Those who regularly follow my blog know I virtually have a brewery in my home – I blame it on my Black Irish grandfather who was always brewing beer and wines in his cellar. I mainly brew mead, but I will soon add beers and ciders to my repertoire. At the last mead party one of the ladies with a more anarchist bent showed us how to make infused Absynthe using herbs and vodka. The following method is not for true Absynthe which requires a distillery to make, but it is an easy method anyone can try at home. It can be used as just an alcoholic beverage, as ritual aid to reach ecstatic trance, as a libation for the dead, or as an aid to commune with the dead.

As a warning note, Absynthe is something to try once or twice or as a treat, DO NOT drink it on a regular basis as the wormwood is addictive and can cause severe poisoning resulting in permanent bodily damage.

Infused Absynthe

1 oz dried chopped wormwood
1 tbsp angelica root
1 tsp hyssop
1 1/2 tsp coriander seeds
1/4 teaspoon caraway seeds
1/2 tsp crushed cardamon
1/4 tsp fennel or anise seeds
2 cups of white sugar (optional)
1 litre of Vodka (40 + proof)

Add the wormwood to the bottle of vodka and let it infuse for 5-14 days , depending on the strength and bitterness you want, shaking at least once every day and then strain out the wormwood. For the next step add the rest of the herbs to the bottle and pour in the strained wormwood-vodka. Allow to infuse for another 5 days, again shaking the bottle every day, then strain and drink or add the absynthe to a pot with 2 cups of sugar and heat until boiling and all the sugar is dissolved, then cool and pour back into the bottle for drinking. This turns it into a liquor and makes it much easier to swallow without making horrible facial expressions from the bitterness!

Before the last dark moon I cleaned my house. This doesn’t sound that unusual except that I was cleaning it magically before a ritual which needed the house to be purified. Normally I just add some of my homemade florida water to a spray bottle and dilute it with spring water and spritz it around the house and on the carpets, but this time I used a floor wash for the linoleum floors, walls, and front step and made a herbal baking powder sprinkle for the carpet since you can’t mop carpet. First I physically cleaned and tidied my home, and then I set to work magically cleaning. All dirt and cat hair swept up wasn’t allowed to linger and was taken out to the garbage through the front door. Then I set about with my magical potions to spiritually cleanse the house and it also has the side effect of making the whole house smell divine.

Spiritual Cleansing Carpet Sprinkle

1 cup baking soda
1 tsp fine sea salt
1 tsp powdered dried basil
5 drops lemon essential oil
10 drops lavender essential oil

Mix in a bowl and crush any lumps formed by the essential oils then add to an old empty and rinsed herb or spice shaker. Walk around your home sprinkling a light coat on all your carpeting and carpeted stairs. Not only does it magically clean the carpet, it also removes odors and helps release any pet hair and dander in the carpet for easier vacuuming.  Let it sit for 10 minutes and then vacuum well.

Cleaning house wasn’t always just physical – in pre-Christian times cleaning was also thought to be magical as it removed evil spirits that could cause bad luck or illness. Today magical floor washes are a common part of spiritual cleansing and are found in modern Hoodoo/Rootwork and folk magic as a regular practice. It is best to spiritually cleanse your home once a month by washing the floors and walls with a magical solution of herbs and a small amount of floor wash can also be added to your regular cleaning products for every time you clean. The best times to use a Floor Wash are during the full or new moon and before and after intense sabbat and esbat rituals.

Tisane brewing for the Health & Healing Floor Wash

My apprentice came over a couple days ago and we set to work making herbal floor washes for spiritual cleansing using my own recipes. We made one for cleansing a new home or regularly cleansing your current home – Sacred Herb Home Cleansing Floor Wash,  one for cleaning a house or room where someone is ill or to spray in a hospital room – Health & Healing Floor Wash, and also one to purify and uncross a home, business, apartment etc, and also to cleanse a temple room or altar of built up energies – Hyssop & Rue Purifying Floor Wash. We started by adding spring and/or rain waters to a non-metal pot and adding all the herbs bringing the mixture to a gentle simmer for about 10 minutes per batch. Any essential oils were added to the bottom of the 8oz storage bottles. Then the tea mixture was strained and poured into the bottles and allowed to cool a bit. Then we added organic fair trade castile soap and they were done. I used spring and rain waters instead of tap water because of their magical energies. Most tap water comes from lakes and lakes are stagnant sitting water not good for purifying and cleansing like rivers, springs, streams, and the ocean are. Lakes are better for grounding energies. And voilà, three new floor washes are now available in the Botanica.

“Astros” – Icelandic runestave which protects from all staves

I came up with some recipes for magical inks and then got together with my apprentice to make a test batch to see if the method would work.  We started with the recipe for black ink as my other recipes had more expensive ingredients. I boiled Alder bark for about 5 hours to get a very dark brown. You’d need to boil it forever for the dye from the bark to turn black. Local natives used to use this simple dye to stain their fishing nets black so the fish couldn’t see them. Once we had a concentrated dye from the bark I added it to my smaller dye pot and my apprentice and I added gum arabic and myrrh resins along with crushed dried spiders and lampblack.

You can make your own lampblack by collecting it from candle or oil lanterns or buy holding a spoon over a candle and scraping off the black residue (lampblack) that forms on the metal. This takes forever to accumulate enough lampblack for an ink — especially if you are making a large batch. If you’re only making enough for a small vial for yourself, then this method is viable.  One way to cheat is to purchase a high quality tube of black watercolour that is purely lampblack and gum arabic — two ingredients you’re going to need anyway. You still need other bases for the colour however (like the Alder bark) or you’ll just be writing with diluted watercolours and it’s not the same as an ink nor is it as strong. I would only recommend this cheat for a black ink though.

Once the ink was blended and the writing tests showed the right conistency and darkness of colour, we allowed the ink to cool and then strained it through a very fine sieve (handcrafted inks can be pretty gritty). I had to add a little more alcohol at this point to thin it as the ink thickened when cooling. Then I poured the ink in pretty wide-mouthed bottles and had a bit of fun testing it out. And voilà, lovely handmade magical ink! Once I’ve completed making the blue, green, brown, and red inks, I’ll have them available for sale on my new revamped website.

The dark half of the year is upon us, spirits come closer to us, and the nights grow cold replacing the friendly warm summer nights with cold darkness that chills the bone. My garden soldiers on regardless, producing flowers, berries, and seeds. My daturas are still blooming along with the mullein and my white nightshade’s berries are turning as black and as shiny as a raven’s eye. At this time of year I get cravings for root vegetables and squash. Pumpkins, acorn squash, sweet potatoes, yams, parsnips, turnips, and carrots — oh my! I saw acorn squash at the market and had to bring one home for soup. Don’t bother and worry about all that cutting and peeling – there’s no need. I just cut them in half (use a serrated knife for ease), scoop out the seeds with a spoon and then season the inside with salt, pepper, and herbs. Then I place the halves face down on a baking sheet and roast in the oven at 375°F for 30 minutes.

While the acorn squash is roasting I set to work dicing two onions, two large carrots, two yams, and four garlic cloves. I tossed the onions and carrots in the soup pot with some olive first and when they had softened I added the garlic. Then I added 12 cups of chicken stock (you could easily use vegetable stock for a vegetarian version) and the diced yam and brought it to a boil. I let it boil on medium heat for half an hour until the yams had cooked through and then I added the roasted squash which I easily scooped out of the skin with a metal spoon.

Once the squash was added I poured the soup in a large bowl and added a little at a time into my blender to purée it. I took the centerpiece out of the lid to let the steam escape so the soup didn’t explode my blender and through the open hole added more soup once the blender had been turned on. Each blended portion then gets poured back into the soup pot and heated. Then I added salt and cracked smoked black peppercorns along with fresh thyme and oregano from my terrace garden.  I always add a dash of hot sauce and worcestershire sauce to my soups as well.

Lastly I made some Irish soda bread with whole grain flour and lots of diced green onions (and plenty of butter) to go with the soup. And voilà, you have yourself a delicious Autumn harvest soup that will serve 8 people. To change it up you can use any kind of squash: pumpkin, spaghetti squash, butternut squash… whatever your favourite may be. If you hate squash then just up the number of carrots used and maybe add some parsnips too. Instead of herbs you could add nutmeg, ginger, coriander, and cumin for a spicier tasting soup. Happy witchin’ in the kitchen!

Where it Grows: Where is Dandelion not found? With it’s fluffy seeds easily carried by the winds, Dandelion has spread across the world with its deep roots helping it to evade weeding attempts. You can intentionally grow them from seed, or by transplanting, to more easily keep track of the age and size of the roots as well as for lettuce greens. If you transplant, don’t be alarmed if the leaves die. The root is still alive and the leaves will come back once the root is used to its new home.

Growing & Harvesting: Everyone with a garden or a lawn knows Dandelions well. Mostly from cursing them while digging them out of their yards or spraying their roots with harsh chemicals to kill them. There is no need to plant Dandelion as it will grow everywhere regardless and is usually quite plentiful. Stop killing them with chemicals right now and let them grow. Collect the bright yellow flowers before they go to seed on a sunny day to make sweet Dandelion wine. Instead of tossing Dandelions you dig up into the compost pile, save the leaves for salads or cooked greens and save the roots to dry for magic or roast for a delicious coffee substitute.

Magic: Dandelion belongs to Hecate and is mainly a chthonic plant associated with the underworld and necromancy. It is beloved by bees, goats, pigs and is considered a toad plant (all have a certain underworld nature), with bees sometimes acting as psychopomps in old folklore. Dandelion is also a very Mercurial weed associated with the air element explaining its use in aiding in communication with the dead and increasing psychic ability. Drink an infusion of the dried and roasted roots to enhance your psychic abilities before performing divination or summoning spirits of the dead. Medicinally, Culpepper writes that Dandelion has an “opening and cleansing quality… it openeth passages”. This can be applied to sympathetic magic, meaning this weed is excellent for walking between realms and communing with the spirits that reside.

Drink Dandelion wine, made from the flowers, to aid in communion with deities and spirits of the upperworld. Both the root tea and the wine make good offerings to Hecate. Pour some in a small hole dug in the earth and cover it, walking away without looking back (an ancient Greek custom when offering to underworld deities). In folk magic the seeds are blown to make wishes. Imagine all those little seeds you blew germinating and growing – your wish sympathetically growing and coming into being a hundred times over. Large Dandelion roots are also a very fitting and traditional root to make alrauns (root poppets) from.

Dandelion Root Tea (Coffee Substitute)

Dig up larger two year old roots and scrub them with an old toothbrush or a potato scrubber to clean. Then chop them up into medium dice and place on a baking sheet in a 250°F oven for about two hours – maybe giving them a shake or a toss now and then. When they turn a milk chocolate brown and have shrunk in size, they are ready. Grind the dried toasted roots as you would coffee beans and either run through a coffee maker or place in a tea bag or ball as you would infuse a cup of tea. Try plain or add cream and sugar for a caramel tasting treat. Toasted Dandelion roots also make a great addition to chai recipes and can be substituted for the black tea leaves.

Dandelion Wine

2 cups of freshly picked Dandelion flowers (no stems)
3 lemons
1 orange
7.5 cups (4 lbs) brown or demerara sugar
1 gallon water
1 tbsp of yeast on a piece of toast

Add the water to a stock pot with flowers and bring to a medium boil for 20 minutes. Strain out the flowers adding the liquid back to the pot and then add the sugar. Peel one lemon and the orange adding the rind to the pot and then juice them and add that too. Remove from heat when the sugar has dissolved. Allow to cool to a lukewarm temperature and then add the yeast on a small piece of toast. Cover with a dish cloth and leave on your counter to ferment for two days. Skim off any foam and take out the peels. Pour into a 1 gallon carboy and add just the peels of the remaining two lemons. Cap with an airlock and keep an eye on it the first couple days to make sure it doesn’t leak liquid everywhere. Allow to ferment for six months before bottling – be sure the yeast is dead before doing so!

Medicine: Dandelions are rich in vitamins and nutrients. It is one of the best weeds to incorporate into your regular diet. It is most well known as a diuretic to help the liver and gallbladder, but it is also popular for cleansing the blood. Home brewers love to joke about how drinking Dandelion wine doesn’t count as drinking as the properties of the Dandelion fix any problems the alcohol causes as you drink it. Dandelion makes a great detoxifying tonic and eating the fresh greens can actually aid in bone health and growth. The leaves are bitter so be sure to mix them with sweeter greens when eating fresh. To make a tonic tea, harvest the plant whole before it flowers or just the leaves while it’s flowering and steep them in boiled water just as you would a tea. Drink daily or just for a short period of time especially before changing your diet. Dandelion is also a great flower for honey production as it flowers in the fall as well as the spring allowing bees to have one last mad honey-making dash before winter. Dandelions produce a dark rich honey.

References:

• A Modern Herbal vol.I by Margaret Grieve
• A Sip Through Time by Cindy Renfrow
• Culpepper’s Complete Herbal
• Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs
• The Herb Book by John Lust
• Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic by cat yronwode
• Medicine Grove by Loren Cruden

Note: Scylla also recently posted a useful Dandelion article on her blog titled: “The Dandelion: The Orbit of The Solar System in an unassuming, occasionally bothersome, little flowering weed“

There’s more magic cooking in the witch’s kitchen. I’m making more of my Toadman’s Salve for shapeshifting, hedgecrossing, and communing with a toad familiar. I’ve started another batch of my Genius Loci salve for materializing and communicating with nature spirits – mainly those of forests and wild places. I’m also working on a crafting a 17th century fairy ointment recipe. I just need to find one more ingredient before I can complete it. I found the instructions in the classic work Fairy Tradition in Britain by Lewis Spence. The making of the fairy ointment is quite ritualistic, but not nearly as elaborate as crafting Medea’s Salve.

Supposedly Prometheus taught Medea how to make this salve from Mandrake root. Mandrake sprung up from the ichor, god blood, of Prometheus from his time in punishment for bringing us fire. Gods’ blood is poisonous to mortals like the Mandrake, but in small doses the root is very useful medicinally and ritually. It would be good for channeling gods as Prometheus is the Gods’ telephone pole – this salve is like a phone you can use to dial a deity’s number with an invocation. Even being tortured and bound, Prometheus as trickster still covertly gifted we mortals.

A simple blend of precisely measured genuine Mandragora root, rich extra virgin olive oil from Greece, and high quality filtered beeswax. However, this salve is not so simple to make. Following the ancient recipe with the help of my lovely apprentice, we left a sacrifice of an apple and a healthy dose of my home brewed pomegranate-apple mead in a pit at a crossroads to Persephone. Then we lit the altar candles and created sacred space to work within. Next we cleansed ourselves in the waters of seven springs (as many local ones as we could find) before invoking Hecate with an offering of my Hecate Incense and more mead. Then we were able to work with the Mandragora and craft the salve of Medea which can be used in honour of  Prometheus, Persephone, Hecate, or Aphrodite depending on your intent. This salve will allow you to take on the powers of a god, is what Medea says to Jason. Use for channeling and for rites needing abilities beyond your ken such as shapeshifting, travelling between worlds, or communing with spirits. My apprentice and I tested it out when we were done and I made sure to take notes. We rub a small amount of the salve on the back of our necks, behind our ears, and inside the elbows. Then wait around twenty minutes…

Heat, waves of heat like a hot flash, but not a flash – waves. It is pleasant. My hands and my neck are warm, but the rest of my body feels cool to the touch even though I feel hot from the inside. I feel this same heat when I sing charms, invocations, and when performing certain rituals. We went outside on the deck to sit with my poisonous plants and the cooling night air made the heat balance and I felt comfortable even though I should have been cold. Definitely mind altering. Time goes by quickly. No fuzzy mind or clouded thoughts. Sight is very focused and sharp with clearer detail. Young crows fly by in mass numbers to roost for the night. The tiny purple bittersweet flowers with their tiny tufts of pollen. It makes one silly and giggle a bit like pot. Saliva builds up in the mouth and words become confused to speak. I touch the datura. I’m thirsty it says with no words. I feel this strongly. I touch the earth and it’s quite dry. Suddenly, it starts to rain.

Around the same time my apprentice and I also made the traditional Nine Sacred Herbs Salve. The recipe for this salve is taken from an 11th century manuscript which also contains the charm sung along with its use to empower the herbs.  The nine sacred herbs were discovered and shared with us mortals by the god Odin and are traditional to Germanic and Anglo-Saxon lore. They are chamomile, chervil, crab apple, fennel, mugwort, nettle, English plantain, viper’s bugloss, and watercress. This is a magical healing salve used for healing both physical and metaphysical illness. Out of the nine herbs, the ones still used medicinally in salves today are chamomile, mugwort, and plantain – not bad for thousand-year old herbal knowledge.

To enhance its healing powers, the charm is  sung three times while applying the salve to heal ills beyond the herbs’ medicinal abilities such as painful arthritis, rheumatism, sprains, carpal tunnel, infections, diseases, or even to cure someone of the evil eye or other curses. It is a long charm, but it is traditionally to say or sing it all three times:  Nine Herbs Charm with Translation.

“Medea” by Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys, 1868

The majority of questions I receive in emails from fellow witches are about flying ointments so I thought I would write out the information here in one place where anyone can access it for free. I won’t tell you not to experiment with dangerous poisons as it would be hypocritical of me, but I will say that if you don’t have at least a grasp of what the more dangerous plants are capable of, their side effects, and the proper dosages, you shouldn’t be fooling around with them period. Let me say that again — period. The one thing I will not share in this article (or by private email) is dosage of individual plants. If you want to use the Solanaceae that badly and learn their dosages, then do the research or undergo professional herbalist training to get your hands on them.

A Background and History

For those who may not know, a flying ointment is a salve or oil made with psychoactive herbs purportedly used by witches to fly to their Sabbath rites in the early modern period during the height of the witch hunts in Europe.

Animal fats were used as the base to extract the potent oils and alkaloids from these poisonous plants because animal fats were convenient and accessible even to the poor. Today with the help of modern science we know that our skin will absorb a salve made with hog’s lard more quickly and easily than any other substance because our genetics are so similar to a pig’s. Adding plant-based oils to an animal fat remedies the problem of absorbing a substance foreign to our bodies. Our ancestors were pretty clever weren’t they?

Some may think flying ointments only go back as far as the Middle Ages as the majority of written accounts and recipes are from that period. But if we look in mythology, ancient literature, and folktales, we find a rich source of lore that leads back to pre-Christian times. Flying ointments are mentioned in Apollonius Rhodius’ The Argonautica from 200 BCE, Lucius Apuleius’ The Golden Ass from around 160 CE, and the oldest possible reference is in Homer’s The Iliad from around 800 BCE where the goddess Hera uses an oil of ambrosia to fly to Olympus never touching the earth. To hear excerpts on flying ointments from these and other works listen to HedgeFolk Tales episode VIII: Flying Ointments.

So now we know flying ointments go at least as far back as ancient Greece and Rome, but what about even further back into history? Remains found of henbane, belladonna, and marijuana in Scotland and Northern Europe date as far back as the Neolithic period – that’s at least 10,000 years ago! (1) These plants were mostly found in the form of seeds and remnants of ritual alcoholic beverages so it is not known if they were used in salves by the magical practitioners of the time, but the pits upon pits of animal bone refuse show that Neolithic peoples had easy access to animal fats. It’s not too far off, I think, to put the two together – but it’s just this witch’s hopeful estimation.

What are the Herbs Used?

Most flying ointment recipes include plants from the Solanaceae family; you may recognize some or all of them: belladonna, datura, henbane, and mandrake. Other traditional flying ointment herbs include the opium poppy, water hemlock, monkshood, and foxglove. Wherever these plants are to be found, so are witches. Our symbiotic relationship with these poisonous plants goes back into the far reaches of time

Solanaceae contain the alkaloids atropine, hyoscyamine, and scopolamine. The tropane compound within the Solanaceae family can cause heart problems or even heart failure among other issues when ingested, but if you use them externally they are much less dangerous, however careful dosage is still needed to avoid things like permanent blindness and death. The other well-known ingredients of foxglove, hemlock, aconite (also known as monkshood) should never be used in modern ointments now that we know better – they only poison and paralyze.

Traditional less poisonous plants used include balm of gilead, calamus root, cannabis, clary sage, dittany of Crete, mugwort, tansy, wormwood, and yarrow. There is a bit of controversy whether fly agaric or other psychoactive mushrooms were used and if their constituents are even fat-soluble, but there is currently no documentation on the subject to prove or disprove it. Balm of gilead (the buds of any poplar tree species) can be found in almost every flying ointment recipe from the Middle Ages as poplar salves were used for healing much more than they were used by witches for flying. Do not use balm of gilead if you are allergic to aspirin. The flying effects of calamus root are best felt from ingestion rather than topical application so I would only recommend adding it for its metaphysical properties and sweet smell. If you use calamus make sure it is the carcinogen-free species Acorus calamus americanus native to N. America.

Mugwort, oreganos (including dittany of Crete), sages (including clary sage), tansy, and wormwood contain thujone which is a stimulant and believed to be the cause of their psychoactive properties. Yarrow, while not having psychoactive properties, has been traditionally used by shamans for centuries to protect the body while the soul is journeying and to aid in bringing the soul and the person back to consciousness (3). Yarrow was more commonly burned as a smudge for these purposes, but can be smoked or added to a salve as well.

Modern Flying Ointments

“…despite the fact that none of the ‘modern witches’ themselves have any experience with the plants, they warn about the poisonous additives… [I]t is considered trendy to brew ‘modern flying ointments, guaranteed to not be poisonous.” The recipes are nothing more than ineffective rubbish.”

Christian Rätsch, Witchcraft Medicine

Like Rätsch I’ve seen numerous “crafty” witch books in the neoPagan market carelessly list the poisonous ingredients of Medieval flying ointment recipes with no dosages and then, in bold font with many an asterisk, tell the reader to never to attempt to make or use the recipes. Then the authors proceed to list two or more non-toxic flying ointment recipes that usually contain herbs and essential oils completely unrelated to soul-flight and otherworld travel. Many online Pagan shops are selling such recipes right now. An ointment that smells pretty but does nothing is only going to result in very pissed off witches.

My advice to you is to avoid modern flying ointments lauding their non-toxic properties as all that will happen is you’ll have $10-40 less than you did before (unless it’s one of Harry’s ambrosial flying oils, of course).

How a Flying Ointment Works

Psychoactive plants are believed to remove the barriers between our world and the world of the spirits and gods; they essentially are keys to the otherworld door and, some would say, to the entire universe.  Consciousness is like seeing the world through a keyhole as there’s only so much you are able to see – we are too busy looking at the limited amount of what we can see, naming, cataloguing, and trying to explain everything in our field of vision, that we do not see what is beyond the keyhole or what is behind us in the dark. Now what if someone gave you a key? Would you put it in the lock and turn it to open the door and see all the wonders and horrors on the other side? Flying ointments are one such key.

Flying ointments are used to aid in trance, astral travel, and spirit work, to receive divine inspiration (awen, imbas, the cunning fire), to help release the spirit from the body, for hedgecrossing, for shapeshifting, or to enhance or access powers for magic, rituals, and spellwork.

How to Use a Flying Ointment

Before you use an ointment in a ritual setting I recommend testing out its strength and your tolerance. Use only a small amount to test your level of tolerance – a small circle at the base of your neck should do.  Wait to see how you feel. Always wait a minimum of 30 min to feel the effects before using more salve. If you are comfortable with the level of effects you are feeling, stop there, and then apply that same amount for ritual use.

To use for magic and ritual, apply the ointment after you have cast your protected ritual space and when you won’t be doing much moving around afterward. Whisper to your jar of salve and reveal your intent – do you want to achieve soul-flight, shapeshift into an owl, borrow the plant’s powers for a spell? Then say so out loud to the plants and any spirits and deities you have called. You could say something along the lines of “as I anoint my body with this salve my spirit will loosen from its flesh and fly from here to [desired location].”

As a witch who makes and uses flying ointments I’ve found it is not necessary to anoint one’s mucous membranes for quick absorption (please don’t rape your broom or staff). Many of the plants used are very toxic and very potent and you do not want them near your sensitive bits unless the dosage of the plants is nice and low or you’ve used the less toxic herbs in your recipe. A milder recipe can be used for sex magic by anointing each partner’s sex organs before doing the deed. Magically, the best places to apply a flying ointment are the base of the neck for the spine’s connection to the World Tree, the third eye, over the heart, the armpits (for wings), and the soles of the feet. Where your neck meets your spine and the third eye are especially effective because they are doorways in and out of your body.

To get the most out of your experience use a flying ointment in an atmospheric setting; in your decked-out temple room, in a pitch black space, under the moon and starlight, a beautiful spot in nature, or a place of threshold power (a place with water, land, and sky all present, a place between civilization and the wilds, a hedge, etc)

What to Expect:

I need to say this as clearly as possible: YOU SHOULD NOT EXPERIENCE HALLUCINATIONS. If you hallucinate a) your body and brain are freaking out and don’t know how to handle the alkaloids in the poisonous plants because it’s your first time ever using them, or, b) you’ve overdosed and need to cut way back on the dosage (you might also need to make a trip to the ER if they’re severe enough). Hallucinations are the bodies’ way of dealing with foreign chemicals that have effects our systems aren’t used to. Those who have never tried shrooms, cannabis, ecstasy, LSD, acid, and, heck, even wormwood and damiana before are more likely to experience hallucinations than someone who has tried them and knows what to expect. The more relaxed you are, the less likely you are to experience hallucinations.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: hallucinations are not visionary experiences, they’re hallucinations of imaginary experiences usually based on your fears. Flying ointments and their traditional plants are meant to be an aid for visionary experiences, not a wreaking ball to your sanity.

What does a healthy reaction to a flying ointment feel like? It should feel like you are stoned; lightheadedness, silliness, and euphoria at first. After that the experience should deepen and colour, sound, smell, sight, and taste will all be enhanced. You will experience the mundane world differently and you may feel awe, amazement, and wonder at what you see and feel. You may have profound thoughts and realizations you normally would not. You may hear whispers or see glimpses of things you would not in ordinary consciousness. And, when used ritually by those with the gift, you will be able to achieve things you’d never imagined when your spirit is separated from flesh; shapeshifting into animals and elemental forces, long distance travel, dreamwalking, interacting with wights and shades…

Contraindications:

Do not touch your eyes, nose, or mouth after using the ointment. Keep away from children and pets. Do not use when pregnant or breastfeeding. Do not drive or operate machinery while under the effects of a flying ointment. Do not do any active tasks and try not to move around much at all.  Side effects may include temporary dizziness, fatigue, and blurred vision (the latter especially if the ointment contains belladonna). Give yourself 2-5 hours to recover from the experience and get back to normal.

Basic Salve Recipe

1 cup fixed oil
0.5-2oz of dry herb*
1 oz shaved beeswax (per 1 cup oil)

Place the oil and herbs in a glass jar, place the jar on a baking sheet and place in the oven set at 100-160°F for 3-5 hours (you can use a double-boiler instead, but watch the temperature and the water). Stir once an hour. Strain the herbs from the oil. Measure the oil again, it will always be less than one cup after the herbs soak up some of the oil, add more oil to bring it back to one cup. Pour the oil into a clean jar and add the beeswax. Put the jar back in the oven or double boiler until the beeswax melts, then test a dab on a jar lid to see if the salve has the right consistency. If it does, pour it into jars. Store in a cool, dry place and it should last for up to 2 years if you add a preservative (balm of gilead is a natural preservative).

* The amount of herb will depend on the potency and toxicity – always try the least amount first. 2oz is the norm for a non-toxic medicinal salve.

References

1. Clarke, Robert C., Fleming, Michael P. 1998. “Physical evidence for the antiquity of Cannabis sativa L“. Journal of the International Hemp Association. 5(2): 80-92.
2. Della Porta, Giovanni Battista . De Miraculis Rerum Naturalium. 1558.
3. Havens, K., Jefferson, L., and Marcello, P. Uses and Abuses of Plant-Derived Smoke: Its Ethnobotany as Hallucinogen, Perfume, Incense & Medicine. Oxford University Press, 2010
4. MacGregor Mathers, S.L. The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin The Mage As Delivered by Abraham the Jew unto his Son Lamech, A.D. 1458. John M. Watkins: London, 1900.
5. Müller-Ebeling, C., Rätsch, C., and Storl, W.D. Witchcraft Medicine: Healing Arts, Shamanic Practices, and Forbidden Plants. Inner Traditions, 2003.

A very magical couple and dear friends (who I’ll call Thicket and Huntress) picked me up on Thursday and off we went to Granville Island to visit the market and the artisans. We saw dozens upon dozens of handwoven brooms with handles from every tree imaginable (can’t you just picture one in Baba Yaga’s hut deep in the forest?). They were so witchily tempting, but each of us already had their like at home and which we really do use to sweep our houses with. We played handmade drums and rattles in the music shop, made fun of the incense prices in the magic shop, and went to see the silk weavers’ cottage where I bought plied red silk for weaving rowan cross charms. Then we had dinner in the market and, all of us being dirty-minded, just had to pick the European sausage stall. There was bratwurst and sauerkraut and friend onions and at least half a dozen mustards to choose from.

Then it was off and away to Kits to visit Banyen Books & Sound (I’ve gone on about them before). Thicket went to look at books while Huntress and I went right to the drums and to fondle the tarot decks. It’s always so hard to leave there without a stack of books. I managed to get away with only one book, but Huntress (a herbalist) left with a good stack of books on mushrooms and Grieve’s herbal. After pawing over them, we now highly recommend The Fungal Pharmacy, Mushrooms and Other Fungi of North America (a really good identification guide), and both want (but didn’t buy) Chanterelle Dreams, Amanita Nightmares. I, of course, couldn’t leave without a book on sacred brewing that talked of a whole hive mead, the magical properties of bee propolis and combines my two loves of mead and beer; Sacred and Healing Herbal Beers by the poetic Stephen Buhner.  It is full of recipes for meads and beers: herbal, medicinal, psychoactive, and delicious brews. There are henbane recipes in it – I may have swooned.

Then we picked up their two wee ones and made the few hour drive to their place in an old gold rush town nestled deep in the mountains. The view late that night was black shadows of mountain peaks and every star imaginable shining down when far away from the light pollution of the city. I fell asleep next to a fire under a ceiling of stars. The next day Huntress and I drove through the gorgeous 360° views of impossibly tall mountains, wild forests, and a large snaking river.  When we returned we read aloud to each other favourite passages from Datura and Christian Rätsch’s Encyclopedia of  Psychoactive Plants while Thicket listened in amusement. We planned visionary plant journeys deep in the mountains’ wild forests for the spring where we will build a temporary structure of greenwood and a good fire, watch for wolves, and play our drums far away from the things of men.

What better way to finish such a lovely simple day than to drink her hubby’s 4-year old cinnamon-clove mead warmed over the stove by a roaring fire? We talked late into the dark of spirits, magic, herbs, poisons, entheogens, wildcrafting, and doing plant journeys in the forest. “My arm hurts. There’s going to be a blizzard,” says Huntress, and it snows all night long and then the next day and the next. Old Woman had arrived at last. The once-green mountains turned white, a blinding mist rolled through the forest, and everything was covered in a deep, heavy blanket of snow.

We all hid inside from the snow, watching Grimm and 13th Warrior. What do foody herbalists do when trapped by snow? We made all kinds of herbal teas – fresh lemon, fresh galangal root, and fresh kaffir lime leaves is amazing.  Huntress made us delicious lunches and snacks. Together her and I cooked a feast of roast goose with homemade cranberry jelly, bacon-mushroom stuffing, new potatoes, and sautéed mushrooms and asparagus (with more mead of course). There was so much rich goose fat you could feel your arteries harden, but it’s liquid gold and it was worth it.

Bacon-Mushroom Stuffing

1/2 loaf of sourdough bread, cut into cubes
6 slices of bacon, chopped
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 big handfuls of button mushrooms, quartered
pinches, to taste, of rosemary and thyme
salt and pepper
2 eggs, beaten

Sautée the bacon with the mushrooms, onion, and garlic until the bacon is crisp. Take the pan off the heat and add the bread, s&p, and herbs and mix. Beat the eggs and pour them over the bread, stirring quickly before the egg has a chance to cook – get it to soak into the sourdough. Push down the stuffing mixture into a loaf pan and baste well with roasted goose, duck, or chicken fat. Bake for 30 min. Leave it uncovered if you like the outside crispy or cover with tinfoil if you like your stuffing soft and moist.

More nights staying up late drinking perfect mead in candle and firelight talking of homesteading, gardening, foraging, brewing, beekeeping, and a thousand other magical and wonderous topics we all share a love of. But then, alas, it came time to say goodbye and make the treacherous drive in the snow back down to the city from the mountains and the forest. We passed semis and suv’s on their sides in the snow and saw many a car fish-tail and almost lose control. But we didn’t – sometimes it’s good to have two magicians in a car. It snowed and snowed until we reached the city and found clear roads and blue sky among the clouds. Old Woman’s hold is less away from the mountains and the wild. I already miss my friends, the fire, and the nights of mead and conversation, but I have a hot cup of tea inside from the snow,  there is a candle spell burning on the kitchen table, and I have my fat black cat who missed my warm lap. Life is lovely.

I woke up early this morning and the Poisoner had made me tea. “Don’t look outside,” he said. So of course I did. The first snow of the season in this old town. Thick, heavy, fluffy snow, driven hard by a fierce wind, falls from the sky; contrasted against the ancient holly tree bearing its bloody fruits. The Cailleach has arrived, shaking her apron. Groggy with sleep, my first instinct was to light the candle in the kitchen window and pour her a glass a whiskey. “For the blue hag,” I said, and pointed at the Cailleach mask hanging on my wall. It’s always better to welcome and appease the fierce Old Woman. A Scot and a witch too, the Poisoner didn’t blink at my simple rite.

There is fresh ginger root and lemons and cinnamon sticks and honey in my kitchen. Time for another Scots tradition since we’re both sick with a nasty cold: a hot toddy.

• 1 oz whiskey or rum
• 1-2 cups hot water
• 1-2 lemon wedges
• 1 cinnamon stick

Soothes a sore throat, but only have 1-2 a day during your cold and drink plenty of water and non-alcoholic tea to keep yourself hydrated. I feel a very strong desire to make a fresh ginger and honey cough syrup with coltsfoot and mullein… But now to curl up with my hot toddy and an early Yule gift of a book of 1800′s Scottish folklore while my flying ointments infuse warmly in the oven.

Wild violets taste like green and purple; clean and fresh, they are like clover, budding leaves, and sunlight. The sun came out for a brief, warm flash and brought spring with it, suddenly, everything blooming like an unexpected orgasm. I found an expansive patch of viola adunca a short walk from my home and buried my face in the sweet purple fragrance. I picked every flower I could reach finding bright red lady bugs hugging the leaves and watching honey bees make love to pollen-covered stamens.

“All flowers growing in untrodden dells and shady nooks, uncontaminated by the tread of man, more especially belonged” to Venus and Diana. — Thiselton-Dyer

It is no surprise that violets belong to Venus and the water element. They are so sweet and delicately feminine, their shy purple heads hiding in shady, moist places under trees and near water.  Peaceful, healing, and soothing, when carried or eaten violets will protect from wicked spirits and help to heal wounds physical or spiritual. Mixed with lavender they create a powerful potion of love and lust. Make a wish on the first violet you see and it will be granted. Eat violets to change your luck for the better. To dream of violets means your fortunes are about to change for the good. To see violets bloom in autumn means disaster and misfortune.

I took home my treasure of delicate purple beauty and researched how to make a violet syrup. I was disappointed in what I found. Most syrup recipes aren’t meant for something as delicate and fresh as a flower and the boiling process in the recipes would destroy the colour and the flavour… so I made up my own recipe and I’m happy to say it was a success! For the best results, pick your flowers in the morning just after they’ve opened but before the sun burns away the fragrance and work with them right away.

WILD VIOLET SYRUP

• Pack a 1 litre canning jar with fresh violet flowers
• Add 4 cups of distilled water and 2 tbsp of spirits (40% or more)
• Seal jar and infuse for 24-48 hours – shaking a few times each day
• Strain, squeeze remaining liquid from petals and discard petal pulp
• Measure resulting infusion
• Heat until just boiling and add 1 part sugar per 1 part violet infusion
• Remove from heat as soon as sugar melts completely
• Cool and add 1 tbsp of spirits per 1 cup of liquid
• Strain through cheese cloth
• Store in the fridge

Pick as many violet flowers as you can and really pack them in – the more you have to work with the stronger in taste your syrup will be. By only heating the infusion long enough to melt the sugar, you preserve the strong violet colour, taste, and smell.

Now that you have violet syrup, what to do with it? You can pour it as is over top of vanilla or coconut ice cream or have it for breakfast with pancakes, waffles, or crepes. Brush the layers of a white cake with it, letting it soak in well, and ice with a white butter cream and garnish with candied violets for a gorgeous and simple violet cake. Pour it over wild flower pound cake crumbled in a bowl and add booze, custard, and whipped cream to make a violet trifle.

WILDFLOWER POUND CAKE

• 1 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cup pastry flour
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 5 eggs, separated
• 1 1/2 cup icing sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 cup edible flowers (violets, roses, pansies)

Cream butter. Sift flour and baking soda and gradually add to butter. Beat egg yolks until thick and lemon coloured and add sugar to them gradually. Combine the two mixtures. Beat egg whites until stiff and gently fold into the mixture, not stirring. Fold in the fresh flowers – the more colourful the better. Pour batter into a greased loaf or cake pan and bake for 1 hour at 350°F. Cool for one hour before eating. Serve plain with butter or eat with ice cream.

Add 1 tbsp of violet syrup per 1 cup of soda water to make home made violet soda. Diluted it is a pale lavender colour and tastes divine. Use it to mix drinks as the violet syrup would pair well with a plain mead, vodka, white rum, gin, or brandy to make your own creme de violette. Mix a Blue Moon cocktail by combining gin, lemon juice, and violet syrup or a Moonlight cocktail with gin, lime juice, cointreau, and violet syrup.

Give it away as gifts or hoard it for yourself. Violets and dandelions are the earliest spring flowers here alongside Japanese cherry blossoms and oemleria, but soon there will be more to come. Try making other flower syrups to celebrate the blooming of spring: magnolia, hawthorn flower, elderflower, Oregon grape flower… With summer will come the wild roses, fireweed, clovers, honeysuckle, and yarrow.

I think next year a small batch of violet mead may be in order…

Yes, you read the title right –you can make shampoo using berries harvested from the wild! The resulting shampoo doesn’t have the soapy lather or shelf life of commercial shampoos, but it gets the job done and you know for sure you’re only putting wild berries on your head and not any mystery chemicals, toxins, or preservatives. Even if it’s not something you’d do every day, it sure is a fun activity while camping. As usual, practice ethical wildcrafting!

• Devil’s Club - good for dandruff, dry itchy scalp, and lice
• Snowberry - good for blond or light-coloured hair
• Soapberry - good for red or brown hair

To make wild berry shampoo you will need 1 cup of fresh berries or 1/2 cup of dried and 1 cup of freshly boiled water.  Pour the hot water over the berries and mash or put through a blender. If using dried berries, be sure to let the mixture sit for 15-30 minutes, or more if needed, to allow the berries to soften for easier mashing and blending. The mix will last 2-3 days in the fridge and will only last that many washes as well. You can always freeze the fresh berries or the shampoo mixture to have enough for regular use.

To use, massage a portion of the berry mash into damp hair and rinse. Rinsing with cool or cold water keeps hair moist and shiny.

Tips and Tricks: Devil’s Club and Snowberries can only be picked in the wild and cannot be purchased, but Soapberries can be purchased in bulk from some retailers such as Richter’s.  Like the idea but don’t have access to any of the berries? Try making a soapwort infusion instead to massage and rinse your hair with.

If you have dandruff and are making a berry shampoo with Devil’s Club, also try adding 1 Tbsp of apple cider vinegar to the blend. If you have oily hair, try adding 1 Tbsp of baking soda to 2 Tbsp’s worth of the berry mash.

Want to take the recipe further? Try adding wild harvested nettles or mints, all-purpose hair tonics, by making an infusion with the hot water before adding it to the berries. Also try adding peppermint oil for a stimulating experience great for dry, itchy, flaky scalp.

Warnings: The berries of Devil’s Club and Snowberry are poisonous so make sure to keep the berries and/or the shampoo away from children and pets and keep the shampoo out of your eyes. Soapberries are edible in moderation and are the safer option, especially if you’ll be making this recipe with children.

For my challenge of crafting traditional incense using only botanicals native to the Pacific Northwest I decided to try my hand at not just one, but two kyphi recipes: Hawthorn Rose and Rocky Mountain. My recipes were crafted with Pacific Northwest botanicals using the traditional Egyptian method; a labour-intensive process which requires a month’s time to make and cure.

Kyphi is a solid compound incense of herbs and resins in a base of fruits soaked in honey and wine and formed into small bricks or pills. Kyphi incense was burned for evening prayers and as a folk medicine in ancient Egypt as long as 4000 years ago and, as a few of the original written recipes have survived, it is still burned today.

First I ground up all the ingredients and split them into wet (berries and oils) and dry (herbs and resins) for each blend. The dry mixtures were left to mingle for about a week and a few days before the week was up I added local Similkameen wildflower honey and my homebrewed devil’s club-huckleberry mead to the ground juniper berries of the Rocky Mountain blend and the hawthorn berries and rosehips of the Hawthorn Rose blend. In ancient Egypt they would’ve used juniper berries and/or raisins to form the wet base along with the honey and the wine. Once blended, the wet mixtures are left to soak up the liquids for a few days so the fruits become a sticky paste.

After the few days the dry ingredients are mixed in with the wet. I use my hands because the mixtures are too thick to stir with a spoon. The finished blends are then stored in air-tight containers for two weeks to fully incorporate all the textures and fragrances.

And then I shaped each blend into small bricks with my fingers and placed them on racks to cure and dry for another two weeks. I like to shape them into bricks instead of pills even though pills are easier because I think the pill shape makes kyphi look like animal droppings — it’s just a weird thing I have. I covered the tops of the kyphi bricks lightly with sheets of wax paper to keep off the dust and it worked beautifully.

Once the bricks have cured and are no longer crumbly and sticky to the touch, they are ready to package and share with the world. Because they contain essential oils, they will only smell better as they are left to age and the high sugar and alcohol contents act as natural preservatives for a long shelf life.

Hawthorn Rose Kyphi Incense

A rich floral kyphi crafted with ambrosial native berries, flowers, roots, barks, and resins. Wild rose petals and sweet flag root mingle with sickly sweet bee propolis and wild cherry resins in a base of hawthorn berries and rosehips traditionally blended with honey and homebrewed honey wine.

Rocky Mountain Kyphi Incense

A complex Pacific Northwest kyphi recipe of fragrant evergreen forests and snowcapped mountains. Wild harvested Western Redcedar, Western Hemlock, and Spruce needles with local Pine resins in a base of Juniper berries traditionally blended with honey and homebrewed honey wine.

It was my birthday last week and I was suitably spoiled with a dinner on the patio of Horizons restaurant overlooking a gorgeous view from the top of my mountain with more mountains as far as the eye can see and the setting sun shining on the sea to the West. It was a beautiful day of a delicious locally-sourced dinner in the park with a view of the Ainu totem poles aptly named “The Playground of the Gods”, the mountains, and the sea inlet with crows flying overhead.

After a walk in the Burnaby Mountain Conservation Area my sweetie and I headed home for a slice of my delicious homemade honey lemon rose cake with lemon butter icing. It’s a recipe I wrote many years ago and almost forgot about until my birthday when I decided I wanted to change things up and have a cake that wasn’t chocolate. I’ve included  the recipe if you want to taste its deliciousness too! Omit the rose water and rose petals for a purely lemon treat. I chose lemon for happiness and prosperity and rose for love and healing for my next year of life on the mountain.

Honey Lemon Rose Cake

Mix ingredients:

1 cup butter, softened
1 2/3 cups honey, unpasteurized
3 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp rose water
1/2 cup wild rose petals
1 cup lemon juice (freshly squeezed or diluted Realemon)
grated rind of one lemon

Then add the dry ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose or cake & pastry flour
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda

Lastly fold in:

3 egg whites, beaten until stiff peaks form

Preheat oven to 350°F. Blend the wet mixture (you may need to heat the honey with the lemon juice to get it to blend) and then sift in the dry ingredients through a sieve (sifting makes baked goods lighter and fluffier) and blend. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form and then gently fold them into the batter. Pour right away into two greased 8″ cake pans and place in your preheated oven. Bake for 20-30 minutes until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Gently tip the cakes onto a cooling rack and allow to fully cool before icing. Because the cake is so light and fluffy be careful when moving the layers around so they don’t break.

Lemon Butter Icing

1 cup butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla
1/8 cup lemon juice, or to taste
1-3 tbsp rose water, to taste
3-6 cups icing sugar, sifted

Stir and play with the quantities of sugar and liquids until you get the perfect, creamy, easily spreadable texture you want. Ice the cake, decorate the top with candied rose petals or lemon peel if desired, cut and eat! I’ve decorated the top with candied pansies before and it was gorgeous and tasty. Happy baking!

To me, nothing is more festive for the winter holidays than mulled anything; mulled cider, mulled wine, and, since I am a mead-maker, I had to make mulled mead. I used a bottle of my sugar pumpkin spice mead that has been aging for three years, delicious honey from Honey Grove Farm, citrus, spices, and a sprig of the Rocky Mountain Juniper I harvested this week. If you want to make your own mulled deliciousness I’ve included a recipe below:

Mulled Mead

• 1 bottle of mead
• 1/2 a small lemon
• 1 mandarin orange, halved
• 1 small sprig of fresh juniper
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 8 cloves
• 6 peppercorns
• 3 slices of fresh ginger
• 3-6 tbsp of unpasteurized honey to taste

A bottle of sack or metheglin mead is best (aka plain), but fruit meads can also be delicious – think mulled black currant or cranberry or pomegranate… mmm. If you don’t make mead and can’t find some to purchase substitute with a sweet white wine like a Riesling or a Gewürztraminer. Pour the mead into a pot on the stove or into a crock pot and add all the ingredients. You can get creative and make a local version sans the exotic citrus and spices by adding  tips of fir and pine trees and juniper berries for a spicy forest flavour, frozen berries you picked in the forest in the summer for a touch of fruit, and vanilla leaf or sweet grass for a hint of wild sweetness.

Heat on low, without boiling, for at least an hour before drinking. If any of the ingredients start tasting too strong, take them out. It’s pretty tasty so you might want to use more than one bottle of mead if you’re sharing with others or you’ll be pouting into an empty cup. Drink warm in tea mugs or ceramic goblets and enjoy!

I managed to avoid all the plagues of my friends all winter so far, but I am apparently not so immune to the plagues of small children and finally succumbed to a cold. There’s nothing I hate more than a runny nose and a sore throat and I wasn’t about to put up with it for too long. My solution to almost every trouble is tea. Worried and stressed about something? Drink tea. Crappy day at work? Drink tea. Someone was mean to you? Drink tea. Get sick? You guessed it – drink tea! After three days of drinking copious quantities of homemade herbal teas, my cold was gone. They weren’t even fancy or exotic and they all tasted pretty good – especially with some delicious throat-soothing local honey stirred in. I love to make my own teas; to play with ingredients and flavours and see if they have any medicinal or emotional applications. They always make me feel better than drinking store-bought teas. To give them a try yourself I’ve included the recipes below. If you’re a vegan try substituting maple syrup for the honey.

Elderberry-Cinnamon

Makes 1 pot of tea, steep for 10-15 minutes

1 Tbsp elderberries, dried
1-2 cinnamon sticks, crushed
1-3 Tbsp of honey, to taste

Good for sore throats, coughs, cold and flu, bronchitis, asthma, etc – see the throat and lung connection? Also good for pleasure as it tastes like rich, fruity, spicey awesomeness. Wonderful in the evening after dinner as it’s like liquid dessert.

Ginger-Mint

Makes 1 pot of tea, steep 10-15 minutes

1 2-inch nub of fresh ginger root, sliced
1 bunch of fresh peppermint or spearmint (6-8 sprigs)
1-3 Tbsp of honey, optional

Good for coughs, nausea, headache, and generally cleansing the system. Tastes like a warm hug – no really. A tea I’d drink every day. If you don’t have mint in your garden or kitchen window, it’s one of the easiest herbs to find fresh in markets and grocery stores. Dried is okay, but just not the same – especially when you’re sick.

Dandelion-Lemon-Ginger

Makes 1 pot of tea, steep 5-10 minutes

1 Tbsp dandelion root, roasted
1-3 lemon wedges, squeezed and crushed
1 2-inch nub of fresh ginger root, sliced
1-3 Tbsp of honey, to taste

Excellent for cleansing and tastes like a gingery earl grey. Makes a delicious every-day breakfast tea as a substitute for black tea or coffee. Good without the lemon too. Yum, yum, yum.

Lavender-Lemon-Herb

Makes 1 pot of tea, steep 5-8 minutes

1 mandarin orange, including peel, squished
1 small lemon or half a lemon, sliced and squished
1 tsp lavender, dried
1/2 tsp rosemary, dried
1/2 tsp thyme, dried
6-8 cloves
1-3 Tbsp of honey, to taste

For chasing away a cold or flu. Tastes like hot lavender lemonade with a mild bitter herbal aftertaste which is softened by the honey. Adding fresh ginger root definitely doesn’t hurt. Not my favourite, but not unpleasant. Only drink up to one pot a day for five days in a row.

Lemon-Herb

Makes 1 pot of tea, steep 5-8 minutes

1 large lemon, sliced and squished
1 bunch of fresh thyme
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary
1 bunch of fresh mint
1-3 Tbsp of honey, to taste

A go-to for chasing away colds. Tastes odd, but good. A savoury herbal tea which balances nicely with the lemon and honey. Seems to always do the trick after drinking it for a 2-4 days. Never drink it for more than a week in a row though due to the rosemary and thyme and stick to only one pot a day.

Where it Grows: Where is Dandelion not found? With it’s fluffy seeds easily carried by the winds, Dandelion has spread across the world with its deep roots helping it to evade weeding attempts. You can intentionally grow them from seed, or by transplanting, to more easily keep track of the age and size of the roots as well as for lettuce greens. If you transplant, don’t be alarmed if the leaves die. The root is still alive and the leaves will come back once the root is used to its new home.

Growing & Harvesting: Everyone with a garden or a lawn knows Dandelions well. Mostly from cursing them while digging them out of their yards or spraying their roots with harsh chemicals to kill them. There is no need to plant Dandelion as it will grow everywhere regardless and is usually quite plentiful. Stop killing them with chemicals right now and let them grow. Collect the bright yellow flowers before they go to seed on a sunny day to make sweet Dandelion wine. Instead of tossing Dandelions you dig up into the compost pile, save the leaves for salads or cooked greens and save the roots to dry for magic or roast for a delicious coffee substitute.

Magic: Dandelion belongs to Hecate and is mainly a chthonic plant associated with the underworld and necromancy. It is beloved by bees, goats, pigs and is considered a toad plant (all have a certain underworld nature), with bees sometimes acting as psychopomps in old folklore. Dandelion is also a very Mercurial weed associated with the air element explaining its use in aiding in communication with the dead and increasing psychic ability. Drink an infusion of the dried and roasted roots to enhance your psychic abilities before performing divination or summoning spirits of the dead. Medicinally, Culpepper writes that Dandelion has an “opening and cleansing quality… it openeth passages”. This can be applied to sympathetic magic, meaning this weed is excellent for walking between realms and communing with the spirits that reside.

Drink Dandelion wine, made from the flowers, to aid in communion with deities and spirits of the upperworld. Both the root tea and the wine make good offerings to Hecate. Pour some in a small hole dug in the earth and cover it, walking away without looking back (an ancient Greek custom when offering to underworld deities). In folk magic the seeds are blown to make wishes. Imagine all those little seeds you blew germinating and growing – your wish sympathetically growing and coming into being a hundred times over. Large Dandelion roots are also a very fitting and traditional root to make alrauns (root poppets) from.

Dandelion Root Tea (Coffee Substitute)

Dig up larger two year old roots and scrub them with an old toothbrush or a potato scrubber to clean. Then chop them up into medium dice and place on a baking sheet in a 250°F oven for about two hours – maybe giving them a shake or a toss now and then. When they turn a milk chocolate brown and have shrunk in size, they are ready. Grind the dried toasted roots as you would coffee beans and either run through a coffee maker or place in a tea bag or ball as you would infuse a cup of tea. Try plain or add cream and sugar for a caramel tasting treat. Toasted Dandelion roots also make a great addition to chai recipes and can be substituted for the black tea leaves.

Dandelion Wine

2 cups of freshly picked Dandelion flowers (no stems)
3 lemons
1 orange
7.5 cups (4 lbs) brown or demerara sugar
1 gallon water
1 tbsp of yeast on a piece of toast

Add the water to a stock pot with flowers and bring to a medium boil for 20 minutes. Strain out the flowers adding the liquid back to the pot and then add the sugar. Peel one lemon and the orange adding the rind to the pot and then juice them and add that too. Remove from heat when the sugar has dissolved. Allow to cool to a lukewarm temperature and then add the yeast on a small piece of toast. Cover with a dish cloth and leave on your counter to ferment for two days. Skim off any foam and take out the peels. Pour into a 1 gallon carboy and add just the peels of the remaining two lemons. Cap with an airlock and keep an eye on it the first couple days to make sure it doesn’t leak liquid everywhere. Allow to ferment for six months before bottling – be sure the yeast is dead before doing so!

Medicine: Dandelions are rich in vitamins and nutrients. It is one of the best weeds to incorporate into your regular diet. It is most well known as a diuretic to help the liver and gallbladder, but it is also popular for cleansing the blood. Home brewers love to joke about how drinking Dandelion wine doesn’t count as drinking as the properties of the Dandelion fix any problems the alcohol causes as you drink it. Dandelion makes a great detoxifying tonic and eating the fresh greens can actually aid in bone health and growth. The leaves are bitter so be sure to mix them with sweeter greens when eating fresh. To make a tonic tea, harvest the plant whole before it flowers or just the leaves while it’s flowering and steep them in boiled water just as you would a tea. Drink daily or just for a short period of time especially before changing your diet. Dandelion is also a great flower for honey production as it flowers in the fall as well as the spring allowing bees to have one last mad honey-making dash before winter. Dandelions produce a dark rich honey.

References:

• A Modern Herbal vol.I by Margaret Grieve
• A Sip Through Time by Cindy Renfrow
• Culpepper’s Complete Herbal
• Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs
• The Herb Book by John Lust
• Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic by cat yronwode
• Medicine Grove by Loren Cruden

Note: Scylla also recently posted a useful Dandelion article on her blog titled: “The Dandelion: The Orbit of The Solar System in an unassuming, occasionally bothersome, little flowering weed“

Burning botanicals for pleasure, ceremony, and medicine is something we humans have performed for millennia. We just really like to light things on fire and the act never fails to bring us a child-like awe and some kind of primal pleasure. Imagine our pyromaniac ancestor’s excited delight in discovering that certain plants smell amazing when lit on fire and the smoke inhaled.  I burn incense on an almost daily basis. I started blending my own loose incenses and making my own smudge wands eight years ago and my passion for knowledge on native plants quickly drove me to research which aromatic botanicals from the Pacific Northwest would be best for incense and smudge. This guide is the result of almost a decade worth of research and hands-on experience.

This short guide is designed for use by those with some wild harvesting knowledge and experience. Please practice ethical harvesting of any of the botanicals mentioned only taking 10% of a plant or colony of plants and 20% of the aerial parts of a plant (leaves, flowers, seeds). Special care should be taken not to harm trees when harvesting resin which should not be confused with tree sap. Resin flows from wounds and is needed by the tree to heal itself – only take the excess drippings around a wound. Many trees can product resins, but the ones listed in this guide are the ones that can be easily found for wild harvesting or for purchasing.

QUICK SUBSTITUTION GUIDE

• Benzoin – Bee Propolis Resin
• Copal & Frankincense – Douglas Fir or Lodgepole Pine Resins
• Myrrh – Poplar Buds
• Palo Santo – Western Hemlock Needles/Resin or Western Red Cedar Wood
• Red Sandalwood – Fresh or Decayed Western Red Cedar Wood
• White Sandalwood –  Willow Bark
• White Sage – Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata)

AROMATICS FOR INCENSE MAKING

To learn more about each botanical I recommend a good local field guide to learn how to identify it, where you you can find it in your area, and the best time to harvest it.

Flowers: elderflowers (Sambucus cerulea and racemosa), rose petals (Rosa nutkana, Rosa gymnocarpa), wild violet flowers and roots, Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

Conifers: Alaskan Cypress (Cupressus nootkatensis), Juniper leaves and berries (Juniperus communis and scopulorum), Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), Lodgepole Pine (Pinus contorta), Mountain Hemlock, Sitka Spruce, Western Hemlock, Western Red Cedar

Resins: Bee propolis resin (naturally created by bees from tree resins and beeswax), Bitter Cherry (Prunus emarginata), Black Cottonwood balsam (poplar bud resin), Douglas Fir resin, Lodgepole Pine resin

Herbs: Field Mint (Mentha arvensis), Mountain Sagewort (artemisia artica), Northern Wormwood (Artemisia campestris pacifica),  Suksdorf’s Mugwort (Artemisia suksdorfii), Western Mugwort (Artemisia ludoviciana), Silver Burweed (Ambrosia chamissonis), Sweet Flag root (Acorus calamus americanus), Sweet Gale seed and leaf (Myrica gale), Sweet Grass (Hierochloe odorata), Vanilla Leaf (Achlys triphylla), Yerba Buena (Satureja douglasii).

SMUDGING BOTANICALS

When crafting smudge wands, it is best to always do so using fresh botanicals and to make the smudge wands the same day or the day after you harvest the materials. All you need is a pair of garden shears, scissors, and a vegetable fibre string such as cotton, hemp, or flax.

Smudge Wands

There is no right or wrong way to craft smudge wands. Get a nice thick bundle of fresh herbs and tie them at one end with string. Wind the string tightly and evenly around the bundle, tucking in any loose bits as you go. Tie off the string again at the opposite end. Trim any sticky-outy bits with scissors and then allow to dry in a paper bag in a warm, dry place for a few weeks before use. You can light smudge sticks with a lighter, a small blow torch, a burning charcoal, a gas flame, a fire, or even a car cigarette lighter. To extinguish, snuff out in dry sand or dirt until no part is glowing orange or smoking – do not get wet.

Blend red cedar, juniper, western hemlock, or douglas fir tips with white sage leaves or branches of wild sagebrush for a unique spin on the traditional sage smudge wand. Create herbal smudge wands by adding clippings of any of the flowers or herbs listed above under the aromatics section to a bundle of sage or conifer tips. Try wild mint or yerba buena with wild roses, mugwort, and sagebrush. Western hemlock, northern wormwood, and sagebrush would be excellent for attracting benevolent spirits.  Western mugwort, red cedar, juniper, and sagebrush would be good for protection, and yarrow, mugwort, wormwood, and sagebrush would serve you well when burned during divinatory rites.

Sweetgrass Braid

If you can get your hands on fresh sweetgrass, gather pieces of the same length, tie at one end and then divide into three bundles. Carefully braid until you run out of even ends. Tie again and then allow to dry for a few weeks before use.

Witch’s Whisk

A traditional smudge wand from the British Isles. Harvest the tips of fresh blackberry vines, snipping off the leaves and shaving off the thorns with a knife. You can alternately keep the thorns on if you wear heavy leather gloves. Bundle many of the vines together until it is one or more inches in diametre and bind it very tightly with string. Allow to dry thoroughly for a month before use. Remove the string, cut the long bundle of vines into smaller ones and tightly bind only one end of each to create the whisk.  Optional – soak in warmed beeswax for 10 minutes and allow to cool. This will cause the witch’s whisk to burn better. Burn to clear a space of evil spirits. Burn to cleanse a person, place, or thing of a witch’s curse. Burn before rituals indoors or outdoors. Burn in and around your home for protection.

HOW TO CRAFT YOUR OWN INCENSE

There are many different types of incense, but in this guide I will only describe how to craft ambers, compound incenses, and loose incense. I don’t make cone or stick incense myself as I prefer my incense to be more pure and without fillers.

Amber Resin

Amber resin is not referring to the ancient fossilized tree resin we use as beads for jewelry, but to amber incense which is usually crafted from beeswax mixed with solid and liquid benzoin resin and sometimes styrax resin blended with vanilla. All of these ingredients, minus the beeswax, are very exotic (and don’t usually have the most ethical harvesting practices) so I created my own amber resin recipe using plants native to my area. Bee propolis resin is the substitute for benzoin and already contains beeswax so it seemed a natural and delectable choice.

3 parts bee propolis resin, cleaned, dried, and finely powdered
1 part sweet grass, cut, dried, and finely powdered
1/2 part vanilla leaf, dried and finely powdered
local honey

Place the resin in a mixing bowl, put the sweetgrass and vanilla leaf through a seive before adding to it. Blend well. Add a few spoon fulls of local unpasteurized honey. If the mixture sticks together, but is still a bit crumbly, it is ready. If it’s still too powdery and dusty, add more honey.

Line a square or rectangular container with waxed paper and firmly press the amber resin mixture into it. Loosely place another piece of wax paper on top of it and put it somewhere dark, warm, and dry for 1-2 weeks. Remove from mould and wax paper and cut with a serrated knife into smaller burnable chunks.

Compound Incense

This type of incense uses plants, tree resins, honey, and liquid mixed together and pressed into shapes or crumbled. It is only semi-dry and thus not powdery like loose incense. One example of a compound incense is an Egyptian kyphi – an ancient recipe method we can use today substituting our favourite aromatics.

Wet Base:

• Dried berries or fruit that form a sticky paste when ground. currants, gooseberries, elderberries, hawthorn berries, juniper berries, mountain ash berries, and rosehips all work well.
• Local unpasteurized honey such as clover, dandelion, or fireweed.
• A fragrant liquid that will evaporate when the incense is cured – local wine or mead, rosewater, and hydrosols are best.

Measuring is done by eye based on how much plant matter you have to work with. To your ground fruit, add a few spoon fulls of honey and glugs of liquid and blend with a metal spoon or your hands until it forms a thick, wet, and sticky paste. Place in an air tight container and alllow to rest for one week

Dry Base:

• 1 part tree resin(s)
• 1 part aromatic herb(s)

The dry base is a half and half blend of resins and herbs that can be dried, ground, and powdered. You can use one resin or a blend of many. The herbs can be roots, flowers, leaves, or even aromatic seeds. Powder, blend, and place in an air tight container separate from the wet base and allow to rest for one week to infuse the scents.

After a week is up blend the two bases together adding more honey or liquid if needed. Place back into an airtight container and allow to rest one more week. After this time, remove and form into shapes, or press the entirety of the mixture into a wax paper lined baking sheet. Place another sheet of was paper loosely on top and allow to cure (air dry) for 2-3 weeks. Now you can put your incense into a sealed container and burn it a little bit at a time at your pleasure.

Loose Incense

Loose incense is the easiest method for making incense, easier even than smudge. Simply grind and powder your ingredients until they are all roughly the same size, blend well, and then burn a pinch at a time on charcoal. You can craft loose incense using only resins, only smudging herbs, or a blend of both. The possibilities are endless and up to you. Below are some recipes to play with.

RECIPES

Ritual Incense

1 part conifer resin
1 part poplar buds

Dry ingredients and grind with a mortar and pestle or a coffee/spice grinder. This is a substitute for the traditional blend of frankincense and myrrh. Burn a pinch to cleanse a space for any ritual or spellwork, or to call, feed, or banish spirits and deities.

Temple Incense

1 part bee propolis resin
1 part conifer resin
1 part poplar buds

Burn for tranquility, for prayer and meditation, or rituals. A substitute for the traditional blend of frankincense, myrrh, and benzoin used in churches.

Purification Incense

1 part sagebrush leaves
1 part red cedar leaves
1 part conifer resin

Burn for cleansing people, places, and objects. Excellent for house cleansing or for purifying people before performing a ceremony or interacting with spirits

Ancestor Incense

1 part conifer resin
1 part poplar buds
1 part white willow bark
1 part northern wormwood
pinch of pacific yew needles
pinch of graveyard dirt

Burn to summon the spirits of the dead. Best used on or near the dark moon.

Good Spirits Incense

1 part western hemlock needles, dried
1 part red cedar leaves, dried
1 part conifer resin

Grind and burn to attract benevolent spirits to your magical rites.

Spirit Food Incense I

1 part bee propolis resin
2 parts red cedar wood, powdered (fresh for animal/plant spirits, decayed for the dead)
2 parts western hemlock needles, dried

Burn to give offering and energy to the spirits of the dead or familiar spirits during rites. Make sure the spirits are the ones you intended to call and work with before feeding them.

Spirit Food Incense II (Kyphi)

Wet Ingredients:

1/2 part yew berries, de-seeded and dried
2 parts mountain ash berries, dried
Local wine or mead
Local unpasteurized honey

Dry Ingredients:

1/2 part fly agaric (amanita muscaria), dried (caps/skin only)*
1 part decayed or fresh red cedar wood
1 part conifer resin
1 part poplar buds
1 part bee propolis resin

Grind berries and mix in wine and honey until it becomes a thick paste. Place in an air tight container and let rest for 3-7 days. Grind dry ingredients and blend, place in an air tight container and let rest for the same 3-7 days. After waiting, blend the wet and dry ingredients together, place into a container again and allow to rest for 1-2 weeks. Form into small balls or bricks and air dry for 1 week or place in a dehydrator.

*fly agaric is psychoactive – be careful when burning indoors.

Spirit Banishing Incense

1 part conifer resin
2 parts wild rose petals, bark, leaves, and thorns
2 parts red cedar leaves
1 part juniper leaves and/or berries

Burn to say a gentle farewell to familiar ancestral or other spirits with kind words or to forcefully send dangerous or uncooperative spirits back to their realm with a sharp tongue and help from your spirits or deities. Removes attachments of spirits to people and the middle realm.

Divination Incense

1 parts conifer resin
1 part bistort (polygonum bistortoides / viviparum)
1 part northern wormwood
1 part western mugwort (or substitute mountain sagewort)

Burn to enhance psychic gifts before divining with your chosen method.

Curse Reversal Incense

1 part fern leaves
1 part tobacco

Burn to remove curses and crossed conditions.

Journeying Incense

2 parts conifer resin
1 part juniper berries*
1 part northern wormwood*
1 part western mugwort (or substitute mountain sagewort)*
1 part yarrow flowers

Grind ingredients to an even consistency and blend. Burn on charcoal or a fire and inhale the smoke. Good for trance work, spirit work, crossing the hedge, seership and divination. *ingredients are mildly psychoactive, use caution.

Sweet Love Incense

1 part bee propolis resin
1/2 part bitter cherry resin
2 parts wild rose petals
2 parts sweetgrass

Burn to sweeten your home and the people in it. Burn to promote happiness and love.

Insect Repellent Loose Smudge

2 parts red cedar leaf
2 part western mugwort
1 part yarrow flowers
1 part sweet gale
1 part vanilla leaf

Burn to keep away unwanted insects (especially mosquitoes and flies). Great for outdoor rituals – throw on the bonfire.

HOW TO BURN INCENSE

It may seem like a simple thing to some, but many do not know how to burn resins or loose incense. We are so used to stick or cone incense or white sage leaves which burn so easily and steadily. Don’t worry, there is no need for fancy or expensive supplies. The simplest way to burn resins, kyphi incense, amber incense, or loose incense (powdered) is on charcoal.

To make your own incense censer at home all you need is a small plate and an empty and clean cat food/tuna etc can placed on the plate upside down. You can also use any fireproof container and fill it with sand. A large coffee can, a clay flower pot, an iron cauldron or a small brass or copper planter or bowl with feet all work. Thrift stores often have such useful containers for a dollar or two. You can get sand from a dollar store, garden store, a beach, or your kid’s sandbox.

Now you need charcoal. If you have a fire place or a fire pit you can make your own and take a piece of wood charcoal out of a burning fire with tongs and place it in your homemade censer. The most common practice is to use incense or hooka charcoal, also known as self-lighting charcoal. You can buy a roll of the black charcoal disks for a dollar or four at most Middle Eastern shops. The shop two blocks from my house sells three different kinds. Sometimes you can also find them in Chinatown – especially at shops that sell ancestor worship supplies. Failing that, you can buy them on-line from most large herbal retailers like Mountain Rose.

Light the charcoal round with a lighter or match while holding it (if you’re afraid to hold it, use small metal tongs). Wait for it to spark and for a wave of orange-red sparks to start moving through the charcoal. Place in your censer and wait 5 minutes until the entire charcoal disk is glowing red and hot. If it doesn’t light, try again and hold it for a bit longer before placing it in the censer. If your charcoal is crumbly and won’t light it may have been exposed to moisture. Toss it and use a new package.

Once it is happily glowing, add a pinch of pure resin or a loose incense blend. If it burns too fast, place aluminum foil on top of the charcoal and your incense on top of the foil – this works especially well with amber resins and kyphi incense which should be burned slowly. Need charcoal ready to go for a long ritual? Light one, and once it’s completely glowing orange, place one to two more charcoal disks underneath it. The heat from the first one will slowly light the others. You can do this before, or in the middle of the ritual when your first charcoal is half burned out. Dust off ashes and residue with tongs or a metal spoon each time you are going to put more incense on the charcoal.

Other incense burning options include purchasing an electric incense burner or simply placing a piece of aluminum foil on top of your lit cast iron wood stove and placing a piece of resin or a pinch of loose incense on top of the foil (I wish I had a cast iron stove so I could do this). If you are performing a ritual or a healing somewhere with a fireplace or outdoor fire pit, you can throw a large handful of smudging herbs on the fire once or many times as needed.

Article and photos © 2014 Sarah Anne Lawless.

I hereby release this article’s text (but not the photos) under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivs License. Meaning, you can share this article on your blog, tumblr, or website as long as I am properly attributed (with my name as author and a link back to the original article on my website) and you do not alter the article or try to make money from it in any way.

Chai tea is a delicious way to start working with local plants. Tailor your own chai recipe with aromatic herbs native to the forests of your region and then learn how to identify, seek out, and properly harvest the botanicals needed for the recipe. The process will lead to you becoming comfortable with identifying, harvesting, and preparing a good handful of edible plants which grow all around you. Then maybe out of curiosity you’ll research the medicinal properties of each botanical, then maybe other edible uses, and then maybe you’ll stumble onto some traditional indigenous uses for folk magic and ceremony… Then you will have more plant knowledge than you can shake a stick at (ok, at least much more than you started with). The result won’t be a true chai, but it will be your chai and will become your tasty gateway drug to the wonderful world of bioregional herbalism.

Boreal Forest Chai

2 tsps Fresh or Dried Chaga Mushroom, ground
1-2 tsps Dried Large-Leaved Avens root, roasted and ground
1 tsp Dried Balsam Fir Needles
2 tsp Cinnamon Bark, crushed

Non-native suggestion: The avens root and the chaga are chocolatey, but raw, freshly ground cacao nibs push this combination over the top. Without the cinnamon this becomes balsam fir hot chocolate (which is not a bad thing at all).

Simmer in a pot on the stove on low for 20 min, strain, and add milk or cream and your favourite sweetener. I highly recommend homemade balsam fir tip syrup, maple syrup, or local honey. Unlike other coffee/black tea substitutes, chaga must be simmered low and slow rather than steeped and the same tea bag can be used up to three times to make three equally strong and tasty pots of tea.

Eastern Forest Chai

2-3 tsp Acorn Coffee (avoid acorns from the poisonous Red Oak)
1 tsp Dried Eastern Hemlock Needles
1 tsp Dried Labrador Tea Leaves
1 tsp Dried Sweet Fern Leaves
1 tsp Dried Sweetgrass
1 tsp Fresh or Dried Wild Licorice Root

Non-native suggestion: A cinnamon stick and/or a few cloves will complete the chai flavour.

West Coast Forest Chai

2 tsp Dandelion Root, roasted
1 tsp Chicory Root, roasted
1 tsp Dried Western Hemlock Needles
1-2 Dried Salal Leaves
1 tsp Dried Rocky Mountain Juniper Berries, crushed
1-2 tsp Fresh or Dried Wild Ginger Root, thinly sliced (specifically Asarum Caudatum)
1 tsp Fresh or Dried Licorice Fern Rhizome, sliced or crushed
1-2 tsp Dried Vanilla Leaf

Non-native suggestion: just a cinnamon stick!

Place the herbs in a drawstring muslin bag, a self-fill paper tea bag, or cheesecloth tied with string and place in your favourite tea pot. Pour freshly boiled water over top, put the lid on the tea pot and cover it with your tea cozy or a dish towel to keep it hot. Wait 10-20 minutes to steep the tea. When ready, remove the tea bag, pour the chai into a mug and add milk/cream and sweeten with honey, maple syrup, birch syrup, or a herbal syrup to taste.

Forest Tea Ceremony

With a nod to a simple animistic practice from indigenous peoples, create your own tea ceremony to connect with local plant spirits. Go to the edge of a forest or your favourite spot in nature with your travel mug of pre-made tea or be a hardcore hippie and brew it on site with a fire. Pray to the plants as you brew the tea and call the genius loci you wish to work with, spirits great or small. Sip the tea with calm, focused intent. Pray and ask what you want of the spirits: a relationship as spirit ally, their healing powers for an ailment, for their blessing to go into the woods and harvest plants or hunt… whatever your desire may be. Ask for a sign or a dream to reveal their blessing: “grant me your blessing in the form of a raven’s call.”

A herbal tea of local plants is a simple way to connect with your wintery wildwood, but also warm yourself at the same time with the exotic spices. Leave a cup as an offering at your ancestor or genius loci shrines, serve it to guests to show hospitality, or give out cups of it to warm up participants of outdoor winter rituals. Good tea is always worth the effort of harvesting, preparing, and sharing!