Early Rising Ritual to Instill Your Day with Blessings

How you begin your day can often set the tone for the entire day, and sometimes even longer. Therefore, it is incumbent upon us all to start the day out right! If you are not an early riser by nature, get up a half-hour earlier to instill enchantment into your morning. Gather up:

• 1 green candle
• 1 yellow candle
• 1 orange candle
• A sprig of fresh peppermint
• Peppermint essential oil
• Small dish for the plant

Immediately after you rise, place the items on your altar and dress the candles with the peppermint oil. Touch each candle with the plant for just a moment. Light the candles, then pick up the sprig with your left hand and hold it to your face so you can breathe in the fresh and elevating fragrance and speak aloud:

    This is a blessed day, bright with possibilities.

    Healing starts with this new day.

    My body, mind, and heart are ready.

    All good things are coming my way.

    So mote it be.

Spend a few moments in contemplation and reflection and just breathe in the essence of the mint plant and oils. Visualize good things happening to you on this day and picture yourself brimming with energy and exuberance.

Witch's Willpower Brew: Invoking the Energy of Success

On a Monday, or any day when you need to ready yourself for important events, meetings, or other high-pressure circumstances, set aside a half-hour of quiet time and brew up some willpower to help you in any creative endeavors. Light a white candle anointed with peppermint oil, and then light spicy incense such as cinnamon.

Take a sprig of mint, some warm milk, and a few cinnamon sticks and stir these together clockwise in a white mug. Say aloud:

    Herb of menthe and spicy mead,

    today is the day I shall succeed

    in every word and every deed.

    So mote it be.

Quaff the cup and “sit for a spell” with your eyes closed, envisioning your new horizons. Keep the cinnamon sticks on your altar as a symbol of the power of encouraging words.

Garden Your Way to Gladness

For dispelling negative energy, plant heather, hawthorn, holly, hyacinth, hyssop, ivy, juniper, periwinkle, and nasturtiums.

For healing, plant sage, wood sorrel, carnation, onion, garlic, peppermint, and rosemary.

Both farming and working with plants are guided by the moon and should take place during the waxing moon in the signs of Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces, Capricorn, and Taurus, while weeding is ideally done during the waning moon.

Gloom Away: Lunar Levity

I don’t know about you, but I occasionally wake up on the wrong side of the bed. The best way to avoid that is to brew up this lovely aromatic spray and use it to scent your bedroom before you retire. When your linens and personal space smell sweet, your dreams are guaranteed to be the same. This custom recipe works wonders on you or anyone in your environment who might need a lift. Combine the following essential oils:

• two drops peppermint 

• two drops bergamot 

• two drops lavender

• four drops rose

• four drops neroli
  

Add the mixture to a quart of distilled water, and spray the air while chanting:

Gloom and doom be gone.
Welcome, sweet spirits, into this house, 

With harm to none. So mote it be.

Botanical Bliss: Garden Your Way to Happiness (Waxing Moon is Optimal)

For healing, plant sage word sorrel, carnation, onion, garlic, peppermint and rosemary.

For dispelling negative energy, plant heather, hawthorn, holly, hyacinth, hyssop, ivy, juniper, periwinkle and nasturtiums.

Farming and working with plants is guided by the moon, and should take place during the waxing moon in the signs of Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces, Capricorn and Taurus.

Sweetheart Tea

Here is a quick recipe to create exactly the right mood for a dreamy evening:

• Stir together in a clockwise motion:
• 1 ounce dried and pulverized rosehips
• 1⁄2 ounce peppermint
• 1⁄2 ounce dried lemon balm

You can store this in a tin or colored jar for up to a year for those special evenings. When you are ready to brew the tea, pour boiling water over the herbs, two teaspoons for every cup of water. Say the following spell aloud during the five minute steeping and picture your heart’s desire:

Herbal brew of love’s emotion 

With my wish I fortify

When two people share this potion 

This love shall intensify

As in the Olde Garden of Love.

Sweeten to taste with honey and share this luscious libation with the one you love.

Soak Your Soul Replenishment Rite

To rid yourself of negative emotions, try this purification bath. Draw a warm bath at noon when the sun is at its healing peak, and add the essential oils into the water as it flows from the faucet:

• Two drops rosemary for calm
  
• One drop peppermint for stimulation
  
• One drop lavender for energy cleansing
  
• Three drops thyme to relieve mental exhaustion 

As you soak and steam, repeat this prayer four times.

Sadness I release you – goodbye.
Fatigue, I release you – goodbye.
I greet this day anew, I great my life renewed. 

Blessed be.