Star Made Witch: Potion Making

What makes a potion more than a tea? In witchcraft the simple infusion of plant matter into liquids is elevated from a drink to a magical brew. The manner in which a witch makes recipes into a spell is by carefully selecting components fit to the potions purpose and ensuring the elements included know the goal and work towards its completion.

First something triggers the desire to make the potion and the purpose the brew will serve:

1. Perhaps one is hiking outdoors and stumbles upon Saint Columba’s plant “armpit package of Columba kindly, unsought by me, unlooked for! I shall not be thrust upon iron.” Because this plant also known as St. John’s wort is to be used for magic when found without looking for it – the discovery of itself prompts it’s use – upon seen it if you aren’t worried about that all perhaps you remark instead “plant of the joyful feast that was in the delightful quart of Fionn.” (Carmina Gadelica).
2. Should a pressing need or want to send you seeking a plant for a potion you might go where are you know it grows, is sold, or stored. Do tell it as you gather it why you are requiring its virtues: “Verbana, do good for me! Bless that which! The fairy that has me marked!” (Aradia: Gospel of the Witches by Charles Leland and Madellena, the Puzzaglino translation).

Back in the kitchen, the witch stirs their brew, be it mulled wine or the wert of a gruit ale, a pot of boiling water poured over leaves for an infusion, pungent bulbs and roots in an oil or an herbal vinegar, honey, hard alcohol, or glycerin. Does the witch murmur the standby “For charm of powerful trouble-Like a hell broth boil and bubble. Double, double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble.” from Macbeth by Shakespeare? Or more likely something less gruesome like: “Ascend from earth to heaven and to send again to earth, combine the power of above and below” (the Alchemist’s Kitchen by Guy Ogilwy).

At the last minute even, a witch can whisper over a drink to awaken the magical engagement of the materials to the purpose. Concentrate for a moment, draw in the celestial power of the sun above and land below and speak it into the cup: “coffee bean and hazelnut, revive my heart, ground my will, as I drain the strength of confidence from this cup.”

If you are curious about growing your own potions with magically selected ingredients with traditional and poetic charms, check out my class on Patreon. This month we are making a witch cider with warming herbs and wild fermentation.

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