The Blossoming Season: Tarot for Big Feelings

The transitional month of April, where some of spring's youthfulness has grown up but summer's vigor has not yet arrived, is an intense period of growing and harvesting and making and planning for me. While I continue to expand the shady pockets of the land I live with, I know that when the dry, golden heat of summer fully emerges, many plants will whither and die back, so the opportunity for harvesting spring herbs can be swift. After January's softness and winter’s retreat as spring pours out across the land, I'm met with April's uncertainty of what seedlings are going to make it through fluctuations in weather, hungry bugs, busy wildlife, and other challenges. It's a bold and blossoming season full of feeling and heart, uncertainty and possibility. 

I find the expansiveness of late-spring, not-quite-summer to be thrilling and exciting and frightening. I love the verdant quality of the air and light, but I'm never quite ready for the intensity of our long summer heat. I love the abundance of remedy-making, stocking my apothecary shelves for the rest of the year, but I've found myself met with an increasing intensity around preparing as cold and flu seasons get more intense and the weather becomes more unpredictable, affecting the growth of my relied-upon plant allies.

Then there is the realization of just how much there is to do and wrestling with what new projects I want to take on or what needs to be reassessed or set aside. I can find myself struggling with the bigness of everything - during the intense transition from spring's crescendo and summer's return - in ways I don't experience at other points of the year.

There was a point when I would try to think my way through these weeks of big feelings, trying to assign feelings to logical meanings and easy to spot patterns. I'm sure many of you already know that trying to think your way out of a feeling only gets you so far (and too often in a less than helpful direction). While there is plenty of use in being able to ground and center by connecting with one's current reality (it feels like the sky is falling but it is, in fact, not) and shifting perspective with some logical clarity, getting through a feeling often requires feeling our way through it.

Over time, I've learned to let a feeling blossom, observe its color and shape as I would any other bloom familiar or strange in my garden and recognize that while it might have my attention for a while, it's certainly not the only feeling I carry within me. Observation helps me expand the boundaries of my perception, allowing me to spot what other flowers might exist within me, letting there be greater choice in what it is I hope to feel and even think is possible.

When I am met with these large looming feelings on my emotional horizon, I like to use self-reflective tools like the tarot to help set up a path by which I can more explore the emotional landscape I find myself in. Tarot is a tool that points out all the other tools and skills that I have at my disposal, learned from my own experiences as well as time with therapists, wise elders, and good friends, helping me to find an emotional foothold when the path ahead feels too murky (or stormy or super exciting but overwhelming).  While tarot is never a replacement for the evidence-based emotional and mental health support, it can be useful part of your practice for emotional wellbeing and stability, drawing us into a place of curiosity rather than criticism for the ways we feel in the world helping us to bloom.

While my blossoming season is the time between the Spring Equinox and Beltane, your blossoming season might appear to you at any time of the year. I encourage you to find your season of blossoming and I hope the following tarot spread helps you find emotional wisdom within all the big feelings you might be experiencing during this period of expansiveness.

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Tarot for Big Feelings

The following tarot spread is helpful for reflecting on and untangling a big feeling that you're experiencing. It’s best for those feelings that we find ourselves meeting again and again and are interested in how we might shift energy around them. While it's not a spread for tackling crisis level emotions (and no tarot spread is ever this), most reflective tools like tarot can be helpful tools for exploring our emotional landscape alongside mental health services.

 ✨ Card 1. The Big Feeling

A card representing the big feeling that you're grappling with. Before you jump into trying to interpret the card pulled here or open a book to read its meaning, let yourself gaze softly at the illustration, noticing what images or symbols in the card speak to what you're feeling (even if you don't know why just yet). You can either look up interpretations for this card after you've spent some time letting your feelings and intuition have time to come to the surface or choose not to read interpretations until the end of the reading (or at all, it's ok to trust your intuition).

 ✨ Card 2 & 3. Spotting Contraction

These two cards help to highlight the ways that this big feeling you're in the midst of is causing tension and how that tension is showing up in your life - whether slowing things down, causing overwhelm, confusion, excitation, and so on. These cards point out the areas of your life that this big feeling is affecting you most. Try and let feelings of judgement that may arise about these cards flow through you, letting them act like helpful guiding lights instead of an interrogating spotlight. 

 ✨ Card 4 & 5. Finding Expansion

These two cards illuminate opportunities to expand beyond what you're currently feeling, often offering a new perspective, helpful context, and hopeful reminders. These are the cards that can help coax us into our own blossoming.

✨ Card 6. The Change

The final card in our spread points us in the direction of relief from the more challenging aspect of our big feeling, offering a glimpse at the ways we might take steps toward helpful change in our life. This is not a card of giant, radical steps, but more often than not reminds us to use the tools that we already have at our disposal to bring about needed change.

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While you are invited to visit my complete archive of tarot spreads, you might also be interested in creating your own oracle of care using your favorite tarot deck. If you think your big feelings may arise from a heightened level of sensitivity that you’re interested in exploring, you might like Solace. You can also check out the first post in this series of tarot spreads exploring how to find clarity and inspiration in the soft season of your life.

Wherever the seasons take you, friend, I hope your big feelings unfold into knowledge that one day blossoms into wisdom.

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

Spring's Herbal Magick: Making Traditional & Modern Folk Charms

The tying of knots, the hanging of bundles of herbs, the collecting of charms into some sort of jar are all old forms of traditional magick used by common folk for millennia - likely including some of your ancestors. 

Simple, accessible, and known by a variety of names, charms like witch's ladders, spell jars, and herbal bundles, remain popular forms of magick to this day because they are easy to create and fulfill that need to feel like you are doing something when making your magick. 

I'm fond of folk magick not only because it is the form of magick I feel most at home with but because it so often involves plants - of which I am quite fond of, too. Folk magick has its own language and rhythm, full of ideas like the doctrine of signatures (which supposes that what an object looks like - its signature - tells you what it is useful for), ancestral myths transformed into easily digestible fables, family folktales, and a belief that we have power in our interconnectedness to create change.

I want to spend some time drawing on these folk magick inspirations to explore a pathway of herbal magick flowing through the seasons of the year. We'll work with three common forms of physical folk magick each season, exploring the same arts of magick through the lens of the changing year, beginning with spring. With each charm I'll focus on one plant ally to incorporate into your magickal working, helping to inspire your magickal herbalism practice. Finally, what I love about these crafts of the Craft is the way they can be shaped and formed to reflect our personal styles and desires, creating ways of reflecting the beauty of our inner world to the world around us.

What is wonderful about most types of folks magick is that they have a foundational form (a bottle filled with stuff) that can be used for a variety of purposes (a bottle full of stuff to help us get our dream job). The folk magick items we'll be exploring can be used in a variety of ways, including as:

• Gifts and offerings

• Acts of devotion, creating an item for a particular deity or spirit of place

• Connections to ancestors by integrating cultural relevant plants and items

• Decorations for sabbats and esbats

• Containers for a specific sort of energy

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).

I think my own exposure to the witch's ladder was through the work of Scott Cunningham in one of his books on folk magick - it's remained one of my favorite forms of charm-making ever since.¹ Witch's ladders can be made with all sorts of things, so long as you are able to tie them with your cord. You can focus on fully biodegradable components (essential if you're making a ladder that is going to be hung and left outside to naturally fall apart) or small plastic figurines alongside wooden coins carved with sigils, crystals, and feathers. They are a wonderful way to create a visual reminder of your craft and intentions while the skill of co-current charm speaking and working. 

I love simple cords for my witch's ladders, but the re-vitalization of crafts like macrame has meant that the practice of making witch's ladders is as much an art form as it is a practical bit of magick. I think starting simple is best - frustration can be cumbersome to magickal ritual - but I recommend seeking out the ladder-making practice that will allow you to slip into as much of a flow state as possible as you make it. 

A Witch’s Ladder To Stir Up Energy

Spring is a season of growing energy and as magickal folk we can connect to the rising tide of possibility with a simple witch's ladder that helps to stir up and collect energy. Spring's ladder acts like a simple net to gather energy so that you can draw upon it for your spells and rituals. I think all witch's ladders benefit from bells, but I especially like bells on one for spring to connect with the noise of the season of increasing light and life. 

Dandelion Leaves (Taraxacum officinale) are the plant ally we'll be working with for spring because they not only resemble feathers traditionally used for a witch's ladder, but carry a strong energy of air and the gifts of movement, communication, and stirring up energy. Dandelion is a plant that is both expansive and grounding - a great combination for working with spring's mercurial nature. As part of your ladder-making ritual, you could name each leaf for the type of energy you want to bring into your life as you braid them into your ladder, such as energy for a certain project, energy to clear out stagnation, energy for love, energy for boundaries, and so on. When working with Dandelion as a magickal plant ally it helps to approach them with the energy of wishfulness, whispering to them what it is you desire as you craft your spell.

A Dandelion Charm

By root so deep
And wishes so sweet
By leaf and flower so bright
Gather up spring
Gather up dreams
As day outgrows the night

Other plants like sticky Cleavers (Galium aparine) and bright shining Calendula (Calendula officinalis) can be added, but consider what you have available, the plants that are growing around you (or one's saved up from last spring's harvest that need using), and enjoy the process of using what you have at hand. Flowering plants as well as flower shaped objects (including beads and paper flowers), orange and yellow colored stones or items, and bells are all great items to consider for your spring 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.

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). I make bundles throughout the year and they double as offerings once they've dried and I can burn them as incense or toss them in a sabbat fire. Some of the oldest types of witch's bundles that I've come across were meant for protection, from protecting a house from lightning and fire to hanging above the crib of a newborn to protect them from malevolent energies (but please be wise about anything you put above or around a crib if you're interested in this folk practice). In general, bundles help to hold energy, sticking it to a specific place or intention. 

Nowadays witch's bundles are used for all sorts of magickal desires from drawing in good fortune to cleansing energy. I love the ways that these bundles of herbs and other charms help to dress up our homes and bring a bit of the outside in. I have magickal bundles hanging throughout my own space, but I also have practical ones of herbs that I use frequently and can draw from daily when making teas or burning as incense. Bundles can also be taken down from where they are hanging and used to "brush" and cleanse the energetic body in place of or alongside incense. 

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.

A Witch's Bundle for Balance

Spring is one of two seasons that carries the energy of the equinox, helping us to connect with the spirit of balance within and around us. As long nights retreat with the passing of winter and longer days arrive with the start of spring, making sure to invite in energy that helps us feel grounded, centered, and steady will help us to thrive during this season of expansiveness. For spring I like to create witch’s bundles that help me to stay connected to my sense of equilibrium so I can enjoy the increase of the season’s energy without feeling overwhelmed. 

Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis) is one of my favorite herbs for finding balance between our inner world and the world around us. Lemon Balm is a beautiful nervous system tonic or nervine, a key type of plant to work with when you want to find and cultivate balance in your life. Energetically, Lemon Balm helps us to connect with the path of peace within us, understanding our relationship to the collective without becoming overwhelmed by the world. Lemon Balm is a guide through the web of life, helping us to feel secure in our needs and knowings. The herb is also traditionally used in spells to bring about love in all its forms and since finding balance in our lives is an act of love, it's a great plant ally to have around.

A Lemon Balm Charm

To and fro
Ebb and flow
Balance comes
Balance grows
Fro and to
Flow and ebb
Balance holds
Like a web

Other plants like Sage (Salvia spp.), Rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus), and Lavender (Lavandula spp.) help us to grow the inner wisdom needed within us to find balance in our lives. Adding symbols of balance such as scales, circles or triskeles, blue and purple items such as stones and ribbons, as well as any visual reminders that help you to remember to pause and connect with your inner wisdom are great additions.

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 bunch of Lemon Balm), 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

A fair amount of my professional life involves putting plants in bottles, storing them for when they're needed, handing out jars full of tea to friends and family, toting bottles full of tinctures and flower essences back and forth to classes. It's no surprise then that witch's bottles have a soft spot in my heart. Witch's bottles of old were often protective or vindictive in nature, containing all sorts of interesting ingredients from rusty nails to hair to urine. I remember reading about them as a kid and connecting with just how visceral witchcraft could be - how this art of connecting with the intangible relied so much on the deeply tangible body of the practitioner.

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.

I know many a witch who made magickal bottles full of plants and stones in their younger witchling days, often reusing food jars and sealing them up with bits of wax or thread. It's practically a magickal rite of passage to come across an old witch's jar many years later - perhaps when moving or cleaning out a back corner of a closet - and to have completely forgotten its purpose (which I consider a good sign). Whether or not you prefer the "make it and forget it" method or like displaying your witch's bottles in a spot where you can appreciate them daily, they are a wonderful living relic of our magickal pasts carried with ease into our magickal futures.

A Witch's Bottle For Luck

Spring’s energy carries with it a wild quality of luck, where it feels like the wind might nudge you in the right direction at just the right moment for something magickal to occur. A witch’s bottle can help us keep a little luck generator going so that we can increase our possibility of an encounter with Lady Luck. A luck bottle should be full of luck-drawing and energizing components, whether cultural symbols or symbols that you find to be personally lucky. If small enough, the bottle can be carried on the person, but larger bottles can be tucked behind the altar or in a similarly hidden place so that it can do its work unhindered.

I love Lavender (Lavandula spp.) for luck magick. Carrying the energy of Mercury, brightly scented Lavender is a little luck magnet, not least of which because it strengthens our intuitive gifts, essential for moments of luck. The herb helps us to keep calm and focused while naming our needs with intention so that when luck does come our way, we are able to see it for what it is. Lavender is one of those magickal panacea herbs and helps with most any ritual or spell you might be performing, again helping us to cast a wide net for luck and possibility.

A Lavender Luck Charm

Luck is found
in this home
where I visit
where I roam
between the sky
the sea and me
through the land
luck flows free

Other herbs to consider for your luck-making are Peppermint (Mentha piperita), Basil (Ocimum spp.), and Thyme (Thymus vulgaris). Any and all lucky symbols that you connect with can be added to a jar, including lucky pennies that you found while out and about and all sorts of spring flowers. Green stones, ribbons, buttons, and charms as well as magnets all do well in a luck bottle.

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 magickal inspiration for your folk charms, how about creating charms for the three primary points in your birth chart, starting with your Sun sign? Or a might-do list for the Spring Equinox? I also explore more of spring's plant allies, healing paths, and magickal ways over here.

If you've found yourself wanting to learn more about traditional forms of folk magick, I highly recommend checking out museum archives like the Museum of Witchcraft. While The Museum of Witchcraft has a focus on British and European witchcraft, there is a growing library of online and printed resources of many of the magickal folk traditions out there.

I hope you find inspiration from tradition while trying new things and bringing in modern and future-dreaming sensibilities into the practice of the Old Craft. 

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

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Footnotes

1. Blessed be the living memory of big witch brother Scott for laying a solid foundation of folk magick for so many of my generation. Scott Cunningham wrote a number of great books based on his folk magick research and lived experience as a practitioner - Earth Power: Techniques of Natural Magic is a great place to start!

The Soft Season: Tarot for Clarity & Inspiration

January is a slow month for me, soft around the edges after the solstice's bright sparkle. Having already celebrated the new year at Samhain, January is less of a starting place as it is a slowing place. But, truthfully, January hasn't always been like this for me - I arrived here after spending a lot of time connecting with the seasonal rhythms of the land and my own internal seasons.

Which is all just a poetic way of saying that a few years ago I burnt out so hard that finding space for radical slowness in my life was the only (slow, soft, steady) way home again.

During this period of burnout, I found myself lying on my back in the brambles of the untended hedges of my personal boundaries, watching the seasons pass by. Getting out of that tangle took time and a lot of listening to where it was the slowness that I needed lived in the cycles of my year. The pace that I was used to moving at was no longer an option and, as the dense speed of the year rushed past me, January stuck out with its calm. It was during this month between sabbats that I started to rebuild my energy using the unfamiliar-to-me tools of softness and ease. In the process, January has become my soft season, my Quiet Moon, and the time of year where I linger between rest and reconnecting with my community practice.

Even though it was an uncomfortable and strange land to be moving through, I have come to treasure softness as the soil where the seeds of inspiration and clarity are planted. As an herbalist, tension is one of the energetic states I see most often in the clients I work with, not least of which because we are living in demanding times of ever increasing stress, and many of us are taught to overly rely on tension to prove our productiveness or as a "reasonable" way of getting by. But it is from softness, letting go of tight and narrow thinking, that possibility arises, and we can feel where it is that inspiration is calling us to.

While my soft season is the time between Midwinter and Imbolc, your soft season might appear to you at any time of the year. I encourage you to find your season of softness and I hope the following tarot spread helps you call in the energy of softness for clarity and inspiration in your life whenever you need it most. 

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Tarot for Clarity & Inspiration

The following tarot spread is all about slowing down and softening your gaze so that you might dissolve the edges of whatever it is that is blocking your vision to better spot where inspiration is trying to guide you.

Witch tip! I recommend calling in the physical qualities of softness before casting this spread, whether it is lighting candles or soft lamps, changing into soft and comfortable clothing or perhaps building an altar to softness, gentleness, and ease.

✨ Card 1. The Querent

A card representing you (or the querent if you're reading for someone else) and your current state of being. You can see this card as something like a personal energetic snapshot or simple emotional weather report.

✨ Card 2. Less Of

A card showing you what you need less of in your life. This card might reference experiences in your past.

✨ Card 3. More Of

A card showing you what you need more of in your life. This card might refer to new habits, beliefs, and/or activities you're trying to incorporate into your life to draw you towards future goals.

✨ Card 4. Inspiration Calling

An inspirational idea, concept, and/or practice that is calling to you that would benefit from your attention.

✨ Card 5. The Cradle

Something (an idea, proposal, practice) which needs more time being sheltered, resting, and growing before being shared with the world beyond yourself. A card that helps us to invite clarity in, instead of trying to figure everything out all at once.

✨ Card 6. The Coracle

Coracles aren't the steadiest form of water craft, and represent how we might ride the current of inspiration whether or not it is a fully formed or stable idea just yet. This card is about letting yourself ride the current of inspiration and points toward the place to jump in and follow your flow.

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While you can peruse through my complete archive of tarot spreads, you might be interested in my annual review tarot spread or how to incorporate tarot into your healing practice if you're journeying your way through burnout or similar experience. If you’re looking for more herbal inspiration for the season of softness, come this way.

May your journey ahead be full of inspiration, ever nourished by a wellspring of clarity!

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

Cozy Autumn, Festive Winter: Herbal Remedies for the Dark Season

The bright half of the year - from late spring to long summer - seems to move at a dizzying pace when compared to the dark half of the year - fleeting autumn to deep winter - which slows and steadies as light slumbers and the cold takes hold.

We need these bright times and these dark times with all of the mottled light and shadow that dances between. We need time to be speedy and swift just as much as we need time to be unhurried and languid. For me, the space between autumn and winter embodies the pause between the inbreath and outbreath more than any other time of year. Our experience of the pause between inhalation and exhalation, and the end of the old bright year and the birth of the new dark year, can teach us so much about our relationship with rest and being restful.

That place of pause holds a lot of uncertainty - What should I be doing? What should I be thinking? Will I breathe again? What's the point? - and who needs more uncertainty during these already uncertain times? And then, on top of all of the uncertainty, we are supposed to feel restful? There is too much work to do!

And yet, we must rest and learn to be uncomfortable for a moment to experience the length of deep rest. There is a magick in meandering, dreams that only come to us when we've fully relinquished the day, and visions of what might be that only appear after we've gotten a little lost. And then we turn the corner and find ourselves seeing something around and within ourselves for the first time. 

Herbalism, with its connection to time through the rhythms of the year, and the way that healing requires us to move backwards and forwards along our own timelines, is full of supportive herbs and plant allies that help us connect with this pause. While I can't point to a singular reason why working with plants strengthens our ability to engage with our healing pause, I've witnessed again and again, the ways that engaging with a form of healing deeply rooted in our collective ancestral experience gets us to slow down, to pause, and to reconnect. In this place of holy pause we can take a view of life and the ways we are living it not from a place of doing but of being. Plants, with their ability to move with time instead of struggling against it (as we are so prone to do as a species), can be wonderful guides back to this place of pause and steadiness. I find these pauses and ability to rest to make the festive moments of raucous cheer that much brighter and the more challenging periods of winter's dark that much shorter.

With practice, the pause helps us to move swiftly when needed, agilly adjusting to the challenges that come our way, while remaining rooted to our values of care and connection.

So as autumn transforms into winter, I've collected a few of my favorite recipes for this time of year to help us slow down, let go of the weight of what was, and let ourselves get lost in our own becoming.

Autumn to Winter Remedies

The following recipes are formulated as teas but can easily be made into herbal extracts, baths, or other forms of herbal remedies. I’ve crafted them with the transition from (roughly) Sagittarius to Capricorn season in the northern hemisphere and from (roughly) Gemini to Cancer season in the southern hemisphere in mind, but they can easily be adapted or used throughout the year.

image via @purejulie

For When You Need Help Letting Go

Autumn is precious and fleeting - it's a steep narrow path into the deep valley of winter and the more we try to carry what we no longer need with us, the harder the journey can be. The passage between autumn and winter can help us get clear on what helps to carry us along our path versus what weighs us down, along with everything in the muddled middle. One of the intangible aspects of working with plant allies is the way that, through alleviating discomfort and helping us feel better in our bodies, they can illuminate what it is we want, what we need, and what is ready to be let go. Some of my favorite path-illuminators and liberating herbs are Rose (Rosa spp.), which opens the heart to possibility, Peppermint (Mentha piperita), which brings us clarity, and Calendula (Calendula officinalis), which clears out shadows and lights the way ahead.

• 4 parts Peppermint (Mentha piperita)

• 1 part Calendula (Calendula officinalis)

• ¼ part Rose (Rosa spp.)

image via @purejulia

For When You Need To Wander

The ability to wander, meander, and unfollow, is as valuable as the ability to focus, pursue, and analyze. While it might feel counterintuitive to not try to figure out and name, with precision and finality, what it is we need to heal in our lives, the opportunity to get away from what we know and get a little lost what we don't know can serve us well in the long run. I find that the plant allies that help us wander are ones that are often recommended for dreamwork, such as Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris), or ones associated with the Good Folk like Thyme (Thymus vulgaris). I also like to include Fennel (Foeniculum vulgaris), not only because it softens the bitterness of Mugwort's flavor, but it strengthens the compass of our intuition - a good thing to have while we wander. 

• 2 parts Thyme (Thymus vulgaris)

• 1 part Fennel (Foeniculum vulgaris)

• ½ part Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris)

image via @purejulia

For When Your Immune System Needs a Boost

As the weather grows cooler and we spend more time indoors with others, our immune systems have to work extra hard to protect us against colds and flus. The work of building up our immunity takes place throughout the year, but we all need extra support with increased exposure to viruses. We can call upon a combination of immunostimulating and immunomodulating herbs to help us through the dark half of the year. Elder (Sambucus nigra) is my favorite immunomodulating herb that I start taking as soon as autumn arrives. I love Thyme (Thymus vulgaris) not just for its flavor but for its ability to warm us up and strengthen our immune system, while Sage (Salvia officinalis) protects against viral infections.

• 4 parts Elder (Sambucus nigra)

• 2 parts Thyme (Thymus vulgaris)

• ½ part Sage (Salvia officinalis)

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Three simple recipes to help us move from autumn into winter, carrying only what we need so that we can feel free to go where we desire.

You can find more seasonal inspiration for your practice by checking out my autumn wellness apothecary and winter wellness apothecary posts. You can also explore my series on herbal and magickal suggestions for every season.

If you’re looking for more between-the-seasons guides be sure to check out:

• Slow Winter, Soft Spring: Herbal Remedies for the Quiet Season

• Sweet Spring, Bright Summer: Herbal Remedies for the Waking Season

• Joyful Summer, Golden Autumn: Herbal Remedies for the Bright Season

May these days of bluster and change bring clarity to your heart, clearness to your vision, and open up paths of connection back to the people, places, and practices that you feel most at home.

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

Joyful Summer, Golden Autumn: Herbal Remedies for the Bright Season

After a long summer, where it seems that everything might be gold and green forever, and the winds of autumn have yet to sweep in and pull the last of summer's fruit to the earth, I think of the ways that these spaces between seasons are a good time to check in on the boundaries within and around us.

While boundaries can sometimes evoke feelings of absence, pushing away, and borders, I find it more helpful to understand boundaries as an essential form of nourishment. To resist our need for boundaries is to go hungry - when we deny or ignore our own boundaries we can be left hungering for the protection and nourishment of ourselves and our dignity that sturdy boundaries provide. Testing and having our boundaries tested, in nonviolent, even playful ways, is a normal process of development, when we get to say no and figure out what our yeses look like as we develop our sense of self. The seasons of the year and the seasons of life are full of boundaries and edges, places to explore to know ourselves and our worlds better.

I find that the transition from one season to the next are times of boundary testing, seeing what has thrived, what has struggled, what has grown, what has been dreamed up in the past season, and how that will carry us through the next. There are the practical boundaries of the places we live in, the ways we feed ourselves, sources of income, and the day-to-day needs of our wellbeing.¹ There are also the less tangible, but equally necessary boundaries of the dreams we've protected, the discernment we've developed in our relationships, and the ways we respect the shape of our energy and healing needs. Tying the practice of boundary-making and re-shaping to seasonal tides helps us to create a cyclical rhythm to our boundary work instead of a one-and-done approach that can leave us feeling disappointed or exposed if we find ourselves having to create or renew a boundary.

Boundary work shows up in all sorts of interesting ways in herbal consultations and classrooms. There are the boundaries that I establish as a practitioner and teacher that helps define what I do and do not offer long before a client or students enter a space, the boundaries that respect the freedom of movement and encourage the curiosity of students and clients, and boundaries that respect the various relationships created in these learning spaces. There are boundaries of time spent together, boundaries of privacy, sensory boundaries, and the unique boundaries that will always arise at any given consultation, class or event. I make sure that I reflect on, renew, and adjust my boundaries frequently throughout the year not only for my wellbeing, but for the wellbeing of those I serve.

If you're a practitioner, what are the personal and professional boundaries that you hold in classes and consultations? If you're a client or student, what are your own boundaries and can you easily identify the boundaries that your teacher and/or practitioner holds?

image via @eilisgarvey

As the wheel of the year turns and one season shifts to another, I imagine boundaries less as fixed and stoic walls between me and a person or experience, and more of practices that shelter and strengthen me so that I can fully arrive in the coming season. As summer's long days give way to autumn's golden glow, I check-in with what it is I need to make sure that I'm able to make it - physically and energetically - to all of the harvest festivals that I want to attend in the coming months, including being able to show up to those celebratory harvests of personal accomplishment. In other words, my boundary work is less about building a wall and more about making sure that the path ahead is clear so that I can return again and again to beloved community and the experiences that I treasure most. 

So as summer transforms into autumn, I've collected a few of my favorite recipes for the bright season to help us store up light and energy for the rest of the year, strengthen our edges so that we better know what it is we are feeling and want to be held, and find ways to feel steady and sure in our practice.

Summer to Autumn Remedies

The following recipes are formulated as teas but can easily be made into herbal extracts, baths, or other forms of herbal remedies. I’ve crafted them with the transition from (roughly) Virgo to Libra season in the northern hemisphere and from (roughly) Pisces to Aries season in the southern hemisphere, but they can easily be adapted or used throughout the year.

image via @anniespratt

For When You Need To Store Energy

Summer is long where I live and sometimes the heat can feel neverending, but I've also lived in places where summer is sharp and quick, quickly bowing to autumn's splendor. I've learned that no matter what type of summer I may be living with, learning how to pace yourself in the heat and store up the season's light for the rest of the year is a good skill to cultivate. I like to work with plant allies that help strengthen our cardiovascular system (like Taraxacum officinale), build up the blood (like Crataegus monogyna), and increase our body's capacity to effectively manage our energy (like Ocimum sanctum), helping us to feel strong throughout the year.

• 4 parts Sacred Basil (Ocimum sanctum)

• 2 parts Dandelion Root (Taraxacum officinale)

• 1 part Hawthorn Berry (Crataegus monogyna)

image via @anniepratt

For When You Feel Ungrounded & Uncertain

If we feel disconnected from the earth of our body and the earth of the land, uncertain about what next steps to take, and generally uncentered, it can make setting and maintaining boundaries challenging. The end of summer and the beginning of autumn is such a beautifully earthy time of harvest and connecting with the nourishing energy of the land. Herbs like Sage (Salvia spp.), Rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus), and Thyme (Thymus vulgaris) help us feel centered, connected, and grounded in our bodies with the added benefit of strengthening our immune systems as we move into cold and flu season.

• 2 parts Rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus)

• 2 parts Thyme (Thymus vulgaris)

• ½ part Sage (Salvia spp.)

image via @anniespratt

For When You Foundation Needs Strengthening

Taking care of the structure of our body - our musculoskeletal system and skin - helps all other healing herbal remedies, wellness practices, and opportunities for joy grow more easily in our lives. Vitamin and mineral rich herbs like Red Clover (Trifolium pratense) and Nettles (Urtica dioica) help to nourish and rebuild energy while sun-bright flowers like Calendula (Calendula officinalis) help the skin to glow from the inside out. 

• 3 parts Nettles (Urtica dioica)

• 1 part Red Clover (Trifolium pratense)

• ½ part Calendula (Calendula officinalis)

• Lemon juice to taste

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Three simple recipes to help us move from summer to autumn with our dreams held close and our energy sheltered. You can find more seasonal inspiration for your practice by checking out my summer wellness apothecary and autumn wellness apothecary posts. You can also explore my series on herbal and magickal suggestions for every season. If you’re looking for more between-the-seasons guides be sure to check out:

• Slow Winter, Soft Spring: Herbal Remedies for the Quiet Season

• Sweet Spring, Bright Summer: Herbal Remedies for the Waking Season

May these days of shimmering glow settle all around you, so you may carry this light like a lantern into the dark half of the year, steady on the path illuminated all around you.

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

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Footnotes

1. Ideally, these would be needs that we didn't have to earn, but already have as an inherent part of a society's social net of safety and welfare. May we continue to call such a world into being.