Nurturing a dream

I don’t know exactly why my mother and father decided to have a summerhouse built at the very bottom of the farm the year after my grandmother died, using a part of the inheritance money. I suspect it was something to do with replacing the summerhouse my grandmother had had in her garden, where she took her afternoon snooze in the summer.

It also replaced the old henhouse my sister and I used as a play house which provided a place to cook when we had friends to stay on the farm over the summer. We had no spare beds, my parents had no experience of people sleeping on the floor or of “sleepovers”, so if more than one friend came to stay at once, we were sent down to the bottom field where any noise we made would not be heard up at the bungalow.

The only spare land was the boggy slope leading down to the spring which provided water to the whole farm. My father dug it out and levelled the base for the summerhouse and had a man with a machine dig out the clay from the centre of the oak glade to form a pond. The idea was this would be a place to raise runaway trout from the local fish farm and provide us with somewhere to swim during the hottest days of summer.

My mother planted daffodils on the bank and during spring we would walk down the fields to view them. In summer we might venture once or twice to listen to music on the wind-up gramophone, revise for school exams or show visitors when we weren’t quite sure how else to entertain them.

Grandchildren played house and shops there, but visits were few and limited to fair weather until I decided to make my simmering, book-driven interest in herbs a living reality. The land seemed to appreciate being worked again on a hand-to-soil level. Most plants thrived although local inhabitants did have a tendency to overwhelm some newcomers.

There was always a quiet insistence that while cultivated herb beds would be tolerated, the land was a field and would always return to its inherent state if left for more than a few weeks without attention.

The land has its own way with humans too. They find their thoughts stilling as they walk down the green path towards the Sanctuary gate. Once inside, even if they don’t understand why they have come, they need to sit and be. Somehow the land understands. A flower, a tree or a fallen piece of wood will provide their answer and a gift of peace.

No-one wants to leave. The walk up the two fields is steep, especially with a heavy back pack. They arrive at their cars with smiling faces and joy within their hearts.

Now the original Sanctuary is to be extended. My father has suggested we cultivate the piece of flat land between the ash tree and the hedge where the hay makers can’t reach with their enormous machines because of the sheltering slope.

The area of productive herb beds will double. I’m thinking of growing oats for oatstraw and milky oat tincture for the first time. I want to grow astralagus and eluethero and maybe some more rhodiola to provide a harvest of adaptogens in years to come. I might go mad and encourage rows of dandelions and burdock (in places they like to grow rather than in the artificial beds).

All things are possible. The land now needs people to tend the soil, to organise the compost and cherish the native plants. Hopefully this year there will be more motherwort, more calendula, a new lease of life for the Echinacea and huge piles of nettle seed gathered and dried over the summer.

It’s heady stuff, all these dreams. Let’s hope the weather co-operates and allows us to make all the dreams into reality. If you would like to be part of this, let me know.

Waving for a reason!

When Ananda suggested the topic of plant divas and energetic connections with plants for the April Herbwifery Forum blog party, I knew I wanted to be involved. The only problem was not having a blog. This prevented me from participating in the nettle party in March, so I really didn’t want to miss out again!

So, a new month, a new blog and some thoughts about my relationships with the plants I work with. I suspect they would say the relationship is very one sided – they do all the work, I just come along and smile at them or harvest them and very occasionally pass the odd comment while I’m nearby. I’m very bad at making time to be quiet, alone and do nothing else but pay attention.

Occasionally they take me to task, shouting their message until even I am forced to listen and take action. Here are a couple of stories about messages I’ve received.

I’m very fortunate to have been given some land to grow my herbs. It’s a small glade at the bottom of a field in the Cotswolds. You can see what I do there on http://www.springfieldsanctuary.co.uk/ . About two years ago, when times were particularly stressful, I’d gone for an energy field healing from a friend. She gave me some Goddess cards to work with, which seemed helpful. It gave me the idea of dedicating the Sanctuary to a particular Goddess.

I wasn’t sure which one to choose, so I thought I would ask the Sanctuary itself. It was a glorious, hot summer day and for a short while I was on my own. I lay down on the warm, dry soil and asked my question. The answer I received was couched in a somewhat ironic chuckle. “There is no need for an identified Goddess; this whole place is nematon – sacred space.” I realised I should have known this all along – it was not for me to force my will on a place, but to respect what was already here.

The first plant to draw my attention was yarrow (Achillea millefolium). He and I go back a long way – a plant of my childhood which was always there during the summer. The first year I grew herbs in the sanctuary there was a group of wild yarrow growing by the fence. It was not really large enough to meet all my needs so I bought some fresh plants to grow and put them in one of the herb beds. For several years the new plants were nowhere near as strong as the wild one, but gradually they became acclimatised to the limestone soil and their taste became the same.

I found yarrow in other places too – especially when I needed him. In 2002, I was visiting a friend in hospital who was dying of metastised oesophageal cancer. When I left, I kissed him goodbye on his forehead. The acrid taste of his sweat filled my mouth and I didn’t know what to do. By the side of the steps leading down to the car park was some yarrow leaves. I picked and chewed them and the taste of death left me. I suppose, as a battlefield herb, yarrow knows a lot about death.

Three years ago, another friend was involved in a fatal road accident. I was beside myself with worry and the fear lodged in my solar plexus as a deep, physical pain. A wild yarrow was growing in the cracks in our patio. I brushed past it every time I went outside into the garden. At the same time I was putting together a handout on the energetic use of herbs for a workshop I was running on flower essences. Part of my research led me to Karin Saunders 17 June 2004 radio show where she talked about yarrow strengthening personal boundaries so you knew where you started and someone else ended. This tied up with things Matt Woods mentioned in his discussion about yarrow.

While everyone else was choosing their flower to make a flower essence, I went to my yarrow patch and picked enough flowers to float over the top of my glass of spring water. We talked about what flowers we’d chosen and how they might help us.

The following Monday morning I took my yarrow flower essence into work and added four drops to my water glass because the pain was still troubling me. Within half an hour the pain had gone. I continued taking the flower essence for the next three days, but the pain did not return.

When I got home that Monday night, I went out into the garden and talked to the yarrow growing by the back door. I knew how much he had tried to show me he could help in a difficult situation but it had taken me a long time to realise why he kept drawing my attention. I told him how grateful I was he persevered.

References
Sanders, K “The Spiritual Properites of Herbs” on Herbal Highways June 17 2004 http://www.kpfa.org/archives/archives.php?id=15&limit=N

Wood, M The Book of Herbal Wisdom: Using Plants as Medicines