My first few years at the Catskill house I found myself planting Lavender in many parts of the garden. I couldn’t seem to get enough of the silver-green leaves and contrasting violet spikes, of the stickiness on my fingers and heady scent on my cupped palms from a single caress over her tresses. The Lavenders were constantly in motion, thanks to the ferocious dedication of the many pollinators who returned daily to the blooming tapers, drenching themselves in grains of lavender powder. So alluring yet so sturdy. So rousing yet so moon-touched.
Recently I spent an afternoon working with the lavender stalks I’d gathered and dried all summer long, my intent being to make a large potpourri I would then draw upon and give as gifts to friends.
I’d already harvested a basket full of stalks in June and July, from several Provence and Hidcote lavender shrubs. After tying ribbons around slender bundles I hung them from fixtures and laid them reverently in windowsills. The rest of the calyxes eventually weathered into cascades of gray tubules. Gathering early allowed the plants to yield a second bloom, with the Provence stems exceptionally tall and characteristically forked.
Never having had so many lavender plants to work with, it turns out I was gathering blooms for the sachets a bit late in the game. Apparently lavender is best gathered when half the stalk has blossomed, or at least one calyx has bloomed—but I left the flowers for the bees, who clearly loved sleeping on the swaying stalks, drunk on lavender’s pollen, which is evidently as lulling to bee-mind as it is to the human mind.
So there I was, late in September, elbow-deep in lavender stalks and spent flowers. Though it wasn’t ideal for keeping the post-flowering calyxes intact, I couldn’t help myself: I found myself jubilantly rubbing clumps between my palms, crushing them so the many lavender bits fell to the bottom of the basket. I was happily overwhelmed by the aromatic oils unleashed into the air, that also coated my fingers with a fragrant stickiness and seeped into my body. Without thinking, I dabbed my temples, the hollow of my throat, and my wrists. I ran my lavender-glazed fingers through my scalp. If I’d been in a field of lavender I would most certainly have been in danger or rolling like a dog down rows of shrubs, emerging dripping in lavender scent yet made anew.
How often our bodies know just what we need. Having doused myself in a variety of ways with lavender’s aromatic oils, I began to feel extremely settled: every shred of anxiety I have been carrying—whether due to recent events or lifelong concerns— simply melted away. Quite abruptly, there was no other place to be. No leaning forward into the future, and no painful weight of the past. Hard to put into words, but I felt full to the brim with my unencumbered self, and I felt peace.
Peace is a wonderful word, an elusive state of mind I can say assuredly I have rarely felt. As I age, reliant mainly on myself, my anxiety about the future grows. So when I felt that full body relaxation, that rare contentment where nothing needed to be different, combined with the ancient rightness of my hands moving between plant and basket, I immediately thought of a line from Yeats’ famous poem, the Lake Isle of Innisfree:
For peace comes dropping slow/dropping from the veils of the morning.
Long ago I heard a melodious rendering of Yeats’ by the Irish singing group Anúna. and in this lavender laced moment it was the sung version that wafted up from that mysterious trove we call memory. Here are the words to the poem, and the link to Anúna will take you to their hypnotic arrangement.
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
Yeats’ Lake Isle of Innisfree is an actual place: a small uninhabited island in Lough Gill in County Sligo in Western Ireland, where he spent summers as a child.
I love Nicholas Culpeper's description of the benefits of lavender, written in 1653, not only for its listing of Lavender's medicinal uses, but for the way the languaging gives us a sense of how differently folk perceived of the human body and illness. The effect the plant has on imbalance is called "the virtues of lavender," and the very first description of lavender connects the plant to the cosmos and to the gods and goddesses who lent their hands in the healing process. As an herb of Mercury, Lavender would have had an affinity for afflictions of the brain and nervous system: Mercury owns the herb; and it carries his effects very potently. Lavender is of a special good use for all the griefs and pains of the head and brain that proceed of a cold cause, as the apoplexy, falling-sickness, the dropsy, or sluggish malady, cramps, convulsions, palsies, and often faintings. It strengthens the stomach, and frees the liver and spleen from obstructions, provokes women's courses, and expels the dead child and after-birth. The flowers of Lavender steeped in wine, helps them to make water that are stopped, or are troubled with the wind or cholic, if the place be bathed therewith. A decoction made with the flowers of Lavender, Hore-hound, Fennel and Asparagus root, and a little Cinnamon, is very profitably used to help the falling-sickness, and the giddiness or turning of the brain: to gargle the mouth with the decoction thereof is good against the tooth-ache. Two spoonfuls of the distilled water of the flowers taken, helps them that have lost their voice, as also the tremblings and passions of the heart, and faintings and swooning, not only being drank, but applied to the temples, or nostrils to be smelled unto; but it is not safe to use it where the body is replete with blood and humours, because of the hot and subtile spirits wherewith it is possessed. The chymical oil drawn from Lavender, usually called Oil of Spike, is of so fierce and piercing a quality, that it is cautiously to be used, some few drops being sufficient, to be given with other things, either for inward or outward griefs. Modern interpretations of the relationship between astrology and herbs believe that an herb of Mercury is any herb that helps with afflictions of the brain and nervous system, and lavender is commonly used both to ease headaches. Culpeper mentions the plant for the pain of toothache and I myself have used it to soothe the pain of blistering burns. But some who have studied Culpeper's interest in herbs as "astro-therapy" describe the Mercury connection in a more sophisticated, detailed manner: Carminative herbs that work through Mercury's Virgo aspect to smoothe the flow of the Natural Force through the digestive tract and reduce gas, distension, colic or bloating: Caraway, Dill, Fennel, Marjoram, Lavender, Savory, Southernwood. Herbs to balance and soothe the nervous system and its Psychic Force: Lavender, Valerian. Herbs to balance and smooth the flow of the Vital Force through the lungs, chest and respiratory tract, easing the respiratory function and relieving hoarseness and spasmodic coughing: Elecampane, Horehound, Licorice and Mulberry...Many Mercurial herbs are fine, delicate, frilly Umbelliferous plants that express through their appearance the light, subtle nature of Mercury. Though today tinctures are a popular, convenient way to take medicine, in Culpeper's time, the most common menstruums for herbal preparations were water and wine: decoctions (water preparations simmered to concentrate liquid), wine drunk or applied as a fomentation, and the essential oil (chymical oil) used sparingly. In Herbal Rituals, I wrote extensively about lavender in the June chapter, covering the plant's wide array of medicinal, culinary uses, including as an anti-microbial, a digestive aid and skin tonic. Here are just a few sentences, highlighting Lavender's skill as a grief-easing plant: The scent and rich purple hue of lavender's blossoms inspire our sensuality, reminding us of beauty where there has been devastation. Lavender melts numbness, nourishing and keening our senses, the antennae of our instinctual knowing. And though many focus on preparations with lavender blossoms, I love to simply dry and burn the leaves as incense, sprinkling the dried leaves onto a charcoal disc. I also infuse the leaves in olive oil to make a honey-sweet massage oil, more subtle than an essential oil, which steam distills the volatile oils in the plant. The illustration "Hot Lavender", by Walter Crane, comes from a quote by Perdita, the heroine of Shakespeare's A Winter’s Tale.
At the sheep shearing festival where Perdita (dressed as a shepherdess) and prince Florizel (dressed as a merchant) declare their love, Perdita hands out flowers to the guests, including Florizel's father Polixenes, the King of Bohemia, who is also disguised.
Here's flowers for you;
Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram;
The marigold, that goes to bed wi' the sun
And with him rises weeping: these are flowers
Of middle summer, and I think they are given
To men of middle age.
For me there is a real medicine in taking in the sight of a field of lavender plants. Their silvery green color draws my eye, and a gentling happens within me when my gaze touches upon their blossoms. I think the poet Mark Doty said it perfectly, in his homage to Stanley Kunitz, another poet who was known for his exceptional garden: Heaven steadies and concentrates near the lavender. You can read the poem Heaven for Stanley in its entirety here. One day I hope to wander through fields of Lavender, but until then, I'll take the feeling of contentment the shrubs on my property have bestowed upon me. Wishing you and all beings the kind of peace that drops from the veils of the morning. You can read more on the delights of Lavender in the print on demand link for Herbal Rituals: https://www.blurb.com/b/9715213-herbal-rituals And the ebook is at books2read: https://books2read.com/herbalrituals
This post cradled me in two distinct ways:
My great-grandmother bought a house in Vermont in the 1960s and named it Innisfree. My best childhood memories took place there, and if my grandmother's garden doesn't have lavender in it, it's still full of coral bells and catmint that are busy with bees all summer long.
We've spent the past several years taking out grass and putting in plants that are drought- and heat-tolerant, many of which are also pollinator food. I have one sunny spot I call "the dry patch" that currently only has some black-eyed susans, a small rosemary bush, and a scraggly, wandering sage that I honestly thought was dead as recently as last month. Autumn is planting time here in my part of Texas, and I have my eyes peeled for lavender everywhere I go, looking for just the right friend to bring home for next summer's bees. A plan for hope.
Thank you.