Moonflower is the friend of shamans, healers, and Saturnian witches. She breaks spells sent to harm you and protects you from evil spirits. She’ll even let you borrow her wings to fly and take you to extraordinary places. But she’ll also show you things you wish you hadn’t seen and she’ll make you afraid of her. Sometimes it’s better to to view her from afar and not touch the Moonflower. Sometimes it’s better just to wait for her to bloom on a cool summer night under a full moon and deeply inhale her beautiful scent… and then quietly go back to bed.

Last night I watered my garden in darkness by the light of the moon and the stars.  I whispered to their spirits and burned tobacco leaf as offering to each one – my Saturnian solanaceae, the subtlely narcotic catnip, my ever growing mullein and great avens, my small grove of rowan, cedar, elder, and oak…

Henbane in flower and fruit with Bittersweet Nightshade behind

Orange and White Tree Daturas

Rowan in darkness

This wand carved from the traditional hedge wood of blackthorn has been hand carved with a toad, two types of fern, bittersweet nightshade, a branch of blackthorn, and a serpent spiraling around the tip. The two sigils underneath the toad are the ogham character straif for blackthorn and a symbol of the world tree to reflect the wand’s use for walking between worlds. The carvings have been painted with eco-friendly wood stains. The wand is finished with raw linseed oil and the witch’s homemade woodbalm made with beeswax, linseed & almond oil, cedar oil, and blessing oil. It is the traditional length of 17 inches from the crook of the elbow to the tip of the index finger.

(Click to enlarge images)

This Hedgewitch wand can be used for hedgecrossing, protection, and sending forth spells or curses. Blackthorn was the traditional wood of UK cunning folk for their canes and wands. A person with a blackthorn staff was often feared by the locals, but despite the misconceptions blackthorn has many more uses than just baneful ones. (Sorry Sold)

As I type this one of my creepier eight-legged familiars keeps edging closer and closer towards me… as long as they don’t jump on me all should be well and this post finished. This past weekend I went camping deep in the forest with chatty ravens, feather-dropping barn owls, a pair of mouse-hunting eagles, and a very large and loud pack of coyotes. Oh, and there were plenty of witches there as well passing bottles of homemade mead around the campfire of fragrant cedar logs.

The massive fir tree near the fire was oozing golden sticky resin which I collected and put on log in the fire so it melted and smoked to release its scent. Talk about fresh incense! I had lots of time to carve sitting under a canopy of trees in the sunlight.  I finished a wand as much as I could with just my knife and some sandpaper and then started on another. I have a bunch of things to make for friends before I can get back to carving for the botanica.

I also got to talking with one of the lovely witches about my feather collection and she graciously gifted me with goodly amount of blue heron feathers for my crafting. They are large and lovely and soft and will make a beautiful smudge fan. My sweetie also found a robin’s egg shell in the woods which may end up inside another familiar vessel. I found a massive felled hazel branch already split into two staff-sized lengths which I of course took home. What a beautiful relaxing weekend of carving mixed with rituals of drumming, chanting, a tambourine and a flute — just lovely.

Here she is now, my eight-legged friend half a foot away from my computer when she started off on the other side of the room… she’s now throwing herself off the shelf and then dangling in the air from a thread like a bungie jumper over and over – it looks kinda fun.

→ Episode IV: The Witch of Lok Island

The earth was my bed, the wind through the leaves in the trees my lullaby, and the breeze caressing skin my blanket. Then I woke up to a lovely surprise. The Mullein and Henbane in my sky terrace garden had bloomed! I have never grown Henbane before nor seen it before now. The blooms are beautiful and covered in pollen. The leaves are soft and fuzzy despite their prickly appearance. I’m so happy as I was hoping to get seeds so I could grow it again next year. Henbane grows fast here and really seems to like the climate of my hot terrace beaten by the sun all day.  In a dream I received a recipe for a sabbat mead which includes Henbane as one of the three ingredients. Henbane used to be used commonly in beer recipes in Europe, but as it can be very poisonous in high amounts, I shall have to be very careful of the dosage. It is also found in a couple traditional spirit work incenses as well as flying ointment recipes. It’s one of those plants that brands you as a witch when seen in your garden.

My Mullein shot up a foot or more and suddenly bloomed these gorgeous egg-yolk flowers. I don’t understand how anyone can consider this a weed. It is just such a beautiful, soft, and impressive plant. I hope to collect the seeds from this one and plant a whole family of Mullein next year. I just took these pictures in the sunlight, but the wind is raging and bringing a storm in.

A Holly and Oak ogham wrist chaplet. The beads with the ogham characters are carved from Holly and are double sided. The green spacer beads are carved from Holly as well. Each ogham character is also carved and then painted green with eco-friendly woodstain. The Awen charm and the clasp are handcarved from Oak wood. All of the beads are strung on green cotton thread. The leaf pendant is a real impression of an Oak leaf in clay done by Blackhorse Studios, but she unfortunately closed her shop a couple years ago. These prayer beads can be worn as a bracelet or a necklace. Not for sale

The next thing I made was this Bone Goddess Ritual Necklace as an offering to the old Bone Goddess who is mistress of the beasts, the wild,  and of the dead. It is Moose and Deer antler beads strung on white silk with a Deer antler tine pendant. The clasp is a section of deer leg bone with a coyote toe bone. The two skulls are carved from deer antler as well by an amazing fellow in Alaska. This one’s in my personal collection – also not for sale.

I also made another Robin Familiar Vessel – this time with a full head and a naturally holed stone (Sold).

Urban legends, old wive’s tales, fakelore… we’re too intelligent and have too good of access to credible reference materials today to fall for them — don’t we? Unfortunately not. Old wive’s tales and fake proverbs abound today in the modern Pagan community thanks to the old culprit of word-of-mouth, forums, and no one bothering to check facts or origins. I will be doing a short series of articles on debunking individual myths starting today with the following well-known proverb:

The Non-Ferrous Metal Myth

We’ve all heard it: “You can’t use any tool with iron in it to harvest plants. The blade has to be stone, bone, gold, silver or bronze – anything but iron and steel.” We’ve all heard the know-it-alls spouting this proverb, but where did it come from and what is the reasoning behind it?

This modern myth originates from two separate, possibly second or third hand, accounts from Pliny the Elder (a Roman author and army commander) of Gallic Druids harvesting plants. The first account is about clubmoss, which, according to folklore, must be harvested with your hands only, with no tools, along with other ritual prescriptions shown in the quote below. As it is moss, this is no great feat to accomplish. The custom could still be found continued in a similar manner by rural folk in Cornwall and other localities until the late 19th century. However, this ritual prescription applies only to club moss and not all plants in general.

“On the third day of the [new] moon, when the thin crescent is seen for the first time, show it the knife with which the moss for the charm is to be cut, and repeat: ‘ As Christ healed the issue of blood, so I bid thee begone. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost’ (Do thou cut what thou cuttest for good!). At sun-down, having carefully washed the hands, the club-moss is to be cut kneeling. It is to be carefully wrapped in a white cloth, and subsequently boiled in water taken from the spring nearest its place of growth.”  (Courtney, p.151)

The second source of the non-ferrous metal myth is Pliny’s famous account of Gallic Druids ritually harvesting mistletoe.  Mistletoe was held to be one of the most sacred plants by the Druids and especially rare and potent when found growing on an Oak tree.  During the sixth day of the new moon, and at other magical times, the white-robed Druids would sacrifice two bulls and then climb the tree and cut the mistletoe with a “golden” sickle and then wrap the cuttings in a white cloth not letting them touch the ground.

“Having made all due preparation for the sacrifice and a banquet beneath the trees, they [the Druids] bring thither two white bulls, the horns of which are bound then for the first time. Clad in a white robe the priest ascends the tree, and cuts the mistletoe with a golden sickle, which is received by others in a white cloak.” (Pliny, p.436)

Now, this sickle used wasn’t actually made of gold as gold is a poor metal for weaponry and tools as it is too soft to hold a sharp edge. The sickle was “golden” in colour because it was made of bronze which is a combination of copper and tin. A bronze sickle wasn’t used because bronze was somehow more sacred than iron or that iron “tainted” plants or magic, but because the Celts and other tribes of Northern Europe and the British Iseles were late coming into metalworking compared to other cultures who had advance to the iron age ahead of them. At the time of Pliny’s account the Gallic Druids used bronze because it was their common metal for tools and weapons at the time. The only magic iron protects against and nullifies is that of the fairies who were believed to be the spirits of the dead, but they aren’t plants.

Excavated bronze sword

Iron (and steel) implements such as garden shears, scythes, and knives are not taboo for harvesting plants. They do not take away the power of a plant, its magic, or lessen its healing properties. Gold is too soft to hold a sharp edge. Silver is too expensive, damages too easily, and is also too soft to hold a sharp edge. Bronze is a very difficult metal to find today and too expensive to use for a task so dirty and practical. Unless one happens to be a gifted flintknapper, a modern Witch or Pagan will use what is most practical and available just as our ancestors would have. For this Witch, it’s a good pair of garden shears for harvesting plants for medicine and a practical very sharp steel ritual blade with a deer antler handle for harvesting plants for magic. Blades are practical and made for cutting and the metal they are made with should reflect that. There is no need whatsoever to spend $300 on a silver bolline just to be in keeping with this old wive’s tale.

The only general method of magical plant harvesting where one should not use metal is when harvesting a plant whole for magic to retain its powers as a living spirit. To do this, one must dig it up whole without breaking any leaves or roots and either use it right away or dry it whole. This is the method for creating an alraun (a root carved in human form) and other such charms. One can still use a metal knife or shovel to do the digging, however, just not touch the plant with it in order to keep it alive and intact. The most practical tool to use for this purpose is just a simple digging stick which predates the stone age. Hardwoods are best to make a digging stick out of as your stick may have to deal with hard earth, clay, and rocks. Oak, Yew, Hawthorn, Blackthorn, and Holly are all appropriate to make a digging stick with.

Happy harvesting now that you don’t need to worry about using your old garden shears.

References:

1. Bostock, John and Riley, H.T. The Natural History of Pliny. Volume 3. Henry G. Bohn, London: 1856.
2. Courtney, M.A. Cornish Feasts and Folk-lore. Beare & Son, Penzance: 1890.
3. MacLoed NicMhacha, Sharynne. Queen of the Night: Rediscovering the Celtic Moon Goddess. Weiser Books, Boston: 2005.

Last weekend was a long weekend for Canada Day and me, my Mojo, and our two witchy friends Wendy and Steven (who you may know from the Wigglian Way) all got on the ferry and headed over to Vancouver Island. We went camping at Englishman River Falls outside of Nanaimo. The forests were gigantic with their tall trees touching the sky. The branches were full of Ravens cawing out their rolling calls. They are much shyer than their Crow cousins, however, so I wasn’t able to photograph any despite being constantly surrounded by Ravens. The falls were impress and so much bigger than I could photograph. Everything was so green and lush – the forest of trees above and the forest of ferns below. The Arbutus trees were beautiful and gigantic. At the end of our trip we had a few hours to kill before catching the ferry home so we headed to Coombs (a favourite haunt of mine since I was a kid) to see the country market and the goats who live on its roof. Coombs has become very touristy since my childhood, but there was still a lot of beauty there – especially in the market. Mojo would disappear and then reappear with chocolates or fudge. After Coombs we made one more stop at Lobelia’s Lair (a well known metaphysical shop in Nanaimo) and for some lunch and then caught the ferry home.

One down, twenty-four more to go! I estimate the entire deck could take 40-50 days total to complete. Each illustration takes almost two days to complete. To quote the lovely Judith (who I am designing this deck for), here is the meaning of the Rowan card:

“In a reading, the message of this card is positive and not negative. It does not tell us that there are things threatening us from outside because we all know already that the world can be a dangerous place. Instead it reminds us that we are already protected and to employ our protections without fear. The card reversed tells us much the same thing, that we should use common sense to overcome what threatens us.” (Click here for the full meaning)