Steps to Make the Most of Your Witchin' in the Kitchen

* When you clean your kitchen, try putting an herbal infusion in your bucket of mop water. Rosemary and sage are nice all-purpose spiritual cleansers. You can also simply add salt to the water. Try rose and lavender for love, citrus for protection, and cinnamon for prosperity.

* Burn sage or rosemary.

* Get a good book on magical herbs, such as Cunningham's. Go through the book and become familiar with herbs for specific purposes. Put the ones that go best together into your dishes. For example, spices such as ginger, garlic and chili are good protective ingredients and taste good together in a curry.

* Stir clockwise. Scrub counter-clockwise if you feel the need.

* A pot of basil growing in the kitchen promotes love. Bundles of rosemary are good for protection. A dish of sesame seeds draws money.

* You can use a solution of salt water to trace protective runes onto the doors, walls and cabinets in your kitchen. Only you will know they are there!

* If you have a kitchen deity but don't have room for an altar, simply find a picture and hang it up in your kitchen. You can make offerings as you see fit.

* Light a candle as you cook. Light pink for love, green for prosperity or healing, blue or purple for psychic awareness, etc.

*Enter the kitchen with love in your heart. Try not to prepare foods when you are in a foul mood, as this energy might transfer to the food. That might sound silly to some, but I always try to think of good things when I am cooking. Maybe I've read Like Water for Chocolate too many times!

*Listen to music that calms you, energizes, you, or fills you with love and warmth as you cook. Listen to some loud rock if you're making a dish for protection and really use the sound and energy to work up some protection! Listen to soft, soothing music if you are making a recipe for love. Listen to a meditation track or trance music if you are making something to promote psychic awareness.

*Enjoy yourself. The kitchen is a place to play and to create. You are taking the gifts of the gods and combining them to create new tastes and sometimes to create magic. Have fun! Fill your work with love and people will be able to taste the care you've put into the food. Things taste better when prepared with love.

A Charge of/Prayer to the Kitchen Goddess

One thing I would like to include in my book is a small section on prayers and chants of thanksgiving. I welcome submissions from friends and will gladly credit anyone who has anything s/he wishes to share.

This is not quite the Charge of the Kitchen Witch (hopefully one is forthcoming); rather more of a Charge of the Earth Mother, She who provides us with food:

Listen to the words and whispers of the Great Mother,
She who hath provided us with Her bounty
She who has been and is known as Hestia, Vesta, Annapurna, Brigid, Ut
Whenever you are hungry,
you shall find Her at the sacred hearth
Go there, and be nourished
Our first meal came from Her breast
Her body sustains us
Sit by the sacred fire and stir the sacred cauldron
Feed yourself from the Earth Mother’s bounty
And know that all that comes from Her must one day return
Give thanks for this meal in this time and place
Give thanks to all that She has provided
Know that the meal in which you partake
Will warm your body and soul
Know that this is an expression of love
May your hunger and thirst be banished with this act of love
From this day until your last

Kitchen Deities, Part II

There are so many aspects of the Divine that are associated with the hearth, fire, and food preparation. And why not? Food sustains life, and that which sustains life is sacred. These days, many of us are fortunate to have an abundant supply of affordable food. Sadly, though, many are not. For those of you interested in helping feed those in need, donating non-perishable food to a local food pantry can be a ritual in itself. Just leave the food with a prayer that it nourish those who receive it.

The post I made just a moment ago included a list of various kitchen deities, but it seems that there are more than I originally thought. Fortunately, the Pagan Soccer Mom has a list at her blog ( silvermoonwitch.blogspot.com ). She was also kind enough to list some of the foods and herbs that are sacred to these hearth deities. I recommend visiting her blog. I plan to provide more detailed information about some of the deities and include suitable recipes as I have in the past.

More Kitchen Deities

A while back I made a few posts about kitchen deities from various countries, as well as recipes from their cultures. Since I haven't done that in a while, I thought I would make a few more posts regarding gods and goddesses of food, agriculture, and the hearth.

Below is a list of kitchen deities, courtesy of www.thepaganpath.net:

Agni - Indian fire god and god of the home and hearth
Atar - Zoroastrian god of celestial and terrestrial fire
Ayabba - African goddess of the hearth
Bast - Egyptian cat-headed goddess, goddess of the flame and fire
Brigit - Celtic fertility goddess and goddess of the fire, hearth, healing, poetry, and wisdom
Chantico - Aztec goddess of the hearth fires and volcano fires
Chiconahui - Aztec goddess of the hearth and guardian of the home
Chu Jung - Chinese god of fire
Gibil - Babylonian god of fire
Ephesus - Greek god of fire and volcanoes
Hestia - Greek goddess of the hearth, fire, and family life
Hyang Api - Indonesian god of fire
Hyang Kehen - Indonesian god of the hearth
Kagutsuchi - Japanese fire god
Kiyoshikojin Seichoji- Japanese god of the cooking stove
Loki - Norse god of the fire, hearth, and lightning. Also known as the trickster god.
Ong Tao - Asian god of the hearth, stove, and household
Pele - Hawaiian fire goddess, goddess of volcanoes
Prometheus - Greek Titan, he stole fire from the gods and presented it as a gift to humans
Sanpo Kojin - Japanese god of the hearth
Tsao Wang - Chinese god of the hearth and family
Ut - Siberian goddess of the hearth
Vesta - Roman goddess of the hearth and eternal fires (Roman version of Hestia)
Vulcan - Roman god of fire and volcanoes
Xiuhtecuhtli - Aztec fire god


Although the kitchen has traditionally been viewed as the woman's domain (you may not agree with this, but there's no denying it is a common viewpooint), you can see that there are many gods associated with the hearth. More specifically, these gods are associated with the fire in the hearth, fire being masculine, as the sun.

There are also many gods and goddesses of agriculture and the harvest - Dionysus, Bacchus, the Corn Mother, John Barleycorn, Dumuzi (Sumerian), Demeter, etc.

If you are considering putting together an altar for a kitchen god or goddess, do some research and either fine a harvest or hearth deity from the pantheon you follow, or find another kitchen deity with whom you identify.

A simple, small table or shelf in the kitchen (or just outside the kitchen if the space is small) can house your kitchen altar. Some things you can include are dried kernels of corn, seeds, dried herbs and flowers, a representation of fire or the hearth such as a dollhouse fireplace or stove, and a picture or other representation of your deity. You can make it yourself out of clay. Craft and hobby stores have a large selected of dollhouse miniatures, so you can even include food or plates. I've been working on my kitchen altar for some time and I made most of the items out of polymer clay. My only problem is living in one place long enough to set up the altar! Hopefully when I move back to the US...

Stay tuned for more information on kitchen deities, recipes, and tips on making an kitchen altar and for making your kitchen the heart and soul of your home.