Hands-On Herbal Medicine -- the Wise Woman Way

Amazing Artemisias

Artemis -- Goddess of the herbalist -- gives her name to a genus of marvelously aromatic, safely psychedelic, highly medicinal, dazzlingly decorative, and more-or-less edible plants in the Asteraceae family. I love Artemis, and I love her plants.

Who is Artemis?
Amazonian moon goddess. Goddess of the hunt. Goddess of the wild things. Goddess of the midwife. Goddess of the herbalist. Mother of all Creatures. Leader of the sacred bitches. Great she-bear. Diana. Selene. Ever Virgin; owned by no man. We will visit her sacred wood on a shamanic journey. Who knows what will happen there!

How do Artemisias grow in your garden?
Most Artemisias are perennials and grow best from cuttings, not seeds. Sweet Annie is the exception, being a self-seeding annual. Although you can buy tarragon seeds, you can't grow true tarragon from them. Wormwood and southerwood and tarragon (the last not winter-hardy in many places) are woody perennials which regreen each year on last year's new wood; I prune only dead wood from them. Cronewort is an invasive perennial that creeps underground; it dies back to the ground each year and can be heavily harveted (clear cuts are ok) without damage to its further prolific productivity.

Most Artemisias require little care. Lack of soil nutrients and lack of water do not faze them. Many are native to deserts, and know how to thrive in hot dry weather. Except for tarragon, all can overwinter without fuss. Flowers are usually small and green, in other words, nearly invisible.

What do Artemisias contain?
bitter principals: wormwood
coumarins: cronewort, tarragon
essential oils (complex, variety specific, with hundreds of components per plant): cronewort (high in camphor, thujone), tarragon, wormwood (high in camphor, thujone)
flavonoids: cronewort, tarragon
glycosides: cronewort, tarragon
hormones: cronewort (sitosterol, stigmasterol)
sesquiterpene lactones: cronewort

How are Artemisias used?
Artemisias, with their grey-green or white-green foliage bring beauty to the garden throughout the growing season. They also make long-lasting, aromatic and beautiful indoor decorations: bouquets, wreaths, swags. They are popular strewing herbs, too.
Those which are high in essential oils are thereby antibacterial, antifungal, and antimicrobial. They also improve digestion and appetite if taken in small doses.
Any Artemisia growing beside the door -- or painted on it -- was, in days of old, the sign of the midwife, the herbalist. Magical and folkloric uses are numerous.

"Mugwort possessses both natural and supernatural qualities. [It] excels as a women's herb, easing the pain of labor, menstrual cramps, and effectively treating various uterine complaints." Gai Stern (1986)

Cronewort/mugwort = smudge, dream pillow, moxa, birthing steam, vinegar of roots and young leaves, salad green when young, mugwort noodles, mugwort mochi. American colonists used sundried leaves instead of tea. Formerly a popular beer flavoring (hence "mugwort"). Controls worms in goats. Urinary tonic. Uterine tonic. Digestive tonic. Nerve tonic. Circulatory tonic.Eases pain and fever, comforts grief and depression, eases irritability and burdened joints, brings peace and sleep, and reassures the nerves. Moxa demonstration/discussion (if time allows).

"That torturous, barbaric practice, the use of the moxa, is closely related to this plant." Millspaugh (1892)

Wormwood = tincture, oil. Ingredient in absinth. Stimulates mid-brain activity and increases creativity, but repeated use disturbs the central nervous system. Prevents giardia, dysentery, amoebas. Cholagogic, digestive, appetite-stimulant, liver-stimulant, wound healer. Caution: Use can lower seizure threshold; interacts adversely with seizure-reducing medications.

Sweet Annie = capsules, in fairly large daily dose, to prevent malaria; source of antimalarial drugs. A strong tea, taken frequently, kills giardia and amoebas.

Tarragon = vinegar, seasoning. Appetite stimulant according to Herbal PDR.

Southernwood = dream pillow, sachet, charms. To see the beloved.

Some of the many Artemisia species that herbalists and gardeners use:
A. abrotanum (southernwood)
A. absinthium (wormwood)
A. afra (African wormwood)
A. annua (sweet Annie, qing hao)
A. camphorata (camphor-scented sothernwood)
A. drancuncula (tarragon, estragon, little dragon)
A. frigida (fringed sagebrush)
A. lactiflora (ghost plant)
A. ludoviciana (silver queen)
A. pontica (Roman wormwood)
A. schmidtiana (silver mound)
A. stellerana (old woman, dusty miller)
A. tridentata (sagebush; three-toothed sagebrush)
A. vulgaris (cronewort, mugwort)

Learn more about Wise Woman classes with Susun Weed

Susun Weed encourages women to work towards good health from the inside out. Her close-to-the-earth approach continues to break new ground in old ways, helping to make natural non-invasive solutions available to women from every walk of life.

Susun Weed's books include:

New Menopausal Years, The Wise Woman Way
Healing Wise: The Second Wise Woman Herbal
Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Year
Breast Cancer? Breast Health! The Wise Woman Way

Susun S. Weed, herbalist, wise woman, and teacher for over two decades, is the founder of the Wise Woman Center in upstate New York and the author of four highly acclaimed books on alternative/complementary healthcare for women. Honored as a Peace Elder in 1996, Ms. Weed is respected worldwide as the voice of the Wise Woman tradition, the oldest tradition of healthcare on the planet.

The Wise Woman tradition maintains that health is flexibility and that deviations from normal (that is, problems) offer us an opportunity to reintegrate those parts of ourselves that we have cast out. This reintegration is accomplished through nourishment and the person emerges healed/wholed/holy. The Wise Woman tradition is compassionate and heart-centered. It honors the Earth and the special mysteries of women. It is simple, local, ecological, and invisible, choosing to use common plants, such as dooryard weeds, rather than exotic herbs from far away.

The Wise Woman Center, founded in 1984, is a safe place for women around the world to gather together to celebrate the wise woman within and to study herbal medicine and spirit healing with Susun and notable teachers such as Brooke Medicine Eagle, Z Buda pest, Vicki Noble, and Merlin Stone.

Ms. Weed has been called a backwards pioneer. She agrees: "I've gone backwards into prehistory, into herstory, to rediscover and rename something as ancient as humanity, but something which is perfectly relevant, indeed critical to our survival, today." That "some thing" is the Wise Woman tradition; a unique viewpoint from the distant past that she be lieves will help us find answers for our collective future.

The Wise Woman viewpoint that we are all connected and that a health crisis is symbolic as well as physical -- characterized by some as shamanic, by others as superstitious -- still exists in our society today, both in lay healing and in professions such as midwifery and psycho-therapy, but it usually goes unnamed. "One of the characteristics of this tradition is its integration into everyday life. By healing through nourishment, whether it is a hug or a special dinner, the wise woman acts invisibly whenever possible."

This is in marked contrast to other traditions of healing, according to Weed, who differ entiates three major healing traditions: the Scientific, the Heroic, and the Wise Woman. In the Scientific tradition the doctor is highly visible and the patient is reduced to a body part or a disease designation. In the Heroic or Holistic tradition, the healer is the one who knows the right way to do things and the patient must follow the rules in order to get well. In the Wise Woman tradition, illness is understood as an integral part of life and self-growth, with healer, patient and nature as co-participants in the healing process.

Much of today's alternative medicine comes from Heroic traditions, which traditionally emphasize fasting, purification, colonic cleansing, rigid dietary rules, and the use of rare botanicals in complicated formulae. Even much of metaphysical healing is applied this way: It views illness as a failure rather than a natural and potentially constructive process.

Susun Weed sees herself as a teacher, not a healer. "A healer is someone who does for you, while a teacher shows you how to do for yourself. When I work with a correspon dence course student or an apprentice, for instance, I'm working with the intention of helping her to know herself better, to learn how to listen to and nourish all parts of her self, which will allow her to become more healthy/whole/holy."

Susun reminds us that wellness and illness are not polarities. They are part of the contin uum of life. "We are constantly renewing ourselves, cell by cell, second by second, every minute of our lives. Problems, by their very nature, can facilitate deep spiritual and symnolic renewal, leading us naturally into expanded, more complete ways of thinking about and experiencing ourselves."

Ms. Weed maintains an active teaching/lecture schedule, with bookings throughout the U nited States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Germany (where she also trains ap prentices). She has taught at many prestigious schools including the National College of Naturopathic Medicine, Yale Nursing School, South Florida Midwifery School, Rocky Mountain Center for Botanical Studies, and the Waikato College of Herbal Studies. She currently sits on advisory boards for the California Institute of Integral Studies and the National Institute of Health's Rosenthal Center for Alternative/Complementary Medicines at Columbia University.

Ms.Weed is most well-known for her books, which are variously described as informa tive, inspirational, and accessible. Her poetic and humorous style have endeared her to over half a million readers, who treasure her voice, the voice of the Wise Woman way.