Radical self care is cleaning up your personal body and our collective waterways. Supporting small scale companies is sustainable. Toxic chemicals poison our Earth. The art of beautifying with scented oil is ancient, so old in fact that the first alchemists were women and were highly valued in their society. These potions work to rebalance your internal chemical make-up and support your bodies natural ability to heal, they are not a cure. Your smell should not be masked, rather it should be cleansed and renewed because our sense of smell influences our hormones and our hormones influence our ability to smell. It is our most subliminal yet potent sense, our primitive wiring that allows us to sniff out the right people so we are aligned within and without.

These potions also align you with the seasonal shifts that pervade your sphere. Plants have affinities to seasons and thus your organs. The western alchemists of the 12th century that refined distillation integrated themselves with the natural world and worked to harmonize the elements and seasons within their bodies. They found this placed them in a profound state of health so they could be available to the subtle medicine of the plants and the whisperings of the cosmos. When they refined the matter of the earth, whether plant or metal, they worked to extract the quintessence, or spirit, of the item distilled. They knew the same properties that helped the plant in reproduction and as a pest deterrent would provide the same benefits in their bodies. They were astute observers of the natural world. They were magicians, sorcerers, and medicine [wo]men.

The potions are organized in a seasonal way, however within the day all seasons manifest themselves, so each potion can be used to support your energy in the turning points of the day. They help to ritualize your movement through time so you hold reverence for each and every act you do, as these ripples emanate and influence the whole of our sphere. For completion purposes, as it does not have its own heading, late summer is a time that encapsulates all the other seasons. It happens as summer pulses into autumn, but is also most strongly felt at each turning point: the equinoxes and solstices. Since the things of the earth are our medicines all potions work with late summer also which is the spleen and pancreas organ system. The spleen pulls energy from what we take in, and the plant potions are used as fuel for the spiritual body. What we put in our bodies and on our skin will be what we emanate outwards.