The veils are thin as we stand at the threshold of the dreaming season. These late Fall and early Winter months invite us to look deeply within our own hidden layers, and into the mysteries that live just beyond our conscious awareness. These plant and crystal allies can offer us a glimpse or even an initiation into the dreaming arts and the subtle knowledge of the past.
Sinicuichi
There is not a lot written about this mystical plant medicine in books, as compared to others, but the oral tradition suggests it has a strong history as a bringer of visions and dreams. This is particularly true in Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, the American Southwest, and other parts of Latin and South America. Sinicuichi was sacred in the Aztec culture, where it was referred to as The Elixir of the Sun, and consumed as a fermented tea, particularly for its gifts of prophetic speech, divination, and enhancing lucid dreaming and visioning, though also for more medicinal applications. The Aztec culture had extensive knowledge of herbal medicines but tended towards the gradual work of spiritual discipline and training when it came to cultivating visions and dreaming abilities, so I am curious about the qualities of any dreaming plant they valued. Modern inquiry is now shining a light on this perhaps neglected plant medicine, and interest in its nature and applications is rising. The current renaissance of dreaming herbs means you can find a lot of information online, as well as many sites where it can be ordered. Remember, however, that there were protocols and ceremonies designed to create a sacred container for working with powerful plant medicines. Though we may not know these now, an effort should be made. When sacred plants are used for recreation, outside of traditional forms of offering respect, they may choose to give us the other sides of their natures, which could include serious consequences for our health. (Thinking of tobacco and hallucinogenic mushrooms will provide two different contexts in this area.)
I became aware of Sinicuichi when working with Atava Garcia Swiecicki of Ancestral Apothecary, and for the past 7 years I have been growing it in my garden. Since 7 is the number of the moon, the feminine force that rules dreaming, this year feels like a good time to write about it and to increase my own inquiry as well. This is one of the few herbs that I have experienced as powerful enough to open a visual portal, and provide direct teachings, even when only holding it while entering into the trance like state before sleep. My first experience of this was when first asking it to teach me about its medicine. As I became relaxed, and with almost no lead in time, I saw a distinctly round portal open before my closed eyes, like a window. I entered it and suddenly was flying over a field of yellow light, floating over bright yellow flowers. A clear voice spoke to me, teaching me to use the flowers to open my psychic sense and additionally to clear away past wounding in order to remove obstacles to a more open consciousness. At the time I was aware that Sinicuichi was a dreaming herb, but I knew little about its nature and preparations. It was only later that I found some written information about this plant, and I was surprised to find many specific elements of my experience noted.
Sinicuichi’s scientific name is Heimia Salicifolia. It is a deciduous flowering shrub with small yellow flowers that prefers sunny, or even tropical areas, and yet grows with ease here in Northern California without much care needed. Heimia Salicifolia has many folk names, including Sun Opener, Sini, Shrubby Yellowcrest, Sun Opener, Willow-leaf Heimia, and its ancient name in Nahuatl, Sinicuichi. Its leaves are relatively narrow and its flowers are small with 6 petals, and bloom from late Spring through the Fall. In the Winter it appears dead, but each Spring it makes its beautiful and robust return. It appreciates the full sun of Summer and doesn’t seem to need much water. I mention this because if you are going to make relationship with a psychoactive plant, it is a good idea to grow it and get to know it well. This plant is easy enough for a beginning gardener, and potent enough that communion with it through care and plant meditation is respectful. Sinicuichi is said to give auditory and visual medicine journeys, in particular creating a yellow tinted vision or featuring vivid yellow colors while enhancing the auditory sense, at times offering a clear voice, as I experienced in even my early meditations with this mystical ally.
World Herbals offers this interesting reference to Aztec cosmology:
“Gordon Wasson (an ethnomycologist) linked Sinicuichi to the Aztec god of spring and desire, Xochipilli. Gordon suggested that the naturalistic flower elements that appear on the Aztec statue of Xochipilli are the flora of Sinicuichi. Wasson’s hypothesis connecting Sinicuichi to Xochipilli has never been substantiated.
The modern and most verifiable account of Sinicuichi use can be traced back to the 1800s. Many indigenous tribes throughout Mexico used the herb for various medicinal and spiritual purposes either by preparing it into a fermented tea or healing salves.
The primary use of Sinicuichi in Mexican folk medicine is for fertility. Infertile women soak in a bath prepared with Sinicuichi leaves among other herbs and essential oils. Sinicuichi is also an ingredient in the tea used to promote conception. Sometimes the herb is burned before bedtime to aid in dream work.”
Xochipilli, referenced here, like many of the Aztec energetic essences is often only partially understood. Within the statue are more dreaming plants and the expression on the face of the god suggests dilated pupils and ecstasis. Xochipilli is the deity ruling flowers, pleasure, sexuality, homosexuality, intoxication, poetry, song and dance, so this expression of intoxication is appropriate, but it also goes deeper. Wasson suggested that this indicated the god being absorbed in temicxoch, and suggested a translation of this word as ‘dream flowers.’ However, the meaning of the word is far more rich than this indicates. Temicxoch means ‘flower dreaming.’ This isn’t ecstasis by way of plant medicines, but something more significant to the cultivation of the soul and the evolution of ones awareness. To flower dream is to dream awake. It is the art of becoming lucid within dreaming, then working within the various levels of dreaming taught within the ancient tradition, in order to flower in one’s life. Becoming lucid is the beginning point, allowing one to consciously apply knowledge within the unconscious realms to change, heal, evolve, learn, and co-create what we will later live by being intentional within the realm of dreaming. The concept of flowering is the full expression of one’s spiritual and earthly potential as a human, when the conscious and unconscious are joined and mastery is gained through discipline. This is congruent with going in the direction of the Sun, meaning moving towards one’s highest destiny and possibility, so it is no accident that this plant is called Sun Opener.
This is why it is best to talk to the plants (and crystals) directly, lest we miss important details, basing knowledge only on what is written through the lens of other people’s interpretations. Plants are our elders and they are willing to help us relearn. Before I read about the association with Xochipilli and Temicxoch, I asked Sinicuichi what it would like me to know and share about its medicine. This is what it told me: “I open the vision of the inner eye with the power of the Sun. This means my visions lead towards your highest destiny. Don’t just use me to dream. Use me to dream plant, to command the dream.”
When we truly learn to dream with intention, to command our dreams, planting the dream language symbols for healing and positive creations, the changes we make are deeper and faster than anything we can do in the waking state. This ally has powerful healing purposes in mind, and along the way may bring us visions, teachings, and a glimpse of the euphoric states that can be reached as we open to the path of the Sun.
Suggestions for working with Sinicuichi:
Though some sights online suggest smoking the dried leaves, the more traditional preparation was in making a sun tea. Fresh leaves are gathered and left to wilt and dry. The dried leaves were then placed in a jar or box of water and left in the sun for 24 hours, in order to steep and ferment. Following this method allow for the energy and knowledge of the Sun to be absorbed into the tea. For this reason, the brew was referred to as the Elixir of the Sun.
A general guide is to use 10 grams of Sinicuichi with 3 cups of water to make a tea. If you are making it indoors, make sure that the water is hot but not boiling when you add the herbs. Let it simmer 30 minutes at least. How much you consume will correspond to how strong the effects are, but be gradual. Remember that even meditating and sleeping with the herb will begin to have an effect on your consciousness. Making a flower essence is another option for connecting with the spiritual medicine of the plant. When imbibing the tea, the physical effects of relaxation, potential euphoria, yellow tinted vision, and enhanced auditory perceptions will potentially be stronger, especially in higher amounts. Every person will need to be aware of their own body’s tolerance for these effects and the possible fatigue, muscle pain, and tension that could follow the next day. Long term regular use can have negative effects of memory, and while Sinicuichi has applications for increasing fertility, it is of course not safe to consume while pregnant.
Crystal Skulls
Crystal Skulls hold a lot of fascination for us. Perhaps it is because we recognize ourselves in them, and yet they suggest to us the hidden knowledge of the ancestral past, of the realms of death and dreaming, and of the untapped potential within us. There are many stories that have circulated about the origin of Crystal Skulls in Mexico, suggesting 13 sacred specimens that may have alien origin and special powers. If you mention this to practitioners of ancient mysticism in Mexico, they will likely smile politely and tell you these are myths created by colonizing forces. While these stories aren’t necessarily taken seriously, and I couldn’t say whether or not there is any truth within them, they feel like an attempt to understand something that is actually quite mysterious and potent about Crystal Skulls, their relationship to spiritual evolution. Actually, the mystical practices from ancient Mexico involving Crystal Skulls needs no embellishment to be fascinating.
In the time of the Mexica culture, the human skull was respected and revered as the keeper of knowledge, talent, and special gifts belonging to the person to whom it had belonged. Every home had an altar of actual ancestral skulls, and/or Crystal Skulls. This was called a Momoztli. By keeping the actual skulls present, they kept their ancestors present, seeking to learn from their wisdom and to absorb their gifts so that the family medicine could continue to grow and to flower. The Crystal Skulls represented not the family, but the sacred essences we generally refer to as gods. The In the main city center of Tenochtitlan there would have been a similar altar for the entire city, made of up rows of human skulls. This was called a Tzonpantli, and the skulls that were placed on it were not sacrifices, as was assumed by the invading Spanish, but the skulls of the best healers, dreamers, warriors, and people of power and talent in all areas of knowledge. The Tzonpantli was a place that anyone could visit to kneel and exchange knowledge with the ancestors, to invite the best qualities of those whose skulls had been saved in order to preserve their exceptional wisdom for future generations. Knowledge was believed to be recorded in bone and in stone, and this is the base from which we can begin to understand the power of the Crystal Skull as a tool.
Before the Mexican Revolution, all the sacred sites were buried and the lands were split. Because of this, there are in fact artifacts, including Crystal Skulls, that have been emerging as farmers work the land and find ancient treasures. Often these are sold on the black market, and following a dream that told him exactly where to go to encounter something important, my teacher Sergio Magaña found a Crystal Skull with a serpent wrapped around it, an artifact that had been buried and recently uncovered. On the Summer Solstice, he and a good friend attempted to meditate with it to try to understand what it was and why he had been guided to find it. Through experimentation and intuitive listening, he received the instruction to spin around it, and the two of them ran around the skull in circles. Suddenly feeling as though he’d been hit in the navel, Sergio sat down and began to vision, and the same experience took place for his friend, though the images they saw were different. Sergio describes seeing a serpent who ate him whole and then offered to bring him knowledge, showing him many scenes of ancient ceremonies, pyramids, serpents, women performing healings and more. Soon after, through the seller of the skull that he had been led to in the dream, he met the Indigenous keeper of knowledge that taught him how to use the obsidian mirror and who taught him about the skulls. He was taught that the legend of the 13 skulls is not actually a Mexican legend, but that the Crystal Skulls of antiquity were a recording of a Nahuatl practitioner’s dreams. He also said that the skull is what is meant to spin, not the person. And he made another correction. A Crystal Skull does not belong to the person who finds it or buys it. If you have one, it’s not your skull. You are its person.
What does this mean for us, when we are drawn to a Crystal Skull or are looking for ways to work with those we have brought into our altars and varying spiritual and magical practices? It means that there is far more to our own capacities than we currently know, or perhaps more accurately more than we currently remember. A Crystal Skull can be a vehicle for accessing the ancestral realms, for honoring or working with the shadowy sides of our life and death cycles, and for pondering the value of living, as Hamlet does, but it can also be more. The skull is the seat of our knowledge, even of our Pineal gland, the organ which lets in light and darkness, regulating our circadian rhythms and perhaps forming a bridge between our conscious perception and the unknown territories within and without. The pineal gland is the organ referred to as the third eye, and many mystic traditions believe it to function as a bridge between the physical and spiritual worlds. Perhaps the Crystal Skull is the perfect tool for us to make that connection between realms, allowing us to receive lost knowledge, and to direct our knowledge towards the physical world where we live. There are practices for visioning and practices for manifestation with Crystal Skulls, though they require more thorough explanation and study than can be provided in this brief article. Perhaps, though, they are also an invitation, drawing us with both the familiar and the mysterious towards our own journeys of remembering what we come from, who we are, and what we have the capacity to be. Perhaps it is best to begin with listening, to see what may be intentionally encoded within, and to ask how best to engage it. Crystal Skulls can move energy, and have the capacity for transmitting it, storing it, and directing it. It is a powerful tool that combines reverence for knowledge with the alchemy implied by the image of death, that of complete change and ultimately, spiritual evolution.
Suggestions for working with Sinicuichi and Crystal Skulls together:
These two couldn’t be better partners. Sinicuichi is an opener of visions that intends to align you with the sun, a symbol of your highest destiny. If you have been drawn to a Crystal Skull, perhaps this plant can help you to access and absorb the knowledge that it holds. Place them together on an altar. Consider making a tea, as described above. Then gaze into the eyes of your crystal skull. Try spinning it to the left to activate it, while holding it with your left hand. Gaze again. If it begins to sparkle, place it on your third eye and listen. See if visions come. Ask it how you can best work with it, and how to make sacred relationship with all it represents.
May you find the magic and potential of who you are, seeing into what has been, and dreaming yourself towards your best possibility. Ometotl.
Honoring the mystery within and without,
the eleventh house
-This blog was written by Melusina Gomez. For more information about her work and healing practices please visit www.metzmecatl.com
sources:
Oral Tradition shared by Sergio Magaña and Victor Nahui
Teachings from Atava Garcia Swiecicki
atlasobscura.com Xochipilli, National Museum of Anthropology