Magickal Gardens For Spring
Spring Brings Many Pagans Out To Garden
Dr Raven Dolick MsD
Apr 2, 2016
(sacred datura)
All rights reserved
2016 RavenStar Enchantments
In this write I will be sharing some awesome magickal Garden Tips in 6 parts!
Also I wish to dedicate this write to my awesome clan brother Jon Rose and his spiritual connection that screams. “They aren’t weeds!”
Part 1
How to Plant a Goddess Garden
Planning Your Goddess Garden
Plant a garden to pay tribute to the goddess of your tradition.
Gardening is a magical act. It allows us to take the simplest form of life -- a seed -- and plant it so that weeks later it will bloom. Plants and magic have been associated for hundreds (if not thousands) of years, so when spring rolls around and you're planning your seasonal garden, why not set up a special area to dedicate to the goddess of your tradition?
If you don't have a big yard to plant, don't worry. You can still create a special goddess garden using a container.
Selecting a Goddess to Honor
Does your tradition honor a particular deity, or is there a goddess you feel drawn to?
Start by figuring out which goddess you'd like to honor. It's probably a bad idea to just pick one at random -- a better course of action would be to choose one you've got some sort of connection to, or that you've been interested in learning more about. If your particular tradition honors a certain goddess, or deities of a specific pantheon, that helps make the selection process a little easier.
One main fact always remains in power is that this process should be done with all respect in order. You will be amazed how one goddess respectfully honored will open up a huge threshold to the others!
Choosing the Perfect Spot
Select the best location for your garden, depending on what sort of plants you intend to use to celebrate your goddess.
Next, figure out where the best place is to locate your goddess garden. Are you working with a vibrant, outdoorsy kind of goddess, like Diana? Perhaps she'd appreciate a spot in the sun. Maybe a water goddess, who would feel at home near your pond? Or perhaps you're connected to a goddess of darkness, who might prefer a shady spot near the tree line? Obviously, you want to choose an area where plants will grow, but it's also important to try to select an area where the Divine will feel a sense of home.
If you live in a small area such as an apartment, or if you have limited space, you can still plant a goddess garden. Choose a brightly lit spot on your patio and use containers for gardening, or create a tabletop goddess garden with a large planter.
Planting for the Divine
Select bright flowers to honor a spring goddess, or choose darker themes to celebrate a goddess of the harvest.
Your next step should be to determine what sorts of plants are associated with the goddess you're honoring. Think of this garden as a sort of living altar space, and plan accordingly. For example, if your garden is to pay tribute to Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers, you might fill the space with seeds for vibrant and colorful carnations, hollyhocks, snapdragons and impatiens. A garden for Bast, the Egyptian cat goddess, might include catnip, members of the mint family, lavender, and lilies (for their playful, cat-like energy). If you choose to honor a goddess of the harvest, you might wish to plant fall-blooming plants, like mums or even root vegetables.
Making Your Garden Sacred
Add a gazing ball, brazier, wind chimes, or other items to make your goddess garden into a place you'll love to be.
Add decorative touches like statuary, crystals, pretty stones, and other garden ornaments that correspond to your goddess' attributes. Is your goddess a fire deity, like Pele? Add a fire bowl or candle holder. If your goddess is associated with air and wind, perhaps some wind chimes or a flag would be appropriate. Use your imagination, and take a few moments each day to work on your garden and re-connect with the goddess you are honoring.
Part 2
Spring Flower Magic
As spring arrives, many of the season's most beautiful flowers can be harvested for their magical properties.
As spring arrives, our gardens begin to bud and eventually bloom. For hundreds of years, the plants that we grow have been used in magic. Flowers in particular are often connected with a variety of magical uses. Now that spring is here, keep an eye out for some of these flowers around you, and consider the different magical applications they might have.
• Crocus: This flower is one of the first you'll see in the spring, and it's often associated with newly blooming love. The crocus is also known to enhance visions and bring about intuitive dreams.
• Daffodil: The bright petals of the daffodil are typically found in shades of white, yellow or even pale orange. This flower is associated with love and fertility -- place fresh ones in your home to bring about abundance. Wear this flower close to your heart to draw love and luck.
• Dandelion: The leaf of the dandelion is used for healing, purification, and ritual cleansing. To bring positive change about, plant dandelions in the northwest corner of your property. The bright yellow flowers can be used in divination, or placed in a sachet to draw good energy your way.
• Echinacea: Also called purple coneflower, this garden mainstay adds a little bit of magical "oomph" to charms and sachets. Use it for prosperity related workings. Burn the dried flowers in incense, and use on your altar during ritual as an offering to deities.
• Goldenseal: This sunny yellow flower is often found growing in the wild, alongside roads and in fields. Use it in money spells, or for business dealings. Work it into charms connected to matters of financial gain or legal issues.
• Hibiscus: This lusty flower incites passion -- use it to attract love or lust, or for prophetic dreams about your lover. Burn in incense, or carry in a sachet to bring love your way.
• Hyacinth: This flower was named for Hyakinthos, a Greek divine hero who was beloved by Apollo, so it's sometimes considered the patron herb of homosexual men. Hyacinth is also known to promote peaceful sleep, and guards against nightmares. Carry in an amulet to help heal a broken heart or to ease grief when a loved one dies.
• Lily: The Easter lily or Tiger lily is associated with all kinds of Spring connections -- fertility, rebirth, renewal and abundance.
• Narcissus: Named for another Greek figure, the Narcissus helps promote polarity and harmony. Its calming vibrations bring about tranquility and inner peace.
• Tulip: The tulip appears in many different colors and varieties, but is typically connected to prosperity. You can use the different colored variations in color magic -- use a dark strain such as Queen of the Night for full moon rituals, or bright red flowers for love magic.
• Violet: In Roman myth, the first violet sprung from the spilled blood of the god Attis, who killed himself for Cybele, the mother goddess. However, today the violet is associated with tranquility and peace. The leaf offers protection from evil, and can be sewn into a pillow or sachet for a new baby. Carry the petals with you to bring about luck and enhance nighttime magic.
*Important: Remember that some plants can be toxic to pets. Before you plant or pick any of these, be sure to check to make sure it won't be harmful to your furry companions.
A great resource to check is on the ASPCA website at Toxic & Non-Toxic Plants.
Part 3
Magical Gardening Around the World
Pay attention to plant folklore when gardening.
Around the world, people tend to garden in different ways. Someone living on a large family farm plants their crops differently than someone on a half-acre lot in the suburbs. A resident of a big city in an advanced nation will grow things in a different fashion than a family living in an impoverished, third world country. While one person might use a large tractor and motorized equipment, another may use a simple shovel. Still another might only use a pointed stick to make a hole in the ground. Since time began, the human race has managed to find ways to make things grow where before there was nothing.
In the early spring, many of us who follow earth-based spiritual paths begin planning our gardens for the coming season. The very act of planting, of beginning new life from seed, is a ritual and a magical act in itself. To cultivate something in the black soil, see it sprout and then bloom is to watch a magical working unfold before our very eyes. The plant cycle is intrinsically tied to so many earth-based belief systems that it should come as no surprise that the magic of the garden is one well worth looking into.
Let's look at some of the folklore and traditions that surround gardening and planting magic.
•Many gardeners swear by the idea of planting by the phase of the moon. The first quarter is when they plant crops which bloom above ground -- spinach and lettuce, cucumbers and corn, to name a few. The second quarter, leading up to the full moon, is the time to plant above-ground seed crops like beans, watermelons, squash and tomatoes. During the third quarter, the week following the full moon, root vegetables like carrots and potatoes should go in, as well as bulb flowers. Finally, the last quarter of the waning moon is the time to avoid planting altogether -- instead, work on garden maintenance such as tilling and weeding.
•Appalachian folk magic is rich with tradition when it comes to planting. Pound a nail into the northern side of your fruit trees to bring a higher yield come harvest time. Also, if you want your hot peppers to grow really hot, then plant them when you're good and mad about something. For maximum growing potential, have a pregnant friend help you plant beans, and the beans will flourish.
•Medieval English folklore says that if you plant daisies, they'll help keep the fairies out of your yard. Once they've bloomed, make a daisy chain for a child, to keep the fae from leaving a changeling in the child's place.
•Certain tubers, such as yams, are believed to increase lust and fertility. In some West African nations, the white yam has been linked to high birth rates particularly that of multiples such as twins.
•If you're planting blackberries, roses, or some other brambly, thorny bush, train them over an arch in your garden. In Restoration-era England, it was believed that walking through a bramble arch would cure just about any ailment.
•A South Carolina rootworker named Jasper says that his family's Gullah heritage has shaped a lot of their planting traditions. Women who are menstruating are not permitted to harvest okra, because it might spoil when they put it up for canning. Also, pickles won't be crunchy if canned by a woman having her period. Mustard, collard, and other greens planted near your bedroom window will help prevent conception of a child. The color blue keeps evil spirits away, so plant blue flowers near your front door.
•Some Native American tribes planted beans, squash and corn in an arrangement known as Three Sisters. In addition to being a self-sustaining ecosystem, in which each plant helps the others, the planting of this trio is associated with the concept of happy families, abundance, and community.
•During the Victorian era, the secret language of flowers became popular. Each flower had its own association, so if you wished to attract love, for example, you might plant love-linked flowers like geranium and lilac.
•In Slavic countries, wild roses are said to keep away vampires. In many other places, garlic is known as an anti-vampire plant, and in some parts of Central Europe it is used to ward off the "evil eye." If you think someone might be trying to do you magical harm, plant garlic in abundance.
•There's a number of tales about never eating tomatoes off a silver platter, or you might die. This actually has some historical basis - Colonial settlers found that they often became ill after eating tomatoes. Rather than it being a problem with the tomato itself, this was due to a reaction between the tomatoes and the settlers' pewter dinnerware. Despite the rumor being proven false that tomatoes are deadly, in some parts of the country tomatoes are never dished up in anything silver.
•During the westward expansion of the nineteenth century, some Midwestern areas believed that if a girl found a blood-red corn cob among the yellow ones, she was sure to marry before the year was out. Forward thinking young men occasionally planted a few random kernels of red corn strains among their crops.
Part 4
Garden Blessing for Spring Planting
Say a blessing over your garden as you prepare it for spring.
Here is a simple but effective on I use for every seed.
The earth is cool and dark,
and far below, new life begins.
May the soil be blessed with fertility and abundance,
with rains of life-giving water,
with the heat of the sun,
with the energy of the raw earth.
May the soil be blessed
as the womb of the land becomes full and fruitful
to bring forth the garden anew.
Part 5
The Magical Moon Garden
The fragrant moonflower blooms in the evening.
Many Wiccans and Pagans love to garden, but a lot of people don't realize you can grow plants and flowers that bloom at night. Cultivating a moon garden is a great way to get in touch with nature, and it provides a beautiful and fragrant backdrop for your moonlight rituals in the summer. If you plant these lovelies close to your house, you can open the windows and take advantage of their aromas as you sleep.
Many night-blooming plants are white, and give a luminous appearance in the moonlight. If you plant them in a circle or a crescent shape, when they bloom, you'll have the moon herself right there "as above, so below." There are a number of plants that open at night -- mix them in with silver-foliaged day bloomers.
Night Blooming Plants
• Moonflower: Yes, it should be painfully obvious, but the Moonflower really does bloom at night. It releases a slightly lemony scent when it opens up, and during the day the white flowers are tightly shut. Some species of this climbing plant, a cousin of the Morning Glory, can get up to eight feet long*. The flowers, when open, are around 5 - 6" in diameter.
• Evening Primrose: This perennial spreads rapidly, and can cover a lot of ground for you. The pale pinkish-white flowers open at dusk, and release a sweet aroma.
• Night Phlox: these pretties open up at dusk, and have a fragrance reminiscent of honey or vanilla.
•Evening Stock: the tiny purple and pink flowers aren't very fancy, but they smell divine when they open at night.
• Angel's Trumpet: Another vine, this annual spreads like crazy. Its trumpet-shaped, white flowers have a bell-like appearance when open.
• Night Gladiolus: this plant isn't actually nocturnal, but that's when the creamy yellow flowers smell the strongest -- it's a very spicy scent that's a glorious addition to any night garden.
Day Blooming White and Silver Plants
• Dusty Millers
• Silver Thyme
• Lamb's Ears
• Mugwort (Artemesia)
• Silver Sage
• White vegetables such as Alba eggplants or Baby Boo or Lumina pumpkins
Herbs and Flowers with Lunar Connections
• Camphor
• Eucalyptus
• Gardenia
• Jasmine
• Moonwort
• Sandalwood
• Willow
• Water Lily
• Sleepwort
What to do With Your Moon Garden Plants
When you have plants that have blossomed under the powerful energy of a full moon, the possibilities are just about endless. Harvest the flowers and dry them to use in talismans or charms. Use them to dress a Moon Candle or as part of a purification bath. Include them in incense blends to help enhance your intuition and wisdom.
*Note:
Be sure to provide a trellis or other support for climbers like the Moonflower. If they don't have a stable surface to hang onto, they're less likely to fully bloom.
** Moon Gardening isn’t about working a garden at night and has many scientific and physical benefits to include even healthier vegetables.
Part 6
The Elemental Garden
Plant an elemental garden with one section tying in to each of the four elements of earth, air, fire and water.
If you're a Pagan or Wiccan who's into gardening, you might want to consider planting an elemental garden. The four classical elements are often associated with Pagan and Wiccan spirituality, so why not incorporate them into your gardening? Litha is a great time to work on your garden, so if you haven't gotten out there digging in the dirt yet, now's your chance! The sun is at its peak, the earth is nice and warm, and plants are growing all around. Move some of your existing plants (or put some new ones in) and create an elemental garden. By connecting different parts of your garden with the four elements, you can add a little bit of magic into your life each year. Here's how to get started.
Determine Your Space
Mark out a circle using a stake and a piece of string.
Before you plant anything, you'll need to figure out how much space you have to work with. Ideally, you'll want to make your elemental garden in a circle. To make a circle in your yard, figure out first where you want the center to be. Mark the center by driving a temporary stake into the ground. Next, figure out what diameter you want the circle to be. Using a piece of string tied to the top of the stake, walk around in a circle, marking the perimeter. You can do this with birdseed, a handful of dirt, or anything else you like. Once you've marked your circle, till up the soil. Although it's good exercise to use a shovel, it's also backbreaking work. If you've got a large space to cover, you may want to invest in a good rototiller.
Mark Your Quarters
Mark out your quarters with stones to delineate the space.
Once you've tilled up the soil, figure out which way is north. You can do this easily with a compass, or if you know where the sun rises and sets, it shouldn't be too hard to determine which way is east and which is west. After you've figured out your directions, divide your circle into quadrants, so that each direction has one quarter of the circle. Mark your spaces with stones. You can either use small ones,(don't just throw away the ones you dig up!), or you can use large pavers.
Select Your Plants
Choose your plants based upon their correspondences with the four elements.
Each of the four directions is associated with an element. North is connected to earth, east to air, and south to fire and west to water or whatever correspondence your path follows. To plant your elemental garden, figure out which plants are connected with those particular elements -- and this will vary depending on where you live. For example, earth is associated with stability and security. Why not plant some herbs there that carry the same associations? Bryony, cinquefoil, honeysuckle, and pennyroyal* are all related to earth.
For the east section of your garden, which is tied into the themes of air, use plants connected with inspiration, wisdom and knowledge. Sage, marjoram, mugwort and members of the mint family are perfect for this quarter of the circle. In the south, select plants related to the passionate qualities of fire, such as basil, betony, rosemary and rue. Finally, the west quadrant is where your water-related plants should go -- hyssop, yarrow, chamomile and ivy will do well in this section.
* Be cautious when selecting plants for your garden, and be sure to do your research. Some forms of pennyroyal are toxic and can cause miscarriage in pregnant women, and can be potentially fatal if ingested by small children.
Offer a Blessing
Offer a blessing before placing each plant into the soil.
As you dig a hole for each plant, you may wish to add a blessing. Get your hands in the dirt, dig in, and feel the soil. Thank the earth for the gift it's going to give you. As you place the plant or seeds in the hole, you might want to offer something like:
May the gods smile upon this plant,
bringing it strength and long life.
Or, you may prefer to offer a specific blessing for each quadrant - for the southern section, offer a blessing of fire, for the west, a blessing of water, and so on. In some traditions, it's popular to smudge the garden or perform some other purification rite after planting - after all, a garden is a sacred space.
Add Spiritual Accessories
Add a gazing ball, fountain, or other items to make your garden into a place you'll love to be.
If you're going to spend any time in your elemental garden -- and you'll need to, if you don't want your plants to die -- it's not a bad idea to add accessories that make you feel at home. It doesn't have to be fancy, but you might want to consider some of the following:
• Statues of the gods of your tradition
• A gazing ball
• A fountain or other water feature
• A fire bowl
• A small altar
• A bench or chair for meditation
• Wind chimes or bells
• A prayer pole or decorative flag
To tie in the accessories to the elemental theme, consider a water feature in the south corner, a small brazier to the west, a pile of stones in the north, or a decorative flag on the eastern portion. Any of these will be perfect for bringing you closer to the elements in your garden. Make your garden a place where you can sit and reflect, and it will indeed be a spiritual and magical place!
Elemental Gardens for Small Spaces
Container gardening is the perfect solution to creating an elemental garden in a small space.
Do you live in an apartment or dorm room, or some other location with limited space? Don't worry - you can still grow things! Container gardening makes it a breeze. Use flower pots, hanging baskets, or other items arranged in a group of four to create your elemental garden. You can even paint them with colors or symbols associated with the four cardinal directions. If you're really strapped for space, use one container with four plants in it.
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