Offerings are a big part of my practice. Vajrayana Buddhism is bursting at the seams with offerings, essentially no matter what you do there are offerings. Offerings appear in some of the other traditions I study, and they’ve become part of my personal practice, even when they don’t necessarily exist in the originating tradition they’re still a good practice.
I wanted to share with people the one spirit I work with around offerings, and the practice connected to them. I have found a strikingly similar practice by Sara Mastros, Witch for Hire, which shows that even if you don’t want to engage the spirit I’m talking about, you can still do this. I recommend reading her article for a similar practice without the use of Kroshim.
Kroshim is a spider spirit, she is not really gendered but portrays herself as more femme. I’ve been working with her a while, but feel I still don’t know a lot about her. She seems to be connected to my Sabbatic work, she has that feel to her and she showed up during a period of intense work in that tradition.
Kroshim is a spirit of place and offerings. In some ways she reminds me of the offering dakinis in Vajrayana Buddhism, and in my experience so far they seem to be the only type of spirit with a similar role. It is Kroshim’s job to make sure that offerings are distributed properly, but what does that mean?
How many of us have been at a party, and seen one or two people taking more than their share of shrimp? (Or whatever food item is in demand) Sometimes someone blatantly just fills their plate with shrimp not caring who does and doesn’t get any. Sometimes there is someone who takes smaller plates or eats faster, so they keep going up, and while no trip gives them more shrimp than most people take, because they keep going back the end up eating more.
There are also people on the other side of the equation. We all know the people who don’t want to go back up to get more because they feel awkward, or who skip getting the shrimp because someone (probably the jerk from the first example) is standing right in front of the shrimp and the person doesn’t want to ask them to move. Maybe the person has a bad knee, so they don’t want to stand up again, even though they want more. Sometimes people are just trapped in good conversations that by the time they look up all the shrimp is gone. Some folks just can’t make it to the party, and sometimes the host forgets to invite someone.
As I always say, and probably will repeat until I’m dead and without a physical body: Just because a spirit doesn’t have a physical body, doesn’t mean they’re not a person. Pretty much all of the same quirky nuances that dictate how people get food at a party play out with spirits too, or something similar. This is addressed clearly in some Vajrayana practices, you might call spirits in a specific order, knowing the first ones get the prime choice of offerings, and you might make a special side offering for spirits who are too weak/timid to approach the main offerings. There are reasons, and not all of them are our fault, why not everyone receives the same offerings, even if you have a general offering for all the spirits you work with and all the local spirits.
Kroshim’s bowl, with oil and vodka beside it. That little white patch is the egg.
This is where Kroshim enters the scene, it’s her job to make sure that everyone gets offerings. She is connected to local spirits, but does not seem to be one herself (nor is she singular, as other people have had success working with her), I picture her like a spider, you can pick up a spider and place it anywhere and if it has the right conditions it will build a web. Kroshim’s web stretches out from a central physical location, reaching out toward and past all the different local spirits of different classes. Her web is fine and subtle and there are places where it’s so fine it passes out of our reality into more subtle realms. Her web reaches to the spirits we work with from Above and Below, and those from other places altogether.
When you make offerings to her, she makes sure everyone gets some. She doesn’t care how strong or weak, mean or nice, gross or subtle, sublime or disgusting, known or unknown, she only cares about spreading the offerings. All those spirits too weak to get offerings, or afraid to (or unable to) come into the temple, all the spirits whose presence you aren’t even aware of, she distributes to all of them.
She is the Goddess of the Spirit Feast. She is the Goddess who shares the offerings with all the land spirits and geographically localized spirits. With her all offerings reach all beings, no longer are smaller less powerful spirits left out, the offerings are given to all equally. She is the Goddess of the Offering Egg
So while I do all my normal offerings, dedicated to specific spirits or practices, I also make offerings to Kroshim to make sure that everyone gets something. To make offerings to her I have a bowl and in the bowl I put an egg with her sigil drawn on it.
This isn’t an offering itself, but more of a focal point for her presence. There are three types of offerings given to her: functional, general, and classed.
General offerings are just that, it’s an offering that’s fairly neutral, so that it is agreeable to all the spirits present. Personally I use olive oil and a seed or grain, sometimes mixing vodka in with the oil. Speak to her however you wish when you give her an offering, I usually start with something routine and build from there. “Hail to thee Kroshim, Spider of the Web of Offerings. I call to you, and ask you work with me, and walk with me. Take these offerings and gift them to all. High and Low, Weak and Strong, Peaceful and Wrathful, all spirits of all classes.” I then pour a bit of oil over the egg, and toss on the seeds.
Sometimes I can clearly feel her at work. The energy around the bowl gets heavy, condenses, it feels like a giant spider is descending to see what is caught in the net. As soon as she has the offering though, it just flares out from the bowl along some type of subtle astral threads taking them to everyone. Sometimes she stands in the centre when giving out offerings, other times she travels alone the lines of connection more actively engaged in the process.
Classed offerings are ones that are more traditionally offered to one set of spirits, and while they might be the focus of the offering Kroshim still helps spread it out so everyone gets something. For instance some of my spirits receive tobacco, and while I may make the offering just to them, I’ll often make it in Kroshim’s bowl.
Functional offerings are more about when you have a specific goal. You’re making an offering to the spirits to either represent what you want, or giving them the tools to help. This might be leaving a coin in the bowl for wealth, or a piece of hematite if you want to ground and slow things in general. In terms of tools it can be things like putting in a small craft knife blade when you need protection, or a small mirror when you’re trying to work a glamour.
If her bowl ever gets too full, or things start to spoil (which happens slowly, I’ll have an egg out for her for over two months without anything starting to have the slightest whiff) then I take out the offerings and discard them in my Wild Section. (I have a corner of my backyard that I don’t maintain, I don’t mow the lawn, or trim the trees, I leave that small section wild and untouched, and use it as a place to dispose of offerings) Really you don’t have to do anything special with the left over offerings. Rinse of anything you might want to use again (like a small blade, or opal) otherwise just toss it.
One of the things that makes her an interesting spirit is she has at least two or three forms, and several names. Kroshim seems to be the most general name and form that she has. She has two other aspects though, K’Naia and Kreetal.
They are in my understanding the Ouranic and Chthonic aspects of Kroshim. While Kroshim presents offerings to all, using K’Naia or Kreetal allow you to direct your offerings more towards Ouranic and Chthonic spirits. I fully admit this is a very broad and not always applicable division, but it’s the one she has given me.
As K’Naia she is softer, more feminine. In the Ouranic form she appears like a largely human woman suspended in the air by many many spider leg-like appendages. The legs don’t all touch the ground, many fade out into space, getting more subtle towards the end until it shifts out of this plane. She is a short and squat figure wearing a bland grey dress with a white apron. Her appearance is a shifting overlay of images from old woman to desiccated corpse and back. She is always visible as an old woman, but the cadaverous visage fades in and out over it. One pair of legs holds a large egg, the size of a human head, beneath her suspended form. This egg is the same one as in her offering bowl.
As Kreetal she is a more Chthonic form of herself. In that form the woman’s body is replaced by a beetle-like spider body. The egg held beneath her is a human skull. The rest of her form is basically in the same.
She offers both Ouranic and Chthonic offerings whenever you engage her, but sometimes it seems that either K’Naia or Kreetal is preferable, either depending on the balance of the spirits present, or those that are most ignored by your offerings.
Personally for me K’Naia came through as the strongest aspect, but when testing with others Kreetal was the strongest aspect for almost everyone. Yet when you look at my practice, such as chöd, I already have an emphasis on Chthonic offerings, so K’Naia as the Ouranic makes sense to stand out. Whereas most of my friends do not perform offerings that are as geared toward Chthonic beings, and as such Kreetal was more present for them.
Even if you have no interest in working with Kroshim, if you do offerings, or want to get into it, this type of “Et Al” offering is a great choice. As you can see from Sara’s post on similar you can see how to use the practice without a guiding spirit like Kroshim. Whichever way you attempt it I’m sure you’ll be surprised by how it works after a while.
