3 Herbal Recipes to Support Your Lunar Return

Every month the Moon returns to place in the sign that you were born in - known as a Lunar Return - and it can be an auspicious time to nourish your inner worlds. The Lunar Return is, in fact, just the Moon version of your Solar Return (also known as your birthday) or a Saturn Return, though the energy and meaning of a Lunar Return is different than either of those. I write a lot about the Moon because in astrology and western esoteric practice, it is through working with our inner Moon that we understand our consciousness and cultivate the insights needed to work as healers and bring healing into our relationships (I even created a whole course about it). Lunar-centered herbalism plays a special role in my practice as an herbalist whether it is observing the healing rituals of the different phases of the Moon, creating Moon-inspired baths, learning more about the magick of Moon signs in my herbal preparations or making teas for my Lunar Return.

With all the ways one can practice medicine and magick by the Moon, I find the energy of the Lunar Return to be something special, moving and changing each month, calling us to step into a more spiral understanding of time and our experience of it. Your Lunar Return can be many things, including a time of reflection, of rebalancing or of reconnecting with some part of yourself, and I wanted to share with you three simple herbal remedies that I use for my own Lunar Return practice that'll hopefully support your own.

About the Recipes

I try to write about herbs that are easily accessible within the traditional western herbalism repertoire, but I've also included the herbal action of each herb that I'm focusing on to help you choose alternative herbs based on your needs. You are strongly encouraged to adapt each recipe to make it your own. The recipe portions listed are estimations and can be easily adjusted to your own taste needs and you can add any variety of preferred flavorful herbs to your own mix. While the recipes below are written with tea in mind you can use them as herbal baths, tinctures, flower essence blends, topical herbal oils, and more. 

Deck shown is The Gentle Tarot by Mari in the Sky

Reflection Moon Tea

Sometimes our Lunar Return is calling us home again through gentle reflection and dreamwork. I love working with my dreams with greater intention around my Lunar Return and the Reflection Moon tea blend helps to do just that. The blend helps to quiet the mind so that we can explore what's going on beneath the surface for us while also stimulating the dreaming part of our psyche. Reflection Moon tea is also helpful when it comes to awakening our inherent psychic gifs.

Medicinally, Reflection Moon can be a useful blend during and in the time around your Lunar Return if you're menstruating (Mugwort is a uterine tonic and all herbs have pain relieving qualities), looking to alleviating general tension especially when accompanied by headaches, and to help with slow and sluggish digestion.

• 2 parts Skullcap (Scutellaria lateriflora): Nervine, sedative, and relaxant

• 1 part Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris): Relaxant and dream tonic

• 1 part part Rose (Rosa spp.): Heart tonic

Deck shown is The Illuminated Earth Oracle by Claire Mack

Rebalancing Moon Tea

Your Lunar Return can be a beautiful time to slow down and reassess what needs balancing in your life. Whether you're feeling run down and sluggish, want to support the start of a new cycle or firm up some energetic boundaries, the Rebalancing Moon blend is nutritive rich and restorative. If I'm experiencing decision and/or compassion fatigue it this blend or some variation of this blend that I typically reach for.

In addition to being a nutritive rich blend, Rebalancing Moon helps with digestion, helps with issues of circulation, strengthens the blood (i.e. can help to alleviate anemia), protects against seasonal allergies, and is an excellent blend for taking after recovering from a period of illness or stress.

• 2 parts Milky Oat (Avena sativa): Nervine and neurotonic

• 1 part Nettles (Urtica dioica): Nutritive, digestive, and whole body trophorestorative

• 1 part Spearmint (Mentha spicata): Digestive (carminative) and clears brain fog

Deck shown is the Heavenly Bodies Astrology Deck by Lily Ashwell

Reconnecting Moon Tea

Sometimes it can feel like we're searching for something lost or not quite remembered about ourselves. Or we've set aside practices we'd want to be doing, things we want to be learning, and people we want to connect with because of the busyness and stress of our life. Reconnecting Moon can help to calm our nervous system and nudge us back into communion with our desires. It's the blend I reach for if I'm feeling out of sorts with my practice and like I'm doing less and less of what I want to be doing in my life for whatever reasons. 

Medicinally, Reconnecting Moon is a lovely tonic for the brain and nervous system, helping to support the lines of communication between what we're feeling-thinking. It's a good tea to share with others to help support clear lines of communication and to soothe frazzled energy.

• 4 parts Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis): Nootropic and nervine

• 1 part Rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus): Nootropic and gentle nervous system stimulant

• ½ part Lavender (Lavandula officinalis):  Nervine and circulatory stimulant

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I hope that these recipes serve as a source of inspiration for your own practice. If you haven’t already, be sure to read my full post on what a Lunar Return is and why you might start observing it. For those of you who read tarot or oracle cards, I’ve written a tarot spread to support your lunar observations.

May you find what you’re looking for as you gaze into the mirror of the ever-changing Moon.

This post was made possible through patron support.
❤︎ Thanks, friends. ❤︎

Bathing with the Moon: Herbal Baths for the Lunar Phases

One of my favorite forms of herbal medicine and magick is the herbal bath. Simple and inexpensive, requiring no fancy equipment, and with the ability to use both fresh and dried herbs, herbal baths are a beautiful form of self and community care. Basically, herbal baths are teas that you bathe in. If you don't have access to a bath, you can use them as shower rinses, too. Herbal bath blends are incredibly fun to make with little ones in your life, coven mates, and magickal kin, as well as by yourself before your altar, amidst the plants of the garden, or in the quiet of your kitchen. 

I've been using herbal baths as part of my Moon practice for many a year and they help me to embody a slow magick that spirals and flows, ebbs and rests, and strengthens the energetic and physical body against the pressures of endless work, productivity, and cultural expectation. Bathing with herbs is a deep ancestral practice, an honoring of our ancient bodies' need for warmth and feeling held, and a way to pause while cocooned in the waters of life. What I hope is that your Moon baths and observations of lunar time are richly radical, imbued with the magick of change, and an ongoing act of liberation, free from the idea that self-care is a cure-all (it's not) or that any of us has to go it alone (thank, Goddess).

image via @masonkimber

What follows are general guidelines and then a few suggested recipes guided by the traditional western herbalism that I practice as well as my Pagan spirituality. As with all herbal medicine and magick remember that practicing an earth-affirming path of healing asks us to use what we have, adapt what we need, and carefully consider how and when we acquire resources. In other words, if you don't have Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) easily and responsibly accessible, that silvery Sage (Salvia officinalis) in your cupboard might do just as well. Systems of correspondences (i.e. why certain herbs are assigned to different Moon phases) are useful in that they connect us with the energy of tradition but our relationship to an herb and our need for a type of blend is just, if not more, important which is why innovation is a powerful magickal tool.

I've also included items beyond herbs that you might want to incorporate into your lunar bathing rituals - none of these are necessary but I do hope it inspires you to think about the crafting of your herbal bath and ways that you can bring beauty to it. A jar full of lunar herbs is an altar in miniature, the act of bathing a ritual, and the re-emergence from the waters a sort of gentle rebirth. The care and intention that we approach our herbal baths is as much part of the magick as any herb or stone we might be working with.

A final few notes. There are lots of phases of the Moon that you can observe, but I'll be focusing on the New, Full, and Dark of the Moon which is when I'm most likely in my own practice to have a lunar bathing ritual. You'll also find that I use a lot of the same herbs, in different proportions in the recipes - that's because these are my personal allies and the plants that I have kinship with. I'll list different herbs for each lunar phase, but you don't have to use different herbs for different phases but should feel free to work intimately and consistently with your beloved plant allies in different combinations. Finally, here is my basic herbal bath recipe and guidelines for herbal bathing.

image via @straz

The New Moon

In traditional western herbalism, herbs of the New Moon are considered hot and moist. Energetically what this is trying to communicate is that we are in a period of enlivening activity (i.e. life-giving heat) and these are the conditions needed to grow and develop (i.e. the moist warm soil needed to grow seeds). Magickally, the New Moon is considered a time of new beginnings, an auspicious period for starting new projects, work manifestation magick, and it's also a good time to energize any aspect of your life including spells and charms. The New Moon also carries the energy of endings (as a new cycle begins so an old one must end) which helps us to part with and give up that which is no longer needed in our life, so cleansing magick and cord cutting rituals are especially auspicious. For a more herbal medicine based perspective on New Moon herbs, come this way.

A quick note on timing. Different folks determine the New Moon at different times of the lunar cycle. For some, the New Moon is when the Moon is completely dark and not visible in the sky. For others, like myself, the New Moon is when you can see the first sliver of the Moon in the night sky after a period of complete dark. This was what I was taught and it also allows me to observe the period of the Dark of the Moon as an important and separate aspect of the lunar cycle. But there is no right way - it's all made up by people just like you and me, so follow what works for you. 

New Moon Herbs: Angelica (Angelica archangelica), Basil (Ocimum spp.), Elder (Sambucus nigra), Lavender (Lavandula officinalis), Milky Oat (Avena sativa), Peppermint (Mentha piperita),  Sage (Salvia officinalis). Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris or your local variety) is considered a Moon herb for all phases.

My favorite herb for New Moon baths is Basil (Ocimum spp.) and especially Sacred Basil (Ocimum sanctum, tenuiflorum). I love how effective Basil is at moving energy throughout the body which helps to connect with the upwelling of energy present at the New Moon. It is also a great ally for removing unwanted energy and also helps to protect our energetic boundaries for the cycle ahead. 

New Moon Herbal Bath

• 2 parts Basil (Ocimum spp.)

• 1 part Milky Oat (Avena sativa)

• ½ part Rose (Rosa damascena)

image via @gkumar2175

The Full Moon

Cold and dry herbs are the traditional correspondence found in western herbalism. Energetically, we're looking at the completed structure that is solid, livable, and created to last. No longer in the phase of ideas and creation, the Full Moon rises in the sky, a source of heightened and potent energy, fully realized. Magickally, the Full Moon is one of the most auspicious times to work magick, charge up charms, amulets, and other tools of the trade, as well as gather together with other magickal folk in reverie and celebration. For me, the Full Moon has always felt like a time of deep connection with my Witch ancestors, my current Witchen Kin, and those Witch folk who will emerge long after I'm gone. Watching the Full Moon rise in the sky has filled me with hope and a sense of holiness again and again and it feels like a prehistoric sort of ritual. Blessing the self, working magick for community healing and justice, and re-dressing the body in an energetic mantle of sacredness are all auspicious to do when the Moon is Full.

Full Moon Herbs: Lavender (Lavandula officinalis), Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis), Meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria), Milky Oat (Avena sativa), Motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca), Mugwort (Artemisa vulgaris), Passionflower (Passiflora incarnata), Peppermint (Mentha piperita), Plantain (Plantago major),  Sage (Salvia officinalis), Self-Heal (Prunella vulgaris).

It's hard to choose between Milky Oat and Rose as my primary Full Moon herb - so I won't! Milky Oat and Rose are some of my dearest teachers and to work with them at the Full Moon feels like traveling to a sacred circle of healing and magick. Milky Oat is my most beloved of nervous system herbs and acts as a tonic for the soul, helping us to feel held and nourished at any time and especially during the heightened energy of the Full Moon. The seeds feel like packets full of Moon milk. Rose is an herb of unfolding mystery and magick. The flower helps us to connect with the old and wise parts of ourselves having been with our species for millenia. To be held in our unfolding is why I like using these herbs together. 

Full Moon Herbal Bath - Restorative

• 2 parts Milky Oat (Avena sativa)

• 1 part Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris)

• ½ part Rose (Rosa damascena)

Full Moon Herbal Bath - Enlivening

• 1 part Peppermint (Mentha piperita)

• ½ part Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis)

• ½ part Lavender (Lavandula officinalis)

image via @adilnapreda

The Dark of the Moon

I almost always make my Dark of the Moon herbal bath blend a few days before since I don't typically make any sort of herbal remedies when the Moon is Dark. For me, Dark of the Moon work is usually of two varieties: deep rest or shadow work. The Dark of the Moon is a time to retreat from the world, go deep within (including deep rest), and recenter yourself before re-emerging into the world with the New Moon.

Dark Moon Herbs: Elder (Sambucus nigra), Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna), Lavender (Lavandula officinalis), Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris), Nettles (Urtica dioica), Passionflower (Passiflora incarnata), Sage (Salvia officinalis), Yarrow (Achillea millefolium).

Mugwort, my dudes. Mugwort is an herb that I love and can only use in small doses because of how powerfully it works on my body and through my energetic systems. I have learned this in unexpected and humorous ways again and again, so I make sure to approach Mugwort with a lot of respect as She is a powerful herb. In Anglo-Saxon tradition, Mugwort is called Una, oldest of herbs, and I feel that in my bones (here is a great in-depth look at the Nine Herbs Charm - you really should read the original out-loud to get a sense of just how rhythmic it is). The herb works to connect us to the liminal, enhance our dreamscapes, and loosen the spirit from the body if travelling through the worlds is what you require. In general, beyond my own sensitivity to the herb, I think that Mugwort is best enjoyed in small doses and I think it is more effective for dreamwork (especially lucid dreamwork) and promoting rest when smaller doses are used.

Dark of the Moon Herbal Bath - Rest & Dream Work

• 1 part Lavender (Lavandula officinalis)

• 1 part Passionflower (Passiflora incarnata)

• ½ part Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris)

Dark of the Moon Herbal Bath - Shadow Work

• 1 part Elder (Sambucus nigra)

• 1 part Rose (Rosa damascena)

• ½ part Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris)

image via @priscilladupreez

Additions to Your Herbal Bath

Add an herb for the Moon sign. When I am trying to work with the specific energy of the sign that the Moon is in, I add in an herb associated with that Moon sign. You can find affirmations as well as links to full profiles of each sign of the zodiac here. You can also choose to always add an herb for your Moon sign into each bath blend.

Salt and epsom salt. Adding salt or epsom salt to your bath can be a way of helping us connect to our oceanic origins (in the case of salt) or assist with pain relief (in the case of epsom salt). 

Honey. Honey is not only good for the skin but helps to sweeten the energy of whatever spell you're working.

Milk. Oat milk (preferably homemade) or your choice of milk is a beautiful addition to the bath and adds additional skin-soothing properties to the experience. Within folk magick milk is associated with the Moon because of its bright white color. 

Stones. Along as you check to make sure that they are water-safe, gemstones can be added directly to your bath water. Or you can place them in your herbal blend to add their energy to the mix before water is added. Silver coins are another traditional addition to lunar blends.

Add moonwater. Adding water charged by the Full Moon or whatever Moon phase you're working with can be a powerful addition to your bathwater.

Flower or gem essences. Flower essences and gem essences are a simple way to support the emotional body. You can add in the flower essences of whatever herbs you're working with (something I love to do) or different essences.

Invoke the spirits, call your guides. I bless the water and call in certain holy ones of the waters before I bathe. It is part of transforming the mundanity of my bathroom to a energetic temple holding space for my ritual submersion. On a practical level, speaking sacred invocations and other holy words before immersing myself in my bath is a way to help shift my consciousness to the magickal working at hand.

Work with Nines. Hearkening to the magick of planetary squares, the primary sacred number of the Moon is nine. So you can stir your blend of herbs nine times, chant a spell over them nine times, or any other variation of working magick nine times. I like the addition of mindfulness that this adds to my practice, helping me to focus on the work at hand.

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I hope you're feeling inspired to draw a bath (or magickal shower) next time you're feeling like working some lunar magick. Lunar baths are also a wonderful addition to lunar magick in general and I've written a whole series on the Moon phases and magick. You can find posts for all the phases below:

• Dark of the Moon

• New Moon

• Waxing Quarter Moon

• Full Moon

• Waning Quarter Moon

If you’re looking for a deeper dive into lunar healing and magick, how about learning about your personal lunar holy day each month or a path exploring your gifts as a healer?

Wherever the Moon cycle finds you, may your baths be lunar and your magick abundant!

This post was chosen by and made possible through patron support.
❤︎ Thanks, friends. ❤︎

Seeding: Waning Quarter Moon Ritual & Healing Practices

After the first round of intense heat, many of the grasses, the salad greens and sweet peas, and some of the herbs growing on the land I live with have gone to seed. I live in a place of multiple growing seasons each cycle of the year, so this cycle of seeding will happen a few times yet. This cycle, I'm learning how to collect seeds - it's an incredible sensation to be able to hold a small seed in your hand, knowing that it contains the possibilities of a new plant within it, and the possibilities of who it'll feed, help heal, bring beauty to the body and all the senses.

These periods of seeding are times that fall both backwards and forwards. There is the plant and flower which has died back, fallen to the earth, and revealed the forward momentum of a seed ready to find earth. Sometimes that finding of earth to grow in takes time - sometimes seeds are digested and eliminated from the bodies of people and animals, sometimes they are carried on the wind, sometimes they take a nap in a carefully folded seed packet passed from one gardener to another. All of this ties into the energy of the Waning Quarter Moon, sacred pause that allows us time to reassess where we've been, where we currently are, and where we might be going, after the climatic height of the Full Moon.

Like with the Waxing Quarter Moon, the Waning Quarter Moon is a time of balance. As the Moon is growing towards darkness, marking the midpoint between the Full and New Moon, the Waning Quarter Moon offers us a time to shed, fall back, and sort out which seeds we're interested in planting, if not just quite yet. Change, reassessment, release, balance, and decluttering are all key energies of the Waning Quarter Moon.

image via @ao_space

Herbal Traditions

In Traditional Western Herbalism the New Moon is considered a time of cold and moist herbs. If we were to think of the Moon phase as a cycle of building a sacred structure, the Waning Quarter Moon is a time for redesign and reworking of a temple space after it has been lived in for a while, bringing back the cool damp of malleability to reshape a space. For my garden minded friends, the energy of the Waning Quarter Moon is of the compost, already spread in the garden, ready to receive water and new seeds.

As I've shared throughout this series, there are so many ways to approach the meaning of the different phases of the lunar cycle and what follows is my interpretation through the lens of Traditional Western Herbalism and magickal practice. I encourage you to be guided by your own intuitions, spiritual practices, and cultural stories. For me, plants that have gone to seed and are in that phase of focused tension between having died back and letting loose their seeds to the earth embody the energy of the Waning Quarter Moon. I enjoy working with plant allies that help me to figure out where to draw my focus in and down as opposed to expanding outwards and up. Herbs that help me to relax, sleep deep, and digest experiences (from food to emotions to information) are all ones that I reach for. As mentioned in my Waxing Quarter Moon post, sometimes I like to use the aboveground parts of a plant during the Waxing cycle and the below ground as well as barks and seeds of a plant during the Waning cycle.

Examples of Waning Quarter Moon Herbs: Aloe Vera (Aloe vera), Borage (Borago officinalis), Dandelion Root (Taraxacum officinale), Elder (Sambucus nigra), Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare), Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna), Lavender (Lavandula officinalis), Mullein (Verbascum thapsus), Passionflower (Passiflora incarnata), Willow (Salix alba).

Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna)

I was first introduced to Hawthorn through the work of herbalist Deb Soule of Avena Botanicals (in fact learning that I could even be a professional herbalist happened because a friend in college handed me a copy of Deb's herbal catalogue - I read it through many, many times, completely enchanted). One of the remedies she offered was for the broken-hearted featuring Hawthorn as a primary ingredient. A few years later, remembering Deb's remedy, I blended together a couple of herbs I had stored in my dorm room, Hawthorn included, into an incredibly bitter tea for a friend who had shown up crying and heartbroken from their break-up. She drank it in stride (brave, sorrowful soul) and I began my journey with Hawthorn as a teacher (who would teach me that bitter times doesn't always call for bitter medicine). 

Hawthorn is a deeply prized cardiotonic herb in Traditional Western Herbalism. The herb is a cardiac trophorestorative which is a restorative tonic for the heart, bringing the hard working muscle back into balance whether from an illness, stress, or the effects of aging. As a powerful but gentle herb, Hawthorn can be used for children, seniors, and all between. Part of Hawthorn’s heart healing gifts is its possession of antioxidants which prevent and reverse damage caused by free radicals as well as reducing oxidative stress on the capillary walls and improving circulatory tone (whether by relaxing or strengthening). It's an herb best used over the long-term and integrated into your daily life.

I like working with Hawthorn during the Waning Quarter Moons to help reflect on the ways that grief and loss has shaped me. This can be the small griefs of temporary separation from loved ones or the unexpected change in plans (like not getting into the program you wanted or missing out on an adventure with friends) to the long and enduring griefs of losing a loved one. Hawthorn helps us to swing between what was and what shall be as we deal with the grief of what is. This magick arises from Hawthorn's power as an herb of the hedge and the hinge. The hedge refers to its use both as a thorny bush marking land boundaries but also as the hedge marking the space between our world and other worlds (traditionally that of the Good Folk and Land Spirits), between one possibility and another. As a hinge herb, Hawthorn assists the "doors" between the chambers of the heart helping to regulate and improve myocardial function. But since herbs work on multiple levels of experience, Hawthorn also "acts as guardian of the hinge, hawthorn wisely discerns the right timing for the wounded heart to open" as noted by Judith Berger in Herbal Rituals.

I write more about Hawthorn within the context of thorn magick. It's an herb that I use in my practice often from breathwork to eclipse season, too.

Altar + Rituals

Decorate your altar with dualistic images if that calls to you or images beyond the binary and objects that evoke a sense of balance from within you. If you've built a Waxing Quarter Moon altar earlier in the cycle, you can choose to rebuild it, but reverse the location of all the objects for a bit of mirrored magick. Seek out patterns of harmony amongst the unexpected. Before you begin any ritual, take in an even number of deep and sustaining breaths. Shed any symbols, jewelry, items of clothing of who you no longer wish to be or things you no longer wish to hold onto before you reach your altar. Earth and seed planting spells, spells of ink and sigils, ice and snow magick, grounding and centering magick, and rituals that help you to slow down and focus in. As an offering, think of what you can do now that will be of great benefit to future you or your future communities from booking your first appointment for mental health services to planting the first seeds of a community garden. Learn about the sign that the Moon is in for more specific ideas and recommendations.

image via @brunoadamo

A Simple Waning Quarter Moon Ritual

To ground and center in your magick

For this ritual you will need one stone, preferably large and heavy but comfortable enough to lay on your belly - but it's completely ok if you only have a small stone available. This might be a stone from your garden or a sacred crystal that’s lived on your altar for a while, but be sure to invite them into the ritual before you start, honoring our stone ancestors in the process. 

Relax into a position where you can feel the edges of your body - this might be laying down before your altar or somewhere outside, covered in blankets on your bed or sitting in your comfiest chair. The purpose is to feel planted like a seed within the nurturing earth. Take up your stone and place it on your body (such as on your belly or over your heart) or hold it in a way that you are relaxed but able to feel its weight. It can also help to have a soft cloth or pillow over your eyes to aid your meditation.

Close your eyes. Take deep and relaxing breaths, allowing yourself with every in-breath to sink deeper into a state of grounded relaxation and with every out-breath releasing any tension you might be carrying. If you get distracted, that's just fine, as it is in our nature to become busier in our minds when we are trying to become quieter in our bodies. Simply call your attention back to the weight of the stone and your breath.

Begin to visualize your body growing roots into the earth below you. It can be one single taproot or multiple smaller root systems extending from your body into the earth. Spend some time reaching out to the healing dark of earth and soil.

Take a deep breath in and out, noticing a green energy stirring around you and your root systems. The earth is reaching out to you. Call up their green energy through your roots into your body. Let the earth energy pool and swirl within you. Spend some time breathing deep here, filling up with earth energy.

When you feel grounded in the energy of the earth, it is time to center. With every in-breath draw the energy of earth inward towards a single point in your body - you can choose this spot intuitively or draw the energy into the center of your body, an inch or two below your belly button. With every out-breath feel yourself releasing excess energy back into the earth.  Feel the energy coalesce into a single, vibrant place within you, humming with contentment and power.

When you feel centered, draw your attention back to the stone. Feel it's presence helping to draw you back up from the depths of your meditation. Begin to slowly move your body, stretch, and open your eyes.

Speak the following charm three times into the stone as a way to help collect the energy of the ritual so that you can easily evoke the experience of grounded centeredness again in the future:

By earth, to earth, through earth.

It is by earth we are made, to earth we are born, and through earth we come home again and again. Having completed the ritual, you can keep the stone on your altar, beside your bed or carry it on your person for extra grounding and centering magick. 

A Simple Waning Quarter Moon Tarot Spread

To help you recognize your magickal gifts

Card 1 · Mirror

The Moon is a mirror reflecting back our truths. This card helps you to understand who you are as a magickally gifted and psychic person. 

Card 2 · Veil

At the Quarter Moons, the Moon draws a veil across half of Her face, retreating from view. This card helps you to understand the ways that you hide your gifts from the world. A veil can be beautifully protective and holy, so this card doesn't always suggest that you are inappropriately hiding something, but that there are certain parts of your magickal gifts and psychic abilities that you might keep secret for your own benefit. This card can also help you recognize something about yourself you are not seeing.

Card 3 · Soil

This card helps you to understand what supports or hinders your ability to grow into your gifts.

Card 4 · Seed

This card shows one way that you can grow into your gifts, perhaps sharing them with others or using them in your life in ways that you currently are not.

Card 5 · Story

The overall message of the Waning Quarter Moon in your life. If you are familiar with your birth chart and how to find the transiting Moon in your chart this card can help you to understand the message of the Waxing Quarter Moon in the context of where it lands in your chart.

I hope you enjoyed this fourth post in my series exploring simple ritual practices of the lunar phases (and thanks to my patrons who requested this series!). You can find the posts for the other phases here:

• Waxing Quarter Moon

• Full Moon

• Dark Moon

• New Moon

If you're looking for more encouraging tarot spreads, check out my tarot as your best friend spread. For spreads to help you connect with your inner wisdom (and time travel) check out my conversation spreads with your ancient and future selves. And if you want to dive deeper into the world of lunar magick, come this way.

This post was made possible through patron support.
❤︎ Thanks, friends. ❤︎

Lunar Teas + Slow Magick

At the beginning of this year I was feeling the least magickal that I have in quite some time. To be honest, the last two years have been full of rewarding adventures and some truly challenging experiences that have stretched my “keep-it-together” capacity. 

On top of that, as I’ve been getting back into in-person teaching after a hiatus, I found myself struggling to find my flow again as a teacher. Including, finding myself struggling again with a resurgence in the dreaded imposter syndrome that so many of my fellow generation seem to experience. Not a pleasant place to be in especially considering that teaching in-person classes has traditionally been one of my absolute favorite things to do and is typically a time that I feel most comfortable and confident in myself. 

It’s easy when we come to these places of spiritual malaise to seek out something to fix it now - whether that’s a new shiny crystal or the latest book on magick or thinking that if we scroll through pinterest or instagram for hours we may suddenly find it. 

(I have, ahem, never done any of these things.)

(That last statement was entirely untrue.)

At some point I found myself returning to something which I know and love - making herbal remedies - to try and recenter. Now you might expect at this point of the story I will tell you that  I spent a blissful afternoon making tea as sunlight danced across my apothecary table and a song blossomed in my heart. Alas, twas not the case. I did make tea - a brew inspired by the Moon in hopes of falling back in love with my magick. But I felt lackluster. I combined nine carefully chosen herbs, for that is the sacred number of the Moon, in my large silver bowl and stirred and sang over them. But it felt like I was going through the motions.

As I stirred, I couldn’t shake that feeling running up and down my spine that I wasn’t enough.. Or the creeping sensation that I had lost my magick, never to be found again. 

But I still made that batch of tea. I brewed it and tasted it and decided that it was ok. Over the next few months, though, I somehow started to believe that it was one of the worst teas that I had made. I shoved it back in my herb cabinet, not wanting to waste the herbs, but not sure what to do with it quite yet. 

A few more months passed and I had another class to teach. It happened on the heels of a rough few days of bittersweet revelation. I needed to bring tea to the class and did not have time to create a new blend. I saw the jar of lunar tea sitting on the shelf and grabbed it. As I was brewing it for the class a strange peace settled over me and I had the feeling that it might just be ok. That I was ok.

The class gathered, the tea was served, and I left a few hours later feeling more like myself than I had in a very long time. And folks loved the tea - I ran out of it before the class was even halfway over.

Walking home after class, carrying a heart full of  healing vibes, and an empty tea canister, I was reminded that magick can be sudden but it’s most often slow. It requires us to trust in the long run. Magick asks us to trust in our future self even when we’re uncertain about who we currently are. And while magick doesn’t provide a predictable journey it’ll always provides a path. 

My experience with that Moon-inspired tea pulled together a lot of personal lessons that I’ve been wrestling with the past few years. It also helped me to re-member (to put back together), as the Moon so often does, my joy of slow magick. A magick that takes time. A magick that refuses to speed up to fit the needs of culture or fade. A magick that shows up in uncertainty and charts a path towards resiliency. A magick that asks more questions than provide answers.

I found myself dreaming up and planning classes that I had been too hesitant to consider before. And reconnecting to the truth that what I teach has value (if for any other reason than it brings me joy).  I’ve found myself wanting to write more openly about particularities of my spiritual path and what being a Witch and Priestx means to me. I started with a story on instagram about my spiritual geas (something which is both a prohibition and obligation, a restriction - or curse when particularly difficult - and gift) when working with crystals. Within it I mentioned a need for a slow magick movement within our magickal community. The conversations that sprung up around that post were amazing and this next year I’m going to spend time diving into the idea of slow magick with all of you (you can start to read some of my thoughts here). But for now, let’s make some tea…

Luna Love Spell Tea

A Moon-inspired tea of nine sacred herbs to help you fall back in love with your magick.

Combine all herbs and brew between 5 - 20 minutes.

• 4 parts Lemongass (Cymbopogon citratus)
• 1 part Damiana (Turnera diffusa)
• 1/2 part Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica)
• 1/4 part Blue Lotus (Nelumbo nucifera)
• 1/4 part Lemon (Citrus x limon)
• 2 parts Passionflower (Passiflora incarnata)
• 1/2 part Lavender (Lavandula x intermedia)
• 1/4 part Jasmine (Jasminum spp.)
• 1/4 part Mugwort (Artemisa vulgaris)

May you fall in love with your magick again, wise ones and witch kin. I hope you'll join me on my journey this coming year through the world of slow magick. There'll be tea, new types of content (hiya, videos!), and a renewed commitment to a magick that is in pace with the values of love, fierce justice, and radical kindness that has drawn us altogether in the first place.

Herbs of the New Moon

By the light of the New
we renew and grow...

With the popularity of my Making Medicines by the Moon post, I thought I would follow-up with a series of posts exploring herbs of each Moon phase, staring with the New. I've also added a very brief look at the original Greek Medicine Energetics which informs some of the ways that Traditional Western Herbalists categorize herbs by the Moon. Looking for a deep dive into the energetics of Traditional Western Herbalism? Come this way.

Herbs of the New and growing Crescent Moon are excellent for most any remedy-making endeavor as the power of the brew will grow with the Moon’s waxing. Remedies such as stimulating brews, warming bitters, energizing nervines, restoratives, alteratives, and remedies for new beginnings, for children, and to jumpstart vitality are especially auspicious. 

Traditionally, the New Moon is a time of hot and moist herbs. The tradition I am referring to is Greek medicine with its four element system of earth, air, fire, and water and its corresponding qualities (or energetics) of cold, dry, hot, and moist. The Moon was linked to the seasons of the solar year. The New Moon, representing a time of birth, youth, and vigor, straddled the season of spring into summer which moved from the time of water (represented in the west as the time of spring) to the time of fire (represented in the south as the time of summer).

Side note: If you’re a modern Pagan (like myself) who works with the common elemental correspondence system where east is the direction of spring and air and west the direction of autumn and water you’ll have to do a bit or rearranging in your brain to grasp this system.

When I correspond herbs to Moon phases I don’t rely solely on the traditional categorization of herbs by their temperature and quality. Instead, I incorporate my knowledge of the magick of each herb as well as its medicinal uses and the energetic signature of each Moon phase, which you can learn about in my original post on making medicine by the Moon.

I also work with the six tissue states of Traditional Western Herbalism (TWH) which builds upon the Greek system while incorporating Galenic (as in the Roman herbalist Claudius Galenus), Culpeperian (made that term up, but I am referring to English herbalist Nicholas Culpeper), and the United States physiomedicalism tradition (aka reformed Thompsonianism which was begun by US American herbalist Samuel Thompson and refined by Dr. Alvah Curtis and further codified by Dr. Joseph M. Thurston). I highly recommend studying Matthew Wood’s The Practice of Traditional Western Herbalism: Basic Doctrine, Energetics, and Classification for an in-depth understanding of tissue states. The six tissue states have various names, but I use the following combination names which link back to the original Greek quality system while incorporating more modern physiomedical actions. I will also include the other names that you might find these tissue states referred to in your studies.

The Six Tissue States of Traditional Western Herbalism

• Hot/Excitation (Irritation, Choleric)

• Cold/Depression (Melancholic)

• Dry/Atrophy (Atrophic, Sanguine)

• Damp/Relaxation (Lax, Atony)

• Damp/Stagnation (Torpor, Torpid, Bad or Impure Blood, Phlegmatic)

• Tense/Constriction (Wind, Sanguine)

Since I also work with the tissue states and Lunar magick, I am interested in experimenting with the tissue states in correspondence with the Lunar phases. It is an ongoing process, and I am not seeking hard rules but general guidelines. Here are my following New Moon tissue states correspondences:

The New and growing or waxing Crescent Moon strengthens the Hot/Excitation and Damp/Stagnation tissue states.

The New and growing or waxing Crescent Moon alleviates the Cold/Depression and Dry/Atrophy tissue states.

I wrote about the tissue states briefly in Morning Mischief, but I’m currently writing up a tutorial that I have been teaching to my offline students on using the six tissue states of TWH and incorporating astroherbology for the Lunar Apothecary. It has been a really fun ongoing experiment and one that has proven useful again and again in my practice.

Herbs of the New + Waxing Crescent Moon

Milky Oats (Avena sativa) : Oats are not generally associated with the moon, but as a warming and moistening nutritive tonic that builds the blood and alleviates nervous exhaustion, I find Oats to have a special affinity for the New Moon. As the New Moon calls us to begin a cycle of emergence and to slowly expand our energy after a period of waning contraction, Oats are richly nutritious, lending us foundational strength for the work ahead. The generous nutritive qualities of Oats give us a hint to its magickal uses, too, which are primarily for prosperity and abundance rituals. Read the full Milky Oat plant profile.

image via botanical.com

Ginger (Zingiber officinalis) : Ginger root stimulates an underperforming circulatory system, moving blood and heat throughout the body. Ginger awakens the senses and calls the body to action! It clears out lingering colds, damp conditions, clears catarrh, and lifts the spirits wherever dourness or melancholy might dwell. If you want to use the heating properties of Ginger, but are someone who already runs dry, reduce the Ginger content of your brew while adding in moistening herbs like Milky Oats or Angelica.

Blessed Thistle (Cnicus benedictus) : Blessed Thistle can be a great choice when you want to take advantage of the clarifying and clearing energies of the New and growing crescent Moon. The eliminatory powers of Blessed Thistle act as a purifier of the blood. In combination with its skin-opening diaphoretic properties, Blessed Thistle helps to re-establish balance or homeostasis in the body. The herb is also a nervine and can be used to relieve spastic pain and headaches, especially when brought on by nervous tension. Blessed Thistle relieves brain fog and has a markedly uplifting effect, perfect for greeting and working with the energies of the New Moon. 

image via botanical.com

Lavender (Lavandula officinalis) : I love Lavender for all phases of the Moon, but for the New Moon I think of it as a great nervine for the performance anxiety that the energy of the New Moon can bring on. For some of us new beginnings are a welcome change of pace, whereas for others it is a big cave o’ uncertainty. Wherever you may fall, Lavender can soften the sharper edges of the Moon’s slicing crescent energy, helping us to focus on what needs to be done without getting overwhelmed by the details.

Angelica (Angelica archangelica) : Angelica is another example of an herb that falls under the traditional interpretation of a New Moon herb as hot and moist. Angelica is more warm than hot but were still in the same neighborhood. I’ve posted a full plant profile on Angelica as part of my Plant Ally Project: 30 Day Challenge.

Need more Moon medicine and magick in your life? Heck yeah! Join me and a circle of starry-hearted magick-makers in the Lunar Apothecary.

Look for my posts on each phase of the Moon and their herbal correspondences in the coming months. In the meantime, have fun reading up on the art of astroherbology or making your own herbal remedies.