Clarity tea: our visionary blend

Our Clarity Tea was on our tasting table last weekend at St. Andrews market, and it proved so popular that I thought I’d write a bit of a post about it. It’s a beautiful blend to look at – anything with calendula flowers in it is so pretty, don’t you think?

When you drink it you will find it has a kind of earthy taste (I think that’s mostly the mugwort), a bit spicy from the calendula flowers and a bit aromatic from the fennel seeds. It’s grounding – that’s the mugwort and the fennel – yet opening, protective and clarifying thanks to the eyebright and the calendula (and the mugwort. Mugwort is good for lots of things, in case you hadn’t worked that out by now).

This blend is a tonic for the third eye; we particularly recommend it for when you’re working on meditation or feel a bit lost in a mental fog. If you suspect that there’s something going on around you – especially something negative – but you’re not quite sure what it is, Clarity Tea can help to open your eyes to what’s happening. It is also an excellent herbal blend to drink while you’re studying, helping you to identify and absorb the most relevant bits of information.

Obviously, based on the description above, our Clarity blend has been formulated to work primarily on an energetic level. It does, however, also work on a physical level; eyebright and calendula have a long history of use for inflammations of mucous membranes (with eyebright in particular acting on the upper respiratory system and eyes), and calendula is also a lymphatic herb – meaning that this blend may also be helpful for mild seasonal allergies such as hayfever.

As with anything containing mugwort (a uterine stimulant), please avoid this blend if you are pregnant or breastfeeding.

What will be available on the tasting table this Saturday at the market? Come along and find out! We’d love to see you!

Blessings on this sunny winter’s day

Verity )O(

Things a-brewing

There’s exciting things steeping in jars at Cath’s house… Some very magickal herbs – dittany, mugwort, hemlock – waiting for us to decant them at Samhain. Ointments and ritual soap are some of the things we have planned for our infused oils. I can’t wait to get started.

I’m also very excited about the range of chakra balancing blends we are coming up with… We already have our basic range of gem tinctures in the shop of course – but I am so thrilled to be coming up with some more complex, healing mixtures that you can use for pathworking meditations, bathing and anointing yourself.

These will contain herbs chosen to nurture and balance the energy of each chakra, steeped in alcohol to create a tincture and then blended and bottled with the addition of essential oils and gem or flower essences. The first three or four have worked themselves out pretty clearly in my head, so now it’s just a matter of getting hold of the raw ingredients and setting them to infuse. In particular I’m already dreaming of how good the blend for the sacral chakra will smell and feel – sandalwood, gardenia, ylang ylang, rose geranium, how delicious!

I haven’t worked with chakras much in the past, I have to say, and it’s only recently that I’ve felt particularly drawn to focus on them, but I’m glad I’m working with them now! Yesterday – a particularly difficult, nasty day with me and my little boy rubbing each other totally up the wrong way, with much screaming and tears from both of us I’m sorry to say – in an attempt to ground and settle myself I took quite a few doses of hematite and carnelian (for the root and sacral chakra) essence and they worked amazingly well… I felt more grounded, more centred and calm, it was as if a huge ball of tension and blocked energy unravelled itself from inside me. Today, thankfully, has been much calmer all round.