Mardi: Herbal-Wise

The time of dandelions, when the hardest core lawn police fairly freak out, is upon us.  In many a yard and field, however, dandelions are plucked enthusiastically for everything from salads to wine.  They are also popular in hoodoo and other disciplines for wishing, psychism and even telling the future.  

To improve lucid dreaming and divinatory powers, a tea of dried dandelion roots is brewed.  Most root workers say that the root should be chopped fine and the tea should be drunk three times a week without fail for the best effect.  Scott Cunningham advises leaving a saucer of the same tea by one’s bed to call up spirits.

Of course most of us have made a wish and blown on a dandelion that has gone to seed, releasing the wish into the element of air.  Some Wiccans advise doing the same to determine the number of years you have left on Earth.  Count the seeds left on the head of the dandelion after you blow on it; that is the rest of your life span.

Dandelion root is also used in a hoodoo wishing mojo.  Write your desire on a slip of paper, and then write your full name three times so that the name crosses your wish.  Now fold the paper toward you around a dandelion root and place it in a red flannel mojo bag.  Carry this with you as you work toward your desire.   Adding seven Job’s Tears to the bag is supposed to speed a positive result.

It’s said that burying a blooming dandelion in the northwest corner of your house will bring good fortune.  Bonne chance ~

Header: Ville d’Avray by Jean Baptiste Corot c 1865