Hello friends, familiar and new, and welcome to a house in a forest in France. I’m Jan and I hold spaces for those on journeys of transformation. I believe story is powerful and that the earth offers healing through our daily connection and herbal allies. My Sunday posts are always free. Let’s create a little alchemy together.
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June is high summer, the month of the Summer Solstice falls, and a time when the fire element holds sway —
What needs igniting ?
What needs burning away?
What needs suffusing with warmth?
Where is the fire we gather around?
It's the perfect month to spend time with daisy — a flower we know from childhood. Did you spend hours making daisy chains? In folklore daisy chains formed into circles were protective magic, partticularly for children and in Scotland it's known as bairnwort because of its associations with children.
Daisies grow from Spring through to Autumn and this year the daisies have been more abundant than I can ever remember. Wherever we've gone in Finistère this month there have been banks of these beautiful 'day's eyes', their flowers following the sun through the day, closing at night. In Welsh they are Llygad y Dydd—eye of the day. Our orchard has been a field of oxeye daisies this summer and when we spent the first week of June at the coast the hedgerows and headland were awash with daisies.
Moon daisy
Dog daisy
Bellis perennis
Oxeye daisy
Banwort
Leucanthemum vulgare
Marguerite
English daisy
Bairnwort
Bone flower
Common daisy
Llygad y Dydd
Lawn daisy
Bruisewort
I’ve spent this Summer Solstice month with oxeyes and simple common or English daisies. Such cheerful herbs, opening for the sun and also in hot water, making a wonderful tea. The flowers have a slightly soapy texture because they are full of saponins, a chemical that is a natural soap—not only cleansing but also wonderful for coating delicate membranes like those of the respiratory tract. The leaves of oxeyes are peppery and delicious and you can use either or both in your tea. And both also dry well to store for teas in Autumn and Winter.
Common daisies, Bellis perennis, are often not thought of as medicinal plants, but they make a powerful cough syrup an have many medicinal properties.
Another name for oxeye daisy is bruisewort since the crushed leaves were traditionally used for this healing action and the same is true of common daisy, both having a similar effect to arnica, but without the ecological stress.
As well as treating coughs, daisies help with chills, boils, jaundice, wounds, tuberculosis and sore eyes. The whole of the oxeye daisy plant is antispasmodic, diaphoretic, diuretic, tonic and wound-healing. It's also an antitussive and unlike many pharmaceutical cough suppressants, doesn't cause grogginess or constipation.
Common daisies make a lovely external styptic and are also diuretic, analgesic, promote appetite due to the action of the bitters, help relieve constipation and intestinal inflammation and are beneficial of kidney and bladder stones, as well as for menstrual cramps.
Henrietta Kraus says that oxeye daisies are tonic, diuretic, antispasmodic, helpful in treating whooping cough. She also notes that they are beneficial both externally and internally for leucorrhoea, which may result from infection or oestrogen imbalance. Traditionally daisy leaves are used externally to treat ulcers, wounds and scalds. They can also be used to treat rashes .A decoction of oxeye daisies is also believed to drive away fleas. And Culpepper recommended it for sciatica, as well as wounds and inflammation. Because it is inflammation-modulating, daisy is helpful where there is joint pain, arthritis or gout. And it was also known as a bone healer. William Turner referred to it as banwort and it was also called bone flower.
And daisy has an affinity with the female reproductive system. Oxeye daisy is Leucanthemum vulgare, and is beneficial for treating leucorrhoea (a vaginal discharge), balancing oestrogen and relieving menstrual cramps. Like chamomile, oxeye daisy is a good all round tonic herb.
But it's the simplicity of daisy that has given it many of its associations. It symbolises new beginnings, purity and fertility and has a strong association with Frejya, the Norse goddess of love. Its links to cycles and fertility could date back 4,000 years and have particular connections with childbirth. In some Celtic traditions if a baby died, daisies grew as signs of consolation, soothing emotions just as they soothe inflamed skin.
To tend to daisy, I gathered flowers to make an essence. Mother essences are gentle, subtle preparations made from flowers or buds. The plant material is macerated in filtered or natural water in the sun for several hours, relying on the sun's actions to extract constituents. The strained liquid is then combined 50/50 with brandy as a preservative and the mother essence is generally taken in drop doses.
Simply collecting the flowers, the joy of these herbs fizzed through me. They are infectiously buoyant and it's tempting when gathering them to go on taking more and more, to keep harvesting the cheer. I had to consciously tell myself to take mindfully. The bowl of sun-soaked daisies was beautiful and when I took the first drops before sleep, joy bubbled up.
A few drops deepen breath, a life less bruised. My inner twelve-year-old whispering me back to a self who had so much time. Sit amongst the daisies. Savour. Shh.
In the third week of June, daisy eased deeper into the bruised parts of me, the cracked rib pain quieting. Sew and mend. Tendering the bruises I hadn’t been naming, the ones my body was curling around — an act of protection that had become an act of stagnating. Daisy dances in the breeze — the oxeye daisies flex, bend, bow, need no words to ease me into unfurling.
Daisy travels to heart, lungs, pelvic bowl — cool-lulling, grounding, each liquid bead infusing tranquility, unperturbed by the demands of the day.
I take a few drops of daisy each night before sleep, softening my senses to her and my pre-teen self flits through dreams for the rest of the month — she wears a white crimplene dress with a tiny patch pocket at the breast embroidered with a pale blue flower. Her long plait is messy, is thin — easily taken for a girl of eight or nine. But she has an unselfconscious assurance — a daisy soul — content,trusting — belief is her gift.
Daisy is a world of hope — fresh, bright, a wide-eyed innocent in perpetual Lāhainā Noon — she casts no shadow. Outside of dreams, ‘zero shadow day’ happens only twice a year between the Tropic of Cancer around the latitude 23.4° N and the Tropic of Capricorn around 23.4° S at the moment when the Sun's declination becomes equal to the latitude at the location, close to the Summer Solstice. What is she saying, this herb of no shadow? Get out of your own way. Daisy’s voice, the voice of my inner twelve-year-old. She’s the herb of unselfing. Sit amongst the daisies. Savour. Shh.
In the final week of June I’m struck again by how abundant the daisies are this year — the tiny ones and the oxeyes — more plentiful than I’ve ever seen. In the final week of June I’m struggling with notions of ‘plenty’ — I stop in the middle of making a meal appalled at the bounty when children in Gaza are starving. I stand at the window looking at an orchard white with daisies — so profuse. Yes — of course — because the world is hungry for joy. So much is bruised — the earth herself, the places that burn, the people that suffer… And if we lose hope,if we sink in overwhelm or guilt, if we turn away from joy even in the darkness, then we are lost. We need daisy in profusion, plenty, abundance — salve for the bruised world, insisting that we breathe deeply and dance, celebrate and offer and give and thanks, insisting that we flex and resist and cheer for life in all its abundance for all. Joy is not the opposite of compassion, but what keeps it alive.
Daisy heals breath, soothes bruises — she is not blind to suffering in her inexhaustible joy. It’s beeen a delight to spend a month with daisy.
This simple recipe for oxeye daisy bruschetta is delicious — enjoy!
Offerings
I have a new four session herbal course coming up in August and September — ‘in the fruitful abundance’ as well as a short workshop, ‘Gather Listen Tender’ —
In the fruitful abundance
Join me for a deep dive into autumn herbs of nourishment for body & spirit, a journey of herbal healing and creativity.
In the fruitful abundance: autumn herbs for gathering and nourishment will have four live workshops (recorded so you can also catch up later if you miss any or want to revisit the content). It will run on Wednesdays (except the final session, which is a Thursday) and the dates are August 7 & 21, September 4 & 19.
There will be lots of course materials, including extra material for between sessions — creative prompts, recipes, meditations, videos and more. Be part of a community of others in workshops,& on the private forum hosted on Mighty Networks where you can post work, thoughts and questions.
This is a supportive and creative space where you can explore using herbs in every day life for health and well-being. It’s suitable for people at all stages of journeys with herbs — come and learn some recipes and ways of taking inspiration from the plants for your creative life too.
You can find out more and join at the link below
Gather Listen Tender
Join me for a Lammas workshop as we explore how to attend with all our senses open, how we relate to what is other with tender attention.
We will write from heart and from the earth as we gather in community.
Lammas is the time of early harvest, a time of gathering and offering.
Let’s gather,listen and tender and create a little alchemy together.
The workshop will be on Thursday August 1 at 1pm BST (for other time zones see Time Buddy).
The investment is £14 or become a paid annual subscriber with 30% discount and join this and other occasional workshops free (I’ll send the link to paid subscribers before the event)
Just gorgeous. I love reading about the plants you’re spending each month with 💕