May is strongly associated with flower imagery, from the traditional name of its full moon to the flourishing of actual flower gardens. Flowers embody Spring and its light, bright, and optimistic energy.
Their bright, cheery appearance and association with optimism, romance, and love give flowers a reputation for being fragile and dainty. For a long time, these weaker associations being synonymous with femininity made me feel that I shouldn't want or even like flowers.
I was taught at a young age that flowers were pretty but they died quickly and were useless, so don't bother. I held on to this belief all the way through my undergrad years. By the time I graduated college, I could admit, at least to myself, that I liked flowers, but I didn't want them—they would only die.
Then my herbal tea craze phase started, and I discovered flowers were anything but useless. Lavender, chamomile, hibiscus, calendula, peach blossom, orange blossom, apple blossom, rose—so many flowers appear in herbal tea recipes and tisanes, as rich in medicinal and magickal uses as in flavor. Don't even get me started on the culinary possibilities!
As my practice developed and teas, especially herbal blends, became a big part of my magickal brews, my appreciation, love, and gratitude for flowers flourished. I’ve since added loose flower buds to my tea stores and apothecary. Flower teas, especially iced flower teas, are now especially potent brews in my practice.
Because each flower has so many associations that play off of each other, intention and will are especially important when brewing flower teas. Creating the best tasting and most magically potent tea brews requires both focus and fun.
Below is a simple flower tea recipe I concocted, including the surprising ways I ended up using it.
Gathering the ingredients for my delicate-yet-thorny flower tea.
Steeping for a Spell
Ingredients:
¼ cup dried Hibiscus
¼ cup dried Calendula
¼ cup dried Chamomile
3 lemon wedges, squeezed (more or less to taste)
Honey to taste
Add the dried, food-grade blossoms to water that’s just about to boil.
Cover the tea, remove from heat, and steep for about 15 minutes.
Strain the tea into a jar and add honey and lemon to taste.
Enjoy a cup right away, warm, or store it in the refrigerator to enjoy later, either warm or cold.
I love this brew iced, but it’s equally delicious hot. Just warm the previously-brewed tea in a pan until it’s almost simmering and begins to steam a little.
New-Wave Flower Power
So far this year, I’ve brewed this tea twice for very specific and different reasons. The first time, I brewed it with the intention of creating a revitalizing elixir. I’d suffered through a 48-hour illness and needed a little boost.
Hibiscus has immune-boosting antioxidants and vitamin C, helps dissolve mucus, relieve cramps, and soothe stomach irritation. Magickally, the flower brings harmony, relaxation, and a feeling of unstuckness.
Calendula is anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antiseptic, anti-fungal, has antioxidants, and helps with immune support. Any time I'm dealing with recovery from illness, I need all the support and help I can get. The flower’s magical properties add health, healing, detoxification, and strength to my brew.
Chamomile is a gentle anti-spasmodic and anti-inflammatory muscle relaxer. It can be used to soothe problems associated with muscle cramps and spasms. It also soothes digestive complaints. Magickally, chamomile is good for healing, restoring harmony and balance, and cleansing your energy.
Lemons are a traditional remedy for all sorts of illnesses. Rich in vitamin C, antioxidants, and electrolytes, they’re excellent for supporting the immune system, soothing colds and fevers, and rehydrating the body. Also a common magickal ingredient, lemons are extremely powerful purifiers. They can cleanse your space, your energy, and especially your solar plexus chakra.
Honey is an ancient medicine and a powerful antimicrobial. It’s an excellent cough suppressant, helps heal tissue, and contains serotonin for a restful night’s sleep. Magickally speaking, it’s often used to “sweeten” a spell to amplify the energy. Honey also heals energy, especially the sacral chakra.
Brewed together with the intention to heal, these ingredients purified my energy, helped clear my illness, and accelerated my recovery. This tea is soothing and energizing at once, and it was the perfect pick-me-up when I was feeling under the weather.
The second time, I brewed it to reinforce an exorcism.
My fellow Scorpio Sister and BFF, Megan, was video-chatting me when she heard her wife’s voice calling her from another room.
She was alone in her apartment at the time. The voice wasn’t her wife at all—it was an entity called a mimic. In addition to mimicking voices, they also cause clumsiness that results in minor accidents and cause general mischief. Sometimes, that mischief can get dangerous.
That’s exactly what was happening to Megan. After shouting at the mimic to “get the ever-loving fuck out of my house” she told me about several incidents from the past few days where she’d done things like drop knives, hit herself in the head by opening a cabinet door…and ask her wife what she needed only to discover her wife hadn’t called her.
As she talked, a tingle traveled up my spine. We both knew it was time for heavy-duty banishing. Separately, but in tandem, we raided our kitchen-witch supplies and put together offerings to petition the goddesses we work with to hunt and banish the malicious entity.
Megan made her own spicy banishing brew that she may choose to share in a later post. As for me, I knew this particular flower tea had the perfect balance of energies to help boost her working—and prevent the entity from latching onto me, instead.
Hibiscus lent the brew its spell-amplifying properties, along with protection against negativity and evil. This bloodred blossom also attracts good spirits and represents feminine power—particularly that of the goddess Kali-Ma. Hibiscus’ vibrant red color symbolizes her primordial energy.
Calendula also has powerful protection energy, as well as solar properties that shine light into dark corners, banishing shadowy energy. It helps us reclaim boundaries, make full use of our personal energy, and gets stagnant energy moving. Also called marigold, this bright yellow blossom was often used to induce prophetic dreams to help identify thieves. I felt this would be helpful in identifying the mimic so it could be fully banished.
Chamomile seems like a gentle sort of herb, but it’s deeply imbued with banishing energy. Drinking it or washing with it can dispel negativity and prevent it from returning. It also lent its calming, centering energies to the brew to allow the banishing to really stick.
Lemon is well-known for its cleansing and purifying properties, but it’s also useful for turning away harmful spells and repelling the evil eye. After the malicious energy was cleared away, lemon’s energy was free to flood the space and prevent it from returning.
Honey, heals, cleanses, and—as mentioned above—sweetens a spell, supporting and adding extra oomph to a working. It’s also sacred to Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, sex, fertility, and passion, among many other things. She’s also a primordial goddess of the heavens and extremely protective over those who work with her—which Megan’s wife and I both do. Sweetening the tea with honey not only added its magickal properties to the spell, but it was also a petition for Aphrodite’s help in clearing the mimic and preventing its return.
After having dealt with the malicious entity, I added a blackberry-infused vodka I had made and edible glitter as an offering to my goddesses.
After the goddesses we petitioned helped us evict the mimic from Megan’s home and prevented it from entering mine through our connection with each other, I offered the banishing flower tea to my goddesses as a thank-you. Before setting it out for them, I added a splash of homemade blackberry-infused vodka and a touch of edible glitter.
Infusing the brew with my intention, thanks, and devotion, I sipped the beverage, visualizing my goddesses sharing it with me and the tea’s cleansing properties flowing through my veins. Though mimics sometimes return (they’re slippery little suckers) it hasn’t given either of us any trouble since then.
As witches, we all know that flowers may be delicate and fragile, but they’re powerful, virulent, pervasive, and—sometimes—full of thorns and poison.