Nutmeg

The nutmeg tree is a tropical evergreen with glossy alternate leaves; the fruit is about the size of an apricot and splits to show a red lacy aril around a brown seed. That seed, dried, is the wrinkled nutmeg of the kitchen. Most people will never see the living tree, only the seed. This description is not a sufficient identification key.

Names

Symbolic correspondences

Folklore and history

Nutmeg's history is a trade history, and not a gentle one. The tree's home is the Banda Islands, and European companies, notably the Dutch in the seventeenth century, monopolized the spice through conquest and killing. Astrological herbals in Culpeper's planetary style usually give nutmeg to Jupiter. The spice was a trade good more than a hedge plant, and the medical praises repeated in that tradition are history, not instructions. Grieve records both the kitchen seed and the older observation that too much nutmeg acts as a narcotic. That warning is the sentence to underline.

The legend to refuse is that a large ritual dose opens a spiritual door. Large amounts are a poisoning. They can dangerously alter consciousness and harm the body, including the heart and nervous system. This library will not describe a technique or a quantity for that. If Jupiter means plenty, plenty here is an ordinary dish seasoned as food and then stopped. A whole nutmeg on a saucer goes back into the jar. It is not eaten by the spoon to chase a vision.

Safety

Ritual applications

• A whole nutmeg set out and then returned to its jar
• A pinch in food you were already cooking, and no more
• A written line about what 'enough' meant in that meal

An original working

The Closed Jar

To keep nutmeg at the scale of food and to refuse, in plain words, any use of it as a drug.

Timing: When you are in the kitchen anyway. If you are not cooking, do not grate anything.

• Material: One whole nutmeg
• Material: Its jar and lid
• Material: A grater
• Material: A saucer
• Material: The dish you were already going to cook, or an empty pot if you are not cooking

1. 1Set the whole nutmeg on the saucer and read the words aloud, including the refusal.
2. 2If a real recipe already calls for nutmeg, grate only that culinary pinch into the food. If you are not cooking, grate nothing.
3. 3Put the nutmeg back in the jar at once. Close the lid. Do not leave a pile of dust on the board.
4. 4Cook and eat as an ordinary meal, or simply sit a moment with the closed jar. This is not a vision rite.
5. 5Write one line: what was enough. The pinch, the meal, or the fact that you stopped.
6. 6Wash the grater and check the counter and floor so a child or pet cannot find scrapings.

I take the pinch that belongs in the pot. I do not ask this seed to change my mind. The jar is closed, and closed is plenty.

Close. Store the jar out of children's reach. There is nothing to brew and nothing to burn. If a large amount has been eaten, get urgent medical help instead of treating the scare as part of the working.

A practical action. Eat a normal meal, or, if you were not cooking, have ordinary food that is not a spice by the spoonful.

Substitutions

• Cinnamon in a culinary pinch, if you want a warm spice that this page is not warning you about in the same breath
• The closed jar with no grating at all, which is complete if you are not already cooking

Growing and sourcing

Nutmeg is a tropical tree of humid islands, not a practical houseplant for the sake of a spell. Buy the spice if you want it in food, and still keep the culinary limit.

Beginner questions

• Can nutmeg be used in a ritual dose for visions? No. Large doses are toxic, and this page forbids that use.
• Is a pinch in food allowed? Only the ordinary culinary pinch in real food, then the rest goes back in the jar.
• Is mace a safer way to take a lot? No. Mace is the aril of the same fruit, and chasing an effect with it is still the forbidden use.

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