You read the title and you’re like, “UM, ANNIE… WHUT?!” Yeah, I can hear you saying it out loud in your mind and I don’t blame you.

Friends, I’ve gotten into some witchy things lately. It’s partly stuff I’ve been fascinated with since I was a kid (astrology and rock collecting) and partly some Basic-Elder-Millennial-2020-woo.

I was in a very cool mystical store called KIN in the East Village of Des Moines last fall for a Midwestival trip, browsing through jewelry and crystals and considering buying some sage to burn… because my friend had done a tarot reading for me that implied I should burn some sage but I still have no idea how one does that.

The shop owner and I started chatting about my childhood rock collection. I already had a lot of the stones on their display table, but I didn’t know what any of them were supposed to do.

“Are these rocks all jumbled together somewhere?” she asked.

“Um, yeah,” I replied, recalling my husband making jokes about this jumble every time we’ve moved the literal box of rocks to a new house.

“Get them out of the box,” the shop owner said. “They need jobs. Sometimes I even put mine into my bra.”

It was a bold thing to say to a stranger, but something about that clicked for some reason. When I got home, I started giving jobs out to the members of my rock collection… and also doing the bra thing, LOL.

The amethyst sits on the dining room table to ward off negativity and promote calm and collected vibes (with a toddler who may or may not be eating any of her dinner).

The ocean jasper sits on the ledge above the kitchen sink to manifest actions over complacency (i.e. trying to be better at not leaving all the dishes in the sink every time I cook).

The sodalite goes in my bra when I want to be confident and well-spoken in a presentation. It’s supposed to be connected to the throat chakra. (Despite the sodalite, I am rarely well-spoken in important presentations—I’m very good at writing words, and then maybe 4th grade level at speaking words.)

As a half-hearted witch, I don’t know if I necessarily believe that the crystals themselves hold physical power, but they are tangible reminders of the intentions I set for my day or the energy I want to cultivate in a certain room (or inside my brassiere).

These crystals are like a more beautiful version of an encouraging post-it note or a motivational poster with cats on it… and that seems powerful enough to me.