Clarifying and Cooling - July Newsletter
Summer is in full tilt and we are now in Leo season – the season of the scorching sun! Having a dose of Leo energy in my own chart, I ride this season socially and creatively, with plenty of playfulness. But the high energy of summer often has a frenetic quality, especially with the intensity of the heat. Right now, with Mercury retrograding, we are offered a chance at slowing down and reconsidering. Mercury in retrograde is self-reflective, allowing the thoughtful contemplation of truth before sharing. With all these Mercurial threads and general heat, it can feel busy in the undercurrents of the mind.
The herb garden echoes those chaotic currents. As a wild herb gardener, weeding is a thoughtful process. Most of the weeds are essential crops, so it’s often a matter of where they are, how many there are, when they are needed, and how many to let seed. More threads of thought.
Anyway, it’s clean up time – and I’d love to introduce to you one of my favorite weeds. Cleavers is a weed that nestles in, and sometimes dominates, the spaces of the herb beds in early spring and then removes itself by the time the perennials start taking up more space. I like this tidy spatial dance that it does, which echoes its action in the fluids of the body.
Galium aparine. Author’s collection.
Cleavers, a cooling lymphatic plant, is a systemic clarifier. It is helpful for swollen glands or glandular congestion, supporting the immune system.1 It supports systems of elimination – the skin, the urinary tract, liver, and lymphatic system.1,2 This makes it useful for short-term infections like colds and flus, ear infections, urinary tract infections, yeast infections, or other infections involving the genitourinary system.2 Additionally, it is useful in supporting the immune system through the long term with swelling, cysts, prostate enlargement (benign prostatic hypertrophy, or BPH),3 fibrous breast tissue,4 and eruptive skin conditions like eczema and psoriasis.4
Author’s collection.
The cooling effect of cleavers can feel mentally clarifying too, and it has been my go-to tincture for long hot days on the river or when I need to refresh after working in the heat. This mental clarification might be due to the fact that the seeds contain caffeine,3 and there might be small amounts in the arial parts tincture, although I’ve never noticed it disrupting sleep.
Cleavers is like magic for the breasts, and is indispensable for anyone that experiences fibrous engorgement cyclically. I first fell in love with cleavers while breastfeeding – the smallest doses can do wonders for engorgement, clogged ducts, and mastitis. It works well both topically and internally – you can poultice the mashed fresh plant or apply the tincture as a liniment on top of the area of swelling or congestion.
Such a friendly little plant! While they have died back for the year and can no longer be freshly juiced or eaten, I’ve got the fresh plant tincture available at the apothecary. It is also an ingredient in Viral Rescue and Lymph Flush formulas.
UPCOMING EVENTS:
I will be teaching some classes and vending at the Moab Women’s Festival September 13 & 14. Classes include Body Care from the Kitchen Cabinet and Rest and Digest: Optimizing the Digestive System. Tickets are on sale at www.moabwomensfestival.org
1 Tilgner, S. (2009). Herbal medicine from the heart of the earth. Wise Acres LLC.
2Tierra, M. (1998). The Way of Herbs. Pocket Books.
3 Stansbury, J. (2018). Herbal formularies for health professionals: Digestion and Elimination (Vol. 1). Chelsea Green Publishing.
4 Wood, M. (2008). The earthwise herbal: A complete guide to old world medicinal plants. North Atlantic Books.