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The Magic of Mullein
Mullein is one of those herbs I often forget about because I don’t grow it, mostly because it prefers dry soil and I’ve always lived in places that had rich, fertile ground. Recently, however, I moved to the hills of North Appalachia, and while I’ve got a nice dark-soil empty lot available for my planting adventures, behind my house is a steep hillside covered with dry, almost clay-like earth… and all kinds of things are growing wild upon it, including mullein. At first, honestly, I thought it was a random sprig of lamb’s ear, and then its telltale yellow flowers bloomed… yep, it’s mullein. In fact, it’s not just my…
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Mistletoe Myths and Mysteries
Mistletoe as Medicine In 50 C.E., the Greek physician Dioscorides wrote his Materia Medica, establishing himself a place in medical history. As one of the ancient world’s most knowledgeable herbalists, Dioscorides found that mistletoe helped cure his patients of external tumors. He wrote that it “has the power to disperse, soften, drawing and assisting tumors of the parotid gland and other lesions…” Some forty or so years later, Pliny the Elder wrote of the treatment of sores and epilepsy with mistletoe in his Natural History. He also described its use in magic and ritual. Pliny wrote that Druid elders performed rituals in which they harvested mistletoe — a botanical parasite — from oak…
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Make a Mabon Cleansing Wash
This herbal infusion is one of my favorite things to make in the late summer and early fall, and can be used as a skin wash or a cleanser for your ritual space. By infusing the herbs in water, you can take advantage of the medicinal properties as well as the magical ones. A quart-sized jar, like the type used in food canning, is ideal for this because it allows for a tight seal, and they hardly ever break. To make this cleansing wash, we’ll be using herbs that are in full bloom in the weeks before Mabon. You’ll need a handful of each of the following: Spearmint or peppermint…
