Plant Meditation Club: This week we meditate with Angelica archangelica, commonly known as angelica. This herb is related to a previous, Chinese herb we meditated with: Dú Huó, 獨活, Angelica pubescens radix. For my in person group we did two 10 minute meditations with Angelica archangelica and one 10 minute meditation with Angelica pubescens for comparison. Why? These herbs are used in practice differently. How do they overlap? This was fun :)
Areas for further experimentation and research: Angelica archangelica for rashes. Angelica archangelica and pubescens for promoting health romantic relationships.
This is our herb:
Angelica archangelica
Pre Meditation/Taste, etc
A mildly nutty flavor, spicy, rooty, mushroomy but sweet. All votes say it was significantly sweeter for the second meditation, this was the same cup, that had been sitting around and had cooled.
Meditation 1
Me: during the majority of this meditation consisted on my energy going to my right side. I have been over on my left (maybe due to a car accident), this involved my body leaning quite far to the right and the energy shifting too.
Linda: I was feeling agitated during meditation. I felt it in a wave from the middle of my head (occiput), through my whole body, to my feet. This wave happened a few times and it felt like agitated, like anger.
My daughter: There was a guy, he was in a rose garden, but it was all roses, (no stems, thorns, or leaves,) and the sky. The roses were super, vividly pink and beautiful. He seemed like he was on a run (based on his outfit). He was a little muscular. Roses started to bloom out of his body--no stems, but roses blooming out of his skin. Then they disappeared into red, bruisy rashes. He started chugging water that was infused with this herb out of a water bottle. Then music started playing. It was "Cradles" by Sub Urban. The part where it says
"Fire's spreading all around my room
My world's so bright
It's hard to breathe, but that's alright
Hush!"
Followed by music.
Then the bruises start disappearing. He started breakdancing...like a person in a commercial, acting happy). Roses remain around him.
Cut to a new scene: Still in the rose garden, a victorian couple is waltzing. They are a generically straight couple, the man is a little taller. They start having bruises appear on them, and then they disappear, because of this herb. They are waltzing the whole time.
A man turns off the tv, and the screen closes on this scene (black coming from the top and the bottom). A family is with him, there are three children and it seems like his wife is there too, but not visible. The man says, "See kids , that's what you do when you get a bruise."
The kids rush off, they ran down the halls, then they became the people in the rose garden. It was a sort of fever dream.
My father enjoyed a very peaceful, quiet, clear meditation.
Meditation 2
Linda: My mind was busy, it was a chaotic meditation. It was hard to concentrate.
My daughter: There was a ring of fire under someone's skin. We were in a basement room. The ceiling was caucasian flesh colored. It was like being inside someone's body, under their skin. The ring of fire goes about half way to the ceiling. It looks like a witch's sacrificing fire. On the Cradles song, mentioned above, there is a man pushing a baby buggy that is filled with fire. In my vision he pours the cradline into the fire, making it bigger. Then, channeling angelica: a wave of water washes over it, only eliminating a little bit of the fire. I think about being a pisces. Angelica is so pisces, which is cooling. Then the flames were poking the skin upwards, but not setting it on fire like normal flames. A bunch of fire formed into a pool on the inside of the ring of fire, the fire was keeping it contained. A symbol appeared, a pisces symbol. Then everything disappeared.
Me: I feel subtle energy shifts with my health. I asked the plant some different questions but it is working on what is in my heart, which is some family issues and personal relationship stuff. I asked it how it liked to work best. Somehow I ended up hearing/seeing how I would be best to work in the world. The way it showed it how I work with myself and only a few people (because it is not normative, I guess). I see past lives and how unresolved reactions and impacts from these lives are causing current health troubles. I also talk to organs and the inside of the body to understand what problems are contributing to imbalances. This is a way to address the root of the problems which is very effective if the person on the receiving is adapts. In this way I have overcome numerous chronic health conditions and have been able to release fears and anxieties that seemed out of proportion in this life. Talking to organs of myself and clients has also been quickly effective. This is a conversation which ends in instructions either for the organ systems involved or the person.
My father is enjoying very still, silent meditations. He didn't want to stop meditation even when it was time, so he did note that it was less quiet when we were talking, lol.
Angelica pubescens
Pre Meditation/taste, etc
The taste is sour and bitter, "a three year old would spit it out", puckery, perfumey/incense smell. *Notably this was a stronger steep than the last herb, that was indicated to be a factor by the herb(s). The herb(s) indicated that the stronger doses make it easier to red and share experiences with people.
Meditation 3
Me: This plant showed me an aspect of an art quilt I am working on. It was the decorative floral top-stitching between hateful statements. The quilt is about rape culture. I felt the plant was saying that it aligns with the flowers between the terrible things that come up in life. I also took it to be saying that it was not just the healing (like myself) that I was to do it the world, but also my art. I am optimistic about being in the world. I feel my crown open and see a snake inside nosing the top of my forehead. The herb asked me to check into my father and where his energy is. It feels like it is high, high up. Just at the crown for the most part. He is at the end of his life and the energy often ascends like this, moving out of the body and up through the head.
Linda's energy comes forward to me clearly. She mentions the Mayo clinic, she says she was my grandmother's mother. My grandmother's mother went to the Mayo clinic when my grandmother was 12. She went because of cancer I believe, and my grandmother became the large family's caretaker. Her mother did not return. She indicated/reminded me that both sides of my family went back to the same place in Europe in the Alsace-Lorraine region and to the same family name. The people in the family have gone back and forth to both sides of the family to work through the issues of the family coming a part and moving back together over hundreds of years. She is staying here because she is proving she can stay when there is a health problem. On reflection she is showing that a family member can be cared for in the home. I see how beautiful it is that marriage can bring you the feeling of someone loving and caring for you until death do you part. I know that mariage can also bring great pain, so it is healing to see their relationship. It takes two people loving each other generously and diligently to acheive this--they both give to each other deeply. This cannot be created by one out of the two people.
My daughter: A guy in the back room of a bar. He is white and moderately attractive, but that is not what it's about. He has a cigarette in his hand with this herb in it. There is a lot of smoke around him (it feels exagerated). Velouria from the Pixies comes over the top of the bar music and we no longer hear the bar music. Velouria is his inner song. He goes out into the bar, with the cigarette in hand. He meets up with a femme fatale vibe woman in a slinky, risqué, but high end dress, with pale skin, and black hair. Her inner song is Subbacultcha by the Pixies. They make out and their songs meld. He gives her some of his cigarette. After that her song changed to his, their songs are melded. They slow dance in the club, while everyone else dances like it is a club. This is an advertisement for Brown Bear Herbs' new cigarette, simply called "Love"...the ink color is pink like the roses in the earlier visions. The colors are black and white and muted, with a pop of rose pink.
Linda: I felt like I was wrapped up in a very soft, warm blanket, it was very soothing. It quieted my mind, and I was actually able to meditate.
My dad enjoyed another quiet meditation.
Summary and Traditional Use:
Angelica archangelica is my favorite bruise remedy. When properly prepared tincture is applied to a fresh bruise (less than 15 minuted old) you can watch the bloom recede. After seeing (through my daughter's eyes) the bruises (blunt trauma, direct insults) and rashes (heat welling up from within?) presenting on the lovers and being healed with this herb, I think it may be good for emotional wounds too that can surface and be dealt with in an emotionally supportive relationship. I think of Angelica as being helpful for people who look outside, at drugs and people, for help witha. sense of emptiness within. This herb helps end addictive tendencies and find spiritual source within, helping draw energy up in meditation. It is considered an important meditation herb. It is used specifically in tobacco cessation. The seeds are typically chewed as a tobacco alternative. I had not thought of using it in a smoke because I typically don't like hard herbs in smoking blends. I am working on a seasonal smoke, which I was going to call Cosmic Love. However I really like the idea, emotions, and imagery around using this herb for a Love cigarette. I will experiment with it. I love the idea of a Love cigarette that takes people out of dependency on Love. It feels like it can be like an addiction to love and relationships for some people, and a feeling incompleteness without one. It sounds like this smoke would offer the medicine to have two healthy people come together and meld songs.
Angelica archangelica is also used as a carminative, to stimulate digestion, helping with regurgitation related to cold and food stagnation. It does have a history of use for skin irritation, rashes, preventing skin issues, and evening out skin tone. While Angelica is typically used for cold and depressive tissue states, in heat/flames were pushing up the skin from within. It is possible to have cold in the gut and heat in other places. There is more to understand for this less-common use of Angelica.
Angelica pubescens, (third meditation for those with me this week, but this is also a past PMC subject) the Chinese herb, Dú Huó or 獨活, means 'self-reliant existence'. I feel this overlaps with Angelica archangelica, both helping me see how I can live true to my identity, most authentically. These herbs seemed to have a lot of overlap. Read more about it at the post for reveal date 5/30. I look forward to studying this herb and Angelica sinensis, dong quai to learn their commonalities and where their applications differ.
Invitation:
Have you worked with Angelica archangelica or Angelica pubescens before? Please share your experiences and associations.