Every Saturday, Smile Herb Shop hosts drumming lessons taught by musician Nana Frimpong. It’s something that I’ve wanted to go to ever since I first found out about it, but never had the opportunity — Smile is pretty far from where we live now, and Saturdays are often one of the few opportunities that we have to take care of things that need attention. So, when we realized we wouldn’t be able to go camping like we originally hoped to, it seemed like a good time to finally sign up.
Initially, I felt self-conscious — my Handsome Assistant and I were the first to show up to the class, so it was only Nana and us for some time. Fortunately, Nana is a very welcoming, friendly, and engaging teacher. In between teaching drumming, he played songs for us while we did hand stretches, told us about his family and childhood in Ghana, and showed us how music had shaped his life to make him the person he is today. His message was radically inclusive, using drumming and music as a uniting force across all people and all cultures. Not only was the class really enjoyable, it was deeply moving.
Being there brought up a lot of memories for me, too. Being a little kid at Powwows, listening to the heartbeat drum and dancing with my friends. Being older, going to local burns, learning to fire spin and dancing around the burning wicker man to the sound of drums. Even this past Beltane, when I sat with a group of very welcoming strangers and drummed for the maypole dancers. Drums have been integral to so many unifying, joyful experiences in my life. As it turns out, I really, really missed that.
Gradually, more people filtered into the class. They brought their own drums. One person very generously offered snacks. Another, equally generous, recorded the music we were making on his phone. I had never met any of these people, some didn’t even live in the same state as I do. But there’s something really unifying about playing together. Making the same motions at the same time. Hearing the voices of each different drum come together in one song.
Most of all, it’s fun. “Fun” seems like a silly way to put it, but I don’t have a better word. It’s fun to make something beautiful with strangers, in a way that cuts to the bone through all the pretenses we dress ourselves in. It’s fun in a way that makes those other things not matter.
Next weekend, Nana will be hosting an outdoor concert as part of his drumming classes at Smile to celebrate his birthday. Slots in his classes are very inexpensive on Eventbrite — only about $11. If you’re interested in drumming for fun, to increase your musical abilities, or for healing, I definitely recommend attending.
My Handsome Assistant and I were originally intending to go on a camping trip with a local Druid group that we’re part of, but with him still recovering from his accident, we decided (at the last minute) that it might be better to focus on getting him to 100% before we try tent camping.
So, rather than having singing, dancing, feasting, and ritual in a group, we had a smaller, homey version: fresh baked breads, homebrewed peach mead, music, ritual, and a spirit feast.
What’s a spirit feast? Exactly what it sounds like — a feast conducted for deities, ancestors, spirits of the land, guardian and guiding spirits, and any spirits to whom we may owe a debt (for example, spirits of the land affronted by new construction, tree felling, and so forth).
Unlike the “dumb suppers” of Samhain, this is not just for ancestors and the beloved dead, and it’s more like a party. Offerings are carefully chosen and high quality. Incense. Flowers. Candles. Fresh bread. Wine. Fruit. Good food, well prepared. Is it a traditional part of Lughnasadh celebrations? Not really. But Lughnasadh is a time to offer the “first fruits,” and so, in the absence of being able to party with friends, it seemed an appropriate way to offer the first fruits. It felt right. It was equal parts fun and moving. I’ll probably make it part of my celebrations from now on. Lughnasadh, after all, may have its origins as a funerary feast for the mother of Lugh, Tailtiu. She died of exhaustion after preparing the land for agriculture, and represents the Earth that feeds us and the plants that are harvested and die back in the high summer heat. It seemed a good idea to pay back this sacrifice and invite the spirits of the land to a feast.
This year, the fruits of our garden are particularly abundant. The Virginia roses (Rosa virginiana) are all but bowed over with fruit. The passionflower (Passiflora incarnata) vines are thick and lush and heavy with their strange purple flowers and egg-like fruit. The pumpkins are pumpkining. The beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) is both beautiful and extremely berried.
It’s very good. I hope things are very good with you, too.
My passionflower is loving this weather, though the rest of the plants here seem less than enthused about the whole thing. It’s not only encompassed half the porch, it’s climbed nearly up to the roof and sent out several tendrils along the lawn. If it didn’t also put out beautiful flowers and a ton of fruit, and act as a cozy little haven for sleepy bees, I’d be tempted to cut a bunch of it down.
That got me thinking — if I did, what would I do with that much passionflower? I can only tincture so much of it. Could I weave it into baskets? Turn it into rope?
Vines, in general, have a long history as religious symbols, the subject of legend and folklore, and magical ingredients. If you, too, are experiencing a sudden flush of viny plants that you don’t know what to do with, folklore may have some ideas for you.
Vine Magical Properties and Folklore
In the Ogham writing and divination system, the letter muin (ᚋ) is commonly interpreted as “vine,” and usually portrayed as either grape or ivy. However, grapes are not native to Ireland and, even when they were introduced, they never really took root there (pun intended — Ireland is not a great place to try to grow grape vines). The word “muin” also doesn’t have anything to do with vines. Instead, it refers to a thorny thicket. This has made muin one of the most controversial and seldom-agreed-upon parts of the Ogham.
The ancient Greek deity of wine, orchards, frenzy, fertility, and religious ecstasy, Dionysus, is also intimately connected to vines. (And I do mean intimately.) Not only are grape vines his domain, he is also regularly portrayed as wreathed in ivy vines. Here, the evergreen nature of ivy represents the gods’ immortality. It’s also connected to fertility and sex.
Dionysus isn’t the only one to wear an ivy crown, either. Thalia, Muse of Comedy, is also portrayed as wearing one.
In Egyptian legend, Osiris is associated with the ivy, again, because of the plant’s connection to immortality and rebirth.
There’s a Persian (now modern day Iranian) legend that tells of the origin of wine. Long, long ago, a bird dropped some seeds by a King’s feet. Intrigued, the King had the seeds planted and cared for. The seeds became sprouts, the sprouts became vines, and the vines grew heavy with grapes. Overjoyed, he had the delicious grapes picked and stored in his royal vaults.
However, grapes don’t stay fresh forever. The vault was too damp for them to dry into raisins, and too warm to chill them. Instead, the grapes began producing a dark liquid which everyone assumed was likely a deadly poison. Before the old grapes could be cleaned up and thrown away, one of the King’s wives attempted to end her life by drinking some of the grape “poison.” When the King found her later, she was far from deceased — in fact, she was dancing, singing happily, and apparently thoroughly enjoying being the first person in recorded history to ever get absolutely rocked off her tits on wine. With this evidence that the liquid was not poison and, in fact, seemed to make people quite happy, the King named it “Darou ē Shah” — The King’s Remedy.
No word on what happened to his wife, however. Therapy being in short supply thousands of years ago, one can assume she either eventually found some actual poison or developed an absolutely staggering drinking habit.
Ivy is about more than ecstasy, wine, sex, and living forever, though. One look at the growing behavior of many vines can show you exactly what else they’re good at: binding things. Even the beautiful, gentle passionflower vines climbing my front porch do so due to grasping tendrils of surprising strength and tenacity. Some vines, English ivy in particular, also get a reputation here for damaging property and killing native trees. Depending on the context, vines are then equally as restrictive as they are freeing. Sometimes, vines are heavy with grapes and the promise of wine, intoxication, inspiration, sexual desire, and ecstasy. Sometimes, they’re ivy vines, evergreen and symbolizing enduring life and lush greenery during the winter months. Other times, they are the vines that grow around things, binding and restricting them like ropes.
Ivy is also associated with protection and healing. This may be due to its connections to immortality and rebirth. Grapes, on the other hand, are associated with fertility, money, and all things connected to the concept of abundance. Briony, on the other hand, is both money and protection. Placing money near a briony vine is said to cause it to increase.
In the tale of Sleeping Beauty, vines (sometimes) play a key role. In the Disney version, Aurora is cursed, pricks her finger, falls asleep, yadda yadda yadda, vines grow and cover everything. In an older telling, it was a dense hedge of climbing roses. One yet older version of the story (Sole, Luna, e Talia) also has Sleeping Beauty- You know, I’ll just let Giambattista Basile tell it.
“crying aloud, he beheld her charms and felt his blood course hotly through his veins. He lifted her in his arms, and carried her to a bed, where he gathered the first fruits of love.”
Yeah. When that fails to wake her, he pulls his pants up and rides off to his castle and his already existing wife, the Queen. Sleeping Beauty only awakens again when one of the twins she subsequently births tries to nurse and accidentally sucks the splinter from her finger. (As if that weren’t enough, the Queen gets fed up with the King’s infidelity and tries to have the children cooked and fed to her husband.) Interestingly, vines aren’t prominent in the assault version of Sleeping Beauty — they become more important the further you get from that version, and the closer you get to Disney’s much more sanitized telling. It’s as if the presence of the vines in the story both bind Sleeping Beauty in her castle and protect her from the King. No vines? Not even a climbing rose? You’re in for a bad time.
Using Vines
Vines make beautiful decorations for the home and altar. Evergreen ivy is commonly brought indoors during the winter months as a decoration, tied with swathes of ribbon, hung with bells or other ornaments, you name it.
Vines can also be used to bind things. Hollywood has portrayed magical bindings in some… interesting ways. For example, “binding” a witch à la The Craft. This, however, is silly.
Bindings can go one of two ways: a person, thing, or situation may be bound (in the sense of binding someone with rope) to keep them/it from causing harm or otherwise interfering with you. You can also bind something to yourself. For example, a really great job that you just got, happen to enjoy, and want to make sure that you keep.
In this case, the binding is a form of sympathetic magic. You take a representation of the thing you wish to bind, and effectively tie it up with what you have on hand. (This may be vines, if you want to enlist the vine’s help and magical associations, but can also just be household twine in a pinch.) There are plenty of chants and incantations you can recite while doing so, but I find that it’s most effective if you speak from the heart — inform the subject why they are being bound, and what you hope will come of it. Put it in a jar or box, close it tightly, and keep it somewhere safe so you can undo the binding when the time comes.
To bind something to yourself, you’d use a representation of yourself (like a photo or lock of hair) and a representation of what you wish to bind to you. Wrap both objects together with the vines or string, again speaking from the heart while you do so. Place the objects in a jar or box and keep them somewhere safe.
Bindings aren’t the only type of sympathetic magic that vines are good at, though. Plant a vine (preferably not an invasive species — there are loads of native vines) along with a representation of something you wish to grow. Ask for the vine’s help, and declare that, as the vine grows, so shall grow the thing you desire. Take good care of that vine, and keep an eye on its growth.
While every species of plant has its own magical uses and depictions in legend and folklore, vines are in a class of their own. Each one has their own unique properties, but vining plants also have plenty of common ground.
There’s a delightful metaphysical shop called Sticks & Stones Circle in Fairfax, Virginia, that my Handsome Assistant and I visit occasionally. They moved locations about a year ago, so we figured we were due for another trip. Neither of us have been out of the house much lately — him, because he’s still recovering, and I, because I’ve been busy with various tiny projects. A gentle walk around a metaphysical shop, however? Yes, please.
They used to be located in the same building, but around the back by the larger parking lot. Now, they’re out in front, by a Sherwin Williams. They don’t have a sign yet, but their distinctive front window display makes them pretty unmistakable.
Photo by the owner of Sticks & Stones Circle.
We weren’t here for anything in particular — in fact, I’ve been on a mission to destash and declutter things. If I haven’t worn it, used it, or at least remembered it fondly for a year, out it goes.
So, this was pretty much a trip to restock some herbs and incenses that are challenging to find in our regular herb shop (Smile Herb Shop, which stocks a wonderful variety of medicinal and culinary herbs).
If you are on the lookout for other supplies, however, they have them in abundance — candles, sprays, oils, statuary, books, crystals, jewelry, pouches, pendulums, and altar cloths galore.
Photo by the owner of Sticks & Stones Circle.
We left with two packs of incense (Soul Sticks Celtic Summer and Wild Wood, a very inexpensive but decent-quality natural incense), some copal resin, a small tiger’s eye owl, and a piece of golden healer quartz. I’m a bit of a sucker for golden healers, but more on that another time.
After that, we stopped at a place called Midnight Treats. Neither of us were familiar with it but were delighted to find out that it’s a vegan bakery with the most massive (seriously, they’re 1/3 of a pound and feed two people each) cookies we’d ever seen. They have all kinds of flavors, so we picked up a small assortment: Oreo cake, cinnamon roll, birthday cake, and chocolate brownie. They didn’t disappoint either — they were warm, chewy, delicious, and have satisfied my cookie cravings for a good long while.
They also have new flavors every week. This week, they’ve added iced red velvet and blueberry lemon (and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted to order some).
All in all, it was a nice little shopping date. In the face of so many metaphysical shops closing, it’s nice to see one that seems to be thriving. If you’re ever up in that area, give Sticks & Stones Circle a visit. Like many other shops of this nature, they’re more than a store — they’re also a hub of classes, celebrations, and other Pagan and witchy activities.
Right about now, several species of birds have turned the area around my house into a kind of avian daycare. Again.
There are birds of every distinction turning up, kids in tow. Most of these kids look almost exactly like the adults — the starlings, for example, are fully the size of their parents and the only difference is that some still have their brown feathers. The baby crows look just like their parents, save for being a little smaller and still having pink corners on their beaks.
Since these babies are rapidly transitioning from their juvenile plumage to their full adult feathers, that means that they’re molting. You can find feathers everywhere — mostly fluffy white down, but the occasional primary feather, too. That’s why I thought that it might be a good idea to write a bit about the magical meaning of feathers.
Before I do, though, there’s one important caveat: All parts of native birds, including shed feathers, are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. This is to protect them from poaching by ensuring that there isn’t a legal market for their feathers, bones, etc. If you see a shed feather outside and you aren’t sure if it’s from a native species, invasive species, or domesticated species, leave it right where it is.
Feather Folklore
Feather pillows can also be a source of ominous omens. In Appalachia, death crowns or angel crowns are complex, crownlike whorls of feathers found in the pillows of the deceased. Usually, they’re only found after the person has died — it’s unlikely that anyone would go probing their pillow for death crowns otherwise. However, it is said that, if you find and break up a death crown in someone’s pillow, you can prevent their death.
In Celtic legend, feathers are commonly associated with the Otherworld. Some fairies are said to wear cloaks trimmed with red feathers, and The Morrigan wears a cloak of black ones.
The Morrigan isn’t the only goddess to have a feather cloak. Freyja, the Norse Goddess of love, war, sex, and magic, is said to have a cloak of gray falcon feathers (fjaðrhamr). This cloak grants her the ability to shape-shift into a falcon at will.
In Egyptian legend, Ma’at is associated with the Feather of Truth. She is the personification of truth, justice, and balance, and this feather is a representation of her. When a person dies, their heart is placed on a scale and weighed against this feather. The hearts of virtuous people are lighter than this feather, and they are allowed to pass on to Aaru, the Field of Reeds. The hearts of the wicked are heavy, and they are devoured by the goddess Ammit.
In Greek legend, Hera, the Goddess of marriage, family, and women, took the peacock as her sacred animal. She’s also the one responsible for the male peafowl’s beautiful, unusual plumage. When Zeus seduced Io, he knew his wife would be jealous. He either turned Io into a white cow (another one of Hera’s sacred animals) to protect her from his wife, or Hera transformed her herself. Either way, Hera set the many-eyed giant, Argus Panoptes, to watch over her new prized cow. Having many eyes, he only needed to close a few at a time in order to sleep. This made him the perfect watchman… until Hermes came along. Zeus asked Hermes to free Io. Hermes, in turn, disguised himself as a shepherd and used charms to put all of Argus’ many eyes to sleep at once, then killed him. Having lost her watchman, Hera immortalized him by placing his many eyes on the tailfeathers of the peacock.
In North America, Indigenous people have also attached significance to feathers for ages. Eagle feathers, in particular. (I remember being at a Powwow where another dancer I knew had dropped an eagle feather. It was retrieved from the ground with ceremony, treated as a fallen warrior. It was a very emotional experience, especially for her.) Indigenous textile artists have also woven feathers into warm blankets and beautiful garments (sometimes called match-coats).
In modern witchcraft, feathers are commonly used as representations of the East or element of Air.
The Symbolism of Feathers
In addition to representing the East, Air, multiple deities, and various concepts of the Otherworld, feathers are also considered an “angel sign.” These “angel signs” are a collection of circumstances that are said to indicate that one’s guardian angels, spirit guides, or ancestor spirits are nearby. They include finding white feathers or shiny coins, hearing mysterious music, or smelling sweet, unexplainable smells. It’s important to be careful with angel signs, however, since so many of them have mundane explanations. It’s very easy to get caught up in looking for signs, start interpreting everything as some kind of “angel sign,” and end up in spiritual psychosis, where the desire for significance blurs the line between reality and delusion. Sometimes, an angel number is an angel number. Sometimes, it means you spend too much time looking at the clock. Similarly, sometimes, finding a feather is an “angel sign.” Sometimes, it means your neighborhood has stray cats.
Feathers are also subject to color symbolism. Finding a feather of a specific color is said to have a specific meaning. For example:
White feathers are positive omens, or indicate the presence of benevolent beings.
Black feathers symbolize protection.
Red feathers can represent protection, passion, or good fortune.
Blue feathers represent peace.
Green feathers symbolize abundance or fertility.
Yellow feathers represent joy.
Orange feathers symbolize creativity.
Ground feathers are omens of stability and groundedness.
Gray feathers, like blue ones, represent peace.
Of course, all of this is highly contextual. If you’re at a duck pond, the presence of white or gray feathers is unremarkable and not likely to represent anything but the presence of ducks. On the other hand, finding a bright green feather in your yard, when you don’t have an abundance of green birds in your area, may be a bit more significant.
Feathers represent all kinds of things, but their primary association is with the fine line between this world and the others. They are tools of shapeshifters and symbols of creatures capable of traveling between worlds. If you find a feather outside, appreciate it for its beauty, see if you can identify what species it came from, and leave it be to return to the soil. If you work with feathers in your practice, source them from pets or well-treated backyard fowl.
He’s back. At least, I’m pretty certain sure it’s him, though he appears able to fly now. This crow has a distinctive appearance and a set of behaviors I had previously only observed in Boink, so I am somewhat confident in my assertion that The Shed-Dwelling Scrunglemuppet Has Returned.
Last year, he spent evenings roosting in the big apple tree, and mornings and afternoons sitting on top of the shed. When I went outside, he’d run to the far side to “hide.” If he heard the back door close, his little head would pop up over the shed’s roofline to see if I was still there. If not, he’d hop his way over to the feeders to grab some food before the other crows came.
Now, he appears with the rest of the family. He still appears to be pushed away from the food and scolded, and he still does the same goofy little run, but he’s at least better able to get away from predators. I don’t think there are many animals who would go out of their way to eat a Boink, but there are certainly creatures who would take the opportunity to hunt a land-locked crow.
Boink still has to be a bit opportunistic when he eats. He’s still scrungy. His tail is still kind of karked up, and I don’t think he’s capable of not looking bedraggled, but his flight feathers are back and that’s what’s important.
Recently, my Handsome Assistant experienced a minor vehicular mishap. He was on a motorcycle, so things could’ve been a lot worse, but his injuries weren’t too serious and he’s recovering well.
When he first got his bike, I made him a safe travel charm that he’s kept with him everywhere he rides. He’s dodged the “serious motorcycle accident” bullet, and it could use a refresh. This got me thinking about protective charms in general, which, naturally, led me to what’s probably one of the strongest of them all: angelica root.
Seriously. It’s probably a little too good at what it does, but more on that below.
Angelica Magical Properties and Folklore
Also known as wild celery, masterwort, and archangel, angelica (Angelica archangelica) and celery are related as members of the family Apiaceae. Angelica archangelica is native to far northern Europe and Russia. Another species known as angelica, masterwort, or purple-stemmed angelica (Angelicaatropurpurea) is native to wet areas in the eastern US.
The name angelica derives from the plant’s blooming period. Its flowers typically appear around Michaelmas, the feast of the Christian Archangel Michael.
In both Western European folklore and the Hoodoo tradition, angelica is associated with protection, particularly from evil spirits. It’s also occasionally used to break hexes, jinxes, or curses, depending on their nature.
Purple-stemmed angelica (A. atropurpurea) has a long history of use as both a sacred and medicinal plant by Indigenous people of the southeastern US. It could calm anxiety, ease back pains, soothe stomach trouble, and treat parasites in children. It’s also used in healing ceremonies and as a purification herb. This puts purple-stemmed angelica in the same group as many other purification herbs the world over — namely, herbs that both drive off evil or unwanted energy, and get rid of physical parasites or pests.
Angelica is also sometimes associated with luck, love, and psychic abilities. This may be because it’s so good at keeping unwanted interference at bay — combined with other herbs more directly suited to these purposes, it can keep one’s magical path clear.
On the other hand, angelica also has a reputation for being a bit too good at what it does. According to the (no longer extant) Pooka Pages’ “Concerning the Magical Properties of Herbs & Oils,” angelica may also keep away some things that you do want. If you’re attempting to use it to help you attract something into your life, it’s a good idea to keep this in mind — sometimes, those things aren’t without risk, so angelica may not be the best choice.
An angelica relative, A. sinensis, is also known as lady ginseng or dong quai. It grows in cool, mountainous areas of east Asia, and has a long history of use in Chinese medicine.
Using Angelica
Honestly, there are few protective charms more convenient than a whole angelica root. They’re sort of lumpy and oblong, but firm, compact, and easy to stash in a pocket, bag, sachet, or any other container. I’ve never had one that was crumbly or messy, either.
Hold it in your dominant hand, tell it what you’d like it to do, project this thought, request, or energy into the root, thank it for its help, and you’re good to go. You can also anoint it with an oil, if you’d like.
You can hang a whole angelica root over your front and back doors to keep unwanted forces out or bury a root at each corner of your property.
Soak an angelica root in water, then add the water to a floor or door wash, sprinkle it in corners of a room, or pour it along the borders of your property to ward off evil and strengthen magical boundaries.
Angelica roots also make lovely additions to protective oils themselves. Put it in a neutral carrier oil and let it infuse in a cool, dark, dry area, shaking it regularly. If you want a stronger fragrance, add essential oils just before you bottle the finished product. For this, you might want angelica root pieces rather than the whole root — it’ll have an easier time transferring its fragrance to the oil if it has more surface area.
Since the roots are fragrant themselves, and hold other fragrances well, they’re great additions to potpourri or other scented herb mixtures.
You can also eat A. archangelica stems and roots. However, you may not be able to find them in your local grocery store, and they can be challenging to identify in the wild. They have several poisonous lookalikes, so you should never consume anything that you’ve only tentatively identified as angelica. Unless you’re an expert forager yourself, get an expert forager’s opinion first. As the saying goes, you should be as confident identifying a wild edible as you would be identifying it in a grocery store. Otherwise, don’t eat it.
Angelica may not be the most versatile magical plant, but it’s one worth knowing. It’s one of the best at what it does, sometimes to the point of being too effective. It’s one of those herbs that I find it’s better to have on hand and not need, than to need and not have on hand. Whole roots aren’t too expensive, and you can use them to steep in water for magical baths, washes, or asperging, infuse them in oil, or use them whole as protective talismans.
I like mushrooms. Not so much culinarily, but aesthetically and conceptually.
There are thousands of identified mushroom species, but experts estimate that the number of actual species out there is anywhere from two to three times what we’ve managed to identify. Others say it could be in the millions.
Mushrooms have a long history of use in spiritual and magical practices around the world. Giving the folklore and uses of every known species is outside of the scope of this post, but I thought it’d be interesting to give an overview of some of the most unique, recognizable, and significant kinds.
Mushroom Magical Properties and Folklore
People typically consider mushrooms and toadstools two different things, but there isn’t really a hard line between them since these are folk names. According to various sources, mushrooms are edible, and toadstools are inedible. Or else mushrooms are edible and umbrella-shaped, while toadstools are inedible and have round caps. Or toadstools are inedible and large-capped, etc. This can be particularly confusing because there are several species of variable edibility — some are considered edible only when cooked. Some need to be leached with water to be edible. Some are only poisonous if consumed with alcohol. Some aren’t considered edible, but aren’t really poisonous either.
Amanita muscaria, the iconic red- (or tan- or yellow-) capped, white-spotted mushroom, is also called “fly agaric.” This is because it was sprinkled in milk and used as a poisonous bait for flies and gnats.
Sami shamans traditionally have a unique way of processing A. muscaria. The mushrooms are fed to reindeer, and the psychoactive components are passed in their urine. Instead of the potentially dangerous mushrooms, the shamans use the urine to access fly agaric’s powerful qualities.
While it’s natural to associate psychoactive fungi with the spirit world, they aren’t the only mushrooms said to serve as a gateway. The famous fairy rings of Western European stories are circles or arcs of fungi (with or without visible mushrooms) that, were you to enter one, could bring you either good luck or incredible danger.
In Egypt, mushrooms were associated with immortality. In Japan and China, they have similar connotations due to their use as medicinal foods for increasing strength and longevity.
In Slavic mythology, the guardian deity of forests, Leshy, can appear as a fully vegetation-based entity. He may appear as anything from a sacred tree to a mushroom. Mushrooms are also associated with the earth, water, cattle, and underworld deity, Veles.
In Lithuania, mushrooms were said to be the fingers of Velnias, a deity of the dead. He would reach up from the underworld, beneath the soil, to feed the poor.
This isn’t the only association of mushrooms with charity, either. In one Christian myth, God and Saint Peter walk in a rye field. Peter takes a handful of rye and begins to eat it, but God scolds him for taking food that isn’t meant for him. Peter spits the chewed rye out, and God says that a mushroom will grow there as food for the poor.
Interestingly, the dead and the underworld seem to have the strongest connection to mushrooms around the world. The Sidhe of the Celts and the Alfar of the Germanic people were both associated with burial sites, and the beliefs surrounding them may be the last vestiges of ancient, indigenous ancestor worship. This would immediately associate fungal phenomena like fairy rings with the dead.
So, on one hand, edible mushrooms are gifts from the dead to feed the living. On the other, the inedible ones will allow you to meet the dead!
This connection continues with the crane bag of Manannán mac Lir. In addition to being a God of the Sea, Manannán is also a guardian of the underworld. The crane bag is a bag he fashioned from a crane skin that contains several magical tools. According to many Ogham readers, these tools are indicated in the forfeda — the four additional letters at the end of the Ogham alphabet. Iphin (ᚘ) is the crossed “bones of Assail’s swine.” These were pigs that could be slaughtered and eaten and would regenerate again. Robert Graves theorized that these swine were metaphorical, and the bones were not bones at all — they were the stems of mushrooms, discarded once the caps had been eaten or used in ritual. Since mushrooms are just fungal fruiting bodies, and picking them doesn’t harm the actual organism in the soil, it made perfect sense that they would “regenerate” so they could be consumed again.
Because mushrooms seem to spring up out of nowhere after a rain, they’re also thought to represent fertility.
Mushrooms in general are associated with the element of Earth. Planetarily, they’re associated with the Moon. The fly agaric, specifically, is associated with the element of Air and the planet Mercury.
Using Mushrooms
First, I want to say that “there are old mushroom foragers, and there are bold mushroom foragers, but there are no old, bold mushroom foragers.”
If you aren’t an experienced mushroom hunter yourself, and don’t have access to one willing to take you in the field and help you positively ID mushrooms, do not attempt to harvest them yourself. There are way too many poisonous lookalikes out there, some of which can only be differentiated by spore prints or tiny, easily missed differences in appearance.
That said, simply touching a poisonous mushroom is unlikely to elicit a toxic response. However, it can still give you an allergic reaction, so you should still probably not do that.
Now, with that out of the way…
Unless you have access to a reindeer or a shaman, you should probably stick to the non-entheogenic varieties. I would also avoid commercially produced edibles intended for microdosing muscimol (a psychoactive compound). While not all brands are suspect, it seems some haven’t quite got the science figured out yet and several people have become extremely ill (and possibly even died) from using them. I wouldn’t use them myself and I don’t want bad things to happen to people, so I can’t recommend you do, either.
Also, if you drink alcohol, be careful which mushroom species you work with. Some are considered edible — delicious, even — but contain a compound that reacts with alcohol to cause some very unpleasant symptoms.
Otherwise, mushrooms are a suitable offering for deities of the dead and of forests. They’re also a good ritual food for workings relating to these deities or concepts.
You can place dried mushrooms in objects like charm bags, sachets, or spell jars, but with a bit of caution — they’re basically like sponges and will pretty readily absorb moisture and get gross if you aren’t careful to keep them dry. Other than that, go to town.
Whether you enjoy eating fungi or not, they’re fascinating organisms that form the foundation of life on Earth. Without them, other plants couldn’t grow. They’re a gift to the living from dead and decayed things, and, as such, are deserving of reverence.
The first time I saw a grackle, I mistook it for a crow for a split second. It was only when I noticed its long tail and absolutely furious facial expression that I was like, “Oh.”
While grackles are typically pretty gregarious birds, we have a single male boat-tailed grackle (Quiscalus major) that visits the back yard here. He’s very pretty — black at first blush, but iridescent shades of peacock blue, bronze, and violet when the sun hits just right. Unlike crows, he also has light eyes. (Which, I think, lends to the whole expression thing.)
A male grackle. Photo by Gabriel Espinoza on Pexels.com
He’s usually very difficult to get a picture of, since he’s nothing if not wary and easy to startle. Lately, he’s been coming closer to the kitchen window and displaying more curiosity. I thought it might be a good time to write a post dedicated to these beautiful, interesting birds.
Grackle Folklore
Most grackles move in large groups, called “plagues” or “annoyances.” This might seem unfair — worse than a murder of crows, even, or an unkindness of ravens — but it likely comes from their ability to decimate corn harvests. They’ll show up to follow behind plows in order to grab the turned-up worms, insects, and mice that wind up in the furrows (which isn’t really a bad thing, if you’re a farmer) but they’ll also descend on ripe corn to feast on the grain.
Grackles can be a bit of a problem for bird feeders, too. Smaller than crows, they’re quite happy to avoid the work of digging up worms and bugs and instead go for the nice, nutritious seed in a feeder. Where a crow or other, larger bird will ignore things like thistle and millet, grackles will dive right in. This can end up leaving nothing for seed-eating songbirds, so many people aren’t too stoked about seeing a crowd of grackles turn up in their yards.
Nonetheless, these birds have an important role. Unlike many small songbirds, which primarily feed on seeds and don’t dig up burrowing insects, grackles help control pests like invasive grubs and worms. During the time of year when seeds are the most abundant and make up a larger portion of their diet, they also help propagate them in their feces.
Not everyone finds these birds to be nuisances, either. In the late 1400s to early 1500s, the Aztec Emperor Ahuitztol purposefully introduced great-tailed grackles (Quiscalus mexicanus) into the capital Tenochtitlan and the Valley of Mexico. These birds were taken from the Aztec provinces of Totonacapan and Cuextlan in the Totonac and Huastec regions of Mexico, and received plenty of human intervention to help them establish themselves and grow their numbers in their new home. They were well protected and well fed, which allowed their population to take root. These birds were named teotzanatl, which roughly translates to “divine” or “marvelous grackle.” Certainly a far cry from calling them a plague or annoyance!
(This is far from the only case of something like this happening. Aztec emperors kind of had a thing for bringing in exotic plant and bird species, and even importing special gardening staff to help their new acquisitions thrive.)
Interestingly, these grackles were protected — not only by guards, but also by public shaming. It’s uncertain why this was so necessary, unless attempts to hunt the birds were legitimately an issue. This could have been because they’d become pests, or because their feathers were considered very valuable. Probably both.
Grackles are also the subject of an ancient legend. In it, Zapate the great-tailed grackle was unable to sing. Being a very clever, tricky bird, he stole songs from the sea turtle. This left the turtle without a voice, and the grackle filled with… well, all kinds of noises.
While they aren’t members of the corvid family, they share crow, raven, and magpie’s intelligence. They’re able to solve puzzles, catch fish, and will even clean the grills of cars in order to get at the tasty, tasty smushed bugs.
Grackles also seem to be uniquely equipped to detect the Earth’s magnetic field due to natural deposits of magnetite in their little heads. This may be helpful for navigation and migration.
The Symbolism of Grackles
In general, these birds are said to represent caution, resourcefulness, and community support. Be cautious, however — the appearance of a grackle is also considered a symbol of misfortune.
As with a lot of birds, you often have to pay attention to what they’re doing when you see them since their behavior can color their meaning.
For example, a bunch of grackles can represent friendship, community, and support. A single grackle, not so much.
A grackle foraging or stealing food can be a sign that you need to be resourceful. You may be entering a time when you’ll have to survive by your wits.
These birds also engage in a behavior called “anting.” There, they crouch and spread their wings over anthills. As the tiny insects scurry over them, they pick off mites and release formic acid, which helps repel pests. These birds will also fumigate themselves with everything from stolen moth balls to discarded cigarette butts — whatever keeps the feather mites away. If you see a grackle anting or fumigating themselves, it may be a sign that it’s time for some reflection, spiritual cleansing, or actual decluttering. You might need to schedule some time to take inventory, clear some of the chaos from yourself or your environment, and make a fresh start.
A female grackle. They lack the dark, iridescent feathers of the males, instead displaying beautiful shades of a rich brown. Photo by Connor kane on Pexels.com
No matter whether grackles are a welcome sight to you or not, these are brilliant, beautiful birds with a fascinating history. From dumpster scavengers to the protected birds of an imperial house, they have lived closely with humans and fulfilled many roles for ages.
Crows (and corvids in general) can be pretty divisive. I don’t think I’ve met someone who can just take or leave them — it’s always either a fervent love, or a deep dislike.
And I get it, honestly. They’re noisy. They’ve been known to eat nestlings, eggs, and small mammals. To many, they’re a nuisance and they don’t understand why anyone would go out of their way to make their yard more attractive to these birds.
Ever since we moved here, I’ve been feeding a small family of crows whom I’ve come to love dearly. I’ve hesitated to feed other species, because I don’t want to encourage them to congregate (and potentially spread avian flu) when that isn’t their normal feeding pattern. While the debate about feeding birds and crow/raven behavior will likely never come to an end, here are a couple of things I’ve personally observed when making an effort to coexist with crows:
They’re very smart. (Like, really smart.)
With most members of corvidae, you’re dealing with a very intelligent animal. With crows specifically, something on the level of a toddler or a very bright dog.
I wanted to mention this right off the bat because it heavily impacts a lot of my other points.
They’re also opportunistic.
In general, crows aren’t really hunter hunters. They do eat meat, and they will eat young, weak, or sick animals, but they’re opportunistic feeders. If the opportunity isn’t there, or there’s an easier source of high-value food somewhere else, they’ll go elsewhere.
Crows are also a prey species for larger carnivores. When they’re eating, they’re vulnerable because their attention is directed toward that and not toward looking for threats. This is why groups typically have a sentry or two, to keep an eye on things while the others feed.
A blue jay, one of the more colorful members of the corvid family. Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
They’re also still wild animals, no matter how closely they may coexist with humans. Wild animals will go for easier-to-get food sources whenever possible, because more challenging ones a) aren’t guaranteed, and b) require more effort (read: calories) and attention to access. The exception to this seems to be when there’s a particularly appealing, usually calorie-dense food item available that’ll make up for the potential danger and extra effort expended to get it.
You can direct their behavior.
With the above things in mind, you can direct their behavior to a degree.
I’ll give you an example. When I worked in pet retail, I had customers that’d come in and complain that squirrels and large birds that kept getting into their bird feeders. We had tons of anti-squirrel technology available — baffles, special lubricants for poles, specially shaped feeders, and even battery powered ones that vibrated, spun, or did all kinds of other gymnastics. I’d gently try to guide these customers to dedicated platform feeders and bags of corn, but they always turned it down. No matter what they bought, they’d be back in a few weeks for something else. A greased pole was no longer enough, because the squirrel learned how to jump from a tree at just the right angle to defeat it. A specially shaped feeder wasn’t enough, because the crows would team up to work around it. The cycle would inevitably repeat, until they finally just gave up and bought the platform feeder and the bag of corn. After that, the squirrels and large birds would eat the easy to access food, and the smaller birds had their own.
Since this crow population was already established here (and has since grown due to habitat destruction caused by some recent construction), giving them high-value, easy to access food has ensured that I get to keep more of the fruit and vegetables from my garden. This isn’t just because the crows don’t take as much, either — they’ve also done quite a bit to keep various garden pests away.
I don’t leave their food unattended — I usually feed them items I know they like, then sit out there just a few feet away with my own lunch. I have never once been harassed for my food. I’m pretty sure it’s because, like other intelligent animals, they’re able to distinguish between what food is given to them and what food is mine. Why bother me to eat off of my plate, when their plates are right over there? Why run the risk of a potential conflict with a human when they have accessible, desirable food already?
They might not impact songbird populations in the way most people think.
This study covers the relationship between various predator and prey species. One of its findings is that, as prey species numbers increase, so do predator species numbers, and there isn’t strong evidence that native (non-invasive) predators alone drive species decline.
A single predator, or small group of predators, can impact local numbers of prey animals, but don’t appear to correlate with a decline in overall numbers. The thing here is that crows are, like I said, opportunistic. They take prey from nests, where other predators are more likely to be less discriminating and take reproductively mature animals (since those are the ones they’re most likely to encounter out and about). Many corvids are also very territorial — an established family of crows will actively drive off other, larger, less opportunistic predators. They appear to exert both a predatory and protective influence on local prey species.
While I offer food for the local birds and squirrels, I’m careful not to do it every day. (Water, on the other hand, is always available.) Nobody goes hungry, and there seems to be less impetus for them to eat what I’m growing or trying to protect, but they still need to engage in natural foraging behavior.
This works in my case because this crow family had already established this area as their territory. If you listen to their calls, you can hear them relaying from one tree to the next. While they’ll cover a lot of ground in order to find food and water, a sentry alerts the others when there are snacks available. They can go about their business and stop by when there’s food.
(One funny thing I’ve noticed is that their vocalizations change when I’m on the deck, whether I’m putting food out or not, like they’re telling everyone that it’s almost time to eat. Once, I was only watering a few plants and went right back inside, and I got to hear a very excited crow call trail off into something that sounded unmistakably like disappointment.)
They’re not just garbage birds.
Crows (and many other members of corvidae) will get into dumpsters if there’s an opportunity, somewhat rightly earning them the nickname of “garbage chickens.” Stories abound of people feeding them fries, chips, and other very palatable, salty, oily, and largely carbohydrate-based foods. These really aren’t optimal dietary contributions for them, though, and having a positive relationship with your local corvids should mean taking their actual nutritional needs into account.
I explored the foraging habits of crows, plus the diets fed to pet pied crows in captivity as well as crows and ravens at rehabilitation centers. In the end, I came up with a mixture of cat or puppy kibble, cracked corn, raisins, and a low sodium, unfortified cereal as a base. To that, I add hardboiled eggs (cut into quarters, shell attached), dried mealworms or black soldier fly larvae, peanuts (in the shell), and fruit, depending on what I have on hand. Sometimes, if I have the leftover tail end of a loaf of homemade bread, I’ll cut that into cubes and toss it in too. This all seems to work out pretty well — they appear to enjoy it, and they’ve got some of the darkest, shiniest feathers I’ve ever seen on an urban crow.
They may not really react to humans like you might expect.
One thing people bring up often is that crows will get used to humans, which will cause problems.
There are definitely cases of birds, including corvids, losing their fear in areas with frequent, close contact with a variety of people. Anyone who’s ever tried to eat French fries on a boardwalk can probably give you several examples. (I was almost eaten by a pelican when I was little. It was a defining experience.)
I can’t speak to this in general, but I can point out my own observations as someone dealing with an urban crow population that already has a lot of incidental contact with humans. Like I mentioned above, I also stay out there by the feeders after I fill them. While the family of crows has certainly grown bolder with time, this change in behavior seems to be limited to me. If I’m out there and my Handsome Assistant joins me, their behavior switches gears immediately. They keep their distance, and even make some unique vocalizations. If I’m there with a stranger, the difference is even more stark. As intelligent animals with the capacity to recognize individuals, they seem to have drawn some very firm lines between “human what puts the food,” “other human,” and “some guy, idk.”
One interesting experiment with ravens kind of highlights this. A researcher was teaching a raven to trade, by offering the bird a small piece of cheese (a high-value food item) in exchange for a piece of bread (a lower-value one). At one point, the researcher accepted the raven’s bread, then had the audacity to eat the cheese right in front of them. The raven, understandably pissed, refused to engage in any more trading exercises… but only with that particular researcher.
Sometimes, they just leave (and that can be a good thing).
Animals have their own agenda, though it’s often tempting to see them through a humanized lens. I’ve seen a lot of posts from people asking why their local population of crows just left — do the birds not like them anymore? Did they offend them somehow???
The truth is, wild animals have their own schedule. They likely won’t, don’t need to, and shouldn’t come hang out every day. During summer, when a lot of fruits ripen and grains are harvested, crows are likely to go off to agricultural areas to eat the dropped grain. They also have babies, so they’ll be off doing parent activities. In winter, they may need to go to a more desirable climate or more abundant food and water source. If the larger murder of crows is going off to do something, a given crow family will go with them.
If they stop showing up for a while, it can honestly be a good sign because it means they’re still being wild birds. It might suck if larger carnivores move in and start causing trouble in their absence, but that’s nature for you.
A magpie. Photo by Manuel Torres Garcia on Pexels.com
On top of all of this stuff, I’ve also noticed some interesting impacts on my hyper-local environment since I began putting food out for these birds:
There actually seems to be more biodiversity now.
In the beginning, I was lucky to get some house sparrows, starlings, and the occasional mourning dove. As time goes on, I’ve begun to see more species. Like, a lot more. Blue jays, cardinals, finches, dark-eyed juncos, woodpeckers, and grackles, to name a few. (Even a mockingbird that has absolutely given the crows a run for their money when it comes to territoriality.)
Part of this may be because there’s more food available, but most of the food I put out consists of things that would appeal to crows and jays, not necessarily other species. I have, however, noticed that the local crows do a lot to keep the smaller birds safe, because…
They will not tolerate nonsense.
I’ve written before about how this family of crows have effectively become my unpaid, unasked-for yard bouncers. In addition to dispatching particularly chaotic squirrels, I’ve seen them bounce bigger predators, too. They’ll get together and mob a hawk (which is honestly fascinating to watch). They’ll chase away stray and feral animals. They’ll even warn me if there’s a particularly suspicious snake in the vicinity. They’ve kept rats, mice, and grubs away, too. They have very definite ideas about Who Belongs and Who Does Not.
These crows seem like a protection racket. Like a dragon that demands an occasional sacrifice from a local village, or a rat snake that keeps mice and rats out of a chicken coop in exchange for the occasional egg. It’s weird, but I’ve seen them on my deck, coexisting perfectly fine with the smaller birds and other squirrels… So, I guess it’s all chill?
I’ve actually gotten a ton of free food out of the deal.
Granted, a lot of this is because I’m not particularly fussy about garden borders. If something neat springs up, isn’t a noxious weed, and won’t run the risk of poisoning me, I’m inclined to let it be and see what happens.
As it turns out, “what happens” is a ton of volunteer tomatoes, corn, grapes, and berries. (The smaller birds even planted a bunch of millet and broccoli.)
They’ve also brought me occasional small gifts, but I can’t eat those.
When it comes to coexisting with these incredible animals, the important thing to remember is that a) they’re very smart, b) they have the capacity to remember and distinguish between individuals, and c) they’re wild. While it might seem flattering to feel needed and loved like you would with, say, a dog, that’s counterproductive to a wild animal’s survival both physically and mentally. It is possible to interact positively with them without harming their ability to live without you, and this should be the goal of anyone who really loves these birds.
Marble Crow 