Calendar of the Sun for November 8th

Calendar of the Sun

8 Blutmonath

Feast of the Kitchen God/dess

Colors: Red and blue
Element: Fire
Altar: On this day the altar is built in the kitchen, on the center of the main table. All activity of the day centers around the kitchen. Crowning the pile should be the paper portrait of the Kitchen Goddess. Decorate the altar with dishes of food, glasses of drink, and copper pots. Use the best china. The portrait of the next kitchen goddess should be hidden under someone’s clothing, rolled up and waiting.
Offerings: The entire kitchen should be cleaned thoroughly. Afterwards, the kitchen should be cleaned again. A pot of honey should be placed nearby.
Daily Meal: Enough food should be made and laid out to feed the entire community for the lunch and dinner period, and outsiders should be invited in to share it if possible. The food should be lavish and elaborate and aesthetically prepared.

Invocation to the Kitchen Goddess

Lady who watches over
The heart of our home,
Lady who fills our bellies
And who observes all our faults,
Today we send you to heaven
On a curl of smoke from your hearth.
We ask you, be generous,
And speak well of our efforts.
When you speak of our faults,
Have compassion on our humanity
Lady who guides our hands,
Send us pots that do not burn,
And enough love and peace
To infuse every morsel
Of nourishment that we here consume.

(Each person present should step forward, dip their finger in the honey, and touch it to her picture, asking her aloud or silently to forgive them for whatever pettiness occurred in the kitchen that year, be it actions or thoughts. Then she is taken to the hearth and burned in the flame, while everyone present claps and chants rhythmically. After that, lunch is eaten, and then a new Kitchen Goddess is installed in her place.)

Chant: Fire of the hearth, Fire of the wine,
Fire of the heart, Fire of the mind,
Fire of the Art, Fire out of time.

 

[Pagan Book of Hours]

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Calendar of the Sun for Thursday, June 7th

7 Lithemonath

Vestalia: Vesta’s Day

Color: Red
Element: Fire
Altar: Today the altar is set up in the kitchen, in front of the stove or fireplace, at the point which is most “hearth”. Before setting it up, everyone pitches in to clean the kitchen thoroughly, and purify it. All halls leading into the kitchen are swept as well, and everyone enters barefoot with cleanly washed feet. Upon a red cloth set a bowl of water, one large red candle, bread baked the night before, and kitchen implements.
Offerings: Promote domestic harmony.
Daily Meal: Breads and baked goods.

Invocation to Vesta

Hail Vesta, Lady of the Central Fire,
Flame of the Hearth
Keeper of the Inner Circle
Faceless One
Eldest of the Olympians
Lady of the Pantry
Whose open hands dispense hospitality
Chimney and cooking fire
Lady of routine and dailiness
To miss your quiet strength
In the rush of our sudden lives
Would be as great a disservice
As forgetting the air we breathe.
Teach us to take our time, Lady.
Teach us of the holiness of step after step
Chore after chore, moving in small circles
Around the hearth of our own beings.

Chant (spoken, not sung):
I circle my hearth from without
And I focus the work of my hands;
I circle my hearth from within
And I focus the work of my heart;
Every work of my hands
Is a victory won;
Every thing that I do
Is another thing done.

(All share bread, and pitch in together to make more, which can be saved or given away.)

[Pagan Book of Hours]

The Magick Of Herbs In the Kitchen

The Magick Of Herbs In the Kitchen

Just stop and think about the Magickal properties of cooking…The Goddess and God energy that is in your kitchen…Well..if you haven’t given it a thought let me see if I can change your perspective about the chore of cooking! Let us start in your kitchen cabinets…What can be found upon these shelves? Herbs of course!

Every herb has magickal, medicinal, and cooking uses…For example:

#1) Salt…Earth…Pentacle…North…Grounding…

#2) Pepper…South…The Wand…Fire…Inspiration…

#3) Garlic…Exorcism…Clearing a space…Protection…

#4) Cumin…Love…Loyality…

#5) Sage (my favorite) East…Wisdom…Smudge with this herb to cleanse the auric field…Healing herb for the stomach…Colon…Sinuses and nasal passages…

Olive oil……West…Used as a cooking oil…(although any ail used to excess is bad for you) …Can be used to make massage oils or annointing oils as a base (just add any of your favorite herbs!)…It also breaks down cholesterol rather than producing it….So as you can see Magick is all around us…Even in our kitchens!….

Kitchen Tips Hints & Other Magical Stuff

Kitchen Tips Hints & Other Magical Stuff
Various Sources

* Please Note: In some of these suggestions it says that you are to simply
throw away what has gone bad. I personally always go bury and give it back to
the Earth and offer up a small prayer of thanks for what the item has done to
help me or my family out.

All purpose sifted flour is excellent for attracting money. Take a little
pinch and spread it somewhere dark…under your kitchen counter, in the back
of a cupboard, or under the sink.

Running out of salt supposedly foretells a loss of health or wealth. Always
keep an extra box of salt that you never use on a high shelf to help ensure
good fortune.

Fill a small jar with alfalfa and deposit it in the food cupboard. As long as
it remains there, the family will never know hunger.

Use buttons, change, safety pins, or toothpicks in a jar to work on abundance
and prosperity spells. Add an item each day to increase your prosperity.

Olive oil is a good substitute for any kind of anointing of candles and great
for mixing with oils and powders to bless and anoint surfaces.

A clove of garlic sitting on the sink board draws illness away from the
family. Don’t eat it; instead throw it away every month and replace it with a
new one.

Braids of garlic, onions, or peppers make a lovely decoration for your kitchen
and also ward off negativity.

An onion on your kitchen windowsill will absorb ill will. When it starts to
decay, replace it and throw it away. Do not eat it under any circumstances!

Leaded-glass crystal sun-catchers hung in a sunny kitchen window are excellent
protective devices.

Chili pepper seeds are wonderful for protective magick and repelling. Wash
them, let them dry out, and then place them in a little glass jar with a
lid. Bless your seeds in any way you wish. You can even make a label for
your jar that reads “Magickal Pepper Seeds” or whatever you like. You can use
the seeds to banish negativity from your home whenever you feel the need.
There are two methods for this:

1. Sprinkle a few seeds around your kitchen or home and then vacuum
or sweep them out the back door.

2. Place some seeds in a mortar and ground them to a powder.
Sprinkle the powder where needed and the proceed to vacuum or
sweep up. Discard out your back door.

When sweeping, remember to do so towards the fireplace, if you have one. If
not, sweep in any direction except towards the front door. If you ignore this
warning, you might remove your house’s luck.

Take two needles, make an equal-armed cross with them and place the cross in a
broom. Stand the broom behind a door and it will guard your home. When
standing a broom in the corner, put its bristles up, handle to the floor.
This not only ensures that the bristles will last longer, it also brings good
luck.

All household work–from scrubbing stains in the kitchen sink to swabbing the
floor with a mop to polishing wood furniture–should be done with clockwise
motions. This practice imbues your work, and the object you’re cleaning, with
positive energy.

Next time it rains, hang one of your dishrags outside to receive the liquid
blessings. Or, bury one outdoors by the light of the full moon. Both actions
are thought to be lucky.

Salt water left out in the centre of a room all night will absorb negativity.
Wash it away with flowing water the next morning. If you are on a septic
tank, either pour the water into the woods or into a body of running water.

When cooking any type of food, add magick to your cooking by drawing an
invisible pentagram inside your pots and pans with you finger, a wooden spoon
or another utensil. This guards the pan and the food, ensuring its
wholesomeness.

For good luck hang a “kitchen witch” doll in your kitchen to oversee and bless
your magickal workings. You can purchase one or make your own.

Turn a ladder into steps for success by painting the ladder in bright colours
and adding plants as decorative objects. Paint magickal symbols under the
rungs to help your prosperity (and plants) grow. As the plants grows, so does
your prosperity.

Grow an aloe plant in your kitchen. To soothe burns and scrapes, gently cut
off a mature, fleshy stalk, thanking the plant for its sacrifice, and squeeze
the gel from inside the leaf onto the wounded area. The aloe plant has
magickal properties as well–it also guards the cook against food preparation
accidents that can be very nasty. When using aloe gel in the kitchen, dab
some onto major appliances, windows, doors, and tools to safeguard them as
well.

When you purchase fresh herbs or gather them from your garden, cut the bottoms
off and place the herbs in a nice vase in your kitchen. This not only
brightens up the room, it adds fragrance, keeps the fresh herbs longer, and
has the added benefit of reminding you to use them in your dishes.

If you are having trouble following a recipe or are feeling generally “out of
it,” take a whiff of rosemary. This herb helps to promote mental clarity and
improve memory.

Sew herbs and magickal powders into the lining of your drapes. Place packets
of herbs or powders under throw rugs.

A quartz crystal placed on or near the stove when cooking makes food taste
better.

Copper molds can be hung on the kitchen walls to lend their rich colours.
Since copper is ruled by Venus, the planet of love, these molds also bring
love vibrations into the kitchen.

Wash all the dishes every night if you work with faerie magick. The fairies
don’t like dirt and they won’t let you sleep peacefully until the kitchen is
clean!

Bells or wind chimes hung from the doors guard against intruders and stagnant
energy. Hang them where the air currents can ring them. They will set up
movement in the air and clear the psychic energy of your home.

Sieves, sifters, and colanders hung or placed around the kitchen for
protective purposes will keep the kitchen secure.

A kitchen witch bottle can be constructed to protect your food from
contamination. Put three needles, three nails, and three pins into a jar.
Fill the jar with salt, seal it tightly, vigorously shake nine times and drip
red candle wax over the seal. Then place it in the cupboard where it won’t be
seen.

If you wish to perfect your execution of a recipe, copy it in red ink. Lay
this on a flat surface in the kitchen. On top, place a red candle in a holder
and light the candle. Let it burn down completely before you try the recipe.
As it burns visualize yourself cooking the dish successfully.

When you burn food, cut yourself, drop pots and pans, or experience a rash of
accidents in your kitchen, this could indicate the need for a cleansing.

Before eating, place your hands on either side of the food and send energy to
the food through visualization. Receive its energy back and then enjoy.

In setting the table, put the salt on first, and take it off last thing after
the meal. The salt will guard the food and the diners. While dining with
others, pass the salt with a smile.

Pass items clockwise around the table to bless them with positive vibrations
and ensure that they are healthy.

Prior to eating any liquid with a spoon (such as soup or porridge), stir the
bowl’s contents clockwise three times, then withdraw the spoon and enjoy.

Turn your beverage glass clockwise three times before drinking to bless the
contents.

Whenever you make a toast, be sure that the glasses clink. If not, the toast
won’t be heard by the higher forces.

Always leave a morsel or two on your plate, for tradition says that they who
clean their plates will know only poverty.

The first time you use a new set of silverware, make a wish. Visualize the
wish every time you lift a fork or spoon and the wish may come true.

For unity, have all those sharing the meal drink from the same cup.

Decorate foods and beverages with unique toothpicks, umbrellas, stirrers, and
the like whose colour or imagery represents your goal; the item can then be
carried later as an amulet or charm to keep that energy going.

Choose a bowl, plate, or placemat whose colour or imagery represents your
magickal goal.

Arrange the food on the plate or platter in the form of a symbol to which you
can relate while eating, such as a smile for joy.

Cut food into a symbolic image, such as a toast house that you consume while
looking for a new residence.

Everyone manages to collect plastic grocery bags. Instead of stuffing them in
a crowded drawer, fold and pack them into an empty tissue box covered in
pretty self-stick paper. Then pull out as needed.

Cooking Dinner Does Not Make You a Kitchen Witch

Cooking Dinner Does Not Make You a Kitchen Witch

Author: Deborah

I spent my twenties fighting against who I really was in oh so many ways. I didn’t want to be a kitchen Witch. I thought that was the least impressive, most Holly Hobby branch of magic there is.

You have to picture me from ten years ago: I’m constantly listening to NIN! I wear boots with sparkly laces to my corporate gig! I’m thrashing around on top of tables pumped full of piss and goldschlagger! I’m trying to break glass ceilings! I’m smoking cigars with the boys! I’m demanding my place at the occult table at occult events! I’m getting tats! I’m going through Shamanic trials! I’m punk rock and . . . you want me to bake a cake? Really? Really?

So I fought against it for while, which is why I wasn’t terribly successful in my own personal magic for quite some time. Somewhere around 27? 28? I started really embracing it. Once I bought my own home, my own hearth, I *really* started embracing hearth Witchery. I had the tools all along, it turns out. I just needed to know how to use them.

When I first started blogging, I wanted to bff (best friends forever!) a variety of people in the magical world. But let me be honest, most of all I wanted to befriend fellow kitchen Witches. Sisters/brothers unite! Let’s get some spit, blood, hair, dirt, and basil and get this party started!

But I didn’t find too many. I Googled. I tried tracking down people. I tried a lot of different key words. Honestly, I found a lot of people who claimed to be kitchen Witches, but in scanning their blogs all I generally found were recipes and chatter about their kids. Now, there’s nothing wrong with any of that, but there are some flaws to it.

What Doesn’t Make You a Kitchen Witch Per Se (in my opinion) :

A recipe isn’t magical in and of itself. Just dumping a bunch of recipes on your blog doesn’t make you a kitchen Witch anymore than it makes Wolfgang Puck a kitchen Witch. If you said I use honey in my Chocolate Lavender Mousse to sweeten my mother-in-law towards me because she’s a complete bitch on wheels to me by that point in the meal or I put menstrual blood in my spaghetti sauce so my husband still thinks I’m dropping it like it’s hot even when I’m tired and in sweats, rock! Those are magical acts. Bring on the recipes!

Having children. While yes, it is a very specific way to mark your transition into motherhood (sometimes) , kids don’t really make you a practicing magic type person any more than it makes SuperNanny Mary Poppins. Things that would: Using magic to help soothe a baby/get a baby to sleep (I will only slightly guiltily confess to having done this before) , protection magic, detailing tiny rituals you do with your kids.

Being a Homemaker. I do very much think that unpaid labor in the home needs to be appreciated and ideally compensated (please see here for more clearly articulated thoughts on the matter, it’s applicable for both mono/poly people) , but it’s a job. And just like going to work in an office is not a magical act in and of itself, neither is taking care of your home. If you were talking about cleaning/organizing in a magical blog and discussing how to be more green (because we need to take care of Mother Earth of course and she’s a goddess in and of herself) , discussing what oils you use to scent your house and why, what you do to keep the house spiritually/magically clean, rock on.

What Qualifies You as a Kitchen Witch/Hearth Wo/man/Someone Who Does Hedge-Like Magic (in my opinion) :

If the Personal is Political, then the Every Day is Magical. Look, you don’t have to cast +5 magic every time you make hotdogs for dinner on a Tuesday night. But what can you be doing in your every day life in your hearth to make it more magical? Smudging with sage every few days to clear out the energies? Spray bottling your bed with a water based mist you made that has come to me oil in it? Choosing your cooking herbs based on magical purposes? Go crazy.

Deb’s Example Rite for Making the Every Day Magical: I had been hemming and hawing about starting my current novel because (a) I’ve never finished writing one and (b) it’s a little silly in a genre that’s already a little silly. But it came to me in a dream and it feels right. So I started by not just slap dashing it together, I took my time. I did research on names, other books in the genre, brainstormed and I made a mood board for it. When I knew it was time to start writing, I wanted it started right. I wanted my surroundings perfect, like giving birth (which is what I do with writing) . I made sure my house was clean, went to brunch (appropriate for the kind of novel it is) and then I put on mood music and wrote. When I finished the beginning, I sealed it with eating a really posh chocolate (salted dark chocolate with balsamic and caramel) from the best chocolatier in NJ, which was also appropriate for my novel’s genre. It wasn’t about me putting together a mojo bag in this case; it was about choosing my actions carefully and doing everything with intent. There would have been nothing wrong with making a mojo bag, but it was more important in this situation to write in a magically charged environment for me to get this show on the road.

Get a Base Education in the Lower Arts. Yeah, yeah, you like to put on your robes and call on all the archangels and whatever. Cool. But sometimes for whatever reason, you’ll need to know how to do things quick and dirty, so learn how. Learn what salt and kitchen herbs can do for you, learn about mojo hands and honey pots and spirit bottles. I recommend of course the incomparable cat yonwode’s Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic as your Idiot’s Guide. Test yourself if you’re super structured magically, pretend a friend needs a fertility charm tonight and you need to get to her just using stuff around your house. What do you do?

Get a Base Education in House Wifery. Some men back in the day got married because they had no clue how to take care of themselves. While that’s not so common in this day and age, you still need a base education in house wifery to be a successful hearth wo/man. Thanks to most of the first world being a convenience culture, you may have been getting by on relying on take out, a dry cleaner, and a cleaning service. That’s all well and good, but you’re missing pieces you need to be a successful hearth wo/man. If you are missing any of these things, that’s okay, don’t feel bad about it. But a lot of people cry, ‘Oh I’m no good at it’! Or, I don’t know how! Ignorantia juris non excusat. Ignorance of the law excuses no one, so get to work. It won’t be perfect from the gate, but nothing is. Ask someone better versed for help, if you know someone. Worst case you burn a few casseroles and shred a few shirts; it’s no big deal. Even if you won’t use it for a while or ever (though you’d be surprised) , these are all good life skills to have that will translate over into your magical life. Think of them as Hearth Meditations.

Can you:
* Do your own laundry?
* Have your house clean enough to have your mother or mother-in-law or Miss Martha over without them making a face?
* Cook a dinner for yourself and others?
* Meal plan?
* Budget and financially plan?
* Be able to make a casserole quickly for an emergency?
* Host/ess a party?
* Know how to bake something from scratch?
* Know how to do your own grocery shopping that’s more than just “box food”?
* Know how to do basic clothing repair?
* Know what to bring as a hostess gift?
* Know how to conduct yourself socially at various social obligations?
* Know how to give yourself self-care?
* Know v. basic first aid?
* Know how to care for small children for a day?

It’s okay to have untargeted kitchen Witch practices. Look, I’m the first to say that some of my more focused practice is lacking. You don’t have to use every bread baking experience as a magical attempt to influence a situation. You can use it as a meditational practice and focus on the magic of the experience, that’s perfectly valid. Think about why whatever is you’re doing – baking, cooking, cleaning, sewing, whatever is a magical experience for you. This is a free form essay, you’re not being graded, whatever reason you have for it being a magical experience for you is right. There are things in everyone’s life I think (I hope!) that are magical to him or her but not targeted for results. It’s good to have and share those experiences too.

You need to know how to do this stuff. That does not mean you need to do it all the time. I had suggested a base education in house wifery, but that doesn’t mean that you’re responsible for it all the time in some kind of psychotic Valium laced Stepford scenario. I know how to do laundry, but my significant other does it in our household. If he ever said, do your own laundry, I could. If you know how to clean your house sparklingly clean but chose to not live in a constant Miss Martha police state, that’s okay. If it’s part of your strategy as a hearth Witch, well then you must be a clever kitchen Witch! My house would not pass Lakshmi inspection at all times (or really like 29 days out of the month) either. If you have the means to send out your laundry or order take out every night, rock out. You just need to know how to perform these functions should you ever need to. It’s sort of like knowing how to do long division. It’s good to know how to do by hand, but the gods made calculators for a reason.

Sometimes, simple is best. I suggested a basic practice in kitchen/hearth Witchery for people who work primarily in “higher” magic because like a proper dilettante, I believe in being well rounded. And frankly sometimes if you need to do something on the fly, it’s a lot easier to pour some salt into a bowl and spit into it than to do a long formal practice. I also think it’s good to know simple magic in order to be able to obtain simple things. You need fifty bucks to make your bills this month? You could do something v. formal or you could do something quick and get on with your life. Formal magic often requires a lot more time, energy, and effort. And there are certain things that are better suited to those practices, but you need a quick little something, low magic just seems like a better way to do so.

Furthering the math analogy, you may become so accustomed to Calculus and using a calculator to do so, you forget how to do basic level math. This is not going to help you when it’s your job to do bistro math for the table ’cause you’re the math chick and you left your cell phone at home.

Some of what I suggest needing to know may seem unnecessary and sort of Mr. Miyagi, but look at it from a kitchen Witch’s perspective: You claim to be a kitchen/hearth Witch, I’m supposed to trust you to do a love spell for me using hearth magic, but . . .you don’t know how to take care of your hearth which functions as your temple, your magical work space? Fill in your own mechanic/gyno joke here.


Footnotes:
http://www.polyamorousmisanthrope.com/2007/07/15/being-used/ – Article referenced in “Homemaker” section