3x3x3 Witchy Tag, Or: My Favorite Things

Chloe from Inner Whispers recently posted a video called the "3x3x3 Witchy Tag," where practitioners of the magical arts (I'm casting a wide net here) vlog about their favorite "witchy" things in terms of three categories: 1) favorite herbs, 2) favorite stones or crystals, and 3) favorite "witchy" activities. I enjoyed listening to her discuss her choices, and was inspired to participate by sharing my own!

I will say that, as I'm sure is true for everyone asked to narrow down their preferences, or sum up their practices, this was a difficult challenge. And really this post is just the tip of the iceberg. However I'm going to give this a go, so here we go!

My Three Favorite Herbs

I'm adding a little disclaimer here, because there are so many herbs I love and use that narrowing them down to three is nearly impossible. There are herbs I tend to use more for rootwork, and there are herbs I use more often for making healing teas, or oils. I decided to highlight the the latter for this post. And I'm cheating here, I know, but I'm just going to say that garlic must go at the top of my list - perhaps I'll honor it with being Number Zero. I use garlic for warding off colds and flu by drinking it raw with orange juice and cayenne. I cook with it. It's useful for treating ear infections when combined with olive oil and used as drops in the ear. It's wonderful for the heart. There is just no excuse not to have garlic in your cupboard at all times. Now on to the next three.....

Dried rosemary and lemon balm

1) Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalus)

First of all, rosemary just makes me feel content. The aroma alone is deeply satisfying for me, and I often go out into my garden simply to run my hand through my rosemary bush and inhale the lingering scent from my skin. As with garlic, I sometimes cook with rosemary; I suppose that's a given. But it's also a great tea, especially when dealing with respiratory issues, as it's an anti-inflammatory. Rosemary can help relieve headaches, and as a wash it's great for the hair. You can use it to increase circulation and to help with muscle and join pain (arthritis, for example). This herb helps improve memory and relieve menstrual cramps (it's an antioxidant). In magic it's often used to help increase feminine power, cleansing, and for protection.

2) Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalus)

Lemon Balm smells pretty amazing, too, and is a great herb for calming anxiety, frayed nerves, and mild depression. You can drink it as an infusion to treat indigestion, as well as for colds and coughs. In fact this is one of the core ingredients in my anti-cold tea because it has antiviral and antibacterial properties! I don't tend to use this herb for magical anything, though some do for healing and sometimes love purposes.

Dried elder berries

3) Elder (Sambucus nigra)

Elder berries and flowers form a core part of my herbal medicine cabinet. Both are useful for fighting colds and coughs, and for fighting allergies. With antiviral properties, it's another major component in my anti-cold infusions, and it has such a lovely, subtle flavor. Some people just use flowers for this purpose, or only use berries for tinctures, syrups, or cordials, but I like using them together; the flowers are gentle and light, and the berries rehydrate and release their deep purple essence during the steeping process, which I love. Elder can be used to treat eye inflammation as well as arthritis. It's a diaphoretic and stimulant so it increases the efficiency of the body's systems, and helps increase perspiration which is an effective body cleanser. I feel like Elder is a loving mother, always ready with arms wide open. She's gentle and soothing, which is also why I find this herb a wonderful addition to herbal baths for the purpose of emotional healing.

Dried elder flowers

My Three Favorite Stones/Crystals

Of course I have more than three that I value highly, but these three are definitely core staples!

1) Quartz

Pretty much all quartz, though I do love clear quartz and quartz crystals. I also love snow quartz. Quartz is an amplifier and indispensable for healing and transmitting. Crystals can be programmed for specific purposes, and can hold energy. I found my first crystal at a nature/science store when I was probably thirteen, and I fell in love. I had heard that you should try not to let people hold your crystal because as they hold energy, the ideal situation is that your quartz is imbued with your essence rather than a hodgepodge of random energies. So my crystal has only ever been held by me (since the original purchase, naturally), thereby having accrued about 22 years of Essence of Olivia. Quartz is one of the stones associated with the sign of Capricorn, which was another initial draw for me. Quartz can help amplify the properties of other stones, and in particular I love combining it with black tourmaline, another one on my top three list!

Varieties of quartz

2) Black Tourmaline

I originally bought this stone for the sensations it gave me when I held it. Later I researched its properties and it all made sense! I came across this stone at a witchy shop. I had heard of it before though hadn't thought much about it, but as I was browsing it drew my attention. These dark jewels seemed to be almost glowing with powerful energy. I picked one up and immediately felt my crown start to buzz. The feeling I had was sort of a combination of relief and satisfaction, something like how it feels to lay down on the floor or bed and totally stretch every part of your body. It was awesome. I thought it would be amazing to dive into a bathtub full of black tourmaline and stay a while. Later I learned that  this stone is powerful for protection and deflection of negativity, as well as for transforming ill vibrations into positive ones. You can actually use black tourmaline to protect yourself against the electromagnetic emissions from computers and cell phones due to its natural electrical current. That is pretty amazing all by itself. So even if you're not into magic, here's a really sensible, practical reason to acquire this wonderful stone! Another side effect of black tourmaline's electrical charge is that it helps connect the energy sources/chakras throughout the body, increasing and smoothing the flow. This is great for everyone, really, but especially for healers.

3) Apophyllite 

I wrote about my experiences with this wonderful crystal in September of last year and I've hyperlinked the previous text in case you're interested in reading more about it. Suffice it to say that my dreams are stunning, clear, and educational!

Apophyllite and Black Tourmaline

My Three Favorite Witchy Activities

1) Spending time in nature

I would imagine that this would apply to most people. It has been my favorite thing to do ever since I can remember, and in fact as a pre-teen I spent long hours alone in the forest across the street from my house, picking raspberries, building living-wood shelters, looking for raccoon prints by the river shore, observing deer and fox. It was pretty wonderful. This is still something I can't do without, and one of my regular, favorite things to do is simply stroll around the neighborhood, watching the breeze move the tree leaves, noticing how the sunlight filters through palm branches, taking in the smells of backyard fires, grass, moist earth. This morning I spent about a half hour taking pictures in my back yard; this time of year the sun hits all the sweet spots, so the early hours of the morning are especially lovely. And one way I love interacting with nature is through tending my herb garden!

Gardenia bush in my back yard

2) Helping people via herbs and other natural things

Some of the most satisfying things I do are: make healing teas for my loved ones; do work to help those I care about to heal, attract new opportunities, or repel negativity; create spiritual/cleansing baths for the home or body; and the list goes on! Watching my child laid up on the couch with a nasty virus is difficult, but spending thirty minutes crafting a soothing medicinal infusion and then slowly watching the symptoms ease, is very fulfilling and empowering.

3) Divining

It would be entirely remiss of me not to put this in the top three activities, because divination is an important facet of my life (and hey, it's the main theme of this blog). Not a single day goes by that I don't divine in some fashion, for some purpose, whether with cards or with runes, or sometimes with both. It's an art; it takes patience and dedication, and an open heart. In short, it's wonderful.

So with that I conclude my 3x3x3 Witchy Tag. If you're a witch, rootworker, conjurer, diviner, herbalist, or anyone at all, really.....consider yourself tagged!

The Synergy of Rootwork

From time to time I find myself pausing to ponder the beauty and mystery of the universe: how energy works, the way in which everything in our environment is connected, the simple yet awe-inspiring moments where you just know that there's a God (sunsets tend to do this for me).

I was having such a moment this morning as I was considering our relationship to cause-and-effect in the world, and the methods that we can use to influence positive outcomes in our lives. Rootwork, in my experience, is one such method that is both subtle yet powerful in its efficacy. A working, when well planned and executed, softly influences the energy of the universe, something like tossing a stone into a pond and watching the ripples unfold. It is nothing more than a suggestion we make, but it is real, and can be very effective. For me there is great mystery and holiness in that.

So I decided to pull a card from my Halloween Oracle, while holding this topic gently in my mind, and I pulled: Barmbrack.

Halloween Oracle; S. Demarco, J. Manton
Rootworking tools

Barmrack is the name of an yeasty Irish fruit bread that is traditionally made at Samhain (Halloween). Before the bread is baked various objects are inserted into it, such as a toothpick, a coin, or a ring. If a party-goer received a slice of bread with the toothpick they could expect a year of disputes ahead (similar to the Birchrod in Lenormand). If they received the coin, they could expect money, and if the ring, a marriage.

In the Halloween Oracle this card is subtitled "Sweetness and Synergy" and refers to value and power that exist in the present, as opposed to worrying about the future. The author, Stacey Demarco, writes:

"We have the tools to change our future should we choose. The sweet energy of barmbrack - all the ingredients including the objects [baked within] are more complete and powerful together than they are individually."

This is a beautiful representation of what rootwork is and does. Rootwork is a ritual process of utilizing roots, herbs, stones, and things made with natural essences (such as oils) in combination to help achieve a specific end (such as finding work, improving finances or business, healing those who are ill, and even for protection). The ritual of rootwork - the careful and purposeful selection of materials, the process of preparation, the focus and intention of the worker and the work itself - is like a sacred dance, a weaving of energy where each element merges and combines to create something greater than the sum of its parts - powerful synergy.

Mud Dauber Wasp: Beautiful Persistence

Here in Florida we have a lot of interesting flora and fauna. One particular insect that I've come to admire and enjoy (as strange as it may seem) is the mud dauber wasp. Mud dauber wasps are solitary creatures, so while you may see several flying about your property, they never gather or create communal nests. They are very industrious which becomes clear when you see the mud cells that they build. A single female will build a collection of little tubes, one on top of the other, and in each she will place a few (or more) paralyzed spiders and an egg. Then she seals it up and moves on the to next. After creating a series of these, she will fly away. Her eggs slowly develop until the young wasps are full size, at which point they consume the paralyzed spiders for initial sustenance before breaking free from their cell and flying out into the wide world.

A mud dauber "village" with a cell being built
Credit: O. Destrades

I have spent quite a lot of time observing these wasps as they tend to their little "villages." We currently have one in the upper corner of our front door, and I've watched with great admiration as a single cocoon-like mud tube grew into three, then five, then eight. She finally stopped when she reached somewhere around the 12-mark. She would fly back and forth developing layer after earthen layer - I could even see the ripples in the walls of each little structure, evidence of each trip she made with fresh mud, like rings of a tree. I would see an open cavern, and could even make out the faint impression of spider legs within. Then later in the evening as I would come or go, I would see that the hole had been sealed, and she was now prepared to work on the next.

Mud Dauber wasps are not aggressive at all, and prefer to keep the peace rather than attack (unless clearly threatened). This is why I treat them as friendly neighbors for the duration of their stay at my doorway. And once all of the wasps have flown the nest, I will harvest what remains, crumble it into a fine powder, and store it away for use in future rootwork.

Mud dauber nests are often utilized for work focused on fidelity in love or commerce, such as attracting and keeping clients to a business, specifically because these wasps always return to the same place to build their mud villages. Even for practical purposes mud dauber nests come in handy: you can powder and carefully filter the mud from a dauber's nest and use it to help cure and prevent diaper rash in infants.

If you should like to harvest your own mud dauber nest, just remember to be mindful of ecology, and try to be sure that the wasps have abandoned it first.