Hedge Walker Wild Herbals and Crafts, Louisville, KY (2025)

06/03/2025

ANCESTRAL MAGIC & CATALPA FLOWER ESSENCE: A BELATED MESSAGE, A NEED FOR SAFETY 🐛👣🐌🌳🐟🐌🦌🌳🌼🐿

For Gemini Season and Saturn's shift into Aries: Childlike wonder meets major structure changes

Catalpa species
Catalpa bignonioides
Catalpa speciosa

A.k.a. Indian bean, Cigar tree, Worm tree, Fishing tree, Bait tree

As a welcomed change, I stepped across the pavement and under the stone archway that connected me to the green understory of Cherokee Park. On this day, I decided I would take a hike at one of my cites largest urban parks. I had not been there in so long, so I was excited to get reacquanted with the lay of this land and its language. I wanted to understand and dispel the idea that a person has to be in the deepest recesses of a forrest to commune with the spirits of a place. I wanted to show that life finds a way, always, no matter where you are, you are with your mother. And that life-pulse is the pulse of a mother tongue filled with unconditional love, flowing through all living things. We are always connected.

As I began to walk around, memories of a nearly forgotten time came flooding back. I used to live just up the road from this area, an area called the Louisville Highlands. At the closest spot to get away from pavement life, I would roam here often in between long work days. After living off-grid up North, this land was my adjustment midwife to the culture shock back to city life; a place of solace and re-connection.

This city is well known for its lush, green and well kept parks. Before I left my car’s park spot, a Holly tree already grabbed my attention. It was in its tiny, white summer blooms. So many connections to the past—in this life and in another. My matrilineal Scottish ancestry was talking: Bardstown Road. Highlands. The Holly Tree (a tree that relates to my family bloodline). And I was walking into none other than Cherokee Park, the tribe of my grandmothers indigenous heritage.

How many of my ancestors were walking with me, bone to bone, along side my flesh that steaming, humid afternoon? I felt like I was guided to the right place. “What will you say?”, I thought. Which of them will find me as a leaf? A flower? A tree? A bird? Following the whispers in my ear, I immediately enter into the cool casting shadow of the park, finding a Northern Catalpa tree in bloom. Bending to pick up a few into my hand, I laugh heartily. The Catalpa tree is one of the earliest trees of my childhood memories. We had a huge Catalpa that grew in front of our house in the country. In summer, the tree would fill so heavy with the caterpillars that its large leaves would droop and hang low from the weight of their insatiable hunger.

With its heart-shaped wide leaves, a Catalpa tree umbrellas huge. Its long green fruit-seed beans mimic the shape of a long, green snake. Much more plump, the Catalpa worm feeds hungrily on the tree. When I was quite young, when we were living out in the country, this tree stretched its long armed limbs all the way over to the small white deck my father had built above our front door. It was a home built in the mid 1800’s by a ship captain that traveled up and down the Ohio. The tiny deck served as a fresh air lookout, overviewing the front yard and the wilderness beyond. First though, you met the Catalpa. Your eyes had to enter the scene through her green hearts.

The deck was also a kind of go-between from my sister and I’s room and my brother’s, which lead straight down our old curved banistered stairs. During its season, Catalpa caterpillars (Ceratomia catalpae) would be found crawling all over the deck. At night, I found myself hugging the Catalpa tree in the form of my glow worm, which looked remarkably like some of the species of Ceratomia. The glow served as a safety light from dark corners of the room, and the dark corners of a spiritually gifted child’s mind. I did not want to see things “from the other side”. I did not want to talk to ghosts. I wanted to be protected by the worm’s glow; its warmth and this hugging tree.

Sometimes called “The worm tree” or “bait tree”, this caterpillar is supposed to be one of the best fishing “live bait’s” around, and so I consider how by gathering the worm, it is like a token to gather or “catch” what you need for strength and sustenance “from emotional waters” or “fishy situations”. It is said to be especially utilized in the efforts to win a trophy Catfish.

It is in this way that the Catalpa can be a protector for childhood innocence, a child in an “in-between” place, her branches thick and armored with it’s own glow. She is a canopy of safety during times innocence and of transition. Her Dryad medicine is for anyone’s childhood memories, childhood experiences, and a healer for the inner child for anyone at any age. She is perfect for Gemini season which is notorious for childlike wonder.

A curious thing that the Catalpa caterpillar transitions into the Catalpa Sphinx Moth. As my Sabian Symbol, the symbology of the Sphinx means a great deal. Hugging the glow worm at night was like embracing the mothering resurrection light of Isis, the protector. Finding that glow within myself was the metamorphosis into the moth.

The Sphinx Moth is a Hawk Moth in the Sphnigadae family, also a nod to Isis as Hawk. The etymological name for the tree family itself also calls upon her. The word Catalpa orginiated from the Catawba (keto ‘be) tribe’s indigenous name “kutulpha”, meaning “winged head” or “head with wings”, though some claim it may come from a similar Muscogee tribal word. Later, early European settlers are said to have learned the trees name from interactions with the Cherokee and Cree tribes, which were known to use it as medicine. It also gained the nickname of “Indian Cigar Tree” for its pain relieving medicinal benefits as a smoke, which is said to also have provided some hallucinogenic effects. It is unclear whether they utilized this smoke as a prepatory tool for ritual or if it was used for physical healing only.

Years ago now, I made an essence from these blooms, which I still offer in my Apothecary today. They are perfectly made to reconnecting to childhood memories and hugging us through the memory (a good or challenging one). As I held them, I was thankful for the peace and healing they had brought me many years ago. Catalpa is a deep heart chakra healer, effective for wounding of old or present childhood pain. This essence is especially indicated for any time of feelings of abandonment, betrayal, or feeling unloved. For children and adults who are going through separations such as divorce, an end to any relationship, or dealing with a death, Catalpa is a soft comforter and reassurance that they are worthy of love, and that in this love it is a force their is no separation from. In this heart space, she welcomes us all.

As I walked further into the forest path, I was happily surprised by a Waterleaf in bloom. Was there a stream nearby? Yes, there was. But on this humid day, the creek bed was bone dry. Waterleaf bloomed anyway. On my way there, a log in extreme deterioration flushed a cluster of Mica Caps. Mica caps can be food if prepared quickly enough. It is a mushroom of timing. It is also a mushroom of the pen, as you can turn their ink into writing ink. Timing and “ink”. Timing and “ink”.

Across the path, I jungle gymed my way through a maze created by a massive downed tree, spotting the wavy curvature of White Jelly Fungus. Next to it, two small snails were in their work. Carefully letting one slide onto my hand, I giggled at the odd feeling of its cool, smooth body. Its soft body flowed effortlessly, ribboning outward, dark-grey, bumpy, and somewhat transluscent. In its extension, it was searching, pushing, feeling its environ. What do you understand, little being? What does the swirl say that you carry on your back?

Approaching the creekbed, lanky Daisy Fleabane popped its fuzzy, white heads. In the center, they radiated like the heat of that days sun. By this time, the heat was in full effect, the humidity thick and heady. Beads of sweat formed across my nose and cheeks, turning them rosey. As I began journeying upward across mossy rocks, the dank Earth twisted and canalled, emitting cool pockets of relief; a welcomed temporary refreshment. Look there! I was not alone in this respite. A small, Eastern Box Turtle had beat me to the idea. I picked it up to watch it for a moment, but it was too shy and wary of me to come back out of its shell. Lovingly, I placed it back into its shady vacation and kept going.

Creeping Buttercups, Wood Sorrel, and the largest Wild Ginger leaves I have ever seen grew heartily along the bank. Scarlet Elf Cups dotted along a rotting stick. Firerug Ink Caps emerged from their orange, hairy mat. Crown-tipped Coral Mushroom Fungus rose from the layered leaf pile of the forrest floor. Next to it, a huge flush of winding Wood Ear cupped the open. Allegheny Blackberry flowers dotted along the edge of the path forward. As I took a slightly different return, illuminated by a sunbeam, a gorgeous, young Chicken of the Woods flushed at my feet. What a treat!

After wildharvesting the little beauty, I paused at a nearby bench. It was time to take a break and gulp down insane amounts of water from my Stanley. Just as I was in calm, a plumage feather floated in the air across my head and into the woods. Of course I followed it. Of course! What did it take me to? As I walked back into the canopy, a Tulip Poplar Bloom lay alive and moving on the forrest floor. What kind of animation was this? As I bent to pick it up, my eyes adjusted to the shade spot: what were these big splotches on the bloom? It was little glass snails again, but more tiny, brown, —swift little buggers making their way around the contours of the fantastic. Colors of neon orange against pale yellow made the flower feel unworldly. As I held this little scene, a whole mini world came alive. The fairy realm was with me.

A few days later, I would go deeper into a nearby forrest for another hike, finding none other than a Red tail Hawk feather. I was following the line of a creek, slowly observing the row of fallen trees from a recent tornado producing storm that had ripped through this area. Among the rubble, the hawk left a part of itself, a part of its lift in the gale. As one solo feather, it marked the place of its offering (Part 1: To be continued)

🐛🐛🐛🌳🐛🐛🐛🌳🐛🐛🐛🌳🐛🐛🐛

Part 1 of this forage hike was from a hike on May 15th. I went on my second hike on May 18th, and began writing this blog. Unfortunately, my writing was significantly interrupted on May 20-23rd, then again early the following week.

The portion I share with you today was written from a picnic table at a local park. I stopped writing from the major issues I was having, which is described in my GoFundMe. Please take the time to read my GoFundMe, which I will be posting as a link in the comments.

I hope to be able to share the rest of this blog with you as a part 2. In the meantime, I wanted to still provide to you what writing I did have, the hike I.D.'s, the offer of Catalpa tree flower essence, and an explanation for the sudden absence of my regularly scheduled posts. Wishing all the best. 🌿❤🌿

HIKE IDENTIFICATIONS:
M: Medicinal Value
E: Edibility Value

PLANTS:
Northern Catalpa in bloom (Catalpa species)
Tulip Poplar in bloom (Liriodendron tulipifera)
Empress Tree in Bloom (Paulownia tomentosa)
White Lilac in bloom (Syringa reticulata)
Holly Tree in bloom (Ilex opaca)
Mulberry Tree in berry (Morus rubra)
Allegheny Blackberry in Bloom (Rubus allegheniensis)
Blue-eyed Grass (Sisyrinchium species)
Creeping Buttercups (Ranunculus repens)
Yellow Wood Sorrel (Oxalis stricta)
Wild Ginger (Asarum canadensis)
Daisy Fleabane (Erigeron annuus)
Virginia Waterleaf (Hydrophyllum virginianum)
Great Waterleaf (Hydrophyllum appendiculatum)
White Bee Balm (Monarda fistulosa)
Dwarf Dandelion (Krigia Dandelion)
Northern Maidenhair Fern (Adiantum pedatum)
Blue Cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides)
Guyandotte Beauty (Synandra hispidula)
Venus's Pride (Houstonia purpurea, var. calycosa)
Spiderwort (Tradescantia species)

MUSHROOMS:
Chicken of the Woods (Laetiporus sulphureus)
Scarlet Elf Cups (Sarcoscypha occidentalis)
Wood Ears (Auricularia auricula)
White Jelly Fungus (Ductifera pululahuana)
Raspberry Slime Mold (Tubifera ferruginosa)
White Honeycomb Coral Slime Mold (Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa)
Crown Tipped Coral Fungus (Artomyces pyxidatus)
Mica Ink Caps (Coprinellus micaceus)
Firerug Ink Caps (Coprinellus domesticus)
Purple-pore Bracket Fungus (Trichaptum species likely)
Deer Mushroom (Pluteus salicinus)
Tiny Mushies (Mycena species)
Orange Mycena in decline (Mycean leiana)
Rooted Agaric (Hymenopellis furfuracea)-maybe
Weeping Widow (Lacrymaria lacrymabunda)

WILDLIFE:
Deer (Odocoileus virginianus)
Chipmunk (Tamias striatus)
Eastern Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina)
American Giant Millipede (Narceus americanus)
Red-Tail (or) Broad Winged Hawk Feather (Buteo jamaicensis or platypterus)
Unidentified Fuzzy Down Feather
Broad Banded Forestsnail (Allogona profunda) ??
Small Dark Cellar Snail (Oxychilus cellarius)? OR Dark Bodied Glass Snail (see below)
Micro Glass Land Snails (May be Oxychilus draparnaudi)
Geode

* There are approx 194 native land snails in the state of KY, and 10 introduced species, bringing the total to 204. I am still working at my identification skills for the incredible diversity of snails I find in Kentucky. The above mentioned are educated guesses for the moment.

~~￦omanimalistic~~
Hedge Walker Wild Herbals and Crafts
hedgewalkerwildherbals.net

🐛Did you enjoy this foraged essence and hike blog? Please let me know with a like, comment, share, and a follow to my page. As always, I appreciate you all for joining me and your feedback!

🐛 If you would be so kind to help me spread the word on my GoFundMe, I would be especially thankful.

🐛My apothecary offers the Catalpa flower essence and tincture of plants and mushrooms found on this hike: Holly Leaf, Wild Ginger, Blue Cohosh, and Wood Ears.
Please email for inquiry and purchase.

🐛The terms medicinal and edible are used generally, and do not provide which part of the plant is utilized for such purposes. Comment or email with inquiries.

🐛My forage blogs are visual guides. Remember to always learn foraging identifications hands on yourself, using proper identification tools from reputable sources.

🐛This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information and/or product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Please consult your healthcare provider for guidance

All writing content and images are original works by Womanimalistic 2025.

05/13/2025

WHITE PEONY FLOWER ESSENCE:
🌼🌊🌊🌼🌕🐍🥚🌼🌊🌊🌼

For the Full Moon @ 22 degrees 12’ of Scorpio, 12:55p.m. EDT, United States

Full Flower Moon. Egg Laying Moon. Frog Moon. Milk Moon. A Moon of many names.

Paeonia lactiflora
Paeonia species

A.k.a. Common Garden Peony, Moon Peony, White Peony, Milky Peony, Chinese Peony

~~Paeon becomes the Peony for Pluto~~

*White Peony as the light of the Magdalene through the Chthonic realms* ✨🌼🥚🌼✨

Today, the Full Moon rises in Scorpio; the sign of the watery, passionate detective. Scorpio, the sign opposite to today’s Ta**us Sun, is the threshold moment on the turning wheel that seeks introspection. Whereas Ta**us is the external and material Eden, Scorpio seeks within and “deep under” for priceless richness. Together, they are the beauty and the beast, life and death.

The realm of the shadowy Underworld is the domain of this sign, willingly going into the dark to process and transform. In this process, change is inevitable. One of its archetypes is the snake. Will it be a snake in strike or will it be the snake rising from your being as the Kundalini?

Scorpio is ruled by the 8th house, holding sway over the death-rebirth cycle and our sleep. As it sheds its skin, over and over, it forms into the sign of infinity: Just as our Mother Earth regenerates her soil from underground, the work is never done: A constant turn and churn to give new fertile life. A feed and be fed upon. Within its hidden mysteries is all life in a cycle of birth, death, and return.

Scorpio is ruled by both Pluto and Mars. Mars actually helps Scorpio in its fixed rigidity. Pluto behaves as Mars does, but in the deep subterranean womb of the Earth. When one considers this sign, there is always the “fiery aspect” that joins. The passion. The sting. Some confuse this sign’s fiery nature so much that they think it IS a fire sign. Ruled by the reproductive organs and the spark of creation, Scorpio is preoccupied with the act and service of procreation. Within this preoccupation, the external concern is not of self sufficiency as Ta**us is, it is other’s resources: “Shared resources” (other people’s money). The Ta**us/Scorpio axis is one of being self possessed vs “being possessed” by another. It is the financial axis and the axis of investment, the energetic interplay of stability versus transformation, and whether or not a person can successfully merge these two energies. If we are always looping through constant change, where do we find our earthy grounding?

With a Full Moon in Scorpio, challenges often arise from this perspective through finances: Hidden secrets, hidden money, assets, joint secret efforts, wealth conflicts, wills/trust funds/inheritances, criminal money, and the support or “insurance” it provides for a material life. Interpersonal wars, as well as whole nations have waged war, risen and fallen by these “hidden” efforts. It is not a light hearted energy. That is what makes the Ta**us/Scorpio axis so challenging. The bloom and the wilt that dies to encourage another bloom.

The Underworld God of Hades (Pluto) reigns this realm of “ownership” through others. Though the sign has regenerative powers, if it remains in the dark underbelly without surfacing, investigations into manipulations, coercion/bullying and other subversive acts of control may surface out of the realm into the light of day; either about them ( “them” meaning everyone must look at where Scorpio falls in their chart) or they can become the occult detective, accessing their investigative abilities through the their own spiritual indwelling and “hidden knowledge”. As the sign of the investigator *and* one being investigated, ownership either becomes the act of taking responsibility for nefarious, corrupt behavior or making others face theirs to do so. Within this realm of secrets versus revelation, the act of redemption is offered. But one must do the work. One must face themselves. This is where the dark goddess can rise and take power. This is where she thirsts for justice and may take a few heads to get it.

As the inner workings of our subconscious get wickedly activated, joining this psychic deep dive Full Moon, Mercury, our planet of communication is in opposing Ta**us forcing us to simplify and ground our thought processes. What s**t is feeding the flowers? Discussions may not be the most clear, as tendencies for manipulation and the pressures that come with power through money is a real and dominating force. At this moon, Mercury forms a tight T-square to retrograding Pluto in Aquarius, which opposes both Black Moon Lilith and Hekate, the witch-queens of the underbelly! Lilith is what “lies beneath”, ready to surface for evaluation; the soul rebellion of the dark feminine, rebelliously demanding respect. She hates power-over control dynamics and will stop at nothing to expose injustices. She shows every single one of us where we repress the equality of the divine feminine. Hekate, the subterranean crossroads queen obliges her. Hekate will ride on your chest during your transformation. She will light the way for the willing.

This Full Moon squares Pallas Athena, creating a palpable tension, especially concerning the story of her behavior with Medusa. Uranus, the planet of shocks, surprises, upsets and sudden change, exactly conjuncts Algol, the third-eye star of Medusa’s demon-blinking head. Athena was so jealous of Medusa’s high priestess oracular beauty within her court that she tried to literally kill her and “wear her skin”. In this way, she wanted to destroy an unhealed aspect of herself that compared her magic to others. It was a denial that she could be whole if she did not have Medusa’s visionary abilities. She wanted to kill off what she did not find within her life.

Within the illumination of this moon, a light will shine on those who have exhibited such behaviors. Uranus also conjuncts asteroid Hygeia, the goddess of health and medicine. Hygeia always welcomes the alchemy of healing. Medusa, who was turned into a monster and became a self-regenerating snake-head of continuous transformation looks on with the vision as the cycle itself. She is pure regenerative soil. What happens when Medusa and Hygeia hold hands in the sky? What happens when healing happens at each cyclical pass?

A close T-square aspecting this Full Moon also includes Chiron and his soul midwife Chariklo. Chiron, the wounded healer, could not heal himself. The healer had to rely on another to help him process his wound. Today, Chariklo wants us to be present in the stillness of our center so that we welcome the healing process Hygeia and the dark goddesses have to offer.

Thankfully a harmonious trine also joins in when we have the North Node of the Moon (in Pisces) trine retrograding Juno, opposing Uranus, which draws shocking, maybe even unexpected final lines in the sand. These lines are meant to be beneficial. Juno asks of us who and what we love and are committed to. If any of us are committed to keeping secrets in the underbelly, Lilith, Hekate, and Medusa might have a really big problem with that. If our commitments are to merge with our shadow self, our suppressed “demons in the closet”, if we are loyal and devoted to enriching our inner world with honesty, Juno will wave her hand of prosperity.

This means the Sun and Uranus (in Ta**us) too is in a trine with the South Node of the Moon (in Virgo), forming a flowing karmic current of “what is to happen is fated to happen”. In a way, the Moon’s nodes are mimicking the infinity current of the chthonian psychic principle, a forever flow of endings and returns; as above, so below we merge the past self with what we desire for our future in the present.

Jupiter (in Gemini) is back in a square to Saturn (in Pisces). Squares are tension placements that force adjustments to circumstances that are not doing you any good. It is a “where the rubber hits the road” aspect, asking if you should continue on in your associations, commitments, and plans. If you have not grounded yourself in realistic expectations, this square will usually bring a lot of restlessness, anxiety and uncertainty. Whatever is done now will have considerable ripple effects on your future self. The 8th house of Scorpio is where we go into a metamorphosis before we let a part of us die. It is the willing alchemy of transformation. We must let our inner tower fall where it needs to, so that we can find our rebirth. There is always the option to take toxic aspects of our being and transmute them into future gold. The s**t that breaks down, becoming how we bloom anew.

Are you willing to get quiet, go alone, and listen to your own inner guide or are you letting the lost lead the way? Have you integrated your masculine and feminine self? Your comfortable exposed self with what you normally keep hidden? Many voices may want to interject and share, (especially with Jupiter blowing up Gemini facts on social platforms) but it will be up to you to be patient and listen to your deepest self. Opportunities may present themselves during this time to be pulled in the direction of one’s true soul’s purpose or be set into destruction. Saturn is wanting us to prioritize a restructuring of how we go about things, deep down in the soil. The culminary build of the Moon while this square occurs forces us to investigate where we really do stand. From this tipping point, there is no turning back. This is a last ditch effort by Saturn before moving into Aries. So get alone and get clear. Really clear.

All of this tedious inner work is to prepare us as the Kali Yuga, the Age of Separation ends. Secrets surrounding corruption only create the wall to accessing our collective full human potential. All Plutonian subversive tactics (especially criminal), must be exposed to the light so that real change can occur. Despite the masks we wear and our best efforts to hold onto old ways, they will happen. Maybe not in the way you might imagine, but they will happen. If the Age of Separation taught us that our behaviors upon others do not return to us, the end of this Age will show us they do. In beautiful and also difficult ways, they do. Whether it is a personal war waged of jealousy and spite or a war against another whole society, our interconnectedness, our interdependence will force us into these changes. Humanity may not survive without them.

Plutonian energy is a long looping generational energy. It exposes the deepest of wounds that have cycled through the collective for many lifetimes, being taught and passed down as familial truths. Pluto’s interjection during this time is not without reason. Pluto wants us to go deep into the bones, look at the control, the suppression, stare at the unhealthy ways our ancestors created or endured in their lifetimes and say, “no more”, I will not carry this anymore. I will not be a product of this pain. I will heal for you, for all and carry the banner forward. To do so, we must be real with ourselves–where have we lost our way? Where do we find ourselves looping back into old stories that only enforce pain? Where do we set boundaries with ourselves and with others so that we are not the same story as generations before us?

What plant might help heal these Plutonian energies today? What might heal the repression we endure from generational secrets? In past lives, did one life mean more than another? Was one group of people, whether it be gender, class, or any other reason, allowed to claim power-over superiority? Why do we continue to let backdoor subversive tactics keep a whole field from equally blooming? I do not believe flowers feel the need to compare themselves when they grow. Each flower is unique and different. When I think about the beauty of the flowers of May, and today’s Full Flower Moon, I am taken back to a quote by Alan Watts, “I feel as if…in the same way when you see a flower in a field, it’s really the whole field that is flowering because the flower couldn’t exist in that particular place without the special surroundings of the field that it has. You only find flowers in surroundings which will support them. So, in the same way, you only find human beings on a planet of this kind, with an atmosphere of this kind, with the temperature of this kind, supplied by a convenient neighboring star. And so, just as the flower is a flowering of a field, I feel myself a person-ing, a man-ing, a people-ing, of the whole universe.”

Out of all the flowers, one stood out as an excellent choice for those who do not know how to heal themselves, heal community, heal generations of suffering. One for those who refuse to exit the Chthonian realm and cycle into the light. A flower for those who do not let all in the field bloom, wanting to tear another down, compare, choke and destroy. For those who crave more bloom-praise, leaving others to suffer. This flower is for those who do not consider the power of strength in diversity. I go back to the essence of a flower that has a deep history with humanity. Its origins are in Greece, and may be known as one of the first flowers in the world. I called upon the assistance of the Peony today.

I made this White Peony essence and wrote about it in 2023, gathering the gorgeous bloom from a friend's beautiful garden. While the Peony first appeared in China, it was in Greece that it was first cultivated and adored. The Greek Island of Naxos, where Peonies are known to have been planted by ancient Greeks over 3000 years ago, holds one of the world’s greatest Peony Gardens. The legend of this bodacious bloom comes from Paeon (Paian, Paion or Paean), the physician of the Olympic gods in Greek myth, who was said to discover the flower, Paeonia officinalis L. It is an understood comparison to equate Paeon to Apollo. If the flower is the healer of the Gods and Goddesses of old, might we understand it to be a flower to help us today? As stated in Homer’s Iliad, he used the root of this flower to heal Pluto. As an interesting twist, it is said that Paeon had to have stolen the flower from the garden of Hekate to provide this service to Pluto, therefore entering the Chthonic realm and navigating his shadow. Since Hekate is considered the wife of Pluto, sometimes taking on the name Proserpina (Persephone), might we think that healing comes when Pluto is able to accept medicine from the garden of his divine feminine counterpart, considering her equal? She is the one who holds the key at the Crossroads.

According to the ancient Greek myth, When Paeon (Apollo) used the root to heal Pluto, Asclepius got resentful of him and attempted to kill him. Zeus, with lightning strike accuracy, saved him from death by turning him into the Peony plant: A healed Pluto. A light-filled flower. On our fertile ground, Hekate is Diana. In the sky, she is Lucia. She is the three headed one, the shamanic-traveler of all realms. Of all the mystery herbs that grew in Hekate’s garden, this sacred flower had connections to the realm of the Moon by way of Hekate-Selene, a co-dweller of Lucia, who is the light of the moon itself and a goddess of birth and re-birth. Peony had a name kept secret for it was connected to sleep or “those who are perpetually asleep, or sleep walking through life”. It was grown by the light of the moon and called “selenogonon” (likely later somnambulism). “I am the virgin of many forms, descended from heaven, with the sight of a steer, three headed, wild and with golden weapons.” -Clemens

The seeds of Peony were said by more than one source to protect people from an incubus. In the archaic, an incubus is stated to simply be “a nightmare, induced by dark forces” or “something that causes stress and anxiety”. People's fears, anxieties, worries, inner chaos. Other definitions specify the entity as a dark spirit that would “lie with a person in their sleep”, a cohabitant, an enabler. Another says it is “to lie upon or to hatch”. If we take the literalism out of the word, the Peony flower could then be the cure for those who support humanity in being in a state of perpetual sleep, unable to go back to the “light of day” unity consciousness. The concept of hatching is noted, as it stirs within me something that was purposefully and willfully nurtured and birthed. As this moon is also called “The Egg Laying Moon”, might we all think upon the magic of the Peony and what we are allowing in our nest. Modern society considers incubi to be a possible manifestation of sleep paralysis–-again, the inability to wake. Another interpretation is “the waking dream”. One knows they are awake, but they are unable to pull themselves back into reality. They must either learn the shamanic arts as Orpheus or Hekate does, embracing one’s own inner soil turn and churn, or they must rely on the shamanic pharmakon magic of the gods, like the Peony as a moon-guide.

According to Hilderic Friend of Devonshire, he claims the Peony to equally be a moon-light magic bloom, and to be named after the captivating beauty of Helen of Troy, writing she had her hands full of the flower when she was carried off; an interesting interpretation of Helen as Persephone or Hekate-Selene. This captivated my attention as I am currently in the middle of watching the re-telling of Helen of Troy on Netflix. What timing this flower has! Friend also discusses the plants usage by a seer in China who foretold the coming death. The Chinese knew it then by its scarcity as “rich man’s flower”. The story as written accounts a woman that visits a friend, and in so, passes by their summer garden, and in doing so, happened to count the number of Peonies. On her return, she noticed that “a dog was howling before the door”; to her, this was all a sign of death before years out. If we consider the bloom to be one who heals us from the wounds of Pluto, the wounds of the Underworld and death, might the howling dog be our own inner chaos, the voice of Hekate’s from the Underworld realm, reminding us to bloom “evenly”? If Pluto acts as a karmic processor and gate for the hellmouth from which all things originate and ultimately end, then today, the flower presents itself as the light of Apollo and the captivating beauty of Helen.

When I first collected this flower and wrote on her, I described her as a delicate and beautiful huge bloom, smelling sensually sweet. I wrote about how collecting it reminded me that my Scottish-German grandmother (my mother’s mother) grew them in her front garden, where they still bloom today. I have always loved this flower, but it always discouraged me how heavy the bloom would get after a rain, drooping and unable to hold itself up. Peonies are a bloom that is larger than life, so it made me forlorn to see it not standing tall in its full and glorious beauty. In this observation, White Peony essence holds the balance of strength and fragility needed for a patient life. Its petals have the ability to display an untold unfolding of beauty as a sensual manifestation from our inner worlds, expanding out. She, as the flowering earth, is able to withstand the water droop. She is able to return and bloom, regardless.

The vibrational essence of this “larger than life” flower has a patterning for our systems to welcome a more cheerful approach to life, promoting joy and pleasures of the body (the blooming sensual Taurean Earth with watery, Scorpionic desire), serving as a helper for those who may feel limited, tending to stretch the fences, gates, doors around them to keep their insecurities, fears, embarrassments, shyness or any other suppression under “control”. If we acknowledge our shadow, we are more apt to integrate it and not let it rule our subconscious impulses. Peony essence promotes a deep healing through the cleansing of our emotional and physical selves by removing old blockages, old patterning and attachments that are a detriment to our souls growth and purpose.

The essence of White Peony is specifically connected to the light of Mary Magdalene and her reputation as a divine presence as a protector. Peonies embody the romantic love energy which can restore self-love by the raising of the partners “ka”. It is thought that Mary Magdalene and Jesus had the ultimate relationship of unconditional love, with this flower as a flower that represents their complementing divine connection.

This essence is also a gift for neutralizing unjust, malicious fabrications manifesting as harmful gossip and character denigration due to jealousy, manipulation, control, competition, and fear. It is sometimes called “The resistance bloom” as it powerfully protects those falling victim to such negative energies. The bloom helps those who need vision to see through the dark places through an awakening of third-eye protection, (like Medusa and her third eye star Algol). If we are able to see and hear through “walls”, it activates the sacredness of our spirit-self with our physical-self (ka), providing the necessary awareness of “snakes in the grass”.

The Magdalene fills us with the pure white light of the White Peony, increasing a higher frequency magic that flows through our solar, third eye, and crown chakra. In this way, her light helps us neutralize the barbs of malicious thought patterns, and restores our good name. She lifts our self esteem out of sleep-mode, building self-confidence and worth. Holding the egg, she is the womb light of self that overcomes character assasination and judgmentalism, bringing upon the querent the environment of open-mindedness needed to bring the sacred spark that lies within.

Bidh flur peony a ruighinn mothachadh foirfe

~~Womanimalistic~~
Hedge Walker Wild Herbals and Crafts

🌿Did you enjoy and learn from this garden forage essence blog? Please let me know with a like, comment, share, and follow. I appreciate your feedback and support! A special thank you for your patience on this post today.

🌿My apothecary offers White Peony essence starting tomorrow in 1oz amber glass droppers, $12 each. Please email for inquiry and purchase.

🌿This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information and/or product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Please consult your healthcare provider for guidance.

Images and content are original works by Womanimalistic 2023-2025 unless otherwise sourced.

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