Garden Magick - Working With Plants, Insects, Etc, and the Findhorn Garden, Scotland Options

i'm not sure if this is the right sub-forum, maybe witchcraft, shamanism? please move if it seems appropriate to do so

good day all,

i have been recently wondering about applying magick to gardening in order to work better with the ecosystem, and thought i might ask if anyone has any experience with such practice here. some of my questions would be -

what kind of rituals would you use to establish communication with an insect or animal species? the goal being to ask if certain plants could be left alone, or at least evenly shared among us, things like that.
what rituals would you use to help plants grow? or to communicate with a plant so you can know what it wants
could magick be used as a kind of personal insect repellant? this was actually the idea that led me to this topic originally, as where i live there are a lot of ticks and i react quite badly to their bites (sick in bed for a week recently) and no herbal repellents seem to keep them away
what rituals do you use to commune with plant 'spirits'? i am beginning to experiment with some homemade flower essences at the moment.

i do try to intuitively commune with nature spirits, not just in the garden but also when out bush, but am still studying traditional magick concepts before i apply them and would appreciate some guidance from anyone more experienced. i guess you might call what i do more of a 'freestyle shamanism' rather than a 'true' magickal practice, but the more respect i have for the shamanic traditions the less i feel comfortable with labeling my practice that way either, maybe its more like chaos magick, if it fits i wear it basically.

anyway, when i started to do some research i came across some information on the Findhorn Garden in Scotland which has offered some inspiration. has anyone here been there or heard about it? opinions? here's a summary:

The Findhorn Foundation is located in northeast Scotland, 5 miles outside of the town of Forres and 26 miles outside of the city of Inverness. The original caravan park site was an unlikely place for a garden. The ground was mostly sand and gravel. To start the garden Dorothy Maclean and Peter and Eileen Caddy had to build soil using techniques such as cutting seaweed from the rocks and hauling buckets of horse manure and wood ash. They made mountains of compost which they tilled into the sand. They built fences, a patio and green houses.

Following the guidance given to Dorothy by the �devas," or overlighting intelligence of the plants, the vegetables, flowers and herbs of Findhorn thrived beyond belief stunning horticultural experts. Gaining special fame was the 42 pound cabbage. Plants unlikely to grow in the Findhorn area thrived. A visiting rose expert who wanted to disprove their inner connections advised them to plant roses in areas completely incompatible to the climate and location. Peter innocently followed this advice. A few years later, when the rose expert returned to gloat, he found thriving roses - and became a convert

.

thanks in advance for anything you can offer, peace and happy gardening (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

CosmicInferno

This post has been edited by CosmicInferno: Aug 22 2008, 08:18 PM

This was actually one of the first experiments in Magick I have ever conducted.

I have been growing some indoor plants that have just taken off.

What i did was I made a picture of Demeter and filled her gown (that i drew her in) with sigils that I also created for protection and a successful harvest.

I haven't received any problems and this is my first attempt. They seem to be super healthy.

Being new I'm still a bit skeptical, but hey all my friends that tried growing had problems and I still haven't had one.

The whole gardening Magick thing seems like a fascinating subject to me.

I recently bought a Venus Fly Trap and it made me think, now I'm not usually one for sacrifice but you could incorporate a carnivorous plant like that with the idea of sacrificing

something living (I'm talking like meal worms or something of that nature if anything) for a successful harvest.

Probably not something that I would do just because I would have a hard time killing anything,

but It seems like a powerful and somewhat primal way of preforming a form of "Garden Magick"

Oh! I know just what you're looking for! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/banana.gif)

You have GOT to get Machelle Small Wright's books. This is a major area of my interest as well. I could go on for pages on the subject. Suffice it to say that I believe our very survival on this planet depends upon us initiating contact and establishing relationships with the intelligence of Nature, and cooperating together with that intelligence in everything we do. My first intro was through Paul Hawken's "The Magic of Findhorn". GREAT book. Then I got into Marko Pogacnik's writing, and that is really amazing stuff, as well. Then I got into Machelle Small Wright's work. She has a huge and beautiful garden in Virginia called Perelandra, which she started and maintains without any knowledge of gardening other than what the Devas teach her. I have a few of her books, but unfortunately I don't have her main ones, the ones you should get. Eventually I will. Machelle does not use ritual, however. She does use kinesiology and similar methods to maintain a constant communication with the Devas. She also uses and sells flower essences.

Her main books are the Perelandra Garden Workbooks, Volume 1 and 2. I have Co-Creative Science and the Medical Assistance Program.

Here's a taste:

The Garden Workbook is for those who wish to work in conscious partnership with nature intelligences and want to know the information nature can provide them about establishing and maintaining an environment in balance.

Machaelle has broken down the processes she uses with nature in the Perelandra garden and has presented them in an easy, step-by-step format that anyone can follow. NOTE: This book is not restricted to vegetable or flower gardens. It is used successfully by landscape architects, backyard architects, foresters, farmers and ranchers. It is also used for houseplants, ponds, aquariums and atriums.

The book begins with how to start your partnership with nature, and continues through the simple techniques of communication and how to get detailed information directly from nature. It also includes:

* Where to position a garden and how to lay it out
* Interplanting and use of flowers, herbs and minerals
* Fertilizing
* Gardening with birds, animals and insects
* Seasonal maintenance
* Harvesting for and making flower essences
* Three important environmental energy balancing processes: the Energy Cleansing Process, the Battle Energy Release Process and the Soil Balancing and Stabilizing Process

Interspersed throughout are nature sessions translated especially for this book. Each session explains the various processes and how they fit into universal natural law.

An excerpt: http://www.perelandra-ltd.com/Excerpt_W38.cfm

This post has been edited by flyingmojo: Mar 31 2009, 07:09 PM

>>>Suffice it to say that I believe our very survival on this planet depends upon us initiating contact and establishing relationships with the intelligence of Nature, and cooperating together with that intelligence in everything we do

wah doh, mojo! - now think entity-conscious too!

tobacco tea is a good garden gift - keeps the bugs off plants and de-worms entities lol

the voice of the garden is growth

the move overgrown and less controlled, the better for the entities, and for the garden

so when is something a weed and something a herb?

so when is something a weed and something a herb?

From the little I know, according to what Machelle talks about, this is precisely the kind of perspective we need to change. There are no such thing as weeds. This is because a garden is not natural; it is a human construct. A garden is a parcel of land a human sets aside from the surrounding landscape in order to make things grow there that wouldn't otherwise grow there (and the things that do naturally grow there are unwelcome); these plants are existing in a state outside their natural ecosystem, hence most gardens are out of balance. From the gardener's or farmer's perspective, anything that threatens this garden is a pest or a weed etc. However, as usual, Nature is just doing Her thing, and possesses an inherent balance. And as usual, "Her thing" is a nuisance to humans desperately trying to enforce their will on Her, creating imbalance. Not that gardens are bad. They're essential. It is through a "co-creative partnership" with Nature intelligence that a gardener can establish and maintain a natural balance in the garden. In this way, the problem with a weed infestation does not lie in the weeds themselves but with an imbalance in the garden that only the Nature intelligence inherent in the garden knows how to correct.

For instance,

"If man is to sensitize himself to the communication of the insects, it is important that he view them as messengers of a problem and not the problem itself." Perelandra Garden Workbook - Machaelle Small Wright, Overlighting Deva of Insects

Is this making any sense? Because humans are imposing their will on Nature without any genuine consciousness of Her complex web-work and its delicate, inherent balance, we are constantly creating imbalance. But it is through a communication and "co-creative partnership" with Nature intelligence that we can develop an awareness of this balance. Balance is not always the right word. Perhaps synergy or harmony is better. Plus, in this way, we eliminate countless obstacles, and move with the flow, rather than fighting against the current. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blablabla.gif)

i use pot

well, pots (sorry had to do that lol)

by using pots to grow the stuff in in the garden, invasive species are cut down, bugs can be fooled by just moving the plant - mostly i do it so i don't go nutso trying to use our whacked soil here on sand mountain, which is mostly flat plates of sandy rock that breaks tiller blades constantly if you try to garden in it - cover the open potting soil on the top of the pot with some grass seed - makes for a entity-friendly clean surface that keeps in moisture and aerates and nitrates the soil, plus crowds out undesirables

if you don't have much room you should look into hydroponics and even upside-down window gardens, where the roots suspend the plant vertically upside down (a hanging garden), and learn how to fertilize your plants - not fertilizer, but fertilization, aka taking a male plant or flower and physically pollinating the female plants or flowers with it - scissors, q-tips and patience are the tools of the botanist

as usual, the industry hasn't caught up yet to my vision - there are no broad-spectrum led-based lighting systems available yet, and they are still using pesticides which is just stupid considering you can grow plants in a clean room with an airlock that keeps out everything, which is where we will be fairly soon

edit: i remember my grandfather saving back the largest and best of the okra and squash and corn, so carefully drying them, and then the next year so carefully dissecting them to get the seeds for planting - most of the plants or seeds you buy these days have been intentionally fixed so you can't do that as the seeds are dead and won't germinate, finding 'heirloom' seed plants that are capable of reproducing themselves is getting more difficult

This post has been edited by esoterica: Apr 2 2009, 07:40 AM

Thanks for the responses everyone!

RutilusOculus, i have been experimenting in similar ways as you and a lot of the time it seems to work, but i've been planning to do some more objective experiments to compare, such as growing x number of cuttings, take half and give sigils/share tobacco/whatever, and grow the other half as a control. although the seasons are changing now and i may be better off waiting til next spring, my gardening duties have been a bit neglected of late unfortunately!

flyingmojo, thanks that sounds very relevant! the "co-creative partnership" is exactly the kind of thing i'd like to work towards. i'll do some more research and hunt down those books. 'ritual' was probably a more specific term than i should have used in my original post, any techniques including kinesiology are of interest to me. i have heard of people using a pendulum to determine plant genders and good seed from weak, this is another experiment that i've actually started, planting a heap of 'good' and 'bad' seeds and looking for a difference in germination and growth rates.

esoterica:

"tobacco tea is a good garden gift - keeps the bugs off plants and de-worms entities lol"

haha i agree it's a valuable garden friend, smoking tobacco with a plant can make me feel close to it too. a 'wild' garden definitely feels like more of an entity-haven! i''m very reluctant to disturb the lot that m on very much, and i dont want to have to use netting to keep the wild away from my food, hence the desire to establish a balance, or agreement with the garden spirits

"so when is something a weed and something a herb?"

it's an excellent question, i'm really fond of this type of thing. i've always been a bit of a "dont throw it out i'll find a use for it one day" kinda person, and that doesn't stop at the garden haha. lots of stinging nettle 'round here, very nutritious, good diuretic and for urinary tract problems. the beautiful angel's trumpet that was here when i moved in is a weed to some eyes. i recently started collecting and drying morning glory vines to use to weave baskets, should be fun!

An intresting topic, certain plants coinhabit also... compliment each others survival. Could tie in QBL'stic attributes and create a cosmic garden which could be used for plant alchemy as well as other areas of herbal arts. Water them on days when the planets suit and what have you, did look things of this nature a while ago am waiting to get into Plant Alchemy first, few things I found;

In tune with the moon

Biodynamics

Can't recall which one goes deeper, into planetary alingments as well as the moon... think its the first one.

Peace
.M.