Powdered and dried, the root can be used in an incense or infused in tea. Borage is known for lifting your spirits, and used in a tea, will enhance your psychic awareness as well as helping with feelings of vulnerability. Borage is pretty when sprinkled in your bath and is very good for boosting courage. Eating in a salad helps with courage and ends melancholy.
Carrying the fresh blossoms will bring courage, while putting one in a buttonhole will protect you while outdoors.
Use in money and business spells. Sprinkle crushed leaves around workplace for inspiration.
In Hoodoo, borage flowers are thought to bring domestic tranquility to the household. Sprinkle in 4 corners of the property, 4 corners of the house, 4 corners of each room, and 4 corners of the kitchen table restore harmony. You can also place dried borage in the corners of a room and some under a rug in the middle of the room where most of the family fights happen.
Put fresh blossoms on an altar to bring luck and power to spells.
They look nice as garnishes when frozen in an ice cube, especially if you have a suitor. According to folklore, if the person drinking is someone you would like to marry, it will give them the courage to propose.
Medicinal
Using this herb as a condiment/garnish in food is fine, but be careful not to overdo it. Borage contains alkaloids believed to harm the liver when taken in large amounts. Comfrey has the same alkaloid but borage only has 5% of the alkaloids that comfrey does. If you have any past/current liver problems, you should stay away from borage.
Although, the seeds do not contain this alkaloid and is great to add to your food if you have problems with dry eyes.
Borage can be used externally by being used as a poultice for inflammatory swellings.
History/Folklore
Borage has been cultivated since at least 1440 in Castille, Spain and was brought to Europe by the Moors.
The word ‘borage’ comes form the Arabic name for this plant, “abu arak”, “father of sweat” because it induces sweating. A tincture for sweating in the Mexican botanical medicine formulary, consists of equal parts red poppy petals, borage petals, elder flowers and violet flowers. The celtic name for borage, ‘barrach’, means ‘man of courage’, which focuses on borages psychological effects.
Borage was eaten by Roman soldiers before battle for courage. Medieval knights embroidered the flower on scarves, while celtic warriors drank wine flavoured with borage for the same reason.
Considered to lift melancholy in Elizabethan England. According to Culpeper, it expels pensiveness and melancholy, and the flowers when candied/jellied can comfort the heart and spirits of those who are sick from consumption or “from the passions of the heart.”
Home
When the leaves are burned they spark and pop because of the mineral content.
**I would recommend doing some of your own research before using this plant medicinal purposes.**
Gonna start working with borage now that mine has flowered. So excited!
Growing my herbs for magical and healing uses. That alone with my veggie garden has given me so much peace. My anxiety is down so much and my flashbacks are nonexistent at the moment. For the first time in a very long time… life is good.
This is the most amazing book! A must have for all herbalists, and healers. I can’t put it down and now I have a huge list of herbs I want to start growing.
I’m really hoping that the sudden boom in experimental psychology using psychedelics in medicine/treatment isn’t going to be the recreational marijuana industry. But so far, all I’ve seen is that it’s a bunch of rich, highly-educated white people, doing this in clinical settings.
And while that’s great that they’re taking medical precautions, I’m just worried that it’s going to be seen as something only doctors and clinicians can do.
I think I know what my peyote dreams have been about. I think I’m supposed to get my degree in experimental psych and decolonize these spaces.
