Herbs
Licorice Root
love · power · manifestation — water herb (Glycyrrhiza glabra).
Overview
Licorice Root (Glycyrrhiza glabra) is worked with for love, power, manifestation. Its energy is soft, tidal and emotional — it moves feeling rather than thought. In practice it asks you to feel honestly, grieve cleanly and let emotion complete itself.
Botanical and common name
Common name: Licorice Root. Botanical name: Glycyrrhiza glabra. Elemental family: water.
Traditional associations
Traditionally connected with love, power, manifestation, and with the Full Moon within the MoonMagicx Lunar Method™. Folk practice across many cultures has used it in smoke, wash water, sachets, altar bowls and charm bags.
Spiritual meaning
Spiritually, Licorice Root carries the signature of love. It does not impose that quality on you — it strengthens what you are already willing to practise.
Deeper meaning
The deeper work with Licorice Root is this: ask what love would look like if you did not have to deserve it. Herbal magic is slow magic. It rewards repetition — the same herb, the same intention, across a whole lunar cycle — far more than a single dramatic working.
Protection
As a protective herb, Licorice Root works best paired with a change in behaviour. Place it at thresholds, in a sachet by the door, or in a bowl on the altar while you name exactly what you are protecting and why.
Love
warmth that flows outward and is allowed to flow back in. Use Licorice Root in love work that is honest rather than coercive: never work on another person's will — work on your own openness and clarity.
Self-love
the relationship with yourself becomes less transactional. A simple practice: dress a candle, add a pinch of Licorice Root, and speak one true kind sentence about yourself out loud.
Boundaries
clear, unapologetic edges held without a long explanation. Shadow to watch: rigidity, punishing distance, or boundaries used to avoid a difficult conversation.
Cleansing
Use Licorice Root in a floor wash, a doorway sprinkle or dry smoke to clear a space. Cleanse, then open a window and change something physical in the room so the shift has somewhere to land.
Abundance and prosperity
opening to receive rather than only pushing to produce. Licorice Root suits prosperity work grounded in practical steps rather than pure visualisation.
Intuition, dreams and divination
Place Licorice Root beside your journal, tarot deck or pillow. If you use it for dream work, keep a notebook within reach and write before speaking to anyone.
Ritual uses
• Sachet or charm bag for love
• Dressing a candle with dried, finely crumbled Licorice Root
• Altar bowl for the duration of one lunar phase
• Floor or threshold wash (never use unknown plants on skin)
• Simmer pot for the home, where the plant is known to be safe
Moon connections
Licorice Root aligns most naturally with the Full Moon — the phase where the MoonMagicx Lunar Method™ asks you to work with its own instruction. Begin at the Full Moon, and note where this herb feels strongest across the cycle.
Crystal connections
Pairs well with Lapis Lazuli. Place both in the same bowl with the intention written underneath.
Tarot connections
Resonates with The Hermit. Draw the card, place the herb beside it, and read them as one message.
Practical spiritual uses
Keep it simple and repeatable: one herb, one intention, one phase. power held rather than performed.
Reflection
What are you asking Licorice Root to hold for you, and what part of it is actually yours to carry?
Journal prompts
• Where do I most need love right now?
• What have I been hoping will change without my involvement?
• What would ask what love would look like if you did not have to deserve it look like this week?
• What did I notice while working with this plant?
Safety and discernment
This entry describes spiritual and folk associations only. It is not medical advice and makes no medical claims. Many plants are toxic, irritant, or unsafe in pregnancy, with medication, or around children and pets — several here should never be ingested or burned indoors. Identify plants properly, work with dried material at a distance where safety is uncertain, and consult a qualified professional for anything health-related.
Deep dive
Licorice Root — the long working
The deeper current
Given a full cycle instead of a single evening, Licorice Root changes character: it gets quieter and more accurate at the same time.
At its best it brings warmth that flows outward and is allowed to flow back in. Left unexamined it turns into loving from a place of proving, earning or auditioning. The honest work between those two ends is this: ask what love would look like if you did not have to deserve it.
Where it tends to be misread
The most common misreading of Licorice Root is expecting it to remove discomfort, when its actual gift is making discomfort legible.
If you notice that happening, you have not failed — you have found the exact place the work lives.
In the body
Track your sleep and appetite while you work with this. The first sign of movement is usually somatic, not spiritual.
A ritual for Licorice Root
Best begun at the Full Moon, when the instruction is to create awareness and create space.
1. Clear a small surface and sit down properly. No phone, no music with words.
2. Say what you are actually here about — one sentence, plain language, no spiritual vocabulary.
3. Bring Licorice Root into it: hold it, light it, draw it, or simply read its name aloud, whichever suits.
4. Ask: what am I avoiding inside this? Write for four minutes without stopping.
5. Choose one action from what you wrote and put it in the diary with a date.
Close by naming one thing you are no longer willing to negotiate.
Shadow work
Shadow with Licorice Root usually appears as loving from a place of proving, earning or auditioning.
Ask, without softening it: who taught me this was safer? What does it protect me from feeling? What would I have to face if I stopped doing it? Write the answers even if they are unflattering — especially then.
Seven days with it
Day one — read the entry again slowly and write the line that irritated you.
Day two — ask what love would look like if you did not have to deserve it.
Day three — find where loving from a place of proving, earning or auditioning has been true for you.
Day four — do the smaller version of the thing you keep postponing.
Day five — tell one person one true sentence about this.
Day six — notice what warmth that flows outward and is allowed to flow back in would actually feel like in your ordinary day.
Day seven — rest, and write what changed without grading yourself.
Journal prompts
• What did Licorice Root show me that I already suspected?
• Where in my life is warmth that flows outward and is allowed to flow back in already quietly present?
• What is the cost of continuing to loving from a place of proving, earning or auditioning?
• If I trusted this completely, what would I stop doing this week?
• Who would notice if I actually lived this?
Carrying it forward
Give Licorice Root one full lunar cycle before deciding what it is worth to you. Come back to this page at the next Full Moon and read your notes below — the change is usually visible in your own handwriting before it is visible anywhere else.
My notes
Kept privately on this device.