Self-Heal (The Wise Woman's Folk Herbal Series)

Humans have a huge capacity for healing. The body is always trying to repair. I think of the sunburn now peeling across my nose, my thumb I caught on the cheese grater, my skin knitting itself together because my body knows how to fix these careless errors of mine, in its immense wisdom.

So I sit, and I drink tea, in the way that all women do when they need to take stock.

I am a doula and the wisdom of the body is evident to me in all my work. I have a cross-stitch on my wall that says “vaginas open babies come out”. So simple and so obvious, yet so often we try to look anywhere but inside ourselves for the answer. I think of myself even now wanting validation for my choices from those closest to me, like their approval makes what I am doing safe, like their reassurance is the permission I need to follow my inner guidance.

I found this self-heal growing by the river, the vibrant purple making me stop in my tracks. Purple, the colour of the third eye, the colour of intuition, royalty, destiny. So innocuous, another ‘small yet mighty’ plant ally. I am a believer in fate and in signs. I remember what the psychic told me last year. I made a phone call this morning to a woman who sounded like home. I know the feeling of barriers lifting, I know it so well by now. My heart makes that slow thud, thud, that it does when the path clears. The calmness that descends when the universe is conspiring to give you what you asked for. When you surrender and let yourself be carried by the river of change.

When I think of the specific anxieties I have at the moment, I think of a friend of mine who sold all her belongings to travel the world. I think of the way I prop myself up with objects and safe spaces like one big coping mechanism. I think of my father remarking “sometimes you just have to take a chance or you’ll never do anything” and how it was exactly what I needed to hear at that moment. I think of Kali-Ma and that secret desire all women have to decimate egos, lifestyles, ways of being. I think of the spaces we make for safety becoming confining and limiting. I am not who I was, and yet I am not who I will be…

Self-heal, to remind yourself that you have all you need within. For bravery, for courage, for transformation. For resilience and trust. For the power of change - the power TO change. For releasing coping mechanisms that are no longer required. For coming home to your innate healing power. The power to expand, to ask for more. To outgrow old stories. To become.

Ahava

Jenny xxx

Yarrow (The Wise Woman's Folk Herbal Series)

I fondle the leaves of yarrow, so soft and feathery. The whisper from the plant... you can be soft and have boundaries too. For wounded women who give too much, who love too much, who overextend, yarrow is soul medicine.

On a healing journey we can sometimes misinterpret the well-meaning advice "have boundaries". What does that mean? How do you start saying no after a lifetime of saying yes? When the irritation rises and you know that a line, somewhere, has been crossed with your sacred self, how do you approach that with a loved one?

In the beginning we may construct boundaries like electric fences, ending relationships when the irritation rises. We choose to remove rather than repair and we lose a lot of good people that way.

We swing wildly back and forth between people-pleasing and then ostracising. We villainise the humanness of others. We slip into the role of victim, and we become the hero who takes away our own discomfort, preventing true growth.

Because it is hard to love somebody in a healthy way. Because we were never taught how. Because personal responsibility is a new way of being. Now we are required to truly listen to ourselves and others, to navigate relationships without a list of rules, but by feeling in and tuning in, in each moment.

Yarrow says...
I can love you and say no
Conflict is not an emergency
The repair is more important than the rupture

Ahava
Jenny xxx

Elder (The Wise Woman's Folk Herbal Series)

Lessons from Elder

Elen of the Ways, wise Lady, Ellan tree, help me sing my soul back home as I travel along ancient holy paths.

Help me to remember those who have taken this well-worn road before me and call on their wisdom when I need to. Who are the shamans and the doulas for this particular rebirth you are going through? Find them and keep them close.

This morning I grabbed my basket and went to gather elderflowers for drying to make tea. This wonderful tree with its flowers and later on berries can be used to encourage purging of infection, through sweating and urination.

The prettiness of the flowers are all spring in her maiden loveliness and yet, the wisdom underneath is the wisdom of the crone in its truthful reality.

Nothing is as it seems in this hall of mirrors that is healing. Underneath the bride in her wedding dress is the years of processing painful trauma. Behind the perfect birth photos is a woman who has let her ego be decimated in the messy inferno of birth.

Elder says to me today: healing is messy, and necessary. You need to let yourself feel the fear, sweat it out, allow yourself to be cleansed. You have everything you need in the wisdom of your body. Trust the process.

Ahava

Jenny xxx

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