Skip to main content

Mugwort: It's travel time

Thirty five years ago today, I had an out-of-body experience while giving birth to our son.  At the time, I didn't know how to label it or why it happened. It was pretty weird.

 But when I took a poetry writing class in 1996, I knew immediately that my birthing experience would be the topic of my first poem. Our professor said I was the only student he’d ever had who submitted a poem with a number as its title. I like being different, so this pleased me. My classmates thought the poem was filled with symbolism; it’s not. It’s more of a report. 

011478
Elevator silently slips
through the dark tunnel;
we burst forth

Machines and metals and masks
but I am lying in the grass

Drab green walls, brash fluorescents
sapphire sky, air, earth

The illuminated and mechanized beep, beep, beep
rhythmic tribal drums

Phones ring, the damn TV
introspection, focus, a suspended pause

Isolation
connected to the Clan

Who’s running this body?
It’s
the
person
who
wants
out.

Already he has started to push me away.
Astral projection
I’m bringing this up now because a few weeks ago in my herbalism class, one of the other students mentioned "astral projection” in association with the herb mugwort. I had never heard the term before, but since then I've been reading up on it.

Astral projection is an interpretation of an out-of-body experience that assumes the existence of an "astral body" separate from the physical body and capable of traveling outside it. (Source: Wikipedia)

 There are many flavors of astral projection, some of them are down-right common:
• seeing yourself from above during an operation
• going down a tunnel toward a bright light during a near death experience
• "traveling" during meditation  

 But I was shocked to learn that other women have reported birthing experiences similar to mine -- being in two places at once, traveling to a primal world, seeing vivid colors, and hearing the beating of drums.

Artemis
At the same time I learned about mugwort's proclivity to induce out-of-body experiences, I read that mugwort (artemisia vulgaris) is associated with Artemis who is the goddess of childbirth, among other deity duties including, hunting, the wilderness, and virginity. She assists with and helps ease the pain of childbirth.

 Artemis was the daughter of Zeus and Leto. According to legend, Artemis helped to deliver her twin brother Apollo minutes after being born herself. Cool story!

 Was Artemis with me on my trip?
Photo source: http://www.sacred-destinations.com/turkey/ephesus-artemis.htm
Have mugwort -- Will travel
At my age I don’t expect to bear any more children, but I might burn some mugwort or make a cup of tea out of it and see if I can return to the magical place I visited 35 years ago today. 

 I happen to have some.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Holy cow, it’s costmary!

Recently while helping my sister, Kit, move to a new house, we found an inte res ting old bible belonging to “V. H. Reinhart” in the bottom of a moldy old box. I’d never seen a bible like it. The left-hand column is written in German and the right, in English. Victor H. Reinhart, born in 1885, was the father of my step father, Wilbur Reinhart, and I knew from oral family history that he was a Mennonite minister. Inside the bible we found a single, brittle, pale green leaf and immediately recognized it. I said, “Holy cow, it’s costmary!” (Tanacetum balsamita also Chrysanthemum balsamita)  Because I’m passionate about both genealogy and herb gardening, this discovery was a bit like taking a beautiful old painting to the Antiques Roadshow and finding a signed copy of the Declaration of Independence behind it. Costmary’s (now obsolete) common name is “bible leaf,” having been used as an aromatic bookmark since the time when a bible was likely the only book in the house. The volatile
7 comments
Read more

Genealogy: it’s about connection

Each one of us has two parents, four grandparents, and eight great-grandparents. For every generation you go back, the number of people who procreated, to eventually make you, doubles. When I first started out on my genealogy journey, these numbers astounded me, and still do. I love to think about my DNA stew. It feeds my soul. Playing with numbers Let’s assume each generation makes a baby at age thirty. Perhaps the age should be 16, 18, 20, or 25, but whatever, I picked 30 for this exercise. After all, in the past, people started having children earlier than today, but they also bore many more children and did so over a period of 10, or even 20, years. Stick with me for this simplified and fictional example: For a child born in 1960, there were two parents who were born about 1930. The baby’s four grandparents were born about 1900. The baby’s eight great-grandparents were born in 1870. (You see, I'm doubling the number of grandparents and going back 30 years at the same time.
5 comments
Read more

On Beauty

About 10 years ago during our routine Saturday phone call, my father asked me an amazing question, “Why does seeing something beautiful make a person cry?”  I was honored that he asked me such a powerful question and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. In my lifetime, I've seen some beautiful things that have made me cry. When I was 17-years-old and an exchange student in Spain , I walked down a dark corridor inside a church, turned a corner, and saw a huge painting (10 by 16 feet), El Greco’s “The Burial of the Count of Orgaz.” That was 1972, but I vividly remember the colors in it: the metallic gold, the reds, and the grays and how the elongated faces and figu res dripped emotion. I remember the awe I felt in seeing that the artist had painted a sheer white gown over a black velvet robe (lower right). I stood quite close to it for as long as the guide would allow. For many, the natural world evokes wonderment. About 25 years ago, on a trip to rural Canada , I saw t
4 comments
Read more