Need to do some love magick and can't get your hands on rose petals right now? Not a problem. For a brief time in Spring, you can collect maple flowers as they fall or pick them off low hanging branches.
Maple is ascribed to Jupiter by Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654). Why? I don't know and apparently neither did he. Culpeper wasn't shy about sharing his opinion about any of the plants he wrote about. But he only gives us two lines about maple. It is ruled by Jupiter and useful for complaints about the liver.
Maple is used for love magick. Jupiter isn't the first deity that comes to mind when it comes to love -- at least for women. He isn't big on taking "No" for an answer. He is more "You're lucky I picked you up, sweetie" and less "Let's cuddle."
Native American lore isn't much more help. It mainly focuses on how humans first learned to use maple sap.
There are a number of sources that ascribe maple to the Moon which makes more sense to me. I can't look at a delicate Japanese maple and see a big, burly deity. The flowers remind me of roses and the fine texture of the wood just seems to reinforce a more feminine character.
I plan to keep researching this topic but when in doubt, I recommend going with your gut.
Use the flowers as you would rose petals in love potions, gris-gris bags and incense. Be sure to gather a little extra because maple flowers don't hang around long.
Comments