Harvest Home Fruit Magic

With another harvest holiday coming up, I thought this would be an auspicious time to share with you one of my favorite tricks from ye olde kitchen witch cupboard: a simple all-purpose fruit spell.

For this easy method of magic, one chooses a fruit of the appropriate symbolism, clearly visualize your goal or desire (see associations below, or use your own intuition). Then speak the words of your spell and eat the fruit.

I find that the ever-popular apple makes a great all-purpose fruit for this spell, so I like to keep some around. If you have chosen a large enough fruit, you could also carve runes or symbols of your goal into it. You could juice it into a potion, or bake it into a pie with symbols formed in the crust. You could even slice up a piece of fruit and share it in a group spell. If using an apple, you could slice it horizontally to reveal the star in the middle, eat around the center and make a wish on the star then bury it.

Below you will find the words I have crafted for a general fruit spell, and some associations I have for some common fruits. Of course, this spell could be used for other foods as well.

“Fruit of Earth, the Mother’s gift,
with you I seek a fateful shift.
With my goal placed well in mind,
your taste brings forth my will in kind.”

Fruit Associations for Magic
Apple: health, vigor, youthfulness, wholesomeness, and love.
Blackberry: abundance, prosperity, and protection.
Cherry: love, desire, passion, and playfulness.
Blueberry: protection, happiness.
Fig: sexuality and fertility.
Grapes: fertility, prosperity.
Lemon: cleansing and purifying.
Orange: friendship, courage, luck.
Paw-paw: protection, love, or revenge.
Peach: love, beauty.
Pear: love and desire.
Persimmon: joy and wisdom.
Pomegranate: desire, commitment, mystery, lifeblood.
Raspberry: love and protection.
Strawberry: youthful attitude, love and happiness.
Watermelon: joy, freedom, prosperity.

Autumn Equinox Crafts for Kids

bean necklaces
Soak beans of various colors in water overnight.  In the morning, they will be soft enough to be pierced through with a needle and string to make necklaces and bracelets.
 

papier-mâché cornucopias
To make this project, first you will need to make some paper ropes.  Here’s how:
1. Lay a full size sheet of newspaper flat and drizzle with thick flour and water paste or glue.  Use a scrap of cardboard to  spread the paste over the entire sheet.
2. Lay another full size sheet of newspaper on top of the paste, 1 inch lower than the sheet below it.
3. Starting from the bottom, roll the 2 sheets together into a tube.
4. Twist the paper tube into a rope.
Now, to make the cornucopia, place a small bowl upside down on your work surface. Wrap one of your paper ropes around the bowl rim with the bowl upside down on the work surface. Cut off any excess length and paste ends together.  Let dry.  (You may need to tape it in place until it dries.)
Next paste one end of another paper rope to ring around bowl, leaving other end free. Attach 7 more ropes around ring in the same way, spacing them evenly.
Bring free ends together over bowl. Pull then off center to form a curved horn shape and paste in place. It will look a little bit like a tomato cage in structure.  Let dry, then remove bowl.
Make more paper ropes to weave into the cornucopia.
Paste end of a new rope to one of the cross ribs near top of basket. Weave other end of this new rope in and out of ribs, repeating with new lengths of rope until all spaces are filled in, using paste or glue where needed.
Let dry, then paint/decorate how you wish.  Fill cornucopia with real or papier-mâché fruits and vegetables.

 

marker point samplers
This is a simple and fun art project I found in Family Fun Magazine last year.  All you need are markers in various colors, a pencil, and graph paper.  First, use a pencil to lightly mark out letters and designs on the grid paper.  This example says “give thanks” but if you want to be more elaborate you can spell out “happy harvest” or anything you like.  When you are happy with your design, use markers to X in your design then go back and erase pencil marks.