It is very tempting to collect lots of tools and I try not to do that, but I began practicing almost 30 years ago, and I’ve always loved wands, so I have gathered a few over the years.

But why make a new wand?

Some of the wands I own are old friends who I worked with at pivotal moments in my life. Sometimes these wands “retire” but they still keep me company.

(Sometimes they come out of retirement too.)

Some of my wands are an active part of my practice, they are connected to specific spirits and like to help with specific work (like the hazel wand that helps with divination).

And in some cases, like the wands my friend was asking about, the process of making a wand, working with the wood itself and the magic it holds, is a way of getting to know the magic of a type of tree.

My wands have personalities, they are beings in their own right (albeit wand-shaped people, not human shaped people) and as often as not making a new wand is a process of getting to know them.

So it isn’t about “using” the wands as tools, but of interacting with them, spending time with them, and seeing what kind of magical team we might make.

Do you have a favourite wand? How do you work with them?

I’ve been thinking even more about wands than usual recently because this is the year the Museum of Magic and Folklore arrives in Wales and our first exhibition is on that one object that everyone knows must be magic…

Our First Exhibition at the Museum of Magic and Folklore: On Magic Wands!

One of our goals is to document contemporary practices, so we’ll be curating online community collections of pictures and text from modern practitioners and members of the magical community… that’s you!

Do you have a wand? Then now’s your chance to help build something unique!