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Moon
Silver, Monday
Emotions, instincts, dreams, feminine, nurturing, receptive, sensuality, wilderness, intuition, poetry, fertility, magnetic, cold, womb, brain, bladder, stomach, pancreas, body fluids
Shatavari
“Hundred Husbands”
Shatavari is one of the famous ayurvedic herbs. It is a main building tonic for women. It is rejuvenative for the female reproductive tract and builds the blood.
This herb is used as a moisturizer for the membranes of the lungs, digestive tract, the kidney and the urinary tract.
Shatavari reduces stress. It attunes us with our inner goddess.
This herb increases fertility , increases immunesystem, increase milk and sexual secretions and is an aphrodisiac. It is helpful in menopause, hormonal symptoms such as PMS, menstrual cramps, mood changes, hot flashes.
Forest Violet
“Do you think amethysts can be the souls of good violets?”
– M. Montgomery
Violets are suited when mucosal membranes are dry, for dry cough, and indicated in lymphatic stagnation. Violets work as a dissolver and may ease constipation.
Violets are soothing to the restless and calming to the nerves. Reduces excessive and unwanted thoughts.
Full of fragrance when you meet them up close, they are easy to miss when walking by. Likewise people who need violet have many gifts that are often overlooked by others. Sensitive and highly perceptive, they hold back from contact with others for fear of being unrecognized or misunderstood.
Heather
Heather is said to grow over the final resting place of Faeries.
In recent years heather has been used successfully, to treat rheumatic pains.
The reason for this is probably because it contains a substance that removes excess uric acid from the body. Heather may be used as both an antiseptic and detoxifier. It is nice in warm water with honey for a sore throat. It contains many minerals and is considered a fertility plant.
Heather is a mild sedative and can be good to sleep on, taken internally as well as inside a dream pillow or mattress. It is good for the nerves and the heart.
The virtues of a mattress made from Scottish heather were described by King James VI's tutor, George Buchanan:
'…… so pleasant, that it may vie in softness with the finest down, while in salubrity it far exceeds it…. and restores strength to fatigued nerves, so that those who lie down languid and weary in the evening, arise in the morning vigorous and sprightly.'
Jujube date
“Three red dates a day keep you young forever.” – Chineese proverb.
The jujube fruit, the ziziphus jujuba also known as the Chinese date, has potent health benefits. Because jujubes contain a large amount of antioxidants, they can help improve the immune system and overall health. They have a strengthening effect and contain plenty of phytochemicals. Their impressive nutritional content also includes a notable amount of vitamin C, vitamin A and vitamin B2. Jujubes also contain vital minerals, such as manganese, iron, phosphorus and calcium. These elements work synergistically to create general health and well being and bolster the immune system.
Red dates are especially prized by women for their beauty and health effects. As they are very nourishing to the blood they are often eaten by women during their menses and after giving birth. Jujubes are considered and “elixir of life.”
The potent chemical extracted from jujubes, jujuboside A, affects the hippocampus in the brain and is often used as a natural sleep aid. Jujubes can be used to treat both insomnia and anxiety.
Jujube purify the twelve Organ meridians, especially the Stomach, which is the body’s “center” and represents the Earth Element in the Five Phase System. Red jujubes are also said to “clarify the nine openings” including the eyes, ears, sinuses, nose, throat, bowels and urinary tract. They have a long history of being considered excellent at building strength and extending life. In China they are considered able to tonify the Heart, Lung and Stomach functions. They are also said to dry up mucous while simultaneously moistening the tissues.
It is often used in Chinese herbalism as a Yin counterpart to strong Yang herbs such as Ginseng.
Lady´s Mantle
The Alchemist distills the Gold of a Thousand Mornings.
Lady´s Mantle has a time honored traditional use as a woman's healing herb. Lady´s Mantle has astringent and styptic properties, on account of the tannins it contains. It is a very healing herb for the womb and can be helpful for painful menstruations. It is a fertility herb, also good to use during and after pregnancy.
As a heart-tonic Alchemilla can be combined with prescribed medications. Strengthens the arteries. Good for swollen feet and legs.
The botanical name, Alchemilla, or “little alchemist” speaks of the uses of Lady’s Mantle which have the ability to transform. Matthew Woods writes an account of this in The Book of Herbal Wisdom.
The alchemists found interest in the fact that the morning dew gathers like a translucent pearl in the center of the fan-like leaves, well into almost mid-day, when other plants are all dried off.
“Something within it is distilling the essence and simultaneously helping to preserve it. In a material sense Alchemila must correspond to processes which encourage cohesion on the surface of the droplet and prevent vaporization, while at the same time (and plants seem to work in two opposite directions) it must possess the ability to refine and distill fluids into their most subtle expression or essence.”
In the same way in which the subtle, invisible membrane preserving the cohesion and integrity if the droplet is maintained, we can imagine Alchemilla making a subtle, invisible membrane around a person. It is encouraging integrity and cohesion. It works uplifting and empowering. It is about a kind of inner circulation and distillation.
It is healing to the emotional waters of the body and supports healing from sexual trauma.
Milky Oats
“Joy all creatures drink
At nature's bosoms…” ~ Friedrich von Schiller
The oat is harvested in its milky stage when it is green and contains a milky substance which is highly nourishing. It is especially soothing for a burnt-out nervous system. It is deeply healing for the frazzled nerves and also for a crashed stomach, perhaps if the gut is unbalanced after antibiotics.
Milky oats is also beneficial for persons with deficiencies or malnourishment. It is also a demulcent. Milky oats is a nervine tonic and trophorestorative.
A burned-out person needs to rest and does not benefit from adaptogenes, to come back to the same stressful life that caused the burn-out. A burned-out person benefits from nourishing the body, mind and soul to be able to handle life with an inner calm and knowing when it is time to slow down and how to make priorities.
Milky oats is ideal for people with overactive crown chakras, tending towards nervousness, anxiety, and high levels of sensitivity to the environment. Milky oats is also helpful when dealing with depression.
Milky oats is often helpful for people struggling with addiction. Addiction is often at the root about lack of nourishment on a soul level. One thinks that there is something lacking to be able to be satisfied without the addiction, because one is afraid there is not enough nourishment in other ways.
Milky oats is an energizer, but it does this cumulatively, building energy slowly and consistently by deeply nourishing the entire body. It alleviates both physical and nervous fatigue. It is metaphorically nursing directly from Mother Earth.
Mugwort
Artemis – goddess of the moon and mother of nature
Mugwort is a womb herb, used for PMS, menstrual pain and too much bleeding during menses. Mugwort can help people sensitive to light and noise, restless sleepers and sleepwalkers. It is also indicated for anemia.
Good for memory especially for people who can´t remember simple words, names, but can describe complex, abstract and difficult concepts.
Mugwort is indicated for people who get angry or arrogant when other people can´t follow their train of thought and people who speak fast, mumbled, words or syllables reversed. Mugwort is for highly intelligent, gifted and artistic people who lack common skills and comprehension.
For those whom the intuitive, psychic, psychological, creative and artistic side of the mind is highly developed, but who have trouble with expression or with the world around them.
Mugwort is a dream herb. It is a herb for imagination, daydreaming, creative and intuitive processes.
It is good for everybody, men included, who want to come into contact with their feminine instincts.
Sacred Blue Water Lily
“The sky was a midnight-blue, like warm, deep, blue water, and the moon seemed to lie on it like a water-lily, floating forward with an invisible current.” – Willa Cather
The Sacred Blue Egyptian Water Lily is deeply relaxing for the body and mind, it is hypnotic and sedative. It is also a cardio-tonic – strengthening the heart. It is also an aphrodisiac.
An aid for yogis as it is a plant for meditation. It is also a helpful herb for dreamwork. The blue-violet color of this flower is a signature of the affinities with the third eye and the crown chakra.
From the murky dark mud it rises up bestowing magnificent blossoms. It shows us our experience in human evolution, as it blooms – so can we. It is a metaphor for our reunion with oneness. I connect this flower to the divine feminine creative power, Shakti.
Shakti is both responsible for creation and the agent of all change. Shakti is cosmic existence as well as liberation, its most significant form being the Kundalini Shakti, a mysterious psychospiritual force.
Southernwood
The sweet glistening core inside the black stone of sorrow
Southernwood is a strongly aromatic bitter herb that improves digestion and liver function by increasing secretions in the stomach and intestines, it stimulates the uterus and encourages menstrual flow, lowers fevers, relaxes spasms and destroys intestinal worms. The main use of this herb is as an emmenagogue, though it is also a good stimulant tonic and has some nervine principle.
Southernwood open the pores, liquify thick fluids, and raise the inner heat to drive obstructions and chills to the surface and out through the pores. Thus, it fights putrefaction and was used against the plague, and can induce fever in order to cleanse the body. Southernwood is antiseptic and stimulant.
The goddess Artemis is the protector of the mother and infant, the animals and the wilderness.
On an energetic level Southernwood helps to purge and release the old to leave space for the new. It has the ability to transform bitter memories, to move past them, release and no longer attach to them in order to bring back the sweetness to life.
Personally I connect Southernwood to the balsamic moon-phase, the ending of a cycle, the crone-aspect of the divine femenine. After a whole cycle of distilling out the essence , the sweet core can be found in the bitterness. Strong intuition, lunar qualities, the hunter transmuted to alchemist.
As Kolavippen, Death, a character created and interpretated by Hasse Alfredsson in the childrens book and film “Jim and the Pirates Blom”, smashes the black stone of sorrow and reveales a diamond he explains: “This is the core of sorrow. See how it glistens! This is the finest part of sorrow , never get rid of that, because you need it to understand others. It lightens you up from within!”
Valerian
“Without phosphorus there would be no thought.”
— Jacob Moleschott
Valerian is a remedy for insomnia, to relax muscles and ease pain.
It is especially indicated for spinal pain and people who holds anger inside, causing a knotted feeling in the stomach or low back.
The root of Valerian glows in the dark of the earth by releasing phosphor which is nourishing the soil and guiding worms and insects in the dark. Valerian help plants draw what they need from the cosmos and the earth by regulating the phosphorus processes.
As inner spiritual light, phosphorus relates to the alchemical dark light, the sol niger. The dark light represents a psychic process in which we endure painful experiences and feelings, resulting in inner spiritual and psychological growth. Food for thought.
Wood Betony
Sell your coat and buy Betony!
Old italian proverb
Wood Betony is a herb for the head. Tension, new and older injuries to the head, headache and to strengthen the connection between gut and brain. It is a relaxant for the muscles, mucous membranes and of the nerves. It is good for ulcers and other digestive complaints.
it is a nervine, good for spaced-out people with a solar plexus deficiency. It helps the gut coordinating the digestive process and is grounding.
Wood Betony is said to protect from evil projections, jealousy and envy. Perhaps by strengthening the solar plexus, the will and survival instincts get stronger so they have no effect.