Recipe for Dissed Aster

Recipe for handling a bully without retaliation. Guaranteed satisfaction. (Warning: ingredients and steps must be followed exactly, no substitutions.)

·    Prep time – 1 day

·    Total time – 2 days

·    Servings – 4

INGREDIENTS

Herbs

·    2 sprigs monkshood (for protection)

·    1 stem (10 petals) dogtooth violet, may be dried (for dream magic)

·    4 black alder leaves, 2 tablespoons of crushed bark (for spell)

·     ½ cup amaranth grain (for summoning power)

·     3 flowers spotted thistle, fresh (for hex breaking)

·     2 stems cowslip flowers, 4 leaves, fresh (for focus)

For Incantation

·     Paper that bully has touched

·     Gloves for handling toxic monkshood

·     Cast iron cauldron, with lid

·     Wooden spoon

·     Pinch of borax (for green flames)

·     Pinch of potassium chloride (for purple flames)

·     Heavy duty ice cube tray, 24 cubes or 8 per person

·     Blackberry-peppermint tea for casters (to prevent spell effects)

·     Hot cocoa for casters, victim (to increase effects of potion)

·     Fire pit

·     Apple logs

·      Scented candles (lavender, vanilla, or eucalyptus recommended)

·     4 sage leaves, fresh

·     5 stoneware mugs

Garnish

·      Whipped cream (heavy cream, confectioner’s sugar, vanilla)

Steps

1.   For best results, each person being bullied should perform the following steps together while relating occasions of harassment during preparation.

2.  Wear gloves to break off monkshood flowers. Rinse all flowers and leaves, add to pot of 2 quarts cold water. 

3.  Mix amaranth grain in one cup of boiling water, add to mixture in cauldron, stir well with wooden spoon.

4.  Bring to boil, cover and simmer four hours, stirring occasionally. Cool to room temperature.

5.  Pour into ice cube trays. Freeze until firm.

6.  In fire pit, light apple logs, add pinch of borax and potassium chloride. When first embers show, add paper touched by bully, and recite spell together four times (once for each caster):

“Uno, sefyll yn gryf- unite, stand strong.

Iawn y anghywir – right the wrong.

Breuddwydio am haelioni –

Dream of generosity.

Dream of giving, endow favor,

Elusen, tosturio, dewis a mwynhau

Charity, compassion, choose and savor.”

7.  When ashes are cool, bury beneath weeds.

8.  Share blackberry-peppermint tea, iced, using potioned ice cubes. This combination protects casters from retaliation once spell is complete. While drinking tea, describe what would have made each malicious occurrence from bully a pleasant exchange between friends.

9.  On the following day, invite bully to share hot cocoa that evening by offering latest gossip something beneficial to bully. If invitation is refused, (one) caster waves sage leaves while murmuring following spell—"Byddwch yn mynd, methu dweud na.” (You will go, can’t say no.) Combined with scent of sage, bully’s will is momentarily overridden.

10. Serve hot cocoa in stoneware mugs, topped with homemade whipped cream. (Vanilla in topping enhances relaxation and sense of well-being, a necessary step in overcoming harassment in the future.) Light scented candles, sit around table.

11. While drinking cocoa, include in conversation: weather (air), bath soaps (water), gardening (earth), and candle scents (fire). To avoid possible arguments, change subject as needed to homemade wax candles versus professional scented pillar candles, or favorite candle scents. Above all, remain calm and keep voices pleasant. May bring up the subject of dreams, if bully isn’t suspicious of motives, otherwise, make no mention since bully’s dreams the night before will have been vivid and persuasive. (Warning—any vengeance on the part of casters will invalidate spell. Otherwise, bullying from that source will cease. Kind acts may even be a result of the spell.)

Note: I personally attest to the successful outcome of this casting. Four of us were being ridiculed and bullied by our classmate Aster, a favorite with our tutors and popular in our classes. For this reason, we didn’t report the incidents, but decided to handle it our own way.

The above spell was in a yellowed grimoire at the back of the student library in the History of Magick section, and based on the dust along the page edges, not a popular text. 

The four of us could best be described as the four temperaments—sanguine (optimistic), choleric (short-tempered), melancholic (quiet), and phlegmatic (thoughtful—me, in this case). Our melancholic partner discovered the book and spell, and we debated the impossibility of it actually working. We were still discussing it after we’d collected the necessary herbs and ingredients. In the end, we were determined to try it, not as a jest, but with all sincerity. I mean, what did we have to lose?

Our tutors insist that magic spells are a fantasy, and that true alchemy is a chemistry of transformation, creation, and combination, useful for life skills, medicines, and fermented brews. The sanguine portion of our quartet doesn't agree, and as I can confirm, she was proven right.

The monkshood protected us from any invocation backlash, the alder leaves enhanced our chanting, amaranth summoned energy to bind each ingredient to our spoken words, the cowslip helped us focus on our goal, which was to stop the bullying, and spotted thistle, according to the elixir author, would guarantee protection from anyone’s ill will during the process. Not that anybody knew or would believe what we were intending, anyway.

Our combined energies, concentrated by a unified outcome, would add to the spell’s effectiveness, according to the author.

The four of us enjoyed our iced tea with the potioned ice cubes, building a fire in the small fire pit in the school’s quadrangle, and chanting over our snapping, apple-scented blaze. The smell of sage did change our target’s mind when she was suspicious of our motives at an invitation, and we amused ourselves that evening with our discussion of weather, candle scents, soaps, and gardens.

And it worked. Not only has our bully stopped her persecutions and intimidations, she tags along behind us to join in our activities whenever possible, and has become generous, cheerful in our company, and strong in our defense.

One last warning: be vigilant in using only the amounts of herbs listed. I think we included too much alder in our spell. Whiffs of enchantment oozes on occasion from the four of us—uncalled for, unexpected, uncontrolled. At least the effects, so far, are comical and dissipate quickly.

Still, I have to turn in an essay for Tutor Abigail as to why my homework assignment was exchanged for her lesson plans while I was trading pens with our choleric partner.

I'll need to be creative. I certainly can’t tell her the truth.