AstroHerbalism 2: Sagittarius, with Kyle (Tippecanoe Herbs), Michelle & Mario
It's time to take a look at Sagittarius signatures, with our resident herbalists, Kyle Denton of Tippecanoe Herbs and Ms. Lundquist of Michelle's Healing Home. Mario Garza of Symbolic Studies will be in the mix too, adding his observations about the season of the far-sighted archer.
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In this episode
Core themes
Dandelion, Burdock and the Liver Fire
Kyle chose dandelion as the first Sagittarius herb, saying its abundance, its growth in all directions and its mutable nature matched Jupiter signatures. He described dandelion root as a liver herb for the hot, overworked, mutable fire type, and tied the liver to anger that a single-minded archer might hold back. Kyle said burdock worked in similar ways, calling it a blood purifier in Appalachian folk medicine, and joked that its burrs stick to the hips and thighs, the Sagittarian parts of the body. He framed both as aids to nutrition, not weight loss.
Bear Medicine and the Burry Man
Kyle presented burdock and osha as bear medicine, explaining that the bear wakes from winter looking for oily roots. He said the bear, in Native American medicine, is linked with the polestar and dreams, and described going into the depths of the psyche to come out the other side. Kyle said he used osha in a lung tonic that Chance sometimes received. He also shared the Burry Man festival of South Queensferry in Scotland, where a person covered in burrs is walked around for nine hours, and the group traded readings of its symbolism.
Temperance Card and Sagittarius Wordplay
The show opened with the Temperance card, which Kyle used as a loom for symbolism, calling Sagittarius the tarrying sage. Gabe noted that the sign has three minor decans, Lyra, the Altar and Draco, and linked the card's cauldron to the Altar. Chance described his reading that the Sumerian word sag means head, beginning or first, and tied it to sage and wisdom. Mario brought the world axis and the idea that stems of plants echo it. Chance also shared biofield views on the hips, as his own findings.
Clove, Frankincense, Bilberry and Sage
Kyle presented clove as a warming spice road herb that fit the travel theme of Sagittarius, and said its nail shape invited symbolism. Others in the group tied nails to binding, and the name syzygy came up. Kyle framed frankincense as resin from a wounded tree, sacred across many cultures, and linked it to the gifts of the Magi, which prompted wordplay and trinity weaves among the group. He said bilberry suited the sign through its eye signature and recounted a World War I pilot story. He closed the herb slides with clary sage for clarity and vision, and described making sage honey.
Reishi and the Return of Shen
Michelle brought reishi as a clear example of Jupiter expansion, pointing to its growth rings and calling it an adaptogen, an herb she said helps the body adapt and balance. Another speaker explained the Chinese idea of shen, the spirit housed in the heart, said reishi was used to gather the spirit back after prolonged fear, and mentioned that it is called the emperor's mushroom. Others in the group tied the name to ten, the Aeon card and the torus, and one guest described mushrooms as the DNA of the forest.
Quotes
“I think the world tree symbolism, by extension, can kind of be applied to a lot of other plants, seeing how a lot of flowers and trees and herbs, they have that main shoot, that main stem that goes upward, reminds me very much of the world axis, the world pole.”
“One of my first teachers gave me a really good piece of advice, and that was, learn one herb very well in and out throughout the week. So you make tea with it, you study it, you put it under your pillow, you sleep, you meditate with it, all these things. And by the end of the year, you have a really strong repertory of 52 herbs.”
“Burdock invented hairy dogs in blue jeans, because the reason it gets around is by sticking to your hips and thighs when you're walking through the woods. Finally, you get to another spot and you're like, how far have I come with these things on? Just throw them off, like shooting little arrows back into the woods.”
“The bear in Native American medicine represents that animal which is associated with the polestar and the dreams. So going into the depths of winter, going into the depths of your own psyche in order to come out to the other side or to come out through the center.”
“It feels so great to be the type of herbalist that I want to be, which is very nerdy and just talk about the strange things about nature. I feel like there's not a lot of room for that in the dogmatic practice of anything right now, and including an art so lovely as herbalism.”
“We cover every sign in the herbs and the doctrine of signatures, AKA the shapes, patterns, geometries, smells, correlations and syncretism of these beautiful herbs, plants, mushrooms, all of their many, many, I won't even wanna say qualities, but virtues, as Kyle likes to say.”
“I looked deeper into the word sag, S-A-G, which is of course like the word sage. And also because the aspirate H and S can shift in languages, it's also where you get the word hag. Like Hagia Sophia. So fascinating, sag in Sumerian actually means head. It can also mean beginning or first. So sag as a sage is wisdom.”
“I feel like all the time I'm just like, how did I get this job? Like the most incredible people come into my space and teach me the things. And I get to just sort of like drive the plane and expand together.”
“I know what Crowley's trying to tell the public about this card and it's not what I'm seeing. And so I just wanna put that forward. Like a lot of people will be like, well, just go to the book. What does the book tell you? I find the book to be a huge mislead. Like 80 percent mislead.”
“Sagittarius has three minor decans. It's Lyra, the Altar and Draco. And so those are the minor constellations that will be thematically integral through this conversation and this month, the time of year.”
“Reishi, I actually talked about this in my first episode because I went over Sagittarius at the beginning of my podcast. But I just wanted to throw this one in there because it's just to me a really great example of Jupiter, just looking at how it grows from the tree, looking at the rings of the colors, how it expands out.”
“I'm just grateful that we're doing this. I'm really excited and looking forward to continuing on each month and bringing the herbal knowledge with the signs. I think it's a really great idea. I think we'll be able to share knowledge and help a lot of people with it.”
“So literally in my Sagittarius print, I have an eclipse. There's a mountain right in front of it. It's making like a symbolic keyhole, which reminds me of the key of Chiron, which really kind of integrating or understanding your traumas, doing the shadow work is a key to healing.”
Gabriel, known on air as Slick Dissident, co-hosts InnerVerse's Vibe Rant show and is a longtime recurring guest on the podcast. He teaches occult symbolism and tarot on his YouTube channel, ranging across the Major Arcana, the esoteric Enneagram, mythology and archetype, mystic linguistics, and the symbolism hidden in popular film. He is best known for Tarot-tories, his own system mapping the 22 Major Arcana and zodiac archetypes onto the geography of the United States.
See all Gabe episodes→Kyle and Serena Denton are community herbalists creating wild-crafted and organic plant medicines out of Milwaukee since 2015. I have used their teas and tinctures on an almost daily basis for years now. Kyle is a great friend of InnerVerse and has appeared on the channel more times than I can count. These products work, not in the allopathic "pharma-medicine" way, but in a terrain-support, consciousness bolstering plant-teacher sort of way.
