The Lavender Essence. Herbal Essences.
Healing body and mind using herbs
The Lavender Essence is one of my all-time favorite works. I have such an affinity for this herb as I have worked with Lavender on several occasions. I will explain my method of making a lavender herbal Essence. The Herbal Lavender Essence uses the complete herb profile. Therefore nothing is wasted in its manufacture. I grew this Lavender in our garden. Lavender is an excellent herb for anxiety and stress. Lavender correspondences are to Mercury by tradition. Some suggest Moon. I can see this with the violet color. For my Lavender Essence, I used the day of Mercury "Wednesday" and the hour of Mercury for the main workings in this post

Lavender Essence. Gathering fresh herbs
Fresh picked herb for the Lavender essence is always best. Alternatively we can also use dried herb for herbal essences that's good too. It is best to pick the herb on an auspicious timing. Lavender is known as a mercury herb. We may use Wednesday on the mercury hour. We try not to place the herb on the floor or it discharges valuable energies which are grounded through the earth.

Distill the Lavender herb for a volatile sulphur
Getting the herb for the Lavender Essence to the lab as soon as possible is best. The subtle spirits will be escaping. We want try to preserve as much of the subtle energies as is possible. Distill to obtain an essential oil. This oil is known as the volatile sulphur and is seen as the expression of the herb in the manner of the herbs soul.

The Volatile Sulphur. One of three essentials
For our Lavender essence we need three essential components. This is the first essential we extract from the herb. The volatile Sulphur is the expression of the Soul. Its individual personality we could say. The three essentials are Salt, Sulphur and Spirit. We therefore have our First essential now. The work needs all three so we continue on.

Then we ferment to obtain a Spirit
The body "herb" is now devoid of its sulphur. Its colour has gone and its aroma too. This is because we distilled off its volatile oils our first essential. Now we ferment in water and allow the wild yeasts to convert the sugars to a spirit. This Spirit is our second essential.

The wine of Lavender for the Spirit
The wine of the Lavender herb. This is the same as any other wine when clarified. It now contains a Spirit locked away. We must free this spirit. Through distillation later on a Spirit is realised. First I remove the dead herb "mark" and the fermentation continues.

I calcined the dead herb for the Salts
Next our third and final essential needs to be realised. We achieve this through calcination. Calcination uses fire to burn the herb to an ash. This ash has the salts locked away inside. The salt is our third and final essential. The salts is seen as the "body" in Spagyric Anatomy.

The honey conatins the fixed sulphurs
After the distillation of the excess water our phlegmn we are left with a dark honey like tar. This can be used as is in our essence or we calcine this for the fixed salts. This is difficult to calcine and needs high temperatures and patience.

Calcination of Honey setup for fixed sulphur
The calcination setup for the tars "Sulphur honey " containing the fixed salts of sulphur. The fumes are poisonous and are known as the stinking tars. The fixed salts will be added to the Volatile spirit with the salts of salts from the ash. Turning the water wheel later.

The First calcination of our ash for salts of salts
The calcination setup for the salts of salts means we burn the dead herb. This is known as the dead body now devoid of spirit and soul. After turning the dissolution and evaporation we end up with salts from this ash. Our first salt. Salt of salt.

The ash left & dried honey tars right
From the honey tars previously metioned I like to dry these and add them back to the spirit. A circulation of the two follows in which the spirit absorbs the subtle energies of the fire principle. This tinctures the spirit and also picks up valuable salts locked away in the tar honeys. This enriches the work overall. This will enrich the Lavender Essence with subtle energies.

Honey tars calcined to realise salts of sulphur
The honey tars after the circulation with spirit. Ignite quickly in the calcination. The tars can be very stubborn to calcine and can on occasion take much work to get light grey. This is the work and we need the salts for the proper Solve et Coagula. A tip if the salts are so stubborn try a little moistening then re-calcine. Moisten with the phlegmn the water left after distillation of the Lavender wine. We throw nothing away in our work. Everything has a use.

Circulate or distill the spirit & salts together
Now we add both salts and spirit together. The point is to marry the three. This is called a sacred marriage and in effect creates a new being having the qualities of purified body, spirit and soul. If we have a Pelican apparatus this is even better. So meausre equal amounts of the salts to the spirit. It may fizz a little. Now marry seven rotations or Alchemical month 40 days.

The Marriage throws off a sulphur.
My spirit turned a beutiful red. The spirit salts left and spirit right. I decanted off the salts. Separated the spirit from the red honey. I put this honey aside I will explain what can be done with it in another post.I redistilled the spirit seven times. the spirit picked up some of the salts. Good test is to weigh the salts beforehand. I just used my sense of tatse and could tell the marriage had been a success.

More fixed sulphurs from distillation of spirit.
After the distillation of the spirit off the salts we are left again with a dark honey like tar. This can be used as is in our essence or we calcine this for more salts of sulphur. I will show in a later post what I do with these to make an elixir.

Brief recap of the method for Solve et Coagula
For lavender Essence we take the herb and distill a volatile oil. Ferment the herb. We distill this to obtain a spirit and burn - calcine the dead herb. After the distillation of wine we have a honey and a spirit. We calcine the honey for a salt. Calcine the herb body for another salt. We rotate the spirit over the honey. Distill off the spirit. Calcine the honey and have two salts purified by filtration, evaporation and coagulation. Then we add the salts to the spirit tincturised and distill or circulate. Seven times or an Alchemical month 40 days.

Lavender essence final circulation
A final circulation ensures the spiritual wedding of our three principles of salts, sulphur and Mercury. If we are lucky some of the spirits volatilize. I will post more on this in a later sharing. The circulation device can be a Pelican. Alternatively a flask with a condenser running cool water is also a good substitute. Failing that a large flask or bottle with a ballon to balance the pressure works too. If the Lavender Essence changes colour slightly this is a sure sign of a satisfactory wedding of principles. It does not always change colur some stay clear which is not a problem.

The Lavender Essence complete.
The finished Lavender Essence a work of mercury. We realised through the principles and work of solve et Coagula a fine being. Now free of all
unwanted energies. The work is a long work but well worth the effort. Next I will charge the work on a suitable astrological timing. We can
should we wish add a drop of our blood. Some fluid condenser if we have one. Some circulated spirit over Gold and silver. Alternatively just
use it as is. I have omitted some stages from the images and descriptions but I will be adding more information in future posts. The alert reader
can make their own connections.
I wish you peace. Good health. This concludes this work for the time being. Solve et Coagula.