relax | dream | remember
A nootropic dream tonic featuring Egypt’s sacred blue lotus, an herb used since ancient times to enhance consciousness and feelings of divine connection. Promotes lucid dreaming, relaxation, and gentle euphoria. Notes of wood violet, snap pea, and pistachio cream.
From the Artemis website:
The plant medicines we turn towards in the late fall and early winter are those that teach our bodies, minds, and spirits how to make a healthful and complete transition into the energetic demands of the season. Many of our best plant allies for this time of year are those that ground and calm our nervous system (like valerian and kava kava root), helping us relearn how to slow down and transition into a more relaxed, receptive state of being. Nervines such as lavender, mugwort, hawthorn leaf/flower, and california poppy are distinctly restorative to the nervous system and emotional heart, and in the case of blue lotus and skullcap—antispasmodic—thus helping our bodies release built up tension, ease cramps, and reduce pain.
Traditional herbalism recognizes water is the element of late fall/early winter, and the herbs associated with this time of year are also associated with the element of water, helping support and restore our yin (water-like life essence) through the driest months of the year. Some of these plants support pituitary function, for example, thus enhancing our intuitive abilities, while helping bring us into “deeper brain waves where we can heal our nervous system, retrain our minds, and come to experience ourselves as relaxed, anxiety-free, and more creative” (Miernowska, The Witches Herbal).
Blue lotus flower (Nymphaea caerulea), in particular, is a powerful plant ally revered since ancient times. The Ancient Egyptians regarded it as sacred, and reproduced its likeness everywhere—on temple pillars, in tombs, on papyrus scrolls and stone altars, on sacred headdresses . . . Its medicine was thought to be a tonic capable of bringing the human mind into closer contact with the mind and will of the gods. The plant contains nuciferan (an antispasmodic) which both relaxes the body and produces feelings of gentle euphoria. It was also thought to be an aphrodisiac and remedy for erectile disfunction. Other uses for blue lotus are as a treatment for gastrointestinal upset, diarrhea, indigestion, insomnia, and chronic stress.