Prairie Fire curates monthly themed ritual kits to re-enchant your witchcraft practice. In each kit you’ll find a selection of items made and collected by me, as well as special offerings from other witches whose work I admire. I hope you enjoy this offering, the Hedge Rider Ritual Kit and may your journey beyond the mists be fruitful.

“Riding the hedge,” is sometimes conflated with “hedge witch” but hedge witches and witches who ride the hedge are very different things. A hedge witch may ‘ride the hedge’, but it isn’t necessarily an integral part of hedge witchery.

Riding the hedge is a witchcraft practice that finds its roots in Traditional Witchcraft, but of course using entheogens and other methods to enter trance or meditative space to consort with spirits, demons, and the Devil is as old as time. Riding the hedge implies crossing from the mundane world to the Otherworld, often with the use of plants of the solonaceae family and other psychoactive plants. Flying ointments were famously used by witches to enter hallucinatory states where they might speak to spirits to learn hidden knowledge, to shapeshift, for divination, to heal, and to consort in sabbats with beings from beyond the veil.

Your kit contains:

• Hedge Rider Hand Dipped Beeswax Candles - Made with wormwood, mugwort, mandrake and other herbs traditionally used in flying ointments to facilitate your spirit flight.

• Hedge Rider Ritual Spirits - a blend of herbs and roots traditionally used to induce trance, meditative states, astral projection, working in liminal space, and in flying ointments. I select herbs, roots, and resins and steep them for at least one lunar cycle. Can be used during ritual to sanctify space or sprayed directly on your skin. DO NOT CONSUME.

• Datura Flower Essence - Made from my homegrown D. stramonium, this flower essence was prepared by harvesting datura flowers on a full moon and extracting them in alcohol. I then buried the bottle in my garden in August 2021. The extraction was then added to purified spring water. It is significantly diluted and safe to consume. You may take this as a tincture, placing a few drops under your tongue or rub on your skin. I use this essence to deepen my connection to Datura and the plant world. Datura has a saturnine influence, cutting away what no longer serves, and can be a dark mother, but I find that She is a healer as well. There is also some association with Aphrodite, so you may choose to use this in love workings.

• Poison and Bee Solonaceae seed packet - a hand picked a selection of viable seeds from the solonaceae family grown by poison path witch, gardener and owner of Poison and Bee, Eimi OstaraMoon. You’ll receive a randomly selected packet of either henbane, belladonna, or one of several varieties of datura. Follow Eimi on IG at @poisonplantwitchery and visit their website at www.poisonandbee.com for growing tips.

• Witching Hour Hand Rolled Incense - Made from homegrown wormwood and patchouli, this all natural incense is earthy, decadent and decidedly weird. I added my 25 year old deeply resinous patchouli oil, and yarrow and peppermint from my garden. Absolutely intoxicating and Otherworldly.

• Wormwood Ointment - Magickally, wormwood is used in flying ointments, protection and vengeance spells, to ward off evil, summoning spirits, communicating with the dead, opening the third eye, enhancing intuition and psychic abilities. Medicinally wormwood is an analgesic is and excellent for aches associated with arthritis, repetitive motion injuries, and muscle aches and sprains. Wormwood is ruled by Mars, but I also work with it as a lunar herb with watery qualities. Some herbalists align wormwood with Saturn, for its underworld qualities and because it is sacred to Hekate. Wormwood, like all of the artemias, is sacred to Artemis and Diana. Wormwood is an excellent beginner's flying ointment without the baneful qualities of the nightshades.

  Using wormwood ointment: Whether using as a mild flying ointment or as pain relief, start with a pea sized amount. Wait 30 minutes and add more if needed. Do not apply to mucous membranes. Do not ingest.

• Mugwort - Organic homegrown mugwort, this is one of my favorite plants and a plant ally of significant importance in my own practice. Mugwort has been used for millennia as an analgesic and is outstanding for women’s reproduction health. I include it here because it is psychoactive and affects dream states. It can intensify dreams and has been know to induce lucid dreaming. Many witches use it to produce prophetic dreams and to enhance divination work. Use a tablespoon or so to 8 oz of boiling water. Steep for 5 minutes and sweeten if desired. It has some abortifacient qualities so should not be used if you are pregnant. Mugwort should not be used for extended periods. Do your own research and consult a physician before consuming herbs or plants you are unfamiliar with.

• Datura Wrightii Seed Pod - While walking around the Mescalero Sand Dunes in NM this spring, I came across these giant skeleton-like branches of D. wrightii with the biggest seed pods I’ve ever seen on this species. These were growing in sand with little to no organic material and this desert spot gets extremely hot, so I was amazed to see them thriving so well here, but datura is a survivor and loves to spring up in unexpected places. Each seed pod includes a few seeds so you can try to grow your own Sacred Datura, but you can also use the pod and seeds as a totem, to house spirits, or as charm. Datura seed pods are also sometimes used in love magick. While these pods and seeds are safe to handle, please be aware that all parts of datura are poisonous.