Over the summer we started a new Somalixir formula that we’re so excited to finally share with you!
The inspiration for this formula actually started back in March, when we attended the Botanica Obscura Conference that Micah was also speaking at. We watched a talk by the always excellent Dr. Alexander Cummins, called “The Three Purifying Herbs of the Grimorium Verum“. In it, he discussed a special cleansing and protection practice from this 18th century grimoire text.
For this cleansing work, a bundle of three herbs is created- Rosemary, Mint and Marjoram- and then used to asperge, which is a technique of cleansing a person or space through the scattering of consecrated water. I had already been working with asperging in my practice, and I find it very useful in ways that are different than smoke cleansing.
In asperging, the purifying water goes only where you direct it by the energy and movements of your hand, and I find it to be less of a “nuclear option” than smudging, which removes all energies and subtle beings from a space, both good and bad.
After Dr. Cummins’ talk, I started using this herb bundle in my aspergings and found that the aromatics and intelligences of these common but powerful plants really amplified the clearing and left my space brightened. Since Spagyric work is the way we explore plants, we naturally wanted to make a formula of these herbs for energetic cleansing in a more personal way, and to add another dimension to the asperging practice with the bundle.
From the beginning, I wanted to make this formula really special, and I was committed to only using herbs we had grown. Since we make over 300 different Spagyrics, we’re not able to use only our own plants in most of our work, but fortunately, Rosemary, Mint and Marjoram are easy to grow and already abundant in my herb garden. So I spent the summer giving them all extra love and care so they would grow big and healthy, and I also worked with the plants as individuals to consecrate them for the sacred formula they would help us create.
In early summer I started harvesting the three herbs, working on Wednesday at the hour of Mercury, as the Grimorium Verum instructs for these plants. These herbs have other rulerships for their traditional healing uses, but for the Verum formula, Mercury was a great unifying quality to bring them all together in a new being under the rulership of the mind, the movement of energy, and magickal practice overall.
I started with the Rosemary, which has long been one of my favourite plants in both healing and cooking. In our classes, we always used Rosemary for teaching Spagyrics, since it’s an herb that has easy to access gifts on the Salt, Mercury, and Sulfur levels. It’s a foundational herb in our work, and I wanted it to be the container to hold the Mint and Marjoram in their new roles. I harvested it on a bright, sunny Wednesday, the warmth of summer seeming to fill the aromatic leaves with light as I talked to the plant and took some of its branches.
Next, I harvested the Mint, which happened over the course of a couple weeks, first with our cultivated Peppermint, and then with the wild Poléo mint that grows all over our property. As I wrote in this post, this sweet wild mint is very dear to my heart. It is the first herb we made a Spagyric from, a Magistery of Venus from mint we wildcrafted in Colorado.
When we moved to our home here in Oregon, wild mint was the first thing I smelled getting out of the car to look at the property, and I knew right away that this would be our home. When I harvested the wild mint for the Verum formula, I made sure to offer it some of the stash of that Magistery I have from so many years ago, as a thank you, and a guide to what this new harvest could become.
I cook with Marjoram often, and I love the way its little delicate flowers draw in bees of all kinds. Its taste, like a more earthy Oregano, is welcome in many dishes, and I find its scent grounding and comforting, but before I saw Dr. Cummins’ talk, it was less familiar to me as a magickal herb. In the past, I had mostly used it as part of a stress-busting essential oil blend I loved, which I would sprinkle in my bath after a bad day. That blend, and Marjoram oil alone, always helped me feel more calm and peaceful, and so I could see that energy being useful for energetic clearing.
In the talk that originally inspired this formula, Dr. Cummins discusses the possibility that Marjoram might be the actual herb mentioned in Psalm 51:7-8, which is usually translated as Hyssop. That passage references joy being brought by the washing herb, and emotional uplift is not a property of Hyssop, which is why some scholars believe this verse actually refers to Marjoram.
Marjoram’s name in Greek is related to a word meaning “laughter”, and its genus name, Origanum, which is shares with Oregano, means “joy of the mountain”. When I heard this, it all really clicked for me, since I remembered using the oil in my bath, and how if I used too much of it, or for too long, I would get giddy and almost too elated from the scent. Some aromatherapy books warn that it can be a bit narcotic, and although I find it more uplifting than that, it can be surprisingly mood-altering for a culinary herb, and I think this really ties it back to the joy and laughter in its name.
It took a few rounds of harvesting to get enough of all three herbs without harming the plants, but we finally had a good stock of them and Paul started the lab work to make them into a Spiritualized Essence. Like the initial growing of the plants, this process also takes months, going through extraction with our special grape alcohol for the Spirit, then the purification of the salts to be the Body, and finally, a long circulation where the reunited elements can come together and grow into the new being of the Spagyric.
This circulation stage is when the Spagyric is at its most open, able to receive energetic input that will guide it towards its best incarnation, and we both spent time sitting with it, charging it with ritual and hands-on work, and watching its colour transform from brownish green to deep red as it approached being done. As I write this, it continues to circulate and redden, and we are getting ready to stop its process and open it up to experience its final form on Wednesday, the day of its birth.
From tasting it partway through the process, before circulation, we found it to be powerfully cleansing and clearing, pushing out all negative thoughts and emotions with a wave of light and a sharp aromatic taste. It was somewhat like Tulsi, but with a bit more edge to the clearing, like a bit of banishing energy was added, which made sense in the context of its use to protect sorcerers from malign spirits.
After some of the circulation, tasting it again, the three herbs had come together in a beautifully coherent taste and energy and it was hard to pick out any one of them in flavour or effect. The clearing was still there, but it was accompanied by a lightness of energy and a literal light that both of us saw in our mind’s eye. As with many clearing and cleansing materia, we both heard the pitch of the room rise to a high, clear note like a bell. I later worked with a small Tibetan bowl I have that rings like a bell, and found that it re-activated the clearing quality within me, which is something I will work with more.
The sound changes were interesting also because of something local to us this week- some construction involving large trucks that idle and give off a low rumble that travels through our house and which I find very disorienting. I think this noise involves some infrasound, which I am very sensitive to, and which had me feeling thick, foggy and with a headache. The high clear ringing of the Verum formula washed all that away, and I’m finding my thoughts and mental energy much sharper now.
Paul experienced Verum’s effects around his head, like a crown, and for me, it was more in my head, in the center of my skull, visualized as the light of consciousness. Like a candle flame, this light expands to whatever space it shines on, illuminating a tiny closet or huge hall, while also remaining centered at the source of the flame. In this way, it is a sort of energy or astral moving formula, but not by translocating. What came to me is that it travels by glowing, not flowing.
I am looking forward to working with this formula more, especially in a ritual context. I think it will be protective in the way that Frankincense or Mastic are- by bringing in so much positivity and light that the darkness flees and only good remains. I’ll post about my experiments with it, as well as a journal of its creation, on our Instagram, so follow us there if you’re intrigued, and find Verum in our store for pre-order now.
