Herbs for Highly Sensitive People: Monthly Herbal Practices for Wellbeing

We've explored daily and weekly practices, now it's time to look at the monthly practices with our herbal allies that can help keep us centered and connected as highly sensitive people. Monthly practices might take a little more effort, but as they are only meant to happen once a month and carry us through to the next month (or lunar cycle as I like to use to mark time) they can be well worth the time. 

For me, these monthly practices are like gifts for my future self as they often involve planning ahead for the next monthly cycle (where my future self is already waiting). They also act like an energetic tuning fork, helping me to retune and reconnect with the subtle practices that help me stay steady and in kinship with all that I love - something which feels more and more needful as we continue through this long season of organizing for a more just and kind world.¹ Ultimately, I try and shape my monthly practices to be something I look forward to and I hope that the following list of ideas will inspire your own monthly places of pause and restoration.

image via @thefinalshot

Through the Herbs for Highly Sensitive People series we'll be exploring ways of creating these little zones of peace throughout our days, weeks, and months, making space for us to reconnect with our sensitivity in ways that feel empowering. Herbalism is a sensory rich healing tradition, full of sights, scents, tastes, and sensations, that draws us back into the collective wisdom pooled in our body and pulled up by our plant allies. Working with plants is one way that we, as sensitive folks, can honor the sensitive ways of our body by strengthening a resilience that reconnects while alleviating the symptoms of overstimulation. 

When I write of the body, I am referring to the body in its most expansive form including the physical, emotional, mental, and mythological body. I'm not trying to describe the emotional body as a separate part from the physical body, but rather that our bodies have emotional experiences intertwined with physical experiences intertwined with mental and mythological  experiences. Part of the practice of highly sensitive people is to explore through our bodies what we have been asked or forced to separate rather than create a healthy boundary. Being called "too sensitive" over and over again, for example, asks us to separate from our very real lived experience instead of creating healthy boundaries that help us feel less overwhelmed by our depth of feeling.

And for those who might balk at the term "highly sensitive" but find yourself reflected in a lot of the descriptions of high sensitivity - I feel you on that - and you might want to check out my first post in this series exploring some of the limitations of the "highly sensitive" moniker and how folks like Chris D. Hooten have proposed more culturally expansive and inclusive terms like highly responsive to your environment or HREs. I really like the term HRE and I highly encourage you to give Hooten's article a read.

I hope that these simple practices will fit in alongside any mental health services, community support groups, and the general network of good company in your friends and family. Plant medicine thrives as a stress-reducing, nervous system reparative, and preventative modality while helping us to return to a more earth-centered and affirming way of being in the world - a great path for any highly sensitive person to be on.

Monthly Herbal Practices for Highly Sensitive People

image via @micmurph12

Take Stock of Your Apothecary

Throughout our Herbs for Highly Sensitive People series I've recommended various types of herbal remedies to consider as part of your regular routine. Hopefully you'll have a few key remedies on hand to bring with you on outings, keep at school or work, or in your home apothecary. These will inevitably run out if they prove useful so having a regular check once-a-month to see if something needs restocking is a good practice to have. It feels much better to have your favorite anxiety-reducing tea on hand when you need it rather than having to scramble to blend together or buy more of it when you really need it.

I'll be honest that I haven't always had a good restocking practice for my home apothecary. For the first few years of my herbal business I made and sold remedies at markets and online, but after closing that part of my business - which required a lot of detailed stock management - it was difficult to find pleasure in maintaining my own personal apothecary. Looking back now I recognize that I was also burnt out after years of intense remedy making, packaging, shipping, and all the administrative work that goes along with it, so it makes sense that this essential part of my personal care would feel overwhelming. Slowly I built up a ritual around it, tying my apothecary check-ins with the lunar cycles and the seasons of the year, lighting candles, singing spell songs, and finding gratefulness in being able to work with these remedies on a daily basis. Some practices need some enchanting to feel sweet again especially if they are necessary but feel a bit tedious. 

I also think that there is a beauty in regularly, consistently pushing back against far too many societal norms that ask us to forever push sensitive selves past exhaustion, by protecting a little bit of time each month to make space for moments of slowness and pause in the month ahead. These monthly restocks are little meetings with our common allies in the effort to reshape personal, familial, and social cultures into something that works for the many and not just enrich the lives of the privileged few. 

Practice Recommendations

The heart of a monthly take-stock practice is to make things easy for yourself. If you have a favorite tea blend that you make, have the recipe written on the jar you store the herbs in or in another easy to find spot (e.g. in your notes app, written on a scrap of paper stuck on your fridge, in your apothecary notebook). A monthly restock is easier when you're not having to spend extra time looking for stuff, whether recipes or supplies, so keep both in the same spot so they are easy to pull out when you need them.

It's a good idea to not only have your essential remedies, but a few types of herbs in your apothecary, especially if you're just starting to work with herbs for your sensitivity and don't know where to start. Below you'll find my recommendations for the kind of herbs that I think highly sensitive people would benefit from always having on hand.

Essential Plant Types for Highly Sensitive People

🌿 Nervines: Also known as nervous system tonics, these are herbs that help to reduce stress, regulate the nervous system, and alleviate the symptoms of sensory overwhelm. Nervines are foundational to most herbal protocols, but they're especially important for folks with extra sensitivity to their physical, emotional, and social environments. There are different kinds of nervines from stimulating nervines (like the caffeinated tea plant Camella sinensis) to relaxing nervines and general nervous system tonics that both stimulate or relax the nervous system given your current needs. In general, I think HSPs benefit from a nervine that can be taken over the long term - Milky Oat (Avena sativa) is one of my favorite nervines to recommend for this exact reason. Other great nervines include Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis), Linden (Tilia x europaea), Skullcap (Scutellaria lateriflora), Catnip (Nepeta cataria), Chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla), and Vervain (Verbena officinalis). 

🌿 Adaptogens: These are plants that help the body to respond to stress in a balanced and aid the recovery process afterwards. While some adaptogens are going to be far too stimulating for a number of highly sensitive folks, I think adaptogens that are more energetically balancing and stress relieving in their healing gifts are great allies. Some of my favorite neutral to relaxing adaptogens for highly sensitive people are Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera), Reishi (Ganoderma lucidum), and Eleuthero (Eleutherococcus senticosus).

🌿 Ancestral Herbs: There's a lot of interesting science on the epigenetics of trauma, sensitivity, and the ways that generations of (mal)adaptive survival can sit in the bodies of descendants. I believe that there is a useful magick that occurs when we work with one or more herbs that our ancestors would've been familiar with as a way to heal some of those inheritances that may be making our ability to thrive as sensitive people more challenging. If the body remembers the wounds of generations past I believe it also remembers the healing allies like our beloved plants. If you don't know where to start, I recommend looking to your cultural kitchen spaces and the cooking herbs and spices that you find there. 

image via @myr0326

Connect With Your Plant Ally

I stumbled into breathwork and meditation as a kid not because I had any idea what either of those things really were but because I'd read that breathwork could help my asthma and that meditation could help my witchcraft. It's been a multi-decade learning experience ever since and I believe that these simple practices of connecting with my breath, learning to pause and be still with my busy sensory experiences, and embracing the passing nature of whatever it was I was currently feeling saved my life as a young person. Meditation and breathwork is so often portrayed as some strenuous practice at being both immensely peaceful and one with the universe that it can be easy to forget that these are just tools of little adjustments over a long period of time. 

Learning to steady and thrive in your sensitivity is a practice in little adjustments. While there might be big life-changing moments (like quitting your job, ending toxic relationships or dramatically downsizing your belongings) these are meant to be every once in a great while happenings, not regular occurrences. Strength in our sensitivity often relies on much subtler but important adjustments to our inner and outer landscapes - breathwork and meditation are free and accessible tools that we can use to create these adjustments. 

One of the ways we can connect with plants as allies is through meditation and breathwork, where we set aside a reliance on the spoken word and let ourselves communicate through our felt body. Plants are great communicators in the spaces between waking and sleeping - a state that meditation and breathwork brings us into. I hope that if you are interested in working with plants over the long term that you'll consider developing a regular meditation practice with your plant allies - and once a month is a great way to start.  

Practice Recommendations

Building on the sitting with plants practice found in my suggestions for weekly practices for highly sensitive people, the plant ally meditation focuses on a direct connection with a plant you are currently working with. If you are able to sit with your plant ally in a wild or garden space, I recommend starting with the sitting with plants practice before proceeding. Not all of our plant allies are available for all of us to sit with in person, so you can simply begin by preparing whatever remedy you use of your plant ally (such as a cup of Rosa damascena tea if you are working with Rose) and taking a moment to immerse yourself in the sensory experience of that tea from its color, scent, taste, and the feel of holding the cup in your hand. 

For some, sitting is the best position for breathwork and meditation while others find laying down much more practical. When you are ready, take nine slow and steady breaths, letting your chest and belly to comfortably fill with air, pausing at the top of your breath, then exhaling, pausing again when your lungs are empty. You might experiment with breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth - find what feels most comfortable. 

After your cycle of breathwork, imagine a soft light glowing all around you. You might instinctively imagine a certain color, otherwise I recommend visualizing a starry, twinkling milky way white. When you have a good sense of your energy glowing around you, imagine that your plant ally is before you. Visualize that around your plant ally is a soft, sparkling light - It may be a different color, it may be the same color as your own energy. 

Next, let your light extend and curve around your plant ally before coming back to you, forming a lemniscate (which looks like the number eight on its side: ∞). The soft light of the plant ally extends around you in the same way, both of your energies merging into a gently flowing river between and around the both of you. Take some time to be in energetic communion with your plant ally, letting your lights drift and mingle together. Sometimes insights arise in this place, sometimes just pleasant sensations - I encourage you not to try and seek anything out in this space beyond simply staying present to the experience. 

Once you feel ready, let your energy begin to draw back into your body, noticing that your plant ally's energy is drawing back as well. Let your energy settle in the place it feels most comfortable at this time or in a place needing extra love and healing. When you are ready, take a series of deep breaths, stretching and moving your body as you like, settling back into a state of wakefulness.

After your meditation practice it can be helpful to work with grounding and centering plant allies that not only help us integrate any insights we may have had during our practice, but guide us back into steadiness in our bodies for whatever lies ahead of us.

Herbs to Ground & Center With

Hawthorn Berry (Crataegus monogyna): I find the berries of the Hawthorn plant to be particularly grounding. Within traditional western herbalism, Hawthorn is honored for it's cardiotonic gifts as well as the way it helps us to heal after a period of heartbreak. But it also possesses the gift of helping us to feel our wisdom alongside thinking and acting in our wisdom - a great post-meditation ally, indeed!

Common Sage (Salvia officinalis): Practical, grounded Common Sage is a lovely post-meditation and post-breathwork ally, working to connect all of our body systems harmoniously, but especially the path between our head and our heart. All Sages have a clearing quality to them (which is why many varieties across cultures are burned before rituals to cleanse a space) and Common Sage is gently cleansing, but mostly helps to settle energy.

Sacred Basil (Ocimum sanctum): Sacred Basil is one of my favorite herbs for highly sensitive people. The herb helps with the dispersal of stuck energy, promoting a healthy energetic cycle in the body, alleviating the tension and anxiety that can arise from stagnant energy. Stagnant energy doesn't just sit low in the body, it can also sit high creating lots of tension wherever it shows up. Sacred Basil helps us to ground and center by moving energy back to where it should be, bringing relief to worn out systems, and energy to undernourished body systems.

image via @anniespratt

Gather In Community

Perhaps the most broad of my recommendations, but in many ways, the most essential. One of the ways that we learn to embrace our high sensitivity as a gift is by showing up as our sensitive selves in beloved community. Whether a knitting group, a tabletop game campaign, a gossip session at a local cafe, volunteering with your dog at your library's local read-with-dogs program, community events on your block or local park, and so on there are so many ways to gather. There are so many ways because there are so many kinds of people, including some like you with their own high sensitivity and sensory needs. It might take some time to find the group that you want to return to again and again, but the effort is worth it, and with the rapid decline of third spaces (driven by tech oligarchies and capitalist enterprises), gathering together in-person is an increasingly revolutionary act - and one that needs to be practiced regularly.

I have placed this recommendation within the monthly practices list because there is power in setting yourself up for success. Once a month is a relatively small commitment, but it'll result in a dozen gatherings over your year and that's great! It's a good way to get into the flow of gatherings without feeling overwhelmed by them. If this practice leads you into more gatherings on a bi-monthly or weekly basis - great! - but don't think that has to be an end goal. Once a month is a great starting and ending place.  

If you want to start your own gathering, maybe one focused on herbal studies, I have a guide for you.

Practice Recommendations

Before you head out for a gathering, enjoy some nervines and remind yourself why you are choosing to make all this effort to get yourself somewhere. Saying your reason out loud with some encouraging words is a goofy and effective way of encouraging yourself. If you have a partner or friend you can check in with ahead of time that can also encourage you, do that, too. Make sure to bring items that you know will help you regulate your sensory environment whether noise reducing earplugs that still allow you to hear conversation or things like gum, a fidget ring or handcrafts that help you regulate energy.

If you are going to a new-to-you gathering in a new-to-you space, it can help to look up the location ahead of time, including transportation details as well as getting a sense for what the space is going to look like. After your first gathering you'll have a better sense of what it is you might want to bring (like wearing cooler clothes if it is a space that is relatively small and gets warm easily) or prepare ahead of time. Ask questions, take bathroom breaks, and choose to do the self-regulating things you need to do (like taking sensory breaks by stepping outside or in a quieter spot of the venue).  

And remember that gathering is a practice. You found yourself feeling overwhelmed? That's ok, this is practice, and you're practicing what it is going to take to make regular gatherings enjoyable for you (including things like suggesting a venue change to a quieter location). There might be an increase in feeling overwhelmed after returning home from a gathering, even if it's mingled with feelings of excitement or enjoyment, and that's to be expected. Draw on your tools from those stress-alleviating evening tea to sitting with plants to body-honoring and sensory calming routines. Let yourself find a rhythm to monthly gatherings, not trying to rush the process, but also trusting that there are ways for you to gather together with good folk that lets you thrive as a sensitive person.

Plant Allies for Gathering Together

When appropriate, I love bringing herbal remedies for sharing. Most often I bring some sort of freshly brewed tea, but sometimes I'll bring flower essences and I've also been known to bring a bliss-inducing tincture or two. The following herbs are some of my favorite to feature in brews for community events.

Skullcap (Scutellaria lateriflora): Skullcap has a wonderfully calming and centering energy. It's easy to add to blends with its relatively mild flavor and it's featured in one of my favorite tea blends. A great herb for gatherings where chill conversation or even gentle tarot readings will be the focus.

Rose (Rosa spp.): One of my favorite herbs for helping to set the tone of an event as joyfully heart-opening and connecting. Rose has an extraordinary way of bringing people together in a way that feels deep, but not too vulnerable. It helps that it's a wonderful nervine without being too relaxing. 

Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis): Lemon Balm is a great plant ally for balancing out the energy of the event and helping everyone gathered feel like they are in resonance. It's a great herb for generating easy-going social connections, from game night to coven gatherings. 

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I hope you found these simple monthly suggestions to take care of yourself useful, and that you're feeling inspired to imagine all the ways that working with plants regularly can cultivate an inner gentleness that is profoundly centering and strengthening. If you are interested in finding ways to mark time beyond the school or work week, you might find my series on moon phase rituals and plant allies to be a fun place to start.

For those of you looking for a more in-depth approach to herbalism and high sensitivity or if you work with a highly sensitive client base (including family members), I invite you to join me in Solace: Herbs & Essences for Highly Sensitive People.

Be sure to check out the first post in the series, Herbs for Highly Sensitive People: Daily Herbal Practices for Wellbeing, for more suggestions. As always, may you find the gentle ways of being in the world that strengthen your gifts, your community ties, and the ways that you find and bring beauty to the world.

This post was made possible through patron support.
❤︎ Thanks, friends. ❤︎

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Footnotes

1. For those interested in the ways that plant folk organize for change, I have a page full of resources for you.

Summer’s Herbal Magick: Making Traditional & Modern Folk Charms

Summer is a time of flowers hung on the wall to dry, stones and shells from summer adventures tucked into jars for safekeeping, and the bright green harvest of herbs preserved stored away in cupboards for use in spells later on in the year. While every season brings foraging delights for the magickal apothecary, summer's finds are especially full of color and light. Summers in the valley I live with can be long and hot, requiring an intimate relationship with shade and shadow during the height of the day, with the respite of the night’s delta breezes making time for the morning's harvest to be shaped into an evening's charm. 

In the second part of my Seasonal Magick series we'll be exploring three folk spell traditions to aid us in our magick that incorporate some of my favorite plant allies of summer. From a witch's ladder that helps to the illuminate the path ahead to an empowering witch's bundle and a witch's bottle for love, these three herbal charms are easy to make, tap into our legacy as magickal practitioners, and help us to connect with the energy of the season. To find the full introduction to this series and why I love simple folk magick so much, including additional insight into each of the three traditional charms we'll be exploring, come this way.

So let's explore how we can create witch's ladders, bundles, and bottles as one of the ways to connect with the seasonal rhythms of the year and our beloved plant allies.

The Witch's Ladder

Traditionally made of woolen cord, rope, woven thread or hair and knotted with items like feathers, holed stones, sticks and bits of metal, witch's ladders are a beautiful form of magick that combine charm-making with knot magick and weaving spells. The witch's ladder has remained popular among modern practitioners, supported in part by the Priestess Doreen Valiente's Spell of the Cord, an inspired modern variation of older forms of spoken knot magick. Energetically, they can act like a net, gathering up energy to hold in place and to either be drawn upon (in the case of beneficial energy) or released elsewhere (in the case of baneful energy).

A Witch's Ladder To Illuminate the Path Ahead

The long days of summer can feel endless, almost oversaturated with light. It's a season of taking the long view of what needs doing, what paths need tending to, and the harvests that we're hoping for. As someone who often finds summer to be a restless season, I try to channel that energy into useful magicks, periods of rest, and practical work around the apothecary. It's in summer that I cast a wide net, letting myself feel out what it is that might lie ahead, and draw the bits I desire the most towards me. The witch's ladder in summer helps us to catch sunlight so that we can draw on it in the darker months and moments in our life when we need help illuminating the path ahead.

Our plant ally for illumination is the bright Calendula (Calendula officinalis) whose flowers resemble boisterous golden suns. I love carrying Calendula's summer magick into the deep dark of autumn and beyond. As a plant ally, Calendula carries an unhindered and daring sense of joy helping us to embrace pathways of self-expression, of calling, and of kinship that resonate on a deep soul level. As part of your ladder-making ritual you might name each Calendula flower that you knot with your cord as a part of your life that you are seeking illumination for. Or you might name each blossom for a general area of life - such as a flower for relationships, another for magick, another for work, another for protecting your peace, and so on. Working with Calendula as a magickal plant ally is like working with an energetic best friend who believes whole-heartedly in you - let that energy infuse your spellwork.

A Calendula Charm

Bright the blossom
Bright the heart
The path ahead
No longer dark
Light abundant
Light appeals
Bright the heart
That hope reveals

Other plants to help capture the brightness of summer that you might consider are Roses (Rosa spp.) and Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) but consider what you already have available, the plants that are growing around you (or ones saved up that need using), and enjoy the process of using what you have at hand. Brightly colored plants and beads, sparkly objects, symbols of sun and fire, are all great additions to your summer witch's ladder.

Creating Your Ladder

To create a witch's ladder use cord, thread or yarn to braid or not your chosen objects into a long hanging cord. How long you make your witch's ladder is up to you, but I find that they work better when shorter when being hung outside and can be a bit longer when keeping it inside. I like to start by laying out all objects I'll be tying into my witch's ladder before me on my altar, blessing them with the four elements of fire (candle light), air (incense), water (water infused with flower essences or salt), and earth (sprinkling herbs over the items or laying the items on a stone surface). I like to use some variation of a cord charm when knotting my items, like Valiente's or the one written above, changing the language for my needs. 

Once all items are added, the witch's ladder can be hung up by an altar, window or door. For a spring witch's ladder I like to make ones that'll either hang just outside my door or beside a window, so that the ladder is able to dance in spring's winds.

You can add extra magick to your summer witch's ladder, by placing it in a sunny spot at the height of noon for a few minutes to charge up - better yet is it is surrounded by a circle of quartz crystals. Over the next year, I like to use pass my witch's ladder over my deck of tarot cards or other divinatory tool before doing a reading when I feel like I need an extra boost of illuminating clarity.

The Witch's Bundle

The simplest of our three traditional folk magick charms, a witch's bundle is a collection of exclusively or mostly plants with other items (such as old skeleton keys, a nice stick, a hunk of rock) tied up together and hung up above a door (or bed or other auspicious place). Witch's bundles, like all of the magickal crafts listed here, can be endlessly personalized to match your need, your aesthetic preferences, and reflect your relationships. If you're studying a particular plant ally you might include them in your witch's bundle (if the herb has already been dried and processed, you can add some into a little pouch and tie it to your bundle). If you are working with a deity that is fond of one particular color, choose that color of cloth or string to tie up your bundle. If you're a cool goth witch, add the skulls and gothic crosses to your bundle of dried Rose (Rosa spp.). Let yourself enjoy the process of finding your creative magickal expression - it helps you understand better what it you're using magick for in the first place.

The Witch's Bundle To Call On Your Power

Within Summer we experience the intensity of the Sun's growing power and as magickal practitioners we can tap into the mythological current of the Sun as a symbol of vitality, endurance, and longevity for our spellwork. As we learn to (re)connect with our own inner power and fortitude, we can draw on the summer's long days and the sun's increasing power to strengthen our own. For summer I like to create witch's bundles that feel like greenhouses full of heat and growth and possibility that help me draw on my power through every season.

I love Rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus) as a magickal herb at any time of year, but especially during the long days of summer where I use the herb as a natural dye for cloth and yarn, harvest sprigs to use in easy-to-share picnic and potluck dishes, and dry to use in tea and spellwork throughout the year. Rosemary is considered a panacea - the type of herb that is good for a wide range of conditions. It's warming in nature and has long been used as an herb of memory and mental cognition as well as a general restorative after a period of illness. Energetically, Rosemary encourages a state of open awareness and a cultivation of embodiment, drawing us into a state of empowered consciousness. In other words, Rosemary helps to clear out the foggy ungroundedness that can keep us from feeling connected to our power.

A Rosemary Charm

From sky to sun
From sun to sea
From sea to earth
From earth to me
What was forgotten
Now comes to be
Power deep and flowing free! 

Other empowering herbs to consider are Lavender (Lavandula spp.) and Common Sage (Salvia officinalis) - though any plant ally you feel a connection with can be an empowering substitution or addition. Additional items that represent empowering beliefs, allies, and/or communities can also be added (such as a pentacle that represents your connection to your magick or a favorite affirmation bound up along with the herbs). 

Creating Your Bundle

Bless all your objects as described in the above section "Creating Your Ladder." Once you've collected all of your items (such as a few sprigs of Rosemary), use a colored thread or ribbon of choice to tie up your bundle. I like to tie the top part and leave the rest loose, but you can tie up everything from top to bottom. The advantage of the latter technique is that you can tie larger objects inside the bundle, even hiding them from view if that's your preference. Once tied up, hang the bundle above an altar, door, or window. 

The Witch's Bottle

Traditionally, witch's bottles or jars were buried or hidden away from view in the back of cupboards, sometimes even between walls, beneath floors, or high up in the attics. They embody the magickal practice of doing the work and then letting it be, allowing the magick to continue to unfold in its own time. Sometimes jars are made for a short period of need (such as a honey jar for attracting a job) and then the contents are offered back to the earth, while others are more permanent and meant to be mostly forgotten. Other times, jars and their contents can be renewed on a regular basis (such as at the Full Moons or the sabbats). Energetically, witch's bottles tend to act like generators, helping to generate an outcome or a specific type of energy.

A Witch's Bottle For Love

Summer's youthful energy and exuberant weather can make it feel like a chance encounter that leads to adventure is just around the corner. Summer, a period of easier travel before the modern era made travel easily possible at any time of the year, myths abound of travelers falling asleep beneath grand trees after a long day of traveling to find themselves suddenly falling through a doorway to the otherworld. The spirit of possibility is alive and well, the good folk full of mischief, and many humans spending days beyond the confines of work culture, altering their perception of time and space. There is magick afoot!

While spring’s energy carries with it a wild quality of luck, summer's energy is verdant with love. Not just romantic love, but love of all kinds - whatever it is love that expands the heart with a few special people or a love that strengthens the bonds of community. For me, Rose (Rosa spp.) embodies summer's loving energy while still keeping space for the mystery of all the ways that love moves through our lives while reminding us of the importance of healthy boundaries and plenty of respect with their sharp thorns. Rose is an ancient plant ancestor and working with them is to draw upon the long legacy of working magick as a species - carried by the love of our most benevolent ancient ones.

A Rose Charm

The heart blossoms
love draws near
a buzz, a hum
love draws near
As I open my heart
love is here

Other herbs to consider are Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna), Damiana (Turnera diffusa), Vanilla (Vanilla planifolia), and any sweet smelling herbs. Consider adding reds and pinks to your bottle (or the color you love the most) as well as personal symbols and tokens of love from heart shaped stones to love letters to symbols of holy ones and sacred ancestors that embody love to you. 

Creating Your Bottle

Bless all your objects as described in the above section "Creating Your Ladder." Make sure you have a tight sealing bottle or jar so to prevent items from leaking out if you are using any fluids or from pests getting in. Add your herbs and charms in one-by-one, naming their purpose as you go, and then you can seal your jar with wax or tie it up with ribbon to seal in or bind up the magick. Once completed choose where your bottle is going to live, whether in the house, mode of transportation, place of school or work or buried (especially good for banishing magick, though make sure all items are biodegradable).

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For more herbal inspiration for your summer, how about creating your own summer wellness apothecary? Or a might-do list for the Summer Solstice? I also explore more of summer’s plant allies, healing paths, and magickal ways over here.

I hope you’ve found inspiration for your own summer magickal practices and feel a little more connected to the witch folk who’ve gone before us, leaving charms of folklore in their wake.

This post was made possible through patron support.
❤︎ Thanks, friends. ❤︎

The Bright Season: Tarot for Connection & Purpose

As Midsummer passes, I grow impatient and split between trying to be grounded and centered in the moment and wanting to get through next grand effort of summer as swiftly as possible.¹

I've lived many kinds of summers - from the short and mild to humid to desert dry - and, while I do fine in the heat, I crave the shadow and shade that autumn and winter bring. Living in one of the sunniest places on earth, and sometimes going weeks without seeing a cloud, can send me into a state of overexposure. It's tempting during these intensely bright days to let my mind race into the latter half of the year, restlessly counting down until I feel like I can relax again. Of course, all of this is impacted by the corresponding season of fire and smoke mingled with the fear of powerlessness against entrenched systems exploited by untethered people.

And yet, the golden days leading up to Lughnasadh are also some of my favorite of the year. I've loved the days surrounding the First Harvest since I was a child - it felt empowering to have this easy to overlook sacred day sitting not-quite-in-the-middle but not-quite-at-the-end of summer that celebrates the labor and efforts of the year. In an effort to settle into these long summer days, I've tried to draw this feeling of golden celebration out, extending it towards Midsummer and beyond to Harvest Home, seeking out the pleasure of this time of year instead of running from the discomfort it can bring. Because, I would like to have many, many more of these bright seasons and so I'm learning how to connect with the energy of these hot months rather than trying to hop-skip over them.  

I think I love Lughnasadh so much because it gives these hot days purpose and connects me back to the wheel of the year (instead of feeling like I'm engaging with the impossible task of hiding from this season). One of the ways to celebrate Lughnasadh is to look back at the year(s) behind us and marvel at what we've accomplished and how our communities have been made stronger through our collective efforts. Pulling on the thread of golden light that stretches through from the end of June and through July, I've found it to be the same thread that I find such joy in noticing during the dark half of the year. This golden thread needs these bright days and, even though I might be squinting through them trying to keep hold of my vision for what lies ahead, it's ok to take delight in the glow, even if it disorients me for a moment.

While I'm not seeking to find endless ease in every season, I think these moments of discontent can be illuminating, pointing us towards what it is we're seeking without missing out with the magick of the year that has already found us. In the bright season, where things can feel unsheltered and too big to comprehend, we can still learn how to pull some of that into our bones, glowing throughout our life so that we might trust in our path even when we can't wait to get around the bend.

While my bright season appears between Midsummer and Lughnasadh, your bright season might appear at another time of the year. I encourage you find your own season of brightness and I hope the following tarot spread helps you to follow the golden light of connection and purpose throughout all parts of your year. 

Tarot for Connection & Purpose

The following tarot spread helps to illuminate the path of your current purpose, shining light on what has come before and peaking into what might be ahead, while drawing our attention to where we're at currently and the connections that are seeking us out. This spread is best for times when we're feeling a bit muddled on our path and who we are on it with, where everything feels big and urgent, and we need help centering what it is we currently have the capacity and calling for.

 ✨ Card 1 & 2. The Path Behind

These cards take a look at the path of purpose that you've been moving along and that has brought you to this current season of your life. If you're in the midst of reevaluating your calling and purpose in life and/or your approach to living with purpose these cards may highlight previous patterns and/or relationships and communities that you are moving away from. Or these cards can be a celebratory affirmation of what you've done before. Or some combination thereof! 

 ✨ Card 3 & 4. The Path Ahead

These cards look ahead on your path of purpose, taking a peak at what might be around the corner. Sometimes they can point out obstacles, other times they are cards that show significant events or experiences coming your way. Often they show us something we are desiring (challenging cards can point out a desire for healing in these parts of our life). 

 ✨ Card 5. Connections to Strengthen & Seek Out

This card points out connections - whether individual or community relationships - to either strengthen or seek out (or let yourself to be found). 

 ✨ Card 6. The Thread of Light

This card that helps you connect what has come before to what may come to be by helping us to ground in the golden eternal moment. This card can highlight where you are right now energetically and how it connects you to your purpose and community.

🌻

Are you a child of summer’s heat or a creature of the dark year’s shade?

While you can peruse through my complete archive of tarot spreads, you can also find the rest of my in-between the seasons tarot series below:

• The Soft Season: Tarot for Clarity & Inspiration

• The Blossoming Season: Tarot for Big Feelings

May you find the golden thread of inspiration throughout your year, ever guiding you on your path.

This post was made possible through patron support.
❤︎ Thanks, friends. ❤︎

📚

Footnotes

1. As the longest day of the year passes, do I whisper "lo and behold, the darkness is returning" to my partner with a gleeful look in my eye? Yes, I very much do.

The Blessing of Softness: Marshmallow (Althea officinalis) Plant Profile

Marshmallow is a common enough herb that its likely to have shown up in your western herbalism studies at some point.

But I didn’t pay the plant too much attention until a few years into my practice when I started to hear stories about how it worked in the body in ways that didn’t make sense based on its biochemistry or how it had a funny way of making people reconnect with childhood memories (but only sometimes). It was the sort of oddness that perked my interest and I began to follow the moonlit path of the sort of herbalism that is talked about between practitioners, but isn’t always written down in books (and I have a fondness for strange herbs like these).

Marshmallow is a lovely plant ally, one whose use dates back to the world of ancient Egypt (but probably older still), and is both blessedly common in its abundance in the wild, appearing mundane in its uses, but also having a way of softening the hardness of our preconceived notions, when we find ourselves face-to-face with the soft vulnerability that we all carry but don’t always know how to care for and be cared by.

So journey with me through very old stories about Marshmallow alongside the new and learn about the healing path of this lunar plant.

Cbaile19, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Marshmallow
(Althea officinalis)

Common Common + Folk Names : Malva, mallow, common mallow, cheese wheel, hock herb, sweet weed, mortification plant, hock herb, wymote, altea, malvaisco, malws bendigaid

Tarot Cards : The Empress, The Moon, Queen of Cups (learn more about the connections between the tarot and herbs)

Element : Water

Zodiac Signs : Aries (Remedy), Taurus (Guardian & Remedy), Cancer (Guardian & Remedy) Leo (Remedy), Virgo (Guardian & Remedy), Libra (Guardian & Remedy)

Planets : Venus, Moon

Moon Phase : Full to Waning Quarter Moon

Parts used : Root, leaf

Habitat : Native to Africa, Asia, and Europe but naturalized throughout North America. 

Growing Conditions : Partial sun to full shade in cool, damp, and nutrient-rich soil.

Collection : Harvest the second or third year roots in the autumn; collect leaves throughout spring and summer. 

Flavor : Sweet, bitter

Temperature : Cool

Moisture : Moist

Tissue State : Hot, Dry

Constituents : Beta-carotene, vitamin B1, vitamin B2, vitamin B3, vitamin C, calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorous, potassium, mucilage, polysaccharides, flavonoids, betaine, sterols, asparagine, tannins, coumarin, phenolic acid, lecithin, pectin, malic acid.

Actions : Alterative, antacid, analgesic, antihistamine, anti-inflammatory, antispasmodic, antitussive, aphrodisiac, bronchodilator, demulcent, diuretic, emollient, expectorant, galactagogue, hemostatic, immune tonic (immunostimulant), laxative, lung tonic, nutritive, rejuvenative, vulnerary. 

Main Uses : I remember the first time that I tried a cup of fresh Marshmallow root tea. I did not like it. The texture was a bit too slick and slimy, even though the taste was a pleasant enough neutral sweetness. I would later learn that the slimy texture that I was experiencing was Marshmallows' famously mucilaginous characteristics. Even better, I learned that there were many ways to prepare and enjoy Marshmallow and, over the years of working with this slimy ally, I've become increasingly grateful for its distinctly emollient nature. 

Marshmallow is demulcent herb (i.e. a plant high in polysaccharides that produce a mucilage that is soothing to internal and external tissues) that has been in use for thousands of years in traditional western herbalism and beyond, stretching back in recorded history to at least ancient Egypt. Dioscorides wrote down the medicinal uses of Marshmallow in the first century and it has been recorded in traditional western herbalism materia medicas ever since. The Latin binomial of Althea is derived from the Greek words  "althos" or medicine and "althaiein" or to heal, which tells you how prized Marshmallow has been as a medicine from its earliest uses through the centuries to be given the clear title of "medicine that heals."¹ 

Victor M. Vicente Selvas, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

As a mucilaginous herb, Marshmallow can help reduce inflammation throughout the body by soothing and moistening tissue. Signs of sharpness, build-up, and dryness all indicate that Marshmallow might be a good plant to work with. Sharp and hacking coughs in both adults and children, can be softened by Marshmallow especially when combined with herbs like Wild Cherry (Prunus serotina). Marshmallow aids the digestive system, by reducing acidity, lining the inflamed stomach with a layer of mucilage, and helping to improve digestion. The root can be used to cool and regulate an overheated digestive system that has led to symptoms like diarrhea and poor absorption of nutrients. Demonstrating its amphoteric qualities, however, Marshmallow also helps with cases of constipation, helping to soften stools and soothe irritated intestines. Consider Marshmallow for all kinds of painful digestive conditions including Crohn's disease, gastritis, ulcers, diverticulitis, and irritable bowel syndrome. For these types of painful digestive conditions, a mix of powdered Marshmallow root and cool water is recommended before eating (roughly two to three teaspoons of the powdered root to enough water to make a thick paste).

In addition to being a mucilaginous herb, different sources will classify Marshmallow as an immunostimulant or an immunomodulator. In my experience, I find that Marshmallow acts more as an immunomodulator and herbalist Brigitte Mars notes that Marshmallow can either stimulate white blood cell production or reduce an overactive immune system depending on the needs of the body.² I like adding Marshmallow to cold and flu blends when a dry, hacking cough is present, as it'll not only support a healthy immune response, but moisten respiratory airways. It is a good herb for recovery after an illness, too.

Twelfth century herbalist Hildegard von Bingen describes it as a remedy for "melancholy brought forth by various fevers [that] makes a person's brain ail" and recommends mixing Marshmallow with Sage (Salvia officinalis) and olive oil, applying this blend to the head, wrapping the head in cloth, and applying a fresh wrap everyday for three days. While not a protocol recommended these days (though I imagine that it would help a great deal with scalp and hair health), I'm always interested in the ways that herbalists like Hildegard were trying to address the intersections of mental and physical health. Marshmallow is wonderful for sore throats, by both cooling and coating the lining of the throat but also acting as an analgesic. Naturopathic doctor J.J. Pursell recommends Marshmallow to all of her singer clients because of its throat nourishing qualities.³ Finally, Marshmallow is a helpful aid in reducing symptoms of allergies especially allergic rhinitis.

Pliny writes about the use of Marshmallow by midwives to ease pain and help to speed up labor.⁴ While this seems to have fallen out of modern use, mucilaginous herbs and plants like Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus) are still recommended in some midwifery communities (especially in the southern US) to aid with labor. Postpartum, Marshmallow is still used as a galactagogue to support nursing and prevent and alleviate clogged ducts and inflamed breast tissue. The root can be used internally and externally with herbs like Poke Root (Phytolacca americana) to alleviate mastitis. The herb is also an excellent addition to sitz baths. Use Marshmallow to support urinary health, break-up stones, and for urinary tract infections.

Externally, Marshmallow's mucilaginous qualities make it a great emollient ally for all types of skin conditions including rashes, wounds, bruises, cuts, scrapes, and general aches and pains. The leaf can be used externally as a quick poultice for insect stings as well as thorns and splinters. Use the leaf and root as a poultice for sore nipples and mastitis. Use in aftercare for sun exposure and burns (combine with other herbs like Rosa spp.). A good ally for rinsing, bathing, and washing during allergy season to help remove and protect the body from allergens. And even though modern Marshmallow candies do not contain any Marshmallow plant in them, you can still find plenty of recipes to make your own herbal treat.

Finally, I want to take a moment to share a story from seventeenth-century English herbalist Nicholas Culpeper, who recorded in his famous Herbal how a decoction of Marshmallow root saved his son's life when his boy was taken with dysentery (or "bloody flux" as it was called at the time): 

“You may remember that not long since there was a raging disease called the bloody-flux; the college of physicians not knowing what to make of it, called it the inside plague, for their wits were at Ne plus ultra about it: My son was taken with the same disease, and the excoriation of his bowels was exceeding great; myself being in the country, was sent for up, the only thing I gave him, was Mallows bruised and boiled both in milk and drink, in two days (the blessing of God being upon it) it cured him. And I here, to shew my thankfulness to God, in communicating it to his creatures, leave it to posterity.”⁵

I am reminded, not infrequently, when writing these plant profiles and reading through generations of materia medicas of how these are not just a recording of plants but of people, that they are works of love and life. Here we have an outpouring of gratitude by Culpeper that his son's life was spared this time through the gifts of plant medicine and he shows his thankfulness by sharing this knowledge in hopes that others will be saved. It speaks not only of Culpeper's nature (he was a radical community herbalist committed to making safe and effective medicine available to all) but of the community treasure that is the tradition of materia medicas, well-worn herbals, and spoken plant stories - one person hoping to spare the suffering of another and another and so on through the generations. It is also a story to share about Marshmallow themselves when teaching others about the plant's healing qualities: "Here, friends, is a plant that saved the life of a child, let me tell you what I know of their healing ways."⁶

image via botanical.com

Magickal Uses : Use Marshmallow in magickal workings to clear out oppressive and heavy energy from people and places. Scott Cunningham writes that Marshmallow is used to attract love, including calling back love to you from a partner who has left, but I could see this adapted for rituals to call back loved ones especially when issues of mental health are involved. The herb has also been used in rites of fertility, and especially protecting against impotency, as well as general protection. Add to charms and amulets to help soften up a situation, using the plant's Venusian gifts to help bring ease to otherwise challenging circumstances. Use in lunar rites of all varieties. 

The Marshmallow Personality : Marshmallow folk are those that are chronically hard on themselves, hard in their relationships, and have experienced hardness throughout their life. Often, but not always, Marshmallow folks had to grow up real quick - the softness of childhood was not afforded them. Other times, a shocking traumatic event has created a hardened outer shell that they are struggling to break free from (and might not even be aware that they are trapped beneath it). Energetically, Marshmallow folk can sit quite high and tight in their bodies - shoulder and neck pain, tension headaches, and general body stiffness are common, along with painful digestive issues. "Soft" is not a word in Marshmallow folk's vocabulary except as an insult or a very dangerous concept that'll leave them vulnerable. So getting to a place of working with Marshmallow as a plant ally can be a long journey, but once they arrive in the relationship, a healing softness and ease of life can occur for them. Marshmallow helps these folks to assess where their hardness comes from and why they are so committed to maintaining it. Through working with Marshmallow, these folks can begin to stretch out of their high-walled compound of hardness into the surrounding gardens, cool waters, and rolling hills that a soft life allows for. 

Contraindications : Generally considered safe.

Drug interactions : Over an extended period of time, Marshmallow may reduce absorption of other prescription drugs and supplements because of how the herb coats the lining of the  stomach. Stagger when you take Marshmallow a few hours apart than when you take other medication.

Dosage : Standard dosage.

🌿

I hope you enjoyed this exploration of Marshmallow’s healing and magickal gifts. You can find many more plant profiles in my archive and my complete collection of plant profiles in The Plant Ally Library.

Nicholas Culpeper’s herbal is also widely available for free - I enjoy the one found here. My favorite print edition of Culpeper’s Herbal is Culpeper's Complete Herbal: A Compendium of Herbs and Their Uses, Annotated for Modern Herbalists, Healers, and Witches edited by J.J. Pursell.

For those wondering what a lunar herb is and why it is I seem to write about so many lunar plant allies, come this way.

Whether you’re a practitioner, an herbal student, or magickal practitioner interesting in plants, may the herbal path be one that draws you closer to the tender heart of our shared humanity.

This post was made possible through patron support.
❤︎ Thanks, friends. ❤︎

📚

Footnotes

1 Graeme Tobyn, Alison Dunham, Margaret Whitelegg, The Western Herbal Tradition: 2000 Years of Medicinal Plant Knowledge (Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone Elsevier, 2011), 67.

2. Brigitte Mars, The Desktop Guide to Herbal Medicine (Laguna Beach, CA: Basic Health Publications, 2007), 196.

3. Nicholas Culpeper, and J. J. Pursell, Culpeper's Complete Herbal: A Compendium of Herbs and Their Uses, Annotated for Modern Herbalists, Healers, and Witches (Portland, OR: Microcosm Publishing, 2022), 177.

4. Tobyn, et al., 69.

5. Culpeper, et al., 177.

6. While I wanted to include this part of Marshmallow’s story, I also want to emphasize that the point is about the humanity (and joy and heartbreak) found in the pages of materia medicas not that Marshmallow is a miraculous “cure” of childhood diseases. Only one of Culpeper’s children made it to adulthood, but his gratefulness to Marshmallow remains a beautiful love letter and a reminder of how precarious life can be and how beautiful it is that we get to practice herbal medicine alongside modern medicine. And we honor Culpeper’s legacy by striving to make medicine free and accessible to all.

7. Scott Cunningham, Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs (St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn, 2001), 167.

How to Use Tarot as an Herbalist

When I was still just a kid a rather perceptive aunt of mine gave me two books on herbalism (one on herbs in the garden, another on making herbal skin care remedies) and one book on tarot for my birthday. Since then, tarot and the workings of herbalism both medicinal and magickal have been inexorably linked, serving as the weft and weave of so much of my work. 

Tarot is a storytelling tool - whether telling stories of the future, the distant past, the infinite present or stories that help us to understand whatever feelings we're slogging through. Sometimes tarot tells stories about relationships or points us in the direction of something to explore more of, like a helpful, living map. My earliest experiences of reading tarot for others were grounded in the sense of a language being unlocked and a fluency of connection being tapped into - it felt like a way to connect with my peers that I often struggled to do (a powerful spell at any time in our life, but especially those in those tender and trying middle school years). 

Alongside my explorations of tarot, I was learning about the magickal world of plants, pouring through Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs as my guide to what I felt when amongst my green kin, but had only started finding words for. In the wooden box that I stored my tarot deck was a small chunk of amber resin given to me by a friendly hairdresser when she heard I had started reading cards, it’s rich plant-scent infusing the cards. My altar was full of dried plants much like the images of the cards themselves, rich with flower-abundant gardens and woodland spaces. If I was working with tarot I was working with plants and vice versa.

I’ve been using tarot since my herbal student days and continue to use it in my practice as a community herbalist. While tarot is never a diagnostic tool, it is a great tool for simple ritual, inclusive storytelling, and strengthening connection to our plant allies - skills that all kinds of herbalists and healing practitioners can benefit from. 

Whether as a practitioner working with folks in their vulnerable moments of healing need or as students excited to be learning more about plants and magick, it's important that we have a number of places that we can return to, whether physically, emotionally, spiritually, that offer us space to process our experiences with students and clients, take care of our own needs so they don't muddy the waters of connection, and as a place to reflect on is going on around and within us. Some of these places are with other practitioners or with friends and family, but one of these places is at my altar with my tarot cards (or wherever my tarot deck and I happen to be).

So with that in mind, let's explore the ways that you might incoporate tarot into your practice as an herbalist. Whether you're brand new to using tarot (or oracle cards) or are a season tarot reader who doesn't know how to combine your tarot and herbal practices, the following guide offers a number of simple ways to find a connection between the book of healing that the tarot can be and our herbal path. 

Deck Shown: The Gentle Tarot by mari in the sky

Casting Cards: Simple rituals & energetic check-ins

Rituals help to mark transitions through time and space, giving meaning to the rhythm of our days, months, seasons, and decades. I find rituals and all the ways they help us care for our complexity are an important aspect of creating an herbal practice that is not only helpful to those you work with, but cares for the longevity of you, the herbalist. Simple daily (or nightly) rituals help to untangle energetic knots, release stress, find humor and joy, and connect us to the very old ways of being human in this world while growing and dreaming ourselves into something new.

Thankfully, rituals do not rely on belief - they are a form of practice no different than a daily walk or making a cup of tea in the morning before starting work. Of course, rituals can be infused with belief or spiritual meaning, but that's a preference, not a requirement. It's important as practitioners to mark the time between working as an herbalist with a client or student and holding a certain level of professional conduct and expansive compassion versus when we are not working and can be messy, silly gooses (or ungovernable raccoons or semi-feral stone hags). To maintain these healthy boundaries we need to have regular ways of checking in with our energy which is one of the ways that tarot can be so useful for herbalists.

In Practice

My simple daily ritual before work looks something like this:

I light a candle, speak a few simple devotions, practice a few minutes of breathwork, and then pull a card or two to help me connect with my inner landscape. Sometimes the card points my attention towards a certain practice - on one particularly busy day a card's message reminded me to stay connected to my self-awareness practice more so than usual so I wouldn't get lost in worry about what needed doing that day. Other times a card might offer a different perspective on an issue that I've been feeling anxious about, helping to settle that energy so that I can focus on the workday ahead, while giving me something to return to and reflect on later in the evening to see how that anxious energy may have transformed. Sometimes the card acts like an inside joke, helping me to laugh and loosen up.

These daily practices are not about constant, incredible spiritual breakthroughs, but about signaling to ourselves that we are moving from one part of our day and responsibilities to another part while gently stirring awake our skills of observation and kinship.

While pulling a single card before you begin your work for the day is a great practice, if you're looking for a slightly more complex but still simple spread for your daily pull here is my favorite daily tarot practice.

For further inspiration, here are a variety of questions or prompts for you to consider for a daily draw: 

A message from the plant spirits and/or specific plant ally.

A message from my ancestors.

How is {current season} showing up in my inner landscape?

What needs releasing? Where do I need to loosen up?

What needs strengthening?

What needs reconsidering?

Where do I need to pay more attention to?

What needs slowing down?

Deck Shown: Tarot by Caro by Caro Clarke

Telling Stories: Helping clients identify what they're feeling

Some clients who show up in consultation are adept at describing their inner landscape, from physical symptoms to emotional dysregulation. For others, being asked what they are feeling - and then being listened to for more than 15 minutes - is a totally new experience within a healing setting.

For most of us, learning how to talk about the experiences of our bodies (and I mean bodies in their most expansive form from the physical to the emotional to the mental and beyond) was not an education provided early in life and something that must be learned later on. Instead of relying solely on my client's sensory lexicon I make sure that I have resources like emotion and physical symptom word lists to help them tell me their story, including tools like the tarot. I might not use any of these tools, but even having them as an option signals to those we work with that they don’t have to have everything figured out and collaboration is a key part of their care. Fortunately, herbalism across culture possesses a sensory rich language to draw upon when helping folks find the words for their stories.

As a traditional western herbalist, I primarily work with the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water along with spirit not only as a way of organizing information about the physiological actions of herbs and the effects of illness and disease (alongside modern medical terminology) but also as a way of relaying information to and offering language for clients to use to understand their experiences in a way that honors their complexity. Tarot follows along the same elemental system and the visual language of tarot with its rich elemental landscape provides all sorts of useful ways of describing energy and experience. The language of tarot can help us speak with our clients, describe herbal actions, and make the process of working with herbs less mechanized and sterile and more earth-centered and inclusive.

In Practice

I have a tarot deck that I have sorted just for consultations. I'll separate and set aside the Major Arcana and then sort the Minor Arcana by suit. If a client is having a hard time describing what sort of stress they are feeling and they are interested in working with the tarot, I might hand them the stack of Swords cards. I'll have them look through them, setting out one or more of the cards that they resonate with. We'll talk about the card together, not its meaning in a divinatory sense, but what the images are bringing up for the client.

In general, I think of the suits of tarot corresponding to broad body systems as:

• Pentacles: Sleep cycles and cognitive function

• Swords: Stress and mental health

• Cups: Emotional health and community connection (social bonds, relationships, etc)

• Wands: Inherent energy and overall vitality

Here’s a sample scenario: Let's say that Verbena is a client looking for help with stress. She's been stressed for months and it's making it hard to sleep and focus during the day. When you ask Verbena what the stress feels like in her body, she struggles to describe anything. You ask them to look through the stack of Swords cards and they pull out the Three of Swords, explaining that the stress feels like it is sitting on her chest and she even remembers another symptom that she forgot to mention earlier - heart palpitations. Working with Verbena's description and the rest of the details from the appointment, you recommend Motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca) as part of the herbal blend you'll be making for her. The tarot helped to open up the storytelling part of the consultation, alleviating the pressure on Verbena of having to figure how to describe the stress she was having all on her own, and giving you as an herbalist extra insight into Verbena's sensory experience. You’re even able to tie the story of Motherwort’s gentle heart-strengthening energy to the images from the Three of Swords that Verbena resonated with, helping to facilitate a deeper connection between Verbena and the herb, Motherwort.

Sometimes I might pull out the stack of Major Arcana cards an ask a client to choose a card that represents what they want to feel, helping to create a visual language to describe the path they hope to walk along with the plant allies we’ll be working with.

Do I pull out tarot cards with everyone? No, but since folks are drawn to my practice because I do incorporate tarot into my work it's not unusual. I don't give readings of a divinatory nature during a consultation, but I love the playfulness that it can bring into a space, and see it as a tool for accessing language and connection. For my clients who have a tarot practice and want to use tarot as part of their healing work, tarot is your great tool and I have a number of simple practices I recommend to folks.

If you're interested in using tarot in this way, I encourage you to take out your deck, sort it like I’ve suggested, and start playing with it to help you identify your own feelings and experiences. Say you want to make yourself a tea to help you destress after a long day, but before you start pulling out herbs, pull out your cards and find the images that best reflect how you're feeling, naming aloud what images speak to your experiences. Can you connect the language you might use in consultations to the images you see in cards (such as talking of tension when looking at the Nine of Swords or overwhelm that leads to hypoactivity when looking at the Ten of Swords)? The more you practice, the more you'll be able to bring these story skills into your consultations.

An important note: Feelings do come up in consultations and classrooms (as they should) and it's important as herbalists to know how to listen, reflect, and provide resources while remembering that as an herbalist unless you're a therapist, you're not a therapist. It's good to know your own boundaries, what plant remedies can and cannot do, and have a list of recommended resources to be able to pass along to folks. Stress, burnout, and anxiety, for example, are common reasons that someone might seek out an herbalist, and while plants are excellent as addressing these sort of complaints, there are also times when we need to use our skills of observation to notice when what the client thinks is general anxiety might be something more complex (such as undiagnosed OCD or ADHD) and suggest resources beyond an herbal consultation. 

Deck Shown: The Herbcrafter’s Tarot by Latisha Gurthrie

Finding Guidance: Using tarot to connect with plant allies

Like many herbalists, plants are not only sources of medicinal gifts, but are living beings who act as guides and teachers. Tarot, as a tool of storytelling, discernment, and communication, can help strengthen our connections with our plant allies. I love pulling cards as one of the ways of getting to know new plants in my practice or deepening my connection with familiar plant friends.

Tarot is also useful in helping us access muscles of intuition that we may not have used a lot in our training as herbalists. While some of us may have experienced plants-as-kin practices as students, others may have had strictly clinical approaches where opportunities for relationship-building with our plant allies was limited. Tarot can be an excellent communication bridge, helping us drink from the well of wisdom from plants themselves.

In Practice

While I wrote a tarot spread for connecting with plant allies over a decade ago, there are plenty of ways of working with tarot to connect with new or familiar plant allies:

• As you think of a plant ally you are getting to know, look through your tarot deck pulling out cards that feel like or remind you of this plant ally. Try to work with your feeling body more than your thinking body, trying not to get caught up in what you think is the "right" or "logical" choice. Once you've chosen your cards, lay them out in a line in front of you and read them like a story that your plant ally is telling you.

• Spend a full lunar cycle pulling a card every day while connecting with your plant ally. You might choose to use a remedy made up of your plant ally before pulling a card (i.e. taking a few drops of Rosa damascena tincture if you're working with Rose as a plant ally) or simply invite them into your space energetically. 

• Working with the astrological correspondences of your plant ally, pull out the tarot cards that have the same correspondences. Rose is associated with Venus, so you might pull out the Empress and/or the Lovers cards and read those as a way to understand some of Rose's energetic qualities. You can find more astrological correspondences for tarot in The Tarot Apothecary.

You can also cast any kind of tarot spread while calling on the energy of your plant ally to help guide you. And you don't have to believe that you are literally being guided by a plant but use it as an energetic metaphor to open up the parts of you that need help receiving insight and guidance, such as working with Linden (Tilia x europaea) to open up your heart to hope. Working with tarot in your herbalism practice is an invitation to play, to loosen up what you think is possible, and find new ways of getting inspired in your work. If you're looking for more tarot inspiration, check out my archive of tarot spreads.

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Do you already use tarot in your practice as an herbalist? I feel like it is more common than ever for tarot to show up in healing, herbal, and therapeutic spaces. It’s pretty incredible how a centuries old stack of cards continues to shift and change with the times - I can’t wait to see what tarot culture looks like in the decades ahead.

While you can use any tarot deck that you want, I’ve also written about my favorite decks for herbalists if you’re looking for some inspiration (or, like me, never tire of reading about tarot). If you’re wanting a deeper dive into the world of tarot and herbalism, I invite you to join me in The Tarot Apothecary where I guide folks through reading the tarot like a book of healing.

Wherever your path as an herbalist takes you, I hope that the stories between people and plants flows freely, and that you always have the language needed to know your own.

This post was made possible through patron support.
❤︎ Thanks, friends. ❤︎

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Tarot Decks Shown
The Gentle Tarot by mari in the sky
Tarot by Caro by Caro Clarke
The Herbcrafter’s Tarot by Latisha Guthrie