It stood majestically in the front garden, tall as any human, four shorter arms around the big central head, light lilac purple with white at the centre of each flower, the leaves bigger than big hands and thick, of a pale green and covered in soft hairs like down feather. The scent was strong, very much like the essential oil I had smelled before. I remember the sense of awe I keep having looking at it. Heidi was on her way back from Bourke when I texted her about it. The synchronicity at play from that point became evident to both of us, and the seemingly impossible became possible.
Clary Sage
Salvia Sclarea
Monday 2/1/2012 Moon in Aries
11.00
Meditation: “Father in Heaven” a voice says behind a scene of moonlit flowers, many flowers in moonlight, growing, vibrating. I notice a green hue coming from the mossy forest I seem to find myself in, and the feeling is ‘mother’, ‘Great Mother Plant’. It’s Clary Sage and it wants to talk about nocturnal vision, I ask myself if it’s a reference to ‘Insight’, when I see a ladder of green mossy massive leaves dwarfing me. I’m in awe. The message is that picking best under moonlight. My head tells me I should check the moon times. Is it the moonlight or the flowers creating a circle of teaching?
After the meditation, we sat to have a look at moon times and decided to harvest that night.
This morning dreamed of a gold and cream snake.
Meditation with Clary Sage:
Branches make a teapot shape. I find it hard to connect at first, then
realize I have to go deep within, inside.
Related to the Moon, the High Priestess card that must look deep within
for the answers, not outside. Even the
curved flower is reminiscent of this as it is leaning inwards: go inside. Sacred symbols and sacred language. Then it starts flowing as I look inside. See the purple of the moon priestess. Then the flower as a curled up foetus with
the little point in the centre the umbilicus, the connection to the mother. Also this protection of the overhead and
beneath it – curling over to protect the core.
Strong connection to umbilicus, to the centre, hara, core, stomach area. The leaves remind me of a moonscape surface –
rough and bubbly. Then I get a
connection with the eyes, a light in the eye, an inner light sensation. When I ask if it is okay to dig it up for
this process I don’t get a clear yes at all.
Though we had planned to pick it now, Prisca got ‘pick me in the moonlight’.
Moon hour is 21.45 tonight. Now the sun is bright in the sky, but want to get the light from the moon, from within.
21.45
Have been tired all day and have a slight headache. Watching the moon earlier, was amazed at how you can only see half of it, can only see the part which the sunlight reaches and it reflects. But then as I stared I could see the rest of it with my imagination, my inner sight. Just because we can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there, have to look not with the external senses, but with the internal.
We stand in the moonlight wearing white and sipping white coconut milk from wine glasses, toasting each other. It feels like a sacred feminine ritual that has come spontaneously through Prisca. We have two large white ceremonial candles in big glass holders.
Meditation:
Fluids. Moon bringing the fluids up. Now there is a great openness to it being picked. I can see the roots in my minds eye – we will have to feel and sense our way through the darkness, to use our feelings, not our eyes. I see four branching out roots with lots of thin roots on these rather than one long taproot. Third eye big. This will be an initiation into intuition. Sacred feminine mysteries. Then I can see a scary looking face in the shape and shadows of the plant and am reminded that initiation can bring up your dark deep unconscious fears. The fears of the dark, of not being able to see clearly, the fears of having to feel your way through the unknown without seeing clearly. The shadowy moon card of the tarot. Things aren’t clear if you’re looking hard trying to see things externally, going through the unknown. But if you look deep within, can see the plant shining. The answers are within.
The plant emits its own gentle light, the colours visible, the scent strong.
Fears, unconscious, navigating through the dark unconscious realms.
Holding space, the plant branches out widely in a big teapot space creating a space in the middle, protected space.
Craniosacral connection, my headache feels like a craniosacral fluid imbalance. The flowers look like the lateral ventricles in our brain.
Relaxing, allowing, surrendering and euphoria comes from that.
Meditation: Bathing in white light, feeling very calm and confident and knowing. The sense of inner knowing is strong while the veils around me are like the soft clouds around the moon; moon wisdom behind the veils of illusion, transcending form and yet teaching via the form, the symbols. Being open to the symbols, to intuition and being ready to allow without attachment to any outcome, reconnecting women with the flow...menstrual flow and life giving waters with the double edge sword of lightness of being and intent of spirit. The plant is working at the level of the Astral Plane so we have to feel our way in the darkness... encountering fears along the way. It feels like a ritual. I caught the sight in my mind’s eye of the Fairy Godmother with her wand and a taste of the magical world...the words come: Relaxing and Allowing...
The plant smells very strong tonight, as we touch and smell it, sense of euphoria, laughing, divine smell.
We dig it up with silver spoons in the candlelight. The roots were as I’d imagined, some larger ones but then many thin, stringy, stretchy and long. It is indeed an exercise in feeling our way through the darkness. It is a good affirmation for my own intuition which I have been doubting lately after having a strong intuition that someone would call but then they hadn’t.
We hang the plant up inside after washing the roots.
Tues 3.1.2012
Had a very deep, peaceful sleep last night after not sleeping well for many nights now. Don’t remember dreams, but it is the most deep, peaceful and satisfying sleep I’ve had in ages.
Thursday 5.1.2012
We were planning to begin the oil/Soul today.
Meditation: Figures, some hooded, ascending sides of a pyramid of light or somehow lit from within... The ascension is constant until some angel appears with white very pale hues of purple/mauve. The Angelique presence brings a feeling of euphoria and the scene goes into blurred like waves towards a familiar scene of ocean flats by rocky cliff sides. Flowers seem to grow by. Now a sense of skin being the cliff side, close up looks like cell biology...bright light cancels picture and feeling of flying above curling waves. Then a growing fear of ‘what will come next’ leading me to the image a dark coloured highway like close up, feeling lost. That’s when I remembered the purpose of the meditation, I can smell the flowers and all above mentioned feelings of euphoria and visuals of light purple return. What follows is an overwhelming feeling of ‘wanting to make sense’ and yet sensing the meaningfulness of it all; connecting to inner knowing and having the courage to let go of ‘making sense’ to take the next step...
Meditation: The pattern of the flowers reminds me of a necklace. For the oil “Let it dry”. Again have an awareness of the cranio fluid. When thought of doing the body/ash – became aware of throat and breathing, and a slight squeezing of heart. Then aware of the third eye and going in deep inwards, a thin violet crescent moon over my third eye, its light bright white and gently burning through and getting brighter.
Steiner – big leaves – strong respiratory heart system. Small purple flowers – nerve sense system come into MLS, so nervous, anxious type people.
I yawn whenever I smell the plant.
Thread. Having to follow way to find the thread, like following the roots right to the end. Finding our way in the dark, trying to follow a thin thread in a mass of outer stuff/misinformation, cloudy thoughts of the mind.
We decide to do the Salt, and to let the plant dry more before doing the oil.
Salt meditation
Wearing jewels, earrings, necklace. Jewel of the sea. Fluids, water of the body.
The salt burned quickly and hotly. Lots of dirty brown smoke like pot smoke, it gives the feeling of being stoned, laughing, high. Holds heat very well.
Image of a woman with the two petals over her head, bit like a Mars headdress, the purple and white like the lateral ventricles extended out of her head.
Sharp intake of breath, ‘catching’ the breath.
SALT
Burn in glass tray as is...
Ego vs. higher will coming through us. Countless times we’ve planned to do something and then its come through differently – picking it in the moonlight, doing the salt today instead of the soul. We are flowing with it. This evening I was worried about having a late night and impatient to start the salt earlier rather than later thinking it may take a long time, but when we started it, it burned so fast and easily. Personal will vs. divine will. Mind vs. self. Realising how much I drive, as in my ego, drives me, trying to do things and wanting things a certain way rather than accepting what is, relaxing and letting go. Being FLUID.
20.08 Moon hour.
Under the moon with our candles and preparing to make the spirit.
SPIRIT
Meditation: Sense of excitement and anticipation that I feel is from the plant rather than me. It’s excited about doing the spirit. It is ready and eager. A great sense of gratitude felt to Prisca for this opportunity which I again feel is a message from the plant, that it is very grateful. Again eagerness and excitement. Now the salt is begun, the spirit can begin to be drawn into us.
High Priestess strong again – uprightness and total inner silence and knowing. Get that it touches the PINEAL. Have an experience of this, a feeling deep in my head and a sense of light, a total darkness from my eyes going inwards. Also purple light visible, darker this time, but visible in my inner eye. Then this upright feminine within me, totally present and aware, listening to all the sounds around. Then start to become distracted and bothered by mosquitoes and realize the ego is still working hard to distract me.
Meditation: Bathing in light with the strong sense that Clary Sage brings light and light can permeate anything. Shadows are cast by obstructions of the light. Images of Jacob’s ladder, a ladder towards a higher understanding, and I now understand the plant as a doorway. Light in its many forms and dimensions come to mind, light through water is refracted, light as a fluid which travels and carries information... opening the windows and doors to let the light in or allowing doors to be opened to welcome the light...not like intellectual knowledge but more like intuition as inner knowing...a reminder that we are all flames in a more or less clean receptacle... hence needed purification to allow the light to shine brighter from within...
Friday 6.1.2012.
Dream of a lady in a red dress and an Indian man. Working at Starlight festival. I have a reading that tells me I need to ‘look up’ and broaden my horizons. About seeing further afield, not just looking down as if burdened, but connecting more externally. In the evening my intuition is finally validated by the phone call I had expected, despite my doubting mind trip in between.
Sunday 8.1.2012
Another early start working at Starlight and very little sleep, with sharp abdominal spasms that bend me double continuing into the day (never had anything like it before). I want to take Colocynthis but have none with me. I lie down and sleep a little and it passes.
16.40
Salt filtered and on stove to burn off the water.
We discuss how we are both putting boundaries down in different ways in our lives, and purifying the body/ego by looking after ourselves. Body is a temple.
While grinding the salt I get a sore throat. The salt draws fluid to it – the mortar and pestle when left a moment become all wet. The salt is quite white already and heaps of it.
17.50 Moon hour.
Salt still on the stove. Salt on fire
Meditation: Breathing into white light. Image of what could look like the little hairs inside the bronchioles. Allow to breathe, to breathe in the light...knowledge...a sea of people and the feeling of flying above...casting a shadow as a means of passing on knowledge that cannot be comprehended...that’s the shadow part...it cannot be fully understood by the tool the intellect is. In the breath is the answer and in the depth of our being. Central woman power resides in the uterine region, where creation takes place...away from our sight but in the light within... Then I remembered the green tree snake of the previous day, I had observed it for a long time, and now a voice saying “snakes have leaps of faith”
Meditation: Yawning again. Overwhelming fatigue. The colic pain I had this morning returns. A tightening in my abdomen, contractions, painful to the point where could vomit, tied in with fatigue. Good labour picture.
Slippery skin of the salt: “it soothes the skin, smoothes over boundaries”. Come back to a strong point of action at the umbilicus, the centre or hara. My mind travels back to the kinesiology balance I had on Friday about integrity and speaking truth in the past led to large feeling of guilt at hurting others. Integrity – third chakra, self, standing ground, staying in truth.
Childbirth, umbilicus, contraction pain, vomiting, fatigue, exhausted state of labour.
Also a slight headache over third eye, from fatigue.
Doubling over contractions, cramps, spasms. Feels empty deep in stomach. Period pain.
Monday 9.1.2012 Moon in Cancer
12.30
SOUL
LIQUEFY?
Meditation: In the same bright light, soul feels even more connected to the womb...and also letting go as a part of allowing; first, let go of expectation. Heating salt through soul feels supportive and soul will guide us in the course of action...and letting go of time. All will be revealed.
Meditation: Taken back to when I first smelled Clary Sage oil years ago when I was given it for period pain, the dark, woody, balsamic scent, I didn’t really like it back then. I get to use just one pot to extract the oil. It is ready. It is interesting that we have spirit and salt sitting here next to each other – the spirit and earth, and in between lies the soul, the heart realm, the personal.
Blissful 11 hours sleep last night. Delicious swim in crystal blue river with friends this morning. Late to start today. As driving to do alchemy, felt that overwhelming sleepiness descend on me again.
Soporific when chopping plant for Soul.
Breathing and breath.
It is a very steamy hot day. As the oil is being distilled I feel like I’m being distilled myself, hot and porous day, and tired. Soul started by 13.45.
15.00 Moon hour (14.13-15.24)
Soul still on the boil. Salt has also being going.
Meditation: As we meditate, thunder begins to roll. First image of a woman in pale purple, dancing, her dress swirling around behind her. Get the song “Diamond dancer” in my head – “she danced herself into a diamond”.
Then I am seeing the golden colour of the oil and water – this pale liquid, with a woman reaching up through it, bathing in its golden glow and light and loving the sensation of it.
I think of a friend I saw this morning who had discovered a part of her inner feminine that was very angry at her for not being whole – for not looking after that part of herself every day in small nurturing ways.
Get the words “walk alone”. Discussing earlier not having expectations and wonder if walking alone is like this – to look after myself always, to remain whole and not get lost in another.
Eyes come again, healing eyes.
Meditation: Soul healer, something about the nervous system and body fluids as well as direct access to hormonal release...pituitary gland comes to mind and the connection with light absorption. The soul imbued with many fears will benefit... subtle area of healing. It seems there’s a significance for the soul to be extracted as close to the full moon as possible...fluids inside bones...fluids inside the nervous system. Vision of all fluids responding to the moon as well as responding to thoughts, vibrations, words...
16.00
BIG STORM very loud and strong
18.00
Spirit, soul and body are all ready and
waiting be merged.
Meditation: Big bright moon in mind’s eye. Feeling of joy about the work and its completion. Gold liquid in a glass of wine is being raised accompanied by cheers and a feeling of relief like at the end of a big journey or even more like the celebration of someone’s return...distracted by sounds...Pouring oil from the top so as not to lose any...Always a show of dichotomies which can only be understood if we look at them from the light within. Confusion happens when we look for things on the outside-getting confused by opposites and the dual aspect of truth...the only possible answer lies within...
Meditation: How there’s so little Salt compared to Spirit always, life force/god/spirit is so much bigger than the body though we identify often so strongly with the body. Image of a clear full bodied water dripping, with golden light within it glowing outwards. Very clear, clean and light filled. Purity. Light and water again. How we have been purified by this. How without the soul, the rest is kind of plain, need the soul to enliven the salt and spirit, to give it life and joy, the heart. Always, in the polaric world of salt and spirit looking for answers in the physical realm of salt, the mental realm of spirit, so get confused as both are always true. But have to find own truth – the personal realm of the soul. And can only find this by looking deep inside, inner clarity, lighting up from within. Soul guides us.
Marriage
18.27
Spirit added to Salt.
18.29
Soul added to the above.
18.30 Full moon in Cancer exact.
As we sit outside, moon is not seen...
Meditation: It’s a dark screen in my mind’s eye; obsidian comes to mind and tourmaline, black tourmaline for protection. Black absorbs the light while white reflects it. Whenever we enter the unconscious or the astral world, we need protection... Magic, childbirth and menstruation, three examples of times we need courage to face the unconscious stuff that comes up...when the unconscious comes out in the light... In this place Clary Sage stands like a perfect antidote to Black Magic. From the light within it is able to impart knowledge and courage and strength. Used for depression it works like the light in the darkness...
Meditation: This being has been released from the Clary Sage through this process and she is very grateful and joyful to have been set free. She flies out from us, up and out towards the ocean. She does a somersault in the air and turns back to face us, arms crossed. Again she is dressed in pale purple, though when she first flew she was a deep oceanic colour. We have unleashed something on the world. It is way bigger than us. Through our process we have brought her to life again. It is already done, not through us or through taking the spagyric, but in releasing her, the world will change. It is big. What will you do? I ask. She dives inside and opens me out. She will take us in and open us out from within. It is a big shift in consciousness that she will help to bring. Then an image of being hung by the belly so that arms and legs hang down and pull on the belly. “You must surrender” in this position. Surrendering to a higher will, there is no choice anymore.
Courage to look at the dark side of the moon, the unconscious. Inner stillness.
During Soul (around 4pm) we had a storm, like being condensed and then cooled down after heating up. Now we sit outside in the sunny afternoon under the unseen full moon, a monarch butterfly flies around us.
Need a shadow or the darkness to bring the light to awareness. This spagyric is very black. Yet it has always been about light. Black absorbs the most light. We’ve been seeing theme of white also. Obsidian, black tourmaline, same greeny black colour of the tincture. These stones are used for protection. When looking into the unconscious, into the darkness, soul retrieval, astral realm, need protection as there are many dangers. Childbirth, menses are other times like these when more open to these darker areas, times when the unconscious comes to light. Need great Courage then.
A crow chorus starts up behind us. Magical black crows.
Magical aspect of the plant, and at the same time a perfect antidote to black magic as it has an angelic presence.
Intuition. How the mind can come in and take us over with doubt and darkness despite a strong intuitive feeling.
19.00
Feelings of steadfastness and inner calm, sitting in the centre of my being, reminded of the eye of the cyclone. Mission accomplished: a sense of thankfulness from the plant. Strong inner core... the sounds of our surrounds mimicing inner landscapes beautifully...this is a taste of paradise, no fear!
NIGREDO IS DRYING
Night post full moon: deep sleep but woke up tired ...
Tuesday 10/1/12
First dance of the year, all in white.
The day went past fast, filled with much talking about the year of the Dragon about to start. Going dancing felt like a completion of the work. Picking the card Gaia felt like a reward. Heidi’s presence and the white garments worn by everyone deepened my understanding of the use, place and charge of “clothing”. White reflects, diving into the symbolism to touch upon the great mystery... White/light... Black/dark... and Black light makes things look whiter while a dark white is a ‘broken white’ ‘blanc cassé’...
Wednesday 11/1/12
06.13
“The Gold is Black! It’s like a liquid black gold”. Was reminded through my meditation about Heidi’s words on the woman being freed to help shifting consciousness... Now my thoughts are filled with the thoughts of the New Chinese year about to start. Talking to my friend Kty from France earlier, I’m now aware that it’s also known as the Dragon of the Black Water! Something in there I wonder?
Of course, one must be reminded of the very nature of quantum reality behind all research...what one pays attention to...
Monday 16.1.2012
Last night I dreamt of
a blue butterfly, and veneport – which meant teleportation, but it was called
Veneport. Transport through the blood
vessels??
We burned the caput mortem and remains of the spirit and soul and buried them back in the place from where the plant came.
Moon hour 16.36
We toast our familiar
wine glasses with a drop of spagyric in water.
16.46
Meditation: “You can’t get to the deep water by looking at the shallows” ... Sitting came with stillness, ease to sit and breathe, feeling calm and joyful about the completion of the gold and taking it in felt natural and almost familiar, yes a familiar feeling...then the notion of lineage flashed as I recalled a mother and her mother, the concept of the ‘mother of the mother’. A beach flashed in front of where I’m standing and out of the water rose a full moon... I’m mesmerised by its light and the myriad reflections on the little peaks formed by the ocean...
Meditation: I feel bright, silvery and sparkly inside. Every cloud has a silver lining. Can feel a silver lining around my cranium, the fluid around these bones has the light of the tincture on it – the blue edge of the golden green spagyric. It is light filled. It drops down to my belly and I feel the need to burp and slowly do. I can feel a point of tension in my belly, then realize it is resistance, I am holding on. Allow. As I do, it dissolves and drops deeper. Image of a drop of the black, dark tincture at the bottom of my belly and it is the vessel of light, starlight. Bright, bright starlight, like a star in the black sky. I feel still. Start to feel sleepy and yawn a few times. A deep blue colour, rich and calming, descends on me like a blanket, comforting me and making me deliciously sleepy. Calm and relaxed.
Mother of the mother.
Allowing more light in. Resistance as blocking the light. Reaction as resistance. However it shows us the light.
Black for protection, witches, priests wear black, it holds the most light.
White reflects light, superficial, more symbolic of light.
Black is the depths, holds so much light. “You can’t get to the deep water by looking in the shallows”.
The year of the Black Water Dragon starts next Moonday, New Moon in Aquarius.
This week, from Monday to Monday, will take a drop of Clary sage spagyric each day. Moon – Number 9, full moon in cancer on 9th.
Tuesday 17/1/2012
When I took a drop at moon time and sat quietly afterwards, the feeling was strong and the image to accompany was that the drop had been received in a vessel (me) made from the same substance! I took it as a message to say I didn’t need to take anymore for a while...
