Happy Harvest and Fall Equinox season! This is a time when magic feels abundant, enticing, and so near to our conscious awareness that it enters our everyday customs easily. Between the activity of Summer and the dreaming of Winter, is this liminal season, where we begin to slow down and look towards the hidden layers of reality. In the service of that, and in the spirit of balance between the realms of day and night, here is a brief exploration of Apple and Moonstone.
Apple Magic
Few fruits have as rich a history of practical uses, mythic lore, and magical recipes as the apple. Apples are the sacred fruit of Aphrodite and of Persephone, the fruit of knowledge in the Garden of Eden, the Golden Apple of immortality and perpetual youth that Hercules sought and which Paris awarded to Aphrodite in exchange for the love of the most beautiful woman in the world. They were a cherished food and sacred offering to the gods in ancient Egypt, as well as to the Norse, and remain the appropriate offering to Chango, within the Yoruba tradition. They are deeply connected to Goddess spirituality and mysticism in the British Isles, and were said to have once grown all around the island of Avalon, also known as the “Isle of Apples”. Even unicorns are said to live beneath apple trees.
Apples are a symbol of love, of enlightened insight, of health and fertility, of sweetness, of the underworld, and of the hidden magic in everyday life. Even their sweet scent was once thought to grant longevity and renew waning health or physical strength. Later folklore, however, advised rubbing them before eating, to remove all evil spirits that were suspected to hide within.
Actually inside each apple, and revealed when it’s cut into two equal halves, is a nearly perfect star or pentagram, a symbol of protection and magical potency, honored in many earth based traditions. Roma lineage people refer to this as the “star of knowledge”, a name which evokes hidden knowledge, the mysticism and magic that often surrounds us in the natural or everyday world, but to which we must pay closer attention, in order to really see. This makes sense in the context of more fearful myths too, like the (Apple) Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden, and the idea that demons could reside within. Most of the history we have recorded and much of our folklore was shaped by people who feared and mistrusted magic, sacred knowledge accessible to all, and the natural power of the earth. Even the fragrant, pink blossoms of the apple tree in Springtime have five points, like a star or pentagram. Nature often gives us clues.
Apples have many uses in the realms of folk medicine and magic. They can be portals or keys to enter the Underworld or land of the Gods, particularly when they are in the form of a Silver Bough, hanging on the branch of apple tree that once held buds, flowers and the fully ripened fruit. This has to do with their mythic relationship with immortality. They are sometimes considered a food of the dead, included on altars during Dia de los Muertos in Mexican and Mexican American culture, and on Samhain, in Wiccan traditions, which consider them a symbol of soul. They are often buried on Samhain so that those who are to be reborn in Spring will have food in the colder Winter days ahead. Perhaps this is the origin of their more modern and dark lore as the poison apple handed to Snow White. An apple eaten in the Underworld, or in the gardens of the Faerie Realm, can prevent a return to the land of the living and of ordinary reality. (It was certainly never the same for Adam and Eve.) Yet, knowledge is power, and the Underworld is a gateway to this level of knowledge too.
There are many recorded apple spells. These recipes cover magical intentions such as divination, self-transformation, banishing, binding, healing illness, increasing fertility, restoring youth, granting longevity, and enabling unicorn and Faerie sightings, but most prominently concern all matters of love. Love spells involving apples are abundant and relatively simple. The common principle for most is infusing the apple with one’s intention to ignite desire, love, or loyalty in another by visualizing it while holding the apple whole in one’s hands, between one’s legs, or cut into slices and kept in one’s armpits (hopefully without chemical deodorant on!), and then giving it to one’s chosen love interest. Love spells are often manipulative, which is a tricky and ethically questionable kind of magic that can also backfire, however this vein of spells is on the line, following the logic that the apple is a gift that the intended does not have to take, or eat, so there is some unconscious agreement at play if the person does. Simply sharing an apple between lovers is said to increase love, just as carving a heart into an apple and eating it oneself can increase a sense of self-love.
However, this is the season of the Fall Equinox and the Harvest time. Perhaps the best use of apple magic is that which leads one towards the inner harvest, towards cultivating balance, and towards hidden knowledge. My four year old son and I celebrated the Equinox with a magical baked apple spell, a delicious and delightful way to focus intentions and call in the sweetness of harvest, while welcoming the magic of this liminal time of year.
Baked Apple Spell:
You will need:
Large Apples- your favorite variety, but large enough to core easily
seeds such as pumpkin or sunflower- to represent the seeds of harvest, planted deep within for the next cycle’s flowering
Currants or other dried fruit- to represent the Underworld, it’s hidden path to knowledge, power and honoring all that came before us
Cinnamon- to empower all ingredients and intentions
Softened Butter- for a rich harvest (coconut oil would be a good vegan alternative)
Honey- for sweetness in life (coconut sap or brown sugar can also be substituted)
(optional) Chocolate Chips- cacao is for happiness, energy and balance, so try to find a good percentage. This also adds to the decadence.
Preheat your oven to 375 degrees
Use a sharp paring knife to carefully cut out the core of the apple, leaving the rest intact and hollow. You can leave the bottom 1/2 inch intact, but I tend to remove it and then set the apple on tinfoil to hold in the ingredients.
With the tip of the knife, or other instrument, carve into the skin of the apple, first writing words and symbols that represent what you have cultivated this past growing year and which to fully embody, then what you want to call in or grow within yourself, such as balance, self-love, magic, abundance, healing.
Handle each of your ingredients, asking to awaken their innate magic and infusing your intention into them. Add them together into a bowl. Mix with a wooden spoon, while whispering, visualizing, or singing your intentions. Be intuitive in your process.
Place each apple on a sheet of tinfoil and set within a baking pan or tray.
Use a spoon to stuff each apple with your magical mixture.
Cover each apple with the tin foil so that it is wrapped. (I sculpted the first initial of our names into the tinfoil, so it would be easy to tell them apart. These can become very personal.)
Bake for about 35 minutes.
Allow to cool slightly and eat them warm!
The following is an older Self-Transformation /Apple Spell from “The Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells”:
Self-Transformation Apple Spell:
This is for any kind of transformation, as self-transformation is the sacred territory of the apple.
1. Hold the apple in your hand
2. Think about who you truly are, who you want to be, or how you want to see yourself transformed.
3. Take your time, but hold the apple the whole time you are meditating and visualizing this.
4. In a line, place a mirror, a yellow candle, and the apple.
5. Gaze into the mirror and let the candle burn until it has burned all the way out.
6. Now, consider whether or not you still truly desire this transformation.
7. If the answer is yes, eat the apple.
This is the season of wild apples. Some magic is free and abundant. Enjoy.
Moonstone
So, how does Moonstone relate to the Fall Equinox, the Harvest, and apple magic? Quite harmoniously, actually. Moonstone is a deeply feminine stone, aligned with one of the most powerful of feminine forces, the moon. This means that it has an innate relationship with the psychic realm and the development of intuitive abilities, with the reflection of light which can reveal what is hidden to the light of day or to conscious awareness, and with the emotional life. This is the territory of the unconscious, guided by the Divine Feminine and the cycles of creation and destruction, waxing and waning, that play out in the passages of our lives. Here we can connect with our inner knowing, view ourselves and our lives from the cyclical perspective, as an internal journey where each passage around the wheel of time and experience moves us closer to an awakened knowledge and embodied sense of power. Here deep works of self-transformation are possible, especially over time. Moonstone is an ally for looking within and recognizing which stage of creating, healing, or transformation we are in, while cultivating within us the emotional surrender, patience, and guiding dreams that will encourage us to see it through to its full integration.
Moonstone is said to activate the feminine aspects within, and has a special relationship with women, and those of any gender who align strongly with the feminine or with the traditions of the Goddess. It can help to regulate hormonal cycles and balance emotions, creating a sense of relaxed wellbeing, and enhancing the receptive side of one’s nature, as in psychic perception, dreaming and visioning. Though there are several forms of Moonstone, color variations that influence the overall meaning, the two most prominent forms are White Moonstone and Rainbow Moonstone.
White Moonstone harvests the full moon energy. This makes it an activator of dreaming, clairvoyance, emotions in general, and the Quetzalcoatl or Kundalini energy forces rising up through the energetic centers of the body. White Moonstone is also the most reflective, enhancing all acts of seeing through the darkness within and without, and amplifying magical workings.
Rainbow Moonstone reflects light into prisms of rainbow color, which adds an action of dissipating energies that may be dense. For this reason, Rainbow Moonstone has a strongly protective and healing element, particularly as concerns those who are highly sensitive to psychic information and the negative energies and emotions of others. It has an affinity for trauma as well, clearing the body and mind of its residual effects and bringing lightness and energetic clarity. At this time of balancing light and dark, consider calling on Moonstone to bring the light of reflection into your Harvest ceremonies, to deepen your inner sight, to connect with the potency of the full moon when working in the magical arts, and to dissipate the heavy energies that keep you from your true sense of joy, clarity, and wellbeing. Though it might be tempting to use this crystal in bathing rituals, it is not compatible with water.
Suggestion for working with Apple and Moonstone:
The Self-Transformation Apple Spell described above might be far more powerful if instead of a mirror, you used a White Moonstone as your reflective surface. If this is not feasible, consider wearing Moonstone for the ritual, and even placing yourself in a sacred protection circle with Rainbow Moonstone pieces. Take one piece of moonstone to place under your pillow for transformative and guiding dreams. If you blow an intention for dreaming or a dream question into it, you may be able to focus the nature of the dream guidance. Ask, respectfully, for dreams that are prophetic, healing, and visionary, as if you are asking the favor of the sacred moon herself.
May you claim all the gifts of your personal harvest and celebrate in sweetness!
Sincerely,
the eleventh house
-This blog was written by Melusina Gomez. For more information about her work and healing practices please visit www.metzmecatl.com