Hey all! I recently bought a travel love altar kit from the Spells of Magic shop, and I got a cool little bottle of pink sand! However, I am a bit naive when it comes to beach magick and google hasn't helped.
What do I do with pink sand?
Unless it is pink salt (which can look like sand when ground up), the only use of sand that I know of is purely practical. Pile it about an inch-or-so deep in a small bowl, so you have a place to put incense. Sit a cone on it, or poke a stick into the sand so it can stand and burn safely.
Pink (usually himalayan) salt has similar function to regular salt; Salt is a grounding and protective substance, most commonly used in making magical barriers or sacred spaces. For example to barr negativity from the home, one would leave a thin line of salt across doorways and window sills. Or it would be used to draw a circle around the Self for protection.
A lot of cultures have a list of beings that don't like salt, or being near it. Fae, various ghosts and other spirits, and if I remember correctly a version or two of vampire as well.
Salt is considered a cleanser, or remover of things that are not desired. ...Have you ever had a hangnail that got infected and really swollen/tender, and soaked it for an hour in salty water? You might remember the soak literally pulling out the infection, leaving behind a floating bit of gunk. Think of salt as doing that energetically too. Pulling the gunk out of the air.
Finally, salt is often kept/placed on the altar on a shallow plate so it can be used in ritual, or as a bed to lay items that have something attached to them you want to remove. For example clearing/de-programming a crystal, or preparing an athame or wand for blessing and awakening. Or to pull out a spell or attachment from a talisman or heirloom. ...Basically whenever you want to return an object to an energetic clean slate.
I'd advise looking into the correspondences for both the color and for the substance.
As a base representation, Sand is earth. It is most likely silicone dioxide -- quartz, the most common compound on the planet -- pulverized from solid rock into sand by action of erosion on its way to the ocean, at the shore, or from exposed bedrock beneath the waves. It's up to you to decide if it's plain-old Earth, or if you want to add some other associations based on your perception like the court cards in the minor arcana: Water of Earth, or Earth of Water, for example. I think sand is a good elemental representatin of Earth on an altar, as it also shows working with other elements and not exclusivity. But these are only my own ideas.
Similar can be said of its being pink: What does pink represent to you? Love? What kind of love? Kindness? Mild temprament (as opposed to the boldness of crimson or bright red)? Excitement?
In this way, you immediately have a useful tool to have present in workings as you see fit, or as a static piece for your own purposes.
I have read of a practitioner who added intent and energy to sand and would leave it on a targets property. The practitioner felt that the energy left in the sand would be difficult to trace back to the practitioner. Different forms of sand could be used based on intent in example, graveyard or court dirt.
