A Jar Ritual for Recognizing and Sending Love and Blessings
Materials
A red or pink candle
A jar or other glass container with lid (preferably with a wide mouth to make it easy to place items within)
Small pieces of paper (one per name)
Scraps of ribbon/string/twine (optional)
A pen (pink or red preferably)
Pink Salt (enough to create a thin layer on the bottom of your container)*
Ground Cinnamon and/or Ground Cayenne (enough to create a thin layer on the bottom of your container)
Dried rose petals**
*Please remember salt can harm growing plants. When disposing of jar contents, if you'd like to make it plant safe, use Epsom salt instead of regular salt.
**If roses aren't your thing or you do not have any, substitute any dried flower that represent love in your mind.
Instructions
1. Follow your normal procedure for prepping a magical space to perform your ritual.
2. Light your candle(s) and think about the people who bring love and happiness into your life. Why do they come to mind when you meditate on love? How do they enliven your life? What emotions and thoughts come to you as you think of them. Think about the blessings and love you'd like to see returned to them this week. Maybe it's a new job for a friend or a few hours of sleep for a new parent or much needed calm and peace for a loved one having a particular trying time right now. Maybe it's renewed love of life or passion in the bedroom. Love comes in many forms. Don't feel constricted to a single definition. you are wanting to send love and blessings to and why.
3. Write the name of each person you thought about on the pieces of paper you prepared. Roll them into tiny scrolls and tie them with a scrap of ribbon/string/twine. (Optionally you can just roll or fold the pieces of paper as-is. If you want to get really fancy with it, you can fold them into origami hearts. Sometimes the folding is part of the meditative act. Do whatever feels right to you.)
4. Add a layer of salt to the bottom of your contain. Draw a heart shape with the cinnamon and/or cayenne on top of the layer of salt. If you aren't feeling artistic or the opening of the jar is too small to draw a design, you can just layer the spices on the top of the salt. Add your pieces of paper interspersing your flower petals in-between and around the paper. 5. Hold the jar in your hand and picture in your mind again the love you'd like to see going to your named loves ones. See the light of your love flowing from you to them. See it surrounding their bodies in a soft, unbroken glow. See the love you send lifting their spirits and raising their joy. 6. Keep the jar somewhere safe where you will see it daily and be reminded of the love that you are sending out to each person. Touch it and renew the request in your mind each day.
7. At the end of the week, you can renew the spell for another week by meditating on it again and choosing the blessings you'd like to send, or if you feel it has done its job, you can burn the contents in a fire safe vessel (or compost if using plant safe materials). 8. If not renewing, cleanse the jar so that it can be used again in future rituals/spells.
Inspired by a ritual found within Em, Mandi. Happy Witch: Activities, Spells, and Rituals to Calm the Chaos and Find Your Joy (pp. 180-182). Adams Media. Kindle Edition.
I release Yesterday and start fresh with Today. This year, I am letting go of ...
I will focus my attention both inward and outward to identify and let go of the things in my life that are holding me back from happiness and personal success. I am working very hard to reconcile old anger and hurt that I have been holding onto for too long. It isn't helping me to keep it tight to my heart. The people who planted the seeds are gone. I do not want to be the one that tends that garden in their absence. I would rather resew it with feelings and experiences and people who bring and foster positivity in my life.
I am ready to create a Life I Love. This year I am calling in ...
This year I am calling in joy for joy's sake, spontaneity, and love. If I want birthday cake in June and my birthday is February, I am going to have cake. I am going to dig my toes into the ground and absorb the sunshine more often. Smell the fresh cut scent of grass and the chilly crispness of a new snow. Just slow down and appreciate and enjoy the things around me more.
I live with Purpose and Passion. These are the gifts I plan to share with the world ...
I am going to say and show 'I love you' to the people in my life I love more often. There is no too much to loving someone. I have such amazing people in my life. They deserve to know and feel that I love them. I want to explore my thoughts, beliefs, and practices to share my most authentic self with the world. I want to explore and share my creativity more often, whether it is on a work project or an improvement project at home, or a creative arts project that I plan to gift or sell. I want to create more this year. Grief has really taken a toll on my creative well, and I want to fill that back up this year.
Close your eyes, steady your breathing, and feel the earth beneath you and around you. Bring to mind one thing in your life that embodies _______________ (gratitude, love, family, peace, courage, balance, etc.) and focus on it. Feel the energies it brings come into and flow through your body. Where does it settle? Does it have a color? A smell? A general feeling? Continue to breathe slowly and steadily. Let the energy expand to fill your whole body and then spill over into your aura and out creating a bubble of energy around you. Imagine it bringing joy, love, and peace to all it comes in contact with, both to yourself and to others.
1) Gratitude
My gratitude is golden yellow like the light of an early summer sun. Warm and intense light without the burn. It's the color of dandelion flowers and smells of fresh cut grass.
2) Family
The aura of my Family is green like early Spring grass. It nourishes and feeds me, body and soul. It smells like the leaves of a healthy tomato plant, sounds like the snap of beans, and tastes like a sweet, sun-warmed melon.
3) Love
Love is pink and red and purple. Soft pinks of new love, a little innocent and a little wild. Red hot for love that has come into its own, blazing bright. You can't look away. Deep wine red purple for love that is strong and mature and has withstood storms and battles and come out better for it. It smells like cinnamon and oak and vanilla.
4) Peace
Peace is blue like a pool of cool water that is so deep you can't see the bottom on it. No smell, no sound, nothing to touch but the water. It's full of silence and a sense of calm isolation. It's beautiful and welcoming and a bit frightening too. It's frightening because I don't trust what is just beneath the surface that I can't see.
5) Courage
Courage is gray and shines with flecks of silver. It's the strong steel beam that runs through the middle of the biggest structures. It's the reflection of the light off of shiny plate armor. It's the sharp edge of a blade. It smells like machine oil and the metallic tang of blood.
6) Balance
Balance is a kaleidoscope of browns, the color of every bark of every tree that reaches toward the sky and the color of every type of soil that covers the ground. It is strong and flexible and vital for life. It smells like the forest after a rain, clean and loamy and a tiny bit of decomposing vegetation. Life sprouts from the ground, we grow and live, and then we return to it again to fuel life anew after death. A continuous cycle.
I wish you had recognized your own value more. You rarely had a kind word for yourself, yet you did so much good in our world. You took care of everyone in your life, event those who didn't deserve it. And it wasn't just those near and dear to you. You sacrificed so that complete strangers could have food on the table, clothing to wear, and a few presents under the tree come the holidays.
Not enough people said thank you for all you did. Not enough people showed you and Daddy the same generosity when you were in need over the years. Not enough people who loved you told you that you were king, beautiful, and important. They should have because you were all of those things and more. You never understood how loved and needed you were and still are by so many. I hope wherever you are now that you know.
Love,
Your Daughter
1-16-2023
Dear Mama,
I miss being able to pick up the phone and call you. I miss being able to ask for advice on health stuff because maybe I knew you'd experienced something similar or being able to ask for tips on a particular recipe I remembered you making.
The whole family misses you. You did so much for them that they never realized until you weren't there to make sure it got done. Grandmother misses you so much. Her sisters are gone now, and she talks about so many in the family and the community who have passed in the last couple of years. It can't be easy for her to be one of the few left. You called and talked to her just because you wanted to, and you really listened. You randomly showed up with a meal or a special treat just because. You never treated her like something she had to do. She was always someone you wanted to see. You being gone has been particularly hard on her.
Lots of other people miss you too. I get messages from friends often saying how much they miss you and Daddy. You would never have believed it or admitted that you were loved while you were here. I hope you realize it now wherever you are.
Love,
Your Daughter
1-30-2023
Dear Mama,
Grandmother has been in the hospital and then a rehab unit for about a week now. She is getting better, but there is still mending and physical therapy needed before she can come home. Please watch over her and lend her a helping hand in healing if you can. I know if you were here with us, you'd be impatiently trying to get her home. And you'd be bringing her meals because she doesn't like the food they've been serving her. You were always so good at taking care of us all.
What recipes do you always make around the holidays? My family always made a few every year. They were a ritual. There were so many things attached to each food. Memories of childhood. Memories of family members who were no longer with us. The ritual of mixing and stirring and seasoning that seems so magical when it all comes out just as you planned. I will share a few of my favorites here.
I remember some about my Great Grandmother Smith before dementia began to ravage her, but not a lot. From the stories that my grandfather and grandmother told, she liked cooking, but it wasn't really her strong suit. There were a few dishes though that everyone loved, especially my grandfather, so we made them each year for the holidays. It was a way us to help him remember her and honor her.
Photo from Recipes.net
Old
Fashioned Potato Candy
1 large white potato (peeled
and boiled)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
6-7 cups of powdered sugar
Smooth peanut
butter of your choice
1 Tablespoon
of water or milk
Food coloring
(optional)
Peel and boil
1 large white potato until tender. Mash potato until smooth of lumps. Add vanilla
extract and stir into potato. Add the tablespoon of water or milk if extra liquid
is needed to smooth the mixture. If you would like to make your dough different
colors, add in your food coloring now. Sometimes my great grandmother would
split the batch into three parts and do red, green, and white for the holiday.
We most often skipped the food coloring part.
Begin adding
the powdered sugar one cup at a time until you are able to create a dough
similar to a sugar cookie dough.
Roll out dough
using extra powdered sugar to dust surface to prevent sticking. You want the
finished dough to be about 1/8 inch thick when you are done rolling.
Spread peanut
butter over the top surface of the dough. We always used smooth peanut butter
because it was my family’s overall preference, but I suppose you could use
crunchy as well for added texture.
Starting at one
of the long sides, tightly roll up dough, like a jelly roll. Wrap in parchment
paper and freeze for 30 minutes to an hour. Until firm. Slice into ¼ inch pieces
and serve. Store in the refrigerator.
Choose a recipe (cookies are good for their small size, portability, and ease of sharing), then break the ingredients down into their magical meanings. What kind of spell would this recipe work best for? Healing, love, workplace harmony?
I chose Lemon Lavender Tea Cakes. You will find the recipe at the bottom.
I've never really stopped to do a full analysis of one of the recipes I cook from a magical perspective. I cook what feels good and right when I want to provide comfort, warmth, a refreshment of energy, ect. It should be interesting to take a closer look. In the list of ingredients below, the first paragraph is my associations with the ingredient and what I feel and think when I experience them followed by a bulleted item or list of their published magical properties.
BUTTER
Butter can be either a solid or a liquid. It can flow through and around the other ingredients, or it can grease the wheel so to speak to ease the way for other items not to stick and burn. I use it when I cook comfort foods that bring to mind warmth and happiness like fresh biscuits, cookies, and pastries.
Smoothes and soothes energies and relationships
Increases tenacity
Makes change easier
Increases spirituality and connection to Deity on the physical plane
Adds a nurturing, smooth quality to spells
Can be an easy kitchen witch go-to spell: Simply roll butter in herbs and empower it for your spell. Serve with bread!
EGGS
Eggs are the glue that help hold things together in my cooking. To me they also represent life, fertility, hope for the future.
An egg is a complete neat package of life and is very symbolic of fertility, new life, new beginnings and creation itself. Within they also symbolize long life and immortality.
The egg is a complete set of elements in one handy pack: The shell represents Earth, the inner membrane represents Air, the yolk is Fire and the white is Water.
FLOUR
I associate flour with bread, and bread equals warmth and comfort. Humble beginnings for flour to start out as a tiny grain and then become a dry powder and then to be transformed again into all sorts of lovely breads, pies, pastries, and sauces. It has so much malleability and versatility. When I think of flour and the wheat it comes from, I also think of the Biblical story of Joseph and his interpretation of Pharaoh's dreams. In the years of plenty there were beautiful sheaths of grain, full and rich and hearty. It would feed all of the people so that they would not suffer hunger during the lean years.
Magickal properties - abundance, fertility, money, rebirth, truth, strength and energy
BAKING SODA
Baking soda and baking powder have always been a bit magical in my mind when it comes to baking. They are the science and magic of why the breads can rise without yeast. I guess if I were going to apply a magical property to them, I would use them with the intent to assist someone to rise up to meet and overcome adversity, to give a helping hand to meet a goal or work through something challenging in their lives.
Magickal uses - ritual fire safety, cleansing altar tools
SALT
Salt has always represented protection to me. When paired with something sweet, it also adds an element of balance. A tea cake is traditionally round, so it could incorporate the same protection that a circle of salt represents for the receiver.
Sugar is sweetness and first loves. Perhaps a little bad for you, but so enjoyable in small doses. A guilty pleasure.
Magickal properties - attraction, love, used to amplify any attraction spell
VANILLA
In my mind vanilla will always be associated with holiday baking. Days filled with warmth, laughter, the smells of sweet treats, and occasionally a tummy ache after eating too many of said treats. The smell evokes sugary goodness and the deep brown color makes me think of roasting chestnuts. I would use it to invoke a sense of comfort and belonging.
In my world lemon is refreshing and represents something clean and new. Sometimes it's surprising and unexpected. It livens things up. I can almost feel the warmth of the sunshine and taste the tart of the lemon on my tongue from my grandmother's lemonade when I smell the zest.
I have a love-hate relationship with lavender flowers. It's beautiful and fragrant and delicate when used sparingly, but it can turn astringent and medicinal very quickly if used with a heavy hand. It's a nice balance to the acidity of the lemon and richness of butter. Like the salt, I have always associated lavender with purification and protection. It has become such a common place ingredient in stress-relief and sleep teas, lotions, body washes, that I also immediately think relaxation as well.
Attract men: Wear lavender perfume or add lavender essential oil to your beauty and love spells to bring your next lover to you.
Banishing harmful spirits: Sprinkle the flowers along the floor of your home or business to ward away evil spirits.
Happiness: Bake lavender into cookies or flavor your lemonade with the flower to bring happiness.
Increase intelligence: Drink the tea, make a sachet, or eat food crafted from lavender to increase your brainpower.
Long Life: Use lavender in your beauty routine or carry the flower on you to promote longevity.
Purification: Burn lavender or use the fresh sprigs to sprinkle blessed water in your home to remove harmful energies.
Sleep: Make a tea, fill an eye pillow, or place a few drops of lavender essential oil into your full pillow; its scent and energy will help relax your mind and bring on sleep.
All of that in a cookie prepared and shared with love. Who knew? And if you've made it this far, below is the recipe.
Lemon Lavender Tea Cakes
1 cup butter, softened
2 cups white sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 medium lemon
1/2 Tbs dried lavender flowers
1) Combine flour, soda, and salt and sift together. Set Aside.
2) In separate bowl beat butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy. Gradually add sugar, beating well. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating until blended after each addition. Add vanilla extract, dried lavender flowers, 1 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice, and the zest of one lemon beating until blended.
3) Add flour mixture to butter mixture. Beat at low speed until blended together.
4) Divide dough in half; wrap each portion in plastic wrap, and chill 1 hour.
5) Roll half of dough to 1/4-inch thickness on a floured surface. Cut out cookies with a 2 1/2-inch round cutter, and place 1 inch apart on parchment paper-lined baking sheets.
Desire.
It speaks volumes without words.
It's in the curve of a hip,
the fullness of a breast,
the sweet softness of her lips.
It's in the indention of her navel,
the arch of her foot,
the feel of her black hair,
and the look in her eyes as she looks at me.
There's sensuality in every move she makes.
Even the way she breathes...
is sexy.
She is Sex.
Slow and steamy.
Fast and fierce.
Sweat-slicked skin
and silken folds.
Breathless sighs and honeyed words,
sleepless nights and dreamy eyes.
Desire.
Desire II
Score
Cut
Flow
Rip
Smear
Tear
Drip
Bleed
Feel
Laugh
Moan
Plead
Whimper
Sigh
Beg
Whisper
Scream
Hear
Arch
Flex
Thrust
Knead
Scratch
Grasp
Pull
Push
Take
Until I Bleed
Sometimes I want to scream my need.
My skin aches to be bruised,
trembles to be bitten,
burns to be used.
It's an uncontrolled fire,
raging to consume me,
that only pain can dampen.
It never goes out.
I'm always at the mercy of its flames.
Rage, claw, bite.
Don't hold anything back with me.
Mark me, beat me, fuck me ...
Don't stop until I bleed.
