At the end of our Forgiveness salon, I asked my guests for suggestions of what rituals they wanted to explore next. A writer in the group asked for a fertility ritual for creativity. That really caught my interest.

My first thought was, could we make some kind of "fertilizer"? I went through a slew of ideas, from playing with mud to planting seeds to creating a food dish to eat. Since the friend who requested the ritual is an accomplished baker I liked the idea of ingesting something. But everything I came up with seemed too messy or complicated for a large group.

For a while I had been wanting to do something more with fragrances, given the power of scents to evoke memories and moods. Why else would essential oils and candles and room fresheners be so popular? Perhaps we could each create a creativity blend of essential oils. Cost and logistics soon ruled that out. But the word "blend" stuck with me and I remembered my friend was also a tea connoisseur. What about having everyone create his own tea blend!

I did some research into the qualities of various herbs that could be used for teas and came up with my candidates. I decided to create a base blend of spearmint, peppermint, and linden. Then there would be seven other herbals the group could choose to add to this base.

While there was a lot of prep work that went into this, including a sample tasting station for everyone to try the different herbs in their pure forms, I wanted to keep this ritual light and easy. As it was Easter season I happened to find some fantastic plastic eggs to hold the teas. They also added to the idea of fertility and giving birth to something new. A large pink one in the center would hold our "base" blend and then seven smaller eggs surrounding it would hold the other herbs. Our tea altar ended up looking like a flower when viewed from above.

After calling in the directions and creating our sacred space, I passed around paper coffee/tea bags for everyone to decorate and personalize with notes about the recipe for their own blend. I asked them to take a moment to think about what kind of creativity they wished to nurture.

Now you may have already spotted something that somehow in all my thought about this ritual that I completely missed . . . until people started naming their blends "CreativiTea," "FertiliTea," and other variations. The "tea" idea was there all the time in the name of the ritual! We shared quite a laugh about that.

We then went around the circle and seven people each took one of the smaller eggs and read the invocation and description attached to it, then "broke" the egg and poured the contents into a bowl. Then it was a very informal play and create time. Some of us sampled the different teas before making a blend, while others just jumped right in, adding a spoon of this and two spoons of that and so on. Then we closed the directions and enjoyed our traditional pot luck.

This was the most fun ritual we'd done so far and has been quite the favorite. The feedback that I heard well after the salon was how much people were just enjoying their tea. One person shared it with his niece and nephew who declared his blend "the absolute best tea in the world!"

Whether or not anyone's tea blend actually helped inspire their art or other creative endeavors I can't say, but the fun and fellowship that was shared in the ritual was certainly worth it and an expression of our creativity in itself.


Below are the descriptions and invocations of the different herbs we used.

FertiliTea for Creativity
or
Creativi-Tea

(The base tea blend)

We call in Peppermint and Spearment, mints dedicated to Pluto – you offer fertility, freshness, purity, and support for rebirth.

We call on Linden, dedicated to Lada goddess of Love – you offer us protection and the gift to see beyond appearances.

May we use the powers you offer as our foundation to bring forth our creative endeavors to benefit the world.

(Individual herbs)

We call on Angelica, dedicated to the Archangel Michael – you are the protector, attracting inspiration, healing, and visions. May we use the powers you offer to bring forth our creative endeavors to benefit the world.

We call Calendula, dedicated to Lakshmi – you enflame our creativity and passion and encourage our psychic dreams. May we use the powers you offer to bring forth our creative endeavors to benefit the world.

We call on Chamomile, dedicated to the sun god Ra – you are the bearer of energy in action and patience in adversity so that we may become enterprising. May we use the powers you offer to bring forth our creative endeavors to benefit the world.

We call on Chrysanthemum, dedicated to the Heart – you cheerfully bring abundance, optimism and trueness, encouraging collaboration. May we use the powers you offer to bring forth our creative endeavors to benefit the world.

We call on Hibiscus, dedicated to Ganesha – you are the bearer of fertility and beauty and challenge us to seize opportunity. May we use the powers you offer to bring forth our creative endeavors to benefit the world.

We call on Dandelion, dedicated to Jupiter – you increase our psychic abilities, calling forth our wishes and happiness. May we use the powers you offer to bring forth our creative endeavors to benefit the world.

We call on Lavender, dedicated to Mercury – you bring us clarity, sharpening our mind, strengthening our love and soothing our spirits. May we use the powers you offer to bring forth our creative endeavors to benefit the world.


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Comments

Loretta on November 26, 2015

I feel like I have participated in this ritual just by reading it!

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