Natural Curios — Side Notes
Some things don’t fit neatly into categories, and insisting that they try usually misses the point. Other natural curios are the fragments, leftovers, and liminal materials—the shells, bones, feathers, fossils, oddities, and in-between things that slip past tidy classifications while still carrying undeniable presence. They are the objects people keep without knowing exactly why, only that discarding them would feel like a mistake.
The Side Notes in this section follow instinct rather than taxonomy. This is where found objects become talismans, where roadside discoveries gather stories, and where curiosity outweighs formal correspondence. These pieces explore how people incorporate the overlooked and the uncanny into personal practice, folklore, décor, and superstition—often intuitively, sometimes impulsively, and almost always meaningfully.
If other archives focus on what something is, this space asks what it becomes once it’s noticed, kept, or carried. No altar required. Just attention, context, and a willingness to sit with things that resist tidy explanation.
Featured Side Notes
You can also find these articles—and many more—within the main Grimoire Blog.
Amulets & Talismans: Charging Objects for Protection — Amulets and talismans have been used for centuries to protect individuals and attract positive energy. Discover the difference between the two, how to choose them, and how to charge them with intention for maximum protection and empowerment.
Other natural curios exist on the edge of intention. They aren’t standardized tools or prescribed ingredients—they’re reminders that magic often begins with noticing rather than planning. A bone picked up on a walk, a feather left at the doorstep, a fossil pressed into someone’s palm at the right moment—these things accumulate meaning through proximity and story, not instruction manuals.
The Side Notes don’t try to pin these objects down. They trace how people relate to them, argue over them, misuse them, treasure them, and pass them on. Some curios will feel comforting. Others may feel unsettling. Both reactions are useful.
This is not a category for certainty. It’s a category for attention—and for honoring the strange, persistent impulse to keep what the land offers without explanation.
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