Celebrating a Herbal Springtime

This post is part of the Herbwifery Forum April blog party hosted by Cory Su on her blog Aquarian Bath

Spring evaded us for longer this year. Now the waiting is over as suddenly my garden is swathed in yellow. Forsythia blossoms hang from the naked cherry tree like a sunshine waterfall. Daffodils, primroses and cowslips offer yellow beacons amidst the dark brown earth, while a solitary primula promises red flowers in the near future.

Gooseberry and blackcurrant bushes have already unfurled their vibrant green leaves. Red currants and raspberry canes will not be far behind. I can see leaf buds swelling on the hawthorn hedge like a grey/green mist as I check the new plum trees for signs of contentment with their new home.

Spring brings bursts of new energy. Friday night saw me collecting nettles, garlic mustard, spinach and sorrel from the garden for my workshop soup. Already their different shades of green are painting a new palate together with the stalwarts of winter – holly, ivy, laurel, rosemary and yew.

Early fronds of St John’s wort have been growing for several months now, their lemony tang a burst of flavour on my tongue. Sea holly shoots are blue/green compared with their shiny green golden rod neighbours. A touch of red nearby reveals new rhubarb stalks, their green curled leaves waiting to explode against the hedge.

In the shade of the laurel hedge, violet flowers offer a swathe of colour amidst the green. Early rosettes of other herbs are beginning to make their mark – lemon balm, mint, vervain, valerian, while yarrow fronds wave at me as I step outside the back door. Their roots run deep beneath the paving slabs, but they grow straight and tall if left alone.

Underneath the bench a tiny elder tree hides, grown from an escaped berry two or three years ago. It cannot stay where it is, but neither can I move it without re-arranging the terrace. It may be safe for one more year, but then, who knows!

Spring can also bring sacrifices. This year it was angelica. Last year it grew happily behind the Mexican orange bush, but that has gone to make way for summer vegetables. If the angelica stayed, it would shade smaller plants and make the bed more difficult to manage.

It was a sturdy plant, defying the frosts and snow of winter, returning to full strength as temperatures rose and daylight lengthened. We tasted her leaves, bathing ourselves in her fragrance. She was photographed before being dug, then carefully washed and taken indoors to be swathed in honey and vinegar; her essence transferring to different mediums to nourish others.

Over the weekend, a single buff-tailed bumblebee buzzed her way around the garden. I watched her resting on the white patio door while I washed newly dug dandelions on the patio table, noting their difference from Cotswold cousins. The leaves were immersed in vinegar. Half the roots were chopped and roasted in the oven before joining their fresh counterparts, together with grated ginger root, dried orange peel and a pinch of ground black cardamom to be covered with vodka for a bitter tonic.

These are my first medicines of spring. Tonight they will be shared with another group, opening their hearts and minds to the endless possibilities of nature – food and medicines close at hand in their own gardens.

April UK Blog party: Herbs for aches and pains

I'm hosting the UK Herbarium blog party on 20th April. A recent posting on the Herb Society Forum started me thinking about all the new aches and pains we gather as we start back working in the garden, or generally exercise more because of the lengthening days and hopefully more clement weather.

What are your favourite herbs to use at these times? Is it a salve or oil to massage in to the aching area, or do you opt for a herbal liqueur to savour as you take your ease?

Please send me the url for your blog party posting either as a comment here or to my email address, sarah at headology dot co dot uk before 20th April and I will reveal them all on the day!

Ostara blessings

It feels as if spring is finally coming our way. To help you celebrate the Equinox, I have posted two stories on Mercian Muse

March UK Blog Party: My Herbal Treasure -Violet

They say violets flower from the end of winter until early Spring, but I will always associate them with Mothering Sunday. We would go to our local Cotswold church and be given bunches of primroses and violets to pass on to our mother as a small gift.

One year, Rev Walker, gave us a special card to go with our flowers. My sister’s card was a picture of a chancel with sun cascading in through the window and an appropriate verse, mine was a bunch of violets.

I always loved their scent. It was one of the perfumes of spring, delicate and short-lived. To me it bore no resemblance to the commercially scented sweets my grandmother sometimes offered.

There were few cars along our narrow country roads when I was young. It was safe enough for my sister and I to cycle the short way to the local quarry – then a dumping ground for the village. We would go to see what had been left, clambering over piles of earth to reach the farthest point where our small garden lay. There we transplanted snowdrops, primroses and violets, watching them grow and flourish in the warmth of each new spring before summer covered everything with nettles and we stayed at home.

We had no primroses or violets on our farm, so we dug up a few plants from our quarry garden and took them elsewhere – primroses in the garden and violets sheltered behind wiry hawthorn trees where they would be safe from cattle or sheep.

Those hawthorn trees are now part of the Sanctuary and violets spread a bright green carpet across the earth.

Susun Weed was the first person to draw my attention to violet as a medicinal herb in her book, Healing Wise. She talked about violet’s nutritional support for women. Her words were wonderful, but they didn’t mean anything to me until Rebecca Hartman, Kiva Rose Hardin and Darcey Blue French were discussing the amounts of mucilage present in leaves of viola odorata’s cousin, viola tricola (heartease).

“I wonder what they mean,” I thought to myself, never having chewed a violet leaf.

A few days later I was wandering by myself in the Sanctuary. Taking my courage in both hands, I plucked two violet leaves and chewed them. There was no real flavour, but as the leaves decomposed in my mouth, I discovered the mucilage.

It was a revelation – fleeting, but noticeable. It reminded me of the tiny remains after the shell of a Smartie had been carefully crushed between my teeth as a child and worked until a scrap of goo remained.

I now understood what mucilaginous and demulcent meant.

Like all herbs, violet is not just one thing. For a start, her scented purple flowers are not true flowers at all. Those appear later. They are green and hide underneath leaves where no-one can see them.

Violet is described as an “alterative” or “blood purifier”, a perfect addition to spring salads or mineral-rich hot, long infusions. Susun Weed adds her to red clover, plantain and nettles. Jim Mcdonald likes to combine her with hawthorn and oatstraw.

From times long past violet has been used to soothe hot, dry coughs such as whooping cough, congestion and sore throats. Rebecca Hartman has a lovely recipe for blender juice made from “weeds from your lawn” – plantain, chickweed, violet and mallows. She picks the leaves, washes them if necessary then throws them in her liquidiser with some cold water, blends, then leaves them for a short while before blending again then straining and drinking.

It is important to use cold water if you want to extract the most mucilage from a plant. It is the mucilage which coats and soothes the dry throat and chest. It can also help with irritated bowels or be sponged on sunburn.

Violet is not a single season herb. The leaves grow all year round, even surviving the recent months of snow and ice. Something has been feasting on the violet leaves in my garden and the ones in the Sanctuary look very small and fragile, but vibrant. I only found three flowers blooming last weekend, so I won’t be making violet syrup this year.

Susun Weed’s recipe for violet syrup
1/2 pound/225g fresh violets
2 cups/500ml water
2 cups/500ml honey
Enlist all the help you can to pick violet blossoms. Boil water; pour over blossoms; cover. Let steep overnight in nonmetallic container. Strain out flowers. Reserve purple liquid. Combine violet infusion and honey. Simmer gently, stirring, for ten or fifteen minutes, until it seems like syrup. Fill clean jars. Cool. Keep well chilled to preserve.

Violet syrup from the altnature.com website
Pour 1 pint of boiling water over 1 cup packed, of fresh crushed flowers and leaves, cover and let stand for 12 hours. Strain and squeeze through cloth, add 2 lb. of sugar and boil for 1 hour or until syrupy. Store in glass jar. Give 1 tbs. (1 tsp. for children) 2 or 3 times a day.

Violets contain many different compounds including vitamins A&C and salicylic acid, which means it can be taken for headaches, migraines, body pain and as a sedative. Apparently work is also being done with breast cysts – using violet both internally and externally as a poultice – and with HIV and cancers. It’s not a good idea to eat the roots unless you need an emetic!

I use her mainly as a double infused oil to offer added moisture to any salve I am making. Like her cousin, heartsease, she is good with irritable skin conditions and plays her part in soothing troubled hearts. She is also a wonderful teaching aid. Anyone who visits the Sanctuary is offered a leaf to chew, a new experience to bring delight and wonder.

Violets allow me to focus on both past and present. Their scent reminds me of a carefree childhood, while their leaves show me the wealth of support she is able to offer to mankind.

UK March Blog Party: My Herbal Treasures in March

Brigitte has announced the subject for this months blog party, its “My Herbal Treasures In March”, information and instructions from Brigitte’s blog My Herb Corner are:-

“Spring and Autumn are the best seasons to dig up things like dandelion roots for coffee or medicine, so we might share the same things at the same time in the Northern- and Southern Hemisphere of this beautiful planet.

If you live in the UK or Commonwealth you are invited to share your favorite herb(s), recipe(s) or harvest of this special month.

Post it on your blog before the 20th of March and send the link to:
brigitte at myherbcorner dot com

I will collect all posts and will open the party with the links here on myherbcorner on the 20th of March.

If you like you can make yourself a cup of plantain tea which is my favorite herb. You will find some words about this lovely herb on the 20th and I hope you join in the fun. I am already curious about your post”

Apologies for the late posting of this announcement, I've been busy digging in the garden and away training in Cambridge this week. Hopefully there is still time for you to think of a subject and get the links to Brigitte. If you need somewhere to post, let me know.

From the army : flowers

Although most of my posts here are about herbs, I do have another life. The job which pays my wages, thus supporting my family and interests, is mostly training. The subjects I talk about form part of modern society, the part everyone wishes didn’t exist. I teach people to recognise cultures where abuse can thrive, how to complain about health and social care services and, most often, how to cope with bereavement and loss. None of them are fun, but we do spend quite some time laughing when I’m not telling stories to illustrate a point.

Delivering this training started three years ago. At first I limited myself to the East and West Midlands but my responsibilities are national, so I was soon wending my way north, south and east. Last summer, I was working up in Northumberland when I met a counsellor who really enjoyed the short time we spent together. She went home and told her husband his organisation could benefit from my training.

Her husband is responsible for an army welfare service. I’ve never had anything to do with the armed forces. Indeed, the whole concept of war and fighting horrifies me. Just after my eldest son was born, the Falklands War broke out. The eldest son of a neighbour put my husband’s name down as a referee without asking him. The request came in the post on an army headed envelope and I was convinced the Government had introduced conscription without telling anyone. I spent a long day being terrified before the truth emerged.

Although the counsellor told me she was going to talk to her husband, I heard nothing for several months. One autumn morning as I was going to work on the train, I was confronted by the faces of five young men, three of them younger than my own sons, on the front page of the free newspaper. They had all been killed in the same week. It didn’t seem right and I fervently wished I could do something to help.

You could call it coincidence or you could say the universe heard me. The counsellor’s husband rang me that afternoon and we arranged I would travel north to provide a two-hour lunchtime session for unit welfare officers.

Arrangements were taken over by a warrant officer, the counsellor’s husband’s deputy. She was able to come and see me in action in Sheffield when I was delivering a session for local voluntary services.

“It’s really good,” she said. “The content is just what we need, but you mustn’t do anything touchy-feely or they’ll call you a tree-hugger and walk out.”

This left me in somewhat of a dilemma, since most of my training is about feelings and I am a tree-hugger. What could I do?

Of all the training I have delivered over the years, this is probably the session which has scared me the most.

Chris and I travelled north last Monday, hoping to escape recent snowfalls with warmer weather. As we reached Yorkshire, I looked out of the car window to see two hares boxing. Theirs the only presence on a vast, frozen, snow covered field.

I love hares. We usually have a family of three each year on the farm. They will crouch, perfectly still as you approach, only leaping away when you come within stepping distance. This was the first time I had ever seen a couple boxing in real life. The experts say that the pair involved could either be two males fighting for dominance, but was more likely to be a female rejecting the amorous advances of a male.

A fascinating discussion of the symbolism of hares and rabbits can be found in an illustrated online article by Terri Windling. He says, “Whether hovering above us in the arms of a moon goddess or carrying messages from the Netherworld below, whether clever or clownish, hero or rascal, whether portent of good tidings or ill, rabbits and hares have leapt through myths, legends, and folk tales all around the world – forever elusive, refusing to be caught and bound by a single definition.”

The sight of boxing hares brought me great personal joy. Despite my misgivings, both training sessions with army and air force unit welfare officers and community development workers were very well received.

We talked about theories and processes and signposting. The warrant officer provided case studies – compassionate leave for dying parents, marital difficulties and a bomb blast which meant not all the body parts could be returned – and the participants talked about their own experiences and concerns. Many were new in post, many already knew what it was to be the bearer of bad news to families and they all seemed to take something positive away with them.

The snow fell again on Tuesday night in North Yorkshire. As we came to leave the Army Welfare Service building, fog covered the land, leaving little sign of fields and hedges. Training sessions always exhaust me, so I dozed on and off during our four hour journey home.

Reading through the evaluation forms on Thursday afternoon back in my office brought a smile to my face. All the worry and preparation had been worthwhile. When I returned to my desk on Friday, after a brief foray into inner city gloom in search of sandwiches, there was a message on my voicemail from Reception.

“We have something nice for you,” it said.

On a shelf underneath the window was a bouquet of spring flowers. For me. The note read, “Thank you for supporting the Army Welfare Service”.

Emerging from winter with herbs

Ever since Elizabeth set the subject for the February UK Blog party, I’ve been trying to think how best to address the issues. What does the word “Emerge” actually mean? It originates from Latin, where “e-“ means “out of or from” and “mergere” is the verb to immerse. So emerge can mean
• To rise from or as if from immersion
• To come forth from obscurity
• To become evident
• To come into existence

All this makes me think that during winter, we have been hiding, hidden in the darkness from the cold, possibly even hibernating. Now, as winter ends, we must come forward into the light. We must show ourselves, possibly our new selves, a self which is still developing as the season grows and changes.

In order to survive winter, we have immersed ourselves in warmth, we have slowed down, perhaps become stagnant, sluggish, but as the pulse of the earth begins to grow louder, we have to respond to the quickening beat.

How do we do this?

Activity comes first. We have to start actually doing things. As days lengthen, the light entices us outwards into fresh air and sunlight. Our bodies are depleted with vitamin D, so we crave sunlight. Some people may need supplementation. Those people who suffer with seasonal affective disorder may have been using a special light lamp. A combination of St John’s wort and lemon balm is also helpful, as is goldenrod elixir.

The depletion and slowing down of winter may cause our bodies to need a kick-start to get them moving again. You could start with a gentle detoxification of increased water consumption, a nightly herbal bath and plenty of sleep as set out in Jenny Jones’ article here. Our bodies may need tonics (see articles here and here ) or a longer term adaptogenic approach.

Adaptogens are described as herbs which increase the ability of the body to cope with and respond to stress. They have been shown to act on the adrenals and the endocrine and immune systems. Adaptogens were the subject of significant research by Russian scientists for many decades in the 20th century. They were looking for plants which would increase physical abilities for space travellers and athletes.

Their findings enhanced global knowledge about identified adaptogenic herbs. Most of these plants came from the Chinese and Ayurvedic traditions, with only five being found in European Russia and the US – American ginseng (panax quinquefolius), Eluethero/Siberian ginseng (eleutherococcus sentocosus), licorice (glycyrrhiza glabra or g.uralensis), Rhaponticum (rhaponticum carthamoides) and Rhodiola (rhodiola rosea).

Luckily, some of the Asiatic Adaptogens grow in this climate, so I am looking forward to growing ashwagandha from seed and holy basil this year. If I get really lucky I might try growing some reishi mushroom logs which would be a totally new experience!

In order to become active, you also have to do some spring cleaning. This may mean an emotional process as well as a physical one.

In order to emerge and declutter ourselves from the detritus of winter, we may have to go through a period of letting go with conscious intent. We may need to release emotions e.g. guilt, fears, sorrow, pain or anger where they are not helping us or are holding us back from moving forward. If an emotion is proving helpful, e.g. a righteous anger may be giving you energy to do what needs to be done, then it should not be suppressed, but worked with openly until it can be discharged.

Herbs can be amazing allies when emotions threaten to overwhelm us. Henriette Kress, Kiva Rose and Rebecca Hartman have put together wonderful posts on herbs for sorrow and stress. It doesn’t really matter in what form the herb is used, providing the medium contains sufficient essence of the living herb. You might choose a flower remedy, a fresh herb tincture, an infused oil or salve, a herb tea or a foot bath depending on how the emotion is manifesting itself in you.

If emotion is affecting your digestion, you might want to experiment with Goldenrod. Both Ananda Wilson and Kiva Rose have found this useful for “cases of mild to moderate depression, especially where there is seasonal sensitivity and general feelings of coldness, frustration and a feeling of being paralyzed by cold weather or more specifically, lack of sunlight.”

Kiva Rose goes on to say, “I am also very fond of it in where digestive stagnation is causing feelings of sadness, stuckness and potential despair, and in such situations often team it up with Rose and Ginger. I am especially prone to use Goldenrod for those who consistently feel cold and have gut stagnation where food just wants to sit in the belly like a lump, and where there is concurrent feelings of sadness and the blues that accompanies digestive upset and chilly weather.”

Herbs for guilt were discussed on the Herbwifery Forum during the past few months. Pine flower essence was suggested, or a combination of pine, mimulus and honeysuckle flower essences. Ali suggested that sometimes guilt is there for a reason and felt rosemary’s gift of clarity and insight helped you learn not to make the same mistake twice “without wearing too much of a hair shirt about it”.

Winter stagnation may produce a sense that our boundaries are knocked around or jumbled or tied up with those of other people you have had close contact with. It was Matthew Wood with his tales of yarrow who first drew me to ask help of this herb. I am touched by lots of other people. Sometimes their stories and circumstances affect me greatly, but yarrow always helps me realize I do not have to carry their burdens for them, that my support is sufficient without needing to rescue them from the situation.

You may favour a different herb for strengthening your boundaries. Some people like thistle, but yarrow does it for me.

Spring can be an anxious time for many people. It’s a lot more comfortable staying in the warm than venturing outside when you don’t know what the outcome might be. I’ve been working with a combination of skullcap, St John’s wort and lemon balm recently and they have proved effective in untying the knots in the solar plexus and aiding sleep where you would otherwise be lying awake all night worrying.

No matter what winter throws at us, spring will come. Snowdrops and crocuses are flowering in gardens and daffodil buds are already four to five inches above the ground. Cuckoopint curls through the dark soil and blackcurrant and elder bushes have beautiful pale green and purple leaf buds ready to burst.

However you emerge from winter into spring, it will be easier if you spend some time in planning and preparation. As with everything, it is not just our physical bodies that are involved, but our minds and spirits too. Whatever you plan, herbs will be there to guide and support you if asked.