A time of balance

The wheel of life is constantly turning. Days grow quietly longer, edging us out of winter’s darkness into the promise of spring renewal. Each year we anticipate change and each cycle bring new things to notice and consider.

This year has brought us so much loss. Everyone has been touched either publicly or privately and for some, the final journey in this world continues, affecting those they love and all who know.

In the countryside, the mild winter has not allowed the period of rest the land expects. Primroses have been blooming since December, maybe to prompt questions about its qualities. It is not just the flowers which gladden our sight and bring their candied sweetness to the table, the whole plant can gently soothe us. Leaves and flowers can be dried for tea and tinctures, while the flower essence can be helpful to stressed children.

Mature primrose roots are harvested in autumn before drying to combat nervous headaches. In ancient times, primroses were held in great regard for muscular rheumatism, paralysis and gout but today they are more often used as an expectorant or as a general tonic for the respiratory and nervous system.

The plants must have been laughing at us as we gathered around them last weekend in glorious sunshine, wondering about their properties when there was so much we could have been doing!

There was much we did do. Nibbling on St John’s wort and ground ivy leaves, noting their fresh and pungent flavour as well as storing up their properties for future reference. A medicinal tea was created for toothache from meadowsweet, sage and thyme but we drank nettle for refreshment and nettle soup to sustain us.

There is nothing which compares with young, fresh nettle. When asked to describe the flavour, the only real answer is “green” which tells us nothing and everything in just one word. We crave the vigour of this early plant to cleanse our sluggish blood stream after winter stagnation. It brings the vitamins and minerals we need to enhance our mood and start our activities in the lengthening light.

Helen’s nettle soup

A bowlful of fresh nettle tops

1 onion

1 clove of garlic

5 hazelnuts

1 stick of celery

1 potato

4 pints stock/water

Peel and dice the onion, celery and garlic, sweat them in a pan with oil until soft. Crush the hazelnuts and add to the pan with the peeled and sliced potato. Cook for about fifteen minutes until almost soft. Add the nettle tops five minutes before cooking ends. Season to taste. Blitz the soup until smooth. Serve with sourdough bread.

We find new allies amongst the detritus covering the herb beds. Bramble roots for digestive upsets infused in vinegar, golden nettle roots to tincture for prostate health and the ubiquitous couch grass to soothe the pain of urinary tract infections –cystitis, urethritis and prostatitis. It helps to dissolve stones and gravel as well as preventing their build up. It is also used for bronchitis and laryngitis and can be used with other herbs to treat gout and rheumatism.

The rhizomes are thin, white threads in the soil leading up to tufts of grass-like leaves on the surface. The underground labyrinths are washed and cut up into inch-long sections before drying. A mild, pleasant-tasting tea is made from infusing 2 tsps. of the roots in boiling water for ten minutes and can be drunk three times a day for a medicinal or preventative dose.

No matter where we look there is new growth. In my garden, pigeons are feasting on emerging hawthorn leaves. Elder leaves have been present for a few weeks now and the crampbark buds are beginning to burst. Other trees are still asleep but it won’t be long before their sap with be rising.

Now is the time for preparation, to sow seeds, to divide roots and begin cuttings. The light encourages us outside to experience a new warmth, another new beginning and all possible hope for the future.

In search of Juliette

It is almost seven years since we lost the acclaimed “Grandmother of Herbal Medicine”, Juliette de bairacli Levi. Her love of herbs and passion for life in general inspired women and men all over the world. After two years of increasing frailty, news finally came from her daughter’s family in Switzerland that she had passed on in May 2009. Several months later they buried her ashes back on Kythera, the Greek Island she called home.

There was an outpouring of love and remembrance amongst the American herbal community. Susan Weed wrote an eloquent obituary which formed the basis for every other online memorial. Her native land, the land of her first forty years, the home of much of her remaining family including her son stayed silent.

It is hard for anyone who comes from a different country, a different culture to fully understand the circumstances and issues surrounding another. We accept the fragments we are told because we often do not have the means or the inclination to dig deeper for the whole story, to understand the context of the time in which events unfolded.

When I read Susan’s obituary of Juliette some statements seemed “strange”. I did not wish to contact Raffi and Luz, Juliette’s children, at a time when their own grief would be raw so I went instead to the Jewish community in Manchester and learned a great deal from them. I’ve researched online to track what happened to her after her father’s death in 1935 when she moved alone to London whilst the rest of the family sought a new life in Harrogate.

In the past weeks, I’ve been contacted by Juliette’s stepson, who had no knowledge of his father’s first marriage nor of his step-siblings. It seems time to put my notes in order, visit the places where Juliette studied and worked and bring all that information into a clearer light.

The stories have already been told once. They are there in Juliette’s own words and thoughts, scattered like tiny pearls amongst her other tales. It won’t be a short journey, but now is the time to bring them together into a beautiful necklace so the whole world can see what an amazing woman she was.

Times of change: Grief and loss

During this dark time of the year, losing those we admire or love seems somehow harder. We often forget life is a continual series of loss of one kind or another. Just as the year changes with different periods of light and shade, we also move from infant to child, adolescent to adult, fertile to infertile, active to physically challenged, life to death and the passage something else or nothing, depending your own belief system. Each stage brings its own grief which may or may not be noticed or acknowledged.

Shakespeare depicted it in his own inimitable way when he wrote in “As you like it”

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then, the whining school-boy with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then, a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then, the justice,
In fair round belly, with a good capon lined,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws, and modern instances,
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Nancy Kerr recently introduced me to a round which sums up “a good life” eloquently in so few words. She was given it by her mother, Sandra, who attributed it either to Kabir, the Indian mystic or “an old Cherokee saying”.

When you are born you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die the world cries and you rejoice.

Whether the loss be large or small, however it arrives there will be periods of grieving to a greater or lesser extent. There is one certainty; everyone will experience grief in a different way and probably at a different time, often when it is least expected. This is normal.

Many people today expect life to be like Norfolk; flat, when the reality is that life is like Birmingham; filled with hills and valleys but often covered with buildings so sunrise and sunset can be obscured.

Many people fear change and many more feel helpless when those around them are physically or emotionally in pain. There are many simple things which can be done to support those suffering and there are several herbs which can help.

Immediate support

It’s hard to plan for loss. News that something is ending whether it is a life, a job, a relationship or something else can elicit shock. Reactions can vary. Denial, avoidance, anger and pain are common and many people experience numbness where nothing seems real and the world turns in slow motion or catapults you into places where you have no control over events.

Shock puts great strain on the adrenal glands. An immediate response can be to offer Rescue Remedy Flower Essence (4 drops under the tongue every half hour for the first four hours or so). I use rose elixir in the same dosage or one dropperful/1/2 a teaspoon every hour.

Perhaps the most important role at this time is being with the person suffering. It doesn’t mean doing the “There, there, don’t cry” routine or “Would you like a cup of tea” because both those phrases impart an unconscious message that you can’t cope with their emotions so please will they stop doing it and you can’t cope so you need to escape to make the tea. Having said that, those suffering will often want respite from the presence of others so going into another room to make a drink can be helpful.

If someone is shocked and numb, they do need someone with them to take care of practical issues. If you know someone is likely to be given bad news, it’s best to go with them so you can hear what is being said and hopefully remember the important points and can make sure they are safe afterwards.

Herbs which help

All the soothing nervines will help to greater or lesser extents. Teas made from chamomile, lemon balm, lemon verbena or lime flowers taste good and can help to make the person feel more relaxed and cared for.

Although alcohol such as whisky or brandy are often given to people in shock it’s not really a good idea in large amounts. Alcohol may deaden the emotional pain for a while but the individual will be dehydrated and suffer other damage if it is used for any length of time.

When I was training mental health nurses and drugs teams several years ago, they all told that people who misused either alcohol or other substances nearly always started because of a bereavement they could not cope with. If grief is not acknowledged and supported, so many difficult life events can follow.

Many people find it difficult to sleep at this time. This is normal but can be debilitating. Chamomile relaxes smooth muscle and has a noticeable effect if tea is drunk twenty minutes prior to going to bed. You can also put it into a bath for both adults and children if drinking tea isn’t an option.

If going to sleep or waking in the night is a problem, passionflower tincture is really helpful for stopping the brain’s chatter. It is recommended to keep a dropper bottle by the bed so a dose can be easily taken without getting out of bed. Both passionflower and skullcap can be used in half doses with children, who will also be suffering, especially if those around them are noticeably upset.

Longer term herbal support

Grieving people often find themselves experiencing quite violent emotional outbursts. This can be anger, sorrow, regret or despair. It’s useful to remember that anger is known as a secondary emotion and usually arises from pain or fear. Often, if you address the primary emotion, anger will die away. Anger needs to be acknowledged so it can be properly addressed, ignoring it only makes it worse.

Emotional pain is also a very real event. If someone is suffering from a complicated grief reaction, which is more likely if they have lost a child or a loved one who was murdered, it can be life threatening.

I will often make up a “bereavement tonic” for someone who is grieving based on a mixture of four nervines. Those in the very early stages of grief will receive Vervain (it makes you let go), Lemon balm, St John’s wort (providing they are not only any other mental health pharmaceuticals) and nettles. The dose is 1tsp three times a day. I also give them a small dropper bottle of skullcap tincture to take when they feel a screaming habdab moment coming on or they just can’t cope any longer. A bottle of tonic should last about a month.

As time goes on, if things are still difficult or they approach me further along their timeline, the mix will probably contain Vervain, Milky Oats, Lemon Balm and Motherwort (especially if they’re experiencing hot flushes and minor palpitations which their doctor has already investigated and found nothing untoward) as a blended tincture and they’ll be given nettle seed to eat 1-2 tsps every day for up to three months.

Other herbs which can be really helpful are hawthorn flower essence which will aid forgiveness either of the person taking it or the person who died or who did something unhelpful around the time of the loss. Agrimony flower essence will also assist anyone who is keeping up a cheerful front but crying inside, the “tears of a clown” syndrome.

Lavender tincture has been called “a hug in a bottle” so may be useful to anyone who needs a hug during difficult times.

If you don’t have a flower essence available but do have a tincture, drop doses of the tincture can be given to obtain the same effect. Dose is 4 drops under the tongue four times a day or sipped in a glass of water throughout the day or 4 drops every half hour during a crisis.

This is only a very short commentary of a very complex subject. If you are interested in more information I have a booklet written especially for those who work with grieving people in any capacity as well as leaflets about herbs which can assist in restoring sleep. Please email me via the blog and I will send them to you.