It's Actually Been On My Mind For A While So Now I Have An Excuse To Talk About It!

You can literally just ask your ingredients/tools what they are best at, or if they'll be helpful in a specific spell, or for advice on how to best utilize them.

Yes, you can, right now. You can just do it, whether or not you're a spirit medium or can "visualize".

Don't get me wrong, I find cultural and historical research of correspondences to be very important. But also, just ask the thyme in your cupboard what it likes to do in its spare time. (Bonus points if you take notes and compare to your research later on)

Here's how I do it. I call it my "pinging" method, like how a modem pings a server. Here's how:

Prepare your question.

If you want to be polite, start with a, "hello, is anyone there?" Although admittedly this is more for animists. If you believe you're just reading energies and there is no indwelling spirit, why not get right to it?

Questions to explore utility and correspondences include:

"Magically speaking, what are you best at?"

"If I added you to this spell, how would you influence/affect it?"

"What kind of intents are you best at supporting?"

"What kind of magic do you not like to be involved in?"

"What other ingredients do you work well with?"

"What other ingredients do you not get along with?"

Focus on the thing which you would like to communicate with.

Avoid performing this technique on living animals, as it often scares them :(

Have it in your field of vision, or touch it, or do whatever you need to do in order to feel focused on it.

Observe, Believe, Feel, Understand, or Know, aka OBFUK (my handy acronym I use to replace "visualize," which I ordered that way because it kind of sounds like "oh f*ck," as in, "oh f*ck, the ubiquitous use of the word 'visualize' has caused many witches to be ironically equipped with blinders that require energy perception and control to be funneled through a filter of sightedness and images, which for many is counter-intuitive and detrimental to their practice"). Anyway -

Observe, Believe, Feel, Understand, or Know that the object which you would like to communicate with is aware of you and will hear you when you send your question.

Send your prepared question.

Speak or think your question to the object. OBFUK that the object receives your question.

Anticipate receiving the answer.

Listen, here's the downfall of this technique: You need a wee bit of open space in your mind. No, you don't have to be a meditator to do this technique (I did it for years before I began meditating). You just need enough space for the answer to arrive.

I have found that ideally, this means actively anticipating receiving your answer for 1-3 seconds.

This works on the same meditative trick as, "wait for your next thought to come and it never will." The force of anticipation itself is what creates an open platform for your answer to arrive at.

Your mind does not have to be "totally clear". You can have a lot of tabs open and still be able to pull off this technique.

Analyze what comes.

We will all get answers in different ways. Repeat: there is no golden standard for how you are "supposed" to receive your answer. Here are some ways your answer might appear to you:

Snippets of memories, songs, scenes, verses, or literature pop into your awareness.

A fully or partially formulated concept comes to you all at once.

You are strongly reminded of something (say, the god Aries, or a soothing woodland scene).

An image or images come to your mind's eye, either still or animated.

Nothing seems to come to mind at all, but certain things on your altar or around your house, or certain colors, suddenly stand out or seem especially relevant.

Nothing seems to come to mind, but you feel energy moving on or around you.

Nothing seems to come to mind, but you feel as if you can smell or taste something that wasn't there before.

It is unlikely that you will hear a voice in your mind that says, "hi, I'm Basil, and I'm good at..." Our particularly clairaudientally blessed friends may receive such information, but the rest of us are likely going to have to apply some level of interpretation to what we receive.

Be aware that if you're talking to something with an indwelling spirit, it may not be interested in trotting out answers to your question, and may have questions of its own, or something else it wants you to know instead.

Ask more questions, or say goodbye.

I believe good manners go a long way, so even if you feel you haven't received any answer, it's polite to send a message like, "thank you for your time, have a good day."

Your answers are now UPG.

I really want us all to understand this!

UPG stands for Unverified Personal Gnosis. It means that you have personally received information through spiritual means, however, that information is not necessarily agreed upon or accepted by anyone else but you.

Please don't go around sharing your UPG as if it is actually verified spiritual canon!

Even if that information is totally cohesive within your personally constructed spiritual system, I'm sorry, but your personal spiritual system is not universal.

If I have a communication session with my rosemary plant, and it tells me, "yes, I'm a plant of protection and dreams [community accepted correspondence], but that's only one side of me; I'm also a spirit of evil, nightmares, and destruction, and that's why I can also defend against them [unverified personal gnosis]," it is wildly misleading of me to go on Tumblr and post a new rosemary correspondence that includes "cursing, nightmares, and destruction" as if everyone needs to automatically accept and believe my own claims.

It is now on you to experiment with the information you receive, compare it to other resources, and decide if what you heard was valid, legitimate information for a certain group, tradition, or practice, or if it is untrue, or if it is only true for you.

Your UPG might end up being totally valid and verified by others (this is then called verified personal gnosis) and this is such an exciting, wonderful, and validating thing to experience.

However, every single time I have a question about a spirit or god, and someone says, "hold on, I'll ask them!" and comes back 5 minutes later with an answer they assume I should accept as canon, I want to reach through the screen and slap them.

Your spirit communication is not automatically spiritual canon, and should probably undergo many steps of testing and verification before EVEN YOU accept it as true.

Troubleshooting

"It isn't possible for me to complete the active anticipation portion, what could I do instead?"

This technique is specifically a telepathic one; you receive communication within your mind. If doing so on the fly isn't possible, I'd recommend trying an entirely different technique, such as asking the same questions through tarot or another divination system, or petitioning the ingredient for a dream.

"I don't think I'm receiving any answers, what do I do?"

Not all spirits want to talk to us. Or from a secular perspective, not everything is imbued with enough energy for us to get a reading, or that energy may be hard to access or understand.

Objects which are very often used in witchcraft, such as magical and culinary herbs, minerals, and animal parts, often have something to say. (Perhaps the reason they are used in magic is because they're so willing to work with us in the first place!)

You can also gently cleanse the object and offer it some incense or water, then invite the spirit/energies back, and see if that changes your results.

Or, you may need to try contacting it over several days, maybe also with feeding and cleansing, before it responds. (Remember, it takes the object energy to communicate with us, whether it is a spirit or just a lump of energy, something must be expended to send you a message).

Plus also: This technique is a skill you need to practice. If I tell you how to hold a guitar and how to make three cords, it's still going to take you a minute to strum out Wonderwall. I recommend a minimum of hours of practice before you write off your own psychic abilities.

"I don't know how to tell the difference between a spiritual answer and my own thoughts."

Practice, practice, practice - and verify. Also be patient and gentle with yourself, and move forward with the understanding that far from 100% of people are magically born with thought patterns clear, regular, or tame enough to easily (or ever) track.

Perhaps the best way to move verify is to communicate with common ingredients in witchcraft, ask them for information, and then verify it against information online. Don't give up too quickly; common correspondence lists are often oversimplified to the point of uselessness. Your herb might have given you a snippet of information commonly ignored by mainstream witchcraft.

"I'm only getting invalid answers - my rose quartz told me it's used for blood magic and banishing."

Try cleansing and charging objects before you read on them. For beginners, it may be difficult to discern whether you're contacting an object, or the energies it's sucked up or wallowed in.

There may be an indwelling spirit or energy "haunting" the object and returning invalid or silly answers. Try reading on different objects and see if your luck improves.

You may be particularly psychically closed off. When I don't properly connect, I get all kinds of nonsense that seems like a real answer, when it's just my random thought generator (un)helpfully trying to fill in the blanks. General practice of divination and spellwork will assist you. I would avoid using this technique to practice, as it may confuse your discernment to accept your inner voice as external communication. Set it aside and come back to it after a couple of months and see if there are changes.

Similarly, the spirit might just not want to talk to you, or isn't present in the item (or, the energies you seek to understand don't exist in that item).

The spirit may be giving you valid information that most people just don't agree with. My UPG for rosemary is that it is sort of an "uncrossing" agent for your life in general - part of the way it protects you is to align things around you so that misfortune is diverted. It's not a good luck charm, this is just how it achieves its goal of protection. This isn't totally off the wall; I think almost everyone agrees that rosemary is protective, powerful, and "high vibrations." But I don't think I'm going to find anyone else talking about how rosemary works the way it does, so I'm not going to be able to cross-check this anyway. But even if they do, they might talk about a different aspect of rosemary or something else it does. So I'm caught in a limbo where this information is true for me and the plant works that way every time I use it, but I can still never verify that with my community. If your answers aren't totally out of left field, you may be receiving genuine information about how the object wants to work with you. But that doesn't mean you will ever be able to verify that with your community.

2 Cleansing and Cleaning Mists

Those two mists can be used to give your flat a quick and easy cleanse.

What you will need:

2 spray bottles (as you can see, recycling old ones works just fine), alternatively you can also put the mixture in a mug and spritz it around with your hands. Ingredients for your cleansing botlle like salt, rosemary, basil, sage or whatever you like best. Just keep in mind that salt leaves stains, I simply went over everything with a damp cloth. This also helped to remove dust and other stains obviously. Ingredients for your second bottle like lavender, orange zest, rose petals or any other smell you really like. I used lavender to spread a calm and relaxing feeling and to kind of settle everything down. I did not combine everything in one bottle because cleansing and preparing my home are two seperate steps for me. If this is not important to you, then just put it all in one bottle.

While I was applying the first spray and cleaning all the surfaces I imagined old and harmful memories or emotions to vanish. Things that were only a burden were supposed to disappear as i wiped over the desks and cupboards.

After I was done with the whole room I used the second mist. I applied it it everywhere and just sprayed it across the whole room, sometimes in a clockwhise motion, thinking of a calming and relaxing envivroment.

That’s it.

Been tossing this idea around in my head but for spirit-working witches I lowkey think a good place to start is going around to make introductions to a variety of helpful spirits, either benevolent or neutral in moral dignity, who can be called on at any time.

Literally going around and meeting the archangels/monarchs/guardians/gatekeepers (etc/whatever) of the four elemental roads. Just shaking hands and saying hi. Asking for their support, patience, and grace in working with them and their domains.

Brief introduction to the structure you live in, or absent of that, the land you live on.

Choosing your top 5 personal favorite kitchen spices, one or two nice rocks, and the nearest convenient tree and just doing a series of private rituals to meet them one by one.

Because then by the time you want to get started with other stuff, like finding familiar spirits, learning new skills, or solving problems, you already have met several spirits who are likely to be easily invoked to stand by your side and offer protection, assistance, and guidance for the task at hand.

Just because you don't know any spirits on a friendship level doesn't mean you have to be alone. You can still have spirits standing with you to help and ensure things go well. You can lay a compass, call forth the elemental gods, and ask them to provide assistance for the duration of the ritual. You can ask them to send a teacher or a guide to you to help you with something important.

Etc.

Mini Land Spirit Shrine

use this as a conduit to connect you to the local spirits and nature

get a pot

fill it with local dirt/sand/clay

keep it on your porch/inside/near your house. somewhere you can visit it.

put cool natural items in it, like local shells, bones, branches, etc. that you’ve found…

watch it come to life. if i just leave a pot of dirt around, something will spring up in it. usually those considered “weeds”. if nothing grows, plant a low-maintenance native plant in it. but there should be something after a time.

make offerings like water and more natural items as you desire. 

connect to it, talk to it, introduce yourself.

Rinse and repeat over time. That’s really it! and then you just… build a relationship as time goes on.

Witchcraft Exercises

Just a quick compilation of the posts I've made about exercises to help improve your craft. These can be used as journaling prompts, inspiration for activities, or as methods for pulling yourself out of a slump and recharging your witchy inspiration.

Witchcraft Exercise - Quantifying Your Craft

Witchcraft Exercise - Dig Through The Ditches

Witchcraft Exercise - The Book of Lessons

Witchcraft Exercise - Home Brews

Prompt - Music to Witch By

Most of these are also available in the May 2021 bonus episode of Hex Positive (check your favorite podcatcher).

Happy Witching!

Elminx's Long-Form Lemonade for Sweet Cleansing

If you've been hanging out for more than a hot minute, you have probably caught on to a secret about my kitchen witching: it's not the NUMBER of ingredients you enchant; it's how you enchant them. For the purposes of witching, I prefer simple recipes (ingredient-wise) that have a bit of oomph to them. Do you need to stir a pot for 45 minutes straight? (see also my french onion soup recipe) What about starting a vinegar infusion that needs to be shaken every day?

This, as the saying goes, is where the magic is made. At least, for me.

So, imagine my surprise when my friends introduced me to a long-form way of making lemonade. Rather than simply juicing the lemons and adding some sugar and water - you combine the sugar and lemon peels and let them sit for some time to release the lemon's essential oils.

Not only does it make a superior lemonade (can confirm!), but it immediately had my magic wheels turning.

The goal is to make lemonade that will sweetly cleanse you of what ails you. This spell can easily be adapted to add specifiers—see the end of this post for more details.

As always, I will not tell you how to do YOUR magic. This is a technique, not a magic tutorial.

The Basics: When Life Gives You Lemons

Lemons have a long history of use as a cleansing agent. Cunningham's infamous green book lists them as a feminine plant, under the purview of water and the moon and used for the powers of "longevity, purification, love, friendship." (for what that's worth) From an herbal energetic perspective - lemons are considered to be cooling - they are used in the summer to cool hot termperatures and applied to the sick to help bring down fevers. Citric acid is also a bladder stimulant, which we will be making use of for the purposes of our potion-making.

What we associate with lemon as the "cleaning agent" is believed to come from limonene, a terpene found in the peels of most citrus fruits that is both antiviral and antibacterial. Lemonene is used in many cleaners that you can buy on the market but can also be extracted directly from the fruit, as we will do in this recipe.

The Technique

This standard high-end bartender technique makes wonderful, complex sour mixes that can absolutely make the perfect cocktail. Rather than extracting the limonene from the citrus using alcohol or vinegar, we use sugar.

This technique is called oleo-saccharum, which means "oil-sugar" - you are using sugar to draw the essential oils out of the lemon peels, making a natural (no heat) syrup. Note here: this syrup can be used on its own for all sorts of syrupy needs - you could stop the preparation here if you don't love lemonade.

This can be done on the fly (an hour or so), but I highly suggest letting this sit for 12-24 hours for the full effect.

The Recipe

You will need:

5-6 lemons, the best-looking ones you can find

1 1/4 cups sugar

Filter Water (to taste)

Peeler, citrus juicer, optional

Additional magical flavoring, optional

Become better acquainted with your lemons. For the purposes of this recipe, I do this by holding them, talking to them about what I want from them (general or specific cleansing), and rolling them across a hard surface. This last part helps to separate the peel from the pith, which will help you cut away the peel in the next step. Because we intentionally try to release the limonene compounds in this recipe, you may wish to begin by carving your lemon at this step (BEFORE you peel). You could carve your intentions, your name, the names of the people you are looking to cleanse, or any cleansing runes or sigils that you use in your craft.

Carefully peel your lemon. You want to get as little pith (white parts) as possible, as they don't taste good. Take your time here. Really breathe in the scents of the lemon during this. This is the first part of the cleansing process - you are incidentally cleaning yourself and your kitchen as you do this part of the spell. Lean into this. It smells amazing. Revel in it. Think about how it reminds you of everything being shiny and clean as a child. Lemons ARE cleansing - really feel into this here. We won't use the rest of the lemon until tomorrow; you can juice it here or store it overnight in an air-tight container)

Add your lemon peels and the sugar to a mixing bowl and thoroughly massage the sugar into the lemon peels. This should take some time - think fives of minutes at least. You want to do this until you can feel the change in consistency in the sugar - try to incorporate all of the sugar with all of the lemons. Remember, sugar is inherently sweetening, and lemons are inherently cleansing - you combine these two elements here to make a sweet, cleansing spell. Let the smell of it clean out your nose and your sinuses. This is the meat of your spellcasting - you are working your spell into your ingredients. Talk to it. Use your energy. Pray over it. You will know when this step is complete.

Cover your bowl and let it sit at room temperature overnight or for up to 24 hours. The longer this extracts, the more intense the flavor in the finished product. In a pinch, give it an hour, but I suggest waiting at least 8-10 for the best effect.

The next morning, add 2 cups boiling water to your lemon paste and stir until it has thoroughly combined - this is a great place to reinforce your magic from the day beforehand. (This version had the addition of some freshly picked sour cherries which gives its red color)

6. When this has cooled, add the lemon juice and additional water to taste. I personally put this in a half-gallon ball jar and filled it with water, and then my partner and I further diluted it from there.

7. Drink and enjoy. For an extra cleansing effect, consider that part of the act of citrus is that of a urinary stimulant - it will make you pee. Think about how peeing removes things from your life. Remove what needs cleansing. Your spell is complete.

This spell is as simple as that but it can be dressed up in some many different outfits with very little effort. Do you know a flavor (remember, all edibles here) with the right magic associations to add to this spell?

Add some blackberries at the infusion stage for good old-fashioned hedge witch protection. If you really need something out, you could experiment with infusing some jalapeno after you've made the lemonade (tread with a lot of care here...). I've worked with lavender and hibiscus here for calming, cool energies. I recently added a cup of sour cherries to Step 3 for a love-cleansing effect.

There are two ways you can add flavors to this spell: you can mix your flavor in during the sugaring phase, or you can do a secondary infusion after your lemonade has been made. Use your best judgment here - fruits can go in with the citrus peels for sure, but herbs and other more "tea like" ingredients might be better steeped afterward.

I haven't tried it yet, but I'm eager to use some of my savory kitchen herbs the next time I near to clear out my money flows.

Or alternatively, use it as the first step in a witchy cocktail (my go-to, as you know). This lemonade makes an exquisite base for a margarita—for a bougie twist, use white Patron and some Chambord; you will not be disappointed.

This is almost a blank slate - sweet cleansing could be used for anything you put your mind to.

Do you like my work? You can support me over on Kofi by tipping me, ordering an astrology commission, buying some art, or signing up to be a monthly supporter of my work.

Green Witchcraft: A Living Ward Spell

Note: I called this a green witch spell because it calls for caring for a living plant. That means providing it with the correct levels of light and water for its care. You do not have to call yourself a Green Witch to use this spell. You do, on the other hand, need to be able to care for a plant. Be advised. Note: There are a lot of parts to this spell. This isn’t the kind of thing that should be undertaken lightly or can be accomplished, in most cases, in a single weekend. This is by design. Be aware that in assembling the items to complete this spell, you have begun the action of casting it. You are creating a living ward that could live for upwards of ten or twenty years or more – treat it with the reverence it deserves.

This spell is designed to create a living plant ward tl protect you and your environment. It uses a combination of candle magic (as an initial charge for the spell) and green magic to power the spell. I also suggest the use of additional elements such as bindrunes, sigils, or intention papers but they are not necessary. As always with my spells, I expect you to bring your own magic to the table here – how you empower this spell should be determined by how you cast magic.

I will also include some sections on how to interact with your plant ward – they are just that, suggestions. Take what resonates with you and leave the rest.

To Cast This Spell You Will Need:

1 Jar Candle appropriate in size to use as a cachepot (3″, 4″, 5″ or more)

Oils or herbs to anoint your candle (optional)

A paint pen or other permanent marker (optional but recommended)

A plant (I suggest one that you associate with protection magic)

A pot with drainage holes that will fit into your cachepot

Soil, Water, and Sunlight to care for your Plant Ward

The goal of this spell is to prepare a vessel and imbue it with protective energy and then to permanently home a plant in it to create a living ward that you feed with water regularly. Steps 1 and 2 of this spell can be performed congruently or separately. They are interrelated – the size of your plant will dictate the size of your cachepot/candle, so keep this in mind during your choosing process. If you choose a cachepot that is too small for your plant, you will need to transplant it out quickly, defeating this process. If you choose a cachepot that is too large for your plant, you risk root rot. As you might imagine, a dead plant is not an effective ward.

1 – Choose Your Protective Plant Ward

Ultimately, your plant choice is up to you. There are, however, some things that I think it is important to keep in mind when choosing a plant for a spell like this. The first is that we need to keep this plant alive so choosing a relatively “easy” plant is a good starting place. You know how much time and care you like to put into your plants, now think about this also as the time and care that you want to put into your wards. If you want to maintain your wards more often, you may wish to choose a plant that is more thirsty or time-consuming. If you are more of a set-it-and-forget-it type of magic user, something more low-key may be more your style.

The second thing is that your plant needs to be able to grow effectively in your environment. I would lean towards choosing a plant that you have grown before in your current living space as you will know, for sure, that it is a good fit and will thrive in your home.

Things like rose bushes and herbs have a lot of protective properties but can be difficult to grow in a home environment. I suggest thinking about what protection means to you – there are many ways that plants can be protective (bark, thorns, poisonous leaves, vines that strangle…) besides the obvious protection associations in That Big Green Book.

Keep in mind that the size of the plant in its mature form will come into play here. Some plants can be continually divided to remain in the same pot for a long time while others will outgrow their homes in 1-2 years. A plant that can stay in its cachepot for at least a couple of years – either through the slowness of its growth, division, or because it prefers to be a bit snug in its home – is preferred for this type of spell.

Plants can be expensive but this step doesn’t have to be! Check your local plant groups for free plants or propagate an existing plant you already own. I would suggest that the plant become fully acclimated to your environment before you actually use it in this spell.

2 – Choose You Candle/Cachepot

Once you know what type of plant you want to grow as a ward, it is time to find yourself a vessel to house your ward. Here we are looking for a candle in a pretty jar* that you like enough to keep as a decoration. You may have one in your house already! The one condition is that whatever sized plant you have chosen should be able to fit inside your candle jar as a cachepot. It doesn’t have to fit exactly (there’s a possibility here of choosing a large cachepot to give your plant ward space to be repotted and grow!) but you should be able to comfortably sit your plant into the candle jar.

From there, the choices are very much up to you and virtually endless. You can choose based on a color association that you have with protection magic, or maybe it is the scent of the candle that makes you think of protection here. I suggest choosing a scent that you enjoy (or scentless altogether) as you are going to burn this candle out before we use it as a home for your new plant.

If you make your own candles, there is some amazing room here to further your own magic by choosing an appropriate vessel and then making a protection candle to go inside of it.

Candles, especially bigger jar candles, can be quite expensive. This isn’t about going out and spending a lot of money here (though you can, of course, if you wish). You can often find unburned candles in thrift shops or at discount stores of all kinds.

*If ascetics aren’t important to you, you can skip this step.

3 – Create Your Protection Vessel

Now that you have chosen a vessel, we want to imbue it with the energy of protection. This is basic candle magic 101 and can be done in many different ways. Many people will start by cleansing the candle with their preferred methods. Many people like to write their intentions or sigils/bindrunes/magic symbols onto the candle – you can write all around the outside of the candle to create your own art effect or stick to the bottom of the candle to be more discreet. You want to use a permanent marker that won’t wash off if at all possible.

Some people will meditate with the candle, send their power into it, or imbue it with another energy source such as the sun, moon, or Reiki. Many people dress their candles with magical oils, protective powders, or gemstones.

Do what works for you and your practice. If you need a very basic protective spell, you can draw the Algiz rune on the bottom of your candle, anoint it with olive oil, and add a couple of pieces of finely ground rosemary to the edge of the candle (away from the wick). Please practice fire safety here.

4 – Burn Your Candle

Ultimately, I feel that the goal of this candle burn should be to burn your candle out as efficiently as possible to minimize soot stains on the jar and to burn as much of the wax as possible. To do this requires some candle tending. Generally, to burn a jar candle down completely you need to wait until the top layer of wax has melted before you extinguish it on each burn. The amount of time that will take is determined by a ton of factors: the temperature, the type of wax, the number of wicks, the type of wicks, airflow, and other things as well. You may not be able to let your candle burn for that long with every lighting, but I suggest at least attempting to.

There’s a lot of additional magic that you could add to this step. You could speak words of protection over your candle as you light it. You could light it once a week on a Tuesday in the hour of Mars. You could light it every day for a number of days that is magically significant to you. You could dedicate the candle to a protective force that you work with. Or burn it on a protection altar. You could write a petition paper and place it under the candle while it is burning.

I personally think that including your plant in the spell here is very useful for creating a connection – I would keep my plant near the burning candle as the spell progressed to strengthen the connection between the plant and the energy of the candle burn that fuels the spell.

Continue with this step until your candle has completely burned out. From here you want to clean out your vessel of any remaining wax, soot, or other leftovers from your candle burn. Take care to try not to remove any protection symbols on the jar, but things happen. It’s okay to go back over and redraw your protection sigils if you have to here.

5 – Put Your Plant into its New Home

Note that I do not say PLANT your plant into its new home. We are using the candle jar here as a CACHE POT, not the direct home of your houseplant. This is because your houseplant likes to have drainage holes and the candle jar has none.

As you do this, you might wish to talk with your plant about how and why you are putting it into its new home. This is when, in my practice, I would Name the plant if I had not discovered its name prior. Giving a plant a name creates a connection between the spirit of that exact plant and you; it also gives you a nice way of addressing the spirit of the plant! (if you don’t do spirit work, feel free to skip this step) I like to tell my plants that I am enlisting them in the protection spell that I have cast and asking their permission.

Place your plant in a place where it will get its needs met and watch it grow! Congratulations, you have just made yourself a living ward.

6 – Care For Your Living Ward

Properly caring for your plant wards is an important part of this spell and is a type of repetitive magical focus. The goal is to focus on your plant as it grows and check up on its needs. This allows you to feed your spell as you water your plant and the growth of the plant feeds the ward itself. Forge a connection to your plant as you care for it – think about its growth, think about the magic that you imbued into the creation of the ward, and think about the candle burning that fueled the spell! Depending on your sensitivities, you may be able to “feel” the ward.

Over time, you may want to burn additional candles to add power to your living ward. You can do so by anointing the candles in the same way that you did your original (with the same symbols, oils, and herbs) and burning it close by to your plant. Depending on your practice, you may also be able to change the ward with sunlight, moonlight, or words of power. Use what you are good at here!

It is wise to remember that this is still warding/protection magic so I would refrain from telling people about your ward or sharing photos of it on social media.

7 – Troubleshooting this Spell

Eventually, depending on your plant ward, your plant may outgrow the container that this spell was built for. Consider this to be a great success! You choose to continue to work with this plant by transplanting the plant into a larger pot, finding a new vessel, and casting the spell again – or -by finding a new plant sized small enough to fit into your current vessel. You may be able to divide your plant and keep a part of it for your spell while “retiring” the rest. (think about the power of continually dividing a pothos and each time creating ANOTHER living plant ward that you put in a different space in your house…) What to do if your plant ward dies or is not doing well: This happens to the best of us. Some people might consider a plant ward dying to be a sign that something magically is amis in your environment. You need to decide for yourself if that makes sense to you. I would consider what is going wrong with your plant – have you been under or over-watering it? Is it dying because it’s too rootbound and needs to be repotted? Does it have a plant pest? Did it scorch in direct sunlight?

You not caring for your plant properly is almost never going to be a sign that somebody else is messing with you. But if your plant ward is suddenly dying for no reason (and you’ve thoroughly checked the reasons) – do some divination on it, please. Also, unpot your plant and check the roots because that’s always the best practice.

If you need to move house, you will need to decide what to do with your plant ward. If the ward is more designed around protecting you as a person, it may be able to move to your new place. If it is designed around protecting your space, it should probably be recast in the new location. In that case, I would choose a new jar candle and cast the spell anew. When in doubt, I suggest casting a new spell.

8 – Variations on a Theme

Though this spell is written to create a protective ward, it can be altered easily to fit most other long-term goals. You could use a plant associated with tranquility to make your space more peaceful, as an example. I suggest sticking to magical goals that affect your environment or your person here. The reason for this is that I believe that this spell works because you and your plants share the air in your house – you breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide and your plants “breathe” in carbon dioxide and “breathe” out air. If your belief system of how magic works differently, your experience may vary.

There are always ways to vary this spell to suit your needs - if you come up with a cool one and feel like sharing, I'd love to hear about it!

If you like my work, you can support me by tipping me over on Ko-Fi or by purchasing an astrology report that I will write just for you.

Pesto.Mystic

Violet Experiments, 2022

May has been a long and winding month. As always happens when everything blooms at once, I ran out of time to do all of the things and, more

May has been a long and winding month. As always happens when everything blooms at once, I ran out of time to do all of the things and, moreover, to write about all of the things. I’m feeling very behind (that may just be Mercury retrograde talking). I did manage to carve out some time for violets, my absolute favorite early spring edible. I’ve been working with violets for two years now – I’ve written in the past about my violet syrup experiments (which were relatively successful) and I also made a violet cordial, violet drinking vinegar, and violet sugar cookies (which were less successful – not inedible but not really what I wanted.)

As fate would have it, my perfect violet picking day was May Day proper. I had a number of helpers – friends who were all helping to collect dandelions for our May Day feast and a little bit extra (violets for me). My friends have all willingly signed up on my journey to eat all of the edible flowers so the promise of future violet edibles was all the encouragement they needed. With extra hands, picking enough to make violet syrup and then some was easy and so I set out to make violet jelly as well.

Both the violet jelly (featured here in the front) and the violet syrup (back pouring bottle) have been a smashing success. Violet jelly is what I have been missing in my life – the flavor is so deep and purple. (I know, descriptive, right?) The jelly has been great with a charcuterie plate (really good on salted meats and cheeses) and it makes a pretty great addition to a cheese danish, too! Truth be told, I like it BETTER than the violet syrup which I have found to be a bit finicky.

If you’ve been following along for a while, you’ll know that I have a serious thing for cocktail syrups. My go-to is to make them into a gin sour with a good solid juniper-forward gin and some freshly squeezed lemon juice. That is one of my staple cocktails so I know my recipe isn’t the problem but honestly, I haven’t particularly liked the violet syrup in that application. A lot of my others have so I’ve kept making the cocktail but up until last week, I wouldn’t have skipped the cocktail syrup for that jelly any day.

That all changed in a moment. I was staying at a hotel on the beach in Cape Cod with my partner, my coven mate, and her partner. We didn’t know what to make for a drink – it was hot. We knew that a tiki drink was in order. But what?

We surveyed our assets: aged rum with pineapple and lime juice sounds like a tiki drink, right? My partner used some Google magic and came up with an absolutely perfect summer cocktail. It called for aged rum, those two juices, Aperol (which I had thrown in our bags on a complete lark), and simple syrup. We happened to have our violet syrup so in it went.

Meet the Violet Bird of Paradise

The bird of paradise is already a riff on the more classic Jungle Bird cocktail and we put our own twist on the drink by using violet simple syrup rather than plain cocktail syrup. The results were spectacular. The violet flavor grounded this drink (as I mentioned before, violet has a surprising amount of depth of flavor for such a tiny flower) and the color-changing properties of the syrup were on full display when combined with the citrus elements of the drink. This is the perfect cool you down on a hot day kind of drink.

The Violet Bird of Paradise

1 oz. overproof rum (I used aged rum for this purpose 1 oz. Aperol 1 oz. Pineapple Juice 1/2 oz. Fresh Lime Juice 1/4 oz. Violet Simply Syrup

Mix in a Boston shaker and then serve over crushed ice.

This drink is sweet and needs to be served very cold – don’t skimp on the ice. Fill the entire glass. With rum, pineapple, the orange from Aperol, and sweet violet – this drink can be easily enchanted for good times and happiness. Please drink and enchant responsibly!

Minx

Do you like my work? You can support me over on KoFi by tipping me, purchasing an astrology report, or buying some of my art.

my 'this but not that' tarot spread

A very simple spread my friends, to identify what the hecc is happening.

It's a three card draw - any arrangement will do.

first card - "the answer is,"

second card - "that is to say,"

third card - "..and it is not-"

example: "what are these weird vibes I'm getting from my friend?"

first card - "the answer is that your friend feels like they can't relate to your beliefs any more."

second card - "that is to say, your friend is growing emotionally in a direction that makes them question some of your beliefs."

third card - "and it's not that they think your beliefs are actually bad. they're just questioning a lot of things on an emotional level right now."