wildflowerwalker

An Alchemical Journey with Yarrow.

Making spagyrics is an enormous dive into experiencing a herb. Alchemy is a layered experience. The deeper you journey with a plant, the more layered the messages become. What may not make sense at the beginning, usually comes together at some point!  In this article you’ll see the step by step building of information as it comes.

Yarrow calls.

She is ready. It feels right. But then I have doubt. The alchemy course is set to start on a Tuesday, the new moon, yet Yarrow is said to be a plant of Venus and Tuesday is ruled by Mars. (When making spagyrics, we work closely with the planets, as plants are a manifestation of them.)

She speaks:  “I am the shadow side of Mars. Venus and Mars are two sides of one pole, I contain Mars as a shadow energy. However, I will show you the strength and fierce protection that can stand up and fight for a cause without the bloodshed of Mars.”

A herb of Venus

Yarrow has long been known as “the pretty little herb of Venus.“

• Venus is magnetic, feminine, harmonious.
• In astrology Venus relates to the desire for connection, the urge to socialise and come together. When it is out of balance = pliancy.
• Venus in the body rules the reproductive system, kidney, bladder, thyroid, and venous circulation.
• Venus plants warm and moisten, yet they are also diuretic, astringent, nervine, antispasmodic.
• An excess of Venus energy can result in a damp relaxed state.
• A deficiency of Venus results in wind/tension.
• From this you can see that Venus plants have an effect on fluids and the holding of them; just as Venus rules the emotions.

 

Yarrow spagyric medicine making Day 1:

All alchemical spagyrics start with a deep connection with the plant. For a plant medicine to have power, we need the deva of the plant to inhabit it. In order for this to happen we need to befriend it and have conscious communication with it.

Our first interactions with Yarrow revealed these brief yet potent insights:

• She is grounded and centred, strong and still like a mountain, unshakeable. Endurance, perseverance, sustained energy.
• Spider medicine. The softness of a web. The web as nest. Web of connection.
• Connects womb, heart and throat so we can express from this.
• Clears and opens the throat and voice, helps you speak out and find your song.

In spagyric making processes, the whole plant is used. Death is a vital part of the process. We only ever do this with permission from the plant.  As we dig up Yarrow, with great care not to break any roots, it is discovered that the roots are like a giant web connecting to many other plants in a big circle, an underground network of yarrow roots. She is all about interconnection.

“It’s the web of connection that makes us strong. Our strength is in our connectedness.” 

Yarrow is about connection. She brings support through connection.  She heals all types of separation. Yarrow reconnects – heals disconnections from lineage, spirit, sisters, womb/feminine, earth, each other, cycles, our wisdom, from abundance (scarcity wounds).

She reconnects us to our receiving pathways, clears the womb so we can receive, so we can conceive.

She is a matriarch, she covers all the phases of womanhood.

 

Spirit tincture insights:

A teaching from Yarrow:

She shows a story of the feminine shadow. The spider web. Yarrow is a beauty medicine, for toning the skin, keeping it young. Beauty routines are often all about “come into my womb/my web”. The shadow of this is ALLUREMENT.

Long, long ago as far back as ancient Egypt, women used their beauty to allure men and gain power over them. Due to this, men developed a deep fear of being seduced by the feminine and losing their power. This deep fear of the power of the feminine lead to its control and suppression. Yarrow is showing me what has been hidden: that women using the negative feminine, played a part in feminine oppression. We must acknowledge the part of both sides – it was not just men at the root of the patriarchy, but the negative feminine.

She can help us to turn the tides of patriarchy, by reclaiming what we have separated from. But in order to do this, we need to honour our part in creating it. e.g. the feminine shadow.

She feels like a mountain, strong, still, very grounded and rooted.

Yarrow Song:

Together we stand, hand in hand

feet on the earth for this time of rebirth.

United we stand, feet on the land,

we breathe as one, we will not be overcome.

 

Day 2: Commencing the Salt process

Working with the body or salt of a plant is always when the dirt comes out! It’s the ego burning process and is generally the most challenging.

Themes that arose:

• Keep going, don’t stop energy. (Yarrow is a survivor, has lived 40-60000 years.)
• Brings strength to keep going and overcome all adversity.
• Industriousness or laziness.  Yarrow contains both. Over-relaxed Venus, or the highly strung and tense, can’t stop to process energy.
• Strength comes from softness and a connection to the web.
• Like labour, Yarrow gives us strength to keep going. Brings us the strength to endure and to receive our own wisdom – menopause.

She teaches that there is great power and strength in the womb. Yarrow can help us hold, harness and contain that womb power. When we are feeling full, abundant, nourished, like our cup is full, this gives us strength and the capacity to give more. The womb is the chalice for these feelings of nourished abundance.

Softness is a strength. The softness of the feminine is incredibly powerful.

Shadow/Polarities.

Yarrow is a support to move through shadow feminine. Supports the feminine in both men and women. Weeds out illusions of the feminine. Brings feeling back into the masculine.

Yarrow can hold both polarities, the opposites. And being able to hold both is growth, kundalini, strengthening, balance of opposites.

Integration of masculine and feminine.  Integration of the shadow parts of ourselves.

Nervous System and Cell Communication.

“I am the force that connects two cells, two nerves, two people.”

Yarrow is like the nerves of the earth, a plant internet. When too connected – information overload, too sensitive.

Yarrow has a part to play in nerve conduction through protecting the nerves, this allows messages to travel more efficiently. Possibly myelin sheath? or fluids nourishing the nerves?

Without the nerves being protected sufficiently, we may become raw and open, super vulnerable to outside influences (Yarrow long used in protection amulets); but can also be a feeling of disconnect, brain confusion, not making connections, can’t put things together. B12.

Yarrow plays some part in cell communication. When we lack fluid, cells can’t communicate properly – Na/K system. Sense of tension and confusion. Yarrow nourishes and balances fluid. This a Venus mechanism. Yarrow is both astringent and nourishing depending on what is needed.

Oneness/Unity Consciousness.

Yarrow has magical properties. It LINKS things, helps us find common ground. Melds us into the collective, by finding what is common. Compost activator.

Yarrow relates to the spark of light within all cells, the spirit that unites us all. When these sparks that are in every cell resonate as one, we have unity in the body.

Yarrow is a survivor, survived 40-60000 years as able to stay connected with spirit/life force. With this connection it is able to withstand all the changes. The more we connect to our light, the commonality in all, the easier to adapt and survive.  Ability to connect to all different people and vibrations (vulnerability is strength here), then can adapt and fit in with the tribe = survive.

Yarrow reconnects us with unity/spirit/oneness. The more we connect with this the more we shed of our ego. Layers and layers of shedding.   Yarrow has been through centuries of layers and can guide us through them.

The more we connect with unity/spirit, the more we appreciate our bodies – the joy of having them, the senses etc. So it is very grounding, brings us back into body.

Day 3: The Soul process.

Yarrow offers support for when we are stretching ourselves. When we are going beyond our boundaries, pushing our edges, next level…stretching our limits.

Stretching, growing pains, kundalini rising, .

Good during transitions, links old and new, supports us through these stretching times where having to give our all.

Day 4: The Sacred Marriage.

Embodiment

“Come home to your body. Feel what is there. Come back, call yourself back in. Stay focused and centred, don’t drift off and out. Stand in your power. Contain it.”

Yarrow is a herb of embodiment. Deeply feminine, it teaches us to come into the body and to feel the pleasures and pains of being human. Its astringent action brings us into the body, so we can feel our boundaries and experience the life we came for.

Yarrow helps us to fully process what’s going on through our bodies, allowing emotions and experiences to move through and integrate.

Healthy Yarrow – deep embodiment, a sensation of yumminess throughout the body, the feeling of a full cup. A state of deep connectedness. In this state release happens naturally – we stretch, yawn, sigh or sound. Release happens as its needed, not suppressed or stored for later.

If we aren’t feeling like this, then we could benefit from Yarrow.

Yes this is huge, we are a very disconnected, disembodied culture and Yarrow is here to help!!

When:

• exhausted, run down, running on empty, in survival mode, can’t process anything in this state. Disconnect in order to survive.
• industriousness to avoid feeling what’s arising (have to feel everything and shed layers in order to get to this yumminess)
• Or too lax – bleeding everywhere. Not contained in the body. Menorrhagia – letting our power run dry, unable to contain it, leaking out.
• Any tightness in the body then need Yarrow. If not feeling the deliciousness of having a body and enjoying its sensations, Yarrow can help us. When too constricted, tense, tight, like when running on empty, in survival mode, Yarrow relaxes so can fill up again and receive our spirit/soul and its messages again.
• There may be a bit to process first though if its been suppressed awhile.
• When IN the body, then we can feel our boundaries. This brings us in, contained.
• Yarrow is astringent, when we are too out there, it can bring us back into the body, ground and embody ourselves again. Astringes the spirit into the containment of the body.

Yarrow is for INTEGRATION:

All parts of the self need to be acknowledged and felt. You can’t feel connection without knowing disconnection. Yarrow helps us embody and integrate our shadow side, all parts of us.

SUMMARY

Connection/embodiment.  Integration.  Unity consciousness.

Yarrow connects. It creates links so that communication can occur between two cells, two nerves or two beings. It looks for the common ground between two forces as it knows this is what will unify. It teaches that polar opposites are but two sides of the same coin and both must be acknowledged and integrated.

Yarrow is a herb of embodiment. Deeply feminine, it teaches us to come into the body and to feel deeply the pleasures and pains of being human. Its astringent action brings us into the body, so we can feel our boundaries and experience the life we came for.  

Healthy Yarrow – deep embodiment, a sensation of yumminess throughout the body, the feeling of a full cup. A state of deep connectedness. In this state release happens naturally – we stretch, yawn, sigh or sound. Release happens as its needed, not suppressed or stored for later.

Yarrow helps us integrate all parts of ourselves – shadow side, masculine/feminine. It helps us integrate all emotions whether we like them or not. It is a herb to bring things through the body, to allow all experiences, emotions, feelings to move through the body naturally. It helps us to integrate and allow all rather than avoid or suppress.

Good for:

• industrious people – on the run from their shadow side, very active and busy so as to keep down what they’re not facing.
• those in survival mode for a long time – exhausted from having to keep going. Big trauma remedy, where there’s no time to process emotions and let them move through as must keep going in order to survive. Can take us back to past events that we were unable to process at the time, in order to integrate them.
• those who are too out there, vulnerable, too connected to other realms, need to come into their body, to feel the boundaries of their skin. In this sense it is a big protection remedy – to be embodied. Astringes us back into the body.
• for those in disconnect – from their bodies, feelings, emotions and the life experience. Not putting two and two together.
• Those too lazy, don’t want to do the work, put in the effort involved to evolve. This is a herb of self discipline. The warrior within. Yarrow is an evolutionary plant that has survived 40 000 years.

Has the ability to tone/astringe the fluids if excessive or nourish and provide when dried out.

Yarrow is the gateway to Unity Consciousness. It can connect us to anything we have been separated from, whether its ourselves or the stars, helping us to remember that all is contained within us.

 

Get a bottle of Yarrow Spagyric Essence here