The Doctrine of Signatures

I've been infusing calendula flowers at the perfumery. Each time I work with these sweet flowers I am reminded of their star signature, the celestial imprint that they are encoded with.

Plants retain and transfer the vitality of the Earth to us, facilitating an upgrade to where it is most needed. Calendula flowers have an affinity to the sun, as we can witness by their Doctrine of Signatures, which acts as a mode of communication without words, where the plant shows us through its shape & color what it's star signature is.

In a recent review of the Green Knight fragrance, a couple internet trolls, hiding behind their fake names, attacked the concept of the Doctrine of Signatures. The trolls remarked that the Doctrine of Signatures isn't real, not even a little bit and that its a bunch of yogababble.

We each have the lenses we use to perceive the world around us. The ancients, throughout all traditions, observed plants to understand the non-linear language being communicated, it is a very right brain mode of perception, where we observe patterns and archetypes.

For individuals who have become very "land locked" within the left brain, functioning in a narrow, mechanistic paradigm, these concepts are completely out of their sphere of perception. Instead of opening themselves up to new ideas, they automatically move into their reptilian brain and attack.

As I contemplated what was occurring, it became clear that this challenge was a manifestation of the tale of The Green Knight, playing out in the comments of the review. When we bravely share ideas, concepts and our creativity in the world it can sometimes feel like we are the Green Knight offering our axe to others to cut off our head. What they don't realize is, in that act of cutting of my/our heads, they have accepted the challenge of having their heads cut off.

As above, so below / As within, so without

Thank you to Eli, one of my students in Spain, who posted this little nugget in the comments of an instagram post where I mentioned this challenge.

"In the human spirit as in the universe there is nothing above or below, everything demands with equal right a common center that manifests its secret existence through the harmonic relationship of all the parts with respect to it. All disputes of the ancients and of the moderns, up to the most recent times, are born from the separation of what she has produced unitarily in her nature. We know quite well that in singular human natures, the predominance of any faculty or capacity is habitually imposed and that a unilateral way of representing things is necessarily generated from it, since man knows the world only through himself and, therefore, naively. presumption, he believes that the world is built according to him and his wishes." 

- Goethe

Sol and Luna

The silvery light of Luna is now bathing our woodland. Her fullness on the same day of the blessed Summer Solstice has not occurred in nearly 70 years. The energetics of Sol and Luna in balance is a powerful metaphor for the union of opposites.

Perfume for this powerful time is Vespertina! Her combination of rose, frankincense and precious woods is fitting for activating greater awareness and balance. Vespertina conjures images of a golden Byzantine crown with rubies, emeralds and opals accompanied with precious essences from Arabian deserts and lush ancient forests. This is a concept perfume, weaving in the different elements surrounding her story and character arc. Since the epic tale has a backstory of her romance with the young knight Dante, I added co-distilled essences and attars—representing a marriage of two separate parts. Sol and Luna.

Everlasting

Friday evening, during the Street Art Live event at Wizard (Whizin) Center a gentle soul who auspiciously resembled Frodo came by the perfumery. We began chatting and soon found we shared a love of plants, specifically those of the California wildwoods. My friend Marie, who was spending time with me at the perfumery that evening, commented on how it seemed like a visitation from Middle Earth to the Elven/Fairy realm...she believes me to be part fairy.

Eventually we ended up trading small bunches of Everlasting which also goes by the names of Immortelle and Helichrysum. He gifted me a Gnaphalium, also termed cudweed, which might be the bi-color variety. There's quite a challenge with determining the exact name since so many sources don't agree. For our purposed today lets call it Gnaphalium bicolor, a two-toned greenish perennial with sticky, woolly-white leaves that contain grey undersides...thus the secondary name of bicolor. Gnaphalium comes from the Greek meaning "lock of wool", relating to the woolly-leaves.

The elongated, dual toned leaf contains a superbly interesting aroma with notes of valerian, sage, patchouli and agarwood. Being a lover of earthy and unusual notes I'm loving it and enjoying the difficulty in pinning down the aromatic profile, particularly since it doesn't quite share similarities with its relative that goes by the same common name of Helichrysum italicum. The little papery flowers are small and creamy yellow in color with a very subtle herbaceous scent.

I gifted him Helichrysum italicum (angustifolia) organically grown in Ojai. This variety has a maple-like fragrance with very similar looking flowers to Gnaphalium bicolor although the color is golden yellow.

The other native varieties to California, that are often confused is Pearly everlasting, Anaphalis margaritacea and California everlasting, Gnaphalium californicum. The latter grows abundantly here in the Santa Monica Mountains and has a sister plant on the East coast called "White Balsam" Gnaphalium polycephalum.

Everlasting has such a perfect affinity with the Summer Solstice today as it is a plant of the Sunflower family (Asteraceae) and thrives in full sun and dry, arid hillside regions with little flowers that emulate the look of our fiery golden star which gives us light and warmth called the Sun. The word Asteraceae comes from the Greek Aster meaning star.

Roxana Illuminated Perfumes featuring helichrysum are Impromptu and the upcoming Mellifera which is found at my fan funding page or the perfumery.

Photos and text: ©Roxana Villa

The Sun Dance

The Summer Solstice is upon us once more, resulting in the longest day of the year here in the northern hemisphere. Henceforth our day light will begin to shorten as we cycle toward the dark part of the season. Luckily it is a slow transition, hard to think about darkness just as we are entering the summer holiday season.

The ancient Celts celebrated the sun on this day, emblematic of the light winning over the dark. On this day we give gratitude to the sun as it is key to our survival here on planet earth.

The honey bee is often referred to as "The Queen of the Sun" because the sun is their compass. When a forager bee discovers a plentiful site she comes back to the hive, shares a bit of the pollen and does the waggle dance to instruct the other bees how to arrive at the source of the pollen.



Today our birdhouse bees got a second story added to their periwinkle home. we are intending that the energetics of the Summer Solstice will help them expand into their new dwellings with grace and ease.

Related Summer Solstice Posts here at the Illuminated Journal:
the SUN
A Summer Solstice Perfume
Summer Solstice

Opening photo by Andrew Dunn, found on Wikipedia.

the SUN

Today we honor Fathers and Summer Solstice. Rather auspiciously one of the symbolic aspects of the Sun is the Male, the father. Where as the Moon is associated with the Feminine, the mother.

Known as Midsummer and Lilith, Summer Solstice marks the official first day of summer, an extended day of light for those of us in the Northern hemisphere. Where as in the Southern hemisphere, like in Argentina where my father is, they will be celebrating the Winter Solstice, albeit in a different manner than how we celebrate it in the North. If you are in the South and celebrate Solstice, please share with us how you celebrate, we'd love to hear!


The Sun, the largest star in our solar system, has been personified in many myths including Helios by the Greeks and Sol by the Romans. Since all is revealed in the light on the Sun, we find Truth as one of the iconic aspects associated with this ball of fire traveling through our heavens. According to Biblical stories the Sun was manifested on the fourth day of creation. I guess God was working in the dark on the previous days. The Sun also plays a role in Dogon, Hebrew, Japanese, several Native American and South and Central American creation myths.

In Germanic traditions the Sun is the embodiment of the feminine where the moon is masculine. This is a great illustration of how the people of the earth will create their own mythologies to suit their needs.

Some of the symbols that have been utilized in creating mythologies associated with the Sun are include the fact that it is a huge orange ball in the heavens that provide us with light and warmth, resulting in the growing of our food. The rising in the East and the setting in the West is another key aspect that is focused upon, like the god Helios and his firey chariot pulled by four horses.

What symbolic aspects do you associate with the Sun and the Solstice? In botanical perfume, as mentioned in previous journal entries, Sunflower oil as a base for an "solar" infusion of "solar" plant material. Solar plant material includes:

• Amber
• Benzoin
• Broom
• Calendula
• Everlasting
• Frankincense
• Labdanum
• Saffron
• Rose
  
• Spices (relaxing)
• Citrus
  

The ancients derived these associations by observing several factors: the color and shape of a plant, how it makes you feel, plants that show signs of being affected by the sun (Sunflowers), plants associated the circulatory system and where the plant grows. Today being SUNday makes it an even more potent day for honoring the sun and beginning or creating a vital aromatic Solstice elixir.

More posts at this journal which focus on Summer Solstice are these:

A Summer Solstice Perfume
Summer Solstice

Art Heart image ©Greg Spalenka, www.spalenka.com. The second image is a detail from the Art heart. The third image has been created by me, Roxana, utilizing layers of imagery in photoshop. See the photos of how Greg created this image here.