Tag Archives: plant sigils

Winter Solstice 2019

22 Dec

The fruits of mutual work, old and new alliances…

In December 2019, I finished fresh batches of “Rauhnächte” and “Winter Solstice” incense and started a new round of working with the birch’s arboreal spirit… Besides this, incense master Caroline Maxelon of Bussardflug and me began plotting a collaboration for 2020. Kicking it off, she sent me – along with a lot of powerful shamanic items for my ritual work – also her new book “Räucherstoffe aus aller Welt” (published by Nymphenburger). I was thrilled to read about so many new incense ingredients, that are not part of standard encyclopedias and which I had been discovering intuitively by myself over the past years. It feels, like my own wicked work and ‘wild’ incense formulas are now receiving confirmation and legitimization through Caroline and Christine Fuchs, who are icons and leaders in the field here in Germany. I thus highly recommend this book – both for its factual content as well as its photography.

Yesterday I received another surprise in my mail – the special edition of “Secret Ambrosian Fire” by German black metal originators MOSAIC (Eisenton Records). I was asked to compose an alchemical inspired plant sigil for this record, which now adorns the cover of the digi-pack edition. Only now, I begin to grasp the idea behind this conceptual opus magnum and it is deeply satisfying to witness the fruits of our mutual efforts!

Everything points in to a new direction in my life, but it is also getting more complex, along with all these new impulses. Today I thus went to different trees, burnt some of the winter incense and blessed the new birch wood pentacle, among a circle of young birch trees, as well as at the roots of two older birch trees, which are frequently visited by crows… For me, thus the circle of the old year closed and I can now head into another phase of consolidation and start creative work again after the holidays.

 

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New Artwork and Music

4 Aug

Spent the night and all morning preparing new pieces of paper with coffee, wormwood tincture and fresh leaves from my datura plants. Now the paper is drying, then has to be pressed and then can be drawn on with ink. I am planning on a small series of inked sigils and perhaps one or two realistic datura plant drawings. Besides this, I yet have to prepare the paper for my next mandrake series and I also have a few new tinctures in the making. Meanwhile, here are my most recent ink drawings from past weeks (all sold and shipped):

“Black Mandrake”, India ink on stained paper, 2017
“Wolfsbane”, India ink on stained paper, 2017
“Belladonna”, India Ink on stained paper, 2017

While working with the datura I was blessed with new music by a lady, who creates audio-visual compositions inspired by the same plants that I grow and revere in my art. The project goes by the name CHTHONIA. I was given six tracks, to which I did not listen consciously, but rather had them running in the background. Yet there were moments, where I’d listen up and think, “well, this strangely harmonizes with how I perceive the plant’s character”. A very interesting experiment and endeavor, of which I hope we will soon hear more.

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Solstice Serpent Seal

13 Jun

Solstice Serpent Seal by X.A.121

Only one week left until midsummer! This seal is dedicated to the rituals surrounding the summer solstice, when the sun reaches it’s annual zenith. The seal is inspired by the viper’s bugloss (Echium vulgare) herb and adorns the vessels containing the solstice incense, which you can order from my etsy shop and which will also go up at the mail-order site in a few hours. Below is a preview of how the blend looks:

Summer Solstice Incense

Summer Solstice Incense

The ingredients are the herbs and flowers traditionally associated with the summer solstice. The incense blend evokes in particular a vision of a summer meadow at dusk: bushes of blue flowering viper’s bugloss cover the ground and transform into nests of serpents. Plantain, thistle and St. John’s wort grow at its side. Nearby, the fragrant yellow flowers of the evening primrose glow in the evening light and emit their sweet scent into the sweltry air, attracting the most wondrous kind of fairy folks…

Use this incense blend for cleansing, purification and letting go of the old, for protection, renewal, celebrating the night, inspired dreaming and creativity. The blend can also aid in decision making: cast out the serpent as a symbol of “evil” or embrace it as a symbol of wisdom and become a serpent yourself.

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Fingers II

9 Apr

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This time it is not about a surreal dream and also not about the fennel. But it is about another plant’s “fingers”. In folklore the male fern’s “hand” is a lucky charm, meant to bestow fortunes and the power over the souls of the dead to it’s owner. In order to obtain it, the sorcerer must harvest the male fern’s root on the Eve of St. John. Then he must roast the root in the fire. The hand is made in such manner as to bind five strands of the fronds together: the root base of the stem is left attached and the rest of the frond’s foliage is removed. The result resembles a “hand”, with tendons (hairy stems) and fingers (stipe bases). Frankly, I never made such “hand” in this manner. But I’ve gathered plenty of male fern roots and had the most magical experiences granted through working with these roots in various ways, always discovering new aspects to this wondrous plant. Above is another version of this “lucky hand”, formed by the stipe bases and a single frond.

Btw., the stipe bases of the male fern’s fronds are green and spongy towards the center, whereas as the outer (old) parts turn black and rot. So if you were to use the root, make sure you actually use the parts that still have juices in them. Below is a close-up of how that should look:

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Male Fern stipe base, light green in color and of a spongy texture

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Male fern root: in the bowl are the vital parts, to the left are the rotten parts

More about the male fern

Male fern inspired art:

Dead Man's Eve, 2010

“Dead Man’s Eve”, pencil drawing, 2010

Wurmfarn Siegel

Male Fern plant sigil, 2010

 

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