In the company of a dispeller of sorrow

a new-year month with agrimony

Agrimony, A.C.

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

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I began my herbalist journey with two apprenticeships, the second with the school where I went on to study to become a practitioner. At the end of the year, we met in County Wexford for a week's intensive, which included practicing our skills on one another. At one session a wonderful women, a vibrant forester, said to me that when we spoke she had a deep intuition that agrimony was calling to me.

It wasn't a herb I'd previously worked with, but I set about getting to know agrimony and she wasn't wrong. This tall, sunny plant with clusters of bright yellow 5-petalled flowers along its rising stem, became a friend and I've just spent the first month of this year with agrimony.

Like so many of our herbal allies, agrimony (Agrimonia eupatoria) has a range of gifts to share. She relieves stomach ache and colic, including in children. Agrimony stimulates bile flow, and reduces inflammation to heal the intestinal tract and stomach lining . She is a vermifuge, particularly with tape worm, and supports the liver, gallbladder and kidneys, including where there is jaundice.

For the respiratory system agrimony is helpful for coughs, flu, fevers and bronchitis and is antispasmodic, which assists with asthma.

Agrimony is a styptic for cuts and scratches and soothes tired feet as a tea foot soak. And a very weak tea makes an eye wash for infections. Antiviral and antibacterial, agrimony supports immunity. And her astringency is also helpful for those with heavy periods.

But it's as a herb of soul and spirit that agrimony shines brightest. She is a lovely herb to place under a pillow to aid peaceful sleep. And as a flower remedy agrimony benefits those who hide emotional pain with false cheer. Those who avoid confrontation and people-please. Philip Carr-Gomm considers it good for depression, lethargy and eliminating negative energy. And in modern Druidism agrimony clears ritual spaces, a herb of purification, liberation and new beginnings. Its Gaelic name Mur-druidheann means ‘dispeller of sorrow used by the Druids’.

So often, the way a herb helps in the body is mirrored in emotions and soul. A digestive herb will frequently help us to digest, absorb, and process life… An astringent herb will bring cleansing to emotions and the negative self-talk we might carry… A herb that addresses physical wounds will help heal emotional scars… A herb that clears eyesight will aid our sense of vision… And a herb that supports sleep, will support a deeper sense of tranquility and renewed energy

In the past I've worked with agrimony as a tincture for digestive issues. But for this month I wanted to listen to her deepest voice so spent time with the flower water. Using drop doses of a herb works more on the level of energetics than medicinally, though people who are particularly sensitive to the herbs will often respond to smaller doses with physical symptoms too.

The outer presentation of agrimony’s characteristics —that she is drying, bitter, cooling and astringent work on emotional and spritual levels too. Agrimony will dry our tears, but not with false peace or by telling us to desist. She allows the sadness and bitter tastes of life their place, transforming them into something cathartic, cleansing, healing… She soothes the fires of rage with deep solace, not forced cheer.

The flower water is often a remedy for people who hide their sorrow, those who will always tell you they are fine, feeling good… even when they are not. At its most extreme, those with an agrimony archetype can be gregarious, always happy, even if they need substances to maintain the mask. But alone, the mask slips.

Of course, we don't have to be at this extreme to find an ally in agrimony. So many of us easily slip into being people-pleasers, to hearing ourselves always saying 'yes' when our bodies shout 'no', then wondering why…

Listen to the darkness too, agrimony whispered through this month as I determined to always find the light.

Your silence will not protect you, Argimony echoes Audre Lorde. Facing a cancer diagnosis and writing in Sister Outsider, she says

I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood. That the speaking profits me, beyond any other effect.

[...] I was going to die, if not sooner then later, whether or not I had ever spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you.

[...] What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence?

Wholeness, wellness, and swallowing our truths are not congruent. This is not a call to rage or to unkindness, but to authenticity and to all the vulnerability and permeability that goes with it. We don't overcome our differences with others by silencing ourselves any more than we overcome exhaustion by pushing ourselves to work harder.

Agrimony asked me to sit with what pains me and speak… with honesty as well as compassion, to give myself the moments of rest that I advocate for others. She asked me to remember that every 'yes' is a 'no' to something else because none of us can do it all, so I may as well choose wisely.

Agrimony is a wonderful tonic for a new year.

And now I’m exploring how to embody what she’s told me…