The Lightning Flash Working (2026)

[Stephanie Hairston]

Hi all,

I am sorry I could not fully attend Lodge live today which was in part due to my scent offering to Keter being a little late in arriving. I wanted to share my research with you.

I have been getting into resin incense and decided to use that as my scent offering for each sphere. Most of the scents listed in 777 for each sphere are resins and I am mostly sticking with the ones listed in 777.

I went down a fun rabbit hole reading about Ambergris for Keter. Feel free to do the same if you want to get in touch with your inner Ahab. I was honestly surprised to read about how this material, which comes from a whale’s intestines, literally smells like shit when it is fresh, but develops a complex, beautiful scent profile after it is washed in the ocean for an extended period of time.

It is rare, difficult to come by, and expensive – and honestly, felt a little weird to even try to source it. I did some research to see if I could come up with an alternative that felt right and was happy to land on Agarwood, also known as Aloeswood or Oud. It has some appropriate associations as a heavenly scent but what struck me most is that it has some parallels with Ambergris in how it is formed.

Ambergris is formed when a sperm whale’s gut forms a protective coating around a squid’s beak so it does not damage the intestine. Agarwood is formed when an Aquilaria tree is damaged and infected with mold or bacteria. It forms inside the spaces in the tree created by the damage; the compounds the tree exudes to protect itself are full of fragrant chemicals. This makes me think of Spirit moving through things and generating transformation and healing.

Agarwood is not quite as rare and hard to come by as Ambergris but it is rare enough. I was able to source a small sample from a seller on Etsy based in Kentucky (Zarqa Naturals). I have not burned it yet but I can tell you it already smells divine!

For Chokmah, the traditional scent is Musk, which was traditionally obtained through animal sources. I was able to find an alternative in musk root (ferula sumbul), a plant root with an unusual chemical profile which is said to strongly resemble the scent of deer musk. I was able to find musk root resin “tears” through a Canadian source called Apothecary’s Garden.

The rest of my associations are fairly straightforward. I used Dragons Blood resin for Gevurah instead of tobacco or olibanum and camphor for Yesod instead of jasmine. I am still figuring if I want to source Dittany of Crete for Malkuth or substitute with a resin or wood. Here is my list:

1. Keter: Agarwood (Oud) Chips
2. Chokmah: Musk Root Resin
3. Binah: Myrrh Resin
4. Chesed: Cedar Wood Chips
5. Gevurah: Dragons Blood Resin
6. Tiferet: Olibanum (Frankincense) Resin
7. Netzach: Benzoin Resin
8. Hod: Storax Resin
9. Yesod: Camphor Resin
10. Malkhut: ? (Maybe Guggul Resin?)

[Noel Strong]

Hi Stephanie! Thanks for sharing your research. It’s so interesting how perceived corruption or aspects which naturally disgust us can actually transform into beauty or substances of merit, just as individuals who are struggling with vices can overcome them and find peace. There’s always light to be found in darkness.

I’ve never smelled Storax, I’d be interested in hearing your take on it when we get there! Excited to be exploring the Spheres alongside you.

Edit: Realized I made a separate post instead of replying, forgive me, it’s been years since I was on an actual forum!

[Paula]

Thanks for kicking this off Stephanie! Your research is so interesting. I just used what i had which was Copal for purification.

I had this ready on Sunday (after lodge):
Hello arborists,

What a beautiful session this morning working with Keter.

Thought I’d share a message I received. As we were finishing up, I closed my eyes again to have a final moment with Keter and I got an image imprinted in my mind, I feel as part of my altar work or perhaps it was a gift, feel free to be inspiredl. The image was Bread!

I guess like communion or at seasonal festivities bread is made and shared. I do remember many years back in a Pagan group I was in we would share food at the end of our ritual. I also recalled in grade 3 preparing for my holy communion my little group made bread it was so yummy and I was disappointed that I lost the recipe.

I haven’t really made bread since then 😆 but I am keen to give it a go and it will be part of Assiah and earth element to commune with divinity and guides at the end of ritual.

I started researching sacred bread making, is that a thing? Do I look up church bread, then I went down a little hole and found that in ancient Kemet they made ‘Spiral’ bread! So fitting after our Keter working…looks like it took me to it eventually.

I will attempt to make a spiral-ly bread for next week.

[Noel Strong]

Wow Paula, what a great message to receive! And very apt for us gathered as a Lodge and community. Please share the results of your spiral bread making! I’ve been living gluten free for about a year and a half due to an intolerance and boy do I miss good, real bread. Simple things like that really do become sacred when you lose access to them.

In my moment with Keter, I saw white light, and I felt a sense of peace and freedom from everything more than I’ve ever felt before. I’ve been thinking about it since and how to get closer to that feeling and to not worry about everything so much. Additionally, when we were tracing spirals over the Aces, it seemed to me as if the imagery on the cards came to life and expanded, as if I could see into them. Brought me to tears! But many things I’ve experienced so far with 22 Teachings have done that. Constantly in awe and amazed by what is possible to experience. Looking forward to the many journeys ahead and knowledge to gain here over the years. Also when Naha was talking about the future of the Lodge, my High Priestess card jumped a little on my desk. Great sign for the future!

[Paula]

Hey Noel, not sure where reply went….what a beautiful 3D experience you had! And the HP looks like it’s welcoming you behind the veil, at minimum we get to draw the curtain of Paroket every week.

I have a slight intolerance to gluten so I don’t have bread alot. I actually found a simple recipe I’m going to try and found gf flour today. It may be blasphemous it’s two ingredients!

https://hungryhappens.net/easy-2-ingredient-sourdough-bread-rolls-kefir-rolls/

[Noel Strong]

That’s a great way to see it! I’m glad to be welcomed.

Well done on finding the recipe! I hope it turns out well! And condolences to you for your gluten intolerance too. We are sisters in food issues 😂<3

[Miranda Rose]

Hello, I’m loving hearing your experiences! I also had a profound experience with Keter. I won’t describe all of it except to say there was abundant love and light. But one moment stood out – a moment where I was feeling slightly trepidatious to go deeper, and I reached out to everyone in the circle, above and below, and we pull ourselves tighter together as if we became one, and went through to pure light.

[Paula]

Beautiful Miranda, just like your profile pic being pulled up and elevated. Thank you for sharing 🙂

[Noel Strong]

Hi all! Another great session of Lodge and more things of interest to note. I was actually recovering from food poisoning today and admittedly feeling very depleted, but I wanted to show up for Lodge today anyway and see if the magic could meet me at my level, and it did. My experience with Chokmah was not as strong as my experience with Keter, probably due to feeling poorly, but no less interesting.

While meditating I could see a massive beacon of energy barreling downwards, like a thick pillar of light, and on the outmost layer of the pillar energy seemed to spiral. The part that seemed a little funny to me afterwards but intriguing in the moment was that once this pillar crashed down into the earth, I could see a vision of a bowling ball hitting the alley floor and rolling forward with force. The sound of the impact was particularly important, and reminded me of a thunder crash accompanying a lighting bolt, which seemed appropriate for the Lightning Flash. I suppose we’re really getting the ball rolling now 😛

[Paula]

Wow Noel you have such vivid images and experiences, this is wonderful to hear!

Hope you are feeling better.

[Noel Strong]

I’ve been lucky enough to get vivid images most of my life, especially coming into contact with different spirits, and it’s an ability I’m looking to hone even further over time. I think it could be very useful!

And thanks, I’m doing better, and will hopefully be at 100% again for this coming weekend 🙂 Hope you have an amazing rest of your week!

[Dodie]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and your experiences too. I was wondering our talismans. I made mine and placed it on my altar. Any other suggestions or ideas I can do with it.

Dodie

[Stephanie Hairston]

Hi, all, I’ve really enjoyed reading everyone’s posts and some of the visions and symbols that came to you all. I love your connection with Keter and bread, Paula, and find resonances in Noel’s and Miranda’s visions of light. I especially love the lightning strike morphing into the sound and vision of a bowling ball. Makes me think of a Mystical Lebowski sequence 🙂

Working with resins and woods has been a beautiful experience. Aloeswood has this rich, sweet smell that smells like a hug from grandma. It is deeply soothing and reassuring. Musk Root smelled like sweaty peanuts and was stimulating. The Omani myrrh was richer and cleaner than myrrh I’ve burned before and was sweet and grounding, a little mysterious. The cedar wood chips I burned (Cedrus Libani, Cedar of Lebanon) were intensely aromatic even in the bag, and the fresh, clean scent was reminiscent of the ocean and the peace one feels being at the ocean. Definitely a different aroma than what is usually labeled “cedar” here in the US (which is usually a tree in the juniper or cypress family), though similar.

I did a little more research and decided upon Galbanum resin as the scent for Malkhut. It is said to have an earthy, “green” aroma that smells like cut grass or snapped plant stems. It is often used as the “green note” in perfumes.

When I decided to use nuts as the offering and sensory connection for taste, I tried to stick to somewhat easily available snack nuts and came up with the following list via my intuition and memory of the taste and texture of different nuts:

Keter: Almond
Chokmah: Walnut
Binah: Hazelnut
Chesed: Brazil Nut
Gevurah: Pistachio
Tiferet: Macadamia
Netzach: Cashew
Hod: Pine Nut
Yesod: Pecan
Malkhut: Peanut

I then did a bunch of follow-up research that mostly supported my intuition, with the exception of pistachio, which is a much better match for Netzach. For Gevurah, my research revealed the kola nut, which has caffeine and another stimulant in it and is important in West African traditions. This is the only one I had to reach a little beyond what was most readily available. So, my updated and final list is as follows:

Keter: Almond
Chokmah: Walnut
Binah: Hazelnut
Chesed: Brazil Nut
Gevurah: Kola Nut
Tiferet: Macadamia
Netzach: Pistachio
Hod: Pine Nut
Yesod: Pecan
Malkhut: Peanut

[Stephanie Hairston]

This is a summary of the most salient points in my research for why I connected each nut with each sphere:

Almond trees flower early in the season and have for a long time been a symbol of rebirth. The Hebrew word for almond is similar to the Hebrew word for “watchful.” In the Bible, Aaron’s staff bloomed and grew almonds to show God was with him.

Walnuts have long been associated with the brain through the use of the doctrine of signatures and the strikingly brain-like shape of a walnut. They were also associated with fertility in ancient Rome. They contain polyphenols and Vitamin E which can actually enhance brain function.

Hazelnuts are associated with wisdom, insight, and creativity in Celtic folklore. I associate them with the myth of Boann, who went to a holy well and became a river which rushed to meet the sea. Hazel trees like to grow near large bodies of water. Hazel is represented by the ogham Coll, which represents wisdom, inspiration, intuition, and creativity.

Brazil Nuts are the largest of the commonly eaten and commercially available snack nuts. The Brazil Nut tree is one of the largest trees in the Amazon rainforest. It is associated with the life-giving and benevolent spirit of the forest by the native peoples who have eaten them for 10,000 years. The Brazil Nut tree is related to the blueberry plant.

Kola Nuts are an important part of Igbo ceremony and ritual especially rituals related to hospitality. Kola Nuts are associated with heroic figures and heroism in more than one legend including the hero Koi. Kola Nuts were used in the original formula of Coca-Cola after they became part of international trade. The nuts include natural stimulants (caffeine and theobromine) and are eaten when people need energy, focus, and drive. They are related to cacao.

Macadamia Nuts have been part of lore, legend, and culture for Aboriginal Australians for 40,000 years. Macadamia is a sacred plant and the nut is traditionally used in ceremonial gift-giving and initiation rites as a symbol of spiritual nourishment. It is held to represent healing, awakening, insight, and the breaking of spiritual blocks. A sacred Dreamtime story tells of Baphal who was saved by the forest animals and the macadamia after injuring himself while ascending a sacred mountain.

Pistachios are a long-standing object of desire and symbol of status, wealth, and royalty in the Middle East. They are associated with the Queen of Sheba who was said to have made a decree that only royalty could eat them. They were considered to be an aphrodisiac in Middle Eastern cultures as well as in ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome and were often gifted or served at weddings. They are naturally green. They are in a family of plants that includes cashews, mangos, and poison ivy.

Pine Nuts are one of the only nuts with a truly global distribution (before trade started bringing nuts from one culture to another), eaten for thousands of years in northern Europe, the Mediterranean, Asia, and North America. The pineal gland is so named because of its semblance to a pine nut and pine nuts are believed to enhance brain function as well as energy and physical strength due to containing B and E vitamins and high levels of protein. Pine trees are held in many cultures to have a connection to ancestors and the otherworld and to be something of the psychopomp of trees. Greek physicians believed they had clearing properties, especially for the lungs. They were believed to give sustained energy such as one might need for long journeys.

Pecans are native to North America, originating in the Mississippi River Valley. Pecan trees are a species of hickory and are in the same family as the walnut. For Native Americans, they were an object of reverence and gratitude as sometimes pecan nuts alone sustained the people through harsh winters. They are held to symbolize resilience and were used in ritual to cement communal bonds. In Southern folklore they are said to be the “tree that never forgets” and to carry the memories and spirit of those who plant and tend them. Pecans depend on a hidden communication network to allow for their phenomenon of “mass fruiting” in which they produce nuts in the same amounts at the same time, increasing the chances of survival and reproduction for all the trees in an area.

Peanuts have become a symbol of the humble and commonplace though they were once upheld as sacred in South America, where they are originally from. They are actually legumes and the peanut plant is related to pea and bean plants. Peanuts are one of the rare “ground nuts” that grows underground. Peanut plants harbor nitrogen-fixing bacteria and improve soil fertility and quality.

[Stephanie Hairston]

It has been humbling learning how important nuts were to human ancestors all across the globe and how in sacred times, when people were more connected spiritually with the earth, they were experienced as sacred gifts and tokens of the Divine. It has been interesting learning how different nut-bearing trees and plants are related to other trees and plants who have beneficial relationships with us.

[Noel Strong]

Hi Stephanie! Thanks for sharing your research with us and the descriptions of the scents you’ve been using! This is a wealth of knowledge about foods which are frequently overlooked including by myself, and reading your information I think I need to introduce pine nuts into my diet!

It’s always incredible how humans across the world gravitate naturally towards certain practices and spawn local variations depending on their surroundings without interacting with other groups. But it’s even nicer to think about all the crops and foods that have been shared internationally, and how we have the chance to experience so many things that we would not have been able to thousands of years ago from our various corners of the planet.

I’ve been mixing beverages and foods for my experience.
Keter: Sea salt
Chokmah: Blueberry acai tea
Binah: Blackberries
Chesed: Blueberries

Ahead I’ve got planned:
Gevurah: Chai
Tipheret: Honey
Netzach: Vanilla ice cream (tastes like victory to me!)
Hod: Mangos
Yesod: Red grapes (ideally wine, but I have a histamine reaction to wines 😢)
Malkhut: Dark Chocolate

My choices stem from intuition rather than research, I’ve always been a very free flowing person and focused on honing my instincts, so some of these were chosen for color, others for the sensation that a Sphere’s attributes evoke in my mind, while some are more symbolic. For example sea salt is very pure and sets the tastebuds alight, like the First Swirlings of Keter. Blueberry acai tea is good for energy, like the surge of energy in Chokhmah.

I took a similar approach to scents, but alas I’m at work and don’t have my journal with me.

[Stephanie Hairston]

Love your choices, Noel, especially the Chai, Honey, and Vanilla triad for Gevurah, Tiferet, and Netzach. When we did the pathworking for Tiferet, bees and honey, and the humming sound of the hive, played a big role in my experience!

I find I do better if I let my intuition lead and totally respect intuitive decision-making. My process these days is usually intuition first, then follow up with research. My favorite part of doing research is when it loops back to intuition by leading me to things I didn’t already know about and wouldn’t have thought about, allowing me to have new sensory experiences I then draw my own personal experiential conclusions from. For example, I’ve never eaten a kola nut but I will get to have that experience this Saturday!

I am fascinated by the history of trade and how certain ingredients and food items come to be associated with a certain cuisine when they were not actually native to that place. For example, tomatoes in Italian cuisine, cashews in Indian dishes, peanuts in Chinese dishes. Like many people, I associated macadamia nuts with Hawaii, but I learned in my research that they were imported there from Australia and integrated into the food and culture.

It was fascinating to read about how ancient Egyptians traded with people from pretty far distances to get all of the substances they liked to burn for incense or use in embalming. I first learned about this when I encountered and became drawn to camphor trees when walking my dog and researched them and learned about the sacred uses of camphor.

Desire for access to certain sensory experiences drove so much cultural exchange. It amazes me that between going to the grocery store and shopping online I can fill my home with luxuries of the ancient world like frankincense and myrrh, pistachios and macadamias, honey and vanilla!

• This reply was modified 1 week, 4 days ago by Stephanie Hairston.

[Noel Strong]

Ohh, I’m glad to see I was on to something with the honey! 🙂 Your method of intuition first and then research is a great idea, I think I should adopt it! I had never heard of a kola nut before you shared your information about it. Please keep sharing your insights and sensory experiences as we continue through this working, I’m very intrigued by all of them!

We’re very lucky to have so much at our disposal these days. Even if we don’t always have the means to enjoy as much as we can. I was born and lived in Germany as a child, and there are so many foods and drinks I miss now in America, and hope to one day enjoy again. The prices keep me from buying/shipping them here, (as well as my gluten intolerance now) but I’m so happy I have memories of experiencing them.

[Noel Strong]

Hi everyone, just reflecting on our Gevurah session and all that it brought. It was one of my favorites so far, and less because of any vision or sensory experience, and more because of the validation it brought me.

I’ve always had a passionate and hot-headed side, in the sense that I have always had very little tolerance for nonsense and have always been firm about my boundaries. When I was younger, I spoke my mind freely and moved with strength, rarely concerned with what others thought of me, knowing my value and moving with integrity. Some considered me harsh for standing up for myself, but the label didn’t bother me because I was never cruel, and the idea of being cruel brings me no joy. I was firm, but never lashed out, never did harm, and strove to be true to myself in any situation.

But a couple years ago some things happened to me which effectively silenced me. I had to make myself so much smaller to survive, I stopped sharing my opinions and ideas, and I withdrew in more ways than one. For a long time it was hard to feel anything except fear, and shame, because I had been made to believe that my passion and my very sense of being was wrong and deserved punishment, and that I could never be myself, because it was dangerous. I sat and kept my mouth shut, sat in the backs of proverbial rooms where I should have been in the front, leading with the sincerity and value I have always carried, and trauma and anxiety made it difficult to consider taking those steps back to my place, for fear of being tripped by others again.

I’ve been doing a lot of work this year to reclaim that stronger version of myself, because I miss her so much. Hearing about the balance of forces and that being passionate, in the right measure, is not only a good thing but a necessary thing has made me feel so much better about speaking up again and finding my way back to the fiery, vitality-filled version of myself which was stolen from me. I think she’s pretty great! And coming back to her with more wisdom and ever-expanding knowledge of the facets of being and a true purpose feels exactly right. I’m so thankful for the work we are allowed to undertake and experience here, and I know by the end of the Lightning Flash I’m going to feel like my life finally belongs to me again.

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