AstroHerbalism 3: Capricorn with Kyle Denton (Tippecanoe Herbs), Michelle & Mario
Tonight we continue our study of plant medicine astrological signatures, with our trusty herbalists, Kyle Denton of Tippecanoe Herbs and Ms. Lundquist of Michelle's Healing Home. Mario Garza of Symbolic Studies returns as well, to ponder the greatness of the fish-goat.
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In this episode
Core themes
Mario on the Devil Card and Capricorn
Mario described the Rider-Waite devil card as a study in downward motion, pointing to the inverted pentagram, the beard and ears, the hand gesture and the squatting legs, and tying that motion to Capricorn's earth energy. He contrasted it with Crowley's version, where he saw figures and a phallic shaft moving upward through the rings of Saturn. Mario also wondered aloud whether the original devil horns were bull horns and whether early adversary figures were watery creatures rather than underground ones.
Kyle's Field Notes on Bone and Lymph Plants
Kyle described false Solomon's seal, which he also called Solomon's plume, as a close and largely interchangeable relative of Solomon's seal, with thinner rhizomes and a little more bitterness. For boneset, he said the plant was extremely bitter, mentioned its link to what was once called bone break fever, and told of using infusions and compresses of boneset, comfrey and mullein for a family member's broken hand, saying an X-ray showed it healed within a week. On poke, Kyle said he worked with a root tincture for lymphatic congestion and called it strong compared with gentler cleavers.
Cannabis as a Saturn Plant
One of the herbalists described cannabis as a Saturn plant, citing the alchemists and a Chris Bennett line from Liber 420 that Saturn is the border between personal and transpersonal powers. The speaker noted its many practical uses, from textiles and rope to paper, fuel and food, and said years of growing it had deepened a sense of the plant's wisdom. A mercurial reading of the plant also came up, and other speakers linked it to the devil card and to Saturn's themes of law and structure.
Nightshades and the Hades Things Anagram
Michelle toured the nightshade family, naming tomato, henbane, poppy, datura, eggplant and tobacco, and said the trumpet-shaped flowers suggested journeying to other realms. She said these plants were toxic in high doses and called for mindfulness. Gabe shared a graphic about forbidden fruit, saying the pomegranate meant different things to the Greeks and the Hebrews, and said he had just found that nightshades is an anagram of Hades things, which he tied to the Capricorn season.
Elder Lore and the Immunity Reframe
Chance reframed immunity as I'm unity, saying it was about getting all of the body's parts working in harmonious order, and said he preferred pro-microbial to anti-microbial. A video by Michelle and Mario described elder folklore, including an elder mother who should be asked before harvest, its use in fencing and cemeteries, and its link to Saturn. The video said the dark berries and hollow stems suggested an affinity for blood and tubular parts of the body, and that elderberries were traditionally used to ease inflammation.
Quotes
“Oh, the honor is all mine. I get to host all you geniuses. It's really cool that I love my job.”
“Just think about what that word immunity, just break it apart. I'm unity, right? That's what it's really about. Immunity isn't really about like, oh, there's the bad guys out there and I'm being protected from them. It's about getting all of your parts in working in harmonious order with one another. Hence the unity, I'm unity.”
“Everyone out there listening, never discount the power in the repetition of the ritual and ceremony of speaking your gratitude into the world because every time you do it, it's another drop in the bucket of your fullness that is the great fullness.”
“There is a downward momentum being emphasized in multiple ways. So the inverted pentagram is pointed downward. That's the whole entire thing is the point is moving towards the ground, right? Towards earth itself, his beard and ears also makes a downward arrow. You know, his hand gesture, there is arguably a downward arrow going on with that.”
“I'll just say I wonder too if the original devil horns were actually bull horns. There's a lot to be said about that. And then also if a lot of underworld sort of deities way back in the day, a devilish figure, if you will, if they actually existed under water, not necessarily under earth.”
“But what blows my mind is the word nightshades is an anagram for Hades things, the things of Hades. And these are the forbidden fruits of the underworld here as we are rolling through this Capricorn, the cornucopia, the abundance of offerings. There are certain ones that are Hades things that you should not get too greedy about.”
“So then now I'm thinking about and looking up the constellation known as MUSCA. And it's often depicted as just a fly. It's muska, which means fly. It's where mosquito gets its name. And it's way down in the southern hemisphere near the southern pole star, if you believe in such things.”
“So yeah, this is one of my favorite plants. Boneset. It's extremely bitter. It's head shaking bitter. Oh, and it's one of the most valuable plants in my arsenal for not only mending bones, but also healing influenza bone break fever, as it was called.”
“Or Solomon's plume, as I call it too, the false Solomon seal. And it looks like that, except the rhizomes are a little thinner. And almost like a signature to say that that's more for like the peripheral smaller bones. And this one is more for the bigger bones. But they're really closely related.”
“They really wanted a candle. And I was like, I'll go take care of it. So I went out and I found a mullein stalk and I found a bunch of pine resin and I like put a whole bunch of pine resin on it. And then I put this mullein stalk into the cake and we lit it on fire.”
“And it's got that energy where it's like get to work as opposed to some other lymphatic helpers like cleavers or things that are gentle. They're like, come with us, come with us. We'll be nice and gentle and we'll assist you. And the poke is like, you better get to work or I'm gonna poison you. And so it really is strong.”
“And there's a certain moth, it's called the sphinx moth that is attracted to Datura. Now we've never, I've never seen this moth before, but when I was growing Datura, it was around and it was one night, it was on our screen door. And I'm like, oh my God, it's the sphinx moth and it's coming right at the time when the Datura is gonna start to open.”
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.
