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| I am Via Hedera, the Riverton Witch. |
For a lot of witches; myself included, I celebrate the New Moon over a series of days, from Dark to New moon. For me, this started off Friday, my most religious day and ended on the day of Sun, as the first solar light hit the moon. In Pomona's orchard before the New Moon, reading the entrails of sun-baked apples. It smells incredible you know? There are plums and Italian prunes, crab apples and chestnuts- all of it baking in this incredible summer we've been having and it smells like a pie from the gods. It's the perfume of the Queen of Summer, it's the aroma of fruition. If you look where the apples fall, you can see the progress of the seasons written in the fermenting flesh. I like to take the seeds, you never know when you'll need a love charm... Oh who am I kidding, I always find a reason for a love charm.
The shrine of the Neon Venus is always lit on Friday nights, no matter the moon. Visitors will usually kiss their fingers and place them on her breasts or stomach. Others leave shells at her feet. She got a whole cauldron of apples and cherries and plums as an offering for being present with Hekate as we went root-cutting. My partner isn't a witch, but they worship Aphrodite too. She binds the love that makes this place so safe and blessed. I have good luck in my life, I have her, and Fortune to thank.
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| and so we the witches of the Market fed her apples and plums and cherries and spiced rum and kissed before her goblet. |
Since I was hosting the Dark Moon Witch Market this round, I offered up love magic for bargain. I wound up trading most of the sugar-box starters and cacao teas for seeds like spicebush, ground cherry, and others.
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| Dark love draw. I had traded 10 of these earlier this year at a psychic fair in Georgetown, and I offloaded the last bit on the New Moon. It is a blend of herbs you should use as a floor wash before your lover comes over. Yohimbe increases passion, rose deepens desire, and the others.. well they have their uses indeed. |
A few of the soaps were traded for dressed candles and my whole stock of locust flower strewing blend was taken in exchange for a box of Haitian tobacco. I took us on a nature walk through the botanical garden and we talked wild roses and other indigenous plants and their relationship with introduced species. Then we grabbed a coffee, and went back to our individual work. I spent three days deep in my spirituality and I feel better for it.
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| We took some time to put together lavender, sage, rose, tobacco, eucalyptus, and thyme offering bundles, because you should never root-cut empty-handed. They were made to honor the Glittering Star as we dug in the warm, dark earth. I love the smells bundle-making leaves behind in your hands. |
This summer I've been sitting with
Arbutus menziesii. I've learned a lot from watching how she towers in the woods or creeps inconspicuously along the roadside. I chose one madrona- or maybe the choosing was mutual, who was exhibiting a full force of life; green leaves, pale fresh flowers, berries and fresh peeling bark all at once. Bees bounce over her singing songs in the wind. Her texture is smooth, her scent is earthy with a floral and slight musk to it. Her leaves are broad and fat and plentiful all year round. Her berries are a vibrant high-orange red which are bland to our tongues but integral to the diets of local allies like raccoon, and jay. When I think of madrona, I think of water and earth, sun and neutral energy. Her sacred colors are green, white and red. She has a pleasant woody scent in incense and smells sweeter as she ages and her smoke invites the spirits and opens the world. She also tastes alright in tea; a tad bitter, chicory like, but goes better when flavored with licorice root. It goes into a lot of Northwest wild herbal smudge blends. We spent some time discussing anxiety and stomach upsets relating to love issues and made some tasty, sleepy tea.
My vetch plants on the patio had reached the end of their lives, as did many of the smaller poppies. Vetch root is used in local love charms as a body wash herb with the medicine to draw a lover back or keep a lover faithful. It was also believed to provide beauty, just like trillium bulb, when rubbed over the body or soaked in water which is then used as a personal wash. I took all of these up on the Friday before the new moon, because vetch is beloved by Venus. The poppy roots will be ground up for dream powders, but the roots will be used whole for love charms. I gave V and N three giant vetch root and three hairy vetch roots each after our discussion on vetch folklore in the Old and New World and how to employ this root magic in the new era.
The more impressive roots we dug up on the eve of the Dark Moon rising were three herbs of Venus who all hold local lore in traditional love charm application- most notably the trillium bulb. The trillium in my mom's yard is old and hearty, so digging her up took a very long set of love songs. We poured rose water over the soil as we dug with our bare fingers to coax her out. With a sudden twist, she pulled free. You have to be careful with trillium, according to local lore; she brings bad weather and bad luck if picked improperly and without intention. You have to tell her what her medicine is for. After cleaning and cutting, she'll be dried and powdered. I already have a few of my mom's trillium dried and stored, so having a fresh one to compare during the discussion was fun. The bleeding heart and oxalis practically
crawled into my hand when I touched them, rising up from the earth with a sigh. There are traditional medicinal applications of each one locally; oxalis and bleeding heart both being associated with the treatment of toothaches. In magic, all three are used as a charm to draw or keep love in one fashion or another.
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| Lemon honey poppyseed bread. I got these seeds from my homegirl in the horticulture program, and from my own garden and that of my mother's. I'm so happy with it. It was made with all the love of Hekate in mind. Praise the one before the Gate. |
As the darkness set in, a storm arrived too. Ninety-degree weather for weeks, and right just now a storm arrives with the new moon. Imagine what's to come... As the rain fell in the warm summer heat, I baked a lemon poppy honey bread for Hekate. It is her dinner after all. I serve it with water, egg, garlic, and storax. The way is opening, like an eye that just shut for a second, opening back up to the world.
I'm trying to understand the changes going on around me, like in the workplace, my family, my friendship circles... it's all so fast but necessary. So please Hekate, mother of witches, guide me through.
