GOOD GRIEF: Plants for Tender Times
I walk down the path of one of my most beloved trails. I have not been here since the golden embers of late summer set their hues on the dense forest floors. Salal was ripe then, and the blackberries would have been plump for the picking if the county had not sprayed them that year. What a pity.
I greet the great Cedar who stands at the top of the path and walk on during this rare sunny day in January. The air is crisp and quiet, my footsteps out of place among creatures who know how to stay quiet and hidden if they want to - the white tail deer, the wood peckers, the robins.
I love walking this trail during this time of year. Thanks to may plants taking a rest - thimbleberry, salmon berry, blackberry, cow parsnip, nettle - the forest floor is rather bare, save the fallen maple and cottonwood leaves and branches and the sword ferns. I can walk deep into the wood with more ease, less to trample. There is a clarity available to me when standing high on the ridge, a clarity I have often heard folks refer to when speaking of winter time, of January, as if in a metaphor. It is no metaphor, though. There is clarity here. Things have died and will live again. In me, in this forest, in the world at large that thinks its so far removed from these rhythms. It is not.
The dying and getting clear process is not one that is comfortable but it is oh so familiar. It often comes through bouts of grief. A dear friend recently said “Part of grieving is letting go. That makes it different than sadness.” Of course it makes sense that the full moon in cancer, which passed now more than one week ago, brought many of us to our knees in grief, and for those who struggle to let themselves be brought to their knees, brought an intensity to their week. A pervasive gravity came over many of us. And I am always thankful for the plants that help me process these times and use to continue my ever important work of becoming a more alive, more whole, more intact human.
Willow, her lancet leaves absent from the branches during these dark winter months. I sit beneath her branches by the river and feel an upwell of emotions that was not there before. I try to stuff it down. I get up thinking “well, it’s time to go anyway. I have to get groceries before getting to the shop and…” She pulls me back down. Sit. Sit with it.
Astringent willow knows how to hold water, the water of your tears and of your heart and your tender body. She is rhythmic - she learned from the water, or maybe the water learned from her swing branches in the summer time. A biter taste, she associates us to the present, a gentle nudge. A long time material used to make baskets, she has literally been holding our shit for us, carrying it for us, easing our burdens.
Thank you dear willow, good friend, old friend.
Rosemary is nostalgia. She is memory. Rosemary has long been a symbol of friendship and the memories of friends now gone. To whisper her name is to call upon two faces of the Divine Mother herself, Rose and Mary. When I lived in the city, I would not pass by a rosemary bush without taking a leaf of hers to my mouth. She helps you remember who you are, a teacher of mine once said.
And memory often holds pain, holds grief, holds the recognition of loss.
Rosemary holds this with me and helps me call to the present that woman, that girl, that person who I once was or haven’t yet gotten the chance to be.
Thank you good friend, old Rosemary, who was known by my grandmothers passed and passed and passed.
Hawthorn. Bringer of blood, of life and spirit, to the very heart itself. Grief can not be tended from anywhere but the heart. Aliments of the heart can often be seen when a life of unfelt grief has been lived.
Her thorns protect, as all do. Become small and nestle close to her trunk. Her thorns will protect you as you feel your way down into your heart, bringing life blood, the blood of your spirit, to the organ so central to our well being, to our human being.
Thank you Holy Thorn, offering my shelter as I am cracked open.
Nettle calls us alive. Nettle is life itself, the life blood of the earth. Drink a strong infusion of nettle and tell me it does not give blood of the earth.
When I harvest nettle, I do so with my bare hands. The sting reminds me of my barrier, of where I end and the world begins, a boundary that can be oh so helpful and deeply associating when moving through great grief. Great Grief also requires energy. It is no small thing. It asks a lot of our bodies. Nettle gives our bodies exactly that, a lot. The minerals and nutrients and blood of the earth given right to our very own blood, the blood that hawthorn is pumping to our holy hearts, hearts held by Willow as Rosemary tickles our memory and Yarrow… well yarrow.
Yarrow. The great protector. She kept ache lies and his soldiers alive on many accounts, A protector of protectors. A lung opening herb, she stirs up stagnant grief settle at the bottom of the lungs. You know it. The unrelenting cough that comes at some point during the wild wails. The opening of the chest and the deeper breaths available after the grief has been felt and loved. Yarrow is a friend to that place.
Thank you nettle, green giver of good life. And Yarrow opener, protector.
Tincture formula given to me by willow for holding grief that feels too big for my body:
Willow (40%)
Hawthorn Berry (35%)
Yarrow (20%)
Cinnamon (5%)
Take 3 drops to 2 droppers, 3x/day with a prayer to your heart.
Written, with heart, by Madrone.
