Was Santa and Alchemist?
Quick recap
Brooke interviews Michael Van Sciver, Ayurvedic Physician, Clinical Herbalist, Alchemist + guest faculty for The Wild Temple School for this delicious insight into the seasons and holiday spirit. This is our second interview with Michael (the first episode was in our first season: Myths, Battles + Awe: A Cultural Incoculation of the Seasons, Episode 2).
Michael Van Sciver is located in Nevada City, California, and can be found at michael@joyfulmedicine.com.
He and Brooke discussed the myths and lore behind the festivities of winter and the holiday season as well as the Astro cosmological events within the wheel of time, the power of still currents in alchemy + the Solstices, shamanic reindeer culture, the soma of life and entheogens, and much, much more. Please enjoy, follow if you like and share if you can!
Summary Overview:
Cosmic Wheel of Time: Sun-Earth Relationship and Its Impact on Seasons
Symbols such as yin/yang and the analemma figure 8 pattern of the sun
Solstice Themes and Symbolism
Michael explained that the winter solstice is about letting go of the old and calling in the new, themes of celebration and joy, and feeding the essence of one's being. They also described the summer solstice as a time of harmonizing with something outside of oneself, understanding one's deeper truths and desires, and expressing one's longings. Brooke added that this process is also about connecting with others and recognizing the importance of interdependence. They also touched upon the metabolic processes involved in the solstices and how plants can help with digestion and radiance.
Inner Light Practices and Symbolism
Michael discussed various practices to brighten the inner environment during the darkest time of the year, including burning resins and candles, bringing fresh trees into the home, and the use of entheogens like Amanita and ergot.
Fractal, Holographic, and Heart-Centered Meditation
Michael discussed the fractal, holographic nature of the world and the concept of the Taurus, a donut shape with infinite loops of energy. They highlighted the symbolism of a tree in the house as representative of the energetic field and emphasized the importance of being in the heart essence at the winter solstice.
Winter Solstice and Vedic Tradition Discussion
Michael and Brooke discussed the significance of the winter solstice, emphasizing the importance of rediscovering one's childlike nature and reawakening the genome in its highest state- exhalting our being through the power of the Solstice energies. They also discussed a breathing practice to regulate the nervous system and foster stability and resilience.
Origins of Santa and St. Nicholas the Timeless Alchemist
Michael and Brooke engaged in a deep conversation about the significance of the history of amanita mushroom in spiritual practices, particularly during the solstice season. They explored how these mushrooms are believed to awaken one's inner child and connect them with the divine. The discussion also touched upon the relationship between Santa Claus and the amanita mushroom, with Michael presenting a fascinating interpretation of Santa as a sage alchemist who has learned potions of immortality and resides in the Arctic (dreaming) realm.
The discussion concluded with the importance of joy during the holiday season.
Please visit www.thewildtemple.com to get on our newsletter for practices abs recipes related to these podcast episodes. And don’t forget to subscribe/follow and share if you like what you hear!
Thank you
-The Wild Temple Team
Was Santa and Alchemist?
Quick recap
Brooke interviews Michael Van Sciver, Ayurvedic Physician, Clinical Herbalist, Alchemist + guest faculty for The Wild Temple School for this delicious insight into the seasons and holiday spirit. This is our second interview with Michael (the first episode was in our first season: Myths, Battles + Awe: A Cultural Incoculation of the Seasons, Episode 2).
Michael Van Sciver is located in Nevada City, California, and can be found at michael@joyfulmedicine.com.
He and Brooke discussed the myths and lore behind the festivities of winter and the holiday season as well as the Astro cosmological events within the wheel of time, the power of still currents in alchemy + the Solstices, shamanic reindeer culture, the soma of life and entheogens, and much, much more. Please enjoy, follow if you like and share if you can!
Summary Overview:
Cosmic Wheel of Time: Sun-Earth Relationship and Its Impact on Seasons
Symbols such as yin/yang and the analemma figure 8 pattern of the sun
Solstice Themes and Symbolism
Michael explained that the winter solstice is about letting go of the old and calling in the new, themes of celebration and joy, and feeding the essence of one's being. They also described the summer solstice as a time of harmonizing with something outside of oneself, understanding one's deeper truths and desires, and expressing one's longings. Brooke added that this process is also about connecting with others and recognizing the importance of interdependence. They also touched upon the metabolic processes involved in the solstices and how plants can help with digestion and radiance.
Inner Light Practices and Symbolism
Michael discussed various practices to brighten the inner environment during the darkest time of the year, including burning resins and candles, bringing fresh trees into the home, and the use of entheogens like Amanita and ergot.
Fractal, Holographic, and Heart-Centered Meditation
Michael discussed the fractal, holographic nature of the world and the concept of the Taurus, a donut shape with infinite loops of energy. They highlighted the symbolism of a tree in the house as representative of the energetic field and emphasized the importance of being in the heart essence at the winter solstice.
Winter Solstice and Vedic Tradition Discussion
Michael and Brooke discussed the significance of the winter solstice, emphasizing the importance of rediscovering one's childlike nature and reawakening the genome in its highest state- exhalting our being through the power of the Solstice energies. They also discussed a breathing practice to regulate the nervous system and foster stability and resilience.
Origins of Santa and St. Nicholas the Timeless Alchemist
Michael and Brooke engaged in a deep conversation about the significance of the history of amanita mushroom in spiritual practices, particularly during the solstice season. They explored how these mushrooms are believed to awaken one's inner child and connect them with the divine. The discussion also touched upon the relationship between Santa Claus and the amanita mushroom, with Michael presenting a fascinating interpretation of Santa as a sage alchemist who has learned potions of immortality and resides in the Arctic (dreaming) realm.
The discussion concluded with the importance of joy during the holiday season.
Please visit www.thewildtemple.com to get on our newsletter for practices abs recipes related to these podcast episodes. And don’t forget to subscribe/follow and share if you like what you hear!
Thank you
-The Wild Temple Team
In this episode, I interviewed Michael van Skiver. He is a doctor of Ayurveda, an herbalist,an alchemist, and an educator. He is often a guest faculty for a wild tumble school, and you can just experience for a moment the brilliance of his brain and his syncretic views of being able to weave different cultures and land the... the history, the symbolism, the mythology into the Wheel of Time.
So that's what our episode is about today and we're recording this around the time before Solstice.
So we are in this movement heading towards the holidays that are really rich in ancestry and so Solstice and Christmas are largely what we're talking about in this episode and I do know there are lots of holidays going on from many different cultures all around the world but for this specific episode Michael is teasing out certain themes such as the reindeer culture, the symbolism of wreathes and holly even looking into the symbolism of the Christmas tree and Santa Claus. One of my favorite parts about this whole episode beyond the herbalism, which we go into herbs and entheogens and soma and the distillation of essential oils and how that can aid in the awakening of the radiance within you during this darker time.
My favorite story was Santa Claus being an alchemist. And I really love that. I think I'm going to stick that in my pocket and go with it. Santa to me will forever be this wise alchemist.
So if you feel in the beginning that it's whoo it's a bit of a vast subject he does start with astronomy and this wheel of time and goes into the different quarters of the years along with their names and I decided not to edit them out because I wanted people to land in just the fullness of what the whole year really is all about but also what this time is all about and so I do encourage you to google some words that maybe you aren't clear about. You might want to drop a picture of the yin -yang symbols.
You can look at that while he's talking about the descending and ascending currents, as well as just rewind and listen again. I found that when I listened to it a second time, everything was clear. I had a greater picture of it, and so therefore a larger understanding. Anyway, this is a really juicy topic, and I do hope that you get a chance to just brew a cup of tea or something. hot chocolate and sit by the fire,kick your feet up and allow yourself this time to be nurtured by listening.
I would also like to encourage you to stay in touch. I have a few programs that I'm going to be launching in the spring such as I will have a few spaces opening for my one -on -one apprenticeship, the Wild Sage Darmic Revolution, and we do have a waitlist going right now for one -on -one.
I have more coming out that I'm really excited about. I will not talk about it just yet but just so you know the incubation has begun and the seeds will soon be planted.
I think a nice place to start is to try to visit the wheel of the year again, because that's the driving force behind why we have celebrations in certain times of year.
And so there's different energies at play due to the relationship of mostly the sun and the earth. Certainly there are other factors, but the year is the relationship of the earth and the sun and how that cycle plays out.
And so beyond that, we will definitely discuss the different Christmas themes and really the different spiritual depth that is there in a lot of our practices that we do,maybe unknowingly during the Christmas time. And absolutely there are influences from other religions.
But there's themes there that are pre -Christian and certainly ubiquitous around the globe. So I like to visualize the Wheel of the Year as a circle with the yin yang inside of it.
And yang is depicted as white. Black is yin. And if you were to draw a circle in your mind's eye and put a backwards s into that circle, on the left you have white, on the right you have black. So white is a teardrop with a small part at the lower section and then it grows in width and encompasses most of the higher part of the circle and then black has it's a teardrop with a small section in the top that grows in width as it comes down and Then you have little dots in each one you have a little black dot within the white teardrop and a little white dot within the black teardrop and And so you can look at the year this way.
If we were to put it into the greater calendar of the cosmos, we would put Gemini at the top. And this is from the sidereal perspective where the stars actually are.
And you would put Sagittarius at the bottom. And then the left side would be Pisces, the right side would be Virgo. That puts you in orientation to the cosmic clock.
And it's very much like the clock that we use today, the hour clock, there's 12 sections. And so we're at Sagittarius, the clock right now basically. And that puts us well within actually the dot within the the black, that white dot within the black, that is the orb of winter solstice.
The black dot at the top is the orb of summer solstice. And to zoom out a little bit from there into the actual relationship of the earth and the sun, we are close to the sun right now. And so some of this teaching will be applicable to the southern hemisphere right now,but a lot of it will be applicable to the summer, the southern hemisphere in six months. And so we're in winter in the northern hemisphere because the sun is tilted away, or sorry, because the earth is tilted away from the sun. But we are also really close to the Sun. And that means the force of gravity that the Sun has with the Earth is strongest.
And it's helpful to see the Sun and the Earth in a dance together. They're affecting each other. Certainly the force of gravity from the Sun is stronger than what the Earth has on the Sun, but they're pulling on each other. There's a relationship here. And anytime we're looking for truth, if we're lacking relationship then we're missing it.
And so it's important to recognize that the Sun and the Earth are dancing and they're spiraling through the galaxy together. And so, deep themes here within the Wheel of the Year are spinning and spiraling. And so the Wheel of the Year is not just a circle, it's actually a spiral.
There's recursions, you come back to the same place, but you come back in a new way. And so that brings us to another concept here, which is evolution. And I want to pause and see how you feeling, Brooke, you're following me so far.
Yeah. And I really wish that people could see you. My Italian family would be so happy. You know, you're gesticulating in a way that I was able to really envision the Yin -Yang symbol.
And I, you know, knowing a little bit about this calendar, it just made it more even that cultural weaving of understanding of the growth cycle and the descent cycle.
So through that symbol. So that might be something that somebody could look at while they may be rewind and listen to that piece again. But I love everything that you're sharing, including the tilt of the earth, yet it's close to the sun. And, you know, for me, astronomy doesn't stick all the time. So hearing it again and again is very helpful and also making it poetic where it spins and cycles and I love spirals. Spirals make sense to me because I'm very familiar with coming back to that next season, next year, but you're a different person.
Yeah, and the spiral and evolution, those themes will come back to you. They're core teachings within this time period.
So the sun and the earth being closer together right now does mean that the force of gravity from the sun is stronger on the earth and what that does is speed up the motion of the earth.
It's not going faster day by day right now, but it's at its fastest portion of the motion. So the earth is kind of whipping around the winter part of its path with the sun.
In springtime, it is moving out of that closeness and there's a change in speed. And so that change in speed is felt. And we call it springing, spring, the season it's, we're like springing up. And then summertime, Northern Hemisphere summertime, the earth is furthest from the sun.
And so it's actually slowing down. And then it starts to, the earth starts to fall back to the sun and it's pulled back and it increases in speed so it springs up in the springtime it kind of slows down and almost that comes to the slowest part of its path in the summer and then it starts to fall again in the fall time in the autumn and so there's this speeding up and slowing down that happens around the equinoxes and that's why there's certain practices there. But we're in the fastest part of the orbit, but that's change of speed is not very much day to day.
And so that's why it's the solstice period, there's a stillness to this period. And in the summertime, the same, it's slower part of the orbit.
But it's generally the same speed every day and so speed can be measured like miles per hour kind of a thing or it can be measured as change in velocity and so if we're looking at change in velocity there's a stillness of the earth's speed in the winter and in the summer from Samhein or November 1st area to Imbolc or or February 1st area of the year, the sun and the earth are in a pretty relatively stable pattern with each other. And then from February 1st until May 1st until Beltane, there's that springing, a big change is happening. And then from May 1st until August 1st, there's that stability again and then from August 1st until November 1st again, there's this falling. So from Lughnasa to Samhain. And you can visualize that by plotting the height of the sun every day through the year.
There's this thing called Analemma. It's the visualization of the height of the sun. sun at noon every day. And it makes this figure eight pattern in the sky.
And the distance of winter time is wide and thick. The distance of springtime is long and stretch up across the sky.
And then there's this wide stability where the sun is at its height for many days in a row, and then there's this stretching down and in fall it falls in the sky very quickly, goes from its height at August 1st to near its bottom at October 31st, November 1st.
And so it's this wide figure eight, and we're in the belly of the bottom of the height of the sun. So the Catholic calendar, which is rooted in some deeper, wiser, older, more feminine traditions, the Gnostic Christianity and those things which predated it, has holidays on December 8th and January 6th. And those are exactly one lunar cycle away from each other.
And December 8th, they call it the immaculate conception. And January 6th is called the epiphany. And so those dates box us into the depth of the solstice orb with winter solstice.
Solstice time being right in the middle of that. So there's the equinox periods, which there's a lot of change happening. And then there's the solstice periods, where there's a lot of stillness happening. Solstice means still sun. Doesn't equinox mean seeking balance or something along those lines?
You know, equa would be balanced, yeah, but I'm not I'm not confident in the exact meaning of equinox, actually. I lost that. It used to be in my brain somewhere,but yeah, because it would just sense that that's a time that things are really shifting for us to understand the polarities and seeking that balance while there is a shift that's happening.
You know, like as a child, did you ever like balance the egg on its side and just see if it could balance? and so it's a great metaphor of can you balance like this egg.
Yeah, so the solstice period that's almost like you can't help but be in balance because there's so much stability and so it's about kind of exalting that state.
Equinox, yeah, it's kind of like holding on in the midst of all the change and so that's where the cleansing practice has come in. So, yeah, the sun is at its lowest point in the sky right around the solstice, but it's really quite low from November 1st until February 1st.
And again, that's for us Northern Hemisphere folk. It would be at its height for those in the Southern Hemisphere. hemisphere. And so yeah, the Catholic calendar marks the depth of that winter solstice period with one full lunar cycle.
And it doesn't start on necessarily a new moon or full moon or anything, it's just about 13 days from the depth depth, like the deepest depth, the holy, holy of the winter solstice orb. And then 13 days after that. So there's this three -ish day period of solstice, and then the 13 days on either side of that, the Catholic calendar is marking, and it's inheriting these days from previous religions and previous cultures. And the first of those days is December 8th.
It's called the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. And the last of those days is called Epiphany. It's January 6th. And so we are now firmly into that period.
And we're moving toward the actual winter solstice period. And this year, it is on December 21st. And then-- around December 25th, the sun starts to slowly grow and move upward in the sky again. And so that's why Christmas is that day. It's the birth of the sun.
It goes into the womb for wintertime and then it's rising again, it's born again. And so there's mythology from all around the globe.
In Egyptian mythology, Osiris dies and then is reborn. There's all kinds of themes here, similar to that. And really, the themes relate to innocence and rebirth and reclaiming our pureness, our exaltation. But the currents here are very different.
The ascending and descending, as we had talked about with the yang and yin of the wheel of the year, were really magnifying the way that those two currents come together.
So the 13 days leading to the solstice were cleansing, were finishing, letting go of everything. that has accumulated through the year.
And there's a process of involution going on, which is like a snake shedding its skin. And then there's that stillness, the deep stillness from the 21st to the night of the 24th really. And then the next 13 days are exaltation, joy, merriment. We're moving back toward the summer solstice theme of one with all. So the winter solstice is about one with spaciousness, one with God, one with truth, one with the core essence of your being.
The summer solstice is about one with all of life.
You're consciously coherent with life and coherence in this sense means choosing to mindfully be part of interconnectedness, interdependence. And so there's themes of how to let go of the old, how to call in the new.
So there's themes of celebration and joy and there's themes of feeding the core essence of your being, feeding your truth. That's awesome. I really love that. It feels like a very evolved state of mind, too, right, or more and more recognizing how important it is to connect to others, how important community is. With all species,not just humans, right? We're not whole unless we actually get outside into nature and become, you know, a part of society.
That's really, I love it.
And these can be larger reminders, but also like ships, you know, carrying us and like, oh, here is how you should be little humans in this vast stretch of time. but let me aid you with this cosmic love. Yeah, so one way to visualize this is the Arctic is descending over the northern hemisphere.
And the meaning of the word Arctic is actually dream walking bear. It's this bear in hibernation. It's like, oh, here is how you should be, little human in this vast stretch of time, but let me aid you with this cosmic love. We're in this period of being able to to witness our dreams to witness our subconscious.
The subconscious isn't something you can see directly. But you can see ripples of it. And so our dreams are one way that we're seeing the ripples of our subconscious.
And we're able to choose what we're trying to dream into reality. And so it's about becoming aware of our dreams, our desires, and then harmonizing them.
And so a lot of this rebirth of the Christ, those kinds of themes are about how do we move forward in harmony with our truth.
Summer solstice is where we are harmonizing with others with something outside of ourselves. But this is our deeper truths, our dharma, our deeper desires, understanding our longings. - Exactly, yes. Yeah, and I'd like to use the word be longing. You're so aware of your longings that they're in harmony with us.
Then Christmas Day, you know, you've done this work of getting into the depth of your soul and understanding your truth.
And then Christmas Day is a celebration, let's go out and let's give gifts of our presence to others. And let's make merry, let's sing a joyful song, let's ring bells, you know. And so... And so a lot of our ceremonies that we're all already taking part in one way or another are feeding this process and are turning the wheel of our evolution.
And again, evolution is this two step process. Involution, evolution. It's out breath, in breath. Left foot, right foot. They call it the entropic two step in physics. So we, in alchemy, it's salve equagulum.
So it's to dissolve, to let things go into solution and then to purify them and then bring them back together. And so we're spiraling through our evolutionary process.
- All right, and Tantra, this would be Sponda, right? right? Or even in yoga therapy, brahmana and langana, in herbs too, anabolic and catabolic. Is that am I still going with the theme here?
Yeah, for sure, yeah, brahmana and langana for sure. And so brahmana is to make whole and grow, langana is to clear and purify. And yeah, anabolic, brahmana, catabolic, longana. And so you can't forget also that whenever you have two,you have three and that's the relationship between them. And a lot of times you could visualize the relationship here to be fiery, it's metabolic. So if you have anabolic and catabolic,like metabolic is the metaphor of the relationship. between them. Oh, meta. Metabolic.
So are you saying the metabolic?
That metabolization of hearth fire, um, it brings me to that. My favorite Gaelic saying, (speaking in foreign language) is there's no fire, but my own fire, my own hearth fire. And then that's the same in the summer solstice is that,you know, this connection to the radiant life force that is moving through us and breathing us into our existence is still a metabolic integration that's happening there.
- That's exactly right, Brooke. So, So it's like that finding that ocean of fire within at the solstice and then at this, sorry, at the winter solstice, and then at the summer solstice, you're just swimming in the ocean of Prana and metabolism. It's just life essence is everywhere. You can help us see it.
But at winter solstice, it's looking for that on the inside. - And cultivating it on the inside, which is what you're gonna get into, right? - Really?
- I love to talk about the plants that can help us with our digestion or radiance even in the gloomy times of dark, wet, cold, dreary times of year.
- Yeah, there's a lot of brightening is the theme. And so how do we make our... our inner environment bright? And so the best way to do that is to make our outer environment bright first.
And so there's Hanukkah and Diwali and all these celebrations of light leading into this period. And we have this calling to light candles or to light fairy lights or Christmas tree lights.
And then there's also the... the use of essential oils. And so many traditions of burning frankincense or there's analogs to that all around the globe.
There's these sacred resins to burn. In Santa Fe, they burn pinion pine to call them the Christ child. You know, there's copaiba or copal. There's myrrh, there's also the use of essential oils. these tree resins mostly from around the globe, but then there's also the volatile oils of pines. And so cutting a fresh tree down and putting it in your room actually lightens the spirit of that room and exalts the energy of that room.
So we're in the depth of the darkness and we're moving into the coldest time of the year. year so we're going to spend a lot of time in our house and so lighting the hearth fire sacredly and bringing that kind of purifying essence into the environment that you're in goes a really long way to this process of evolving yourself consciously and staying light in the darkness.
There's also this threat of entheogenic use in this time of year that comes from a lot of different cultures.
And that's where a lot of the symbolism around Santa is actually depicting the sacred use of Amnit and Muskulera. And that's a story probably a lot of people are familiar with now.
But there's also cultures of ergot use in... in Europe and even in early America. There's use of chocolate this time of year in Central America and there's a lot of plant allies that people have taken to increase what I would call their connection to so much consciousness and so the plants are holders of planetary wisdom, and we can align with them to activate certain aspects within ourselves. And one cosmic truth is Soma, which relates to Yin in Chinese medicine or in Daoism. It's this juicy, unctuous... milky,white fluid, basically, that flows from the depth of our being and nourishes us. And that relates to another aspect of that same fractal,which is the concept of OGIS in Ayurvedic medicine, which is your core vitality. and at this point trying to activate that and bring it out and move it through the body.
And so like Christmas time is when we want to get that flowing again. And so this is where we can zoom in again on that descending ascending currents. The Christian religion or the Christian language around this would be the.
There's this energy of heaven coming to earth, and then we're birthing that energy out after the solstice into the Christmas orb.
The 13 days of Christmas were birthing out this Holy Spirit that has come into us, and now we're accentuating the ascending of our divine essence into reality.
And so that's what Jesus being born with then represents, is our divinity being birthed into reality. and so a lot of practices that would be helpful during this time are those that work with those ascending and descending currents and so there's advanced tantric techniques that really require empowerment to go into but the idea is that there's a red drop above your head, a white drop in your navel and that you're moving the energy between them. And again, we see this red and white theme that is alive in Santa and is alive in the Amanitas.
And so the cultural use of certain amanitas was to activate this process of evolving consciously.
And so for us, we can do that yogically and there's no need to actually use specific mushrooms or herbs or anything we can actually just activate those currents within us.
Burning frankincense is helpful bringing a pine tree into the house can be helpful and that pine tree is also representing representing the green and the red and green.
So the red of Christmas represents the wisdom tradition of the feminine, the Mary's, the lineage of feminine wisdom on this planet.
And the portal that the womb is to birthing our new reality. And so for even those with male bodies we still have that womb essence within us and we still have the capacity to birth our reality too and then the white is representative of the masculine the the ability to regenerate the system so that would be sperm but it's even on a higher frequency it's soma and it's the regenerative capacity of the body which is insane in Sanskrit, we call it chukra. And the other way you can look at it is red and green. And so green would be everlasting life.
And so that's where we have the idea of a wreath or of the Christmas tree. The wreath is representing circular cyclical aspect of reality.
So it's really a herbal practice to make a wreath and hang it or to cut down a tree and put it in your house. And there's a way that that can be causing no harm to the world around you.
Like a lot of forests really need to be thinned. And so taking a small tree and bringing it into your environment can actually be helpful to the world. world around you. And there's a tradition deep in our cultures, especially the Celtic culture of tying petitions and prayers to trees. And so that's one aspect of the ornament. The mushroom shamans would cut muskleria, the amanitas growing under the trees and hang them on the trees.
And so there's there's a depth of wisdom behind putting ornaments on the trees. But if we're consciously decorating our environment with herbs and with prayers, that's really helpful for going into these practices.
- Yeah, decorating our environment to inspire, to awaken, to create that radiance within us. And yeah, so just a little recap. recap talking about how certain herbs like frankincense, myoclopal are used cross -culturally as ways to invoke or invite this radiance.
You also talked about the the soma's descent and the location of Ojas and you you talked about the Yin and the Yang and when you had originally talked about this, it was that teardrop of descent, right? It's the soma, that's the nectar, the cosmic healing essence, right? In that dot in the center of the teardrop, what is that there? And then the same thing with ojas is that wellspring of the now of what we're dealing with right now. And ojas is a term in Sanskrit that's basically...
Our essential wholeness and immunity, excuse me, where immunity is derived from. What is the dot? That was one question that I had. And then also just to talk a little about how you are sharing how advanced Tantric techniques can really start to just like activate this current in a way that we have to be prepared and you said empowered.
And I think empowerment is definitely what we get out of being educated. So we definitely need to be educated prior to trying to do any of these practices, especially there are a lot of books written and a lot of people share the practices widely, but they may be missing pieces to them. They're inappropriately prepared, right? They're not given to the right person at the right time. All of these things do need to be held in consideration.
So that is. why they're talked about as advanced practices. But I would say too that there are ways that we can yogically, tantrically work with these energies that are very safe and grounding.
And, you know, one of them that comes to mind is Agni Sara, right? So when we are stimulating the power of the naval center, that is awakening that hearthfire within.
So I do have a lot of listeners that study. study Ayurveda and yoga. And so, you know, when we start to step a little more into manipulating the forces of nature to awaken Kundalini is really how Atantric would say it.
We're working with shifting the direction of pranvayu and apanvayu. And in that shift, it activates Manipura Chakra, activates the navel center.
So that's where the Kundalini fire rises. and it's imperative though that we have these restorative practices of these times of year like we have to hibernate right now we have to unplug we have to get still it's a non -negotiable to build the ojas for this flame to be lit right that's also the the candle and the ghee for the lamp so we need these practices so that we can evolve but I think it's important to write that this evolution is not out of our grasp, you know where we have the means to bring in practices, and we also have the means to do them in an order of operation that we are really safe.
We do it in a stepping stone that stabilizes and holds our nervous system so that we can get more charged. But yeah, it is to be mindful about that is really important.
Okay, so the dots in the yin and yang. Those are places where the ruling physics of downward and upward are turned on their head, basically. And so that's what solstice is. And so the world is fractal holographic in its essence.
And so anything at any level resembles something at another level. Within fractal geometry, there's this idea of built -in form of recursion.
And it's clear that our ancestors across the globe saw that form of recursion as a tree. And so there's another layer of... the symbolism of having a tree in the house. But that tree can be representative of our energetic field. That's represented by a shape called the torus.
And so for those who are unaware what that means, it's kind of like a doughnut shape with infinite loops of energy moving in every direction. And there's a central channel of emptiness. There's an empty central channel. And that in yogic practice could be our Sushumna Nadi.
But the solstices are portals to that still period of the Sushumna Nadi of the year, basically.
And so we're at Christmas time, or especially at Solstice time, winter, we're in that portal.
And so the things that we think of as feminine and masculine are a little bit harmonized and shifted. And so the way that I like to describe this is there's this downward triangle from summer solstice to winter solstice and there's an upward triangle from winter solstice to summer solstice but we're in that Solomon seal where David star of the union of the downward and upward triangles and that is representative of the Anahata chakra that the heart. And so the practices that we want to be doing right now are getting into that heart essence. And so the connection with Ojas there is that Ojas is said to be stored in the heart.
And the esoteric teaching is that that original zygote are very first cell from the communion of her father's sperm and her mother's egg is still there, alive in us and it contains our identity. It's the seat of our consciousness. And some of our solstice we're wanting to be in the wisdom of our interconnection with all beings.
It's winter solstice. We wanna be in the wisdom of the essence of our heart, the drop of life that resides in our heart.
And that is representative by the the Tibetan six syllable mantra, Om Manipedme Om, which means hail to the gem in the center of the lotus, which resides in my heart, you know, roughly that. And so what we're really wanting to do with Winner Solstice is get in communion with that seed of consciousness in the center of our heart. And you're absolutely right. But my interpretation of that is that it relates to I am unity, finding our I am essence. And so that's something Jesus is representing when he's born, that I amness. But that's a big thread within all of his teachings.
He said, "Before Abraham was I am." And so, what does that I am mean? It's a really good cone for all of us to sit with.
What is I am? And the practice that I really like to do is to just breathe into that. And so, if you feel ready, I want to guide us into that.
Absolutely.
So let's rest our eyes, not really forcefully closing our eyes, but rest them and come to a nice stable upright position with our spine. And then start with a cleansing exhale.
Exhale, and a deep nourishing inhale, and the next inhale again, feeling the connection of all of yourselves pulling out what you don't need, letting it go, and then breathe deeply into your heart.
Exhale from your fingertips, from your toes, exhale from the very extremities of your being. Continue the breath.
As you breathe in, follow that nutrition, the Prana -rich air. as it moves into your heart. And as you breathe out,
Feel the Prana -rich air surrounding you move into the extremities of your body, move into the vascular circulation of your body. So now there's a flow of nutrition coming in the breath on the inhale.
And a flow of nutrition coming into the distal, the outer part of your body through cosmic nutrition from the atmosphere around you.
Breathing in, you're nourished by your breath. breath, breathing out, you're nourished by the cosmos. See the breath nourishing your heart on the inhale and then see the heart being nourished by the breath on the exhale.
Breath moves in to the lungs, from the lungs to the heart, from the heart to the body, from the very ends of your vascular system with the capillaries, it then pulls in life force again and spreads that back through the body to the heart, to the lungs, and out. And you are simply that flow.
There's currents moving upward, currents moving downward, and then there's the still current, the eternal now of your beingness.
So as you breathe, just reside in the radiance of your essence, the gem within the lotus that resides in your heart.
When you're ready, bring your focus back to your body and take a nice cleansing exhale with the audible Then again again, ah, ah. that which you are far precedes the stories that we create and the identity that we create.
And so winter solstice is about getting to that innocence, the playfulness, the joyfulness of your childlike nature, unadulterating all of the things that have an identity. you as you became an adult and getting to that Christ child within that pure essence of your existence.
That is an epigenetic factor which will reawaken your genome in its highest most exalted state. And so Christmas is all about this exaltation.
There's no need to alter with an E anything. All you need to do is alter with two A's, A -L -T -A -R, everything.
- That was delicious, thank you, Mike. I feel so calm, and I love the visceral sensation of feeling my blood vessels and seeing my heart and the anatomy and the peace.
Yeah, thank you. I know that I kind of want to just close there, but I do want to tie in just a few things that I think shouldn't be left unsaid.
Just so we can have a nice full picture of our talk where you know in in the Vedic tradition the the jam the mani right which is also where mani Buddha comes from but this lotus of the heart in a Buddhist tradition that's in the tantric tradition we have a practice called vishoka meditation that's largely on this practice of the heart space, but you have to do all of this preparatory work, which to me is an exact mapping of what everything you just shared, Michael, and I can possibly just go over it just a moment.
But before I share that, I was just feeling into how that place in between the belly and the heart, the hridaya, is also known as the kapa. "Khopavriksha," right, the wish -fulfilling tree. So what a perfect imagery too during this time of Christmas and honoring the,honoring nature in its evergreen phase and the joy and the scent and the radiance that even at the darkest times, nature still contains and that reminder of that and how we have that within us.
And one of the practices that I know you do is yoga nidra, right, and I know you have in the past, and one of the things that we do with yoga nidra is to create a sankalpa, and that's a it's a perfect time of year to, in this dreaming phase, to really connect with what are your deepest desires, to feel them coming true, and then seeding that in the heart space. That's you seeding your wish -fulfilling tree. so that the scent, the radiance can emerge as this rebirthing of manifested dreams.
Yeah, that was the one thing that I wanted to share. But then the other piece was just this practice of Vishoko, which I know you're not a part of my tradition, but I think everything that you said, I was like, oh my goodness, we're doing this as a practice, we are mirroring what's going on. in the wheel of time that you just shared."
So for those listeners who practice,we choke or even not, we start off with just inhaling and exhaling. It's the first practice you get really good at breathing in and breathing out.
And what it's doing is it's regulating your nervous system. It's allowing you to find that sense of stability and resilience in any shifting of life, you know, becoming your own pillar, your own anchor, no matter what's going on in the world. And we do that through breath practices like diaphragmatic breathing, sandbag breathing, and crocodile pose. So that's like the first thing that we do. And then the second is to start tracking the spine in this up and down orientation, which is just exactly what you are sharing with this descent of the soma and then the ascent right of this rebirthing and in that we actually drop the awareness at the points along the spine where we'll start a couple breaths at the top usually three and then we descend all the way down and we do three breaths at the bottom so here again it's like these three breaths at the same time.
We're we're taking a few more moments here to really coalesce the mind body and spirit So you feel that true union and there's that's that that stillness that summer solstice is offering here at the top. We're in that union.
You are one with the Sun. You're one with nature You're in summer joy. You can just be and you're filled with life force energy and then we decide down. And then we anchor here for a few breaths in the winter solstice time, where it's allowing us that peace that let go, don't do, dream, be anchor, get rooted, get grounded, right? So mirroring.
So that's the practice where you then develop a really clear awareness of the felt sensation of you. and your prana moving up and down.
So I think that's really, really powerful as we think about that in our Wheel of Time, where then the practice expands, where we start to feel the head on the Agarbha, that's the orb. So the real, the tube -tauris, as you were sharing, was cosmic donut, and we are now tracing the cosmic donut with our breath. So we exhale down and we inhale back up the back body and we do that a few rounds and then we do it side to side and then all 10 points, all 10 directions. So again, it's all of these things to connect you to the life force energy to then bring into your nostrils and just come back to the breath.
It's like inhaling and exhaling, but we're now collecting it here at the third eye, which Thank you very much. Thank you. us more into that stillness, that pause, but the marriage of the moon and the sun.
And then once that really occurs, then we can bring it into the heart, which is Vishoka. It's the state of sorrowless joy. It's the eternal Jyotishmati light with them.
And yeah, so it's really beautiful, everything that you're sharing. And I know Tantra is a reflection of the macrocosm. So here we have also another visceral practice. This lotus of the heart is very much drawn to from the Buddhist om mani padmi hum practice and the lotus sutras.
Yeah, so, really special. - Great, that's also good. I wanna mention, for those who don't know the terms and kapa, it's like a... a message from your soul. A lot of people think of it as intention, but it's really, it's like a prayer from your soul and the idea is to listen to that. And so as we move into the new year, think of resolution in that way of what is the brightest, clearest vision of your soul?
How can you have the highest resolution of self -wisdom?
-wisdom? And so getting back to the heart space and listening is the best practice to do that. And I would say lose the mind and come to the senses.
The senses are where your desire is coming from. And oftentimes we get so cerebral, so in our head with our words.
And to just get to that. point of just feeling again, and really breathing into the heart and listening, and asking what you want to create in this world instead of telling yourself what you want to create.
I love that. Another mic drop. That's, let's rewire our story. Let's retell the narrative in a way that we're not coming through this ambition, kind of masculine. patriarchal way, but instead honoring this end time of the feminine and listening and allowing the dreams to create the vows of the soul, the resolve of the soul to make a shift in this new year. Yeah, instead of here's a to -do list. Let's instead move through, I love to call it the pleasure portal.
It's bringing us into more alignment than any to -do list could ever do for us. As long as it's not, you know, it's just all the bad habits. We're like, "Oh, I want to do this." And then, the good things that are bringing us back to wholeness. We talked a little bit about the trees and Christmas tree and even the Gulf of Riksha. And I just wanted to ask you, what's the symbology of the reindeer?
Yeah, well, it's tied into the symbology of Santa also. And there's other aspects of Santa, which are the whole story of St. Nicholas, which the whole other thread. But aspects of the Santa thread are coming from the shamanic culture that once spread from basically basically from Mongolia all the way to Norway.
There's this pretty similar shamanic culture, and it's the shamanic culture of the reindeer, the reindeer herders basically. So reindeer are the exact same animal as caribou, but they're domesticated. And I think this thread goes back to a time when where it's somewhere between caribou and reindeer, where we were following the caribou herds around, much like other ancestors of ours were following bovine creatures around. There's a, there's this really interesting connection between the great mother, like Pothor is a symbol here from Egypt. But it's in all cultures of like this great mother who's this cat. or this other ruminant being, and that basically they always show us where mushrooms are, too.
And so that there was, you know, Liberty Caps and different Qbenzi type mushrooms coming out of the the feces of bovines, but with the with the reindeer, they would eat amanitas. And so the shamans would actually dress like the amanitas. They would wear red and white robes.
And these peoples all lived in Europe. And the shamans would come back with the prepared muskulara down the chimney.
The chimney was the way to get into the Europe when it was all snowed in, basically. There's a lot of Santa thread here, but the reindeer, the idea of them flying is them eating these, for those who don't know, they're what you might consider like the Super Mario mushrooms. It's the red cap with the white dots on it. And the work with those actually takes you to the inner child.
And so there's, again, the theme of innocence. Yeah, which is alive in the Holly and Ivy story from Celtic culture, but also the baby Jesus, this working to reawaken your innocence, which is also alive in the clearing of the womb, the virgin womb in the Mary story, which is alive in the Mary story. But the reindeer would eat these musculare which grow under the pine trees.
And they would show the shamans where they are. And there's also stories that there's certain ways you have to process it. It's a poisonous mushroom. It's not just like there's, there's a whole spectrum of mushrooms from edible to poisonous and entheogenic being somewhere in between. The amanitas are on the poisonous side of the entheogenic part of the spectrum.
And so there's certain ways to process them. You have to dry them completely. I know they put them over a fire. fire. Yeah and so they actually hang them in stockings over the fire.
It's drying and remoistening and it's a whole thing that I don't recommend anyone use these mushrooms unless they know exactly what they're doing.
You just said, I don't want to, before we get too far off of that, that is it the mushroom that brings us to the innocence you were saying.
Yeah yeah it's um um typically you know certain compounds have certain uh themes that they might take you through as you go through the entheogenic experience with them and a lot of people report the amanitas take you to the inner child and work with the inner child and so reawakening our innocence really which is uh you know endowed unadulterated nature.
But yeah, this goes into what you were saying. So for those of you listening and Theos and Theogen means to be with God, with the divine. And so what I'm hearing from you is that this time of year when the Amanita are strong, the shamans and reindeer culture would eat these and Theogenic foods that would then bring them into a oneness with the Divine,which as we've already talked about, this is where in the solstice we are coming into this oneness, this harmony, in that three -day still point, this harmony of self with self, or self with capital S Self, so the Divine, whereas maybe it's a different kind of substance that a shaman would take, it would be moving into the self and the innocence and the unadulterated aspect of yourself if it were summer solstice and you're moving out into the world and connecting with others.
- Yeah, and yeah, that thread of innocence is so important. I mean, the Celtic tradition, there's the Holly King in Ivy, his concert, who are children, they're like playful little children. And this is great Christian Celtic tradition. There's this idea of playfulness and being like a kid. And you know, that idea of pure joy when you're opening presents Christmas morning, for those of us lucky enough to have had that experience, you know, that is what we're trying to cultivate this time of year is that pure unadulterated potential.
And that's what's encouraging the exalted expression of our time. genetic code and our genius. It's play activates genius.
And we're looking for that. - Yeah, and the joy. I love that and how Holly as a flower essence is really helpful for siblings to overcome jealousy.
So it's really good for families. And it is a heart medicine. It's one of the ones that helps to clear jealousy and competitiveness for them. the heart so that we can be in community.
Yeah, if you look at Santa, he represents generosity, compassion, and wisdom. And those are the three antidotes to the three poisons, which are ignorance, aversion, and attachment. And so generosity is the antidote for attachment and compassion is antidote for aversion or anger,you know, the pit, the fiery type of poisons that we incultivate in our mind. And wisdom is the antidote for delusion or ignorance.
And this is a great guide for you. trinity, Santa's trilogy. But my mom would be happy to hear me talk about this too.
I do believe in Santa, and so I could just tell you a story of him and weaving in different elements. But one thing to really be clear on is that he represents the same thing that Budei who is the laughing Buddha.
Budei is an 8th century monk in China and so when you see that big round Buddha laughing, it's not actually Buddha that's Budei who is actually a pre -incarnation of the next Buddha and anyway let's not we have too many cultures in, but he's representing the same thing as buddha, which is contentment. And so to be round -bellied and joyful, it's being content without any more desire.
You are completely fulfilled. And he is based on stories from the past the Shamanic cultures.
He's based on Odin. He's also based on some Germanic tribal lore, too. But the story of St. Nicholas, which has these stories kind of as a confluence entering into his river, he was, I think, a third century. And I'd have to research some of the exacts.
But I think he was a third century. person in Turkey, and he was an alchemist in the tradition of the Gnostics, kind of what would become the Rosicrucians. And so there are these Christians who have a really strong sense of divine feminine and have not divorced themselves from our ancient lineages.
And being an alchemist, he was able to transmute base metals into gold, which is definitely not the purpose of alchemy, but he used that to his advantage. He freed different prostitutes from their bondage by paying off their dowry in gold.
There's a lot of stories like that. He was also adept in a lot of yogic arts. He was an excellent archer.
And that's kind of the full expression of one of the yogic arts Donor Veda. And he was also known to be an excellent sailor. And so my story of Santa is St.Nicholas, being this fantastic alchemist, learned some potions of immortality. And he sailed away from the Roman culture, which had been overtaking Turkey at the time, and found sanctuary in the Celtic Isles.
And he learned to enter into communion with the old peoples, the people who were there far before him. and into the Tuatha Deidana, into the fairy realms. And that he then, from there, journeyed into the far reaches of Norway and Sweden, and entered into that shamanic culture there, and was entered into those traditions of the deep shamanic teachings of the reindeer, and following the flying reindeer and that those peoples also helped him enter into the realm of the elves and that he now resides in another realm in that arctic sphere and that maybe he really truly is there still this day doing miracle works and maybe he really does come visit the children and bring gifts but anyway this this imagery of him can still be alive in each of us and you know I think we all have the ability to be Santa in our own lives to the people around us. I love your depiction of Santa as a sage alchemist.
This is my favorite story of Santa. The whole idea of the alchemist and I know we talked earlier and didn't really drop into it too much but this three days of solstice on either end of the spectrum being these still points and how you actually called them still currents and there was a play on words there and you talked about this in the last episode that we recorded. Will you go a little bit into because as I an alchemist, it's honestly, I think for many modern years, they don't really understand practical application of alchemy, where, you know, we're really living alchemy every day, and then how to look at that in both the mythic, maybe cultural lens, you have such a beautiful, syncretic view of being able to weave all these different cultures in.
Yeah, so the still current there's kind of a triple entendre there. Still current as in still right now it's news like it's present like it's the eternal now the flow of the eternal now you're it's content continuous perpetually new and present.
You're entering into that timelessness. And we're so acculturated to believe in past and present in this very fixed way. But the more you meditate, the more you get into yoga, the more you get into physics, the deeper you go into it. reality, the more you touch everything, and the more you enter all timelines. And this idea of past and future seems a little bit more convoluted and antiquated, really. So there's that eternal now, that's one aspect of the still current. But there is also the currents in us still and so there's that flow of the ascending and descending currents.
So a still is an apparatus that you're heating up herbal matter in and you're siphoning out something on the other side and so the essential oils the spirit of the soul of the plant is released into you.
And the idea with alchemy, as I mentioned at the very beginning, is sauve aquagulum. And so there's separating the soul,the spirit, and the body of something, purifying them and bringing them back together. And so at sauve this time, we're looking for that exaltation aspect of of ourselves, the exalted soul, the exalted spirit, the exalted body. In the Christian pantheon, you know, it's Father, Son, Holy Spirit, those three things. But that trinity exists in every culture.
And it's just how you are, the body, and our exalted soul, which is the higher self. And they all exist in the heart. And so by not letting the mind get in the way of the connection of the body and the soul, that's where the sankapa comes through, our true message of self comes through. And so doing that practice we did before breathing into the heart space activates that I am essence and our truth, our divinity, our heaven comes through in our Christ nature comes through into this world.
Thank you, Michael. Thank you.
Well, again, it's such a joy to connect with you and have this conversation of this wheel of time. and how to talk Christmas trees and wreaths and just these deeper cultural traditions from not just the festivities but a more deeper psychological level and mythological level.
Yeah, is there anything else you'd like to share?
I think just remembering the importance of of joy in this time, you know, and maybe this time also brings up a lot of hardship but I think if you're aware of it it's those 13 days leading to the solstice where hardship comes up because we're the very end of the exhale and then if we can sit in stillness for those three days from the 21st to the 25th then we have these 13 nights coming up the 13 nights of Christmas where we will feel called to be celebratory and give gifts and to act like the magi is bringing the frankincense, myrrh and gold to the baby Jesus, that imagery. And we should do that for ourselves. The gold is representing the end of the alchemical journey.
And so that's represented by merriment. and joy. And so to look at the the grace of Santa as a something to live up to during this period,I think is really important in that process of spinning the wheel.
All right, Michael van Skyver. Is there anything that you would like to let people know that you are doing?
Are you taking more clients right now? Michael is a really great herbal client. I'm not sure if you're selling any products.
- Yeah, yeah, my company is Joyful Forest Medicine and it's in the process of also being a school, but currently it only really exists in the brick and mortar of my practice and the herbs that I'm providing. And so I do see patients from around the globe.
So if anyone wants to find me, you can find me at Michael M -I -C -H -A -E -L at Joyful Forest. .com.