Monthly Archives: June 2020
Magickal Uses
- Ruler: Mercury
- Type: Tree
- Folk Name: Blood of a Goose (tree sap)
- Magickal Form: Wood, Berries
- Magickal Properties: Insight, Courage, Focus
Add the berries to success spells for insight and inspiration. A mulberry leaf should be placed near the crib to protect the baby.
Sleep with Mulberry leaves under your pillows to have psychic dreams. Make a tea from the leaves and use the brew to draw protection sigils. Carry the leaves as a talisman for strength and courage. Meditate under the tree to sync your subtle bodies.
Use wood from this tree to craft a wand that will boost your willpower. A Mulberry wand will also bring more focus and clarity to ritual. It helps to center the practitioner, increase magickal awareness, and bring sudden insight, revelation, or Cosmic knowledge.
Mulberry Symbolism
Here are a few key words when it comes to the personality and symbolic meaning of this lovely tree:
- Caring
- Exploring
- Providing
- Nurturing
- Attraction
- Survivalist
- Adventurous
The mulberry is typically a fast growing bush-tree, and it will quickly take over a domain when happy. By association, mulberry tree people will expand, explore, seek, find and spread their wings to great lengths when living in the right environment.
Mulberries are such giving plants. They provide food for humans and animals alike. People connected to the mulberry tree meaning, will have the same tendency to give, provide, protect and nurture others around them.
In this same light, mulberries are natural magnets for all kinds of life. The lovely shade they provide and their delicious berries attract lots of interesting beings…from humans to birds to deer and more.
When connected to the mulberry tree, we can also attract lots of interesting people, nature, experiences, opportunities. Mulberry people will be quite fortunate, and can be like a vortex…calling to themselves who and what they needs.
This is largely due to the mulberry’s ability to remind us all about the understanding of give and take. The mulberry shows us that as we give, energy will be given to us as well. It is the Law of Reciprocation, and he will have an innate understanding about this.
Mulberry Dreaming
There are many conflicting ideas about what mulberries mean in dreams. This is what I found:
- Eating mulberries in a dream mean increase in one’s earnings, praiseworthy religious assiduity, good faith, certitude and leading a healthy life.
- The mulberry tree in a dream represents a wealthy person with many children.
- Mulberry in a dream also could mean borrowing money.
- A mulberry tree in a dream also represents a wealthy and a generous man with a large family.
- Eating black mulberry in a dream also means prosperity.
- Dreaming of eating mulberry means windfall profits.
- Dreaming of mulberry, that disease will prevent you from fulfilling your wish, and friends often visit you, hoping that your help can alleviate their pain and suffering.
- The woman dreamed of eating mulberry, indicating that she could give birth to a child with great achievements in the future.
- Dreaming of eating mulberry foreshadows something that is painful and disappointing.
- A pregnant woman dreaming of eating mulberry, implies that she would have a noble child.
- If you are a married woman, you are about to conceive , or you will give birth to bright, intelligent children in the future, which will make your family prosper.
And then there was this confusing explanation:
This dream has good luck and bad luck. Those who dream of mulberry trees must be young and have no blunders; those who dream of mulberry trees who are thin have less interest and are better. Dreamed that if the mulberry tree withered, the Lord’s good luck. Planting mulberry trees is difficult to protect. Mulberry trees in the rain are difficult to eat. Body tied to mulberry, internal heart injury.
History and Lore
According to a German folklore, the roots of mulberry tree are often used by the devil to polish his boots (and therefore, these trees are associated with evil).
In China, the mulberry is considered the World Tree that connects the Heavens, the Earth and the regions below.
There was a sacred grove of mulberry trees planted outside the eastern gate of the early royal cities, and the tree was associated with this direction because as the “house” of the Mother of the Suns, the Sun rose every day by climbing up the Mulberry tree.
The wood of the tree was used to make bows that “shot” away evil influences that emanated from the compass points.
There is evidence that the Mulberry was revered in Islam too, since the tree can be found close to Muslim sanctuaries.
Mulberry paper is used as vessels for offerings in Shinto shrines. Japanese families often used mulberries as a part of their family crests, and strips of the fiber were hung from sacred trees as prayers. The mulberry leaves were also used to feed silk worms, who produced the fiber to make kimonos fit for the ruling class. In all of these capacities, the mulberry represents support, nurturing and self-sacrifice.
The Romans ate Mulberries at their feasts, as we know from the Satires of Horace, who recommends that Mulberries be gathered before sunset.
We also find mention of the Mulberry in Ovid, who in the Metamorphoses refers to the legend of Pyramus and Thisbe, who were slain beneath its shade, the fruit being fabled to have thereby changed from white to deep red through absorbing their blood.
Pliny speaks of its employment in medicine and also describes its use in Egypt and Cyprus. He further relates:
“Of all the cultivated trees, the Mulberry is the last that buds, which it never does until the cold weather is past, and it is therefore called the wisest of trees. But when it begins to put forth buds, it dispatches the business in one night, and that with so much force, that their breaking forth may be evidently heard.”
It has been suggested that the generic name of the Mulberry, Morus, has been derived from the Latin word mora (delay), from this tardy expansion of the buds.
As the wisest of its fellows, the tree was dedicated by the Ancients to Minerva.
Sir Walter Scott relates in his famous story Ivanhoe that the Saxons made a favorite drink, Morat, from the juice of Mulberries and honey.
There are many famous Mulberry trees in England. Those of Syon House, Brentford, are of special historical interest and include what is reported to be the oldest tree of its kind in England, said to be introduced from Persia in 1548.
It is this particular and venerable tree which forms the subject of an illustration in London’s Aboretum and Fruticetum. Although a wreck compared to its former self, it is regarded as one of the largest Mulberry trees in the country. Its height is given by Loudon as 22 feet, and additional interest is attached to this tree, as it is said to have been planted by the botanist Turner.
In 1608 James I, being anxious to further the silk industry by introducing the culture of the silkworm into Britain, issued an edict encouraging the cultivation of Mulberry trees, but the attempt to rear silkworms in England proved unsuccessful, apparently because the Black Mulberry was cultivated in error, whereas the White Mulberry is the species on which the silkworm flourishes.
Shakespeare’s Famous Mulberry
Shakespeare is said to have taken a Mulberry tree from the Mulberry garden of James I, and planted it in his garden at New Place, Stratford-on-Avon, in 1609. This also was a Black Mulberry, “cultivated for its fruit, which is very wholesome and palatable; and not for its leaves, which are but little esteemed for silkworms.”
“The Tree,” Malone writes, “was celebrated in many a poem, one especially by Dibdin. But in about 1752, the then owner of New Place, the Rev, Mr. Gastrell, bought and pulled down the house and cut down Shakes’eare’s celebrated Mulberry tree, to save himself the trouble of showing it to those whose admiration of the poet led them to visit the ground on which it stood.”
The pieces were made into many snuff boxes and other mementoes of the tree, some of them being inscribed with the punning motto, “Memento Mori.”
Ten years afterwards, when the freedom of the city was presented to Garrick, the document was enclosed in a casket made from the wood of this tree. A cup was also made from it, and at the Shakespeare Jubilee, Garrick, holding the cup, recited verses, composed by himself in honor of the Mulberry tree planted by Shakespeare:
“Behold this fair goblet: ’twas carved from the tree
Which, oh, my sweet Shakespeare, was planted by thee!
As a relic I kiss it, and bow at thy shrine,
What comes from thy hand must be ever divine.”
“All shall yield to the Mulberry tree;
Bend to the blest Mulberry:
Matchless was he who planted thee,
And thou, like him, immortal shall be.”
A slip of it was grown by Garrick in his garden at Hampton Court, and a scion of the original tree is now growing in Shakespeare’s garden.
Magickal Uses
- Part used: Fresh flowers
- Planet: Venus
- Element: Earth
- Magickal Influences: Love and Purification
This is the flirt flower. It attracts love quickly although the love it brings often doesn’t last for long. Wear the fragrance or bathe in fresh lilacs when you want a fling. This flower is for fun. It is a great scent to spray in a room before parties or before meeting a date who is taking the relationship too seriously. Lilac keeps things light.
Inhale the aroma rising from the light purple flowers for internal purification. To cleanse a home, place jars of the fresh flowers in several rooms. Bathe in Lilac dew on May Day for a year of beauty.
The scent of fresh lilac flowers was once thought to drive away ghosts.
The scent of lilacs enhances a child’s educational aptitude. Here are a number of ways to use it:
- Place a drop of lilac fragrance oil on a light bulb near where a child studies.
- Place a vase of fresh lilac blossoms on the child’s desk so that the fragrance wafts over the child while studying.
- Place a table and chair outside next to a lilac bush in bloom and send the child outside to study.
Like many flowers, lilacs can be utilized in love expansion rituals. The sweet fragrance of these seasonal blooms brims with loving energies.
In aromatherapy the fragrance of Lilacs is recommended to patients who suffer from chronic depression and anxiety. Lilac blossoms can be added to your bath for a soothing aromatherapy remedy for stress and anxiety.
No true lilac essential oil is currently available, however lilac scents are available. They are said to bring peace and harmony. Also believed to induce “Far Memory” or the ability to remember past lives. It is also useful for inducing clairvoyant powers in general.
Lilac oil reputedly repels vampires and is certainly more fragrant than garlic. Most of the Lilac oil that is commercially available is synthetic; presumably vampires can tell the difference. If you make your own, the lingering aroma should keep the vampire out of the house as well.
A recipe for how to make your own lilac oil can be found here: Oil of Lilac
Jennifer Shepherd at the Lipstick Mystic recommends using the seasonal qualities of lilacs as a way of jump-starting your life. She says,
“Since lilac tends to be one of the earlier flowering plants each spring-time, it carries with it some of the same spiritual energies of other “early bloomers” like daffodils and forsythia. Lilac has the same quality of being able to push or penetrate through harsh, heavy “winter” energies.
So if you’re seeking some kind of significant breakthrough in your life, and you want a little extra kick or punch to help get you through, connecting with the energies of lilac can be very helpful. Smelling the fresh flowers on the bush or bringing a few blooms inside to enjoy is the best way to connect with this special plant.”
Lilac blossoms are natural astringents–they dry things out. Place a cup or two of slightly wilted flowers in a jar, and fill with witch hazel. Allow it to steep for a few days, and then strain out the flowers. Use the lilac and witch hazel blend as a facial toner, to keep your skin looking healthy and fresh all summer. Dab a bit on your wrists when you’re getting ready to go out, to attract new love your way.
The Lore of Lilacs
The trees were respected by Orthodox Christians and the plant’s Greek name “pashalia” is derived from “pasha” which in Jewish means “passage” as they were considered to drive ghosts away instantly. The lilac tree is also linked with reincarnation.
One of the plant’s secrets is that the flowers do not fade under hot water. Lilacs are said to remove ghosts, aid the exploration of past lives, and bless the passages of life, both birth and death. Purple lilacs are the symbol for the first emotions of love. If the blossoms are strewn about it is said they can ward off evil.
Lilacs have a history of promoting clairvoyance, divination, peace, harmony and creativity. Lilac tonics were probably first introduced in Henry 8th time. They are called a harbinger of spring. White lilacs are a symbol of innocence.
In some parts of England, it is considered unlucky to bring Lilac, especially white Lilac, into the house. The purple and red varieties are usually less feared, but even they are sometimes excluded from house decorations as bringers of misfortune.
In the 1960’s, a florist in Oxford England strongly advised a customer not to buy white Lilac for a friend in the hospital on the grounds that many people thought it foretold death if brought indoors. He did not know why this should be so, only that it was quite commonly believed. In fact it is almost certainly due to the widespread association of death and misfortune with “drowsy-scented” flowers, and also with those which are white.
An interesting detail about the Lilac tradition is that it is found only in some English districts, especially in the midland counties, and quite unknown elsewhere.
It is lucky to find a five-petaled lilac blossom of any color. Along the Welsh border, Lilac trees are said to mourn if any of their kind are cut down, and to be flowerless in the following year.
From the Cincinnati Enquirer 1 August 1900, we have this fun little tidbit:
“She who wears the lilac will never wear the wedding ring,” runs the old proverb, and although the scent of the flower is sweet and its tints are fresh and universally becoming it is contraband among the village maidens in England.
A single boutonniere of lilac has been held responsible for solitary spinsterhood. For the same reason mothers with marriageable daughters never allow a jug of the sweet smelling blossoms inside the house. It may stand on the outside window sill, but “there’s no love luck about the house” when there are lilacs in it.
To give one’s sweetheart a spring of the flower is the death blow to the most secure of engagements. White lilacs are even more fatal to love affairs than the colored ones; they are, in fact, as ominous as an opal ring. Love, however, laughs at artificial flowers, and only the real tree grown one can come between the lover and his lass.
Stony-hearted bachelors sometimes sport a lilac boutonniere as a charm against feminine blandishments. Londoners do not share the superstition, and use the flower freely for decoration, regardless of the unlucky attributes.
Queen Adelaide, consort of King William IV, was apparently unafraid of lilacs, although, to be fair, she was already married when she commissioned her famous Honiton lace dress whose flower patterns, included lilacs, spelled out her name.
The meaning of the lilac flower has diversified throughout the ages. Lilacs originated in Southeastern Europe and are a popular part of the Mediterranean culture. They are frequently associated with the Easter holiday, which occurs during the peak of its bloom time.
Lilac meanings vary throughout different cultures and time periods.
- The Celtics regarded the lilac as “magical” due to their incredibly intoxicating fragrance.
- During the Victorian Age, the giving of a lilac was meant to be a reminder of an old love. In fact, widows were often seen wearing lilacs during this period.
- In Russia, holding a sprig of lilac over the newborn would bring wisdom.
- In the United States, the lilac is the official state flower of New Hampshire and represents the ‘hardy’ nature of its people.
Because lilacs have one of the earliest bloom times, they symbolize spring and renewal. Lilacs also symbolize confidence, which makes them a traditionally popular gift for graduates. There are many meanings that lilacs have that can best be classified by color.
- White lilacs symbolize purity and innocence.
- Violet lilacs symbolize spirituality.
- Blue lilacs symbolize happiness and tranquility.
- Magenta lilacs symbolize love and passion.
Lilac, the color for which this flower is named, is a light purple that symbolizes a first love.
Although various colors of lilacs have different meanings, the lilac has always had a strong association with love and romance throughout history.
Dreaming About Lilacs
Lilac in a dream is a sign of future changes in personal life, the anticipation of big feelings and an exciting love affair.
- White lilac personifies purity, sincerity, sensuality, the birth of affection.
- Violet lilac is a longing for love experiences, yearning of the heart; awakening of romance.
To dream of a blooming lilac is a sign of positive emotions, receiving pleasant news or surprise.
Standing under lilac bush in a dream promises a person a frivolous sexual adventure, which will very quickly exhaust itself, and feelings will evaporate before they turn into something serious.
Miller’s dreambook positioned dreams about lilac mainly as a good sign, foreshadowing love experiences, romance, a surge of sensuality. Flowering lilac shrub reflects the kind and open attitude of people around them to the dreamer, trust and sympathy. Tearing lilac shows a greater likelihood to achieve the desired.
A bouquet of lilac is a sign showing opportunity to find something new about your beloved person, to have sincere conversation. The image promises a romantic acquaintance for single people, but this union will not be long-lasting.
For people who have been married for a long time, a bunch of lilac flowers speaks about the revival of long-forgotten romantic feelings between spouses – sexual desire will be restored and a seemingly past, withering passion will appear.
Some dreambooks interpret ambiguously dreams of a lilac branch. To see a torn off branch in a dream is a symbol of illusion, deceptive hopes that will never be realized. One should beware of strangers who sincerely offer friendship at first glance. To see the blossoming branch of a lilac bush from a window in a dream promises pleasant pastime and an unexpected gift.
To see lilac in a dream and feel its scent means an extraordinary, almost mystical attraction to a person of the opposite sex. Dream interpretation advises not to succumb to this feeling (which will be very difficult to do), because the fruits of such intrigues will remind of themselves more than once, and can easily ruin the life of even the most self-confident person.
If the dreamer happened to pick the fragrant lilac in a dream, it means he will attract close attention of a person whom he likes for a long time.
To dream of a lilac flowers represents feelings about how beautiful it is to notice never fearing a sense of accomplishment in something that isn’t dependent on anything else. A sense of accomplishment in something that nobody else wants to do that always cares about your feelings. Feeling good noticing yourself successful from being self taught. Feeling good about your children having grown up to be independent never needing you for anything.
Sources:
- Encyclopedia of Herbology
- Mrs Daffodil Digresses
- Magical Aromatherapy
- The Encyclopedia of Superstitions
- Encyclopedia of Magickal Ingredients
- Magical Herbalism
- Element Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells
- FTD by Design
- Check My Dream
Magickal Uses
- Planet: Sun, Venus
- Ruler: Pan, Astarte
- Element: Water, Fire
- Astrological Sign: Taurus
- Parts Used: Dried Root
- Basic Powers: Love, Purification
Lovage is one of the most dependable herbs for drawing romance into one’s life. Not only will it bring you love, but regular bathing with this herb will enhance your beauty, physically, and will also allow the inner radiance to shine forth more brightly.
For this reason, Lovage is often used as a bathing herb, cast into the bath, the pleasant scent filling the room and delicately scenting the bather. In this manner, particularly when combined with a candle and poems of a romantic nature, is one able to attract romance.
Add seven rose buds to a Lovage bath, and you will become more attractive to the opposite sex.
With a subtle floral scent, the root is an effective addition to Herbal Amulets to attract love, and it can be steeped in wine to be served to a prospective lover.
You can also add the root, or a strong tea made by boiling the root, to a bath to become psychically cleansed.
In Central Europe, women wore Lovage around their necks when meeting lovers, and the herb was often put in love potions as a guarantee of everlasting devotion.
To encourage someone to love you more, the following can be done:
For nine successive days, rise early, boil Lovage root in water to make a tea, hand-bathe your genitals and face in this before dawn, carry the wash basin to a crossroads, call the name of the one you love, and throw your used bath water toward the sunrise.
One of the most nonjudgmental of herbs, Lovage draws the person most suited to your soul. A great root for bisexuals or anyone confused about which gender he or she is (or should be) attracted to. It is best used when invoking a new relationship and promises to quickly attract your heart’s desire.
Plant Lovage in front of and around your home to help ward off all sorts of unwanted intruders, ranging from door-to-door salespeople, to evil spirits, to epidemics, to vermin.
The leaves can be placed in the shoes to relieve weary feet.
Lovage dug up at night on Good Friday reputedly helps ward off either witches or the influence of the Devil.
Folk Names
- Bo’ Hog Root
- Gout Weed
- Italian Parsley
- Lavose
- Love Root
- Lubestico
- Sea Parsley
- Smellage
History and Folklore
The history of Lovage goes back to the ancient Greeks who chewed the leaves for digestion and gas. Both the Greeks and the Romans used the herb as a medicine, and in the Middle Ages it was used as a cure-all for most illnesses.
- The seeds were nearly as expensive as black pepper at one time.
- Hildegard of Bingen used Lovage in her cooking.
- John Gerard believed Lovage was one of the best remedies of his time (mid 1500s).
Lovage has an ancient history. It was introduced into Britain by the Romans and brought here by early English colonists and was often found in their gardens. Lovage was one of the seeds found in the early American Shakers’ seed sales.
As both a medicinal and culinary herb, Lovage now grows in the authentic garden at Plimoth Plantation, the re‐creation of a Pilgrim village in Plymouth, Mass.
New Englanders would candy the root and chew on the seed during long church services to keep them alert.
Colonial women “cured” many ailments with Lovage: sore eyes, upset stomach. They used fresh leaves for summer “sallets” and flavored winter soups, with the dried root. The dried leaves seasoned the stuffing for roast goose or turkey.
Sources:
- Encyclopedia of Herbology
- The Master Book of Herbalism
- The Herb Book by John Lust
- The Complete Book of Herbs and Spices
- Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic
- Magical Herbalism
- The Herbal Academy
- The Herbal Alchemists Handbook
- Element Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells
Magickal Uses
- Ruler: Mercury
- Element: Air
- Parts Used: Seed, Stalks, Oil
- Magickal Influences: Psychic awareness, Sleep
It should be mentioned that this is the garden celery under the rulership of Mercury, rather than Wild Celery, which is under the dominion of Venus.
This herbal seed, found in most kitchens, is used as a Visionary Herb. There are forms of divination which recommend drinking a tea of the seed as it opens the mind and allows for better concentration.
Use celery seed to increase male virility. Men can either eat it or add it to poppets in sympathetic magick spells.
To awaken your psychic awareness, crush about a teaspoon of the dried seeds and tie up in a piece of thin, cotton cloth. Inhale the odor and visualize your conscious mind relaxing (perhaps as a fist relaxes), allowing true communication with your psychic mind to occur.
- Rub the oil into fingers or the third eye to increase communication skills.
- Eat raw celery to remove blocks and fears and to promote weight loss.
- Cook the stalks in soup for love.
Folklore recommends putting celery into an herb pillow to induce sleep. Chewing celery seeds reportedly enhances concentration. Or burn them with orris root (iris roots) to enhance psychic powers. Witches flying on their brooms chewed celery seed to prevent dizziness.
Celery is sometimes used as a cure for impotence. Several sticks of celery need to be boiled in a saucepan of water until the celery turns into a pulp. The person with the problem needs to eat this while it is still hot, and can then look forward to a night of successful lovemaking.
Folk and Other Names
- Aches des Marais
- Ajmoda
- Ajwan
- Apii Frutus
- Apio
- Céleri
- Celeriac
- Fruit de Celeri
- Graine de Céleri
- Karmauli
- Maiden’s Smallage
- Persil des Marais
- Qin Cai
- Smallage
- Selleriefruchte
- Selleriesamen
Folklore and History
Celery had its beginning several thousand years ago in shallow swampy areas of mainland China. The plant was prized for its seed, used medicinally and as a flavoring, and mentioned in the writings of Confucius. This would place it at about 500 B.C. on the world timeline.
A similar plant grew in the Mediterranean. It had a strong aroma (its Latin name means “strongly smelling”) and dark green leaves. The Greeks fashioned wreaths from it to adorn the victors in athletic and musical competitions. The Romans considered deemed it an aphrodisiac. And garlands of the leaves were found in Tutankhamun’s tomb.
The modern name “celery” comes from Greek selinon. It was ascribed to Silenus (or Seilenus), the son of a nymph and lustful Pan (or, according to other depictions, Hermes, the messenger of the gods who transgresses all borders).
Silenus, constantly drunk and lecherous, is depicted as pot-bellied with a beefy bald head and often with the ears, tail, and legs of a horse. He was the leader of the lustful horde of satyrs as well as the teacher and companion of Dionysus, the god of inebriation. Half human, half horse, Dionysus symbolizes, among other things, the powerful animal drive. The association of this satyr with celery, emphasizes the plant’s use as an effective agent of sexual potency.
Celery is presented as signifying both death and sensual pleasures in Homer’s epic The Odyssey: celery grows among violets in the meadows on Calypso’s magical island. (The Hellenes classified violets as “erotic plants,” which they dedicated to Priapus, the little deity with the big phallus; Aphrodite, the goddess of love; and Persephone, the goddess of the underworld and the dead.)
In the Odyssey, the enchantress Calypso took in shipwrecked Odysseus and held him enraptured for seven years; she also turned his men into “swine.” Comparative religion studies indicate that Calypso was a goddess of death, as the name suggests (kalypto = to enshroud) and that pigs were sacred to the earth and death goddess of antiquity.
That Odysseus ultimately freed himself from her magic is seen as a victory over death, as in all mythologies the hero, having come dangerously close to death, succeeds in wresting new life from the dark forces. This interpretation lends meaning to the ancient Greek practice of crowning winners of riding and gymnastic games with celery leaves.
Celery has a long association with death. Ancient Egyptian mummies were often decorated with celery and blue lotus blossoms. Ancient Greeks planted it on graves and used it to season funeral feasts. The Roman Virgil (70–19 BC) described much the same:
“Godly Linus decorated his head with flowers and bitter celery [as a sign of mourning]”
“It is not right to put celery in common dishes because it belongs to funeral feasts.”
The Romans also dedicated celery, as part of the death rites, to Orcus, the god of the underworld, as told by Plutarch (45–120 AD): “We decorate our gravesites with celery.” Given such practices, it was considered a bad omen to see a cart loaded with celery first thing in the morning. And for someone who was marked by death, the Romans said: “There is only celery left for him.” This is an interesting angle given the fact that, like the ancient Greeks, Romans also crowned their victors with celery leaves. And celery, next to dill and coriander, was a favorite condiment in the Roman cuisine.
Celery’s association with death lasted well into our own times. Wend (Slavic) tradition in northern German Spreewald claims that merek (celery) protects against being haunted by the dead.
And the Italian fairy tale “Marianne and the Celery King” tells of a maiden who, attempting to pull a celery bulb from the soil is instead pulled into the ground; “the ground closed over them like water over a stone.” Below the earth, she finds a golden castle and an old, long-bearded hunchbacked man who resembles a celery root: the Celery King, who marries and impregnates her. But he is also an enchanted prince. After the heroine surmounts numerous tasks and challenges she is able to redeem the prince and bring him back to the world above the ground.
Nowadays such stories are given anecdotic value at most. However, traditional customs, folklore, and imaginative perception teach us much about the essence of the plant. In such imaginative terms, let us consider the celery.
Celery is a biennial; its “incarnation” lasts two years. In the first year, it concentrates on absorbing salty, moist earth forces, during which time it swells and becomes lush. During this year there is a clear pull to the dark, cool earth realm, to downward-moving elements and, figuratively speaking, to the grave, bitter death, and the mourning that causes salty tears to flow—but also to the fertile, ever-bearing primal source.
In the second year the plant ascends to the light, shooting up into bloom, opening and branching out as it bathes in cosmic light. The plant now sets a counterpoint to the earthy, moist, salty forces with its “light and fiery” essential oils.
Thus it becomes a plant for victors and heroes, one that overcomes the dark forces, that wards off the evil eye (in Spain), that thwarts the scheming of wicked witches. Even in modern Greece celery blossoms—together with garlic and onion—are hung for good luck. They protect the area where silk worms are being raised; small children are given amulets of celery to keep them from harm.
In Prussia and Pomerania the leaves were stuffed into cracks in floors and walls in pigsties to protect the animals from evil magic—and young married couples were given a piece of root to put in a pocket or a shoe for good luck.
Nicholas Culpeper (1616–1654) recognized the ambivalent nature of celery. He ascribed the plant to the hermaphroditic god, Mercury—the Roman Hermes, who can as easily fly up to the light-filled world of the gods as he can descend to the underworld. Indeed, Mercury-Hermes is the ruler of rising and sinking energy flow. He loosens, cleanses, opens, splits, and removes blockages by bringing everything back into flow.
Culpeper, just as other doctors before and after him, used this mercurial plant to heal “water diseases,” “obstructions” while urinating, and stone ailments, and to activate the liver and the spleen.
Celery works in the microcosm of the human body true to character. It affects the root chakra, the Muladhara, down into the sexual organs and the “salty, watery” urinary organs. Celery can reduce the milk flow for nursing mothers—a compress can actually temporarily reduce the breast size—but can also stimulate the uterus and bring on menstruation.
As “maiden’s smallage” it belonged to the herbs that women took in case of a “belated period,” when they feared they’d been impregnated. German scholar and bishop Albertus Magnus (1200–1280) described the downward pull of the plant: “Celery causes sensual desire to descend from the breasts of wet nurses to the genital area and bring about menstruation.”
It is often the case that emmenagogues work for men as aphrodisiacs, as indicated in such names as “stand-up herb” (Lausitz, Germany), “stand-up wort,” “stud wort” and “buck’s wort.” A fifteenth-century medical book tells us: “So that your wife stays faithful forever mix celery juice and honey and rub your genitals with the mixture. This way she will be satisfied and will want no one else but you.” Consider too this German saying:
Fry me eggs, sweetheart,
with celery and lettuce,
on Sunday we will go courting,
my mother told me this.
This aspect of celery is also well known in France, the country of savoir vivre and l’amour, as in the following: “If a woman knew what celery does to a man, she would be willing to go from Paris to Rome to find it.” And, “If a man knew what celery does for him, he would plant his garden full of it.”
In 14th-century Italy where the rich and curious began to selectively cultivate celery. The stalks became fatter and pleasingly crunchy; they paled from intense dark green to a subtle, delicate hue; and the taste evolved from bitter to pleasingly grassy and citrus-like.
When celery lost its flavorful wild side, it also became less rampant. These new strains were fussy and difficult to obtain, which of course made them irresistible to the elite. By the mid-19th century, celery was so prized by the upper class that serving vases were made specifically for the purpose of displaying it as the centerpiece at fine dinners.
While European epicures were feasting on blanched celery au velouté, American farmers were reveling in how easy it was to cultivate the luxury vegetable in the Great Lakes region. They were resourceful, ambitious, and even competitive when it came to growing celery.
As the celery craze was reaching its zenith in the 1870s, Dutch farmers who knew how to handle wetlands began growing the vegetable in the black, marshy soils of Kalamazoo, Michigan, which became known by the catchy name the Celery City. The streets were littered with hucksters peddling celery from street corners and train stations. As American cultivation improved, celery became an everyman’s item. By then, the British upper classes had moved on to French luxuries like truffles and oysters.
Sources:
- Magickal Aromatherapy by Scott Cunningham
- Publicism
- Encyclopedia of Magickal Ingredients
- Encyclopedia of Herbology
Here is a list of the five useful colors for negative work. These can be used for candles, mojo bags, etc.
- Red: Hotfoot, Speed, Anger, Violence
- Black: General Curses, Death, Bad Luck
- Purple: Domination, Loss of Power, Addiction
- Yellow: Legal Troubles, Lose Favor, Illness in the Belly
- Green: Sickness, Loss of Money, Rot and Decay
Note: Curses, hexes, jinxes, and other negative spell work should not be undertaken lightly, and are not recommended as they have a tendency to blow back on the person casting the spell.
Source: Hoodoo Delish