What Do You Do With Leftover Spell Ingredients?

How many of you gather all the ingredients for your spell work, work your spell and then look around wondering what in the world you are supposed to do with the candle stubs, herbs, stones, and other magickal goodies that remain in your workspace? This is probably one of the questions I get asked most frequently and luckily it’s a pretty easy answer. 

Let’s go through this step by step.

Is it something that you raised energy for that you wanted to keep? Some examples would be charging a stone or a ritual tool.  If you directed energy toward an object or you made something it’s absolutely fine to hold onto it.

Stones – Usually we will work multiple spells with stones.  You can reuse stones as long as you cleanse them.  If they are water safe you can rinse them in cool water.  If the stone you are working with is not water-safe cleanse it with white sage.

Other items that you are working with you need to judge on a case-by-case basis. I always recommend that if you can use mini objects in your ingredients do that. It’s a great way to let things go when you are done with them without having as big of an impact. If you choose to work with things more than once you need to look to make sure that they have the same energy. If not you can find that they will disrupt the energy that you are trying to raise. Please note that most, if not all, of your ritual tools can be cleansed for use another time.

A lot of things can be burned safely and effectively.  This is a great way to cleanse the items by giving them back to Mother Earth.  You don’t have to have a ritual fire but it should be a fire that you use for anything else? So for instance you don’t want to roast s’mores on top of an old Yule Log.  There are safety reasons and energy reasons for this. I would not burn something that has energy that is questionable. If I have something with energy that I’m not comfortable with burning I will bury it.

You are going to find things that cannot be burned.  These items can usually be buried safely.  In fact, you will find many a witch that has a spell ingredient graveyard in their yard. The Earth will reclaim the objects, cleanse the energy and break them down.  Sometimes there are going to be objects that you have that are associated with energy that you really just don’t want in your life.  If you are working a spell to help remove someone from your life or cut a cord you wouldn’t want that type of energy in your yard either.  In that case, a nice solution is to make a trip out to the forest and find a quiet place in the woods to bury your objects.  

So what if you have something that isn’t safe to burn or bury or you just don’t live in a place where this is practical? It happens.  You can properly dispose of things in the trash.  You just want to do it a little differently than tossing it in on top of yesterday’s half a ham sandwich and leftover corn. Do something to put some closure to the item.  So for example you could put them in a paper bag and wrap them three times around with some twine.  In doing so you are closing the energy on these objects.

Have a magickal day!

Much Love and Many  Blessings,

Jasmeine Moonsong