Materia Magica: 21 magical plant profiles
Ink drawing of Clary Sage leaf, by Shana Carroll
.... and now, for the grand announcement:
Shana & I are creating a book together!
Materia Magica: 21 Magical Plant Profiles
This book will explore the magical personalities of 21 beloved and potent plants. I'm writing their stories, and Shana is drawing their portraits.
After years of people asking me to recommend books that go deeper into plant magic in the way that I teach it, and me not having a good answer, I've decided to simply write the book that I'd like my students -- and the herbal & magical communities -- to have.
It's true that there are a handful of plant magic books out there. I'll be honest -- most of them are fluff. They repeat the same folklore that's been passed down from Cunningham's Encycolpedia of Magical Herbs ( "_____ is used for luck. ______ is used for love." Very specific, thank you.) and are packaged in Instagrammable covers.
There are other magical herbals that are nicely substantive (and a few that I regularly recommend) but they aren't quite what I feel my students are looking for when they ask me this question.
This book will dive into the magical characteristics of well-loved garden plants. It will tell the stories of the plants that already grow around you (or easily could - with the exception of one spicy friend). Basically, it's about your neighbors. Not faraway, exotic, inaccessible plants, or plants that you have to go searching for in the woods with a limited chance of finding.
And the Materia Magica* pages (yes, I made up that term and I'm proud of it, thank you very much) are filled with insights, stories, and ideas about how to work with the plants in magic. They touch upon folklore, but are primarily insights from my own direct relationship with the plants. It's a treasure chest of baubles gleaned from shamanic journeys, potion-making, spellcraft, and many hours in the garden, brought together from the intuition I've developed over years of direct contact with these plants.
I put these magical characteristics into a modern context -- how these herbs can help you in your actual daily life, doing the things that a modern spiritual-herby-earthy person might actually be doing.
The Materia Magica pages are concise but dense, with no fluff in sight.
Shana & I will be on this journey for about two years: we've decided to create one plant profile per month. And to keep our energy high and our focus crisp, we've decided to invite you to come along on this journey with us.
And so, if you would like access to the illustrations and Materia Magica pages as they come out, I invite you to join us on Patreon.
Patreon is a site that allows "Patrons" to monetarily support artists who are creating some sort of artwork. In exchange for the level of support you choose, you get different benefits.
> For $3 per month, you get access to Shana's illustrations. One of the whole plant, one of the part used in magic/medicine.
> For $7 per month, you get the illustrations + the Materia Magica sheet
> For $13 per month, you get all that + a monthly live chat with us, access to the archives, and a discount code on Plant Magic for Beginners
This will be ongoing -- you can join at any time -- but there's going to be an exciting bonus if you join by Feb. 28th. (More on that later).
To kick off our first month and to celebrate the fact that we're *finally* announcing this project to the world, this month will feature TWO magical plant profiles. And one of them is my absolute best friend :)
*materia magica = materials of magic