The subordination of women and the physical destruction of female lay healers and their knowledge was a class battle in which the lower classes lost their healthcare; their birthright as humans born on this earth. The ruling class waged a considered crusade of intimidation on lay healers, and the institutionalisation of sexism in healthcare took root. Women healers did not protect their wisdom, but shared the knowledge of the medical subculture to which they belonged. These women were in tune with nature and her seasons, knew which plants could ease the pains of labour, or which foods could aid in digestive troubles. Their knowledge was an earth-knowledge, it was not protected by university walls or the constraints of poverty. Much of this valuable natural knowledge was intentionally destroyed and discredited by the organised rise of the elite, male, rich, “educated” physician, and the intrinsic spirituality and sympathy of the woman healer became lost in the rigidity of a scientific medicine.

The rise of the “professional” doctor separated the two inextricable halves of the healing art; elevating curing (associated with male intellect, science and reason) to the lofty heights of sequestered, moneyed arrogance, and subordinating caring (associated with tenderness, lack of skill, and empty femininity) to a menial and devalued sideline. Professional medicine was about class and control. Feminine power and autonomy in all areas was abhorred by the patriarchal constraints of the Church. Empowered women presented a religious, social, sexual and political threat to their structure of control, “In the face of the repressive fatalism of Christianity, she held out the hope of change in this world.” The church-endorsed male physician, by design, had become “beyond criticism, beyond reputation, and very nearly beyond competition.” These male doctors served only the ruling classes to which they belonged, winning the battle for control of healthcare by creating financial and social barriers into medicine, elevating the profession and undermining the medicine of nature and of women: “The real issue was control: male upper class healing under the auspices of the Church was acceptable, female healing as part of a peasant subculture was not.”

The deep misogyny of the church, represented in the institutionalised sexism of the male doctor, further subordinated women in their relationship with their own bodies and their own choices in medical care. Women were often subjected to demeaning and dangerous medical treatment, and were labelled neurotic for daring to question, or for attempting to define their medical autonomy.

This mindset is present today, in our feminine subconscious. I often wonder why I feel disempowered when defending herbal medicine, or when questioning the methods or motivations of a pharmaceutical company, a public health measure or a doctor. It is because I hold within me many years of suppressed feminine energy and power. This is why we have to stand and fight the patriarchal bonds that still hold us. This is why I will not just accept the mindset of a male-centric medical system powered only by a desire for power and capitalist gain. There should be no money in healthcare, no plant-medicine should be illegal or restricted from use. If we were all a little more connected to the earth we would be better people, happier people; healthier people. The domination and enslavement of the world and all within it must stop. The divine feminine will rise from her slumber, and she will continue to stand in peaceful resistance. Her tenderness, her essence and her natural power will overcome this patriarchal destroyer which seeks only to further enslave our bodies, our minds and our earth. For we are of the earth, and cannot be without it.

*this essay was originally written almost ten years ago, by me.

Reference: Ehrenreich, Barbara,& English, Deirdre: Witches, Midwives and Nurses

The foraging has been good this year, I find the act of walking the lanes and hedgerows with my basket is always such a joy at this time. The yarrow is wildly abundant, as of course she would be, the lover of drought and desert as she is. The yarrow I have gathered over the last few weeks is destined for my face oil, dreaming and divination salve, lip balm, and the dreamy tea, where she really comes into her own.

My writing is coming along at a decent pace and I’ve almost finished my second book. This one is a more practical companion guide to fostering a deeper relationship with the living land. It cycles through the seasons using the plants as doorways into ways of understanding the cosmology of right relationship that underpins all of my work.

I’ve been harvesting lots of fragrant linden for cold brews and teas as the trees have flowered and are scenting the air with their sweet, clean aroma. You can always tell when linden is ready to be harvested by the stickiness in the air near the trees, and by following the guidance of the wasps who adore her sticky-sweet nectar. If you park your car under a linden tree in full bloom, you will return to a sticky mess, but at least it will smell fragrant and cleansing, and your heart will be fuller for it.

This year I was told for the first time that Linden seeds can be made into a kind of chocolate substitute. Now Linden is, in some way, related to the cacao plant. To make the “chocolate” you gather and roast the seeds and then grind into a powder and use as you would cacao, mixing with fat and sweetener. I’ve heard some say that it’s absolutely delicious, and I’ve heard others say that it’s a complete faff and not at all worth your efforts. Either way, there are some interesting recipes up online if you’d like to try out making Linden chocolate yourself, I haven’t tried it yet.

I have to say that many of the modern, Instagrammable foraging recipes are not particularly practical, and are often done with a little too much enthusiasm. And I wonder how much of our lives we have allowed to be polluted by the idea of externalising our actions. To do something specifically for social media has become so ubiquitous now as to almost not be questioned. But for me, a woman of almost forty six years who remembers well a time where that would have been seen as quite an odd thing to do, it feels like disconnection from reality. So maybe I won’t bother with the linden seed chocolate. I certainly won’t film it if I do.

Who is looking good right now in the hedgerow?

Mallow has been calling me, a beautiful flower, edible, vibrant, and bright pinky-purple. The flowers are wonderful for coughs if made into an infusion. You can dry them for later use in the year or use them fresh, just steep in boiling water and add a little honey. Mallow is a wonderful mucilaginous herb, so helps with a dry cough or scratching in the throat. The leaves of mallow are also edible, highly nutritious, and tasty. They make a wonderful soup in the springtime, and are great as an addition to salads, but they can be eaten throughout the year. Just make sure that when you pick your mallow leaves, they haven’t already been mostly consumed by the bugs who seem to really, really love them too.

We’re still eating lots of nettles here in my house. I keep a patch in the garden that I trim back all the time and eat so that we have fresh, young nettles (before the flowering stage) to support us in our nourishment and blood building as often as we need.

The last of the cleavers is hanging on in the hedgerows. Making cleavers into a delicious cold brew to be drunk in the morning before any coffee or tea will help to cleanse and stimulate your lymphatic system, wonderful for clearing any kind of overnight congestion from the tissues.

What’s good in the apothecary

The yarrow oil is really coming into its own as the most beautiful harvests of yarrow have been gifted to me by my local wild edges and hedges. As always, Bone-Deep Healing Balm, The Well Maiden is flying off the shelves. I’m always so happy to see this creation wandering off into distant parts of the world to heal old wounds, and to help with movement, stagnation, and flow.

I’ve also got two flower essences that I made in the spring and quite forgot about. There’s a Winter Purslane and a Cherry Blossom, and they will be available very soon.

I’m starting a few new things on Substack for subscribers. There will be a little podcast, which is mostly going to be me rambling on about plants, nature connection, nature resonance, and all things cosmological. Coming up at some point there will be some kind of online gathering, which doesn’t actually require your face or voice to be seen or heard. It’s something I’m working out, pulling down from the ethers to see if it could be something, or not. You are all welcome

www.wildfolkapothecary.com

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I am also starting a monthly Wild Dreaming Circle for paid subscribers. It will be an online place of connection and community but without any pressure to be seen or heard. A circle of humans who wish to dream a world of resonance into being together, each taking their own strand of the web and weaving it their own way. The time can be spent journaling, meditating, creating, writing, dancing, whatever you wish, but we will be there together to connect our dreams of a world of wild resonance and reconnection. Date TBC.

If you would like to join either of these offerings, consider upgrading to a paid subscription. It helps to support my work and allows me to dream up new ways of destroying the systems of domination through resonance and real, natural remembering.

Blessings from the hedgerows.

Bernadette

It took many years of walking this path for my wisdom to grow into an understanding of how truly magical the realms that we inhabit are; of how what happens in one realm affects another and is therefore real, and true. Of how the universe that we live in is responsive and alive, and that we are responsible, conscious actors expressing consciousness through it.

There is a fundamental and inescapable responsibility held by a conscious being in a conscious universe, whose very thoughts and imaginings can become doorways into new realms; whose actions create ripples in past and future, who understands that time is not a linear thing but a continuum; yet another aspect of the conscious and relational cosmology in which they exist. We are part of the fabric of reality, and we cannot escape our responsibility to it.

If God is dead, everything is permitted, wrote Dostoyevsky, offering morality as an objective force governed by a vengeful man in the sky, but what if we take that same sentiment and replace God with cosmology? What happens then? What if it is not the death of God (or objective moral judgement) we need to fear, but the death of responsibility; the flattening of a cosmology of right relationship which holds balance as the force of “morality” right at the centre into a place to ascend from, or escape.

The idea that we live in some kind of simulation is so far from this understanding of a conscious reality that I find it hard to even fathom. When you have seen and felt the difference between the physical, the non-physical, the unseen, the astral, the ancestral, space-time, reality, and consciousness; between the lands that we can travel to and the places that we can go, you know that “real” is a term bandied about far too readily in the rational world, and that calling anything a simulation is a really neat way of avoiding unavoidable responsibility in this physical realm.

In my understanding of what real, natural magic is, it is healthy power, wisdom, movement, and vitality in alignment with the forces of nature, the forces of creativity and the embodiment of the absolute sovereign responsibility of maintaining right relationship to the living cosmology in which we exist. Magic is not seeking power over anything else, or trying to control reality and the other autonomous beings within it, I’m talking about your love spells, or your “manifestations” of riches, or your hexes, for example. That is something else. I suppose you could call it sorcery. Perhaps you could call it witchcraft, some surely do, but that is not real magic, that is the upsetting of power and the inversion of balance. And that is why I do not call myself a witch. (Bear with me here, if you can, I know this will get many hackles up, because the word has become so heavy and drenched in identity and self-adornment, but that is my point, and I will try to explain myself clearly.)

I want to be clear that this is not a case for reclamation. It is not the case that I am carrying the weight of the word through the eyes of Christian derogation and demonisation, or that I have an unhealed witch wound. All of my life, I have been seen as a witch of sorts. I was born on Halloween, so it naturally followed. I have foraged and connected with plants since I was a child, and I have been called to the old ways since before this lifetime. I have been called ‘witch’ as both compliment and insult, and I have revelled in the power of it too. I understand the allure.

It is what has been done with the word in recent times that it is the driving force here. It is about reverence, for words, for terms, for honour, for who adorns us and with what. The word witch is not an adornment I wish for. I do not wish to be aligned with those practices which seek to control, which step out of alignment with the responsibility that is our birthright and our burden in this conscious, responsive reality in which we live, even while understanding that many who call themselves witch are working with nature, I still think the self-adornment needs more scrutiny.

In its essence, the ancient term which simply derives from knowing and wisdom is perfect, but from the medieval usage to the modern, we have seen a weighting, a maligning, then a flattening, hollowing, and aestheticisation of an ancient word that has led to a corruption of meaning. The reason for my discomfort when others refer to themselves as witch is based on the origin of the word, and it feels uncouth, presumptuous, and perhaps even a little smug to refer to oneself as wise. Surely wise is a title bestowed upon you by those around you who have seen you to be so, who have benefited from that wisdom. Wise is not a title that you bestow upon yourself.

And that right there is the mismatch for me. That is the part that makes me both angry and sad, because in a time when we’ve lost our elders, they have abandoned us for cruise packages and retirement plans, they have forgotten their place, and we have lost a deep well of knowledge and wisdom as a result. Because they have no elders to guide them, people have simply adorned themselves with titles of wisdom, and that is not the way of balance and right relationship.

I am lucky to have found my own guides and elders, to have learned from the plants and the land, to have done an apprenticeship under real people, to walk with the land and to learn how to hear it, to see through into the fabric of the cosmology with a reverence which is burned into my consciousness. I claim no title, I hold no certificate, my allegiance is only to the balance of right relationship and my sovereign responsibility to the whole. I have no name for what I am. And that can make me feel vulnerable and unrecognised in a world of identity badges.

There has been a glamorisation of the idea of the witch, and witchcraft, and even the witch burnings, and it is distasteful and disrespectful to fetishise such things. The amount of people claiming to have been burned at the stake in a previous life is insane. The word witch needs to be released from aestheticisation, if there is any hope of restoring its true meaning. The same goes for our diverse and precious ancient land based spiritual practices here in Europe. Alongside the word witch, they have been fetishised, glamorised, aestheticised, and flattened into an identity with a cottagecore costume and no fucking meaning.

The path of wisdom is a practice of living close to the earth, a practice that needs to be remembered and honored, not fetishised. True wisdom is the ability to go to the land as an equal, to stand eye to eye with the spirits in the understanding that they do not hold the same sense of morality or fairness that we may do. It is to stand in equality with egregores of place, with astral entities, with plant beings, and to hold your space as a being of the earth, as a being of spirit, and as a being of wisdom. No title is needed to do that, your personal identity is irrelevant, what is important is what you bring to the table.

One of the strange things about this polarised world in which we live, is that I feel a pull to qualify what I’m saying, a pull to let others know that they need not argue if they don’t share the same opinions. But I also know that this is a particular word and a particular subject that many have taken as part of their identity when that identity is rooted in an externalised, aestheticised wanting rather than a core of interconnectedness with the magical fabric of reality. And that is a far deeper and more important distinction than the need to defend one’s choices and the way that one defines oneself.

We live in a world of illusions where everybody can pretend to be whatever they want to be. But there is a cost to that pretence, and until we can get comfortable with what we say that we are and whether that is really true, and whether what we say we are matches up with our true, natural selves, we cannot truly know who we are beneath all of these labels that we put upon ourselves. What we say about ourselves matters. Pretending to be something that you are not is a house of cards for the psyche, and for the natural soul, that is a very dangerous thing to do. Sure, you might get to the top of your game by grifting, pretending to be something you aren’t. You might make lots of money. You might convince lots of people of your status and prowess and skill. People might lap up everything that you say, but you know deep down inside that it is not real. You know that it is based on falsehood, and for your soul, who knows what is real, that is not acting in integrity, and it has a high price.

A real path is tempered by a true understanding of one’s own calling. Once the natural soul is heard, there will always be a core that guides, holds, and resonates through it all. That doesn’t mean that we cannot change our opinions, but that once the path is found and walked with integrity, there is nothing that can pull you off. You might falter. You might stumble. You might take a wrong turn, but the path is always there, and the wild, connected heart is always ahead of you.

And so the question comes: if you call yourself a witch, have you sat with what that means to you? Have you sat with its badge of ego or desire for a certification, or its underlying structures of false power? Have you sat with your desire to control the world around you instead of aligning with it? And so I ask, if you call yourself a witch, is there a path through all of the noise where you can stand in integrity? Where you can look to the plant beings and the spirits and see them truly as equals, and understand that you are not always everything that you say you are.

Because the energy behind this word is a shape shifter. It seeks to transmute definition because by its very nature, it is a state of resonance, and it moves, and it shifts, and it changes.

Have you sat with the identity of witch and the word in the dark of the night in the quiet woodland with your heart beating close to the earth? Have you sat with the word, down by the river, with the comfrey bursting up all around you and speaking of community? Have you sat with the word in the bright summer meadow as the yarrow waves in the breeze and speaks to you of sovereignty? Have you asked your ancestors who you really are, who they want you to be, and what they would call you? Have you sat with the word in your community, in your work with others, in your heartfelt wishes of reconnection for all beings? For if you have not, you do not deserve to use that word, and you must step away and allow it to become what it once was.

Until all who call themselves witch can stand in integrity and honour with all that it means, and all they have adorned themselves with, and the weight of that adornment, then the meaning cannot be restored.

So do not call me witch, for what you call a witch is not who I am.

By the time I remembered it, it had fermented so perfectly and was exactly as tart and fizzy and floral as you could imagine. I bottled in sterilised Kilner bottles (my first mistake), stored it in the strange dark space we have between the washing machine and the sink, and promptly forgot about it again. Over the next few weeks I heard the odd strange thudding-banging noise, loud enough to spook me (our house is very old, so strange bangs aren’t that unusual, but these were different). Eventually I figured out my elderflower champagne was exploding, rescued the remaining bottles and spent a delightful afternoon clearing the sticky mess from underneath my kitchen appliances.

My advice for making anything with elderflowers is to sniff each bloom individually before picking, that way you will only select the most fragrant for your creations. Also, make sure that it is a clear, sunny day, and do not wash the flowers, the natural yeasts and pollens add to the flavour (and help in fermentation, if champagne is your goal).

Alongside elderflower, this is a wonderful time to gather fragrant rose petals. Rose and elderflower in an infusion is a wonderful immunity tea, delicious, delicate, and useful for allergies and infections. Add a little raw local honey for even more immune boosting.

The yarrow and mugwort are just coming into fullness, and this is a good reminder to dream your dreamings during the fullness of the summer greening. Place a leaf of each beneath your pillow and ask to dream of answers, or guidance, or wisdom. I’d love to know what you dream of.

The handmade skincare at the apothecary comes into its own in the summer months, as so many of my creations are infused with wildflowers. The rose and neroli face and scalp mist and wild yarrow serum are some of my favourites, alongside the rose lip balm.

The summer is such a beautiful time of blossoming and blooming, what are you brewing now in these verdant days?

If you’d like to embrace the dreaming time, have a look at my courses, Elemental Thresholds, and Mugwort - Moon Matriarch

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The thing (object of creation) exists somewhere in another realm before the artist can paint it, or the sculptor chisel it out, or the writer untangle it. That is surely how it feels for me, a book, a poem, an idea, arrives in my body fully formed but in a non-physical language that I must unpick and unpack, stroke the tendrils of and lay out in such a way that it can be translated into something tangible in this world.

Not all things are meant for me, and I may try to bring them down to earth and fail, or misinterpret, or just step back and allow that force to go on without me. Not all ideas need to be realised, they exist in their own way where they are and perhaps that is exactly where they belong.

To understand right relationship we must understand that we are finite, that in this physical form we are earth and water and air, that this life is sacred and precious and also, at its core, responsible and relational.

We are responsible for the creative forces we allow to come through us. In an animate universe we are in relationship with the whole web of life, and we are therefore, in our small and interconnected parts, responsible for the creation of the fabric of a relational, creative reality.

The job of the artist is to act as the vessel through which the right aspects of the creative force can move and be made manifest. Artists and poets are the expressers of the creative forces of life, they are the channels through which the creative principle operates. There is discernment and responsibility in artistry. It is not for everyone.

The object of creation is not an inert thing. It does not exist for the sake of existing. It is alive already, it is just not here. The job of the artist is to pull it down or dig it up, to stare longingly into its depths, to let it change them as it comes, and to form it into an offering to the forces of nature.

To use AI to bring these creative energies into the physical world is an act of such astonishing irresponsibility. To use an inorganic, fake consciousness as a go-between in the creative process is to allow that inorganic thing to intervene in the very fabric of the creative process, which forms our animate reality. That intervention is fundamentally damaging to the balance of responsible right relationship.

Being the vessel is a responsibility so vast that we are altered by it, as the force flows through we become more, more aware, more powerful-full, more connected. We are in cahoots with the living universe, and if we circumvent that process we are diverting the forces of creation. Being changed by the creative force is the whole point. It is an act of being in relationship with a living cosmology.

To outsource the receipt of this energy is to abandon yourself as an organic being in an animate universe. It is to leave the forces of creation unmet, and to abdicate responsibility for the world you are creating.

The argument that it is somehow “ableist” to criticise the use of AI in the creation of art, writing, and music, is to flatten all human lives into one, to not see that we are all different pieces in a living cosmology, and that not all things are for all people. It is to, yet again, elevate the individual to dizzying heights of importance and to situate that individual outside the web of life. It is to act outside of the boundaries of right relationship. It is to destroy the fabric of a creative universe. Every spark of creative fire which is diverted and disrupted by an irresponsible, inorganic, fake consciousness, is contributing to further imbalance in our animate world.

And anyway, I love this little business that I have somehow pulled down from the stars and up from the roots and nourished into something which has my heart threaded right through it. Now it has grown to encompass my writing as well, in a more real way, as my book (I still feel like a presumptuous arsehole saying that), and well, now its books, actually, I am writing a second book, Rituals of Remembering a Living Land (working title) which will be published in October 2027. Being a published author has always been a dream of mine, but in the clearing mists of excitement comes also the realisation that even when one of your oldest dreams comes true you are still yourself, you are still tied to your own idiosyncrasies and you still have to live inside the soft shell of who you are.

I am going to be making some changes to the way I run my apothecary, and the first part of that is the way I communicate with all of you lovely people who have taken the time to subscribe to my substack. I appreciate each and every one of you, and I thank you for being here with me. From now on, I will be sending a monthly newsletter with some reflections on what I’m making and foraging, on the wild plants, and what’s good or new in the apothecary. Instead of raising my prices I am going to stop doing such regular sales and introduce a £25 threshold for free postage. Email list subscribers will also always get 10% off across the board, and I have a new free guide to hearing the language of plants which new subscribers will receive, and which you can all access through the link below.

LINK HERE

What’s Good to Forage

Lime/Linden leaves - Did you know the leaves of this beautiful heart-healer are not only edible but deliciously tasty? They often grow along streets and in churchyards, and can be identified by their heart-shaped leaves and sticky-sweet flowers which attract swarms of buzzing insects later in the season.

Hawthorn - leaves and flowers - Another heart herb, this time in the rose family. The hawthorn was once known as the bread-and-cheese tree, and her leaves, flowers, and berries are all edible and a tonic for the multidimensional heart. Hawthorn leaves, before they get too tough later in the year, can be added to salads and sandwiches and have a fresh, slightly bitter taste. The flowers can be used to adorn cakes and salads, or nibbled as hedgerow snacks.

Garlic mustard/Jack by the hedge - This member of the mustard family has a root as hot as horseradish, and the leaves can be used as you would any leaf, raw or cooked. It’s good in a pesto, but my favourite thing to do is to gather the largest leaves, blanch them, and then use them to wrap a rice salad filled with wild greens.

Nettle - before the nettle starts to flower, the nutrition she can offer the human body is second to none. Absolutely packed with vitamins and minerals in a format the body can easily assimilate, we add nettles to soups, pesto, omelettes, cakes, pancakes, lasagne, honestly anywhere I can get more nettles into my life.

What I’m Making

I’ve been busy in the apothecary Infusing herbs into organic cold-pressed oils for my balms. I use a huge amount of dried herbs in each batch, which is why the oils and balms are so potent. Once prepared, they sit on a sunny windowsill taking in all the nourishment of the warmth and the vitality of the sun.

What’s Good in the Apothecary

I’m loving using the vegan Beauty Balm. It’s lighter than the original formula and great for this time of year when the skin doesn’t need as much moisture. I also use the Deep Cleanse & Nourish Balm to give myself a full-body scrub with a cloth, which makes me feel alive and moisturised at the same time. The St. John’s Wort infused ritual oil, Aine is proving popular this month, the scent is heady and bright, and the call of summer is obviously stirring in the bones. My hawthorn flower essence is in her element of heart-path transformation too, as the foamy blossoms fill the hedgerows once again. There are only two spaces left on the foraging walk on Sunday, which I’m really looking forward to. There is so much wonderful wild food around at this time of year, and when we turn to the wild and sink into deep time, we can take a break from the relentless chaos of the world.

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Ground ivy reaches into the lungs and pulls out those last little bits that won’t release, that cough that feels unproductive, or that last little rasp in the lungs that is preventing a full breath. Our friend Ground Ivy will help to draw that out and remove it from the body.

Nettle is such deep-bone nourishment. She will nourish every cell, every corner, every unseen part of you in ways you didn’t even know that you needed. Do not be shy with the ground ivy in this soup. Yes, it is a strong and intensely flavoured herb, but once you mix it with nettle and the other ingredients in the soup, I promise you, it will be fragrant, complex, and deeply delicious.

The quantities for this recipe depend on how you like your soup. In my house, we like our soups quite thick, so we use a little more potato and a little less stock. But adjust to your own tastes.

Nettle and Ground Ivy Soup

Ingredients

(quantities depend on how you like your soup)

– 1 large onion

– Butter or olive oil

– 5–6 cloves of garlic

– A few dried whole coriander seeds (optional, but they really lift the flavour)

– 2 large potatoes, chopped (or burdock root if you want to be true to your ancestral roots)

– Stock, just enough to cover

– 30–40 nettle tops (fresh, green spring nettles, not yet flowering)

– 20–30 generous sprigs of ground ivy

– Salt and black pepper (be very generous)

Method

Start by frying one large onion in butter or olive oil. Soften it out, then add in a good few cloves of garlic.

At this stage, drop in a few dried whole coriander seeds, if using.

Add in your chopped potatoes and sweat everything down.

Pour in your stock, just about covering what you’ve got in the pan (you can adjust this depending on how thick you like your soup).

Once your potatoes are just soft, add in your nettle tops and your ground ivy. Cook these for about five minutes, no more.

Then blend your soup to a lovely, smooth consistency.

Do not be shy with the seasoning - be very generous with your black pepper and your salt.

To serve

Serve in a big, beautiful bowl, with a dollop of Greek yoghurt, maybe a sprinkle of nettle seeds or ground ivy flowers, and some bread alongside.

If you wanted to be really true to your ancestral roots, you could use burdock root instead of potato. That is the root vegetable that was most used in these lands before the potato came here. You could use wild garlic or a wild onion or a wild chive as your allium. It is possible to make this soup almost completely foraged if you have the resources and the wherewithal to do so.

This really is a magic potion more than it is a soup. It is a healing elixir. It will nourish you from the ground up and you will feel it in every part of your body. A bowl of this medicine will fill you in ways that you didn’t know that you needed to be filled. All of those little holes within you that were crying out for nourishment will all of a sudden feel satiated. And from that place of deep nourishment, we can see the world in a different way, and can feel ourselves more connected. That is the magic and the wonder of wild food.

She is no relation to true Ivy, but gained her folk name from her creeping growth pattern and Ivy-like appearance. Also known as Alehoof due to her ability to clarify ale, (and her hoof-shaped leaves).

For coughs a tea of her fresh or dried leaves mixed with a little honey is a wonder. She has drying and draining properties, so clears congestion, colds, sinus headaches, and catarrh. She drives away fogginess and restores mental clarity. She has even been used to treat tinnitus. She clears the head, the ears, nose, and throat. Her action is very much focused above the neck, as she clears the lymphatic system in the upper body.

An often overlooked aromatic member of the mint family. To identify her look for square stems, opposite paired leaves of dark green to purple with tiny soft hairs, and protruding trumpet like purple-blue flowers.

She has notes of sage, of mint, and a deep aromatic quality which calls me back to ancient times when her leaves and her medicine would have been a thankful sight in the bleak winter woodland.

She has a soft clarity about her, a creeping, hiding in plain sight kind of energy. Existing below the radar, hugged close to the forest floor in hushed hues, her magic is potent and clarifying.

Ground Ivy has a strong association with witches and witchcraft, used in spells to seek clarity and to see and hear malign influence more clearly. Using Ground Ivy in this way is said to reveal the person who is working evil magic against you. A useful thing indeed!

She can help in opening the hearing to that which you don’t want to hear (but need to). She helps with expression and speaking truth by energetically (and physically) clearing the throat.

As a saining herb she is helpful to drive away, to banish, to clear. Her head clearing properties means she can drive away unwanted thought forms from energetic space and clear the mind (and the space you are clearing) of unwanted outside influence.

Ground Ivy was considered a protector against sorcery and bewitchment, and was worn by milkmaids as a charm to prevent the cows from being enchanted. This potent little being was often woven into crowns and worn on midsummer eve.

I’m love using the little woodland, wayside, and garden treasure that is Ground Ivy as a smoke cleansing herb. I also like to add a few leaves to soups for her aromatic and savoury flavour.

As an aside, Ground Ivy is a great soother of nettle stings, far superior to dock leaves.

I could go on… but I will return to her heady scent and her earthy magic.

Mugwort has long been known as the bridge between the worlds, a sacred plant being of hedgerow and meadow who carries the power of dream, of vision, and of freedom. She is an opener of doors, a guardian of thresholds, a holder of ancient wisdom, a key to unlocking who we truly are beyond the confines of conditioning.

Mugwort has opened many doors for me in my practice and in my body, in my visions and in my understanding of my place here on this earth. She is a plant with the power to show us through the veils of corruption, culture, and capital, and to bring us back into resonance with natural law.

Today, I’m honouring her with a cake, a dream cake, it’s like a magical, hedgerow twist on a classic Victoria Sandwich. I fed this to my 93 year old Nana (who has just made me new curtains, the woman is a living legend) and she loved it, although she does have a weakness for my hedgerow jelly!

If you are pregnant or breastfeeding, you might want to give this one a miss, but as always, make up your own mind.

Mugwort & Almond Dream Cake

Ingredients

• 100g plain flour (gluten-free or regular)

• 100g ground almonds

• 150g soft butter

• 150g caster sugar

• 4 eggs

• 2 tsp baking powder

• 2 generous handfuls fresh mugwort leaves, finely chopped

• Hedgerow jelly or blackcurrant/blackberry jam (for filling)

• A few extra mugwort leaves to decorate

• Icing sugar to dust

Method

Preheat your oven to 180°C (160°C fan).

Grease and line two 9-inch cake tins.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until pale, light, and fluffy.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Gently fold in the ground almonds and flour.

Stir in the baking powder.

Fold through the finely chopped mugwort leaves.

Divide the mixture evenly between the tins and smooth the tops.

Bake for 20–30 minutes, or until the cakes are risen and golden and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tins briefly, then turn out onto a rack to cool completely.

Sandwich the cakes with the jam or jelly between, one cake with hedgerow jelly or blackcurrant jam, dust with icing sugar, and decorate with the reserved leaves of mugwort.

Remember that I have a full-on immersion with Mugwort, in course form, available on my website.

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Wild plants are still free to express themselves, they are vibrant and filled with their natural ways of being. They haven't been shoved into a box to make them more palatable, or more transportable, or more accessible to more people. They just are who they are. And for nettles, as an example, they wear their mineral-rich wonder right there in their flavour profile.

They taste earthy, sometimes even a little bit metallic, they taste incredibly green and verdant and awake and alive. They are rich and deep, and they taste of the deep, rich earth. And that is something that we often have to train ourselves back into knowing and craving in our bodies, as we have been so trained to expect sweetness and softness and homogeneity, but that is not the natural way of things, and wild foods keep us guessing, challenging us to flow with the seasons, the phases of the moon, the time of day, the weather, and the quality of the relationships we have with the world around us.

Eating wild foods reminds us, right down to a cellular level, that we are made of wildness too.

Nettle and Lemon Balm Hearth Biscuits

These are kind of like flat scones, they sit somewhere between a scone and a biscuit. Crumbly, like a good scone, but flatter and more crispy. They have lots of cheese inside and sprinkled on the top, and they’re filled with chopped nettles and lemon balm. Serve them with butter, or alongside some soup, or with a homemade hedgerow jelly and some mature cheddar. These can also be cooked on a griddle like a bannock, or even on a stick over a fire.

Ingredients

• 100g cold butter

• 20 fresh nettle tops

• 10 lemon balm sprigs

• 150–200g gluten-free flour (you can of course use regular plain flour)

• 1 tsp baking powder

• Pinch of salt

• Freshly ground black pepper

• 75–100g mature cheddar, grated

• 3-4 tablespoons of yogurt/buttermilk

Method

Preheat the oven to 180.

Chop the nettles and lemon balm finely by hand

In a bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, salt, and pepper.

Grate the cold butter into the flour and mix gently with a fork (ten less you touch the dough the more crispy and crumbly the biscuits will be)

Add the grated cheese, nettle and lemon balm.

Add the yogurt and mix so the dough just comes together.

Roll the dough out only once to about an 3/4 inch thick, then cut into squares.

Brush the tops with a little milk and sprinkle with extra cheese.

Bake until golden, crusty, and crispy (around 20-25 minutes, but depends on your oven).

Serve warm or cooled, with butter, mature cheddar, and a hedgerow jelly, chilli jam, or chutney.

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Two generous handfuls of fresh young cleavers

Twenty spring nettle tops

Five or six leaves of yarrow

A handful of ground elder

A handful of three-cornered leek (can be substituted with spring onion

Five or six large garlic cloves

A pinch of chilli flakes

A generous glug of olive oil, adjusting to taste

Four tablespoons magnolia vinegar, or to taste (can substitute red wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar)

A generous pinch of salt, to taste

Juice of half a lime

Blend everything into a smooth, raw, wild sauce.

Taste and adjust the flavourings before transferring to a jar. It may be a little bitter — that’s good. It’s a good sign. That is the wild food doing its job, stimulating your liver and your digestive system. If the bitterness feels too much, add a very small amount of honey.

Once you have adjusted the seasoning to your liking, place the sauce in the fridge and allow the flavours to meld for three or four hours, or overnight.

Serve over boiled new potatoes, as a dipping sauce, with meat or fish, or with eggs. Or spread it on toast. Feel alive with wild goodness.

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I want everyone to feel entirely inferior to and attacked by me and my ridiculously beautiful cake.

It has a whole basket of nettles inside it, and a homemade blackberry jam made from blackberries I foraged with my bare hands last year. I am outraged by myself in fairness.

This cake hates you and wants to inspire you to hate yourself too.

I’ve cobbled a recipe of sorts together too, for your edification and delight.

Nettle & Blackberry Cake

Ingredients

For the Cake:

• 20 fresh, young nettle tops

• 3 eggs

• 150 g softened butter

• 150 g caster sugar

• 150 g flour (plus extra if needed)

• 3 tsp baking powder

• 2 tbsp nettle seeds

• 2 tbsp lemon juice

For the Filling and Icing:

• 3–4 tbsp blackberry jam

• Icing sugar

• Lemon juice

• Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan).

• Grease and line two 9-inch cake pans.

• Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.

• Blend the nettle tops with the eggs.

• Mix the nettle and egg mixture into the creamed butter and sugar.

• Stir in the lemon juice and nettle seeds.

• Sift over the flour and baking powder and mix until thick. Add a little extra flour if the batter seems too runny.

• Divide the batter evenly between the two prepared pans.

• Bake for 10–20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Set aside to cool.

• Spread blackberry jam between the two cakes.

Mix icing sugar and lemon juice to a pourable consistency. Drizzle over the cake in a chic and lackadaisical fashion.

Decorate with wildflowers. Serve, and feel smug about your life choices.

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Both the three-cornered leek and the few-flowered leek are non-native and technically invasive (which means eating them is a moral imperative). They spread incredibly quickly down waterways and often escape from gardens to populate urban areas with their oniony deliciousness. These mild wild onions are fantastically healthy for us, enlivening the cells as alliums do, helping the body to slough off some of the burdens of winter so that we can be spring-refreshed on the inside.

Wild garlic Allium ursinum, one of our native wild alliums, is sometimes known as bear garlic (indeed, the Latin ursinum means bear) because the bears are known to feast upon it when they come out of hibernation. The bears know that wild garlic stimulates the sleepy, sluggish digestive system and prepares it for the year to come.

In my house, we've been using as much of the alliums as possible this spring (and every spring if I’m honest). I've got many recipes that I love; wild leek soup, wild garlic pesto, wild leek bread, savoury green pancakes… 

Today, I've been making wild onion bhajis, and they are absolutely delicious. They will not have the same sweetness to them as a regular onion bhaji, but they are so filled with nutrition, a cell-deep nutrition which comes from the wild. 

It’s so important at this time that we try to get as much wild food into us as possible. For reasons of health, of course, but also for reasons of sovereignty and freedom. Every time we eat wild foods, we are setting out our stall as a being of nature. Every time we choose to enliven ourselves with wild, natural medicine, we are reminding our bodies of our true wild nature. Every time we choose to eat something from the hedgerow rather than from the supermarket, we are taking a stand against food waste, against food poverty, and against a lack of knowledge in our natural environment. 

And so, I am going to share my recipe for wild onion bhajis. Now, personally, I don't like to deep fry things, so I have shallow fried these, but you can deep fry them or even cook them in the oven (or air fryer I guess, I have no idea). You’ll need about two generous handfuls of three-cornered leek, or few-flowered leek. This recipe is naturally gluten-free and naturally vegan too. 

If you feel the need, you can wash your wild greens. I often don't unless they have obvious dirt on them, because natural wild foods contain a stock of naturally occurring probiotics which are incredibly beneficial for the digestive system.

Wild Onion Bhajis

Ingredients

• 2 generous handfuls three-cornered leek or few-flowered leek (chopped into 2–3 inch lengths)

• 1 tbsp minced ginger

• 1 green chilli, finely chopped

• 2–3 garlic cloves, minced

• 2 tsp ground cumin

• 2 tsp ground coriander

• 2 tsp chilli flakes

• 1 tsp salt (or to taste)

• 1 tbsp cornflour

• ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

• 130g gram flour (chickpea flour)

• ~100ml water (sparkling if possible; adjust as needed)

• Oil, for frying

Method

1. Place all ingredients except the water and oil into a bowl.

2. Gradually add the water, mixing until you have a thick batter (slightly thicker than double cream).

3. Heat oil in a pan for shallow frying (or deep fry if preferred).

4. Spoon small portions of the mixture into the hot oil.

5. Fry until golden and crisp, turning as needed.

6. Transfer to a plate and allow to cool slightly before serving.

Serve warm with raita, chutney, or a dipping sauce of your choice (these are particularly good with spiced damson chutney or a cucumber and lemon balm raita).

Blessings from the hedgerows.

As always, what is outside reflects what is in. And attentions turn to the cleansing of the neglected corners within the self. The world outside gathers itself into a state of springness, and we are drawn towards that which can slough the dust from inside the body.

The question that we should all be asking ourselves at this time of year, as natural humans, or as humans feeling the pull back to more natural ways of being, is how much wild food (how much pure wildness of spirit) can I feasibly get into myself? And what will happen if I eat so much of that wildness that I unhitch myself from the systems which separate me from the great web of life and my place within it?

As the brightness, and the freshness, and the great offerings of nutrition from the earth start to return in springtime abundance, ingesting this wildness as a cosmological connection to the cycles can help us to see through and detach ourselves from the systems and the machinery of extraction. To ingest the wild is to become wilder, more free, more connected. It is to understand our place as both custodians of nature and integral, living, responsible parts.

And that knowing calms the noise. The din of opinion, the cloying mush of electronic commentary. We have deeper wells to plumb. Wells of wisdom and remembering. Deep shimmering wells of imbas and awen. There is so much to remember when we remember who and what we are.

If the only wild thing you can confidently identify is nettles, then that is what you should consume. The wild is reflected back to you by the plants. Nettle will guide you back to a place of real resonance.

If all you can face is cake, then put some nettles in it.

Nettle Greenies
I’m always looking for new ways to get nettles into my life, and these are absolutely delicious. Lemony and fresh and gooey like a brownie but also virtuous because they’re full of nettles.

Ingredients;
Generous handful of spring nettle tops
2 cups ground almonds
100g caster sugar
3 eggs
Juice of 1 lemon & 1/2 orange
Zest of 1 lemon
Splash vanilla
125g butter

Icing sugar and lemon juice for icing

Method;
Preheat oven to 180 and line a smallish pan with baking paper.
Blend nettles with two of the eggs, fruit juices and vanilla. Set aside.

Melt the butter in a pan. Add everything else except icing ingredients. Mix well.

Pour into pan. Bake until firmish. About 20-30mins depending on your oven.

Allow to cool then drizzle with icing.

They aren’t swampy at all. They are full of virtue, and fire, and wildness.

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Hope can be intoxicating, alluring, and beset with falsehoods. Hope is a thing of not knowing in the bones; a thing of not seeing with the inner eyes; a thing of not embedding into the wisdom of the cycles. Hope is like a drug for the disconnected. The birds don’t succumb, and neither do I. We know that all hierarchical systems fall eventually; the only constant is the cosmology itself and its dips and troughs of shimmering movement. To surrender to the cosmology of consciousness is an act of devotion, and devotion requires no hope.

I like to watch the birds, to hear their songs and fancy that I can understand every note they sing; to sit still enough and slow my breathing so they come close and investigate me without fear. I eagerly await the return of the swifts and swallows, their swooping and diving carrying my spirit up with them to feel the wisping of their life on the wing. The comforting ever-presence of Blackbird and Robin throughout the winter holds me and helps me to remember that being here in these cold months is medicine in itself.

It is Chickweed, Stellaria media who draws my attention this week, for she is as cold and damp as the cold dark Earth.

She will cool your burning skin, cool your overzealous heart, cool your temper, and slow you down if you’re in need of a bit of chill. She cools the late winter restlessness in the edges of the being, as we feel uncomfortable in our dreaming skins, filled with the detritus of our dark-time imaginings.

Chickweed is a tasty wild green and her flavour is unchallenging to the non-trained palate. Many foraged foods can feel excessively bitter to those who are not used to eating them, but Chickweed is gentle, fleshy, and mild. Her flowers are minute and starry-eyed, white flashes low in the hedgerow. She is a good gateway herb into the foraging life, as she will not offend mouths used to sweetness with her flavour.

Chickweed also makes a delicious cooling vinegar, a wonderful poultice for any kind of burn, or for a case of hot eczema. Her juice applied to the temples will cool a hot headache (and a hot headed person). Simply pound her juicy, mucilaginous leaves in a mortar and pestle, place the pulp over the area which requires cooling, and cover with a bandage.

Blessings from the hedgerows.

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There’s a sense of stagnation in the air outside, and our nests have become filthy with all the nesting. The sense of spring being just around the corner lends a layer of detritus to the psyche; those deep winter dreamings have created some issue that is in want of transmutation.

So now is a time for beginning the shift of stagnation. Let us start the starting to enliven ourselves once again; preparing for the coming of the new life and light of spring. The cleansing, the growth, the newness. But right now, while we’re still waiting it feels heavy, it feels stagnant, and it feels like it holds the waste products naturally created in dreaming; in darkness that now seeks escape.

And so for this I turn to my old friend Nettle. She is the fiery shifter of stagnation, but she’s also giving a nourishment that filters through every layer of our being. The nettles aren’t quite as abundant as I would like for this imbuing, but they’re coming. And even if we can only gather enough for one small pot of tea each day, that is enough to begin the process.

The ritual of renewal becomes as simple as the making of a strong nettle infusion of an evening before bed, and leaving it overnight to be drunk throughout the next day, welcoming the fires of transformative nourishment.

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The reclamation of our sovereignty and the inhabitation of our full selves as they are, not as we are told they should be, is a rebellion against a culture that feeds on the innocence and malleability of youth, transforming that innocence into fuel for the machines of domination, misogyny, and hierarchy.

To allow ourselves to be reclaimed by the wild and mossy tendrils running through our own bodily soil would be a surrender into a beingness so profound that we may even lose the weighted, oily trappings of this culture, and fall back into the arms of true belonging.

And so, a poem, of sorts;

Puff up my cheeks with springy moss;

Plump my lips with coconut-scented gorse.

Smooth my thighs with rough cat’s tongues;

Stain my skin with berry-blood.

Colour my hair with roots of red madder;

Pull back my eyes quickthorn; fish bladder!

Shave my teeth with bone and antler;

Drown me in old wells of winter.

Then weave my woes upon my face;

Lines of beauty wrought, in grace.

Adorn me in your coat of scars;

Mother hold me, hold me fast.

And let me rot the way I choose;

Unstuffed with chemical abuse.

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This skeletal wooden being holds me fast as I while away my days, writing, making, wondering. And I think of how, in so many ways, to the outside, I may appear as one who has not the trappings of success. I have neither played nor won the game of capitalism. But in so many ways, I have found a path to the hearth through my own sorrows, through the wildwoods, and through the rocky understory of my own belonging. And so I sit inside and I listen to the rain, and I find my words rising like weeds springing up from the concrete. And I tend my fire as if it is the sacred flame within my own heart. And I feel contentment.

It is cleavers who calls to me this week, shooting up in clusters from the hedgerows, bright and green and filled with life. She is a plucky little sticky little being, with her tiny, velcro-like hairs and her minuscule starry flowers. Cleavers is a plant that works on us in a very physical way, her stickiness pulling sludge and toxicity out of the lymphatic system. Indeed, it is said that if a person drinks cleavers water every day for fourteen weeks, they would become so beautiful as to be unrecognisable to all who knew them before.

Cleavers, Sticky Weed, Goose Grass, Galium aparine

This sticky and magical ally reminds us to hold on tight to our dreams, our truth, our heart centred life, just like she sticks fast to anything she touches. She lends tenacity, protection, and is a true tonic for the lymphatic system, helping us to release toxins and stimulating letting go.

Cleavers will cling on to that which has been clinging on to you and slough it out of your system. She will turn it out like a bad penny, like a bad boyfriend, like a bad egg. She will cast it out across your threshold, never to return, for she has magic far beyond her diminutive size. So while we hold on to the good, we release the not so good. Always humbly offering what we don’t use back to nature and never dumping our crap thoughtlessly, but living as parts of the complex and interconnected whole.

If you can find a moment to sit with her in the hedgerow this February, ask her what she can hook and remove from your multidimensional self, so that you may become more beautiful than you have ever before been.

To make cleavers water (and thus become more beautiful than you ever before have been) - before we start, shall we replace beautiful with wonderful?

Yes, let us ask that cleavers will make us more wonderful than ever before we have been. For is not to be full of wonder to also be full of beauty?

To make cleavers water, first gather a small handful of fresh and vibrant looking cleavers (stalks and all) and place it into a jar or a jug of cold water. Leave it in the fridge overnight to infuse.

In the morning, imbibe the cucumber-flavoured elixir, allowing it to infuse every cell with its wonder and its cleansing.

Blessings from the hedgerows.

We have on one path those beings who seek to align with the powers of nature; to stand beside them, to honour them, and to use them in such a way that neither is overcome by the other. This is a stance of resonance and respect, it has the potential for the combining of forces to become more potent, more honourable, and more in line with healthy, balanced, multidimensional powers. This path seeks no power-over, it is lighter in density, is self-sustaining, and it honours all within the cycles of existence as equal. 

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On the other side, we have those beings who seek to control and hold power over others; those who seek to harness and use the forces of nature and spirit against others for domination and subjugation; to extract and to destroy; to climb the ladders of power and sit at the top. This is the way of hierarchy, and it feeds off itself and those lower in the group in an unhealthy way for its sustenance. This path is heavier, thicker in density and is consumptive, manipulative, and wasteful in nature. 

So at its most basic, we've got those who stand beside and align, and those who try to stand above and control. To stand beside is a more potent and powerful stance. It does not require the suppression or subjugation of others. 

To stand above does; it requires that those who seek energetic sustenance by way of domination must necessarily act in ways that go against the laws of nature.

The forces of Nature are not forces that should be controlled; indeed they are forces that should be aligned with if we are to honour right relationship, respect, and reverence within the great web of life of which we are a part. 

So, here we find ourselves at a time in human history when the systems of domination, which are energetic in nature, but also act upon the physical world, are no longer able to hide. They are becoming clear and evident. And so we all see the corruption, we all see the greed, and we all see the destruction far more clearly than we did before. 

But the question comes, “What then is the work?”

The work is to align. The work is to turn our own energy away; the work is to extract ourselves from these systems in any way that we can, and to remember that we are beings of multidimensional vibration. The work is to  remember that we are beings who can work, and exist, and be on many different levels. 

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The lack of this knowledge is a vital part of the architecture of the systems of domination. Once we realign and start to extract ourselves from these systems, we take away their life force, we take away their power, and we start to return that power to its right place of resonance and alignment.

Art - ‘Earth’s Energy’ & ‘The Essence’ by Alison Johnson

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