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juniper stokes 3/12/26 juniper stokes 3/12/26

The Plant Has a Say: An Animist Approach to Working with Aromatics

The first thing most aromatherapy training teaches you is how to stay safe.

Dilution ratios. Contraindications. Which oils to avoid during pregnancy, with children, with certain medications. How to store your bottles. How to handle a sensitization reaction.

This is important. This matters. I teach all of it.

And it's also — when offered as the foundation — teaching people to relate to aromatic plants primarily as chemical agents that must be managed.

Which is a bit like meeting a new person and starting the relationship with a list of all the ways they could theoretically harm you.

Technically accurate. Terrible way to begin.

What Animism Actually Means

"Animism" gets misused constantly.

It's not a belief that rocks and trees have human feelings. It's not magical thinking. It's not naive.

Animism is a cosmological framework that understands all living beings as persons, as subjects with their own forms of intelligence, agency, and relational capacity.

A plant doesn't think the way you think. It doesn't want the way you want. But it responds. It communicates. It has preferences, strategies, relationships. It co-evolved with other beings over millions of years, and that co-evolution is encoded in its chemistry, its form, and its behavior.

When you hold that realization alongside the fact that plants are the original aromatherapists — that they produce volatile aromatic compounds specifically for communication, for protection, for invitation, for relationship — something shifts.

These smells are not accidental. They are the plant's voice.

The Chemistry of Relationship

Here's where the science and the animism actually agree, if you let them.

Plants produce terpenes, phenols, esters, and all the other compounds that make up an essential oil as part of their ecological lives. Limonene repels certain insects and attracts others. Linalool signals to predators. Volatile compounds released from damaged leaves warn neighboring plants of attack.

This is communication. Across species. Without nervous systems.

When you inhale the aroma of rose or frankincense or vetiver, you are receiving a signal that the plant has been broadcasting for millions of years. Your limbic system — ancient, pre-rational, wired for exactly this kind of information — recognizes it.

Something in you responds. Biochemistry and evolution having a conversation.

The animist framework just goes one step further: it suggests that the most respectful and effective way to work with that signal is to receive it as communication. To ask what it's saying, rather than only asking what it's doing.

What Changes When You Approach aromatics as an animist

A few things happen when you begin to work with aromatics relationally rather than transactionally.

You slow down.

You can't really listen when you're moving fast. You start to notice things. The way a scent shifts on your skin over an hour. The particular quality of frankincense from Oman versus Somalia. How your body responds differently to the same oil on different days, in different seasons, in different emotional states.

You start asking better questions. ;)

Not just "what is this good for?" but "what is this for me, right now, in this moment?" Not just "how much do I use?" but "what does this plant want to offer, and what is it asking from me in return?"

You develop discernment.

This is the skill that no dilution chart can teach you. The ability to sense — through smell, through body response, through something I'll just call intuition and leave it at that — what's actually resonant and what isn't. Which plant is the right one for this moment. When to use something and when to leave it alone.

This discernment is what separates a practitioner from a consumer.

On Foraging, Sourcing, and the Ethics of Reciprocity

I teach ethical foraging, and I want to say something directly here:

The sacred aromatic tradition you belong to starts the moment you decide where your plants come from.

The fragrance industry has driven several aromatic species to critically endangered status. Rosewood. Agarwood. Wild-harvested Indian sandalwood. Some frankincense populations are now under serious threat from overharvesting.

If you're working with aromatics in a sacred context — if you're calling on the intelligence and the medicine of these plants — then you have a relationship with the lineage of how that plant arrived in your hands.

Reciprocity is not an add-on to animist practice. It is the practice.

How to Begin

You don't need a credential to start working with plants animistically.

You need a nose. You need some patience. You need a willingness to be surprised.

Here's a simple practice:

Choose one aromatic plant — not an essential oil to start, if possible, but an actual plant or dried herb. Rosemary from your garden. A handful of dried lavender. A piece of cedar from the woods.

Sit with it before you do anything else.

Don't research it. Don't ask the internet what it's good for. Just hold it and smell it and notice what happens in your body, your mind, your memory. Notice what images arise. What feelings. What resistance.

Give it ten minutes.

Then — and only then — go look up what other people have said about it.

You'll start to see the pattern. What you sensed directly and what the traditions say will often rhyme in ways that feel uncanny.

That's not uncanny. That's your limbic system doing what it was designed to do.

That's the plant having a say.

What to learn more? Take the plant archetype quiz + get a free plant communication class! (Limited time only.)

Take the Quiz

Why This Is the Foundation

Everything I teach in sacred aromatics — anointing, healing work, ritual use, perfumery, the historical traditions — sits on this relational ground.

Because you can learn a hundred uses for frankincense and still not really know frankincense.

Knowing frankincense means having a relationship with it. Having worked with it across seasons and states. Having received its particular intelligence with some regularity and some attention. Having asked it, in whatever way makes sense to you, what it has to offer — and having been changed, at least a little, by the answer.

That's what I mean by sacred.

That's what the Foundations of Sacred Aromatics course is built to cultivate.

It's a foundational immersion into the history, practice, and living intelligence of sacred aromatics — for beginners and experienced practitioners alike.

Join the Waitlist Here

And if you want to begin the relationship right now — the Botanica has aromatic perfumes and botanical preparations I've made with exactly this kind of care and attention. Each one is a doorway.

Explore The Botanica

Juniper Stokes is a botanical perfumer, soul alchemist, intuitive astrologer, and rewilding guide through mythic landscapes of nature, spirit, and the cosmos. For over 25 years, she has been guiding soulful humans back to the heart of who they are and why they're here.

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juniper stokes 3/10/26 juniper stokes 3/10/26

Smoke, Resin, and Oil: A Brief History of Sacred Scent from Sumer to Now

If you want to understand any human civilization, follow the smoke.

Where it rises. What feeds it. Who controls its production. Who gets to stand in it.

Aromatic smoke — incense, resins, sacred fumigation — has been one of the most consistent features of human religious and healing life for as long as we have records. And before records. And probably long before that.

Sumer: Where the Thread Begins (For Us)

The oldest written records we have of aromatic use come from ancient Mesopotamia — Sumer, Babylon, Akkad — the civilizations that gave us writing, law, astronomy, and a deeply sophisticated understanding of plant medicine.

Cuneiform tablets from as early as 3000 BCE record aromatic plants used in ritual and healing. The Sumerians didn't separate these two categories. As will all ancient cultures, disease was understood as spiritual disruption, and healing required both the physical remedy and the ritual to address its cause.

Cedar, juniper, and cypress appear repeatedly — burned in temples, used in purification rites, prescribed for illness. The mashmashu, a class of priestly healer, worked with both plants and incantation. The smell was part of the medicine.

This is the world that many of our Western aromatic traditions descend from. When you trace the lineage forward — through Babylon, into Egypt, into the Hebrew traditions, into Greece, into Rome, into the Western magical inheritance — Sumer is often where the thread begins.

Egypt: Aromatics as Sacred Technology

Ancient Egypt is probably the most cited civilization when it comes to sacred aromatics, and the reverence is earned.

The Egyptians understood scent not as enhancement but as function. Specific aromatic preparations served specific cosmological purposes. Kyphi — a complex blended incense whose formulas were inscribed on the walls of the temples of Edfu and Philae — was burned at sunset to assist the soul's transit between the worlds of day and night. It contained as many as sixteen ingredients: resins, wine-soaked raisins, honey, juniper, various aromatic herbs. And Kyphi wasn’t just a medicine for the temples — it was a household remedy. Every home burned kyphi.

Physicians used aromatics medicinally. Priests used them ceremonially. The Pharaoh was anointed with sacred oils as part of coronation ritual. The dead were embalmed and anointed with preparations that were understood to assist their passage through the Duat — the underworld — and their arrival in the Field of Reeds.

The Egyptians also understood something that neuroscience has only recently confirmed: that smell bypasses the rational mind and speaks directly to something deeper. Their cosmology didn't need brain imaging to know this. It was self-evident in practice.

I study ancient Egyptian aromatics with an Egyptologist, and I want to say clearly: this tradition is far more complex, far more internally consistent, and far more alive than most contemporary references suggest. It deserves serious engagement.

The Ancient Near East and the Incense Road

The aromatic trade routes of the ancient world tell us something important about how seriously these substances were valued.

Frankincense — harvested from Boswellia trees in the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa — was one of the most traded commodities in the ancient world. The Incense Road stretched from southern Arabia through Petra and Gaza to the Mediterranean. Its operation, over roughly fifteen hundred years, shaped civilizations.

People built kingdoms to control the frankincense trade.

Myrrh traveled similar routes. So did cassia and cinnamon from the East, spikenard from the Himalayas, labdanum from the Mediterranean coast.

These weren't luxury goods, exactly — though they were expensive. They were necessary goods. Necessary for the temples. For the healing rites. For the coronations and the funerals and the daily rituals that maintained the connection between the human and divine worlds.

When the Queen of Sheba brought gifts to Solomon, they included gold and spices. When the Magi followed a star to a manger, they brought frankincense and myrrh alongside gold.

These aromatics didn't travel those distances as accessories. ;)

The Myrraphore Tradition

Somewhere in this intersection of the sacred feminine, anointing practice, and the Levantine aromatic traditions, a particular lineage emerges.

The Myrrhaphore — bearer of myrrh.

In the Gospels, the women who anointed Jesus — at the house of Simon, and again at the tomb — are carrying forward a tradition that predates Christianity by centuries. Anointing the living and the dead. Anointing as a gesture of recognition, of consecration, of love that continues past death.

Mary Magdalene is often associated with this role, though the identity of the anointing woman is theologically contested. What's consistent across the accounts is the act itself: a woman, a precious aromatic, an act that is intimate and radical and understood by those present as significant beyond the gesture.

The practice of anointing — touching another being with scented oil in a ritual context — is one of the oldest and most universal forms of sacred aromatic work. It appears in virtually every tradition we'll explore. It is a technology of healing, of blessing, of marking a threshold.

I find it meaningful that the transmission of this practice, historically, has often lived in women's hands.

Greece, Rome, and the Western Inheritance

The Greek and Roman world inherited aromatic knowledge from Egypt and the Near East and systematized it in characteristic ways.

Greek physicians — Hippocrates, Dioscorides — incorporated aromatics into medical practice. Dioscorides' De Materia Medica, written in the first century CE, catalogued hundreds of plants including aromatic species with detailed notes on their properties and uses. This text remained foundational to European medicine for over a thousand years.

The mystery traditions — Eleusis, Isis, Orphic, later Hermetic and Neoplatonic circles — worked with aromatic substances as part of initiatory practice. Specific incenses were associated with specific deities and states of consciousness. The theurgy (divine-working) of the Neoplatonists included detailed protocols for aromatic fumigations as a means of invoking divine presence.

This material flows into the Western magical inheritance — into alchemy, into Hermeticism, into the Renaissance magi who were trying to recover the whole of ancient knowledge. Into the grimoires. Into the planetary magic of Agrippa and Ficino, who associated specific plants and aromatics with specific celestial bodies.

This is the tradition I often call the Western aromatic inheritance. It is far older and far deeper than most people realize.

Taoism and the East

I want to speak to the Eastern traditions with appropriate humility — my primary training in Chinese aromatic practice is in the Taoist anointing traditions, and I won't pretend to give a comprehensive history of Chinese, Japanese, or Indian aromatic practice in a single paragraph.

What I can say is this:

The Taoist approach to aromatics is among the most sophisticated I have encountered in any tradition. It is rooted in the understanding of qi — vital force — and works with aromatics as a means of moving, clearing, and cultivating that force in the body and the field. Specific aromatic preparations are associated with specific meridians, organs, and elemental correspondences. The work is precise, systematic, and profoundly somatic.

Kōdō — the Japanese way of incense — understands the smelling of incense as a contemplative practice in itself. Not passive enjoyment but active listening. There is even a word for it: kiku, "to listen to incense," rather than kagu, "to smell."

To listen to incense.

That phrase alone contains a whole philosophy.

Ayurvedic aromatherapy in the Indian traditions works with plant medicine in relationship to the three doshas, the seasons, and the individual constitutional picture — an inherently relational and individualized approach that resists the standardization modern aromatherapy often defaults to.

What All of This Means

Here is what strikes me, having spent two decades immersed in these traditions:

The specific cosmologies differ. The deities are different. The language is different. The protocols are different.

But the underlying understanding is remarkably consistent:

Aromatic plants carry intelligence. They act on the body and the soul simultaneously. Certain preparations, used in certain ways, at certain times, by practitioners who understand what they're doing, can facilitate healing, protection, transition, and connection to something larger than ordinary consciousness.

This is convergent wisdom — the same conclusion arrived at independently, across cultures, across millennia.

When I teach sacred aromatics, I am teaching within this lineage.

The Foundations of Sacred Aromatics course opens soon.

It's a foundational course designed to give you real entry into this living tradition — not as a museum piece, but as a living, breathing, applicable practice.

Join the

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Juniper Stokes is a certified depth coach, mythoanimist guide, alchemist, astrologer, and artist.

juniper stokes 3/8/26 juniper stokes 3/8/26

What Are Sacred Aromatics? (And Why They're Not What You Think)

Let me guess.

When you hear "aromatics," you think candles. Maybe a diffuser. Perhaps the $14 lavender oil you bought at the grocery store that's supposed to fix your anxiety. Or even the MLM oil your friend convinced you would cure your acne.

This is where a lot of us start.

But here's what I want to tell you: that's roughly the equivalent of handing someone a Gregorian chant and saying, here's some background music for your dinner party.

Technically true. Wildly underselling something.

The Word Itself Is a Clue

Sacred — from the Latin sacer, meaning set apart, dedicated, consecrated.

Not decorative. Not supplemental.

Set apart.

Aromatics have been set apart in almost every human civilization we have record of. They were offered to gods and burned at thresholds. Applied to kings and carried with the dying. Traded across thousands of miles — frankincense caravans crossing the Arabian Peninsula, sandalwood shipped from India to Egypt — because people understood, viscerally, that these substances mattered.

They didn't haul resin across a desert because it smelled nice.

They carried it throughout the earth because it did something.

What Scent Actually Does

Smell is the only sense that bypasses the rational brain entirely.

Every other sense — sound, sight, touch, taste — travels through the thalamus, the brain's relay station, before it reaches your cortex and gets processed into meaning. It gets translated. Filtered. Interpreted.

Smell doesn't do that.

Olfactory signals go directly to the limbic system. The amygdala. The hippocampus. The places in your brain that govern emotion, memory, instinct, and survival.

This is why a scent can crack you open before you even know what happened.

It's also why every wisdom tradition in human history understood, long before neuroscience confirmed it, that aroma was a direct line. To the body. To the psyche. To the spirit.

Sacred aromatics are not mood enhancers. They are technologies of consciousness.

A (Very Brief) Map of What That Looks Like Across Traditions

The ancient Egyptians weren't making perfume.

They were making magic — complex blended incense formulas inscribed on temple walls. Burned at sunset to help the soul navigate the transition between day and night, between the worlds. Physicians used aromatic preparations medicinally. Priests used them ceremonially. The dead were anointed for their passage.

Scent was woven through every layer of existence.

In ancient Sumer, the world's first recorded pharmacopoeia included plant-based preparations we'd recognize as aromatics. Mesopotamian healing traditions didn't separate the physical from the spiritual — the same substance might treat a fever and appease a deity simultaneously.

Taoist anointing practices use specific aromatics to support the movement of qi, to open meridians, to work with the energetic body in ways that don't map neatly onto Western herbalism but are rigorously systematic and ancient.

Ayurvedic aromatherapy works with the doshas, the seasons, the individual constitutional picture of a person — not just "what smells relaxing."

Indigenous traditions across the Americas, in their own sovereign and distinct ways, have long understood specific plants as allies, as teachers, as presences with their own intelligence and intention.

These are sophisticated epistemologies that took thousands of years to develop (and that mainstream aromatherapy has largely stripped of their depth in the interest of making things marketable and accessible…).

What Gets Lost When We Flatten This

I'm going to say something that might ruffle some feathers:

The way most people are taught to work with essential oils and aromatics is actually a fairly recent — and fairly incomplete — framework.

The clinical aromatherapy model is valuable. I'm a certified clinical aromatherapist and I use and respect it. Knowing that lavender contains linalool and has measurable calming effects on the nervous system is real and useful information.

And.

It's a small part of the picture.

When we reduce aromatics to their biochemistry — to what compounds they contain and what receptors they act on — we lose the relationship. We lose the intelligence of the plant. We lose the ritual context that made these substances so powerful for so long. We lose the cosmological frameworks that told practitioners why this plant, why this moment, why this person.

We lose the sacred part of sacred aromatics.

So What Is a Sacred Aromatic, Really?

Here's how I'd define it, after twenty years of working with these plants:

A sacred aromatic is any aromatic substance — resin, wood, plant, oil, smoke — worked with consciously, relationally, and within a framework that honors its full intelligence.

That framework might be ancient or it might be evolving. It might come from a specific lineage or it might be woven from many. What it requires is presence. Intention. A willingness to be in relationship rather than just in transaction.

And a curiosity about what these plants actually are — which is far more than the sum of their molecules.

Why This Matters Right Now

We are living through a moment of radical disenchantment.

And also, simultaneously, a moment of radical re-enchantment.

People are hungry for practices that work. Not just that feel good, or check a wellness box — but that actually do something. That connect them to something larger than themselves.

Sacred aromatics have done this for as long as humans have been burning things and noticing what changes.

They are not a trend. They are a thread — a long, continuous, fragrant thread that runs through human history and runs, still, through what it means to be a body with a soul living on this particular strange planet.

You don't have to be an expert to begin pulling that thread.

You just have to be willing to pay attention.

I'm teaching a foundational course in sacred aromatics — Introduction to Sacred Aromatics — opening soon through Alchemessence.

This is not a "what essential oils are good for headaches" class. It's a genuine initiation into the depth, history, and living practice of working with plants as allies, as medicine, and as portals.

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juniper stokes 2/20/26 juniper stokes 2/20/26

The Alchemy of Spiritual Perfume: A Complete Guide to Sacred Aromatics

In the realm of our senses, perhaps none is more etheric, more innately connected to spirit, than our sense of smell.

Fragrance has the unique ability to bypass our conscious minds, permeating not only into our subconscious, but into the spiritual core of our psyches.

The presence of aromatic fragrances has always signaled the presence of divine beings — pleasing aromas preceding the arrival of gods and goddesses in traditions throughout the world. And of course, humans in every culture, on every continent, have used aroma to call in spiritual support and connection.

It's no coincidence that the most sacred plants from around the world are also the most fragrant ones.

Plants have been central to medicine and spiritual practice as far back as we can trace human origins. And for most of our history, there wasn't a difference between the two. Healing with plants, communing with plant spirits, and tending to the sacred were not separate disciplines — they were one way of life. Sacred aromatics return us to that time. They return the power of healing to the people, to our hands and our homes and our altars, where it has always belonged.

This is a guide for those who feel the pull of that ancient relationship. Whether you're drawn to incense and smoke, ritual anointing oils, natural perfume, or the medicine of aromatherapy, you'll find the threads of one continuous lineage running through all of it.

What Are Spiritual Aromatics? A Guide to Types and Terminology

Spiritual fragrances have taken many forms throughout history, most commonly through smoke and oil. Here is a map of the landscape — the common forms you'll encounter on this journey and what makes each one distinct.

Perfume

Perfume can be a bit of a confusing word because of its dual meaning. It can refer to both a pleasing fragrance in general, as well as a specific fragrance in liquid form. It can be a noun, is in I ❤️ perfume, an adjective, as in a perfumed ointment, or a verb, as in the incense perfumes the room.

Here, I mostly use the word perfume in its more general sense — but I do want to highlight what makes an actual perfume, as in a pleasing fragrance liquid, different from other spiritual aromatics.

True perfumes differ from other types of aromatics in their composition and intention. They are primarily created and used for aesthetics — made to bring beauty into our world — and they are formulated with special attention to longevity (or sillage in perfume language), with top, middle, and base notes that unfold over time. True perfumes may come in alcohol, oil, or occasional solid form, and they tend to be more complex than aromatherapy blends, though this isn't always the case.

But don’t be fooled by the aesthetic nature of true perfumes: beauty is not frivolous. The creation of something beautiful is itself a sacred act — an offering, a devotion, an act of creative love. True perfume, at its highest expression, participates in this lineage.

There's a whole linguistic world within perfumery — from understanding the difference between an eau de parfum and an eau de toilette, to learning about the fragrance families used in natural perfumery.

Attars

Attars are traditional perfumed oils, most closely associated with South Asian and Middle Eastern traditions, though their roots span across the ancient world. Classically, attars are created through a process of steam or hydro distillation of botanical materials directly into a sandalwood base oil, which absorbs and fixes the aromatic compounds. The result is a richly layered, skin-warming fragrance of extraordinary depth. Attars are oil-based and alcohol-free, making them particularly beloved in Islamic tradition, where alcohol-based perfumes are traditionally avoided. The word itself comes from the Arabic 'itr, meaning fragrance or essence.

Aromatherapy

Aromatherapy is a vast and multifaceted field, with many approaches and applications — salves and balms, diffuser blends, sprays, oils, gels, and baths, to name a few. These products are blended primarily with essential oils, though herbal infusions are commonly incorporated into finished products.

The primary distinction between aromatherapy and true perfumery is intention: aromatherapy blends are created for wellness, while perfume blends are created for beauty — though of course there is significant and beautiful overlap.

And I believe, without reservation, that aromatherapy is inherently a spiritual practice.

In an attempt to legitimize this field, many modern aromatherapy practitioners have shifted toward a focus on the chemistry of the oils, investing in a growing body of scientific studies on their efficacy. While it's wonderful to have proof of the healing power of these plants, we risk losing the true gift of aromatic healing in the process. Healing with fragrant plants has always been a medicinal and spiritual art. Ignoring the plant spirit medicine of essential oils doesn't mean it ceases to exist.

Anointing Oils

One of the oldest forms of spiritual fragrance, anointing oils — also called ritual oils — are usually composed of essential oils or infused herbal oils that hold symbolic and spiritual significance. They are used to bless, consecrate, or protect individuals, objects, or spaces. Anointing with oils has been practiced in countless religious and spiritual contexts to signify sacred or chosen status — and the practice stretches back at least as far as written history.

Anointing oils are a major part of my personal spiritual practice, and many of the anointing oils I create are so divinely fragrant, they could easily be called perfumes.

Unguents

Unguents are similar to anointing oils but tend to be thicker in consistency, often taking the form of a salve or balm. Historically, they were used for anointing the body or for special ceremonial occasions. In many traditions, unguents were prized for their aromatic and medicinal properties as much as their spiritual significance. Some of the most famous unguents in history — like the Egyptian kyphi and the sacred anointing oil described in Exodus — were elaborate, multi-ingredient formulas that required great skill and intention to prepare.

Smoke Bundles and Smudge Sticks

Smoke bundles and smudge sticks are bundles of dried herbs that are burned to create a fragrant, purifying smoke. While smudging is a term specific to certain Native American traditions, the practice of binding and burning aromatic plant material exists in cultures throughout the world. Most often, this practice is used to cleanse and purify spaces, objects, and individuals — dispersing stagnant or negative energy and inviting in clarity and positive presence.

Incense

Incense is a mixture of aromatic plant materials — resins, herbs, and woods — burned to release fragrant smoke. It can be used as a loose blend of raw materials, or formed into pellets, sticks, or cones.

In modern times, incense is often burned for purely aesthetic purposes — pleasure, atmosphere, and mood-setting. Yet traditionally, its use was always spiritual in nature. Like smoke bundles, incense is burned to cleanse and purify the air and to call in benevolent spirits. What truly sets incense apart, however, is how it symbolizes the ascent of prayers and offerings to the divine — the smoke as a living bridge between the human and the sacred.

Hydrosols

Hydrosols, also called hydrolates or floral waters, are created from the same steam distillation process as essential oils — but a different part of the process is preserved. Hydrosols are made from the botanically-infused steam, recondensed into a gentle, aromatic, and long-lasting water.

Hydrosols were likely what was primarily used in ancient Taoist anointing practices and they are one of the most accessible aromatic medicines available today.

A History Written in Smoke and Oil: The Cultural Significance of Sacred Scent

The connection between scent and the divine is one of the most enduring threads in human history — present in every culture, on every continent, across every era we can trace. Long before temples were built or texts were written, humans were offering aromatic smoke to the sky and anointing one another with fragrant oils.

Many deities across traditions have been recognized by the presence of their scent alone — a perfumed wind, a sudden sweetness in the air, the inexplicable fragrance of roses in a room where no flowers are present. Scent arrives before language. It speaks directly to something older than thought.

Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome

In ancient Egypt, the creation of sacred fragrance was priestly work. The word perfume itself comes from the Latin per fumum — "through smoke" — a testament to how central burning aromatic materials were to early spiritual life. Egyptian temple rituals involved elaborate incense formulas, the most famous being kyphi, a complex blend of resins, wine, honey, and botanicals burned as evening offerings and believed to induce visionary states.

In Greece and Rome, fragrant oils and botanical extracts were woven into religious ceremonies. The rising smoke from incense was believed to carry prayers and offerings directly to the gods. Scent was a bridge between worlds — a medium of divine communication.

Eastern Traditions

In Hinduism and Buddhism, incense creates sacred atmosphere and purifies the space for prayer and meditation. The aromatic smoke is both an offering to divine beings and a practical aid to spiritual practice — its scent quieting the restless mind, preparing the inner landscape for stillness. In Buddhism particularly, the impermanence of incense smoke — beautiful, present, then gone — is itself a teaching.

In Shinto, the native spiritual tradition of Japan, nature is understood to be infused with spiritual presence, and scents are associated with kami, the nature spirits that animate the world. Offerings of scented oils and incense honor these spirits and enhance the sacredness of shrines and ceremonies.

Indigenous Wisdom

Indigenous cultures around the world have long incorporated aromatic plants into their most sacred practices — from the smudging ceremonies of Native American traditions using sage, cedar, tobacco, and sweetgrass, to the copal offerings of Mesoamerican traditions, to the use of palo santo by Amazonian peoples, to the frankincense traditions of East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Each tradition carries its own understanding of the relationship between fragrant plants, the spirit world, and human wellbeing.

These practices were not isolated curiosities — they were sophisticated systems of healing and spiritual technology, developed over thousands of years in deep relationship with specific landscapes and plant communities.

Abrahamic Traditions

In Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, anointing with fragrant oils carries profound spiritual weight. In the Hebrew Bible, the formula for the sacred anointing oil used to consecrate the Ark of the Covenant and the high priests is given in striking detail — myrrh, cinnamon, cane, and cassia in olive oil — a recipe so sacred its unauthorized use was considered a serious transgression. In the Christian tradition, anointing with oil remains a sacrament. In Islam, the use of attar — perfumed oil — is connected to the practices of the Prophet and carries associations with paradise. Fragrant oils were, across all three traditions, understood as gifts fit for the divine.

Perhaps most relevant to those embracing the art of sacred aromatics today is the path of the myrrhophore, a sacred anointing art most famously practiced by Mary Magdalene.

Shamanic Practices

Shamans and healers across many traditions have used scents derived from plants, resins, and woods to facilitate altered states of consciousness and communication with the spirit world. The strong aromatic compounds of plants like blue lotus, copal, frankincense, and various sacred mushrooms were understood not simply as chemicals but as the living intelligence of the plant — a form of medicine that worked simultaneously on the body, mind, and spirit.

The Science of Scent and Spirit

The spiritual understanding of fragrance is ancient. The science is catching up.

Of all our senses, smell is uniquely wired for depth. While most sensory information travels through the thalamus — the brain's central relay station — scent travels directly to the olfactory bulb, which has immediate connections to the limbic system: the brain's emotional center and the seat of memory. This is why a particular scent can transport you instantly and completely — not just remembering a moment, but inhabiting it again. It bypasses the analytical mind entirely. This direct pathway also helps explain why fragrance has always been understood as a spiritual tool.

Research has confirmed what ancient traditions always knew: specific aromas measurably affect heart rate, blood pressure, cortisol levels, and neurological activity. Frankincense, for example — one of the most sacred resins in human history — contains compounds that activate ion channels in the brain associated with the reduction of anxiety and depression. Lavender has been shown to produce measurable changes in brain wave activity consistent with relaxed, meditative states. Sandalwood influences the nervous system in ways that support stillness and inner focus. Rose activates heart healing on multiple levels.

But chemistry is only part of the story. The full intelligence of aromatic plants — what older traditions called their spirit or medicine — cannot be reduced to their constituent molecules. The plants are more than their parts. And the human beings who work with them are more than their neurons.

Creating Spiritual Perfumes: Intention, Ingredient, and Ritual

Making a spiritual aromatic is not simply a matter of combining materials. It is, at its best, a ritual act — an alchemical process in which the maker's intention is woven into the fragrance itself.

Choosing Your Ingredients

The aromatic world offers an extraordinary palette: flowers, leaves, roots, barks, resins, woods, seeds, and their distilled essences. Each botanical carries its own character and traditional significance — rose for love and the heart, frankincense for purification and divine connection, myrrh for protection and ancestral wisdom, sandalwood for grounding and meditation, lavender for calm and clarity, jasmine for joy and spiritual opening.

When I choose ingredients for a spiritual blend, I'm listening on multiple levels simultaneously. I'm considering the traditional and symbolic significance of each material. I'm listening to the materials themselves — their individual characters, how they relate to one another, what they seem to want to become together. And I'm holding the intention of the person who will ultimately receive and use the blend.

Natural materials — whole plant materials, steam-distilled essential oils, and traditional absolutes — carry a depth and complexity that synthetic aromatic molecules simply cannot replicate. This matters for spiritual work. The full spectrum of a plant's aromatic intelligence is present in a well-crafted natural extract in a way that a synthetic approximation cannot reproduce.

Blending with Intention

Infusing a perfume with spiritual purpose begins before the first drop is measured. It begins in stillness — with a clear intention, an open question, or a prayer. What is this blend for? Who does it serve? What quality of consciousness does it want to evoke?

In the classical perfumer's vocabulary, a well-crafted fragrance has three distinct phases that unfold over time: top notes (the first impression, bright and volatile), heart notes (the body of the fragrance, emerging as the top notes fade), and base notes (the deep, anchoring materials that persist on the skin and carry the fragrance's resonance). In spiritual perfumery, this temporal unfolding mirrors the arc of a ritual — opening, deepening, settling.

Harmonizing scents for energetic alignment means listening not just to how materials smell in combination, but to how they feel together. Does this blend open or close? Does it ground or elevate? Does it warm or clarify? These are as much energetic questions as they are aesthetic ones.

Ritual in the Making

Many perfumers and healers I respect approach the creation of spiritual fragrances as a ritual in itself — working at particular times (lunar cycles, astrological alignments, or simply times of personal clarity and peace), blessing the materials before blending, speaking prayers or intentions aloud as they work, or working in meditative silence.

I believe this matters. The maker's state of consciousness during creation is not separate from the product. It is part of it.

How to Use Spiritual Aromatics

Anointing and Blessing

Anointing — applying fragrant oil to the body as a sacred act — is one of the oldest spiritual practices we know of. The specific placement of anointing oils on the body varies by tradition: the forehead or third eye for spiritual opening and intuition; the crown for connection to the divine; the heart for love, compassion, and emotional healing; the throat for truth and voice; the wrists and pulse points for intention-setting.

Anointing transforms the everyday act of getting dressed into a moment of sacred attention. It says: this is intentional. I am here. I am stepping into this.

Meditation and Spiritual Journeying

Fragrance is one of the most reliable tools available for shifting consciousness. Certain scents — frankincense, sandalwood, blue lotus, oud — have been used for thousands of years specifically to facilitate meditative and visionary states. Used consistently in meditation practice, a particular scent can become a reliable anchor — a sensory cue that signals to the nervous system and the deeper mind: we are entering sacred space now.

This is why temples and churches smell the way they do. It's not incidental. It's intentional, cumulative, and profound.

Cleansing and Purification

Aromatic smoke — whether incense, smoke bundles, or resins burned on charcoal — has been used across cultures for energetic clearing. The fragrant smoke is understood to break up stagnant energy, neutralize negative influences, and create a fresh, protected field in a space or around a person.

Beyond smoke, aromatic baths are one of the most deeply nourishing forms of purification available. Adding essential oils, herbal infusions, salts, and sacred botanicals to bathwater creates an immersive full-body experience that works simultaneously on the physical, emotional, and energetic bodies.

Space cleansing sprays — hydrosols or water-based blends with protective and clarifying essential oils — offer a smokeless alternative for environments where burning materials isn't practical.

Sacred Aromatics and the Question of Ethics

Working with sacred plants is a privilege. It asks something of us.

Sourcing and Sustainability

Many of the world's most cherished aromatic plants are under significant pressure. Sandalwood, oud (agarwood), frankincense, rosewood, and wild-harvested palo santo are among the species facing overharvesting, habitat destruction, and compromised wild populations. As people drawn to working with these plants — not just using them but honoring them — we have a responsibility to understand where our materials come from and how they were obtained.

Sustainable sourcing means supporting producers who harvest responsibly, cultivate where possible, and maintain the health of plant populations and the ecosystems that support them. It means being willing to pay fair prices for genuine, ethically sourced materials. And sometimes, it means accepting a substitute or going without.

Cultural Respect

Many aromatic practices carry the fingerprints of specific cultures and lineages — the smudging traditions of Native peoples, the attar traditions of South Asian and Middle Eastern communities, the temple incense formulas of Egypt, India, and Japan. As these practices travel across the world and enter mainstream wellness culture, the question of cultural respect becomes important and nuanced.

There is a meaningful difference between sincere learning from and deep engagement with another tradition — approached with humility, proper attribution, and ideally, relationship with living members of that tradition — and the casual extraction of spiritual aesthetics without regard for their origins or continued significance to the people who hold them.

We can be inspired by the full breadth of human aromatic wisdom. We owe it to the traditions that inspire us to carry that inspiration with integrity.

Spiritual Aromatics as a Personal Practice

The most powerful thing I can tell you about working with sacred aromatics is this: your own relationship with these plants and fragrances is irreplaceable.

No article, no product, no tradition can substitute for direct experience — for sitting with frankincense smoke in the early morning and noticing what shifts in you, for finding the anointing oil that makes you feel most like yourself, for discovering that a particular blend quiets your anxious mind in a way nothing else does.

The plants meet us where we are. They are extraordinarily patient. They have been waiting a long time for us to remember that they are here.

The practice of working with spiritual aromatics is, at its heart, a practice of attentiveness — to the plants, to our own inner states, to the relationship between them. It is a form of prayer that works through the body and the senses, grounding the spiritual in the most physical and intimate of experiences: a scent that moves through you, changes you, opens something that had been closed.

This is the alchemy of spiritual perfume. Not the transformation of base metals into gold, but the transformation available to us every day — through fragrance, through intention, through our willingness to work with the living intelligence of the plant world.

Welcome to the practice.

Explore Further

All of my aromatic products are made with sustainably sourced, natural botanical materials and infused with intention. If you feel called to explore sacred aromatics in your own practice, I invite you to explore the collection.

Juniper Stokes is a botanical perfumer, soul alchemist, intuitive astrologer, and rewilding guide through mythic landscapes of the nature, spirit, and the cosmos. For over 25 years, she has been guiding soulful humans back to the heart of who they are and why they’re here.

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💠 Find alchemical aromatics in The Botanica.

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The Art of Elemental Anointing: Restoring Balance Through Sacred Aromatics

The act of anointing—applying sacred oils to the body with intention—is among humanity’s oldest ritual practices. From the chrism of ecclesiastical tradition to the abhyanga of Ayurvedic medicine, anointing represents a bridge between the material and spiritual realms. It is a soul-to-soul transmission of frequency from plant to human. A tactical prayer.

Sacred aromatics are central to my spiritual path and the way I practice healing arts.

For those who are newer here: I first started working with sacred aromatics and energy medicine in an intentional way during the 1990s (trying to embrace my age, folks).

Now, as a professionally trained botanical perfumer (I’ve studied with the greats), clinically certified aromatherapist (got that 610-hour certification), spiritual alchemist (decades of formal study here, too), plant communicator, and professional anointer, I have devoted decades to understanding how aromatic molecules interface with human consciousness. (My crazy bio is here if you want the full rundown.)

My work draws deeply from the Hermetic alchemical tradition, planetary correspondences, intuitive plant communication, and the sacred path of the Myrrhophore.

The elemental anointing oils I have created represent a convergence of these lineages, formulated as both spiritual perfume oils and ceremonial tools for restoring elemental balance within the human energy system.

The community at The Mythoanimist Path is what makes this content possible. Every single like, share, comment, and subscribe does more for my heart and this publication than you can imagine.

The Hermetic Foundation: As Above, So Below

Western alchemy, rooted in Hermetic philosophy, understands the cosmos as a unified field of correspondences. The axiom “as above, so below” suggests that the macrocosm of the universe is reflected in the microcosm of the human being. (The Taoist alchemical path I walk says the same thing.)

Within this framework, the classical elements—Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Ether (also spelled “aether”, or known as the quintessence)—are not so much physical substances as they are archetypal principles that organize the reality we live within.

Each element governs specific qualities of consciousness and manifestation:

Earth represents structure, stability, embodiment, and the fertile matrix that sustains creation. It is the principle of materialization, grounding, and belonging.

Water governs flow, emotion, intuition, and memory. It is the receptive, lunar aspect of our being, offering purification, healing, and the bridge between conscious and unconscious realms.

Fire embodies transformation, will, passion, and creative force. It is both destroyer and renewer, the spark of inspiration and the heat of metamorphosis.

Air symbolizes thought, communication, clarity, and discernment. It is the breath between worlds, the realm of imagination and intellectual insight.

Ether represents the quintessence—the subtle field that unites, holds, and transcends all other elements. It is pure consciousness, presence, and the stillpoint from which all movement arises.

Though this particular elemental system represents Western Hermetic thought, countless traditions have some form of acknowledging that our health and spiritual evolution depend upon maintaining balance among the elemental forces.

When one element dominates or becomes deficient, disharmony manifests in our bodies, emotions, and spiritual paths.

Elemental anointing helps us restore this balance in partnership with the plants, through the intentional application of plant essences that carry specific elemental signatures…

You Are the Alembic: Embodied Practice

Anointing is fundamentally a deeply embodied practice.

Unlike simply inhaling an essence or diffusing it into a room, anointing requires deliberate touch—the application of oil to specific points on the body with conscious intention. This tactile dimension activates multiple pathways of healing simultaneously.

From a physiological perspective, anointing delivers aromatic molecules directly to the skin, where they are absorbed into the bloodstream and lymphatic system. Essential oils are lipophilic, meaning they readily pass through the lipid-rich cell membranes of the skin. Once absorbed, their molecular constituents interact with receptor sites throughout the body, influencing everything from neurotransmitter production to inflammatory response.

Even more than these benefits for our physical bodies, sacred anointing brings in conscious awareness of our energy body, too. Specific points act like energetic gateways for plant consciousness to travel through. The chakras of yogic tradition, the dantians of Chinese medicine, the three cauldrons of Celtic shamanism…all of these are potent places addressing both our physical body and the subtle energy body that interpenetrates it.

Plus, even though I’m really not the touchy-feely type*, even I can recognize that welcome touch itself is medicine. For all of us, self-anointing is a form of loving self-care, soothing our nervous system and countering the chronic stress response that is a way of life for most of us these days.

*One of my friends still laughs, decades later, at the time when she asked if I wanted to go to a conscious dance party. And I said ew — I don’t want to be touched. And she said, I don’t think they actually touch you. And I said — no! With their energy! Because I’m that sensitive. Anyway…

When performed with reverence and intention, anointing becomes a somatic prayer that rewires our relationship to embodiment itself.

And this is where the real magic happens: you become the alembic.

An alembic is central to the art and practice of alchemy. It is within the alembic that dense material is transformed into gold and the light of spirit.

When you place plant oils and waters on different points of your physical body, you become the vessel for transformation to take place within.

All the plants travel along the lines of energy body, meeting and dancing with each other upon convergence points, creating something new in partnership with the field of energy you provide.

Through anointing, you become the alembic through which all transmutation takes place.

The Path of the Myrrhophore: Bearing Sacred Aromatics

The term “Myrrhophore“ refers to the myrrh-bearers—traditionally, the women who brought aromatic spices to anoint the body of Christ. Mary Magdalene is our feminine forebearer in the Myrrhophore tradition, most likely carrying forth a tradition with even older and perhaps Egyptian origins.

When we tune into the Magdalene path of anointing today, we help heal a legacy of feminine oppression.

As Myrrhophores today, we carry sacred aromatics as an act of devotion and service. This path recognizes anointing not merely as self-care but as a sacred mantel, a way of tending to the holy in oneself and others.

In my practice, the path of the Myrrhophore has involved years of apprenticeship to plants themselves—learning their languages, understanding their gifts, and discerning how to combine them in ways that honor their individual genius while blending them into an alchemical formula that carries transmissions of healing and beauty.

This is the work of spiritual alchemy: transformation through relationship. The marriage of substances to birth new consciousness.

Each plant essence carries its own intelligence—its own subtle frequency.

When I blend dozens of rare botanicals—porcini with myrrh, dragonsblood with mimosa, white lotus with oakmoss—I am convening a council of plant spirits, each contributing its voice to a collective intention. The resulting oils (and sacred perfumes) become ensouled medicine, ritual healing alive with purpose and power.

Why Elemental Anointing Matters Now

Pause for a minute and feel into your own body — physically and energetically.

Can you sense the elements within? How does Earth feel? Fire? Water? Air? Do you feel these elements in harmony?

Most of us will find some sort of imbalance. This is normal — we’re not static beings and we will always be in flux in terms of our elemental make up.

Yet we also live in an age of profound elemental imbalance. Modern life, with its emphasis on digital abstraction, sedentary routines, and relentless mental activity, creates systematic deficiencies and excesses across the elemental spectrum.

Feeling ungrounded, spacey, or disconnected from the body? Experiencing dissociation, anxiety, and or a lack of belonging? It might be time to reconnect with with the stabilizing force of the Earth element.

How is your emotional world? Are you hiding or stuffing down any emotions? Feeling creative or intuitive blocks? Ignoring your inner knowing? If part of you has forgotten how to flow, how to feel, how to trust the intelligence of the body’s deeper currents…it’s time to get your Water moving.

When Fire is out of balance, it looks pretty much like you’d expect: Too little, nothing cooks. Too much and you boil over. For us, this can show up as lack of motivation, no passion for life, and creative stagnation when running cold, or inflammation, anger, and burnout when running hot,

Air excess is super common these days — usually manifesting as overthinking, anxiety, scattered attention, and disconnection from our somatic wisdom.

But what of Ether? That ineffable, spiritual fabric of being? When our Ether becomes obscured, it can feel as if we’ve lost contact with the unified field of consciousness, the sense of being held within something larger than ourselves. A dark night of the soul or crises of faith can emerge at the extreme, with general malaise and hopelessness early warning signs.

Elemental anointing is so magical and powerful because it addresses these imbalances directly — without getting us trapped in the mind and overtherapizing patterns.

By applying oils formulated to strengthen deficient elements and calm excessive ones, we actively participate in our own rebalancing through the engaged alchemy of our attention, intention, and embodied presence.

cred me

How to Anoint: A Practical Guide

Anointing is both simple and profound. While the essential gesture is merely the application of oil to skin, the quality of attention brought to the act determines its depth of effect.

Preparation

Begin by creating sacred space, even if only for a moment. This might involve lighting a candle, taking three conscious breaths, or simply setting an intention for your anointing. Consider what quality you wish to invite or strengthen. Which element feels deficient or excessive in your current state?

Selection

Choose the elemental oil that corresponds to your intention:

Earth for grounding, stability, boundaries, manifestation
Water for emotional flow, intuition, purification, receptivity
Fire for passion, transformation, courage, vitality
Air for clarity, communication, inspiration, discernment
Ether for meditation, consecration, unity, presence

Application

Dispense a small amount of oil onto your fingertips or palm. Warm the oil briefly by rubbing your hands together, awakening its aromatic molecules.

Apply with deliberate, loving touch to the body locations that correspond to the element’s domain — or intuitively is always welcome:

Earth: Soles of the feet, base of spine, root center (perineum….though that can be sensitive, lol — the pubic bone is a good alternative), along the legs
Water: Heart center, wrists, lower belly, third eye
Fire: Solar plexus, heart, pulse points, palms
Air: Temples, throat, crown, back of neck
Ether: Crown, heart, palms, anywhere requiring consecration

As you anoint, you might speak your intention aloud, visualize the element’s qualities permeating your being, or simply rest in receptive awareness of sensation and scent.

Integration

After anointing, take time to breathe consciously with the oil’s aroma. Notice any shifts in your felt sense, emotional state, or quality of thought. You might journal, meditate, or move your body to help integrate the anointing. It’s also totally fine to simply continue you day, trusting the oil to keep working subtly in the background.

Frequency

Elemental oils may be used daily as part of a spiritual hygiene practice, or episodically as needed. You might anoint all five elements in sequence for comprehensive balancing, or focus on a single element for an extended period (days, weeks, or lunar cycles). Trust your own intuitive callings here.

The Element Oils: Ceremonial Grade Alchemical Creations

The new elemental anointing oils I’ve created represent the culmination of years of study, intuition, and refinement. Unlike typical elemental blends that rely on familiar correspondences, these formulations include rare and potent essences that elevate them to ceremonial grade.

Earth: The Fertile Matrix

This oil grounds, stabilizes, and nourishes the Earth element through a unique marriage of sacred resins, roots, and rare fungi essences. The inclusion of porcini mushroom absolute—a virtually unobtainable material—brings the deep, mysterious intelligence of mycelial networks. Combined with cedarwood, vetiver, oakmoss, myrrh, opoponax, benzoin, patchouli, black spruce, and angelica root, this creates a profoundly resinous accord that supports embodiment, stillness, and grounded awareness. Apply to the soles of the feet, along the spine, or over the root center when seeking steadiness, belonging, or manifestation.

Water: The Flowing Current

This oil restores flow and receptivity through precious florals, harmonizing leaves, and the extraordinary inclusion of seaweed essence—bringing the literal energy of ocean waters into the blend. With jasmine, key lime, violet, white lotus (another exceptionally rare material), clary sage, and mint, this creates an absolutely divine, flowing blend that softens emotional tension, deepens intuitive listening, and supports dreamwork and divination. Apply to heart, wrists, or third eye before meditation or ritual to encourage gentleness, adaptability, and connection with unseen currents.

Fire: The Transformative Flame

This oil awakens vitality and will through sensual florals, potent spices, and the rare dragonsblood ink—a resinous material that carries both protective and passionately transformative properties. Combined with turmeric, black pepper, ginger, blood orange, rose, cardamom, ylang ylang, coriander, and cinnamon, this spicy-sweet floral oil pulses with passion and movement. Exceptional for charging ritual tools, kindling inspiration, or supporting major release and transformational work. Apply over solar plexus, heart, or pulse points before creative work, dance, ceremony, or when courage and self-expression are needed.

Air: The Clarifying Breath

This oil clears and uplifts through fresh herbs, bright florals, and green forest essences. The inclusion of galbanum—a potent, green, resinous material used in ancient Egyptian perfumery—adds profound spiritual dimension. With high-altitude lavender, blue spruce, balsam fir, rosemary, and eucalyptus, this bright, resinous blend creates mental space and attunes consciousness to subtle currents of inspiration. Use before study, writing, teaching, prayer, or invocation. Apply to temples, throat, or crown when seeking clarity, communication, or discernment.

Ether: The Quintessence

This oil opens awareness to the subtle field uniting all elements. Through precious woods and ethereal florals—including mimosa blossom (an exquisitely delicate absolute) and tuberose (the night-blooming flower associated with spiritual awakening)—combined with sandalwood, neroli, balsam gurjan, geranium rose, and petitgrain, this blend encourages devotion, peace, and direct connection to Source. Use in meditation, consecration, or attunement practices. Apply to crown, heart, or palms before energy work or ritual invocation to harmonize the elemental body.

Each oil is formulated at a ceremonial-grade 20% dilution in jojoba oil, suitable for both daily wear as natural perfume and ritual application. Presented in 1 dram glass bottles, these oils are best used within one year of purchase and remain potent for up to three years with proper storage.

The complete set of all five elemental oils comes housed in a protective tin case—a portable alchemical apothecary for wherever your path leads.

Shop All Anointing Oils

Back to that Hermetic Stuff…

The Hermetic axiom reminds us that inner and outer reality are mirrors. When we restore elemental balance within our own being—through conscious anointing, relationship with plant allies, and embodied ritual practice—we participate in the restoration of balance in the world around us.

These oils are not meant to be precious objects kept on a shelf but living tools for transformation. Use them!

As you work with these living oils over time, you will develop your own felt sense of each element’s signature, your own intuitive understanding of which oil calls to you in any given moment.

This is the deeper gift of elemental anointing: receiving the healing properties of aromatic molecules and cultivating a refined sensitivity to the elemental currents flowing through your own consciousness.

In learning to recognize and rebalance these forces, you become an alchemist—a conscious participant in the great work of transformation.

Did you get something out of this article? Please like, comment, and share. It makes a huge difference…and does just a bit to encourage human-made content.

Juniper Stokes is a botanical perfumer, soul alchemist, and rewilding guide through mythic landscapes of the nature, spirit, and the cosmos. For over 25 years, she has been guiding soulful humans back to the heart of who they are and why they’re here.

🌿 Explore workshops & trainings.
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Juniper Stokes is a certified coach, mythoanimist guide, alchemist & artist.

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The Magic & Medicine of Ponderosa Pine

I live in the land of ponderosas — and I can tell you that these are really special trees. Tall and straight, with long needles, huge cones, and amazing fire-resistant qualities…oh, and the fragrant resins…mmm…These trees are my guardians and loves in the lands of Oregon.

There are countless types of pines in North America alone. Y’all in Eastern States love your white pine, but the Ponderosa will always hold a special place in this West Coast girl’s heart.

Ponderosa pine is a western North American conifer recognized by its tall, straight trunk, thick scaly bark, and long needles usually bundled in threes. It shapes mountain and foothill landscapes and contributes resin, needles, and bark to fire-adapted ecosystems. Aromatically it gives a bright, resinous, clean evergreen note that calls to mind open forests and sun-warmed resin. Let’s dive into the magic and medicine of ponderosa pine!

Botanical profile and identifying features

Pinus ponderosa commonly reaches great height with a broad crown in mature stands. Needles occur in fascicles of three, and bark matures into puzzle-like plates on older trees. Cones hang downward and can persist on the tree for seasons.

Key identifying notes:

Needles: long, typically in threes.
Bark: thick, brown to orange plates with deep fissures on mature trees.
Habitat: dry slopes, montane forests, foothills from British Columbia south through the western United States.

Traditional and ethnobotanical uses

Ponderosa pine has long been used by Indigenous peoples and settlers who arrived here…unfortunately. Our logging history is rough. But, on a happier note: Needles and inner bark were brewed into vitamin-rich teas by indigenous peoples in this areas. Needle tea has been used as a mild respiratory support and a source of vitamin C in traditional preparations.

The resin, which infuse into oils and tinctures for sacred aromatics, served as an adhesive, waterproofing pitch, chewing gum after careful processing, and as a component in wound salves and fire-starting.

These uses emphasize practical survival skills as well as ceremonial applications—the scent of pine often marks liminal outdoor spaces and seasonal gatherings.

Aromatic and perfumery character

I’m fortunate enough to distill my own ponderosa hydrosol right here in the high desert of Central Oregon :) It’s divine. The Ponderosa scent profile is bright and resinous, with a pine-turpentine top and a warm green-resin heart.

Ponderosa pine essential oil reads as crisp, forest-like, and clearing. In blends it brings freshness and a high, camphor-resin clarity that pairs well with citrus, fir balsams, spruce, and warm resins like labdanum or frankincense.

Ponderosa pine pairs well with cedarwood, vetiver, lavender, rosemary, and citrus top notes for room or ritual blends. Blend with juniper, cypress, and artemesias for clearing and protective creations.

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Ponderosa Pine Hydrosol

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Preparations and ritual applications

Forest clearing spray (room mist)

100 ml distilled water in a spray bottle
1 tsp vegetable glycerin (to help disperse oils and preserve)
Essential oil total: keep to a safe aromatic concentration (around 0.5–1% for room sprays); for 100 ml that equals roughly 15–30 drops total.
A fun starting formula: 10 drops ponderosa pine, 6 drops sweet orange, 4 drops cedarwood. Shake before use and mist lightly in well-ventilated spaces.

Anointing salve (external use)

30 g beeswax + 120 ml ponderosa infused olive oil (from chopped needles)
Infuse needles gently in oil, strain, warm with melted beeswax, pour into tins.
Apply to wrists or chest as a protective and breath-opening ointment.

Needle tea

A small pinch of fresh or dried needles steeped briefly in hot water can be sipped as a warming infusion. Prepare cautiously; avoid if pregnant and consult a practitioner if you have medical concerns.

Safety and cautions

Ponderosa pine contains compounds that have important implications:

Avoid excessive internal use. While needle tea has traditional applications, advice from a qualified herbalist or clinician is recommended before internal consumption.
Pregnant women should avoid internal use of pine medicines and high-dose essential oil exposure.
Essential oils are concentrated and can be irritating to skin and mucous membranes; always dilute. Keep oils away from eyes and infants.
If you have respiratory sensitivities or asthma, test aromatic exposure cautiously; concentrated pine vapors can be stimulating.

Harvesting and stewardship

Responsible harvest protects the tree and the broader forest:

Collect fallen needles or fallen small branches when possible. Post-windstorm is a great time to collect tree medicine.
When collecting resin, only take what falls freely from a tree — never force resin away from where it’s protecting that tree. Look to the ground for fallen resin.
Observe local regulations and Indigenous protocols. Many landscapes have cultural and conservation protections; gather only where permitted and ethical. See this free guide on ethical foraging for more.

Spirit and practice

Ponderosa pine embodies endurance, openness, and the long view. Use it for practices that call for clarity, steady presence, and ancestral remembering. A short morning ritual might involve a single anointed drop of pine-scented oil on the wrists, mindful breath, and a commitment to carry the steadiness of the tree into the day.

If you would like to explore plant medicines and aromatic craft more deeply, join the waitlist for Nectar & Alchemy: The School of Sacred Aromatics.

Current classes include Angel Anointing, Becoming a Myrrhophore, and more — and I’ll be sharing a foundational anointing oil class in January 2026!

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Juniper Stokes is a certified coach, mythoanimist guide, alchemist & artist.

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Pink Yarrow: The flower essence of healthy boundaries

Oh my goodness. My pink yarrow emerged more vibrant than ever this summer! Look at the very real and unedited picture from my yard!

Pink yarrow (the rose- or pink-flowered forms of Achillea millefolium and close cultivars) carries the same botanical character as common yarrow but adds a soft, heart-leaning color. In folk medicine yarrow is famous as a wound plant and circulatory ally; in the flower essence tradition, pink yarrow shows up as a remedy for people who are highly empathic, who merge with others’ feelings, or who have porous energetic boundaries and need a steadier sense of self.

Family: Asteraceae.
Descriptors: clumping perennial with finely divided, feathery leaves and flat-topped clusters of many small flowers. Pink cultivars range from pale rose to deeper pink.
Habitat: meadows, roadsides, dry fields and open woodland edges across temperate regions where it readily self-seeds.
Harvest the flowering tops when blossoms are fresh and fully open for the best energetic and aromatic qualities.

Traditional uses

Historically yarrow earned names such as “wound healer” and “Master of Blood” because of its styptic action and its use in treating cuts, stopping bleeding, and assisting wound repair.

Ever heard of Achilles’ Heel? Well, achillea millefolium heals ;)

That physical reputation carries into energetic work: yarrow is trusted for closing leaks, mending ruptures, and restoring continuity to the field. These physical-plant uses appear throughout ethnobotanical records and contemporary herbal sources.

I love using wild yarrow in healing salves and oils, but I reserve the precious pink yarrow for flower essences…

What the pink-yarrow flower essence addresses

Pink yarrow flower essence as especially useful for people who absorb other people’s emotions, becoming confused, drained, or ill in highly empathic environments.

Healers, carers, and animals who take on others’ states and need a clearer boundary that still allows compassion can also benefit from this essence, as can those who wish to cultivate compassionate presence that does not merge or over-identify with another’s inner life.

How to use pink yarrow essence

I like to take 4 drops under the tongue up to 4 times daily, or as needed during periods of orbiting emotional overwhelm.

Safety and clinical considerations

Flower essences are considered vibrational remedies rather than herbal pharmacology, so they are typically non-toxic and used in tiny dilutions. Still, it’s wise to use caution with clients who have severe psychiatric conditions. For pregnant women, animals, or children, you can use a vinegar or glycerin-based remedy rather than the traditional brandy-based version.

Ritually-Made Vibrant Pink Yarrow Essence

Pink Yarrow

$14.00

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Why Hydrosols Are the Missing Piece in Your Wellness Practice

Hydrosols: the gentle powerhouse you didn't know you needed.

There's a reason hydrosols have been treasured for over a thousand years in healing traditions around the world. And there's a reason that once people discover them, they wonder how they ever lived without them.

If you've been feeling like something is missing from your wellness routine—if essential oils feel too strong, if you want plant medicine that's gentle enough for daily use but powerful enough to create real change, if you're looking for something that works on multiple levels at once—hydrosols might be exactly what you've been searching for.

What Makes Hydrosols Different?

Let's start with what hydrosols actually are, because most people have never heard of them.

When you steam distill a plant to create essential oils, you get two products: the concentrated oil floating on top, and the aromatic water beneath. That water is the hydrosol. It carries the water-soluble compounds of the plant, the vibrational essence, and trace amounts of the essential oil itself.

But here's what makes hydrosols extraordinary: they bridge worlds that usually stay separate.

Hydrosols are:

Gentle enough for the most sensitive skin, yet powerful enough for deep healing
Subtle enough for daily use, yet potent enough for spiritual practice
Accessible enough to spray freely, yet sacred enough to use ceremonially
Mild enough for children and elders, yet effective enough for acute situations

This is the sweet spot of plant medicine—the Goldilocks zone where accessibility meets potency.

The Problems Hydrosols Solve

1. When Essential Oils Are Too Much

Essential oils are incredible, but they're not for everyone or every situation. They're highly concentrated (it takes 60 roses to make one drop of rose oil), they can irritate sensitive skin, they require dilution and careful use, and frankly, they're expensive enough that most people use them sparingly.

Hydrosols give you the medicine of the plant without any of these limitations. You can spray them directly on your skin, use them generously, mist your whole body, your face, your space—no dilution needed, no sensitization concerns, no measuring droppers or carrier oils.

The result? You actually use them. Daily. Multiple times a day. And that consistency is where real transformation happens.

2. When You Need Something Now

We live in a world of overwhelm. Stress hits us multiple times a day. We need tools we can reach for in the moment—not things that require preparation, planning, or perfect conditions.

Hydrosols are instant. Keep a bottle by your desk and spray yourself when anxiety rises. Keep one by your bed for restless nights. Keep one in your bag for moments when you need to shift your energy quickly. Keep one in the bathroom for after-shower rituals that take 30 seconds but change your whole day.

This immediacy matters. The best remedy is the one you'll actually use, and hydrosols remove every barrier between you and the medicine.

3. When Your Skin Needs Real Care

Your skin is your largest organ and your primary interface with the world. It deserves more than synthetic fragrances, preservatives, and ingredients you can't pronounce.

Hydrosols are pure plant medicine for your skin. They're hydrating without being heavy. They balance pH naturally. They calm inflammation, reduce redness, tone and tighten, provide antioxidants, and feed your skin with the same compounds the plant uses to protect and heal itself.

But unlike most skincare products, hydrosols don't just treat your skin superficially. Because they work energetically as well as physically, they're nourishing you on multiple levels simultaneously—addressing not just the symptom, but the whole pattern that created it.

4. When You Want Spiritual Practice Without Complexity

Many people feel drawn to plant spirit medicine but don't know where to start. Working with plants spiritually can feel intimidating—do you need training? Special knowledge? The right mindset?

Hydrosols make it simple. Spray yourself before meditation and you're working with plant allies. Mist your space before ritual and you're clearing energy. Spritz your pillow before sleep and you're inviting the plant's medicine into your dreamtime.

There's no wrong way to do it. The plants aren't judging your technique. They're simply offering their gifts, and hydrosols are the most accessible form of receiving them.

5. When Your Space Needs Energetic Hygiene

We've become so aware of physical hygiene—washing hands, cleaning surfaces, purifying air. But what about energetic hygiene?

We absorb energy from every interaction, every environment, every screen we stare at. That accumulation affects our mood, our clarity, our vitality, our sleep. Yet most of us have no regular practice for clearing it.

Hydrosols are energetic hygiene made easy. Come home from a difficult day and mist yourself head to toe—literally washing off what isn't yours. Had a challenging conversation? Clear the room afterwards. Feeling stuck in old patterns? Change your frequency with a different plant medicine.

This isn't woo-woo—it's practical spiritual maintenance, and it takes 10 seconds.

My Alchemessence Hydrosols Are Magical

Not all hydrosols are created equal, and this matters more than you might think.

Commercial vs. Small-Batch Traditional

Most hydrosols on the market are byproducts of essential oil production. The oils are siphoned off and sold separately, and the leftover water is bottled as hydrosol. While these still have value, they're missing something crucial: the essential oils themselves.

Traditional hydrosols—made the way they've been made for thousands of years—keep the oils and water together. This means you're getting both the water-soluble compounds AND the oil-soluble compounds. You're getting the full spectrum of the plant's chemistry and energy.

This is how Alchemessence hydrosols are made: nothing is removed. The essential oils remain suspended in the aromatic water, giving you a more complete and potent medicine.

Grown with Intention, Harvested with Care

There's another factor that commercial operations can't replicate: relationship with the plants.

Every plant in Alchemessence hydrosols is either grown from seed or wild-tended on high desert land. Each one is observed, communed with, cared for throughout its growing cycle. Harvest happens at peak potency, often at specific times of day when the plant's medicine is strongest. The distillation itself is ceremony—honoring the plant's sacrifice and gift.

This isn't just romanticism. Plants are living beings that respond to how they're treated. The energetic quality of medicine made from plants that were rushed through industrial processing is different from medicine made from plants that were honored, thanked, and distilled with reverence.

You can feel the difference. People who use both commercial and small-batch sacred hydrosols consistently report that the handmade ones "hit different"—they're more alive, more present, more effective.

The Copper Alembic Factor

Alchemessence hydrosols are distilled in a copper alembic—the traditional vessel used by alchemists for millennia. Copper isn't just aesthetic; it has specific properties that affect the distillation. It conducts heat evenly, interacts with the plant compounds in beneficial ways, and many believe it adds its own energetic signature to the medicine.

Modern commercial operations use stainless steel because it's cheaper and easier to scale. But there's a reason the ancient alchemists chose copper, and there's a reason serious distillers still use it today.

Why Seasonal, Small-Batch Matters to You

Here's the honest truth about small-batch seasonal production: it means limited supply.

When hydrosols are gone, they're gone until next year's harvest. There are no warehouses of backup stock, no ability to suddenly make more when demand spikes. Each plant only yields so much medicine, and once that's been distilled, that's it for the season.

This might sound like a disadvantage, but it's actually what ensures quality. It means:

Every batch is fresh (hydrosols do degrade over time—fresher is better)
Nothing sits around for years waiting to be sold
I can focus on quality over quantity
Each hydrosol is made from that year's harvest, capturing that specific growing season
You're getting peak potency, not something that's been sitting on a shelf

But it also means that if you want these hydrosols, waiting isn't a good strategy. Popular varieties sell out within weeks. Once they're gone, you'll be waiting until next summer's harvest.

Real Uses for Real Life

Let's get practical. How do people actually use hydrosols daily?

Morning: Mist your face after washing as a gentle toner. The hydrosol balances your skin's pH, provides antioxidants, and wakes you up energetically. It's skincare and spiritual practice in one spray.

Throughout the Day: Keep a bottle at your desk. When stress hits, spray yourself—face, hands, the back of your neck. The aromatic compounds enter through your skin and your breath simultaneously, shifting your nervous system in seconds. This is better than a coffee break because you come back more centered, not more wired.

Before Bed: Mist your pillow, sheets, and yourself. Choose a plant that supports what you need—lavender for calming, mugwort for dreaming, pine for grounding. Your sleep quality will change when your sleep environment is infused with plant medicine instead of synthetic fragrance or stale air.

After Difficult Interactions: Clear your energy field immediately. Stand up, spray yourself from head to toe, take three deep breaths. You're not just refreshing yourself—you're literally washing off energetic residue. This practice alone can prevent the accumulation of stress that leads to burnout.

Before Spiritual Practice: Whether you meditate, pray, do yoga, or simply sit in silence—mist your space and yourself first. You're inviting the plant as an ally, creating sacred space, and shifting your consciousness into a more receptive state. The practice becomes deeper because you're not doing it alone.

As Needed for Skin Issues: Irritation, inflammation, dryness, redness—hydrosols address all of it. Spray generously on the affected area several times a day. Unlike creams that can trap problems under occlusive layers, hydrosols deliver healing directly while allowing skin to breathe.

Room Clearing: When a space feels heavy, stagnant, or off—mist it. After arguments, after illness, after energy-draining guests, or just because it's been too long. Think of it as energetic housekeeping that takes 30 seconds but transforms the feeling of your home.

The Plants You Need

Each plant offers its own particular gifts. Here's what's available from this summer's harvest:

For Protection & Boundaries: Wormwood, White Sagebrush, Giant Sagebrush
When you feel overwhelmed by others' energy, when you need to say no, when you're processing difficult experiences

For Grounding & Presence: Ponderosa Pine, Larch, Rabbitbrush
When you're scattered, anxious, or unmoored—these bring you back to earth and to yourself

For Peace & Nervous System Support: Lavender, Lavender White Sage Co-distill
When your nervous system is fried, when you can't turn off your mind, when you need softness

For Spiritual Practice & Dreamwork: Mugwort
The ancient dreaming herb—for accessing intuition, for liminal space work, for psychic opening

For Uplift & Celebration: Marigold (Tagetes), Apple Fruit
When you need brightness, joy, sweetness—these plants bring solar energy and delight

For Resilience & Healing: Yarrow
The warrior's companion—for maintaining integrity under pressure, for healing wounds seen and unseen

Most people find they're drawn to 2-3 specific hydrosols that become their daily companions, and then keep others on hand for specific situations. There's no wrong way to choose—trust what calls to you.

Why This Matters Now

We're living through a time of collective overwhelm. The nervous system assaults are constant—news, screens, isolation, uncertainty, divisiveness, environmental stress. We need tools that actually help, that we can use daily, that don't require perfect conditions or extensive training.

We also need real relationship with the natural world, but most of us are so disconnected that we don't even know where to start.

Hydrosols answer both needs. They're accessible medicine for modern stress. They're a daily tangible relationship with plants. They work on your skin, in your space, on your energy, and in your spirit—all at once.

And they're gentle enough that you'll actually use them, which means they can actually help.

The ancient Taoist physician Sun Simiao understood something profound: the best medicine is the medicine people will use. That's why he championed hydrosols over essential oils for common folk—not because they were inferior, but because they were accessible. You didn't need to measure, dilute, or be cautious. You could use them freely, daily, generously.

A thousand years later, we still need that same medicine. Maybe even more urgently.

What Happens When They're Gone

Here's what happens every year: people discover hydrosols, fall in love with them, use their bottle up, go to reorder... and find that their favorite is sold out.

Then they wait months for next year's harvest, wishing they'd stocked up when they had the chance.

Small-batch means small quantities. Seasonal means once a year. Popular varieties sell out fast, especially once people start talking about them.

If you know you want to work with hydrosols—if you can feel that these would fill a need in your life, your practice, your self-care routine—don't wait. Get the varieties that call to you now, while they're available.

You can't rush next summer's harvest. You can't demand plants grow faster or yield more than they naturally offer. You can only work with what's here, now, in this moment.

And what's here is a limited supply of potent, sacred, small-batch hydrosols made the traditional way, from plants grown with intention and distilled with reverence.

The question is: do you want to spend the next year with these plant allies by your side, or do you want to spend it wishing you'd ordered them when you had the chance?

The Invitation

This isn't just about buying a product. It's about choosing to bring plant medicine into your daily life in the most accessible, usable, effective form that exists.

It's about having tools that actually help when stress hits, when your skin needs support, when your space needs clearing, when your spirit needs remembering who you are beneath all the noise.

It's about working with plants that were grown and harvested by human hands, distilled in ceremony, and offered to you with the same intention healers have held for thousands of years: may this help you remember wholeness.

The hydrosols are ready. The bottles are filled. The medicine is waiting.

The only question is whether you'll invite these plant allies into your life before the seasonal harvest is gone.

Choose Your Hydrosols

Limited seasonal batches available now. Once they're gone, they're gone until next summer's harvest.

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Lavender White Sagebrush Co-Distill

$18.00

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Ponderosa Pine Hydrosol

$16.00

Marigold Hydrosol

$18.00

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The Magic & Medicine of Wormwood

The Bitter Herb of Boundaries, Spirits, and Purification

Among the many plants that bridge the physical and the unseen, few are as enduring and paradoxical as wormwood. Silver-leaved, aromatic, and bitter beyond measure, Artemisia absinthium has been medicine, poison, and spirit ally for over two thousand years. It is the namesake of absinthe—the “green fairy” of Belle Époque legend—but its deeper reputation is that of a purifier: a herb that confronts corruption in both body and soul.

I grow wormwood in my own organic gardens and am ever grateful for the magic and medicine it shares.

The Nature of the Plant

Wormwood is a perennial herb of the Asteraceae family, native to temperate Europe and Western Asia. It thrives in dry, neglected soils and can endure long periods of drought—an embodiment of resilience through austerity. Its finely divided silver leaves carry resinous glands rich with volatile oils. These essential oils, heavy with thujone, sabinene, chamazulene precursors, and myrcene, lend wormwood its penetrating scent and bitter flavor.

Chemically, wormwood is dominated by sesquiterpene lactones such as absinthin and anabsinthin—the compounds responsible for its intense bitterness. These stimulate digestive secretions, increase bile flow, and expel parasites. The same molecular bitterness that cleanses the gut also defines wormwood’s energetic action: it rejects what is stagnant, invasive, or false.

Wormwood in Ancient and Sacred Use

From Egypt to Greece to the Celtic north, wormwood was considered a boundary plant. In Egypt it was used in ritual fumigations to drive out unseen forces of disease. The Greeks placed it under Artemis’s protection—patron of women, wilderness, and thresholds—and used it in moon rites and dream oracles. Roman soldiers took wormwood wine before long marches, believing it would guard against exhaustion and corruption of the blood.

Medieval herbals praised wormwood as “the mother of herbs,” a tonic and a guard. Monks planted it near doors to repel moths and vermin, and housewives bundled it in linens to deter insects. It appeared in plague remedies, burned in homes to cleanse foul air, and steeped in wines and tonics to protect the spirit during epidemics.

In alchemical medicine, wormwood belonged to Saturn—the planet of endings, truth, and purification. Saturnine herbs strip away illusion and excess; wormwood, with its austerity and bitterness, was said to temper indulgence and bring clarity.

The Absinthe Spirit

In the late eighteenth century, wormwood found new life as the heart of absinthe, the legendary green liqueur. Distilled with anise, fennel, hyssop, and other herbs, absinthe concentrated wormwood’s volatile thujone-rich oil into a clear elixir that clouded when diluted with water.

Artists and poets of nineteenth-century Europe turned absinthe into a ritual of inspiration and dissolution. They called it “la fée verte”—the green fairy—believing it opened the creative and subconscious realms. What they experienced was both chemical and symbolic: thujone acts on the GABA receptors, creating mild disinhibition and heightened perception, while wormwood’s Saturnine current stripped away veils of civility, revealing the raw and the visionary.

Absinthe was later blamed for madness and banned for decades, though modern analysis shows that alcohol abuse, not thujone, was the true poison. Even so, the mythology remains apt: wormwood intoxicates not with sweetness, but with revelation.

Parasites and Ghosts: The Same Principle in Two Worlds

Wormwood’s long reputation as an anthelmintic—an expeller of worms—forms the root of its English name. Its volatile oils and sesquiterpene lactones are hostile to intestinal parasites, stimulating the digestive fire that makes the gut inhospitable to them. This cleansing is both biological and symbolic.

Across spiritual traditions, parasites and ghosts are often metaphors for energies that feed upon vitality. In the body, they rob nutrients; in the spirit, they drain will and clarity. Wormwood acts on both levels through the same principle: expulsion of what invades without consent.

When used as incense or hydrosol, wormwood clears dense atmospheres, dissolving psychic residue much as it purges physical infestation. In folk magic it is burned to repel spirits of the restless dead or to sever unhealthy energetic ties. In the Slavic lands, wormwood was hung in thresholds to prevent the return of the unquiet dead after midsummer. In Western Europe it was added to funeral bouquets to guide souls to rest and to protect the living from their lingering sorrow.

In energetic work, wormwood corresponds to the solar plexus—the center of digestion, discernment, and will—and to the third eye, where perception clarifies. It sharpens boundaries while keeping channels clear. In this sense, its bitterness is an act of love: a refusal to let the sacred self be consumed by parasitic thought, energy, or emotion.

Wormwood Hydrosol

$16.00

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Wormwood Smudge Bundle

$10.00

The Alchemy of Purification

To the alchemists, every herb mirrored a process of inner transformation. Wormwood’s alchemy was that of calcination: the burning away of dross to reveal what endures. Its ruling planet, Saturn, governs time, decay, and truth; its element, fire through air, carries the smoke of purification.

In alchemical operations, wormwood was used to temper the volatile with the fixed. Its essence was distilled into tinctures that “separate the pure from the impure,” assisting both physical detoxification and the refinement of consciousness. Its bitterness was seen as a form of instruction—showing the initiate that the path of clarity requires confrontation with the unpleasant and the unacknowledged.

Working with Wormwood Today

• Incense or fumigation – A pinch of dried leaf burned in a heat-proof dish clears a space before dream work, divination, or ancestral communion.
• Infused oil – Dilute carefully and use for protection of the solar plexus or to seal energetic boundaries.
• Tincture or bitters – When used under guidance and in microdoses, wormwood strengthens digestion and focus, though it must never be taken in excess.
• Flower essence – A gentle form that assists in releasing psychic parasites and emotional entanglements, restoring clarity and sovereignty.

Cautions

Wormwood is not a casual herb. Its essential oil is toxic when ingested and should never be taken internally. Even teas and tinctures require moderation and professional guidance. It is contraindicated in pregnancy, epilepsy, and liver conditions. Its power lies in its restraint—the dose defines whether it is medicine or poison.

Closing

Wormwood stands as one of the old world’s purest teachers of discernment. It embodies the sacred bitterness that guards life from decay and delusion. In the body, it awakens digestion and casts out parasites. In the spirit, it restores sovereignty by clearing ghosts, obsessions, and attachments. Its lesson is clear and unsentimental: to protect life, one must know what belongs and what does not.

Wormwood is the herb of the threshold—where the living meet the dead, where comfort gives way to truth, and where purification opens the path to wisdom.

If you would like to explore plant medicines and aromatic craft more deeply, join the waitlist for Nectar & Alchemy: The School of Sacred Aromatics.

Current classes include Angel Anointing, Becoming a Myrrhophore, and more — and I’ll be sharing a foundational anointing oil class in January 2026!

Enjoyed this article? The absolute most wonderful way to say thank you is by sharing it!

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Juniper Stokes is a certified coach, mythoanimist guide, alchemist & artist.

juniper stokes 11/2/25 juniper stokes 11/2/25

The Medicine & Magic of marigold

Few garden flowers are as instantly familiar as the marigold. Their orange and yellow heads catch the eye, their scent marks a place, and across cultures these flowers have been pressed into ceremonial, medicinal, culinary, and practical use.

But “marigold” is a common name that points to two different plant stories: the Tagetes marigolds of the Americas and the pot marigold, Calendula, that became a European herbal mainstay. Both sit in the daisy family (Asteraceae), but they bring different chemistries and different cultural roles.

Below I unpack both threads: who these plants are, what’s in them, how people have used them, and how you might work with them safely.

Two marigolds: Tagetes vs. Calendula

When people say “marigold” they usually mean one of two things.

• Tagetes — the New World marigolds (Tagetes erecta, T. patula, T. lucida, T. minuta, etc.). These are the bright orange, pungent-scented marigolds commonly used in large quantities at festivals in Mexico and widely planted in gardens worldwide. They were domesticated in the Americas and later spread across the globe.

• Calendula (Calendula officinalis), often called pot marigold, is an Old World medicinal and kitchen flower. It has been cultivated in Mediterranean and South Asian herb gardens for centuries and features in traditional European and Middle Eastern materia medica. Calendula petals tend to be softer in fragrance and prized for topical herbal preparations and cosmetic extracts.

Knowing which plant you mean matters, because their traditional uses and active chemistry differ.

Botanical and chemical profile — what makes each plant “work”

Calendula officinalis: the pot marigold

Calendula petals are rich in carotenoids (lutein and related xanthophyll esters), triterpenoid esters and saponins, flavonol glycosides, and polysaccharides. These lipophilic pigments give the flowers their intense yellow–orange color and contribute antioxidant and skin-soothing activity used in salves, wound creams, and cosmetic formulations. Modern analyses identify many individual carotenoids in calendula petals, with lutein derivatives among the major constituents.

Tagetes species: the New World marigolds

Tagetes flowers and roots produce a different chemical profile: essential oils rich in monoterpenoids and sesquiterpenoids, carotenoids in the petals, and sulfur-containing polyacetylenes called thiophenes (notably α-terthienyl) concentrated in roots and flowers. Those thiophenes are biologically active — nematicidal, insecticidal, and antifungal — which explains Tagetes’ long use as a companion plant and soil protector. Essential oils from leaves and flowers contain compounds such as tagetone and ocimene, which also contribute to biological activity and aroma.

In My Botanica

I love the medicine of both these flowers, but for very different uses. In my natural perfumes and anointing oils, I most often use tagetes — it’s fruity fragrance enhances blends with an undefinable note. This is also the variety I use to make my Marigold Hydrosol.

I use calendula to infuse into oils and teas.

Both are lovely to make plant pigments with!

Marigold Hydrosol

$18.00

Cultural lives of the marigold

Mexico and Mesoamerica — cempasúchil and the dead

Tagetes erecta (cempasúchil, often called the Aztec or Mexican marigold) has a deep history in central Mexico. The Aztecs used the flowers in ritual, in offerings, and as dye and medicine. Today cempasúchil is inseparable from Día de los Muertos altars and processions: its bright color and pungent scent are thought to guide and welcome ancestral spirits back to the home of the living. Large quantities of marigolds are laid on graves and woven into ofrendas.

South Asia — garlands, festivals, and weddings

Marigolds (mostly Tagetes species, introduced in the early modern period) are ubiquitous in Hindu ritual and South Asian celebrations. Strung into long garlands, they are offered at temples, used to decorate homes during festivals like Diwali, and carried in wedding processions. The flowers symbolize brightness, auspiciousness, and a life force that links offerings to the divine.

Europe and the Mediterranean — calendula as healer and dye

Calendula shows up throughout classical and medieval herbal texts for wound care, eye washes, skin salves, and as a culinary garnish or textile dye. European apothecaries prized the petals for anti-inflammatory and vulnerary preparations; today calendula extracts still appear in wound-care and cosmetic products for their soothing and reparative properties.

Gardens and farms — companion, dye, food, and pest control

Farmers and gardeners value Tagetes for more than ornament. Planted as a companion crop, marigolds help suppress certain nematodes and soil pathogens — a practical use that follows from the plant’s thiophene chemistry. Some Tagetes and Calendula cultivars are edible: petals add color to salads and can act as a saffron or dye substitute in rice and sweets. Tagetes lucida and T. tenuifolia are used as culinary herbs in some regional cuisines.

Medicine, magic, and modern uses

Medicinally, calendula is most commonly used topically: infused oil, salves, and creams for minor wounds, dermatitis, and inflammation. Laboratory and clinical work supports calendula’s anti-inflammatory and wound-healing potential, mostly tied to its carotenoids, triterpenoids, and polysaccharides. Tagetes species have a record of traditional use for digestive complaints, fever, and external applications; their root and leaf extracts are studied for antimicrobial and antiparasitic activity.

Magically and symbolically, marigold often represents the sun, life force, protection, and remembrance. In folk practice across regions the flower is used in protective bundles, funeral rites, and offerings. Because of their bright hue and longevity, marigolds frequently stand in rituals that mark thresholds between life and death, or that ask for resilience and abundance.

How to use marigold in your home practice and kitchen

Infused oil and salve with calendula petals — a classic for skin care: slowly macerate dried petals in olive or sunflower oil for several weeks or use low heat, then strain and whip into a salve with beeswax.

Marigold rice or dye — steep petals (Tagetes or calendula) in hot water or simmer briefly to release color for rice, butter, or baked goods as an edible dye. Use edible cultivars and be mindful of flavor. I’ve heard it called poorman’s saffron ;)

Garden ally — plant Tagetes as a companion in vegetable beds to help deter some soil pests and attract pollinators; harvest flowers before heavy rainfall to preserve potency. I always plant by tomatoes.

Cautions and contraindications

Don’t assume all marigolds are edible — identify the species and cultivar. Some Tagetes are bitter and can upset digestion in large amounts. Calendula oral use is generally discouraged in pregnancy; many sources advise avoiding internal use of calendula during pregnancy because of potential uterine effects. Topical use is common, but consult a medical provider if you are pregnant, breastfeeding, or allergic to Asteraceae (daisy family) plants. For Tagetes, food amounts are usually safe, but medicinal dosing lacks robust safety data.

Tagetes essential oil is potent and must be used with care. It can be phototoxic or irritating; never apply concentrated oils undiluted to skin and treat essential oils with the usual aromatic safety protocols.

Closing

Marigolds are both practical and ceremonial: dyes and salves, altar flowers and companion plants. Calendula and Tagetes occupy overlapping but distinct cultural and botanical territories — each brings a rich tradition, useful chemistry, and specific applications. Whether you braid cempasúchil for an ofrenda, infuse calendula into a healing salve, or plant Tagetes along a tomato row, you are working with a plant that has served people’s bodies and rituals for centuries.

If you would like to explore plant medicines and aromatic craft more deeply, join the waitlist for Nectar & Alchemy: The School of Sacred Aromatics.

Current classes include Angel Anointing, Becoming a Myrrhophore, and more — and I’ll be sharing a foundational anointing oil class in January 2026!

Selected sources used above: PLoS/PMC review on Tagetes chemistry and thiophenes; Kew plant profile on Mexican marigold; ACS study and recent reviews on calendula carotenoids and phytochemistry; UF/IFAS and extension literature on nematode suppression; medical summaries on calendula safety (WebMD, Drugs.com).

Ritually-Made Marigold Essence

Marigold

$14.00

Want to learn more about flower essences? I’ve created a totally free guide for you!

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Juniper Stokes is a certified coach, mythoanimist guide, alchemist & artist.

juniper stokes 10/31/25 juniper stokes 10/31/25

The Magic & Medicine of Mugwort

Oh mugwort — also called crone’s wort among women’s circles (which is a very appropriate name, as you’ll see below).

Mugwort is a plant I love and grow in my own organic gardens. This year, I created mugwort flower essence, mugwort smoke bundles, mugwort hydrsosol, and even mugwort pigment! I also baked mugwort cookies and dried leaves to use for teas and dreaming throughout the year.

Mugwort—most commonly Artemisia vulgaris in Europe and A. argyi or A. princeps in East Asia—is a perennial herb with a long history as a healer, a companion for dreams, and a plant of ritual protection. It carries a herbaceous, slightly bitter, camphoraceous aroma and has been used across cultures for digestive support, moxibustion, divination, and as a smoke medicine for clearing and opening subtle pathways.

Botanical profile and lifecycle

Mugwort is a hardy, rhizomatous perennial that favors disturbed ground, roadsides, fields, and forest edges. Stems rise from creeping rootstocks and bear deeply lobed, grey-green leaves often paler beneath. Flower clusters are small, inconspicuous, and wind-pollinated; they appear late summer into fall. Mugwort spreads readily by rhizome and seed, which makes it resilient but also aggressive in some settings.

Key identifying notes:

Leaves: alternate, deeply lobed, often with a downy or silvery underside.
Flowers: small, clustered, usually yellowish-green or brownish.
Growth habit: erect stems from a creeping rootstock; can form colonies.

Harvesting and sustainability

In many places, mugwort grows freely and weedily :) Harvest aerial parts just before or at early flower for best aromatic character and in ways that do not encourage unwanted spread into sensitive habitats. Respect private and protected lands; gather only where legal and sustainable.

If you harvest your own mugwort, be sure to check out my free ethical foraging guide and free plant identification guides.

Traditional and ethnobotanical uses

Mugwort has a broad, cross-cultural profile, often carried as a talisman against intrusion and used in protective bundles and sleep pillows to encourage lucid or prophetic dreams.

In the Taoist traditions I study, as well as Classical and Traditional Chinese Medicine in general, the leaves of mugwort are dried and used for moxibustion—compressed into cones or sticks and burned over acupuncture points to apply warming, focused heat.

On the European continent, artemisia vulgaris appears in herbal and folk practices as a bitter for digestion, a menstrual aide, and as a component in dreamwork. The Greek lunar goddess Artemis gave her name to this family of feminine-aligned plants.

Diana (Artemis) the Huntress - (1870-1924) Guillaume Seignac

Aromatic & perfumery character

While I use mugwort in some spirit sprays and anointing oils, it’s green-herbaceous, slightly camphoraceous, bittersweet aroma can overwhelm perfumes. Though, I do of course have mugwort and other artemisia’s in my botanical perfume for Artemis ;)

Mugwort registers as an aromatic green with medicinal and almost resinous facets when warmed. In perfumery it functions as a green-middle note that can lend herbal depth and an aged, medicinal nuance to incense, chypres, and leather accords.

Making your own magical perfumes? Some tips:

Use sparingly. A little mugwort essential oil shifts a blend toward herbal depth without dominating, but it’s super easy to overdo.
Pairs well with: cedar, vetiver, bergamot (use a bergapten-free fraction if blending for skin), frankincense, lavender, and smoky resins.

Mugwort

$14.00

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Mugwort Hydrosol

$16.00

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Mugwort Smudge Bundle

$10.00

Preparations and ritual applications

Simple anointing oil (external use only)

Infuse a 1:1 ratio of fresh mugwort in an oil of your choice (olive works well). I let the mugwort wilt a bit overnight first — this allows bugs to run free and releases excess moisture. Then, finely chop the leaves, infuse in a warm,indirect heat for 2-4 hours (I use a water bath in a crockpot and smell continuously to check doneness and prevent burning), strain, and bottle.

Use as an anointing oil for protective rituals or before dreamwork.

Dream pillow

My favorite combo is dried mugwort leaf with dried lavender and a pinch of hops. Sew into a small cotton sachet and place beneath your pillow. Write down your dreams and insights upon awaking.

Smudge or smoke bundle

Mugwort can be bundled alone or with other aromatic herbs. Burn outdoors or in a well-ventilated space, moving smoke gently through thresholds or around objects you wish to clear.

Medicinal notes and safety

Historical herbal uses include mugwort bitters for digestion and topical warming applications. Modern use of the Artemisia species in general do require some caution:

Some Artemisia contain thujone and other compounds that can be neuroactive at high doses. Do not ingest mugwort preparations without guidance from a qualified herbalist or healthcare practitioner.
Mugwort is traditionally associated with stimulating menstrual flow. Avoid internal use during pregnancy and when trying to conceive.
People with severe allergies to the Asteraceae family (ragweed, chrysanthemum, marigold) may react to mugwort. Test topical preparations on a small patch of skin first.
Moxa and smoke practices involve heat and combustion—practice with care to prevent burns and smoke inhalation.

Always treat herbal and aromatic work as complementary and not as a substitute for medical care. If you have chronic health issues, are pregnant, or take medications, consult a qualified practitioner before using mugwort in any therapeutic way.

Spirit and practice

Mugwort is a plant for threshold work. In many traditions it accompanies transition—between waking and dreaming, between one season and the next, between visible and subtle. Use mugwort to support dream incubation, to hold liminal space before divination, or as part of a protective cordon for ritual work. Keep offerings modest, and pair its use with grounding practices—pine, cedar, or a simple earth anointing—to integrate whatever arises.

If you would like to explore plant medicines and aromatic craft more deeply, join the waitlist for Nectar & Alchemy: The School of Sacred Aromatics.

Current classes include Angel Anointing, Becoming a Myrrhophore, and more — and I’ll be sharing a foundational anointing oil class in January 2026!

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The Extinction of Voice

When I taught English 101 and 201 to university students way back in the day, I used a rubric to grade papers.

It was a pretty standard rubric that asked me to score student essays based on things like organization and grammar.

But you what the key piece of this rubric was? Voice.

Yup – voice was always an essential part of every rubric for me and every other teacher in the English department. And we would get a stern talking to if we didn’t use rubrics with “voice” as an area to score.

But what is voice?

Of all the things to grade, voice is the trickiest. It’s that thing you can’t really put into words, that’s more subjective and open to interpretation.

If a paper had perfect grammar but was absolutely awful and boring, or had some language issues but was fascinating and original, it was the voice score that would make or break the final grade.

Your voice is what makes your writing uniquely yours — kind of a literary equivalent of the “it” factor for performers, or “style” for artists.

You know how some actors have stunning looks and seem to be doing everything right…but their performances just kind of fall flat? Or how there are other actors that you just want to keep watching and can’t pinpoint why?

It’s that it factor. That aura that is uniquely them, what speaks beyond the surface though an energetic exchange. It’s a presence that reaches beyond the intellect and into a frequency that holds your attention.

This is role of a writer’s voice.

Or let’s look at the voice in art — what we might call an artist’s signature style.

At a certain point, an artist’s work becomes recognizable as their own — and this is true even if they switch mediums or subject matters. There is something there that just reminds you of who they are — perhaps their use of light, color palette, the way they fill a blank space.

This signature expresses the human behind the paintings: Perfectly executed color, composition, and lighting can please the eye, but if we can’t feel the person who created that artwork, it again falls flat.

Perhaps voice is how we find a soul-to-soul connection between the maker and the recipient of any creative work.

As a lifelong artist, writer, and reader — and someone who has analyzed wayyyy too many papers with the voice-based rubric — I’m pretty sensitive to the presence of voice in a piece of writing.

**Right now, voice is in danger of extinction.**

I bet you can see where I’m going with this…

That’s right. The glut of AI slop spilling into every corner of the internet is not eradicating voice…but a symptom of self-eradication.

Every time you turn to AI to write that email or blog post for you, you lose a bit more of your own voice.

And your readers can tell.

AI has gotten good enough that many people are fooled into thinking that you can train your AI assistant/bot to sound like you.

Nope.

I mean, sure, it will sound a little like you…but something is most definitely missing.

The grammar is there, there are even some poetics (though they often seem way overused and artificial), and the content will likely be well-organized and pretty accurate. There might even be some higher-level reflections or thoughts if you’ve fed your AI really good prompts.

But the voice isn’t there. On some, foundational level, there’s a lack of natural rhythm. Your actual perspectives have been replaced by artificial ones and we can tell. (And since most people don’t use good prompts, the writing comes across like a bad informative essay vs. one with any real insight to share.)

We see this in the email lists we subscribe to, blog posts on every website from the smallest solopreneur to the biggest multinational companies, even — gulp — Substack!

And I know of at least a few publishers who are encouraging authors to use AI to get their books out faster. Not even books are safe anymore :(

There’s a reason I’m writing about this now though — and it’s not the recent MIT studies, though I’m not surprised at all by their findings.

It’s because I’m teaching a workshop on Mary Magdalene and the myrrhaphore tradition later this month.

Yeah. I’m writing about AI because of Mary Magdalene.

It’s relevant. I promise.

Several years ago, long before AI filled the internet with repetitive slop, I published an article on the art and practice of anointing.

And you know what? Writing that article was really, really hard.

It was next to impossible to find any information on anointing outside the modern Christian church. The sacred priestess path of the myrrhophore was already on my radar thanks to authors such as Felicity Warner* and Elizabeth Ashley, but I had to dig deep to find anything beyond a superficial “Mary Magdalene was the original myrrhophore” type statement.

*As a note: Scan blog posts on being a myrrhophore and Felicity’s name is rarely credited, even though as far as I can tell she was the first to use this term in modern contexts back in the early 2000s. We MUST cite our sources and credit our inspirations! This is how we unweave the competitive, capitalist culture that is killing us. It does not detract from your own work to honor those who have informed you along the way. Please.

But I did dig, and I did dig deep.

I meditated and channeled the essence of Mary Magdalene who taught me how anointing was connected to embodiment and unconditional love. I drew on my own decades of experience with sacred oils to piece together how anointing practices can heal. I received guidance from the goddess Isis, who pointed me in the direction of the resurrection of Osiris as as the forbearing story to Christ’s journey.

A lot of this came through direct revelation, channeling, and intellectual synthesis of historical records.

None of it came from asking AI or blog articles, because at the time, those didn’t exist.

Jump to today…

In preparing for my recent myrrhophore workshop, I kept seeing the dreaded red squiggly line telling me that my spelling of this word was wrong. So I did a search to make sure I was spelling it correctly.

Do you what popped up in my search results?

Dozens of articles on Mary Magdelene as myrrhophore.

Whoa! The info I’ve been looking for is actually out there now? Great! I thought.

So I clicked on a few articles. Oh dear god what I found…

I could almost copy-and-paste each article into the next. Define myrrhophore, a few Bible quotes, a blurb on the Isis-Egypt connection…and then a CTA for a divine feminine retreat or priestess training of some sort.

I get a little sick to my stomach just thinking about it.

This path I’ve devoted myself to learning, embodying, and discovering, in partnership with spirit, synthesized with historical texts…had been reduced to copy and paste info-essays, clearly written by AI.

They had no voice.

I get the impulse. If you run your own multifaceted business like I do, it can feel like too much to be writing articles, selling courses, running ads, answering emails, helping another person reset their password…

It’s very tempting to think: Hey, I want to share my heart’s medicine by running this group program, so I’m going to outsource my marketing. I’m going to ask ChatGPT:

What are women looking for?
Answer: Myrrhophore stuff.
Great! Please write an article called “What is a myrrhophore.” The goal is to get people interested in my priestess program.
Answer: What a beautiful idea! You are the smartest woman ever with this deeply heart-centered and meaningful offering…

Again, I get the temptation.

But it literally hurts to see so much AI-generated, voiceless content taking up space around a path that my soul has been on for a long time.

And, it hurts to read so much slop! Seriously — if I want a basic history, I’ll ask ChatGPT myself, thank you very much. If I’m going to spend my precious time reading your words, I want them to be yours. I want your voice because that is what I can’t find anywhere else.

So what are we to do about all of this?

A few steps to protect your voice

First, be aware of the effects of ChatGPT and other AI interfaces on your mind.

Read that MIT study. Reclaim your brain.

I’m not saying that we should resist or avoid AI completely. That’s like telling people they don’t need the internet when literally all of life depends on the internet. (Even if you somehow don’t even have an email address, the food you buy at the store moves via internet connections, as recent hacks have reminded us.)

AI is a powerful tool and I actually have a lot of hope for its potential, and there are definitely certain things I use it for that are sooo helpful (which is why I know what it sounds like, too).

Rather, we need to guard against the temptation to let the ease of using AI remove us from what makes us human. No small task. Which brings me two the next item…

**Second, remind yourself again and again that your voice matters.**

You came to Earth to experience the wild ride of life and share your unique medicine with us all. Don’t outsource your gifts to a robot.

Third, cite your sources.

This undoes the survival-of-the-fittest mentality that can pervade modern entrepreneurship, feeding into a more collaborative and celebratory model of running a business. It acknowledges the ecosystems you live within, the relational nature of all of life.

And, it lets us know that ChatGPT wasn’t your primary source. Or, at least prompts you to acknowledge the sources AI draws from.

Fourth, write.

Paint. Sing. Cook. Play. And do these things yourself. Bring your full self, your radiant, creative nature into everything you do.

An Invitation

Back to that myrrhophore bit…

The Myrrhophore class was awesome.

You can access the replay and PDF guides here.

I welcome your tips and tricks and thoughts in general on how we create right relationship with AI in this changing world…and I’d love to hear more from those drawn to the myrrhophore path.

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Juniper Stokes is a certified coach, mythoanimist guide, alchemist & artist.

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a 10 year old meets Thoth and the journey begins

When I was just a little girl, I was obsessed with Egypt.

Weird how that hasn’t really changed much…

I remember building replica pyramids with secret chambers. Playing with a hieroglyphic stamp set given to me by my grandparents. And literally dreaming about Thoth (see below for my Thoth story*) before I even knew who he was (it actually freaked me out a bit at the time).

Since then, I’ve had a bit of a love affair with Egyptian mysteries.

I was fortunate enough to get to travel to Egypt for New Year’s 2010. Visiting those ancient temples and pyramids in person was unlike anything I’d experienced. I couldn’t believe how vibrant the colors in the inner sanctums were thousands of years later. The somatic memories and energies that passed through my body as I walked through ancient temple sites and was carried down the Nile in a felucca...amazing.

I meditated at each temple and felt the wisdom of that ancient civilization flood through me.

And the smells. The frankincense especially — it ignited a soul-level attunement to that land.

past meets present; with my dear friend Russell

Years later, during one of the most grief-ridden times of my life, I burned frankincense every single morning for months. I felt those ancient deities comfort me and protect me, brought to me through the smoke.

It was the scent and spirit of Egypt that called me to study with Dora Goldsmith, an Egyptologist who specializes in scentscapes and perfumery in ancient Egypt.

As much as I appreciate the channeled wisdom and new age writings on Egyptian mysticism, I’m an academic at heart. I need to know what history actually tells us: What knowledge was so sacred that it was written in stone? What rituals and festivals have left legacies that have survived through cultural sea change?

Getting to learn from an academic Egyptologist, studying my favorite topic of all — aromatics — nourished all the geeky parts of me.

I loved getting to know the real history (as much as we can know, at least), untainted by woo-age interpretations…and then still getting all woo with direct channeling and mediumship on my own. I loved learning about the actual plants used in ancient rituals…and then getting to meet these plants physically and spiritually in my practice today.

That mix of history and spirit and smell has shaped the offering I’m about to share.

But first, an aside…it’s related! I promise!

The Cosmic Scales & Coming Season

If you’ve been around me for a while, you might remember that I’m a triple Libra.

That’s Sun, Moon, and Rising — all in the sign of the scales.

Actually, my Saturn and Pluto are also in Libra. And if you’re into the extras, so are my Black Lilith, Juno, and Path of Fortune.

It’s a lot of Libra.

I mention this partly because Libra season is approaching — and partly because Libra’s scales are a guiding force in my life…and partly because this medicine is for all of us right now.

It’s no accident that Libra season begins on the equinox, a time of equal day and night. A momentary perfection in the balance between the light and dark.

The only zodiac sign represented by an inanimate object — the scales — Libra invites us to transcend our egoic pulls towards imbalance and come back to center.

As an air sign, much of Libra’s attempts to cultivate balance happen through the mind — ideally, the wisdom of the higher mind and divine intelligence. Libra energetics create a container for learning, studying, and engaging with the cultivation of wisdom as a spiritual path.

BTW: In yogic traditions, there are four paths to enlightenment: Karma Yoga (service), Bhakti Yoga (devotion), Raja Yoga (meditation) and Jnana Yoga (knowledge). That’s right — knowledge and studying is a path to the divine, something Libra knows well.

Libra is also one of two planets ruled by Venus. As I mentioned in a recent article, Venus represents what we most value in life, and carries qualities such as love, relationship, pleasure, and beauty.

Taurus gets the earthy Venus — sensual pleasure and material beauty reign supreme for the Bull.

Libra’s airy Venus finds beauty in ideals — words and concepts that create harmony in human culture.

Which brings us back to the scales: For Libra, nothing is more beautiful than balance, fairness, and justice.

Balance within and balance without.

I’ll be the first to admit that Libra’s incessant drive for equality and fairness and making the “right” decision can drive the people around them absolutely insane. (Does it really need to take 30 minutes to choose which brand of salsa to buy??? Not speaking from experience or anything…)

Contextualizing Libra within the arc of the surrounding seasons helps us understand where this indecision comes from:

August’s Leo is a joy. Late summer is a time of ease and flow, and Leo wants everyone to enjoy the harvest and have a good time while they still can.

September’s Virgo goes to work. With the approach of the equinox, we know that winter is on the way. Our harvests must be organized and labeled with precision so we can prepare for colder months.

October’s Libra arrives after the equinox. With days becoming darker, time is of the essence. Libra takes Virgo’s well-organized resources and equally distributes them among the community to ensure the greatest chances of survival for all members.

November’s Scorpio sits fully in the dark. Planning for worst case scenarios and keeping some secrets so as not to freak everyone out, Scorpio carries the weight of the winter so other signs don’t have to.

So when your Libra friend is doing that endless dance of people pleasing and indecision — give them..ahem, me…some grace. Their inner archetype is trying to make sure everyone will literally survive in the fairest way possible ;)

The scales that help Libra measure community resources also help us measure our internal resources.

Are we burning too bright and fast and neglecting recovery? Are we overgiving and not filling our own cup — or vice versa? Are we balancing times of play, work, connection, and rest? Are we allowing some indulgences alongside our health efforts?

Another note: I remember visiting the wine and olive oil museum in Tuscany many years ago. Though a bit of touristy silliness — I loved it. Because the museum kept reinforcing that we need both olive oil and wine. We need the oil of Athena, her wisdom, right effort, and study. And we need the wine of Dionysus, his revelry, ecstasy, and celebration.
And no, you don’t need to indulgle in olive oil and wine — these are symbolic. But I do actually love the wine and olive oil of my ancestors. ;)
“Everything in moderation, even moderation.” — Oscar Wilde (b. October 16, 1854…spoken like a true Libra)

Meeting Ma’at: Goddess of the Scales

Perhaps the most important, ancient vision of these scales comes to us through the ancient Egyptian goddess Ma’at.

Between my Egyptian obsessions and triple Libra vibes is it any wonder I LOVE Ma’at?

Ma’at was both a deity and a set of principles in ancient Egyptian society.

She brought order to chaos. Every city was built on her foundation.

And she carried the scales.

You’ve probably heard the story: In the Egyptian Book of the Dead, when your soul travels through the realms of the afterlife, you meet with the goddess Ma’at and Anubus, the jackal-headed underworld guardian.

Together, they weigh your heart against a feather upon Ma’at’s sacred scales.

A heavy heart, and you may not pass.

This might sound punishing to our modern ears — but it actually reflects an important truth:

A light heart is the key to a life well-lived.
A light heart is one unburdened by regret, guilt, and anger.
A light heart has let go of all that which does not belong to it.
A light heart is one that forgives, especially yourself.
A light heart is open to peace and joy.
A light heart is the essence of spiritual sovereignty.

In preparation of the weighing of the heart, the deceased would utter “42 Negative Confessions” — basically a checklist to show that they had lived according to Ma’at’s principles of harmony, order, justice, truth, and morality.

On the surface, these can sound a little old-timey religious — with a whole lot of “thou shall not” vibes.

This is a superficial understanding of a much more nuanced and loving truth…

It is not so much that our hearts are weighed on a scale to determine our fates…we are the scales.

We have the power to to shift, release, and transmute any heaviness that does not serve our spiritual ascension.

And even if we choose to do so through being devoured, our feather-light souls emerge renewed.

Which brings me back to that newest creation I want to share…

For a loooong time, I’ve been wanting to share more about the magic of Egypt, anointing, and the deep soul-level transformation possible when we awaken to these worlds.

And it’s finally happening. I’ve been working on a beautiful offering that feels like an expression of so much of my life’s work.

Cultivating a Featherlight Heart: A 42-Day Journey with the Ideals of Ma’at

What is a life well-lived?

On the surface, this looks different for everyone. But the heart of it remains the same: peace, love, fulfillment, meaning, freedom, connection, belonging…

You are worthy of living a good life.

While there are many factors we can’t control, we can tend our hearts in deep, reverent, and intentional ways that allow for a good life to unfold from the inside out.

This is the purpose behind Cultivating a Featherlight Heart: A 42-Day Journey with the Ideals of Ma’at.

This course is a gentle, nourishing invitation to lighten your heart through daily rituals and reflections based on the timeless wisdom found in the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

We begin on September 14th with a live opening ceremony — and look at the actual history of this journey.

Then, beginning on September 21 (the Sunday before the equinox), we begin our 42-day practice.

Throughout our 42 days together, you will move through layers of consciousness: attention, intention, imagination, and embodied action. By committing to small, daily rituals and practices — within a community-held container — the shifts you experience become more sustainable and foundational.

And did I mention the magical oils???

Egyptian mysticism, soul-level reflection, and sacred anointing

In Ancient Egypt, oils were medicine for the soul, carrying prayers to the gods and preparing the spirit for passage through the unseen realms.True botanical oils assist us in our spiritual work on multiple dimensions:

Physically, their aroma molecules bypass the conscious mind where they can ignite spiritual states of consciousness.

Vibrationally, their frequency attunes our own energetic body and patterning to align with our intentions and the gifts of Ma’at.

Spiritually, each oil carries the soul essence of the plant spirit from which it comes, bringing us a botanical community of support for our journey together.

This is why each week (42 days = 6 weeks) of the course, I’ll be sharing a new anointing practice. Scent is powerful and these aromatic rituals are a key component of this course's transformational impacts.

I created the Ma’at Ritual Oil Collection** as a ceremonial companion for the course.

Each blend is made with sacred oils used and revered in Egypt and beyond— rose, jasmine, frankincense, myrrh, cedarwood, and other botanicals that have carried prayer and presence for millennia.

It’s hard to put into words how passionate I am about this offering. Those closest to me have patiently listened to my endless dreams of teaching about goddesses, rituals, and sacred oils for decades.

(I move slowly, alchemizing everything at the deepest levels before ever sharing through my teaching.)

What an absolute delight to get to share all my favorite things in this way. I feel like this container is exactly what we need right now.

As the equinox approaches and carries us into the darker half of the year, we will unburden our hearts together. Then our own hearts become the lights that guide us through the winter.

(And don’t worry southern hemisphere friends — the growing light helps your heart glow!)

A Quick Summary + Key Dates

We begin with a live opening ceremony on September 16, where we explore the history and practice of the 42 ideals.

The 42-day practice begins September 21 and runs through October and into early November.
You’ll receive short daily lessons: reflection + journal prompt + a simple practice.
And you’ll get weekly anointing rituals, along with oil suggestions if you don’t have the ritual set.
Plus there will be two more live gatherings: a live meditation/Q&A (Oct 14), and a full-moon closing ceremony (Nov 5).
If you can’t join live or fall behind (life happens), you’ll also have lifetime access to lessons and replays.

Everything in this journey is meant to be an offering for your soul. Soulcare. Life is full enough and none of us need “more things”. But we do crave grounding, ritual, and peace. That’s what this is for.

Doors are open.

Join the Journey with Ma'at

Purchase the Ma'at Ritual Oil Set

*My Thoth Story

When I was no more than 10 years old, probably younger, I dreamed of a very tall magician wearing a black top hat. It was one of those dreams that was more than a dream — decades later, I can still feel that dream alive within me.

Though no one at the time provided any guidance, I just knew that magician was the god Thoth. I was confused though — in all the Egyptian depictions, Thoth had the head of an ibis, and this man looked quite human…ish.

Still, after this appearance Thoth has been a lifelong ally for me in the spirit world.

A few years ago, I finally read one of Nikki Scully and Normandi Ellis’s books. In it, they explicitly stated that Thoth is as likely to appear wearing a magicians hat as with an ibis’s head!

Mind blown.

This type of confirmation, from women I’ve never met, also drawing spiritual experiences not previously documented in any written records that I know of, is such a wild gift.

**You don’t have to get these oils in order to participate in the journey — I’ll offer suggestions and substitutes you can source on your own. But if you can get a set, I highly recommend it. Every bottle is consecrated in ritual and aligned with the six stages of our journey together.

Juniper Stokes is a scent priestess, botanical perfumer, soul alchemist, and rewilding guide through mythic landscapes of the nature, spirit, and the cosmos. For over 25 years, she has been guiding soulful humans back to the heart of who they are and why they’re here.

🌿 Explore workshops & trainings.
💠 Find alchemical aromatics in The Botanica.

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Juniper Stokes is a certified coach, mythoanimist guide, alchemist & artist.

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The Perfumed Heart & Anointing the Windows to Heaven

*Allegory of the Sense of Smell* (1617–18), Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elder. Museo del Prado, Madrid

A dab on the wrist, a splash behind the ears.

To the French aristocrats of the 17th century, these points held the allure of seduction. In these close contact areas, perfume would waft from neck to nose during greetings, whispers, and embraces. A perfumed wrist would leave a trail of aroma with every movement, and could be easily accessed for a discreet inhale.

Practically — these points on the skin hold heat, which helps distribute and enhance aroma, and you’re less likely to stain clothing from these points.

The wrists and neck are also known pulse points. Did our perfumed ancestors intuit how protective and healing anointing these places with fragrant oils could be?

And here we are, centuries later — still creating fragrant auras by placing perfumes upon our wrists and necks.

This practice, when done in partnership with pure plant perfumes, has the potential to protect our heart and attune us to spirit throughout the day.

Unfortunately, most people aren’t using botanical, natural perfumes. Even many “spiritual” perfumes are made with synthetic fragrances.

If you’ve been around here for awhile, you probably already know some of the risks of synthetic perfumes — namely disrupting the endocrine system. But stay with me here. There is way more at stake that you might realize.

And — way more benefit to uncover, too ;)

The Meridian Matrix of Perfumed Points

When we apply any perfume to wrist and neck points on the body, we are activating and anointing our energetic blueprint — our meridian matrix.

This means that the perfume you put on these key points not only travels through your skin into your body’s chemistry, it also moves into specific meridians, where it is further circulated throughout your system.

Meridians, to review, are energetic pathways through our body. Some of them have an affinity with organ systems and very real effects on our physical health. Some of them carry karma, patterns, and life lessons. All of them impact us on multiple levels of our being.

Any system that utilizes the meridian matrix for healing — from acupuncture to tapping to anointing — aims to free us from blockages and foreign energy that clogs or disrupts the healthy flow of our energy.

So how do the commonly perfumed wrist and neck points relate to our energetic body?

Let’s begin with the wrist points.

In TCM, the Pericardium meridian runs down the arm, with a few key points along the wrist. It protects the heart — both physically and emotionally — just like the actual pericardium, the membrane around the physical heart.

Take a look at the image below, and you’ll see just where some of the key wrist points are:

Hand Jue Yin Pericardium Meridian 手厥陰心包經穴 | SpringerLink

A healthy Pericardium helps us manage emotional stress, heartbreak, and trauma. It opens us to joy, love, and connection.

Next, let's look at the neck points.

The neck is home to several points within the grouping known as the Windows of Heaven.* Also referred to as Heavenly Windows or Windows of the Sky, these points are often used to connect us with our higher selves and facilitate all sorts of spiritual healing. A few of the Heavenly Window points found along the neck include:

Large Intestine 18
Triple Heater 16
Stomach 9

Images below thanks to Yin Yang House.

*There is contention around the actual age and origin of these points, with many scholars calling them a modern invention. It seems that a version with 5 points has some origin in ancient texts, while the grouping of 10 points might be a modern development. I find that the results speak for themselves, regardless of their origins. See this article for more.

Plant Perfumes as Energetic Allies

While acupuncture is probably the most well-known way to stimulate these points, they aren’t our only option. Placing stones on these points is an ancient practice. And so is anointing them with sacred, perfumed oils.

By anointing your wrist points and neck with sacred oils via a simple daily perfume ritual, you stimulate energies of love, connection, and healthy emotional boundaries within yourself. You facilitate your connection to spirit and your true, divine nature.

This happens simply by applying perfume. (But only the right kind of perfume…)

We evolved in partnership with plants, and plants help us remember how to be healthy. Essential oils in particular carry the healthy, vibrant energetic blueprint of a plant — which in turns helps our own energy blueprint remember its most healthy and vibrant way of being.

When we wear perfumes made with real essential oils and absolutes, not only do we benefit from the condensed chemistry of plants, but we receive their spiritual essence and energetic gifts, as well.

If you have a diluted essential oil or truly botanical perfume nearby, you can experience this right now:

Dab a bit of your perfume onto your your pulse points. Feel the spiritual essence of the plants flow into your body on the lines of energetic matrix. Notice how the plants know just where to go, effortlessly clearing any stagnation as they circulate health chi throughout your system. This may feel subtle. Simply notice any tiny shifts, buzzes, vibrations, or thoughts that arise.

For those wondering — yes, certain plants do have an affinity for certain meridians, and I’ll share some of my favorite plant perfume allies in a moment.

Now that you have some idea of how truly magical and healing plant perfumes can be, let’s look at how typical commercial perfumes impact our systems…

Popular Perfumes as Foreign Energy

There’s a foundational concept when it comes to healing at energetic and spiritual levels:

Either something is missing that should be there, or something is there shouldn’t be there.*

(I have an entire 65-minute class on this topic that is totally FREE, which you can check out here.)

Anointing with pure plant perfumes has the potential to call our soul home. To ignite memory beyond the mundane and help our souls remember who we really are. In other words, plant perfumes restore what should be there.

Anointing with synthetic entities that have not evolved to support us introduces foreign substances and energetics into our system. We are literally inducing spiritual illness because synthetic perfumes add something that shouldn’t be there.

In Taoist alchemy, we refer to these substances as parasites or ghosts — foreign energies that enter our system and begin to hijack our wellness to support their own survival.

When “ghosts” take up residence in our hearts:

We have trouble letting go of the past. The process of integrating challenging experiences into lessons that become strengths is clogged, and our most painful emotions get lodged in our systems.
It becomes more difficult to discern what feelings, emotions, and opinions are our aren’t our own. Are you picking up on other people’s fear, or is it your intuition? Heart ghosts make this type of discernment incredibly confusing.
Our relationships lack intimacy. The ghosts block us from being able to open our hearts and find the truth and love within.
We lose hope. For some reason, ghosts love depression. Sadness. Fear. Shame. Guilt. All the fun stuff. They feed off these emotions, and make it harder for us to access the spiritual joy that is always waiting to imbue us with blessings.

When “ghosts” clog our Windows to Heaven:

We lose our spiritual connection. Our attention becomes overly fixated on the material world, leaving us feeling empty and hopeless without fully understanding why.
Our connection with our higher self is blocked or severed. We start to believe the lie that a smaller version of ourselves is the fullness of our being.
We can’t access our intuition. There’s too much confusion with the many messages that come to us from all directions, and we lack the ability to know what’s true beyond the surface.
Trust in the goodness of life becomes elusive. Without an authentic connection to the realms beyond this reality, we lack the ability to see the beauty that is always within any pain.

It’s estimated that up to 80% of humans wear perfume regularly, and the vast majority of this is still synthetic. (Even “natural” perfumes can contain synthetics filled with foreign energy, which I write more about here.)

Imagine what this is doing to us.

So many people are unaware that they are sabotaging their connection with their true nature, which often results in searching outside yourself for fullness. What should you believe? Who will protect you?

We give away our power when we lack the discernment to know lies from truth. We lose our ability to have strong communities when our hearts are filled with ghosts.

And we see the results of this all around us.

Fortunately, there are so many options for botanical, natural perfumes today…

Botanical Perfumes as Daily Allies

Perfume is ritual. It always has been. And it’s only been since the mid-1800s that perfumes have had synthetic materials in them. Reclaiming the ancient, ancestral practices of blessing our bodies and energy fields with sacred, natural perfumes is revolutionary act with far reaching consequences.

Botanical perfumes are everywhere today, but you do need to be careful — there’s a lot green/spiritual washing when it comes to terms like “clean” or “natural”. (So much so that I wrote a whole article on how to navigate the chaos and jargon of natural perfumes.)

I’ve been creating natural perfumes for almost two decades now, and I know where my ingredients come from. I also have developed a process of creating perfumes while channeling compassionate spirits, so each bottle is filled with transmissions of healing energy.

When I create a botanical perfume, I select plants based on several factors — what I know about them chemically (I’m also a certified aromatherapist with a 610-hour training under my belt), energetically (I mentor with a Taoist alchemist who specializes in anointing), and spiritually (my mediumship practices help me communicate directly with the spirits of the plants).

This article goes into more detail about my process.

And this article has a fun example of how all this came together when I created my Magpie perfume.

Many of the oils for the heart and spirit gates I mentioned above are in my natural perfumes, which means that when you apply one to your wrist (and the heart itself, as I like to do), you are giving your entire body a plant healing.

As promised, I’ll highlight a few general botanicals that you can use on your own, alongside some of my own creations, here:

Anointing the Heart

Truly, any pure botanical perfumes applied to the wrists will have a positive effect, but of course, bringing in oils with a special affinity for the heart is especially helpful. A few of my favorites:

Rose — obviously! Rose is the ultimate heart harmonizer, both opening us to love and supporting the cultivation of healthy boundaries.

A few perfumes with rose: Aphrodite, Rós, Elephant, Forest Fawn

Lavender — A great harmonizer and all-purpose healer, lavender brings balance and gentle strength to the heart center.

A few perfumes with lavender: Wild Horses, Artemis

Citruses — Uplifting the spirit, citruses are a blessing for a bright heart.

Citrus-forward perfumes: Jardín de Citron, Yuzu Yoru

Cinnamon — A deeply penetrating oil that warms the heart and helps energy move while brightening the heart and mind.

A few with cinnamon: Oshun, Mary Magdalene (both of these have big rosy hearts, too)

Lemonbalm (Melissa) — Soothes anxiety and grief while uplifing the spirit

Anthophilia, dedicated to the bees, is the best perfume for lemonbalm; but, my heart chakra anointing oil is filled with this loving herb, along with roses and violets.

All flowers — In general, all flowers have an affinity for the heart. Chamomile soothes and calms, jasmine nourishes, ylang ylang strengthens and uplifts, neroli does everything :)

See floral perfumes here.

Anointing the Heavens

For the Heavenly Windows, I love oils with an affinity for spirit. Every tradition associates different plants with different types of spiritual work, so this is pretty broad…but once again, here are a few favorites to get started with:

The flowers, again — When it comes to plant parts (blooms, woods, roots, fruits, leaves, etc), the flowers have an affinity for influencing the spiritual dimensions of life. A few I love for these points are:

Clary sage & Lavender — brings clarity to higher mind and harmonizes with the body
Neroli — uplifting, delicate, and enhances angelic connections
White lotus — opens us to spiritual wisdom and connection

Some perfume options: White Buffalo Calf Woman, Magpie, and Wild Horses for clary sage and lavender; Xi Wang Mu and Epona for neroli, and Kuan Yin for white lotus.

Frankincense — A protective, sacred resin, frankincense helps us ground spiritual wisdom into our bodies and minds.

Perfumes with frankincense: Innana, Mary Magdalene and Oshun again, and all the angel oils.

Hiba & Hinoki — Two Japanese evergreens with sacred aromas, these woods calm the spirit and quiet the mind.

My perfume for abundance, Daikoku, is inspired by and filled with these trees.

Trees — Strong and tall, the trees help us root to Earth and expand to spirit, which keeps these gates protected and open.

Omgggg I loooove evergreen perfumes. Maybe because my name is Juniper ;) So I’ve made a few with amazing forestry fragrances, including Artemis, Wolf, and Green Man.

If you wish to use any of these essential oils on your own, make sure to dilute them first! More is not better with this practice. 5% is good to start for a light, energetic lift. Up to 20% works for most, but not for cinnamon — go with 1-2% for that one.

Becoming the Alchemist of Your Own Healing

The waitlist is open for Nectar & Alchemy, the School of Sacred Aromatics. I’ll be launching with a few courses on the spiritual dimensions of fragrance, working with plant spirit allies, and an introduction to anointing — plus a very special anointing workship for the Feast Day of Mary Magdalene in July.

Enjoyed this article? The absolute most wonderful way to say thank you is by sharing it! Use the image below for Pinterest or add to all your socials :)

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Your Complete Guide to Hydrosols

Nothing on this blog has been written by AI.

The alchemist is in session ;)

Above is a picture of my copper alembic. I love it.

And, it took me two years to be brave enough to start using it, lol. Supposedly there can be a risk of explosion with these things…

Luckily, I have an engineering wizard of a man who put his skills to use getting me all set up this year.

Over the summer and into early fall, our home smelled of fresh herbs and fragrant forests as I transformed wild and garden-grown plants into alchemical elixirs, mantra and blessings infusing the precious distillations.

Blue spruce, white mountain sage, and magical mugwort are a few of the first allies who have participated in this botanical alchemy, transforming from fresh plants into healing hydrosols. Fragrant wormwood, incense cedarwood, and fresh local juniper berries are on deck, so long as I can get to them before the snow and frost set in fully.

As I tend my alembic to facilitate the transformation of these plants, I feel gratitude for the long line of alchemists who have come before me. I feel their wisdom, skill, and reverence for this process all around me, holding me within a sacred vessel of support as I do this work.

Now, steeped in aroma and the healing blessings of the plants, I come to share a bit more about this process — because I know some of you may be thinking, “Cool…but what is an alembic? What is a hydrosol? How on earth would I use one?”

I got you. And in this article, we will dive into all these questions and more ;)

Ancient Alchemy: Distillation of Spirit

There’s a reason alcohol is often referred to as “spirits” — the earliest alchemists believed the distillation process extracted the spiritual essence of plants. Since the result of botanical distillation was often alcohol, this literally intoxicating liquid became known as spirits.

As with so many gifts from the gods, humans have created an often warped and dysregulated relationship with these liquid spirits. Yet this doesn’t mean they are inherently bad — it is pure, organic, distilled alcohol that provides the base of the sacred perfumes I create. Pure, organic alcohol, distilled from grapes in my home state of Oregon preserves the vibrational imprints of my flower essences.

In these magical, botanical remedies, alcohol isn’t just a preservative or base — it is an essential spiritual component of these botanical elixirs, helping to carry the spiritual nature of their gifts into our bodies, where we may receive great benefit.

Yet it wasn’t only alcohol that arose from distillation…

Steam Distillation with Fragrant Aromatics

When fresh, fragrant plants are steamed in alchemical vessels, precious aroma chemicals can be captured in the form of essential oils and botanical waters — this is called steam distillation. Preparing steam distillations with my copper alembic lets me transform fresh, wild plants into magical remedies and elixirs.

Here’s how steam distillation works: First, water and fresh plants, which contain volatile aroma chemicals and compounds, are placed in the bowl of a still (an alembic is a type of still). This is heated, and the steam rises — only the most volatile components rise in this steam, leaving the heavier plant chemicals behind. As the aromatic steam condenses back into water, it carries these compounds with it. Some compounds are water soluble, so they remain in the water, and others are not — these become essential oils that float on top of the water.

So, this distillation creates two different magical and healing plant remedies:

Essential Oils — You’ve probably heard of these guys ;) These are the condensed, aromatic molecules that are not soluble in water. They are highly concentrated and potent, and only a tiny amount can be extracted from the whole plant materials.
Hydrosols — This is the recondensed aromatic steam, containing the water soluble molecules. It is gentle, fragrant, and full of very pure healing plant materials. Not as potent as essential oils, not as physically dense as a tea, hydrosols are unique distillations with their own alchemical gifts.

What Are Hydrosols, and How Are Hydrosols Different from Essential Oils?

While both hydrosols and essential oils come from the same distillation process, they are quite different in their composition and potency.

Distinctive Features of Essential Oils

Essential oils are condensed, aromatic molecules that you’ll find floating on top of your hydrosol, their presence given away by an oily sheen.
Essential oils float on top because they are not water soluble — rather, they are lipid-based and most soluble in fats and oils.
They are also extremely concentrated — only a few drops are produced per gallon of water used in the distillation process.
It takes a huge amount of plant material to make a single drop of essential oil, so they are very precious materials to use with great care.
Since the water has been removed from essential oils, they are more shelf-stable and longer lasting than hydrosols.

Distinctive Features of Hydrosols

Hydrosols, also known as floral waters or hydrolats, are the aromatic waters produced during a steam distillation of plant material.
Since they rise in steam, hydrosols contain water soluble molecules.
And, since the steam distillation process creates a large amount of hydrosol, they tend to be fairly diluted in their potency.
These qualities make them both more sustainable and gentle than essential oils — they are often used with sensitive individuals, children, and pets.
Being water-based, hydrosols have a lighter, subtler scent and shorter shelf life than essential oils — a batch generally lasts about a year or two in a cool, dark place.

Ancestral Uses of Hydrosols

Historical evidence of distillation dates back thousands of years on multiple contents, with steam distillation happening extensively in Egypt, the Mediterranean, Persia, India, and China. (The copper alembic, which is what I use, likely originated with Muslim alchemists in the Islamic Golden Age, around the 8th/9th century.)

In every country we find evidence of distillation, we can see that hydrosols were used in ritual and spiritual practices, medicine and healing, food and flavoring, and perfume and beauty.

In the past, it’s likely that the hydrosol itself was the primary aim of the distillation process, and the essential oils were either skimmed from the surface or simply mixed in — and this is really important to remember:

So often, we think that more is better. More potent, more healing, right? Not necessarily. For thousands of years, hydrosols were incredibly valuable and revered for their medicinal properties.

The earliest use of hydrosols probably dates back to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, a world in which boundaries between perfume, medicine, and ritual were nonexistent.

Evidence shows that some of the earliest plants to be distilled were likely pines and junipers, along with lavender and rosemary.

In ancient Greece, hydrosols were used along with infused oils for cleansing, pathing, and ritual purification. As time went on and the use of hydrosols spread throughout Europe, health and beauty became the focus — rosewater being a favorite in both England and France.

I’m particularly drawn to the Taoist practices of the Han Dynasty in China. There is a long, beautiful history of using both hydrosols and essential oils in the Jade Purity lineage of Sun Simiao, which we’ll be diving into more deeply with my Nectar & Alchemy programs next year…

But in brief: Sun Simiao was a revered physician who used hydrosols and essential oils to anoint specific acupoints to bring about deep healing. His work was so effective that he became renowned throughout the land and was called to serve as a court physician.

Sun Simiao as depicted by Gan Bozong, woodcut print, Tang dynasty (618–907)

This is one of my favorite ways to use hydrosols today — anointing key acupoints, often related to the eight extraordinary vessels, to bring about deep, soul-level transformation and healing.

And when I get to use hydrosols that I’ve myself, from plants grown on my own land and harvested by my own hands, the results are even more profound.

The Unique Benefits of Hydrosols

Among all the wonderful ways we can partner with plants, a few benefits make hydrosols a unique kind of remedy:

Hydrosols are very safe. Unlike essential oils and herbal remedies, hydrosols are incredibly gentle. While you should always check for contraindications and allergies, in general, you can safely use hydrosols with children, pets, and the elderly, making them wonderfully accessible remedies.

Hydrosols are energetically potent. Hydrosols are primarily energetic in nature, yet retain light and pure physical properties, as well. This combination helps us receive their gifts in every level of our being.

Hydrosols are more sustainable. For every drop of essential oil created, a gallon or more of hydrosol is made. This means that we can use far less plant material and still receive profound benefits, which makes hydrosols a more ecologically sustainable option for plant healing.

Hydrosols last under the right conditions. Kept in a cool, dark place (such as a refrigerator) and free from contamination, hydrosols will last 1-2 years without any added preservatives. While this isn’t as long as an essential oil or tincture, it is a lot longer than a tea or infused water — and pretty amazing considering no preservatives are needed!

How to Use Hydrosols

Healing, spiritual practice, fragrance and flavor, beauty…the many historical uses of hydrosols carry forward into our lives today. You can be endlessly creative with your hydrosol use, so here are just a few ideas to get started:

1. Make an aromatic mist

Use a single hydrosol, combination, or add essential oils and other plant extracts to create an aromatic mist. These mists can be used as you would any other aromatherapy spray — for beauty, cleansing, aroma, protection, refreshment…get creative!

2. Flavor your food and drinks

Add a teaspoon of hydrosol to a glass of water, use rosewater in a Mediterranean dessert, add orange blossom water to a honey cake, blend an herbal hydrosol into a salad dressing…most hydrosols are totally edible, so have fun in the kitchen. (If the plant isn’t edible, don’t eat the hydrosol!)

3. Apply topically

Hydrosols are safe to use directly on the skin — even with children and pets. Soaking some cotton pads in antiinflammatory hydrosols and applying to puffy eyes or irritated skin feels so soothing, and antibacterial hydrosols can be dabbed onto scratches.

4. Use ritually

Hydrosols can safely enhance any ritual intentions. Mist your space, attune your energy field to practice by taking a few drops internally, and cleanse your ritual objects.

5. Anointing

Hydrosols are beautiful for any anointing practice — whether you are opening your third eye before meditation, attuning your heart to its highest vibration, or practicing traditional acupoint anointing in the TCM style, hydrosols carry the vibrational gifts of plants deep into your body’s energy system.

6. Support your health

All of the wellness benefits of the plants involved are carried into their hydrosol form. So, use peppermint and chamomile for digestion, tea tree and sage for antibacterial purposes, helichrysum for skin health, and lavender for a calm mind. Once again, there are endless possibilities.

Psst — this list just scratches the surface! Download 44 more creative ways to use hydrosols—my gift to you!

2024 Hydrosol Collection

Ok, now that you have some idea about how totally magical hydrosols are, and how many ways you can use them (although, honestly, my favorite is just to mist my face for hydration and a mood boost throughout the day), I hope you’ll be inspired to start incorporating them into your own daily rituals.

Right now, there are 4 freshly made hydrosols in the botanica at Alchemessence. Obviously, pretty limited amounts are available.

Here’s a peek at who you’ll find:

Mugwort — Mugwort has a long history as a sacred herb for enhancing dreams, intuitive work, and protection. Known for its ability to clear energetic blockages, Mugwort supports relaxation, enhances spiritual practice, and aids meditation.
White Sagebrush — A lovely, local, and sustainable white sage from the artemisia family, this hydrosol purifyies the mind, body, and spirit. It helps clear emotional clutter, provides mental grounding, and energetically prepares you for spiritual practices.
Blue Spruce — This hydrosol captures the spirit of evergreen forests, bringing about feelings of peace and strength. Blue Spruce hydrosol is wonderfully grounding, helping to clear mental fog, support emotional balance, and create a sense of calm stability.
Purple-Leaf Chokecherry Blossom — This unique hydrosol offers us gentle emotional healing and reminds us of the sweetness of life. It provides calming support for the nervous system, uplifts the heart, and enhances a sense of connectedness and harmony.

Shop all hydrosols

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Remember that You Are the Cosmos

Nothing on this site has been written by AI.

Y’all know I love me some A’s — astrology, aromatics, ascension, anointing…

So I’ve often wondered…do people think I’m a flaky dilettante when they peruse my writing?

I mean, one day I’m sharing a deep dive into the Age of Aquarius, the next I’m channeling a meditation with an Egyptian goddess, then I’m waxing poetic on ecological trauma, and then I’m going on about natural perfume fragrance families!

But it is all connected. And I’m not the only one who thinks so.

Historically, aromatic plants were always tied to spirituality through perfume. They were always a reflection of our connection with the Earth and the environments we live in. They were always understood in relationship with the cosmos.

And this is true cross culturally, though with some differently flavored systems ;)

In Western alchemy and esoteric traditions, every plant is ruled by a planetary god (or gods). Rose graces us with the blessings of Venus, and nettles protect us alongside Mars.

I’ll share more on this later. For today, I want to dive into an area of astrological aromatics that not as many people are familiar with…Taoist cosmic perfumery.

(How absolutely juicy are those words? I think the word “juicy” is super cringe. But Taoist Cosmic Perfumery??? I mean. It does give juicy vibes.)

Taoist philosophy teaches us that our bodies are microcosms of the universal macrocosm. The cosmos are reflected in our own physical beings. Mountains and oceans of energy rise and pool throughout our energetic vessel, just as physical mountains and oceans are energetic forces upon our Earth.

And just as stars form constellations in the skies, our meridians, organs, and acupuncture points form constellations within our bodies.

The Big Dipper is one of the most important ones: Polaris, our north star, resides in our heart while the rest of the seven sacred stars rotate around it. (How beautiful that the north star is a guiding light for our souls across cultural traditions.) In a way, our hearts are portals to our connection with the cosmos all around us.

Unfortunately, life often weakens, blocks, or severs our connection with the cosmos. You can probably see this in people around you, most of whom go through life not feeling their connection with the cosmos, unaware of the universe within themselves.

When this happens, the microcosmic orbit — our inner energetic flow that forms the basis for health, vitality, and longevity — isn’t able to flow freely. And we suffer as a result.

This is where the aromatics and anointing come in.

I’ve written before on the Taoist tradition of using essential oils to anoint acupuncture points. Again, this is not a modern invention. True distillation existed in China thousands of years ago, and oils and waters produced by this process were seen as pure alchemy.

Essential oils in particular are said to carry the jing of a plant. Jing is a type of chi that’s kind of like our genetic makeup, the divine blueprint of our physical and energetic bodies. And plant jing is perfectly evolved to support human jing :) When we receive the jing of a plant through an essential oil, it activates our body’s innate memory of its divine blueprint for health and cosmic connection.

Blending these oils into healing formulas is a whole world of complexities…which is perfect for my overactive, maximalist mind ;)

Within a Taoist anointing blend, every oils plays a different role. Some target a specific organ or meridian, some might move the energy in a different direction, and some might be part of traditional formulas for ghost points.

And, in every blend, at least one oil has the role of restoring your connection with the cosmos.

The blend simply won’t work without this. We are cosmic beings and our relationship with the cosmos is central to our health.

As a shamanic healer, natural perfumer, and all-around alchemist and artist, is it any wonder I’m obsessed with these Taoist practices? (There’s probably an oil to use for that obsession…)

Beyond all the healing and magic here, I delight in the potential for beauty that this healing pathway brings us. Because at heart, I’m a perfumer.

I started my natural perfumery journey in 2007, so it’s been at the core of my creativity for nearly two decades. I trained at the Institute for Natural Perfumery in 2012. I apprenticed with magical, witchy, professional perfumer Roxanna Villa in person back in 2019.

At this point, even though I’m a clinically certified aromatherapist and my Taoist teacher claims that her blends don’t smell great (lol, she’s very functional and effective and they smell fine…), I struggle to make anything that’s not absolutely beautiful smelling.

And so, Taoist anointing, astrological influences, and artistry comes together in my magical perfumes.

Anyone can purchase my magical perfumes, and I’ll be opening a few slots for custom ones soon. But only my shamanic healing and wild alchemy coaching clients get to have me make Taoist blends for them. That might change in the future, but right now I find that I need to really understand the spiritual, energetic, and physical influences at play in order to create effective blends. (Plus, since I’m still learning, I’m bringing my case studies to my mentor, so you have both of us working on your blend.)

June is filling up, but you can grab a spot with me here.

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A Short & Sweet Guide to Understanding Flower Essence Dilutions

Learn the differences between Mother, Stock, and Dosage flower essence dilutions.

Nothing on this site has been written by AI.

When it comes to flower essences, not every bottle is the same! There are actually three main dilutions that we work with, and each has a slightly different role. Here’s a short and sweet guide to help you understand and choose the best flower essence options for you!

The Mother Essence

Flower essences are made by infusing spring water with the energetic imprint of fresh plant material, and then preserving this mixture with alcohol. This original essence is known as the Mother — because it births all the following essences :)

The Mother is the most potent essence. It contains the strongest energetic imprint, and is preserved at a 50/50 ratio of water to alcohol. Traditionally, brandy, which is 40% alcohol is used, though I often use an organic grape spirit instead.

Rather than ingesting essences directly from the Mother, we use this original blend to create stock and dosage bottles…

Flower Essence Stock Bottles

Stock bottles are the next level of potency when it comes to flower essences. To create a stock bottle, you take anywhere from 7-13 drops from the mother and add this to a neutral blend of spring water and brandy. Some people like to keep a 50/50 ratio, while others will use 75% water and 25% brandy for stock bottles.These essences are ready to use — you can take them directly on your tongue, add them to water, or turn to other creative uses.

Pretty much any flower essence you buy, from any reputable company (including Alchemessence), will be a stock bottle — but do your homework. If a company doesn’t specifically say that it offers stock bottles, they could be dosage bottles, which are a bit different as you’ll see below.

Flower Essence Dosage Bottle

Dosage bottles are the lightest dilution of flower essences, but no less potent. To create a dosage bottle, you’ll add 5-9 drops from the stock bottle to a neutral blend of spring water and brandy. While the Mother and stock bottles have a shelf life of many years (really, they can last over a decade when stored correctly), dosage bottles fade in potency after a few months. Since they aren’t meant to last as long, they’re usually made with a blend of 80% spring water and 20% brandy.

So what’s the point of a dosage bottle, and why would you choose this over a stock bottle? Dosage bottles are meant to be used for taking your daily dose of flower essences :) By creating a dosage bottle, you extend the life of your stock bottles. Plus, if you’re taking a custom remedy of many essences, it’s often easier to combine several stock essences into a dosage bottle for ease. Some people even find that their systems even respond more to dosage level essences than stock essences.

Alchemessence Flower Essences

Alchemessence single flower essences, combination formulas, and custom formulas are all stock bottle strength, meaning that you can either take them as they are or dilute them on your own to create dosage bottles.

And I have to say, it’s a bit unusual to find custom formulas offered at stock strength rather than as dosages. But this is what I prefer so this is what I share! You can learn more about receiving your own custom flower essence formula here.

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Juniper Stokes is a certified coach, mythoanimist guide, alchemist & artist.

juniper stokes 2/18/24 juniper stokes 2/18/24

A Sunday Tea Ritual

A cup of tea can become a sacred ritual—all you need is intention.

A cup of tea can become a sacred ritual—all you need is intention.

I find Sunday evenings offer the perfect time to pause and reflect in sacred ritual before the new work week begins. Here’s a ritual for you to try this evening or anytime you want to quiet your mind and connect with spirit…

Begin by setting the intention to nourish your soul and calm your mind before the week begins.

Before you boil the water, place your hands over the hot water kettle and visualize calming nourishing energy flowing from your heart into the water.

Prepare the herbs and your cup with a grateful heart. Keep this feeling of gratitude—for these plants, for this moment in time, for your body, the aromas, the nourishment—flowing as you pour water over the tea.

As the tea steeps, you may like to light a candle and prepare your journal space.

Once ready, bring all your senses to your first few sips. Take your time and feel the warm cup in your hands. Inhale the aroma. Taste the nuances.

If this is all you have time or energy for, the ritual is complete. If you’d like to take this moment to journal, you might like to ask yourself:

How can I nourish myself in the coming week?
Where can I create more space in my schedule, perhaps by delegating or saying no?
What am I looking forward to? How can I make sure that I prioritize this?

May this ritual bring you peace and nourishment.

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juniper stokes 8/31/23 juniper stokes 8/31/23

A Guide to Perfume Types: Dilutions & Ratios in Natural Perfumes

EDP or EDT? Perfume or Parfum? The world of fragrance is full of various terms that can be a bit confusing when you first hear of them—which is why I’ve put together this helpful guide :)

EDP or EDT? Perfume or Parfum?

The world of fragrance is full of various terms that can be a bit confusing when you first hear of them — which is why I’ve put together this helpful guide :) Let’s take a look at the most common ratios, dilutions, and terms used in perfumery — and how they’re just a bit different when it comes to natural perfumes.

Psst! If you’re looking for info on natural perfume families — aka, chypre vs floral vs gourmand — you’ll want to take a look at this fascinating article: A Guide to Natural Perfume Fragrance Families.

What are perfume types?

In short, different strengths of perfumes have different names — this is what I mean by “perfume type”.

For example, an “eau de toilette” is usually at about a 10% dilution. This means that your fragrance will contain 10% fragrant material (either natural essences like essential oils, or chemical compounds in mainstream perfumes) and 90% carrier (usually alcohol or oil, and occasionally water).

Why is perfume type important?

Because the strength of your perfume dictates how long it will last. As you might guess, the stronger the dilution, the longer the wear and sillage…

Sillage—the aromatic trail left as someone wearing a perfume walks by

The most common perfume type is probably “eau de parfume”, often shortened to EDP. When people in the United States say “perfume”, this is usually what they mean.

If you look up perfume strength meanings online, you’ll find many lists with ratios similar to what I have here. These charts usually estimate the sillage by hour…

This doesn’t work with natural perfumes.

Natural perfumes don’t last as long as chemical-based ones — yet, if you’re just dipping your toes into the world of natural perfumery, you might be surprised at how long Alchemessence Perfumes do last. Here’s why:

Many people confuse botanical perfumes with aromatherapy blends. This is understandable — both are made with essential oils, and both can smell really good. But the two are actually extremely different. So much so that I’ll have an entire blog post dedicated to the topic soon…

What’s important now, is to understand that I intentionally design my botanical perfumes to last longer than simple aromatherapy blends, bringing together top and mid notes with long-lasting bases and “fixatives”.

Fixative—a botanical ingredient that extends the silage of your fragrance in natural perfumery

In natural perfumery, a fixative is a completely natural essential oil, absolute, or CO2 that extends the sillage of your perfume in a few different ways—by slowing down the evaporative rate or fortifying the fragrance, for example.

This means that some of my strongest perfumes will actually last up to 6hrs on your skin—naturally!

Decoding Dilutions: A Guide to Perfume Types and Concentrations

Of course, the more concentrated the perfume, the longer it will last. Here are the common types of perfumes based on their dilutions:

Parfum Extrait

Concentration: 20-40% perfume oil
Longevity: Lasts the longest, often for more than 6 hours, though the aroma of natural perfumes will change more during this window
Intensity: Highly potent and rich in scent
Application: Typically only a small amount is needed due to its strength
Characteristics: Expensive due to the high concentration of natural perfume oils, often packaged in smaller bottles, common in perfume oils and solids

Eau de Parfum (EDP)

Concentration: 10-20% perfume oil
Longevity: Lasts for around 3-6 hours depending on the ingredients
Intensity: Strong and noticeable, but slightly less potent than pure perfume
Application: Spritzing a couple of times on pulse points is usually sufficient
Characteristics: EDPs strike a balance between longevity and potency, making them popular choices and the most common perfume types

Eau de Toilette (EDT)

Concentration: 5-10% perfume oil
Longevity: Lasts for about 2 hours
Intensity: Lighter than EDP, suitable for a subtle scent
Application: Requires more spritzing throughout the day
Characteristics: EDTs are commonly used for everyday wear and are less overpowering

Eau de Cologne (EDC)

Concentration: 2-4% perfume oil
Longevity: Lasts for about 1-2 hours or less
Intensity: Very light and refreshing
Application: Needs frequent reapplication due to its low concentration
Characteristics: Often used for a quick refreshment or in warmer weather due to its light nature

Eau Fraiche

Concentration: 1-3% perfume oil
Longevity: A brief aromatic experience
Intensity: Extremely light and subtle
Application: Requires frequent reapplication
Characteristics: Eau Fraiche has the lowest concentration of perfume oils and is mostly used for a quick mood boost

It's important to note that the longevity and intensity of a fragrance also depend on individual skin chemistry and the specific ingredients in the perfume. Additionally, the same fragrance may smell slightly different at various concentrations due to the interactions between the perfume oils and the other components of the fragrance.

When choosing a perfume, consider your personal preference for intensity, how long you want the scent to last, and the occasion for which you're wearing it. It's a good idea to test perfumes on your skin to see how they interact with your body chemistry and to experience how they develop over time. Natural perfumes especially tend to be shape shifters, dancing uniquely with each of our personal chemistries.

Find your personal, all-natural fragrance in the Alchemessence Perfumery.

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juniper stokes 8/22/23 juniper stokes 8/22/23

5 Essential Oils for Mercury Retrograde (and how to use them)

What are retrogrades and why are they important? And, how can we navigate them with the support of plant allies? Let’s take a brief look at retrogrades from the perspective of ancient and enlivened astrology and five essentials oils for support during these times.

Mercury Retrograde has a bit of a bad reputation…but there are ways you can make any retrograde season work for you! In this article, we’ll take a brief look at what retrogrades are and how they function. Then, drawing from my personal anointing practice, which is based on decades of spirit work and botanical alchemy, I’ll share my five favorite oils for support during Mercury Retrograde. And stick around to the end — I’ve included a magical practice to do with the oils!

Why Retrogrades Matter

I’m not one to let any sort of system dictate my life, and I have no interest in freaking out about this convergence of retrogrades. I do, however, believe that responding appropriately to the movements in our skies is important…

As humans, we’re part of a larger web not just of life, but of cosmic energy. And, the universe has been so kind as to give us literal maps of the energies at play in our lives — the maps found in the skies.

In the ancient astrology I practice, the planets are not just energies, nor are they simply archetypes — they are gods. Inspirited, wise, and powerful, these gods rule different areas of our lives.

When the planets appear to move backward during a retrograde, there is a significant shift in how their energies are received and perceived upon our Earth: forward momentum in their areas of rulership slows and old cycles and patterns come up for review.

Retrogrades in general are a time for all things “re”: remember, review, reflect, release, and relax.

These astrological periods offer us natural, healthy cycles to enter into throughout our lives —- yet modern life doesn’t typically allow for a lot of wiggle room during these retrogrades as we constantly push forward. And this is where we run into trouble.

When we resist the nature of reality, obstacles arise. When we push against the natural flow of energies, everything feels more challenging and frustrating.

When we do what we can to go with the flow, to give ourselves space, and to accept whatever arises with equanimity, then we can receive the gifts of the retrogrades.

Understanding Mercury Retrograde

Mercury is often best known as the planet of communication and the mind — travel, technology, contracts, speaking, writing, and our thinking all fall under his rulership.

Yet Mercury is also the planet of magic. Spellcasting, manifesting, and influencing the subtle realms around you also fall under Mercury’s rulership.

This is why during a Mercury Retrograde, so many things can appear to go wrong. Travel can see a bit more obstacles, launching new ideas or projects can have more hiccups, and miscommunications can abound.

But remember — difficulties during retrogrades are not set in stone. By working with the energy of Mercury Retrograde, gifts arise: You might discover important details on past projects you’d previously overlooked. You might glean new layers of insight about yourself during reflective activities. You might even enjoy a surprise detour if you buffer your travels with plenty of extra time.

Essential Oils for Mercury Retrograde

Just as we find helpful maps in the skies, we find supportive allies here on Earth — especially with the plants.

As both a shamanic practitioner and clinically certified aromatherapist, I love working with essential oils for support — every oil contains the alchemical distillation of a plant’s most potent gifts.

This includes the mental and emotional benefits many people associate with aromatherapy, as well as the physical benefits that arise when each oil’s chemistry meets our own. And these benefits include wisdom, blessings, and energetic healing from the plant spirit that overlights each oil.

Here are a just a few of my favorite oils for Mercury Retrograde:

1. Rosemary: Untangling Cosmic Confusion

Rosemary is my top pick for Mercury Retrograde. Invigorating and opening, rosemary has an affinity for our third eye chakra, helping us see the truth and organize our thoughts with greater clarity — very supportive at a time when thinking can feel scattered.

Rosemary is also the embodiment of graceful memory. Several studies have even shown promising results for using rosemary with Alzheimer's patients. Yet rosemary isn’t just about remembering our day-to-day tasks: It’s about recalling deep wisdom and memories hidden within our lineages and past lives.

You can use rosemary anytime you need to think clearly, increase insight, boost concentration, and improve memory during this retrograde.

2. Clary Sage: Bringing Balanced Wisdom

Clary sage is a beautifully harmonizing essential oil. Both relaxing and uplifting, it physically balances our hormones and promotes emotional balance — something we might need a bit of extra support with during Mercury Retrograde. Clary sage is also my favorite oil for activating insight and intuition by clearing the pathways to divine wisdom.

This Mercury Retrograde, let clary sage be a cosmic hug that helps you navigate uncertainties with calm and clarity.

3. Blue Tansy: Joyful Expression

Blue tansy has a playful energy that brings greater flow and ease to our lives. Sweet and nourishing, blue tansy tends our inner child so we can feel safe to play and trust in all life brings.

And, with its natural bright blue color, blue tansy also has an affinity for the throat chakra. At a time when communication mishaps might be common, blue tansy brings welcome relief.

Use blue tansy to encourage feelings of joy and trust, as well as to support communication, this Mercury Retrograde.

4. May Chang: Positivity Booster

If you find negativity creeping in during this time, casting shadows on your plans and aspirations, may chang is a lovely ally. With its uplifting and refreshing aroma, may chang acts as a natural mood enhancer.

May chang is especially helpful for those feel “tired and wired” during Mercury Retrograde — it uplifts our mood by calming our nervous systems, which in turn actually leads to more sustainable energy.

You can use May change to help maintain a positive outlook and embrace the cosmic twists and turns with optimism.

5. Vetiver: Grounding and Stability

Get grounded and stay present with the support of vetiver. A restorative oil, vetiver is perfect for those times when you’re feeling hypersensitive or distracted. With its deep, earthy, almost smokey scent, vetiver anchors us to both the Earth and the present moment, offering stability amidst the cosmic chaos. Its calming effects can help alleviate stress and encourage a sense of security.

Turn to vetiver when you need to calm down, get present, and come from a place of inner power during challenging times.

How to Use Essential Oils During Mercury Retrograde

There are two simple yet powerful ways you can use these oils to support your flow during this retrograde season.

First, you can diffuse the oils. If you already have an essential oil diffuser, this is a lovely way to receive the benefits of these oils while blessing your entire space.

Simply add 4-6 drops of any of these oils to your favorite diffuser. You can choose one oil, or combine a few different ones. R

Anointing with the oils is especially powerful. An anointing practice can be done as part of a daily meditation, before journaling, or in preparation of Mercury-related activities to harmonize the energy (for example, you might like to anoint yourself with rosemary before reading an important document or blue tansy before a big conversation).

Quick Tip – Make Your Own Anointing Oil
Anointing can be done neat* — meaning with the pure, undiluted essential oil — or with a dilution of about 10% essential oil in a carrier oil.
If you’re making your own anointing oil this way, use about 10 drops per teaspoon of oil. The olive oil in your kitchen is great and has been traditionally used for centuries. Jojoba is a good modern choice, as it has an especially long shelf life.
*Some oils can cause irritation when used neat, including many citrus and spice oils, so in general, it’s a good idea to use diluted oils for your anointing practices.

How to Apply Your Anointing Oil

To apply your anointing oil, place one drop on your finger and then gently rub into selected points on the body. Hold your finger on the point for one to three minutes — until you feel a soft energetic shift. Chakra points are a nice place to start your anointing practice.

I also like to hold two key acupuncture points, as taught by Tiffany Carole, to receive the blessings of the oils: DU-2, located at the sacrum, and DU-20, located at the top of the head. (You can find charts to help with exact locations online.) Simply place one drop of oil on your index fingers, and then hold one index finger on each acupuncture for 1 - 3 minutes.

As we navigate Mercury retrograde, remember that essential oils are more than just pleasant scents – they are alchemical allies that can support our journeys of self-discovery and growth. So choose your oil, take a deep breath, and let the plant spirit guide you through these cosmic waves.

Psst…buying high quality essential oils can feel like a landmine. I wrote this peice to help.

You might also like:

A Complete Guide to Magical & Ritual Anointing Oils

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