Rue, Moss, and Moonwater is a luck bath spell cast on the night of the full moon: you charge a bowl of water in the moonlight, bruise rue and river moss into it, seal it with a bell, and pour it over yourself to wash away the year’s clinging misfortune and rise wearing better luck. To bathe is not merely to wash but to choose which luck you rise wearing.
Correspondences for This Spell
- Colours: green and gold
- Herbs: basil, clover, nutmeg (with rue and moss for this cleansing bath)
- Crystal: green aventurine, citrine, jade
- Day: Thursday
- Planet: Jupiter
- Element: Air
- Moon: waxing moon (to increase fortune)
For a fuller table of magical associations, see the correspondences guide.
What You Will Need
- A clean bowl wide enough to catch the moon’s reflection
- Fresh water — spring or filtered where you can
- A sprig of rue and a handful of river moss, your luck herbs for this rite
- Sea salt or rock salt, for the three cleansing pinches
- A small bell to seal the working
- Open ground or a shower where the poured water can run free
The Best Time to Cast
Cast this at moonrise on the full moon, when the bowl fills with the most light to charge the moonwater and the peak of the lunar cycle both cleanses what clings and blesses what remains. Thursday, ruled by Jupiter — planet of luck, generosity, and expansion — is the strongest day to work it. Traditionally a waxing moon is chosen to build fortune, but this is a bath of shedding as much as gaining, so the full moon’s fullness serves it best: what you pour away, you do not call back.
The Working
- At moonrise, set a bowl of clean water where the full moon can look into it, and let it stand an hour.
- Bruise rue and a handful of river moss between your fingers and let them fall into the water.
- Add three pinches of salt, stirring each in with a word for what you wish gone.
- Ring the bell above the bowl until its sound fades to nothing, sealing the herbs’ intent.
- Standing where the water can run free, pour the bath slowly down shoulder and spine, from crown toward heel.
- Speak the incantation as the last of it falls, and do not towel dry; let the moonwater set upon you.
- Cast the spent herbs out beneath the open sky before you sleep.
The Incantation
Bitter rue and holding green,
wash me of the year unclean.
What I shed, let moonlight take,
what I keep, let fortune make.
Down my shoulders, down my spine,
luck run bright and call me thine.
Variations & Substitutions
- Rue can irritate sensitive skin, so tie it in a muslin bag to steep without touching you, or swap it for a pinch of dried basil, a classic herb of luck.
- No river moss? A handful of fresh clover or a few oak leaves keeps the same green, holding-fast quality.
- Without a bell, three sharp claps or the ring of a struck glass will carry the same sealing sound above the bowl.
A Word on Intent
Work this by the Wiccan Rede — an it harm none, do what ye will. A luck bath opens your own doors; it does not close anyone else’s or draw off another’s good fortune. Ask for opportunity and clear passage, not for someone to lose so that you may win, and let the water carry only what is yours to shed.
Related Luck Spells
Record how the bath falls for you in your Book of Shadows, and find more workings for every season in the Grimoire.