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How to correspondence: food & herbs

So this is both a how-to guide for coming up with correspondences and a general correspondence list (not for specific foods and herbs). This post is specific to food and herbs, and my personal associations may be different to other lists. I’m putting the two together, since the factors I consider when listing correspondences are so similar.

Type of food

By “type”, I don’t mean food group (although you could consider that too). Here, I mean: is it a staple? is it luxury? is it comfort? Since this is so reliant on personal associations, just go with what feels right to you.

Staple foods could be used for dedication spells, healing spells, spells relating to everyday things (relationships, basic skills) and spells relating to basic needs (self-care spells, spells to get a job, to find a place to live etc.)

Luxury foods could be used for spells relating to confidence, luck, love, success and prosperity.

Comfort foods could be used for spells relating to community, healing, renewal, protection and emotions.

Cultural/personal associations

Are there cultural or historical associations with a particular food or herb (such as rosemary for remembrance)? Does it appear in any folklore or mythology that you work with? Most importantly, what do you personally associate it with?

Source

Does the herb/produce grow locally, or is it imported? Is it seasonal? (I’m differentiating “seasonal” from “local” since there can be seasonal associations for imported foods).

Local produce and herbs could be used for spells relating to everyday things, basic needs, community, healing, protection, emotions, love, dedication, fertility, prosperity, and anything relating to hard work.

Imported produce and herbs could be used for confidence, luck, success and financial prosperity.

Seasonal produce and herbs could be used for a range of associations depending on the season, as well as anything relating to community and communication.

Medicinal properties

Are there any known or cultural medicinal or health-related properties? These could work well for healing and protection spells, or if you have health related goals, you could include something you associate with those goals in your spell.

Harmful properties

Obviously don’t put anything harmful in anything that anyone is going to eat, and be careful not to touch anything harmful, but you could keep something harmful nearby while cooking if you’re casting a hex or curse. Just don’t put it anywhere near anything that’s going in the food.

Bringing it all together

Considering the different aspects of a food can help you narrow down or reason out a correspondence, but ultimately the point is to keep your intent clear in your mind when you cast. Associations don’t have to be perfectly balanced or reasoned if they work for you.

I hope this helps! You might be interested in some of my other correspondence posts:

The problem with correspondence lists

How to correspondence: when to spell

When to spell: by moon phases

When to spell: by time of day

When to spell: by day of the week

When to spell: by month

stormbornwitch

Grounding Theory and Application

Recently I was asked by wrecklessheartofg0ld and devinaswitchyhaven to describe my personal method of grounding because I don’t use the ‘growing roots’ method that I see a lot of people using. The way I describe my method would be more along the lines of ‘equalising myself’ and ‘connecting to the web’.

The reason I describe my method of grounding in this way is because, for me, grounding is a lot like equalising the pressure when you go scuba diving. And you do this by ‘connecting to the web’ and letting yourself ‘equalise the pressure’ you feel from spellcasting or energy work.

If my analogy doesn’t make sense at the moment I promise I’ll go into greater detail later but first I should probably explain what grounding is and why you should do it for the people who have never come across the term.

Alright. So the term Grounding actually comes from the process of electrical grounding in which an object is allowed to discharge (get rid of its excess charge). If an object is negatively charged, grounding lets excess electrons to flow from the object into the earth, and if an object is positively charged, electrons flow from the earth into the object.

Within the magical community, this process of electrical grounding has been applied to create the witchy equivalent (though really it’s almost the same process and it’s called the same name).

This is based on the theory that magic is a form of energy and when a witch casts spells or practices energy work, it’s likely that they’ll end up with either too much or not enough personal energy. For a witch this can be an extremely uncomfortable experience especially if you are close to either side of the spectrum (i.e. very little personal energy or way too much personal energy).

Unfortunately there are also physical symptoms which usually accompany being unequalised such as headaches, migraines, uncomfortable buzzing sensations under the skin, nausea, vomiting, pain, irritability, insomnia and exhaustion. The symptoms are typically worse the further out of alignment you are.

Grounding also helps people who practice astral travel, dreamwork, journeying, and hedge hopping with reconnecting with ‘reality’ and feeling like you’re ‘in the now’ and present in the world.

Overall, grounding serves two purposes:

It stabilises and equalises your personal energy

It reconnects you with the earth and it’s systems (what I like to call ‘the web’) and helps you focus on reality and being ‘in the now’

In a perfect world, witches would learn how to ground before attempting to perform any magic or energy work, but unfortunately I see a lot of witches jump straight into casting spells without thinking of what it can to them. Grounding really is an essential skill for any witch who wants to keep practicing witchcraft without horrible side effects.

So while there are many grounding techniques available, this one is my personal method. If this method does not work for you I would recommend looking at the classic ‘growing roots’ method.

Connecting to the Web

Everything has its own energy/frequency/vibration/magic. Whatever you want to call it – everything has it. To ground effectively you need to be able to connect to this mass of energy and equalise your own personal energy.

For me, I visualise all of this energy as an intricately interwoven web (like a spider’s web or the internet); a mass of connections each transmitting their own energy and connecting to the whole. This is why I call it connecting to the web. Because for me, it is a web.

I developed this method of grounding because I found that I didn’t always have the time to sit down on the ground outside and sometimes it’s not appropriate (for example: At work or in the middle of class. Really whenever you feel that you need to equalise the pressure of either too much energy or not enough).

1) First you have to visualise your own energy. You can do this sitting down, standing up, listening to a lecture, watching tv, sitting at your computer – ANYWHERE. You can close your eyes if that helps you however if you close your eyes for a long time in a public place this will become quite noticeable. The more you practice the faster you will be.

2) Then you need to visualise ‘the web’. You won’t see all of it. You should be able to see the energy of the world around you and how it connects to each other. You won’t see the whole web. Maybe if you were out in space you could, but down here on earth you can only see the bits around you.

3) You’re already connected to the web. That’s the best part. As a living, breathing organism which has its own personal energy; you are already connected. You just needed to be able to see it so you can get yourself back into alignment again. You should see a little tendril of energy coming from you and connecting to the web. You need to reinforce that connection.

I’m not gonna lie; grounding is hundred times easier if you can stand barefoot on the ground or sit outside with your palms resting on the ground. However, like I said earlier, that’s not always an option.

4) Now for the equalising process. Like with scuba diving, I found the best way to equalise the pressure from either too much energy or not enough is to breathe. I know this may sound ridiculously simple – but it works. Take deep breaths and as you breathe in, draw in energy from the web. As you breathe out, send out your own energy to mingle with the web.

5) It may take a few repetitions but you should feel settled once you finish. That buzzing under your skin will be gone and you will feel lighter and refreshed.

And that’s my method. Now I know some people recommend grounding every month or every week but really you should ground every day. I know that may seem like way too much work, but it really isn’t. The more you ground the faster and better you’ll be at it, so if you do it every day it becomes second nature. The second you start to feel off or out of alignment – equalise.

I hope this helps!

- Marci

xponentialdesign

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-Dom Xponentialdesign ADD TO YOUR COLLECTION

xponentialdesign

Fresh drop ! 3 editions ;)

beatricecenci

Tawaraya Sōtatsu (Japanese, 1600-1643)

Flowers of Summer

Flowers of Autumn

mysterium-solis

Zmyainy Tsar (Serpent King) by Valery Slauk (b. 1947)

psikonauti

Franz Xaver Gruber (Austrian,1801 - 1862)

Still Life of Roses with a Butterfly, a Dragonfly and a Bird, 1836

thatbitchsimone

ymutate

Luke Hillestad (b1982)

ymutate

'Mt. Fuji with Red Sun' (a 2000 mezzotint, colours on paper, 24.5 x 28.5 inches in size) by Terunuma Kôji (照沼光治, born 1950), a contemporary Nihonga (traditional Japanese-style) painter from Mito (水戸市), Ibaraki Prefecture (茨城県).