Nathaniel Hughes,
author of 'Weeds in the Heart' and teacher of Intuitive Herbalism,
talks of there being many different types of herbalist;
ceremonialist, healer, activist, folk/hedge~witch, wisdom~keeper,
cunning woman and many more. I'm not sure which of these, if any, I
am but I know that sometimes plants begin to tap at my edges asking
to be heard. The cottage garden columbines are one of these. It was
more than a decade ago that I dreamed that columbines, along with
harebells, were one of 'my' flowers, and so for more than a decade I
have neither forgotten, nor understood why. Dreams are like that, and
the ways of the woven sacred can move excruciatingly slowly. That is
why long dreaming winters and cups of tea were invented I imagine. It
was only last week, when I went into a tiny church, St Mary
Magdalene's on the North Downs not far from here, and turned their
Book of Common Prayer to the 9th of June, that I
discovered that I share my birthday with the Feast Day of Saint
Columba, the abbot who founded the important abbey on the Isle of
Iona in Scotland. Although I haven't yet found a particular
connection between St Columba and the flower both their names have
their roots in the Latin word for 'dove', with St Columba's original
Irish Gaelic name 'Colm Cille' meaning 'church dove'. I love this
tender thread that weaves my own story with the flower, the saint,
and the Spirit. But, even before I discovered the thread, the
columbines were calling, especially since I made friends with a
little community of them in the churchyard of the 1,000 year old
church where I spend much of my time.
Granny's bonnet,
lion's herb, lady's shoes, dove plant, God's breath, pigeon flower,
pigeon foot, sow wort ~ our native columbine, Aquilegia vulgaris,
belongs to a genus of more than 65 species. Often to be found at the
edges of meadows and woodlands, it may be more familiar as a resident
of cottage gardens, having been cultivated and hybridised with other
European, and also North American, members
of the aquilegia
family. They
are a major food source for the garden bumblebee and also for cabbage
moths, dot moths, and mouse moths, who are able to feed on many
poisonous plants without harm. The genus name, 'aquilegia'
comes from the Latin, 'aquila'
meaning 'eagle', due
to the petals being said to echo the shape of an eagle's claws. The
name might also come from
'aquilegias', a
'water- collector', because
of the flowers' water holding
capabilities, although it
feels to me that the flowers are the wrong way up for that; perhaps here there are whispers of the World Turned Upside Down?
In contrast, their common name, 'columbine' comes
from the Latin, 'columb'
for 'dove', due
to the spurs of the flower
petals looking
like five doves sitting together in a circle. What depth of meaning
for such a fragile plant to hold, and we have hardly
scratched the surface!
I find it fascinating that even
at this layer of meaning, in the weaving of words, columbines already
present much to reflect upon
with eagle/hawk and dove being the names given, most often in
relation to American politics, to those who are pro or
anti-war. The eagle was also a prominent symbol in ancient Rome,
especially as a standard of the Roman legion, the
teeth and claws of Empire; the
legionary who carried it being known as the 'aquilifer',
or 'eagle-bearer'.
Contrast this with the common
folk meaning, the 'people's'
meaning, of dove, a word
associated with peace and with Spirit, particularly
in the Christian faith for whom the dove is one of the most beautiful
symbols. Indeed,
as Christianity spread into Europe the columbine became associated
with the values of Faith, Hope, and Charity, and its three-part
leaves became a symbol of the Trinity, with
the circle of doves a symbol
of the Holy Spirit. So much
so that columbines were once often
used to stand for Jesus in religious paintings.
I like very much that the
folk name of these little flowers is linked with the Trinity and with
Christ, and through him to standing up to the
Roman Empire by facing it
with a rebellion of love and
the fierce call for justice.
I like to think
that St Columba, whose own 'Celtic form of 'wild edge' Christianity
was forced aside
by Rome and it's monk, Augustine, would have approved of the columbine and of the story she carries in her petals. It
should never be forgotten that the story of Jesus is grounded in
this rebellion; in a refusal to submit to Empire, in siding
with the poor and the outcast
in the face of corporate and
Imperial power, in gathering around him disciples who were not
thought learned enough for other Rabbis and teachers and giving them a
place in the world that is so often not there for our own young
people who may
become vulnerable to gang culture and radicalisation as
a way to find belonging. This
is the path of peace and radical love; the dove standing up against
the eagle, of speaking
truth to power, despite its message being taken over by Empire when it became the official religion of Rome in 312. Imperialism as an ideology is inherently anti-life, and this energy against life will corrupt, contaminate, and undermine, anything that stands against it and which has beauty in it. It is up to
us to choose where we identify, which path we take, where
we will make our stand; no matter who our god/gods/no god might be. The
columbine reminds us of that choice, that we have a responsibility in
what we bring to birth. This
is a rebellion of petals, a
revolution of feathers.
In
a piece of wild synchronicity, which so often occurs when I sit down
to write pieces such as this, I discovered that to
the indigenous First Nations people of Canada the eagle has quite a
different meaning. Rev. Cannon Ginny Doctor, Coordinator of the Indigenous Ministries for the Anglican Church of Canada and member of the Mohawk Nation, Turtle Clan, writes that for
her people, the eagle is a bird of peace. When The Peacemaker came to
unify the nations, he travelled the land spreading the need for
understanding. At each place he would plant a Tree of Peace and place
an eagle on top to watch over the people and warn them if the roots
of the tree were being disturbed by disagreement amongst them. The
indigenous people, the people of the land, make the eagle a bird of
peace, where Empire makes it a bird of war and domination. It is up
to us what meaning we choose, whether we will stand with the people
of the land, with
deep myth and meaning, or with that which seeks
to
subvert both. It isn't easy to speak out against power, to “fight colonialism with a colonised tongue” (Akala). We
might feel that it is impossible, but
perhaps by rooting ourselves in the Tree of Peace and the wisdom of
the columbine and
all our green allies
we can be rooted enough to begin to choose what we bring to birth, knowing that it is our birthright, our earthright. We think that we are alone but we're not; we live in a wild web of relationship and belief in the good, in the rightness of Life. And Life wants to live.
And these little flowers, these columbines, do have much to share about that
choice. Although
they are rarely used in healing in modern times due to their supposed
toxicity, their leaves were
traditionally used to make lotions for sore mouths and throats
(helpful in speaking out!) and in Spain people who were troubled
by kidney stones were advised to chew a piece of columbine root in
the mornings. The idea that
columbines are
poisonous seems to come from Charles-Ernest
Cornevin, who
in
his
1893 book
'Des plantes vénéneuses et des empoisonnements qu’elles
déterminent' (Poisonous Plants and the Poisonings they Cause), said
that it contains aconitine, possibly
because it is in the same plant family as one
of the most poisonous garden plants,
aconitum. However, there is so scientific evidence that this
is the case and
indeed there are no recorded cases of harm caused by columbines.
Interesting
then that it should be given such a reputation.
And
then,
what of choice and what we might 'bring to birth'?
Culpepper's
'Complete Herbal' of 1649 says that the seeds of columbine, which
are just appearing now all across our land,
“causeth a speedy delivery of women in childbirth” when
taken with wine. In contrast,
the fabulous 'Poison Garden' website says that the 'wise woman' of
the village would use columbine to bring on abortion as a community
service, 'the
best known reference to it coming
in Thomas Johnson’s 1633 revision of John Gerard’s ‘Herbal’
where he
says that Clusius, the 16th century Flemish botanist, reports its use
by Dr Francis Rapard to facilitate labour when the seeds are crushed
and mixed with wine. It was thought to be widely used as a home
remedy.'
Plants,
such as birthwort for example, which would aid childbirth are also
likely to cause an abortion if used at an earlier stage of pregnancy,
and so it is with columbine. There
was a time when the green beings around us offered us the right to
choose. Now of course we live in very different times, cut
off from the earth and all that she offers us,
and so
the
columbine's message of choice becomes more and more urgent,
especially
now.
Here
in the UK, our Government, in the wake of a disastrous General
Election result, are seeking to form a loose coalition with Northern
Ireland's Democratic Unionist
Party, founded
by fundamentalist Protestant leader Ian Paisley in the 1970s.
I stand in profound disagreement with the views of both parties, but
at the time when the columbines in the 1,000 year churchyard are
going to seed and revealing their deepest medicine, it is the DUP's
attitude to abortion rights that is
uppermost in my mind. As I write, the UK Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by a
mother and daughter who have been involved in a legal battle for
women from Northern Ireland to be offered free abortions in England
on the NHS. In Northern Ireland terminations are only available if a
woman's life is at risk, or if there is a possibility of permanent
damage to her mental or physical health. Rape, incest, and fatal
foetal abnormalities are not considered reasons for legal abortion to
be offered. Many
women, more than 700 in 2016, travel to England at great expense to
access private abortions. Those
who can raise the money often endure travelling alone, overnight
by boat if they can't afford air travel,
to a place that they have never been. One
28-year-old said, “a
lot of bad things have happened to me in my life, but this has been
the worst.”
In
order to save for the journey she had to cut down on food for her
family, including her two young children, and stop heating her house.
Other
women, financially or otherwise unable to travel, buy abortion
tablets on line and receive them
through the post. It is unknown how many this applies to, although
the Dutch charities Women on Web and
Women Help Women,
who
are able to provide women with abortion pills by post, receive
around 3,000 requests for
advice and help from women in Ireland and Northern Ireland each year.
In
2016 1,200 parcels
containing such pills
were seized by Irish customs who investigate all 'suspicious'
packages. A
woman in Northern Ireland is currently being prosecuted for helping
her 15-year-old
daughter procure abortion pills and last year a woman was prosecuted
for taking them, having
been reported by her flatmates.
In Northern Ireland, which has the harshest penalty for abortion of
any country in Europe, women who
have illegal abortions,
and anyone found to have helped them, risk life imprisonment.
The
Abortion Support Network, a charity which offers financial support to
Irish women who need to travel to England to access their abortion
rights, have said that, “We've heard time and time again from women forced by the despair induced by
a combination of poverty and draconian abortion laws who have taken
matters into their own hands – by ingesting chemicals, by
overdosing on medications, by drinking excessively, by literally
throwing themselves down stairs to try and induce miscarriage.”
Pregnancy
counsellors in Northern Ireland have been known to hand out
'information' booklets warning of “a
72% higher risk of rectal and colon cancer among women who have had
abortions and a 50% greater risk of breast cancer”, also
suggesting that, “a
woman who has had one may be more prone to seizures, tremors, comas,
frigidity and committing child abuse.” Amnesty
International has called upon the UK Government to urgently
push for abortion reform in Northern Ireland. This coalition will of
course make that less likely and Owen Paterson, the former Northern
Ireland secretary, has suggested that there may be a parliamentary
debate on further reducing abortion time limits during the next few
years. As
things are a climate of fear has been created with many women
unwilling to speak even to their close friends for fear of being
reported; turning woman against woman, dividing us, forcing a climate
of silence and unspoken pain and grief. One
woman who, unable
to afford a trip to England,
was
forced to go through abortion alone and terrified of being reported
said, “I
feel am being punished for being poor. If I had had money, I would
have gone to a clinic, met a nurse, heard from her that everything
was going to be OK.” She
eventually went to her GP for a check-up two months later and told
her that she had had a miscarriage.
This
is far from the wisdom and choice offered to us by our sister-ally,
the columbine; our
gentle dove, our wise-woman granny's bonnet, with
her offering of wild plant medicine to hold our young women in their
journeys.
I
stand with them against a coalition that would deny women the choice
to choose what we
bring to birth. Judy
Griffin in her book, 'Flowers That Heal', says that columbine
“enhances the ability to think and act independently of others”,
to “drop the role that others have made for us”, and to claiming
our autonomy. I
stand with the columbine in holding the roots of wild earth wisdom
and the liberation of heart and
body.
And
yet, this feels in so many ways overwhelming. All these things are happening far from me and my little community of columbines in the
1,000 year churchyard. Can the columbine help us to find the courage
to raise our voices loud enough to be heard? Marvellously, we have
not yet reached the end of our exploration. There is one more piece
of folklore that might help us to choose the wilder path and a clue
is found in one of the columbine's common names; lion's herb. In
medieval times, it was believed that lions ate columbines in the
spring to give them strength and so that rubbing the flowers on one's
hands would bestow the 'courage of lions'. I think that we might well
need that in the days and months to come. It really is time for a
rebellion of petals, a revolution of feathers; for the eagle, for the
dove, for the columbine, and for us all; it's time to choose what we
bring to birth. And perhaps consider too that, although our green companions have much to teach us, it's we who give them their meanings. These are our stories of rebellion, of wild courage, which we have hidden safely in their petals, just as our far off ancestors buried their own treasures in the earth when invaders came. It's not the columbine that allows us to choose. She brings a reminder but the choice has always been ours. We don't need to wait until her flowers come next spring. We have always had the courage of lions. It has always been us, and it's time to roar!
 |
| Columbine; looking like a tiny lion |
(Disclaimer: please don't take wild medicine, such as the columbine, without the advice of a qualified herbalist. In the case of the columbine, most of us no longer have the wisdom to know what amounts are safe for us to take. Until we claim back our wisdom, let's allow the earth to hold us as safely as she can and respect our not knowing)
References:
On columbines ~
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquilegia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquilegia_vulgaris
http://www.karensgardentips.com/garden-types-styles-and-designs/shakespeares-flowers-and-gardens/shakespeares-flowers-columbine/
http://www.thepoisongarden.co.uk/atoz/aquilegia_atrata.htm
http://www.thepoisongarden.co.uk/blog/blog270412.htm
https://www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/100859/i-Aquilegia-vulgaris-i/Details
http://plantlife.love-wildflowers.org.uk/wild_plants/plant_species/columbine
http://loveinidlenessembroidery.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/columbine.html
'Flowers That Heal', Griffin, Judy, Paraview Press, 2002.
Other references ~
https://radicaldiscipleship.net/2017/06/15/wild-lectionary-the-eagle-shared-its-strength/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-40271763
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/31/abortion-ireland-northern-ireland-women-travel-england-amelia-gentleman
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/13/abortion-figures-prompt-fresh-calls-for-reform-of-northern-irish-law
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/08/northern-ireland-abortion-women-culture-suspicion-fear-prosecution-belfast
