In honor of the forces of purification, wildness, and love, that together rule February in unexpected ways, this month’s plant and mineral allies are both more than what they seem. It’s likely that each evokes a sense of familiarity, yet with some examination, there is more than what is immediately visible. Both Yarrow and Rose Quartz play a role in attracting love, but, like love, they can prove to be more transformative than anticipated
Yarrow
Yarrow is a plant much beloved by herbalists. It is cultivated in gardens for its medicinal uses and can easily be found growing wild among the hills of Marin and the general Bay Area. It has fern-like leaves, small white or yellow flowers that grow in wide clusters, and a very rich history. Many people know about Yarrow’s relationship with blood flow. It has been used on the battlefield to quickly treat wounds, even as recently as The Civil War, as it can be chewed and placed on broken skin with pressure to stop bleeding. This ability to stanch bleeding is the source of its binomial Achillea Millifolium, after the mythic warrior Achilles. Even today it is called on in the training of street medics and hood herbalists, who use it to provide emergency help in the aftermath of violence or accidents, where access to medical care might be limited. True to the regulating nature of herbal medicine, Yarrow taken internally can also be a great support during variations of the menstrual cycle. For those who bleed heavily, a tea or tincture of Yarrow can break up clots and slow bleeding, alleviating cramps. Alternately, the same treatment can help to bring on courses that have been sparse or sporadic, perhaps due to stress or exertion. Yet, as powerful and practical as this function is, it is only the beginning with Yarrow.
Yarrow has an affinity for healing sexual trauma and cleansing the physical and energetic body after boundaries have been violated. It is used frequently in Curanderismo treatments for this reason. Whenever we have sexual interaction with another, an energetic cord is formed. This happens as well when we are very emotionally connected. Yarrow can help to create the necessary cutting of ties between people on the unseen, energetic level, when what we need is to retrieve our energy and autonomy. This is particularly important if boundaries have been violated. When we have been through trauma or abuse in the arena of personal relationships and sexualized violence, our boundaries become permeable. This can not only weaken psychic defenses, but can make it very difficult to sense when we are being pushed beyond our limits and to say no in general. Yarrow can be a great ally for people in this situation. In a gentle manner, this flower can help to cleanse the effects of this kind of trauma, drawing personal energy home to the body, while strengthening boundaries and empowering the ability to say no when necessary. Herbal baths, steams, use of infused oils, and taking Yarrow internally as a tea or tincture will all help in this healing process. Yarrow helps one to reclaim personal power after it has been violated, and strengthens the resolve to care for and protect one’s most vulnerable self.
The fact that Yarrow is a perennial, sleeping in the earth and returning to life year after year, means that there is much more to this plant ally than what we can see above ground. Perennial’s spend more time in the Underworld than they do in the light, and have a deep relationship to it. They make a tap root. They store energy and nutrients there for when they will be needed. They travel and spread out horizontally. And, they reproduce on their own, duplicating themselves instead of relying on the germination of seeds. They spend seasons in the dark spaces underground, working these mysterious processes with the earth and waiting for their time to renew within the world of the light. Harold Roth, who wrote The Witching Herbs, 13 Essential Plants and Herbs for Your Magic Garden, compares perennials with The Hermit card in the tarot, describing them as traveling comfortably in realms “where The Sun and even The High Priestess cannot or will not go.” This makes them a perfect herb for sorcery, as well as for reclaiming the hidden knowledge of the earth and the past. He writes: “When I look at the Hermit tarot card, I see a figure who holds memory and who looks into the past (generally the Hermit is portrayed facing left, where the past is located in our culture). For me, this fits well with the nature of perennials. This means that, if you are working on a spell that is dependent on memory, perennials can be excellent for sharpening memorization skills. They remind us; they reveal secrets of the past; they bring the past into the present–exactly as they return from the Underworld every spring, remembering the previous year.” This statement makes me wonder about what secret knowledge they may be preserving, and, as in the myth of Persephone, what depth of power and autonomy can be found or retrieved from an annual trip to the Underworld and a rebirth every Spring. How else was Yarrow utilized in times past? Here are a few folkloric uses I found listed in Scott Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs:
When worn, Yarrow protects the wearer, and when held in the hand, it stops all fear and grants courage.
A bunch of dried yarrow hung over the bed or yarrow used in wedding decorations ensures love lasting at least seven years. Yarrow is also used in love spells.
Carrying yarrow not only brings love but it also attracts friends and distant relations you wish to contact. It draws the attention of those you most want to see.
The flowers are made into an infusion and the resulting tea is drunk to improve psychic powers.
Yarrow is also used to exorcise evil and negativity from a person, place, or thing.
The idea that Yarrow can both attract loving connections and help to break them when we must cleanse and move on makes sense in terms of the mutable action of herbs, which often work to restore balance in relation to their area of expertise and affinity. Yarrow has a long association with love, as well as with psychic empowerment and healing. According to Harold Roth, there may even be a deeper layer to this connection that ties into the idea that it has a proclivity for keeping hidden knowledge and ultimately returning it to the light. He shares the following Scottish poem in the previously mentioned book, and encourages readers to look at the language closely. What appears as a kind of love charm, likely reproduced in the late 19th Century, along with other folk practices, may be an encoded teaching about something more mysterious and potent than attracting love.
I will pluck the yarrow fair,
That more benign shall be my face,
That more warm shall be my lips,
That more chaste shall be my speech,
Be my speech the beams of the sun,
Be my lips the sap of the strawberry,
May I be an isle in the sea,
May I be a hill on the shore,
May I be a star in the waning of the moon,
May I be a staff to the weak,
Wound can I every man,
Wound can no man me.
Hmm. Maybe this is about attraction and becoming a safe harbor for someone, but it sounds a lot more like a spell of glamour and empowerment, meant to mask a person of power in the facade of someone “benign” and appealing, while the work of helping those in need, or even harming an adversary, when necessary, can be done in a secret and protected manner. Roth brings up a third possibility. What if this is a spell for shapeshifting into larger, more abstract forces, such as an isle, a hill, a star. When the witches of antiquity practiced lucid dreaming arts or deep trance states known as “flying”, and learned to send their energetic doubles beyond their physical bodies as something human or nonhuman that could appear before another, did they use Yarrow as an aid? Yarrow carries quite a few folk names, but prominent among them is Tail of the Werewolf. It may be that this comes from the historic association of witches with werewolves, from a former age of fear of the supernatural and those who held knowledge of it. It may indicate a powerful hidden tradition of shapeshifting and invisibility practiced by those who had deep knowledge of the plant world and its magic. If that’s the case, what is the full potential of Yarrow for protection, for psychic development, for the deepening of personal power and self preservation, and for transformation. This is wild, potent territory for careful exploration. Yet, even in the language of this spell is the intention to heal, to “be a staff to the weak,” while remaining impervious to wounding from another. Yarrow is a healer, a protector, and a keeper of knowledge and power from the past and unseen realms.
In this month of cleansing and awakening the wild of the soul, in this time of reflecting on love and its influence in your life, take Yarrow into your bath, into your rituals, and into your dreams. Breath it. Bathe with it. Drink tea made from it. Place it under your pillow. Ask it for the help you require.
Rose Quartz
This seemingly soft, pink crystal is another ally that may feel familiar to many, without a full recognition of the depth of its power. If this section is shorter than the previous one, it isn’t because this crystal offers less depth. Rose quartz can be more transparent or more opaque, and though it’s often found in pale pink, there are also deep rose colored varieties. There is a kind of humility found in Rose Quartz. Its gentle, soothing quality is very helpful for calming stress, promoting love and peace within the self and within the home, and can increase one’s relationship to self love and self nurturing. It is a very feminine stone that opens the heart and invites harmony and healing. The type of healing it offers, however, is of deep importance. Rose Quartz can help us clear that which we are carrying in the emotional body, cleansing us of the unconscious patterns and programming that we have absorbed through heartbreak, loss, abuse, and generational trauma. It can dissolve heavy emotions, like anger, resentment, fear, and suspicion, clearing our minds and opening our hearts to receive and give love.
When love is allowed to flow through us our whole sense of health and balance improves, and the law of attraction allows us to call more positive influences and situations into our lives as well. Love is its own form of protection and healing, when we are able to connect with it as a universal energetic force. If the emotional and energetic heart is unfettered, we can be nourished by this force and allow it to move through us. If our sense of trust in others and in life is deeply wounded, however, we can unknowingly close the door to this force, leaving us more vulnerable to self destructive patterns, the traps of the ego, physiological and emotional dysregulation, loneliness, disconnection from the Divine and even from ourselves, and the intrusion of other forms of harmful influence.
Rose Quartz can help to free the heart, and bathe it in the sense of interconnection and Divine light. It is a good stone to wear on the body, to give to someone you love as an act of care , to keep in a room where a child sleeps and plays, and to tuck into the corners of your home. Keeping it near can subtly promote harmony, love, compassion, balance, protection, and the transmutation of difficult energies. You can use a sphere to help spread love and balance all around your space, or create a grid by placing a stone at each wall of a room.
Like Yarrow, this crystal ally that can help to heal and harmonize, may have deeper implications as a tool for potent transformation when needed. I found the following simple spell in Judoka Illes’ The Element Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells, the ultimate reference book for the magical arts. Here, again, a few words conjure a possible history of glamour, protection, and transformation magic:
Rose Quartz Transformation Spell
Rose quartz transforms anger into love, or at least mild affection. Wear it. Give it as a gift to those who resent you.
Knowing the ways that this sweet stone might be able to transmute unfavorable feelings and energies within you and around you, it’s possible to imagine that its benign appearance is part of its power, just as with Yarrow and its hinted at historic uses.
Suggestion for working with Yarrow and Rose Quartz:
All of the suggested methods in this exploration are simple. For most of our healing and protection needs, bathing rituals with Yarrow, joined with filling one’s home with Rose Quartz and meditating deeply with these feminine forces will be very helpful, as well as nourishing to the nervous system. Make an infusion of Yarrow, and perhaps even an infused crystal water, to add into your bath. You can also drink some of each infusion to fully bring it into your system. The practice of bajos, a full body steam, is also perfect for cleansing intertwined sexual and emotional energies, and rebalancing the autonomous self. Yet, being as both of these allies hold a deep consciousness, below what is immediately perceivable, begin the practice you choose by connecting with them, looking within to see what is in need of balance and transformation, meditating with each to glimpse how they can act on your behalf, and listening for the secrets they may reveal.
Ometeotl.
May we feel bathed in balance, awakened to our own deep power, and surrounded by unconditional love and grace.
With love,
the eleventh house
-This blog was written by Melusina Gomez. For more information about her work and healing practices please visit www.metzmecatl.com