Rosemary & The Magician

In my little allotment herb garden here in Worcester, rosemary is one my favourite herbs to harvest and work with all year round. It has recently finished flowering its pale bluey-purpley spring blooms and is now busy generously growing plentiful, fragrant new shoots.

Like many herb plants, the more you cut rosemary, the more it grows and with my regular harvests it’s an opportunity to build on my reciprocal relationship with the plant by greeting, honouring, thanking it and making offerings. After years of connecting to the same rosemary plants, it feels like a friend at this stage and is certainly an ally, both medicinally and magically.

Ever present, evergreen rosemary, with its myriad medicinal properties and deliciously fragrant scent and taste whether fresh or dried, is a constant presence as an incense and energetic herb in my personal and shamanic Reiki drum practice. All through the seasons it has become one of my favourite go-to healing herbs to work with. I use it physically as a tea, as an essential oil and massage oil, but especially as incense, and energetically and spiritually for its vibrational properties and wisdom.

Over the years I’ve been deepening my relationship with the plants around me, as well as with tarot cards and recently when I was meditating on my marvellous friend rosemary, to my surprise, I saw in my mind’s eye, rosemary as a potent herbal mirror for the The Magician Tarot card.

The Magician card embodies of powerful, focused intention as well as willpower, transformation, resourcefulness and mastery. He stands before the four elemental tools of the wand, cup, sword, and pentacle laid out on his table, and with his candle wand aloft, he is ready to channel energy from above into form below. He wears white for purity and red signifying power and he has the infinity symbol above and the ouroboros as a belt – signs of infinite potential and perennial potency and abundance with the flowers of purity and love/passion surrounding him too. So it occurred to me that in many ways, rosemary carries this same energy and many of the same correspondences as The Magician.

Here are some of my thoughts on this:

🔥 Fire: Rosemary is traditionally linked to the masculine fire element and is potent, protective, warming and stimulating. It is often used to medicinally raise blood pressure, invigorate the body and lift low energy. Its fire/solar energy makes it a fitting correspondence to the suit of Wands. As a fire element herb, rosemary also relates to love and all matters of the heart and solar plexus chakra and can be an ally for raising your vitality and coming home to yourself in your heart space.

🌬️Air: Known traditionally as an aid for memory rosemary, (“rosemary for remembrance”,) is proven to sharpen mental faculties and enhance clarity. It uplifts the mind, aiding recovery from depression and clearer thinking. It is also an ancient incense (even called ‘Incensory’) with an incredibly pure and purifying smoke, so Rosemary closely aligns with the Air element and therefore clearly to suit of Swords.

💧Water: Rosemary’s Latin name is ‘Rosmarinus’ which means ‘dew of the sea’. It’s a very is a poetic nod to its watery origins, growing on cliff tops overlooking the Mediterranean sea, as well as its more watery emotional and spiritual correspondences. The mental clarity Rosemary offers is also guiding us to more spacious emotional clarity too. As said above,, Rosemary connects to the heart chakra and love which is all about emotions. It helps to open up and clarify the messages and wisdom of the heart which nurtures greater emotional balance and clarity of feelings. These are all energies and attributes we might associate with the Tarot’s Cups suit.

🪨 Earth: As a perennial healing plant that grows plentifully and abundantly and flavours our food, rosemary connects to the Earth element as well. It carries the wisdom of our ancestors and can heal the physical body, (it’s famed these days for benefitting hair growth,) and is said to also aid sleep. The clarity rosemary brings us can also help to feel safe, grounded and connected, and it’s linked to the earthy qualities of strength and resilience. This all makes rosemary firmly rooted in the world of Pentacles too.

As rosemary’s energy, qualities and correspondences span all four elements and therefore all four Tarot suits, it becomes a versatile magical tool, just like array of tools on the Magician’s table. Rosemary could be substituted for either tool, energy or attribute, and indeed, it is often used as a substitute for other herbs in things like rituals and incense recipes. In this regard, Rosemary reminds me of clear quartz crystal too, which is another energetic all-rounder.

So, when I work with rosemary in a Reiki Drum session, fresh on the chakra points or dried as a cleansing incense bundle, or simply when brushing my hand through the plant on my allotment to release its potent scent and energy, I feel I’m invoking and amplifying the same archetypal energy that the Magician represents. It’s the power to create with focus, to connect and bridge the above and below, to bring my intentions into being and connect and honour all the powerful elements in their unseen and manifested form. Last but not least, it feels as though I’m invoking and connecting to the creative potential within us all.

If you grow rosemary, consider working with this great wisdom keeper by keeping a sprig on your altar, substituting it for crystals, or bundle, dry and to burn as a protective, cleansing incense, but remember that you are working with a wise and adaptable teacher, one who supports and protects your clarity, your well-being, your creativity, and your magic.

Also remember that just like The Magician, all herbs like Rosemary are potent and powerful and has contraindications for certain medicine and medical conditions. Therefore it shouldn’t be ingested without doing your homework first.

Have you ever noticed any correspondences with herbs and tarot cards? Would love to hear your thoughts if you have!