Hey friends. I am launching some candle anointing oils, and I also make body oils that I almost never talk about, so it feels like the right time to show you how a batch actually gets made. Because I do not make them on a calendar. I make them on the moon.
Start with the bottles. I knew the dark moon in Gemini was coming, and Gemini is communication. That matters here, because you are going to be having a conversation with whatever ends up inside that bottle. So I put the empty vials in a basket and set them outside in my backyard for the full twenty four hours of the dark moon. That is the great thing about my neighbors. They see me out there and they do not ask.
The dark moon is the void. No illumination, sun and moon together, nothing to see. Setting empty vessels out in that is deliberate. They come back in cleansed and carrying an intention around communication, open to finding the best way to speak to whoever ends up using them.
The bottles were in the void. That is where creation happens, and it is the only reason I put empty glass outside for a whole day.
Then we came around to the full moon in Capricorn, and that is when I filled them. Capricorn is the sign of work. It is cardinal, so it initiates, and it is ruled by Saturn, which means boundaries. Capricorn is also one of the few places where spirituality and earth get to work at the same time. If you want to bring a new energy in, or get an old one out, that is a good moon to do it under.
A full moon is when the sun and the moon are in that balance, opposite each other, looking straight at one another. That is our masculine and feminine in stasis, together but apart. It is when we are most psychic and when things are most clearly illuminated, and it comes right before the waning stretch when we let things go. So it is a receiving moon, which is exactly what you want when you are filling something.
The same day, the dried flowers and dried herbs went into their jars and got covered in oil to start their infusion. Rose, jasmine, and gardenia this time. Those go outside into the warmth to do their work, and they will be ready in about six weeks.
I use avocado oil or olive oil as the base for everything, both the body oils and the candle anointing oils. Here is my rule, and it is a practical one, not a mystical one. Anything meant to go on your body I want sold within six months of production. Do they have a longer shelf life than that? Of course. But I would rather be conservative about it. Once a batch passes that window it becomes candle anointing oil and ritual oil only, never something I sell you to put on your skin. Bacteria does not care how nice your intentions were.
And yes, I am making all of this during a Mercury retrograde, and somebody is going to tell me I should not be talking about it right now. That is not how I read a retrograde. This is actually a perfect use of one. I am going back over a process I already know and explaining it clearly. That is exactly what the three weeks are for.
The larger point is that I almost never do anything meaningful in this business without checking what the sky is doing first. If it is not a moon phase, it is some other cycle I know is running. I have the privilege of time to work that way, and I am not telling you that you have to. I am telling you it does not hurt.
The candle anointing oils are ready now. The body oils need their six weeks. Questions are always welcome.