Chapter 7
EARTH MAGICK & MEDICINE OF WINTER
Release & Rest: Dream & the Void | North · Earth · The Crone
The Portal of the North at a Glance
ELEMENT Earth
TIME OF DAY Night | 10:00 p.m.–4:00 a.m.
MOON PHASE Dark
SEASON OF SOLAR YEAR Winter | December, January, February
EARTH HOLY DAYS Yule (Winter Solstice) | February 2
WHEEL OF LIFE ARCHETYPE Crone | Age: 64+
ENERGIES Dormant, still, void consciousness, the hag, the hermit, solitude, otherworldly, nondoing, recovery, rest
HEALING HERBS
Nervines and sedative herbs Hops, kava kava, blue vervain
Adaptogenic, wisdom, and longevity herbs Reishi, eleuthero, chaga, gotu kola, ashwagandha, tulsi
Dreaming herbs, third eye openers Mugwort, blue lotus, passion vine
Medicinal Mushrooms Reishi, chaga, lion’s mane, turkey tail, shiitake, maitake
TENDING THE GARDEN The garden sleeps under mulch or rests under cover crops
APOTHECARY Taking shamanic journeys to inquire what kind of medicine wants to be made right now; Winter is often the time to make medicine for immunity and warding off infection with dried herbs, or double extractions of medicinal mushrooms.
RITUALS Rituals of rest, sleep, shamanic journeying; drumming, Aat making, journaling, reading; rituals of tending fire and flame; if need be, drawing on rituals from the South portal to keep the fires burning—lovemaking, cacao medicine, friction fire
REST TO REGENERATE YOURSELF, DARK CRONE
It is Winter. It is dark. This is not the time of doing. This is the time of dreaming and dissolving our consciousness into the fertile void from which all life comes and into which all life returns. There is renewal here, through stopping what you are doing and dropping deep into being in oneness with all that is. It is the pause in between breaths. It is suspension. It is the deep sleep when we dissolve into the dream of Gaia and remember not what occurred upon waking. From this time, we arise renewed. But the renewal itself is part of the mystery. And to enter the void, we must be willing to dissolve ourselves completely, offering ourselves to realms unknown. To merge our consciousness with the dark moon and the starry sky. To drop our body into the rest of hibernating animals that sleep in the caves and folds of the Earth Mother’s flesh. Humbling ourselves as we bow before the vastness of all we do not know, we become wiser and more whole.
Now is the time of the Crone. The old hag—wrinkled by time and experience, with a twinkle of magic in her eyes—has one foot beyond the veil. She is wild and fierce and deep in her love and sovereignty. She cares not about fitting in. She expands beyond the human realms and limitations of this Earthly plane. Her pull is the spiral of the galaxies, the dreams in the darkness, the singing over bones. She looks not for a lover or companion; done are her days of raising children and building matter. She belongs to the time of dissolving, her mind in the song of her rattle. She is mystic. She is hermit. In a healthy and whole society, there are those who honor and care for her, bring her food, seek her counsel, humble themselves to her wisdom, sweep her stoop, and warm her bones, so she can come and go, with or without (in or outside of) body. A whole culture holds space where she is allowed to be “crazy,” to be misunderstood. The flickers of clarity we may gather from her words are like a strand of pearls, of equal value to the velvet darkness in between each bead, which we will never grasp or understand. There is space for not knowing—here we learn to bow before the Great Mystery.
We enter our Crone time in the dark time of the night, in the deepest of sleep. We enter the portal with the dark moon each month and at the longest nights of the year in Winter. When we bleed our menses and connect to the dark moon, we are in our crone aspect—at our most psychic, with one foot in between realms. If we can release the worldly realms at this time and have our bones warmed and stoops swept, we can travel into mystical realms and cultivate our inner Crone even when linear age has us young and bleeding. These portals open to us. There is value in developing a relationship with all aspects of the whole, including our inner hag. While the gateway of the darkness and void consciousness is most secret and often feared or rejected, it is from this very fertile nothingness that the first spark of life emerges. Without death, there is no life.
“Die before you die,” said the Prophet Muhammad. In the portal of the North, we learn how to die. Here we dissolve. Here we become wise by realizing we know nothing at all. And we practice and get better at surrender, at bowing before the Great Mystery, at releasing control, at dying. Over and over and over again.
Rest to regenerate yourself,
dark Crone.
ENTERING THE PORTALS OF THE NORTH
The portal of the North is the void of darkness through which Nature’s energy passes to be fully released in the fertile darkness and emerge renewed. It is a mysterious moment of “in between”: the pause between breaths, the disappearing of the moon, the longest night of the year, the deaths we die before we die, and then the final death of our body, which releases our energy and soul in a way that none of us fully understand.
In the solar year, the season of Winter connects us to the energy of the Northern portal, spanning the months of December, January, and February in the Northern Hemisphere, with the Winter Solstice (December 20–23) marking the official start of Winter. It’s the longest night of the year, the portal of darkness, when many cultures pray for the rebirth of the sun. In the wheel of our lives, the North corresponds to the archetype of the Crone—the hag, hermit, and mystic.
We arrive in the Winter after releasing worldly obligations and linear doings in the Fall, becoming lighter and more fluid so we can dissolve into the void consciousness and merge with the Great Mystery. Our only work is to unravel ourselves so that we can drop deeply into restorative rest and deep sleep. There we enter the slow brain waves, which renew cells and bring harmony to our body functions.
Spiritually, in this state of deep rest, we dissolve our ego consciousness and our separate sense of self into the fertile darkness. In the moment of oneness with the fertile void, something mysterious and utterly magickal occurs: we become pregnant with the dream of Gaia. After this merging with the void consciousness, we begin to stir awake and bring our energy back to ourselves, awakening our boundaries of Self. Only this time, a part of the Great Mystery remains in us—an energetic imprint of the dream that Gaia is dreaming into being. This dream becomes a seed. As the energies of the year begin to wax, we journey into the moment of the first spark of Imbolc, where we often begin to feel sensations that echo the journey of becoming aware we are pregnant with child. When a woman physically becomes aware she is pregnant, she revels in the sensations and does not begin to assume who the child will be—it is too early to tell. In this case, we are spiritually pregnant with a seed that will grow through the unique flame and fire of our Self and blossom into Spring creations and Summer gifts, through us, for the world. It is too early to vision what we will birth. It is time to be in awe of the stirring inside, knowing it comes from beyond the construct of a human mind. Dissolving ourselves into the Winter portal allows us to birth creations and ride regenerative waves much greater than anything our small humanness could ever devise. In places that are largely unconscious and richly mysterious, we draw on waves of energy that crescendo through us as we wax with luminous moon, rise with the sap of the Spring trees, and bud with the apple blossoms.
ENTERING THE NORTH EACH NIGHT
In the twenty-four-hour wheel of the day, North corresponds to the nighttime and optimal hours of sleep, roughly from 10:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. The yin energies of relaxation of the Western portal carry us into deeply restorative rest at night.
If we have moved through the portal of the West in harmony, we will effortlessly slip into the North. The nervines we work with in the evening to help our minds and nerves unwind from the business of the day help us relax and get deeper sleep. Stronger doses of nervines or working with sedatives helps with insomnia or light sleeping. On the other hand, if we do not use the evening hours of the West to unwind and relax, and rather continue working right until we go to sleep, we are more likely to “crash” and then wake up in the middle of the night. The medicine of the North portal is regenerative sleep, during which our bodies heal, create human growth hormone, regenerate, and come into balance. Deep rest is imperative for our longevity.
Night Tools to Help You Enter Deep Realms of Restorative Rest
• Take a bedtime nervine or sedative tea or Kava Bliss Elixir (see here) before going to bed.
• Take a hot bath before going to bed.
• Have a massage.
• Meditate, pray, or do shamanic journeying.
• Avoid pollution in your bedroom, using blackout curtains if need be.
• Turn off electronics in your bedroom.
• Avoid screen time for at least thirty minutes (but ideally two hours) before bedtime.
• Use an app that reduces the blue light of your screens.
• Use aromatherapy for sleep, such as a lavender pillow, chamomile, or smudging your room (see here).
• Place a salt lamp by your bedside.
• Perform your nightly rituals by candlelight.
RESTING WITH THE DARK MOON
This magnificent refuge is inside you.
Enter.
Shatter the darkness that shrouds the doorway.
Be bold. Be humble.
Put away the incense and forget
The incantations they taught you.
Ask no permission from the authorities.
Close your eyes and follow your breath
To the still place that leads to the
Invisible path that leads you home.
—St. Theresa of Avila
The moment of the dark moon corresponds to true North and the longest night of the year at the Winter Solstice. In the lunar cycle, the few days on either side of the dark moon take us into the energies of this portal. However, it is truly the one night of the dark moon that is most potent for the spiritual and energetic merging with the fertile darkness.
For menstruating women, the first day of the moon cycle corresponds to the dark moon. The days of bleeding are their Winter and time of rest. According to a tradition of Chinese medicine many thousands of years old, a woman should truly rest, preferably in bed, drinking warm teas and broths, while she is menstruating for four days. It is hard for the modern woman to successfully take up this practice, but it is also one of the most ancient and effective strategies for healing hormonal imbalances, reducing the duration of length of bleeding, and reducing cramps and PMS in future cycles. It is also a phenomenal tool for aligning us with our body’s ability to regenerate itself. Women who begin this practice complete their cycle feeling revived and renewed, bursting with a new Spring-like energy. Some who maintain it have reported significant physical and energetic regeneration—feeling and looking more youthful!
Although it is easy to dismiss this practice as unrealistic, I suggest you throw that limiting belief into the cauldron of transformation and actually try it. A dear friend of mine did, while her identical twin dismissed it as impossible due to the demands of modern life. My friend used the Fall portal of her cycle to prepare for her Winter bleeding time—making soups and broths, arranging playdates and sitters so she could have alone time, and canceling appointments so she could stay home in bed. After a few months, not only did she find she had a tremendous amount of energy each Spring of her cycle, but people began to think she was younger than her twin. The physical, emotional, and spiritually regenerative effects of this ancient practice were impossible to deny. Now they both make it a priority to rest for four days during their moon time.
The bleeding woman will connect to the Winter portal during her menstrual cycle as well as during the dark moon of the lunar cycle. If her menstruation does not already align with the moon, she will connect to it twice a month. However, once women begin aligning their energy with herbs, practices, and lifestyle choices to flow with the regenerative currents of nature, the menstrual cycle often will align, and they will begin to bleed either on the full or dark moon. Some say that bleeding with the dark moon means you are in a “mother phase” of life, and bleeding with the full moon signifies you are in a “priestess phase.” Many women will bleed with either the dark or full moon and then switch every few months, depending on the energetics and transformations occurring in their personal and creative lives.
Tracking your menstrual cycle and how you feel throughout the lunar cycle is a wonderful way to learn directly from the magickal alchemy of your body, life, and connection to Nature. Each of us is a unique being undergoing continual transformations. Learning from our own experience helps us journey with greater awareness as we cycle around the wheel of the year, spiraling, never finding ourselves in the exact same space, given the third dimension of time.
For those who are not bleeding, resting with the dark moon and adopting the practices of this portal also allows you to enter the magickal energies where the veil is thin. It is a psychic time, ideal for divination, shamanic journeying, meditation, and the spiritual renewal that is found in the fertile void.
The practice of resting on the night of the new moon extends to our gardens as well. In biodynamic agriculture, we never do any gardening on the new moon. It is considered a day to rest, an important practice to cultivate regeneration in the Earth.
THE CRONE ARCHETYPE
The Crone is the hermit, the hag, the old lone wolf in a cave. She may be mad or enlightened—it is not for us to know. She is like Baba Yaga; she lives alone. Many fear her, yet she is the one we seek when we are lost in the dark. She is the one who lives closest to the void, so there are some mysterious similarities between the crone and the newborn. In many traditional cultures, the elders and the newborns spend much time together. Today, research shows how mutually beneficial this relationship is.
In our modern culture, our lives extend, and thus this portal holds a range of experiences. Many people in their seventies are incredibly youthful and engaged with community; many still work.
When working with archetypes, our true age does not matter. We enter the portal of the North in order to practice dissolving into void consciousness. We take time alone in order to renew ourselves. We journey into the mysteries with shamanic practices in order to grow and heal in all realms and worlds.
Opposite the Mother archetype on the wheel, the Crone brings balance to our culture, which pushes perpetual Summer and doing. We have much work to do in the realms of unraveling, unwinding, dropping deeper, and dissolving our egos into the velvet folds of the fertile void.
From there we came and to there we will return. The less afraid we are of the Crone, the more familiar we become with the threshold of darkness, and the more we can regenerate ourselves and our world.
EARTH MEDICINE OF THE NORTH: ENTERING THE VOID AND RESTORATIVE REST
As all of Nature sleeps and dissolves into the darkness of Winter’s renewal, so too you may ask for the plants to help you journey into other realms and into deep restorative rest.
What we began in the Fall allows us to enter void consciousness and the portal of renewal. The consciousness shifting plants and nervines we worked with as the energy of the year waned in the Fall months helped us release the worldly doings of the Summer so that we could travel lightly into the darkening months and Winter Solstice. Our meditation practices deepened, and our ability to be calm and still prepared us for the wisdom years of the Crone. In the Winter months, we continue to work with nervines and sedatives to bring silence into the nervous system. By frequently entering a meditative state, we can learn to become masters of our nervous systems, which is where our greatest power as Witches and humans is found. Rather than reacting unconsciously to our triggers and emotions, we learn to broaden our perspectives and witness our nervous systems as mechanisms of connection and communication, not allowing them to be the rulers of our beings. As we bring balance to the mind with nervines and deepen our meditation practice, we also continue to strengthen the nervous system with adaptogens.
Adaptogens are some of the oldest tonic herbs of our planet, plants that have adapted to thrive in various conditions over many thousands of years. They are resilient and hardy, and they hold deep vigor. They connect us to some of the most ancient traditions of medicine in the various cultures that have held them. Ginseng, reishi, chaga, rhodiola, eleuthero, schisandra, nettles, gotu kola, and ashwagandha are examples of adaptogens that ancestors of different lands have used as longevity tonics. They help us age gracefully as they tone the mind, strengthen the nervous system and heart, and support circulation, digestion, immunity, and all processes in the body. Some, such as reishi, are said in traditional Chinese medicine to be shen tonics—strengthening the wisdom of the spirit. Indeed, all these plants have evolved and seen significant changes on our planet. When we work with them consistently, they make us more adaptable and resilient. Adaptogens replenish our deep roots, helping us access greater vitality, strength, vigor, and health. Some adaptogens are roots, and some are mushrooms. Both groups are connected to the darkness of the Earth and help us journey down into the dark realms of mystery.
Medicinal mushrooms are both adaptogenic and powerful spiritual helpers in weaving us into the intelligence of the Earth, the Web of Life, and the mysterious soil, where plants converse and exchange energy via the fungal and mycelial network. Winter is my favorite time to meditate with the spirit of reishi. The initial nervine action silences my busy human mind, grounds my energy, and helps me arrive in a meditative state of silence and stillness. As I invite the spirit of reishi in and continue to sip my infusion during the meditation, I begin to journey into the fertile darkness, which connects the realms of Below and Above. I feel my third eye open and my mind expand, while my circulation increases and energy moves in my brain. I then bring in my intention and work to rewire my brain, to weave myself into the larger fabric of the universe.
Meditating with plants is truly the greatest source of wisdom, expansion, and teachings for me. Psychotropic plants, such as “magick mushrooms,” ayahuasca, peyote, and San Pedro, are widely acknowledged as teacher plants. However, in the Wise Woman tradition of restorative and nutritive medicine, we acknowledge that all plants are teacher plants. All plants can shift our consciousness. After all, inviting another energy and spirit into our bodies to connect with our essence will shift us, connecting us to the alchemy of the connection in unfoldment. That said, psychotropic shamanic plants are connected to the gateway of the North. They help us enter other realms beyond the three-dimensional existence governed by the laws of time and space. When administered in sacred space and ceremony by a real shaman and holder of a lineage, great healing to the spirit may occur.
These plants are very powerful: just look at the current scientific evidence supporting microdosing with psilocybin to help rewire the brain, with significant results for those struggling with depression. But as some of them become more popular, be aware that they are being shared irresponsibly, and there is risk of serious harm in those situations. Make sure you are grounded in yourself when seeking to expand outside of yourself.
WINTER RECIPES and MEDICINE MAKING
Blessing Herbs
Winter is the perfect time to weave blessing herbs into your apothecary when the cold winter strengthens the aromatic oils of evergreens and our spirits journey with sacred smokes into the darkness of the night. Burning blessing herbs at the new moon is also magickal for helping us enter the portal of the North. Read about blessing herbs and sacred smokes shown here and spend your Winter gathering local evergreen needles.
In this season, juniper, cedar, and pine are all in their peak of aromatic medicine. You may find pine resin on a pine cone; if you do not live in a snowy climate, search the base of an evergreen tree by brushing your fingertips on the Earth around the trunk, and you will likely find little tears of resin that you collect and burn on a charcoal. Never harvest resin directly from a tree, as it is then being used for protection and healing by the tree.
Pine Oil
Pine oil is such a magickal oil that is easy to make in abundance and is utterly divine. Whenever I smell pine oil, I think of Sage Maurer, who taught me how to make it and who pours copious amounts of the beautiful oils she makes from her land into hot baths—an evergreen queen. Not only is a hot bath with pine oil deeply relaxing and grounding, it also opens the heart and respiratory system, calms the mind, and centers us in an open heart. It is a wonderful oil to use if you are sick with a cold or flu.
Fill a large jar with pine needles. You may use scissors to trim the needles into 1- or 2-inch (2.5 to 5 cm) pieces to release the oils, or place them in a blender and cover with olive oil, blend, and then pour into your jar. Olive oil is a wonderfully thick oil that is deeply penetrating and nutritive to the skin as well as inexpensive, so you can make a lot and use often. Let your pine oil infuse for eight months or more, shaking every once in a while, then strain. Use as a massage oil or foot oil, or pour into a hot bath for the most blissful experience.
Sweet Dreams Tea
This tea is wonderfully relaxing; I formulated it for a woman struggling with insomnia. It has sedative herbs that help support a full night’s sleep, nervines that calm the mind, and plants that comfort the heart and spirit. The stevia leaf and licorice root give it a pleasantly sweet and aromatic flavor without the artificial taste that stevia extracts often have.
Yield: 21/4 cups (164 g)
3 tablespoons (13.5 g) hops
2 tablespoons (4 g) lemon balm
3 tablespoons (15 g) passion vine
3 tablespoons (5 g) linden leaf and flower
2 tablespoons (4 g) motherwort
2 tablespoons (24 g) licorice root
3 tablespoons (17 g) oat straw
2 tablespoons (14 g) eleuthero root
3 tablespoons (14 g) chamomile flowers
2 tablespoons (15 g) valerian root
3 tablespoons (14 g) California poppy
3 tablespoons (14 g) skullcap
2 tablespoons (3 g) holy basil
2 tablespoons (7 g) stevia leaf
1. Blend the herbs together in a bowl and transfer to store in a jar, using a handful in a quart size jar of hot water or filing a tea strainer to make an infusion of 20 minutes or more each evening to take you into sweet dreams.
Sweetly Rooted I Rise Tea
This tea blend draws on the grounding, adaptogenic, nourishing properties of medicinal roots similar to the Sweet, Spicy, Alive, and Awake Tea blend found in the Spring portal (shown here). This blend is more calming, less activating, with a stronger descending energy from the roots and lymph-drainage herbs. This blend can help us nourish the deep roots of winter while warming our hearts and bones, grounding us and calming the nervous system.
Sometimes the energies of Winter have enough of a strong gravitational pull. If you need to balance the slowness and depth of the Winter portal with something more activating and enlivening, I recommend drinking the spicier Spring version. That version also helps us with digestion, which can sometimes get bogged down and too slow in the Winter months. Ask your body what would feel most nourishing.
Yield: 1/2 cup (50 g)
1 tablespoon (7 g) eleuthero root
1 tablespoon (7 g) burdock root
1 tablespoon (7 g) dandelion root
2 tablespoons (14 g) astragalus root
1 tablespoon (7 g) marshmallow root
1 tablespoon (3.75 g) Ceylon cinnamon chips
1/4 teaspoon (2 g) licorice root
1/4 teaspoon (2 g) ginger root (optional)
1. Combine all ingredients and store in an airtight container.
2. Use one handful of the blend per quart (946 ml) of water. Either make a hot overnight infusion or simmer gently, covered, on the stove for at least 30 minutes. Add more water as necessary.
IN THE GARDEN, ON THE EARTH
Nature sleeps. The plants have died back. Their life force is in their roots, in the dark, dreaming Earth. A blanket of snow covers them, and they come into stillness, dissolving their consciousness into the silent song of Winter, of humming mycelia, of frozen stillness. This portal is the pause in between breaths, from which comes renewal.
Let your garden rest. If you live in snowy climates, prepare for the Winter by putting it to sleep. In the Fall, cut back dead brush. For the Winter, you may cover your soil with mulch, leaf litter, or a cover crop to protect the Earth and life below.
Enjoy the songs of silence and the hum of dreams in the wildness. With snowshoes, you can walk on water above feet of dreaming shrubs and branches. Follow your intuition and guide yourself on paths between trees that you would never be able to traverse when the land is growing and the bushes are thick, taking any path you wish, or one that does not exist, thus embodying the movements of a sovereign Crone. This is the time of exploring unknown realms, both inside and outside yourself.
In climates where there is no snow, learn to love the look of death. Maybe the wilderness is brown and dry, or maybe it’s wet and rainy. Practice solitude in your walking meditations and gaze love onto the dreaming Earth. How freeing it is to be like a Crone, unattached to looking nice for others. Find the beauty in dead things, in unkept wilderness, in places left behind as the attention of Gaia journeys into the mysteries of the roots and dark realms below.
During the seasons of Fall and Winter, the energy of the Earth goes inward, and the plants draw their energy into their roots, go dormant, or die back. This is the inbreath of our planet, mirrored in the evening of each twenty-four-hour cycle. The inbreath energy is a good time to prune, nourish the soil, and spread compost. When it’s time to enter the North’s portal through the dark moon, we allow our gardens to rest.
When I die, let me be the most delicious cosmic compost for the Earth!
I see the stars in my bones returning into the darkness of her microcosmic soil flesh. One day, I will be good food.
For now, I will continue digesting the currents from the heavens and Earth, making myself delicious.
WINTER RITUALS AND SELF-CARE
Winter is a time to do nothing—to do no thing. This can be very challenging to the modern human. The rituals and self-care of Winter are simple and spacious, so you can follow the lack of linear instruction into nonlinear realms of deep healing and magick. Discover what helps you deeply unwind. Go back to rituals of release if cords entangle in a capitalistic push of productivity connected to self-worth. See how deep you can go with less. Discover the mysteries and magick that await.
Herbal Sauna
In the coldness of Winter, saunas support circulation and warm us to our core. If you have access to a dry sauna, consider bringing in aromatic herbs such as eucalyptus, pine, birch, the evergreens, mugwort, or rosemary into it with you. Alternatively, boil branches in a big pot with a lid on so the steam does not evaporate, making a strong tea of aromatic clippings. Add to a hot bathtub and soak with the plants.
Sound Baths
Sound vibration can shift our brain waves into the theta and delta brain waves that are associated with deeper states of consciousness and restorative rest. Find a sound bath near you, and bring a blanket and eye pillow. Crystal bowls, tuning forks, and gongs emanate different frequencies, which can bring us into deep states of meditation and relaxation.
Pink Himalayan Salt Lamps
I highly recommend using pink Himalayan salt lamps in your home, especially in the evenings, to shift you into restorative realms. Blue light from electronics disrupts melatonin and sleep hormones and can lead to insomnia or shallow sleep. In addition to creating a soothing, warm, and beautiful light, salt lamps purify the air, neutralize electromagnetic radiation, and generate negative ions, thus improving air quality, treating seasonal affective disorder, enhancing mood and relaxation, and improving sleep.
Be a Cat
If you have a cat, you can learn what restorative rest looks like by observing the luxuriation of naps on the floor where a beam of light hits. Be a cat. For hours.
Observe a Day of Silence
Take a day of silence. You will likely have to mark this day weeks in advance, planning accordingly and letting loved ones know. Make a little name tag that says, “Today I am in silence :)” Point to it and smile if people talk to you.
Wake up without saying a word and go to sleep that day not having used your voice. Don’t answer text messages, read or write emails, or read books. Have you ever done this before? I won’t tell you what will happen, but I will tell you it is magickal, revealing, healing, and deeply restorative.
Sleep with Moonlight and Darkness
People are becoming more aware of the importance of deep sleep for their health and productivity, so you may start seeing many shared resources on how to “hack” your sleep. If you have trouble staying asleep, it is worth following some of these dietary and lifestyle recommendations. The Witch’s preferred method for supporting a healthy sleep cycle is to sleep in complete darkness, with no electronic lights, and near a window through which the natural light of the moon and rising sun may shine. If you live in a city, however, I do recommend a blackout curtain.
WINTER PORTAL HERBS
plant profile
Hops
LATIN NAME Humulus lupulus
FAMILY Cannabaceae (hemp family)
A tall perennial clinging, flowering vine with green-yellow catkins and heart-shaped, serrated leaves. Hops are native to Europe but grow in western Asia and North America as well. Famous as an ingredient in beer, its sedative properties have been woven into folk medicine and lore for centuries.
HERBAL AND MEDICINAL PROPERTIES
• Strong nervine and sedative: an ally that helps us deeply relax and enter restorative sleep and full-body relaxation
• Antispasmodic: relieves cramps and melts tension from the body
• Aromatic bitter: supports digestion and healing to ulcers and IBS
• Externally healing to skin infections
PLANT SPIRIT HEALING
Hops sedate and bring us into deep silence. When I meditate with hops, I usually have to lie down. This plant allows us to relax the body and mind, showing us how deeply tired we may be. Hops open the portals to deep, uninterrupted rest and make it a priority. A wonderful ally for insomniacs or people with severe anxiety or who can’t stop “doing.”
FAVORITE USES
• Tincture for treating sleeplessness, anxiety, or panic attacks
• Tea with honey for sleep.
• As part of Sweet Dreams Tea (see here)
plant profile
Reishi
LATIN NAME Ganoderma lucidum
FAMILY Ganodermataceae
This shiny, red-varnished, kidney-shaped, flat polypore mushroom grows on trees and decaying trunks in Asian and North American forests and is cultivated on logs. It has no gills on the underside, releasing its spores through fine pores that are generally cream colored. It is a prized ancient herb of traditional Chinese medicine and is one of the oldest mushrooms with written records of medicinal use—dating back over two thousand years. Its Chinese name, lingzhi, means miraculous, sacred, divine, mysterious, or effective mushroom of longevity.
HERBAL AND MEDICINAL PROPERTIES
• Longevity herb, adaptogen: considered an elixir of life and plant of immortality; strengthens our ability to resist stressors, increasing health, vitality, stamina, mental clarity
• Shen tonic: develops wisdom and spirit; used by Taoist monks to increase health and vitality and to facilitate spiritual experiences
• Immunomodulator: has the intelligence, discernment, and ability to balance an overactive and suppressed immune system; as such, and with antiviral properties, it is an ally for chronic viral infections and HIV
• Antibacterial, antitumor properties: supportive in healing from cancer; protective in conjunction with other cancer treatments
• Protective to DNA, antioxidant rich, and anti-inflammatory
• Heart tonic, hepatoprotector: strengthening to the cardiovascular system, balancing to blood sugars, lowers cholesterol
• Cleansing to the body; balancing to the heart, brain, and mind
PLANT SPIRIT HEALING
As a mushroom, reishi brings the magick of the stars and void consciousness into the dark soil, composting places, and dreaming Earth. When I meditate with mushroom, I am brought to the invisible network of connection that weaves from my body into the Earth and from my brain into the night sky of the cosmos. Regardless of whether I journey up or down, I end up in the cosmic void. The spirit of reishi weaves us into the supreme intelligence and mystery of the Great Web of Life. There, we can meditate and access deep states of consciousness while our physical body receives the calming and grounding properties of the plant’s medicine. A powerful ally to rebalance our nervous system and help our minds and vibrations evolve, reishi is said to help clear karma. I understand karma as something we create when we react to unconscious triggers and wounds. (I thank my friend Larry Novick, a shaman and therapist, for this definition of karma.) There are many plants—reishi, tulsi, and kava kava, included—that bring us into higher states of consciousness, which our nervous system can learn to hold and attune to with practice. I believe this may be similar instruction to what Taoist monks received in their meditations: as we attune ourselves to these wisdom plants, our consciousness evolves and we are less likely to fall into unconscious reaction to our vulnerabilities and wounds. Rather, we can learn to master our nervous system and respond with grace and in harmony.
FAVORITE USES
• Double extraction, in elixirs or diluted in water
• Decocted overnight as a tea or in broths, soups, herbal black coffee, and other recipes
• Hot overnight infusion
• Meditation with the infusion
• Placed on altars
plant profile
Mugwort
LATIN NAME Artemisia vulgaris
FAMILY Asteraceae/Compositae (aster family)
Mugwort is found in temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. It flourishes in open areas and along roads and is gathered in late Summer just before flowering. A witchy perennial shrubby herb of the woods and stream banks, mugwort has a fuzzy silver underside to her thin, deeply toothed 4-inch (10 cm) leaves and grows about waist high. The flowers are tiny, blooming in the later Summer months. Leaves are best just before flowering; stems and dried herb are harvested after flowering for moxa sticks in acupuncture. Mugwort has a long history of lore. A magickal plant of dreaming and divination, as her name implies, she is associated with the moon goddess and has been used in the folk medicine of many traditions, especially as an ally to women and Witches.
HERBAL AND MEDICINAL PROPERTIES:
• Bitter digestive tonic: promotes digestion, production of bile, and enzymes
• Emmenagogue: encourages the shedding of the uterine wall and regulates menstruation; an ally to drink or steam vaginally to bring on menses; assists in full moon blood release; good for PMS and menopause
• Third eye opener, stimulating nervine: plant for divination and dreams, a consciousness shifter
• Antispasmodic: relaxing to cramps and tension in the body
• Dream herb: sleep with her for active dreams and astral travel, but do not expect a night of good rest
PLANT SPIRIT HEALING
Crone spirit, bitter, wise and true, mugwort pierces the veils of illusion, connecting us to unvarnished truth, while calming the body and nerves so we can go deep, unafraid of the mysteries. Stimulating to the womb, menses, and sacral chakra, she can be called on to bring wisdom, perspective, and guidance to our creative endeavors. Because she’s opening to the third eye, I often ask her to take me to places in my consciousness where my old ways are ready to be released. Work with her shamanically to balance the right and left hemispheres of the brain to bring in more magick from nonlinear realms, and to bend the laws of time and space. She’s an herb for protection in magick, so you may carry her with you. She is beautiful and powerful in all her phases of growth, even when she has died back in Winter; her dry brown leaves retain their volatile oils and can be used for sacred smoke, blessing herbs, and moxa.
FAVORITE USES
• Tea as digestive bitter
• Sweetened tea for dreaming
• Sleep with her in the bed for astral travel
• Dried leaves and stems as kindling for starting a fire in the wild
• Shamanic journeying
• Herbal bathing and saunas
• To bring on menses, in a yoni steam, cleansing the womb
PRECAUTIONS
Avoid if pregnant.
plant profile
Comfrey
LATIN NAME Symphytum officinale
FAMILY Boraginaceae (borage family)
Comfrey is a beloved perennial plant with large green leaves, hollow watery stems, and spiraling sacred purple bell flowers. A lover of watery places and moist soils, she is native to most of North America, Europe, and western Siberia and grows up to 3 feet (0.9 m) tall, spreading wide, especially if her roots are broken or disturbed. An ancient folk remedy, ally of witches and regenerative currents, comfrey is also called “bone knit,” as she weaves magick into the mundane and is a powerful healer to injuries, tissues, skin, and wounds. Both root and leaves are used.
HERBAL AND MEDICINAL PROPERTIES
• Vulnerary: a powerful wound healer That can be used topically as a poultice or salve in the case of a burn, scrape, cut or rash; it heals so quickly that if the cut is deep, it is advised not to apply it, because it will heal the surface skin layer faster than the membranes can heal deeper down in the cut; comfrey salve is my go-to for all burns, skin rashes, scars, broken bones, sprained tendons, etc.
• Expectorant: comfrey’s lung-shaped leaves and the tiny hairs covering the plant speak to its affinity for the respiratory system
• Demulcent: soothing to inflamed tissue; I drink comfrey juice or tea to heal inflammation or internal irritation caused by acid reflux, a bacterial infection, etc.
• Ally for regenerating the body and soul and starting a healing process and rebirth
PLANT SPIRIT HEALING
Beloved comfrey is my master teacher in times of death, rebirth, and regeneration. In one of the most difficult and traumatic times in my life, when my root chakra was suddenly severed, comfrey spoke to me in the garden and told me she would heal my root and help me grow new, more vital roots. And so it began, our journey together through the mysteries of life, a new chapter of my life beginning--indeed one where I was able to draw from much deeper reserves of Earth magick, nourishment, strength, and resilience. Comfrey is a master regenerator; if you try to dig her out of the garden, each place where you break the root will create life, to be reborn again. She’s an ally during times of crisis, when we must allow old parts of ourselves to die and return to the Earth so we can be reborn. Healing to the soil, comfrey composts her leaves in unfurling waves, laying them like poultices on the body of the Earth, releasing deep nutrition into the soil. Use in compost piles and plant at the base of fruit trees; her deep taproots bring nutrition up and support the plants growing around her. While she deeply regenerates and heals our root chakras, she also nourishes us on a cellular level and opens the third eye and crown chakra, showing the golden ratio in her purple bell-shaped flowers that spiral open.
FAVORITE USES
• Fresh juice
• In herbal tea and blends with nourishing herbs
• As a healing poultice
• As a salve
• Flower essences
• In the garden, for compost, and in landscape design, planted in orchards
• Easy to propagate by placing a piece of the root in a pot of soil; delightful to gift
PRECAUTIONS
Comfrey has a bad reputation among some herbalists for containing small quantities of a toxic alkaloid, which can have a cumulative effect upon the liver. The largest concentrations are found in the roots; the leaves contain higher quantities of the alkaloid as they grow older, but young leaves contain almost none. Because of the wide range of stories from different herbalists, I work with comfrey when I need her magick, for up to a few days, with long breaks in between. I do not ingest her roots, working instead with mostly fresh, young leaves. I adore her but would not advise taking her daily for several months, especially if you have liver problems or are pregnant; otherwise I feel she is safe and her benefits have been profoundly healing for myself and others.
NORTH PORTAL JOURNAL PROMPTS
Reflect on the element of Earth in you.
Earth element in balance:
• Groundedness; caring for your environment, home, and body; ability to nourish yourself and create safety and support where needed
• Healthy root chakra, not carrying ancestral or family traumas, creating healing community
• Stability, reliability (balanced with fire)
• Healthy, good habits, mental calmness (balanced with air)
Earth element out of balance:
• Being overly emotional (too much water; usually needs earth or fire)
• Anxiety, panic attacks, being scattered mentally (needs more earth; air in chaos)
• Being stuck in your ways, stubborn, unyielding (too much earth; needs air to open your mind, fire or water to get unstuck, and an earth tonic that teaches how to hold earth in balance)
• Hoarding, overeating, accumulating (earth in chaos; needs fire to clear and transform radically, or water for more gentle, soft and emotion based releasing of layers. Earth tonics like nourishing herbs to balance the earth element.)
• Homelessness, unemployment, always changing jobs (needs more earth)
Reflect on how you can nourish your inner Crone archetype in your journal.
• If there were nothing I had to do, what would I do?
• What would I do differently if there were no social rules and no judgment?
• Am I tired? Am I resting enough?
• What would be the most divine rest for my body?
• What kind of rest does my heart desire?
• How does my mind want to rest?
• What is my dream refuge and retreat for my soul right now?
• How do I cultivate my inner Crone?
