All things have their season and rhythms. I am in the garden. It is summer's end and I am harvesting medicinal herbs.
I am a postmenopausal woman sinking down into my own autumning. I recognise these shifts within and around me and I find something poetic in the knowing that I am harvesting to make products for women in their autumning too.
This garden, my body, these things remind me of the sea. We each have our ebbs and flows. A spring flush subsides and then in late summer another wave of growth appears in some plants before subsiding, sinking back into the soil to shelter over winter. Other plants have grown slow and steady through the summer months, but are now nearing their own cycle of decay. My hormones are on their own slow slide downwards. The tide turns. Sea. Breath. River. Season... all these things are connected.
And yet, here I am. In the sun. Amid the sounds of birds and cicadas, and the busy gathering of bees.
I am harnessing the power of these waves, gathering herbs. Cutting back growth. Stripping leaves from stems. Washing. Drying. Storing. With these aching hands of mine these plants are being prepared so that through the winter months, I can continue to make salve and tincture, remedy and oil to help us, the women in midlife and beyond, with our own ebbs and flows.
These herbs here: Motherwort, the heart and menopause remedy; rosemary for pain and focus; mugwort for relaxation and healing; and lemon verbena, well, that is for my tea. Tomorrow there will be others.
When I am in the garden, working in this way, I feel the flow of lineage. A daisy chain of healers, each handing knowledge on, sharing the secrets of root and flower, bark and stem. The products I create are a slow and seasonal labour of love. This connection between earth and season, and our own turning tides, the birthing of babies, the ceasing of bleeding, the aches and the pains of age, the invitation to step into our deep sense of self… all this is in itself, a sacred and healing ebb and flow.
Working in this way is small and modest endeavour. It is not a thing that can be mass produced to sit on shelves in a myriad stores. It is a link in a daisy chain. A woman healer in a garden grown to help the healing of others. Here. In this garden, Small is beautiful and the garden is an ocean of care.
