On mugwort

Botanical name: 

"I have a great feeling for Mugwort and its ability to reveal paths and to protect people already on their path. To me everything about the herb points to its association with paths and directions...from where it grows to how it has been used. But it needs to be accepted for its wholeness and the direction it reveals." (On Howie's site.)

I have mugwort under all the seats in my cars, and under my shoe soles (in sandals I rub them on every year). I credit it to keeping me alive after a car accident on which I was up on two wheels for a considerable distance. A cop who saw the whole thing told me that my airbag failed, and if it had gone off I'd probably be dead (nice roadside manner, eh?). When your car is sideways, everything in it ends up on one side of the car. The only thing that didn't fall to the driver's side was my mugwort leaf, which was sitting on the passenger seat when my car landed right and skidded into a ditch.

I remember christopher once saying, when he goes out to collect herbs he never collects anything until he has found some mugwort and put it in his top pocket next to his heart...

I currently have mugwort at the front and rear doors of the house. I brought her home to dry but somehow that's where she stayed and where she feels right.

Non told me once to notice how mugwort grows along the paths people make (a bit like plantain, i s'pose). i think we'd just come off hampstead heath and she was talking about the paths that people have made over the years, off the paved, "proper paths" and told me next time i was there to look and see how mugwort had grown along these paths walkers had made across the grass. i remember their home always had a huge bunch of mugwort hanging down over the door. still does, i'm sure.