Thursday, March 22, 2007

Witch's Brew - "Feminine Clarity"

ד' בניסן תשס"ז

I've revised the rituals and substances I will use for the ritual bath and other purification procedures prior to shabbat and performing spellwork.

First, for the general cleansing bath or shower, dedicated handmade lavender soap will be used to cleanse and purify the body in accordance with the general purifying properties of lavender.

Second, while I will still use the salt water preparation (prepared with salt crystals from the Dead Sea) to "cleanse" the ritual space, the ritual bath for the body will not be performed with this water. Instead, a ritually prepared and dedicated purification oil based upon a biblical purification recipe will be used. My recipe uses essential oils blended into a jajoba [1] carrier oil, and is as follows:

15 mls (1/2 oz. or 1/16 cup) jojoba oil
3 drops myrrh
2 drops frankincense
2 drops spikenard
1 drop cinnamon bark
1 drop hyssop
1 drop benzoin
1 drop vanilla

My recipe uses vanilla and benzoin (vanilla-like) instead of calamus. Calamus represents masculinity, while vanilla represents femininity (as does vanilla-like benzoin, with a benjaminic aromatic chemical group). Thus, my blend Feminine Clarity uses vanilla and benzoin in contradistinction to the biblical blend which uses calamus.

After preparation, Feminine Clarity will be stored in the witch's bottle shown above.

Footnote:

[1] Jajoba oil is more like a liquid form of wax with an indefinite shelf life, and thus won't turn rancid as can olive oil (which has a non-refrigerated shelf life of approximately one year).

4 comments:

IR said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lori said...

:) I've discovered that olive oil is not the greatest to use when making oil blends. It tends to be an overpowering scent as well as having a rather short shelf life. I'm going with a jajoba carrier for most oil blends from now on, unless there's a magickal reason to use olive oil. Even then, I'd probably opt to still use jajoba as the carrier and add a drop or two of the olive oil if a "magickal" recipe calls for olive oil.

IR said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lori said...

First trial batch was prepared on 4/5/07 under the planetary influence of Saturn. Recipe changes: used 1/8 cup jojoba and 5 drops cinnamon bark oil.