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.

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.

Dream Magic

Last night I dreamt I was visiting some healers and I was to teach a class or participate somehow in a healing ritual and when I went into the bathroom there was dried lavender strewn all over the floor.
I spent a good deal of time in the dream, tripping out on the flowers, wondering if as a guest I should sweep up the herbs, or if I should strew them in the room where the class was to be held.
I came to the conclusion that it was perfect, because everyone uses the bathroom and therefore, gets the purifying and healing medicine of the plants and also when you step on them it releases essential oils and each person carries that with them through the house creating a sort of herbal, magical weaving of scent and magic.
It wasn't until I began writing this that I am reminded of the obvious connection that I too, have a room with dried lavender strewn upon the floor. Our guest room aka the room always in transition, began with a vintage dresser purchased from a divey used furniture shop that needed a little purification. I bought it in the fall when it was time to cut back the lavender and I put big bunches into each drawer.
When the time came to put clothes into these drawers, I thought I would burn the flower stems, first because they smell divine and secondly as an offering.
I try to be thoughtful and even though it seems superstitious and old fashioned, I think offerings are very real and important. No matter if you leave flowers at the graveside of your ancestors, or money in an offering tray at church, or burning sacred (they all are) plants in the fire, each of us should find a way to take a moment every now and again to give thanks for all that we have been given.
Wow that was a tangent, so in the end I decided as an intermediary step (before the burning) that I would strew them about the floor and purify and bless the entire misused room and each time I go in to get a this-or-a-that the scent is activated and it's lovely.
just a thought.
xo