Here in Southern New England, it’s easy to take the mighty evergreens for granted. The forest is, it exists on a very visceral level as a part of my green path, and the evergreens are the natural backbones of our forests. You will find pine, spruce, fir, and hemlock whenever you enter our forests, no matter the season. Evergreens speak to me of endurance and fortitude. When everything else sleeps in the deep of winter, the evergreens are still there. There’s magic in that, magic that I wanted to carry forward with me in the form of a salve.
As I delve deeper into cottage witchcraft, I find myself drawn to long-form projects that require multiple steps with which you can infuse your intention. As I made this recipe, it has three parts. You could skip the first by buying the items you craft with but venturing out to gather what the forest has to give you is a part of the process for me.
For me, the first step began in venturing into the forest to gather fresh evergreens for my project. I knew that I wanted to work with spruce and my partner and I had spied some at a local nature preserve in our town. Since salve goes on your skin, you should be careful to collect from areas that haven’t been sprayed or treated with chemicals that might not be safe to absorb. Here, we collected from a sanctuary surrounding a local water source.
We ended up finding both white and red spruce bunches recently dropped from the trees along this path. The forest provides. We picked the freshest dropped needles, thanked the trees and local land spirits, and went on our way.
(Note: I also used Juniper Berries in this work that were not harvested by us – we do have Eastern Red Cedar growing wild around here but have not found a safe harvesting spot…yet)
After I brought home the forest offerings, we washed them lightly and left them to dry overnight. THIS IS IMPORTANT. Any amount of water in your oil infusion will cause spoilage – most evergreens have components that protect your product from mold and bacteria but why risk it?
Once thoroughly dried, I filled a quart jar 3/4 full of spruce branches and then added in a good handful of juniper berries before covering them both with olive oil. I choose olive oil because it was easily accessible – use a skin safe oil that works with your budget and lifestyle.
This is where I added intention into this project – I like evergreen for its endurance and protective qualities. I blessed and asked each item to bring this energy to my oil infusion and then put it away in my cupboard. I let my oil infuse for 4 weeks – I returned to it daily to shake it and reinforce my intention. For this, I choose to repeat a protection mantra that I regularly use to help work my magic.
After a month, my oil infusion was ready to be strained. This was easy because my juniper berries and spruce needles were still whole – strain with a tea strainer or cheesecloth to get any fine particles. This oil can be stored in a sun-protected container or in a cupboard or dark space. It was pretty light in scent – my olive oil was strong and overpowered it but I could feel the protective energy of the evergreens within.
Lastly, I made the salve. I used a basic 2:1 oil to beeswax ration and added in some Juniper and Rosemary essential oils because I wanted my salve to smell like the Forest Bathing that I knew that it would be. I heated both together in a double boiler until thoroughly mixed and then took it off the heat before adding the oils and pouring.
I am very pleased with the result. The salve smells like stepping into the forest on a cold winter day when the snow carries the deep scent of the evergreens with the winds. My partner has already given me two thumbs up on it helping his chapped hands.