Assumption Eve Medicine
For two months turning
the old women,
they who have the knowing,
have watched their charges carefully.
Picked at the height of their power
on the short night, after the long day;
the feast of fire,
that vigils the Baptist’s coming,
when lads and ladies leap
like hares over flames
and look with longing for love,
as children sing the old songs
filled with mystic meaning;
that night they were gathered
as grace and gift
beneath the light of sister Moon,
the Lady’s lamp and plucked
from garden and from forest glade,
by woman’s hands alone.
Now, they, the herbs for healing,
hang in blessed bunches
over the hearth of home,
or kept in kitchens
above the range,
or bound in byres
where the warming breath
of the queen kine keeps them
charmed and waiting
to release their medicine,
the healing pulse
of sister Mother Earth
and Brother Sun’s distilled light
mixed, and married, and greened,
in root, and shoot,
and leaf, and flower.
So they, the healing herbs,
have rested until tonight
when as dusk comes on
and begins to breathe her
autumnal quickening,
these wise ones take them down
and bring them now
to the old places of prayer
to the abbeys and chapels,
to the candled shrines
of the sainted ones,
who themselves bore
the fruit of blessing
and were heaven’s healing,
the salve of souls,
upon the earth.
There they find
the Lady’s chapel,
and lay their leafy burdens
beneath the linen cloths
upon the Altar, there to await
Assumption’s dawn,
and as the Mass bells ring
to have the holy words
said over them that render
them thrice blessed again,
and ready to release their
gentle healing gifts,
blessed once in very being
from first beginning’s breathing,
blessed twice in the burning
touch of Love’s own resurrection light
when all was made anew,
blessed thrice by the Lady’s prayers,
she who is the stock from which
all healing blooms,
and in her gathering home raised all
that grows green upon this good earth
to become heaven’s healing help again;
Eden’s elixir restored in her
and birthed anew as grace,
just as these sainted herbs
ground upon the mortar’s stone
will give their essence up,
and become the holy way
by which their medicine
blesses bodies and anoints
our souls to ready us
in our own time,
for Heaven’s
homing.
Vigil of the Assumption 14th August 2018.
In many places it was the ancient custom for women to gather herbs around the feast of St. John the Baptist (Midsummer) and then bring them to the Churches for blessing on the feast of the Assumption before they were made into medicine for the Winter ahead. The herbs were placed beneath the Altar Cloths and around the Sanctuary before the dawn Mass there to be offered to the Lord, through Mary’s hands, she who is the “first fruits” of His saving love, so as to receive her special prayers of healing and be blessed in their medicinal use in the year ahead.
The Ritual of the Church still provides for such blessings should they be requested.
(Pics in this post found as random uncredited images on the web)
