Plant & Crystal Magic 30: Yerba Santa & Elestial Quartz
These two elemental allies are close to my heart. They invite us into the liminal spaces and guide us towards meaning, healing and deepening within that vast territory. And yet, their energies are grounded in the magic and mystery of the Earth, supporting us in the integration of our dreaming, remembering, and aligning with the esoteric and soul regions of knowledge.
Yerba Santa
It was about twenty years ago when I first met Yerba Santa. It is perhaps the first herb that reached out to me, without my having had any awareness of it previously. At that time my knowledge of the herbal allies was more limited, but luckily I did know how to listen. I was in a circle with some others who, like me, were in a process of deepening within the practices of dreaming, visioning, and healing. We would meet once a month to connect, journey, and to recall the hidden practices of our lineages, of both Ancestral and Soul origins. We were utilizing the magnifying power of gathering in a group to go deeper, and one night we journeyed with the question “What would help us to dream deeper and advance psychically, as a group and individually?” We each brought back a suggestion from the spirit realm, an original teaching from our trusted guides in the context of carefully crafted sacred space. In my journey, I saw the green of the plant world and some golden light. A strong energy introduced itself to me as Yerba Santa, and just to be sure I got the message, the letters spelling its name appeared before me. The plant spirit said to make an infusion of its leaves in water and to wash our eyes with it every night before going into the realm of sleep and dreaming. I remember feeling very reverent and grateful for the specificity of this practice. I shared it with the group, but I think I was the only one who actually began this practice. When I made the infusion, I also added a couple drops of the Yerba Santa tincture, and together this turned the water a golden color. I suspect we could have begun dreaming together and developing more of a psychic link, based on what the plant told me and what I felt, but that didn’t happen. What did happen was a gradual initiation into the art of dreaming and seership that began for me from that point, and was ultimately led me to study the magic and medicine of plants, which ultimately led me to find my true Ancestral lineage of healing and sorcery from Mexico. I am grateful to Yerba Santa for opening the gateway that dramatically changed my life, when I simply asked with an open heart and enough basic training to distinguish thoughts from true visions. I share this with you now with much respect and reverence for this teacher and opener of visions and pathways.
Yerba Santa has other names, like most magical and medicinal plants that have been loved by more than one culture. It is also known as Bear Weed, Holy Herb, Sacred Herb, and Mountain Balm, for example. It is associated with psychic power, as well as with bringing protection on the journey. It’s been carried to increase spiritual strength and to ward off illness and injury. Its leaves are used in healing incense formulas. There is also a tradition of bathing with the fresh leaves and with infusions of them.
More specifically, it is a sacred herb of Northern Mexico and the South-Western United States, which even the Spanish named “Santa,” meaning holy or sacred. It was most commonly used as a smudging herb to cleanse the energies causing disease and psychic imbalance, and to heal emotional conditions like melancholy, grief, and anger between people, with the intention of creating an inviolable space within the heart and allowing it to open. In traditional Indigenous smudging practices and rituals, Yerba Santa was engaged to increase a person’s connection with Spirit, opening the crown and increasing psychic awareness. Even the Spanish missionaries came to revere this sacred plant ally and recorded its affect on psychic sense and in cultivating healing for body, mind, and spirit. It has been used to increase vitality, to provide spiritual protection, an to make offerings during ceremony. Yerba Santa can help you deepen into the journey of understanding and merging with your higher soul self, while attuning you to divine connection, guidance, and protective support. It is a true elder.
Suggestions for working with Yerba Santa:
I shared my personal story for a reason. I will begin again with my practice of washing my face and the area around my eyes, third eye, temples, and crown with a Yerba Santa infusion before bed. This time I will add Yerba Santa flower essence. The intention held this time is growth, expansion, deepening dreaming, and finding the path to becoming who we most truly are, as this shift of era invites us to be more of our intuitive, soul selves. Would you like to join?
Elestial Quartz
In the last few months, I have felt similarly tapped on the shoulder by the medicine of Elestial Quartz, a powerful crystal ally that I had not known much about until our recent excursion to a Crystal and Gem Faire in April, where we bought several pieces for the store (along with many other magical beauties). That night, I slept with one and had a deep, nurturing rest that grounded and rejuvenated me. I have been holding it and dreaming with it since. Lili Shuster, whom most of you know as the magical, light filled owner of the eleventh house, described Elestials as the Grandmothers of the crystal world, which can both nurture and give you the big medicine that you need, even if it is hard to hear. I can feel that quality, and it’s potency, though it has been a supremely kind energy for me thus far, one that seems to encourage the remembrance and integration of soul history and knowledge. My felt experience is that it grounds out any surface concerns or frenetic energy, relaxes my nervous system, and opens me to feel more like my deepest self so that I can meet life and act from the place of soul centeredness and divine connection. And this is really just the beginning with this power stone.
Elestial Quartz is the name given to a particular formation of quartz that appears layered and structured with many terminations that look like plates overlapping each other on the surface, and growing in the same direction. They are commonly Smokey Quartz, but there can be other variations like clear quartz and citrine. Elestial Quartz is also known as Skeletal Quartz, or sometimes Crocodile Quartz, because it has the appearance of an earthy skeletal structure or even crocodile scales. When found in Cathedral Quartz formations, they are also called “Libraries of Light.” They do in fact have a grounding presence, with the particular nuance of grounding higher frequency vibrations into the Earthly plane. They engage the with the highest levels of guidance, divinity, and multi-dimensionality, and help this energy to be accessible to humans here in the physical realm. They remind us of our highest aspects and attune us towards connection with our deep soul truth and with the realms of Spirit. Being in their presence invites the vibration of love and the Angelic realms into one’s body and home. This can create ecstatic feelings of love and lightness, bring in protection, and cut through illusions, blocks, and disharmonies to make us more in touch with our true selves at the level of soul and psychic awareness. This is particularly true with Smokey Quartz varieties, making them excellent aids in all forms of healing work, as well as in the unfolding of personal and spiritual development and vitality.
One of the most intriguing aspects of Elestial Quartz, however, is its connection with the Akashic records. In addition to the healing and expansion that it invites in the present, even working with just one Elestial over time can awaken hidden soul memories and initiate the integration of who we have been and what we have known in the past. These memories can hold the key to inviting home lost gifts, knowledge, purpose, and awareness that has been buried by trauma and the forgetting between lifetimes. I believe that this remembering is key to stepping into our full selves at this shift of ages, recovering what has gone silent in the realm of the unconscious and engaging more fully in dreaming our lives with intention and co-creating with the dream of the Earth. So much knowledge was hidden in the name of survival during the Fifth Sun, but remains at the edges of our awareness through the hints of intuition, dreams, and visions. What might it be like to truly attune to the larger cosmic dance and to recover what we may have once known about our interconnection and relationship to it all? These healers open us up to the Divine, while grounding us with the vitality and medicine of the Earth, and at the same time, encourage us to receive both new information and to recover what we have forgotten. Perhaps Elestial Quartz is the healer and awakener for our time.
Suggestions for working with Yerba Santa and Elestial Quartz together:
Once you have primed yourself with a Yerba Santa smudge and/or face and crown wash, hold your Elestial Quartz to your heart and breath slowly. Let it ground and align you. Rest and listen. If you feel called, bring it to your crown or third eye area and listen for what it wants to teach you. With this and all forms of intuitive listening, you can also ask a specific question, if you wish to receive a specific kind of guidance. This would be a beautiful evening practice before entering dreaming. The rest of the time, don’t forget to keep your Elestial present in your home to promote more harmony and healing for all who live there and to include Yerba Santa in your space clearing and perhaps on your altar as an offering.
May we remember, and expand together,
Ometeotl.
-This blog was written by Melusina Gomez, originally for publication with the eleventh house
sources:
The Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs, Scott Cunningham
“7 Spiritual Benefits of Yerba Santa” , by Carla Greenwood
Crystal Stars 11.11, Alana Fairchild
The Book of Stones, Who They Are and What They Teach, Robert Simmons & Naisha Ahsian