I’ve been drinking a fresh turmeric and ginger elixir every morning for the last week or so and I have noticed a major shift in how cold I feel! I have also been incorporating a lot of the tips I received from you all last week - only warm/warming foods, keeping my feet and lower back warm, baths (I didn’t need encouragement with that one though 🙂)

I’ve felt chronically cold since I was a teenager and I know there is deeper work I need to do to maintain and continue warming up. But for now I am encouraged by the little progress I have noticed from these few shifts!

To make the elixir I just throw some fresh turmeric and ginger pieces in my blender with hot water and then strain. I usually add some tallow, cinnamon, black pepper, and a lil honey or maple syrup. Today I added astragalus, burdock, and dandelion infusion leftovers from yesterday.

🍄 Poisonous Plant Medicine 🍄
Week 2 | Belladonna & Henbane: Sex, Death, & The Unknown

Sex, death, and what is unknown are generally considered taboo topics of discussion. Poisonous plants will lovingly take us right into those oft avoided places. Almost all the poisonous plants we will discuss through this series of classes are aphrodisiacs. Why would so many plants be connected with both our entry into life and our exit? These plants suggest that there is little separation between life and death, pleasure and suffering - and the best way to understand this is to go right to the places that seem the scariest to our conditioning!

Belladonna, aka deadly nightshade, literally means “beautiful woman,” her latin name Atropa comes from the Greek fate “Atropos” whose job it was to decide when each human life was to come to an end.

Henbane has many myths associating it with the Underworld, including its use in the wreaths that crown the souls of the dead as they descend to Hades. In European folklore it was used to attract lovers, and is still used for divination in communicating with the spirits of the Underworld.

Spots are still available for the Poisonous Plant Medicine online course. Thursday night will be the second class at @animamundiherbals!
All of these classes can be attended as the full 6 week course or you can drop in for individual classes.

Pictured above is a little painting of Belladonna I made about a year ago for a poisonous plant zine called "Persephone's Plants" that is due for a reboot soon

I was flipping through the book Veneficium by Daniel A. Shulke today and came across a quote that really struck me:

"Yet, for those who tread the Poison Path, perhaps the best knowledge of antidotes lies not in any enchanted balm or chemist's preparation, but in the balanced and proper devotion to Fear. In its exaltation, Fear is the simultaneous knowledge and respect of those powers which can annihilate us. Its irrational axis, manifest in action, is cowardice and impulse; its flowering is courage and prudence. Robert Cochran cautioned that the use of the poison sacrament in the hands of the fool was a 'quick way to the underworld of insanity', and this skull and crossbones stands as a waymark on the Path Envenom'd. Other spirit-roads may abide the fool, but not the Dark Lady of Venoms, for mercy is a virtue alien to her dark droplets."

I am intrigued by this idea of Fear as a virtue! It really goes against our societal narratives around fear. 
The plants being relatively dangerous doesn't mean that we shouldn't work with or avoid them, but they do require our utmost respect. This is similar to how we should be approaching our own Underworld/Shadows/Traumas - not avoiding yet still having healthy Fear, which I'm thinking is almost the same thing as respect. Our personal Underworlds exist for a reason.

"Fear" is such an edgy word and I am curious what you all think about this quote and idea!

This week has been a bit of a whirlwind for me. One week ago I experienced the deepest processing I've ever had during a therapy session. I feel immensely grateful that my internal work is a continuing process of forever excavation. It ALWAYS feels as if I have really reached the core this time and then *surprise!* there's yet another layer, another layer, another layer. And every layer has arms that reach out and touch all the other layers both into future Kathryns and back, back to my earliest memories, back to my birth, back to previous lifetimes. It's not exactly a peeling away process so much as it is an integration process. I cannot say enough about the wonders of hakomi psychotherapy! Hakomi has been a part of my life for the last 12 years in one way or another, including a year long training I finished in last December. If you plan to dive deeply into work with poisonous plants I highly, highly recommend you find yourself some kind of body-centererd psychotherapist, breathwork facilitator, or anyone who understands that trauma is stored in the body and that you are already whole, there is nothing wrong with you, nothing to fix.

Mars has been on top of my natal Mars the last few days (my natal Mars is in Aries retrograde) and wowza - this must be what it feels like to be an extrovert. It was exactly conjunct the day I had my first of the Poisonous Plant Medicine classes at Anima Mundi and I don't think I stopped talking for a solid 5 hours (not my normal mode of operation fyi.) It was such a joy to be in that space and I am really looking forward to our future meetings :) If you are in Brooklyn, you can still drop-in to any of the classes!

The first Poisonous Plant Medicine online group meets this Sunday! That class is completely sold out. Group 2 is open and there are still 4 spaces available, including 1 payment plan spot. If you're interested in the payment plan spot please send me an email at k.solie@me.com

Pictured above is a dried Brugmansia flower I recently spotted at the Roger Williams botanical gardens in Providence. Brugmansia is a spectacular plant that we will discuss in week 3 & 4 of the series.

🍄 Poisonous Plant Medicine 🍄
Week 1 | Plant Spirit Communication & Poison As Medicine

Plant spirit communication is the practice of using our intuition to directly connect with plants. This is in diametrical opposition to capitalistic, material reductionist herbalism that dominates the plant medicine world. Instead of asking what you can get from a plant, we directly ask the plant what they want to share. This allows us to experience the energies of plants without having to ingest or even be in the same vicinity of a plant. This is a skill that everybody can develop!

“Poison” as medicine is the spine of my work with poisonous plants. Why do so many consciousness shifting plants make us feel physically ill? What can we learn when we balance the typical “light and love” approach to spiritual paths with shadow integration? What if the majority of the suffering we experience is not from the things we are afraid of, but from our avoidance of those things?

Week 1 of the Poisonous Plant Medicine course will introduce the cornerstones of this series. If you can only make it to one class, make it this one!

Week 1 for the online course is sold out for the January 20th group but there are still spaces available for the February 10th group!
Tomorrow night will be the first class at @animamundiherbals and I can’t wait!
All of these classes can be attended as the full 6 week course or you can drop in for individual classes.

Above is a sweet little amanita muscaria var. guessowii I met this summer. It is commonly known as the American yellow fly agaric 💛🍄✨

Aztekium Essence ✨🌵✨

This essence was collected from my personal aztekium ritterii cacti. I’ve been living with this cactus for almost 4 years and in that time it has only flowered once. It bloomed during a full moon in Pisces with the flowers only lasting for 2 days. I created this essence from that special bloom. Instead of the traditional solar infused essence, I left this one out to bask in the glow of the full moon surrounded by large pieces of black tourmaline, amethyst, clear quartz, and rose quartz.

This is a highly “Shamanic” essence best for Underworld work, healing wounds around the heart and sacral chakra, and tending to deep-seated traumas. I also find it useful for “catching the big fish”:

"Ideas are like fish. If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you've got to go deeper" – David Lynch

In Mexico, Aztekium ritterii is called “Peyotillo.” However, even though it contains mescaline, there have been no ethnobotanical reports that state that it has ever been used by natives.

You can now find this aztekium flower essence in my newly relaunched shop

So much has transpired for me this last month and with that little things have tended to fall through the cracks. The place where this occurs most for me is social media. And I guess it's better that I fall off the wagon so to speak on here than in other more seemingly real areas of life. I was reminded of one of those forgotten things this morning - my experience with flower essences and last month's Shamanic Journey.

I lead a journey every first Friday of the month at @hawkhummingbird_ri and before our journey starts I like to share an herbal medicine of some sort with the participants to help facilitate their experience. Last month we used @corpusritual‘s foxglove flower essence. I didn't tell anyone what the essence was until after the journey was over so as not to influence their perceptions. When it came time to share about our experiences at the end everyone seemed to have dropped into a darker, deeper, richer, heart space - even more so than usual. Exactly the type of experience I would expect from foxglove.

My first exposure to flower essences was years ago when I was living with 2 cats that my little dog was afraid of. He wouldn't even come into the room if he knew the cats were in there. My friend created a flower essence blend for him to give him confidence. I put a few drops of it in his water and within one day he wasn't scared anymore and actually started to chase the cats out of the room. I didn't even have to keep giving the essence to him! The medicine always stayed with him. It's really hard for people to believe that essences are real because there's no *physical* plant parts involved. It's still hard for me to believe it at times. But again and again I am reminded of their subtle and surprising magic.

Essences are one of my favorite ways to work with poisonous plants because they're completely safe and you don’t get the same side effects as with ingestion or topical applications.

I have updated my shop today to include essences of yew, hellebore, elder, holly, poke, and aztekium ritteri. And P.S. this months Shamanic Journey is happening on Friday 💗✨

I don’t really know how I feel about celebrating New Years except that it seems like a good time to reflect on the previous 12 months and to imagine the possibilities to come in the next 12. I have a lot in the works right now - my online and irl Poisonous Plant Medicine courses are starting soon, I’m planning to relaunch my online shop with new medicines and crystals this month, I hope to finish my second book whose name I got my Instagram handle from, and I want to launch more online courses in the coming months...

On a personal level I’m working on processing some deep trauma I unconsciously thought I could avoid and stepping more firmly into the role of adult and teacher in the world. Last night I pulled the 6 of pentacles as my card for 2019, so I’m sitting with the possibilities there. My card for 2018 was The Empress and that was certainly a major theme over these last 12 months. Every year I think to myself, wow that was the most transformative year of my life, I bet things will settle down now. Lol. It never does. And I’m realizing I don’t really want it to. I don’t think there’s an end point to inner work and a big part of my work now seems to be accepting that more fully.

Things do get easier though. I become more myself, more mature, wiser, more relaxed, and more content with each passing year. I feel grateful for the Kathryns of years past that did their work so that I can be the Kathryn who is here now. I often wonder what I will reminisce on when I am at the end of my life and I think it will be facing my shadow, facing my Underworld, and doing the painful work just as much or more as it will be the good times and the laughter and the peaks.

Today, I was writing about the messages of datura and I wanted to share a few thoughts:

The messages of these plants is that it's ok. It's ok to be in the shadow, to be in the dark, to explore your own Underworld. That's really where the meat of human experience is. What if you were willing to let go of everything you believe to be true about yourself and reality? Yes, it can be painful. Yes, it can be difficult. But without the integration of our shadows, our path is incomplete. In my experience, the most painful thing about painful things is in the avoidance of them.

We are going to dive deep into these themes and their relationship to poisonous plants during the 6 week course, Poisonous Plant Medicine. There are still a few spots left for the Group 2 dates, including a sliding scale spot, and 2 payment plan spots.

Happy Solstice! 🕯

Resist the thought that you may need a savior,
or another special being to walk beside you.
Resist the thought that you are alone.
Resist turning your back on the knife
of the world’s sorrow,
resist turning that knife upon yourself.
Resist your disappearance
into sentimental monikers,
into the violent pattern of corporate logos,
into the mouth of the unholy flower of consumerism.
Resist being consumed.
Resist your disappearance
into anything except
the face you had before you walked up to the podium.

Excerpt from a poem by Louise Erdrich that @kathryn_stewart_ shared this morning 💗

It’s interesting to me how the two “poisonous plants” I was most afraid of and told myself I would probably never work with are the ones that constantly follow me everywhere - Datura and Amanita... there’s really something to waiting for the call to work with plants. It’s easy to get into our heads about how a certain plant sounds intriguing, looks beautiful, or is said to have the medicinal properties we need. But I’ve found that when I wait and listen intently, I get the right medicine at the right time. I think this waiting and listening has saved me from the terrifying experiences with these plants that are the norm. And I never take it for granted that I will always be spared from their wrath! Respect, patience, reverence, listening - these qualities must be embodied to safely and successfully engage with poisonous plants.

Anyway, pictured here are some of the *probably* too many little amanita friends I made out of clay to decorate my Christmas tree. Not pictured is a soon to be completed amanita tree topper ☺️

This is the first year of my adult life that I’ve decorated for the winter holidays. I grew up with agnostic-y, atheist-y parents whose backgrounds were in both Christianity and Judaism. I loved celebrating the holidays growing up but it was the watered down, Americanized version - devoid of deeper spiritual or cyclical/seasonal intention. The past few years I’ve been trying to remember the forgotten truths hidden beneath the capitalistic facade of all our major holidays. I’ve been delighted by the research that points to Santa being an Amanita Muscaria shaman and am planning on making some kind of Amanita tree topper this year - for my first Christmas tree in 12 years! (See a few posts back for more info on the Santa mushroom shaman situation)

How do you celebrate the darkest time of the year? What myths have you learned about or created yourself?

P.S. this painting of Green Tara was done by an amazing mentor I had in college, Lara Marshall. She sells prints of it!

Made some little salves from white pine pitch that @connectedkitchen and I found on a hike yesterday. One made with tallow and one with olive oil, both topped with some blue spruce needles. They smell so heavenly 🥰🌲✨

Googling images of Solandra and fantasizing about growing it indoors...

Solandra grandiflora was (and likely still is) used by the Huichol people, predating their use of peyote for divinatory purposes. It is a member of the solanaceae family and is high in all of the tropane alkaloids that are familiar to our other nightshade friends. What a beauty!!

I was bottling up some Beltane Yew Tree Essence this morning and just being in its presence, without ingesting it, felt consciousness shifting. A sweet young lady recently told me that she just smelled it one day and ended up in the fairy realms in her dreams later that night. This is a strong essence! The events of the day I created this essence were pure magic and involved the fairy realm but feel too close to my heart to share in detail via this platform.

This essence is for those looking to thin the veils, communicate with ancestors, connect with other realms, and open the upper chakras while still staying grounding and embodied. It was created from a very old yew tree in a historic cemetery on Beltane this year. I have a few saved stories where I talk about the yew tree if you want to learn more about this special poisonous ally. We'll also be talking about it in depth during Week 5 of the Poisonous Plant Medicine course. The Beltane Yew Essence is available in my shop ☺️

Did you know that Santa was a shaman whose "gifts" were spiritual rather than material? (Google "Santa Is a Psychedelic Mushroom" to see a short and wonderful video about it!) We will be talking about the connections between shamanism and the amanita muscaria mushroom in Week 6 of the Poisonous Plant Medicine course. This course can be taken for the full 6 weeks or you can drop in for individual classes.

In the midst of this holiday season I find myself bumping up against the propaganda of "give people stuff so they know you care about them." I'm honestly not a fan of holiday gift giving. In theory I think it's wonderful but I rarely see it done outside of the capitalistic model of "more and more stuff will make one more and more better/happier/complete." I haven't been able to get myself in gear to set up some kind of sale or promotion directly related to the holidays. I will say though that if you'd like to gift something meaningful and long lasting I offer tarot readings, 1:1 sessions, that Poisonous Plant Medicine course mentioned above, and a little book I wrote and illustrated about being human in the present moment - all of which can be purchased or scheduled through my website.

Maybe those two paragraphs should have been two separate posts but Mercury is still retrograde so I'm just going to go with it 🤷🏻‍♀️

I'm so happy to share that my Poisonous Plant Medicine online course will also be an in person class at @animamundiherbals in Brooklyn! I did a class on poisonous plants there a few months ago and absolutely loved it. The manager at Anima Mundi is on the poison path himself so it feels like a very welcoming environment to be doing this kind of work.

We will be meeting every other Thursday night for 6 weeks starting January 10th. You can learn more about the course and sign up through this link 🖤🖤🖤

P.S. This image is from a day where I was experiencing difficult emotions and crying a lot. I was running errands and decided to take a long detour home guided by the feeling that there would be some datura growing down a suburban street. Instant relief and tears of joy came along with meeting this beautiful ally. 👵🏼👼🖤🙏✨

The call/inspiration to share windows into my life on this platform seem to come so sporadically. I’ve never been one of those people who photographs the little moments throughout their day or been one to share much about my personal life on social media. So here is a moment from yesterday I would like to share - drinking puerh with my boyfriend while we listened to some recently acquired records from his father and read about the IC in astrology. My first job out of college was working in a Chinese tea house where I was lucky enough to learn about gong fu cha ceremonies and all kinds of teas and tisanes. That job helped to more deeply ingrain in me a love for both ceremony and plant medicine.

Anyway, I really just wanted to say hi and confess my social media sins of not posting enough, sharing enough, or promoting myself enough. Speaking of which, did you know that I provide lots of different services? (Probably not since I am so bad at posting about them!) I offer tarot readings, 1:1 sessions, shamanic journeys, herbal medicines, crystals, a book I wrote and illustrated, paintings, and occasional classes and courses - all of which you can learn more about via the little website menu at the top of this page.

I've been blown away by the response to my Poisonous Plant Medicine online course. When I initially shared this I thought that it was a possibility that the course wouldn't even run due to lack of interest in poisonous plants. Now I'm considering opening up a second group to accommodate everybody. I want to keep class sizes small (20-30) to help facilitate a sense of community. We have a really great group of people signed up so far - herbalists, witches, biochemists and a histotechnologist (I had to google that one.) Some have been on the poison path for many years and some are new to it. I am so excited to meet you all!

Friends! I am SO EXCITED to share that I have put together a 6-week series all about poisonous plants. I will be doing this both irl and online.

“Poisonous” plants can be powerful medicine. When understood and respected they guide us to our whole self. They are fierce teachers, helping us embrace what we’ve been taught to avoid.

In this 6-week series, you will learn all about the lore, magical, & historical use of poisonous plants. We will dive deep into their healing messages through our focus on plant spirit communication, inner-alchemy, and shamanic journeying.

Week 1: Plant Spirit Communication & Poison As Medicine
Week 2: Belladonna & Henbane: Sex, Death, & The Unknown
Week 3: Datura & The Persephone Myth: Healing Trauma Through Psycho-spiritual Death & Rebirth
Week 4: Foxglove, Monkshood, & The History of Witches Flying Ointments
Week 5: Yew & Hellebore: Meeting The Crone
Week 6: Mandrake & Amanita: The Lost Wisdom of Shamanic Lineages

The online course is now open for early bird registration! I will be sharing more about the irl class next week. Read about each week’s class through this link. I’m looking forward to sharing my passion with you all!