More on Flying Ointments

I have refined my ointment-making skills, now that I have proper ingredients like grapeseed oil and beeswax. My wife came home with belladonna a week ago and I’ve been playing with it (carefully) ever since! I’ve also found that passion flower does nice things for me, which was unexpected, and the result is almost a spiritual ADHD remedy. I’ve been making mystical lip balm as well, with milder but still potent herbs.

Here’s a small jar of flying ointment I made for a friend:

Here is some ‘mystic’ lip balm and ointment:

Hedgecrossing ritual

Yesterday evening I held a ritual for an important otherworld journey to seek advice about my wife’s leg pain. I bathed in salt water and prayed for protection and a vivid journey. I drank tea with sage, sweetgrass and mugwort. I selected a long comfy dress I’ve never worn to be my ritual clothing. I created sacred space and burned wormwood and mugwort. I rubbed my homemade flying ointment on my inner elbows, wrists, neck, and ankles. Then I took up my rattle and began to journey.

The journey felt intense and I received much-needed answers. I was told an herb for arthritis pain and one for sciatic pain. I had my doubts but researched them later and found them both valid — they have been specifically studied for these ailments. I need these kinds of verifications once in a while and they always blow me away. But the main message was not herbs but of action, and I need to pay attention.

Crossing the hedge

Up to now I’ve used my rattle and drum music by Sandra Ingerman to ease the passage of my shamanic journeys, but I am beginning to experiment with incenses and ointments to enhance the experience and add to the ritual quality of the work.

My first incense blend is rich-smelling but gentle, using the herbs more as a vessel to carry my intent.

Sojourner’s Smoke

• juniper berries
• cloves
• sage
• star anise

My new blend is a gift from my wife, who surprised me with sachets of wormwood and mugwort from the local metaphysical store. These herbs I consider more powerful in themselves (and potentially dangerous), so please do your research if you wish to use them. In addition to burning them as incense, I have mixed them with an ointment base and cedarwood oil. This is not a refined way to make a flying ointment! It’s messy, but I like the rustic quality of whole herbs in the ointment rather than an herbal infusion. It may, however, prove to be a disaster.

Giving due respect to the herbs, I will pick an evening to journey with them when I can devote my full attention and intention to creating sacred space and enacting ritual. I think it’s important to look forward to it as a deepening of my practice, not an attempt to fly around the room.