Herbal updates

Anyone trying to discover what I was up to by following my blog this summer would have been sorely disappointed. A dearth of posts resulted from a plethora of stress, knitting and gales (although not necessarily in that order!). Now the autumn equinox has passed and life has quietened just a little I can look backwards and forwards to various herbal exploits.

The weather has been atrocious. There is no other word for it. No sun, no warmth and almost continuous rain. I really thought I would not be gathering anything but I was wrong. It may be small and not as rich as I’d like but there is a harvest and I am grateful.

I have gathered rose petals whenever and wherever I can. There are jars of rose elixir, rose vinegar and rose honey infusing in the larder and two large jars stuffed full of dried petals waiting for autumn or winter inspiration. I also discovered a beautiful bag full of apothecary’s rosebuds dried to perfection. I’d picked them after one of the summer workshops when I felt sure I’d lose the entire crop because of the rain. They smell amazing and I’m looking forward to using them in some ashwagandha milk over the winter.

The calendula crop was initially disappointing. I blamed myself for not supervising the apprentices who sowed the seed then I blamed the weather. I picked yellow and orange flowers and began to be grateful for the limited bounty I was able to gather. We even made a double infused oil from wet flowers – something I never thought I’d do – and yes, it was paler than usual, but not without merit. You have to use what you have when you can.

I was also incredibly grateful for the self -seeded row of plants which offered a rich and healthy crop of flowers without any thought or effort from me. When I went down to the Sanctuary last Tuesday, both calendula beds were looking the best I’d seen them all year and I was able to pick a large basketful of flowers and a whole pile of seeds for next spring.

One of the things I’ve tried to do this year is not panic. Ok, there were very few St John’s wort flowers in my garden. I have given away so many plants, the marjoram has completely overwhelmed the few I have left.  Bees adore the marjoram. Luckily there have been plenty of flowers at the Sanctuary and, even more exciting; I found a real sufficiency of small wild plants when I was foraging in Cornwall. There were enough blossoms to dry for our German friend who can’t use alcohol. They grew next to ragwort, so you really had to be able to identify your plants to wildcraft in safety.

The St John’s wort oil is not as crimson this year as others but that’s ok. I still have loads left from other years so I don’t think I’ll run out and there’s always next year.

There have been a lot of plants I have not harvested this year, ladies mantle and agrimony being but two. I don’t know either of them well enough, so maybe next year I shall choose a new ally to get up close and personal with. Anne MacIntyre’s comments about agrimony’s digestive properties have already got me thinking. I’d like to be able to tie them in with its energetic properties and Matthew Wood’s use for pain where there is tightness/contraction.

Even when I was so miserable and frustrated because of the weather and my mother’s deterioration, the Sanctuary still held me and gave me hope. 

I was picking St John’s wort flowers in a howling gale one August afternoon, thinking how dreadful everywhere looked because we hadn’t been able to mow or weed.The hops completely sheltered me from the wind and the message in my head was, “Never be ashamed of what you have.” 

It made me realise I don’t have to compare myself with other herbalists. Just because they have stunningly beautiful, manicured gardens with easily identified and labelled herbs, it doesn’t mean my piece of land is any less valuable or beautiful, it’s just different.

It was one of those days when nothing went right, but when I touched one of the oak trees it told me to “remain steadfast”. I don’t spend enough time talking to my trees but they are always generous with their support and advice when I do listen.

It’s sad to see branches so bare this Autumn. Oak trees covered with knopper galls instead of acorns. Apple, plum, pear, meddler and quince trees devoid of fruit. Even the sloes, damsons and haws are scarce. I guess the trees are resting after last year’s bumper crops but it’s still difficult to see empty spaces in the freezer and know they won’t be filled anytime soon. I’m grateful for our Autumn raspberries which are cropping for the first time this year – not enough for jam but a real dessert delight mixed with natural yoghurt and honey.

I’ve already wildcrafted two baskets of windfall apples in public spaces this year, one in Cornwall and one locally and I can see me hunting for more in the coming weeks to turn into jams or jellies. It’s frustrating that none of the rosehips I’ve found are ripe yet as I want to restock my dried hips this year. I’ve already made one batch of elderberry and blackberry cordial from fruit leftover after my festival workshop and a muslin bag of “hedgerow juice (sloes, blackberries and elderberries)” is currently dripping quietly into a bowl over the cooker top as I type. Tomorrow I shall turn it into jelly to add to our growing stock of preserves.

The hot cupboard in the kitchen is still full to the brim with paper bags drying herbs and seeds plus a few infusing vinegars. It has taken weeks to process dried herbs from bags into glass jars on my larder shelves but the kitchen table is finally clear. Only one of my ashwagandha plants has produced the familiar red cherries this year but there will be plenty of seed for next spring. I also managed to save lettuce seed from plants which bolted; the first time I’ve done this.

As I was looking at my French beans flowering in the new raised beds today, I noticed chickweed was growing again to be added to autumnal salads. There are still bright green nettle seeds to harvest and dry towering over the mint and raspberry canes and fresh nettles are taunting me to make soup from underneath the patio.

Everywhere I look there is something to gladden my heart and prompt gratitude. It would not be real life if bounty were not balanced by lean times. It is all part of the cycle of life and death and rebirth. We could not learn if we did not experience and could not grow if those experiences did not feed us and grant us riches. We do not always appreciate the lessons we are offered but they make us who we are.

Working with wood

As trees finally release their leaves and the sap rests underground, the time comes when we can think about working more closely with them. Making your own energetic or meditative tools is perhaps one of the most relaxing tasks to carry out over the winter period. The article below first appeared in the Fall edition of Circle Magazine back in 2007.

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Working with Wood : A Beginner’s Guide to Wand and Staff Making.

I dropped into woodworking by accident. I am not a practical person, preferring to leave anything like that to the various men around me, but I have always loved wood. When I began following the Pagan path, it became evident that if I wanted any “tools for my trade”, I would have to make them. What I discovered was, creating my own wands and staves was not an arduous task, but one which brought great peace and joy. In this article I should like to share with you what I have learned so you can begin your own way of communicating with those trees and bushes you find around you.

My first wand was a short piece of “Glastonbury thorn” –a tree which flowers and fruits at the same time, collected from a pile of prunings in Glastonbury Abbey in 1996. The same year, I began making ogham sticks, or fews, from the 20 sacred woods of the Druids, using Glennie Kindred’s book, “Tree Ogham”.

Later, I became interested in larger “sticks” and started to sandpaper them to see what difference it made. I found the more you sandpaper, the smoother the wood becomes until it has a wonderful silky feel when you touch it. This can best be achieved by beginning with coarse-grained sandpaper and finishing with a fine grained one. If you then coat the sanded wood with sunflower oil, this polishes the wood and gives it an even better finish.

This polishing technique came about quite by chance when I found a jar of home made calendula salve (double infused oil thickened with beeswax) nearby when I was sanding. I rubbed some salve into the wood to see what would happen. You would not believe how it changes the colour of the finished wand!

Gorse is a wonderful wood to work with, the dead wood turns from light brown to honey-coloured and the live wood, if you’ve sanded it with the bark on goes gorgeous shades of green, white and brown which resemble snake skin. Birch wands rubbed with salve after sanding with the bark present glows with a red tinge.

Each wood has a different spiritual property and a different affinity for the time of year. I love yew, not only for it’s soft orange colour, but because it is the gateway between this world and the spirit world. As a healer and counsellor, I often work with people who are dying or bereaved, so yew is a very special wood for me.

When my friend lost his parents, I made him two fews (ogham sticks), one of live gorse for hope and one of yew finished with comfrey oil, so he could sit and stroke the wood, finding comfort in their touch. Recently, I sent him an elder few, because elder helps with change and moving on. I made myself a necklace of elder beads finished with rosemary infused oil for aiding “life rites”. It is adorned with kestrel feathers to help with farseeing. I wear it during rituals or when I want a focus for meditation or visualisation.

It is best to gather wood from living trees when they are asleep during the winter months or being pruned. You should always discuss your wish to gather wood with the tree itself. Sometimes there will be a dead twig or branch which can be removed without harm or maybe you will find just what you are looking for under the canopy. It may have blown off during a strong wind or storm or left there after animal damage.

Some wood can be gathered and worked fresh (holly and gorse are good for this) but most are better left to dry for at least five weeks before you try scraping or sanding them. The tools I use for woodworking are a pair of secuteurs, a small knife, various grades of sandpaper and vegetable oil or salve of some description. I make a wide variety of infused herbal oils so I always have a wide variety of enhancing energetic properties to choose from. A woodworking apron to protect clothes can also be useful.

You can make wands with both green and dry wood, depending on what you’ve got to hand and whether you want to work with it with the bark on or off. It’s easier to remove the bark when the wood is green rather than when it’s dry. Willow will remain wet for over a year because if you drive a stick into the ground, it will grow. I have a flourishing willow hedge in my herb garden which is made from pollarded branches cut down in November 2005 and left on the ground during the winter. My father trellised the fence for me in April 2006 and they sprouted almost immediately.

A wand can be used to direct energy as in circle casting, or to aid concentration or meditation. If I am making wands in public places, I often refer to them as meditation sticks and show people how to use the property of the wood to help them relax or focus on particular concepts such as ash for connecting with the natural world or holly for experiencing universal love.

The length of a wand is historically the distance from your elbow to your longest finger, but it can be much shorter. Cut your wand roughly to size from a longer branch or twig using secuteurs or pruning shears when you start working on it. A wand does not have to be straight nor from a single branch, it can curve and twist and have Ts or Ys at the end depending on what the piece of wood tells you to do. I use my penknife when I’m working on knots in the wood, or to shape the tip or handpiece. You can also use inexpensive metal files to make whirls or spirals in the wood if this is what you feel called to do.

Sanding does take time and it can be quite hard work. Start with the coarsest grain of sandpaper and work up to the finest sandpaper you have. It’s using more than one grade which really makes the wood smooth. Once you are satisfied with the smoothness, take some plain sunflower oil or herbal infused oil or salve if you have some and smooth it on until the wood stops soaking it up. Put a little on your fingertips and keep rubbing.

When finished, you can decorate your wand however you wish, but I prefer to use fairly natural materials such as seashells, ribbons, crystals, hagstones or other small objects such as acorn cups.

Staff making is a similar process, but slightly different. Your staff should be a thickness which is comfortable to hold in the palm of your hand and a length you feel happy with. It can be shoulder or head height or taller depending on your planned use.

I have a large hazel staff with runes inscribed on it for rituals, a much shorter blackthorn staff with a monkjack deer antler on the top which I use occasionally for stick dancing in Tai Chi and a lighter willow staff which I use most of the time when we are working with sticks. Do remember staves were originally weapons and could seriously injure someone if handled carelessly.

When you have chosen your piece of wood, leave it to dry for several months, then sand it down with the bark still on it. It doesn’t need to be as smooth as a wand, just until you feel happy with the smoothness. Some people prefer to remove all the bark, but I knew someone who did this and then had great trouble identifying the wood afterwards.

If you want to decorate your staff with carving or runes, do this now. Rune carving is much more difficult than you think – take care not to cut yourself. The runes can then be coloured in with a red dye of some description. If you can make a natural dye out of madder or dyers woodruff – both of which yield a bright red colour - all the better.

Once you have decorated your staff to your satisfaction, it then needs to be sealed in some way either with varnish or a clear wood sealant. Leave it to dry somewhere away from dust and particles which may adhere to the sticky surface. It can then be decorated with hag stones, seashells, crystals or whatever you fancy.

If you have made a staff with a Y-shaped top, this can be used as a ‘stang’ or outdoor altar. The stang is placed in the ground and decorated with animal skulls, flowers and ribbons. Again this acts as a focus for personal or group rites or ceremonies.

Although my family sigh a great deal at the number of different “sticks” I have lying around the house or when I bring new ones in to work on, I love my wands and staves. I use them for workshops with my healer development group and people seem to enjoy sensing their energy or meditating with them.

I hope this article will help you to feel confident to try working with wood. It’s a very forgiving medium to work with, offering great fun and freedom from the stresses of everyday life.

REFERENCES
Kindred, G The Tree Ogham ISBN 0 9532227 2 1
Paterson, JM Tree Wisdom Thorsons 1996
West, K Real Witches’ Year Element Thorsons 2004

Spring Trees

Gazing out of the railway carriage this morning on the way into work, I was struck by how many trees are either coming to life or displaying blossom. Noticing these changes teaches us so much about our local environment and what is available during the lean time of the year.

The waste ground across from the station platform is growing an impressive array of feral trees, reminding me that every cultivated plot would return to native woodlands within five years if not managed.

The trees are mainly hawthorn and sycamore, but along the lineside, pussy willows were flowering alongside “ordinary” willows and a lone cherry tree was showing the first signs of blossom. The hawthorn leaves were a beautiful shade of light green, but it will be several weeks before the sycamore buds burst. Any elders were hiding, but I know their purple budded leaves are already growing green.

What could we use these trees for?

Bark collection is normally done in winter while trees lie dormant, but the green bark of the young willow branches is a useful source of anti-inflammatory and headache potions. Willow bark can be harvested at any time during dormancy but is said to achieve optimal quality in the spring just as the first leaf buds start to form.

Glennie Kindred says “willow bark has been used for its pain-relieving qualities for at least 2,000 years. The Salix alba (white willow, withe, withy) contains salicin, which is converted to salicylic acid in the body.” Willow bark reduces fever and relieves rheumatism. A decoction can be used for gum and tonsil inflammations and as a footbath for sweaty feet.

The decoction is made by soaking 3 teaspoons (15ml) of the bark in a cup of cold water for 2 - 5 hours. Then bring to the boil. Strain and take a wineglassful each day, a mouthful at a time. The bark can be dried, powdered and stored in an airtight container.

Many herbalist believe black willow (Salix nigra) to be the most effective tree, but the difference is negligible if the bark is freshly harvested. Salix nigra is the pussy willow and has black bark as opposed to the light greens of the white willow. Its properties are much the same, but Glennie says it was used in the past as an aphrodisiac and sexual sedative.

Goat willow or sallow willow (Salix caprea) is used in very much the same way as the white willow, but sallow bark tea is recommended for indigestion, whooping cough and catarrh. It can also be used as an antiseptic and disinfectant.
Young hawthorn leaves were historically known as “bread and cheese” because it often found its way into mouths when other foraged food was rare. They make a refreshing tea for heart conditions and other water retention issues, but don’t take them without advice if you are on other heart medication.

Now is the time to make a cherry blossom elixir. The bark of the wild cherry, Prunus serontina is the species usually recommended for dry, involuntary coughs. The inner bark is the most potent part of the tree, acquired by a mixture of whittling and scraping with a hand-knife. Experiments with modern cultivars of Prunus. avium, the Sweet Cherry, show that good results can be obtained from pruning garden cherry trees.

Ananda Wilson first alerted me to the possibility of using the cherry blossom for a delicious elixir and every year I try to find blooms to cover with brandy and honey for coughs later in the year. The cherry tree in my garden is too high up to gather flowers easily, but maybe this year I will find some at a height I can reach!

Another joy in my garden at the moment is the yellow forsythia. If this were the forsythia suspense of Chinese origin, it would be a staple medicinal herb. The fruit is one of the most common components in Chinese herbal formulas for treating the common cold, influenza, and allergies.

Now would be the time to gather young horsechestnut leaves for salves and tinctures to strengthen arterial walls and support varicose veins. The time for harvest is very short since it must be done before the conical flowers appear.

Elder leaves too could be harvested for bruise salves, but I prefer to allow them to remain on the trees as I would rather use plantain, yarrow or comfrey, but that is my choice. I’m waiting for the flowers which will show summer is just around the corner.