Part one:
As science broke down plants into the parts of them ‘active’, or companies focused on introducing ‘new’ wonder herbs, there was something that fell away, was veiled. It wasn’t that the information wasn’t valid, but that it was touted as the only route to understanding and clear seeing. One that missed that unnameable blend that nature creates in a plant, that’s not measureable. A kind of essence....
As science broke down plants into the parts of them ‘active’, or companies focused on introducing ‘new’ wonder herbs, there was something that fell away, was veiled. It wasn’t that the information wasn’t valid, but that it was touted as the only route to understanding and clear seeing. One that missed that unnameable blend that nature creates in a plant, that’s not measureable. A kind of essence....
Sam had watched her aunt when she came across a plant she didn’t know....
There was a recognition and respect with which she approached it, a sitting with. Deep breathing, so slow as to be almost imperceptible...like the pulsing of the plants own inhalation, exhalation. Carbon dioxide in, oxygen out. Receiving...giving....receiving....giving.... each life form echoing the other. Some observers might see nothing going on, but it was a simple ritual ancestors had practiced back through time....
Perhaps there were physical similarities to plants she knew, a shared hereditary that could give clues as to its strengths, never assuming over familiarity with a potential new friend. A small piece in the mouth and chewed, spat out immediately if the taste was unpleasant. No one said you had to eat a whole lot to get to know a plant! If it passed this somewhat intuitive test agreeably, she held it in her mouth and felt for burning, tingling, other sensations, any change in taste. If there was none , then she swallowed. Then she waited, feeling overnight for effects. Then, again, a little more, repeating the same process. If no ill effects were noticed, over time, it was considered edible. But if there were noticeable effects, they would be explored carefully, they could be clues to medicine contained within.
Nowadays it would be sent off for testing, active ingredients explored and nutritional percentages analysed. If it proved ‘valuable’, they might be isolated and reproduced, to be bought as pharmaceutical drugs. All the while emphasising the danger of utilising the plant for common folks, without degrees...odd paradox. It was the taking away and then reselling it back to people that seemed dodgey. Surely once medicinal properties are identified, one aware of the range of processing, in tradition for so long, could access it and if it was poisonous you can bet it’d be remembered!
What a way to gather plant knowledge, through experiential learning. There were enough manuscripts gathered now that could be cross referenced if needed too....
All this was jumbling around in her mind, along with her bowels, as the bus shook along the dirt road. She was on her way to visit said aunt for a couple of weeks, annual pilgrimage. Same time every year. Get away from concrete and computers. Fear encouraging news reports on violence and impending doom. She was headed for the perfect antidote. Auntie Clarissa wasn’t your average grey haired pucker cheeked robust smiling eyes stereotype, she was all that plus a kick on her like a mule! You just knew the kettle’d be on the boil in preparation for your arrival accompanied by an opinionated rave on her latest project. Simple pleasures that’s what I need she thought, enough with appointments and timetable living...
She gazed out at the passing world hazily with the odd percussive bump...
“This is your stop me dear”, the bus drivers voice woke her from internal ramblings. She gathered her bags and jumped up, “thanks”, “Nice to see you around again luv”. She bounced down the steps and almost right into the series of individually crafted mailboxes that marked journeys end, and the lanes. One an old dairy tin, one an old bent shovel, one aged but elegantly carpented...
She checked the box and got set for heading up the lane, that cup of tea seeming elementally desirable as the bus kicked back dust into her vision. Hang on, there was something in the box. A small parcel, oddly enough in Clarissa’s own handwriting, addressed to Sam. That’s odd , still I guess she’ll reveal all, in her wise way. It was heavy in her hands, and her curiosity was barely able to be kept at bay to not bust it open then and there. Full of surprises as usual she thought absentmindedly. At that point she had no idea how right she was...
It wasn’t unusual for Clarissa not to be around when you arrived, she might be off wild crafting or just meandering about soaking in the day. Sam sat down, the kettle was on the pot belly stove which wasn’t lit, she probably got distracted half way through, the fire was laid ready to light. Sam looked at the parcel she held. It was brown paper bound in string, with enough sticky tape to stop an army, but being one mere woman she found a knife and cut it open. Inside was a leather pouch, soft to the touch with wear. Inside it was a set of playing cards and a note. No, they weren’t a deck to play poker with she realised as she shuffled through them, they were some kind of divination or tarot deck. The drawings were mostly in earthy tones, pencil with watercolour washes layered over. The imagery was detailed, figures seemed to blur boundaries with plants and animals interlaced with labyrinthine patterns, like Escher’s art they warped and confused seeing. The note...sure enough, was in aunties script, more scribble actually, but she read on...
“Got called away, someone’s trying to shut down Edna’s medicine making, say its unhygienic and unsafe, danger to public health, never heard anything more ridiculous in my life! She’s so house proud it’s virtually an obsession. Anyway love, might take a week or so to sort this out, so make yourself at home and I’ll see you when I’m looking at you. The sheer arrogance of so called regulators, the things these people do to ones nerves. ”
Sam could almost see her shaking her head, and smiled. “Oh yes the cards I found in a rare cleanup, they belonged to your mother, never really fancied them myself. Anyways, enjoy them, but don’t get too serious eh?” No Clarissa, and yes I am happy to water all your multitudinous, slightly limp plants.
They are engaging, she thought gazing at the card she held, as her vision traced a vine like sworl of lines, morphing into a vortex, almost trance inducing, as they became a waterfall and then a river. A leaping salmon that had such eyes she felt guilty as she thought with her belly, fresh fish.....mmmm. But the card was so engrossing it took her a time to connect with her inner ravenous hunger and put it down, leaving it upturned, the others in the bag. Transfiguration, she thought absentmindedly as she bent to light the fire and looked around her....odd word.....
The house was brimming with natural chaos, “Seems they got the wrong woman with Edna” she thought. Cuttings at various stages, potted up plants, piles of paper with illustrations and notes, books, vases of unusual flowers, and a vine that had wedged a way through a crack and was firmly making its way towards the study. Although there really wasn’t any distinction between ‘the study’ and the rest of the small cottage. The sofa had a doona on it for handy napping and there were bookshelves in every room. To give credit where due, her medicine area was scrupulously organised, with a book at the end of the shelves listing what was in stock, or needed topping up. Sam knew Clarissa rarely treated anyone, her main relationship was with the plants, and the tinctures, dried herbs, flower essences, infused oils and god knows what else, were a side tangent that possibly Edna had some of. Hence her aunt was partly responsible for her troubles. Edna had been a chemist in the 1930’s during the great depression, after which she turned and applied her knowledge and skills to what she called ‘peoples medicine’ and she and Clarissa became firm friends. One trained by science, the other by growing and wild crafting.
Sam headed for the fridge. To her delight there was a variety of tempting smelling cheeses, some smoked trout and bread. Any tomatoes Clar? Perfect. She prepared her snack, deciding after to go harvest some parsley, mint, chickweed and see what else was up in the garden. The garden was a continuum of the houses energies, the two blending into each other, and then finally into the forest....
The relationship between us and plants has been around as long as we have existed. Our ancestors were probably algae, or ate them, as they developed limbs and animalian conciousness in primordial slime, she thought. Returning her gaze to the card she noticing something she hadn’t before, a hemlock plant dappled with purple on its stem not unlike the colouration on the fishes skin. How did I miss that? I must be tired. Garden later, cat nap first. Sofas ready, willing and able to provide. It felt good to be here, the to do lists she had left behind seemed a million miles away as she slipped into sleep.
She dreamed of a man with a trout skin cloak, dappled in greens, blues and purples. A man with wild eyes and a feel of the shaman about him, who spoke languid as water. Touched u are, like your grandmother, and he reached out a hand and placed it on hers, cold and damp, there’s danger and you know it. That’s why your here innit, before they come, to save the ol ways from em. She raised her eyes to his and saw they had no pupils, round and dark like pools. Watch yourself, they come in forms to deceive, he whispered in a burbling and bubbling, then was gone like a vision, and she awake as morning. Jesus that fish must have been off she thought scrabbling for distance, her conscious mind alerted and shaking off sleep....
Part 2:
She lay back down and tried to think of boring mundane things but her new fishy friend was not so easily dismissed from her. Whhheeeww she exhaled and reached absentmindedly over to the nearest pile of paperology for distraction. In her hand she held an image of hemlock, an old one, like those in medieval herbals. Woodcuts that were originally botanically accurate, drawn by monks mostly, then reproduced from drawing to drawing in darker ages to become but shadows of their previous accuracy as time passed. It was a poisonous plant taken internally, but Sam saw it as a magical herb, one to be carried for protection. Somewhere round here would be more information about this deadly member of the carrot family.
She lay back down and tried to think of boring mundane things but her new fishy friend was not so easily dismissed from her. Whhheeeww she exhaled and reached absentmindedly over to the nearest pile of paperology for distraction. In her hand she held an image of hemlock, an old one, like those in medieval herbals. Woodcuts that were originally botanically accurate, drawn by monks mostly, then reproduced from drawing to drawing in darker ages to become but shadows of their previous accuracy as time passed. It was a poisonous plant taken internally, but Sam saw it as a magical herb, one to be carried for protection. Somewhere round here would be more information about this deadly member of the carrot family.
I don’t even have a phone number for Edna. People knew everything about everyone round here, for all her eccentricities they left Clary alone but surely the word would have got out if anything untoward had happened? Like what, a trout man driving her away? I need to go for a walk.....
Pulling her boots on and avoiding looking at the card and pouch she stepped outside. Don’t take em too seriously eh? I need to walk, just an average stroll at auntie Clarys.
The day was cloudy but warm as she stepped out, the familiarity of the garden calmed her, no hemlock here, all, parsley n dill. A nice stroll she thought, yep Ill pick me some greens. Handily a basket, complete with scissors in it was sitting, on the deck. Chickweeds looking happy she smiled. Clary’s garden was one where weeds were encouraged, being full of wild food goodness, they had beds to themselves to flourish merrily without fear of pulling or pesticides. She crouched down and began to snip, the rhythm soothing her, as she cut nettle, lettuce leaves, baby silverbeet, dandelion tips and parsley. Fresh salad greens ready and I’m going to go visit the neighbours, find out some more about you n your surprises Clary....
The folks next door, some way in these parts, were a young family with that glow that slightly bemused Sam, being beyond her range of experiences. Friendly, simply living their lives. Clary spoke of them kindly and mutual visitations for the odd cuppa had kept them in neighbourly touch...
“We haven’t heard from her since she went to visit her friend. That was almost 2 months ago, she left raging against regulations and destroying traditons, like she was fired up for another book, or a court case. You know how she was, some big wigs shut Edna down cos she was teaching people how to use the medicines that Clary helped to make. Misinformation or something, trained chemist should know better than to meddle with herbs.
“Can we do anything for you?”
“No, that’s ok, I think I just need time. Time, and some contact details, you wouldn’t have Edna’s number?”
“Let me have a look, I’ll ask Fred if he knows anything else and if he does I’ll let you know straight up. At least you’re here, and that’s something, you can keep the place ticking over. She must have got real fired up this time, she always was one for a mission.”
Sam wandered bleary eyed and in a state of shock back to the house, the old place was her headquarters, as the garden and the vines encroached. She didn’t know where or what to do, but collapsed on the sofa and slept. No nightmares, no visions, just sleep for a weary traveller.....
The date on the discarded parcel wrapping was 2 months ago...
When Sam awoke at least she felt rested, but as her eyes scanned the house she saw it in a new light. This was Clary’s life’s work scattered around her now, piles and lack of filing and all, it was an act of devotion from a woman who adored things green and growing. What was she meant to do now? Why had no one called her? Who was there? Clary hadn’t been a blood relation but she was a friend of the family going way back. There was no landline here, and Sam had happily left her mobile back at her flat.
She unconsciously sat and fiddled with the leather pouch, soft and warm. Her hand delved in and shuffled away, she pulled another card. A woman, a green woman, with nettles in her hair and bushflowers all around her. A blend of the two realms. Thank goddess she sighed, no ominous forces here, natures soft side. Not despite, but because of her sting though, nettle taught awareness. Green awareness. The card eased her but also brought tears.
Through the eons shamans voyaged to discover from the plants themselves, in a less Linnaeus based format, what medicines they carried. Passed down what they learnt orally, sometimes only to apprentices. Is that what I was for you Clary? An apprentice? Did you expect me to translate all these piles as only you could? I don’t know enough, I barely know a handful of plants and I’m no shaman, although my fishy friend imposed some faith in me. Her dream flooded back, how could anyone expect her to save the ol ways from anybody, when she didn’t have them in her comprehension? This was Clary’s work, I’m just a sometime gardener and artist. What of Clary’s affairs, she thought as she looked towards the door and noticed a bunch of semidried plant matter bound to the architrave.
Getting up somewhat nervously she picked it up and saw the speckled stems. She turned and began to see the space as it truly was, a frenzy of activity had gone on here, a driven focus with an emphasis on finishing and ‘organising’ research. Hemlock was bound protectively in other places too.... above the kitchen window, on the bookshelves. This was Clary’s legacy, but where was she herself?
Sam made her way into the study and there on the desk was the closest thing to organisation she’d seen, apart from the medicines. A document on beautiful sepia paper, “A Post Apocalyptic Herbal”. Not in the scribble of the parcels note but a calligraphy like lettering designed with intention. She turned the page, apocalypse, jesus i thought I was getting away from that....
“Chlorophyll is made up of the most similar substances to our own blood, so much so that in world war two it was used, over pigs blood, for transfusions to wounded soldiers. Doesn’t it follow that to live with plants in our diet bolsters the blood in our systems? The digestive system circulating their goodness to other systems and organs, as liquid fertilisers can return nutrition to the plants and soil.
Infusions and other liquid herb preparations, some based on water, others alcohol, oil or vinegars are drawn into our bodies. Each technique enhancing particular qualities of individual plants characters and strengths. Plants certainly have different personalities and touch our souls in different ways. “
Particularly if you choose them as your main companions like you Clary, Sam thought. How could anyone resist your slightly feral ways. In her era of youth she was probably considered a distant relative indeed from some of the more ladylike rolemodels of the time, and hence not the ladies household guide reader, or good husband catch. She harkened back to a more pagan character, deeply immersed in her herbwifery and natural spirituality. Her church was outdoors and her altars tended to be overflowing, rather than silently poised.
So far in the reading, the apocalypse seemed far away, thank god. But when Sam thought of Clary’s era more, the depression would have seemed apocalyptic. Her work with Edna and creating medicine for people to access and afford, sprung from the rather gnarly roots of great wars that now seemed distant to our generation. A luxury for some on this continent at least. Talk to someone living on the streets, a refugee, be it from society or another political system, and there might be some different opinions, or some more post apocalyptic remedies. The soothing yet awareness sharpening green woman card came back to her....
Part 3:
“In the 1900s, 'plant hunters' travelled in search of new and exotic species, especially their crowning glory of unseen before flowers. Dictionaries appeared for the 'language of flowers', it was a romantic trend to compose a poem by which flowers were included in a bunch to spell out love, or otherwise. An apothecary in the same period could compose on ode to health similarly, in a tincture bottle.
“In the 1900s, 'plant hunters' travelled in search of new and exotic species, especially their crowning glory of unseen before flowers. Dictionaries appeared for the 'language of flowers', it was a romantic trend to compose a poem by which flowers were included in a bunch to spell out love, or otherwise. An apothecary in the same period could compose on ode to health similarly, in a tincture bottle.
Both types of poem are signs of the added medicine of intent when making, perhaps why herbal medicines of high quality are often made in quiet edge places.” and herbalists too thought Sam. “Monastarys often have a meditative kitchen garden space, why not homes too.”
It was a beginning this writing. Damn you getting mixed up with regulators and the law you pair of old bats. I need you here now, I want you in the flesh, present. You, not troutmen and plant women. Sam flopped, her eyes wafted towards all the piles of paperwork. This den of herbal iniquity. Damn it!
She was disturbed from her self pity by a shuffling through grass, a seeking sound. Like someone looking for something hidden. She froze. It was out round back and getting closer. Right, she thought this’ll be the bloody secret police, and avoiding thinking who or what else it could be she strode to the back door, bursting it open. “Can I help you?” she demanded. A man ducked and froze like a startled rabbit under fire, wrench in hand. “ I just come to read the metre miss, disconnect the services.”
“Which services are those exactly.”
“Water, the company sent me....bills unpaid. Older lady like that should be living in town anyways. What if something happened to her, a fall?”
“ Thanks for your concern but nothings happening to this particular old lady” Sam replied, determined it be true. “Ill make sure the company gets their money.” He outstretched an obligatory looking form on a clipboard and she scrawled a half assed version of her initials. “There’s a real nice place in town, she could have nursing staff around...”Oh god, thank heavens Clary’s not hearing this was all Sam could think, saying “Right have a nice day then.” She sat on the back doorstep and the tears came, slow and quiet. She could have nursing staff around, and eat them for breakfast....
She’d been mostly drinking tea, and barely making an attempt at some of the piles, looking for a number for Edna or some kind of lead on the mysterious disappearance of Ms Clarissa. There really are some beautiful images here she thought. A lot of just readable scrawls and notes, but also some clear visions of a cast of plant characters who offered much in friendship and medicine. The book seemed to make sense the further she delved. It was a patchwork cloak stitching these fragments together in a reweaving for those who couldn’t see the beauty Clary had, in the green ones. She was like a translater offering up sounds for silent oral traditions. She pulled a card from the pouch and wasn’t at all surprised to find an image of a quill donned medievalist writing on parchement by candlelight. Just don’t take em to seriously.....rrright....
She picked up the leather bound volume Clary had begun writing in, maybe she’s run off on a pilgrimage, actually that’s exactly what she’s done. A pilgrimage to the mecca of her medicine makings for the last 20 years, to protect them.
“Some of the lessons learned in such meditative states working with plants were recorded in early hand written and illustrated texts of herb lore upon parchement or scroll, which were then copied by those who followed. Some preserving experiential learnings for posterity, others lack lustre imitations, both locked away behind stone walls, or in the language used.
Always there is a spoken word tradition. Both church and state, now pharmaceutical companies, and regulators, have tried to silence and dominate it. Yet still it renews, even if underground. Even when much is lost in times of strife and ignorance, still it rises like the phoenix. The knowing and learning, the passion for the medicine of plants. The post apocalyotic herbals. Lets pray that next time round we can just do away with the apocalypse part of the equation and continue to build the wisdom in a piecing together by blending written and oral traditions.”
There was that shuffling outside again, God surely a promise of payment is enough for these people. She felt rage rising, but soon fall away. It was Clary, looking like the wild woman of Borneo, including sticks and leaves in her hair.
“Oh hello lovely, I’ve had such a time of it. Took the long walk home.”
You certainly did. Sam swooped and fairly scooped her up like a child and whisked her inside to beside the fire. “You had me so worried, what have you two been up to?” She hugged her, and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders in one swift motion. “Salvaging what we could, Edna was determined.” Her words were mumbled from weariness and Sam quit with questions. This is a bit of a role reversal she thought to herself, all tenderness and protection.
With a cuppa in her hand Clary seemed eased up and slowly the tale fell out. The regulators had been determined to shut Edna down but hadn’t counted on the strong will of two rather elderly rebels. There had been a rally of supporters, meetings and in the end the regulators decided that most of the medicinal qualities were in the 100 proof alcohol in the tinctures. So no harm was being done, apart from moonshining, and they could play with their roots and flowers but not sell them. Kind of a backdown position, without backing down.
“”Personal use only”, they said love, shows what they know about herbalists.”
They had confiscated the stock the women had so lovingly built up over time.
“ We’ll start up again love, but first the book!” “The book?” “ Yes. Have you made a start yet, seen the manuscript?” “well yes”, Clary smiled like a milk laden kitten, and with that she descended into snoring by the fire. Gods alive Clary.....
When Clary woke, some hours later she stretched and made her way to her study / garden bed. “Must sort this out” she muttered picking bits n pieces of paper up and putting them down again. “Aaahh you did read it!” She lifted the tome, “ I thought you might do some of your watercolours for it?” She beamed at Sam, “you could stay longer this time you know, help me with the wording....”
“You’re doing just fine yourself, but I will stay on, I don’t trust what you’ll get up to without me here.”
“Come now, an older woman like me?”
“Yes an older woman precisely like you” Sam laughed. “What’s for dinner then oh maestro of the kitchen sanctuary?” “ I thought you could cook?” they both laughed.
Part 4:
Sam went to sleep, feeling things were mostly right with the world with Clary back. Despite her and Edna’s ridiculous censorship, she knew now they’d carry on in their own indomitable ways.
As she drifted down into the netherworlds of her subconcious, she found herself in a dry river bed, face to face with a rather fierce wolf she recognised from childhood nightmares.
“Are you afraid human?” he asked, she wasn’t, anymore. “Let’s walk” and they headed into the woods. At the edge of a village he stopped and would go no further, “these are your realms human not mine”.
She followed the path till she reached a small stone cottage on the outskirts of the place, the door slightly ajar. “Hello?” as she entered. There was a blazing fire, bunches of dried herbs hung from the ceiling and an older woman worked away at her mortar and pestle, her eyes misty with blindness.
“A visitor is always a pleasure, come child, sit with me, gaze into the fire and tell me what you see.” Sam didn’t have to try hard, her eyes were naturally drawn to the licking flames on the base of the pot hung above them, they wove a dance of trance through her and the rhythm of their pulse became as a heartbeat out loud.
As she watched the flames took on human form, women pounding a mortar the size of a bucket with long pestles in their strong dark arms, lifted up high and then dropped, rhythmically down, up and down with sprays of dust and shed outer husks rising in a dispersed cloud. Then they morphed into another woman squat on a dirt floor, rolling a grinding stone back and forth on its flat base dish. Crunching corn kernels to a fine flour, she worked, sleeves rolled up...back and forth. Then still another woman, wild haired threshing grain, tossing it up and down, up and down. The images flowed without ceasing, playing out imagery of a global legacy of women processing foods and medicine, the hard way if needed. Sam came out of the trance lightly but still the pulse, as she realised the woman was grinding away to the same heartbeat.
“Come again to sit with me, and gaze into my hearth.” She said.
Sam thanked her and left quietly, the rhythm still carried with her.
She was met outside by her wolffriend who seemed to grimace “Look up wolfsbane human..”
Then she was awake and back in at Clarys. What’s ‘wolfsbane’ she wondered?
“Aconite my love, strong plant used by the ancestral wise women in their flying ointments, along with others like hemlock, henbane and belladonna, not to be messed with. Spirit journey triggers, our version of peyote or pituri. You see it’s all part of the teachings from the plants. Witch, shaman similar journey different guides. Aconites nickname came from her deadly aspect, being used as a poison to dip arrows in to hunt down wolves in the ol days.”
Hearing Clary say ol days was so much more comforting than from the fishman, what seemed weeks ago, but he wasn’t quite ready to relinquish his proximity. She felt freed of any saving of ol days apart from the presence of the book that Clary was determined she stay and help finish. They got into a kind of routine, with writing by Clary and illustrations by Sam, but she was a hard taskmaster.
“We want people to be able to identify the plants from the illustrations, but add something else, a bit of magic to reflect the plants character. Not too dry but not as embellished with fancy as to be medieval.” “I quite like the medieval illustrations.”
“ Yes, but that’s been done hasn’t it?” “I suppose so....”
What Sam found was that she’d draw the plants, but creeping in on the edges were images from the card deck. That must have been where they came from? Tendrils and spirals, beings half light and half greenery. Were these plant spirits? Clary of course loved those illustrations best, “Now youre getting it!”
Clary wanted all her friends in the book, some of whom were verging on the poisonous. She’d come back from her meetings with the regulators raving about the stories untold of women in ages gone by being oppressed, tortured and killed for knowledge of plants. She had a point.
“If we want people safe and confident about using herbs then they need to know those that are more potent as well. Your wolffriends Aconite was once included in the pharmacognosy of 1930s doctors and pharmacists, along with henbane and hemlock. It’s us who’ve changed, not the plants. We’re oh so proud of modern medicines potency, but fear it in the plant world. Some plants like it strong and are not so easily bent to serve human ways, their wildness is part of their fascination. They are to be respected with miniscule amounts, homeopathic doses rarely taken internally. Don’t get me wrong they can be deadly, but so can ignorance.”
Sam worked from live plants and her watercolours showed the benifits, but it also meant they needed to find or grow the plants for each portrait to go ahead and to catch flowers and seedheads. This was a long term project and they both knew it, now. It seemed Clary had enrolled her apprentice without a formal process. Organically as she painted, Sam was drawn in to the world of the herbs, both mundane, and magical. The two were not separate but both innate parts of a whole. It was at times difficult to illustrate.
“Dandelion roots can compare to mandrakes in their figurative nature, and who’s to say they don’t scream when selfishly harvested without concern for preserving a patch as well!”
Sam was begining to realise that the ol ways didn’t require wrote learning of lists of obscure plants, she may never have encountered. An intimate knowledge of a handful of plants based on direct experiences with them, could rapidly become a list of many plants to research. Once you recognised a few, then other members of their family became as fascinating to trace as any other geneology.
Part 5:
A geneology that has been shaped globally by Latin names to describe the connections between family members, but that’s only one aspect, a rather juicy one in its time. Classification by sexual reproduction could cause a riot in its day, though to this generation it can seem a little dry, but makes sense. Perhaps because it’s the structure we’ve learned, but there are other ways to classify plants, particularly medicines. Sam thought of Ayurveda, Chinese 5 element theory, where its an energy that describes, both the plant, the body and where the two meet. Heat, damp, cool, moist, pitta, kapha. Perhaps thats why so many folks are drawn to study these ways, offering a different approach...
A geneology that has been shaped globally by Latin names to describe the connections between family members, but that’s only one aspect, a rather juicy one in its time. Classification by sexual reproduction could cause a riot in its day, though to this generation it can seem a little dry, but makes sense. Perhaps because it’s the structure we’ve learned, but there are other ways to classify plants, particularly medicines. Sam thought of Ayurveda, Chinese 5 element theory, where its an energy that describes, both the plant, the body and where the two meet. Heat, damp, cool, moist, pitta, kapha. Perhaps thats why so many folks are drawn to study these ways, offering a different approach...
“The early western herbals had it too lovely. It just kind of got lost in translation, literally. A language to rediscover, a reclamation. The humours, astrological connections....”
Where does the plant grow? Does it like it hot, or cool and shady, near water, desert dry. How is this built into the very cells of a plant. Look at aloe vera, shes a desert baby but cooling and soothing to sunburn, perfect! How often does dandylion, or sow thistle, grow in urban situations where folks are pushing their livers to extremes? When you think of a rambling rose you might not even know its botanical names but it evokes an energetic response and associated stories abound, as well as texts. After all a text is just a written down story, it aint set in concrete. Oral traditions just aint so easy to catch, sometimes there’s a riddle, or the information’s encoded. The ancestors couldn’t make it too easy, or we’d never learn to think for ourselves. Don’t even get me started on the twisted stories tortured out of the midwives, wise women and people with none of the knowledge. Why would you share healing secrets with people who’s intention was to destroy all you held sacred, regardless of what you told em. I’d be thinking let em rot!”
Sam realised that in those times, the work they were doing would be at the expense of their lives, if it was discovered. Better to pass it on in a tale, that’s less easily grasped, or used as evidence. It was a very sobering thought but only served to strengthen her resolve to help Clary with this. Herbal wisdom she realised was potent and attempts to control it, as Edna and Clary had seen, were a reflection of this, not its lack thereof. Otherwise why bother? If it’s so ineffective why not let sleeping dogs lie? It’s all about control...
A rather pleasant side effect of Sam staying on with Clary was the improvement in her health, despite late nights and intensive focus, or perhaps because of it. Wandering the gardens and into the forest plant hunting was slowly but surely eroding her stress levels, and she no longer regretted not having her mobile phone. Work thought she had gone completely nuts, but hey if this was crazy, what was her previous life?
She was dipping into her savings, but most of her food was harvested round abouts, and her main cost was keeping herself in paints and paper as she made roughs to later be copied into the book with final touches.
Clary was head illuminator, with just a few Sam style touches on capital letters at the start of a chapter. Messy notes morphed into beauty. She was amazed at Clary’s knowledge store and any gaps in it they referred to her and Edna’s clinical notes, and of course the endless library. They knew some of the information had been previously written about, but not from a Clary tangent, which drove her to record her experiences with the plants and that of the people she had worked with.
“Won’t know what to do with myself if we ever actually finish this!” she laughed at one point, Sam didn’t believe her for a second, but they were engaged in an epic task, so that particular worry would come later.
“I do want to encourage other women to trust their experiences with the plants” she said, “if every woman wrote down what she had gathered, our tome would pale, and that’s a good thing. I don’t want some intimidating textbook, but a living evolving point in a process that the readers can continue with...”
“Rebel to the end eh Clary?”
“Well damn the regulators if we can’t sell our medicines we’ll get folks making their own, in their kitchens on the quiet! Damned higher than thou regulators probably never even given the herbs the time of day, how are they going to understand!”
Part 6:
Sam awoke with the desire to leave her paints and revisit her mother’s cards, she’d rather nervously put aside for a time. As she handled the pouch they were housed in they felt less alien, more like an old friend you hadn’t seen since kindergarten. Somewhat familiar in features, but also changed by time passing. The cards had certainly known significantly more about how things were going to unfold then Sam herself had at the time. She thought also of her mother, who had a secret, quiet side that even her daughter couldn’t touch, only sense, like an unsolvable riddle, she was a mystery to her daughter in many ways. Smiling at the appropriateness of her cards coming to her, very like her to own something like them unknown to her daughter.
She remembered how when she was off school sick her mum would drag a mattress out of the house and lay it in a sunny spot, with rations of apples and cheese and leave her to rest amongst the flowers and leaves. Inevitably afterwards she felt recuperated and refreshed. By the end of the day her mind had turned towards faeries and other natures spirits.
Bloody sensible when hospitals had large gardens for patients to wander, or sit amongst, she thought. An ideal that had, unfortunately, fallen by the wayside with rising land prices and cost cutting.
The pouch was soft leather, deerskin at a guess with beaded tassels and imprinted with a design of knotwork interlacing that she now traced with her fingers. Gently she pulled the cards out and started flicking through them. It became slowly rhythmic, almost trance like looking at the different figures, blends of animals, plants and humans...
“They really have crept into your artwork haven’t they?” Clary commented over her shoulder, breaking the mesmerising effect the cards were having.
“What, sorry....um yes, that and more.”
Clary reached over her shoulder and picked out a male figure, masked by a kangaroo hide with a blend of different horns of water buffalo, elk, goat and deer. “Now there’s a character who could cross borders, geographical and metaphoric eh?”
She handed the card back and wandered off on a tangent, leaving Sam pondering the globally adorned Cernunnos who seemed to stand a little prouder. I suppose that’s what keeps gods and goddesses alive, she thought, those who acknowledge and honour them. Otherwise they simply become an echo, a memory. The cards did seem from another time and place, and they certainly had the desire to be remembered encoded in them. What would Jung call them, archetypes, kept alive by collective consciousness. The pictures seemed to leap out of their printed world, in an at times alarmingly accurate way, so who’s consciousness was collecting them, her own? It was a chicken and egg type question...
Clary flowed past again, “You know your mother did some of the artwork”, she went to glide off again making for a pile of notes, “What? When?” Sam turned square to look at her, gods how she knew to drop a bombshell as if it were a casual line. “Yes, before you were born she was part of a collective who worked on them in university. ‘Ancestral tarot’ or something similar. Actually that fellow has a touch of your father about him, inevitable i guess. Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You didn’t mention any of this when you gave them to me. When you said they were mums I didn’t take you literally!”
“Well I really didn’t want you taking them too seriously like she did. I’m sorry love, if I said the wrong thing, I’m sorry.”
Sam had no idea how to take this. She knew Jane had painted at university but stopped when Sam was little, tending towards the practical horticulturalist, as a way to make a living. Ancestral tarot, the very idea made her spine shiver. Both her parents had gone missing in a yacht at sea, never found. Not long enough ago for Sam’s grief and missing them, but long enough ago for scar tissue to begin to form. The connection to the cards reopened the wounds. Her ‘quiet’ visit to Clary’s this time round was having all kinds of unpredictable consequences, and this one blew her out of the water. She put the cards down and exhaled deeply, gods alive Clary. The horned man took on another layer....
Picture a flaming hearth fire, on top a pot bubbles away with a soup, or stew, or stir fry, flavoured with herbs andspices. Smoke from the fire is mixing and blending with the scents of cooking, slightly tinged with the particular tree who gave of their wood to this scene. Perhaps some bread is baking, to dip into the meal. This picture is taking place all over the world, the localised herbs and spices varying what hungry noses are tempted by. What we are observing is highly likely the origin of incense...
Plants, and the scents they release when burned, have inspired, blessed, healed and comforted for eons. Be their form chunks of sap, branches or leaves straight from a tree, or the more processed mixtures of dried and powdered herbs burnt on charcoal, bound to a stick or swung in censors.
A newborn baby is held over a small fire, laced with leaves, be they spinifex or eucalypt, depending on what grows nearby, there is a blessing and welcoming into her new environment by passing through the smoke. A connecting to plants, and the hearth. For who is the bridge between earth and animals, even human ones, if not plants, it’s been thus since we were pondscum feeding on algae.
On the other side of the planet sage is rolled into a stick, bound in thread and allowed to dry like this, to be later lit and used to ‘smudge’ before a ritual dance, ceremony, or soul retrieval. The smoke brushed around the body using a cluster of eagle wingtip feathers it curls into where its needed, then rises high into the sky, and upper realms of spirit.
Incenses origins often reside in resins and barks. Sandalwood is so desired, that all the trees in Mysore, the place it occurs naturally are government property wherever they occur, and harvesting is watched over. There is also an Australian sandalwood, Santalam acuminatum, a interior species that’s being used similarly as an alternative. The seeds of which were traditionally made into necklaces, not unlike the ones in India that Saddhu’s wear and consider holy. They look like small round brains, interestingly enough, considering the sacredness of them.
With such deep ancestral memories and associations is it any wonder that incense has been adopted by nearly every kind of faith, including atheism, on the planet. A precursor, and codeveloper, with perfume and aromatherapy, varying scent to mood and occasion. How blessed are we to have such a tool for shifting consciousness at our fingertips? It doesn’t have to be expensive, with a charcoal block any mix of dried herbs can be sprinkled on and encouraged to share its smoke.
Home feeling a bit stagnant? Setting a romantic or meditative scene? Taking a luxurious bath, got a candle going? Bit blue? Why not light up?”
Sam did, watching the smoke curl into the crevices. No wonder it’s a space clearer she thought, it gets places untouched by broom or mop. Although that wouldn’t be to hard around here, it’s difficult to have a project like this on the go and not end up with chaos. Part of the note soting process, relatively appealing and inspiring but still did your head in every now and then. Now was one of those moments and Sam decided to go outside.
She let Clary know and set out through the rambling gardens, noticing the wild roses as she walked, must try infusing some of them in oil, bet that’d make a wicked addition to bath water. It was a decent day out and she decided to do just that on her way back.
She had a favourite spot my the creek, to just sit and listen to the water, the sound cleared out the cobwebs. Bubble burble toil and trouble fire burn and cauldron bubble she thought with a smile then lay back in the grass.
Before she knew it she was journeying back to the cottage of the blind woman, who was seated in front of her fire gazing into it and at the big pot atop it...
“Hello lovely come in, come, sit.”
Her wolffriend was there by the woman’s side, finishing off a bowl of soup. Amazing to Sam considering the distaste which he had shown human dwellings previously. It was, however, winter here, and the hunting at such times might well be as slim as the figure himself suggested. A wild waif come to knock on a door of someone he obviously trusted.
The dance of the flames was as mesmerising as last time and the air was scented with cinnamon, warming, it blended with the woodsmoke. Sam turned to look at the woman, to her face and details, but in a moment her form shifted and she became a fearsome being, kali like and demonic, surrounded by a kind of malevolent smoke. The urge to run burst forth, Sam beheld her fears embodied in this creature woman. She saw madness, suffering and hopelessness, but stood her ground feeling there was a need to, although difficult “I know you, you are the destroyer as well as the giver of blessings, I know you”. The woman laughed wickedly, heartily, and morphed just as quick and easily into her more gentle, familiar form, “well done my sweet”. The wolf crossed the floor to sit by Sam’s feet.
“What is your name?” she asked. The wolf replied “Calieach burr”. Another riddle thought Sam, but consciously imprinted the words for later, she was learning what seemed random and nonsensical in these shifted states often made sense later. She cautiously touched the wolf, who growled slightly and asked if the elder woman had any tasks that needed doing, despite her previously furious incarnation. “Some firewood from outside would be of help” she replied, obviously. Sam got up and went out into the cold three times bringing in wood, split and piled against the cottage wall. The elder was obviously pleased...
Gradually the licking of flames and panting of a wolf became burbling brook once more and Sam opened her eyes. These journeys and dreams were somewhat bewildering but they did share recognisable geography, and she remembered the words clearly upon waking. There was some reason to them, working with the herbs, Clary and those cards, but what it was evaded her. Forgetting the rambling roses she went straight to the library. “A herb Clary, ‘Caliach’?”
“A herb? Hardly, try a blue faced elder Celtic Godess of Winter! She was said to rule the cold part of the year and then either turn to stone, or back into a maiden once again, depending on your story at the coming of spring. She carried a staff that turned all it touched to winter. Also a friend to the wild animals in such times, a solitary kind of figure....”
“Where are you getting these questions from?”
Sam sat down, and Clary read the signals, “I’ll just pop the kettle on then.”
It all came tumbling out, the visions, the dreams, the nightmares, the cards, the herbs and her parents jumbled together. “I don’t understand Clary what am I supposed to do with this information. Am I losing it?”
“No love, perhaps finding it though. You’re more like your mother, and grandmother, then you know, their sensitivity. My advice is to work with its flow, don’t question for now, just let it be. Take some time with it all. You know this cottage isn’t just ramshackle because of my lifestyle, it’s been here a good hundred or more years. Sometimes I get the feeling that if these walls could talk there’d be a story of some of the peoples you’re envisioning, and perhaps a wise woman who suffered because of her skill. This place is healing with us and there’s bound to be a few meltdowns for all of us. We feel it’s big work we do, and yet it’s a pinprick on life. Just let things be precious one. Perhaps we can use some of the herbs you’re being introduced to. It does seem strange that they’re tending to be old materia medica plants that rarely get used these days. Perhaps you should browse some on the Physics garden?”
“What’s that?”
“A garden set up specifically for apothecary apprentices to learn to identify the plants they’d be working with. One in Chelsea, started in the 1600s and its still growing today. Imagine yourself as a gatherer like those early folks would have been. Write it down, draw it out, just because you’re not travelling in the general sense of the words, doesn’t mean what you gather has any lesser value. Infact, you’re not doing any of the harm colonialism bore out upon the worlds. If you can face up with Callieach bhur and carry wood for her, you’re not made of weak stuff my girl. Both your parents would be proud of your paintings, and you.”
Sam collapsed into Clary’s arms and cried her guts out.....
Part 7:
Sam decided to do some of her own research, beginning as Clary suggested with the physic gardens. Medicine gardens of course date back as long as we’ve been using and gathering herbs. Then there was the cultivation and preservation of herbs, kept alive in the relative safety of the monastery. Where monks, and nuns, were not only spiritual guides but practical healers, and the herb garden was an important part of daily living. Sam thought of the vellum calligraphy and illuminations she’d seen images of....
Saint Hildegard of Bingen came to mind. A German woman who was a nun, and then an Abbess. A visionary woman of the twelfth century, she stands out amongst a plethora of men in the story of written herbals. Rare also because she was able to blend the art of practical herbalism with the spiritual healing of incantations and not be burned at the stake for it, although at the time some might have tried.
A woman like Hildegard would have been lucky to survive in the fifteenth century. Those were times that came amongst the beginnings of witch trials in parts of Europe, dangerous times for women to speak out, or practice their art publicly. There was a shift towards male apothecaries who wouldn’t include women in their number, or trade secrets. The origins of a ‘medical establishment’ were taking root. Doubtless local women continued in their ways, perhaps covering them under sanctioned womanly arts in the kitchen, garden and crafts. I’m no historian, Sam thought, but the echoes of this are still rippling out.
A seer and translater of visions, a writer of music, manuscripts, and healer. Hildegard wrote two treatises on medicine and natural history, known in English as Book of Simple Medicine and Book of Composed Medicine, between 1151 and 1161. (In some manuscripts the two are combined as The Subtleties of the Diverse Natures of Created Things.) They are often referred to by their Latin titles, Physica and Causae et Curae. The number of manuscript copies of these works still in existence indicates that these works were widely read and influential in their time.
She was part of a intergenerational monastic tradition of doctoring monks and nuns, working for love not money. They were often well travelled and communication between areas allowed for exchange of information about treatments. At its best, they were not trying to increase their patient base, or turn a profit, but offered a kindly herbalism. Based on a practical knowledge of the plants in their gardens and surrounds, when practices such as blood letting and purging were popular.
An interesting aspect of Hildegard’s work was her belief in a force she called 'viriditas' meaning 'greeness' or 'greening power', a kind of nature based force. Hildegard wrote that God transmits life into plants, animals, and gems. People eat plants and animals and acquire gems, thus obtaining viriditas. Then they, may in turn, give that essence out by virtuous acts, in a kind of passing on of life force through, and with, intention.
Hildegard followed on with the ancient Greek belief that the four elements comprised everything in the universe... air, water, fire and earth, and that peoples bodies reflected as a microcosm of this in posessing four ‘humors’—choler (yellow bile), blood, phlegm, and melancholy (black bile).
Balance of the elements was seen to lead to health, imbalance to disease.
"Like billowing clouds, like the incessant babble of the brook.
The longing of the spirit can never be stilled.”
Sam thought of her journeys, nightmares and visions once again. A way of gathering intuitively, and then holding it up to the light with other information. Maybe I am just where I need to be, its only fear of a thing that gives it wings. Fear and misinterpretation, I wouldn’t be the first human to suffer those two things. As usual Clary’s right, if I can just relax into it and keep painting and journaling...
She thought back to that journey, where Callieach, before she knew her name, had given her the name of Persicaria. Increasingly less than usual she had thought the word gobbledegook, and more asked Clary about it, interested to hear what she had to say.
“Aaaah now there’s a plant with some fine common names!” she had replied, “Adderwort, Dragonwort, Snakeroot, Serpentary, Dracunulus...all common Bistort. You really are choosing an interesting line of herbs to question on.”
“Well, yes, or they’re choosing me....”
“Excellent! Bistort refers to the twice twisted nature of the root stock bis- twice and torta-twisted. One of the vegetable kingdoms most powerfull astringents, usefull for diahorrea, and tanning hides. A lot of tannins” she whispered leaning close as if disclosing personal information.
Maybe there is more of my mother in me than I’ve known. What did the trout man say, “touched you are like your grandmother”.
Now it was question time for Clary....
“Did you know my grandmother well?”
“Aaaaah Nell, yes quite well. Very like your mother, and you my dear. Quietly spoken, but when she did speak you listened. Visual like you, a watcher.”
“A watcher?”
“Yes, observed things before diving in, got to know the playing field so to speak. Gentle spirit but if you came anywhere harming one of her own look out. Quite a devout Christian, in her way, which wasn’t approved of by all church going folk. Closer to emulating the teachers, not a big one for converting others, or lecturing on sin. Went to church only on rare ocassions. Could tell your future by reading the tea leaves at the bottom of your cup, if you were game. Saw that your mother was going to have a girl, you know. Which was surprising, as the doctors said it was a boy. She was happy about it, following on the maternal line and all that. Do you think you’ll ever have children Sam?”
“Follow on the maternal line n all? Well as I have no luck in the cohabitating department, apart from with you, probably not. I do have my creative work though, and now this book. It feels a bit like a birth, don’t you think?”
“Always avoided births” Clary answered. “ Messy and painful, but I was there for yours.”
“ Clary, I had no idea...”
“Yes, that’s how long I’ve known your family, and worked with the herbs, spooky really. The ‘tome’ compared to birth, uummm, it’s a more long drawn out process, thank goddess for all mothers past and future. A lot of screaming is what I remember, her, and then you, when you finally came. ”
“I’ll bear that in mind.”
“Not to put you off, a child is a precious gem, each and every one, although its highly likely I carry romantic notions from a far...”she giggled
“Think I’ll stick with my arts for now thanks, they hold challenge and satisfaction enough. Without the screaming, with the mess.”
They both smiled like co-conspirators, Clary had been much the same at Sam’s age, knee deep in the herbs, no human kids. Except now she did have Sam, and that was more than she could ever have hoped for.....
Part 8:
Clary wanted an illustration of a Neanderthal burial. A blend of two times. Showing the remains as they exist now, overlayed with the freshness of when plants were laid out and skin still supple...
“They are some of the earliest evidence of people respecting and gathering the herbs. Yarrow, chickweed, angelica, dill...”
“You don’t think it’s a bit gruesome?”
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. I’m hoping my burial will be as beautiful, evocative of mother earth and return my body for composting. I might even feed a tree someday!”
“Let’s hope that’s a while off eh?”
“It pays to have a plan though. No monuments of stone for me, except perhaps a cairn. Just put me back where I came from, and have a good party...”
Sam had been finding the drawings came with a nice flow, the red ochre earthy colours were right up her alley, echoing the blood of birth, or rebirth perhaps. The foetal position some bodies were placed in was evocative of the depth of the subject.
It also reminded her of the bog people who’s stomach contents showed recognisable grains and herbs, some which had even been sprouted. She thought of the idea of gnomes, earth beings dwelling underground. Also, the legendary Tuatha de dannan, people of the Goddess Danu, of Ireland who were chased into the hills, under them, by waves of colonising invaders.
Cave dwellers, it’s where we all came from, she thought. There’s something about those roots that lives on in us all and that we can tap into. Hunter gatherers living intimately with the seasons, with no other choice but to live off, and on, the land. Is it any wonder that they then worshipped the life in everything and would want to offer up their bodies to return directly to the land to continue its fertility. To pacify and honour ancestor spirits with ritual.
Sam thought of her parents, they’d had no funeral. A memorial service was all, and they’d have wanted it that way. The card deck was the first sprouts of her parents spirituality, and it certainly didn’t align with their later beliefs to have a church service, although her grandmother would have liked to, she respected their perspective.
Clary would definitely need bunches of herbs when her time came, Sam smiled. She saw suddenly the lineage of medicine women stretching back across time. Their people perhaps felt the same. Wanting to give them some of their beloved herbs to take across to the other side of wherever it is we go while spirit runs free.
In Asia there are tribes who have massive funerary caves where their ancestors bones live, and are treated as if still a part of the family. Brought down for celebrations, consulted on village business and fed offerings. It would be nice to have a place to visit, to connect with those who’ve crossed over, Sam just thought of her folks when she saw the sea.
Imagine the strength of knowing all your ancestors are in a certain part of the land you live on still. Gives a bit more of a position of respect to being ‘of’ the land, or country.
In some ways, plants are growing on the past of humanity, and other animals, like a gift from our elders. They must carry some of that energy inside. Perhaps that’s why we can understand their voices if we take it slow enough, voices from the first day. Voices from the past, plant and human spirits blended, each feeding the other in turn, in their time.....
This isn’t getting my watercolour finished! Ponderings and wanderings!
She traced the feathery yarrow leaves shapes, so tricky to get the detail without it just blobbing. The pencil lines beneath the wash held the structure together, so that if she went out of lines, the pencil marks showed through. That was why she used light washes, building up layers. The bones needed many different browns washed over them to get the complexity of texture, and she dabbed with a tissue to create highlights. It was an art in itself to know when to stop, to have said enough to suggest forms without flattening them from overworking.
She was happy with the paper shed found to paint on, it could take her at times brutal treatment. It was almost as thick as card with a beautiful smooth finish for fine work. Tough enough that she could draw back into the images to reiterate a line if needed, without it breaking down or tearing. Cost an arm and a leg, the impoverished artist kept so by a lust for fine materials she laughed...
But her mind was on her parents now. 5 stages of grief people had told her handing a photocopy that looked official enough. They forgot to add, guaranteed to jump out of order at any given time just to sneak up on you. A shapeshifter is grief, a series of waves rather than a polite line of steps. It frightens people too, like an elemental out of control reflected in the eyes of the person suffering their losses. Thank Goddess for Clary’s stable, annual, now semipermanent co-inhabiting, visits. When she was sore like a wounded animal she would come and stay, knowing she didn’t have to explain if getting out of bed was just too hard some days or that tears came when reliving a seemingly happy memory.
Mind you there’d been plenty of solitary times between when Sam had to go it alone, the questions the implausibility of them being gone, or that one day they might just walk back into her life. But slowly, gradually the tear in her chest eased and the pauses between the waves had increased, she’d been able to pick up a brush again, to connect with what she was painting as the veil of grief shifted. The dance of the seven veils of grief, that’s what should have been on that official looking handout. Taunting, teasing, suggesting the possibility that you’ll fall apart, or perhaps promise seductively that you can recover some sense of your life again.
Well girl, you’re doing ok nowadays, she mentally patted herself on the back. Somehow you just survive it with, and without, grace. She looked at the painting and was pleased with it. The hardest part is always those first baby steps on the inevitable blank page that stretches before you, starting a new image. The reflection on the finished product is, hopefully, satisfying. You can resolve a picture in ways you can’t necessarily do with life. Life is an evershifting canvas, she thought philosophically. Must write that down somewhere.... Part 9:
Harvest plants in places you are familiar with, so you can observe and learn how your practices affect them over time.
Part 10:
Part of the illustrating process was to read what Clary wrote....
“There were rebels, Nicholas Culpeper, in the seventeenth century, translated some of the work begun by the nuns and monks in Latin, into English in attempts to make a system of healing more accessible to the masses. The establishment of his time when it came to local plants didn’t include common names, or descriptions, they were interested in expensive exotic species mixed into formulae. Culpeper wrote of plants growing in folks gardens used as simples. He used astrology in a system that could be applied to describe and treat disease. He was treated as a quack by the establishment, but his herbal is still in print today.”
Always it becomes about control, Sam thought. Egads, I’m thinking like Clary now. This was no abstract theory though, people’s lives have, and are, being effected by what information they receive. Whereas once it was a lack of information, now it’s a seething mass of information. How to make sense of it?
The source of information can affect its quality. Locating people who encouraged the simple use of plants, or gave of how to make your own medicines and herb related produce, tended to be more trustworthy than if someone was trying to sell you something. Clary had a pet theory about the more processed the product, the more ingredients it had, particularly those that are numbers, the less you could trust it. She felt the same way about food... “Take capsules of powdered herbs, they go right through ones system, better off to break the capsule open and sprinkle it on your breakfast, and who knows what’s in a powder? Could be graveyard dirt for all you can tell looking at one of those pill clones. Pills, everyone wants to pop a pill, we’ve been conditioned into thinking they’re some pinnacle of healthcare, not that they don’t have a place, but don’t try to sell me herbs pretending to be pharmaceuticals. And supplements! Who can afford them? Not the starving masses!”
“What does most of the worlds population survive on? Grains! Grains with a little protein, meat, beans or legumes.
Unfortunately large companies have ‘encouraged’ people to give up growing local species and buy their seed. Seed that’s bred reliant on pesticides and fertilisers, sold by who? The same companies! Thank god for the seed savers movement, sensible people, have got folks growing local species from their own seed. The plants do better and so do the people. Don’t even get me started on palm oil! ”
Sam remembered something she’d read earlier from their herbal to be...
“Beneath our very noses are growing some fine foods, and medicines, that are easily overlooked until you get to know them, then it’s likely you’ll be inviting them to dinner more often. Wild herbs and vegetables are packed full of nutrients that more cultivated vegetables have to a lesser degree. But just because they’re abundant please don’t be uprooting an entire patch. Some folks believe you should walk past the first seven plants seen to leave enough for the next seven generations.
There’s usually a 'grandmother' plant, or deva, who oversees a patch and who you can address explaining your needs to harvest and asking permission. You could leave an offering of food, or water, or do some caretaking such as to trim dead branches, spread some seed or reduce the numbers of a particularly dominating or invasive species that will out compete your ally.
A broad rule of thumb is that plants should be gathered when at the peak of their growth, generally spring and summer. The best times are early in the morning, after evaporation of the dew, as dew wet herbs will become mouldy on drying. The same also applies to rain wet herbs. Also, when collecting for drying its best to take plants at the time of the month when the moon is waning, in the early days of this time as there is less sap in the stems so that the herbs dry more easily.
Only harvest a third of any patch. This could mean a third of the amount growing there, or a third off each plant.”
Clary had a few guidelines up her sleeve.....of course...
Avoid harvesting endangered, threatened or sensitive species, especially native plants have limited corridors surrounded by human development.
Harvest plants in places you are familiar with, so you can observe and learn how your practices affect them over time.
Check if the plant you wish to harvest is slow growing like sarsparilla (Smilax australis). I was taught to use the young leaves only, but also that it’s very slow growing, so not to harvest too many baby leaves from one plant. Learn the growth patterns and cycles of plants you wish to harvest.
If you’re harvesting the root of a plant, will a small part replanted take shoot and continue to grow? If so replant as you go.
Harvest only an amount that you can in reality process.
Gather from as pollution free area as possible, avoiding agricultural or other pesticide spray zones. The same goes for heavily trafficked roadsides and parks where dogs are walked regularly.
“ If you’re coming to this with an attitude of respect, you’ll likely find when you ask a plant "would you like to be in some medicine I’m making?, you’ll hear "yes! Me, me, over here!" ”
“Everybody has a different kind of constitution at the core of their physical being, with tendencies to certain conditions. Such similarities in groups of folks have been at times, and in different schools of thought, been associated with a certain element, humour or personality type, in an attempt to create a picture of where someone’s at, and how to best treat and support them. To identify the particular patterns, tendencies, and signs, from their body and then work out which herbs will respond best with that ‘picture’, or have in other cases. But ultimately, it’s our own bodies who can give the clearest messages about where we need strengthening.
For some folks it’s their digestion, when there’s stress it plays up, tightening or loosening their bowels. Allergies or food sensitivities may be agitated, or increase. Stress creates overload, whatever the system, and it’s personally designed for each one of us. One person’s version of stress might be their landlord threatening them with eviction, while someone else might get stressed about what dress to wear to that do next week. We need a certain level of stress in our lives to function, stimulation, but give us too much and our systems respond with a reminder of it.
But have faith in the wisdom within. It can guide you to an ally in healing, be that person, plant, animal, rock or locale....”
Sam wondered how she had ever lived differently as she dived into the deep pool surrounded by water smoothed rocks, sanded back to a fine touch by eons of its motion on and around them. She opened her eyes underwater, that special light and the way if you looked up the sky was like a great circle above, fish eye lenses they called cameras that did that, I could use that imagery for one of the water plants she observed.
She’d been working on a drawing with no luck, trying to put an image to some of her visions, she’d been drawing Clary’s hanging herbs to overlay onto a depiction of the Cailleach’s cottage with its trance inducing fire. The last time she’d journeyed back there she was gone, replaced by a young sprite of a thing surrounded by an abundance of spring flowers. It had come as a shock, what was this woman doing in Cailleachs home? Sam had been defensive she was looking forward to sitting with her wise woman friend, but instead Brigid had greeted her.
“Happens every year” Clary had explained patiently, the Cailleach is said either to turn to stone come Imbolc, battle with, or become Brigid in a cyclical metamorphosis. “Don’t underestimate her skills though... a fine inspiration for poetry, blacksmiths, occult and healing arts it’s said. Very well respected arts all, in their time and place...”
Sam surfaced from her dive and clung like a freshwater mermaid to her favourate rock. Water has such an ability to clear stuff she thought, hoping it would clear her painters block. Perhaps I’m a damp kind of person, cool damp and that’s why I love the river so much, especially in the heat, like Clary’s hemlock. It’s homey, every now and then I just need submerging. Perhaps I’d be a mint or a cress if I was a plant? A water chestnut, or a lotus, depending which country I was growing in....
“Ask which plant is your ally at this time, put it out there, and then just open to information. Browse books with pictures of herbs, coffee table numbers, get out and about and see which plants catch your eye. Identify them if they’re unfamiliar if you know them have you ingested them before, ingestion being used in the broadest sense of the word here.”
Cailleach would be a slow growing tree, Sam thought, Brigid a flowering herb.
Perhaps herbs can be matched to people after all. A totemic symbol of who they are, what they’re about. A particular plant, suitable by its nature, to being present as an ally. It would be interesting to see if a person’s self selected plant related to the symptoms that appear for them. A deck of cards would be great for that, to choose your own medicine intuitively. It would be an interesting way to gather information, and then compare it to what’s already recorded and known. Following in my mother’s footsteps, ancestral deck for her, green deck for me...
For some folks it’s their digestion, when there’s stress it plays up, tightening or loosening their bowels. Allergies or food sensitivities may be agitated, or increase. Stress creates overload, whatever the system, and it’s personally designed for each one of us. One person’s version of stress might be their landlord threatening them with eviction, while someone else might get stressed about what dress to wear to that do next week. We need a certain level of stress in our lives to function, stimulation, but give us too much and our systems respond with a reminder of it.
But have faith in the wisdom within. It can guide you to an ally in healing, be that person, plant, animal, rock or locale....”
Sam wondered how she had ever lived differently as she dived into the deep pool surrounded by water smoothed rocks, sanded back to a fine touch by eons of its motion on and around them. She opened her eyes underwater, that special light and the way if you looked up the sky was like a great circle above, fish eye lenses they called cameras that did that, I could use that imagery for one of the water plants she observed.
She’d been working on a drawing with no luck, trying to put an image to some of her visions, she’d been drawing Clary’s hanging herbs to overlay onto a depiction of the Cailleach’s cottage with its trance inducing fire. The last time she’d journeyed back there she was gone, replaced by a young sprite of a thing surrounded by an abundance of spring flowers. It had come as a shock, what was this woman doing in Cailleachs home? Sam had been defensive she was looking forward to sitting with her wise woman friend, but instead Brigid had greeted her.
“Happens every year” Clary had explained patiently, the Cailleach is said either to turn to stone come Imbolc, battle with, or become Brigid in a cyclical metamorphosis. “Don’t underestimate her skills though... a fine inspiration for poetry, blacksmiths, occult and healing arts it’s said. Very well respected arts all, in their time and place...”
Sam surfaced from her dive and clung like a freshwater mermaid to her favourate rock. Water has such an ability to clear stuff she thought, hoping it would clear her painters block. Perhaps I’m a damp kind of person, cool damp and that’s why I love the river so much, especially in the heat, like Clary’s hemlock. It’s homey, every now and then I just need submerging. Perhaps I’d be a mint or a cress if I was a plant? A water chestnut, or a lotus, depending which country I was growing in....
“Ask which plant is your ally at this time, put it out there, and then just open to information. Browse books with pictures of herbs, coffee table numbers, get out and about and see which plants catch your eye. Identify them if they’re unfamiliar if you know them have you ingested them before, ingestion being used in the broadest sense of the word here.”
Cailleach would be a slow growing tree, Sam thought, Brigid a flowering herb.
Perhaps herbs can be matched to people after all. A totemic symbol of who they are, what they’re about. A particular plant, suitable by its nature, to being present as an ally. It would be interesting to see if a person’s self selected plant related to the symptoms that appear for them. A deck of cards would be great for that, to choose your own medicine intuitively. It would be an interesting way to gather information, and then compare it to what’s already recorded and known. Following in my mother’s footsteps, ancestral deck for her, green deck for me...
Part 11:
Each evening the girls, which they generally were in each other’s company of a night, would light a candle and have a cup of tea before bed. Catching up if they’d spent the day separately, or continuing on tangents partially developed if they’d been working. The light shifted things to a different feel, dappling and glow reflecting on glass jars full of herbs, bottles with tinctures or infusing oils, then there was that rather deadly dandelion beer that had been brewing in time with springs arrival.
“Should be ready and rather good slightly chilled pretty soon” Clarys eyes glinted with mischief, she was partial to a homemade brew...
“Edna makes a fine mead, largely consisting of fruits, including elderberry, and honey. Got a few bottles tucked away, easy on the tastebuds and warming to the soul...”she whispered. “Why are you whispering?” asked Sam, in a whisper. “Don’t want too many folks to find our secret stash, might charge us with moon shining again!” they both laughed...”Shall we open one?” “Yes, why not! We’ve done a decent days work.” “Above and beyond the call of duty!”
Clary disappeared and when she was visible again held the bottle and three glasses “and one for the wee folk” she replied to Sam’s questioning eyebrows...
“Clary have you ever seen a faerie?” she asked as the sacrament was poured, if anyone had, it’d be you she thought....
“Well, good question” she replied. “As a matter of fact that’s a hard word to place on something so flitting at the edges of our world. Language wants to define everything doesn’t it? I have certainly seen what I would consider plant spirits, heard whispers of song when no one else was around and much exists that words can’t catch” she riddled like a bard of olde. “The hemlock that’s bound to windows and doors is to protect from some such things, restless spirits and the like, whilst encouraging others, that may be called faeries. Working with plants slows one down to a pace to notice what others miss... “
They both sipped, and sighed in appreciation....mmmm...
“Hang on a minute,” Clary scanned the bookshelves with a finger and stopped at a thin paperback. She read from the cover....
“Blind folk see the fairies.
Oh better than we,
Who miss the shining of their wings
Because our eyes are filled with things
We do not wish to see.
Deaf folk hear the faeries
However soft their song;
‘Tis we who lose the honey sound
Amid the clamour all around
That beats the whole day long.
By Rose Fyleman, always loved that.”
“Beautiful, but you’re somewhat avoiding the subject Clary”
“No, no not avoiding it just coming to it in a roundabout way. This book, is a first person account of a childhood spent in the company of faeries, and in some ways I can relate. Like you I was an only child, amusing myself as I pleased. Spent a lot of time outside, of course, and I remember the first time I heard a plant speak. It was an evening primrose and she sighed gently in pleasure of simply being, a bit like you with that mead in your mouth, enticing sound then, as now. It got stronger as I moved closer. Yellow flowers dancing in the breeze became shifting light and seemed to loose from their stalks, taking off and flying independant of the mother plant. Elegant and playful in the air about me, so that I never could tell in remembering, exactly what I saw or imagined as it should be, but that it delighted me so that I wanted for companions no more. I had all the flowers in the fields and woods to meet! The primrose was a kind of wake up call to nature for me....”
“And the sounds?”
“Well, it was perfect for a plant said to cure sorrows, a kind of cheerful extended exhalation, and the colour in those wings... translucent yellow. It’s as if I can feel it now, and every time i see a primrose. If faeries bestow wishes, it wasn’t a bad gift at all. A welcome to potentials and possabilities... ”
Sam smiled, hearing the tale, combined with the mead, awoke a dreamy state in her as the candlelight bemused her senses as to light and shade, it was a suitably twilight feeling.
Part 12
:
Having no domesticated animals meant that Clary and Sam were sensitised to the wildlife around them. Being spring, nests were being constructed and other animal domestics going on, it felt like the new moon, a time for blessing newness and growth. Planting seeds to manifest over the coming weeks.
A family of swallows had built a rather expansive mud nest under the eaves by the study window and small chirrups were beginning to emit from the vicinity. The parent birds served to keep the insect population down, although Clary was defensive of her spiders.
“ Grandmother Spiderwoman wove creation with her web.” She said...”We humans are always passing judgement on animals that we don’t understand. Take the snake, another creator spirit, The Rainbow Serpent who formed the land with the motion of her body, chasms, valleys, river courses. What a symbol of regeneration! I wouldn’t mind shedding my skin every once in a while. Not that they’re to be treated without a touch of awe, a venomous snake in spring can get as territorial near its nest, and with a bite taboot. Best admired from a distance, sacred or otherwise.....”
“Bit like some people” Sam added
“ I hope you’re not pointing the finger at moi?”
“I reckon if someone tried to knick the tome, you’d bite” Sam laughed,
“Well there you go! We all defend our babies! Boundaries are to be respected at times...god Id never thought about anyone stealing all our hard work...” she looked a little worried...
“Put your fangs away mother snake, who comes out here?”
“You have a point, but could those bloody regulators stop us? And don’t tell me it’s a free country!”
Now it was Sam’s turn to look worried, “surely not?” The plant she felt closest to in that moment was a cactus. Sharpened barbs protecting her softer parts, all their time and effort.”
“You know Sam there’s something I didn’t tell you about, from Edna’s bust up. I’m not sure if it’s anything, but there was a man there, not the head honcho....”
Sam was nervous thinking of all Clary’s recent bombshells about her family...”and ?”
“Well there was something eerie about him. Didn’t do any of the physical lugging away of jars and bottles, but he had a vibe of tightly reined in control. The kind who wouldn’t get directly involved in case there was any trouble, but could turn nasty if required. Someone said he was a research pharmacist, not local, a ring in. The kind with money and secret alliances, like a freemason gone terribly wrong.”
“and?”
“Well, Edna said an article appeared in the local paper about the dangers of herbal medicine, usual line about unpredictability of doses of active ingredients, potential for harm etc etc very rigid and linear. Not to trust the quality of ‘home made’ medicines, only buy from large suppliers without contamination bla bla. It had his name to it. But the really odd thing was, when they were ‘interviewing’ us he asked the most detailed questions, botanical names, where they grew, how we’d got information about them. If i was being suspicious Id reckon he was after plants to ‘research’. Talk about a witch trial!”
“We’ll just have to make sure we publish a book that’s affordable Clary, so ordinary everyday people get the information. Mr Spooky can’t stop us publishing, but it’s the like of him that may try to discredit us.” Suddenly a rather creepy sensation took over “Did you forget to pay your bills while you were away?” Sam asked with shivers, thinking of the man she’d sprung out back while Clary was still missing....
“I always pay my way Sam, in advance....why?”
“I think we may have had a visit from your friend, or someone like him, except that he wasn’t expecting to find anyone else here while you were gone...” Sam was getting more like a cactus like as she spoke, a cactus that shot barbs as darts and chased pseudo gas company men. Being her self, Sam had never paid the bill, but they were still cooking with gas, literally....
The two women were both looking a blend of nervous and ready to swallow someone whole.
“Shit Clary, your lifes work has been the plants and their medicine, its a researchers dream, lots of credit and cudos to him, off the back of your, and Ednas, life experience...”
“Were your notes in order when you left for Edna’s?”
“Of course not love!” Their anxiety suddenly busted open in peals of laughter, “Just thought I’d double check” Sam guffawed. “By goddess Clary you have the best security system possible, complete chaos! Ha!”
“And you Sam” Clary spoke seriously again...
“If it’s taking us this long to translate your notes and pull them together, hell, they may as well just wait for the book and buy a copy! Infact, they’ll have to!”
“Edna, Clary, is she safe?”
“Oh yes, has a rather burly fella who she’s been treating for some years, who’s been keeping an eye out for her since the bust up. Kind, gentle giant but wouldn’t want him to catch you slighting Edna. God Sam I was so naive, what if something had happened to you, I’d never have forgiven myself.”
“Well it didn’t, and I don’t reckon a search warrant would be of use to them.”
“I don’t know love, but we’ve got to start being more careful. We need to organise our work so far and get it to the publishers, there’s less chance of sabotage if it’s halfway to print.”
They spent the day gathering their work together, it was only a quarter of the way there.
“This is ridiculous Clary, we can’t live under threat like this. She thought of the troutman then, ”there’s danger and you know it. That’s why your here innit, before they come, to save the ol ways from em.” Sam had been thinking metaphorically but this was real as. She recited his words for her.
“We’re safe.” Clary said almost cutting Sam short with certainty, “How can you know that?” Sam asked, wanting her too. “There’s more to this place than bricks and mortar precious one and it sounds to me like there’s a few others batting on our side. Mr Spooky” she got the giggles again, “doesn’t know the half of it. That hemlock can come down pretty soon too I’d be thinking. Your fishy friend has been seen by others before you.” She reached for the bookshelves and pulled out a raggedy old volume, cook book like with splashes and staining on it. “This my dear is the grimoire I found under the floorboards when i first came here, didn’t want to tell you about it, thought it might frighten you a bit, but..” she leafed through and came to an illustration “That’s him Clary!”. Goosebumps popped up on her arms......
“Well, he was a messenger to the woman who lived here a good hundred years ago. I have a feeling the author of this book will be watching our plight, from whatever realms she’s in. You see people were after her book too... similar reasons different times. Dangerous times...”
“Oh my god Clary, it all starts to fit.”
“Yep. Synchronicitous eh? Mr spooky doesn’t know the half of it.”
“Lets get our volume as is photographed and off to the publishers. I have a feeling if no one’s busted our gig up so far, it’s not likely they will. I tell you what, the dottery ol woman character can be milked for all its worth if it ever comes to search warrants, and i’d play it to the max.”
“You are a wicked woman Clary, but a wise one too.”
Part 13:
It took some time for them to settle back into their peaceful routines after their discussion of potential sabotage. Clary set wards about the place, and along with the publishers encouragement, there was a sense that the very core of the cottage was friendlier, more protective. Gradually they let sleeping dogs lie and the vibrant spring energy swept them up.
So much was going on out there, plants were flowering, growing, setting seed, so that Sam was too busy catching the moment on paper to think about much else. Drawing from fresh plant materials was just too good an opportunity, and Clary knew how to find them. They walked a lot, talked less and immersed themselves once more. Sam had tried to draw from photographs but the results weren’t as accurate, detailed, or satisfyingly like the plants. Later she could add other elements to the imagery a figure, an animal, backgrounds, this time was for getting plant portraits down to refer back to. They pressed plants too, and Clary worked to restore some of her medicine stocks.
One of Sam’s favourates was the Echinacea augustifolia, such a beautiful form the flowers had, petals almost weeping or dripping around that pine cone like core. So distinctive and petals easily translated into evocative wings like Clarys primrose.
“Its rare now to get tinctures made with the root older than 2 years, over demand.” Clary sighed “and a lot of the time its purpurea, which is easier to grow. Now they’ve started developing ornamental hybrids, greens, yellows, not sure what I think of that, still we’ve bred plants to our floral tastes for eons....” all said as she stood in her close to armpit high patch at one end, “These babies are 5 and counting!”
Clarys garden was a good quarter acre, add to that the large areas of abandoned farms, pasture and forest verges and there was much to explore. The native scrub contained medicines too, although not in such high percentages as the more agriculture touched places. “Weeds bring weeds the world over” Clary mocked, “Either that or they outcompete locals with attempted genocide and development.” It was not a statement lightly spoken...
“The story of people and plants is a multilayered one. Waves of seedings and cross pollination aren’t specific to horticulture, look at your granma, first generation eh. Now look at you, settled as that old fella at the bar of life. Born and bred here, but owing a heritage, and land, to the first peoples.”
They were silent a while on that thought...
Sam wondered what it must have been like for her granma in this new land, so expansive compared to Europe. Like a plant elder she had sown the seeds for generations to come, although in her family the seedlings got blown away in a storm. Now she was the sole survivor, at least her work with Clary could contribute something to any folk with the interest. Herbs don’t discriminate, well actually they do, but their reasoning, and offered secrets, are far earthier, less profit or religion based...
It seemed the more time consciously spent with the plants, the more information came to them but also flavoured with how much there was could still be learned. Single plants that San had associated with a specific symptom spoke up about their multiskilling abilities. Look at nettle, Urtica dioica, her most dramatic use of ‘urtification’, where joints swollen with arthritis were ‘hit’ with her formic acid bearing hairs, to draw circulation to them, was only one of her many talents. Here’s a plant that carries all the goodness associated with ‘greens’ into ones system. Great for building someone up, nervous systems with frazzled edges or food for strengthening the whole constitution. Steaming or drying, taking away her sting, which metaphorically could be seen as protection of her softer nutrient filled self, a teacher to women and bringer of awareness to harvesting. Where at first Sam flinched at the buzzing sensation picking her with bare hands brought, now she began to enjoy it, like a greeting from an old friend, that was if she could beat Clary to a patch. “Helps with me old hands, an brain, doing all this writing” she’d said. How could you argue with that!
Sam was curious and somewhat awed at the discovery of the grimoire from what almost seemed to be their predecesor. There was no name inscribed anywhere, the writing was hard to decipher at times. That’s one way to keep from having fingers point, besides stashing it under the floorboards, she thought as she handled the book gently and let it fall open. On the page was a diagram of the Earth, tilted on her axis and rotating around the Sun. A lesson on the forces that create the seasons, but also including the names of Goddesses associated with them, and there was Cailleach Beur. Less inclined to be shocked by synchronicity these days, Sam was instead fascinated. The woman who wrote this must have been Celtic in her ancestry, a sweeping statement but one that explained the presence of the crone. She traced the circle with her finger around to spring and sure enough Brigid was there, but now instead of grieving for Cailleach, Sam noticed the flow of arrows that led from Brigid’s time back to winter once more. It was a cycling, just as the seasons. Which somehow comforted her, left her more open to the more youthfull goddess aspect. She certainly couldn’t deny the muse like quality of this time of year, its inspirational tangents would touch any artisan.
She wondered on her mothers cards suddenly, and went to find the obviously often touched pouch, softened leather greeting her fingers. Flipping through them there was less fear at what she might find and more a questing. ‘Ancestral tarot, they’ve got to be in here...’ she pondered as the images passed by, a robin hood type character, a fey woman, animal people, and there it was. A card of three women back to back looking out at the world, but joined at the base in the sturdy roots of a tree. The three made one, maid, mother and crone. At the trees base a cauldron brewed away.
Natural I’d miss out on the mother connection Sam thought, but perhaps with time I’ll grow to relate to her too. She continued to flip through the cards and sure enough, whilst the three had a shared card, they also had individualised ones. It was a light bulb moment. Brigid was depicted, with flames of inspiration coming from her forehead, one hand held high in invocation of the elements, the other on her belly, womb, Sam corrected herself.
She returned to the grimoire and on the next page was a diagram of the moons phases, again with the names of the goddesses overlayed. It was making sense for her, finally the seeming disparities between the women had a context....
Clary’s voice disturbed her process, she was looking over Sam’s shoulder “She must have been a woman of learning too eh? Which plants would you give to the triple aspected ones?”
Sam mentally scanned for associations. Was there a triple aspected plant and then individual correspondances? “Well most herbs have three parts to their life cycle, seedling growth, reproducing, then fading or passing on to the next generation, if their an annual. But biennials, perennials the third phase is extended and the root becomes more potent medicine. Cailleach would be a tree, juniper. Twisted and gnarled, almost bonsai, strong medicine, cleansing and protective. Brigid would be a flowering plant, red clover with her triple leaf to remind of the triple goddess and her lusty nature, of youth! Hasn’t it been said St Patrick taught the Christian mysteries of father, son and holy ghost with clover leaves, well I’d say there were goddess teachings went on before that.”
“Makes sense to me... “, was all Clary could reply, but she beamed the happy tutor in her silence.
“So who’s the mother energy, what’s her plant?” Sam quested, getting on a roll with the direction this was taking. She found she was anticipating her discoveries now that the flow of them was becoming apparent. She was so engaged she’d quite forgotten the grimoire that lay on the couch, having sparked this train of thought...
“Well, you’ll just have to wait until summer to have that revealed.” Clary said. “Tis the way of visions, they come when you least expect, and never when you demand it of them.”
Part 14:
Sam looked out peacefully on what had become her world, not by a conscious push to escape the rat race, although that had been her original intention coming here to Clary, but it all happened so organically. She couldn’t translate her freedom here back onto the old life, for one thing she may well have ended up in a psychiatrists office without the affirmation and encouragement of the blend of realities she now navigated with less fear, more curiosity ‘just as well I’m not a cat’. Humans have been seekers of such experiences for ages, yet in some its pathologised. The line between madness and spiritual visions is a fine one, she thought and some folks go looking for one and cop the other. Not to dismiss the suffering of mental illness, its the part of the spectrum that causes great pain to those involved, or a bliss out of proportion to daily life, and often resulting in isolation by others. Not very trendy. Sam could have ended up with a diagnosis through her grief at the loss of her family and the traumatic distortions it created, infact, she wondered at having scraped through the last ten years without one. ’There but for the grace of god go I’.
Certainly there have been moves in the right direction with treatments that allowed ones character to remain, not simply a stupefying with medications or locking away of eccentricity. Nowadays affording medications was a challenge in some countries without a pharmaceutical benifits scheme, choice limited again by control she sighed. If they really wanted to reduce the stigma the pills and counselling would be as cheap as booze, ice or any other forms of self medicating, including access to weapons.
Why is it the media grasps desperately to extreme situations of mental illness, thereby discrediting the whole of a group of people generally gentle souls, too sensitive to the worlds communal crazyness to carry on ignoring it. It was like people with mental health issues carried the shadow or underbelly of group consciousness, a bit like the crow. So often depicted as a cackling evil doer pecking the eyes from lambs, when in actuality they are amazing, intelligent birds, the only ones to use tools.
Sam thought of an old friend from high school who’d gone off the deep end of sanity when they were studying for final exams. Admittedly she was paranoid to an extreme, and it filtered into her life as a destructive force. She thought certain groups at school were witches practicing the darker arts to deliberately curse her, and that they were observing her behaviour with humour. It wasn’t so far from the truth, all the cliques that bitched and gossiped. With time and a supportive family she put the pieces back together again. Like the shaman fragmented by an initiation where the self is dismembered then healed, just not as cool. This stuff takes time, it’s not a one session miracle. Last time Sam saw her she was doing ok, she had her own place and was recovering from the emergence of the fact that she’d been abused as a child, the horror that haunted her given a name. What do they say about naming the demons in Buddhist practice...
It happens in the plant world too, she thought. Hallucinogens, the banes, weeds. Plants blacklisted and scapegoated with peoples fears, herbalism itself in some circles. It doesn’t create a situation where the plants roles as healers could be explored and discussed openly. She remembered her own feelings being spooked by the hemlock Clary had bound to the door and window frames as protection, it seemed an eternity ago. Now she had Clary’s biases instilled sturdily within her, and the Cailleachs, she smiled, but refelt the cactus like defences that covens must feel, the protectiveness of the loved. Now I feel that way about the plants. Her thoughts wandered back to her school mate and she prayed that she was well, and safe.
Part 15:
Plants have been used to alter consciousness down through the ages. Depending on one’s sensitivity, ingested or not. Even just being around plants shifts consciousness, as Sam had experienced, spending time focused on green realms woke up a whole other aspect in her. But it was fascinating when you looked at ‘plant teachers’, like ayahuasca that sprouted a whole branch of shamanism, the Vegatalistas, who are taught about the other plants by this ‘doctoring’ one. Could dandelion do the same thing in a different way and level...
“People are drawn to exotic practices and plants from faraway, there’s a mystery about them, beyond the commonplace. Everyone’s key to the doors of the plant world is different, but how strange it would seem if the seeking was in the opposite direction? An Amazonian looking for dandelion seeds, coming to us for a workshop to observe how we live. That would be a dialogue! Every continent has plants that change consciousness, it’s just that traditions have a more continuous flow in some places, and peoples, are stronger. Such plants demand a ritual context and so they are often at the core of just that. Sacraments, prepared in ways that bring out their skills...
Take the phenomena of alcohol. Its story is intertwined with ours, and is just as paradoxical. It’s been a sacrament, look at the catholic church, and demonised, think of prohibition. It’s a crucial medium in much medicine making, but can also ruin lives. It’s a dosage issue, it’s a consciousness altering, plant based substance with a whole range of potencies from absinthe to beer. It’s been made by monks and moon shiners.”
”Clary, how do you know what dose age to give of a certain herb?”
“Tinctures are usually low dose, in terms of drops, because they’re strong medicine. Usually nourishing nettle, in tincture form could create hallucinations if you drank it by the glass full. As an infusion you can drink it all day long and only benefit. Infusion that’s fermented can help draw out the medicinal qualities in shy plants. It’s a spectrum....
It’s just another learning curve, it’s a bit like the Linnaeus thing all over again. The communal knowledge has been categorised to try to describes where a herb sits and what its actions are. Nourishing, tonifiers, stimulant, and such terms, are one way to tell us about the story of a plant’s uses. Overlaying that is the way it’s best prepared, oil, salve, tea, infusion, tincture, on a scale of potency.
It’s a bit like identifying, you use available field guides, combined with intuition more as your experience grows. Start out with one plant, get to know it, how it’s happiest as a medicine and gradually expand the circle, you’ll learn something each time. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, like you always do.”
“No problems there....”
“Didn’t think so....”
Part 16:
Part 16:
“ What we ingest, eat, breathe, think, feel, see, effects the quality of our nourishment. Nourishing herbs may be described as providing nutrition, the process where food is taken into the body to create living tissues. What those living tissues contain effects our overall being and health. To strengthen our systems we can use nourishing herbs like nettle to structurally build us up.
Tonics act on what we have built and maintained. Like an excercise is said to tone with regular rhythmic movement, most tonifying herbs contain substances that cause cell membranes to tighten and then relax, tighten and relax, this motion creating increased blood flow to cells. Some herbal tonics act on a specific organ or system, like dandelion with the liver, or are more generalised like parsley. More generalised tonics are also called alteratives.
Sometimes tonics get confused with stimulants. The easy way to see which a plant is, use it for a period of months and then stop. If it’s a tonic and you’ve been nourished you will feel as good without it for some time, if you have been stimulated you will feel worse and may even suffer withdrawal. There’s a big difference between nettle and coffee.
Tonics are slow acting and build health, stimulants are fast acting and don’t. If you use a stmulant it may trigger you into using a sedative, or the reverse. The classic example is someone who drinks coffee during the day at work and then to wind down at the end of the day has a few drinks, wakes up the next day and starts with coffee again.”
“Still, Clary” Sam spoke after she’d read the latest, “I don’t think i could give up my seasoning herbs, curry pastes, and chilli. They just hit the spot sometimes, they’re stimulants mostly...”
“Well, they were designed to please the senses, also used as preservatives and to improve the taste of aged meat when refrigeration wasn’t around, still are. They also traditionally come with soothing digestive side dishes, yoghurt and cucumber, banana and coconut, tomato and mint.”
“Mmmm....It’s a bit like the occasional cup of yerba mate tea on a late night stint compared to the dandelion leaf you had me infusing for breakfast, or lunch when I first came.”
“Well that’s another issue too. Teas are designed for volatile herbs, that often have a strong 'scent' when crushed, giving us a clue that they contain essential oils. Teas use less amounts of herb, brewed for a relatively short time. Like with chamomile, mints, sage, lemon balm. Herbs with a more 'earthy' smell when crushed are letting us know that they’re more like food, and can be taken in our longer brewing 'infusions', nettle, oats, red clover, comfrey leaf or dandelion leaf are all happily infused.”
Part 17:
Clary looked around the cottage still in her dressing gown, and smiled to herself. Although she’d lived most of her life in a pretty solitary way, having Sam here was growing into her version of normalcy. The tubes of watercolour, the growing stack of illustrations, the long term notes finally translating into a manuscript, but most of all how Sam was blossoming amidst it all. Clary had seen her come close to the edge when she lost her parents, the visits she had at that time Sam had been fractured and wounded. Who she was now had roots in the devastation of those times but now the warmth that always was a part of her, even amidst the depression, had come to the fore. She was absorbing the work and teachings like osmosis through the filter of her creativity.
Their time together would draw to a close at some point, Sam was young, she’d have other parts of her life come to the fore. The thought was one Clary put aside for dealing with later, it would no longer be her comfort zone to live alone, she’d been spoilt for that now...
Sam entered looking like a straggletag “Morning...”
“Morning...”
“Cuppa?”
“Righty oh...”
Sam watched Clary b-line for the kitchen, glad to see she went the gas option this morning, she was in need. The comfort of Clary’s presence had become an organic part of her time here, she shuddered to think what would have happened if she hadn’t returned. It would have been a lonely road indeed. Their friendship was unusual, but wouldn’t have been in a saner world. Where would they go when the book was finished, she filed that away in the denial section at the back of her mental cabinet...this was her life for now...
Armed with their cuppas Clary and Sam wandered into their work, and play, space. It was like some kind of vine, overtaking the interior of the cottage with branches spreading into every crevice, each nook, with juicy fruits to tempt. A raspberry perhaps, leaves supporting the pregnancy of the book, and healing any morning sickness. Sam laughed, and was amazed at having a sense of humour this early. She wasn’t a morning person...
Yesterday she had been sketching shepherd’s purse, Capsella bursa- pastoris, shamans pouch as she called her, after her heart shaped seed pods so similar to a medicine pouch. This is a plant known for her ability to stop internal and external bleeding. During world war one when German drugs that controlled bleeding weren’t available, British doctors used shamans pouch. A bit like the women who were employed in industry when the men went to war....
Her tiny cruciform flowers were a hint of her origins in the Brassicaceae family as was the, slightly peppery, taste of her leaves which were a favoured salad addition in this household. A vinegar made with the seed pods had a mustardy flavour to it...
She thought to draw the pouch her mother’s cards were in, alongside an enlarged version of an opening seedcase. Experience had shown her that the strongest illustrations were ones she had an emotional connection, or association, with. Working from theoretical knowledge alone just didn’t cut it, the images were dry. It was the same for Clary with her writings, the plants she’d used repeatedly appeared larger than life, had personalities, which was how she had decided what to include so far. They’d just spoken up, it was natural...
Suddenly Clary was in tears. Sam was woken from her morning stupor with the rarity of such an occurrence...
“I’m sorry love, it’s just....old habits die hard, I used to be some kind of solitary plant, but now I’ve gone all communal with you around, and me roots are set up deep.”
“Still making a metaphor to the plant world tho even through the tears eh girl? ”
Clary smiled some. “Listen to me, I’ve got no plans on going anywhere, don’t you know you’re my family? This is home for me, not that flat I stayed in counting the clock and wondering what it’s all about.”
“I’m sorry love, I don’t mean to pressure you...”
“No pressure Clary, it’s a choice I’m glad to make each day, even through my morning fog.”
“I tell you what I’m going to pack that flat up and put everything in storage. Even going back to do that will be a push, but the times come.”
“No, you can’t...”
“Watch me. I should have done it weeks ago. I’ll head off this week, it should only take a few days of boxes and masking tape, but will you be ok?”
“Of course. The ol place n me will be fine...”
Sam hid the fact well that she wasn’t looking forward to going back to that world, but it made sense to do it now while she was motivated, paying rent on the place was draining her resources too...
Part 18:
Sam felt like she was in the twilight zone as she climbed onto the bus at the end of the lane, the driver recognised her “Not leaving us luv?”
“I’ll be back, just a few things to sort out from the old life.”
“Fair enough. It’s a grand thing you and your aunt getting on like you do. Must be a blessing for you both, there’s some folks round here got no-one much except at Christmas and holiday times. Families aint what they used to be.“
She took a seat and gazed out the window, knowing that the mobile phone she was returning to was the least of it, the creeping in of civilisation was looming. Clary had promised to visit the neighbours more regularly for the time she was away, but she still felt protectively worried.”
The flat was just as she’d left it, but she wasn’t. It felt awkward and distant as she began to gather the energy to begin. One of her mates, Kathryn was coming over to lend a hand, and when she arrived it all seemed less insurmountable.
“ Girl you look different, all that country air, roses in your cheeks and multiple other stereotypes!”
“ Girl you look different, all that country air, roses in your cheeks and multiple other stereotypes!”
“Thanks, its kind of disjointed being back here.”
“No worries we’ll sort this out in no time, just you watch. I’m all yours director, delegate away!”
Kathryn started on the kitchen while Sam began on the books. There were hints here of how her life had evolved. How much more direct my daily experiences are now, she thought, less theory, more life. I’m virtually a practicing artist, rather than a waitress come sometimes creative type and the natural world is in my back yard these days. What had previously been distant ideas or concepts were part of everyday magic now. Solid....
Then she came upon it. A book her mother had signed, ‘the ancestral tarot’. God she thought, I’d forgotten I even owned this! You’d think she would have poured through anything associated with her parents in her grieving to reignite connection, but the reverse had been true, she avoided reminders like the plague, they triggered too much emotion. She opened it up and saw interpretations and ideas on meanings. She looked up the Green Woman...
“The Green Woman lives in all women, when we create a space to connect to her. The means by which this is done may vary, but she waits patiently for us to gather in our resources and meet the natural world that is her realm. Her voice is whispering on the tides, the phases of the moon and in organic patterns of growth. If you draw this card be ready for listening to plants, talking with them in an energy exchange of green tendencies. Their teachings are part of your heritage, and are a gift from the ancestors who lived in close communion with them. Don’t be surprised if healing is coming your way, supported particularly by medicinal herbs and the green nations.”
Sam was a little gobsmacked. This card had been her journeys beginning, packing the flat was simply a detour and now she knew it to be true. She took to folding boxes and wrapping fragile things in newspaper with an affirmed vigour.
Hanging out with Katherine was genuinely nice. Jovial, and a fragment of familiarity as the boxes gradually filled. Her news was interesting, most of their friends in common were still up to their tricks, someone was dating someone new, work alliances shifted, so and so was out of favour, someone else was having issues. It was a welcome distraction during what could otherwise have been a loaded time. “What do they say, moving is in the top 5 stresses of life?”
“Yeah I guess, but I think I moved a while ago and the logistics are only just catching up.”
“Clary sounds like an amazing woman, you always were an old soul! Sounds like you make quite a team. I’m jealous, you finally got out of the rabbit warren and you weren’t even trying!”
Kathryn flipped slowly through the photo’s Sam had brought of her artwork, “These are really good, there’s a depth and commitment to them Sam. A little tighter than I’m used to seeing from you, but they’re really good. You’ve turned into an illustrator!
Seriously though, Sam, nothing’s changed here, but you seem really centred in what you’re doing, and most important happy to be doing it. Gossip aside, the world just keeps turning in the big smoke but you and Clary, you’re doing something important. I wish my life purpose would make an appearance, waiting tables isn’t exactly inspirational, although there’s the romantic image of a struggling student, it’s still just waiting tables! ”
Between the two of them the whole flat was morphed into an installation of boxes in under a week. It felt good to watch it all go into the back of the van and drive off, apart from a few bits and pieces including the ancestral tarot book.
“Well my friend, a job well done, send my love to Clary and expect a visitor before too long!”
Sam waved as the coach pulled out, she’d really done it. She’d removed the only hurdle to finishing the move. God I hope Clary realises what she’s taking on with me, she suddenly doubted herself. Moods, visions, minor insanities and all. Temperamental artist, that’s the stereotype. She sighed, exhaling deeply as the city scape began to fall behind...
Part 19:
Clary found without Sam’s input she took more breaks, her pace slowed. She browsed the library, and pondered more, found herself daydreaming like a schoolgirl in maths class. Well, this particular schoolgirl anyways. Much of her true education had been informal, self directed, simply not covered in classes, except maybe botany, English and some history, she took to her own research.
There hadn’t been herbal information like there is now, easy to access, and volumes in number....
Most related to ‘nature cures’. A sturdy old fashioned approach of ‘what you ate and do maketh the person’. Get some sunlight, walk, do simple exercise, take baths, swim, then look to the herbs. Build vitality. Very sensible on a lot of levels, except that often they had a religious slant. Written by shepherds addressing their flock’s health and well being. That, plus a few too many enemas for her liking.
The other tangent were the Pharmacologists swept up in scientific approaches and the developing shift from a plant based materia medica, to drugs, or drug strength plants. Her common place weedy friends didn’t even cop a mention here, they were looking for strong, noticeable effects, quickly and had a love of the exotic, including latex, resins and as she remembered it animal gland secretion eeeww.
She read them all, absorbing what she could from each.
Anthropological texts gave her some insights into indigenous patterns of plant use, but not many were written by women, and therefore about women’s stories.
Her mind had been a swirling mixture of these, combined with the study of folklore, where the wise women hid, during those maths classes....
There she’d just done it again....
‘Come on old girl some focus here’, she chided herself, but then, she also knew the value of the slow times. It might seem not much was going on, yet often connections were made by a casual attitude of seeking, and in rest her mind flowed freely between wonderings. So in the end she went with it...
She’d had a friend, later, seeking alternatives as she was, who was involved with the Theosophical Society, established by the controversial psychic and medium Helena Blavatsky and her husband. Radicals in their time, they had done much for folkloric traditions and spirituality. Investigating claims, and gathering first hand ‘evidence’ and testimonials. They published works that otherwise might not have seen the light of day. Trying to build models of alternate realities in this, and the afterlife, they had been a little rigid for Clary, but then they were, in her mind, trying to define the undefinable. Never an easy task...
Amazing how any group of people could be shown the same plant and see different things. The botanist described the physical structure, the scientist dissected and analysed it, the pharmacist saw ingredients, the cook potential food or flavouring, the artist beauty to be framed, the poet inspiration, the child wonder, the herbalist a blend. ‘One would hope’, she noted to herself.
It’s like the metaphor of walking along a pebbly beach to select only one stone, everyone picks up their selection for different reasons...
Or like a tarot deck, divination tool, each person pulling a card that feels special to them....
Any kind of collecting and gathering had its own process that she loved, be it books, old things, greens for a salad, cuttings, or flowers.
Two people could go to pick a bunch of flowers and come back, each with a slightly different bunch, seduced by their own particular tastes reflected back by mother nature. ‘They truly are the wonders, and advertisers, of the plant world’ she thought, attracting bee, butterfly, bird and human alike with their displays. ‘Could have been a florist quite easily, spent my days surrounded by blooms. This time of year i do! Ha!’ She said the ha out loud and gave herself a small fright.
Between her mental meanders she thought of Sam, hoping this was the right move. It had all come out in such a flurry. ‘Are you happy with our work here?’ she questioned the walls of her home, ‘what quiet plans have you for us eh?’ It was comforting to ask someone, although the feedback was silent, she trusted this place to watch over them. The very land beneath the building, that came to the surface at the edge of the verandah in a burst of life. This place, its ghosts, appeared to want the two of them here for its wild edged plots. ‘Thank goddess...’
Part 20:
Sam hopped off the bus with a bounce in her step, now this felt like coming home. She checked the mailbox but only found dry official looking letters, bills probably, booorrriing! She hummed to herself as she strolled up the dirt road, noticing plantains along the edges where a semblance of grass survived, good ol plantain she thought, undismayed by mowers and compacting traffic. Hmmm mmmm hmmm....
Clary was waiting, twitchy and nervous till she saw the familiar gait round the path corner and my god, was she humming! Terrible habit, but for today Ill forgive it. She waved and got a reply. “I’ll just pop the kettle on then!” she shouted, “No need to shout! Its quiet enough round these parts to hear you a mile off!” Sam beamed. That was apart from the bird noises and squeaking trees where branches touched and shared a barky conversation. “Sam? You’re humming!” “yep”....
It wasn’t as if she’d never been away, going back to the flat had clarified all this for her. She gazed around at the gardens and ramshackle cottage, softer on her eyes than the cities square lines even down to the slightly sagging rooftop inundated with vines. Although it is all a bit messy she judged, yippee! Creative chaos!
Clary had a fine spread laid out, chickweed pesto featuring with cheeses, fresh tomatoes, a salad, some boiled eggs, curried and sourdough bread. Sam dug in and the conversation lost out to her belly for a time, till hunger was sated. Clary waited for a pause, “so how was the bigsmoke?” she asked tentatively, “big, and smokey..it was good to see Katherine, but I’m glad to be back where the foods good.” Clary exhaled and smiled. “Well I haven’t got much work done, been in a bit of a dream state really.”
“Researching I think they call it, being an official term, of course.”
“The comfreys been going ballistic, I think it’s time for a harvest. Some to dry for us and some to brew up somewhere faaar away for liquid manure. She’s been demanding some attention but the wordings not right yet. Much maligned as she is in my opinion, I still want to leave the final decision on who, how and in what ways to use her up to the individual reader. Mind you it always is, in the end.”
“You’ve never been a dictator, just lay the information out about the differences between Symphytum officinale and uplandica x, the leaf and the root. Personally I can see a lovely pencil drawing of those leaves, with their cell like structures. Talk about doctrine of signatures, no wonder she’s such a regenerative wound healer and has the nickname ‘boneknit’.”
“So good that some puncture wounds need a bit of something antibacterial added to her salve, so comfrey doesn’t close any infection in when she heals the skin over!”
“Mr Henry Doubleday and co are still doing ok, several generations of uplandica x comfrey eaters later eh and look at you on your comfrey leaf infusions.”
“Aaah Sam you are a woman after my own heart! Welcome home....”
Part 21
To Sam’s delight the foxgloves had come into flower in her absence. One of the few old school medicinal plants to endure sciences poking and prodding, yet remain in their favour. Her leaves increase the activity of muscular tissues, especially that of the heart and arterioles, leading to the creation of drugs for heart failure from them. Such beauty, but not to be messed with. Some say she should be treated with kid gloves, literally.
Digitalis was a protective force grown in the gardens around a house, but Sams main draw nowadays, was her connection to the otherworlds, reflected in the naming of her flowers as ‘folks gloves’, after the faeries. As she gazed at them she pondered her return to the city and the harshness with which she’d judged it, bit polarised really, like an ex you’ve had a messy break up with...
There is medicine in all places, between cracked concrete and in bushier spots. Like so much else it’s a matter of perspective and what the attention is drawn to focus on. She remembered a character who had gone around planting vegetable and herb seeds in urban wastelands, adding to the wild harvests there. Creating potential food refuges for those on the streets, or living on low incomes, along with dumpster divers. Hindsight softened her images, but she had no problems admitting to being glad to be here. Clary’s place was kind of another world unto itself, marked so by the foxglove sentinels, amongst others.
Some say the faeries were the indigenous folks of Europe, living in ancient turf roofed structures ‘under the hills’, of smaller stature than the races that followed. Pastoral or hunter gatherers, rather than agriculturalists, at ease in pasture, forest and wilds. Dressing in natural colours to blend and camouflage long before it was needed as a form of defence against waves of more aggressive peoples. They certainly had skills shared with tribal folk of other parts of the world relating to knowledge of nature and living close with her magics. Sam was open to such ideas, they had parallels on many continents, and described the closeness between witches and faeries. Both respecting the green, both very real, if not quite as fairy tales described...
She thought of the patchwork bag lady, Nell, who might well have been touched by the fey, with her bewilderment at modern civilisation, its cruelty and alien box dwelling. She had more time for dogs out walking than most people.
They had tried to house her, but even when they took a percentage of her pension, she refused to abide indoors. It had been the end of her, pneumonia. Winters were harsh even in bus shelters.
She’d grown up country and would regale the meanings of the constellations as markers for navigation. Often a dandelion or rose found its way behind her ear, as she told tales of the wildflowers she gathered as a child, the gardens she had known. Her passing had been another stroke in the demise of Sam’s created vision of her city flat, although she had died a woman very much living on her own terms and had local respect for that. Still there was prejudice she endured daily and hers was certainly not an easy life.
How is it that human’s choose scapegoats with every time, as if to distance ourselves from any shadows when they are part of what makes us human. It was behind war and hatred, this sense of undervalued ‘other’. It blinded to beauty and different perspectives. The post apocalyptic herbal could have learned from Nell. She would have enjoyed a peek....
The foxgloves swayed in agreement.....
Part 22
“Altars can become a sacred space to connect with spirit. Often made up of natural forms and found objects, combined with active ingredients like offerings, incense and candles. Displaying such things for the pleasure of deity, or your conception of spirit enhances ones world and opens the eyes in the gathering of pieces. However, once you start, they do have the tendency to overflow into other areas of the house. Loose altars pop up in odd places, next to the kitchen sink, on the stand in the bathroom, on top of cupboards. Basically any flat surface is open slather, so be warned you may gather around yourself symbolic and significant items that reflect your soul.
So what’s the difference between a flat surface, covered in books, notes on paper fragments, seeds due to be planted, watercolour tubes, and an altar? Well the aforementioned chaos, is certainly a shrine to what’s been going on today, but it’s formed organically in layers like falling leaves, rather than been arranged consciously to focus intention. Altars are generally put together with a specific deity, purpose or occasion in mind, perhaps to share with others, or just to get one’s self into a shifted state.
The human brain is a chaotic place sometimes and structure helps keep it on target, whilst flexibility can allow its creative side to flourish. This combination can work with altars too. Working to have a regular altar practice where we change flowers, clean, light incense, candles, but also just spend time hanging out and keeping the energy flowing by appreciating what’s there, simply gazing and seeing where our attention leads. Like a 3d mandala...
It’s all pretty meditational and I imagine that the point of the practice is that your life may metamorphosise into an extension of your altars energies, treated with the same respect, soulfull, appreciative type energy. The creation of one sacred space, expanding to become part of the larger reality and awareness.”
Sam pondered the space she and Clary shared, shrine to their work and play.
Where she placed her cards was her altar, a small bedside table. It also held the notebook where she’d begun to journal her trance journeys, visions and ideas. To make sense of them, to record things, to digest in the writing, processing in her own time. It was a simple space where she collected bunches of flowers too, including leaves and stems, often for the scents. It was kept clear and at times a photo of her parents sat there smiling back at her from another time and place. She lit candles there and gazed at their image, the cards, her legacy. Sometimes she had to put it away in a drawer or change the focus, it was still too raw to always be present so close.
One shelf at the back of the library / living room had become an altar too. Just one shelf amidst the chaos of bookery, that was always dusted. There dwelt the grimoire of their predecessor that was dipped into with an attitude of shy respect, it was so personal a thing that only occasionally did Sam take it down and allow the pages to fall open. It had detailed drawings of altar set ups for various reasons. There also was the post bound tome, their layer of work, adding pages as they emerged, like a tapestry. The two volumes sat behind an embroidered cloth that could be tucked up to access them, but the eye simply scanned across the fabric when it hung down. Not seeing anything apart from the detailed stitching of it, as if bespelled.
Part 23
Sam was flicking through her journal on the sofa when Clary came in from an early morning walk with a basket of white clover flower heads to tincture up. Not as potent as red clover, but similar actions.
“Morningk..”
“Morningk... what are you pondering now?”
“ I was just thinking it’s been a while since I tranced out naturally and perhaps I could try a conscious journey. Cast a circle and all.”
“Missing your otherworldly friends who gave you such a fright at first are you? Casting circle first would certainly let them know so.”
“They just help things to make sense, in a trickster kinda way. The info they help gather is deep rooted and organic in its tangents, leads me forward.”
“Why not set up on the verandah? I’m happy to be your watcher...”
A little later they swept an area a few metres wide on the verandah, then washed it down with eucalyptus diluted in soapy water. Clary brought out pillows for both of them to get comfy and clap sticks for rhythm. Sam placed a candle on each of the four directions, lit some sage on a charcoal burner, and welcomed the elements, casting circle. Clary started her beat on the clapsticks, they’d agreed at 15 minutes till ‘callback’.
Sam let the rhythm resonate with her bodies pulse, breath and felt herself relax. Before she knew it she shifted and morphing into crow form, she hopped out of her body and took to the sky. Circling overhead she had a bird’s eye view of the cottage and gardens, heading for a big old gumtree she often walked by with a gaping hole in its trunk. Landing by it she shifted again into the form of a snake and slid into it, following the roots down through soil like a tunnel, she became an earthworm, wriggling between soil clumps and water globules. Then she was a woman again, back at the dry river bed. Wolf was waiting..
“It’s been a while human” he smiled, then snapped at her without warning, “Just checking your reflexes...”
“Thanks”, a reminder that he was a wild animal not a domesticated dog, again.
“Shall we go visit Brigid?”
“You shall...come lets walk..”
As they navigated rocks and trees in the riverbed Sam had a vision of Brigid surrounded by many people, much food and merriment, she balked not wanting to engage with that many people, but as they approached her cottage all was quiet.
“Come in Sam”, how did she do that, before I even knocked?
Inside there were unwashed dishes, white flowers everywhere and the scent of baking bread, “Cinnamon, star anise and cumin..”
“Aaah smells great. Had a few visitors?”
“Many...”
“Sit down and take it easy, I’ll finish these dishes for you.” Sam offered and Brigid nodded as she did so. Humoured that even goddesses might have dishes to do..
“You are a strange individual Sam. You seek company, only to find how much you enjoy your solitude. You don’t trust me yet, do you?”
Sam found this to be true. “If I offered you some of this bread, would you eat of it?” Tales regaled of eating food from the underworld and thereby being stuck there surfaced in her mind, she was hesitant.
“Do not visit me again until you can trust me..” Brigid was obviously offended and took on an intimidating glamour rising hackles up at her hospitality denied.
Sam didn’t want to offend this Goddess she was trying to come to some peace with. She remembered a story where bread was the only thing that could be eaten, and hoping she knew her stories, she took an offered piece of the bread and ate of its warm sweetness.
“It seems trust is something in evolution, a living thing. A learned gift, requiring the taking of risks over time.” Brigid smiled.
“Had i offered you this..” she held out a half pomegranate, “would you have partaken of it?”
“Persephone would recommend otherwise, and in all honesty, no.”
“So, we learn a little more of each other.”
Sam finished the dishes and came to sit with Brigid, “You look tired, your many guests drained you a little it seems.” Again a nod, even from someone so youthfull.
“I’ll leave you to rest now”
“Thank you Sam, come again.”
Wolf met her at the door and they walked together silently a time. “You came seeking guidance, did you receive what you expected?”
“No, as usual..”
The rhythm came back into her awareness, calling her back to body with its speeded up timing. She moved faster farewelling wolf..
He called after her, “Look up Agrimony.....Angelica....Borage....Burdock...” his laughing wickedly mixed with what became high pitched barks as she was a worm again, then snake, then crow flying overhead and back to her body, where Clary awaited as she opened her eyes gently, wiggling her toes and fingers. Clary handed her paper and pen so she could write while it was fresh, although doing dishes didn’t seem an awakening, there were other details to remember...
They closed down the circle, “May the circle be open but unbroken” before they spoke.
“Weeeelll?”
“I think it’s time to start a plant journal of my own Clary. One plant at a time, as they say.”
“Sounds good, unavoidable at some point, to help solidify learning individual character traits. There’s only so much one can learn from your own experience, its helpfull to read and learn from others as well. Different applications and ways of working with a plant, especially if it doesn’t grow nearby to consult with.”
“I also think I might be tied to the otherworlds a little more, and to Brigid.”
“You always have been my friend, it’s just that you’re remembering now. Come lets eat!”
Part 24
Clary was talking about the consecrated books kept quietly by witches of their practices and personal tangents, sometimes called a book of shadows or grimoire....
“Herbology is one aspect, but others will surface. Like for you, all your visions and trance journeys could be recorded and then the research they inspire. Often your discoveries lead to learning symbology that may well connect to folk lore or the different manifestations of deity. So you see it becomes a bit epic already!
They pulled the old grimoire down from its respectfull resting place and Sam could begin to see what was written there in a new light. It was all handwritten, which had a nice feel to it, no computers back then. There were diagrams, illustrations, plant sketches, wedged in between pages were pressed flowers and leaves...
“Have you ever written something similar Clary?”
“No love, not directly as such, the magic of the plants has created enough writing for me. I can see it could be a good thing for you though, youve already started journaling your ideas in this direction. This is just another step...”
“I think I’ll work on a title page today, and do some research on what to include. Start writing up the notes I already have. Mind if I take a break like that Clary?”
“Hardly a break, your defining your spiritual beliefs my love, I think you’ll find you’ve just started another long term project, one that your mother would have loved to join you in....”
“She has been an inspiration. I guess I’ll just begin, open my mind, carry on with research and study and allow it to evolve. I know the ol Celtic ancestry is an influence, and indigenous teachings about how to care for and steward the land. I’d like it to be an organic process. I have a feeling there’ll be some debate and discussion between differing schools of thought or belief.”
“Indeed as all faiths. You might want to start with some of the older texts, The Faerie Faith in Celtic Countries by W Y Evans-Wentz written in 1911 is an interesting read and somewhere I have Robert Graves “The White Goddess”....The Story of the Celts, hmmm, leave it with me....”
Sam felt like finally her moments of feeling completely insane were forming into tangible shifts about her spirituality, but that there was a hell of a lot of translating and examining to do.
She thought back to breaking bread with Brigid and the symbology of it, from a mundane distance. She had come across the story of Brigid’s people traditionally baking a spiced bread called bannock for celebrations, hence the star anise and cinnamon smells. The act of breaking bread appears in many cultures as a sacrament or after ritual communion.
She did feel that she was coming to more of a place of getting Brigids poetic energy. Once you began to explore other realms the language of poetry is a powerfull way to express both the luminous layers behind daily reality and the beauty existing in it.
As she was thinking this she’d been doodling subconsciously and had drawn a tree with celtic knotwork type lines in its bark, roots stretched deep down and branches reaching upwards to the sky. Looks like I have my title page sketch.....
Part 25
As such a story of one tome, has become that of two, and then three. Written with intertwining roots in the green realms, a shared trunk of words and images has produced a tale blending the lives of three women from different times but similar persuasions.
There comes a time, not necessarily an ending, when the tale is passed over to the readers imagination, always such a part of it to begin with, and in this moment it emerges that there are other tales to tell, wishing to be spoken. Tales beyond the boundary of the page, or screen, as the case may be. Ones that gently ask, what does the Green Woman whisper to you? When out walking, resting against a sturdy tree, noticing that weed busting out between cracked bitumen or concrete, dabbling toes in a river, wild crafting, nourishing a seedling, wishing you lived nearer a forest, the ocean, or simply going about your day. Does she speak in words or pictures for you, through raising kids, dance, making medicines, study, caring for injured wildlife, music, growing plants, activism, honouring ritual perhaps, her language varies...
“Hows your title page coming along Sam?”
“You know me, multiple sketches are slowly becoming clearer, distilling into complete confusion. Eventually to embroider this blank page and create something like this.. ” she handed over her drawing to Clary..
“Aaah yes, the World Tree...”
“The who?”
“The Tree at the centre of the worlds, axis mundi. You travelled down its roots the other day seeking, and came back inspired to start this book, if I remember rightly, for an old girl.”
“Your memory’s just fine Clary, although I do believe we’ve both forgotten about lunch.” She looked around at the stacks of papers, books and midway research, “and after that a walk, we’ve been cooped up in here long enough for today. After all it’s what’s out there that has inspired all of this.” She made an expressive sweeping motion with her arms which ended up hand nearly touching a vine tendril that had pushed its way into the kitchen via a crevice of some description.
“Well yes, before it has to come in to get us. Damn vines never stop growing, they’ll have the cottage before we know it....”
Damn fine story that, Chloe.
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