Tarot contributor Jessica creates a spell for you and your best friends to celebrate each other and remind you that grand, lifelong love comes in all forms.
Three ladies, glasses raised, dancing together…You don’t need me to tell you that there’s a party going on here. The Three of Cups is a picture of celebration, of communion. This is a card about sharing joy with friends.
Let’s go a little bit deeper. Cups are the suit of emotion, and in Tarot, groups of three represent a firm foundation. So the friends we see in this card aren’t just casual acquaintances; they’re your squad. They’re the friends who empower you to be your best self. And they’re the friends who are with you even when you’re maybe being…not totally your best self.
The holiday season is full of celebrations – one might even say “overfull.” There are work parties. There are family get-togethers. If you’re a parent, you may be looking at a calendar stuffed with classroom parties and choir concerts and dance recitals. These communal gatherings can be delightful, but they can also be draining. There’s a big difference between compulsory socializing and reconnecting with soul friends. The Three of Cups wants you to make time to spend with people who fill your cup rather than drain it.
Holiday Bottle Spell For BFFs
Once we reach adulthood, we’re expected to put a lot of energy into our careers, our romantic partnerships, and—if we have kids—raising a family. Nobody’s encouraging us to build or maintain meaningful friendships beyond these relationships. That’s too bad, not just because having friends is good for us and makes us happy, but also because having people to listen to us bitch and cry and tell our stories can make it so much easier to manage and even enjoy life at home and at work.
Related Read: The Ones Who Catch You (What Divorce Taught Me About My Friends)
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Related Read: The 2019 Holiday Gift Guide For Your Witches
If you’re lucky enough to have a bestie or two or three, celebrate the season by making Spell Bottles for your BFFs. Bottle spells are pretty much exactly what they sound like: Magical ingredients placed with intention inside a glass or ceramic container. Recipes for bottle spells can be found in all sorts of traditions, from English and Anglo-American folk magic to hoodoo and voodoo. There are spell bottles for good luck, prosperity, and success at work – and many, many recipes for love spells. The fact that spells for finding and keeping friends are rarely, if ever, on this list supports what I said above…but that just means that we’ll have to come up with a recipe of our own.
Not a problem! My approach to magic is nothing if not improvisational.
To work this spell, you will need:
- A bottle or jar for each participant. It should have a cap or a stopper. Smallish is good, but with a mouth of at least an inch. Just about any craft store will have something suitable, but you could also repurpose an empty spice jar.
- Paper. Handmade stationery from Mrs. Strong, bright white yanked from your printer…anything works, as long as it’s something you can tear or cut into strips and write on.
- Writing utensils. Quill pens with dragon’s blood ink! Or glitter gel pens. Or the Bic you found in the back of your junk drawer. Whatever.
Optional additions:
- Flower petals: Yellow roses, chrysanthemums, gardenias, and sunflowers are all associated with friendship. Dried versions of all of these are easy to find online, and—of course—if you have access to fresh flowers you can dry your own.
- Herbs: You may already have rosemary in a kitchen cupboard, and you should be able to pick up dried lemon peel in the baking aisle of your supermarket. Dried lavender is also a good, readily available option.
- Stones: Citrine is associated with happiness. Rose quartz symbolizes unconditional love. Emerald signifies commitment. Obviously, if you decide to add stones you’re going to want to buy stones small enough to fit inside your bottle. If you’re shopping locally, take your bottle with you. If you’re cruising Etsy, adding the search term “chips” to your search query means that you’ll get a bunch of tiny crystals.
- Whatevs: If you want to add glitter or sequins, go for it. Salt—Celtic sea salt, pink Himalayan salt, margarita salt? Fine. If it’s meaningful to your crew and it fits inside the bottle and you want it, add it.
- Even more whatevserish: Candles and incense are great for creating magical space, a time apart from regular time. Yellow is the color most associated with friendship, so yellow candles might be cool. Personally, I would go with naturally yellow beeswax, but I am not the boss of you. It’s also worth noting that frankincense is a mood-boosting scent.
To work this spell:
Assemble both your supplies and your besties. Each person gathered receives a bottle, a few slips of paper, and a writing utensil.
At the heart of this ritual is a meditation on what makes your relationships with the people around you singular, precious, and sacred. Following your meditation, put down on paper your favorite things about each friend. Fill their bottles with these loving words, and whatever else you’ve chosen to use. You can share these sentiments by reading them aloud, or let each recipient read your thoughts silently. Cap the bottles. Want to seal them with wax? You can do that, too.
Now each of you has a tangible reminder of true friendship to place on an altar, on a bedside table, in a desk drawer at work…wherever such a reminder is likely to be most needed.
Some more ideas and options:
- If you look around—like, on Etsy—you will find teeny, tiny bottles that can be worn as pendants.
- Want to turn this into a Christmas-tree ornament? Check out your local craft store for clear, fillable baubles.
- This works as a solo spell, too. Make a bottle for your BFF and give it to them as a gift.
If you’re at a place in your life where you don’t have the friends you need, turn this into a spell to help you bring the friends you want into your life. Use the slips of paper to describe the traits of your ideal friend and keep the bottle as a reminder of what really matters to you in a friendship.
– Jessica
About Jessica Jernigan: After majoring in Religion at Bryn Mawr College, Jessica sold books and tended bar until she found a career in corporate marketing (this was not a perfect fit). These days, Jessica makes her way reading books and Tarot cards and writing about both. Read all of Jessica’s posts here.
Coming in January: Start 2020 with The Fool, and learn about working with the card of the year.
