a month with melissa (lemon balm)
I have spent this month with lemon balm (Melissa officinale). For the three months before that she has travelled with me, a tiny bottle for drop doses before sleep. As I toured for book events in May, went to Paris for another book event in June and returned to the UK in July for a family funeral. Together with hawthorn she is the companion of my heart.
Physically, she calms nervous palpitations, settles arrhythmia and reduces blood pressure. She is a nervine herb and acts on the limbic system to aid mood. Sedative and analgesic, she lowers tension and anxiety, helps with insomnia. She is also a restorative herb, aiding memory, exhaustion and brain fog, relieving headaches, migraines, tinnitus and vertigo.
Like many heart herbs and nervine herbs, she also quiets the digestion where our fire can flicker or burn too bright under stress.
Melissa stimulates digestive enzymes and improves absorption. Antispasmodic and sedative, she is a balm for stress-related gut issues including gas, bloating, nausea, IBS, colic, gastritis… She also stimulates the liver and gallbladder to help us process so much, physically, emotionally, spiritually…
And her soothing extends to the womb. Helpful for irregular periods, PMS, and menopausal depression, she can also ease childbirth and speed contractions.
Her other actions include being a diuretic and antiseptic, making her an ally where there are urinary tract infections . And she is antiseptic for cuts and wounds, and an antihistamine for allergic skin rashes. The essential oil is soothing for period pain and for joint and muscle pain and is antiviral and antifungal, so the oil or a strong decoction or infused oil can soothe mumps. can be added to lotions for cooling sores, stings of athlete’s foot and to treat herpes.
A member of the mint family, melissa is cooling and slightly drying, and tonic, she reduces mucous and is antispasmodic, making her a lovely herb for cooling mild fevers, so clearing catarrh, assisting with respiratory infections and asthma soothing coughs (especially when they are dry). There’s something a little counterintuitive about this, as she’s a slightly drying herb, but her antispasmodic, calming nature tends to make her more of a balancer unless someone has excessive dryness. For respiratory issues she works in synergy with marshmallow or linden (lime blossom) to add moistening action.
Similarly, while she is a relaxant (due to the antispasmodic and emotional effects) for gut, heart and feelings, she has a gentle tonic action for lax tissues, working on the gut in this way too.
A beautiful herb for anyone who is heated, agitated, overwhelmed, and for those who are burnt out but still pushing themselves on (and trying to continue smiling). Her ability to calm and to draw energy downward and inward, grounding us and creating a pause, is a gentle blessing. She lifts the heart without false cheer and breaks the loops of negative, circular thinking.
She is a herb of the air element — gentlydispersing tension, lifting us and with a strong affinity to nerves, breath, and thought. Never forceful, her lemony scent is a note of clarity and light, adding subtle warmth to her soft cooling.
She comforts a broken heart, softens stagnant grief (especially when it’s stuck in the heart or throat), allows tears to flow without leaving us ravaged and raw. She bridges body and soul, emotions and groundedness and is a gorgeous herb to add to bath teas.
A few months ago a dear friend experienced a takotsubo event. I had never heard of such a thing until last year when I edited a beautiful poetry collection about the heart that was titled Takotsubo. It’s a kind of heart attack that is not caused by a clot but by a surge of stress hormones so strong that the heart muscle is weakened and changes shape, severely limiting circulation. The name comes from a Japanese word for a pot used to catch octopuses. The left ventricle of the heart narrows at the top, whilst the bottom distends and rounds, imitating the shape of the pot.
Sometimes there is a major single precipitating event. Sometimes the sheer overwhelm of our world crashes down. Thankfully, my friend’s heart has returned to its healthy shape, but what kind of world exerts such pressure? We all know the answer.
My friend has also been walking with melissa and other heart and supportive herbs. How much we need these allies who give so much despite the ravages our species inflicts on the world.
Each day a few drops of melissa on the tongue to end the day for the last four months. And this month a regular bath tea (combined with linden, meadowsweet and rose), teas to drink, simply sitting with her.
The human heart emits its magnetic resonance for at least ten feet around us. In my second herbal apprenticeship we practiced heart resonance with one another — standing far apart, walking slowly towards a partner, noticing the shift as we feel this presence. I feel melissa feeling my heart, feel myself regarded by her supportive heart in turn.
Always in this month attending to a single herb’s soul, there is something new revealed. Going inwards with melissa I felt a strong sense of sanctuary and centring, a sense that with her I could hold the light no matter how deep the dark. But there was no sense of separateness. The withdrawal, to an inner world or to sleep, was not a sinking into self-indulgence, but a renewing pause in order to engage and honour connectedness. In order to return to the world less frazzled and fragmented.
And this felt — powerfully — like an act of forgiveness, a blessing… For myself and for the world. So much of our grief and anxiety is negative self-talk, not so much facing our shadows as going round in circles. So much of our grief is a mask for anger — often justified in our crazy world, where cruelty or annihilation of other species has become national policy . But corrosive if all it does is whirl in the mind, haunt our dreams, burn the heart… Melissa loosens the grip and the heat, brings clarity in place of obsessive thoughts, permission to breathe, to forgive ourselves as we try to craft life creatively in perilous times, permission to love and be loved…
After all, she’s a herb of air, one who is not ungrounded, but a bridge who balances, a weaver who draws our parts together. In a mad world we often compartmentalise and divide our lives into fragments as a protective measure. But with melissa there is no fragmentation — she sees and honours the whole. In place of fragmenting, she says, in a small, clear voice — here I am, lean on me.
An invitation along the herbal path
I’d love to work with you along the herbal path and from September will be holding a space where we have time for wonder, awe, gratitude and hope. Where we find that in paying attention to the natural world we are seen and heard in turn.
Within this space there will be meditations, creative prompts for journalling and writing, access to a vault of recipes and videos for making teas and tinctures, balms, oxymels and more…
And most of all, there will be space for one another, for discussing particular herbs that will help those attending. Space to listen to our hearts and to the hearts of healing plants.
I want to offer a way to go on holding those you care for and being in this beautiful, wounded world, while also finding a place to be held.
Together with the herbs, we can create a little alchemy.