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The Friday before the new moon—Venus’ Day—is the perfect time to create a new opportunity and clear away relationship “baggage.” Place a bowl of water on your altar. Light two rose-scented pink candles and a gardenia or vanilla-scented white candle. Burn amber incense in between the candles. Sprinkle salt on your altar cloth and ring a bell, then recite aloud:

Ring the bell again. Toss the bowl of water out your front door, and love troubles should drain away.

This is the witch’s high holiday of love, observed on April 30 with feasting and ceremonial ritual. The Celts of old made this day a day of wild abandon, a sexual spree, the one day of the year when it is okay to make love outside your relationship. After an all-night pagan lovefest, May Day is celebrated with dancing around a beribboned May Pole. You decide how you want your Beltane to go, just as long as it is a fully sensual experience with food, dance, sex, and lots of laughter.

Ideally, you will celebrate Beltane outdoors. But if you are indoor-bound, at least serve the food and the drink on the floor and insist on bare feet and comfy clothes. Serve an ambrosial spread of finger foods with honeyed mead (available from some microbreweries), beer, and wine. As you light incense, set out a few dozen white, red, and green candles and arrange spring’s new flowers: daffodils and narcissus.

For men, this oil stimulates desire and prowess. In a favorite bottle or jar, ideally red or pink, mix together the following recipe with a silver spoon:

Tantra, a greatly overused and gravely misunderstood term, comes from the Sanskrit meaning “Ritual, Meditation, and Discipline.” It involves a form of mutual worship of the Godhead (lingam) and the Goddesshead (yoni), in which divinity is achieved through simultaneous erotic and emotional union. This exquisite approach to deepening the love between you and your partner requires you to share mutually held intentions.

A tea of mandrake root, when mixed with the sweat of a lover, can be sprinkled around the bedroom to heighten ecstasy if accompanied by this chant:

I always giggle when I see over-the-counter sesame body oil in the pharmacy. Unknowingly, a woman will apply the oil and never understand why she feels so much sexier and attracts more glances her way. While that marketplace version will do in a pinch, a potion you’ve made yourself will be ten times as effective. You can use it as a skin softener or a massage oil.

In a cup of almond and sesame oil, add twenty drops of musk, sandalwood, or orange blossom oil. Shake well and heat very slowly and carefully. I use a clay oil warmer with a votive candle beneath, but the stovetop will do.