a good thing for this how to guide, right?
7. Completing the Spell
Once you've finished up your wish eggs, let them charge at your altar for at least three days. Three is an immensely meaningful number in Celtic culture, and is also important to Brighid, who is herself a triple goddess in a lot of lore. Once a day, I pick up my egg, and think about the wish within manifesting and coming into fruition, much like I did throughout the process of making it, to help reaffirm my desire, and the intention of the spell itself.
When they're good and charged, they can either be buried in the earth, or left within the nooks and hollows in the roots of a favorite tree friend. Dawn is the most appropriate time of day, but any time of day or night works! I allow my intuition to guide me in both of these regards. Wherever they are placed, care should be taken to ensure that they are not likely to be disturbed by other people or animals.
To add to and amplify the magick, moon water can be used to "water" the wishes on the day you bury them, as well as periodically afterwards. The sigil or wish itself can also be duplicated and left on an altar space with a deity or guide to sequester their help in manifesting your wish.
When your wish manifests, be sure to give gratitude to the Goddess, any relevant guides and deities, and the universe itself! Offering something to the ground or tree in which the wishes were left is great way to express thanks. From planting something that will benefit the local flora and fauna to leaving a bit more egg out for the corvids, I'm sure you'll think of just the thing when the time comes!
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