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Sensory Herbalism
The Herbal Apiary Project

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School of Natural Fertility
Sensory Herbalism
The Herbal Apiary Project

Hayley Anderson – 07929639569 – hello@pellarandpollen.com

Fertility Empowerment & Menstrual Awareness Teacher | Sensory Herbalist | Regenerative Horticulturist

It is time for the making of Mugwort aromatic smok

It is time for the making of Mugwort aromatic smoke bundles & this year I’m offering them to you too.

As Mugwort’s medicine responds to a ritual container, I gather her for medicinal smoke with purpose with the same moon each year. This year I will meet her in her magic with the coming full moon on Saturday.

Mugwort is our native, culturally appropriate smoke herb which I bundle up alongside aromatic herbs from the herbal apiary. This year’s blend will be lavender & rosemary.

Mugwort is a dream keeper, hedgerow midwife & womb tender. She can be a guide for cyclical wisdom & labyrinth-like situations supporting the containment of ritual, receptivity & exploratory practices.

I inhaled Mugwort smoke during labour (but be aware it is contraindicated with pregnancy) & use it in ritual & to become more receptive to the wild ones on the land. She brings a gentle perception shift & a gate to the unseen. I recommend working with her with intention because whenever you call on a gatekeeper, you also summon a gateway!

We may enter through Mugwort’s gate for:

~ supporting a (re)birth space: physical or symbolic

~ creative insight & visions beyond the linear mind

~ cleansing & marking ritual space, ceremony or circle

~ dreamwork

~ the descent of menstruation

~ self initiatory work to consciously enter the labyrinth

~ receptivity

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As I make each bundles, I speak intention into each tie so you have any words/a feeling you’d like infused into one let me know.

I make them in 3 sizes:
S ~ inside single use £4
M ~ inside use £7
L ~ outside use £10

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• Please invite those using smoke/smudge in their work to consider native herbs over imported ones that are deeply sacred to others. (Smudge is a word I’m using for clarity with the awareness of its roots in practices not native to Celtic lands.) Inhaling smoke from herbs gathered around us is an instant way to connect to place so lets stick to our place.

• I live in an area with many people wild harvesting so I choose to gather Mugwort from the thriving plant communities I have nurtured from seed in the herbal apiary.

This morning’s intuitively gathered fresh tea bl

This morning’s intuitively gathered fresh tea blend.

~ Evening primrose
~ Rose
~ Lavender
~ Meadowsweet
~ Lemonbalm
~ Borage

I love gathering teas in this way. I don’t need to know why my body needs or wants this. My job is simply to listen in & follow my wild sensory instinct.

I was lucky yesterday to catch the Milk Thistles j

I was lucky yesterday to catch the Milk Thistles just as the first seeds were leaving their spiked heads. Much work goes into the growing & harvesting of medicine ~ the prepping the ground, propagating seeds, tending seedlings, the planting out & then the regular careful observation. It would be & is frustrating if/when I miss the ripening of the medicine.

It looks blissful in the photos, but going to the herb garden isn’t always relaxing for me. This time of year it can be overwhelming meeting the garden in its fullness. Especially if I am meeting it with a fullness in me & I haven’t been able to get there as much as I’d like. Like lately.

The feeling of summer garden overwhelm isn’t as severe as it’s used to be. Motherhood teaches me A LOT about simply ‘being with’ & the wisdom of surrender. I love myself for not getting everything (or anything) done & forgive myself for not doing things so well. Now I can sit & relax in the garden amongst un-gathered medicine & that really is something to celebrate. Evidence of a re-conditioning away from the, ‘you are only loveable if you are productive’ voice that capitalism & patriarchy internalises in us. Remember not doing is radical.

& at the same time, day to day as a mother, I find myself in the ‘doing’ more than ever. Rest comes in micro doses in this phase of life & it needs to go deep whenever it is afforded.

To the mothers & father’s still impacted by restrictions & isolation ~ I really see you ❤️ My daughter hasn’t been able to go to nursery due to ‘C’ & being without my usual rest pauses has been hard. The sudden intensity brought flashbacks of lockdown life with a newborn. A reminder of the intensity I & others have been through as new parents. I want to be mindful of where we are & what we have experienced in the re-opening of things. To go gently & tend to what is & has been.

I am in no rush to get back to ‘normal’. There is no normal now ~ we are some way along a collective right of passage. I’m still very much ‘percolating’. Where are you?

It’s a bit windy & grey here today so we’ve st

It’s a bit windy & grey here today so we’ve stayed home processing some herb orders. Holly has been slowly helping me fill the packets. She loved handling all of the root medicines. These dried pieces of Elecampane (Inula helenium) root have been a really interesting texture & smell for little fingers to explore.

Midsummer is the fullest, busiest time of the year & it can get overstimulating & tiring. It’s important to pause, even momentarily, amongst all the doing. It felt a great time to hang out with these winter roots & be reminded of the deepest depths of the year when the land is still & sleepy. It’s hard to imagine that now with all the fullness on the land. Remember that everything that happens in the busyness of summer is part of a greater cycle. Value & meet it while we are here. & there can be relief in knowing that it won’t last forever. Deep rest will return when all that needs to be expressed has had its time.

These roots will go out to support a local family with some symptoms associated with covid recovery. Elecampane is a powerful anti-viral & lung support. I like to nibble on the roots when I need to breathe more clearly or smoothly. I also associate elecampane with incredible strength & recovery. It is said that it brings us the strength of many men & when I see it growing it the garden, I can see why. It is a huge plant! Taller than me with big vibrant yellow flowers & huge tough leaves. & her roots are incredibly resilient ~ regenerating extremely easily with their anti-microbial super powers. They can be chopped up & replanted & they will return to growth. Imagine the regenerative qualities it can bring to the human body 💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼

My name comes from the Old English for a clearing

My name comes from the Old English for a clearing in a hay meadow. When I was a child I remember feeling disappointed with that but now as a woman directing a scythe, I see medicine in it. Pondering the various surnames of our unmarried family of 3, I realised recently that if we all took my partner’s surname, which means 'joy field' in Old English, my name medicine would subtlety reinforced.

This morning a friend told me that when she thinks of me, she sees a meadow. I really liked that. Fitting ~ given this life amongst grass. I was at the herbal apiary, scythe in hand: a woman with a mission. There was grass to tame! At the herbal apiary, this is the time of the heavy mass of grass. Grass marching towards precious medicine plants. Grass tickling my arm pits. Grass in my face. Grass jammed in pram wheels. Grass falling over on itself not knowing what to do. Grass grass grass.

& yet I secretly love this midsummer dance with the grass. & the scythe is by far my favourite tool. It completes my body with a blissful power. Scything is an embodied meeting of the fiery force of summer that lives through plants on the land. & the scythe is an instrument that can be used with intention for moving & clearing the fiery energy that lives in the body.

My feed might be filled with apparently calm photos of gathering plants & motherhood, but I am a very very healthily angry woman. I am angry about many many things I see and feel in this world. The movement & direction of anger is daily work for me. The work with anger is my fuel, my motivation to do this work & the source of my passion. Riding & wielding it brings me purpose & clarity. & of course sometimes it hurts me. & sometimes it hurts others. I'm human. I'm learning. Grass clearing has a lot to teach me yet.

1st 📷 - freshly scythed grass this morning
2nd 📷- my favourite photo from my pregnancy

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