Kitchen Witchcraft's Peace Potion

This simple potion is my go-to thing when I need some peace of mind. I drink it, I bathe in it, I use it as a component in rituals. Given that it's technically a herbal decoction, it may also be labelled "tea," I guess, but due to the intended use I tend to think of it as a potion.

Ingredients

• Lavender
• Vervain
• Lemonbalm (equal parts)
• Water

Preparation

Put a pot on the stove and boil the water in it. When the water is boiling and bubbling, keep the heat on. Add the first herbal ingredient and reduce the heat so that the water calms a bit. Add a second ingredient, and further reduce the heat. Add the last ingredient, stir them together, and turn the heat off completely.
Cover the pot and leave it to infuse. For maximum effect, let the potion cool off completely before use. This is not strictly necessary, however, and for some purposes (such as baths) may be undesirable.

You may add chants, gestures, or other ritual components to the process as you add the ingredients. Or not. Whatever feels right to you.

Dealing With The Broom Closet - Part 1

To put it simply, the "Broom Closet" is a state of mind and/or an array of life conditions that make a person hide their Paganism from others. Being a religious minority regardless of faith can be taxing, but Pagans find themselves hiding their spiritual practice much more often than followers of other faiths, hence why the term evolved.*

This post will use the term "Paganism" as a shorthand for "any Pagan or Neopagan religious practice, Native Faith practice, and various spiritual paths and practices which are related to witchcraft, magic, nature worship, etc., including atheists who practice any of those for whatever reason." I know not everyone is comfortable with the Pagan label, but I have to use some word, and this one is what scholars use when writing about this.

To come out, or to not come out

Before you start dealing with being a closeted Pagan, you've got to work out exactly why are you in the Broom Closet, and how. A forty five year old shop owner and a highschooler may both be in the Broom Closet, but their experiences will vary wildly, and so will the experiences of someone living in the American Bible Belt as compared to a New Yorker, as compared to an Eastern European, as compared to a South Asian. No one will ever know your situation as well as you, and so you are the only person really qualified to judge it. 

Nevertheless, going by the emails I get, the qualified person can sometimes use some pointers. If you find yourself pondering the matter of the Broom Closet, these auxiliary questions can be useful.

1. Why?

Why are you in the Broom Closet in the first place, what makes you keep silent about your Pagan path? The answer to this question can sometimes be painful, so let's get the worst things over with first.

1. Do you risk violence? Is the society you live in likely to respond with harm to you or your family if they find out? This is, unfortunately, something that can happen in some parts of the world. There is a question of whether Paganism - and what form of it - is even a legal religion in your country. US-centric publicists often concentrate on the American freedom of religion law, but other countries may see it very differently indeed.
2. Do you risk financial loss? Are you likely to lose your job, or your customers, will Paganism hurt your professional image? This is another frequent cause for Pagans staying in the Broom Closet. In many societies, it is considered abnormal, "crazy," or outright evil, to follow a Pagan path. Pagans can and are seen as gullible, irrational or just plain weird, our spirituality not accepted as a valid choice.
3. Do you risk losing any of your family ties, friendships or acquaintances? This, too, can happen. And not all of us are willing to weather the relationship storm that can come when we come out of the Broom Closet. We'd much rather have calm Sunday dinners and a good relationship with our in-laws, and not have Gran tell us she prays for our salvation.

These are the three most drastic, and most common reasons of staying in the Broom Closet. They are not a 0-1 thing, either: depending on a whole spectrum of factors, such as where do we live or what job do we hold, we can incur these risks to a greater or lesser extent. The most important fact to realise here is that these are valid concerns. 

Even if you're not sure any of this would happen, being afraid of it happening can be reason enough for you to stay in the closet.
And that's okay.

You are not a bad person for not proclaiming your faith loudly. You are not a worse kind of Pagan, a "not real" Pagan or a coward just because you're in the Broom Closet. You can, of course, have a completely different reason for staying in the closet, such as, but not limited to:

1. Not really wanting the hassle of explaining to everyone what is it you actually do,
2. Wanting to keep your religion really private because you think it should be just that,
3. Liking the idea of your Pagan path being your own little secret,
4. Not being close enough to anyone for it to be an issue,
5. Staying in the closet simply because you can,
6. And many, many others.

Realising precisely why are you in the Broom Closet can settle the matter for you quite quickly. If you find yourself being a teacher in an intolerant country that does not recognise Paganism as a valid faith, you can be easily fired because "think of the children" and won't even have the law on your side.

In drastic cases like this, coming out is of course not an option, and the way to deal with being in the Broom Closet is to see it as a way of protecting oneself. Minimising the tension that comes from having to stay silent (and possibly lie) in situations like that can be achieved through, for example, keeping in touch with other Pagans online, anonymously.

2. How?

There are various forms that a Broom Closet can take, and the depth to which we've shut ourselves in can vary. Personal circumstances can change this greatly - are you even an adult? Do you have your own money? Again - do you live in a place where Paganism is even legal? This is all pretty obvious, of course, but taking stock of your situation requires you think of the obvious things.

Different types of Paganism come with their own different closets. It's one thing to be an American Wiccan, and quite another to be a Norwegian Asatru follower, and still another to have put together your own Kitchen Witchcraft practice. Being part of an officially recognised and publicly known movement may be a reason for you to come out, or on the contrary, may make you want to stay in the closet. You may not want to be associated with the popular perception of your faith, for instance, or with the actions of some group that you don't identify with.
This is a common problem, for example, of the Pagan paths that attract white supremacists. You may not want to be seen as one of them.

Your "closet depth" may also vary. Your historical interest in a pre-christian cult may be common knowledge, just not your religious devotion to it. You may have a reputation of an atheist that is a bit superstitious, or you may be in an Anglican church every week, waiting for the service to be over. All these things happen to Pagans, and - again - they do not make you less of a one.

All this feels rather as if I were encouraging you to stay in the Broom Closet, right? Well, in a way, I am. Or, at least, I am trying to say that it's okay to be in the Broom Closet, it's not wrong, not a sign of cowardice or insufficient devotion to your Path.

Take your time, assess your situation. Remember that the rabbit is not going back into the top hat once it's out.

* Or, rather, was borrowed from the LGBTQIA community. In many ways, being a closeted Pagan resembles being a closeted sexual minority. The two struggles have similarities, but they should not be conflated.

Summer Solstice Feast

The Summer Solstice has come!

This will be a short post, because I'm busy this season. And apparently so are a lot of other kitchen witches, to judge by the amount of questions I got on the lines of "I'll be hosting a Solstice festival/coven meeting/get-together/party, what can I serve?"

And since I'll be doing the same thing, I can still help you. Here's some quick ideas for your Summer Solstice Feast.

Not pictured: goat cheese and fresh mint frittata because I'll be making it later.

1. Go regional

A good Solstice Feast will celebrate whatever is naturally available in the region you are in. This is what the Summer Solstice is about - the climax of the natural cycle, the vitality and energy and fruit of natural processes. So just choose whatever is in season where you are at the moment, which is easiest achieved by going to a local greengrocer and just seeing what's there. Supermarkets have stuff imported from all around the world, but the slightly dirty shop on the corner doesn't.

In my case, this means strawberries, sweet cherries, french beans, fava beans, early tomatoes, young potatoes, things like that. Maybe some early opal plums if I have the money.

2. Go light

Contrary to winter celebrations, a good Summer festival should leave you energetic and ready to dance. Light foods are definitely preferable - fruit salads, simple vegetable affairs - because that's the summer feel. Leave the thick cream and lard-with-onions for the time of frost.*

3. Go personal

Festive meals are best if they mean something to the feast guests, or at least the host. For instance, on the picture above you can see a bowl of couscous with cucumbers and tomatoes. This is definitely not usual for my region or culture, but it means something to me, being a version of tabbouleh I was introduced to during one important summer.

I will also be making a frittata (egg-based Italian dish) for a similar reason, and also because it resembles the sun, being a golden disc. Plus, it's delicious.

And I will also make young potatoes with dill and onion, fried on butter and served with sour milk, which is a very traditional summer food in my culture. Thus including both things important to me personally and to the people I come from.

Oh, and also, ice cream. Seriously. It's summer. Eat ice cream. Do it.

[*If you happen to have bad weather on Solstice Day, you may like my "Bad Weather Beltane" ritual ideas, they're adaptable to Summer Solstice as well.]

Bad Weather Beltane

It's the May festival, and I can hear my teeth chattering. It's raining cats and dogs, too.

So what do you do when the weather is really bad on a day that should entail making bonfires and partying?

This picture from
dangthien3010.wordpress.com

This problem is not limited to Beltane. All sorts of "vitality and joy" rituals are constructed in a way that really, really does not mesh with squelching boots. Nothing is more hopeless than finding you cannot make any flower wreaths because the plants are sulking.

This is my case this year, but I devised the Bad Weather Beltane ritual ideas some time ago. They're indoor practices that are useful when the weather is bad, but also when you are a solitary witch and don't fancy walking your park alone at night, or don't have a place to go in your area, or have mobility problems... or when, for any other reasons, you need to perform in your house what you would much rather perform underneath a starry night and majestic tree crowns. They're solitary rites, but you can easily adapt them for more people.

(In this post, "Beltane" will serve as shorthand for "occasions that - broadly speaking - celebrate vitality, reborn nature, plants, flowers, full spring and early summer, long days etc." Hopefully, whether you celebrate Beltane specifically or not, you can still find something here.)

GENERAL TIPS

• Wear summer clothing. If you are indoors, you are hopefully warm and safe, so profit of that. In spite of the sky outside, wear your summer clothes - a flowery dress, white linen trousers, shorts, whatever feels like Summer. Go barefoot. Give the weather a hint.
• Use fresh, Summer-y scents. Incense, or essential oils, or just some perfume sprinkled in the air - something to make you feel how you would be feeling if it wasn't for that pesky rain.
• Work with sounds. Music that makes you think of hiking trips or bonfire parties, or, in a pinch, even actual birdsong and nature sounds, they're all on YT. Sure, they're not the real deal, and some people prefer to avoid them completely because of that, but once you get into your ritual you may find the sounds complement it nicely, even if they do come from your laptop.
• Draw the curtains. If the weather is really bad and depressing, it may be better to just cover the windows and forget about what is outside for a moment, as  you create a small pocket of incoming summer in your room.

SPECIFIC RITUAL IDEAS

1. Fire

The most obvious element for these purposes, and a very fun one. You can't have a huge bonfire in your living room, but usually you can still enjoy some indoors fire rituals. It only takes some responsibility.

• Fire bowl:

You will need: a heat-resistant bowl, a trivet, and some stuff to light on fire.

This is the simplest ritual of all. You just put your stuff in the bowl, put the bowl on a trivet, and light the stuff on fire. It doesn't have to be big, it will feel huge indoors anyway. Remember that there will be a lot of smoke, too.

Suitable kindling can include old matches, dry plant stems, herbs. Try to avoid paper, because it gives a huge but brief fire and unpleasant smell.

• Fire walk:

You will need: a number of white candles, and a fire source.

Put a white candle in every room. (These can be ordinary tealights.) Throw open all the doors so you can see and pass easily from room to room. Take another candle into your hand and light it. Walk into each room and light the candle in there using the one you carry. At each lighting, you can say, or chant, sing or think a blessing of your choice. Or not. It's up to you.

• Fire walk, there and back again:

You will need: a number of white candles, a fire source and a tray.

Do as above, but prepare a tray in the room you started in. Once all the candles are lit, go back to where you started and take the tray. Walk the rooms once again, collecting your candles on the tray, and carry your armful of light to where you want it most: your kitchen, or bedroom, or bathroom if you are planning some bath rituals next.

• The Path:

This image from patheos.com

This is a bit of a risky ritual that I really enjoy, but it entails putting candles on the floor, walking past them and throwing cloth around them, so use your own judgement and knowledge of your situation to judge. (Also, always do that.)

You will need: a number of candles, and two shawls/scarves/pieces of cloth in different colours or patterns. One to represent the passing darkness and winter (so a white one, or blue, or black, or whatever works for you), and the other to represent the new light and vitality (red, or flowery, or a pattern of suns, or leaves, you know).

Choose a place in your house where you have enough space to walk in a straight line for at least a few paces. Set your walking path with candles (use candles that stay still, tealights or pillar candles are best) and light them. Place your "light" shawl at one end of the path. Go to the other end of the path, and wrap your "dark" shawl around yourself.
Slowly walk the path of the candles towards the other shawl. You can sing, or pray, or chant whatever you want. Also watch out not to kick the candles. When you are midway on the path, take off the dark shawl, turn around, and toss it back as far away as you can (making sure it won't land on the candles and kill everyone!). Walk the rest of the path, and wrap yourself in the new shawl.

SAFETY FOR FIRE RITUALS: always keep some water handy in case something does catch fire, preferably in a wide pitcher that gives a big gush (and not a small bottle that plops out a small stream).
Avoid putting candles straight on the carpet - put them in jars, or go where you have tiled floor, or at least use saucers.

If, for any reason, fire and candles are really unsafe in your house (pets, children, a disability, anything) you may like LED candles. I was pleasantly surprised about them, if they're well done they work.

2. Water

Water is life, and vitality, and incidentally also relax and cleanliness. Very good choice for these occasions.

• Ritual baths:

Use cosmetics that smell of the sea, or invigorating, citrus smells. A luxury version is performed by a friend of mine, who always goes to a spa resort for Beltane, swims himself to exhaustion and then lays about in a jacuzzi. You can try that, too, if you can afford it.

• Potions:

Preparing a potion to drink as a ritual is the most kitchen witchcrafty thing you can do, and much simpler than running around throwing rags onto candles.

Good ingredients for Beltane potions include orange, lemon and lime juice, pineapples, fresh ginger, hibiscus, honey, rosemary, mint, and rosehip.

3. Food

Special food is the core of any celebration. I don't think there exists any culture that doesn't prepare special dishes for holidays. And, well, Kitchen Witchcraft obliges.

• Fruit

Bad weather should not necessarily mean you can't get seasonal fruit. Maybe it will be a little more expensive, or maybe imported from a warmer country, but that's fine. Make a little Beltane feast of berries, or a fruit salad, a cocktail of fruit and yogurt. This can count as the potion, too.

• Spring and Summer dishes

If there is a dish that you associate with these seasons, you'll know it better than I do. Why not prepare it? For me, these are roast potatoes with rosemary butter, and even though I can't make them in a bonfire, my oven does a pretty good job. Or penne primavera, that one is cool too.

4. Music and Dance

Another common element of Beltane celebrations, and one that can be easily done indoors. If you can't go and light fires outside, how about throwing a house party, with some thematic dishes and music? I know you didn't really need me to tell you this.

But it doesn't stop there. Beltane is about vitality and energy, and it may be a good occasion to do things you don't normally do. Go to a concert, to a club, dance, meet new people. They don't have to be festive events. No one has to know you're doing this as a ritual, too.

5. Sex

This image from inlingua-edinburgh.co.uk. What? I wasn't going to post porn.

In many mythologies in many cultures of the world, intercourse between deities is associated with the Earth's awakening and a new vegetative season. It's a pretty obvious association.

Some Beltane rituals may involve symbolic representations of this idea: pictures or statues of deities having sex, or more metaphorically putting daggers into chalices, things like that. Or people being drunk and dancing naked, or even having actual sex themselves.

I will not be listing specific examples of sex-related ritual elements here, for the simple reason that Beltane celebrations do not have to be sex-related. They can be, but they do not have to be, and frankly I find the idea of "we must bang today because my spiritual practice compels me to" to be very tacky. (Also, the whole holy-sex-because-fertility thing is alienating to people who are not straight, and those who simply don't want children or worship pregnancy.)

If you want to celebrate Beltane by grabbing your SO and rocking their world, that's a pretty good idea because it's best done comfortably indoors and you can incorporate other stuff I wrote about. But I'm never going to tell people "go and have sex now." And definitely not how to do it.

Protection Charm

Kitchen Witchcraft's Protection Charm is a herbal talisman created to protect, shield and keep you safe - from harm, negative influences and malignancy of any kind. A cotton cord, woven into a knotwork circle, holds a tiny glass vial containing herbs and other ingredients associated with protection and cleansing: sea salt, sage, thyme, rosemary, lemon rind, and others.

The talisman can be worn as a pendant, or placed wherever you see fit. Use it to shield yourself, your space, your altar, to invoke the idea in your practices, or any other way you see fit.

Price: $10 + shipping fee

Want one? Email me at witchcraftinthekitchen (at) gmail (dot) com!

Materials: cotton (cord), glass (vial), cork (cork), steel elements (non-allergenic).

Dimensions: total length 20 cm, vial 1.5 cm, knot 2 cm.

Love Charm

Kitchen Witchcraft's Love Charm is a herbal talisman created to encourage, promote and strengthen love, both romantic and platonic (family, friendship). A leather strap, woven into a knotwork heart, holds a tiny glass vial containing herbs and other ingredients associated with love and positive emotions: rose petals, jasmine petals, cinnamon, cocoa, star anise, and others.

The talisman can be worn as a pendant, or placed wherever you see fit. Use it to open yourself up to the idea of love, to remind someone else of your love, to invoke the feeling in your practices, or any other way you see fit.

Price: $10 + shipping fee

Want one? Email me at witchcraftinthekitchen (at) gmail (dot) com!

Materials: leather (cord), glass (vial), cork (cork), steel elements (non-allergenic).

Dimensions: total length 20 cm, vial 1.5 cm, knot 2 cm.

Winter Solstice Ritual

December 21st – Winter Solstice on the Northern Hemisphere. The tipping point of darkness, the beginning of a new struggle towards the light.

Winter Solstice Offerings

I didn’t have time for so, so many things this year, but I knew I had to make time for a solstice ritual, if only to not let my personal darkness – all the troubles in life, all the worries – to win. Today is a good day to remind oneself that the tide can be turned, and obstacles can be overcome.

To do that, I chose noon as my ritual time. I prepared my offerings – a potion of milk and herbs, and pieces of dry bread, the odds and ends that dried up before I had the time to eat them. I took all this to my ritual spot, together with black and white candles. More black than white, to match the shortest day and longest night. I lit the black ones first, then the white one.  Poured the offering potion over the bread, and extinguished the black candles, keeping the white one lit. I took it in both hands and raised it to the sun, watching the air above it shimmer in heat, using that to connect to the idea of vitality, strength, perseverance.

At this point a dog that was being taken on a walk ran up to me and demanded to be pet. I choose to interpret this as a sign that all will be well.

I wish you the happiest, calmest, free-est Solstice you can possibly have. We have another year behind us. Let us use the long evenings to learn from it.

Safe Solstitial Offering Potion – Ingredients

• Milk – for nurturing
• Water – for vitality
• Cinnamon – for luck
• Dried rosemary – for health, protection and remembrance
• Turmeric powder – for prosperity, and for golden colour evocative of the sun.

All these ingredients are safe for animals and plants, so you don’t have to worry about pouring this out in the wild.

Herbal Talismans in Kitchen Witchcraft

The practice of kitchen witchcraft is most often defined as an incorporation of magical, ritual activities into everyday housekeeping chores. As is usual in witchcraft, the particulars are up to every practitioner: whether we do more witchcraft than chores, or vice versa, whether we treat the chore as a magical rite (though never a magical rite as a chore!), or devise a special ritual that incorporates the housekeeping... whatever we do is up to us because it is our home.

Personally, I am a very practical witch: You may have noticed there's far more cooking here than spells. I like my activities to be useful, and to result in more than purely ritualistic satisfaction. Perhaps that's why there are no crystals hanging from variously coloured threads in my house. However, I do keep quite a bit of various herbal talismans.

The great thing about them is that they can be just as practically useful as spiritually significant. My two favourites are witch bags and witch bottles, since I mostly work with herbs, spices and food.

Witch Bags

Also sometimes called spell bags, charm bags or plain magic bags. ("Plain magic" heh.) They are cloth pouches filled with magical ingredients, usually dried herbs and other dry matter, that can be stored in the house or carried on the person. There is practically no limit as to what a witch bag can be used for - it can be a charm to protect the house (or the person), to draw luck or money or happiness or creativity or anything else. It all depends on Your intentions and the ingredients You use.

Apart from the ritualistic and magical aspects of making one of those, there is a handful of practical matters that can arise when You set out to do this. Here are a few things witches I've known have not taken into consideration when making witch bags:

• Is the fabric for the pouch strong enough? If You want to carry it around (in a purse, in the car), can it take the friction, the tossing around?
• Will the fabric hold the contents in, or will the finer powder slip through the weave? (Common problem with linen bags, especially when they contain powdered eggshell or ash.)
• Is the fastening strong enough, or will You find Yourself covered in fennel seeds one of those days?
• What smell will it have? Will it weaken over time, or will it penetrate Your clothes, your purse?
• Can you actually keep it in the kitchen? Are the ingredients safe for a food preparation area?
• Will it be flammable? Or will it stain? Or itch? Or prick?

These are just a few examples that are worth thinking about. I certainly know of one expensive purse that would not be massacred by the owner's cat if a witch bag was made with a bit more forethought, especially where catmint was concerned.

Witch Bottles

Bottles. Thank you, captain obvious!

Originally used as a countermeasure against witches (when we were supposed to only do harm - You know, 16th, 17th century), witch bottles are supposed to draw the curses, evil and the general malice of the world, and neutralise it before it can do You harm. Back in the burning times, they were quite disgusting, filled with hair, nail clippings, urine or dead skin of the person they were supposed to protect (or all of the above, for maximum yuck factor). The idea was that the curse will be confused by the presence of such intimate matter, mistake the bottle for the person and hurt the bottle instead. There may be something in it, though if that was enough I think my bath outlet alone would make me immune to all ills of the universe.
Since then, witch bottles have evolved somewhat, containing more symbolic material, though if You do want to keep urine and nail clippings in it, I won't stop You. Popular solutions include alcohol (spirits or wine), vinegar, oil, or a herbal infusion, but sand, earth or gravel are also common fillers. Healing herbs or protective herbs are usually put in these: the evil is drawn into the bottle, drowned in the solution (or "earthed" in sand etc) and then the aura is healed by the protective herbs. Poisonous plants can also work, as a more potent weapon against evil, as well as typically "dangerous" objects such as iron nails or needles.

Similar to witch bags, there are a few mundane things to think of when making a witch bottle.

• Is it airtight? Because You want it to be shut and shut well. Do the corks/lids/caps really fit?
• Can it take the sun? Most edible oils should not be exposed to direct sunlight, especially if you want to use them, but even decorative oils can lose colour or moulder if exposed.
• Is it safe? It's all very well if only You have access to Your kitchen, but what if someone else added a spoonful to the salad? Or took a bath in the contents? How about if it falls from the shelf?
• Will you be able to take the ingredients out again? I once made a really pretty decanter full of stuff... and then had to get really creative to clean it out.

And so on, and so forth... remember, just because You're doing magic doesn't mean You're immune to the mundane.

The best part about these is that they can double as practical household items. When I make spell bags, I make them out of ingredients that will also repel moths (or just smell nice), and store them in my wardrobes. When I make witch bottles, they double as cooking ingredients, so that a bottle of cinnamon and nutmeg oil will sit quietly on a shelf and (hopefully) draw prosperity, and from time to time give a spoonful for the golden cake. My protective bottle is a vial of wine vinegar infused with lavender, and though I don't use it for cooking (seriously, that would be like drinking from a wasp trap), I feel much better with its peaceful aura than I would with a bottleful of rusted nails or something equally aggressive. A vial of poison may sound cool, but it's akin to keeping a loaded gun in the house: a tight knot of malice and ill intent.

Friday the Thirteenth - Again. So Good Luck Spells All Around - Again!

Hello, Readers, and good luck to You!

Funny thing - last time I wrote about Friday the 13th, it resulted in a record number of visits to Kitchen Witchcraft from all around the world.

I guess we all feel we need a little help and a little good luck on such supernaturally charged day. So, this year I've gathered quite a few spells for You all - something ceremonial and something informal, something symbolical and something practical, something for the altar and something for the stove. A bunch of luck and prosperity spells for the day that is known to be jinxed and bad for business.

As you will no doubt notice, most of these recipes call for similar ingredients: there are many variations, but cinnamon and nutmeg will be in there somewhere. I guess they are exceptionally lucky. The colour green is often present in these spells as well, symbolising luck and hope. I've put a [K] next to the spells that can double as cooking ingredients (apart from the very first recipe, the lucky salt, which is technically edible, but doesn't seem like it would make any dish better). Just in case you didn't notice Yourself that basil and oils are edible.

I've grouped them by type: powders, candle spells and wax magic, oils for witch bottles, gemstone spells and cooking recipes. Naturally, they can all be combined: prepare a witch bottle with luck oil, then use the oil to anoint a candle, then light the candle as You eat a lucky supper for maximum benefit within and without. Just don't try to munch the gemstones.

🍀 Lucky Powders and Salts

They are usually ground in a mortar or just mixed up and put in witch bags, or some other kind of receptacle. Whenever possible, take equal parts of everything, but an amount of sea salt that equals the others combined.

Salt for Luck:

• Sea Salt
• Allspice
• Cinnamon
• Nutmeg
• Basil
• Green food colouring (optional)

Golden powder [K]:

• Saffron
• Tumeric powder
• Ground ginger
• Nutmeg powder

Luck and Prosperity powder:

• White eggshells
• Basil
• Peppermint
• Clover leaves

🍀 Candle Magic

• One green candle
• One gold candle
• One silver candle

Light all three candles and bring them together, so that they fuse and mix as they melt. Leave them to burn out, then mix the three waxes together and fashion the resulting mass into something to carry around with you.

The green candle is for luck, health, and happiness. The gold candle is for material flourishing: prosperity, wealth, fortune. The silver candle is for spiritual flourishing: an abundance of insight, knowledge, and inner peace. I recommend to cut short stubs so that you don't spend hours waiting for it to happen and don't have to use up whole candles for one spell. (That's basically the opposite of sensible prosperity spells). Yellow candle can symbolise gold and white or light grey candle can symbolise silver.

🍀 Oils

They can be used in witch bottles, in food preparation if edible, or in baths and cosmetics if appropriate.

Cinnamon oil [K]

• Sunflower oil
• Cinnamon

Mediterranean Gold [K] Did you know that olive oil is sometimes called "oro liquido" in Spain?:

• Olive oil
• Fresh basil leaves

Lucky Perfume:This one is trickier. While lucky perfumes are great because of their intimate connection to the body, You don't want to go around smelling like gingerbread or pizza. So the ingredients used here will have to be different.

• 10 drops of sandalwood oil
• 5 drops of patchouli oil
• 5 drops of rose oil

🍀 Gemstone Magic

• 7 pieces of green gemstones (turquoise, malachite, green quartz etc. Emeralds are fine, too, but if You own seven emeralds You probably do not need prosperity spells.)
• Green pouch

This one is to be cast on the full moon, with the stones being left overnight in the moonlight.  You can also imbue them with Your intention in many other ways (especially since it's not full moon right now) - by speaking it out loud, reciting a rhyming spell, by lighting up green candles etc.

Food

Dishes prepared with magical ingredients are the core of kitchen witchcraft. And they have the additional advantage of feeding people!

Pesto
Basically the Mediterranean Gold listed above, with cheese and pine nuts for good measure. You can have it standalone or add it to dinner, like spaghetti al pesto.

Carrot Muffins
Make with cinnamon oil for best effect, or just with extra cinnamon.

Apple Pie
Yes, the humble apple pie can be a great luck recipe, uniting the lucky and protective powers of cinnamon, cloves and apples.

*****

Between all these simple and multi-purpose recipes, I hope You will find something to Your liking. Good luck!

---

Oh, and to all you people drawing pictures of stupidly pornographic female sex objects leprechauns? For some deranged reason? I hope Lady Luck takes her revenge on you.

(Another) Autumnal Equinox!

Best wishes for the Autumnal Equinox!

After that beautiful harvest moon last week, we now have the Autumnal Equinox – the point of balance between darkness and light, the last day before the year starts to darken and wither.

This day is a powerful and complex festival. On one hand, it heralds the coming of winter, of long nights and frost, darkness and death – after the equinoctial point, days will be shorter than nights on the Northern Hemisphere, and winter will come. On the other hand, the actual date is quite early, and it signifies the beginning of Autumn first – a time of harvest, bountiful food, great beauty and quite often some very pleasant weather to go with it. It is, therefore, the moment when we can reach out and touch both life and death, darkness and light, in equal measure, with neither triumphing over the other.

The Autumnal Equinox is a great day for celebrations and rituals that are to bring balance to one’s life – allow us to accept the inevitable, but without fatalism or forgetting the good sides of life. Helping us to make peace with whatever there is in our lives that needs to be made peace with.

And, of course, it’s a great moment for cooking all and any autumn-related deliciousness. Whether it’s some provident and thrifty preserves-making, or indulging in purely-for-pleasure baking projects,or just making an autumn-themed dinner, it’s a good idea to use one of those to tap into the energy of the equinox.

Personally, I will be celebrating with a plate of stuffed peppers, though slightly different than usual, because I bought the tomato pepper variety – a cultivar that has really cute, round and slightly flattened fruit. It’s actually the best variety for stuffing, because you can put them with the opening upwards and they stay that way.
But if you want something else to celebrate with, here’s some ideas:

• Recipe for stuffed peppers
• Recipe for carrot muffins
• Recipe for spicy muffins with ginger and cinnamon
• Making home preserves for the winter