Some people have difficulty with the idea of cutting live wood away from a tree or bush because they don’t know how to do it properly. When you use fresh wood, you capture a lot of life energy, which may be exactly what you’re looking for in your ritual or spellwork. Deadfall is wood the tree has discarded as no longer useful, which may not be the kind of vibrant, living energy you’re looking for. It depends on your personal view and the type of spell you’re doing.
If you plan to cut fresh wood, you must first ask the tree or bush for permission. If you sense that the tree is okay with this, proceed with care and respect. Leave an offering for the tree as a “thank you.”
Tree Attunement Exercise
Pick a tree. Stand next to it. Hold one hand about an inch or two away from the bark. Extend your awareness and feel the energy of the tree. Next, touch the bark. Explore how the tree feels to your hands. Bend close and smell the tree. Close your eyes and listen to the sounds the tree makes in response to the environment. Look closely at the tree and see the different textures, colors, and markings. If it has fruit you know to be safe, taste it.
Repeat these exercises with different kinds of trees. Compare and contrast your experiences. What are the similarities between the trees? What are the differences? After you’ve finished, make notes in your book of shadows.
FLOWER POWER
Flowers are the pretty parts of plants that hold essential reproductive information—in other words, they’re the plants’ sex organs. As such, the flower of a plant carries a tidy bundle of energy. In natural magick, the flower is often the part used. Flowers can be dried whole and woven into wreaths, pressed into a magickal collage, or made into potpourri or sachets. To fine-tune a spell, or cover all the bases if your objective is multifold, combine two or more flowers that offer the properties you seek. Here are some ways you might like to use flowers in spells:
- Fill mojo bags with dried petals.
- Add fragrant flower petals to candles.
- Wear floral essential oils that suit your purposes.
- Brew healing flowers, such as chamomile, in teas.
- Blend healing plant oils into lotions, salves, and ointments.
- Decorate your altar with flowers that relate to your intention.
- Plant flowers in a magick garden to attract nature spirits.
Do dried flowers carry a different energy than fresh flowers do? Yes and no; the intrinsic energy remains, but its expression is different. For certain rituals or charms you may want the vibrancy of fresh flowers, whereas amulets and talismans work better with dried flowers, whose energies tend to be slower acting and longer lasting.
In some cases, you might choose a particular flower for its physical properties especially if you’re doing healing. Chamomile, for instance, has calming qualities that soothe mind and body. More often, however, you’re looking for the symbolic value of the botanicals you use in spells. Roses, as you know, symbolize love. The following list includes flowers witches commonly use in magick, but it certainly isn’t exhaustive. If you have a green thumb, you can grow your own plants for magick work. But you can find most of what you’ll need at a nursery or large supermarket:
- Carnation: Also known as gillyflower, the carnation has a wonderful healing energy and makes an excellent gift for the sick. Use carnations magickally for protection, strength, energy, luck, and healing.
- Daffodil: Also known as narcissus and asphodel, the daffodil figures into charms for love, luck, and fertility.
- Daisy: We’ve all plucked the petals from a daisy and chanted, “He loves me, he loves me not.” Not surprisingly, the daisy is commonly associated with love and flirtation, and is used in love spells.
- Gardenia: This fragrant flower brings tranquility, harmony, love, and healing. Add gardenia petals to a healing sachet or a talisman for love.
- Geranium: Grown indoors or out, geraniums carry strong protective energy, especially those with red flowers. Use rose-colored geraniums in spells for fertility, love, and healing.
- Hyacinth: Both grape and wild hyacinths have a lovely scent and a vibrant energy. Hyacinths are named for the youth of Greek legend, whose accidental death the god Apollo commemorated by creating the flower. Hyacinths are magickally associated with love, happiness, and protection.
- Iris: The iris’s three petals are said to symbolize faith, wisdom, and valor. Witches use this lovely spring flower for purification and blessing, and to increase wisdom. You can grind the root, called orrisroot, and add it as a scent fixative in potpourri. Irises also play a role in love spells, especially when you want peace and harmony in a relationship.
- Jasmine: Also known as jessamine, jasmine possesses a heady but delicate scent that is usually stronger at night. Because of this, it is often associated with the moon and feminine energy. Magickally, jasmine relates to love, spirituality, harmony, and prosperity. Use it in spells for seduction and sensuality.
- Lavender: In aromatherapy, lavender calms body, mind, and spirit, and encourages relaxation and sleep. Magickally, lavender is associated with peace, tranquility, love, purification, and healing. Use it to restore harmony after a disagreement with a loved one.
- Lilac: The fragrant flowers of this shrub are usually white or a shade of purple. Magically, lilacs are used for protection and banishing negative energy.
- Lily: In general, lilies are associated with protection and removing hexes. Some cultures connect lilies (especially white ones) with death and the afterlife.
- Lily of the valley: This tiny cascade of white or cream-colored bell-shaped flowers has a delicate scent. Magickally, it enhances concentration and mental ability. You can also use it in spells to encourage happiness.
- Pansy: Also known as heartsease, love-lies-bleeding, love-in-idleness, and Johnny-jump-up, the pansy is a hardy, cheerful-looking plant with multicolored flowers, akin to the violet. Magickally, it is used for love spells, divination, communication, and happiness.
- Poppy: Although the red poppy is a gentle narcotic, the white poppy is toxic and the source of opium. Magically, the poppy is associated with fertility, prosperity, love, sleep, and invisibility.
- Rose: Throughout history, the rose has been one of our most beloved flowers. Folklore and literature have made the rose synonymous with love, and witches often use it in love spells. Magickally, roses also play roles in healing, divination, peace, harmony, psychic ability, and spiritual growth. Note the rose’s color to understand its uses. (We’ll talk more about color symbolism later.)
- Snapdragon: Witches link snapdragons with protection, particularly from illusion or deception. Plant white snapdragons along the perimeter of your home to protect it.
- Sunflower: The sunflower is, of course, associated with the sun. Use it magickally to bring happiness, success, and health. Because the plant has an abundance of seeds, it also relates to fertility. Bring sunflowers to a celebration or a summer solstice ritual to shine light on the event. Germinate the seeds and then plant them to attract abundance.
- Tulip: The tulip’s chalice or cuplike shape represents a vessel to hold prosperity and abundance. Use tulips in spells for money, love, and happiness.
- Violet: Use this delicate flower in spells for love, peace, hope, harmony, good luck, fertility, and abundance. In charms and sachets, violets help to maintain tranquility and encourage peace between people. Combine violet with lavender in an herbal pillow to help a child sleep and prevent nightmares.
Caution: May Be Poisonous
Some beautiful flowers with strong magickal powers are poisonous—even deadly. Wolfsbane—a.k.a. aconitum, monkshood, and “the queen of poisons”—is a plant you probably want to steer clear of, or at least handle with extreme care (like wearing rubber gloves when you touch it). This pretty plant has deep blue flowers and witches value its magickal protective powers, but eating it or getting the juice from its root into a cut on your hand could stop your heart—literally. Lovely foxglove, or digitalis, is also toxic. Though long known for its healing properties, it can also cause a wide range of problems, even death. Essential oils are delightful, aromatic ingredients in spells, but some can irritate sensitive skin. Of course, you don’t want to put anything you aren’t sure of in food or beverages. Even plants that seem benign may cause allergic reactions in some people.
MAGICK HERBS
Generally, a plant referred to as an herb possesses some sort of medicinal or culinary value. Witches, however, use the term “herb” as a catch-all for the bits of trees, flowers, spices, and all sorts of plants, and use them for healing, food preparation, and of course, doing magick. The following list of herbs isn’t all-inclusive, but describes many herbs that you might want to use in your spellworking. Quite likely, these herbs already sit in your kitchen’s spice cabinet.
- Allspice: A common staple in the kitchen spice rack, allspice incorporates flavors such as clove, cinnamon, and pepper. Allspice berries make wonderful additions to prosperity blends and spells for increasing energy, love, healing, and luck.
- Angelica: Also known as archangel or angel’s herb, this fragrant plant has been used for centuries to improve digestion. Witches use it magickally for protection and purification.
- Basil: Commonly found in spice racks and in kitchen gardens all over Europe and the Americas, basil is used magickally for prosperity, success, peace, protection, happiness, purification, tranquility, and love.
- Bay: Also known as bay laurel, it crowned the victor of games in ancient Greece and Rome. Witches use it to enhance success, wisdom, and divination. Write a wish on a bay leaf and burn it, or sleep with it under your pillow for prophetic dreams.
- Calendula: A type of marigold, calendula is used medicinally to treat skin irritations, such as eczema, bruises, scars, and scrapes. Use it in magick spells to bring happiness, prosperity, love, psychic powers, and harmony.
- Caraway: The seed of the caraway plant protects against negativity. It’s also a good antitheft herb—add it to protection amulets or charms in your home.
- Chamomile: Therapeutically, chamomile aids digestion and soothes stomach problems, calms stress, and eases headaches. Magickally, it brings prosperity, peace, healing, harmony, and happiness.
- Cinnamon: This multipurpose herb possesses a great amount of energy, and a pinch can be added to rev up a spell’s power. Use it in spells and charms for money, success, vitality, love, and purification.
- Clove: The small dried bud of the clove plant is associated with protection, purification, mental ability, and healing. Add three cloves to an amulet or talisman to keep the charm’s action pure and focused for a longer period of time. A sachet of rosemary, angelica, sage, three cloves, and a pinch of salt tied shut with red ribbon is a good all-purpose amulet to hang above a door or in your car for protection.
- Comfrey: Also known as knitbone, comfrey is renowned as a magickal healing herb, as well as for protection during travel and prosperity.
- Dill: Use either dill seed or weed to attract good fortune, tranquility, prosperity, passion, or protection.
- Ginger: When added to spells, ginger boosts their power. Use ginger to jump-start a romance, stimulate finances, and increase the potential for success in just about anything. Medicinally, it helps calm the stomach, fight colds, and suppress nausea.
- Marjoram: Also known as wintersweet, marjoram is similar to oregano, but sweeter and milder. The ancient Greeks crowned newly married couples with marjoram. Use it magickally to bring happiness, protection, love, and joy, particularly in family environments.
- Mint: Mint comes in many varieties and it’s easy to grow in a garden or on the kitchen windowsill. It helps ease headaches, stimulates the appetite, and aids digestion. Use it magically for prosperity, love, joy, fertility, purification, and success.
- Mugwort: Also known as artemisia and sailor’s tobacco, mugwort helps to open your mind before you try divination. Witches associate it with prophetic dreams, relaxation and tranquility, protection, banishing, and consecration.
- Nutmeg: Medicinally, nutmeg quells nausea and soothes digestive problems (although it can be toxic in large doses). Magickally, it boosts psychic abilities, happiness, love, and money.
- Parsley: The ancient Greeks made victors’ crowns from parsley to celebrate success. Witches use the herb magickally for power, strength, passion, purification, and prosperity.
- Rosemary: You can use rosemary as a skin tonic applied externally and as a hair rinse to add shine to dark hair and soothe itchy scalp. Magickally, it provides protection, improves memory, and brings wisdom.
- Sage: Sage is perhaps the most popular herb for purification. Witches also use it in spells for protection, wisdom, health, and longevity.
- Verbena: Also known as vervain, enchanter’s herb, and herb of grace, verbena helps calm headaches, eases stress, and makes a relaxing bedtime tea. Magickally it is associated with divination, protection, inspiration, abundance, love, peace, tranquility, healing, prosperity, skill in artistic performance, and reversing negative activity. Make a blessing/protection oil by infusing the fresh plant in light olive oil or grape seed oil. Add the dried herb to a charm bag to encourage success.
- Yarrow: Also known as milfoil, millefeuille, yarroway, or bloodwort, yarrow is a common garden herb whose leaves have traditionally been made into poultices to staunch blood. Witches use it for courage, love, and healing.
Don’t overlook other greens for spellworking. Moss, for instance, is tenacious and grows even where you wouldn’t think anything could survive. Use it in spells for patience, perseverance, and toughness. Ferns have connections with invisibility. Witchy folklore says that you should collect ferns before midnight on the eve of the summer solstice if you don’t want to be seen. No, you won’t actually vanish, but you can go about your business in secret. Grass, because it’s so adaptable, can help you be more flexible and let things take their course. In
Part II
, you’ll learn to tap the magick in plants to make amulets, talismans, and all sorts of charms.