Capricorn's Mushroom: Tremella
INTRO TO ASTRO-MYCOLOGY
Welcome to the new exploration of the connections between 12 medicinal mushrooms and their respective planets and signs.
Over the next 12 zodiac seasons we touch on the healing benefits of each mushroom and the sign they most connect with. Just like in Astro-Herbalism; where plants reflect qualities of planets and signs, there are underpinning archetypes of each mushroom that reflect the heavens too.
As we journey with each mushroom think about the qualities and healing effects they have and how can we integrate them more into our lives. Whether that be through ritual, ingestion or just learning and building more awareness about their incredible capabilities and role they play in our world.
When we time the embodiment of each mushroom with the energies of the sky, this alchemizes a deeper connection and understanding of the earth and our physical vessels.
Mushrooms truly are nature's alchemists, come on this journey with us as we explore a small few of the constellations of the earth, connecting them to the constellations of the sky where they can play within the realm of Astrology.
Refer to the Astrological Planner as your navigational tool throughout 2023 where you will find an intro to each and fungi archetype for each zodiac season.
TREMELLA (TREMELLA FUCIFORMIS)
Tremella resembles juicy, semi-translucent, jelly-like brains of the fungi kingdom. Like squishy connective tissue, some of its gifts are for our bones and skin.
It is adaptogenic, immunomodulatory, anti-tumoral, anti-cancer, anti-aging, cholesterol modulating, and neuro-protective.
In TCM it is used as a beauty product for its anti-aging effects. Its high water content - holding around 500 times its weight, is supportive of skin health and hydration, smoothing out inconsistencies, reducing inflammation, and defending from free radicals - promoting soft, beautiful skin.
High in vitamin D, Tremella supports bone health, bone marrow regeneration,
and may help with the absorption of calcium. It also supports the lungs, helping alleviate asthma, and treating respiratory illnesses. It is a neuro-protective for the brain, and a demulcent for soothing the stomach. It's also beneficial for the heart through the prevention of atherosclerosis and plaque formation, good for cholesterol management, and supports the immune system.
MAIN MODERN USE:
Improves skin quality, protects against pathogens, alleviates asthma, immune health.
PLANET:
SATURN - Governs time, aging, structures, systems, foundations, bones, gallbladder.
SIGN:
CAPRICORN - Structure, integrity, boundaries, ambition, career, and hard work are all true Capricorn traits. It rules the bones, skin (with Venus), nails, cuticles, connective tissue, knees, joints and teeth (with Aries, Taurus).
PAIRING NOTES:
Healthy aging. Saturn governs time, aging, foundations. Capricorn as a cardinal earth sign rules the skin, bones, connective tissues. This shroom can also be paired with Taurus (longevity, Venus ruled: skin), Gemini (rules respiratory), Cancer (rules stomach, mucous membranes), Libra (beauty, skin with Venus).
We journey even deeper through each of the fungi archetypes with Alchemist, Ethnobotanist, Mycologist and Spagyricist, Jason Scott, who brings together his incredible wisdom of all of these worlds.
Tremella & Capricorn
The Snow Covered Mountain Top
Written by Jason Scott
Common Name: Snow Fungus
Latin Name: Tremella fuciformis
Family: Tremellaceae
Tastes: Sweet
Affinities: Skin, Respiratory, Brain
Energetics: Cool & Moist
Planetary Rulership: Saturn, Venus, Moon
A Beacon of Beauty
Traditionally revered in China, Tremella fuciformes’ use dates back as far as 200AD where it is mentioned in the Shen Nong Ben Cao, a classical Chinese text on agriculture and medicinal plants. Like many medicinal mushrooms, Tremella was traditionally reserved for royalty.
Tremella’s use was notably popularized during the Tang Dynasty (690-705AD), where tales told of Yang Guifei attributing her glowing, youthful complexion to it’s use. As well as being revered for its culinary delight, Tremella has been used in Chinese & Japanese Medicine as a yin tonic.
Traditionally, tremella is thought to nourish the lungs, kindeys, heart, brain and stomach, along with its use internally and topically for the skin. Modernly, Tremella has found wide-spread use in the health and wellness industry. This mushroom is used topically for inflammation and hydration of the skin, and internally for a myriad of benefits.
As with many other mushrooms, Tremella is rich in polysaccharides which are attributed with immune supporting properties. Beta-glucan polysaccharides are also supportive of healthy inflammation response, digestive health through their pre-biotic effect, and healthy histamine regulation. Rich in Vitamin D2 Tremella shows potential in supporting bone health and bone marrow regeneration.
Doctrine of Signatures in Tremella
Tremella is all about boundaries. It holds up to 500 times it’s dried weight in water, indicating it’s affinity for moisture, also pointing towards what it is without that moisture, which is cold and dry. Much like Saturn.
It’s primary affinity for the skin, which is also ruled by Saturn, indicates it’s potential for healing other boundaries in the body: the gut, the immune system, the brain. Each it’s own vital eco-system that depends on differentiating itself from other for it’s integral survival.
While primarily Tremella can be associated with Saturn, it also has strong associations with Venus (Skin, Beauty, Kidneys) and the Moon (Brain, Stomach, Nerves).
Nourishing Capricorn
As Capricorn breeches the top of the mountain, the view is clear, but the path to the top has left them worn. Tired. Chapped. The experience that has led to this point has made the skin tough, and left a few scars along the way.
Tremella is nourishment to the coarse tale told in Capricorns body and on its skin. The boundaries embodied by Saturn, which have served Capricorn to this point are well deserving of relief.
Tremella is the perfect remedy for the skin, by hydrating, reducing inflammation, providing valuable nutrients. As the skin is the boundary of our body, Tremella nourishes internal boundaries, personal boundaries, spiritual boundaries.
The disciplined path requires sacrifice, and Capricorn has what it takes to reach it’s goals. When moving into new territory, the boundaries and passion that got us to where we are may no longer be needed in the same way they once were. Tremella can help us to shift our relationships and patterns related to those habits.
Looking at ourselves, Tremella helps us to create new associations and relationships with ourselves, our boundaries, our patterns, and our habits. It shows us an opportunity to accomplish our goals in a balanced approach.
Other Capricorn-Supporting Fungi
Agarikon, Artist Conk, Red Belted Conk
If you are interested in some Saturnian fungi to deepen your relationship with Capricorn this season check out our Artist Conk and Agarikon. Use code MAGICOFI for 10% off at check-out!
Why Astro-Mycology
To many who studied medicine before the 19th century, Astrology was critical in understanding disease, as well as how to address it. Nicholas Culpepper famously said “A physic (medicine) without astrology is like a lamp without oil."
While there are methods to implementing astrology into medicine to work acutely as a practitioner, working with the framework and archetypes of astrology is a great learning tool. Instead of playing a memorization game, you are learning through relational, qualitative understanding.
By understanding plants or, in this case, fungi through the doctrine of signatures and correspondences we create our own unique relationship to them. It is necessary to create a foundational understanding of the archetypes and their associations, but once those associations are made, you can start looking at things in terms of patterns.
For instance, with Tremella, we are talking about the skin, we are talking about boundaries on a physiological level, as well as a psycho-spiritual one. Boundaries are all in the realm of Saturn and Capricorn.
Saturn is Cold and Dry, so we look at the cooling nature of the Tremella fungus as well as where it stands without moisture. It can lose up to 500% of it’s mass if it loses it’s water.
These associations give us tools to understand living organisms by looking at them. Their morphology, where they grow, how they grow, their cultural significance, their medicinal benefit. What systems they have affinities for. By taking visual and relational cues, we can infer not only known benefits, but things that are yet unexplored.
Conversely, we can work with the mushrooms as a tool to understand the archetypal energy of the planets and signs, as well as their meaning. By taking the raw or prepared mushroom internally, and meditating into the feeling, we can gain new insights about that mushroom, as well as it’s astrological associations.
Correspondence is more of an art than a science, and fungi are much more complex in my mind. Like a person, that comes with a snapshot telling the story of where the stars were when they were born, the fungi adorn multiple planetary influences.
If you are interested in some Saturnian fungi to deepen your relationship with Capricorn this season check out Artist Conk and Agarikon from Feral Fungi.
Use code MAGICOFI for 10% off at check-out!
About Jason Scott
Jason Scott is a Mycologist, Ethnobotanist and Spagyricist who has studied traditional Hermetic Alchemy, from history and philosophy to practice, for over a decade. He has a background in Ethnobotany and Plant Medicine rooted in the Pacific Northwest. Born and raised in Oregon, Jason has an intrinsic interest in the Fungal Queendom in all its aspects: from cultivation and mycoremediation, to historical and cultural relationships. Jason has studied various healing modalities including Ayurveda in Nepal and Western Herbalism all over Oregon and Washington. He is on an ever-deepening journey of education to understand the practical applications of his interests, and the golden threads that connect them.
Jason has been published on the topic of AlcheMycology, exploring fungi through traditional Alchemy in Radical Mycology by Peter McCoy and Verdant Gnosis Volume 3, compiled by Jenn Zahrt, Catamara Rosarium, and Marcus McCoy. He has taught through these topics all over the United States. Jason worked in the lab at Natura Sophia Spagyrics (formerly Organic Unity) with Sajah & Whitney Popham. He is the Founder and Owner of Feral Fungi where he produces Mushroom Spagyric Tinctures, and curator of AlcheMycology.com where he shares some of his teachings and writings along side other fascinating discoveries in the world of Fungi.
About Feral Fungi
When I began my journey of discovery around herbalism and natural medicine, I had always felt like something was missing. At that time, around 12 years ago at this point, I became fascinated with ethnobotany & ethnomycology and the myriad of ways that plants and fungi weave themselves through culture.
In everything that we look at, influences of the plants and fungi are there, but specifically in the ways that we directly engage with them. I became enamored with the roots of natural medicine and discovering the ways in which herbs could assist in healing. As with most people beginning down that path I asked, “What is that good for?” and “What does that do?”
I was taught about the concept of the Doctrine of Signatures and Correspondences in it’s most limited capacity: that walnut looks like a brain, so it is good for your brain. Something resonated, but something just wasn’t there.
I then stumbled upon (or serendipitously fell into, depending on how you want to look at it) Alchemy and Ayurveda. Within were the missing pieces I had felt early on, which could be summarized as cosmology. What is the story around why we do what we do? What do the living relationships look like? What are plants – and mushrooms, and stones, and metals ad infinitum – beyond what they are merely good for.
This opened a whole path of looking at herbs, mushrooms and natural medicine and aligned them with the traditional laboratory practice of Alchemy to understand spagyric anatomy and to learn how to prepare alchemical medicines.
Many years of study, practice, and a whole lot of patience culminated in my work that I refer to as “AlcheMycology,” looking at fungi through the lens of traditional alchemy. While learning about the art of alchemy, I remained fascinated with fungi and was curious why they were all but omitted from any traditional literature on spagyrics and alchemy.
To delve into this work required thinking of things outside of easily attainable literature, and a lot of trial and error. Out of this work arose two primary facets of my work: The Spagyric Anatomy & The Doctrine of Signatures and Correspondences of Fungi. Both of which have become core tenets of my daily practice.
In 2017 I had an opportunity to teach a workshop on AstroMycology: The Doctrine of Signatures and Correspondences in Mushrooms at the Viridis Genii Symposium in Damascus, OR. To go along with my talk and a booth space that I got for being a presenter, I created my first line of Spagyric Tinctures dedicated to fungi.
The framework was simple: produce one extract for each day of the week corresponding to the ruling planet of that day. This practice has been referred to as the “basic 7” of spagyric tinctures, an initiatic set of Spagyric Medicines. Each tincture with an affinity to a different organ system and energetic signature, it is thought that taken consistently over a long period of time, they will bring balance and harmony to the mind, body, & spirit.
From that set, Feral Fungi was born. A culmination of work that had been weaving in theory and practice over the previous seven years. Initially it was established as something to aid in the educational dynamic of my work, but quickly grew into a being all it’s own.
At Feral Fungi, we process Spagyric Tinctures from 100% U.S. grown and wildcrafted medicinal mushrooms. I have worked tirelessly to develop the process and to source everything as sustainably as possible. Underpinning the sourcing and processing methods, are the astrological associations.
At the center of my work there, we still offer the core set of 7 Planetary Tinctures along with many additional tinctures and blends. They are a great opportunity to take this material and internalize it. To make it into your own practice, and to learn directly from the fungi themselves, as opposed to the words on your screen.
Each aspect of this work can be elaborated infinitely, but as an introduction, I will leave it at that. Check out Feral Fungi here. - Jason Scott
If you are interested in some Saturnian fungi to deepen your relationship with Capricorn this season check out Artist Conk and Agarikon from Feral Fungi.
Use code MAGICOFI for 10% off at check-out!
Resources: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/tremella
