I'm stepping back from Skool today and tomorrow. My little one turns one, and we're throwing him a Silly Goose birthday. Expect honking, waddling, far too much cake, and one very loved baby goose at the center of it all. 🪿 So here's a small spell you can speak over any child, any beginning, any life turning its first full circle: 🕯️ One year of breath, one year of light, grow bold by day and safe by night; whatever roads your small feet find, may love walk close and stay behind. 👇 Who or what is turning a first year in your life right now? Name it below — I'll read every one when I'm back Monday. En Erebos, Phos. In darkness, light. Blessings, Tirza 🌿🗝️🌙 #SpellSaturday #SillyGoose #FirstYear

Eruca sativa. Rocket. Arugula. This is hands-down my favorite salad, and it's got a filthier reputation than anything else in my garden! The scandal: The Romans were convinced arugula was an aphrodisiac. Virgil wrote the line that follows it through history: "et Venerem revocans eruca morantem," "and the rocket, which revives drowsy Venus" (that is, reawakens flagging desire). Pliny the Elder echoed it in his Natural History, noting arugula as both a stimulant and a mild anesthetic. And here's the part I love: because of that reputation, growing rocket was reportedly forbidden in medieval monasteries. The monks couldn't have it in the garden. It was too much fire for a house of restraint. 😆 So when you toss it raw with lemon and olive oil, you're not making a side dish. You're making a small fire spell. 💃 The medicine: Arugula earns its place beyond the mythology. It's genuinely good for you — packed with vitamin K, folate, vitamin C, vitamin A, calcium, and iron, all in a handful of leaves. That peppery bite comes from the same natural compounds that make its cabbage-and-mustard cousins so healthy. It's also gentler on the body than spinach because it’s lower in the acids that can block your body from absorbing minerals. It's an easy green to eat a lot of. And its old reputation isn't pure folklore: a 2013 study found arugula extract raised testosterone and boosted fertility in mice. Early, small, animal-only research — but a real wink from science at what the Romans swore by. (As always: this is food and folklore, not medical advice.) The magic: Correspondences line up exactly with the myth. Arugula is a plant of Venus and fire: passion, courage, vitality, the spark that gets you moving. Where garlic protects and chamomile soothes, rocket ignites. It's the herb for when you need to stop hesitating and act. To reawaken desire, yes, but also drive, nerve, appetite for life. Eat it when you need your fire back. Add it to a working for courage or passion. Grow it where you want liveliness in the garden and the plate.

So question for the group. I bought the book Hekate by Nikita Gill. It’s a novelization and retelling of Hekate’s story. I was thinking of reading it aloud to Hekate in the evenings to see what She thinks of it and maybe to bond more with Her. But maybe that’s a dumb idea? Idk. It just occurred to me that maybe She’d like to know what’s being written about Her.

Today we step onto the Underworld Floor. So before we walk it, let's do what any traveler does before a hard journey: read the map. Because the Greeks left us one, older than almost anything in writing. 🌊 The border. The living world ends at water. Homer's dead cross Oceanus, the river that encircles the whole earth, to reach the entrance. Past it lie the underworld's own rivers. The Greeks named five, each one a feeling. Styx, the river of hatred and unbreakable oaths, the one even the gods swear by. Acheron, the river of woe. Cocytus, the river of wailing, from the word to lament. Phlegethon, the river of fire, blazing toward the deep. And Lethe, the river of forgetting, whose water empties the dead of everything they carried in life. 🕯️The ferry and the gate. At the Styx waits Charon, the ferryman, who takes only those who can pay—which is why the dead were buried with coins. Those who can't pay wander the near bank, unquiet. Past the water stands Cerberus, the three-headed hound, guarding the gate so the dead stay in and the living stay out. 🖤The floor itself. Beyond the gate spread the Asphodel Meadows. It’s the vast grey plain where most of the dead simply are, neither punished nor blessed, drifting. Below that yawns Tartarus, the pit of punishment, and off to the side lies Elysium, the resting place of the blessed. Three destinations. One realm. All of it under Hades. And here's what I want us to carry down. Read this map psychologically and it stops being geography. The underworld is the unconscious. It’s the vast, submerged country of everything you've buried, repressed, or refused to look at. The rivers, the ferry, the gate: these are the thresholds between the waking ego and the deep material below it. And thresholds are Hers. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, when Persephone is taken down, it's Hekate who hears the cry and comes to grieving Demeter with a torch, telling her the truth of where her daughter went. When Persephone returns, the Hymn names Hekate her "minister and companion" — the one who walks beside her on the road down and the road back. Persephone is the psyche that must descend to become whole. Hekate is the light you carry so the descent doesn't swallow you.

Three from the Bianco Nero this week, pulled for all of us. Where we're coming from, where we stand, where the road bends. ENDINGS — Ten of Swords. We come out of a hard ending. No softening it, the Ten of Swords is the thing that's fully over, run all the way into the ground. But it’s a 10, the end of the suit. There are no more swords to fall. Whatever's been cutting this cycle has already done its worst, and rock bottom is still a floor. You can stand on it. PRESENT — King of Wands. Where we stand now: mature fire. The one who's been through it and came out holding the torch instead of getting burned. Vision, will, creative authority over your own life. I love the imagery of the wand/torch held firmly, with control. After the Ten of Swords, that's the point. You're not under the swords anymore. You're standing over them. BEGINNINGS — Two of Swords. The road bends toward a choice. The Two of Swords is a crossroads in swords’ clothing: blindfolded, blades crossed, a decision that has to be made before things come clear. It's the fork. Beginnings here don't look like sunrise; they look like honest not-knowing, sitting with the blindfold on until you feel which way to turn. So: out from under an ending, fire still lit, arriving at a choice you can't rush. From the ground, through the flame, to the fork. The timing tracks. Today is the Last Quarter Moon—the turn where you release what's finished and pivot. Tomorrow we step onto the Underworld Floor, Phase III. This is the map for it: the ending's behind you, the fire goes down with you, the choice waits on the floor. 👇 Which card is loudest for you right now: the ending, the fire, or the fork? Compare with your own cards or divination method! Then, tell me your thoughts below. I'll go first. En Erebos, Phos. In darkness, light. Blessings, Tirza 🌿🗝️🌙 #OracleTuesday #HekateanHealing #HekateanPath 📚 The deck: Bianco Nero Tarot by Marco Proietto & Arwen Lynch (Lo Scarabeo)