Herbal Magick 101 // How to Get Started with Herbal Magick

Herbal magick is the practice of working with plants in magic. This could mean working with plants for healing, eating, ritual, spellwork, and more.

Why work with herbal magick? To me, plants connect us to ancestry and the land we’re on. They root us into relationship with nature, with mother Earth. They have energy and magic of their own that can amplify a spell, help us heal, and support our intentions. 

Part of living a magical life is engaging with the world around us, and working with plants feels like a powerful way to do that. 

In this blog post, I’ll be sharing about how to get started with herbal magick. Please note that this is coming from my perspective as someone who works with plants personally and is not an herbalist or trained professional!

GETTING STARTED WITH HERBAL MAGICK

Getting started with herbal magick can feel overwhelming. There are so many plants! What do they all mean? What do you use them for?

I recommend starting your herbal magick journey by asking this question: 

What plants do I have relationships with already/love/feel curious about/find myself attracted to? 

You can jot down a list or just one plant that comes to mind. Maybe it’s a plant you’ve heard about being connected to your ancestors, like rosemary. Maybe it’s a plant that grows in your yard or your local park, or one you love to drink in your tea. 

Choose a plant from your list and commit to getting to know it. There are so many ways to cultivate a relationship with plants, but here are a few:

• Meditate with the plant daily 

• Take the plant as a flower essence 

• Eat the plant or drink the plant in a tea (check with an herbalist first as needed) 

• Take a bath with the plant (check with an herbalist first as needed)

• Journal with the plant

• Work with the plant in ritual

• Invite the plant into your dreams 

• Spend time with the plant 

• Grow the plant and tend to it 

Featured cards are from The Ritual Deck. 

Take your time with this process - perhaps sitting with one plant for at least a month or two. Write about your insights as you cultivate this relationship. How do you feel? What is this plant teaching you? How does it feel best to work with this plant? 

Another important question to ask yourself is: how am I in a reciprocal relationship with this plant? That could look like giving the plant or the land offerings, planting this plant’s seeds, or something else that feels right to you. 

Many herbalists are talking about being in a reciprocal relationship with plants, so I recommend checking out their work (Sarah Corbett over at Rowan and Sage is a great place to start) to learn more about being in right relationship rather than just extracting from plants. 

Over time, as you cultivate relationships with plants one at a time, you can start to make note of your own magical herbal correspondences. What plants support you in different ways? From sitting with them deeply, what plants help you soothe anxiety, sleep, open your heart, tend to grief, cultivate joy, access pleasure, focus, and more? What plants aid your love spells, money spells, self-trust spells? 

This is how herbal magick can become intuitive and not prescriptive, how it becomes more personal and more powerful than a Google search could ever be.

Sending you lots of love on your herbal magick journey! Click here to learn more about crafting herbal smoke wands, or here for herbal tea recipes.

Conjuring Strength & Healing with Creosote

Arizona is known for its deserts, creepy crawlies, and massive Saguaros, but the creosote bush is a powerful desert plant that might be new to you! Creosote is the most drought-tolerant plant in North America. Found throughout the southwestern deserts of Arizona, Texas, and Chihuahua, it can live for at least two years with no water at all, *GASP* retaining any amounts it gets in its vast root system. It helps itself by shedding its leaves or branches but is usually an evergreen bush! 

How amazing, to be just like the creosote bush- evergreen all year long no matter the weather. 

Creosote, not surprisingly, comes with a host of medicinal and energetic properties too. Keep scrolling for five ways to incorporate this magical plant into your practice.

Energetic Properties

Place creosote on your altar or in a sacred space to represent:

• Perseverance

• Strength

• Optimism

• Determination

• Ancestral connections

The most researched creosote bush is called "King Clone" located near Victorville, California. It is estimated at 11,700 years old, and some scientists consider this to be the oldest living thing on earth!

Medicinal Properties & Practices

Indigenous people used creosote bush for fixing arrow points and mending pottery, as well as for ancestral rituals and connections. Ethnobotanist Gary Nabhan wrote the book Gathering the Desert. He describes creosote bush as nature's drugstore. In his research, Nabhan found that indigenous people have also used creosote bush for the treatment of many conditions and diseases: 

• colds & postnatal drips 

• chest infections or lung congestion

• indigestion

• PMS cramps

• cancer

• nausea

• wounds

• poisons

• swollen limbs due to poor circulation

• dandruff & body odor

• distemper

• acne

Can you think of a more powerful plant? Talk about magical herbalism! 

DIY Healing Salve

Creosote has incredible properties that make it wonderful to use for skin support and other areas of the body. It can be used both internally and topically. When used as a salve applied directly to the skin, it can help heal cuts, burns, scrapes, and even dry or eczema-prone areas. 

• Antibacterial, anti-fungal, and anti-inflammatory

• Used as an anti-viral medicine 

• Native Americans used it to treat cancer for containing a potent anti-tumor agent called NDGA. Recent studies around this are encouraging, but not entirely conclusive.

For the salve you'll need: 

• 1 cup of dry creosote leaves 

• 1.5 cups of olive oil (or any carrier oil)

• Crockpot 

• Small glass jar with lid

Add 1 cup of dry leaves to a mason jar and top with 1.5 cups of olive oil. Place inside crockpot, adding enough water to come within 2 inches of the top of the jar. Set on low for 8-10 hours checking frequently. When it is done, you can take a tea strainer or cheesecloth to drain all the oil from the leaves into a new (and smaller) glass jar. Let it cool on your counter for a few hours and refrigerate afterward. You can dip your fingers or take a small spoon to scoop up some oil for your needs. Your salve is ready for immediate use! 

To Cleanse With The Desert

Cleansing with creosote is all about intention. You can easily incorporate it into your life for energy cleansing, spell work, and rituals. It is also a great substitute for palo santo or white sage- plants that are more and more controversial in terms of ethical sourcing as their popularity grows. 

Experimenting with different plants like creosote will open your perspective towards other realms of herbs and cleansing work. 

You do not have to burn it to indulge in its benefits; you can hang it in your shower for the most amazing scent- petrichor! Okay, that's just a fancy word for the smell of rain. Still, if you've never been to southern Arizona during monsoon season, you have not smelled the most amazing and positively intoxicating scent of desert rain. Bring it to your home with creosote! 

And while you're at it, if you decide to cleanse with it, get rid of those mosquitos as another of creosote's uses are for repelling bugs.

COMBINING HERBS

Creating different combinations of herbs will add power to your cleansing efforts. For example, adding lavender to creosote creates a harmonious partnership of optimism and peace. It can be done with roses to add self-esteem, love, and healing. The possibilities are vast with the world of herbs, don't be afraid to experiment and find what you love best and what resonates with your energy. Trust your intuition! 

As always, with coming across new herbs, be sure you are doing a patch test in case any reactions occur and discontinue burning if you experience any undesirable effects. You can hang your creosote wand in your bathroom or use it as an altar tool instead.  Learn more about Lulu and her business here.

NEW MOON CARD SPREAD

Every new moon, we get a beautiful opportunity for a fresh start. The new moon is the time of the lunar cycle where we get to dream, vision, and set intentions for what we would like to heal, manifest, and create for the new cycle.

Cards, whether oracle or tarot (learn all about the difference between oracle & tarot cards and how to choose here), can be a powerful way to help us gain clarity and understand how to work with the whole cycle holistically. 

Keep scrolling for your new moon card spread and to learn how to work with the cards throughout the whole moon cycle!

Cards featured from The Ritual Deck.

CARD SPREAD FOR THE NEW MOON

This is a card spread designed to help you work with the moon cycle holistically- through all of the major moon phases of the cycle including the new moon, first quarter moon, full moon, last quarter moon, and dark moon.

To ritualize drawing cards, you might like to take some time before getting started to light incense or burn other herbs, ground yourself (click here for suggestions on how to get grounded), and/or do a practice that helps you open your channels such as breathwork, a movement practice, or a visualization meditation.

When you feel ready, you can start pulling cards:

1. What cycle is opening up for me?

2. What wants to emerge, grow, be tended this cycle?

3. What blocks are coming up around this? (Draw one to three cards - let your intuition guide you!)

4. Why this block is here/the shadow underneath the block (draw one card for each blockage card)

5. Advice for healing these blocks (draw one card for each blockage card)

6. Advice for working with these energies to come back to myself

This card spread can offer some beautiful guidance for working with the phases of the moon holistically. I’m going to cover the 5 major phases of the moon below - the new moon, waxing moon, full moon, waning moon, and dark moon.

THE NEW MOON

The new moon is a time of dreaming and feeling into what you want to grow during the cycle. So during the new moon time, you’ll want to focus on cards one and two. I recommend creating an altar based around the themes of these cards.

For example, if the cards showed that in this cycle, spirit is inviting you to work with your creativity, then you could create an altar representing your creative energy blossoming. This might include lush flowers, the tarot cards you drew, anything that represents your creativity to you, and sacral chakra crystals like carnelian, peach selenite, or tiger’s eye.  

Seeds are always a great addition to a new moon altar as well, a symbol of what you’re planting this cycle.

WAXING MOON

The waxing moon is the time for action. It’s an opportune time for taking the steps needed to bring your dream, your desire, into reality. During the waxing moon, you’ll want to focus on the steps that need to be taken to help card number 2 emerge and grow.

This could be internal or external! Often, I find, it’s a combination of both. 

For example, say that your cards showed that this cycle is all about growing your business. During the waxing moon phase, this could be a time where you take more external steps to grow your business (like sending your newsletter, making a content calendar for Instagram and sticking to it, etc.) as well as doing an abundance ritual. 

[Looking for abundance rituals to work with? Find four abundance rituals on the blog here.]

Remember to work with the sixth card, advice for working with the energies this cycle to come back to yourself, to support you through every phase.

FULL MOON

The full moon can feel like “everything all at once,” as one of my teachers says. The water in our bodies is heightened- emotions, intuition, fertility, psychic abilities. This is the last big push in the growth phase of the cycle so it’s the perfect time to do a manifestation ritual around your first and second cards, what it is you’re cultivating this cycle.

Notice any feelings or downloads you receive at this time and take note - you’ll weave them into your work through the waning part of the cycle.

WANING MOON

The waning moon is a time for shadow work, for releasing, for turning inward. It’s our invitation to work with cards three through five of the spread above: the blocks around your dream or desire, the shadow underneath the block, and the advice for healing these blocks.

This is a great time to explore the roots of these blocks and do practices like tapping (EFT) or breathwork to deprogram the stories and patterns that make up those blocks. If any of those blocks feel ready to be released, this is also the time to release them!

DARK MOON

The dark moon is the time of the cycle when the moon disappears from the sky. It’s a deeply internal time for rest, shadow work, banishing work, and cord-cutting.

If you feel ready at this time to release the blocks and work with the fifth card, the advice for healing those blocks, this is the time. A cord-cutting ceremony or banishing ritual would be ideal to help you wrap up the cycle and release these blocks once and for all.

You can return to this new moon card spread with every new moon to help guide your cycle. Want more rituals for the new moon? Click here!