I took a long hiatus from herbal studies due to life being a lot for several years. I didn’t stop working with plants, but for a long time I stopped making my own herbal remedies and studying the medicinal qualities of my green friends. The list of reasons is long, boring, and, most importantly, very personal. But this spring I’ve finally found the mental and physical capacity to pick up my herbal studies where I left off several years ago. As a result, I now find myself in my yard beside a patch of white violets, getting drenched by rain and making my thighs ache with all the crouching. The violets are some hybrid of Viola odorata, still sweet and fragrant, though not as boisterous as the original purple variety.

As I fill my measuring cup for a batch of violet syrup, inhaling their lovely fragrance, I have so many thoughts about the practice of herbalism. 

I’d forgotten how folk herbalism, hands on herbalism, the kind where I gather plants and make my own remedies, also benefits my body by getting me outside and moving. Gathering enough tiny flowers for the recipe I’m trying takes half an hour. Thirty minutes of crouching, bending, kneeling, then rising up from the ground again, uses muscles I rarely use in my life of writing, stitching, and caring for the house. When I’m done gathering, my thighs are very aware that they’ve been doing something they aren’t used to doing. I’m not a fan of working out, but I can get on board with this kind of exercise.

I’m gathering these blooms for a syrup, something to take for pleasure more than for medicine. And the exuberant blooms remind me how the benefits of plants extend far beyond what they do for our phsyical health. Joy matters. And these little white violets, even in the cold, dark, and rain, bring joy. I’m cold and wet and quickly getting tired, but I inhale the fragrance of the blossoms and feel the sweetness in my body as I pick. I make up a silly little song for the violets about how pretty and plentiful they are.

As I collect blossoms I also see, here and there, tiny baby slugs feeding on petals. I let them be. The plants aren’t only for me, aren’t only for humanity. The plants are for the land, for wildlife, as well. As many violets as I gather, I leave many more for the wee beasties to feast on. This is their world too. And as I gather, I hear the calls of crows and small songbirds, busy in the shrubs and trees around me. Connecting to one being has brought me into connection with many others. What a gift.

I’m reminded, as my measuring cup slowly fills with small blooms, of how much focus and patience herbalism requires. Not so much the focus and patience to study, though that can be part of it too. But in this moment, I’m thinking of the patience and persistence to keep picking small blooms until I have enough for the recipe I want to try. And the focus, the attention, to find fully open blossoms and pull them gently from their fragile stems, to watch where I step so I’m not trampling them, to avoid harming little creatures as I work. And, indeed, to keep my attention on the beauty of the violets and my love and appreciation of them, instead of mulling over my worries and fretting about the horrors happening on the political stage. Slowing down and focusing can be difficult for me, with my unruly, neurospicy brain, my anxiety, my exhaustion. But the practice of attention and persistence is helpful to that same unruly brain and exhausted body, and a balm for the sped up tension of anxiety. For me, the practice itself is therapeutic, before a single remedy is applied. Maybe, even, if no remedy is ever applied.

I’m cold and tired by the time I finish, but also happy. I feel closer to these tiny violets who’ve been in my yard since I came to this house, but who I’ve never spent much time with until now. Another gift of folk herbalism and making your own medicine: connection to the plants who sustain us, and through those plants, to the soil and creatures and the whole ecosystem of which we are both a part. One reason I’ve never pursued a formal herbal education is I want my herbalism to be rooted in my immediate surroundings as much as possible. I don’t want to learn about all the plants in the world who offer their medicine to us: I want to get to know the plants around me, who offer healing along with a myriad of other gifts like food, fragrance, magick, beauty, and community. (Mind you, I think formal herbal education is wonderful and worthwhile. It’s just not the path for me at this time.)

In the end it turns out these particular violets are much nicer to just eat fresh than to make syrup with: their fragrance is more subtle than the purple variety, so the syrup is not as richly scented as I would like. But I learned something about these friends I didn’t know before, and I enjoyed the experience of making something new with them. Which makes the experience worthwhile regardless of the outcome. 

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