Pythia Botanica

Question 1

Enchant - Cinquefoil

Answer 1

A call to live undaunted by the potent charms inherent to your psyche. To bewitch another is as much an act of casting light as it is a reward to our own incandescence. Kindle your luster with their darkness.

Question 2

Grow Together - Comfrey

Answer 2

A card that appears in times of change for those close to us. A waxing moon need not lead us to wane: wax together, bind and wind, pull your weight and climb. Comfrey is a card of both great challenge and romantic capacity.

Question 3

Entrance Entreat -Bloodroot

Answer 3

A sign to flourish with others by unlocking your own inner magnetism. Work for yourself but let others work for you as well. Invite them in, then cast your spell.

Question 4

Ameliorate - Feverfew

Answer 4

A healing card for when spirit-filling rations are low and pain overwhelms through attrition. The Pythia will at times request you wallow, but not now: feverfew reminds us that meagre moments brim with creative magic. Keep the sprigs for colour and burn your switches for warmth. Let remedies billow up around you.

Question 5

Transfer Grief - Elderflower

Answer 5

A reminder to diffuse your sorrow with those who share it and infuse your woes where beauty springs. In the darkest turmoil, plant such sullen seeds. The sun will always come. Tears may be enough. In time, blooms – and you – will resume.

Question 6

Errant Repose - Henbane

Answer 6

A caution to secure both reverie and rest. We mustn’t compel our wondering spirit to toil, when, in truth, an unwearied mind rouses the most potent of spells.

Question 7

Begin Forever - Nasturtium

Answer 7

And everyday reminder most befitting on days of poignant lethargy. Dusk is the dawn of night. Light your next candle with the last.

Question 8

Devil’s Bit - Scabiosa

Answer 8

A card steering readers to persist against the corrosive temper of envy. Malevolent forces lurk, fearing your potential for good will. It may be too late – your idealism may already be maimed. But fractured roots still flourish, and often in new directions.

Question 9

Escape - Celandine

Answer 9

A sign that something is wrong and you must go. Be it a caustic spirit or virulent scene, something looms for which there is no cure save for eluding circumstances. Bring only your most vital magic with you.

Question 10

Bite, Breathe, Conceive - Quince

Answer 10

A card for readers eager to indulge their creative spirit. Avoid a myopic fixation on results. Instead, delight in bewilderment and relish in the fertile enigma of your vision.

Question 11

Look Away - Narcissus

Answer 11

An imperative call to break the solipsistic gaze, through blunt force or enrapturing your ego with distraction. You are caught in a perilous feedback loop for which the only break is movement. By all means, one must deflect their reflection.

Question 12

In Love & Death - Myrtle

Answer 12

A card to set the day’s minor dilemmas in relief against mortal boundaries. In love and death, all else becomes small. Myrtle is a protective wreath around trivial distraction and symbol of the better magic encompassed in a life.

Question 13

Sedate – Poppy

Answer 13

For when there is no cure but to placate pain and wait. Invoke spells upon yourself. Quell fevers that linger from forgotten dreams.

Question 14

Sorcerer’s Violet - Periwinkle

Answer 14

A card that reminds readers to ward off ill fortune through awareness. Both a harbinger of malice and protector against it, the Sorcerer’s Violet – or Hundred Eyes – stands guard for us in grief, love, or tragedy

Question 15

Influence - Indigo

Answer 15

Where your skill for keen foresight holds the power to stain the very future foreseen. Trust and realise your most vivid dreams. Shape, colour, and transform those behind closed doors. Let yourself in.

Question 16

Quell - Uva Ursi

Answer 16

Not for invoking truth within oneself, or oneself and another, but for stifling adjacent rage. Be meek in temper yet keen with ardour. There are times to abscond from darkness. This is not one of them.

Question 17

Absolve - Thyme

Answer 17

When you must remit all shame and embark anew. There are too many potions to devise, too much magic to imbibe. Thyme will cleanse you of mortal burdens and banish all noxious forces, externally or within.

Question 18

Connect - Bindweed

Answer 18

A time to bid reclusion adieu. Invite loved ones back in. Behold your entanglements and build cobwebs of synergy. You have never been alone.

Question 19

Endure - Passion Flower

Answer 19

When the act of outlasting all mistrust, fear, doubt, hesitation, maturity, and derision arrives as your most profound celestial blessing. Blooming when you choose will be your finest proof.

Question 20

Peace - Valerian

Answer 20

One of Pythia’s most favourable cards. Advance toward only that which brings you calm. If it does not feel near, settle into being safely en route.

Question 21

Cleanse - Hyssop

Answer 21

When spiritual infection may pervade, though perhaps not yet show a symptom. Find space to inoculate your shelter from contagion. Burn the past to distill your purest elixir.

Question 22

Boundary - Aconite

Answer 22

Either meant to dissolve horizons or establish safe margins of personal interaction. While ambiguous in purpose, there are vital forces among your borders to address. Admit them or cast them out, there is a grave line drawn you must confront.

Question 23

Disquiet The Myth - Mandrake

Answer 23

A call to disrupt gilded personal narratives. Beware the potential for atrophy from self-mythology, but also allow fantasy to outline sober truths. Be present and dig: fate honestly fulfilled stokes the wildest – and most startling – blaze.

Question 24

Sanctuary - Queen Anne’s Lace

Answer 24

A card of refuge. Seek or settle into your asylum. Quiet your spirit, batten the hatches and set a lustral bath.

Question 25

Take Root - Magnolia

Answer 25

Invoking one’s earliest blooms: The green root of our art and basis of unfurled realms. Allaying all catastrophe and strife, truth still blooms. Magnolia asks that you call to the utmost reach of your memory, then evermore grow.

Question 26

Love’s Will - Moonflower

Answer 26

A card that finds you beholden to romantic enchantment. Give in to the gravity of love, absorb its kinetic energy and waltz upon the orbit of your satellite.

Question 27

Poised Stardust - Cosmos

Answer 27

A sweeping call for balance. In spite of appearances, there is always symmetry, from the smallest certain cell to the most vaporous of worry. Be daunted by disorder, and then enraptured by its antithesis.

Question 28

Invert Fear - Blackthorn

Answer 28

A card to foil threats of trespass upon your dread. Like a Nightingale, perch amid your peril. Harbour betwixt the thorns and daunt the hearts of foes.

Question 29

Gratitude – Bluebells

Answer 29

A sign that you are hedging two worlds: One of bitter disquiet and one of unfamiliar fortune. Gratitude is the key to balance here. Give back and give thanks. Watch the acidic find parity with the alkaline.

Question 30

Eternal - Bay Laurel

Answer 30

A card of immortal youth and perpetual drive. Stay green, stay wild, stay right with fearless fervour. Whatever you are doing, keep doing it. This will not be hard, for you will have no choice.

Question 31

Lethe Of The Heart - Borage

Answer 31

A card drawn to instil peace between personal battles, moving you to find lulls of passionate repose. A token of courage among woes, Borage is a glowing ember of perseverance.

Question 32

Revery - Elecampane

Answer 32

A call to dream with unnamed purpose. Wander and muse, rant and confuse. Be inebriate of mystery and obtuse to certitude.

Question 33

Merriment - Eyebright

Answer 33

The reader’s inherent facility for levity amid all conditions, light or dark. Rejoice in rituals of mirth and let your grin beget their hex.

Question 34

From Ash - Fireweed

Answer 34

A card for despondent times, when all feels lost to another’s ill will. Scour for plumes and rake the embers of ruin until the ground reclaims its fertile past. At night, the survivors will glow.

Question 35

Unspoken, Unsummoned - Foxglove

Answer 35

For moments when self-preservation makes strange bedfellows with self-deception. Some sinister identities dissolve upon illumination, while others amalgamate. Foxglove means the latter, in which the best call to arms is to never make the call.

Question 36

Forgo - Hawthorne

Answer 36

Pythia’s most simple yet seemingly demanding of interventions. There is no quandary required to unknot, no potential compelled to unlace. Cede all perceived duty, and go strangely unto the night.

Question 37

Fate - Dahlia

Answer 37

In which an impending turn in destiny could foster either temporal or eternal paths. It is a twist of fate that only the reader’s true spirit holds the power to unravel.

Question 38

Dig, Pull, Bury - Black Cohosh Root

Answer 38

An omen of hidden truths, of seeds below the surface that, perhaps, therein should remain. There is something you must know yet never share.

Question 39

Open Hearts - Rose

Answer 39

A card that inverts traditional understandings of love. To be sure, beauty, purity, desire, and other amorous pleasures abound for the reader. But Pythia’s Rose means more than that: it is a beacon of compassion, a call to heal through ecstasy and absolve through bliss.

Question 40

Focus, Release - Artemisia

Answer 40

For the instant after pulling back the bow of intention and just before letting go the arrow of ambition. Take this moment to hone your objective and dim all that is peripheral to intent.

Question 41

Outshine Apathy - Marigold

Answer 41

A card of empowerment when calloused, cold forces shadow your gaze. Emit the fervour of your spirit in spite of all vulnerability. Build a pyre from their coals.

Question 42

Reflect, Emit - Beth Root

Answer 42

When the reader must adopt the powers of those surrounding them as their own. Possess the brilliance of your coven and beam it back upon all adversaries. Be the bearer of a blinding amulet.

Question 43

Remember - Rosemary

Answer 43

A simple sentiment that could be tangled for the reader into knotted hard truths. When recollection turns to brooding, acquit yourself from the pangs of regret. When faced with the unfamiliar, draw comfort from the all-too-familiar past. Memory can be the lock, or the key.

Question 44

Tempt, Forget – Belladonna

Answer 44

The deadly accord between charm and harm. Cursory vows may impel facile regress. Beware the seam of stoic glamour and apathetic malice.

Question 45

Embrace – Globe Mallow

Answer 45

A card of abundant confidence. Uncouple boundaries from your destiny, open your heart, and scatter yourself among the scars and stars you’ve accumulated.

Question 46

Sea Change - Protea

Answer 46

Reminding readers of transformations too powerful to recast. Accept weakness, buoy yourself atop the current, and heed the prevailing tempest. The wind will call you by a new name.

Question 47

Sacrifice – Anemone

Answer 47

A dark card and potential harbinger of tragedy. Professional failure or personal downfall may be in store, but only following the giving of great altruistic effort. It won’t feel this way at first, but it was all worth it.

Question 48

Ancient Sight - Sage

Answer 48

A reward for years of well-earned wisdom. Look to your elders and to the elder within. If you squint close enough, and winnow humility through experience, the future will appear as it should be.