Herbalism is our way of life, our Religion. It is the way of the Past Masters, the adepts of all traditions. At the core of all religions, initiatory traditions, paths and lineages is an alchemical visionary herbalism of the Philosophers. The participation in this age old Craft, Art and Science is a lifelong initiation, a constant, relentless study beyond notions of passion or business. The true teacher is illness and death, the supreme teacher of reality. The true alchemy is the healing of pain, sickness and trauma, the transmutation of toxicity into medicine. The Goal of the Wise is the empowered connection with the healing energies, the therapeutic currents of the initiates of old. The thorough study involves masters, teachers, beyond 10,000 hours of saturation into the subject, a complete, absolute immersion that permeates all aspects of consciousness. You eat the herbs, smoke the herbs, wash and bathe and cook with them, sleep with them and through them, speak with them. You develop relationships, guilds, allies in their spiritual realms. The sentience, intelligences and aspects of plants revealed through their signatures, their aromas, their taste, smell and effects. Their folk lore, the ancestral wisdom, the shared knowledge and techniques, the blending and synthesis of traditions, the new fusions when cultures and ecologies collide. This is the miracle book of nature, the divine goddess footsteps leading to the walled garden of Truth.
The botanical correspondences of the herbalist extend to the time of harvest, the method of preparations, the studies of the star charts, the interactions, the intentions, the lineages, the skillful means of Masters. The mode of healing is a cathartic, oracular, magical ritual to draw in and down celestial energies and the source energy that projects the matrix womb universe of this mater or mother or matter Goddess world. The ancients in sickness would magically retire, in ceremonial theurgical healing, talismanic and sigilized atmospheres of the womb, the rebirth of a new person. The healer would align the patient’s senses with the healing gods and spirits, acclimating the mind to the divine energies, occupying the senses with the color, the aroma, the form and sound of the god. The empowering sacred plants are the living god, the en-theo-gen, ingested and invoked, tasted and absorbed.
The most basic dedication and mastery is in the craft of complete processing and apothecary skills, the simples, the ungents, ointments, balms, salves, elixirs, electuaries, the tinctures, pills, incenses, vinegars, wines, the powders, the plant stones, the spagyric and alchemical alloys. The attention to detail, the striving to find the most safe, but dynamic herbs that can truly heal chronic issues. The striving and practice and study for skill, the honing of intuition, the clinical work, prayers and prostrations, ordeals and initiations, combine the empowering compassion and healing intention and devotion from the decades of accumulating a laboratory, a library, finding teachers and ethical sources, producing medicines, products, education, producing monographs for open source sharing, even into the tiniest details of tradition in ancient scales, handcarved shaman’s mortar and pestles, hand hammered artisan copper stills, handblown glass retorts and hand formed pottery stills and crucibles, down to the personally whittled spoons and scoops in measuring, that fuse the deepest, piercing intention from the lifelong devotion of the herbalist’s way into the very essence of every medicine.
