a month with rosebay willowherb
Autumn, and here in the forest, the season feels true, but there is drift. Autumn begins a little and the trees, though they stayed green through the summer, which was not as blazing as other parts of France, began the season with leaves less plump and watered than previous years. Still, we are cushioned here amongst the trees — for now. Until the storms come. Until…
And elsewhere… My friend and brilliant writer, Susie Mawhinney, wrote this just two months ago from further south:
So this is August; the well is dry, my garden scorched, plums have all fallen from their leafless branches sun-dried, wrinkled, already prunes as they land on earth too bruised and calcified by summer to cushion their landing. All the singing birds—except the jays and magpies and buzzards who surely must be made from wind and iron—have lost their singing voices. Everything, everything! that was green and golden and glorious is dying or already dead, turned to a faded-autumn colour so pale and light, the fields and the hill and the trees look like miles and miles of white sand drifting into an infinity of such clear monotonous white-blue sky I can hear its whispered wishes, ‘make me be grey, make me be rain’. I can no longer step outside without that my toes gather the dust of spring and my mouth dries instantly from breathing arid, still air and it burns—how it burns—and scratches my throat like sack-cloth rather than slipping past like silk. I am nothing but pain and veins in a dry, shrivelled skin.
Fire and water. Elements that warm and nourish, have become threats across the globe. If the world is not burning, it’s drowning. How do we hold one another in such times? I think our plant allies provide a clue — those we call weeds listen first and deeply to every cell of us. Listen and soothe.
I have spent the month with rosebay willowherb. She has many names:
Epilobium angustifolium
Chamaenerion angustifolium
Fireweed
Bomb-site weed
Railway crysanthemum
Dog’s parasol
French willow
Shit-tip lily
Bombweed
Spiked willowherb
Purple rocket
Ivan chai
Blooming Sally
Amongst those names many give a clue to her ability to grow after trauma. She thrives on land after the bombs have devastated it, on rubbish heaps, industrial waste sites that are often polluted, where fire has destroyed and scorched.
The path into the forest goes in two directions from the house, one towards Carhaix Plouger, the other towards Morlaix. On the path toward Carhaix there is a tiny hamlet of three houses, one of which was a mill and is now a pottery. The rosebay willow herb is particularly lush there.
Cooling, mildly drying and slightly astringent with a taste that includes a little sweetness, a touch of bitter. Her cooling touch and mild astringency tones and eases membranes. The herb that grows on burnt, inflamed, devastated land is a solace for hot, inflamed, irritated states, including the gut, urinary tract infections and prostrate conditions.
She reduces inflammation, especially of mucous membranes and has a demulcent action, softening and calming irritation. Rosebay is also helpful for minor wounds, the leaves applied as a poultice to burns and sores. And she is a gentle nervine — supporting where there is stress and assisting with recovery. Her leaves and flowers are lovely in teas or stronger decoctions (where the herbs are steeped for longer at boiling point).
She has much in common with small-flowered willowherb, though he is more astringent and drying, stronger for prostrate issues. Rosebay is gentler, more nutritive, more suited to cooling the fires and restoring rhythm.
I spent September on the move. It was wonderful. We hosted literary events that inspired. We saw family and dear friends. We saw art and cities and bookshops. It was utterly exhausting. I walked a tightrope some days with the lupus and am increasingly aware of its impact. I loved September and was glad to be home for October.
But this month our heating system has been ripped out and replaced. Weeks of upheaval that I’m grateful for. There is no way we could have replaced the old, polluting oil boiler without the generous grants that France still gives. But the logistics, the paperwork, the cold, the noise and disruption have not gone unnoticed.
Rosebay has held me. She is the herb of rebirth and resilience, soother after disruption, a herb of regeneration. She says, this is how we begin again and again and…
And she is not complacent. Rosebay doesn’t only cover the terrain with beauty, she reaches in, releases pain, brings old matter to the surface. A month with rosebay unearthed emotions I was carrying unawares.
In my mid twenties to early thirties I had four C-sections in four years. I have only ever thought of these as life-giving for someone who is under five feet with size 2 / 35 EU feet (pelvic and foot bones share a ratio). In my late 30s I had a series of work-place assaults. I’ve journalled and written about these more fully. I know where the injuries still unfold and where the patterns of trauma have left finger-prints.
I have never thought of the C-sections in this way, but as I worked with rosebay my dreams and thoughts shifted. Drop doses of tincture each morning on waking. Teas in the daytime.
The body that attended several dance classes each week became the body that wanted to move less and less. Lithe became stuck. I’ve thought of myself as someone with a weak core for years, but this was not always the case. The deep scarring, fascial pulling, digestive disruption, sluggish vagal tone, impaired bile flow and pelvic floor laxity preceded the assaults. So too did the sluggish metabolism that worsened with each round of major abdominal surgery.
Certainly, the assaults escalated the process and both C-sections and attacks have no doubt triggered the auto-immune condition that took decades to be named. And yet, I’d remained oblivious to a whole chain of bodily and psycho-emotional reactions until I listened to rosebay willowherb.
The release of memories and sense of new connections wasn’t blinding. It was not an earthquake of emotion or grief. I didn’t make me wish my past anything other than it was. It was gentle and slow, a dawning sense of connection. And as I worked with rosebay I had a growing sense of being pointed towards two other herbs to support the exploration.
I’ve written before about Acorus calamus, sweet flag. She’s a classic herb of re-finding a voice and also of restoring the connection of head and body, bringing clarity and cutting through the fog of dissociation from parts of the body. Sweet flag pulls soul and emotions from head to body, especially after trauma. She warms, clears, reawakens digestive fire and restores rhythm.
And motherwort, the lion-hearted mother herb (Leonurus cardiaca). She releases held grief or tension, particularly in the heart-womb axis or where the nervous system has been under stress. She is the friend of those who have abandoned parts of their body or story, especially post-motherhood.
So often when I work with others, a particular herb or herbs intuitively suggest themselves. They are not always the ones most obvious for a particular condition, but I invariably find they are key.
We all do this. See others with compassion and intuition. Forget to apply it to our own bodies and souls. Rosebay showed me how one herbal ally can be that generous other, listening where we have forgotten to listen.
In this devastated and devastating world, we need to be held. Who holds you? It may be a lover or friend, a family member, a companion animal, a herb or a tree. I hope it is several. Rosebay grows in community and so do we. She fills distrubed ground in drifts of magenta spikes that soften to seeds, speaks of belonging and connection after pain.
Who do you hold? Whose rosebay willowherb are you? And how do you nourish yourself to do this holding?