After we take into consideration natural medication making, among the points that herbalists typically deal with are linear of their method to natural medication preparation. Which a part of the plant will we use? Ought to it’s contemporary or ought to it’s dried? What proportion of alcohol ought to we use? Is it higher than an infusion or a decoction? What are the chemical substances within the facility and what’s the easiest way to extract them? That is often what we as herbalists are searching for and discussing amongst ourselves. How can we make the most effective, strongest, and simplest natural medication? I believe that is essential. We have to know the best way to make an efficient natural medication that concentrates, extracts, and preserves all the medicinal advantages of a plant.
The alchemical method
After we delve into the alchemical custom and apply of spagyric or natural alchemy, we focus not solely on the chemistry of the plant, but in addition on the power and religious properties of the plant. The entire purpose of spagyric is to protect the life power of the plant, the wholeness of the plant, its physique, its intelligence, its spirit and its soul in order that it will possibly heal the entire individual. It would heal our bodily being, our psychological and emotional being, and even heal us on a extra religious stage. It isn’t widespread for the dynamics of intent to be mentioned in commonplace natural medication manufacture, but it surely is a crucial half that’s brazenly mentioned within the alchemical custom. They are saying in alchemy that it’s the intent and state of consciousness of the operator, the one who works within the laboratory context, that has a really robust affect on the medication that we put together. I believe there are some ways in which we expect are essential in getting ourselves into a superb interior state that’s conducive to creating top quality natural medication, particularly associated to the making of spagyric medication.
So I assumed I’d share with you my ideas on the significance of intent and the state of our thoughts and coronary heart when making ready natural medication, and taking them to a deeper stage in relation to our function as natural medication makers within the context of alchemy and mixture not solely the exterior laboratory dynamics of alchemy, but in addition inner alchemy, our inner religious work and the best way we will transfer these energies with which we work within the alchemy exterior laboratory and in addition work with them internally. I hope you take pleasure in this dialogue of a typically seldom mentioned side of natural medication making.
The alchemical course of
The purpose for somebody who practices the artwork of alchemy is that we ourselves have a direct connection and relationship with the archetypal forces of nature. Within the context of spagyric we work so much with the seven planets: Solar, Moon, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and Mercury. By way of Mercury, Venus and Mars we will hook up with Neptune, Pluto and Uranus. The purpose is that now we have our personal connection and relationship with these archetypes. Relating to our intent and our personal inside area after we create spy lyrics, the purpose is that we’re very clear and really clear.
I all the time say that the laboratory and the rooms the place medicines are made are, so to talk, a laboratory and a temple. You need your thoughts and coronary heart to be very clear and really pure. You do not need to be in there pondering unhealthy ideas or being harassed or arguing along with your accomplice or worrying about a lot of issues. You’re very current, you might be very right here, you might be very now and you might be centered on the medication that you’re creating. That is the primary option to method it. As you develop into extra conscious of your individual connection and relationship with the planets, and plan your entire preparations in accordance with these heavenly influences, there are methods which you can develop into a automobile by way of which the power of this planet can construct your system. You’ll be able to draw and construct this planetary power into your physique and permit that power to circulate by way of you and thru your intention and thru your prayer to infuse into the medication you might be making ready.
My instructor Robert Bartlett has a cool chapter in his second e book, The best way of the crucible, known as “The Alchemical Eucharist”. For these of you who will not be conversant in the time period Eucharist, it’s a totally different approach of speaking about communion, the sacred communion, and the way the alchemist as operator acts as a bridge between the medication you might be making ready right here and the heavenly one Drive that may put together you may act I wish to anchor there in medication. We’re that bridge between above and beneath.
I all the time say that in herbalism we harvest crops and in alchemy we harvest planets. There are passive methods by which we harvest these planets and there are energetic methods by which we harvest these planets. Passive methods are to regulate every part accordingly. By making certain that you simply put together your St. John’s Wort essence on Sunday on the hour of sunshine, you might be naturally bringing this photo voltaic affect to medication. So you intend it accordingly. However the extra energetic technique is thru your meditation, by way of inner alchemy. One of the crucial essential properties of interior alchemy is that we relate to those seven planetary qualities, to those archetypal forces, in order that we will perceive their shade and vibration and their sound and really feel. How does it really feel when Mars strikes by way of you? How does it really feel whenever you really feel this rising of Jupiter? That is the place meditation is available in, the place working along with your spagyrics helps you get these felt sensations beneath management, the place you meditate along with your planetary hours and the time mechanisms so you may actually really feel how these influences come into play. That is the place a functioning information of Kabbalah comes into play in working with alchemy, as Kabbalah exhibits us sure methods by which we will set up connections and fellowship with these heavenly forces.
The purpose is that our structure doesn’t stand in the best way of the manufacture of the drug. We don’t need to pour our private power into the spagyric we’re making ready. Moderately, we need to be an instrument, we need to be a automobile, a mechanism by which these bigger archetypal forces transfer by way of us after which imprint themselves into medication in order that we convey this heavenly power down and into medication.
“Flip It Upside Down”
That is the sweetness and the paradox of alchemy and the way every part turns. My good buddy Gabriel Quinn Maroney, with whom I went to Bastyr, was one of many first individuals I met who studied alchemy. He taught me so much and is a genius of a person and an incredible man too. He is fairly a enjoyable man too. He says, “When you suppose one thing about alchemy, all you must do is flip it the other way up.” And I bear in mind laughing with him about it. That’s actually humorous. He mentioned: “Sure, as above, so beneath. You simply have to show it the other way up. “At first I assumed it was humorous, however then I actually thought of it. I assumed, wow, really that is profound.
I believe that is a kind of instances too. If you put together medication, you’re the instrument between the planets and medication. There are two phases to a spagyric: you put together the medication within the laboratory after which the opposite facet. Everybody thinks the spagyric is finished by the point you end making ready the medication within the lab, however that is actually solely the primary half of it. Once more every part revolves round. Now you take this remedy and it’ll put together you for the remedy. And simply as you’re the means by which this planet strikes by way of you and into medication within the laboratory, it’s now the bridge between you and this planet whenever you take the medication. Now medication will provide help to to make a deeper contact with this heavenly energy of this planet in your meditations and comparable issues.
If you discuss it from the angle of Western esoteric custom, lots of people suppose that this sounds actually woo woo and on the market. However that is what qigong is all about. There are specific facets of the Chinese language system, particularly Qigong, which might be about contacting these planetary energies, reducing these planetary energies, shifting them by way of our organ techniques and tissues, and their shade, tone and vibration, and imaginative and prescient and its sense of understanding the physique after which turns into a automobile for that power to work by way of you in a therapeutic approach.
It is the identical within the Western custom. On this case, we use it within the laboratory to make a natural medication. However then it turns the other way up and the natural medication works in our physique’s laboratory to show us into a drugs. So a part of it’s exterior: we’re within the laboratory making ready remedy. The opposite half is inside: the plant strikes inside us. We’re engaged on the system within the laboratory. The plant works on us in our physique, the laboratory. I really like that you simply simply flip it the other way up and it is sensible. That is the way it works.
The alchemical path
The best way of alchemical medication is that we create a stronger connection to the forces of nature, to the forces of life, to the forces of creation, to the weather that exist right here on earth, to the planets that exist on earth Cosmos and in our photo voltaic system. There’s intelligence, there’s sentience. These are the good religious overseers of life and nature. Over time, as now we have develop into extra scientific, mechanized, and rational as people, now we have actually misplaced contact with the understanding that we will talk with these clever, sentient artistic forces and that they will heal and educate us, and that they’re the keys included to our well being and well-being and our wholeness and our religious growth. That is what alchemy is about. It’s concerning the evolutionary journey of the soul that we come to earth to cope with, and in addition the therapeutic work that we should do as we embark on the religious journey of actually turning into who we actually are , and to heal our trauma and switch us into our transformation and our sickness as our initiation.
The best way of alchemy is interior and outer work, the above and beneath work, laboratory work and our personal work engaged on the crops, but in addition on the crops that work on us. Simply as we manufacture medication within the laboratory as within the first half of the spagyric course of, every part revolves round. Then the crops work on us. The crops heal us, the crops educate us, the crops develop into a bridge to attach us to those archetypes, after which they rework us into dwelling medication. That is in the end the trail of the alchemical herbalist.
On this approach we affect the medication we create and the significance of our intent and protecting our hearts and minds actually pure and actually clear after we are making medication. However there’s additionally this different stage of drugs making in alchemy that entails this deeper stage of our interior work and our meditation and studying the best way to embody and transfer the power of those archetypes with which we work.
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