Some blessings are not kept but given, and the giving is the whole of the magic.
This working binds your good intention into a cord meant to leave your hands entirely. What we tie for another and then release we cannot take back, and that irrevocable letting-go is exactly what makes the wish hold.
The Working
- Choose a green thread long enough to circle a wrist twice, and a friend or dear one to receive it.
- Draw the thread once through a little oil, then through your fingers dusted with dried herbs, rosemary for remembrance and mint for gladness.
- Hold one end and picture the person clearly, well and warm and wanting for nothing.
- Tie the first knot for their body, the second for their fortune, the third for their heart, speaking a line of the verse over each.
- Breathe once, long and slow, across the finished cord.
- Give it away within three days and never ask after it again.
The Incantation
One knot for the body, stand you sound,
two for the coin and the roof and the bread,
three for the heart where the joy is found,
green be the thread and the road ahead.
Take what I tie and I take it not back,
carry it far and carry it long;
blessing the going and blessing the pack,
blessing the walker the whole way along.
What leaves your hands this way returns as nothing you can name, only as a lightness. Let it go clean.