The House Witch: Your Complete Guide to Creating a Magical Space with Rituals and Spells for Hearth and Home - Arin Murphy-Hiscock 2018

The Magic of Herbs
Herbs, Crafts, and Other Hearth-Related Magic Work

SINCE THE HOUSE WITCH’S PATH revolves around home and family, a chapter devoted to crafts and techniques through which hearth magic may be shared seems essential! This chapter explores basic techniques found in magical practice that are particularly suited to hearth magic, such as herbal magic. These activities and crafts are hearth-based in that they have as their goals the enhancement of your home environment and the health and happiness of your home.

The Magic of Herbs

When you page through herbal books, magical or otherwise, you will find that most plants are associated with protection and/or love in some way. There is a very simple reason for this: herbs and green things are reflections of the natural world, and these common associations are also two things most desired by humankind, knowingly or unknowingly. Both love and protection are two important themes in hearthcraft. Love doesn’t necessarily mean for love spells or enticing someone to fall in love with you; this is a very common misconception. As a house witch, you want your home to be a place filled with love for family and friends. Love of the self is also important, as it signifies acceptance and support of oneself, something that is often rarer than it ought to be.

If working with the energy of herbs interests you, take a look at my book The Green Witch for many ideas incorporating the energies of herbs and other items of the natural world into your spiritual and magical work.

To personalize your spiritual or magical activities, choose a signature herb or stone and add it to all your magical work. Enchant it with your personal energy first: hold and visualize your personal energy flowing from your heart down your arms to your hands, and picture it being absorbed by the herbs or stone.

Teas and Brews

The most basic way to make a tea is by steeping fresh or dried plant matter in very hot water, or infusing it. The resulting liquid is called an infusion. This method is most effective for leaves, flowers, and crushed fruit.

If the plant matter is chunky or dense, as bark, roots, or needles tend to be, then a decoction is called for. A decoction is made by actually boiling or heating the plant matter in water for a longer period of time.

Warning! Make sure you know what you’re doing if you plan on making something to drink. Use reliable reference books to identify and prepare herbal medicines or beverages.

For a longer-lasting liquid form, a tincture can be made. A tincture is generally also stronger than an infusion. It is made by infusing plant matter in a stable, long-lived base, such as alcohol or glycerin.

Here are some examples of basic infusions and decoctions.

✵ To make herbal or floral water, place approximately a double handful of your chosen plant matter in a sterilized covered bottle or jar. Pour boiling water over it until it just covers the plant matter. Cover with the lid, shake, and leave to cool and steep. Shake it two or three times weekly. After about ten days, strain and store the water in a clean jar or bottle. It will keep in the refrigerator for one to two weeks. If you wish to intensify the scent, steep a new batch of plant matter in the infusion. This can be used as a body splash or an additive for cleaning water. This also makes a very gentle space purifier when misted around a room.

✵ To make herbal vinegar, place a handful of your chosen plant matter in a clean jar with a lid. Pour vinegar over it until it just covers the plant matter. Leave the vinegar to steep in the refrigerator for one to three weeks. Strain the vinegar into a clean bottle and label it with the name and the date. Use herbal vinegar in place of regular vinegar or as an additive to wash water for floors or windows.

✵ To make herbal oils, place a handful of your chosen plant matter in a small saucepan and pour a cup of light olive or safflower oil over it. Heat the oil and plant matter gently over a low heat for fifteen minutes, then pour oil and plant matter into a clean jar. Cover the jar with a double layer of cheesecloth and fasten with a rubber band. Allow to sit in a sunny spot for ten days to two weeks, then strain oil into a clean bottle, cap, and label with the name and date. Use the oil in cooking (if the plant matter is edible) or to anoint objects, windows, doors, and so forth.

Here are a few other ways of using infusions and similar extracts:

✵ To make herbal or floral sprays, place a freshly made cooled infusion in a clean spray bottle and mist it into the air. Alternatively, place a few drops of a decoction or tincture into a bottle of clean water and shake to blend. It’s not the amount that matters; it’s the energy that the drops carry.

✵ To make floor washes, add an infusion, drops of decoction or tincture, or a few drops of essential oil to a bucket of clean water. Mop floor or dip a clean cloth into the wash water and wipe down walls, doorframes, window ledges, and so forth.

✵ For use in baths, add an infusion, decoction, or drops of tincture or oil to your bathwater.

Here are some suggestions for herbal blends that can be used for various applications such as simmering potpourri; sprinkling or sweeping powders; in sealed bottles as talismans; or steeped, strained, and used as anointing potions. If you can’t stand the smell of one of these, or if you know your personal energy doesn’t interact well with it, leave it out or find a substitute with a similar energy.

✵ For productivity try: cinnamon, clove, allspice, ginger

✵ For healing try: vervain, rose, chamomile

✵ For relaxation try: rose, chamomile, lavender

✵ For communication try: basil, carnation, lavender

✵ For protection try: vervain, rosemary, pinch of salt, clove

Potpourri

There are two kinds of potpourri: dry and wet (or simmering). Dry potpourri is about as simple as you can get: it’s a blend of dried herbs, flowers, and spices placed in an open dish to scent the air and allow the energy to gently spread. Simmering potpourri is only marginally more challenging: the potpourri is placed in a pot of water and simmered on the stove. If you’ve ever mulled wine or apple cider, it’s a similar process.

When making a batch of potpourri, it’s a nice idea to set a small spoonful of it in a dish on your kitchen or hearth shrine as an offering. Dry potpourri also makes a good stuffing for herbal pillows, sachets, dolls, and so forth.

Basic Dry Potpourri Recipe

Don’t chop up your plant material; if you begin with it fresh and intend to dry it yourself for your potpourri, try to keep the natural oils as unbruised as possible, as these are what give dried flowers and spices their scent. When dry, crumble the plant matter into large bits. The orris root is a fixative, something that will help fix the natural and added essential oils to preserve the scent of the mix longer. As a rule, use 2 tablespoons of the orris root powder per 1 cup of dry potpourri mix.

You will need:

✵ Dried herbs

✵ Dried flowers

✵ Dried spices

✵ Powdered orris root

✵ 6 drops essential oil per cup of dry mix

1. Place all the dried plant matter (including the powdered orris root) in a bowl and stir with your hands to combine. Sprinkle with the essential oil and stir again.

2. Keep the blend in a closed container for at least 2 weeks to mellow or ripen; this allows the scents to blend. Open the container and stir it once a day to keep it from going moldy. Even if you think your plant material is perfectly dry, there can sometimes be a drop or two of moisture left in it.

3. When it’s ready, put your potpourri in an open container and place it in the area you wish to be affected by the energy.

It’s important that you not forget about your dry potpourri once you’ve set it out. Dust collects in it, and exposure to air and the energy of the room will eventually weaken the energy of the herbal components. Make a new batch when you feel the energy of the old one has expired. You can bury used potpourri or compost it.

Potpourri Soap

One use for dry potpourri is as an additive for soap balls. It is easy to make this gently scented soap, as it uses grated soap bars as a base. Castile soap is olive oil—based and can be found in natural food stores or fair trade shops; if you can’t find it, use a gentle soap such as Ivory or Dove instead.

You will need:

✵ 1 tablespoon dry potpourri

✵ 2 bars castile soap (or 1 cup soap flakes)

✵ Grater

✵ Microwave-safe container

✵ Boiling water (about ¹/₈ cup)

✵ Chopstick

✵ 5 drops essential oil (optional)

✵ Rubber gloves

✵ Foil-lined tray or baking sheet

1. If the potpourri has large chunks, crush it into smaller pieces.

2. Grate the bars of soap into a microwave-safe container. Stir 1 spoonful boiling water into the soap flakes with the chopstick.

3. Microwave at 80 percent power for 10 seconds at a time until the mixture begins to melt and bubble. Remove and stir with the chopstick; if the mixture is too stiff to stick together, add another few drops of boiling water.

4. Add a spoonful of potpourri to the soap mixture and stir. If you wish, add a few drops of essential oil to soap and potpourri and stir again.

5. Put on the rubber gloves. Scoop up a small amount of the soap mixture with your fingers and roll or press it into a ball. Place each ball on the foil-lined tray or baking sheet to dry.

Simmering Potpourri

Simmering potpourri is a more active way of diffusing scent and energy into a space, although it is less permanent. It also adds moisture to the air, making it an excellent wintertime activity. Keep a small saucepan for potpourri use only and never use it for food preparation. Essential oils can linger on the finishes of pots and pans.

Dried apple slices and citrus peel make particularly good fixatives for simmering potpourri. Keep the peels from grapefruits or oranges and chop them into roughly 1"-square bits, or slice the apple into ¹/₄"-thick slices. Allow these to dry, then sprinkle your choice of essential oil on them and place in a covered container. Open the container and stir daily until the peels or apple have absorbed the oils.

As a rule, use ¹/₂ cup herbal blend to 2 cups water. Place both in a saucepan on the stove and gently simmer over low heat. Check it every quarter hour or so to make sure the water doesn’t evaporate. Simply add more water as desired.

You can reuse simmering potpourri; simply drain the water from the pot and spread the plant matter out on a tea towel to dry or line a strainer with a tea towel and strain the contents of the pot into it, allowing the plant matter to dry there (spread it out as far as possible and stir it once or twice a day to keep the air circulating and aid in the drying process). Be aware that the plant matter may stain the towel, so use an old one or one made of dark-colored fabric. When the potpourri is dry, place it in a bowl or jar to be used the next time. Mark the container with the blend and its purpose. Potpourri that is made of powdered herbs, as you may have on your spice rack, cannot be dried and reused.

Alternatively, you can put the potpourri in a small muslin or unbleached cotton sachet and slip it into the water like an oversized tea bag, or you can use a pouch-style tea bag designed for home blends. You can even place the potpourri on a square of doubled cheesecloth, draw the corners up and gather the cheesecloth together around the plant matter, and tie it closed with plain kitchen string.

There are special potpourri-warming pots designed for simmering potpourri that resemble deep cups with a partially open chamber beneath for a candle, or ones that run on electric power like mini slow cookers. These are unnecessary if your kitchen is central enough to serve as the staging point for the scent infusion, but if you’re looking to use simmering potpourri in a room far away from your kitchen, then you may wish to look into one of these options. Use sensible safety precautions with these devices and keep a close eye on the water level. Keep them very clean, too, to avoid flare-ups or cracking. If you have old-fashioned radiators, you can place a bowl on them instead and allow the heat of the water inside to warm the potpourri water. Be very careful if you use this open-bowl method and have children or pets.

Winter Holiday Simmering Potpourri

Here’s a simple simmering potpourri to use during the winter holiday season.

You will need:

✵ 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon (or 2 large or 3 small cinnamon sticks)

✵ 1 tablespoon ground ginger

✵ 1 tablespoon whole cloves (or 1 teaspoon ground cloves)

✵ 1 tablespoon ground allspice

✵ 1 whole star anise blossom

✵ Dried lemon peel and/or dried orange peel (optional)

✵ Water

1. Place the spices in a medium saucepan. Fill the saucepan with water to an inch below the rim.

2. Gently heat the pot on the stovetop over low heat. Allow the water to simmer to release the scent into the air. Keep an eye on the water level; when it gets low, either refill with more water and continue to simmer, or remove from heat. Keep in mind that the scent will linger even after you’ve turned off the heat and taken the pot off the stove. How long it takes to dissipate depends on your house and how well the air circulates.

Sprinkling Powders

Sprinkling powders are used to distribute the energy of an herb or herbal blend around an area. It can be left permanently (for example, outside) or for a specific period of time and then swept or vacuumed up (if the intent is to absorb negative or unwanted energy).

Here’s another use for sprinkling powder: rub a candle with oil (plain olive oil or a steeped oil of your own making), then roll it in a sprinkling powder to load up on energies associated with your offering/petition.

The easiest way to make a sprinkling powder is to completely powder a single herb or blend of herbs either in a blender, coffee grinder, or with a mortar and pestle, and sprinkle the mixture where you wish the energy to work. If you prefer, you can powder the herb(s) and then mix them into a neutral carrier such as cornstarch or baking soda. (Using talc is not recommended, because it can cause problems if inhaled.) If you use fine sawdust as a base instead, the resulting powder can be burned as an incense on a charcoal tablet (make sure the sawdust you use is safe to burn; sawdust collected from a workshop will generally be of wood treated with chemicals that are unsafe to burn and inhale).

Loose Incense

Making loose purifying incense is discussed in Chapter 7. Presented here is a set of basic instructions for making a resin and loose herb—based incense to burn on a charcoal tablet.

Herb and Resin Incense

You can use any combination of resins and plant matter, so long as you know they’re safe to inhale when burned.

You will need:

✵ 1 part resin (combined or single resins)

✵ Mortar and pestle

✵ 1 part dried plant matter

✵ Small bottle or jar with lid

1. Place the resin(s) in the mortar. Gently crush the resin into small chips with the pestle. Transfer it to the jar. If there is any residue left in the mortar, scrape it out gently and add it to the jar.

2. Place the dried plant matter in the mortar. Grind into smaller pieces and transfer to the jar.

3. Cap the jar and gently shake it to combine all the ingredients. Label with the ingredients and/or name and date.

Incense Balls

Incense balls are a fun alternative to loose incense and are useful if you wish to include liquid ingredients. The basic ingredients are ground resins, powdered dry herbs, and a liquid (such as honey and/or wine). Easy to use, these little balls stay on the charcoal tablet, have little mess to clear away, and burn slowly to maintain a level, ongoing release of energy. They store well, too, and make good offerings at your shrine, even unburnt. The term ball itself can be misleading. In reality you will be making small chickpea- or bean-sized pellets. Anything larger will not burn properly.

Incense balls are burned on a charcoal tablet. Make sure you use charcoal marked for indoor use, often sold in religious or ethnic shops. Bamboo charcoal in particular is a good choice because it contains no saltpeter and is available in Asian markets or Chinatown areas. Never use barbecue charcoal, as the fumes can be toxic when concentrated inside.

If you prefer to make combustible incense—incense that can burn on its own—you will have to include a combustible ingredient such as fine sawdust, as well as another additive such as saltpeter (sodium nitrate or potassium nitrate) or ground charcoal, which contains saltpeter itself. If you are interested in trying your hand at this kind of incense, Scott Cunningham has recipes and instructions in his classic book The Complete Book of Incense, Oils, & Brews.

The basic proportions for making incense balls are:

✵ 1 cup loose incense blend (made of resins, woods, herbs, flowers)

✵ ¹/₂ cup dried chopped fruit (such as raisins, fruit peel, currants, apricots)

✵ 1 tablespoon honey

✵ Drizzle of oil or wine

Here is a list of suggested ingredients for incense balls. You don’t have to use all of them; pick and choose from among those listed. Just remember to keep to a 1:1 proportion of resins to plant matter.

✵ Resins: Myrrh, frankincense, benzoin, copal.

✵ Herbs: Orris root, lavender, sandalwood, rose petals, cedar, cinnamon, nutmeg, bay, clove, ginger, rosemary.

✵ Binding liquids: Honey, raisins, wine, fruit such as apricots or currants.

✵ Essential oils: Optionally, you may wish to add a few drops of essential oil as well, either to enhance the scent of one of the herbs you are using or to complement it.

Incense Balls

Allow these balls to dry on a flat surface before transferring them to a closed jar to finish drying and to age. Putting wet balls in a jar can backfire, as the wet parts may grow mold or stick to one another and form one mass, making it difficult to remove a single ball to burn.

Here’s a tip for making the task of crushing or powdering resins less of a challenge: freeze them for a quarter of an hour before crushing them. This makes them easier to powder. It also reduces the possibility of the heat of the friction melting the resin and sticking to the mortar and pestle.

You will need the following in the previously mentioned proportions:

✵ Resins of choice

✵ Mortar and pestle

✵ Mixing bowl (or coffee grinder)

✵ Herbs of choice

✵ Chopstick

✵ Binding liquid of choice (such as honey or wine; chopped fruits may also be added)

✵ Essential oils of choice (optional)

✵ Rubber gloves

✵ Waxed paper-lined tray or baking sheet

✵ Jar or bottle with lid

1. Crush the resins in the mortar with the pestle or grind them in a coffee grinder (kept for crafts only). They don’t need to be powdered, only reduced to small chips. Remember, the heat from the friction of grinding them can melt the resins slightly and make them gummy. Empty the crushed resins into a mixing bowl.

2. Grind the dried herbs into small pieces and empty into the resin mixture. Stir with a chopstick to combine.

3. Mix in the chopped dried fruit, if using as part of the binding material. Drizzle the honey and wine over the mixture, followed by the essential oils, if you are using them. Stir to combine. The mixture should begin to clump together. Try forming a small ball; if the mixture falls apart, add more honey or wine to moisten the mixture a bit more and test it again.

4. Put on the rubber gloves. Scoop up a bit of the mixture and form it into small pellets about the size of a chickpea or slightly larger. Set the balls on the waxed paper—lined tray to harden and leave to dry for at least 10 days to 2 weeks (depending on how much fruit or liquid you’ve used). Transfer the balls to a covered jar. Label the jar with the ingredients and/or name and date.