Last of the Calendula flowers taken down from the rafters, brittle dry and brilliantly orange.
“Ten thousand year old Tobacco,” rolled as tightly as juicy leaves would allow, now unfurls, light as a feather with paper rustling fragility of a fall wasps nest. Its delicate textures of leaf and stem, edged in greens and filled with mocha browns where slow drying has cured the leaf. The aroma of the cured Tobacco is rich, round and heavenly. How elegantly it lends itself to become the perfect snuff! A little dry flaky leaf rubbed between the fingers produces the finest sneezing powder, clearing the head, expelling mucus and waking a sluggish mind with a rush of oxygen.
Stored for a few days in a humidor it is ready to be rolled into cigarillos, cigars or cut for cigarettes,( which seems a crude and inelegant use when compared with the alternatives). I will probably flake some of the leaf to use in a burning/Smudge mix, and would love to make a perfume tincture from whatever is left over. My only concern with using the Tobacco leaf as a perfume ingredient is the possible toxicity of its Nicotine content absorbed through the skin. It is not something I can really measure with the equipment I have, or afford to have measured by a laboratory for such a small amount.
This Scorpio Lunation seems an appropriate time to pull down the rest of the herbs still drying, finish up any oils and tinctures still macerating, and tie up as many loose ends from this season. Freeing me up for the next stage in the cycle.
Today the Puffball Mushroom slices will come down from drying since it is monday. Probably shortly, seeing as dawn is almost upon me.
There are conflicting opinions as to which planets and signs “rule” Mushrooms in general. The Moon is my choice. With its cycles and mysteries, and after over twenty years of hunting, eating and using mushrooms for medicine, I cannot think of a planetary energy that they resonate with better than the moon.
Does working in harmony with these planetary energies really make a difference in the quality and effectiveness of herbal preparations? Or of food for that matter? This is a question each of us must ask ourselves. There is an abundance of information and knowledge to be gleaned online, but this is one of those subjective esoteric “mysteries” of life, where only from within can we know with any verity what is real. Where only our personal experience and intuition can give us the answers we seek. Finding our answers from within.
Perhaps it is at this point, we might find a balance between head and heart, Science and spirit, small self and higher SELF. Forge our own individual path through our perceptual limitations to a world much greater than what we have been lead to believe, add our expanded view of reality and higher vibrational rate to the planet, and perhaps find ourselves perceiving this world in a much different way. Closer to old and ancient friends and spirits, masters and guides, a little closer to a bigger world view, to our destinies and our reason for being with this planet.
Hokey, new age double talk? Or a new way of thinking of things?
Certainly food for a good thought.
Answers to important questions that no one outside ourselves can give us.