Alchemessence is your portal into the wild spirit within. As a shamanic practitioner, mystic, botanical alchemist, and artist, I offer an integrative pathway for awakening to your true essence through spiritual rewilding.
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Future nostalgia (and a real peek behind the scenes)
Published 25 days ago • 7 min read
This email brings you a long weekend read :) If you want skip ahead, here's what to look for:
A real peek behind the scenes — life, amiright?
8/8: what the Lion's Gate is actually about (+ a free ritual guide)
Rewilding the Temple, August 12 — Leo New Moon solar eclipse
Jasmine anointing oil for our ceremony
Perfumes for Summer — six of my favorites
New salves & hydrosols coming in September — get on the list
Future nostalgia is the essence of August.
Vacation mode is still on, harvests are plentiful, and our days, though waning, are still longer than our nights. But we know fall is coming. In the back of our minds lives this push to do all the things while we can. To savor every minute of enjoyment the season brings.
It's as if part of us is already reminiscing about the present times we're living in. Thus, future nostalgia ;) (I first heard this phrase from one of my astro teachers, Merlin, and it comes back to me every August.)
The gift here is to truly be present for the small summer delights that arrive in each moment.
But of course, summer isn't all delightful.
It's been a wild ride over here — between wildfire evacuations, emergency room visits, and a trip across the country to be with family in hospice, I'm feeling a bit flattened. I don't often share my personal health struggles, but I will say that I'm just not as physically resilient as I once was, and I've needed way more rest than I had prepared for this summer.
(Case in point: I helped build our new greenhouse which is very exciting…but it will be several months before I have full use of my right arm again, which is not so helpful for actually enjoying the greenhouse. Hopefully the greenhouse and I will both be ready for next year…and watch out for an explosion of medicinal plants I couldn’t otherwise grow here!)
And yet, amidst all this stress, future nostalgia remains. The creative impulse of the season still inspires me each day. So this month, I thought I'd share a real, authentic peek behind the scenes into my own life. Hopefully my wild and creative explorations will spark a few of your own. :)
For the Wild Ones
Despite the injury, I’m still signed up to start volunteering with our local wildlife rescue soon. My heart aches for the animals in these times — over half a million acres in Oregon alone have already burned this summer, and our fire season doesn't usually peak until August.
If your lungs hurt — imagine how the tiny lungs of a bird with no escape must feel. The loss of habitat and homes and lives of all our forest kin…
I’m only committing to animal transport for now — I’m weirdly good at capturing wild animals in need. Maybe I’ll have more time for some hospital hours down the road. There is so little I can do, but I will keep showing up in the ways I can.
For me, our short summers call for intensive time making with the plants. This year will bring fresh distillations of white and wild sagebrushes, juniper berries (labor intensive, but oh so worth it!), lavender, wormwood, rabbitbrush, and hopefully blue spruce and incense cedar. So far, the yarrow and mugwort have been slow to grow and bloom. We'll see what I'm offered by the end of the season.
I'm also infusing oils with an abundance of plants from my wild yard and wild places. This year, I'll have an all new wild healing salve and a few devotional plant balms: the rose anointing balm will be back, as will the artemisia flying ointment — plus a new lavender and new evergreen salve.
I love making these as they bring multiple plant parts together: I infuse a blend of coconut, jojoba, grapeseed, and olive oils with the whole fresh plant, foraged by my own hand, and add a wildly maximalist blend of essential oils to capture the essence of the plant from around the world.
The rose balm contains roses from Egypt, Morocco, and Bulgaria, with rose otto and rose absolute and even rose leaf absolute, which smells delightful! The lavender will have high elevation lavender essential oil from France, a beautiful Greek lavender, as well as lavender absolute, which carries a uniquely sweet and lovely aroma.
These salves are the fanciness of the temple and the place-based wilds I love, all wrapped into a single lovely creation…pretty much my m.o., I suppose ;)
a few wild plants gathered for the healing salve
In the studio
I've also been enjoying spending time painting. You may not know, but I actually studied studio art in college oh so many years ago. Life has taken me in and out of practice over the decades, and it's been wonderful to reconnect with art more intentionally through a "self-directed artist residency." Because why not?
After so much resistance and overworking and telling myself I'm too busy…I'm finally prioritizing my creative practice again. I'm writing a piece about the experience and will share it soon.
Part of this "residency" is taking time to read about art, too. I loved Amie McNee's We Need Your Art, and I'm halfway through The Club by Jennifer Dasal, which explores the American women who traveled to Paris to study art around the turn of the last century. Those women were up against soooo many societal and cultural blocks as they pursued their artistic callings. Reading it makes me even more grateful for the women who paved the way for the opportunities I may enjoy today.
I painted a bird - because when in doubt, put a bird on it! ;)
In the classroom
When I'm not painting or making things with plants or generally trying to keep up with life, I've been immersed in teaching the Wild Alchemy Practitioner Program. I'm so inspired by the students in that program and find myself pouring my creative energy into our lessons and content. We're only in month three, but already I've seen huge shifts in how the participants are showing up in their work and practices. It is beyond exciting to see what's unfolding :)
As a result, other areas have slowed down. I'm not writing as much…I have several half finished articles that are just going to take the time they take at this point.
I know all of us face a rapidly changing world and an assortment of personal challenges — yet I hope that we can also all enjoy a bit of “future nostalgia” this season.
It's Leo time after all, the lionhearted sign that loves life, creativity, and pretty much everything, actually. I have a few Leo-related resources for you below.
May solar blessing shine upon you!
P.S. The article on my artist residency is coming out tomorrow morning :) You can read it over here!
Leo Season Events & Opportunities
✦ Rewilding the Temple, August 12 — Leo New Moon Solar Eclipse ✦
Our August gathering is going to be truly special. This Leo New Moon is also a South Node solar eclipse, initiating a completely new era around self, identity, creativity, and the collective. We'll be meditating with jasmine for our anointing, and doing powerful journeywork together.
This live gathering is included with all paid subscriptions, or you can buy a single pass. As always, it will be recorded if you can't come live. Learn more about these ceremonies here.
If you'd like, you can purchase the jasmine anointing oil from my Alchemessence perfumery. I'm making a very special blend of two jasmines — sambac and grandiflorum in jojoba, perfect for our ceremony…and a perfume in itself.
In the coming days, you'll likely be hearing a lot about the Lion's Gate Portal. I highly recommend reading this article to understand what this day is really all about ;)
Then grab this free ritual guide — it has beautiful rituals for the five Egyptian Gods born during Egypt's five Epagomenal Days…perfect timing for the Lion's Gate, as you'll learn in the article above :)
Summer Scents
The Perfumes for Summer Discovery Set is here — six of my personal favorite all-natural perfumes for the season.
Oshun — for the Yoruba river goddess, sensual and spicy, with notes of amber, vanilla, and cinnamon
Dolphin — playful and fresh, tropical aromas of sweet citrus, fresh herbs, and luxe jasmine
Horse — fresh fields of French lavender and newly mown hay
Jardín de Citron — a conceptual perfume, citrus gardens along the Mediterranean coast
Demeter — verdant fields and abundant harvests in a sweet, green floral perfume
Aphrodite — a true chypre inspired by the Mediterranean birthplace of perfume
Everything above from the distillery arrives in September, in small batches. Click here and I'll send a note when they're ready.
Shamanic Techniques for Riding the Waves…
Perhaps the best resource I can share with you for these wild times is my Introduction to Shamanism Workshop. So, here’s a $100 off the full price for everyone: Enter NATURECARE at checkout and save $100 off the full price, now through August 15th.
The focus of this 2-day online workshop is helping you connect with your own spirit team directly — so you can tune into their guidance for you, when you need it, as we navigate these wild times.
Thank you for being here!
Juniper Stokes is a botanical perfumer, soul alchemist, intuitive astrologer, and rewilding guide through mythic landscapes of the nature, spirit, and the cosmos. For over 25 years, she has been guiding soulful humans back to the heart of who they are and why they’re here.
600 1st Ave, Ste 330 PMB 92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2246
Still here? Wow - you deserve a present :) A tiny secret for you before you go:
There’s a beautiful calming point in the ear located just behind the little cartilage fold at the front of the upper ear. Hold it gently on both sides for one minute and take a slow breath. It’s especially lovely with a drop of anointing oil. ;)
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Alchemessence
Juniper Stokes | Spiritual Rewilding Guide
Alchemessence is your portal into the wild spirit within. As a shamanic practitioner, mystic, botanical alchemist, and artist, I offer an integrative pathway for awakening to your true essence through spiritual rewilding.
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