The celestial filing cabinet

Herbal ruling planets, elections and potentising

I’ve always had a love of herbs and have enjoyed gardening and wildcrafting as long as I can remember. I have especially loved the magic of gardening by the Moon.

By starting with night sky observations, then using a moon diary and almanac, I’ve been excited to sow my herb seeds at dawn on the day of the week that corresponds with the herbs planetary ruler, while trying to accommodate the ideal moon phase and sign. Having a love of Culpeper, I initially used his planetary rulership correspondences.

Days of the week and planetary associations

Monday – Moon

Tuesday – Mars

Wednesday – Mercury

Thursday – Jupiter

Friday – Venus

Saturday – Saturn

Sunday – Sun

Over the years I’ve experimented with different techniques, using the Picatrix and the Three Books of Agrippa, along with using my collection of ephemerides, little booklets containing tables and charts of where and when planets were doing what to who. I was trying to figure out how this related to what I was seeing in the sky. It was a difficult endeavour where it became apparent that the zodiacal constellations and signs are not the same thing.

I dabbled with Lunar Mansions, and tried to understand how to avoid the numerous ways the Moon can be weakened; being combust, in Scorpio or Capricorn, angular to the malefics, within 12 degrees of Caput or Cauda Draconis, when cadent, Via Combusta and Void of Course. There was a lot to learn and there still is!

I noticed early on that the elections of the planetary hours and days served a two fold process. The first was a mnemonic practice, using the heavens as a celestial filing cabinet for the assigning, storing and retrieving of the planetary ruled herbs and other information. The second was to for basic astrological elections and potentising.

Full astrological elections for choosing the best time to initiate a project, and for medical astrology and herbal potentising are challenging, complicated and time consuming; By placing the ascendant lord, querent and Moon in the best positions, in good condition and relationship to each other, in signs and houses that relate to either body parts or house topics, fortifying the nature of the herb with the ascendant lord, while the lord of the 10^th is strong, avoiding retrogrades and malefics, ideally while the nature of the herb is in opposition to the ruler of the 6^th house of sickness. It gets complicated fast.

So full elections are not the best astrological tool for gardening especially when considering the weather into the equation or general time of day. Unless your like planting out at 3.27 am in the rain.

So it is important to remember that the time you begin a project will effect the project in its entirety, thus the simple planetary hours and days are an ideal starting ground, and that is OK. There are a variety of other simple techniques that can satisfy initiating the project also.

Next, it is important to understand why herbs appear in the herbal lists of old, those of Culpeper, Blagrave and Cornell as well as Galen and Ptolemy etc. The herb lists of these masters differ from one another, even from those of the same country and climate. It appears that the herbs are attributed to planetary lists due to corresponding natural habitat and botanical attributes, for their look, taste, smell, feel and any specific sound made when crushed etc, the Doctrine of Signature patterns, along with its therapeutic qualities, antipathetic or sympathetic and the therapeutic energetics, these are some considerations.

Therefore it is a essential to have a good knowledge of health and illnesses that can be treated with herbs. So first we need to learn Melothesia; astrological body part assignment, then Iatromathematica; medical astrology. It doesn’t have to be that difficult for simple ailments and maladies.

More to follow…..

Copyright Elizabeth Worley.

Image by Jan Antonin Kolar

Elizabeth Worley

Herbalist Astrologer

Consultations and Remedies

http://www.faeryofthestars.com