We are living in a time of rapid changes. If you have been following the astrological story unfolding, you may already be well aware that as we passed through this Fall Equinox, we aligned further with the healing, opening, and upgrade of our heart chakras. With the intense light codes that are entering the planet and our own energetic and physical bodies right now, we have the opportunity to shed old self limiting concepts, and to both remember and grow into who we truly are. More and more, we are laying the ground work that may allow us to embody what we have the capacity to be, as bridges between the physical and the Divine. However, to be able to grow in this way, and to truly receive the messages, support, and activation from the cosmos that is attempting to help us evolve, we need to heal our hearts and consciousness from the old wounds that still limit us. What does it mean to carry self limiting concepts? If you consider the major traumas from your own life, including childhood, those memories that implanted within you the expectation of abandonment, victimhood, shame, and lack, for example, it starts to become clear. Who might you have been, without the influence of those inner voices telling you you may never be safe, or never be enough? In addition to this, there is the legacy of wounding that comes from your soul history and ancestral lines, which, over generations, has encouraged you to avoid the things that brought danger, such as intuitive forms of knowledge, ritual magic, and the mysticism of the Earth and Divine Feminine, and compelled you to repeat the problems that were too great to resolve in the past. Add to this picture our collective trauma, oppression, and imbalance of power, and it is no surprise how much self sabotage, confusion, and numbing take place in our current culture. Often the symptoms of these complex influences present themselves, while the root of the problem remains hidden in the unconscious realms of mind and soul. Over time, we can come to believe that those harmful ways of feeling and thinking are natural to us, just part of who we are. In this identification with the effects of past wounding, we accidentally cement our limitations into our sense of identity. Over time, this makes it all too easy to despair and lose hope, closing our hearts to true receiving. Yet, the heart center is the key to absorbing and integrating spiritual energy, including the light codes coming in now to offer help and the activation of our new era. It is very important right now to find and address the deeper, older, core wounds of the heart in order to release the self destructive patterns that they have instilled, and to restore the heart to its natural capacity for alignment with the Divine. We need this purification and realignment, but before we can open to it and engage the heart as a sacred key, we may need help looking into what is hidden in the dark of our Unconscious, and addressing it with courage, self love, and the willingness to transform. This is where this month’s deeply supportive plant and crystal allies come in.
All Heal is Self Heal
All Heal is a perennial flowering herb with the latin name Prunella Vulgaris. It grows here in the United states, as well as Europe, Asia, and Japan. It has interesting purple flowers, which close up kind of resemble small hooded figures in lavender robes. It is hardy enough to be considered a weed, and can grow to two feet high. Its flowers are actually edible, blooming from June to August, as our its leaves. It is an herb of Venus, making it an appropriate ally for our time. It has many different names, and even more healing applications. The name that I think is most apt is Self Heal. It has been noted as a plant that can heal wounds, inside and out, with so many uses it was considered a gift from the Divine.
When it comes to physical healing, the reduction of inflammation is a key reason why All Heal has such a wide reach of impact on disease and imbalance. Reducing heat, swelling, and congestion and enhancing or regulating the immune system’s response makes it a powerhouse for issues involving pain. It improves the healthful functioning of the liver and kidneys, and can tone the lymphatic system, making it an effective support against stagnation and the problems this can create. This is an herb interested in detoxification.
Though its physical healing applications alone are worth deep exploration, this relationship with moving what is stagnant and cleansing what is toxic to the system is a deep clue to its energetic, emotional, and magical healing potential. “Self Heal” is perhaps more of a signature than a nickname. When one is feeling hopeless, stuck, and mired in too much inner poison to feel empowered enough to begin the healing process, Self Heal can break through feelings of defeat and bolster courage and hope. This can greatly assist us in the slow unraveling of our personal layers of unconscious trauma and their legacy of limiting mindsets and behavior patterns. When we feel too exhausted to try and our hearts are closed to the hopeful possibility of feeling better, Self Heal can be just what is needed to begin the process of change. Self Heal addresses the psychic poison within, so that it can loosen its grip on our hearts and minds.
Suggestions for working with All Heal:
All Heal/Self Heal has a strong affinity for addressing anxiety and stress, and works very well in herbal bathing. Make a strong infusion (tea) by boiling water, turning the heat off, and adding about a cub of dried leaves and flowers. Let it steep for 15-20 minutes, and then bring the temperature back up. This can be added to bathwater, along with a strainer for sifting out the herb material after your bath. The action of pouring the infused waters over you, while the heat opens your pours, allows for the medicine to deeply enter through your pores and olfactory sense. Scrub the plant material on your body too. As always, it’s ideal to also drink a cup of the tea to take it internally as well.
All Heal/Self Heal works well as a flower essence. Taking a few drops of this highly distilled energetic medicine will serve to access the spiritual and emotional side of its potency. Take it with intention, making a prayer, sacred ask for support, or spell as you do to direct the influence.
The Complete Illustrated Encyclopedia of Magical Plants lists these fun folkloric magical uses:
“Drinking the tea before you look for a new home or apply for a job will ensure you of success.”
“Adding the flowers to a salad served to your beloved will improve your relationship and dispel any misunderstandings.”
“To deepen your connection with your inner wisdom, rub fresh or dried All Heal leaves on your forehead before meditating.”
I think all of these are worth experimenting with. Rubbing fresh leaves on the forehead is often a fast and effective way to take in the medicinal oil of the plant.
Sleeping with the fresh or dried plant is also a strong way to connect with its healing. When we sleep and dream we have direct access to our unconscious realms, bringing in a strong healing ally into the dream can help to address the deeply unconscious psychic wounds, especially when we plant dreams with a healing intention or when we need to heal the influence of nightmares.
Malachite
Malachite is a deep green and relatively soft stone with swirling patterns of fibrous banding. Though its color is in dark and light shades of green, its element is fire and it is very much aligned with the activation of necessary change. It offers excellent healing support by combining the initiation of deep positive transformation with protection from negative energetic influence, even helping one to both sense danger and to become invisible to that which would bring harm. In the Nahualismo tradition, this concept of invisibility comes up in the older teachings, as it does in other ancient cultures. When we are vulnerable because of being wounded and our minds are turned towards negative thoughts and emotions, we are highly visible as targets that can be manipulated. When we are actively working on healing ourselves, and perhaps others, we also become highly visible to those energies who would rather people stay trapped in fear. In this case, negative influence can come as a kind of psychic attack meant to thwart that positive influence on ourselves and the collective. This is where Malachite is a brilliant healing ally. It has the capacity to reveal to us what is hidden within our unconscious layers and needs healing, to help us in the process of transformation from these old wounds and destructive patterns, and while it is instigating this work, it also helps by holding us in a protective shield. This is a power stone, and a willing and appropriate healing tool for our time.
Malachite has a special affinity for the heart and heart chakra. In addition to being the key to how we receive spiritual awakening, the heart is the place where we hold the memories of what we have lived. The heart holds our traumas and their after effects, because in those memories are the stories we have told ourselves, perhaps again and again, about who we are and what to expect from life. Looked at this way, it is no surprise that Malachite would have a relationship to this crucial part of our physical and energetic bodies. In The Book of Stones, Who They Are and What They Teach, Robert Simmons says:
“Malachite emanates the healthiest energy pattern for the heart. It benefits both the emotional heart and the pump itself through its harmonization of the heart chakra. It assists one in maintaining emotional balance, in which one remains in a positive, benevolent state but is not tempted to take on the emotional baggage of others. It also offers an enhanced ability to see where one’s own emotional traps and pitfalls lie, and to avoid them.”
Naisha Ahsian adds this:
“Malachite can be a powerful ally for those who are trapped in waiting for their reality to change. It can assist one in perceiving the cracks in the walls that block one’s progress, so one can utilize one’s will to break through limitations, barriers and apathy. It stimulates one’s higher passions for life and creating. It lends one the strength to consciously own one’s responsibility in forging one’s life in whatever form one chooses.”
There are few stones that have this range of actions, helping us to perceive and heal our deep traumas and limitations, protecting us from negative influence and attack so we can be vulnerable in our transformation process, and aligning our hearts with inner balance and clarity so that we can receive from and co-create with the Divine, in sacred purpose. This is a truly empowering stone that helps us overcome fear, overwhelm, confusion, and the legacies of victimization that keep us asleep in the dark. It pushes us to remember who we are, to heal, and to create with intention and creativity. No wonder time and time again it appears imprinted with the sacred number 8, another sigil of its power to activate our true agency and will and make it manifest, even if much healing is needed first.
Tips for working with Malachite:
Malachite is best used with intention. It is a powerful stone, and has been said to cause sleep disturbance if kept in the bedroom. This will vary greatly, depending on personal sensitivities. Though it was once powdered into an eye shadow in Ancient Egypt and the Middle Ages, Malachite is toxic as a powder and can be tharmful to touch in its rough forms. A polished stone serves best. Because of this it is not suitable for infusion in water.
Meditation holding Malachite, wearing Malachite jewelry, keeping a stone in a pouch while traveling, and creating a crystal grid or altar are all good ways to work with this potent ally.
Working with All Heal and Malachite Together:
My suggestion is to use the ways listed above, such as sacred bathing, teas, and flower essences with All Heal, while engaging this plant and crystal intentionally each day for a specific cycle. 36 days is a good place to begin for healing changes, based on the number of the Sun’s cycle, perceived from Earth. Start with setting an intention for healing transformation and the cleansing and opening of the heart. Create ritual, engage in prayer, or use a grid formation to set a clear intention for change. Then, come to these allies each day, no matter how you feel, asking for the courage, clarity, and catalyst to grow into the best possibility of who you can be, unfettered, open, aligned and empowered.
May we all heal the influences that have kept us from knowing what we truly are.
May we offer ourselves love, so that we can receive it more fully and offer it to each other.
Ometeotl.
With deepest care,
the eleventh house
-This blog was written by Melusina Gomez. For more information about her work and healing practices please visit www.metzmecatl.com