Wander Through the Wilds: A Chamomile Journey

Welcome back to our second newsletter. This month makes it clear to me that we need to change some things about how we envisioned things - we only have two writeups for chamomile and most people felt like they did not get to connect with chamomile in the same way as oranges! 

This Month's Magic: Chamomile

Next Month’s magic: Red Clover

Recap of our last Call:

In our last call, we just had 3 members - Sonesta, Haylee and Myself (Sheetal). We didn’t hear back from a lot of you on meeting dates and times, and wondering if a set schedule like the second Saturday of each month would work for you?

Options:

11am Pacific on Saturday /2Pm est on Saturday / 12.30 Am on Sunday IST

10 Am Pacific/1PM Est/ 11.30 PM IST on Saturday for everyone.

We also discussed the idea that maybe we should include a “wildcard” in addition to the main theme - so incase you don’t particularly connect with the main theme you can send in any of your magical explorations that call to you, and can keep our newsletter more diverse and interesting to read. How you feel about this idea?

We would also love to hear how you feel about discord? If it doesn’t work for you - do you have any suggestions for something else that’s easier?

Alright - Diving into the main part of our newsletter: All about that Chamomile!

Sheetal’s Exploration:

Exploring chamomile has been such a wild ride! At first I was excited because I do love myself a cup of chamomile tea at night and then I was immediately uninspired. While chamomile has many magical uses like protection, purification, meditation, dreamwork, love, healing, money, luck and more - I had no real personal connection with chamomile, no great stories to tell, no connections to find, no real love for it beyond those tea bags that sometimes make a watery mug of tea on some nights as I try to settle into a night routine. 

As I was wondering why I felt no connection with it - I realized I have NEVER seen chamomile alive. I have never seen the plant, I had never seen the flowers and have only experienced the dry flowers that I get at the grocery store - often after the life forces have been taken out of them. 

I was excited to find ways to weave my own magic with this aromatic wildflower, and was trying to wrap my head around how to get my hands on live chamomile in the dead of winter when - the universe worked it's magic and put chamomile flowers in a bouquet at trader joes! Being able to see these flowers and the leaves in real life made me realize I have seen these flowers (or similar flowers) many many times! 

And this led me to ask this question: 

“How can I identify Chamomile out in the wild?“

This simple question led to such interesting answers and opened up a whole new way to view the world. Firstly, they belong to the largest family of flowers that include daisies and sunflowers! Secondly, these flowers have what is known as a “composite structure of flowers”. This means what looks like a single flower to us is actually a cluster of tiny flowers. The central part of the chamomile flower, often mistaken for a core, comprises multiple tiny florets packed closely together. The more I read about it - the more I was amazed by the genius of nature’s floral design and efficiency in pollination strategies!   

This magic, thought, love, care, beauty that went into the design of these flowers - combined with the warm fuzzy feelings the aroma gives me helped me lean into something that I have been wanting to build for myself for a while: 

Connecting with Femininity

The big question I was asking myself was 

“What would it feel like to be connected to my femininity?” 

And as I was looking for answers to this question, I found this poem: 

To me, being connected to my femininity is about feeling heard, feeling seen, feeling held, feeling loved and being surrounded by the energy that makes me feel safe and supported. 

I realized that there are two places where I can immediately work on this: 

1. My relationship with myself. My theme of 2025 was “freedom” - the freedom to be myself, the freedom to speak my voice, the freedom to hear myself and trust my gut. For this, I LOVED all the suggestions in this poem. While I haven’t had the time to fully execute on this - I am working on building my Altar of femininity. I’m collecting pictures of the women I love and whose energies I want to call to my life. And in this altar, I plan to meditate every day. 

   As I work on building this routine and ritual for myself - I wanted to use chamomile. For all the feelings of love it promotes and also it helps you to meditate. 

   And since scent is one of our strongest senses associated with memories, I plan to use my homemade chamomile oil (recipe below) to anoint myself (my wrists, my temples and my throat chakra) and meditate in my altar. 

   This oil smells SO GOOD. I highly recommend you to try it and have some on hand for anytime you are wanting to feel the way that chamomile makes you feel!

2. My relationship with my partner: We had a little connection ceremony. I made a delicious chamomile-white chocolate hot chocolate drink (recipe below). We drank it and set intentions. We created a little ritual where we lit incense and gave each other massages with our homemade chamomile massage oil. 

In the end, I really fell in love with Chamomile and loved how this exploration took me from botany to the power of femininity. It really felt like magic and I can’t wait to explore the red clover next month - I have never even heard of it before!!

 Here are the pages that I made for Chamomile in my Grimoire:(Also note, that these are MY associations with chamomile and may differ from other guides - specially when it comes to the chakras and the feminine energy I associate with it - apparently it has masculine energy?)

Here are the recipes I used this month:

Recipe for Chamomile Oil:

• Soak chamomile flowers in jojoba oil for two weeks. I filled ⅓ of my jar with dried chamomile flowers from the grocery store and filled my jar half way up with jojoba oil)

• Strain the mixture after two weeks.

Recipe for Chamomile Oil Massage Oil:

• Mix one part of the above oil with one part sweet almond oil

Recipe for Chamomile/White-Chocolate - Hot Chocolate

Ingredients:

• Oat milk

• Chamomile flowers placed in a tea bag (1 bag per cup)

• White chocolate (2 tablespoons for every cup of milk)

• Cardamom Seeds (1-2 per cup)

• 2 strands of saffron per cup

Heat the oat milk, add in all the ingredients and simmer for 5-10 min while stirring continuously. Take out the cardamom seeds and the tea bag. Serve hot.

Haylee’s Exploration:

Through my research I found that chamomile was used in ancient gynecology, which fascinates me, especially given its sweet feminine energy. In my life, chamomile’s reputation was always tied to sleepytime tea, a comforting ritual, though I’ll admit, I never quite loved the taste. I  changed my relationship with chamomile when I helped a friend harvest it on her farm. The scent of fresh chamomile is intoxicating—sweet, earthy, and deeply soothing. It is even a little sticky! The aroma and environment invite vulnerability and softness, making it the perfect companion for honest, heartfelt conversations. It became a running joke that the deepest talks always seemed to happen in the rows of chamomile.I’m excited to make harvesting chamomile a ritual in my personal life! I can imagine inviting my future children to harvest, so we can have some softer, deeper 1 on 1 conversation. 

I explored this gentle herb through an herbal bath this moon cycle. On New Year’s Day, I poured dried chamomile flowers into a hot bath, letting them steep as though brewing a potent tea, and then soaked in the fragrant water. The experience was deeply calming and soothing. I even did some tarot during the bath—a difficult reading, but the chamomile seemed to hold space for me, allowing me to process without rushing to judgement.

Afterward, I strained the flowers from the tub and plan to bury them in my yard, releasing the year’s old energy and clearing any lingering juju. Since I haven’t yet done this…oops! I may incorporate them into an ice candle for Imbolc!

The bath felt like a perfect way to honor the cultural celebration of New Year’s, while also aligning with the slower, more reflective rhythm of the seasonal new year in spring. Chamomile, in its quiet, nurturing way, supported me in letting go and making space for what comes next.

Ingredients:

Chamomile flowers (dried)
Hot Water
Strainer
Bowl

Instructions:

Cleanse yourself prior to jumping in the bath. This is a spiritual and energetic cleanse, not a physical cleanse.

Steep your bath for 10 minutes

Slowly slide into the bath and intentionally think about what you want to release. Allow the flowers to pull it out.

Relax in the tea bath.

When you are finished, put a strainer over the drain to catch all the flowers.

Leave any flower bits on your body and hair to fall off on their own - there may be some aspects you aren’t ready to let go of yet...

Bury the strained flower heads as a conclusion to the spell. 

Release!

Conclusion:

Join our discord here: https://discord.gg/4EzYKnwB to join our community.

Our next newsletter will go out on: Feb. 27

Last date to submit you writeup: Feb 20