Hello, witches! Thank you to everyone who sent congratulations on the anniversary of our podcast last week. I can’t say how much it means to me. I really can’t. I’m really excited that I’m getting to connect with so many people on the forums on the website, middleagedwitch.com. There are some really cool witches hanging out there, so I hope you’ll join the discussion. And I’m looking forward to this next year, beginning of course with Virgo season coming next Tuesday, the 23rd. We are already on the backside of Leo season, if you can believe it. And I hope everyone’s full moon intentions went well. All I really tried to pour out into the universe was gratitude. And of course I made some moon water. But back to business!
So I did get a question earlier in the week from a friend about which crystals a witch ought to have, and which crystal shapes are the best, or most effective. This witch is working on building a collection, and she wanted to know where she might want to start. Now, I did a Crystal Magick episode back in February, and we talked about dozens and dozens of crystals, what their strongest attributes are, and so forth. But I didn’t give a definitive list of what I personally think are the base crystals that a witch might want to start with.
And I want to make it clear that a witch does not NEED to have any crystals. We can do plenty of magick without them. But if you’re so inclined, and if you have the means, I do think there are a few crystals that a witch can keep in the arsenal that are going to cover a lot of the most common intentions.
So, as I told Rhose, I think the average person can get by just fine with some clear quartz for general purpose use and for amplifying any spellwork, amethyst for intuition/visions/divination, black tourmaline for psychic and energetic protection, and rose quartz for healing and love. This will cover most of a witch’s spellwork. After those are covered, you can just let your collection expand naturally, anytime you have the means and the calling to add another crystal to the family. There are some crystals that are really specific in their applications and don’t really have much use beyond that other than looking pretty, and there are some more pricey, more rare stones whose uses overlap with other less expensive, more common stones and aren’t really worth the money unless you feel like spoiling yourself. Again this is just my opinion!
The shape of the stone is really not that important, despite what people will say. It’s a matter of preference a lot of the time. A crystal grid looks really cool with an obelisk or sphere in the middle, surrounded by geometric points, and maybe it helps to focus the energy a bit more, but a crystal always vibrates in its own frequency regardless of the shape it’s been cut into. If you have a vision of how you’d prefer your stones to look, or if you’re more concerned with getting the most for your money than you are with the aesthetic appeal of the crystals, then you should definitely listen to your own opinion.
And to reiterate what I said about the different crystal shapes back in February, the shape of a crystal can be significant. It doesn’t affect a crystal’s overall attributes, but certain shapes and formations can make it easier to wield a crystal more effectively. Tumbled stones have a smoother, calmer energy, whereas raw stones are a bit spicier and a tad more free spirited, cubes are generally a more grounding sort of shape, spheres are excellent for divination work and scrying, think about crystal balls and how those are used, pyramids are really good for focusing all that energy and especially for clearing blockages according to what the crystal is.
And by that I mean that an obsidian pyramid will clear blockages related to mental stress and tension for example, whereas a pyrite pyramid will help to clear emotional or intellectual blockages. Crystal points are basically magic wands, you can wield them and direct the energy where you want it, double-terminated points, which just means that both ends of the crystal are pointy, can draw energy in and then emit energy back out. But again, whatever shape or form your crystal comes in doesn’t change its properties. So take your crystals however they come and just get familiar with them.
And now to the topic of the episode. Well today, I wanted to talk about cooking with magick. And this is definitely in the kitchen witch, hedge witch wheelhouse, and if that’s not your jam, that’s okay. We aren’t talking about gourmet cooking today, and I think there’s probably a little something for everyone in this subject. We all eat, our loved ones all eat, our enemies all eat. It’s just nice to have ideas both for using herbs in your craft, but also incorporating your craft into the act of cooking. We spoke about using herbs in cooking back in the Herbs and Plant Magick episode, so I won’t cover herbs too much at all today, but there’s so much more to it than just adding rosemary to your chicken noodle soup. Or at least there can be.
Cooking with intention is one of the easiest ways to affect not only ourselves, but other people with our magick, and it makes sense, doesn’t it? We are creating foods with our own hands, we are mixing, we are adjusting recipes, we are adding certain ingredients according to our tastes and intuition, we are excluding certain other ingredients for the same reason. And then the desired recipient literally ingests what we’ve created. This food is taken into the body as a spell. It is a really powerful way to get your magick into someone else. And I’m not trying to imply that it’s ok or ethical to put magick into someone’s food without their knowledge or consent. I’m just saying that you could.
But not only for nefarious reasons. If you’re trying to sweeten a coworker who doesn’t really like you, if you’re hosting a dinner with the in-laws and you want things to stay peaceful, if you want to help a friend succeed at their new job, if your significant other is coming down with a cold, if you want to help your child make friends at their new school, whatever you can think of, really, that you would create a spell for, you can create a recipe for, and you can use it in a similar way. We’ve talked about it before, but think of the classic birthday cake. This is a manifestation spell, and it goes way beyond burning a bay leaf. So let’s keep that in mind as we talk about all this today. Just have an open mind to the possibilities, and I suspect you’ll think of at least one application for cooking with witchcraft before we’re done today.
Now, let’s start with fruits! Especially as we head toward the Autumn Equinox next month, all the harvest festivals are coming up, we are continuing to find a lot of fruits in season, and they have so many magical correspondences. And it won’t be long before we are all gathering for holiday parties and family dinners again, so let’s think about pies. We see sometimes people online will post videos showing how to carve sigils or symbols into the bottom crust of a pie, or making the lattice into a pentagram, which is all totally valid and legit, but there’s more that we can do. Pies can be given a lot of extra meaning when we incorporate fruits specific to the result we want, and put it together just like we would a spell, with intention and energy.
So for example apples are associated with love and healing, cherries are also a fruit associated with love. Peaches are great for infusing a recipe with intentions for longevity and fertility. Pecans are great for money matters, so a pecan pie made with these manifestations in mind are going to be very welcome at the function. And of course will also be using those spices we see touted so often that have deep and powerful magickal meanings of their own. Like cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice. Pumpkin pie spice, for example, is a really good addition to any quick-money spell. And it isn’t an exotic witchcraft-specific item. They sell that shit at Aldi. It’s got cloves, allspice and nutmeg, which are so useful for prosperity work, and it’s got cinnamon and ginger which are helpful for giving a spell a little jump start.
Fruits that we can just stick in a lunch box, for our loved ones or for ourselves that also have a lot of magickal usefulness include pears, which are similar to apples in that they can help us draw in love. Plums are also good for protection. Pomegranates are special. We can use pomegranates to call luck, to help us manifest our wishes, they’re great for wealth magick and also for divination. And of course pomegranates are associated with Hades and Persephone, so we can use pomegranates, pomegranate seeds, and even the juice, when we’re doing that kind of deity work as well. Especially as an offering. Grapes are another great fruit for snacking and they can help us with any fertility or money concerns, wine can give us similar results, and of course grapes and wine are associated with Dionysus and Bacchus, so that’s another great deity correspondence.
Strawberries are a fantastic fruit for both love and luck. Citrus fruits in general are excellent. Limes are great for healing and protection. Incidentally a great cocktail to use lime power is the mojito, you’ve got limes and mint in there, and mint is a wonderfully healing and protective herb, so that’s going to amplify those intentions. Lemons are great for purification and friendship, so any time you can garnish a dish or a drink with lemon, do it. Oranges for luck, money, and divination.
Pineapples are great for any kind of intentions around success. Any prosperity work, anything to do with jobs, nailing an interview, asking for a raise. If you’re doing work for increasing your income in some way, or it doesn’t have to be related to money. If you are manifesting success in any kind of endeavor, finding the right house, finding a good day care, anything like that, start working pineapple in where you can. Fruits that are good for general love and protection intentions include raspberries, persimmons, coconut and papaya. And finally figs are another great fruit for divination.
We did talk about pecans already but nuts in general are good for fertility, prosperity, love and luck, but we can definitely specialize according to the exact result we want. Almonds, as an example, are used for wisdom, brazil nuts and chestnuts are for love, cashews for money, and interestingly, pistachios for breaking love spells. So keep all that in mind next time you host a poker night or make some trail mix. Just think about how you want the night to go.
Vegetables are easy to fold into our magickal workings in the kitchen, and of course, if you can grow your own or get them from a farmer’s market, That’s cool. But, we can get damn good results at the grocery store too. Both carrots and cucumbers are associated with fertility, celery is associated with lust, and tomatoes bring love, so think about that the next time you order a salad. Tomatoes are very strong protective fruits as well, and when we consider the protective and purifying properties of garlic and onion, we can see how a lot of traditional foods using tomato-based sauces can be easily infused with strong protective intentions.
Olives are so great for their healing and protection magick, they can be worked into fertility and impotence spells, and they’re a very peace-inviting food. Avocados are another very lusty food, cabbage is great for luck, and beets for love.
Grains in general like corn, barley, and oats are good protective foods. Wheat is also associated with wealth and abundance, so breads are a wonderful way to give our meals some of that power, oh and consider that when we think of combining breads with other foods. Bananas are associated with fertility, so banana bread will combine the abundance of wheat with the fertility power of bananas, making it an excellent choice for that kind of intention. Cinnamon is wonderful for success, so making a cinnamon roll with that intention is a wonderful way for the power of wheat to amplify that goal. Blueberries, which I forgot to mention earlier with the rest of the fruit, are used for protection, so imagine how a blueberry muffin can be used for magickal assistance. And this is what I mean when I say that it’s not just about the herbs.
There are traditional sabbat foods that witches make, you know, oat cakes for Beltane, hot cross buns for Ostara, and so forth, but we can expand that. In the United States, we have traditional New Year’s foods that are meant to bring luck, black-eyed peas, for example. Rice is a food that’s associated with prosperity in a lot of cultures. Chicken is protective, pork symbolizes abundance, we eat greens to attract money. We may only do formal spellwork a few times a month, but we eat a couple times a day. There is simply no reason not to look a little more deeply into this basic act and give it some ritual significance. Not every meal, not even every day, but it’s just too easy to do it, and it can affect the people we love in really powerful ways.
So I really hope this has given you some ideas, or just made you think a little differently about some of the recipes you already use. Please let me know, I am always looking for a good recipe. Find me on socials at @middleagedwitch, or online at middleagedwitch.com. Have a lovely Virgo season, and thank you so much for joining me. My name is Eli Ro and this is the Middle-Aged Witch podcast.
