Datura

I don't know why I am posting two poisonous plants in a row, but here they are and aren't they gorgeous?
Again, let me say, this plant is poisonous. I do not recommend ingesting it in any way. I am sharing my own personal experience in an anecdotal way.

Datura is known by many names: Moonflower, Jimson Weed, Devil's Weed, Angel's Trumpet and Thorn Apple are the most popular.
It belongs to the nightshade family.

Datura grows wild and domesticated all over Portland and all over the US and Mexico.

I made a flower essence from it many years ago. It was amazing.
I always say and truly believe to get the real essence from a flower essence, make one.
The essence will be with you forever. Just make a couple in your lifetime. It's like a constitutional.
A constitutional remedy is a remedy that works on a deep cellular level to bring the body and emotions back to a state of health and balance. ...
Let your instincts guide you to the plant you will make an essence from and just be with it, meditate on it, commune with it. Sit in the sun while the flower is giving itself up to the water.
When I made my Datura Flower Essence I meditated and visioned for it's gifts. It was really just a deep listening.
(I used white datura stramonium for my essence)
After I was completely transfixed and transformed by the experience I composted the flower and poured the water into the perfect vessel. I then sipped from the remaining
liquid in the bowl.
There were a dozen of us, each with our own flower essence and in the end we each left with a dozen essences. It was, as I keep repeating, incredible and yet, I have never needed the remedy ever again.
I can see in my mind's eye where the remedies are in my herb room and there they will stay until someone else needs that specific magic.
The lesson? The wisdom of the Datura flower essence that I received?
The ability to connect with those who have past and the ability to release them into the light and carry on.
To connect to the reality of death without being traumatized by it.
To accept death as a natural part of the cycle of life.
To glimpse the places that separate life and death.

It's lovely and exotic and it smells like peanut butter.
And, it's poison.

It is full of alkaloids. Part of the family of eens: nicotine, caffeine, morphine and so on.
Many beloved, many demonized.
The sweet violet flower has a similar alkaloid taste to tobacco.
All to varying degrees, poisonous alkaloids.
And oh so pretty.

*This Datura was photographed at a co-op in Bellingham, Wa, late this summer. It was with the ornamental garden plants.

Scotch Broom

Scotch Broom is generally an unloved plant.
Considered a noxious weed by most, I don't recommend planting it, nor do I judge you for ridding your property of it. What I do hope is that the next time you happen by it is to take a small moment to recognize and appreciate it's beauty.
It looks almost as sexy and exotic as an orchid to me.

As we begin the descent into Fall, I find myself romanticizing the passing Summer. I don't love the reality of summer, just the fantasy. It's too hot and unstructured for me, although I do love to sleep in.
(I took this picture in June in Portland.)

Antique Keys

I have a thing for keys.
Old keys.
Not valuable per se, but cool, funky, lovely, old keys.
I've been collecting them since I bought a cigar box full of them a million years ago.
It seems like every 4th or 5th person I see these days is wearing a key around their neck.
Some are old keys and many are charms made to look like real keys.
Tiffany's even has a line of them.
Symbolism of keys is epic and widespread.
I'm not one of those people who believes what the dream books have to say, because our own feelings and thinkings of whatever we are wondering about are the best keys (no pun intended) to their meaning for ourselves.

I do pay attention to fairy tale symbolism and have a dark soft spot for the tale of Bluebeard, which is full of keys. When I did a quick search on others opinions of the symbolism of keys in Bluebeard, it doesn't necessarily mesh with my own.
That's my point.
When you wonder what a symbol from a dream or from waking life means to you, check in with yourself.
What does it mean to you to find a Queen of Hearts playing card on the steps of the library?
What does it mean to dream of having a ring of keys and no door?
Trust yourself.
Find the key to your own intuition.
Or just find one you think is cool.

It doesn't have to be a big deal, there's magic there whether you believe it or not.


*Some people use keys as pendulums for purposes of divination.

Calendula Harvest

Many of the rewards for harvesting this amazing flower are obvious. The warm sun, the golden light beaming back at you, the buzz and dance of the honeybees and just the quiet joys of being in the garden. However, my favorite thing is the scent. The scent of the flowers themselves, but especially the smell that lingers with me. The flowers are full of resin and your fingers become sticky with it and smell like heaven.















As I pluck the brightest, stickiest ones for my salve, I am constantly deadheading the spent ones, discarding them to re-seed whenever they are ready.

Potion Making - Purification

The Purification Potion can be used to purify, clear and bless a space or a person in offices, clinics, cars and homes.
Magical Herbs
Rosemary - clears the mind as well as spaces, reminds one to stay present
White Sage - clears and dispels negativity
Cedar - clears while making a channel back for positivity and healing to flow back in
Lavender - gently purifies with love and peace
Bay - protective and visionary
Sea Salt - helps remove any unwanted psychic residue
Magic Stone
Clear Quartz Crystal is used to amplify the purifying qualities of the herbs in this potion, yet all on it's own it's clarifying, balancing and powerfully protective.
Elemental Magic
I burn Copal while making this Potion. Copal is amazing. Although I do add a bit of copal to the potion for its energetics, to really activate its energy fire is needed. Copal is a tree resin, alike in many ways to amber resin. It's lovely and fragrant in its softer crystalline stage before it hardens like a rock. The scent is released when burned on charcoal. It is a strongly purifying resin that has been used as such for hundreds, if not thousands of years.
Particularly Recommended for:
Those in service based jobs
Massage therapists
Counselors
Teachers
Retailers
Caregivers
Parents
When to use:
When you enter your space and it feels not quite right
Before a party to equalize the energy; to make it more welcoming
After a party or gathering to bring it back to a more neutral ground
When you arrive at work and don't feel ready to be there
After someone leaves your space and you feel uncomfortable
After you have had an argument or conflict
Before you go into meetings where you want to communicate clearly
When you are unsure of what to do next
Spray in doorways to bless those who walk through, including yourself
What else?
In some ways this is the simplest Potion, with the simplest ingredients that asks the least of me.
It's like rosemary itself; it's readily available, most everyone likes it, it goes with everything and it can do no harm.
Like the plant, the potion can be used in a million ways. When I'm not sure which potion is needed, I start here. If more is needed then the Purification Potion clears the way for me to know what is needed next.

Potion Making - Beginnings

I began with the Purification Potion about 8 years ago. It was part of a year long project that I embarked on where I focused on one plant and one goddess for each month for a year.
Rosemary was one of the monthly herbs.
During the month, I made different tea blends, studied historical uses, burned it, made hair rinses, wreaths, face scrubs and steams and so on.
It was during this time that it seemed like wherever I went people would be smudging, which is all well and good except that it didn't seem to mesh well with the elderly, the sensitive and allergic. Generally burning herbs indoors causes people to cough and makes many uncomfortable.
I love the idea of using herbs to purify. My stand-by for my own smudging at that time was sage, rosemary & lavender.
At our house smudging is done seasonally, like deep cleaning and I always open all the doors and windows.
I wanted to come up with a way to have the benefits without the harm.
A "smokeless smudge" was what I called it.
I brewed together
Rosemary - clears the mind as well as spaces, reminds one to stay present
White Sage - clears and dispels negativity
Lavender - gently purifies with love and peace
and a few other herbs with the intention of purification, put a little alcohol in it to keep it from going funky and put in in a spray bottle and voila! it was a smokeless smudge.
I liked it so well, and it worked so well, that I added it to the line of my home based herbal business Bliss Botanicals (no relationship to current online entities) and it became very well loved by customers as well.
When the time came for me to take the next step in my business it seemed that perhaps I should make more Potions.
I sat with this idea for days, scribbling ideas into my notebook.
Should I make 3 or 5?
Should they relate to elements? Earth-Air-Fire-Water?
Should they relate to deities? Planets? Colors?
I had enough inspiration and ideas for dozens of Potions. It wasn't hard to come up with lots of ideas, the hard part was narrowing it down.
Of course, there had to be a Love Potion, but I wanted it to be different than the cliched aphrodisiac potion of bad movies and old songs.
Money spells are often desired and a money potion was a contender.
A Luck Potion?
In a way it's like naming a baby. You come up with a bunch of great names and then you narrow it down to names that fit your family and then to the one that belongs to your baby. The name that was theirs all along that you just had to discover.
The Potions made themselves known and guess what?
They fit none of the boxes that would be easy to describe them.
Earth - Grounding
Fire - Empowering - Sun
Center - Purification - Clearing
Heart - Love
Moon - Perception
They are so lovely and I am honored to do this work.

Shirley Temple Cherries aka organic maraschino cherries

When I was little we rarely went to restaurants and when we did it was generally for a special occasion.
We would always wait to see if a grown up would suggest for us to order something to drink. The girls would get Shirley Temples and the boys Roy Rogers. It never occurred to me to want a Roy Rogers, even though I liked lots of other "boy" things.
It's funny to realize the only difference between the two is clear soda (ginger ale or 7up) versus dark soda (coke or pepsi).
A few years ago we went to an event where cocktails were being offered and our children were with us and as I was waiting in line I was reminded of the Shirley Temple.
We ordered them for the children and as I was watching it being made I could see that it was just a couple of ingredients.
I quickly tasted the simple concoction, much to the dismay of my waiting daughter and was immediately transported back in time.
Unlike many beloved childhood tastes, this one stayed true for me.
The children order them every so often when we're out and they're so lovely that I thought I'd get the ingredients to make them at home for birthday parties and other celebrations.
However, one of the key ingredients is maraschino cherries. One of those super poison foods I reluctantly let my children have every so often.
So here goes:
Step 1 make a non poisonous and still fun and yummy preserved cherry
step 2 make grenadine syrup
step 3 buy ginger ale and straws
step 4 assemble and indulge

Today I made a version of preserved cherries, it goes like this:
Pit 2 cups tart & sweet cherries
In a small saucepan add 1 cup organic sugar and 1 cup water, bring to a boil and stir. Boil until all the sugar is dissolved.
let cool a bit, add 1/2 teaspoon almond extract and 2 teaspoons rose water
pour liquid over cherries, stir
pour it all into a glass jar with a lid
should keep for a month or so refrigerated

Now I need to make the grenadine syrup before my children return from summer camp, so we can celebrate with Shirley Temples.
I already have ginger ale and bendy straws!