Yarrow (Or, a Conduit Conducting Energy Between the Cosmos and the Earth)

Yarrow (Or, a Conduit Conducting Energy Between the Cosmos and the Earth) - theHumm September 2020

By Susie Osler

Our lawn for the first half of this summer, when temperatures were sizzling and rain was scarce at best, was left to its own devices — the mower forgotten in the barn for over a month. Without the weekly subjugation to the blade, the diversity of plant life in the lawn began to announce its presence. The wild plants able to thrive in droughty heat seized their opportunity, rising above the parched and browning grass.

Yarrow was, to my eyes, one of the most beautiful and prominent of these plants. Achillea millefolium — millefolium referring to her fine (thousand-leafed) foliage — is known also by numerous common names that shed light on some of the medicinal properties for which this plant has been known since antiquity. Herbal militaris, nosebleed plant, sanguinary, soldier’s woundwort, bloodwort, and thousand-seal — all point to Yarrow’s affinity for conditions of the blood, and an ability to staunch bleeding and heal wounds. Indeed, Achilles, Yarrow’s namesake, possessed great protective powers. Holding fast to his heel, as the story goes, Achilles’ mother Thetis dipped him into the River Styx to earn him his famed invincibility — at least until an arrow pierced his unprotected heel, his single vulnerability.

Greek myths aside, Yarrow is ubiquitous around the globe and has been widely used medicinally for healing internal and external wounds. In herbal parlance, Yarrow is primarily known as a vulnerary — something that brings about healing in wounds and inflammation (Latin: vulnis = wound). Yarrow is unusual in that it has contradictory but complementary properties — for its ability to clot and unclot the blood, for its fluid-generating and controlling ability, and for its cooling and warming effect on the body. According to acclaimed herbalist Matthew Wood, Yarrow is “Master of the Blood”. He says, “In order to treat disease we have to be able to decongest blood associated with inflammation, thin stagnant and congealed blood, tone the veins, stimulate the capillaries and arteries, and move the blood to or from the surface. Yarrow, the great ‘normalizer’ of the blood, does all these things.”

Some of Yarrow’s common uses (aside from wound healing) include its addition to skin tonics to ease inflammation, to tea to ease fever or promote perspiration, and in digestive aids to decongest the liver. Yarrow is also known as an “ally” to women in its reputed ability to stimulate or regulate menstrual flow and, in menopause, to help stabilize hot flashes, night sweats and agitation. On a more subtle level, there is an understanding amongst some practitioners that Yarrow flower essence is effective in the support and protection of our “psychic skin”, and can help to heal emotional “wounds” and emotional overwhelm, and assist in establishing healthy boundaries.

While I do not personally have experience of these more subtle claims, I find them fascinating to contemplate as part of a cumulative understanding of the plant. Disparate but somehow connected threads pulled from myth, ancient and contemporary herbal medicine, esoteric practices and my own personal sense of the plant make for an interwoven and richly layered appreciation of it. Somehow, it feels akin to the way the words of a poem coalesce to suggest meaning rather than explain it, and maintain a spaciousness where fresh insight can arise and shift.

All of this — including the idea of sitting with plants and “tuning in” to their energy — may seem like hocus-pocus to many people, yet there is much about the ways our bodies attune to the world to be curious about! Like Yarrow (and really all beings), our bodies are complex systems built for the exchange of energy that is life and which manifests in one form or another — from thoughts, to senses or emotions, to words and gestures, to invisible exchanges of subtle energetic pulses and particles that we don’t even register. Whether or not the insights gleaned from the time I spend with plants are “true” and measurable according to a rational understanding of the world really doesn’t matter much to me. What remains clear is that there are many ways of perceiving and interpreting the world we live in, and it only adds wonder to our lives to embrace the diversity of these perspectives with open curiosity.

Poetry, myth, old stories, languages and teachings from land-connected and Indigenous cultures suggest other, more interconnected, body-sensing ways of perception beyond the prevailing deductive — some would say “colonized” — understanding of our world. Just as stories may hold resonances and meaning that ring true to the aspects of one’s life at any given time, so too might plants themselves become their own sort of stories — offering us insights, personal to each of us, and dependent on the quality of attention and the experiences we bring to them.

Yarrow is a totem plant for me, and one who continues to capture my interest and imagination in mysterious ways. With a sturdy fibrous upright stem that supports her beautiful white (sometimes pink) umbel of florets, delicate feathery filaments of foliage, and a network of spreading roots that hold fast to the earth, to me she looks and feels like a conduit — conducting energy between the cosmos and the earth. There is no bling, no bells and whistles about her. She is straight up, sound, and steady, and I find myself, repeatedly, drawn into her humble yet concentrated magnetism. Yarrow is, to me, an Oak of a plant — a wise and patient elder, a monk deep in meditation, a pulsing and receptive beacon, quietly inviting, and awaiting, my attentiveness.

Lynn Melbourne — A Gift for People - theHumm September 2020

By Sally Hansen

Art… and Soul

Re-gifting is frowned on in some circles, but when your gift is a talent for capturing the character, the strength and the internal beauty that people wear on their faces, sharing that gift becomes an act of kindness, empathy and generosity. When tragedy struck in March at Almonte Country Haven, a long-term care home with 82 residents, local portrait artist Lynn Melbourne used her talent to reach out to the devastated residents, their families and their caretakers.

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Yarrow (Or, a Conduit Conducting Energy Between the Cosmos and the Earth) - theHumm September 2020