Making Magic In the Kitchen has a lot of connotations but for today, we are going to talk about the way my family passed traditions down for years. My father’s side and Mother’s side both practiced Kitchen Witchery. So what exactly is Kitchen Witchery? It is a spiritual practice where you connect with Earth and Natual side of nature bring it into your home via your Kitchen.
I remember my great – grandmother harvesting herbs of all kind, even wildflowers to make teas, adding them to her foods, and making medical salves. This tradition was taught and passed down to my grandmother, my mother, then my siblings and myself. Some of us practiced the art of herblism which is part of Kitchen Witchery and some of us didn’t practice Kitchen Witchery at all. Just like any family and their traditions/faith beliefs, people find their own paths. I myself studied the art of herblism through my family teachings and a few college classes, plus followed my families teachings/faith, but that isn’t to say I didn’t have times of non-practicing of this path.
Just like any family and their traditions/faith beliefs, people find their own paths. I myself studied the art of botany through my family teachings and a few college classes, plus followed my families teachings/faith, but that isn’t to say I didn’t have times of non-practicing of this path.
However, I am always drawn back to this path because I truly believe that plants were put here for us to use in many different ways, as long as we educate ourselves on what their benefits are and what parts are good for us.
As for the actual practice of Kitchen Witchery, will the Kitchen is where the heart and hearth of many homes? Isn’t that where your nutrition comes from? With the feeling economy and for those who like to cook the kitchen is where we spend a large portion of the day morning and evening. You have time to bring your family together and bring love, closeness, and even prosperity back into your family by spending time around the food you make.
Now when I say prosperity, I am not saying prosperity as in money, but who knows that might be something you are able to bring back into your home too once everyone starts talking and you’re cooking from scratch instead of dumping things from a can and eating from bags of quick eat junk. But, I am talking the prosperity of family closeness, of being able to talk together again. This country has lost so much of what “yester-year” use to have when kids had to be home before the street lights came on, families ate around the table at least once a day and actually talked about their days.
When someone takes the time to put meals together from the basic ingredients, they have a magical opportunity at hand. They can infuse every dish with intent and will, not to mention love. A meal can stop being something you out of a can, and start being a ritual in and of itself. When you take the time to prepare something with your own hands, that lends its sacredness, and will make you want to spend time savoring it with your family. Rather than just snarfing it down on your way out the door, or grabbing fast food and eating it around a tv watching reality tv shows about another family’s drama filled life.
With all this amazing taking time to learn information such as; Tea Tree Oil is a great antiseptic on cuts, Garlic is nature’s Antibiotic, Cinnamon helps with Diabetic insulin issues, Coconut oil can be made into a teeth whitener, Cinnamon/honey/ and garlic can be made into a cough syrup – cold remedy. So many other natural remedies. And they can be included in your everyday cooking too, such as including cinnamon in your baking, garlic in your cooking etc. Add Intent, will, and love by wishing good health and happiness as you cook for those you cook for, including yourself.
Some wild plants can also be used in Kitchen Witchery, however, this is where extreme caution must be used. Like any medical usage you need to know how to use them and what parts to use, before attempting to do so, such as; if you’re having liver issues those weeds, dandelions, in your yard when harvested early in the season, cleaned well and prepared correctly can be used in detoxing your system and liver. But, they should be used with caution, because dandelions are a diuretic with potassium and other vitamins but shouldn’t be used with some medicine your doctor is giving you.
I have always found this type of “magic” so interesting because medical doctors every day practice it but don’t let anyone in mainstream America know. After all, many of the modern medicines, (e.g., aspirin, Morphium, Tamoxifen, Vincristin, etc.) we are prescribed by our doctors either were derived or have herbs in them along with the synthetic crap.
Doctors and phymacitical companies will tell you in articles that the reason they can’t just extract the benefits from the herb, wild plant and make the medicine in a natural manner. is that herbal medicines tend to have not one but a multitude of pharmacologically active ingredients. Thus extracting only one ingredient might reduce the pharmacological activity of the whole plant extract. There is no way to extract just the pharmacological active ingredient they need. In other words, if they use such as dandlions they would have to give you a caution that it is a diuretic, that it covers liver, it is anti – inflamtory, that it is a detoxing drug, and all the other things it can do, plus if their is any side effcts if you use it with any other drug or to often. UMMM don’t they do that already with all the synthic drugs they put out already? Take this and this may happen, you may have worse side effects then the issue you already have.
I think I will stick with my home remedies where I can, don’t get me wrong, I don’t go with out modern medicine all together. But, when I can, I would rather connect with the Earth as the Great Being intended and use home remedies, use spices and herbs in my cooking, or as my grand-mother put it, I continue adding a pinch of love to and care to everything I cook.
Blessings one and all,
Trinton TrinityHawk
