walking a creative path with herbs
Already it’s the fourth month of the year. The attic windows over my bedroom have resounded to fat pebbles of rain every day since Easter. Each day the garden has swollen, a creature breathing — inhale: marsh, exhale: lake… In the swamp beyond the orchard we can’t make out whether the newly-planted willow whips are still standing.
But beneath the wet rags of clouds, primroses crouch under the hedge, daffodils raise canary beaks towards the forest, celandines are everywhere. The woodpeckers have returned, the rhythm section for an orchestra of busy birds. Crows and magpies nest in the high ash and poplars on the island beyond the river that runs through the garden, chaffinches favour the willow beside the balcony, while blackbirds tune up in the aging apple trees. The cat suspects blue tits in the nests in the eaves above our bedroom and is tormented by the thought of the swallows who inhabit the sous-sol. She waits for one to once again fly through an open window, dreams that the next time she leaps six times her own height to meet a confused creature in flight, her catch will not be foiled by my son releasing the indignant bird from her mouth. A cat can dream.
It is Spring – surely it is Spring. We have passed the Equinox and the clocks have changed to summer time. Still the rain timpanies louder than the woodpecker and today was the first day that the cold didn’t finger through my bones.
Cold bones. Cold and damp. The water element is the queen of Spring, rain that sluices and cleanses, lymph that clears the channels of the body. The greening juiciness of nettle, the pliant bounce of plantain, the sherbert fizz of dandelion flowers, all plump with water. Vivid and alive. Why then does my body whisper that it’s still winter inside?
In January I cracked a rib. It seemed to be slowly improving, but then it stopped getting better and worsened again. In February I had planned time away from publishing work to write, but the boundaries cracked. We did manage to travel to Ireland, where I should have attended a herbal course, but the pain kept me nestled in the cottage.
In February my herb of the month was vervain and each day I spent time with this powerful plant that was sacred to the Druids and is brimful of medicinal gifts and rich symbolism. Verbena officinalis is a bitter herb, so bitter that the roots can cause nausea, but this bitterness also makes it a tonic for the liver, promoting bile, stimulating the gallbladder and digestion. Vervain has affinities for the nervous system and is a relaxant for the musculo-skeletal system.
And, like the Spring season, vervain’s element is water. It would grow well in our swampy, boggy watermeadow and it acts on the body’s waters — stimulating milk flow in lactation, cooling headaches and hot flushes in menopause while helping the liver to clear hormones. It supports the female reproductive system and lowers fevers. Emotionally, vervain is not only sedative but also helps those who need to let go and find a sense of flow. It’s a herb that gentles people into relaxing, into being more fluid.
The list of vervain’s actions and affinities is impressive. I set out this year to spend deep time with one herb each month, not by reading books but by getting to know each plant as I would a friend — through listening, connecting, and being together. I had been surprised and delighted by my relationship with plantain in January and was full of anticipation.
But it wasn’t the right time for me and vervain. I’m always aware when choosing herbs for someone in clinic that they have to be highly specific. Herbs are chosen not only for the condition — whether it’s peri-menopause or long Covid, an issue with the liver or the heart, loss of kidney function or hayfever — but for the person. Are they someone whose constitution is hot or cold? Is there tension or too much relaxation in the tissues and organs? Is there dampness or dryness? And sometimes these specifics are extremely subtle.
Imagine introducing two of your friends to each other, thinking they will have so much in common and will warm to each other, only to find that they simply don’t gel. Vervain’s drying actions should have been perfect for my system, but that wasn’t what I felt. And then there was the cold! I’ve spent the winter craving warming foods. My current idea of heaven is hot cacao with plenty of chilli stirred in. Vervain is deeply cooling and it left me cold, emotionally and physically. Cold and down. I’m a winter hibernator but generally an optimist. While some cooling, water-rich herbs give me a sense of relaxation, with vervain I felt closer to dissolving in a puddle.
Perhaps we’ll get close at another point in life. Vervain is an extraordinary herb. Maybe exactly the one you need in your life right now. In folk tradition it is known to clear stagnant energy and is used for rituals of cleansing and consecrating sacred spaces and for protecting the practitioner. Vervain has all my admiration, but for now we are not on the same path.
And then came violet. I planned to spend March with Acorus calumus, also known as sweet flag, but the tincture and herb didn’t arrive for the start of March so violet kept me company for a few days. She’s a star in my latest novel and gives her name to my character, Viola. She was an odd choice after vervain because violet is also cooling, though moistening rather than drying. She’s also good at moving lymph, like many Spring herbs and an alterative herb. This group tend to be gentle, nutritive and safe for long-term use. They work less on ‘fixing’ the body and more on balance and restoring function. Violet is a lovely herb for children — soothing coughs, modulating inflammation, cooling fevers, gently easing pain. Violet is also an excellent food herb — the leaves are wonderful in a salad or juiced, full of minerals, and the flowers are also good in salads.
A compress of violet tea on the back of the neck soothes headaches and is also helpful for skin irritations or as a gargle for mouth and throat infections. Violet assists with urinary infections and is helpful for cysts and tumours or any warm and swollen area. Moistening and cooling, violet moves lympth and blockages so is an ally for treating ears, sinuses, and the connecting tubes. Violet also contains salicylates, which are cooling and anti-inflammatory so reduce the pain and swelling of arthritis.
Above all, violet is a nervine, nor only helping with headaches, memory and insomnia, but with a range of emotional and spiritual conditions — grief, whether bereavement or heartbreak; tension, anxiety, and soothing anger.
Despite my craving for warmth, violet felt both more comfortable and familiar. I’ve worked with her a lot, especially as an essential oil for people with extreme grief. She’s a herb that eases pain in every sense. We spent only a few days in each other’s company. I diffused some of the precious essential oil, took drop doses of a bitter tincture of violet and was soothed by a flower essence I’d made from violets growing in our garden. In January plantain awakened grief in me that I didn’t know I had. Violet soothed the grief and also brought the feeling of being cold and down back into balance. She’s another water element herb, but she brought flow rather than vervain’s deluge, soft cooling rather than freeze.
To make the flower essence:
4-5 handfuls of plant material
1/2 litre of filtered or mineral water
50ml brandy
You can put the flowers into water in a clear glass bottle and leave in the sun to macerate for a day or (at times of the year when the sun is not strong) gently bring the water, leaves and flowers to boiling point in a pan and simmer for 20-30 minutes before straining.
Add 50 ml of the flower water to 50 ml of brandy and keep in a dark 100 ml bottle. It’s a very gentle remedy to be used in drop doses as needed.
A few days into March the sweet flag arrived, a herb I knew very little about. I included Acorus on my list for the year because one of my herbal mentors mentioned that it is effective for voice — physically certainly, but also for finding our voice — and I was intrigued. When I was in ministry voice was so vital — I conducted weddings, funerals and baptisms. I celebrated weekly services and gave voice to the story of a group of people who were exploring a communal narrative. Until a series of workplace assaults ended that phase of my life and left a raft of ailments, I was rarely ill, but if I ever came down with anything it was always a sore throat and losing my voice. My body knew what it would take to force me to rest.
One winter day a funeral went like this. The family didn’t attend church but they had recently had a baby baptised and I’d also taken a wedding for one of the family members. The mother of the family died suddenly and the grief was enormous. We talked a lot in the days before the funeral and I agreed to wear a red stole for the service (a liturgical colour that doesn’t normally appear at funerals, but the family came from Liverpool, supported the football team and would all wear black with one small red item — a scarf, a time, a hair band…)
We set off from the house, the funeral director and me walking in front of the hearse for the length of the street before the slow drive to the crematorium. Slower than we anticipated. Along the way the traffic backed up — an accident ahead? something spilled on the road? … We had time. It would be fine. Or maybe a little tighter than was comfortable… or maybe we wouldn’t make it on time…
Crematoriums, understandably, have strict rules about time keeping. If we missed our slot we would have to wait till the end of the day. But I had another funeral at the opposite side of Birmingham in two hours. We finally inched towards the last roundabout before the turning to the crem and could see the road there was clear. The driver pondered a moment then drove the wrong way round the roundabout, weaving through stationary traffic to get the clear road by the quickest route — followed by a procession of cars of family and friends.
We arrived with only five minutes of our allotted twenty-minute slot left. By some miracle the slot after us was not booked and the Warden agreed to let us run into that. The family bearers joined two of the undertakers staff to lift the coffin. “Ready ma’m” were words I never got used to hearing in thirteen years, but they were my cue to begin the slow walk to the music chosen by the family, beginning the words of the service as we processed behind the coffin. A thud of wood against tile and we were watching the coffin career along the aisle. A snapped handle in the hand of one of the family bearers.
I felt grateful that the coffin stayed closed and undamaged. Shaken, the men hefted it onto their shoulders and we continued. With the casket safely on the catafalque, I opened my mouth to begin the service proper. Not a sound. I tried again and managed a croaky whisper. In the tension, I’d lost my voice. I’d have given a lot for sweet flag in that moment had I known about it. As it was, the family huddled around me and we went on in a whisper. It was one of the most moving services I ever conducted.
The herbal mentor who introduced me to sweet flag told a story of giving a few drops to a woman at a festival who had lost her voice and it was restored almost instantly. I was fascinated.
Sweet flag tastes like nothing else. There’s a hint of sweetness, a strong spiciness that is aromatic, even citrussy, and then there’s an undertow of bitterness. The combination is powerful, and then comes the heat. Not a burning sensation, but a deep, suffusing warmth. I had met the left hand of vervain and I loved it instantly. Sweet flag’s warmth is cradling and full-bodied, a safe space, but also a clear one — the opposite of the muddy water of the constantly flooding watermeadow.
Later I discovered that it was used for sweet-scented rush mats in the middle ages. The young flower stems (before the leaves unfurl) can be eaten raw in salads and the roots are also nutritious and have a flavour between sweet ginger and bitter spice. The roots can also be candied like ginger, and are similarly digestion soothing. It’s also a breath freshener when chewed (and only a tiny amount is needed).
I felt my throat ease every time I had a few drops and later learned that one nickname for it is ‘Singer’s Root’. It really does ease the vocal chords, numbing pain when the voice is exhausted but also able to increase the range and energy of the voice as it combines stimulating and relaxing properties. This also makes it a calming herb, but not a sedative one. There’s a wonderful energy to sweet flag, vital but quiet, with a sense of being centred and focussed. It’s grounding and bodiful, something I value because I tend to live in my head. I’ve always loved that the etymology of clairvoyance is simply ‘clear vision’. Calumus has this clarity — of vision and of voice. I did a lot of journalling around envisioning my way forward in work and service with the help of sweet flag.
At the end of our personal journey together I discovered that sweet flag is good for stamina (it’s a bitter so helps digestion and appetite, and boosts a sluggish metabolism), and is also helpful for nausea and travel sickness.iEmotionally, the grounding, centring effect of calamus is also valuable for those processing trauma.
It’s fascinating that of the herbs I’ve worked with this year, plantain, violet and sweet flag have been exactly what I needed at the right time. Vervain was a very different experience but it gave me a lot to think about — without it I wouldn’t have been so aware that I needed warmth, that working with grief and supporting voice and clarity and becoming more grounded are what my body yearns for. Sometimes we have to experience what doesn’t work in order to orient ourselves.
What herbs are calling you this month?
What is your body yearning for in April?