Cool + Considered : Burdock Plant Profile

During these hot summer months, cooling herbs are key allies for our health and wellbeing. There are a number of cooling herbs we can befriend, including Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis), Rose (Rosa damascena), and Aloe (Aloe vera). One of my favorites is Burdock because it has such a wonderful way of balancing heat in the body, is mild in taste, and is one of those herbs (like Oats) that act as much as food as it does medicine.

I created this profile for the students who attend The Plant Sabbat but thought it would be fun to share with you, too.

What are your favorite ways to use Burdock? Let me know in the comments below. If you're looking for all my plant profiles click here and you can learn how to connect with any plant with the Plant Ally Project. Enjoy!

Common + Folk Names : Bardane, happy major, hardock, hareburr, cockleburr, clotbur, love leaves, hurt burr, beggar’s buttons

Element : Water

Zodiac Signs : Taurus

Planets : Venus, Jupiter

Moon Phase : Waning Moon

Parts used : Root and seed.

Habitat : Native to Eurasia and grows throughout North America. Thrives in damp areas, disturbed soil, and roadsides.

Growing Conditions : Self-seeding and relatively easy to grow. Prefers full sun and moist, rich soil.

Collection : Collect the root of a in the summer or fall of the plant’s first year or the spring of the second.

Flavor : Bitter, sweet

Temperature : Cool

Moisture : Dry

Tissue State : Dry/Atrophy, Damp/Stagnation

Constituents : Vitamin C, calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium, zinc, polyacetylenes, chlorogenic acid, taraxosterol, arctigen, inulin, lactone, volatile oils, flavonoids, tannin, mucilage, resin, pectin.

Actions : Adaptogen, alterative, antibacterial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, anti-candida, antitussive, aperient, aphrodisiac, cholagogue, demulcent, diaphoretic, diuretic, expectorant, febrifuge, galactagogue, mild laxative, nutritive. The seed is alternative, anti-inflammatory, depurative, diaphoretic, diuretic.

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Main Uses : Burdock is a clearing herb. It draws toxins out of the body, especially from the gut, the tissues, and the liver. As a blood-purifier, the herb helps to support the work of eliminatory organs like the liver and kidneys. It is a traditional remedy for kidney stones. As a cooling and moistening herb, Burdock is especially useful for issues that arise from excess heat including inflammation (especially when inflammatory skin conditions are an issues), fevers, and illnesses such as tonsillitis or dry coughs. Acting on the liver, Burdock helps with the secretion of bile and stimulates the actions of the gall bladder. The herb is indicated for poor glandular function in general including the lymph system, pancreas, endocrine glands, prostate, and spleen. As for most liver herbs, Burdock can be helpful for those in recovery from alcohol addiction. It is good to use cleansing Burdock with diuretic herbs such as Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) to make sure that you are pulling out toxins from the body effectively.

The heat and pain of arthritis and gout are alleviated by Burdock as the root breaks down excess uric acid in the joints. Some indicators for Burdock can seem contradictory - excess internal heat can result in a dry digestive tract (constipation and dry fecal matter are indicators) but it can lead also to weepy skin conditions. This is because hot and dry internal heat has pushed all moisture and oil in the body system to the extremities. Of course, to keep things interesting, Burdock can also be strongly indicated in the case of dry and scaly skin conditions. Remember, you are looking for excess heat and how it is manifesting the body when considering Burdock.

Traditionally, Burdock has been used since the Middle Ages for the treatment of cancer including by famed herbalist and mystic Hildegard of Bingen. Modern research continues to look at Burdock as a useful ally in the treatment of not only cancer but HIV, alerting us to Burdock’s immune-boosting qualities.

Burdock combines well with other nutritive herbs such as Milky Oat (Avena sativa) for creating a restorative tonic for undernourished body systems. Insulin rich, Burdock acts as a prebiotic in our gut, helping to cultivate healthy flora. It also helps with the digestion of fats and oils. Enjoy the tea 30 minutes before a meal for best results. Another indicator for Burdock is a sweet tooth and maybe even sugar addiction for those who rely on the quick fix of sugar for energy. There can be a deeper emotional tie to pleasure (or lack thereof) in life and the use of sugar as a quick but ultimately unsatisfying replacement. Approach all diet discussions with nuance and compassion, being sure to examine your own relationship to food and prejudices about size and appearance. Use the essences of Burdock, Crap Apple, and Pretty Face for help.

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Brigitte Mars offers an interesting insight into how Burdock is especially useful for city dwellers: 

“During the Industrial Revolution, burdock was used as a medicine to help people cope with pollution or, as John Kelton said in 1870, ‘the constant deterioration of the blood from impure air and exhaustion by day, bad ventilation at night and want of attention to ordinary requirements of life.’” (The Desktop Guide to Herbal Medicine, 67)

Burdock has a low amount of estrogen content which means that it can be useful for folks experiencing menopause when combined with stronger estrogenic herbs such as Dong Quai (Angelica sinensis) and Wild Yam (Dioscorea villosa). Use with practitioner support for supporting transgender and gender variant transitions on the transfeminine spectrum.

External uses include using the oil and leaves as a poultice for skin inflammation and rashes including psoriasis, eczema, glandular boils, and ringworm. Make a hair rinse of the root for remedying dandruff and preventing hair loss. Use in after-sun care. Useful for case of hot and red acne that has not come to a head. Made into a facial toner, the root helps to regulate the excretion of sebaceous glands in the skin, making it especially useful for those with oily skin. Use as well for swellings, sprains, and tumors. Skin conditions are especially connected to deep seated emotional imbalances - use flower essences along herbal remedies. The tincture can internally to successfully treat external symptoms, too. “In the Native American healing tradition, the plant was used by the Malecite, Micmac, Ojibwa, and Menominee for skin health. Further, the roots were dried by the Iroquois over a fire and stored for food for the following year.” (1)

Burdock root is quite edible and pleasant in flavor. It’s a popular addition in Japanese, Hawaiian, and New Zealand cuisine.

Magickal Uses : Burdock is considered a protective herb and the root can be buried at the four corners of the home or powdered and traced around the home. The dried root can be cut and made into small button like beads as a protective amulet. The flowers are symbols of abundance. Use the burrs to help the magick stick to something. Use the plant to help you connect with Bear energy - Arctium comes from the Greek word for bear.

The Burdock Personality : The Burdock personality is very good as masking their emotional suffering, but eventually their physical suffering comes to the surface. They embody burnout - their internal heat has burned them up from the inside out. They tend to be anxious and worried about rocking the boat - until they find themselves so angry they can’t not express their anger. Irritability, crankiness, and explosive outbursts can follow and can feel especially overwhelming as this has not been their typical pattern. Burdock helps them to access the liberating powers of their anger. Anger on the surface goes after those we love and has a tendency to wreck relationships. Deep anger that is given space to come to the surface and allowed to breathe and burn off can be healing. The anger of a Burdock person is often from a much earlier period in their life when they weren’t able to safely express their anger then. Burdock helps them get the chance they never had to be angry - it clears the path for a clean, transformative burn.

Contraindications : Avoid use during first trimester of pregnancy - herbalist Anne McIntyre recommends avoiding throughout all trimesters and during breastfeeding. Avoid with insulin and other hypoglycemic medications. Needs careful monitoring of blood sugar levels with diabetic patients. Be aware that Burdock and Rhubarb leaves are similar looking but Rhubarb leaves are toxic.

Dosage : Standard dosage - 1 tsp per 8 oz water; Adults 30 - 60 drops tincture or 1 - 10 drops for drop dosage. 

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Burdock + Dandelion Toffee

by Julie Bruton-Seal & Matthew Seal from Backyard Medicine

Dig several roots of burdock and dandelion, in spring or fall. Strip the root bark off, and clean and chop up the inner part. Weight out 3 to 4 ounces of each. Load into a saucepan and cover with a pint of water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Allow to cool.

Simmer again until the roots are tasteless (i.e. have surrendered their content to the liquid). This reduces the mixture by about half. Strain and add 1 tablespoon butter and 12 tablespoons of sugar. Boil for 5 minutes then simmer for 20 minutes more. It will become toffee-like. Test the toffee by pouring a drip of it onto a cold plate, as you would in testing jam: when it crinkles into soft threads, it is ready. Pout it into a buttered shallow tin. Before it sets totally, mark out squares and save the toffee slab in greaseproof paper: or stretch it out by hand into taffy: this is ale and pliable, ideal for balls, plaits, etc.

(1) Quoted from https://www.mountainroseherbs.com/products/burdock-root/profile but the original source can be found here: Moerman, D.E. 1998. Native American Ethnobotany at http://herb.umd.umich.edu/.

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How to Make Your Life As An Herbalist Harder

It’ll be nine years next month that I’ve been running this little business of mine. Nine years of making remedies, teaching classes, writing blog posts, finding my voice (currently singing in the key of soft dyke / salty hag), and making lots of mistakes along the way. I love the freedom of owning my own business but I’ve made it unnecessarily difficult for myself at times, too. I’m hoping that this post helps folk stop or avoid altogether these same mistakes. Or maybe this is just a big public post-it note to myself to continue to work on not making these mistakes, because I am certainly still making a few of the mistakes listed below.

While the following post does have someone who runs their own business as an herbalist in mind, it can apply to a wide array of those in self-employed in all sorts of businesses. To be clear for the folks who haven’t been paying attention in the far back, I am not in any way trained as a business coach but I do have a tea-stained certificate in Making Mistakes as a Solopreneur (it arrived three months late and torn in two!).

So here is what I’ve learned about making your life more difficult as an herbalist (or healer or friendly neighborhood witch).

Do unnecessarily (and often repetitive) work.

Whatever you can automate, do. I started my business during the whole “handmade gets itself online” movement and I loved all the purposeful details that went in to creating products. If you ordered from my shop when I was still selling tea and herbal remedies, for example, you would have received a tea-dyed receipt with your order hand written on it. I was particularly proud of this detail - something I didn’t see other folks doing in their packaging.

Precious as that was, it was an absurd thing to be doing when I was receiving as many orders as I did during the height of my remedy-making business. Because I was not only hand-writing receipts, I also hand-stamped and decorated all of the shipment boxes, handwrote addresses (again on that tea stained paper), and hand-wrapped all my remedies in colorful paper and washi tape. And that was just the effort spent after making the remedies in the first place (which were largely underpriced to begin with). But I was absolutely convinced that things like these hand-written receipts were what made folks like my business. And maybe that was true to a point - I got frequent feedback that receiving one of my packages was like getting a delivery from a store in a fantasy novel - but it burnt me out. I needed to choose to do one, maybe two of those things, and automate the rest.

Whatever I can automate these days, I do. And guess what? It’s not stripped the soul from my business but in fact given me more space to feel spiritually connected and renewed in my work. Ways to automate your work as a herbalist include:

• If you have a newsletter, at a minimum set-up automated emails for when someone joins your list. This is a great way to warmly welcome someone into your community and can act like a map and compass to your work and what thing on your website someone might look at next.

• Use the auto-generated receipts and shipping labels provided by whatever platform you sell your goods on.

• Use canned responses in replying to customers when appropriate. Gmail allows you to save a series of canned responses that you can generate into an email - I do this a lot and then customize the email from there.

• Create handouts for your clients and students that covers basic information that you find yourself sharing again and again. I have print-outs on making tea, taking herbal hand, foot, and body baths, using essences, and more.

Those are just a few broad suggestions - I’m sure you can find many more for your own particular practice. But, please, automate and let it open you up to the path of delegation, cooperation, and the psychic group witch mind dismantling the kyriarchy. Or whatever.

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Commit to your relentless belief that you are an imposter.

I wish someone had told me about imposter syndrome before I started my business. I was still  running high on my own special morning blend of imposter syndrome when I started studying herbalism and it colored my early learning experiences. If you’ve heard about imposter syndrome but don’t quite know what it means or if it applies to you here are some resources:

• Nine Ways to Fight Imposter Syndrome

• Dealing With Impostor Syndrome When You’re Treated as an Impostor

• 5 Different Types of Imposter Syndrome (and 5 Ways to Battle Each One)

Look, you’re not serving yourself or your community by feeding the imposter monster. It’s fed enough by society at large and overpowering systems that we can’t easily change as individuals. Want a magickal plant-centered suggestion? Give your feelings of being an imposter to a plant and see what they give you back.

Be overly complex in your communications - including client care instructions.

I mean, I love to extrapolate far beyond what is necessary (hi, have you read any of my blog posts?) but just because you can provide more doesn’t mean that it’s better. Folks are going to follow-through on your recommendations if you keep it simple and easy to incorporate into their lives.

Learn to edit down your emails, your newsletters, your product and class descriptions to a point where you’re still communicating the essentials and you and those you serve will be better for it. This goes for how you talk about your work face-to-face with folks. You want to hand folks the equivalent of a verbal business card and not a college length thesis.

It’s not to say that there is never time for lengthy communications, but overall, shorter is better. And remember when I mentioned those educational handouts in the first part of our journey down mistake lane? Make those concise, too. You want folks to actually read what you give them so that they’ll feel more empowered to follow-through with their care.  

Undercharge and still feel bad about what your rates.

I’ve written about money and accessibility already on this blog (part 1 | part 2), but struggling to charge what you and your services are worth are a big one. Then throw in the complexity of cultural identities and narratives around money and what you should and should not charge for (i.e. healing and magickal services) and it can feel even more complex. Since I’ll be continuing to write about money, worth, and feelings, here’s my short response to the voice in your head that’s constantly shaming you about your prices : The body that carries that voice needs to eat, needs a safe place to sleep, needs access to transportation, needs to be able to do the things which makes them feel pleasurable and whole. Honor that voice for trying to protect you and keep you safe, and then give it something shiny to look at while you get on with running a business and living a life beyond its fear.

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Set boundaries - and watch yourself roll right over them.

Appointments are only an hour but here I am two hours in and just now starting to wrap up.

I don’t do discounts but I’m afraid of losing business with this person so I better give them a big discount.

I shouldn’t be answering emails on 3 AM on a Saturday, but if I don’t respond right away I’ll lose business.

There’s too much suffering in the world for me to take regular time off!

Treat your boundaries like the edges of your most sacred space. Imagine your boundaries as the grove, the temple, the mountain, the church or sanctuary where your spirit is remembered in all its wholeness. When you begin to treat your boundaries as sacred and powerful in their sacredness and that your boundaries make you better as a healer, I can guarantee that you’ll be able to run your business better. And then, when the time comes to change a boundary, you’ll be doing it from a place of feeling empowered instead of backed into a corner.

Hold yourself to ridiculous standards of creativity and making.

Hey don’t do this! Take time off! Value what you’ve created! Creating something and then presenting it to the world can be absolutely terrifying - don’t welcome in any more fear than necessary to the process.

Eat some lunch. Take a breath. All of this is absurd and necessary and in both situations fear is a lousy companion.

Don’t listen to your own advice.

Please do the opposite of this.

I could insert a whole flowy bit here about trusting your intuition and turning the knowledge you’ve gained from experience into wisdom, but here’s the short cut. Do what you advise other folks to do all the time. I know for many herbalists, myself included, it includes things like, drink water, get more sleep, go outside, allow yourself to zone out, seek pleasure, ask for help, so on and so forth… Imagine if you took your own advice as sincerely as you dealt it out.

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Have some mistakes you want to share? Comment below and let us commiserate together. Let’s keep growing through and laughing at our mistakes - seeing them as the calling cards of the trickster gods that they are.

Psychic Development with Tarot (or how to make friends and save the planet)

In middle school (ages 11 through 13), I often carried around a lunch tin that was stocked with my ESP studies set-up. The study of ESP, or extra-sensory perception, was my jam for many years (ok, admittedly, I still slather my metaphysical toast with it) and if you met me around that age I would’ve likely asked to test your psychic abilities. I would’ve taken note of the results in my little notebook, letting you know whether or not your results were of note and the different style of “extra” you might have in your perceptions.

(As I’m writing this story I’m realizing where the gap emerged with my regards to being able to do small talk. Here. In junior high when I started conversations with “Have you heard of Zener cards?”)

I’m older now and don’t carry around a lunch tin full of Zener cards, pendulums, vision-inducing oils and other metaphysical accoutrement. Now, I carry a deck of tarot cards with me everywhere.

It’s basically the same thing. 

So in a reclamation of the power of being the weird kid (and now the weird adult) which I know that many of you reading this were and are, I want to share with you some of my favorite tarot party tricks for developing your psychic abilities. Now, when I talk about psychic abilities, I’m referring to the broad expanse of our ability to perceive our inner and outer worlds in a way that helps us to gather information that is useful to our lives. Essential stuff for self-discovery, working magick, and being a decent humxn.

I think this development of and increasing awareness of extra-sensory perception is essential for our ability to survive and thrive as a species. It’s hard to ignore the fact that we know far less than we think we know as a species when you begin to engage in the world of the extra-sensory. And we need some of that humility in the face of mystery instead of continuing to make fear-based choices thinly veiled as arrogant confidence (hello thinking we’re just going to ride out climate change without radical change on our part).

We need to perceive more. Feel more. Experience more.

And - this is key and why I think psychic development is important - have the tools to return to our center when it feels overwhelming. 

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Many Queens Tarot by Lettie Jane Rennekamp

While I encourage everyone to make their own Zener cards out of markers and construction paper (please be friends with my 11 year old self), a tarot deck will serve you well, too. All of these activities can be done on your own-some, but I think they are particularly fun to do with friends and covenmates. If you’re new to the world of psychic development, I hope that these activities serve as little gateways to get you curious about the practice. If you’re an older-timer nerd at this stuff but haven’t used tarot yet for psychic development, I hope you’ll be excited to find some new techniques.

One more thing… there’s debate as to the best way to approach psychic development activities. Does one ground and center, focusing on the breath, and removing distractions from their environment? Or should it be approached from a space of play, maybe with laughter and music happening at the same time? I’ve seen success with both and you should experiment (that’s basically the motto of any advice I give - Experiment! Thou shouldest do-eth you!). What’s fun about working with the tarot as opposed to another psychic development tool is that the tarot cards are rich with energy and symbolism giving our psychic reach a lot to hold onto and hopefully pull back into our consciousness. Remember that like with any new skill, it takes time and practice to show up. Your gifts will show up, too.

Find that Card

This is a super simple, no set-up required game. Either you or a friend chooses a card for you to find in the deck without looking at the cards. You can hold the deck in your hand, rifling through until it feels right. Or lay all the cards out in front of you until you feel like you’ve found the right one. If you don’t choose the right card, check out the cards surrounding it to see if its shown up there. I do this game during tarot classes I teach when I want to find and talk about a particular card.

Sorting the Suits

For this game you’ll only need the Minor Arcana. On a table before you indicate a spot for each of the four suits (you might want to write this down on scraps of paper so you don’t have to spend mental energy trying to remember where to place each card). Shuffle the cards and then sort them by suit into the corresponding piles. It’s typically recommended that you do this quickly and without thinking too much about what card you are putting where. At the end, find out how many cards you sorted correctly. Sorting 16 or more cards correctly shows that you are beginning to move out of randomness into something significant. 

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Smith Waite Centennial Edition Tarot

Predicting the Order

Using the Minor Arcana, pull out 5 cards of each of suit and set them aside. On a piece of paper list out order you think the cards will fall in (i.e. Wands, Cups, Cups, Swords, Wands, Pentacles, etc.). If you receive even more specific information (i.e. instead of just a Wands card, the Three of Wands specifically) make a note of that, too, but that’s not the primary focus. Then shuffle the cards a few times and place them all in a single pile. Go through the pile in order to see how well they match up to your predictions. A score of 7 or higher shows that you’re predicting more than getting lucky guesses.

Ordering the Arcana

This next exercise leans on your connection with tarot. You will only need the Major Arcana from your deck. Shuffle the cards and with the backside of the cards up, start by finding the Fool and placing it in front of you. Then proceed through the rest of the Major Arcana with three lines of seven cards each. A score of 7 or higher is a good sign that you’re flexing your psychic muscle.

The Psychic Court

This is less a practice and more of a helpful way to affirm or help you discover your psychic gifts. Now, these correspondences are not based on tradition or a hard and fast way of determining what sort of extra sensory person you are. It’s meant to be a bit of fun and help you to start thinking about yourself and your skills, including areas that you might consider developing more. These correspondences are based on my work with the Colman Smith tarot which was the first deck I ever owned and the one that I developed most of these exercises with. I encourage you to create your own correspondences with your favorite deck.

Begin by separating the court cards from the rest of the deck and shuffling them. You can simply ask for insight on what is the strongest area of your psychic skillset and pull a single card as an answer. Or you can do a three card spread asking the following:

What is my psychic strength?
What is my weakest psychic muscle?
What psychic ability should I work on developing more?

Once your cards have been pulled, check out the list below:

• Student or Page of Swords : Clairaudience

• Traveler or Knight of Swords : Psionic manipulation (i.e. affecting electrical currents such as your computer crashing when you’re experiencing intense emotions)

• Architect or King of Swords : Clairvoyance

• Visionary or Queen of Swords : Astral projection + lucid dreaming

• Student or Page of Cups - Clairvoyance

• Traveler or Knight of Cups - Scrying

• Architect or King of Cups - Remote Viewing

• Visionary or Queen of Cups - Claircognizance

• Student or Page of Pentacles - Clairgustance

• Traveler or Knight of Pentacles - Dowsing

• Architect or King of Pentacles - Clairalience

• Visionary or Queen of Pentacles - Plant and animal communication

• Student or Page of Wands - Psychometry 

• Traveler or Knight of Wands - Channeling

• Architect or King of Wands - Aura reading

• Visionary or Queen of Wands - Energy Healing

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Many Queens Tarot by Lettie Jane Rennekamp

Telepathic Telephone

Partner Exercise #1! Choose a card from the deck and, without showing your partner, sit across from them. Concentrate on sending the image of the card to your partner’s (the receiver) mind. The receiver should visualize receiving a message or having an image pop up on a phone screen or whatever feels most effective. When the receiver feels like they have received enough images to go on, have them draw what they felt they saw (this is especially helpful if the receiver doesn’t feel like they were able to see the whole card but only snippets). This is a great exercise for folks who practice magick together to strengthen their energetic bonds. 

Empathic Draw

Partner Exercise #2! I think this is a fun practice to practice for tarot readers in general. Its success is far more subjective than the other exercises, but I still think it works our intuitive and empathic abilities. Have one person concentrate on a particular emotional state that is easy for them to connect to (i.e. the anxiousness they experienced this morning after a bad dream). Have them hold on to that feeling without speaking it aloud while their partner looks through the deck to find a card that they feel illustrates the emotional state. Once a card is chosen the querent and reader compare notes about how close the card feels connected to the emotional state that the querent was holding. The reader might pull out the Nine of Swords for a particularly successful read of a situation, for example, but they also might end up pulling out a card that’s more about the dream that the querent was experiencing anxiety from. 

So there you have it - how to make friends, become more psychic and save the planet!

Or something like that.

Tell me about your psychic gifts (and shortcomings) in the comments below. And keep being the delightful weird kids. We going to need to get weird and kind and stubbornly connected to do better as we and all future generations deserve.

Your Work Is Not Your Worth : Herbs + Essences to Move from Overwork into Interdependence

I’ve been on a journey of slowing down the past year in ways that have brought me relief and joy, but also a lot of trepidation, rigid fear, and destabilization. This move towards slowness has been a long time coming and holy heck have I resisted it for what I thought were all the “right” reasons. None of these reasons served me or the wholeness, resiliency, and pleasure we need in ourselves and our communities right now and yet I clung to them for way too long. Because why embrace change when you can cling?

So what were these reasons that I was convinced deserved my clingy effort? Prithee, enjoy:

• I can’t slow down because the world is on fire and who am I to take time “away” from the fight? (Because who needs to sleep or eat! That’s sustainable!)

• I think I have it hard! HA! Look at all the other folks who have it way harder than you and get back to work. (i.e. the endless, disconnecting, and demoralizing comparison game!)

• If I don’t work this hard I won’t be able to pay my bills (now this reason can be very true sometimes, but it was not true for me all the time and I used it as an excuse to not ask for help from others).

• I mean I work too much but I love my work so that doesn’t count, right? (i.e. the entrepreneur’s death knell)

• I have got to get it “right” on the first go or not only am I “wrong” but a bad person (i.e. the purity politics that are running us ragged in social justice circles).

• If I slow down who will I become? (Aha! This fear is actually a beacon by which to explore deeper needs and desires with)

I’ll be honest - none of these “right” reasons every felt right to me. But I was raised on the internet and this is the sort of messaging we’re bombarded with in communities agitating for change. Slowly but persistently over the years, these whispers of anxiety moved from the corners of my consciousness to taking center stage as my very own personal internet choir of doom and tear-downs. I knew it was happening and tried to alleviate this growing tightness in my spirit in a multitude of ways except the one way I was most afraid of - slowing way down.

Slowing down would be admitted a few truths to myself that I am still learning to be comfortable with:

• I am very introverted but often appear to be extroverted in my life (though this is changing as I grow into these inward parts of myself). Through denying my introversion I frequently set myself  up to feel like a social experiment gone awry using inappropriate markers to judge my “success” of being a person in the world. Coming from overcultures and personal cultures which prize extroversion over introversion means there’s just a lot of stuff to untangle. That and recognizing that we are all a variation of introverted and extroverted tendencies - I’ve just been relying too hard and long on my extroversion skill set and need a break.

• I’ve been doing too much the past few years, following the tight path of fear instead of the open flow of desire.

• The internet choir of doom and devastation in my head? It may have been built on lived experiences, a hyper-connected culture, and real-world problems, but I’m the one giving them the stage, providing refreshments, and making sure the mics are on.

Yet, the allure of slowness has aligned more strongly with my desires than my the power of my fear teaming up with anxiety. What I have known all along is that my worth (and your worth) is not tied up with my work, my productivity or the ever changing measurements of overculture success. I’m going to take a moment to quote adrienne marie brown at length now for two reasons a) consider this an extended invitation for reading her work Emergent Strategy and b) because her words are a pleasure and get right to why we need to step together and slow down.

“One of the most common and exciting elements of the visioning exercises I have done with social justice movements and organizations is the desire for a society where there is more interdependence - mutual reliance and shared leadership, vision. This is particularly our longing in the face of economic competition.

Most of us are socialized towards independence - pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, working on our own to develop, to survive, to win at life. Competition is the way we hone our skill and comfort with the opposite of mutual reliance - we learn to feel proud about how much we achieve as individuals, and sometimes, to actively work to bring others down in order to get ahead.

In a capitalist society like the United States, every aspect of our survival - from food and water to healthcare, childcare, and elder care - is based on our success at being an individual in the world: Do we compete well enough to make good money so that we can live a good life?

… Do you already know that your existence - who and how you are - is in and of itself a contribution to the people and place around you? Not after or because you do some particular thing, but simply the miracle of your life. And that the people around you, and the place(s), have contributions as well? Do you understand that your quality of life and your survival are tied to how authentic and generous the connections are between you and the people and place you live with and in?” (Emergent Strategy, pages 87 + 91)

Take a moment to breathe that in.

These words brought me back to the moment a few years back of knowing in my bones that I, in all my complexity, have a right to exist. There is nothing to prove to myself or others, but plenty of opportunity to participate. This memory and brown’s words also affirmed a feeling I’ve been having to describe my work not as intersectional (though it is) but more accurately as interdependent - but that’s another post… Right now, that’s feeling good in my bones and getting slow means I’m paying more attention to my rootedness.

Slowness as a sacred act of resiliency, homecoming, and pleasure, has reminded me that my worth is not tied up in my work, my productivity, my success or my failures. It’s bound up in relationships. Yes, work can be one way of creating relationships, but it shouldn’t replace relationships, or be a measurement by which to determine if you are worth relating to. Some of the earliest lessons and knowings my Pagan Witch path was tied up to the idea of being in harmonious relationship with myself, the elements within and around me as well as the community of people, creatures, and kin that I was part of. I remember learning “a Witch is only as good as their word” and, being people of spoken charms and incantations, listeners of plants and animals, and storytellers of lost myths, how important this felt for me. How filled with a sense of worth I was knowing that the world might be telling me one thing about how my worth was determined, but I knew that it was these sacred relationships that were the true reflection of my worth.

But it was really hard to take the first few steps of slowing down. So I turned to my relationships with my plant kin for guidance. And if you’re feeling resonance with what I’m writing, I hope that the following recommendations for both flower essences as well as herbal remedies help those of you who are trying to slow down in order to do less but be more. More in love. More in life. More in your wholeness and relationships. 

Herbal Allies

Milky Oat (Avena sativa): All of the herbs I recommend are nervines because our nervous systems are overworked when we use work as our marker for our worth. Milky Oat is a beloved of mine and a true friend to those of us who have crispy and frayed nervous systems. This is a daily long-term (multiple months) sort of remedy to really take root. Along with nourishing and restoring the nervous system to balance, Milky Oat softens us up. Overwork creates a state of rigidity brought on by tension and fear. As we learn about how to be internally nourished from Milky Oat they help us to seek out similarly nourishing relationships with the people, creatures, and places around us. Read the full Milky Oat plant profile.

Blue Vervain (Verbena hastata): Neck and shoulder tension, stress headaches, and a being tightly wound or type A, are all indicators that Blue Vervain may be a helpful ally to you. The herb is lovingly relaxing and tension-reducing as well as alleviating inflammation. As a temple herb - a plant that is well-suited to sacred rites - Blue Vervain helps us to figure out what is sacred in our life and how much space we want to gift to our sacredness. Read the full Blue Vervain plant profile.

Rose (Rosa spp.) Flower + Essence: I’ve written about Rose quite a bit, but in particular for overworkers and folks struggling to place their worth in a framework that is healing instead of disruptive, Rose helps us to reconnect us to our heart presence. As a symbol of mystery and complexity, Rose helps us to embrace our own complexity and ability to adapt. And adaptation is not just another excuse for running yourself ragged (i.e. I can adapt to only 4 hours of sleep a night and maintaining a toxic relationship to social media, it’s cool) but real adaptation means we know when to step up, step back, and step into the arms of support. 

Elm Flower Essence: I resisted taking Elm flower essence because I didn’t want to recognize myself as someone who tied up so much of their worth to their work. But immensely patient Elm said, “That’s fine. I’ll wait.” Here’s the description of Elm from Dr. Edward Bach “Those who are doing good work, are following the calling of their life and who hope to do something of importance, and this often for the benefit of humanity. At times there may be periods of depression when they feel that the task they have undertaken is too difficult, and not within the power of a human being” (The Twelve Healers and Other Remedies). Elm is an excellent ally not only for the “work as worth” dynamic but for when burden outweighs hope in one’s life, remembering that burdensomeness in one’s life can manifest as persistent anxiety. This is a great pre- and post-therapy session essence, too.

Oak Flower Essence: The essence for folks who don’t know when to sit down and rest. We all know how strong you are - you don’t need to prove it to anyone. It’s time to believe it yourself and rest up before that resiliency runs out on you. This essence is great for folks who feel a sense of duty to set the world right at the cost to their own health and wellbeing. Stubbornly resisting slowing down even thought there is small but persistent inner knowing that it’s just what you need? Make friends with Oak. Oak is one of the most beautiful teachers of interdependence and a longstanding embodiment of wisdom with a root system even more extensive that then vastness of its aboveground presence - which should tell us something about longevity. Again from adrienne marie brown’s book this time quoting Naima Penniman:

“When Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, almost everything lost its footing. Houses were detached from their foundations, trees and shrubbery were uprooted, sign posts and vehicles floated down the rivers that become of the streets. But amidst the whipping winds and surging water, the oak tree held its ground. How? Instead of digging its roots deep and solitary into the earth, the oak tree grows its roots wide and interlocks with other oak trees in the surrounding area. And you can’t bring down a hundred oak trees bound beneath the soil! How do we survive the unnatural disasters of climate change, environmental injustice, over-policing, mass-imprisonment, militarization, economic inequality, corporate globalization, and displacement? We must connect in the underground, my people! In this way, we shall survive.” (Emergent Strategy, 85)

While I still feel like it’s early days learning about my slowness, it also feels like a return to something very old within me that I’ve always known. And old places within ourselves can be hard to get to. So lean on the elders in your community, be they plant, people or creature, and remember to slow down when wisdom is shared. Yes, the world needs changing if we’re going to find ourselves in more just and kind relationships with one another and our ocean planet. But though we need to act quickly, ultimately the solutions remain ones of slowness. Slowing down unrelenting growth, dominating expansion, and consumerism, into something more considered, unafraid of real change, and tied to the sacredness of life and death, not just its exploitation. Remember not to exploit your own resources in an attempt to save other resources.

Practice slowness as a spiritual calling.
Know slowness as self-love.
Create slowness in your community as an act of resiliency.

In slowness and gratefulness,
Alexis

Alternatives to Year Ahead Tarot Spreads

Whenever the new year lands for you whether in January or one of the many seasonal and celestial celebrations of the year, it’s a popular time to cast a big ol’ annual spread of cards. I did this myself for many a year and then I stopped. Not because I don’t think the tradition of a year ahead spread is not a completely magickal way to begin your year, but because it no longer was useful for me and my practice. I began to notice that by the time I hit months seven through twelve of my reading in real time (i.e. seven to twelve months after casting my spread), the cards energies felt water down if not completely out of alignment with what was occurring in my life. Were the cards wrong? Or was I reading them wrong? No. In truth my life in recent years has seem to go through these seismic shake-ups and changes that the lines of my wyrd, to use the Old English word denoting a combination of personal unfixed destiny and the power of becoming, have been reweaving at a rapid pace. 

Experiencing a weird and wild wyrd? I think that’s true for a lot of folks right now. And I think at different parts in our lives different styles of an annual spread make sense. I imagine that in a decade or two I’ll probably try a traditional twelve month spread for my new year, but in the meantime, I’ve come up with a few alternatives. These spreads developed from my own seeking to find something that felt more flexible and co-creative with my cards and my magick. Here are my three alternatives to annual tarot spreads that are a little less fated, more wyrd, and a way to keep engaged with the turning wheel of the year.

The Elemental Tarot by Caroline Smith + John Astrop

The Yearly Guide

The simplest alternative is to choose to work with one card as a guide and ally through the year. Since I work with the wheel of the year, I like to call this card the Guardian of the Wheel. The Yearly Guide(s) act like a teacher, helping you to meet anything that may come your way during a year. They also embody qualities for you to examine within yourself including qualities that we might need to release and others that need developing. I recommend pulling from the Major Arcana of your deck to find a Yearly Guide card, but feel free to that which you are called to do.

There are a few ways to figure out which card is your Yearly Guide. You can pull out your deck and shuffle through, pulling a card at random to be the card of the year for you. You can look through your deck face up and purposefully choose a card to work with (this is especially powerful if you’re trying to gain a sense of will and personal power about yourself). Finally, you can use a bit of sacred numerology to discover your year card from the Major Arcana. To do this, add together the number of your birth month and birth date with the number of the year. Here are a few examples:

Someone born July 17 and seeking their annual card for 2019 would add their numbers as so: 7 + 1 + 7 + 2 + 0 + 1 + 9 = 27. Since 27 is larger than 21 (the highest number of the Major Arcana) they would then add 2 + 7 to get 9. Their card for 2019 would be The Hermit.

If you were born on November 9 your numbers would add up as so : 1 + 1 + 9 + 2 + 0 + 1 + 9 = 23. Then adding together 2 + 3 you would get 5 representing The Hierophant.

Sometimes you get two numbers. For example, someone born on January 17 has an annual number of 21. You could further add together 2 + 1 to get 3. So they would have two Yearly Guide cards - the World and the Empress. Alternatively, they could choose to work with one card over the other or work with one card for half of the year and the other card for the second half of the year. 

Once you’ve discovered your Yearly Guide card, you can incorporate it into your magickal work, add it to your altars, keep a copy in your wallet, paste it to a seven day candle. Keep it in your sight both physically and magickally.

The Luna Sol Tarot by Mike Medaglia

Six Months Ahead Spread

As the title suggests, the six months spread is half the length of an annual spread recognizing that energies often change halfway through the year. The six month ahead spread is a great choice for those who like the familiarity of the annual spread but are feeling, like me, that the cards for the last six months of the spread aren’t always as resonant as the first six. It’s also establishes a great mid-year magickal practice where you cast another six cards for the final half of the year.

The Numinous Tarot by Noel Arthur Heimpel (left) and Thea’s Tarot by Rhea West

The Solar - Lunar Spread

Here’s my most complex proposal for a year ahead alternative spread. It combines the tradition of the twelve card annual spread with a bit of Moon magick. Begin by casting your twelve monthly cards which we’ll card the Solar Cards from here on out. Alternatively, if you want to really tie it to solar energies, cast twelve cards for each of the twelve signs of the zodiac. So your first card would be for Aries corresponding roughly to the period of March 20 to April 20 (this changes year to year, so be sure to check your astrological calendar).

Your Lunar Cards are cast each month on the New Moon. If your Solar Cards are just for each calendar month, on the New Moon in January you would cast a Lunar Card to go alongside your Solar card. If you’ve chosen the astrological method, you would cast your Lunar Card on the New Moon corresponding to the solar sign. To cast a Lunar Card for your Solar Card of Aries you would cast it on the New Moon in Aries. 

The Solar Cards act much in the same way as a the twelve cards in a traditional annual spread. They give an overview of energies for a month-long period in their life. The Lunar Cards, which are cast month-to-month, take into consideration the fluctuating energies and changes happening for you at the moment in time that you’re casting them. The Lunar Cards can reveal what had been hidden but come to light or speak to the ways that you have changed since you cast the original twelve Solar Cards. They’re really helpful at nuancing the message of Solar Cards cast for the latter half of the year. It can be very revealing to read the twelve Solar Cards at the beginning of the year and then notice how your interpretation shifts or deepens when you pair each Solar Card with their Lunar Card partner.

What will I be doing this year? A combination of all three! I’ll be working with my annual guide along with pulling a six month Solar - Lunar spread.

So there are my three alternatives to year ahead tarot spreads! You can check out all of my divinatory spreads or my spreads for each one of the Sabbats if you’re feeling inspired. And if you’re thinking it’s time to discover the intersections of herbal healing and tarot, come this way.