IMAGE
I was camera-happy while collecting tulsi essence, and took about 25 pictures. I was enchanted and every angle felt special and communicative. Each perspective had something to offer. But the one I chose for the essence image was one taken from above, that shows an aspect of the sacred geometry of the plant, aligning it with the geometries of the fabric of our world. I overlaid the flower of life, representing the web of life and its threads, which are a part of tulsi's sacred medicine.
STORY
I collected tulsi essence on the same day I collected rosemary, mugwort, common sage and russian sage. I had just been with family for several days and in that time experienced new ways of being with myself and with them. I saw the truth of what was there between us; the truth of the things that were eternal and beautiful, and those that were challenging and dissonant; and how they all fit together to create this life.
Collecting five essences on the same day opened up a new experience for me. As I was bottling the essences, I tasted each, one after another, and had the experience of tasting and sensing their energetic patterns in contrast to one another. It was wild how different each one was, and how the comparison gave me more insight into each individual essence.
What stuck out to me about tulsi was its pulse of energy. It wasn't emitting or radiating a pulse, it is the pulse. It's the pulse of the sweet, blissful, nectar of life.
I kept working with the words that almost rhymed: pulsing tulsi, pulsi tulsi, pulse of tulsi. Then I let this essence go for a while. Until last week, I only "knew" that it pulsed the sweet nectar of life. I hadn't yet tried to understand it in more detail, though its medicine was working through me in pulses of life.