Lady’s Mantle, Miracle Herb
My first herbal teacher, Doug Simmons of Gila, NM, taught a lot about plant communication. He invited us to open our awareness to communication from the plants that was happening all the time. He would say that those moments you are walking down the road or the path and your gaze is drawn to a plant or their fragrance greets you out of nowhere in fact communications. Those little intuitions are the plant reaching out, yearning for your attention.
Last summer, I supported a very difficult birth in the hospital. The mother's labor was long and painful and the hospital staff was hands down abusive in spirit and body. Witnessing this hurt me deeply, and it took me a few months to gather myself and feel whole again. In the meantime, I developed a wicked yeast infection and was so under water with the whole thing I wasn't taking care of it like I should.
I was traveling and headed on a backpacking adventure that would have been impossible with that infection in full force. On a walk one evening, having reached a desperate edge of discomfort and knowing I really needed to do something, a plant caught my eye. I knew in my bones this plant was talking to me. I recognized the plant, but I couldn't quite place who it was. I took a leaf home and looked it up.
Lady's Mantle, of course! Of around 300 species, Alchemilla Vulgaris is most commonly used for medicine. The plant that was talking to me was likely Alchemilla Mollis, a common perennial ornamental. I knew very little about Lady's Mantle, though I had met her a few times in my wise friend Mary Morgaine Plantwalker’s herb spiral. Morgaine initiated me into the magical properties of the dew that gathers at the center of the leaves and how to sip it up first thing in the morning. She told me that Lady’s Mantle was a plant for women and especially for a healthy menstruation.
In the moonlight, I made my way back to the stranger's sub-urban front yard a few blocks from my parents place in Kirkland, WA. Making offerings, I told her my story and I gathered a handful of leaves and flowers. Not having foreknowledge of how she is traditionally used, I followed my intuition. I made a strong infusion, kept aside half for drinking and steamed my vagina with the rest. kneeling over the pot on the kitchen floor in the middle of the night in my parents house, I felt a little crazy and a lot witchy. I made a pact with myself in that moment, that I would let this healing take place. That I would suspend my doubt and accept the highest potential for good that was available for me. It was a reclamation.
By morning, the infection was clear, and it didn’t come back. The whole thing was a miracle to me. I was massively relieved, to say the least, and my faith in plants, in the goodness of nature and in the miracle of healing was greatly restored.
I have since learned that Lady’s Mantle has strong astringent properties and is anti microbial, a boundary medicine, as herbal maestra Deb Buck of Colorado would put it. Lady’s Mantle is used at the end of pregnancy to prepare the womb for childbirth, for menstrual irregularities, and, interestingly, to treat hand and foot disease! According to the 17th century revolutionary herbalist Nicholas Culpeper, who authored Culpeper’s Complete Herbal, Lady’s Mantle will not “suffer any corruption to remain behind.”
From the beginning of my Midwifery Journey, I have felt the absence of the plants. From my long experience relating to, befriending and receiving precious, life changing support from plants, I can’t imagine doing anything so brave, unpredictable and wild as giving birth without plants by my side. Thanks again to Mary Morgaine, whose inspired writings on plants can be found at MaryPlantwalker.com, I now grow Lady’s Mantle in my own garden and will certainly be calling on her miracle presence at the Altar of Birth from here on out.
