Tag Archives: esoteric

Whispers From The Unseen Tongue: A Guide

“Nature is not a place to visit. It is home”

The Language of Roots and Rot

Folk magic does not shout. It murmurs in the rustle of leaves, hums in the marrow of decaying logs, and sighs through the hollows where shadows gather. To understand it, one must learn the dialects of the wind- the symbology of fungi, the omens carried on raven wings, the stories etched into bark by time and weather. Here, we wander through the lexicon of the unseen.

Trees: The Archivists of Earth

The tree is a tongue that speaks to the wind, a bridge between the living and the dead.

Trees are more than sentinels; they are living chronicles. The yew, with its blood-red berries and tocid embrace, guards graveyards as a reminder of death’s fertility. The rowan wards of restless spirits with its scarlet clusters- a beacon against the unseen. Ancient oaks anchor let lines, their roots threading through underworlds, their branches cradling starlight.

Folklore: In some Celtic traditions, carrying rowan wood protects against enchantment. To harm a hawthorn, however, invites the wrath of the fairy realms.

Fungi: The Alchemists of Decay

The mushroom is nature’s hieroglyph- a cipher written in rot and rebirth.

Fungi thrive in liminal spaces, dissolving death into life. Fairy rings- circles or mushrooms- mark gateways to Otherworld revelries, where time bends and mortal feet stumble. The fly agaric, scarlet and speckled, fuels Siberian shamans’ visions, while the death cap hides its venom in plain sight, a reminder that beauty and peril share the same soil.

Folklore: Breton lore warns that stepping into a fairy ring binds you to dance until you are freed by madness or death.

Birds: Omens on Feathered Wings

The crow’s call is a funeral dirge; the owl’s cry, a widow’s lament.

Birds are translators between realms. Ravens, Odin’s spires, carry secrets from battlefields to gods. Owls, Athenian emblems of wisdom , are also harbingers of death in Welsh myth- their hoots echoing the Ankou, a grim reaper. Even the wren, tiny and plain, holds power: Irish tradition claims it betrayed martyrs, earning its title Devil’s Bird.

Folklore: A lone magpie at dawn signals sorrow, but two bring mirth- a duality captured in a famous rhyme.

Rivers: The Veins of Memory

Water remembers what the land forgets.

Rivers are thresholds. The Styx ferries souls to Hades; the Boyne cradles Ireland’s myths. To ancient Celts, depositing swords or torcs in water honours the gods of the deep. Even today, well dressing in Derbyshire threads petals into sacred patterns, a plea for the springs’ benevolence.

Folklore: Throwing coins into wells once fed the spirits within- a pact of copper for clarity, silver for healing.

The Moon: A Mirror of the Unseen

The moon does not fight. It attacks no one. It does not worry. It simply shines

The moon’s phases are a grimoire. The new moon cloaks intentions in shadow, a time for sowing silent wishes. The full moon illuminates truths, its light a scalpel for lies. Waning crescent? A blade to sever ties. Folk magic hungers for lunar silver- charging talismans in its glow, harvesting herbs under its gaze, whispering pleas to its cold, unblinking eye.

Folklore: Romanian farmers once sowed seeds at the full moon to ensure fertility while Breton fishermen refused to set sail under a waning crescent.

Reflections

The forest speaks in riddles. A raven’s croon, a mushroom’s bloom, the way moonlight pools in a hollow stump- these are not accidents. They are fragments of a language older than temples, older than prayers. It is said the to know a thing’s name is to bind it, but perhaps the wild asks for something gentler: to listen, to kneel, to let the world’s whispers etch themselves into your bones.

Thresholds and Covenants: A Journal Entry

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”- William Faulkner

The forest is a keeper of thresholds. Rivers, crossroads, and moonlit glades are its well-known gateways, but hollow oaks- split by lightning and hollowed by time- are quieter, darker doors. I found it weeks ago, its trunk cracked like an ancient tome, its roots cradling secrets older than the village beyond the trees.

Inside, wrapped in linen the colour of a weathered bone, lay a blade. Not rusted, thought its edge was dull. Not ornate, though its hilt bore runes that prickled the skin like static. It hummed in my palm, a sound felt more than heard, as if vibrating in tune with the marrow of the world.

The Language of Unseen Things

Hollow trees are not mere shelters for owls or foxes. In Celtic lore, they are portals to the fairy realms. Offerings of milk or bread are left to appease their keepers, but this blade was no offering. It was a key. Or a lock. Or both.

The runes defied translation. Not like anything I have seen before- perhaps something older, something ties to the nameless things that walked the woods before the stones I stumble on were set in place. The blade’s purpose lingers just beyond reach, like a word forgotten mid-sentence.

Dreaming

The blade now rests on my desk, next to dried hawthorn and a jar of storm water. It hums at odd hours, a sound that slips into dreams. Last night I dreamt of a weaver that was not weaving, but instead unravelling. Threads snapped like sinew as she laughed.

I woke with dirt beneath my nails, the journals pages smudged with ink and a refrain echoing through my mind: not all doors should be opened. Coincidence? The forest does not deal in coincidence.

Reflections

I returned the blade to its oak today. Left it swaddled in fresh lines, a sprig of rue, and three drops of blood- an offering, apology, and plea. The wind hissed through the hollow but whether in acceptance or scorn, I cannot say.

The forest guards its thresholds jealously. Some secrets are not meant to be found. Some blades are not meant to be held.

The Poisoner’s Garden: Herbs of Shadow and Light

“Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble.” – William Shakespeare

The Duality of Roots

In the moonlit corners of the poisoner’s garden, where shadows cling like loyal familiars, grow herbs that defy simple categorisation. They are both healers and destroyers, keys to visions and locks on forbidden doors. Tonight, we wander among two of those enigmatic herbs. Handle them with reverence- or regret.

Belladonna: The Silent Siren

Deadly nightshade, fairest of poisons

Belladonna’s glossy black berries and star shaped flowers have lured the curious to their doom for centuries.

A History Steeped in Blood and Vision

A plant with ancient origins, named Atropa Belladonna for the Greek goddess Atropos, the Fate who cuts the thread of life. Roman assassins dipped arrows in its sap, while priestesses of Delphi allegedly inhaled its fumes to commune with Apollo’s oracle. The use of Belladonna as a poison was known as far back as Roman times, with rumours claiming that Livia Drusilla used it to murder her husband, the emperor Augustus.

By the Middle Ages, it became a key ingredient in a ‘flying ointment’ said to be used by witches to induce trances. The hallucinogenic alkaloids (atropine, scopolamine) blurred the line between ecstasy and agony, birthing tales of broomstick flights and Sabbaths with the Devil.

In the middle ages, Venetian women dripped its juice into their eyes to dilate pupils- a dangerous fashion trend immortalised in its name, meaning beautiful lady. Even Goethe wrote of its allure in Faust where it symbolises forbidden knowledge.

Mandrake: The Screaming Root

Mandrake, the little man of the earth.

Its forked root, said to scream when pulled from the soil, has fuelled legends from Babylon to Hogwarts.

A Root Wrapped in Myth and Terror

In Ancient Egypt, Mandrake was buried in pharaohs’ tombs as a gateway to the afterlife. The Hebrew Bible references it as a fertility charm, with Rachel bartering mandrakes for Jacob’s love (Genesis 30:14-16). The myth of mandrake was further deepened in Greek lore as Hippocrates prescribed it for melancholy, albeit sparingly, while Dioscorides warned in De Materia Medica that its cry could kill harvesters. Pliny the Elder claimed sorcerers wore it as an amulet to defy fate.

In Medieval Europe apothecaries sold mandrake manikins- carved from bryony roots, claiming they guarded against plague and poverty. German folklore said they grew beneath the gallows from the semen of hanged men. Shakespeare himself immortalised the dread of mandrakes in Romeo and Juliet: “Shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth.”

Reflections

Belladonna and mandrake are not merely plants- they are mirrors. They reflect humanity’s oldest obsessions: the hunger for transcendence, the fear of mortality, the dance between sin and salvation. To walk their history is to walk a knife’s edge, where poison and cure are divided by a breath.

I gather these with gloved hands, and a humbled heart. They remind me that every garden holds graves, every remedy a requiem.

This post explores historical and folkloric uses of plants. They are toxic and should only be handled with the utmost care.

Shadowed Blooms: The Dark Language of Petals

“The pedigree of honey Does not concern the bee; A clover, any time, to him Is aristocracy.”- Emily Dickinson

Whispers in Petals

Flowers are not merely beautiful. They are spies. They are messengers. They are mourners. Long before words failed us, we have them voices- crimson roses for passion, lilies for purity, rosemary for remembrance. But in the shadowed corners of floriography, there blooms a darker lexicon: flowers that speak of betrayal, of longing, of secrets buried deep in the soil.

Let us wander through the unseen garden. Let us learn the language of flowers that grow where the light dares not linger.

Flowers of the Forgotten

Nightshade: Beware the beauty that blinds

Its berries gleam like polished onyx, its blooms a velvet purple. A flower of danger, delirium, and the veil between life and death. In the Victorian language of flowers, it does not speak, it whispers: I am your undoing.

Black Rose: Love, darkened by time

A rose dyed black by moonlight and sorr0w. It speaks of farewells, of love that persists beyond the grave, of vows made in shadows. It wails: My heart is yours, even in decay

Yew: Eternity’s Sigh

Its scarlet berries and evergreen needles mark gravesides. It stands, now as always, a sentinel between worlds. It murmurs: I remember. I wait.

A Bouquet for the Lost

I gathered my flowers at dusk, their petals trembling in the half-light. The nightshade from the edge of the forest, the rose from a forgotten garden, the yew from the churchyard where the stones lean like wary watchers. Together they form a bouquet of unspoken truths- a language for the secrets I cannot name.

There is a love here, tangled in thorns. A love that refuses to die, even as it poisons the soil. A love that waits, patient as the yew, for a reunion I cannot yet fathom.

A Ritual for Speaking Without Words

  1. Gather your tools: A black ribbon, a candle, and three flowers
  2. Set your intention: Light your candle and whisper the name of the one you wish to reach.
  3. Bind the flowers: Imbue into them your intention silently. Consider who you are wishing to reach, and why. Feed the blooms with your questions.
  4. Bury or Burn: To release, burn the bouquet letting the smoke carry your message. To preserve, bury the bouquet in soil where roots will cradle your words.
  5. Give thanks: Extinguish your candle, and leave a drop of honey as a thank you.

Reflections

The forest taught me that growth and decay are lovers, entwined in an endless dance. These flowers are their emissaries- beautiful, lethal, eternal.

I press the nightshade between the pages of my journal, its petals leaving stains like old ink. Somewhere, in the silence between heartbeats, I hope I am heard.

The Magician: The Alchemist Of Possibility

“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”- Mary Shelley

The Symbolism of The Magician

The Magician is the first card of the Major Arcana (The Fool is counted as card 0), a figure of power, creativity, and transformation. He stands at a table adorned with the tools of his craft- a cup, a coin, a sword, and a wand- each representing the four elements: water, earth, air, and fire. Above his head is the infinity symbol, a reminder of the boundless potential within us all.

The Magician is the master of manifestation. He reminds us that we have the power to shape our reality, to turn our dreams into tangible truths. But with this power comes responsibility. The Magician’s energy is not about control, but about alignment- aligning our will with the forces of the universe, and our actions with our intentions.

As I sit with the Magician, I feel a spark of recognition. Like him, I am standing at a crossroads, my hands poised to shape the threads of my own destiny. The forest is my table, and its gifts- the herbs, the stones, the whispers of the wind- are my tools.

But the Magician also reminds me of the importance of focus. His gaze is steady, his hands deliberate. He does not scatter his energy, but channels it with precision. As I wander these woods, I am learning to do the same- to listen deeply, to act with intention, and to trust in the magic that flows through me.

The Magician is a reminder that we are all creators, weaving the threads of our lives into a tapestry of meaning and purpose. As I walk the forest paths, I feel his presence beside me, a steady hand guiding me home.

The Old Ways: An Introduction to Folk Magic

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper”- W.B. Yeats

The Whisper of the Earth

There is a magic that lives in the cracks of the world- a quiet, insistent hum that rises from the soil, dances on the wind, and lingers in the shadows of ancient trees. It is not the magic of grand gestures or flashing lights, but the magic of the everyday, the mundane, the overlooked. It is the magic of the old ways, of folk traditions passed down through generations, carried in the hands of grandmothers, whispered in the ears of children, and buried in the roots of the earth.

Folk magic is the art of listening to the land, the seasons, and the spirits that dwell just beyond the veil. It is the practice of finding power in the simple things: a sprig of rosemary, a bowl of rainwater, a stone warmed by the sun. It is the understanding that the world is alive, and that we are part of its living, breathing tapestry.

The Tools of the Trade

Folk Magic is as varies as the people who practice it, but there are threads that run through all traditions, ones that bind us to the earth and to each other. Here are a few of the tools and practices that define the old ways:

  • Herbs and Plants: From the protective power of sage to the love-drawing magic of rose petals, plants are the heart of folk magic.
  • Stones and Crystals: Each stone carries its own energy, its own story. A piece of obsidian for protection, a chunk of amethyst for dreams, a smooth river stone for grounding.
  • Candles and Fire: Fire is transformation, purification, illumination. A candle lit with intention becomes a beacon, a prayer, and a spell.
  • Words and Symbols: Spoken charms, written sigils, and whispered incantations. Words have power and symbols are the language of the unseen.
  • The Elements: Earth, air, fire, water- the building blocks of the world and of magic. These are the forces that shape our world and our work.

The Ethics of Folk Magic

Folk magic is not about control or domination. It is about harmony, balance, and respect. It is about working with the world rather than against it. Every spell, ritual and gesture is a conversation- a dialogue with forces that surround us. And like any conversation, it requires listening as much as speaking, giving as much as taking.

The old ways teach us to tread lightly, to honour the land, and to remember that every action has a consequence. They remind us that magic is not a shortcut, but a path- one that requires patience, humility and care.

Folk magic is not a relic of the past- it is a living tradition and a way of seeing our world and our place within it. It is a reminder that magic is not something we must seek in far-off lands or hidden grimoires, but something that lives within us and around us, in the everyday and the ordinary.

Folkloric Archetypes: The Weaver

“The world is woven in a loom of dreams/ And every thread is a life.” – William Butler Yeats

The Weaver’s Loom

In the heart of the forest, where the trees are tall and the shadows deep, there is a place where time stands still. Here, the Weaver sits at their loom, their hands moving deftly over the threads. Each thread is a life, a story, a destiny. Some are bright and strong, others frayed and fragile. Together, they form a tapestry- a tapestry of existence, woven with the patterns of love, loss, and transformation.

The Weaver is a figure of mystery, their face hidden beneath a hood, their voice a whisper on the wind. They are neither good nor evil, but a force of balance, a reminder that every thread has its place in the grand design. To encounter the Weaver is to glimpse the patterns of fate, to see the connections that bind us all.

The Weaver in Folklore

The Weaver appears in many forms across cultures and tales. In Greek mythology, they are the Moirai, the three sisters who spin, measure, and cut the threads of life. In Norse legends, they are the Norns, who weave the tapestry of destiny at the roots of Yggdrasil, the world tree. In Slavic folklore, they are the Rozhanitsy, the goddesses of fate who shape the lives of mortals.

But the Weaver is not just a figure of the past. They are a symbol, a metaphor, a mirror. They remind us that our lives are interconnected, that every choice we make ripples through the tapestry of existence. They challenge us to see the patterns, to understand the threads, and to take hold of our own destiny.

The Weaver’s Message

When the Weaver appears in a tale, it is often a moment of reckoning- a time to reflect on the choices we have made, the paths we have taken, the threads that we have woven. They remind us that fate is not fixed, that the tapestry is always shifting, always growing.

The Weaver’s message is one of empowerment. They ask us to see the beauty in the patterns, even when they are tangled or torn. They ask us to trust in the journey, even when the path is unclear. And they as us to remember that we are, all of us, weavers, shaping our own stories with every step we take.

A Ritual of Reflection

To honour this archetype and how it manifests in our own lives, try this simple ritual.

  1. Gather your tools: You will need a candle, a piece of thread or yarn, and a quiet space.
  2. Light the candle: As you light the candle, set an intention- a wish, thought, or prayer. Let the flame be a simple of your inner light.
  3. Hold the thread: Take the thread in your hands and reflect on the patterns of your life. Which threads are strong? Which are frayed? What patterns do you see?
  4. Weave your intention: Tie the thread into a knot, symbolising your intention to shape your own destiny.
  5. Give thanks: Thank the Weaver for their wisdom and guidance, and let the candle burn down safely.

The Weaver is not just an archetype in a story- it is a mirror, a guide and a reminder. It is a call to see patterns in our lives, to understand the threads that bind us, and to take hold of our own destiny.

The Fool’s Journey: Taking The First Step Into The Unknown

The first card of the Major Arcana: The first step on a journey.

Symbolism

The Fool stands on the edge of a cliff, a small bag in hand, a loyal companion by their side. They are not afraid of the drop ahead, because they trust in the journey. this card reminds us that every great adventure begins with a single step- a leap of faith into the unknown.

In The Tarot, the Fool is depicted as a wanderer, a dreamer, a seeker of truth. They take with them only what they need: a bag of potential, a rose of passion, and the light of curiosity. The fog at their feet symbolises instinct and loyalty, a reminder that even in the unknown, we are never truly alone.

The cliff represents the edge of the familiar, the boundary between what we know and what we have yet to discover. To step off that edge is to embrace the unknown, to trust in the journey, and to believe that the universe will catch us.

The Fool in Folklore and Myth

The Fool’s journey is not just a Tarot archetype- it is a story as old as time. In folklore and myth, the Fool appears as the trickster, the wanderer, the one who dares to question the status quo.

Think of Loki, the Norse trickster, who challenges the gods and brings chaos to order. Or, consider Orpheus, who descends into the underworld to retrieve his love, armed only with his lyre and his faith. These figures remind us that the Fool’s journey is not just about taking risks- it is about transformation, about becoming who we are meant to be.

To me, the Fool is a wanderer in the forest, drawn by the whispers of the trees and the promise of something more. They might be the dreamer who lights a black candle and gazes into the flame, seeking answers in the shadows.

The Fool’s Message for Us

When the Fool appears in a reading, it is a call to embrace the unknown, to trust in the journey, and to take that first step, no matter how uncertain it may feel. It is a reminder that every ending is a beginning, and every beginning is a chance to rewrite our story.

The Fool does not ask us to have the answers. They ask only that we be open to the possibilities, that we trust in the magic of the journey, and that we believe in ourselves.

A Ritual for The Fool

To honour the Fool’s energy, try this simple ritual:

  • Light a Black Candle: The flame represents the light of curiosity and the courage to step into the unknown.
  • Draw the Fool Card: Place it in front of the candle and meditate on its symbolism. What step are you being called to take?
  • Write a Letter to Your Future Self: What do you hope to discover on your journey? What fears are you ready to release?
  • Take a Small Step: Whether it is starting a new project, trying something new, or simply saying “yes” to an opportunity, take one small step towards the unknown.

Closing Reflection

The Fool’s journey is not just a card in the Tarot- it is a metaphor for life itself. It is the story of beginnings, of risks, of transformation. It is the story of you and me, of all of us who dare to dream, to wander, to step into the unknown.