Hello Herbalists and Crafters of Hive
It is friday, the day of folklore and I am here to share my personal lore of an herb. The focus of this posts is poppy, a flower that has been captivating my eyes and imagination for weeks now.
Poppies are growing in my spiral garden and beside the rock wall at the house we are building. I sow these seeds year after year because these flowers have long been associated with dream magick and spells related to crafting a mystical life. I capture their magic in photography and by collecting the dried seed heads for floral arrangements.
This year I wanted to try something different. I felt inspired to make a liniment of the fresh poppy heads. When I was much younger I bought Papaver somniferum seeds for my psychedelic/medicinal garden. They did indeed inspire some magical visions ... though I would exactly recommend ingesting the sap because it also caused nausea. To sum up my experience: I lived the effects of eating poppy sap in bed ... with a garbage can nearby just in case.
That was years ago, and I haven't been tempted to try eating poppy resin again ... though I might smoke it someday. In general though, I find the poppy heads to be beautiful symbols of traversing the dream world, even if I don't currently use them psycho-actively.
Honestly, I am not sure if these particularly poppy seeds even contain the active ingredient to make opium. I heard that the poppy seeds sold in stores have the same Latin name but do not contain psychoactive components as the famous opium poppies.
Psychoactive or not, I feel drawn to this lovely flower. The liniment - made of grain alcohol and fresh poppy heads - has been soaking for a few weeks and taken on a beautiful green color. I will let this potion soak during this lunar cycle (new moon to new moon) and use it for anointing my magical tools.