In the Dark
Here we all are, inside, changing our lives, and no one asked us about it. This New Moon brings us, with force, a newness we may not have asked for, just like this “novel” virus. We are being told to adapt. We don’t have a choice. In a way we are in the dark about what comes next. We are turned inwards, observing our patterns and behaviors, having to face ourselves.
A Dream Come True
In some ways, it feels like a dream come true. For how long have I dreamed of the world slowing down to the rhythm of our souls! I’ve slowed myself way down in the past few years. I’ve always wanted to find another way to live on the Earth than the one proposed. Yet the reality of this current time is messy and uncomfortable. I worry about how will all adapt and know that many of us will pay a price for this forced alteration. I keep drawing the Tower card in my Tarot readings. What was built will crumble. But I also keep seeing the Wheel of Fortune. What goes around comes around. We are on this Earth, in this big cycle of life. We will have to build anew what has been destroyed.
In the Fire
So we are in this new place, with this New Moon, all afire in Aries. It’s burning our old truths, a wake up call. Some call it an initiation. It’s a trial by fire. It is full of potential. I feel less and less mired in the darkness of my past. It’s all burning up in the dark. It’s intense. Chiron, the wounded healer, is riding with this New Moon, reminding us of our deepest, oldest wounds. Mars, Jupiter and Pluto are still in Capricorn, and Saturn just passed into Aquarius. Nothing feels light, even the light doesn’t feel light, but a spring wind is starting to blow. The next Full Moon is known as the Wind Moon, the one that comes with the Spring winds, the change of seasons, the melting of the snow. The Equinox fell on the weekend, and we cannot deny the energy that is pushing us forwards, driving us to embrace what is new.
Cosmic Flower Wisdom
I don’t usually focus on a single plant in my cosmic downloads, but this month will be a little different. This month I want to invite you into the story of my meeting with a plant which has strangely followed the cosmic rhythms. I say strangely but it is not strange. Plants are intimately connected to the stars, and flowers are the cosmic expression of a plant. They are star-facing, reflecting the movements and shapes of the spheres. They bring this heavenly, communicative energy down to us, and allow us to glimpse the wisdom of creation that is star born. Gerbert Grohmann writes that the “flower is the cosmic pole of the plant”. Flower Essences are a transmission of a plant’s cosmic wisdom, and working with plants ties us directly to the planets and their rhythms.
From Basilius Besler’s Hortus Eystettensis. Clary Sage is called here Horminum hortense
Clary Sage
So it is not so strange, that exactly 6 months ago, at the Aries Full Moon, I brought home a plant. I saved it from the compost and was told what it was. Clary Sage. The smell stayed with me for days. I left it in a white bucket, roots, earth and all, not knowing exactly what I would do with it. I knew it was powerful medicine and it sat in my cool kitchen through the winter. I did start to process the plant for its leaves. I moved the bucket out and started sorting the plant material in a basket, in the absent-minded way that I often do. Then last night, in the throes of Dark Moon angst, when the moon was in Pisces, I thought of a bath, and then realized I had no salts and then realized I did have a lot of this dried herb I had gathered last fall and wouldn’t that be good for the bath. I then realized the synchronicity of the moon timing. Why did this plant call to me exactly six months after I first brought her home, an entire zodiac moon progression later? She was ready to be used. This is not the first time a plant has proven to know of my future necessity, but I’d never experienced directly such magical timing. So, thinking of the depth of my wounds, so awake what with the Sun crossing Chiron, I put the whole basket of dried flowers, stems and all, into the bath, which turned a beautiful green. I sunk in.
Plant Wisdom
What happened when I did so? I began to feel the plant’s wisdom. Clearly and from a distance I began to see all the things that are a part of me that I reject sometimes and don’t want to see. These were no longer scary. She held me in her lap, protecting and comforting me. In my mind’s eye I saw her blue, cup-like flower as a place for me to hide. She enveloped me. She allowed me to see how far I have come.
Plant Synchronicity
There were more synchronicities as I learned about her after the bath. Clary Sage is also known as Clear Eye. She is associated with the Moon and Mercury. I remembered her blue flowers which speak to an association with the throat chakra, which is also the Messenger God’s domain. She is sacred to Diana, being lunar, and to Luna, so it is no surprise that she called to me on the eve of New Moon. She is good for heightening clairvoyance and divination. She helps you see clearly and was revered by the Romans for doing so, hence her Latin name, Salvia Sclarea. Salvia comes from the Latin salvare, to save, and she certainly saved me from the vertigo depths of my own darkness. See? she seems to say. You can take it. You can learn. She brought me the clarity to love all parts of myself. In French she is called Toute-bonne (All-good).
Plant Energy
She also is an aphrodisiac and she brought sensual pleasure to me as well, which was all the more welcome as I’ve been feeling the Venus in Taurus energies that are currently influencing us. I felt my heart beating. In Chinese medicine she is known as being good for Qui - life force energy, and in the hot bath I felt my blood flow again, as if my heart had stopped beating with worry these last few dark days, under the weight of my shadow and the shadows of the past, the shadow of all of humanity. It was as if she jump-started my heart, making me feel loving and lovable again. I was suddenly safe, even within the shadow. A friend testified that she helped with her childbirth and I read of her estrogen like components. She is a friend to the womb, in all of its dark, creative power.
Plant Power
The experience was very strong. I probably didn’t need to use the whole plant, but taking a bath in her green waters was like being in a forest of her growth, in a jungle of her leaves. I added baking soda and she helped me let go, shed the skin of the remnants of old stories I don’t want anymore, of stories I want to leave behind.
Seeing Clearly
Today, writing this, I feel freer of these old stories I wore like clothes, and there is a new layer of snow on the ground. On the land I currently live on there is a pond, frozen and dark, and as I look out, this dark in white, I see a surface, as if made for scrying in. What do I see? Through this darkness a rebirth. Six months ago, at the Aries Full Moon, I wrote about fear too, the poles of fear and confidence, and I can feel these same tensions now, though in more of an external way. We are being asked to reconsider how we relate to others, how we relate to our own fears. It might be a lot to ask, but the plants are here to help us, and we can each, at any time, tap into their learning. Our sources of information are expanding, and this can be exciting. But we do need to take time, go slow, listen to our bodies and listen to the Earth. I’ll be doing it too and would love to do it with you. Please reach out if you want to talk about opening further to plant wisdom. I have a selection of Flower Essences available for your to buy if you want to work with their cosmic wisdom and we can also talk about working on connecting to the plants together to help you through this challenging time. My experience with Clary Sage was just a beautiful reminder that the plants really are just waiting, waiting for us to reach out and ask, waiting to welcome us home again and again, to our new selves, to this new Earth.
Thanks for reading!
Equinox blessings to your inner and outer gardens,
Amy