Summer Rituals & Kitchen Witchcraft | Magick Kitchen Podcast (S9E4)

Includes a Free Summer Ritual Recipe from Leandra!

Summer brings expansion, warmth, and connection—and in this episode of The Magick Kitchen Podcast, Leandra Witchwood and Elyse Welles explore how to align your spiritual practice with the rhythm of the season.

We dive into the magic of moonlight gardens, seasonal herbs, and kitchen witchcraft, and reflect on the divine child archetype, inner child healing, and mermaid-inspired embodiment. You’ll learn how to work with summer plant allies like calendula, rosemary, and chamomile, craft intentional spice blends, and use water, light, and play as powerful ritual tools.

🎁 Plus: Leandra shares a free summer ritual recipe for grounding your intentions and bringing sacred energy into your everyday meals.

This episode offers grounded ideas for evolving your seasonal rituals, reconnecting with joy, and letting the sacred guide your everyday life—from your altar to your garden to your kitchen.

Topics Include:

• Seasonal plant allies for summer
• Moonlight garden magic & outdoor rituals
• Divine child archetype & inner joy
• Water magic, mermaid embodiment & sensual movement
• Sacred kitchen recipes & intuitive herbalism
• An introduction to Sacred Wild Priestess, Elyse’s 12-week immersive container

Support the Podcast!

🔮 The Witch’s Reset - A Five-Day Audio Program to Clear the Noise and Transform Your Practice. Join HERE- https://leandrawitchwood.com/witchs_reset

🌙 Join The Rebel Mystic Coven - a private online coven and academy with FREE monthly online lessons. Join for free HERE - https://leandrawitchwood.com/coven

🌳 The Rebel Mystic Witchcraft Skill Trees - a modular, intentional way to learn witchcraft without overwhelm. Explore the grove HERE - https://leandrawitchwood.com/witchcraft-skill-trees

🫖 The Witchwood Teahouse! Check out Leandra's uniquely hand-blended teas - www.thewitchwoodteahouse.com

✨Get Your Free Resources HERE - https://leandrawitchwood.com/resources

🌒🌕🌘

🗝️ 🕯️CLICK HERE for Elyse's free Guide to Energy Protection. 🌟🧙‍♀️

Follow Elyse @seekingnumina, & join Seekers of the Sacred Wild, a free gro...

Transcript

This time in the Magic Kitchen, we're welcoming you to the Kitchen Witch's Hearth for our summer edition. I'm Leandra Witchwood. And I'm Elise Wells. And welcome to the Magic Kitchen podcast, where we talk about magic, kitchen witchcraft, herbs... And everything in between. The Magic Kitchen Podcast is funded and supported by thewichwoodteahouse.com, offering a variety of handouts, Hand-blended loose leaf teas as well as loose herbs for all of your ritual, spell work, wellness, and everyday enjoyment needs. If you would like to support this podcast while sipping a great cup of tea, head over to thewitchwoodteahouse.com and find the magic that's in store for you.

 I'm not a fan of summer. I'm gonna be up front with that one. I don't like extreme temperatures, so winter and summer are just not my seasons. I'm definitely a fall, spring. But, um, but summer is not without its benefits and without its magic. Um, you know, I do a lot of creating in summer, indoors, because I don't like to sweat. And living, living in South Central Pennsylvania, it gets very humid here. Not, not, you know, South of the United States humid, but it gets pretty humid here. So it's, I don't know, if I'm not doing it early in the morning, that's when I do my gardening, that's when I go for my walks, like early morning. That's probably why I'm such an early morning person. I was gonna say, I follow the Greek way of life, which is to be a night owl. Like in Greece, it is so hot. You cannot function in the middle of the day. And so like Mediterranean cultures have siesta periods where you take a nap in the middle of the day. It is a survival skill. Like you have to do it. Um, so I, I truthfully cannot do that. Like I, if I nap in the middle of the day, my life is shot. Like I just, that's it. My whole day is gone. I can't take a break from life like that. I wish I could. Yeah, so, so I tend to just be a night owl. Like, I remember when I was little, we visited some cousins that I had never really met before. It was one of my mom's cousins. And she had a moonlight garden. I remember it so well, like everything in it would bloom only under moonlight. And she took us through, it was a section of a bigger garden and she would take us through the garden and like this one section was just green and everything else was blooming. And she was like, this one shows off at night. And I was like, what does that mean? Oh, I love it. So she took us out after dinner. Like, you know, we stayed with her for the weekend. They live in the South, like in Virginia. And like, I just, it's. It's Virginia has such powerful places like it is a really beautiful state. And there's like beautiful stars overhead like the visibility is really good. At least it was back then. Yeah, I was gonna say is it like that now. Yeah, I don't know. They were pretty far in, as one of my uncles says, our family's not from Virginia, they're from Virginia. So, like, that's kind of, kind of still good visibility. But, uh. Anyway, I digress. We go out to this forest, this garden and like, sure enough, these flowers are blooming under the moonlight and it was so surreal. To see that. So I, I, that is something I would like to do someday is have a moonlight garden. Moonlight garden. Yeah. Yeah. I'm supposed to have one in my yard. I just never got around to it. Well, you're a morning person. So maybe that's the message. Maybe. I need the morning flowers and the morning glories and that sort of thing, which. Which ironically, I'm allergic to morning glory. Like I can't even touch them. Like my skin will just welt up. It's amazing. Yeah, I didn't realize it until I was pulling them. They had become invasive on a back patio that I was pulling them off of. And I looked at my arms and, like, you could see where the vine had touched. Like, there was just a line of welt. It was interesting. So, yeah. So, is Morning Glory, I think it's in the Datora family, isn't it? Yes, it is. Yes. Yeah. And um, they can be used as a hallucinogenic just like Datura, but um, or like um, Thorn Apple and that sort of thing. Um, and um, But they're, they're highly invasive. Like they're not there. Yeah. When you plant them there, you better be prepared to have them forever because they're highly invasive. They just grow so quickly. Yeah. Yeah. In Greece, they're like wild. That makes sense because in Greece, by me, it's like pretty much just a wild plant. Yeah. Yeah. They're just everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. But they're pretty. So if you like them, yeah. When I was little- They will abundantly grow. Yeah. Yeah, and they are pretty. When I was little, my favorite- Sign of summer coming was always the daylilies. Like when I was growing up in PA. I loved that about that time of year. And I remember my mom told me about them. Because we had them at like our front walk and then I also had them by my bus stop. So I would kind of just take a nap. Like, it's funny how as kids we just don't. Question these urges, but I would talk to the gay lilies in both places. Our bus stop was a quarter mile from the house because Amish country. Okay. And so it was a very different land spirit of a sense. And I would talk to the daylilies and the daylilies by the house were really friendly. The daylilies by the bus stop were a little more reserved. And I was telling my mom about them and I asked her what they were called and she said, and they're called daylilies because they only bloom for one day. Yeah. And I couldn't understand that because they were always orange every day. So I, so it was kind of an interesting lesson in like. When we're part of a group, we don't have to bloom every day. We don't have to shine every day. We can let each other shine that day, but we get to all collectively glow together. Yes, yes. Yeah, we can be part of that collective and shine at our different times and it's okay. And I, and I, I think that's such an important lesson for a lot of people because I know some people feel like they have to be on all the time and that's exhausting. Like I can't, I can't live that way. I definitely need my solitude. Um, you know, doing conferences and that sort of thing is a great example of that because after the conference, um, When, when we all go home, like, I need to decompress. Like, I literally need to, like, not talk to anybody for a full day at least because I'm so spent and, um, And I have a hard time with those because when I'm at a conference, I'm like, oh, I don't want to miss anything, anything. So I'm off doing everything that I can, hanging out with whoever I can, talking to whoever I can, no matter how tired I am. And so, yeah, definitely when I get home, it's a great example of that. Like, I don't talk to me. Don't ask me to go anywhere. Don't ask me to do anything. I'm done. That's funny. It's so interesting, too. Like, I've been reflecting on, like, the introvert-extrovert thing because I would have self-identified as an introvert. Really up until the past year. I don't know. Well, I have some theories on what shifted, but um. Yeah, I think that's interesting. I think the shift truly is like when we're collectively, when we're part of a collective or group or a community that helps us shine, that is nourishing. Like I think a lot of us. It is. We're introverts or have introvert tendencies because we struggle to shine in major spaces like in main spaces. Mainstream spaces, I should say. So I think, I think that's like, like, we're recording this actually really early because, um, I'm about to go on like a six week. Things in Greece. Um, so we're recording this right as we return from sacred space. And I think that's part of why I get so nourished. Like, I don't feel tired after those experiences. I feel a little spiritually like, whoa, that's a lot of downloads. I need time. Please, please give me time, spirits. But... But it's mostly a nourishing experience versus like I remember going to teacher conferences when I was a teacher. Oh, that's a whole different experience. Oh, yeah. Oh, well, it's work. You know, it's not. I mean, yeah. Okay. Let me back up because when we're at these spiritual conferences, we're working like that's our work. But it's a nourishing work. It's not this, I have to be somebody else. Yeah. Because if I do make a wrong move or say the wrong thing or. Have a contrasting opinion. I'm going to, you know, I'm going to be called into the principal's office or the dean's office. Yeah. To have a discussion about my behavior type thing. You know, this is our work. We can be who we are. We can talk about the funky things. I think that was like a resounding like, um. Like a feeling that we could say off the wall things and people were like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's so cool. Like, oh, I had this experience that was similar, you know, like, like talking about talking to plants or talking about how we're getting downloads from our ancestors or. How we felt the energy of the room shift or anything like that. Like anything that's woo or considered off the wall or non, um. Secular. Like, we could talk about those things openly and not have anybody look at us like, oh, God, you were the... Most fucking weird thing in the world. Like, why am I talking to you and have them disappear, you know? Yeah. And I think I, and I, I always think of like summer as that time to. To test your boundaries with extra, extrovertism, extrovertedness. Oh, yeah. Extrovertedness, I guess. Um, because, like, I mean, that's what, that's what's going on with the land. Like, that's, at the core of it, I think that's how living in, in, Reciprocity with land can look is like, okay, what's the land doing? How should I respond? How am I meant to respond as me? And so the land is being very extroverted in the summer. Mm-hmm. In, in, in places where summer is a growing season, I should say. Right. And so, yeah, like, deciding your boundaries with that because I think there's a difference between, like, showing up for work and, And doing the work, capital W. And for Leandra and I, like, we are very blessed that our work is the work. And for many of us, that's something that has to be embedded into the lowercase w work. Um, but finding places, spaces, communities that nourish that, that allow you to feel extroverted even if you identify as an introvert. I mean, it's funny because I can spend months on end in isolation in, in grace. Yeah. Without really much issue, like, like genuinely, like as long as I can go outside and have nature. I struggled more living in Baltimore and having no nature. But plenty of support than the opposite, you know? So it's. Yeah. It's all about finding what works for you. And summer is an explorative time. It's a time to. To try new things, to open our hearts and minds to new experiences. And new types of magic, perhaps. Absolutely. And I, I'm, I know we don't necessarily talk about the kitchen as much as maybe we could or should on this, but I think of the magic kitchen podcast, like the, the conversations we have is that primordial soup that, Soup that we're creating. It's not just about recipes and cooking and that sort of thing. But I think summer for me is a great time to experiment in the kitchen. Yes. To experiment with the things that, um, that come from the garden to really, okay, I have, you know, an abundance of zucchini. What can I do with the zucchini? I have an abundance of tomatoes. What can I do with these tomatoes? You know, I have abundance of, of, I don't know, arugula or whatever is growing. And, um, typically it's like tomatoes, zucchini, and peppers. In my garden, like I have way too many and I don't know what to do with them. So I started getting really creative and cooking outdoors is my absolute favorite during this time of year because for me, it's that way to commune with the The extrovertedness of nature right now. You know, my barbecue grill is literally right in front of my tea garden where I grow, you know, cooking herbs and medicinal herbs and that sort of thing. So I can sit out there while I'm You know, cooking some ribs or, um, creating some off-the-wall concoction with whatever's in my garden. And I can sit there and I can talk to my plants. I can talk to the land. You know, my... You probably have heard me talk about it all the time, but like my pokeberry is right there too. And so I can sit there and I can do a check-in while I'm cooking. So yeah, I think for in the summer, like me spending my time outside is cooking and gardening and making sun tea. I know we've talked about sun tea before, but that's one of my favorite things to do. Like, what can I make... With this tea. Okay. Oh wait, I have some tarragon in my garden. Would that make a good tea? Let me try it. Let me, let me see what happens, you know? Yeah. Oh yeah. Experiment this time of year. Yeah, it does. Summer calls us to expand. And when we think of the Sabbaths that we have, the Wheel of the Year holidays that fall during the summer season, um, Um, it's interesting because it's really only one because Beltane is like technically still within spring and then Litha is summer solstice. So hard to argue that's not summer. That is like summer TM. Yeah. That is summer, yeah. And then by the time Lamas or Lunasa comes around in early August, that is actually the first harvest. You're actually preparing to wind down. Lamas was actually traditionally, historically, The market season. It was the time where roads were most passable in most of Europe, and so you would gather in bigger towns or cities. to trade your goods this might be the only time of year you get together with people so extrovertedness is a summer theme Going back, you know, our genetics remember summer as a time of extrovertedness. Even parades, um, you know, the 4th of July, I know there's a lot of complicated feelings about America these days, but I do think that reclaiming The holidays that are happening around us, trying to work with the energies of them that are positive. Um, for example, in Havity Grace, Maryland, they're having a parade to celebrate Lafayette's visit to the U.S., 200 years prior, after the war had ended, after the French Revolution was over, the Marquis de Lafayette, yes, the one from Hamilton, um, he was the one who kind of started the French Revolution and then he got imprisoned by some revolutionaries who kind of misunderstood everything. And he survived by an absolute miracle. And he came back to the US after, you know, he saved us. I mean, he saved our skins. We would not be a country without the French. And so he was welcomed like a hero. And what he used his platform for was actually to speak on abolition. And the importance of it. And to speak on feminism. And the importance of women getting the vote. So. That's why we like him. Yeah, I adore Lafayette. So like. You bet your patootie I'm gonna be going to the 4th of July parade to celebrate that because yes, it's a celebration of American history and yes, America is an imperialist nation and yes, we are a capitalist conqueror and all those horrible things, but... There are parts of our history that are worth celebrating. There are people like him who were immigrants to our country who made this place special and we should honor that and remember ourselves. You know, I'm a first generation immigrant. I remember that lineage. I see him as part of my lineage in that way. Um, so, so yeah, let yourself enjoy this time of year. Cook, cook outside, you know, get the grill going. It's so, it's so special. Yeah. I love experimenting. So thinking about like cooking and cooking outside, like going back to that experimentation. Um, if you've ever picked up my book, a magic in the kitchen, I have a crazy jam recipe or preserve recipe in there. It's a peach rosemary jam. It is my favorite. Like, I love these flavors together. So think about it, like, what can you pull out of your immediate garden or your, um. Farmer's market, like go visit your farmer's market. I think that's such a big summertime thing that I love to do is go visit my farmer's market and talk with the farmers, see what ingredients they have, like lemon and rosemary is one of my favorites. Think about what we use lemon and rosemary for. It's like to uplift and to, um, bring in that happy feeling. So make a lemon rosemary salt or make a lemon rosemary tea or whatever. A cocktail or something like that but these are just like embodiments that we can do like bring that bring that that summer expression that uplifted sense of Excitement and exploration, wonder, that sense of wonder into the kitchen and into our celebrations. You know, 4th of July, lemon rosemary tea. That might be good. Yeah, that does sound good. Yeah, well, and this time of year, one of the things I focus on are the archetypes, the divine feminine archetypes. And the child archetype is one of those big ones. Um, she tends to show up around like Christmas time and then again in summer. It's that time where you lean into that sense of wonder. Like, Going to visit a waterfall that you haven't visited before or just marveling at the abundance of nature. But you can also bring in the archetypes of the warrior, of the seductress, the enchantress, and the healer, the medicine woman. You know, think of all the herbs and stuff that are available to us right now. You know, calendula for... Healing and for brightness and garlic for protection or time for cleansing. There's all these great things that we could do. We can make a peach rosemary pie maybe. Maybe you can do a blueberry pie for protection and for curse removal. Maybe you can do some strawberries for love and abundance. I don't know, like, there's so many things we can do. Um, you know, chamomile is wonderful this time of year, especially if you're feeling dehydrated, drink some chamomile tea. It'll rehydrate you. And then you're bringing in that sense of peace and protection and calm. Yeah, that's beautiful. That's where my mind goes. The herbs of the season, the fruit of the season and the recipes we can create with them. It's finally time. My book, Sacred Wild, An Invitation to Connect with Spirits of the Land is now available for pre-order. Pre-orders are the number one key to a book's success. They help Sacred Wild reach more readers and even bestsellers lists. If you love the Magic Kitchen podcast, this is a great way to support my work. Pre-order now at seekingnumina.com slash pre-order. Thank you so much for listening. So I came into this episode wanting to talk about water a little bit more than we have in our past Kitchen Witch's Hearths on summertime. Um, and it's really a good point to reflect on the child archetype. I've never seen it as a gendered archetype. I've always thought of it as like at, at Yuletide, we have the inner child. It's like a time of imagination for the child. You know, it's when we hope and we wish and we begin to manifest the toys that we want, the gifts that we would like, the family time that nourishes us, those special treats that we only get to eat at that time of year. Like, it's just a time of exploration for the child. And you're so right. Summer is as well. You know, school lets out. You're free to roam and play. Yes. It's more of that exploration and, and that really actually is exactly what I wanted to talk about. I didn't, I didn't realize that was like a good part of it, but I wanted to talk. And to be clear, like the, the divine feminine isn't just she, he, or she. It is the, it's the aspect that of the divine feminine that we all have it. So male, female, non-binary, whatever it is, we all have that aspect. So it's more of just like a. Attribute that we all can possess and. You can call it she, you can call it he, whatever you like, but we all have it. So it's not, not gender specific. I wanted to be clear about that because it's not something that only, you know, certain people possess. We all possess it. We all have it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's just, I don't know, it's interesting to put that archetype on the feminine too because I think of like how the god also sacrifices himself as a child. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, very interesting. I think it was more as receptive. Being receptive to wonder, to exploration, to Being in the moment. Oh, interesting. Like the wanderer in the, or the fool in the tarot. The fool, yeah. The wanderer is what it's called in the Wildwood, so I've always preferred that term because fool sounds like negative or judgy. Yeah. But, but really it's like, the wanderer, I always enjoyed the, the interpretation that the tarot is a journey. And so like, Zero, the fool slash wanderer, is the beginning. So like the child, we have to be receptive to, I like that word, to what can grow a bit, like to be open hearted, open minded. Open, really, in order to get that call to adventure, which the magician kind of represents, and then the high priestess is like, you stepping into that, and then the empress is like, Okay, I'm ready to nurture it. And then the emperor is like, I'm ready to act on it. And then the hermit is like, who acted on this before me? How can I learn from that? And like, it just. Yeah, yeah. You know? Oh, I like that. Yeah. Yeah. Side note. Very side note. But I do think if people struggle with the tarot, like, remember that there are billions of, okay, billions is a lot, but Hundreds of approaches you can make to the tarot and they are all valid. Like, they are truly all valid. Like, I've read all kinds. Like, there's a whole way of using the tarot that ties into the Kabbalah tree of life. That is not at all how I work with it, but when people have shared with me how they do, I'm like, oh, that totally resonates. Ah, makes sense, yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, it's cool. Yeah, oh, I love these. People wonder, like, do we, how much do we plan these? Do we have a script? No, no, we have bullet points, if that. Like, I don't even write them down half the time. We just discuss briefly. Literally, when you're talking, when you're listening to the podcast, like, you're listening to us just have a normal conversation. Like, this is a normal conversation for us. Like, this is us just sitting down and saying, oh, what about this? Oh, what about that? Oh, I like that perspective, you know? Yes, yes. Anyway, so, nurturing the inner child, nurturing our exploration, being receptive to change and experiences that might bring us to new horizons of understanding the self that summer invite us to experience. For me, one of my favorite things, I think probably truly the thing I like most about hot weather is you can swim. And if you're not a swimmer, Bear with me because you don't, like, swimming is not, like, I'm not talking like Phelps out here. Like, just existing in water is really what I mean. We're not talking form and over the function. Yeah, no. Just swim. Yeah, no, no capitalist, uh, patriarchal connotations of skill involved. Like, in fact, I would say the best Okay, so here's what I like to do. So if you were a child who had the privilege of swimming in water, you might remember playing mermaids with your friends. Yeah. Yeah. Hell yeah. Do it again. Go out and play mermaids. And so last summer, my cousins, I only have three Cousins that are girls on all sides of my family. And they're all from the same family. It's actually my, my dad's brother's kids. And unfortunately, my dad's brother passed away. Um, so my dad is like the, the kind of, I hate to use this word, but he's like the patriarch of our family and like the- Sure. You know, the, the, the divine masculine in the family for these girls as well. So we, we really feel more like sisters than cousins. And- So these three wonderful young women, um, they're ten years and fifteen years younger than me. Actually, they're twins, the ones that are fifteen years younger than me. So we're talking quite the age range here. And so my older cousin is in high school. The others are in middle school. And then, of course, I'm like an adult. And we're out in the water together in Greece in August. And they're like, do you want to play mermaids with us? And I was like, of course I do. Yes. So we played mermaids and they were like, what's your mermaid power? And I'd never played it like that. Like we always just were like pretend, like doing our best to hold our feet together and like have a tail, you know, and like do the thing with your feet. Oh my God, I love it. So much fun and like pretending you're going through like rocky shoals like Ariel and like, you know, like that was how I always played it. But they were like, no, we have a power. And some of the powers they were choosing, I was like, You can have these. Like, I can help you have these. Like, it is in our family lineage that you may have these yourself. Yeah, you might already have them. Like one of them was like, I can read minds to know how somebody's feeling. And I'm like, well, you can't read their thoughts, but actually you, that other part that you can do that. That's. Yeah. That's empath influence. Like, um, and then the other, the other girl was like, I really want to, uh, be able to understand what, what animals are saying. And I was like, oh, good news. Good news. Guess what? It made me realize how many of the things we see as superpowers, meaning like above us or out of our reach, Are actually just magic that we can access. And kids seem to know that because they're like, I'm going to pretend I have it. And it's like, what if we just stop pretending and acknowledge we can have it. Yeah, so it was really fun because they're raised Coptic. Um, that's my family lineage is either Greek Orthodox or Coptic. It kind of just depends. It's like a toss of the coin. Um, because they're Greek Egyptian. It's like its own diaspora. Um, so, so they're being raised Coptic by my aunt who is very religious. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna keep this for later, um, as they graduate and become their own women to like, but I, I was leading, I was like, you know, this is, this is, It's not true fantasy to imagine the animals speaking with you. Like, you know, I was, I was gently introducing them to these concepts as real and I think it was really empowering for them. And it was definitely empowering for me because there's always been moments in the water where I'm like, oh, This feels so good to move like this, but you're afraid to truly be like, oh, I'm a mermaid. You know, never, like, I was grateful for this experience because now I'm like, I'm gonna full on own mermaiding in the water. Mermaid in every water. The bathtub. And I was gonna say, you don't have to swim. You can go to the bathtub and do this. I did that in March. It was like way too cold to be outside swimming, but I was like, I'm gonna do some mermaiding in the bathtub. So I did. Like, so... It feels good. It feels really good. Like if it's been a while for you that you've been a little silly in the water, get out there. And it's also a great place if you're new to embodiment practices. To begin them, because if you have aches and pains, water soothes them. She holds you. You can add Epsom salt to that bath. Really make this a self-care practice. And it also is. Lemon and rosemary. Yes. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. It's so healing. I actually just put that into a workbook that I made for my email list that it was a lemon rosemary, um, salt bath. Oh my gosh, that's funny. I got so much great feedback from them. I'm like, oh my god, I need it. This is so great. So yeah, definitely do it. Oh, I love that. Yeah. Well, in high school, I was on the swim team and guess what, guess what my favorite, um, form was. The butterfly. Butterfly. Butterfly. You do, you have to do the, the, you do the mermaid swim. Like literally you have to, you're using your upper body more than anything. To propel you, but your feet are literally in that mermaid pose. That was my favorite. That was my absolute favorite. I could never get it down. Gee, I wonder why. Yeah. Yeah, it takes some coordination. To get out of the water. Yeah, I couldn't do it. Yeah, you have to, because you have to come up out, yeah. But, you know, I always imagine, like, of course, you know. In my head, because I'm not going to say this to anybody outside of myself, but imagine myself like being a dolphin. Yes. Hopping out of the water and going. So much fun. Yeah. Dolphins were one of my favorite, you know, animal messengers as a kid. Oh, for sure. They were like a huge one for me. Yeah. And they're associated with, um, psychic development and empathic abilities. Cause how do they communicate with each other through echolocation? Yeah. And they're associated with Apollo. Oh, are they? I didn't know that. That's what Delphi means. Oh. That makes sense. Delfinus is the dolphin. Dolphin. And Apollo Delphi is like he who has divine connection to the waters of what? Dolphin. Wow. Wow. Wow. Okay, that's making a lot more sense to me now. Yeah, that's, that's fascinating. Yeah, that's fascinating. That's so interesting. I did not know that. I wondered because it was like Delph, Delphi, that makes sense. Yeah. It's all like clicking into place. Funny how the things we know we know, but we don't know we know. It's like Socrates said, the wise person knows they know nothing. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. We were just talking about this the other day. Like the more I know, the less I know. Yeah, the more aware we are that we know nothing. Yeah, I know nothing. Yeah. Which is, honestly, it's a comfort. I remember as a little kid, I was thinking about something. And I was thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking. Just sitting in the back of my mom. I was, you know, four or five years old. I was sitting in the back of the car. And I said to my mom, I said, Mom, will I ever run out of things to think? And she's like, don't worry. I used to worry about the same thing. You will always have more to think about and learn. And I, and I, I just, it was such a comforting answer. And it's been true. And I assume it will always be true because. Yeah. Sometimes I come across things I have no idea about and it's good. It's like, oh, what a relief. There's more to learn. There's more to learn. Well, and I think that's important. Like, I think... I know a lot of people have come to me like, well, why don't I know this? Like, why, why did it take me so long to realize this? And I think, I think it's a real marker of our spiritual growth where we realize that we've known all along. We knew the truth. We knew the answer. But it took us to be in a specific point on our path for it to be relevant. For it to land. Yeah, for it to really land and stick and to be like, oh, crap, I already knew that. And that's okay. I think that's just a good marker for you to look back and go, okay, I am growing because things that didn't make sense before. Or didn't quite become, come to the surface before or now at the surface. And I can look back and go, oh, okay, that meant that before, but now it means something totally different. Like, like reading a book, I, I like to read books that I used to read twenty years ago on my path. Um, Christopher Penzak books are a great example of that, like all his Temple of Witchcraft books, because I read those early in my path. And now I go back and read them and they mean something completely different. They just hit differently because I've grown, because I'm a different person on my path. And that's, I think that's a real good Metaphorical puzzle piece to put into the summer because the summer is that growth period. It is that activation period. It's that period where we're. Moving and moving and moving, not only in our physical lives in the garden or in our kitchens or, you know, at the barbecue grill, wherever we are, you know, if we're attending a bunch of festivals, if we're going to retreats. By the way, like, honestly, if you are not, if you're a practitioner and you haven't gone to retreats or conferences that are, that are witch magical, you know, esoteric centered, like do it. At least do one or two a year. Because they, they, I think they really do light that firecracker under your ass and get you moving, you know, especially if you feel stuck in your path, stuck on your, on your journey, like go connect with other witches, go connect with other magical folks. And see what else is out there. See what, what benefits you can glean from it because I guarantee you, you're going to grow. Even if it's just a little bit, you're going to grow. Yeah, yeah. And I think that's also the value of integration, like, that waiting for it to land, that That experience that ignites you like a conference, like a retreat, like. Right. Let yourself take the fallow time afterwards. Like. Like, for those who are unfamiliar with agricultural methods, if you have a farm or field and you grow and you grow and you grow and you grow, you are going to deplete that field. It will not be able to grow things anymore. So you have to take fallow seasons. So that fallow season can be where you grow nothing at all, true rest, or it can be where you grow a crop that nourishes, that can then be sown back under to create nutrients in the soil. So think of that metaphor when you come out of a deep experience. Maybe it's a single trance journey you do. And it takes you maybe a couple of weeks to really process like even though you wrote in your journal right away and maybe you even shared it with a friend and like kind of reflected on it out loud. It's still gonna integrate over time. Right. And I, and the longer you've been on this path, The longer that integration actually takes between sessions. It's not the other way around. And that's just my personal reflection. But like I had that experience. I think you're right. Right? It's an interesting observation. It is. Because you would think it's the opposite. Like, I'm better at it. Like, it's like, I think that's a capitalist misunderstanding that like, the more we do something, the better we get at it and therefore the quicker it goes. The quicker part is the capitalist productivity effectiveness drive thing. But if we just think of it as like, okay, I've been doing this a long time. This is a really big lesson. The longer you do it, the bigger the lessons and therefore the longer the integration periods. Yes. Yeah. So taking your time to integrate is so important and not getting frustrated that it doesn't make sense right away or that you don't know. This is, again, the capitalist thing. What am I going to do with this information? What do you mean? Yeah, I need to do something right away. You don't have to be productive. Yeah, like sometimes the messages, and like, people have asked me before, like, how do you come up with You know, what you're going to do in a container. How do you know where the trance journey is going to lead up? Because I do it myself. I have my own journey, my own experiences, and then my guides are like, this is meant to be shared. That's not, this is. Or maybe five years after an experience that wasn't meant to be shared, my guides are like, now it's time to share that. Now it's time. So it's always a personal... Path for each of us and integration is is no different than the spiritual Moments like we have to take those moments to integrate we do Speaking of containers, my next container begins in just over one week and Early Bird ends in two days. If you are ready to step onto the path of the Sacred Wild, meet us in Sacred Wild Priestess, a 12-week journey of drumming, Trance work and magic to connect with the lessons of the land within and around you. You can find more information at seekingnumina.com slash sacred wild priestess. Yeah, and I think probably you can relate to the same, but when I created my container, the Gardens of the Mystic, and all the other elements that go with it, the other things I share from it. This is taking me years to develop. It's not something I just decided one day I was going to do. Like, I've been working on it from my perspective within my own self, my own magical journey. And spiritual journey privately for years. You know, I'm taking the training that I received from my early days. To all the experiences that I've gathered since then, the retreats I've gone to, the women's retreats, the witchy retreats, the The sacred conferences, all these things, all these experiences, all the people that I've come in contact with, it's In the books I've read, it's, it's all this integration period. So it didn't, it didn't happen overnight. It was something that I developed over time. And then from that, other things developed like the, the Unbound Priestess podcast where it's more of a. A journey, an actionable journey where I give you actionable things to do with your path so that you too can take those experiences and integrate them. And it's, yeah, like you said, it's, it's this capitalistic idea where we just, we have to have an experience and then immediately use it. Or it, it, we have to immediately decide if it's valid or invalid or invalid. And sometimes it takes longer. Sometimes we have to sit on it for a while like an egg to hatch it. Yeah, that's a good way to look at it. Yeah, yeah, my high priestess. Gestation period. Yeah, it is a gestation. That's so true. Another way that you can think of it like my high priestess says it's like sometimes our higher self receives an encrypted file. That takes a long time to decode and it, and the higher self can decode it. We as a waking human living in this world can't. So the higher self decodes it and then filters down to us what we can receive as we can receive it. So, like, if you've ever had a moment where your meditation... Seemed wonky and weird, but then you reread that journal entry later and you're like, that was the thing where I, like, and it suddenly clicks. That's not a mistake. That's your higher self guiding you as you're able to receive what you need to. Yeah, and what you can perceive at the time because if you are at a position in your path where you can't understand it, it's going to be invalid. You're going to brush it off or you're not going to understand it. But then when you come back to it, you know, like I mentioned, like reading the old books that you read when you first did your your journeying or you first read the book twenty years ago, fifteen years ago, five years ago, a year ago even. You go back to read that book and you're like, oh god, this has a whole different meaning. Because it does. It's gonna have a different meaning. It's gonna have a different purpose in your life now than it did then. Okay, before we go, like, I want to end this with some recipes because I think that being the magic kitchen, we should have some recipes, right? So one of the things I love to make this time of year. Are, like, spice blends and sugar blends. So I know this is, if you ever go to the Magic Kitchen blog or if you go to the witchwoodteahouse.com, I have blended sugars and blended spice blends that I offer there. So you can do salts and sugars. Um, but this one, I have a sunfire spice blend that I want to share with everyone. So I will put the link in there for you to get This recipe and I'm going to set it up. It's going to be set up like a book of shadows page. So you can literally print that off and stick it in your book of shadows and then use it. So it's a blend of paprika, garlic, thyme, crushed red pepper and sea salt. And really this is like an all-purpose seasoning. You can put it on your chicken, you can put it on your fish, you can put it everywhere, but it's going to have a little bit of heat. So I'm not going to give you ratios of how to blend this because I want you to do it to taste how you like it. Me, I like dragon fire. So I put a lot more crushed pepper. Crushed red peppers in it. Then I do like everything else. So, um, when you see the recipe, it's not going to have specific ratios. I know a lot of people like that. Like it will tell me exactly how to do that. I think. This is a great exercise in us letting go and using our intuition to blend something, to create something. Because I know a lot of times we get stuck in this, well, if I follow X, Y, Z, I will have success. It'll always be successful. That's not necessarily true, especially when it comes to an intuitive spiritual path. Following the protocol, I'm using my air quotes if you're not watching us, using the idea that we have to follow XYZ or ABC equals D. Is not always true. Sometimes we have to improvise. Sometimes we have to use our intuition. So I really want you, when you make this spice blend, use your intuition. Let, let connect with your spices, connect with the elements within it and let it guide you. So I hope you'll download that and try it. Yeah. Well, that sounds great. That's very protecting as well. It is. It's protection, courage, fire, energy, energy, just in general and purification. Love that. Thanks for sharing that with everybody. Yeah. 

Merry Meet. Merry Part. And Merry Meet Again. Thank you for joining us on the Magic Kitchen podcast. Please visit my website, LeandraWitchwood.com, for news, information, and more episodes. I'm Elise Wells, and I can be found at Seeking Numina on YouTube. Instagram and Facebook and SeekingNumina.com. That's Seeking N-U-M-I-N-A.