Scorpio Season ~ How Mushroom Medicine & Herbs Supported Me Through my Shedding Season of Divorce & Professional Shifts With BxB
As the weather cools down, as the sun sets a bit earlier and as Scorpio season approaches, I have been thinking a lot about the energy of shedding and transformation. Scorpio season is one of my favorite times of the year. It carries with it the energies of our ancestors, the veil thinning- the season of the witch, leaves changing and being shed from the trees. In my spiritual path Scorpio is associated with the Orisha, Oya and the Tower tarot card. In my personal belief, this season holds the asé of mushroom medicine as well. These are SUCH potent power houses with deep medicine. Did you know that the year 2020 was the year of Oya & the tower?? These forces remind us of a huge perspective shift– reminding us that sometimes we’ve gotta knock down what isn’t serving us, shed some shit in order to make space for something greater–sometimes we’ve gotta endure some pain to appreciate pleasures and sometimes things have to cease to exist so that we can start anew. Paying attention to the environment around us also, we see the leaves change and fall and as we admire that shift- we’ve gotta honor & admire the similar shift that is occurring within us at this time. We are truly reflections of the world around us. Death is not about something ending, it’s about that energy being transformed into something different. I feel really connected to these themes and find them to be liberating.
I know that a lot of us are feeling these shifts and maybe we are going through them alone, internally, solo dolo. It's hard to have words to explain the shifts and change while we’re IN it. I hope that by sharing my experiences and sharing what helped me to move through them, it can help you to move through your changes as well. These energies came in heavy for me in 2020-21 as I quite literally knocked down the tower of my personal and professional life, allowing them to burn away, making space to rebuild what felt more aligned. That season brought lots of shedding; and for me that looked like my Saturn return ending, getting a divorce from my partner of 10 years, moving out of my home of 8 years, leaving all my belongings behind, closing Haus of Bread, releasing friendships that didn’t align– basically giving my whole ass life a huge limpieza. Terrified but ready, I leapt out of that version of myself like them folks in the tower card. Had it not been for my relationship with mushroom medicine, my medicine community and therapy….idk where I would’ve landed to be honest. But let me go back a bit..
When we look at The Tower (Rider Waite) card, it shows a tall tower on the top of a mountain. Lightning strikes setting the building into flames and two people leap from the windows head first and arms outstretched. It is a scene of chaos and destruction. The Tower itself is a solid structure, but because it has been built on shaky foundations, it only takes one bolt of lightning to bring it down. It represents ambitions and goals made on false premises. The lightning represents a sudden surge of energy and insight that leads to a break-through or revelation. It enters via the top of the building and knocks off the crown, symbolizing energy flowing down from the Universe, through the crown chakra. The people are desperate to escape from the burning building, not knowing what awaits them as they fall. Around them are flames, representing the signs of the zodiac and 10 points of the Tree of Life, suggesting that even in times of disaster, there is always divine intervention.
As I also mentioned before,The Tower is represented by the Yoruba Orisha Oya (and the Hindu god Shiva) Both are destructive forces of nature who come throuuuugghhh when our slate needs cleaning, and will destroy that which no longer serves us. We see Oya as the lighting setting ablaze the fragile tower and trampling the ego. Sometimes this destruction can come in the form of a set of ideas that we have of ourselves (the crown atop the tower)- this destruction frees us to become something new. Going back to something I wrote a moment ago– 2020 was the year of the tower…HOW much has changed for you, for the collective since then?
I like to think of mushrooms in the same way. They appear in nature when something is decaying and are the first sign of life as that decay becomes fertilizer for something new. They live at the intersection of death and rebirth. Mushroom medicine is also known for ‘ killing’ the ego. When we sit with mushrooms we are able to tap into a higher version of ourselves, finding the god within. Reminding us of our connection to all things, alive and transitioned. It shows us the map to remembrance and helps us to forge an intentional path forward.
In my personal life, I felt the tower shift happening at the end of 2019 after my first Ayahuasca ceremony. I was shown aspects of myself and of my perceived self as a physical mask that I was tired of wearing. Aya showed me how my feet were tired from walking on a path that I ‘thought’ I should be on, dragging them towards what I thought was expected of me, not necessarily what I wanted for myself. I had been going through a lot of physical illness at the time surrounding my womb health and poor energy levels…my body was trying to tell me something but my mind was not really trying to see. I hid behind work and the act of constantly taking care of others as a means of distraction. Ayahuasca gave me clarity on some shiiiit about myself and I honestly had a hard time coming to terms and even navigating what she was telling me at the moment. Fast forward to a few months later, I was still avoiding the work- I had drained my bank account to open a new shop (Haus of Bread), I was working triple time to support myself and my partner and I was trying to save my partnership in ways that didn’t really work for either of us– I was getting sicker by the day and avoiding my inner work even more so.
The world shut down just 1 month after I had opened Haus and for the first time in YEARSSS, I was given the opportunity to just sit with myself and sit in the life that I had been working so hard to build. That was a rough reality check bc what was I actually building?? I also had not really given myself much time to properly integrate my ayahuasca journey until then. I was forced (like all of us) to sit in my shit and reflect on the things that truly mattered. Thankfully, I was still in active communication with the folks that I had sat in the aya journey with and we did a lot of unpacking and integrating together during this time. I have a tendency to be really hard on myself and while my perceived life that consisted of work work work was quiet, I didn’t know where to place that energy. It led to lots of destructive behaviors for a moment there. After a little while of being a hot mess and allowing myself to wallow, I decided to start a new medicine journey with mushrooms to tap into myself a bit deeper and while I was not sitting with the ayahuasca medicine that showed me what needed to change, I knew that mushrooms would show me the path to that change- in a gentle, loving way.
I look at mushroom medicine as a portal of surrender and action. It reminded me where I needed to surrender (gently) - I could not change the way the world was moving, I could not change the fact that everything was shut down and I could not (Solange voice) “ Work it awaaay”. I knew that this time, as hard as it was, was really necessary. I needed to lean into my relationship with my partner at the time, have the hard talks, the couples therapy and the time together to see if what we truly wanted, still aligned. I needed to take that moment away from BxB to remember who I was as an individual and remember my ‘why’. Where the ‘ action’ came in was when these moments of contraction or difficulty were occurring, the medicine was helping me to remember the changes that I was intending to make. It was a gentle reminder that new avenues and possibilities were always available to me as long as I actively tried.
I won’t go into the details and the nitty gritty but that year and that medicine journey led me to where I am now. My partner and I decided to split ways in 2020- we called it a ‘conscious uncoupling’. We both sat with mushroom medicine throughout the pandemie and I believe that the gentle, loving nature of mushrooms allowed us to be super compassionate with each other and hear each other out without a lot of judgment and attachment– just as two humans trying to navigate the world. It allowed us to realize that love can transform and shift. That time also helped me to realize that my whole existence did not only consist of work and BreadxButta, I was still an individual. I took a few months to roadtrip across the country in 2020 and reconnect with nature, with sacred ceremonial sites, to make medicines on the road (many of our flower essences). It reminded me of my connection to mother nature and led me back to Puerto Rico to build an Earthship. This time and this medicine reminded me to slow down and appreciate life even in the most difficult moments. Where we feel that we are losing the most and where there is so much grief and pain– I was learning that my grief in that moment was just love that didn’t know where to be poured into yet. I took the time to find new avenues of where I wanted to place that love. I decided to close Haus of Bread, which was so difficult for me because it was a vision that was actualized but the timing was not quite right. So I had to take that L and trust that the universe would give me directions to where I pivot to next. All this time I was microdosing, meditating, praying, writing, walking- using movement to free up that stagnant energy. I was spending time with friends and in nature,I was reading, making art, putting my hands in the dirt and doing a lot of crying. I was grieving and releasing in a way that felt intentional for me.
This season is a reminder of when that shedding time started for me. I see it in the trees, I see it in my community and I see it in myself again as I morph into a new version of myself once more. I have been in a little bit of a bubble since giving birth to my daughter in early september. I’ve begun microdosing again but this time it looks slightly different as I am using my placenta in capsules along with mushrooms. My goal is to ease into this new version of myself, allowing myself to grieve the version of me that I was before I became a mother. I’m reminded that change is constant and necessary even though it's not always super graceful lol. I am once again holding the tower card and calling to the orisha Oya to support me through these new shifts – trusting and knowing that these strong winds and lightning are a means to finding a beautiful new path to walk down (even if for a little while).
One thing I have learned over these years of community care is that more often than not we are showing up as reflections of one another. Our paths often sound and feel similar even if they look slightly different. And so, all these years later I felt really called to share my experience and journey with shedding and change. I wanted to remind you that there is support to be had through these uncharted territories - in the form of sacred earth medicines, community and intentional practices. All hard things transform and we do find a place to pour our love into again.
This Scorpio season, I am putting all of our microdose medicines on sale- I hope that they are a source of support for you as they were for me. I specifically created them to support me while I was navigating rough waters and they proved to be trusted guides. I will be highlighting the intentions behind their creation, the medicines utilized in each version and offer suggested ways to create relationships with them. I hope that you have a smooth eclipse season, an intentional shedding season and a lovely time undoing what doesn’t serve you any longer.
Sending you so much love
Xx
Lynsey
Journal Prompts for shedding season:
Where in your life are you feeling change and energy shifting? How long have you been feeling this way?
What are some ways that you can gently create distance between yourself and what needs to fall away?
Who and what will I need to say goodbye to?
Herbal Allies for Scorpio Season:
Blessed Thistle
Nettle
Basil
Rosemary
Passionflower
Oya Herbal Allies:
Star Anise
Clove
Hibiscus
Nutmeg
Lime
Flower Essence Support for Scorpios & Scorpio Season:
Yarrow ~ helping us to fortify leaky boundaries & retire from the empathic ways of giving our energetic selves away too quickly.
Ghost Pipe ~ helping us to honor transitions and death in our life. This is a great support during transitional phases, supporting us while we are in the dark of the void before we burst into the light once again.
Medicines to Recommend during this time: