Making our own medicine is a profound act.
I’m next to a sleeping cat, thinking about why it matters to (even occasionally, even just once) make our own medicine. It connects us to all the humans who came before us, who also made medicine. For themselves, and for the humans (and others) they loved. No matter your ancestry, someone in your lineage made remedies. Like preparing food, dancing, singing, sex, and other fleshy, bodily experiences, making medicine with our own hands is a completely human act that brings us into conversation with all the humans who brought us here.
Making remedies is an act of love and also of vulnerability — it means admitting that someone will get hurt. That we will need healing.
1. St John’s Wort
It’s high summer here in the eastern US, and the St. John’s wort is still in high bloom. That will change sooner than you think, so if you want to harvest some, it’s time!
Not many other herbs resemble St. John’s, but if you’re unsure, look closely at the flowers. St. John’s wort flowers are covered in tiny pinpricks, as if to let the light through. (“Wort” if you’re wondering, just means “herb.”)
2. St John’s Wort oil
St. John’s, like so many herb friends, has many ways it can be prepared, but today, let’s talk about oil. Used topically, St. John’s wort is terrific for muscle pain, nerve pain, and healing burns. I don’t usually use it for healing cuts (yarrow, chamomile, or calendula are so good at that), but you could. It’s often added to salve, but it can also just be used on its own, infused in oil.
So, gather some St. John’s wort flowers. Try to avoid plants on roadsides, where there’s lots of car pollution, and don’t take all the flowers from a single plant. (Note: when wild harvesting, take the advice of my friend and teacher Jade Alicandro Mace, and harvest like a deer browses a meadow - when you’re done, it shouldn’t look like you’ve taken.) You can start your infusion and keep adding to it as the week goes on and more flowers open, if you have a plant near you. Don’t use flowers when they’re wet with dew, let them dry off first.
In a small jar, add a handful of flowers to 1/2 cup oil. I like olive oil or sunflower oil, personally. You should have at least 1 part flowers to 2 parts oil. Place the lid on and set aside to infuse for at least a week. The oil will turn red from the flowers (this sounds absurd but it’s true!).
Again, this is to be used externally, on your skin, not taken internally.
3. Why Poetry?
I’ve been revising my syllabus for my chapbook publishing class this fall (real photo of my messy process). And one of the questions it’s raised for me, that I’m looking forward to hearing my students discuss, is why poetry? Similarly, I’ve been thinking about the Octavia Butler quote, “There’s nothing new under the sun but there are new suns.”
Poetry, to me (and many of us, I think) is a place where things can happen that can’t happen in other spaces. The mess that can’t be cleaned up. The break that can’t or doesn’t want to be fixed. The desire to express in language but also to break language, which is both so expressive and so limited that we constantly push up against it, straining. Making new suns.
Here’s a link to a poem I love by Kemi Alabi called “prayer in child’s pose” (it’s not what you’re expecting). I highly recommend listening to the audio of the poet reading it.
What’s your answer? Why poetry? Either to write or to read? Share with us:
4. Small but Mighty
Most of you know that I have the incredible luck to be the editor of a new chapbook press in collaboration with the Boutelle-Day Poetry Center at Smith College. I love so many things about chapbooks and the possibilities they create.
I have an online class coming up this fall with Write or Die, all about how to put together and submit a chapbook for publication. I would love to have you join me (or a friend you know who would be interested). Here’s the link to more info.
Ok, see you soon, friends.
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