A Druid's Handbook to the Spiritual Power of Plants: Spagyrics in Magical and Sexual Rituals - Jon G. Hughes 2014

The Amalgamation of The Cardinal Essences to Form The Complex of The Flower
The Refinement Process: The Complex of the Flower
The Druidic Workshop

Some three months will have elapsed since the initial harvesting of your flowers before the resulting cardinal essences are mature and ready for use. It is always worth bearing this time span in mind when planning your year’s harvest of flowers. When we look at the refinement process of the complex of the tree later, you will see that tree complexes are crafted in a shorter time, six to eight weeks, as there is no fermentation process involved.

The bulk of this three months is taken up with patiently waiting for the various stages to take their course, and because all the processes are natural ones, there is nothing to be done that will accelerate the crafting. While we are waiting, we can busy ourselves with other work as the processes progress. We can harvest another plant, or as one harvest matures we could be macerating another. In this way we may maintain a continuous, overlapping work cycle that fits in with the seasonal availability of the plants and trees whose complexes we require. Before long you will accumulate a cupboard full of the various cardinal essences and incenses that you will be able to draw on for your rituals.

The two cardinal essences of the flower are brought together during the ritual for which they are being used. As they amalgamate, they form the complex (cymhleth, in Welsh). The complex, just like a glass of freshly poured effervescent soda, has a limited period during which it can maintain its optimum energy before it goes “flat.” As we shall see later, the complex is at its most potent and energetic immediately after it is passed through the rising smoke of the burning incense of the same flower. It is therefore important that we understand the reasons for this before we attempt to use our complexes and incenses in rituals.

To create and energize the complex, we need the three components we crafted earlier: the cardinal essence of the petal (male), the cardinal essence of the flower head (female), and the incense (already combined male and female components). As we combine the two cardinal essences, we reunite not only the empowered energies and attributes of the flower, but also the male and female attributes, restoring the balance of nature in our crafted complex.

The complex thus becomes hermaphrodite, male and female in one, embracing the characteristics of both. It embodies the attributes of the sun and the moon (male and female), but the elemental energies only of earth and water. So in itself the complex lacks the potency of all four elements. The two missing elemental energies, those of fire and earth, are found in the incense. The incense is already hermaphrodite before it is brought to the ritual. (You will remember that we joined the male and female solid cardinals during its crafting.)

So as we pass the hermaphrodite complex through the smoke of the hermaphrodite incense (the moment of congress), we are, for the first time, also combining all four elemental energies. At the very moment of congress the complex is empowered with the combined energies and attributes of the specific flower we have selected, plus the combined energies of the four elements, all maintained within the newly restored perfect male/female balance as nature prescribes.

At this moment (and for a short time afterward) the complex is at the peak of its potency. It is the sublime elixir, and becomes the quintessence. This is when we channel its energies and attributes to our needs.

There are some exceptions to this immediate use, and most of those may be found in the use of the complex in remedies and potions after the ritual is over. In these cases it is accepted that the complex is not at its most powerful, and when mixed with carrying agents to form, for example, ointments, balms, and tinctures, there may be a need for repeated applications before the beneficial effects make themselves evident. We shall look at this method of use in detail in part 4.

Let us now move on and look at the crafting of the cardinal essences and incense of the tree.