Happy Full Moon in Capricorn, St John's Wort and Well Dressings

Plus an update on 'A Wild Unwinding' retreat at Samhain

Hello dear ones,

I hope this newsletter finds you well as we enter a new month, and what seems like some new weather for July! I’m secretly quite glad that we’ve had some rain after the endless heat of early June which meant getting up an hour early to water the thirsty plants! Themes for this edition include some musings on St John’s Wort (thank you Tracey for the prompt), a look at Well Dressings (a Derbyshire tradition) and tonight’s Full Moon (also known as the Wyrt Moon).

St John’s Wort

In the last edition of this newsletter I wrote about the feast day of St John the Baptist which falls at Midsummer (24 June). Now St John was a popular man as he also has a flower named after him: St John’s Wort (or wyrt which is Old English for ‘plant’ or ‘herb’). This name arose due to being traditionally harvested around his feast day, however St John’s Wort isn’t any old plant, but a powerful anti-depressant. According to the charity Mind’s website:

Research suggests that St John's wort works in a similar way to standard antidepressant medication, by increasing the activity of brain chemicals such as serotonin and noradrenaline that are thought to play an important part in regulating our mood. In some cases, St John's wort might be just as effective as some antidepressant drugs to treat mild or moderate depression.

Source: mind.org

My wonderful friend and past student Tracey, has been on a quest to find Perforate St John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum) which is the species commonly used as an antidepressant. Tracey has discovered that it’s been quite a journey to find this particular species and from a quick glance in Rose’s Wild Flower Key, there are 11 species listed in the St John’s Wort family and I’ve also come across a website dedicated solely to the ID of Hypericum species: https://hypericum.myspecies.info/gallery

Hypericum species (a.k.a St John's Wort)

Well Dressings

I first heard about Well Dressings last year after reading a newsletter about them by Katherine May so, since moving to South Yorkshire 3 years ago, made it my mission to go and visit them. If you’ve not heard of them before, you’re probably wondering what on earth a Well Dressing is! It’s a Derbyshire tradition where a mural is created using mud, petals and other natural objects to commemorate wells (or springs). Below are some photos of two particularly elaborate murals that I made a journey to see in my nearby village of Hope last July.