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Gathering the Dew

In some of the alchemical images we see people gathering the early morning dew. It is said that the morning dew is the matter of the Great Work, the substance to be worked on. Some people took this literal, and thought they had to gather the dew with clean sheets and then wring them out in a container. Then this dew water was used for distillation. It has been an old belief that the morning dew has certain rejuvenating energies, and therefore young girls would go out into the meadows and put the dew on their bodies in order to stay young and beautiful.
In hermetic alchemy, this is of course allegoric. When one goes into the inner self, as with meditation, one encounters the finer energies. As the finer energies precipitate into your awareness, this is like the dew that gathers on the grass.