The Hawthorne is Blooming

Hawthorne, home of the Faerie Queen, in bloom

Today is the first day of summer according to the calendar I follow; Solstice in June being the height of mid-summer and not the season’s beginning.

May Day. Beltane. Friday. Hawthorne doesn’t need to know the day’s place on the wheel or its name. It unfurls regardless. I will unfurl regardless.

One May, some years ago, circled with powerful women at Hecate’s feet, I wept. “The hawthorne is blooming and I’m not there.” I had, under very difficult circumstances, left the verdant countryside of my British ancestors and landed in a literal and figurative desert. “The hawthorne is blooming and I’m not there. The hawthorne is blooming and I’m not there.” That’s all I could say between the heaving cries. Yesterday, a healer felt my pulses and told me they’d never felt a heart channel like mine, so full of heartache. It’s been a year of heartache. Many more thorns than flowers. Today, I left some of my hair at the base of the hawthorne bush that grows outside my window, a window I am grateful to have and one that I never wanted. There is another hawthorne bush outside of another window down the road that is also blooming, and I am not there. I weep for it. I weep for me. I weep for my children, born and unborn. It’s raining. It’s May 1 in Oregon, after all. Next week may be hot. This is a season of wool socks and sunburns. Everything is at the same time damp and blistering. As much as I long for the joys of summer, I‘m quite used to the rain now. Seems some days like it will never stop. The weeping. The rain. So be it. I am tired of trying to hold it back. My son’s favorite duck drowned the other day. A duck. Drowned. What hope is there for any of us drowning in heartache if a duck can drown? Last night I dreamed I took a bath in my childhood home and fell asleep as the water ran, waking in my dream to find the whole house flooded. My house is flooded. So many tears shed this past season. And the season before that. And before that. Almost a full turn of the wheel now. What will this summer bring, I wonder. Sometimes I can feel the possibility of something other than heartache. It’s like a fish. A glimmer. I reach for it, and touch it, but it’s slippery and I can’t get a hold. Then it’s gone. Then I see it break the surface again downstream. I reach again. It slips away again. But it’s there. Under the water somewhere.

So I will sit. Creekside. Waiting. As all the identities slip away, are burned away or drowned.

Wife, lover, farmer...what will be left after everything I never imagined could be taken from me is gone? Only those things that have always been: the hawthorne, the Goddess, the ancestors, circles of women, motherhood, water and fire and earth and air; the turning of the wheel.

And it shall be enough. I am enough. You are enough. It is always enough. Just enough will be more than enough.

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Now is the time to collect hawthorne flowers and leaves to tincture in alcohol. Ask the plant's permission, and if it says yes, pick just enough to fill a small jar fairly full but not packed too tightly, pour 80-100 proof alcohol over it to cover the plant material completely (I usually use vodka), screw the lid on, and leave it in a dark cupboard until at least Summer Solstice, shaking the mixture gently and talking to it every few days or whenever you remember. You can either press the tincture to use at that point, or, if you wish, return to the plant at the end of October to harvest its dark red berries. Do the same with the berries as you did with the flowers, then combine the two tinctures for a magical, whole-year, whole-plant heart blend.

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A dear friend sent me this Heart Tincture recently, and my goodness is it divine! She combined hawthorne, rose, borage, motherwort and betony - a gently powerful combination that bestows protection, love, courage, patience and calm. More of all of that, please!

I've been taking it at an energetic dosage, just a few drops in a big glass of water. That's really all it takes for plants to work their magic. The tiniest bit can be enough.

Thank you, sister, for this beautiful gift, And thank you hawthorne, rose, borage, motherwort and betony for your gifts as well.