The grid is a wordsearch, and contains the following thematic words.
Reading W<-->E:
EIGHTH NOTE, CHAINS, JUNO, PLUTO, COMET, RAIN, FLOWER, SEXTILE, PICK,
NEUTER, PISCES, FLEUR-DE-LIS, ALEMBIC, ANCHOR, HOT SPRINGS, SHAMROCK,
EARTH, YIN YANG, WHITE FLAG, SATURN, HOT BEVERAGE
Reading N<-->S:
NO ENTRY, CERES, ADI SHAKTI, LIBRA, FERRY, ARIES, COFFIN,
WARNING SIGN, CHIRON, CHURCH, BALLOT BOX, CLOUD
Reading NW<-->SE:
GEAR, SUN, CHI RHO
Reading SW<-->NE:
CASTLE, SKIER, ANKH
In convential word-search fashion, the letters not involved in any of these words spell a message: SORRY BUDDY BUT THIS PUZZLE HAS YET A SUBTLETY.
To complete the puzzle, solvers must identify the theme which unites the words in the grid. They are all symbols in the Unicode block called "Miscellaneous Symbols" (2600–26FF). Each symbol therefore encodes to a pair of hexadecimal numbers according to its Unicode encryption.
These can be read as (row,column) indices into the grid, labelling the rows and columns from 0-15.
CLOUD 01 T COMET 04 H SUN 09 E BALLOT BOX 10 S HOT BEVERAGE 15 O SHAMROCK 18 L ANKH 25 U CHI RHO 27 T ADI SHAKTI 2C I YIN YANG 2F O EARTH 41 N SATURN 44 T PLUTO 47 O ARIES 48 T LIBRA 4E H PISCES 53 I HOT SPRINGS 68 S EIGHTH NOTE 6A P WHITE FLAG 90 U ANCHOR 93 Z ALEMBIC 97 Z FLOWER 98 L GEAR 99 E FLEUR-DE-LIS 9C I WARNING SIGN A0 S COFFIN B0 C NEUTER B2 H CERES B3 A JUNO B5 R CHIRON B7 C SEXTILE B9 O RAIN C6 A PICK CF L CHAINS D3 B NO ENTRY D4 U CHURCH EA R CASTLE EB N FERRY F4 E SKIER F7 R
This reads off as:
THE SOLUTION TO THIS PUZZLE IS CHARCOAL BURNER.