Photos by ALANA ADETOLA ARTS PHOTOGRAPHY

When the cool finally starts to creep in, I feel an anticipation like no other deep in my bones. Every year the wheel turns and spirals, the clockwork ticks over to September, and I grab my first-remembered tools of magic. A perfect pen, a new notebook (and just where did this giant stack of pretty, empty journals come from!), a delicious pile of stickers, carefully saved images, and dried plant-ephemera. If I want to get maximally nostalgic, I splurge on a new box of crayons just to huff the smell and spend a moment putting them into
perfect rainbow-order.

Inner-child me is delighted: Time for sweaters and scones and perfectly sharpened pencils. With everything laid out, I start to plot and plan and dream. Lists on lists on lists. (Autumn must-dos: Gotta pick apples. Gotta revisit my favorite dark-academia books. Gotta hide behind the blanket during that part of The X-Files rewatch.) Piles of vision-board materials from ripped-out magazine pages. At least half of these are spiced baked goods I must seek out and savor. Soothing music pulses in the background. This is a full-on montage. This ritual always features a cup of tea, steaming hot, because the oppressive heat of summer has blessedly given way to harvest time. This feels like the deepest magic to me every year: to be chill enough to want warming up again. This is the time to speak new worlds into being, to cozy up to a stack of books, to blend summer herbs that have been drying and are at last ready to steep. Something in me thrills to this preparation.

The harvest is here, and now we alchemize our labors into the tools that will carry us over the threshold from one year to the next. I’m packing my wagon on the Oregon Trail with just the right supplies to make the journey. I’m choosing the very best outfit for my first day of school. I’m setting aside lavender, rose hips, and sweet citrus for a long cold time ahead where soothing potions will make all the difference. At the tea shop, a wise owl watches over me while I blend. Under a starry blue ceiling, I painted her with a fierce expression to remind me to keep doing the work. She stares at me from the wall as if to say, “Don’t you already know what you really should be doing?” I feel like I can always use a reminder to return to the center—to question if my current work is truly mine, that which I love, work that calls to me with fascination and wonder. It’s so easy to get distracted, to trip into something “good enough” and forget what my real work is.

For me, the only way to discover this true work is to stop, slow down, and listen deeply. What has been catching my eye? What song lyrics snag in my brain? If my plans were canceled at the last minute tonight, what would I love to do with that surprise free time? If I could wipe the board of my life clean and start anew, what would be different?

These breadcrumbs lead me to what I need to know, and in the crisp air of autumn I seem to see them more clearly. Maybe this is from a lifetime of heading “back to school” as a student or a teacher, but I think there’s something essential about this rhythm deep in all of us: In autumn we instinctively slow down, turn inward, and dream differently. We sense that we can slow and deepen into more complexity. We can hold a paradox and examine it slowly, like a cup of tea warming in our hands. I prefer to dream in as cinematic a setting as possible. To romance the edges, to place myself in a story. My tea shop is filled with dried herbs, materia magica picked from my forest garden and ready to be turned into potions. These plants and their properties, their myths and tales, enthrall me and keep me mixing, sketching, experimenting, and sipping.

I adore how the sun once hit tiny seeds in my garden, and that energy blossoms into calendula blooms, spicy and rich in beneficial antioxidants, with an intensity so golden it feels like I’m saving the sunlight for later as I dry the petals for tea. When my body needs support, these plants will be there, carefully kept in autumn for a year of adventure. I saved the seeds last year, planted them in winter, and brought them around again in a spiral that goes on and on. They nurtured countless bees. They bloomed in the sun, in organic dirt I tended; they soaked in rain and sought the sky.

They persist—and it buoys my ability to persist to see it. I mail packets of tea all over the world, but I think the best magic comes when you make it yourself and share it with someone you love to have a cozy chat with: You welcome in a moment of rest and reverie. The botanicals bloom in the swirling water. Ideas unfold like music, layering over each other. The tea itself breathes steam into the air. Like any good potion, it transforms you in the moment, and it also holds the moment, present and precious. So here is a tea ritual for you to blend your own elixir, and then share it over a little talk with your best friend, your familiar, or with yourself in your favorite journal.

TEA TUTORIAL

“Golden hour” captures the fading light of a cozy autumn day, and this recipe makes a full pot of tea so you can share it with cottage guests. The fruits and botanicals blend to be a delicious and soothing support, full of anti-inflammatory ingredients (like calendula) and vitamin C to bolster your immunity and resilience.

Ingredients
5 apricots
1 tablespoon dried calendula petals
1 tablespoon chamomile blossoms
¼ teaspoon nutmeg (best grated fresh)
3-inch strip or 1 teaspoon grated orange peel
1 teaspoon rose hips

Pour 4 cups of boiling water over the blend above and steep five-plus minutes for a strong cuppa. Delightful with a touch of honey or maple syrup, and the extra stores well as iced tea for later. (This recipe is for dried ingredients, but you can always use fresh fruit, herbs, and flowers as well—just double the recipe so the flavor stays at full strength!)

TEA RITUAL

Now that you have your tea brewing, settle down with your journal or your friend, stir some sweetness into your cup, and ask:

Encountering a butterfly often evokes feelings of joy, lightness, and a sense of wonder at nature’s magical beauty. As an avid gardener living in Maine, I’ve had the privilege of witnessing the most stunning gossamer-winged butterflies (officially known as Lycaenidae, the second-largest family of butterflies, with more than 6,000 species worldwide) as they flutter their delicate, shimmering wings around me, alighting on the garden flowers and pollinating their tender centers. It gives me enormous pleasure to cultivate my garden alongside these fairylike creatures so that we can live among the beautiful flowers together. I’ve been mesmerized by the likes of brightly colored American coppers, atalas, great purple hairstreaks, spring azures, and white admirals.

So it should come as no surprise that I’d be delighted by the butterfly pea flower (Clitoria ternatea), an herbaceous climbing plant native to Thailand and Malaysia with large solitary butterfly-shaped flowers that give the plant its name. These flowers can be lovingly wildcrafted into an enchanting and whimsical tea—a potion of natural brilliant blue that turns mystical hues of purple and pink when a splash of citrus juice is added. This earthy, floral tea can be served iced with lemon as a refreshing summer beverage, one perfect for sipping in the garden among these enchanted beings.

Not only is this magnificent flower celebrated for its vivid hue; it’s also cherished for its wellness benefits. Butterfly pea flower is known to sharpen memory, induce a sense of calm, lift one’s mood, reduce inflammation, maintain healthy blood sugar levels, and promote glowing skin. What’s not to love?

Brew some of this magical elixir for your next garden party and let the fairy tale begin!

Butterfly Pea Flower Iced Tea Recipe

Makes 4 servings

• Quart-sized mason jar
• 1 quart water
• 8 teaspoons dried butterfly pea flower
(you can order online from wildhibiscus.com)
• 2 lemons
• Maple syrup, or other sweetener

Brew the Tea
Boil 4 cups of water.
Add the butterfly pea flower to the mason jar.
Pour boiling water over it.
Steep for five minutes and strain out the plant matter. Cool gradually to room temperature before chilling in the refrigerator, to avoid cracking glass due to sudden temperature change. Chill in the refrigerator.
Tip: A tea strainer perfectly fits the top of a small-mouth mason jar and allows for easy removal of the plant matter after steeping.

Make the Iced Tea
Fill 4 glasses with ice cubes and 2 or 3 small slices of lemon.
Sweeten to taste. I recommend maple syrup.
Squeeze the juice of one lemon and divide equally into the four glasses.Pour chilled tea into each glass and stir. Garnish with a lemon slice. Enjoy!

When spring finally arrives after a long winter’s nap, you’ll find me foraging in the forests and fields that surround my home, harvesting medicinal wildflowers, plants, and mushrooms. As with any kind of activity, it’s nice to pause and fully take in the beauty that’s waking up all around us.

One of my favorite ways to carve out slow-paced, quiet time for myself and luxuriate with the plants and fungi is through a ritual of making and drinking a relaxing yet energizing natural brew made of infused chaga mushroom. Chaga grows in abundance in the dense Maine woods that surround my home.

About Chaga

Chaga, commonly known as Black Gold, the Diamond of the Forest, and the Mushroom of Immortality, is considered a powerful medicinal and magical fungus. Humans have been working with it for thousands of years, and it has an especially deep-rooted history in Siberian folk medicine. The word chaga comes from the Russian word czaga, which means mushroom.

I’ll let you in on a little secret: Chaga is not actually a mushroom (a fleshy, fruiting body) but hard mycelial armor known as sclerotia. This bulbous, parasitic body matures slowly into a corky conk (a mushroom growing from a tree trunk) with a rough, blocky texture, typically on white and yellow birch trees in the coldest regions of North America, Siberia, and Scandinavia. Maine is a chaga hotspot.

Chaga is considered an adaptogenic superfood and is revered for its high concentration of beta-glucan, a micronutrient believed to have immune-supporting properties. Sadly, chaga has become subject to commercial exploitation and overharvesting. That is why it’s imperative to harvest it in a responsible and sustainable way, from a living, standing birch tree. Look for chaga specimens that are at least the size of a large grapefruit, preferably larger, and that have a vibrant orange-brown interior. It’s best practice to leave some of it behind for regeneration, though regrowth is highly variable; it may regenerate fully in two years or not at all. It takes eight or more years for chaga to mature enough for harvesting.

Once chaga is harvested and broken into smaller chunks, it’s best dried in a dehydrator on a low temperature (around 100°F) for 24 hours. Give it a rest for one day, then dry it again for another 24 hours. If you’d rather purchase your chaga, Birch Boys is a great place to do so, as it is transparent about its use of sustainable practices. And if you’re interested in foraging for chaga yourself, I recommend doing more research: birchboys. com is a wonderful place to start.

Medicinal and Magical Attributes Disclaimer: Before starting any course
of healing, including natural remedies and supplements, consult with a health-care professional who can help find what’s best and safest for you. If you’re taking medications, pregnant, or nursing, definitely do not start using chaga until you speak to a qualified medical caregiver. Chaga may interact with certain medications or cause allergic reactions in some people.

Chaga is not a psychedelic fungus, as it does not contain psilocybin. But research shows that it is rich in antioxidants and anti-inflammatories, boosts the immune system, improves energy, and can be used for soothing arthritis and managing high blood pressure. It contains antiviral properties, supports healthy blood sugar levels, lowers cholesterol, supports a healthy liver, is beneficial for digestive health, and is used in cancer therapy.

Magically speaking, chaga is associated with intuition and wisdom, and it may be used in rituals to enhance psychic abilities and deepen meditation. It’s also associated with transformation (specifically with changing and letting go), inner peace, healing, vitality, and resilience.

Uses

Chaga is typically brewed as a tea, made into a tincture, or formulated as a powder or capsule. I like to brew my foraged chaga nuggets into a rich, brown, flavorful tea and combine it with warmed cream and maple syrup to make a decaffeinated chaga milk tea. It has a unique and delicious taste—earthy, full-flavored, creamy, and naturally sweet, with notes of vanilla, caramel, dark berries, and cocoa. You can drink it black, but

I prefer adding warmed cream and local maple sugar, which complement chaga’s flavor nicely.

You can also burn chaga as a sweet-smelling incense. I reserve this for special occasions, as chaga is a somewhat rare, precious medicinal, and it can be a little pricey.

Chaga Milk Tea Recipe

• Four 1-to-1½-inch chunks of chaga, or pieces that add up to the equivalent
• 1 quart water
• Cream or milk of your choice
• Maple syrup or other sweetener
• Makes 1 serving

Place water and your nuggets of chaga in a small pot on a stove.

Bring to a boil; boil for 20 minutes.
Turn the heat down to low and simmer for 30 minutes.

You’ll notice the brew darkening as it simmers.

Turn off the stove and remove the chunks of chaga with a large spoon or tongs. The good news is you can get several uses from these chunks, so allow them to dry and use them again for your subsequent brews.

Pour yourself a mug of the tea.

Add cream or your desired type of milk. I like to heat the cream prior to adding it to my brew.

Sweeten to taste with maple syrup. Other sweetener options include honey or sugar, but maple syrup, in my opinion, complements the flavor best.

Most of the water will evaporate in the boiling and simmering process, so you’ll be left with a large single portion or perhaps a small extra amount, depending on the size of your mug.

Important safety note: Chaga contains commonly occurring plant crystals called oxalates (as does spinach, for context), which can be harmful to the kidneys if ingested in large amounts. You can safely drink one to two cups of chaga tea a day, a few times a week.

Cake

1 cup all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
1 cup sugar
¼ cup oil (vegetable or light olive, etc.)
2 large eggs
⅓ cup buttermilk
Zest of1 small orange
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup finely grated carrot
½ cup crushed pineapple (drained)

Preheat oven to 350°F and line a 10-by-15-inch jelly roll sheet pan or quarter sheet pan with parchment paper. Cut the paper so it goes up the sides of the pan.

Sift the flour, baking soda, spices, and salt into a medium bowl. Set aside.

Combine sugar, oil, eggs, buttermilk, vanilla, and orange zest in a large bowl and mix until smooth.

Add in the dry ingredients. Mix until smooth. Fold in the carrots and pineapple until fully incorporated.

Slowly pour the batter into your prepared pan and use an offset spatula to smooth out any pieces of carrot that may be sticking up. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes. The cake is done when the center springs back when pressed lightly.

While baking, lay a kitchen towel flat on your counter and dust it with powdered sugar. Immediately upon removing the cake from the oven, carefully lift it out of the pan and invert onto the prepared towel.

Peel back the parchment paper and roll the cake tightly, then place the rolled cake on a wire rack to cool completely.

While the cake cools, prepare the frosting.

Frosting

1 cup salted butter, softened
4 to 5 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¼ cup heavy whipping cream, warmed slightly

¼ cup caramel sauce (your favorite recipe or store-bought)

In a mixing bowl, add the butter, a splash of heavy whipping cream, and the vanilla. With an electric mixer, beat together for 1 minute. Add the powdered sugar 1 cup at a time until desired consistency is achieved. Remove half the frosting to another bowl and set aside.

Add in the caramel sauce and mix until completely incorporated. Set aside.

Carefully unroll the cake and spread the plain buttercream frosting about a quarter inch thick on the inside of the cake. Roll the cake back up. Cover the outside of the roll with the caramel buttercream.

Use the tip of a spoon to lightly pull through the frosting horizontally

to make tree bark. Use a sharp knife to cut a thin slice from the front and back of the roll to cleanly expose the spiral inside.

I decorated my finished log with edible flowers from my garden, marzipan mushrooms, and cake-crumb moss. You can easily find edible flowers online. (I like magnoliasyarden.com, for example, but make sure you’re ordering flowers that are organic and definitely edible; pansies and violas are almost always safe.) I make my own marzipan, but you can buy ready-made marzipan at the store. Sculpt it like clay, and then paint your creations with gel coloring. To make cake-crumb moss, use your favorite white cake recipe (it can even be from a box), add green coloring to the batter, and bake normally. Once the cake is baked and completely cooled, simply crumble it up and voilà!

Store your woodland log cake in an airtight container in the fridge until it’s ready to serve.

Lavender shortbread tea cookies are made to look like the beautiful blewit mushrooms that visit my garden each spring. We use mushroom compost in our garden beds to add extra nutrients to our soil. It’s a wonderful by-product of mushroom farming. Thanks to the rich organic additive, we have many types of mushrooms that grow among the flowers—truly a treat for a mushroom and flower lover such as myself!

These cookies are held together with white chocolate and adorned with a lavender glaze. The bottoms are melted milk chocolate dipped in matcha coconut flake moss.

½ cup unsalted butter, softened (or shortening)
⅔ cup light brown sugar
½ teaspoon food-safe lavender extract paste (or 2 teaspoons dried and ground lavender buds)
½ cup heavy cream (or any milk)
⅛ teaspoon salt
½ cup honey
3½ cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting 12 ounces white chocolate
1 teaspoon matcha powder
2 cups shredded coconut

In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar with your electric mixer until just combined. Scrape down the sides.

Add the lavender, milk, salt, and honey and mix on low until well incorporated. Add the flour slowly.

I like to use a large spoon and add a spoonful at a time until there’s no flour left. Stop periodically to scrape the sides of the bowl to make sure everything is incorporated evenly. The dough should be dry but not crumbly. If it appears too crumbly, simply add a splash of heavy cream or milk.

Remove dough from bowl and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate overnight.

When ready to bake:

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Shape small balls of dough into mushroom caps and mushroom stems. Place on a parchment-lined cookie sheet and bake until just set, usually 8 to 10 minutes.

Once the baked shapes have cooled, melt white chocolate and use it to hold the cap and stem together. Dip the cookie caps in easy glaze (recipe below).

Then dip the bottom of the stems in melted semisweet chocolate and moss made by mixing matcha and shredded coconut together. Add a teaspoon of matcha to two cups of shredded coconut until the desired color is achieved.

Lavender Glaze

1 cup confectioner’s sugar 1½ tablespoons heavy cream

3 or 4 drops of food-safe lavender extract paste (optional)

Food-safe coloring

Mix all the ingredients together and store in an airtight container in the fridge until ready to use.

Many moons ago, when I was a young child, my mother headed into our beloved Appalachian Mountains and didn’t return home until late in the evening, when I was already asleep. The next morning I woke to see her standing in my bedroom doorway with an absolutely enormous boletus mushroom in her arms. It had a round brown cap and a thick white stalk. She held it like a trophy that she couldn’t wait to share with me.

I’d never laid my eyes on anything more beautiful.

She’d found it, she said, close to home, in a little mossy patch by itself, hidden away in the forest surrounding us. I don’t know how that boletus had grown to be that size without being eaten by something, but it seemed like some kind of miracle in her arms that day.

It’s one of my favorite core memories, my mother holding that giant boletus. And though it was edible and we ate mushrooms at nearly every meal back then (and still do, as it happens), none of us would touch it. We couldn’t—it was just far too beautiful. Eventually, it rotted away. And though I’ve continued to live in this part of Kentucky, and so has my mother—in fact, my family has lived in this same thirty square miles of land for more than 200 years—none of us have seen a mushroom that big before or since.

That boletus is what sparked my lifelong love for mushrooms, along with its bearer, of course. My mother was and is the bona fide mushroom queen, a real child of the ’70s. She was the one who was always hunting and cultivating and collecting mushrooms, and she seems to have passed that gene on to me.

In addition to foraging, growing, and cooking with mushrooms, I often incorporate marzipan and whatever other kind of baked sugary mushroom I can dream of into my confections. For this mushroom-dedicated issue, editor Carolyn Turgeon suggested I create four new ultra-special mushroom-themed desserts and let my imagination go wild.

So of course, my mind went straight back to that boletus, which I re-created as the chocolate toadstool cake, as an homage to my mother and to my love of mushrooms generally. I was a bit intimidated at first, since I’d never made a stacked cake like that and wasn’t sure it’d hold, but the support dowel worked great and in the end it was pretty easy. Most things are, I find. The cake looks exactly like the mushroom my mother was holding that summer morning, just down the road from where I’m writing this now. And you can imagine her surprised and delighted reaction when I presented my creation to her the way she presented her long-ago trophy to me!

I’ve also created a spring mushroom pie, some lavender shortbread tea cookies that look just like the little purple mushrooms (wood blewit to be precise) that pop up all over our garden in spring, and a carrot-cake log covered with oyster mushrooms like the kind that grow up and down the road I live on (except, sadly, mine aren’t that same gorgeous pink).

I hope you enjoy them all. I, for one, can’t imagine my life without mushrooms and the magic they bring us. How lucky we are to live in a world full of fungi!

Spring Mushroom Pie

5 cups mixed mushrooms*
¾ cup pearl onions (halved)
1 cup carrots (peeled and sliced) 1 teaspoon fresh thyme
1 teaspoon fresh rosemary (roughly chopped) 1 teaspoon fresh sage (roughly chopped)
3 cloves garlic (minced) 1 cup peas
3 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons butter (plant-based or dairy)
¼ cup white wine
⅓ cup vegetable stock
3 pie crusts (your favorite recipe or store-bought)
Salt and pepper to taste
Olive oil

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Melt 2 tablespoons olive oil in the bottom of a large skillet. Add onions, carrots, herbs, and garlic to pan. Sauté for 1 to 2 minutes over medium heat until carrots are softened slightly. Add mushrooms and cook 5 to 7 minutes more. Mushrooms should be just slightly softened.

Add flour and butter. Stir to coat the veggies. Slowly add in your white wine and then the vegetable stock. Allow to simmer several minutes until a thick sauce forms. If your sauce isn’t thickening up properly, add another tablespoon of flour. Season with salt and pepper. Add the peas and stir to distribute. Remove from heat and allow to cool. While the filling is cooling, roll out the three pie crusts.

Turn your pie plate upside down on top of one of the pie crusts and trace around the pie plate so that the crust will perfectly fit on top. Set aside.

Fit your pie plate with one of the crusts and fill it with your mushroom mixture. Bake your pie, without the top, for 30 minutes or until the crust is golden.

While the pie is baking, take the second pie crust, the one you traced to fit perfectly on top of your pie, and paint it blue with gel food coloring. (You could also use ground butterfly pea blossom mixed with a little high grain alcohol.)

Then take the third crust, which you’ll be using as surplus dough, and cut out mushroom shapes, leaves, vines, stars, the moon, and even pansies—all things that remind you of spring—using cookie cutters or simply a knife and your imagination! Paint your shapes with pretty shades of gel coloring that will stand out against the blue crust. I painted my pansies purple and my moon and stars yellow and my vines bright green.

Arrange them on your top crust.

This next part is unconventional, but it’s much less stressful and keeps your pie decorations colorful and neat. (Trust me on this.) Bake the top decorated pie crust flat on your parchment paper on

a baking sheet until golden brown. This usually takes about 20 minutes. Allow to cool completely and carefully place the top pie crust onto the baked bottom crust and filling. It should sit right on top like a giant cookie. Enjoy!

*You can use any combination, but I used a mix of wild morel, oyster, chanterelle, wood ear, black trumpet, porcini, and chicken of the woods, and store-bought shiitake, portobello, and white button.

To see the world through rose-tinted glasses is to view your surroundings with optimism. It befits the Renaissance, an era of intellectual and cultural revival that was fueled in large part by optimism.

A fervent quest for knowledge and a yearning to uncover the universe’s mysteries drove new discoveries in every field. Alchemy, with its fusion of science, spirituality, and symbolic language, fascinated scholars, philosophers, and many other wisdom seekers who sought to revive the secrets of the ancients. Through the alchemy of the Renaissance, we’ll explore the magic and meaning through rose-tinted glass and uncover the deeper meaning behind its significance.

Alchemy represented both science and art; it was a philosophical endeavor as much as a chemical one, which meant the arcane knowledge of the ancients was buried in secret symbols, hidden messages, and layers upon layers of metaphor and allegory. During the Renaissance, many texts on alchemy were uncovered, fueling a frenzied revival of two alchemical obsessions: to create an elixir of eternal life known as the philosopher’s stone, and to transmute base metals into gold. But for spiritual alchemists, those trying to literally create gold were no more than “sooty empiricks.” Spiritual alchemists believed that everything in alchemy was a metaphor for personal and spiritual growth and healing, and that physical alchemical achievements could be attained only alongside a spiritual process.

What was clear to all alchemists was that transmutation involved a transformative journey: It began with Nigredo, “the Blackening,” a phase of dissolution, putrefaction, and fermentation. Spiritually, this was when the alchemist confronted their own inner darkness—the decomposition necessary for new life to emerge. Following that was Albedo, “the Whitening,” symbolizing purification, new life, and light after darkness. Next came Citrinitas, “the Yellowing,” symbolizing the radiance of the sun and the process of spiritual and literal illumination. Finally came Rubedo, “the Reddening,” the culmination of the alchemical process and the attainment of the philosopher’s stone. (Incidentally, these were also the colors of the four humors according to medieval medical practice.)

Glass was of particular interest to alchemists because it involved the application of fire (yellow) to transform sand (white) and ash (black) into luminous glass, echoing the process outlined above. All that was missing was red. The creation of red glass would signify the success of the alchemical process and perhaps even lead the way to the mythologized philosopher’s stone, which was rumored to be luminous and red, possessing not only the powers of eternal life but also the ability to help turn lead to gold. With glass, could it really be so close at hand?

As one can probably imagine, many alchemists worked to create a ruby red glass, and while many came close, no one succeeded—no one, that is, until Elector Frederick William instructed his hired alchemist Johann Kunckel that he “should not cease, to obtain the honor that the first red glass be made here, no matter how much it may cost.” And cost it did. After much experimenting, Kunckel discovered the secret to a stable recipe for luminous, raspberry-hued red glass: a colloidal solution of gold!

In a way, this did fulfill the promise of the philosopher’s stone: The ruby glass was seen as brand-new and extremely precious, no doubt worth plenty of gold itself. Kunckel would be immortalized as the creator of gold-ruby glass, and his legacy will live on as long as glass is created or admired.

There’s another way his discovery led to turning a red solution into pure gold. Today, real gold is dissolved into a red solution called a luster that can be painted on fired ceramics. The painted pieces are then refired at a lower temperature, only to reveal that the solvents have burned away and left shimmering pure gold behind! This process has always felt alchemical to me. Surely it demonstrates a taste of alchemy’s noble goals!

The next time you sip a potion from a ruby chalice or drink tea from a goldrimmed cup, know that in your hand you are holding alchemy made manifest. Can you feel the spiritual enlightenment filling your veins

Alchemy represented both science and art; it was a philosophical endeavor as much as a chemical one, which meant the arcane knowledge of the ancients was buried in secret symbols, hidden messages, and layers upon layers of metaphor and allegory. 

THE RUBY ELIXIR

Depending on what sources you choose to believe, the philosopher’s stone was either a luminescent red stone or a rich red liquid to be imbibed from a goblet.

The path to its creation was shrouded in mystery; it required arcane knowledge and spiritual and scientific study. Are you ready to try your hand at creating an elixir with a magic of its own, inspired by this mythological stone?

Good. Before we get to mixing, it’s time for another small lesson in alchemy. This time, we’re exploring spagyrics, a branch of medicine that focuses on the extraction, purification, and recombination of the active constituents of plants. It includes many processes, from carbonization to fermentation, distillation to infusion making. Some alchemists believed that the Prima Materia (raw material) was something that could go through all seven steps of transformation in a single container in a single reaction. Others thought that it would take a long and complicated procedure involving many state changes to get there. We’ll be taking a simpler road, that of paying homage to the stages of black, white, yellow, and red.

But what of our own Prima Materia?

Hand in hand with alchemical herbal medicine was the doctrine of signatures—that is, the belief that herbs carry clues to their use. For example, the yellow flowers of the herb St. John’s wort might signify that it has a connection with the sun (and therefore spiritual illumination), especially since it often starts blooming around the summer solstice. Additionally, its yellow color might give a clue that it is beneficial to the liver and digestion. It’s true—when picked in bloom and tinctured in alcohol, St. John’s wort provides both liver and nervine support. It can even be used as a medicine in the dark days of winter when seasonal depression is rampant and everyone could use a little sunshine. Use with caution, however; because of its actions on the liver, it shouldn’t be taken with SSRIs or other medications that are metabolized through the liver. Plants can be potent medicine, and it’s always a good idea to discuss any new herbal treatments with your doctor before taking them, especially if you’re pregnant or nursing.

You want to know my favorite part of making a tincture from this incredible plant? Those bright sunshine yellow flowers bleed red. That’s right: The alcohol they’re infused in takes on a deep ruby hue. If that transformation from sunshine yellow to philosopher’s-stone red isn’t magic, I don’t know what is.

To complete this elixir, we’ll mix the two missing stages of alchemical transmutation together to create a potent winter medicine. To create the St. John’s wort tincture, gather freshly bloomed flower heads in the summer and immediately place them in a clean jar until it’s three-quarters full. Fill the jar with high-proof vodka, then seal and place in a dark cabinet for six to eight weeks, shaking every week or so and checking to make sure that all the plant material stays below the surface of the alcohol. When this infusing period is finished, strain the liquid through a mesh sieve and then through a fine filter (like a coffee filter) to remove any impurities. Feel like an alchemist yet?

Also, don’t worry if you’re reading this in the winter: You don’t have to wait a whole year to make this recipe. You can find tincture of St. John’s wort in many herbal shops or at Mountain Rose Herbs!

The Recipe

1 teaspoon sea salt
4 teaspoons dark honey
⅓ cup St. John’s wort tea
1 ⅓ cups St. John’s wort tincture

Mix the first three ingredients until the salt is dissolved and the honey combined. Add the tincture and stir to mix. Optional: Add natural red food coloring to restore the red hue of the tinctured St. John’s wort. Bottle in sterilized glass bottles.

To use: Add ½ teaspoon to your jug of water to sip throughout the darker days.

EDIBLE PHILOSOPHER’S STONES

I can’t promise that these shimmery treats made in the image of the famed philosopher’s stone will provide eternal life or turn lead into gold, but they can certainly help you see the world through glasses more rose-tinted. They also represent the last three of the seven steps of transmutation:

The Rubedo stage is actually broken down into three additional steps:

• Conjunction: The union of opposites (like sour and sweet, in this case)
• Coagulation: The solidifying or congealing of the magical substance
• Finally, Sublimato: The spiritualization and achievement of the magnum opus, or the great work of the alchemist. The finished philosopher’s stone represented not only the transmutation of matter but also the inner transformation of the alchemist himself.

Even if you have yet to achieve alchemical enlightenment, these shimmering stones are a delectable treat to share mid-winter when one is craving rich cherries and sunshine herbs.

2 cups cherry juice (sweetened to taste) 1 teaspoon agar agar powder
1 tablespoon Ruby Elixir (or substitute rose water)
½ teaspoon luster dust

• Conjunction: Sweeten the cherry juice to your personal preference by adding sugar and dissolving it thoroughly.

• Coagulation: Add the cherry juice and powdered agar agar to a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, whisking frequently, then turn the heat down to a simmer for 4 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool until it just barely starts to thicken, about 15 to 20 minutes. Stir in the tincture and luster dust and pour into lightly greased silicone molds.

• Sublimato: Let the molds chill until set, then unmold on a serving platter.

Bask in your culinary enlightenment!

Here’s a black velvet cake that might have emerged from the depths of the autumn forest at night, where the faerie queen and her attendants indulge in dark chocolate as bats and giant moths alight around them. The marzipan mushrooms that sit atop and all around the cake are hand-sculpted and painted to look like their real-life counterparts. The crumbling, edible moss is as sweet and delightful as the cake it adorns. And the icing is as dark as the moonless night, lit only by the foxfire and eyes blinking from the branches. You can nurture your own inner faerie queen with the decadent recipe on the following page. You might even try enjoying it by candlelight or darkness, dreaming of the forest.

Black Velvet Cake

2¼ cups all-purpose flour

½ cup black cocoa powder 2 teaspoons baking powder 1½ teaspoons baking soda 1 teaspoon kosher salt

½ cup coconut oil (melted)

¾ cup unsweetened applesauce 1¾ cups sugar

1 cup milk (dairy or plant-based) 1 tablespoon vinegar

1 cup very warm water

Black gel food coloring, optional

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Prepare four 6-inch cake pans by greasing them and lining each with parchment paper. In a large bowl sift together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

Add the coconut oil, applesauce, sugar, milk, and vinegar to your mixing bowl. Mix on medium speed until well combined. Add in the flour mixture slowly. Mix until evenly incorporated. Stop to scrape the bowl as needed.

Turn your mixer off and carefully pour in the hot water. Mix the water in with a spatula or large spoon until the mixture is smooth (about 1 minute). At this point you can mix in a few drops of black gel food coloring to create the dark color you see in these images.

Divide the batter evenly between your cake pans. You’ll need approximately 1⅓ cups in each pan. Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 30 minutes before removing the cakes from the cake pans and transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely. While the cakes are cooling, you can prepare the frosting.

Black Velvet Frosting

2 cups butter (dairy or plant-based) at room temperature

1 cup black cocoa powder (sifted) 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

5 cups or so powdered sugar

⅓ to ½ cup heavy cream (or extra creamy oat milk) at room temperature

Black gel food coloring, optional

Add the butter to your mixing bowl. Mix on low for 1 minute until smooth and slightly lightened. Add in the cocoa powder and vanilla. Mix until evenly incorporated. Next, add in the powdered sugar and cream alternately until the desired consistency is achieved. You can add in a few drops of black gel food coloring to create the dark color seen here. Add an even layer of buttercream

between each cake layer with a large offset spatula. Once you stack all four cake layers, add an even layer of frosting to the outside of the cake.

Then decorate your cake with your desired toppings. I chose to hand-sculpt marzipan into mushrooms and pumpkins. This is not beginner’s work; the mixture of almond paste to sugar and even cornstarch depends on the time of year and humidity level. An alternative might be to use cake toppers or even little fairy village décor. If various pieces are not considered food safe, you could wrap the parts that touch the cake in cellophane.

I also used green cake crumbs to make a thick layer of moss on and around the cake. You can make your own moss by simply coloring your favorite white cake batter with green moss food coloring or gel color: Bake it and allow it to cool, and then crumble the cake until it becomes the texture of moss! It’s simple and delicious.

It is fall, and deep in the ancient groves of the enchanted wood, a woman gathers earthy roots and plump, fragrant mushrooms. She places them in her basket beside wild ruby-red rose hips, juicy dark-purple elderberries, and silvery mugwort gifted by the hedges.

Her hooded woolen cloak brushes against the soft ferns that line the path over spongy moss and pine needles as she makes her way home. There, at the edge of the wood, her small stone cottage is surrounded by goldenrod and purple aster swaying in the breeze. A black cat in the doorframe mews, eagerly awaiting her return.As the teakettle heats over the hearth fire, she crafts a Samhain tea blend with the flora and fungi she’s foraged in the wood. This autumnal tea ritual honors the bounties of harvest time and celebrates the Triple Goddess, who now begins her seasonal transformation from Mother to Crone. The spirit ancestors whisper to her from beyond the veil, which is at its thinnest this time of year.

Join her and the collective of ancestors who came before you by putting together your own Samhain tea ritual celebrating and honoring the vibrancy of autumn, the abundant gifts of the harvest, and the deep love given to and received by one’s ancestors in spirit.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The history of Samhain, like the idea that the metaphorical veil between our world and that of the spirits thins at this time, harks back to Druid times—and possibly even further back, being rooted among many pagan peoples. Traditionally at Samhain, the final harvest, all farm tools were put away and the people settled in to rest for winter. We now celebrate the festival from October 31 to November 1.

Samhain has always been a culminating time for celebrations and rituals for giving thanks and connecting with one’s ancestors in the Otherworld. It makes sense to ponder death and make contact with loved ones in the spirit realm when nature reminds us of the impermanence of life. Leaves let go of their hold on the trees; plants lose their vibrancy and return to the earth where they will support the eventual rebirth of life in the spring.

SAMHAIN TEA

Ingredients in this seasonal tea are easy to come by, whether in the wild, your garden, or a trusted purveyor of dried herbs. I personally love the company Mountain Rose Herbs.

Ingredients (dried):
4 small rose hips
1 teaspoon dried elderberries
1 teaspoon dried mugwort
½ teaspoon mushroom powder (look for mushrooms like reishi, chaga, turkey tail, or cordyceps)
A pinch each of ginger root, clove, cardamom, nutmeg, orange peel
1 cinnamon stick

Tea Ritual:

• Set aside time and sacred space where you will not be interrupted.

• Place a large glass or wooden bowl on a surface adorned with things like a beautiful cloth, photos of loved ones (or pets) who have passed, natural outdoor finds of the season (flowers, leaves, berries, nuts, etc.), candles, and incense. This can serve as a personal Samhain altar.

• Combine tea ingredients (except the cinnamon stick) in the bowl with your hands, imbuing the tea blend with your energy and intentions to honor the season, the harvest, and your ancestors.

• To brew a single cup, use one heaping teaspoon of the blend. Steep it in boiling water for 15 minutes with your cinnamon stick.

• If you desire, add milk or cream and sweeten with honey.

• As you sip your tea, focus your intentions once again on your gratitude for the abundant gifts of fall and the harvest, and for the loved ones who have passed. You may wish to brew a second cup to place on your altar to serve as an offering for your beloved ancestors.

• This is a wonderful time to reflect and journal about seasonal themes of abundance, gratitude, love, rest, change, and transformation.

I grew up in the sprawling countryside where all manner of flower grew bright and wild and an orb weaver spider found her way into our garden every summer, crafting her loveliest, most intricate gossamer web among the dew-drenched blooms. There she’d remain throughout the warm months, perfectly positioned to observe her kingdom.

Now, on my own property, I have a new line of orb weavers enchanting passing fairies and catching dewdrops each morning. Last year one of them spun a shining silver web that was almost nine feet tall and lasted into the early fall—an impressive feat even by orb weaver standards. This rose cake is my ode to those lovely orb weavers of my childhood and all the ones who’ve come after.

ROSE CAKE (with dairy- and gluten-free alternatives)

2 cups all-purpose flour or 1:1 gluten-free mix
1½ cups granulated sugar
3½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 to 3 teaspoons rose powder, depending on desired flavor potency
½ cup melted butter, dairy or plant-based
3 eggs (at room temperature), or ¾ cup unsweetened applesauce
1 cup milk (at room temperature), dairy or plant-based

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease four 6-inch round cake pans and line with parchment paper. Set aside.

Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and rose powder. Sift to combine. Add the butter, eggs, and milk. Mix by hand or with an electric mixer until evenly combined and lump free. This should take 1 to 2 minutes.

Divide the batter evenly into the four cake pans. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out cleanly.

Allow the cakes to cool in their pans for 20 minutes before carefully transferring them to a wire rack as you begin working on the frosting.

BUTTERCREAM FROSTING (with dairy-free alternatives)

1 cup unsalted butter (softened), dairy or plant-based
5 to 6 cups powdered sugar, depending on desired consistency
¼ cup heavy cream or full-fat coconut milk
Food coloring (optional)

Fit your standing mixer with the whisk attachment. Put the butter in the bowl and turn the mixer on low. Add in the powdered sugar, ½ cup at a time. Once you’ve mixed in 2 cups of sugar, add a splash of cream. Add in food coloring, if you choose. Continue adding sugar until desired consistency is achieved. If the frosting is too thick, you can add more cream.

GELATIN SPIDERWEBS

3 envelopes plain gelatin
5 tablespoons water
Food-safe marker
Parchment paper
Plastic squeeze bottle or thick pastry bag fitted with a fine icing piping tip

Using a food-safe marker, draw spiderwebs on a piece of parchment paper. Set aside.

Combine the gelatin and water in a medium saucepan. Turn to medium-low heat and allow the gelatin to dissolve; this should take around 1 minute. (It took me a lot of trial and error to figure out how to get the gelatin to harden, but not harden too quickly!) Once it’s dissolved, carefully pour the mixture into a plastic squeeze bottle or piping bag fitted with a small pointed tip. Pipe the gelatin out onto the drawn spiderwebs by tracing them carefully. Do this for as many spiderwebs as you’d like to create. I did three different designs. Make sure to pipe as quickly as you can because the gelatin sets up fast.

Now, if you are vegan or using only plant-based ingredients, gelatin will not be an option for you. But you can always use nontoxic school glue! This idea actually came from my years as a schoolteacher making glue spiderwebs in the classroom: I wanted to make an edible version of them!