Autumn's Herbal Magick: Making Traditional & Modern Folk Charms
I love autumn and all it has to offer - it’s still warm enough to work magick outside but not so sweltering like summer with plenty left to forage. The energy of harvest season is abundant and the veils between the worlds are that much easier to move through. I love coming back home after being out on a blustery autumn day to my magickal workspace, hands itching to craft a charm or two as daylight gives way to the long dusk of dark season.
In the third part of my Seasonal Magick series we'll be exploring three folk spell traditions, incorporating plant allies of autumn to aid us in our magick. From a witch's ladder that binds up pesky energy to a witch's bundle to welcome in plenty and a witch's bottle for protection, these three herbal charms are easy to make, tap into our legacy as magickal practitioners, and help us to connect with the energy of the season. To find the full introduction to this series and why I love simple folk magick so much, including additional insight into each of the three traditional charms we'll be exploring, come this way.
So let's explore how we can create witch's Ladders, bundles, and bottles as one of the ways to connect with the seasonal rhythms of the year and our beloved plant allies.
The Witch's Ladder
Traditionally made of woolen cord, rope, woven thread or hair and knotted with items like feathers, holed stones, sticks and bits of metal, witch's ladders are a beautiful form of magick that combine charm-making with knot magick and weaving spells. The witch's ladder has remained popular among modern practitioners, supported in part by the Priestess Doreen Valiente's Spell of the Cord, an inspired modern variation of older forms of spoken knot magick. Energetically, they can act like a net, gathering up energy to hold in place and to either be drawn upon (in the case of beneficial energy) or released elsewhere (in the case of baneful energy).
A Witch's Ladder To Bind Up Pesky Energy
A witch's ladder can be a lovely little trap for the sort of pesky, irritating energy that can build up over time because of stress. Autumn's energy of drawing down and in, where decay and decomposition feed the land before winter's slumber, can be tapped into as we shed the layers of the year, including energetic patterns we no longer need taking up residence in our energetic, feeling body. For autumn, I love a witch's ladder that sings to the bones of the year, acknowledging the strangeness and frustration that can flow through our lives, and creating a space to shed bothersome energy.
Garden or Common Sage (Salvia officinalis) is a beautifully protective herb that has additionally space and energy clearing qualities. And to be very clear, I'm not speaking about using White Sage (Salvia apiana) which is so over-harvested it is at risk of endangerment, but any of the many common varieties of Sage typically used in cooking. In my experience, Sage has a magnetic, almost hungry, energy for pulling unwanted, troublesome energy from the energetic body (including the "body" of a home or workspace or mode of transportation). The medicinal uses of Sage reflect its magickal qualities - it is a wonderful "processing" tonic that helps us move energy and information throughout the body through healthy circulation and brain function. Working with Sage as a plant ally to bind up pesky energy can help us to process and release what we no longer need in our lives and energetic field.
A Sage Charm
Salvia, panacea
Hungry herb of healing
Feast upon this energy
That no longer needs feeling
Other herbs to consider are Juniper (Juniperus officinalis) branches and/or berries and Rue (Ruta graveolens). Adding tassels (a tool in traditional witchcraft) and small woven orbs to your witch's ladder can serve as places for pesky energy to become entangled and trapped. Consider using dark colors, such as deep red and black, and symbols of spiders (who so deftly trap objects in their web) as part of your witch's ladder.
Creating Your Ladder
To create a witch's ladder use cord, thread or yarn to braid or not your chosen objects into a long hanging cord. How long you make your witch's ladder is up to you, but I find that they work better when shorter when being hung outside and can be a bit longer when keeping it inside. I like to start by laying out all objects I'll be tying into my witch's ladder before me on my altar, blessing them with the four elements of fire (candle light), air (incense), water (water infused with flower essences or salt), and earth (sprinkling herbs over the items or laying the items on a stone surface). I like to use some variation of a cord charm when knotting my items, like Valiente's or the one written above, changing the language for my needs.
Once all items are added, the witch's ladder can be hung up by an altar, window or door. For a spring witch's ladder I like to make ones that'll either hang just outside my door or beside a window, so that the ladder is able to dance in spring's winds.
You can add extra magick to your summer witch's ladder, by placing it in a sunny spot at the height of noon for a few minutes to charge up - better yet is it is surrounded by a circle of quartz crystals. Over the next year, I like to use pass my witch's ladder over my deck of tarot cards or other divinatory tool before doing a reading when I feel like I need an extra boost of illuminating clarity.
The Witch's Bundle
The simplest of our three traditional folk magick charms, a witch's bundle is a collection of exclusively or mostly plants with other items (such as old skeleton keys, a nice stick, a hunk of rock) tied up together and hung up above a door (or bed or other auspicious place). Witch's bundles, like all of the magickal crafts listed here, can be endlessly personalized to match your need, your aesthetic preferences, and reflect your relationships. If you're studying a particular plant ally you might include them in your witch's bundle (if the herb has already been dried and processed, you can add some into a little pouch and tie it to your bundle). If you are working with a deity that is fond of one particular color, choose that color of cloth or string to tie up your bundle. If you're a cool goth witch, add the skulls and gothic crosses to your bundle of dried Rose (Rosa spp.). Let yourself enjoy the process of finding your creative magickal expression - it helps you understand better what it you're using magick for in the first place.
The Witch's Bundle To Welcome in Plenty
Autumn is a season of harvest festivals, of celebrating the labor of those gone before us, the fruits of our personal and collective effort, and the regenerative harvest of endings and beginnings. Along with spring, autumn is a time of equinox, walking the path between day and night before tipping towards the sacred dark. Working with autumn's magick we can learn to identify what it is we need during the long sheltering night ahead, what we want to carry with us to the wheel's bright half, and where it is our plenty lies. For autumn I like to create bundles that connect me to the abundance of the year so that I know what it is that keeps me full and well and steady on my path.
Little mounds of enchanting Thyme (Thymus vulgaris) make me feel abundance whenever I spot them in my garden because of their tenacious ability to thrive in the heat and cold, but also because I know a harvest of Thyme will help protect from and support the body through winter illnesses. Thyme has a generosity of spirit that I turn to again and again in my practice to learn how to find plenty even when encountering scarcity. Working with Thyme during the season of harvest festivals is one of the ways that we can connect with the plenty in our lives, letting it flow through us into the lives of others, and back to us again and again.
A Thyme Charm
Thyme upon my lips
Thyme upon my eyes
Thyme upon my spirit
Where hope and plenty thrives
Witch tip! You can replace the word “hope” in the charm with another desirable quality such as love, peace, joy, and so on.
Additional herbs to consider are Peppemint (Mentha piperita) and Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis) which are abundant growers and spreaders in the garden, representing abundance. Items that symbolically represent plenty to you, from seeds to money to images of good times together with friends and family, can also be placed in your bundle.
Creating Your Bundle
Bless all your objects as described in the above section "Creating Your Ladder." Once you've collected all of your items (such as a few sprigs of Rosemary), use a colored thread or ribbon of choice to tie up your bundle. I like to tie the top part and leave the rest loose, but you can tie up everything from top to bottom. The advantage of the latter technique is that you can tie larger objects inside the bundle, even hiding them from view if that's your preference. Once tied up, hang the bundle above an altar, door, or window.
The Witch's Bottle
Traditionally, witch's bottles or jars were buried or hidden away from view in the back of cupboards, sometimes even between walls, beneath floors, or high up in the attics. They embody the magickal practice of doing the work and then letting it be, allowing the magick to continue to unfold in its own time. Sometimes jars are made for a short period of need (such as a honey jar for attracting a job) and then the contents are offered back to the earth, while others are more permanent and meant to be mostly forgotten. Other times, jars and their contents can be renewed on a regular basis (such as at the Full Moons or the sabbats). Energetically, witch's bottles tend to act like generators, helping to generate an outcome or a specific type of energy.
A Witch's Bottle For Love
One of the classic types of witch's bottles are those for protection. Autumn is a time of changing seasons, when summer's easiness fades away and winter's hardiness is just around the corner, so it makes sense to cast protection spells during this liminal time of year where nothing is quite certain. I find autumn's magick to be a combination of drawing on summer's strength while inviting in winter's quiet, honoring the work done earlier in the year to make the rest in the dark of the year possible - spells of protection are part of that process for me.
The hedgerows are places of magick, liminal and wild, home to wild creatures, medicinal plants, and doorways to the otherworld. Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) is a sacred hedgerow plant, marking the seasons of the year with its blossoming flowers in early summer and appearance of red berries in the autumn. One of the most prized herbs of the heart in traditional western herbalism, Hawthorn not only supports the health of the physical heart but the repair of the emotional heart as well. It is also an energetically protective herb with its long thorns and tales of the plant protecting secret passageways to the otherworld - keeping them hidden until the seeker is ready (or until the Good Folk become interested in you). I love using all the aerial parts of the Hawthorn - the flowers, leaves, berries, and thorns - in my witch's bottle, but use what you have available to you.
A Hawthorn Charm
Round and round the Hawthorn green
Thorn and flower and berry
Round and round safe shall I be
Thorn and flower and berry
Witch tip! You can visualize a magickal and protective hedge that encircles around you, keeping out harmful energy and allowing in beneficial energy.
Other herbs to consider for your protection magick include Garlic (Allium sativum) and Basil (Ocimum spp.). Consider adding sharp objects like nails, even broken glass, to increase the protective energy of your bottle, as well as items that represent protective guides and familiar spirits (like cat hair if you work with a cat familiar). You can also consider adding your own hair or bodily fluid (a very traditional ingredient in witch's bottles) to bind the protective energies of the bottle to you.
Creating Your Bottle
Bless all your objects as described in the above section "Creating Your Ladder." Make sure you have a tight sealing bottle or jar so to prevent items from leaking out if you are using any fluids or from pests getting in. Add your herbs and charms in one-by-one, naming their purpose as you go, and then you can seal your jar with wax or tie it up with ribbon to seal in or bind up the magick. Once completed choose where your bottle is going to live, whether in the house, mode of transportation, place of school or work or buried (especially good for banishing magick, though make sure all items are biodegradable).
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For more herbal inspiration for your summer, how about creating your own autumn wellness apothecary? Or a might-do list for the Autumn Equinox? I also explore more of autumn’s plant allies, healing paths, and magickal ways over here.
I hope you’ve found inspiration for your own autumn magickal practices and feel a little more connected to season of the witch and all the witch folk gone before us.
This post was made possible through patron support.
❤︎ Thanks, friends. ❤︎
