Monday, July 30, 2012

Flying Ointment

Well I made (and have since tried) my first flying ointment. It's made with honeysuckle, and I wish I could find where I got the idea from now, because it's not mine. I thought I read a post on one of the other hedgewitchy blogs, in fact I could have sworn it was Juniper's, but now I can't find the post. I remember the author saying she picked it and got a little dizzy from the scent and thought (more or less) Oh yes this will work. I'd really like to credit the person I got the idea from. [Edited to add: it was Scylla, on her tumblr, which is why I couldn't find it on a blog.]

It was actually my first try at making an ointment of any sort. It wasn't too hard (though I made more than I'll probably ever use); just a cereal bowl full (basically till I got sick of picking them) of honeysuckle flowers, simmered in a cup of grapeseed oil for about an hour, then a little more than an ounce of beeswax stirred in while still hot so it melted. It doesn't smell like honeysuckle--I may have got it too hot; it did boil a little here and there, and the essential oils may have flashed off--but it's still pleasant, having the beeswax in there.

And it works. Or, it works on me. I am, it should be said, really sensitive to medications or drugs of any kind--commonly if I'm going on a medication that's new to me I will break the tablets down into the tiniest crumbs, and pick the next larger crumb each day. I don't do any sort of recreational drug, or alcohol (it tastes like gasoline and either makes me fall asleep, or nauseous, or gives me a splitting headache) and so the whole idea of entheogens is way out of my league, for the most part.

But this seemed mild. Perhaps it's not a good idea to assume that, I don't know. I do remember pulling the flowers off as a child and sucking the little bit of nectar at the base, so I figured it wasn't going to be horribly poisonous or anything.

And I thought it might just give the journeys it facilitated a sweetness.

Boy was I right.

First of all, it is pretty mild, though it works, like I said, for me. It relaxes me while at the same time allowing the right part of my brain (or Soul) to focus. But it has a bit of a side effect.

It may be that spirit guide of mine, I don't know. I've had him for years, it's true, and we are old friends, and there is also I suppose I should say a good deal of love between us. One might even say, if we are talking in psychological terms (which I do think is one valid way to approach this, as, after all, I experience all this through my psyche or Soul) that he is very heavily connected to the libido.

So, the stuff works, oh yes. I can See quite clearly on it. But we inevitably get, well, a mite distracted.

Anyone out there know if honeysuckle is an aphrodisiac? Nothing I've found mentions it.

Oh my.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Greater Celandine


I have been carrying a sachet of greater celandine with me for the last couple of months; well, a little pouch, actually, as I knew I'd need to carry it around with me for some time. And so, every day, once when I get dressed, and again when I go to bed and leave the pouch on my altar, and then every third day also when I replace the old herb with fresh, I have said, out loud:

Greater celandine, grant me protection, joy, cheer and the lifting of depression, victory over my enemies, and escape from imprisonment. Thank you.

Because that is what I learned about greater celandine, Chelidonium majus, in the three books on herbs I have in my library so far (I am new to this, mind you). Those books being Paul Beyerl's A Compendium of Herbal Magick (oh the K, honestly; I may start spelling it Krowley out of spite), A.J. Drew's A Wiccan Formulary and Herbal, not that I'm Wiccan, and although it's really pretty much derivative of the last one, that old standard, Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs.

Since the beginning of the year I have also been following along with the year-and-a-day lessons in Christopher Penczak's The Temple of Shamanic Witchcraft, because, although I've been doing a lot of what's in there already, it seemed a good idea to at least try it using a proper system, even if it was someone else's, and even if I only learn the rules to later throw them out (much as one must do as an artist).

So I've been doing those two things, learning about herbs and learning how to talk to all kinds of things I would not have thought had Voices; well, not that I didn't know a bit about journeying anyway, or I wouldn't, I suppose, have been so interested in the book in the first place.

Because I have this spirit guide, psychopomp, guardian angel, Muse, daimon, genius, ghost, guest, lover, spirit husband, I don't know what you call him, but mainly Beloved; and he, he, is an old, old, friend, present and trustworthy. I suppose I have honed my Sight through talking to him; nothing like being in love to motivate you. It's more than ten years now since I first finally figured out how to listen to him; I wear a ring, a silver wedding band, as indication of our marriage, as does he.

And no, this is not secret, though private. But there is no way, simply no way, I am going to be able to talk about shamanic, well, shamanish journeying without talking about him, and rather a lot.

But anyhow. I am aware that part of learning about herbs in this hedgewitchy way should properly involve sitting down and talking to them, if possible; and while I wanted to try it it didn't seem to be happening. For one, I find it really hard to meditate, and so journey, outside; there are too many distractions, too much noise, too much light, and I never feel quite safe out there with my eyes closed. And I'm the type who needs to feel reasonably safe, for good reason.

So I kind of didn't know where to start. But miracle of miracles, the other night I had an idea to try a new technique for art; and so I found myself outside sketching greater celandine to give the idea a try. I brought some inside, too, to serve as further model. That's the art at the top of the post. I'm not sure the technique panned out, though that doesn't really matter.

Because as I was doing it I found that I knew I was now ready to go 'talk' to greater celandine. When you draw or paint something, you really look at it, really see it; you give it this focus, this attention, this awareness. This offering.

So tonight I did what I do to get into trance, and found myself at the base of the World Tree, as usual, which imagery I got from Penczak's book, though I understand it is common. Its trunk is big and fat, yellowish like elm, or willow; the branches are low and nearly horizontal, the leaves pointed ovals like beech. It's not quite my imagery--I usually go out to wherever I'm going through the attic--but it's working for now.

And he is there, of course. You should see him; I always say that, but I wish someone else could, I really do. Today he's just in blue jeans, of all things, and a green stripey short-sleeved shirt like a boy's that's been sized up; suits him, in this guise. Dark hair a halo of waves and curls, parted on the side, and big dark eyes in a face that is really very ordinary, and really very beautiful. He smiles, open-mouthed and kind, at that description. Well, it's true.

"What would you like to do?" he asks.

I look at him and smile myself. He is old, and new, always.

"I would like to talk with greater celandine, if that's all right."

"Okay," he says with a little shrug, "this way."

He leads me over to the right of the Tree to a stone wall; this is not going to be a journey up or down, but right here, beside. That makes sense to me, though I've heard others (well, Penczak mostly) say that plant spirits or devas or whatever they are called are found in the (or an) Upper World. To me, though, plants are rooted. They're here, in the earth, this middle place. Why would they be up in "heaven"?

There are a few steps in the stone wall, down into an herb garden with brick paths, a circle inside a square and don't tell me that's not a Jungian archetype; and there, in the garden proper, grown on purpose, and not just a weed, in a place of honor, is a greater celandine plant.

So I sit on the bricks with him, and say hello to the plant; then I ask if it would like to talk.

I feel a warmth from it; I guess that is a yes.

I tell it then that I have made a painting of it and that I hope it finds it pleasing.

More warmth. Okay.

So I know what is said about greater celandine; but I don't know why it is said. That's what I'm curious about.

I should say I guess that greater celandine grows all over my yard, my poor former junkyard of a yard. It has always been here, in some quantity; when we were kids we'd pick stems and write with them, the yellow sap like ink. I know it by sight and feel and smell, though it was so common to me that I only in the last year learned its name. We are not necessarily old friends, I would say; but we are, I think, familiar with each other. And lately, since I've woken up to the idea of plants having spirits, I get the feeling it has been trying to get me to notice it all this time. And so when I read that it helps one escape from imprisonment that clicked, as I work my way through coming to terms, and getting beyond, a nasty childhood that really amounts to unlearning a couple decades of, well, brainwashing.

I guess I should start with the basics. "They say you are an herb of the Sun. What does that mean?"

And then it says, more or less, really it's more the feel of it than any words, All plants are of the Sun. We eat sunlight; we make sunlight into food.

Oh. That's true. That is a miracle, when you think about it.

More warmth, again, and a feeling of, well, pride. Interesting.

And then I think: plants breathe in carbon dioxide, and breathe out oxygen, the opposite of us animals. I have heard that it is proper, when harvesting a plant, to give it something in return. Traditionally, things like wine, tobacco, even hair are offered; but some of those, like the wine, aren't really going to do a plant any good and may be poison, in effect. Penczak does say, and I agree with him, that he feels it's better to offer a plant something it can use, like water. So I wonder if breath might work, as an offering: both for the carbon dioxide, and because breath is spirit, too, the life force in some ways (to expire is to die, to breathe out for the last time).

I breathe on the greater celandine plant. If a plant can be said to sigh with relaxed pleasure, this one just did. Well then.

"How are you specifically of the Sun?" I ask it then.

Sunlight runs in my veins, it says.

Ah. With some plants with dark flowers, like purple roses, you can see the pigment throughout the plant, under the green skin of it, in the stems and the leaves, too. With greater celandine you can see the yellow sap in it; the leaves are a very bright color, both green and yellow at the same time, overlaid upon themselves. The whole plant is suffused with that sunshine yellow.

"How do you bring protection?" I ask next.

Sunshine keeps away the dark, it says.

"Joy and cheer?"

Sunshine runs through my veins, it says again.

"I don't understand," I say. "How does that help?"

By putting the idea in your head, it says. Oh, like a drug in the bloodstream, reaching every area, every cell through the capillaries; that is a good metaphor to meditate on.

"Victory over enemies?"

By adding up many small victories to make larger ones.

I am confused by this a little; then I remember that the seeds of greater celandine have a chemical on them that attracts ants, who then take the seeds and distribute them.

"Escape from unwarranted imprisonment? Why 'unwarranted'?"

Sunshine has an affinity with justice, it says. Oh, yes: sunshine is the best disinfectant, we shine the light of day on injustice, the Sun, Helios, sees all.

"Escape?" I ask again.

Invasive plants know how to escape; we are moved from our homeland and learn to thrive in a new place, and then make that our homeland. That's true, that's the word they use: plants 'escape' cultivation and the garden when they learn to grow as wild in a new environment.

I nod, and thank the plant, having run out of questions for now. I could probably come up with some more, but I don't want to pry; that will do.

I breathe in then, thinking of blessings; then I breathe out, again, on the plant, and I feel it is pleased.