ioqayin:

deerhoofandrabbitsfoot:

There’s a post going around here stating that Gods and Goddesses are not correspondences for spellwork and should not be used by magical people as such. That’s all well and good. But. As an animist, I would like to also add…

PLANTS ARE NOT CORRESPONDENCES EITHER.

Plants have spirits. They have personalities. They are capable of working a magic all their own.

If you want to understand the plants you use in your craft better, grow ‘em. Find ‘em in nature. If you can’t do either because they’re not part of your local biosphere, sit down with the dried pieces of plant matter or resin or whatever and commune with them.

Talk to your plants. Tell them what you want when you work with them. If you’re growing them, talk as you water them and tend to them.

It’s one thing to be like, “oh yeah, rosemary is for protection and lavender is for love.” It’s another thing to understand why rosemary is for protection and why lavender is for love. Looking into old plant lore can help, but developing a one-on-one relationship with the plant is vital if you want to increase the quality of the plant-worker relationship.

A good starting point to help more with this concept (since to our modern minds it can be a bit difficult to understand, at least from my observation) is to read about Agrippa’s Doctrine of Signatures. Nature provides for us the medicinal and often occult virtues of many plants based on their outward appearance, which is an intensification of the inward spirit force. Sharp thorns say: Stay Away. Soft petals and an inviting scent say: Come to me. Some plants are tricksters and disguise themselves as other plants, like Hemlock disguising kiself with Queen Anne’s Lace.

Experimenting with how different materia reacts to certain conditions, such as being burned, powdered, made into teas, or oils can also help to learn more about them. Our ancestors ate, drank, smeared, stuck them up their asses to learn the virtues of the natural world (may they rest in peace), and then passed down that knowledge.

Of course, if you don’t want to take the time learn how to do all that (because it’s honestly a ton of work, and who has the type of time or resources to do that all the time?) reading up on that knowledge which has been passed down is totally valid.