Assumption Eve Medicine

 

 

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)