The era is named for rebirth—a transformation, a new arrival. A new you? The charms and spells to use in a Renaissance frame of mind are most fittingly about crafting a rebirth as well.
• A few words can change something ordinary—bread, a knife, a wildflower—into a powerful magical implement. To make an onion bring you a lover, for example, plant it in a pot and chant, “As this plant grows, and as its blossom blows, may her heart be ever turned to me.” Onions bloom in their second year of growth, so remember that love is patient.
• We all carry a natural fire inside that transforms what we eat—basically, our body cooks the food inside us. So dinner menus have to be balanced not just to distribute the traditional medieval hot, wet, cold, and dry properties appropriately but also to compensate for the activities of the person about to dig in. After, say, you’ve spent a few hours poring over your Enchanted Living, the reading will have made your humors dry, cool, and slow, so you should avoid very rich and heavy food until you’ve stoked your internal oven with some exercise.
• Cooking is what sorceresses do best—making all those simple ingredients into complex unguents and potions, combining commonplace items to make magic. Your own attitude toward your cooking means everything. So for another love charm, press your hand into a loaf of bread before you bake it. Anyone who eats a slice will find you irresistible … even though you know you’re still the same (irresistible) you.
• If you long to know how the future will transform the present, you may be one of thousands of people who still study the Prophecies of French physician-astrologer Michel de Nostredame. Better known as Nostradamus, he started writing annual prophetic almanacs in 1550. In 1559, after he seemed to predict the death of France’s King Henri II, people started relying on him for timely warnings, though the complicated poetic style in which he wrote has sometimes made the divinations hard to decode. Given the power of incantation, you might want to be careful about reading his cryptic poetic lines aloud, lest you bring about a tragedy buried in the lines.
• You have almost certainly tried bibliomancy before—asking a question aloud, then closing your eyes and flipping through a book until your finger lands on a single word or phrase that you know can change your life. This might be the best way to read Nostradamus now: You get to interpret his prognostications based on one word and what your intuition says it means to you personally.
• A name is also an incantation, of course. If you want to break up two lovers or friends, tie a knot in a rope and say the name of the first one. Say the second person’s name as you tie the rope again. And then use a sharp knife to slice the knot open. Those two just don’t stand a chance.
• But we know you prefer to use your powers for good. So take a new rope, say the couple’s names again, and tie the knot. Loop the rope ends down and braid the frayed part together. Your love knot is now in the shape of a heart, and it’s stronger than ever—a rebirth to good feeling. All the best things will come to the person who wishes others well.
Subscribe!
Enchanted Living is a quarterly print magazine that celebrates all things enchanted.
