The Properties of Siberian Solomon’s Seal

Mineral salts of Polygonatum sibericum, or Siberian Solomon’s Seal. This is an amazing herb with a fascinating ethnobotanical pedigree. While it’s frequently used in Chinese medicine today, its use isn’t derived from classical medical texts but from Daoist alchemical materials. It was frequently used in the Daoist version of what we call chülen (བཅུད་ལེན་) in the Tibetan tradition. In these inner alchemical practices, practitioners spend long periods of time (sometimes months or longer) abstaining from all forms of physical food. They instead rely on highly potentiated herbs, breathing exercises, and visualization in order to extract the pure essence of the five elements for sustenance. In Tibet, chülen became quite controversial during the cultural revolution, as it was suggested that mountain yogis utilized the practice to withstand food shortages imposed upon the Tibetan people in order to try and eradicate them.
Polygonatum sibericum is traditionally seen as a supreme nourishing herb, described by the Song dynasty’s Zhu Qi as “The Sun Herb,” proclaiming that “nothing is more potent in the scrolls of the immortals for keeping old age at bay.” In order to be suitable for consumption, however, the roots of this plant must go through nine rounds of steaming with alcohol in order to neutralize any toxic qualities. In my preparation, I carefully macerated the detoxified herbs to produce a beautifully rich tincture slightly reminiscent of an alcoholic root beer. However, in order to honor the alchemical virtues of the plant, and to harness the power of the “body” of the herb, I went on to calcine the spent plant matter into a fine mineral salt. After repeated incineration, trituration, dissolution, filtration, and evaporation, we’re left with the purest and most potent mineral salts, which can then be re-introduced into the tincture to complete this powerful whole-plant extract.
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