Clarifying your boundaries is art, craft, survival

Crafting life creatively with horsetail

Field Horsetail, Adam Craig

Hello friends, familiar and new, and welcome to a house in a hamlet 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 and you are so welcome here. Let’s create a little alchemy together.

You might find this easier to read in the app or online as some mail providers will cut off the text.

Herbs have a way of entering our lives at just the right moment. At the beginning of the year I drew 13 herbal oracle cards — one for each month, one for the year. Some came as a delightful surprise — like bluebell. One felt odd — not unwelcome, but a herb a rarely reach for and only in very specific circumstances, a herb with edges that perhaps make me uncomfortable — horsetail.

Field horsetail (Equisetum arvense) is an ancient, primordial plant. When dinosaurs roamed it was already ancient and grew to heights of 30 metres, its extraordinary content of silica dioxide giving it the strength to stand tall and bright. Enter a building and there is likely silica supporting it — used in concrete. Gaze through a window and there is silica giving it not only integrrity, but its clarity.

Spend time with horsetail and feel yourself transported back to an ancient world, strange and pre-human. Horsetail was on earth before any flowering plants — back 250-280 million years ago, a time of giant ferns, lichens, mosses, liverworts.

It’s a plant of our ancestors, discovered in the Shanidar cave burials, 60,000 to 80,000 years old, the bodies arranged in foetal position are surrounded by yarrow, cornflower, bachelor’s button, St. Barnaby’s thistle, ragwort or groundsel, grape hyacinth, hollyhock and horsetail

It grows in marshy, damp areas and is a wonderful remedy for lung problems — not primarly immune supporting or fever-releiving like elder or mint, it has saponins to ease and soothe like marshmallow, but also silica to support structure (as it does also for he skin, hair, nails). It staunches blood flow on wounds and modulates inflammation in skin conditions and arthritis.

But beyond its physcial properties (to be used carefully and taken only in small doses for short periods) horsetail speaks to our boundaries.

This year I’ve been involved in celebrating the 20th anniversary of Cinnamon Press. It’s been a voluntary labour of love and wonderful, but also exhausting. There’s another round of events to come in September and I’m looking forward to them. But they take a huge amount of energy, and as so often in life, there have been other things demanding as much or more energy on top. We’re in the midst of a major phase of house renovation, both welcome and unsettling. All the work I’d be doing in any year without literary tours and renovations. And the things that happen to all of us and still manage to take us by surprise — a shift in a close relationship that is grief beyond expressing, ill-health in loved ones, learning to live with lupus in myself, loss and sadness close at hand. And, for all of us always, the world we live in so precariously.

In the mealstrom my boundaries have blurred and dimmed. How are yours?

The question horsetail asks is: How are you guarding your edges, strengthening your integrity? (emotionally, spiritually, physically... however you interpret this.)

Alchemical Wonderings is all about how we craft lives creatively in this strange, scary, beautiful world and I'd love to share more with you more in the comments about this. Together we can create a little alchemy.

How are you keeping your boundaries clear and bright (or not) in these times?

If you would like to explore ways to work with me herbally, DM me.

Horsetail is a well-tolerated herb in small doses for short periods, but can break down vitamin B1 so always consult a herbalist if you think it would be of help to you internally. Please remember that herbal posts do not constitute medical adivce. If you need help with a specific isse please seek a trusted practitioner.