“May is the month of expectation, the month of wishes, the month of hope.”
– Emily Brontë
Hello, hello, beautiful people. I’m SO excited to have you with me for this Beltane newsletter! Beltane is, without a doubt, my favourite festival on the Wheel of the Year. Hawthorn blossom ✅️ Willow warblers ✅️ Long spring evenings that smell like warm earth ✅️ I’m so full of spring energy that I’ll even let the hay fever slide.
I’ve had an absolute blast trotting around the country on my book tour for The Second-Hand Boy – my soft and emotional book for ages 9-12 about life-saving friendships, mental health and young carers. I really hope you enjoy the book!
I’m back at my writing desk now and also taking Distance Reiki bookings for May-June. You can reply to this email to book your session 💚
Beltane – ahh, Beltane. Every year from 30th April through to 1st May – when Pagans across the Northern Hemisphere mark this ancient festival – I find myself almost swooning over this gorgeous spring energy. We had a wet start to the season but things are finally brightening up and we can celebrate what Beltane is all about:
Abundance, fertility, virility & passion – making Beltane the best time of year for working fertility, love and self-love magick (scroll down to my spell below).
The frisky wildlife around right now is a testament to this! In days of old, traditional values went out the window on this night and young people were allowed to scuttle off to the undergrowth for some ‘celebration’ time outside of wedlock.
This ancient fire festival is the flipside of the coin to Samhain. While Samhain is keenly associated with death, Beltane is a celebration of life itself. However, it may surprise you to know that the veil between the worlds is just as thin at Beltane as it is on Halloween. Keep an eye out for spooks (and keep some black tourmaline in your pocket)!
In this edition of the newsletter, I’ll be writing all about:
how to celebrate the festival of Beltane
The Witch’s Survival Guide – 1 year in the wild!
flowery Beltane folklore 🌸
a self-love spell working with gorse (scroll down to the bottom!)
I also just wanted to let you know that you raised an amazing £437.46 for the parental bereavement charity Sands. You are superstars ⭐️
I hope you enjoy this edition of the newsletter. Blessed Beltane to you!
Jennifer x
1 year of The Witch’s Survival Guide
The past year has been a JOURNEY! And I wanted to take the first anniversary of The Witch’s Survival Guide’s publication date to say a big thank you for being on this magickal road with me.
I decided to write The Witch’s Survival Guide because I was overwhelmed by how many people reached out to me after The Wheel. I realised just how common my experience of depression, anxiety and panic attacks while feeling trapped in a toxic work environment (or any work environment, if I’m honest!) truly was. I wanted to give people the practical, everyday magickal tools I wish I’d had at the start of my journey to wellness.
The sold-out launch party for The Witch’s Survival Guide was genuinely one of the five happiest days of my life. It means so much to me to have your support and to know that my writing is changing peoples’ lives for the better. Since the launch, I’ve spoken at huge national events about the power of witchcraft to heal us and bring joy back into our lives. I’ve loved connecting with you all so much and I hope that books like The Witch’s Survival Guide are helping to change this harsh, unrelenting world into something soft, peaceful and more magickal.
The book has been out since April 2023 and I hope it continues to offer people spiritual support for many years to come.
Cuckooflower: the favourite flower of the Fae
In previous years in The Green Witch Writer Newsletter, we’ve explored the Beltane lore of hawthorn and its association with the Fae realm. I know how much some of you really enjoyed learning about the Fae last time! So here I’ll be telling you all about cuckooflower: the faerie flower of spring.
But before we delve into it, I wanted to let you know how I’ll be celebrating Beltane:
I’ll be washing my face in the morning dew (either on 30 April or 1 May) to welcome good luck and beauty into my life. I’ll be using the dew from my lawn but, for a more potent Beltane fix, you can use the dew found on hawthorn blossom (watch out for those thorns, please!).
I’m looking forward to a Beltane walk in the woods. Wild garlic, jack-of-the-hedge (garlic mustard), herb Robert, bluebells – they’re all out at the moment. I plan on taking a photo diary of my findings and writing about what each plant means to me as a green witch.
As Beltane is a time when the veil between the realms of the living and the dead is especially thin, I’ll be salting the boundaries of my house – which I wrote about in last year’s Samhain newsletter.
I’ll be sprucing up my altar with a heck-tonne of fire symbols. This is a fire festival after all! While spring is traditionally the season of the Air Element, I want to display my love of Beltane with pink and green candles (the colour of the heart – as this is a festival close to my own heart) and fire-centred gemstones such as citrine and carnelian.
In the Celtic moon calendar, Beltane is ruled over by the willow tree (also known as Saille – which rules from 15th April-12th May). So, I’ll be spending time with the willow tree that borders my garden and telling it all my gossip.
I’m OBSESSED with the idea of making these honey lavender scones (forever in my cottagecore era). I’m not much of a baker but I feel like this recipe would make my Beltane complete.
And now, let’s talk about that delicate, pink and white spring plant, cuckooflower.
What is cuckooflower?
Cuckooflower (Cardamine pratensis), also known as lady's smock, looks just as ethereal as its folklore! A meadow plant, it is very closely associated with the gentleness of spring and is linked with the arrival of the cuckoo – hence its colloquial name.
Carrying a cuckooflower is said to make you more fertile, to protect you from evil and to help you woo a lover. But these (silly) folk might not have heard of the flower’s links with the Fae.
Cuckooflower is a flower fiercely guarded over by the Fae, who often gather around them in spring, just as they gather in toadstool rings in autumn. Those who pluck up cuckooflower are in for a nasty shock as they invite in sickness and the wrath of the Fae.
And we all know what they’re capable of.
But if that’s not enough to deter you from picking them, they are favourites of the orange tip butterfly and it’s where they choose to lay their eggs. Gently peer under their delicate leaves and you may find the long, thin, orange eggs of this butterfly clustered there. There is a patch of grass in our garden that always grows cuckooflower in the spring and we leave it purposefully un-mowed in the hopes an orange-tip will bless us with its presence!
Either way, it’s best to leave cuckooflower well alone for the faeries and butterflies.
Want to #WriteLikeAWitch? ✏️
Last week, my fabulous fellow author Laura Derbyshire (aka @thebowerhare) & I gave you a wonderfully witchy writing challenge via IG. We hope you enjoyed our week of Write Like A Witch!
We shared writing prompts designed to get you channelling your inner goddess and to absorb yourself into a mossy forest floor. I know that I loved feeling inspired to write again and sinking into my witch brain.
Download an extra-special #WriteLikeAWitch challenge from my paid Substack membership here. Happy writing!
I also can’t wait to speak with Laura at Blackwell’s Oxford this Saturday! We will be up on stage talking all about witchcraft and wellness in this live Q&A and book signing. We have currently sold out (yay!) but a few tickets miiiiight become available a couple of days before, so keep checking the website to see. Or, if you live in the area, you can try your luck on the day and turn up in store 😏
Gorse self-love spell
When we’re not feeling ourselves, two of the first things that can slip are our self-care and our self-esteem. Magickally enhanced gorse can greatly add to your well-being, which is why I’ve created this gorse tea self-love spell to drink whenever we start to feel under the weather mentally or physically 💗
Gorse – a stubby, prickly tree covered in butter-yellow flowers most of the year round – is ruled over by the Sun and the element of Fire. Its link to solar energies makes it a brilliant amplifier – one for growing protection, growing wealth and growing love – as well as representing the fires of Beltane. This also goes hand in hand with gorse signifying positivity – one only has to look at its shining face to see why.
This spell is from the Wild Wellbeing series on my paid Substack. You can upgrade your membership below to get more spells like this one, herb fact files, and green witchcraft tips delivered to your inbox every week 🥰
So, let’s put the kettle on and get brewing some shining self-love.
You’ll need:
1 tbsp of gently washed gorse flowers
1 mug/tea cup
a tea strainer or cafetière
1 yellow candle
lighter/matches
4 pieces of rose quartz
1 cup of hot water
your favoured purification method: this could be burning garden sage or cedar wood, performing a visualisation, striking a sound bowl or another way.
Add the gorse flowers to your strainer or cafetière and brew in hot water for 8 minutes.
While you do this, set up your spell-crafting space and get yourself into a meditative state by slowing (and becoming mindful of) your breathing. Place the candle in a south-facing direction and the crystals in a small circle in front of you, using the points of the compass. Cleanse all the items in your space using your preferred method then light the candle.
Strain the gorse flowers from your tea and set them aside. Bring the tea to your spell-crafting space, place the mug in the centre of the rose quartz circle and find yourself a comfortable seat in front of your workspace.
Hover both your hands over the mug and close your eyes. Visualise a string of light beaming down from the sky to the crown of your head, threading through your body and out of your base into the ground, anchoring you in place. Before you do anything more, continue to breathe consciously and feel this connection to sky and earth deeply.
When you feel the time is right, say the following words to your mug of gorse tea:
“Gorse’s golden glow, embrace me whole,
Self-love blooms and flows within my soul.
With each sip, I am filled with love’s divine decree,
As above, so below, so mote it be.“
Pick up the mug and hold it in your hands for a while as you breathe in its scent. When the cup has cooled enough, drink the tea and feel yourself filling up with its light, confidence and positivity. You are filled with love. You are love itself.
Blessed Beltane, everyone. I'll see you at the next turn of the Wheel: Litha will be here on 20th June. How is the year turning so quickly?? Watch out for your newsletter a few days before.
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Love all that you have shared here Jennifer. Blessed, if a bit belated Beltane x