Practicing Kitchen Witchery to Cook Magic into Your Meals
You’re in the right place if you want to…
learn some easy steps for cooking magic into your meals everyday
understand how to create a recipe based on the magical uses of the ingredients
discover tips for maintaining sacred space in your kitchen
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To start off the show, we look at our Tarot Card for the week and we look for moments that relate to this card in our daily lives.
For this week, we chose the Four of Cups. One way to read the Four of Cups might be that each of the cups in the image are blessings. None of the three cups in front of him have quenched his thirst, and the hand of God keeps offering him more and more. Maybe these cups represent different areas of life—work, family, finances, friendships, home, and so on—and the universe keeps showing him what he has. But he can’t see it for what it is or find joy in it. He’s apathetic.
In that sense, this card could be about choosing gratitude over apathy. For that matter, it could be about choosing any feeling over apathy. Even feeling anger or sadness. While these types of emotions may feel unpleasant, they would at least show he’s present in his life. Having an emotional reaction to your circumstances helps you understand what actions you can take toward maintaining or improving them.
I share several other ways to interpret this card (and all the others) in the Tarot Card Meaning eCourse in Mumbles Academy, but we’ll start here.
You can hear Erica’s and Maggie’s stories that they relate to the Four of Cups by listening to the episode.
We’ve been following a theme surrounding Cancer season about maintaining the home. We talked about protection and cleaning and now we’ll be looking at magical cooking.
Related: 5 Ways to Make the Most of Cancer Season
I did a solo episode of Talk Witchcraft last year around this time where I talked about kitchen witchery. I shared some ideas for how to have a kitchen witchcraft practice in not ideal settings such as not knowing how to cook, having a small kitchen, or sharing a kitchen with other people. Make sure you listen to episode 9 (or read the show notes here) if you’re interested in this topic.
In this post, we’ll talk more about
how to bring a magical mindset to your kitchen witchery
how to use herbs to power your magic
how to create magical focus in your kitchen and how to craft your own kitchen spell.
1. Focus the Will
If you’ve followed Mumbles & Things for a while, you probably know how I view magic and witchcraft. Erica and I have had many conversations about this and I think she agrees but let’s just make sure we’re on the same page because there are many definitions of magic.
Mumbles & Things Definition of Witchcraft:
Witchcraft is the practice of using magic to create change in yourself, so the world around you changes in the way you desire.
For magic to work, you need to focus your will and intention on the results you want to achieve. One way to do this is to use emotion. Link your magical intention to the emotion you will feel once you get what you want.
This basic premise can be applied to kitchen witchcraft as well. Kitchen witches don’t just cook, we infuse our creations with magical intention. And as I said, one way to do this is through linking the intention to an emotion.
Let’s try an exercise:
Think of a specific moment in your life when you felt truly joyful.
Close your eyes and picture that moment in as much sensory detail as you can.
How did it look, sound, smell, taste, and feel?
Hold onto that sensation for 20 seconds.
You can do this with any emotion: loved, protected, healthy, confident, powerful, anything. Just think of a time when you felt the way you want to feel and bring yourself back to that experience. You can do this while cooking or baking to infuse whatever you are making with that emotion.
If you’ve never felt the way you want to feel, think of a character in a TV show, book, or movie that has, and imagine you are in the scene where they show that emotion.
2. Create Sacred Space
The next thing to do is create sacred space in your kitchen. We’ve talked a lot about sacred space in previous episodes.
I also wrote a blog post in 2018 about viewing the kitchen as an altar. This just goes to show how important sacred space is to a witchcraft practice.
As a reminder, sacred space is a designated area that contains the energy you desire and protects you from energy you don’t.
The thing about the kitchen is that since it is used daily in a way that makes it get pretty messy, it’s tricky to maintain a sacred space there. All that activity makes it challenging to maintain magical focus.
What I do is put intention into cleaning the kitchen each day. When I’m wiping the counters, stove, and sink, I restore the intention I have for the space. Each day this intention is renewed.
Another thing to consider for making sacred space in the kitchen is to set up a magical focal point or an altar. This way one area of the kitchen is always prepared for magic, if the rest of it gets a bit chaotic during those hectic periods of life. Set up an altar in your kitchen with consideration to the current season using colors, symbols, and natural items to showcase the time of year. Add statues of deities that are associated with the kitchen, food, or cooking. Find representations of all four elements.
3. Use Herbs Intentionally
Herbs are a key ingredient in the kitchen witch's cauldron of magic.
One reason we use herbs, crystals, and tools in magical workings is to create an anchor in the physical realm that represents the intention—which exists in the mental realm—and the correspondences (like the four elements, the planets, zodiac signs, archetypes, deities and more), which all exist in the spiritual realm.
Additionally, the subconscious mind—or as Starhawk calls it, the younger mind—communicates in symbols, so these tools and materials are the language we use to connect the conscious and subconscious.
As human beings, many of these symbols and their meanings are already part of your subconscious, through culture, media, and education. Some of these meanings will vary due to a person’s upbringing, cultural context, and experiences, but some are universal.
Through the ages, certain herbs have become associated with certain magic properties, as we talk about in our herbs of the week segment.
For example, cinnamon is often associated with success, healing, love, and protection. However, the kitchen witch can't just dump cinnamon into a brew and expect it to be a love potion. The herbs need to be magically charged. It’s up to you if you do this as you cook or charge them all up so they’re ready when you need them.
Additionally, you’ll want to treat your kitchen herbs and spices with respect. Honor them by keeping them neatly stored in a cupboard away from sunlight and moisture.
We already know what cinnamon can be used for and there's an entire alphabet of herbs and spices! If you’d like to begin practicing kitchen witchcraft, take this opportunity to go to your kitchen, and organize your herbs and spices. You could even keep this podcast playing as your work.
Clean their drawer or shelf if it's dirty.
Turn the labels so you can see them.
Organize the bottles so you can find what you need easily.
Take inventory of the herbs and spices you have and use frequently.
Learn about their magical properties.
Edible Herbs
To make this easy for you, I’ve consolidated a list of common edible herbs into a free downloadable resource. Fill in the form below to request your copy of this PDF.
4. Write a Spell Recipe
We’ve looked at using emotion to power a spell, creating sacred space in a kitchen and establishing an altar of magical focal point, and using herbs and spices in spell work to infuse kitchen creations with intention. Now, we’ll talk about crafting a spell for kitchen witchery.
In episode 7, I shared with you my process for writing your own spells. In kitchen witchery, you can follow a similar process, but it’s more important to make sure you’re writing a recipe. In other words, you want it to taste good AND have the effect you want.
This is why it’s good to learn the magical uses for the herbs you have in your kitchen and use frequently. You’ll start to learn which herbs taste good together and what their magical properties would be when combined.
As an example, garlic and rosemary are thought to be for protective herbs. These two ingredients could be used together in bread, soup, roasted potatoes, etc.
Determine your purpose or intention.
Make sure your sacred space is prepared by cleaning your kitchen.
Find the ingredients you have that match your intention\
Decide what you’re going to make.
Make your magical food when you are ready.
Hold onto the emotion you associate with your intention as you’re cooking.
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Send us a voicemail
We play one listener voicemail on each episode of Talk Witchcraft, with a few exceptions. To send us a voicemail, record a voice memo on your phone and email it to welisten [at] talkwitchcraft [dot] com. Please keep in mind that we only choose voicemails that are two minutes in length or shorter (even if they’re great!).
What we’re looking for in a voicemail
Share from your personal experiences (especially experiences that we could never have) and use that to illuminate the zodiac season or theme in new ways.
Ask questions of Erica and Maggie, so we have an opportunity to respond meaningfully to your voicemail during the podcast.
Use one of these prompts: Is there something happening with you and your life that aligns with the current zodiac season or a Tarot card? How do your experiences show us something new about the magic, something that we haven’t talked about so far?
Send a voicemail even if you’re behind on the podcast. If your voicemail is about a previous episode, zodiac season, or tarot card; that doesn’t mean we won’t choose it!
Tips for recording a great voicemail
Make sure you’re somewhere quiet.
Plan what you’re going to say ahead of time, because two minutes goes quickly.
Opt for talking freely based on a bullet pointed list rather than reading word-for word from a script.
Let us know if you’d prefer to remain anonymous.
Wait, don’t go yet!
Thanks for hanging out with me today. If you’ve enjoyed this post of Talk Witchcraft, I invite you to check out mumblesacademy.com.
Mumbles Academy is the place to be for intuitive souls at any stage on their WitchPath. Whether you are a Wildling at the very beginning of witchcraft journey and looking for a safe learning environment, a Creator who is already committed to their practice and wants to develop their witchcraft skills even more, or a Sage who full of wisdom already and is ready to share that with others, Mumbles Academy was designed for you.
With monthly masterclasses and live Q&As, an extensive archive of courses and training, and a supportive community to help you along the way with encouragement and advice, Mumbles Academy is the perfect place for you to be as you as you continue on your WitchPath.
Now it’s your turn!
Do you practice kitchen witchery? Tell us about your practice.