The full moon is a lit lamp held over the whole turning world, and by its light even the bottom of a cup can be read like a page.
This is no draught to make you dream but one to make you drink, for the seeing lies in what remains after the cup is emptied. It reaches toward the small honest oracle of leaves and dregs — the belief that whatever settles when the moving stops will arrange itself into signs, if you have the patience to let the water go still and the nerve to read what it draws.
The Working
- By full moonlight, bring water to the boil and drop in a spoonful of loose herbs — mugwort for the sight, a little rosehip for sweetness, and one whole bay leaf.
- Let it steep unstrained until the candle beside you has burned down a finger’s width, so the leaves swim free.
- Pour the tea, leaves and all, into a pale cup or bowl where the dregs will show dark against the sides.
- Hold your question in your mouth as you drink slowly, down to the last — but do not swallow the final sip; let it and the leaves remain.
- Cover the cup with your left hand, turn it thrice widdershins by the light, then upend it over a saucer and let the last water run out.
- Speak the incantation and right the cup, then read the shapes the leaves have made — near the rim is soon, near the base is far, and the handle is your own house.
- When you have read it, rinse the leaves into running water or the earth with thanks, and pinch out the candle.
The Incantation
Leaf that I steeped and moon that I drink,
Settle and speak on the porcelain’s brink.
What the cup keeps when the tea is gone,
Show me the shape of the coming dawn.
Near to the lip, the thing that is near,
Down in the dark, the far-off year.
Bay for the truth and moon for the sight —
Read me my road by the full-moon light.
The leaves keep no grudge and hold no lie; whatever they drew, thank them, and let the water carry the rest away.