Describe your preferred symbol of spirituality (pentacle, celtic cross, triquerta, etc). Explain what it means to you.

As a witch, the pentacle is my primary spiritual symbol. For me, the five points of the star represent the four elements (earth, air, fire, water) and spirit. The star is also an unending knot, like a Celtic knot, that represents the unending connectedness that we all share. The five points also represent fivefold divinity: the triple aspect of the goddess and the gods of light and darkness. The circle that encompasses it represents the world, the universe and our place within it. It also represents the creative force, great spirit and divine mind.

My teacher, Christopher Penczak likes to place Magicians, Messengers, Tricksters and Travlers in the center of the pentagram. He says that these beings are the walkers between the worlds and that they represent the change between lightness and light and darkness and death, passing from from one realm to another. In nature, there is a time of light and a time of dark, literally and symbolically. With the fivefold divinity and the walker between the worlds, the archetypal beings manifest, and from the archetypal beings come the godforms, the deities of pagan mythology.

Within a magickal context, the pentacle is very powerful energetically. It can contain the energy that we need to use for healing and manifesting positive change and it can protect us against energy that would harm us. We can use it to invoke or to banish

In the tradition of the craft I am studying, it is customary to receive a pentacle pendant after completion of the first stage of training and a pentacle ring after the second stage. (Since that is as far as I've gone with my formal classes, I don't know what comes after stages 3, 4 and 5.)

Here is a great article on the meaning and history of the pentacle.

The Blogickal triskelion.

Christopher's teachings take a very open approach to the craft and leave us lots of room to explore and incorporate those things in our practice of the craft that have the most power and meaning for us. Over time, there are other symbols that have come to resonate strongly with me: the triskelion and the spiral. As I discover more and more about my hereditary connection to ancient Celts and Picts, these symbols' significant presence in Celtic mythology gives them more meaning for me.

The triskelion is the Celtic triple spiral, or triskele, and is sometimes called the spiral of life. The triple spiral is an ancient symbol of Celtic beliefs, and was used consistently in Celtic art for three millenia. The Celts believed that all life moved in eternal cycles, regenerating at each point. Celts also believed that all important things came in three phases, for example: birth, death, and rebirth; or mind, body, and spirit. In neopagan religions, the triple spiral is also used to represent the triple goddess.

Spiral courtesy of Phillippe Wautelet

The spiral is the most common shape in nature and is an ancient spiritual symbol of growth and evolution. Spirals occur naturally in shells, galaxies, DNA, whirlpools and countless other instances, and the human history of the shape stretches back beyond the ancient Celts and Greeks. In two dimensions, a spiral is a curve that winds around a fixed point at a continuously increasing or decreasing distance from that point. Thus the spiral represents the bringing forth of life from a central point as it unwinds, or a return to the center of creation in the other direction. In this latter aspect it embodies the labyrinth that leads to the divine center.

As a symbol of evolution, self-transformation and the forces and patterns underlying creation, the spiral is becoming increasingly important to me as I enter a phase in my life where I am seeking to transform myself and create the person I am destined and hope to become.

Thank you to Witches Weekly for the Q&A.

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 10:18 AM