to the object of your affections while you rub the magic massage oil into his skin.
For women: Follow the same instructions, but instead of the ginseng and yohimbe, which are greatly stimulating to men, substitute pinches of saffron and ground dong quai (also known as angelica root), long honored in the Orient as a tonic for females.
This is the witch’s high holiday of love, observed on April 30 with feasting and ceremonial ritual. The Celts of old made this day a day of wild abandon, a sexual spree, the one day of the year when it is okay to make love outside your relationship. After an all-night pagan lovefest, May Day is celebrated with dancing around a beribboned May Pole. You decide how you want your Beltane to go, just as long as it is a fully sensual experience with food, dance, sex, and lots of laughter.
Ideally, you will celebrate Beltane outdoors. But if you are indoor-bound, at least serve the food and the drink on the floor and insist on bare feet and comfy clothes. Serve an ambrosial spread of finger foods with honeyed mead (available from some microbreweries), beer, and wine. As you light incense, set out a few dozen white, red, and green candles and arrange spring’s new flowers: daffodils and narcissus.
With arm extended, point to each of the four directions and say:
•
To the east,
to the south,
to the west,
to the north.
•
Then recite:
•
Hoof and horn, hoof and horn, tonight our spirits are reborn.
Welcome, joy, to my home.
Fill my friends with love and laughter.
So mote it be.
•
When your guests arrive, invite them each to light a candle of their choice and carve their secret Beltane wish into the wax. Ask them now to make an offering to the altar, which your invitation will have instructed them to bring: pink crystals, an apple for love, or perhaps stone-smooth sea glass from a beach walk. Sit everyone down to eat, drink, and make merry. Later, hand out colored ribbons and flowers to braid into other people’s hair, or around wrists, fingers, and toes. It will start getting markedly more pagan now. Turn the volume up on the music, though live guitars and drums are better. If your group is open-minded or of like mind, call a circle and invoke the randy May spirits.
•
Sol and Luna,
the sun needs the moon like the cock needs the hen.
The sun and the moon have both hatched from the same egg
and represent the eternal attraction of opposites.
•
To help heal yourself or a brokenhearted friend, add five drops of each of the following essential oils to a scentless base oil or almond oil:
•Wisteria
•Clove
•Jojoba
•Neroli
Shake and add a few small rose quartz crystals into the vial. Offer to give your heartbroken friend a neck and head rub. Dab the oil on his or her temples, neck, and shoulders, and gently rub in circular motions. Silently call upon Venus to assist. Offer the calming oil as a gift to your friend to use anytime he or she wants to feel more tranquil.
The Friday before the new moon—Venus’ Day—is the perfect time to create a new opportunity and clear away relationship “baggage.” Place a bowl of water on your altar. Light two rose-scented pink candles and a gardenia or vanilla-scented white candle. Burn amber incense in between the candles. Sprinkle salt on your altar cloth and ring a bell, then recite aloud:
•
Hurt and pain are banished this night;
fill this heart and home with light.
•
Ring the bell again. Toss the bowl of water out your front door, and love troubles should drain away.
This spell can be used to meet someone new or to bring on a new phase in an existing relationship. On a Monday morning before dawn, light one pink and one blue candle. Touch each candle with lily, freesia, or jasmine oil. Lay a lily on your altar with some catnip. Place a lapis lazuli stone in front of the lily, and a glass of water atop a mirror. Chant:
•
Healing starts with new beginnings.
My heart is open, I’m ready now.
Today, a new Love I will meet.
Goddess, you will show me how.
So mote it be.
•
Drink a cup of hot honeyed cinnamon tea that you stirred counterclockwise with a cinnamon stick. Sprinkle the powdered version of this charismatic spice on the threshold of your front door and along your entry path. When the cinnamon powder is crushed underfoot, its regenerative powers will help you start a fresh chapter in your love life.
Most of us have had problems giving up on a relationship. This ritual will help you let go. Perform this ritual during the waning moon, when things can best be put to rest. Gather:
•Black string
•A symbol of your ex
•Scissors
Tie the black string around your waist and attach it to the symbol of your ex: a photo, a memento, or a lock of hair. Take the pair of scissors in your hand, and prepare to use them by saying:
•
Bygones be and lovers part,
I’m asking you to leave my heart.
Go in peace, harm to none.
My new life is begun.
•
Cut the string and toss away the memento. You will feel freer and lighter immediately and will begin to attract many new potential paramours.
A Witch’s Calendar
•January 6: Feast of Sirona, the blessing of the waters.
•January 11: Carmentalia, a woman’s festival celebrating midwifery and birth.
•February 2: Candlemas, when new witches are initiated with