Images of the Empress and Mother Earth resonate with Beltane. In the tarot, she is the third card of the major arcana, often pictured in a lush landscape with a baby in her bell and a crown upon her head. The fertility of hte empress signifies gestation of any kind, from childbearing to long-term projects such as writing a book or building a home. At Beltane, the Sun is her mate, contributing to fertilization and progress. Number 19 in the major arcana, the Sun depicts a happy child, suggesting joy and youth. These and cards of the pentacles suita align with Taurus season. Include them in spells or display them as reminders of what you intend to grow. Infuse your intentions with pink and green crystals or candles to align with Taurus energies including formation, fruitfulness, and procreation. Rose quartz opens to love and relationship, while jade offers the nurturing influence valued by this sign. Wear precious green emerald for contentment and bliss. In the garden, invite bees, hummingbirds, and other pollinators by tending to flowering plants. Invoke these creatures in meditations and journeys as they teach the healing powers of flowers and how to draw in the nectar of life.
Tag: Love
A Modern Hearth Blessing
- Candle
- Your favorite incense
- Offering
- Small bowl
This blessing is just a starting point and can be used as is or modified to suit the kind of hearth you will be working with.
Place your items on your hearth and light the candle. Light the incense, waft the smoke over the area, and visualize any unwanted energy dispersing. Take a moment to open your awareness and see your entire house from a bird’s-eye view. In your mind, track its borders and see all the oroms in the home. Every home has a kind of spirit of its own, a spirit of that place. Try to connect with this spirit of place, sending out your intentions to protect the borders of this place and those who live within. You could also choose wo see wealth and love flowin ginto the space.
I light my hearth's flame. I stand at the sacred center of my home and heart. May this flame be a flame of protection, A flame of love and warmth, A flame of (whatever you wish to draw into your space). I leave this offering to (hearth deity, home spirits, etc.), who watch over this space. Bring your blessing and gentle protection.
Leave your offering in the bowl. Let the candle burn for a little while before extinguishing it. Make sure to visit your hearth regularly, renewing your intentions and making offerings.
Radiance Spell
Summer represents the full bloom of life, a flourishing, vigorous time. No matter what your age, this spell is intended to help you channel the full splendor of a beautiful summer – the magic of warm evenings, fireflies, lsuh trees, and cool water. If seasons are life, then summer is the height – be your summer self, you most strong and beautiful inside and out. Embrace the fullness of life wherever you are. You are radiant.
For this spell, you will need a large mirror, such as the one you may have in your bathroom or bedroom – one that lets you see as much of yourself as possible.
You will need three candles of any size or color, butmake sure that you can hold one of them comfortably in your hands without burning yourself. (Use a container if necessary.) You will hold one candle as you stand in front of the mirror and place the ohter two on each side of you on a counter, table, or dresser. Try to catch the light of the candles in the mirror with you, if possible.
Light the candles and, as you view your reflection, say these words:
Let the flames of candles three show the traits that flatter me; inner beauty brought to light - Im radiant and shining bright.
Stan or sit that way as long as yo ucan. Meditate on you – your inner and outer beauty. Feel it. See it. Shine with the radiance of self-love. Reflect on who you are and who you want to be. Are you your best self? If not, why? What changes would you like to make? Take time to reflect on more than what you see, but how you feel. Know that you have the power to be your best self.
When you’re finished with your self-reflection, extinguish the candles or keep them burning as long as you wish. Keep using them for this purpose over time until they burn out.
Summer Solstice Astrological Activities
Depending where you live and what your communitity lis like, there are many ways to honor the solstice. Beginning in the morning, travel or face east to seethe sun rise. Invoke the direction of the east and all its creatures and plants, and any other associations you have with the east. Recognize solar animals, like Eagle, Hawk, Swan, and Horse. You may also visualize creatures of the water, such as Seal, and any other animal life special and unique to you.
Sun salutiations are a physical way to open to the Sun, feel your strength, and increase your life force. Remember to breathe well as you move, first raising arms and open hands to the sky as you breathe in, and folding forward agently toward the earth with head and hands as you exhale. Salutations can bea s simle as this, repeating the upward and downward flow, or other postures like planks, backbends, and downward dogs can be added fora yoga-style Sun A salute. Greet the season and yourself with gratitude and joy.
Use fire and smoke as a way of cleansing and releasing during this waning Moon. At sunrise or sunset, light a bunde of sage or mugwort and burn until there are glowing embers. Gently blow on the flame to diminish it, then sage around your body, shaking the bundle safely around your or someone else. (Be very careful around hair and clothing. You needn’t get too close to skin or hair to receive the clearing.) Working with mugwort is said to stimulate dreams.
Meditate on your tarot cards during solstice. Ace and Page of Wands align with both the fire energy of peak Suna nd with this year’s Moon in Aries, the first fire sign. The Chariot, long associated with the Sun’s journey into Cancer, and the Sun card, representing youth, are also cards of Litha. On your altar or windowsill, set up your solstice spell to invite the energy and vitality of this season. Crystals such as citrine, yellow calcite, or perhaps some rose quartz for the heart enhance your spell. Understand your own intentions at Midsummer and clarify any release you are approaching as you cross the threshold.
Spell to Break a Bond
This spell is to be done when you wish to remove yourself from another person’s sphere of influence or cut energetic ties with them for any reason. This is best performed during the dark moon.
You will need:
- Piece of hair belonging to the person in question
- Piece of your own hair
- Scissors
- Bowl
- Fireproof dish
- Charcoal disk
- Lighter
- Dried bay leaves
Hold the two hairs together. Visualize the bond between yourself and the other perosn, which may be toxic and unhealthy. Allow yourself to feel the emotions this i nvokes, as you gaze at the entwined hair. You might feel sadness, anger, regret, or other unpleasant things while doing this. Now imagine your feelings are forming a mass of energy in front of your heart/chest area. This may look like a scribbled chaotic mess, a sad murky blob, or something else, depending on your relationship with the person and the nature of its discord. Visualize this mass of energy moving into the hairs.
Place the bowl in front of you. Using the scissors, cut the hairs into as many tiny pieces as you can, being sure to catch all the fragments in the bowl. If the hairs are too short for this, you can snip the scissors in the air around the hairs to symbolically cut what binds you.
Light the charcoal disk and put it in a fireproof dish. Carefully transfer hte hair pieces from the bowl onto the disk. As they hiss and burn, imagine the unhealthy ties that bind you together transforming into smoke and floating away.
Place a bay leaf on the charcoal disk. As it burns, allow the smoke to cleanse the area. Waft the smoke with your hand onto your face and body, feeling the purifying energy. You can burn as many bay leaves as you wish until you feel the spell is done.
You have now begun to free yourself from the unhealthy attachment. After a spell of this kind, there may be changes in your life, such as a breakup, a shift of circumstances, or some other upheaval. Keep in mind that in a truly toxic situation, thsi tupe of change is for the best.
Friday
Friday – apple, myrtle; the Goddess; birch. Planet: Venus. Colors: pink, aqua, green. Herb: thyme. Influences: love, friendship, social activities, strangers, pleasure, art, music, incense and perfumes. [Green Witchcraft]
Pansy
One other plant that offers exceptional magical qualities when potted and placed near the threshold is the pansy. Known for drawing love and friendship, pansies also do well during cool weather and thrive in spring and autumn when other plants might not do well. I’ve even had bloom ouside my front door in Ohio on New Year’s day. [1]
Resources
[1] Llewellyn’s 2022 Magical Almanac by Chi Cicero
Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum)
Love, protection. [1]
Resources
[1] The Hearth Witch’s Compendium by Anna Franklin
Strawberry (Fragaria vesca)
Blessing, love, Midsummer, fertility. Ruled by the planet Venus and the elements of earth or water. Sacred to fairies, Freya, love goddesses, and mother goddesses. [1]
In parts of Bavaria, it was traditional come springtime to tie little bags or baskets of wild strawberries to the cows’ horns to appease the fairies and elves, and to protect the cows. [2]
Some of the fairies’ preferred gathering places at Beltane are “fairy rings’ – circles of wild mushrooms; as well as circles of lawn daisies, patches of wild violets, patches of wild thyme, and, most of all, swathes of wild strawberries. [2]
Strawberry Mythology
Some Native American Indian tribes have long associated wild strawberries with spring and rebirth, as they are the first wild fruits to ripen. They used them mixed with cornmeal to make strawberry bread, which whtie settlers transformed to strawberry shortcake, a traditional Memorial Day weekend dessert.
During meieval times, the strawberry signified perfection and righteousness and strawberry fruits also symbolized esteem, love, purity, passion, health, and perfection, and were a popular embroidery motif. In heraldry, depictions of strawberry leaves were sometimes used to denote rank.
Strawberries are one of Venus’s symbols, due to their red heart shape. Frigga, the Norse marriage goddess, was believe to smuggle dad children to heaven by hiding them in strawberry patches. Both Freya, the Norse goddess of love, and the Christian Virgin Mary have been associated with strawberries.
Dutch early surrealist artist Hieronymus Bosch painted one of his most famous works, the triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights, in the fifteenth century. It is now housed at the Museo del Prado in Madrid, Spain, and, if you are unfamiliar with Bosch’s work, it is wonderfully strange. The center panel, which represents a lustful earthly paradise, features many oversized strawberries. At the bottom right are two human-sized straberries, one bursting open to emit round blue balls, and the other being used as an exercise ball by a naked woman. One of the men is offering the woman a strawberry as big as a melon. Another giant strawberry, with fairy wings, rides on the back of a naked man, a spiny tail emergy from a slit on its side. [2]
Resources
[1] The Hearth Witch’s Compendium by Anna Franklin
[2] Llewellyn’s 2022 Sabbats Almanac: Samhain 2021 to Mabon 2022
Rose (Rosa spp.)
Rebirth, resurrection, funerals, memorials, initiations, luck, love, passion, sexuality, sensuality, seduction, marriage, Great Rite, handfasting, Beltane. The white rose represents purity, perfection, innocence, virginity, and the Maiden Goddess, while the red rose is earthly passion, fertility, and the Mother Goddess. Red roses are ruled by Jupiter, damask roses by the planet Venus, and white roses by the moon. All fall under the element of water. Sacred to Adonis, Aphrodite, Artemis, Aurora, Bacchus, Blodeuwedd, Christ, Cupid, Demeter, Dionysus, Eros, Flora, Freya, Hathor, Horus, Hulda, Hymen, Inanna, Ishtar, Isis, Kubaba, the Mothers, Nike, Ninsianna, Saule, Venus, Virgin Mary, and Vishnu. [1]
When thinking about planting a protective barrier or plants and flowers near your threshold, let’s not forget to mention roses. The flower of peace, love, and friendship, the rose is also highly protective when planted near the entrance of a home. It helps prevent negativity from entering any dwelling. Just scattering a few rose petals near the threshold will ease domestic tensions. This will also neutralize any dark energy left behind by an unpleasant visitor who has just left. Today there are many easy-care roses available, so you needn’t worry about fussing over them with toxic sprays. However, today’s easy-to-grow roses shouldn’t need sraying. Simply plant them and enjoy their protective qualities. [2]
Resources
[1] The Hearth Witch’s Compendium by Anna Franklin
[2] Llewellyn’s 2022 Magical Almanac by Chi Cicero
Adana Luna 