Basil Bliss

This sweet-tasting herb is excellent in savory dishes. Basil truly grows like a weed and you should cultivate it right on the kitchen windowsill so you can snip and add to your Italian-inspired dishes. Give your basil plants plenty of sun and lots of water, and you will reap a mighty bounty to share with the neighbors. Old wives and hedge witches claim basil protects your home while it brings prosperity and happiness to any gardener’s home. Basil helps steady the mind, brings happiness, love, peace, and money, and protects against insanity (what more can you want?). The benefits of this plant are as plentiful as the plant itself; it can be used in getting and attracting love, and on the highest vibrational level, abetting psychic abilities or even astral projection.

Simply Magnetic: Attraction Spell

This is the perfect spell of enchantment to use when you have met a special someone and you wish to enhance your personal charm and allure. With this invocation, you are sure to attract your heart’s desire! You will need the following supplies:

• 1 red candle
• 1 pink candle
• Essential oil (Jasmine and rose have very powerful love vibrations to attract and charm a lover)

Stand before your altar with tokens representing love. Light the candles. Scent your wrists, your throat, and your left breast over your heart with the same oil.

If you desire sexual results, look into the flame of the red candle. If your desire is affection or flirtation, look at the pink candle instead. Said aloud, this spell creates loving energy:

    Venus, cast light on me,

    a Goddess today I’ll be.

    A lover, strong, brave, and true,

    I seek as a reflection of you.

Valentine’s Day Observances: Attraction Altar

This is the first step to prepare for potential relationships and create a foundation for self-love in the truest sense. You can recreate your altar as a power source and a center from which to renew your erotic spirit. You can also concentrate your energy, clarify your intentions, and make your wishes come true. Incorporate a special element to enhance love in your life, for yourself, and for others. As always, the more you use your altar, the more powerful your spells will be.

Feng Shui for Love

Surely one of the main reasons for clearing space in your home and bedroom is to make room for a happy love life. Before you attempt to enhance your prospects for love, you need to improve the flow of chi, or life energy, in the environment where you express your love. Try any of all of the following to help you improve the chi:

• Remove all pictures of yourself where you are alone.
• Remove all empty cups, jars, vases, and bottles.
• Remove all photographs of past lovers, or at least relegate them to another room.
• Make sure that decorative accessories are in even numbers, not in odds or in triplets. This pertains to candles, frames, pillows, and lamps.
• Display special feng shui love symbols, such as an open red fan, a pair of crystal lovebirds, and two red hearts. On your bed, you should use rich, silky, and extremely comfortable fabrics and colors. Also be extravagant when it comes to pillows—the more the merrier. But remember to have even numbers, not odd ones, which disrupt your “love chi."

Astrological Herbology

You can also choose the herbs for your altar based on your sun or moon sign. Explore making tinctures, incenses, oils, potpourris, and other magical potions for your rituals using celestial correspondences. For example, if the new moon is in Aries when you are performing an attraction ritual, try using peppermint or fennel, two herbs sacred to the sign of the Ram. If you are creating a special altar for the time during which the sun is in the sign of Cancer, use incense oils, teas, and herbs corresponding to that astrological energy, including jasmine and lemon. These correspondences create a synthesis of energies that adds to the effectiveness of your magical work.