Awaken Nature Healing

Yarrow, known to many as a warrior herb, is a plant to strengthen you within and without, a plant that will heal your wounds, and grant protection while it does so.

On these hot summer days, you will find Yarrow, Achillea millefolium in flower. The botanical name itself achillea refers to this being a plant that Achilles supposedly used on the battlefield to help heal his soldier’s wounds. Millefolium literally means thousand leaves, referring to the plants leaf structure.

If you were to take a leaf, chew it up to make a poultice and place it over a bleeding wound, Yarrow would stop the bleeding. It’s been known to work not just on small wounds but larger ones too. You can also dry the leaves and powder them to help stop nosebleeds, and also bleeding of the gums.

You can see why this amazing plants other names include Carpenter’s Herb, Staunchw**d and Soldier’s Woundwort.

It is indeed one of my favourites plants, having a certain kind of strength about it, yet something of a mystical nature too.

Taken within a hot infusion or tincture, the flowers or the leaves, Yarrow being astringent, antispasmodic and anti-inflammatory can help with digestive issues, soothing and relieving bloating and stomach cramping, and symptoms of IBS.
For women it can help to regulate menstruation, and ease cramping.
You can take Yarrow in times of flu and colds to help spike a fever. Being diaphoretic, it will help sweat out toxins.

Yarrow is a powerful herb for going where it’s needed in the body, regulating, toning blood vessels, removing stagnation, and giving you strength.

Not only all this though, and maybe this is the mystical part, is that Yarrow is associated strongly with divination and second sight. It’s been used in dream rituals for years and across different cultures.

The sticks used in the ancient Chinese divination system the I Ching are made of Yarrow. It is said that the long straight sticks represent clarity and that the structure of the plant represented the balance of yin and yang.

In some traditional Native American ceremonies, Yarrow is hung up with Cedar and Sweetgrass for protection and purification.

In the Hebrides, it was called the Second Sight Plant and that if you held a leaf to your eyes, it would grant you the power of divination.

In other folk traditions, it was thought that sleeping with a Yarrow leaf underneath your pillow potentially would grant you a dream where you would see your future partner.

You could try drying the Yarrow flowers, and using them to make natural incense. The dried flowers retain some of the plants medicinal but grassy type fragrance.