Perfume or the vegetal mercury
The mercurial principle
At once water, salt, thief, and messenger, mercury embodies all these aspects. It is the breath of the plant’s soul.
Mercury is the vegetal metal.
It speaks directly to the gods. Its role is to understand the lunar dimension, quicksilver, the unconscious.
The fern and its mercurial principle
In a later period, during the Middle Ages, the fern was the representation of mercury.
It symbolized the invisible dimension, like mercury itself, blossoming in a single night with its invisible flower.
The fern’s flower symbolizes the metal — copper before gold.
The snail, bridge between the lunar and the solar
Mercury is also called silver water, water of life, because it steals the metal of the plant (its composition and scent).
It transmits purification to the soul and the possibility of passing from one state to another: transmutation.
Snail slime is also called silver water, lustral water. It is imagination become creative (Venus).
The staff of life or the river of life
Bearing its flowers of life, which are the metals of the seven planets, it is the guide of prophets in the scriptures.
Whoever possesses the staff possesses authority.
It is the staff that transforms into a serpent, helping the soul pass from the lunar level to the solar level.
It is the axis that man straightens, the restored pillar, symbol of mercury.
Later, this symbol became associated with the constellation Eridanus, crossing from the northern to the southern hemisphere.
Its final star is the Phoenix.
This river is the passage from the intellectual world to the sensitive world.
Venus, companion of Mercury: the transmuted Moon
The thief has stolen the veil of lunar illusions.
He has gathered them within himself.
The Moon is imagination; Venus is the Moon that has found its inner light.
She is transmuted (quicksilver becoming copper, then gold).
Thanks to mercury, sensitivity (the sensible world, the garden) has become creation, has become harmony. Imagination has become art.
The water of life has become beauty, source of life.
The feminine has become an attractive power.
Venus guides writing, either to the right or to the left, depending on the hemisphere one is in, symbolized by wheat or the vine — image of the soul awakened to the principle.
Mercury is the caduceus, the river of life, and the opening of the eyes
When mercury rises, the eye opens. This stage is the dissolution of the lunar veil, the end of blindness. The ancient Egyptians prepared kohl based on mercury to help the soul see the invisible. It is the stage where consciousness is awakened by breath, where the principle becomes matrix. (Veiled in the rites, this corresponds to the dimension of bones and flesh and to the preparation of mummies.)
The spine, like a serpent, is taken as an example. It is this axis; it is the staff of life. The living breath of mercury circulates within it.
The eyes and the earthly poles
The right eye is solar, the left eye is lunar, corresponding to the two poles of our planet.
The Earth is seen as living, traversed by an axis linking it to its tutelary star (Vega).
Polar consciousness
The divine axis animates the Earth, and it was seen as living.
These two poles, or two twins, are the guardians of the temple gates, like two horsemen (image of the intellectual and the sensitive) riding unified thought (the white horse).
