Alchemy Z ~ Waking Within Blog

  Article: Mold and Sage Series: Dreaming in the Dark Times Many times growing up in Southern California have I communed with White Sage (Salvia Apiana). It grew in my hometown. It grows on the property that my family and I own in Aguanga, CA. I learned to pick it and bundle it before I was fully initiated into manhood (sometime between my first sexual experience and my first sweat lodge with a Lakota Medicine woman). I recently made some Dreaming Jaguar smokes at my old job site (Happy High Herbs/Rainbow Bliss Botanicals in Tempe AZ) and included white sage but wasn’t able to continue making them because of the popularity of this herb and the trouble keeping it in stock. I really just included it for flavor then. I had forgotten all the dreams I had of the sage fields before. In the last week, for the first time in many human years, I returned to my family land and the sage fields. I made offerings of guardianship and good will towards the sage plants on my land and collected a mo...

  Salvia the diviner’s mint, is one of the most powerful psychedelics in the natural world. It along with Magic Mushrooms are used traditionally by Meso-American shamans (Mazatepec, Mazatec, Zapotec, etc) and my ancestors for purposes of healing and visions. Unequivocally, magic mushrooms which are containers of psilocin, psilocybin and baeocystin have been consumed by nearly all our ancestors including lighter skinned and nordic peoples. Salvia has only recently become a whole world phenomenon with many places banning it. Most western people take salvia as an extracted smoke, while most people in history chewed the leaves and burned them dried and unextracted. Salvia when taken orally as opposed to smoking seems to be the best focus of this article on dreaming. Some psychedelic effects are possible with this method especially if you are holding your saliva (spit) in your mouth for at least 20 minutes along with the herb or extract. Most of these are spiritual, central nervous syst...

Article: Flowers for the Dead Series: Dreaming in the Dark Times As I write this, I am steeping blue lotus (Egyptian Water Lily), Lion’s Mane mushroom (powdered extract) and honey in hot water for about 1 hr. It is my intention on this Christmas night to dream deeply as a way to gather information about my future and the destiny of my family. It’s a shamanic practice that most people have access to. This winter and holiday week, I’ve gathered in my home, powerful herbs and foods that strengthen my connection to the darkness and to life with my eyes closed. I have Afrikan Dream Roots (Silene Capensis), Moldy blue cheese, Blue and red water lilies, Afrikan Dream Seeds (Entada Rheedii), mugwort, Zacatechichi, white sage, various mushrooms, damiana, passion flower, valerian, salvia divinorum, tart cherries and pistachios nuts. Each of these things has a function and effect on dream or sleep. However, in many humans these effects vary. The goal tonight is to take restful sleep using the wat...

  Nutmeg and mace (spice made from the outer coating of the seed) are a part of cultural history, early agriculture, and tribal cultivation in Southeast Asia. They are the perfect spices for the Holy Days of indoor winter feasts. Besides being a psychoactive ingredient (I’ll explain this later) in larger amounts, nutmeg has flavor and is considered an aphrodisiac across the world. One of the earliest trees to be cultivated by humans on Earth known as the Myristica fragrans, or Banda island spice tree. The seeds of Myristica fragrans were used in “Venus trading” or venushandel, which was a fun German way of saying sexual intercourse. Ground nutmeg is something that the medieval herbalist Hildegard von Bingen enjoyed and wrote about. Her suggestion was to take it for the following things: warming, opening the heart, putting one into a good state of mind, numbing the senses, alleviating bitterness of the heart and mind, making the spirit happy, purifying the mind, and is a good blood ...

   Dreaming in the Dark Times Series: Rediscovering Herbal Totlec Shamanism Classically I have been dreaming within my lifetime in this body from the earliest times in my memory. I have dreams that I remember from when I was 5 yrs old. I have paid close attention to these visions and how they relate to myself, my future and present reality, past lives and generic fire. I believe everyone dreams and in my family many people remember these nightly occurrences and they seem to have powerful meanings that have been handed down by my pure blood grandmothers on both sides Italian and Sonoran.  I’ve heard many stories for these ladies about their dreams, some of which included me. After many years of research into Lucid dreaming and meditation mind states, and adopting nagualismo aka Toltec Shamanism (generally Mexico area of the world currently), I believe we all dream every night often 7 dreams but only some of us remember these visions. If you are lucky enough to remember any...