Divine Intervention: Tarot de Marseille

Illustration © Kaitlynn Copithorne

In many ways, Tarot de Marseille is one of the true elders of tarot decks, with early iterations circulating from the 17th century onwards. By 1700, what we now know as Tarot de Marseille was the standard pack manufactured by French and Swiss card producers, with its easily recognisable illustrations eventually copied and reproduced throughout Europe. The cards, with their clear lines and striking angles, were initially printed from woodcuts and then painstakingly coloured by hand or through the use of stencils by highly skilled workers. Very few of the 17th century decks survive today, though amongst them is the rather grotesque and delightfully lurid Jean Noblet tarot, published circa 1650. The only existing, though not quite complete, version of the Noblet tarot is held in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, of which facsimiles (lovingly restored by Jean-Claude Flornoy) are available today.

So what makes Tarot de Marseille such a singular deck that it remains a popular choice for cartomancers so many centuries later? Renowned tarot expert and teacher Adrien Mastrosimone helped to enlighten me:

“I went through stages of picking up other tarot decks, such as the Rider Waite and then I studied Kaballah, then astrology - you go through all of this and eventually, after studying ceremonial magic, Golden Dawn techniques, Aleister Crowley, and all that jazz, I eventually went back to the Marseilles tarot, because there is too much ego in the other tarots. With the Tarot de Marseille, you have to really integrate the cards - it’s much more about you making the connection. It’s not about someone telling you what it means - it’s much more about you stretching your mind, stretching your intuition, your relationship with the cards, really understanding that it’s much more personal, interesting, and exciting because the Marseille tarot is a system that doesn’t need other systems to make sense of it.”

One teacher who was very influential for Adrien was Phillippe Camois, a direct descendant of the notable Marseille family who had printed Nicolas Conver’s tarot deck since 1760. Conver’s version of Tarot de Marseille had been one amongst many which the filmmaker and artist Alejandro Jodorowsky - in collaboration with Camois - studied in depth in order to reconstruct and restore the Marseille deck. Jodorowsky and Camois’ version of Tarot de Marseille was published in 1998 after years of intense research, to great interest amongst students of tarot worldwide.

When it comes to studying a deck with such a long history, Adrien emphasises that there is no single jumping off point:

“To learn something like this you need a lot of different ways in. Self-teaching is important - you read for yourself, you read for other people, and you learn from your mistakes, you learn from what you’ve done right. That’s very important. The other thing is that yes, going to workshops is very important as well. You learn from everything - there is not a mathematical recipe for learning tarot. It’s absolutely an art - you have to learn technique, this is very important. I studied as a ballet dancer and then as an opera singer, and then I ended up doing my own cabaret shows. So I understand art. And what is art? Art is a mix of strong technique, and on top of it you have the personality and something that makes it different. And reading tarot is the same thing - you need to acquire strong technique and then you uncover your own style. When you do eight or nine readings a day you’re going to have days, unfortunately, when you need to rely on your technique. You know the spirit of the tarot is going to back up. When you’re a professional reader, you will sometimes make mistakes, no one is god, and if you get to the point where you don’t, you have nothing to do on this plane any more! I don’t believe that only one way is sufficient.”

Tarot de Marseilles’ influence can be spotted in many contemporary tarot decks, and was clearly a strong force in the soup of symbolism that can be found in Pamela Colman Smith’s Rider Waite Smith deck, published in 1909. Whilst both of these iconic decks share much in common, the Rider Waite Smith is often hailed to be the more accessible of the two due to its colourful and detailed pip card (minor arcana) illustrations. Nonetheless, serious tarot students and beginners alike - those who are willing to tap into their boundless imaginations - will find much magic and mystery in Tarot de Marseilles. This is a deck which remains unlimited in its timeless appeal.

Divine Intervention: Western Astrology

Illustration © Kaitlynn Copithorne

Astrology is such a vast sphere of scholarship and practice that even the curious can find the scale of the topic too daunting to seek an entry point. After all, its history can be traced back to cave paintings from around 25,000 years ago, which suggest that human beings have been tracing lunar cycles for all that time. In light of which, let’s start by keeping things simple. 

Louise Edington describes astrology as “an ancient science that uses observation of the planetary cycles over time to record patterns and events triggered by the movement of the cosmos”. There was once no distinction between astrologers and mathematicians - the “quants and data scientists of their day”, writes Alexander Boxer in A Scheme of Heaven. The Renaissance polymath Gerolamo Cardano—who laid the foundations for algebra and probability theory—was not only a mathematician, biologist, chemist, physician, physicist and philosopher, but an astrologer who wrote horoscopes for King Henry VIII.

Western Astrology originates from Babylonian astrology (credited with the inception of the Zodiac wheel) and the work of Alexandrian scholar Ptolemy, author of Tetrabiblos, a text containing the basic concepts which astrologers use today. The creation of personalised charts of the heavens representing an individual’s life path based on the place, time and date of their birth—known as natal astrology—followed.  

As the popularity of the Church grew, interest in astrology waned, or rather, was curbed by clerics. Nonetheless it was adopted by 16th century Lutherans who were intrigued by the stars’ potential to guide morality based on a prospectively vengeful higher power. The vigorous resurgence of interest in the occult during the late 19th century ignited an even greater fascination with the workings of the cosmos. Theosophists such as Alan Leo and Dane Rudhyar would go on to create humanistic modalities of astrology which, influenced by the work of Carl Jung, were not only event-oriented but contained psychology and deep character analysis in their orbit too.

And so we arrive at contemporary astrology, where we find strong narratives of not only personal-development and embodiment, but poetry and politics too. In today’s iteration there are evermore nuanced approaches to divination in particular. As practitioner Renee Sills, notes in an interview with Cunning Folk.

I do think that we can use astrology to see into and articulate someone’s past or to describe the idiosyncratic nature of a person’s inner experiences. I think we can also effectively use it to describe future possibilities, upcoming challenges and opportunities, or to give perspective on timing. But, I believe deeply in free will and I don’t personally think it’s useful or possible to tell someone exactly what will happen in their future and to trust that that information won’t create its own magnetic attraction or cause and effect.

According to Renee, simple observation is one of the key elements of beginning a study of astrology. Here’s a short guide to learning how to observe the cosmos in a way that relates to you personally.

Keep a lunar journal

Look out your window and, if it’s a clear night, you’ll be able to see the current phase of the moon. Notice how your body and mind shift in correlation with the moon’s journey around the Earth. How do you feel as the moon waxes and wanes? Beginning a lunar journal can help you to track these influences, whilst becoming more mindful of your particular relationship to cosmic forces.

Study your chart

You can easily discover your own natal chart online using free tools such as this one. Begin by looking at your chart and noticing patterns. What shapes do those lines and angles symbolise for you? For example, my own chart’s lines are shaped like a cup. Given that my Sun sign is in Scorpio, which is a water element (and as a tarot reader I know that cups signify water, and therefore emotions), I’m inspired to think of how emotions dominate my life. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that I have a mood disorder! I could also notice that the planets congregating in the centre of my chart are dominated by water. If you’re looking for a simple guide to basic astrological symbols and themes then Chani Nicholas’ You Were Born for This: Astrology for Radical Self-Acceptance is a great starting point.

Get a reading

If you’re astro-curious it can be helpful to see a professional astrologer who will assist you when it comes to diving deeper into your natal chart. Use research and your intuition to find someone whose style and interests resonate with you. If your desire is embodiment then Renee might be the one, or if you’re particularly drawn to the poetry of astrology, there’s Francesca Lisette. On the financial side, many astrologers offer pay-what-you-can options.

Divine Intervention: Tasseomancy

Illustration © Kaitlynn Copithorne

The history of tasseomancy—the art of reading tea leaves—is inextricably linked to the history of tea itself. Tea drinking can be traced back to China’s middle and lower Yellow River Valley during the Shang dynasty (1500 - 1046 BC), yet it’s encounter with Europe is a relatively recent story. Whilst explorers to the East brought back tales of this medicinal tonic, it wasn’t until the 17th century that trade routes enabled the import of tea into Europe—first to Amsterdam, and eventually to Britain, where it appeared in the 1650s. First enjoyed by the nobility, the official trade of tea in Britain began in 1664 with the import of 2 pounds 2 ounces of tea leaves for King Charles II. In the years to follow, as well as spreading to the British colonies and America, the beverage became available in coffee houses, tea shops and tea rooms in London. By the turn of the century, black tea was the ‘national drink’ we know it as today, demonstrated by the sheer scale of imports as the price of tea dropped—from that small package for the King, to 24 million pounds by 1801.

Just as the consumption of tea was initially limited to the upper classes and then seeped into mass society as prices fell, tea leaf reading followed a similar trajectory. In the 1800s Romani tasseomancers were invited into parlours and tea rooms to read for the host’s guests—affluent Victorians with a predilection for the occult. In less moneyed circles, tasseomancy gained popularity as an accessible form of divination requiring minimal tools.

However, the 18th century volume Tea Cup-Reading and Fortune-Telling by Tea Leaves (composed by an unnamed ‘Highland Seer’) suggests an alternative history. To date the oldest book about tea in the English language, it claims that tasseomancy was “one of the most common forms of divination practiced by the peasants of Scotland”,  said to go back through generations of Scottish fortune tellers, or spae wives.

Amy Taylor - founder of the Tasseomancy Museum in Hamilton, Canada - has been reading tea leaves for over thirty years and teaching tasseomancy for twenty. She tells me that no two tasseomancers will work in the same way:

“Over 30 years ago I looked into my family’s tea bowls at a Chinese restaurant and was intrigued by what I saw. I went to occult shops, bought some good books, then sought out psychics who had tea leaf reading as part of their repertoire, got some tips and then began to create my own method. After all, no tea leaf reader does it exactly like another.”

Amy uses Rooibos, a herbal tisane, as its leaves are small and don’t expand a great deal in water. When it comes to reading the leaves, she invites us to cultivate our imaginative capacities:

“Tradition for tea reading has established a generally accepted canon of symbols and their definitions which have been duplicated in other divinatory modalities. I believe reading leaves is among the more imaginative and intuitive of the divinatory arts and discovering the patterns and their deeper meanings in the bottom of a cup is much like seeing shapes revealed in cloud formations.”

Rissa Miller, a Maryland-based tasseomancer, author and poetess, uses Darjeeling teabags for her divinatory brews:

“I've used full leaf, loose tea, but I don't think it gives me enough information. The bigger leaves tell a much shorter story. I like the huge number of shapes that a loose tea bag leaves in a cup—I can get a big picture of the seeker's emotional and material world.”

Rissa’s Guide to Reading the Leaves

Always start by grounding yourself and space clearing (I like to do a smoke cleanse of the reading space and my cups). As the reading starts, I like to see the full cup of tea. How is the tea acting in the cup? Is it bubbly? Floating? Clumpy? Sinking? All those reactions will begin the reading, set the mood. Then, once the seeker empties the cup and turns it, I read the cup from the handle, counter-clockwise. Since the seeker usually holds the cup by its handle, I consider that the person's strongest energy signature. Symbols closest to the handle are closest in time and energy to the seeker. Any tea on the outside of the cup I consider to be very strong messages from Spirit.

Practise, practise, practise looking at the patterns and pictures in the tea leaves. Soon enough, you will be able to intuit a full storyline! Also, if you want some help interpreting symbols, take a course in symbology or study a dream dictionary—but be flexible. A cat, for example, doesn't mean the same thing in every cup. Study the cat's body language, where it's looking—all of that matters in the story of the cup!

Divine Intervention: Tarot

In Divine Intervention, staff writer Maria Blyth introduces different forms of divination. She kicks off this column with one of the most popular forms of all: tarot.

Image © Kaitlynn Copithorne

If you’ve ever explored the tarot’s origin stories then you’ve probably found them to be confusing and contradictory at best. From tarot as a covert communication vehicle of ancient Egyptian secrets, to the deck as an occult book of mysteries disguised as a frivolous card game - it quickly becomes difficult to discern fact from fiction.

Perhaps Italo Calvino, member of the Oulipo group of writers, puts it best when he describes tarot as “a machine for constructing stories”. This is certainly in keeping with the cards’ incarnation as Tarocchi Appropriati, an inventive literary and linguistic game first described by Girolamo Bargagli in 1572. The game involved assigning trump cards (those of the ‘major arcana’) to one’s opponents to match their personality traits, in a witty, creative (and hopefully tactful) manner.

Tarot was revived by 19th Century occultists, and became a key divination tool admired and used by practitioners such as Aleister Crowley, founder of Thelema, and Theosophists such as Helena Blavatsky. Indeed, Pamela Colman Smith of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn illustrated the seminal Rider Waite Smith deck which continues to be favoured by millions of tarot readers across the globe. This was, notably, the first deck to illustrate the minor arcana since Italy’s 15th Century Sola Busca tarot.

From the 1970s onwards, tarot began to take on a new hue - that of a psychological tool for self-knowledge, as opposed to having more divinatory uses. In a sense, contemporary ‘character reading’ practices have come to fall surprisingly in line with the Tarocchi Appropriati of old.

Interested in learning the tarot for yourself? The beauty of starting any new practice is in getting intimate with how it relates to you as an individual, as well as working out how you might go about integrating new rituals and habits into your life. Working with the tarot is no exception. As with all journeys, each individual’s roadmap will be different, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from those who have come before us. I spoke to three prominent tarot readers to find out about how they learned their craft - perhaps their stories will encourage you to follow your own distinct trajectory.

Aly Kravetz (tarot reader, witch, proprietress of Bronxwitch Bodega)

“I learned to read tarot the hard way. I bought my first tarot deck (yes, I bought it. Relax.) when I was about 15 years old and back then I didn't know jack sh*t.  Rider Waite, who? I saw a deck and guidebook set in the new age section of the Barnes & Noble I frequented and I just had to have it. The problem, I realised later, was that the minor arcana cards didn't have images. The 4 of Cups, for example, just had four cups on them. This is a very difficult type of deck to learn from as a new reader, because often, the imagery gives you useful clues into the card's deeper meanings. It bothered me that I had to rely so heavily on the guidebook. So I took a purple composition notebook, copied the entire contents of the guidebook into my notebook in my own words and used the rest of the notebook to journal about every reading. This was my self-created tarot textbook. And slowly, very slowly, I progressed.”

Celeste Mott (tarot reader, witch)

“I used to dress up as a 'fortune teller' as a kid and conduct little psychic readings in my living room tent fort. When I was about 10 my neighbour was throwing out a bunch of esoteric books and other household things he no longer needed, and included in all of that was a deck of tarot cards. It was one of those big, pre-packaged, Barnes & Noble style Tarot Sets, with a deck and also a hardbound book with more detailed explanations, suggested spreads and so on. I took it home and started working with it, much to the horror of my very Catholic mom! Sadly for her, it turned out not to be a phase, and here I am 24 years later, a full-time witch and tarot reader.” 

Michelle Tea (author of Modern Tarot)

“I learned tarot when I was a goth 15-year old in New England in the 80s. A friend with an afternoon job at Barnes and Noble stole for me my first deck, a Rider Waite, and I learned by reading for myself, my friends and my family. My best friend had acquired the Thoth deck, and he read my cards on that a lot, so I became familiar with it and eventually bought it from a witch shop in Boston. When I was fresh out of high school I had an office job where I often didn't have any real work to do (score!) and I would spend a lot of my down time throwing spreads for no one, just to practice and learn how the cards fit together into a story. 

Meadowsweet Mead for Lughnasadh

Lughnasadh, also called Lammas, is the time within the wheel of the year that traditionally marks the harvest season. This sabbat, or festival, honours the waning half of the year and the sun’s descent into darkness, mirroring the festivities of the waxing year at Beltane. Lughnasadh represents the marriage of the Earth with the Sun, this auspicious union producing the fruits of the harvest. Traditional celebrations would have marked this time of year by honouring the God of the harvest, sometimes called John Barleycorn, and commonly known as the Green Man. Each year, he sacrifices himself through the harvest so that people can continue to live comfortably through the dark winter months. Meadowsweet is particularly abundant at this time of year, making it a perfect herb to work with around the harvest season. With the sacrifice of the harvest God in mind, your mead can be made with the intention of honouring this age-old tradition, and to pay homage to the cycle of the seasons.

Meadowsweet gets its name not from meadows, but from its history as a traditional ingredient in early mead making, used to give the honey wine an added fresh and bright flavour. 

Meadowsweet contains salicylic acid, the same chemical as aspirin, which makes it useful as a pain reliever. A favourite of Elizabeth I, meadowsweet was traditionally used as a strewing herb to scent earthen floors, in baths to treat fevers, drunk as a tea, or simply sniffed to relieve headaches. Meadowsweet water was used in the Scottish Highlands as a cosmetic to improve the complexion. A masculine energy plant ruled by Jupiter, meadowsweet was one of the three most sacred herbs of the Druids (along with water mint and vervain) and it is often used in spells for love and for peace.

If you can’t find any meadowsweet, elderflowers and rowan tree flowers are both wonderful substitutes and will make an equally delicious mead.

Alcohol is created as a by-product when the natural yeasts present on the flowers eat the sugars present in the honey. There are plenty of recipes available that require a number of additives such as commercial yeast packets and citric acid, but this traditional folk method works just fine if you use freshly gathered flowers, and even better if using raw, unprocessed honey, as this will contain its own yeasts as well. Processed, store bought honey is homogenised for safety reasons, and therefore no longer contains the natural yeasts.

Ingredients:

Large handful of meadowsweet flowers 

450g honey (a standard-sized jar). Mead is traditionally made with honey. To make it vegan substitute for sugar or honea (standard sized jar)

5 cups of filtered water, or boiled (allow to cool till lukewarm)

Method: 

1. Sanitize a large airtight jar, such as a Kilner jar, with boiling water.

2. Make a tea with your flowers and the lukewarm water and allow to infuse for at least 10 minutes.

3. Pour the honey into your sterilized jar then pour the tea mixture over top, stirring till dissolved. 

4. Make sure to stir vigorously. This action helps to activate the natural yeast on the flowers, which is how the mixture turns into alcohol. 

5. Seal the jar and put out of direct sunlight in a warmish environment (room temperature is fine).

6. Open the container every day to stir the mixture. After about a week, bubbles should start to form. You will need to allow the gasses to escape each day to avoid explosions! 

7. The mead will be ready in about 3-4 weeks. The longer you let it sit, the more alcoholic it will be, but also less sweet. This part is completely up to your personal preference. 

8. Be sure to pay attention to the look and smell of your mead. You are creating a chemical reaction and a delicate balance between good and bad bacteria, so it is important to monitor this process. As a rule of thumb, if something smells off, it probably is! 

9. If your mixture does not begin to bubble after a week or so, you may need to stir more vigorously. Failing that you can add more honey, or in the worst-case scenario, toss it and start over. 

Giving Your Shadows a Name

Extract from The Magical Writing Grimoire by Lisa Marie Basile, illustration by Ada Keesler, published by Fair Winds Press, RRP £114.99. The Magical Writing Grimoire is available in hardback at all good bookshops, and online.

The Ancient Egyptians believed in the power of names. In this ritual, you name your shadows and call them out by the name you give them. The shadow contains everything from ego and phobia to trauma and stagnation. It’s the dark mansion of what we do to ourselves and what’s been done to us. The shadow is not a bad thing. It’s a dark thing. There’s a difference.

When it comes to confessing our shadows, doing so in a ritualized setting makes our confession sacred. The religious concept of a confessional, as we know it today, is centuries old. Some form of confession occurs throughout many religions, though not all. For some, the idea of confession is freeing; for others, it’s rooted in ideas of shame and judgement. Confession may differ for each of us, but I think of it as (sometimes brutal) honesty with the self.

When we validate and honor our darkness, we can begin to heal it.

Maybe you want to confess being an unavailable friend or thinking bad thoughts about someone you barely know. These are the things that make us human. The things that come from trauma or pain or just straight-up feral cattiness.

In choosing to confess the stagnant, poisonous shit we hold inside of us, we call to a lineage of witches and accused witches who were forced to make true or untrue confessions, often to a fatal end. We have the opportunity to reclaim the confession.

Rather than confessing to a god because we are sinful and bad and requiring forgiveness, we are confessing our demons and shadows to ourselves. That said, if you’d like to call on a god, goddess, ancestor, angel, or deity of any kind in your practice, please do! This is an embracing of the shadow, and an exercise that opens up your ability to be more empathic and forgiving toward yourself and others.

Explorations

Are there shadow aspects that can transmorph or be used for good? Are there shadow aspects you must for-give? Are there shadow aspects that are sticking around, no matter how hard you work? Why are they stuck? What can you do to gently let them go? What accountability can you take? What can you do to be softer to yourself? In your journal, make a note on how to do the above. Simply by naming your shadows and medi-tating on them, you have taken that dark energy and transformed it into potential. This energy becomes one of change.

Materials

A shower, bath, or bowl of cleansing water

A single white candle used only for this confession 

A large jar or box with a lid (decorative or otherwise)

Small strips of paper

Black yarn

Late at night, when the worries of the day are over and you can sit alone and in silence, take a purifying bath or shower (or wash your hands), and enter your sacred space. Turn off the lights and light a single white candle, allowing it to flicker and dance.

Gaze into the flame, speaking your confession out loud. You can call on or confess to a deity here or simply confess to yourself. You might speak something like:

I confess Judgement, the beast that hungers in the dark. I confess its name, my name. I confess it as a part of me, a part that I control. 

In my naming you, you cannot have me.

Open your jar or box (and make sure you only use it for confessions). I have a floral, lidded pink glass jar I bought in Spain, but you may use whatever is right for you. Write the confession on a slip of paper, roll it into a scroll, tie the black yarn around the paper and slip it into your confession jar or box. Black, contrary to what some might say, is very luminous; it wards off negativity and protects us. It holds us in its strength.

The use of black yarn draws a boundary between you and the deeper pain that your confession may cause you. It allows you to control your shadows so that they don’t dim your entire life. The use of yarn gives your confession a physicality that can help pull your body’s energy into your spell work.

This container provides a space for your shadows and demons, honoring them as a part of you. In a society that values keeping secrets, even from ourselves, and burying our quirks, flaws, and weaknesses so that we present as neat and tidy, healing takes place when you show up to your truth, in a sacred setting, where you are in control.

Writing as a Magical Practice

Illustration © Kaitlynn Copithorne

Since launching Cunning Folk, I am often asked what my magical practice is. I do read Tarot cards and know a thing or two about herbs. A disappointing truth, perhaps, is that for me, most magic lies in the everyday, the mundane, the habitual. Morning walks. Foraging and cooking. Catching eyes with an animal and recognising the flicker behind their eyes. Reading and writing.

It is often said that work kills passion. As a writer, I haven’t (yet) found this to be true. In the earlier days, I was sometimes assigned topics that didn’t immediately interest me. It’s freeing to realise that anything can become interesting, if you find its magic. Like Shirley Jackson, I like to think of writing as “a way to transform everyday life into something rich and strange, something more than it appears to be.” A story that initially seems dry can be embellished, made beautiful; a moment of strangeness, wonder or terror can usually be drawn out of an everyday experience. Food shopping can be transformed into a cinematic epiphany—think about those moments when a character is overcome by wonder, the sudden awareness of being alive, the sadness at life’s impermanence, or the terror of inhabiting a body.

It’s true, though, that the most important work I don’t do to a brief. I do it for myself, often not entirely sure what possessed me, and there’s a good chance it will never be read. Much of it is filed away in draws, or on bookshelves gathering dust. When an urge comes to write something you may never publish, you could say it’s a way of exorcising thoughts that bother you late into the night. Or those that haven’t yet taken form—there’s just a nagging gut feeling that something is wrong. When you write something down you begin to see it for what it is. When you re-read it and edit it, you gain clarity. You confront your ghosts and your demons. And in turn you better understand yourself, as the receptacle of these thoughts. You can write yourself into situations. You can also sometimes write yourself out of them.

In this way, the role of an editor is somewhat comparable to that of a medium. As an editor, you work with a writer who has already done much of the work of translating images from their unconscious mind and making them available to the conscious mind. Yet even when they’ve carved out some semblance of narrative structure, there are usually still pieces in the puzzle that need disentangling, or trimming. An unnecessary metaphor or digression. A point that’s overstated, or understated. Sometimes you write something that never quite seems finished. When you give it to a good editor, they transfigure it into the thing you always had in mind, the thing you could never quite execute on your own, the thing you felt always existed, inexplicably, somewhere out there, beyond our limited expression.

First the writer succeeds in bringing forth those inspired images, strings of words or ideas from the realm WB Yeats described as the Spiritus Mundi—literally ‘world-spirit’. When an editor manages to tame chaos into order, we have something magical that can be understood in the here and now. The hope is that with time and practice, both the writer and editor will become more efficient in their roles. The writer becomes more conscious of pattern and synchronicity. What starts as fragmented, obscure prose, may gain narrative structure. 

Reading a good book, it sometimes feels like the author has got you under their spell. They’ve reached you from across space and time, often from beyond the grave. You’re invited into the subjective experience of consciousness—and sometimes, unconsciousness—of another human being. You temporarily believe in their reality. You care about their characters. Whether a story is plucked from the author’s psyche, or something else entirely, through immersion you may temporarily forget yourself. We all say that books are magical. I truly think they are.

Summer Solstice Tea Blend

The Summer Solstice, also known as Midsummer, Meán Samhraidh, or Litha, is the longest day of the year. Traditionally it’s a day of celebration of fertility and purification through fire; we’re transitioning into the waning half of the year. It is known to be the most potent day of the year to gather one’s herbs, especially St. John’s Wort, the primary herb of the Summer Solstice. This tea is formulated with herbs that have special significance to this time of the year: St. John’s Wort, Elderflower, and Calendula. 

St. John’s Wort traditionally symbolises fire, and the balances of forces between light and dark. It banishes evil spirits and offers protection, but one must remember to always ask the plant’s permission before picking, and to gather with only their left hand, lest troubles befall the unlucky picker.

It is thought that if you sleep under an Elder tree on Midsummer’s eve, you will see the King of Faeries pass by. The flowers are often used in wish fulfilment spells, while the leaves can be strewn on the floor to bless a space. 

Calendula is known as “Summer’s bride” as it represents the Sun’s fire and life’s vitality. It can be used to make dreams come true, and to attract love and admiration. If picked on Midsummer at midday, they will have added potency.

You can incorporate this tea into whatever ceremonious practices you usually follow, be it journaling, casting intentions for the coming season, or simply spending the evening sitting round the fire with loved ones.

Ingredients

2 tsp Elderflowers

1 tsp St. Johns Wort flowers

1 tsp Calendula petals

To Prepare

1. Mix all herbs together in a tea ball or muslin bag.

2. Pour boiled water over herbs.

3. Let steep for 3-5 minutes or as long as you like.

4. Drink hot or allow to cool.