Whispers of magic mugwort: dreaming with the mother of herbs

a month with the mugwort

Hello friends, familiar and new, and welcome to a house in a forest. 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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Mugwort dreaming, A.C.

July has been my month with mugwort. 

July has been an uneasy month. 

The weather unseasonably wet and grey for the first three weeks then sweltering hot before more rain. Today the forest is shrouded in a veil of rain. We've run around closing windows and baked lemon cake — comfort food for a washed out day. 

Work has been unremitting. 

The news has been bad — political and personal... Good friends and family facing major and cruel illnesses... my oldest daughter assaulted three times over the last few weeks — strangers on the street or on trains confident they can attack a transwoman with impunity. Writing this, I wish I'd told her to put a piece of mugwort in her shoe before setting off to Barcelona on a sweltering day — en route to a political conference in France.  

Traditionally mugwort is a herb of protection, a sprig of mugwort in a shoe is a centuries old traveller's proof against from harm.

As I write, the moon will be full tomorrow.

Horse moon
Hay moon
Claiming moon
Thunder moon

I can taste the thunder in the humid air. Mugwort is Artemesia vulgaris — named for the Greek goddess Artemis, a hunter and a lunar goddess, associated with wild animals, wild places... Outside the tawny owls call. A moon goddess herb that promotes lucid dreams. Each night through July I've rubbed infused mugwort oil into my temples and pulse points before sleep. The dreams have been vivid and strange, but not disturbing. 

I think of Olivia Laing's description of Derek Jarman's Prospect Cottage at Dungeness, in her superb book, A Garden Against Time, as:

a dreaming refuge, an other-worldly home where the hours are not timetabled but drip like honey from a spoon.

We all need refuges in rest and in the generosity of nature in our crazy world. The fusing of art and life, dream and the daily rhythms of growing, tending, creating... this is what drew me to the forest. In the midst of an uneasy month, fretful for a darkening world, anxious for loved ones, overwhelmed by a storm of work that coincided with a mountain of paperwork for house renovations... mugwort has been calling me back to the vision of why I am here.

Felon Herb
St. John’s Plant
Chrysanthemum Weed
Wild Wormwood
Old Uncle Henry
Sailor’s Tobacco
Chinese Honeysuckle
Maiden Wort
Cronewort

Maiden and crone. Mugwort is a herb of Venus, associated with the womb, the kidneys, hair, throat and blood. Known in the middle ages as the mother of all herbs, she eases period cramps and is associate with childbirth. Mugwort is also a remedy for menopause symptoms, reducing the frequency and severity of hot flashes. An oestrogen-agonist, mugwort enhances oestrogen production. 

Maiden and crone, blood and womb. When I was doing my PhD in feminist theology — so many years ago — I was fascinated to discover that Biblical translations glossed over the fact that the words for compassion and for womb share the same root in Hebrew. In the book of Jeremiah, when God says that 'his' heart yearns and that he will have mercy (31:20) it might equally be translated as God saying her womb yearns for 'her'people in compassion. The God of Exodus 34:6-7 is also described as compassionate and gracious — or wombful. The adjective rakhum,’compassionate’ comes from the noun, for womb, rekhem.

What is my womb telling me about the world? 

I've been puzzling over a circulation problem in my right ankle for a couple of months and as I began working with mugwort a wise herbalist told me that the pressure point for the womb is exactly where my circulation issue is most troublesome. 

What is my womb telling me about the world? 

Mugwort calls me back to the vision of why I came to the forest — a path of integrating creativity and healing — and reminds me of what matters — compassion... attending to and tendering our stories, our wellness.

The mother of herbs has been grounding me in my motherhood, but also mothering me in turn. 

Widely used for spiritual and ritual practices, often as part of smudge sticks along with herbs like sage, mugwort is not only a herb of protection, but also calming and relaxing, an aid to sleep. The ancient Welsh Physicians of Myddfai used mugwort as a sedative as well as a dream and  visionary herb. In Breton lore it is strongly associated with the Otherworld and communicating with the ancestors or as an aid for meditation. 

And  the emotional and spiritual uses go hand in hand with it’s soothing physical properties. Mugwort is an analgesic and digestive herb. It is antiviral, anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial,. And beneficial and cooling for fevers and coughs, especially where there is congestion.

Mugwort is a herb for our times — protection, compassion, cooling, vision, honouring wild places and non-human animals, listening to dreams, tendering us through uneasy times... 

She lends herself to many recipes like these and others...

Dream oil

Lots of herbs work well infused into organic olive oil, or almond or jojoba, to make a dreaming oil. As well as mugwort poppy, which is another dream oils and pain-relieving, rosehip, which is nourishing, soothing and heart centred,  starflower (borage oil) which is a soothing anti-inflammatory that helps part of a sleep blend or calendula, an anti-inflammatory that helps with lymphatic health and sleep. 

You can infuse your own oils by adding the dried herb to oil and warming, but without cooking or over-drying the herbs. Placing the oil-soaked herbs in a kilner jar in a bath of hot water in a slow cooker on the lowest setting will work or heating the ove, turning it off and putting the oil into it for 2 hours (in oven proof glass) or using a bain marie very gently and slowly. Best of all (in summer) is a solar maceration, though I haven't managed one so far this year. 

The oil I've used over the last month has been a simple infused mugwort oil done as a solar maceration last summer. It has a few drops of essential oils of yarrow, myrtle and violet added.

Yarrow s a deeply healing herb associated with protection, setting boundaries and also connected with prophetic dreams. In Breton lore it’s a sacred herb, representing Gwenved, the white world of souls.

Myrtle is a threshold herb, guarding those on spiritual or other journeys. It is used for dreamwork and enhances intuition, clarity and creativity. It is also a herb of healing and protection, including where there has been trauma or grief.

Violet has powerful associations with conditions of the nervous system including insomnia, exhaustion, and headaches and it’s particularly helpful where there is grief. It has a long folkloric association with protection and associations with memory, perception and dreams. It's also a herb of the lungs, promoting the breath.

Dreamtea

This is a deeply soothing tea with a lovely scent, colour and flavour and my favourite tea for last thing at night.

Hawthorn leaf and flowers 20g
mugwort 10g
californian poppy 10g
red poppy 10g
passionflower 20g
chamomile 20 g
hibiscus 10g
rose 5g

I also make a balm for sore joints and aching muscles with infused oils of comfrey, mugwort and daisy combined with shea butter or mango butter, beeswax and essential oils of juniper, sweet marjoram and wintergreen.

Mugwort oil alone is also wonderful to massage into the abdomen for digestive cramps or into the pelvis for menstrual cramps. It can also be used for headaches and swollen lymph nodes. And the addition of a few drops of lavender and/or clary sage essential oils make the oil even more soothing.

Please note that nothing here should be taken as medical advice. If you would like to work with herbs for a specific condition please consult a trained herbalist.