A Pocket Full of Luck: The Advantage of Amulets

For an optimal outcome to any important meeting–whether business or social–take an amulet with you. It can be a tiny sack hidden in a pocket or contained in a locket. Fill your amulet with any of the following herbs:

For courage, try borage or mullein.

To avoid betrayal, snapdragon will serve you well.

For robust health, rue will do the trick.

To overcome nervousness, a mixture of dried yarrow and nettle is potent.

To identify another witch, ivy, rue, broom straw, agrimony, and fern work best.

For travel, always wear comfrey for safety.

For youthful energy, the oak’s acorn will vitalize you.

For strength and physical stamina, tuck some mugwort in your shoes.

To ensure victory, woodruff assures a winner.

To guarantee a friendly exchange, heliotrope will make for good conversation.

Awesome Altar Stones

Crystals are finally being acknowledged for their power to give greater physical strength and health, and can be added to your healing altar (see page 76). Turquoise stones are grounding, and agates raise the energy level. For good circulation, try carnelian. For keeping life on an even keel, the organic gem family— shells, corals, and abalone—is optimal. For impetus and motivation, work with carnelian. To boost your health and well-being, try red coral for the lungs, bloodstone for the heart, and moonstone during pregnancy.

Quick Tips:

Instant Inspiration

    * To lift your spirits, light a green candle and hold harmony-bringing jade while meditating.

    * Carrying a quartz crystal will create tranquility inside and around you.

    * If you’re feeling overwhelmed or under duress, hold black obsidian. If the stress is caused by an             overabundant workload, keep the obsidian on your desk. Obsidian absorbs the negative.

Tips ’n’ Tricks: Cover-All-The-Bases Crystal

If you are keeping yourself on a strict budget, get one piece of jewelry that will help you in nearly every area of your life—health, wealth, love, family, career, travel, friendship, and creativity. Go to the nearest Chinatown, where the prices are right, and get a bracelet featuring multiple hues of jade. One-stop shopping to a better life now!

Clary Sage Clarity Incantation

Here is a handy spell for physical well-being as well as a self-esteem boost. For this witchy approach to preventive medicine, take a green candle on a Friday, dress it with clary sage oil, and speak the following three times:

My health is mine, under this moon divine.
I choose to be well in this healthy body I dwell.
No more pain and strife, vital breath of life.
Harm to none; health to me.
So mote it be.

Salt of the Earth Rejuvenation Ritual

Salts have been used to purify the body, by way of ritual rubs, since ancient times in the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia. Beauties from the biblical era utilized this simple curative of natural salts to exfoliate the skin and enhance circulation, vital to overall body health. There are wonderful imported Dead Sea salts readily available at most bath and beauty stores, or you can make your own using Goddess Glow recipes, one of the kitchen cupboard cures that follows.

To prepare for your body glow session, light a white candle, step out of your clothes and into your tub or shower, and hold the salts in the palms of both hands, praying:

Aphrodite, in your wisdom, help me reflect your image;
My body is a temple to thee, goddess.
Here, I worship today with my head and hands, heart and soul.
Blessings to all, blessings to thee, blessed be me.

Use the salts with a new loofah sponge and scrub yourself vigorously during the waning moon or new moon at midnight.

Self-Blessing Spell

The time you take to restore yourself is precious. Morning is the optimal time to perform a self-blessing, which will help you maintain both your physical health and provide an emotional boost each and every day. Take a bundle of dried lavender grown in your kitchen garden or from a purveyor of organic herbs and place it into a muslin sack. Knead the lavender three times and breathe in the calming scent. Beginning at the top of your head, your crown chakra, pass the pouch all the way down to your feet, gently touching your other sacred chakras: throat, solar plexus, stomach and pelvis. Holding the lavender bag over your heart, speak aloud:

Gone are sorrows, illness and woe; 
Here wisdom and health flows.
My heart is whole, joy fills my soul. 
Blessed be me.

Misty Moon Potion

If you are dreaming of true abundance, with the understanding that health is more important than wealth, you want to feel your best. You can bring this about with this potent potion:

• 3 drops vanilla oil

• 3 drops lavender

• 3 drops orange blossom essence

• 4 ounces pure distilled water

Pour all these into a colored glass spray bottle and shake well three times. Fifteen minutes before you retire, spray lightly on your linens, towel, and pillow case. Keep a dream journal on your nightstand so you can record details of the dreams of abundant health that will soon manifest.

Green Magic - Basil Abundance Ritual

Take a few sprigs of basil before you cook and put them in a green bowl on your kitchen altar. Boil water as for tea and pour over the herb in the bowl. Now chant this medieval-inspired charm:

With bounteous hand and healthful balm, 
Blessed basil, most verdurous herb
Bring me health and heart and calm. 
Abundance I shall see by every deed and verb. 
And so it is.

Breathe in the steam from the basil bowl and fill your lungs with the smell of prosperity. Repeat the spell once more; leave the basil bowl on your altar for 24 hours. Not only will your thinking be greatly clarified, but you will begin to see signs of your wealth increasing in one week. With basil flourishing in your herb pots, you have a ready source bursting with positive money energy.

Lady of the Silver Moon Charm

Put a silver coin at full moon in a bowl of water. 

Look up at the moon and soak in the light. 

Whisper the following spell three times:

Lovely lady of the moon, bring to me health and wealth. 
Fill my pockets with silver and gold,
As much as my purse can hold.
Blessings to all; blessings to me.
Blessed be.

The Charmed Life: Thriving Thursdays

We all need to give ourselves a health and happiness boost. This spell aimed at abetting menial and emotional well-being is best performed when the hardy spirit of Thor is in ascendance. On any Thursday, take a blue candle, dress it with cedar or bergamot oil, and say nine times:

Fears and woes — I take respite;
Worries and cares — you’re out of sight. 
Stronger and happier, I will grow each day; 
My soul has found its way.

If you do this for several weeks, your friends will notice as your health blooms and you simply beam with a bright, jolly and renewed sense of self and well-being.

Sylvan Spell: Planting Magic

This is a lovely spell to do if you are given a small tree as a gift, to wish for strength and good health for you and your love. Before you plant the sapling, tie a bow in some colored ribbon, and plant the bow with a small heart symbol in the soil under the roots of the tree. After you have planted the tree, water it well—especially with one or two tears of love, if possible! Make a wish that both you and your love will grow strong and enduring as the tree takes root and begins to flourish. When the tree bears its first leaf, press it in a book associated with the one you love. As long as you tend your tree with love, you will both enjoy blooming health and vitality.

Clary Sage Clarity Incantation (Any Friday Night)

Here is a handy spell for physical well-being as well as a self-esteem boost. For this witchy approach to preventive medicine, take a green candle on a Friday, dress it with clary sage oil, and speak the following three times:

My health is mine, under this moon divine.
I choose to be well in this healthy body I dwell. No more pain and strife, vital breath of life. Harm to none; health to me.
So mote it be.

Dragons’ Lair Safety Spell (Waning Moon is Optimal)

After an illness or any event wherein you feel the need to rid your home of unhealthy energy, head to your metaphysical five and dime and gather these essences. Anoint your home in order to return grace to your space and protect you from harm. Simply rub any one of the following essential oils, undiluted, on your doorjamb: cinnamon, clover, cypress, dragons blood, frankincense.

Walk through the door and close it securely. Take the remaining essential oil and anoint every other door and window. At the witching hour, midnight, light anointed white candles and place them in every doorway and windowsill. Sing:

My home is my temple,
 
Here I will live and love and be healed. 

And so it is by magic sealed.

Food is Magic: Color Medicine (All Lunar Phases)

Color has a profound effect on our psychological and physical health. Consider carefully the colors that surround you; each of us have special colors that encourage sound body and mind. For example, if you have a weight issue and lack ambition or energy, you may need more orange in your life. Wear orange clothes and eat foods associated with orange, such as red plums and wax beans. Here are some basic color connections:

Violet is associated with sentiment, melancholy, and religious devotion and can be enhanced by eating chocolate, thyme, and scallops.

Orange, associated with abundance and ebullience, can be absorbed through oranges, squash, red plums, yeast and wax beans.

Yellow is connected to the renown, wealth and power, and excellence, and is best ingested through pumpkin, cheese, rye, oats, lettuce and beer.

Green, the color of everlasting life, friendship and optimism, is concentrated in beef, alfalfa, endive and grapes.

Blue relates to humility, faith and innocence, and is the mainstay of mint, garlic, radishes, sage, turnips, and peppers.

Red, associated with aggression, success, and control, is best absorbed through cabbage, bacon, cherries, lemons, tomatoes and paprika.

Flower Remedy Ritual

Flower essences restore emotional balance and aid physical harmony. Naturopathic doctors and healers recommend using Dr. Bach’s flower remedies, which were originally created from the morning dew found on flower petals. These subtle medicines are available in most health food and metaphysical stores. To know which essences are right for you, take a pendulum and write the essence names on paper in a wheel formation. Holding the pendulum in the middle, wait for it to select one name while chanting:

Spirit of the flower, help me this dayTo keep disease and depression far at bay. Blessed be.

To prepare the following remedies, mix two drops of flower essence in 30 milliliters of distilled water. Take four drops of the remedy daily until your health is restored. You can also apply the remedy to your pulse points: wrists, temples, behind the ears, back of knees. You can also add it to your bath, or spray it into the air. Following is a guide to healing flower remedies:

Addiction: skullcap, oregano 
Anger: nettle, blue flag, chamomile
Anxiety: garlic, rosemary, aspen, periwinkle, lemon balm, white chestnut, gentian
Bereavement: honeysuckle
Depression: borage, sunflower, larch, chamomile, geranium, yerba santa, black cohosh, lavender, mustard
Exhaustion: aloe, yarrow, olive, sweet chestnut
Fear: poppy, mallow, ginger, peony, water lily, basil, datura 
Heartbreak: heartsease, hawthorn, borage
Lethargy: aloe, thyme, peppermint

Stress: dill, Echinacea, thyme, mistletoe, lemon balm 
Spiritual blocks: oak, ginseng, lady’s slipper

Create Your Temple Sanctuary: Magical Mandalas and Sacred Space

Spiritual health is just as important as the other kind. Regular maintenance and what I call “inner work” is greatly abetted if you have sacred space where you feel at your best. If you don’t have access to a temple space, you can create a sacred temple space in your own home. The imprint of your own creativity is vital to your personal shrine; it should be decorated with things also made by your own hand. Ideally, your windows allow sacred light to fall upon your designs. This is an artistic endeavor; you are making sacred art. If you do your best work at night, be sure to have adequate lighting. It is also a good idea to reduce the possibilities of distractions and interruptions. It is strongly suggested to turn off phones and television, to create as peaceful an environment as possible.

Bless the space in a fashion of your own choosing with your favorite incense, candles and objects that represent deepest spirituality to you. A magical mandala will greatly enhance your sacred space. The word “mandala” is from the classical Indian language of Sanskrit. Loosely translated to mean “circle,” a mandala is far more than a simple shape. It represents wholeness, and can be seen as a model for the organizational structure of life itself—a cosmic diagram that reminds us of our relation to the infinite, the world that extends both beyond and within our bodies and minds.

Misty Moon Potion (Waxing Moon is Optimal)

If you are dreaming of true abundance, with the understanding that health is more important than wealth, you want to feel your best. You can bring this about with this potent potion:

• 3 drops vanilla oil
  
• 3 drops lavender
  
• 3 drops orange blossom essence
  
• 4 ounces pure distilled water

Pour all these into a colored glass spray bottle and shake well three times. Fifteen minutes before you retire, spray lightly on your linens, towel, and pillow case. Keep a dream journal on your nightstand so you can record details of the dreams of abundant health that will soon manifest.

Handmade Healing Amulets: Growing Good Health

You will experience years of enjoyment from tending your garden, as Voltaire taught us in his masterpiece, Candide. You can share that pleasure with your friends and those you love with gifts from your garden. Your good intentions will be returned many times over. I keep a stock of small muslin drawstring bags for creating amulets. If you are a crafty witch, you can make the bags, sewing by hand, and stuff the dried herbs inside.

For courage and heart: mullein or borage

For good cheer: nettle or yarrow

For fellow witches: ivy, broomstraw, maidenhair fern

For safe travels: comfrey

For fertility: cyclamen or mistletoe

For protection from deceit: snapdragon

For good health: rue

For success: woodruff

For strength: mugwort

For youthful looks: an acorn

Amulets should be kept on your person at all times: in a pocket, in your purse or book bag, or on a string around your neck.

The Supernatural Spectrum – Candle Color Magic

For a peaceful home, burn blue candles on Thursday. 
To overcome fear, burn red candles on Sunday.
For inner peace, burn silver candles on Monday.
For self confidence, burn red candles on Sunday.
For kindness and compassion, burn pink candles on Friday.
For physical well-being, burn green candles on Friday.
To overcome regret or guilt, burn white candles on Saturday. 
For mental clarity, burn yellow candles on Wednesday.
To let go of anger, burn orange candles on Tuesday. 
For success at work, burn green candles on Friday.

Salt of the Earth Rejuvenation Ritual

Salts have been used to purify the body, by way of ritual rubs, since ancient times in the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia. Beauties from the biblical era utilized this simple curative of natural salts to exfoliate the skin and enhance circulation, vital to overall body health. There are wonderful imported Dead Sea salts readily available at most bath and beauty stores, or you can make your own using Goddess Glow recipes, one of the kitchen cupboard cures that follows.

To prepare for your body glow session, light a white candle, step out of your clothes and into your tub or shower, and hold the salts in the palms of both hands, praying:

Aphrodite, in your wisdom, help me reflect your image;
My body is a temple to thee, goddess.
Here, I worship today with my head and hands, heart and soul. 
Blessings to all, blessings to thee, blessed be me.

Use the salts with a new loofah sponge and scrub yourself vigorously during the waning moon or new moon at midnight.