Botanical, Honey and Sea Salt Self-Love Scrub for the Virgo New Moon

Hello friends and happy almost New Moon in Virgo! This New Moon also represents the beginnings of the Jewish New Year, or Rosh Hashana, which starts with the New Moon on Monday night, September 6th, 2021.

This New Moon in Virgo - an Earth sign that represents organization, empathy, discernment and insight - provides us with a beautiful opportunity to let in the change and transformation we’ve been craving, and to get clear on how we truly want to show up in this world. I believe that the best way to allow ourselves to truly change is to actually fully love and accept ourselves right where we are now. This Virgo New Moon asks us to care for ourselves, to treat ourselves with the same love and compassion we so willingly share with others. It gives us the energetic space to claim our true uniqueness as our gift to the world; and to know that is only through our authentic expression that we will find that which we seek.

Growing up in a religious home, the time of the High Holy Days (a period of ten days that stretch from Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur/Day of Atonement) was always super stressful for me. There was so much emphasis on how we are sinners who must repent from all our sins, and pray pray pray in order to be worthy of being blessed for the next year. To me the air and energy felt heavy with guilt as opposed to high with holiness. Of course I have a different take on it now, now that I’ve created my own relationship to the energies within my ancestral religion. Now I see the New Year as the opportunity to start fresh, and to return to a place of living from love over and over again.

So this message from the Virgo New Moon - this message of self-love, self-compassion, self-care as the path towards true transformation - teaches us that the way to step more into our holiness and our connection to Source (God, Spirit, Creator) is not through repentance and guilt and fear. Instead the path toward Divinity is through self-love, self-compassion and constant reverence for the miracle that is life - which also means the miracle that is your life, and my life and all our lives. Each and everyone of us is a miracle.

What better way to honor ourselves and the miracles that we are then by crafting a magical botanical, honey and salt body scrub to lavish our beautiful bodies and purify our energies with?!

Read on for the recipe and ritual.

Botanic, honey and sea salt body scrub

During Rosh Hashana, we dip apples and Challah (delicious braided ceremonial bread) into honey to call in sweetness and health in the year to come. Honey is just that - sweet and healthy! Honey is antibacterial, antifungal, reduces wrinkles and helps heal wounds and skin conditions. Honey is a great ingredient for making your own face masks, soaps, lotions and body scrubs.

Sea salt is also extremely healing and exfoliating. Salt is actually a form of crystal - so energetically salt also is highly effective in clearing and purifying the aura and the chakras (which is why a dip in the ocean always feels so clearing). Large grains of salt are also fantastic for exfoliation which promotes healthy turn over of cells in our skin. Massaging the scrub into the body also assists in lymphatic drainage which enhances our immune systems. So not only do body scrubs feel amazing energetically, they highly benefit the body physically too!

Ingredients

• 2 cups of sea salt (I prefer Dead Sea Salt and Himalayan sea salt for their added healing benefits)

• 1 Tbsp of raw honey

• 1/2 cup carrier oil - like jojoba, avocado, almond or melted (or fractionated) coconut oil

• 1-2 Tbsp of dried Botanical add ins like:

  Lavender for relaxation

  Rosemary for clarity

  Basil for happiness

  Chamomile for peace

  Jasmine for positivity

  Mint for abundance

• Mixing Bowl and Spoon

• Optional: Mortar and Pestle

• Glass measuring cup

• A vessel for the finished scrub

What to do:

Gather all your ingredients and take a moment to just breathe with them and get centered.

1. Place your hands above all the ingredients and envision golden light streaming from your hands into the ingredients as you feel gratitude for each material and all that created them.

2. Pour your sea salt and dried botanicals into your mixing bowl and stir. Or if you have a mortar and pestle, pound the herbs up with the salt a bit before adding to the mixing bowl.

3. Combine your carrier oil with your honey and mix well.

4. Combine the oil and honey mixture with the sea salt and stir well.

5. Spoon your finished product into a glass mason jar or container.

Using the Scrub:

• Before you begin, allow the shower to run on hot in your bathroom for a few minutes to let the steam build. This will begin to open up your pores so the scrub can work its magic!

• Standing in your shower or tub, grab some of the scrub and start scrubbing it all over your body, in counterclockwise motions, working it up and in toward your heart. (This scrub may be too harsh for the face so just use on your body. You can put some plain honey on your face for a moisturizing mask if you want to!)

• Rinse once, letting the water flow over you and washing away all your worries, fears and perceived limitations.

• .Then grab some more scrub and work it up your body again, this time circling in clockwise motions, while thinking, or speaking out loud, things that you love and appreciate about yourself.

• Rinse again really well, allowing the water to purify your whole being.

• Pat yourself dry and finish with a little body oil to seal in all the goodness! Be sure to give yourself some extra love and appreciation for taking the time to put yourself first.

And there you have it! An easy DIY body scrub that combines the magical properties of salt, honey, herbs and flowers to leave you feeling more of your magical self!

I hope you do take the time to love and appreciate yourself whether it’s over this energetic new beginning time, or whenever you find the time! There is never a wrong time to give yourself more love.

New Moon and New Year Blessings to you all!

with gratitude,

Rachael

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