Spirit Bottle: Great Mullein

I finally finished my first Spirit Bottle! The soil that I gathered on my most recent walk in my local park was the last piece I needed to complete it. I wanted to make a Spirit Bottle in honor of Mullein as a Plant Spirit ally since it’s a plant that I have ritually harvested, and used in ritual, for several years running. In addition to being ‘materia,’ a substance used for witchcraft and magic, each plant is a living being with it’s own unique spirit and power. Spirit bottles are often created to act as a shrine and place of dwelling for Ancestral Spirits. I felt that extrapolating that into a vessel for a Plant Spirit Ally wasn’t too much of a stretch. I used a little skull shaped bottle (Crystal Skull Vodka of course, the Fetish-Maker’s Friend) because it ties into the symbolism of Mullein as the Hedge-taper that calls in the Beloved Dead. The bottle is filled with various Mullein plant materials, soil, and ashes from a burnt Hedge-taper. The bottle is capped with a Mullein stem and sealed with beeswax. I painted a double-sided banner on antique-looking paper (using Acrylic paints, and Faber-Castell Artist’s Pens for the inking). The banner incorporates imagery that resonates with the symbolism of the plant itself. I really like the way this bottle turned out. Now I have a physical representation to carry the symbolism of a plant important to aspects of my magical work, and a place for the Spirit of the plant to reside should it so wish. I’ll definitely be making other Spirit Bottles for more of my Plant Spirit Allies in the future.