Pecan Medicine & Magick

Pecans are a medicine that has gently and fiercely carried me into Autumn since late Summer. Whenever you first make a connection with any botanical, fungi or gem, it begins to appear everywhere. I’d finally started my dream job since moving to Austin. It took a year of gruesome dark nights of the soul, instability and unwavering faith. Pecan was the first to congratulate me. There are pecan trees everywhere surrounding my walk to get to work. The ground and leaves all sticky from the aphids and in turn ladybugs, a symbol of good luck and prosperity also thrive. 

Pecan plant spirit has walked me through many types of prosperity and abundance. In reconnecting with my Taino ancestors at the Puerto Rican Cultural Center, we were also surrounded by pecan medicine. The Tekina shared a beautiful ceremony where we called in the butterfly, dolphin and hummingbird animal guides. We danced as they danced under the shade of the pecan trees. We sang in Taino and released the past to begin anew. Our Tekina made pan de casabe, a food that would last the Tainos all year round in case hurricanes destroyed their crops. It was their foundational medicine. 

Scott Cunningham’s “Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs” shares that Pecan is a magick of money and employment. They’re wonderful additions to prosperity spells. In my own experience with pecan, prosperity is more so the result of listening to Pecan’s plant wisdom. Pecan taught me about the foundations needed to bring about prosperity. You cannot build without a foundation. You cannot build high without a sturdy and strong foundation. When I think about the foundational magick pecan teaches, I visualize constructing earthquake proof buildings. I picture myself building something that can withstand the possible storms ahead. I channel the strength of Noah’s Arc, a vessel which can withstand even the most catastrophic worldly disasters. 

The past two years have been some of the most destructive years of my life. Something I feel many of us can relate to. I was drowning in a flood of emotion. I could barely keep to the surface and at one point I couldn’t. I did drown and I sank down below to the bottom of the ocean. I had sat in this darkness and let it fester within. What we often forget is that these are the most fertile grounds for new life. The “cracking open”, the “death phase” of the life/death/life cycles Clarissa Pinkola Estes describes in Women Who Run With the Wolves. This is the space of potentiality. Where our seeds of sadness, pain, betrayal, grief, depression, and so much more have the opportunity to break open and create a new life. Now, it doesn’t seem so at first! You crack open and yet, there is still darkness surrounding you. However, there is this heat that beckons you. A warmness that envelops your cold fingers and heart. You reach for it and you keep reaching no matter how scary and unknowing the world is around you. You know intuitively that this heat is life, it’s love. Suddenly, you are at the surface and pop out from under as a seedling. The world is so big and grand. The sun is so warm. You’re truly alive. One day you’ll grow as big, strong and abundant as the pecan trees around you. They will support you in doing so by sending their love, gratitude, blessings and care through the mycelium network underground to you. This is truly the reminder and message of Pecan plant spirit medicine.