About the Voicing the Natural project. The world speaks in a language of weeds, flowers, ancient trees, new saplings, gardens, wild spaces, deserts, forests, and mountains. To hear its poems, songs, and words, all we must do is listen. This blog is an ode to my allies. Click here to learn more.
Voicing Artemisia
Witch, what wandered down the path was your wild. Ahead of you, following an intuitive nose. I watched from the hollow, the roadside, the ditch, a modern Crossroads. Wherever you go, your ribcage is a garden. I remind you to reclaim this wholeness you already hold. The moon is a teacher, yes, but also an old song. The one who holds the water in the belly, the one who knows what it is to cry, to make. I hold my arrow, quiver is another word for tremble, and so in the breeze, I do. Yes, yes, when you reach the edge of the path, keep going. You are the dreamer and also the dream. You are the dream, the one we made together, make together. Here, hold out your hands, now howl. Now hold on.
Mugwort, Artemisia Vulgaris
The plant that lurks on roadsides, ditches, cracks in the sidewalk, and dreams, Artemisia, waves at me as I walk down the sidewalk in Brooklyn. One of my portals back into Witchcraft as an adult, Mugwort, found me in the basement of an apothecary where I worked when I first moved to the city, listening to Robin Rose Bennett and Pam Grossman hand out branches of them, Artemisia whispered, “Witch.”
So I took a branch and the word Witch home, too.
I did as they instructed and placed the branch under my pillow. I dreamed of freedom.
I dreamed that in a backyard, I knelt under the full moon and watched Mugwort break up the sidewalk into hundreds of pieces as it reached up and up, silver-leafed. Mugwort is a plant of reclamation, of independence, while remaining connected, to the wild web we’re all weaving, dream weavers.
Some believe Mugwort received its name from being used in early iterations of beer brewing. Mugwort is a medicinally and magically honored plant that can be taken in tincture, brewed into a bitter tea, burned ceremonially, or made into oil.
Magical practitioners keep this herb on hand, knowing to dab some infusion onto the forehead to enhance sight. Burn their leaves ritually, and Mugwort can open doorways for intuition and lift the veil ever so slightly.
Artemisia is a reminder of wise women’s or old crone wisdom. It is a teacher of resourcefulness. Reminding us, “You don’t need something fancy, expensive, consumed, or purchased to connect with the teachings of witching and magic, but rather a weed that bursts forth from even the rockiest spaces.”
Unsurprisingly, Artemisia and the lunar Goddess Artemis are linked. The Goddess Artemis can be the center of a web of Mugwort’s weaving, from protector in childbirth to liminal portals to the way through dreams.
Some legends say that Artemis evolved from a Mugwort plant, and that’s how Artemisia came to have their name. And still, herbalists turn to both the plant and the Goddess for support with labor, childbirth, menstruation, and the moon. Some say that Mugwort was ingested during her festival Artemision at her temple in Ephesus, during the full moon, allowing her devotees to remember their dreams.
Mugwort is a part of the Nine Herbs Charm. This charm appears in texts as the Anglo-Saxon charm against poison (constantly a bit varied depending on the source). In this charm, they deemed Artemisia the eldest of worts. A section of the charm in A Poison Prescription recounted, “Remember, Mugwort, what you made known, what you arrange at the Great proclamation, you were called Una, the oldest of herbs, you have power against three, and against thirty, you have power against poison and infection, you have power against the loathsome foe roving through the land.”
Mugwort is an oracle, a prophet, a witch, and a dreamer. Like the archer Goddess, this herb protects, defends, and supports. If you like the tides long to connect with the moon, this ally is one for you. If you long to carve a rhythmic life of mysticism and intuition, call on Mugwort. Artemisia cackles in the darkest of nights, knowing this is where magic thrives.
And in this city of dreamers, Mugwort thrives. I keep a pot of Artemisia, and they’re one of the only plants that are resilient enough in my sweltering yet partially shaded Brooklyn backyard. They dance in the heat, the cool morning, in all seasons, and I say hello each day. In some ways, their presence feels like a fulfillment of a prophecy. One I dreamt of so long ago, seven years, when I first arrived here in Brooklyn.
I dreamed of a Witch life, a dream life, a wildlife. And as I drop the Mugwort tincture that I crafted into my tea. The cycles become more even. My inner tides align. I remember my dreams, the ones that keep urging me forward, silver-leafed, communing with the moon.