No matter how well you get along, families sometimes fight. My household is made up of all adults – my mother, younger brother, and uncle. Even our pets are ten plus years old. And although we all are adults and we get along well, we still fight sometimes.

This spell is perfect for when your family all has their own things going on and just needs to work together to keep living in the same household. This is also good for roommates or similar situations. This is good for people who live with you, but I could see it being useful for people who are constantly in and out of someone else’s house (like a best friend, relative, etc).

This spell is perishable and so it should be renewed every six months to year. (Earlier is good too.)

What you need:

• A dry, cool place
• Onions or garlic with stalks intact (whatever you prefer)
• Decently strong kitchen string or twine

First purchase or grow onions or garlic and make sure to keep the stalks intact. If you can’t find onions or garlic with the stalks intact, try a farmer’s market. Growing them yourself is a great way to get them as well.

Take a week to two weeks to dry out the garlic and onions. You want the stalks not squishy but not too dry.

Select your three largest garlic or onions and place them on a table with the stalks facing the same direction. Tie a piece of string around the stalks, envisions or speaking how you’re uniting or tying the members of the family together. These should be three members of the household who get along the best or are the “foundation” of the household. Maybe whoever is on the apartment lease, pays the most important bills, or is a good mediator.

Next, start braiding the stalks. If you don’t know how to braid, I’ll link some tutorials for braiding garlic and onions a little further on, but I’ll explain it quickly. Take the left stalk (or strand of hair or whatever) and cross it over the middle. Then you take the rightmost stalk and cross it over the middle (which was once the leftmost stalk. Then you take the current leftmost stalk (what was once the center stalk in the beginning) and cross it over the current middle stalk (once the rightmost stalk). Then repeat, back and forth until done.

To add more onions or garlic to the braid, you pick up the garlic/onion and place it wherever you like and add the stalk to whatever side you’re putting it on. So rather than one stalk, there’s two stalks for one “strand”. Braid a bit more to secure than add a garlic or onion to the opposite side. Keep going to fill out the braid.

You can name the garlic or onions you’re adding, representing each person and animal in the household. Towards the top, you may even wish to add people who are not part of the household but are frequent visitors, like a significant other or a best friend. It doesn’t have to be a large braid. If you only have a handful of onions or garlic, that’s okay.

When you’ve added all the garlic/onion you want to add, then braid up the stalks to give it a good base and use a piece a string to tie it off, confirming that you’re uniting these people under the same roof for good harmony or whatever.

Store the onion / garlic braid in a cool, dry place until you’re ready to use it. Or just hang it somewhere in your kitchen away from the sink.

You can use the onion and garlic in your cooking. When you break off or cut the onion/garlic off, say something like “I cut away our disharmony” to counter the act of removing the onion or garlic from the braid. Watch to make sure that there isn’t disharmony directed towards or from this person after you cut off their onion or garlic. Depending on your style of magic, you may find that the braid can only be used decoratively and not practically.

I’ve given some simple steps to do this, but there’s more in-depth tutorials for this sort of thing out there. Here’s how to braid garlic. And here’s how to braid onions.

---