Wild Folk Apothecary

There is much folklore associated with the sour quince, which was sometimes buried with the dead to ensure safe onward travel into the realms beyond. The quince is a divine offering, the forbidden fruit, the golden apple of myth and legend.

The quince has long been known as a symbol of love and fertility, a gift from the gods to those seeking to bring sweetness to the marriage bed. Brides would bite into the quince summoning affection and good fortune.

In homes, quinces were hung to ward off ill winds and evil spirits, their tough skin a shield against energies unseen.

To dream of quinces could bring portents of prosperity, but to eat the sour flesh in the dream world could signify illness or hardship to come.

It was said that witches could take the form of a quince, lying in strange places to deceive those who passed by. It was wise to tread carefully, for a fruit out of place might not be a fruit at all.

A gift of quince preserve between lovers, was said to stir the heart and bind the soul in deep and unshakable affection.

Quinces don’t really look real, they look like perfect paintings of themselves. A strange fur coats their shanks, their scent is intoxicating and indescribable. They are said to be poisonous raw (which isn’t true, they are just very hard and very astringent). When cooked they turn the most beautiful blushing pink and taste like exotic secrets. At this time of year they can be found piled up outside the houses of those lucky enough to have quince trees, and I receive them gladly. Quince cake is an autumnal delight, as is the syrup produced from poaching these voluptuous golden treasures.

Yes that’s my fireplace 🙂

You can pre-order my book, The Wild Becoming: Plant Kinship, Threshold Medicine and Reweaving the Natural Soul (which has nothing in it about quinces, incidentally) from all good bookshops, and via Wild Folk Apothecary

We’re in that wonderful second spring time of green growth, where the nettles are young again and we can partake of their wondrous medicine. If you are feeling stuck, undernourished, and under-resourced, look to nettle.

(Nettle should be eaten before the flowering stage, and the top six leaves are the most tender and flavourful. The seeds, harvested in late summer, will keep for years if stored correctly.)

Nettle soup with nettle seeds.

A strengthening and cleansing potion with extra adrenal support from the nettle seeds. Whenever I ask my little boy what nettle is good for he says the blood, and he’s not wrong. Nettle tops are a wonderful seasonal medicine, are filled with vitamins and minerals and the kind of wild vibrancy you only get from frolicking amongst the weeds. Green soup trumps green juice for me, every time.

And yes, there is a recipe, there are many recipes, some so appallingly and ridiculously unimaginative that I think they must have been created by people actively trying to stop the consumption of these powerful green healers.

The only real way to enjoy nettle soup is with the stings still embedded in your fingers and the memories of the spirit of nettle singing her songs of springtime to the wild places.

I think there is a bit of a secret to nettle soup, and in my recipe it’s coriander seeds. An onion, a few potatoes, garlic, good salt, pepper, coriander seeds and homemade organic chicken bone broth. Then add nettle tops and cook for a few minutes before blending.

“A meditative and exploratory reflection on nature, healing, and transformation

Following four sacred plant allies — Mugwort, Violet, Yarrow, and Nettle — The Wild Becoming explores the human–plant–nature relationship and invites us to remember plants as guides, kin, and companions. Through Bernadette’s lyrical and poignant prose, this book offers essential wisdom drawn from myth, dream, folklore, traditional knowledge, direct communication, and lived experience.

This book is a gentle invitation to rediscover our wildness in the edges, hedgerows, and dreamscapes, and to offer that wildness back to the world as a healing force. In a fractured, disconnected, and increasingly technology-driven world, The Wild Becoming is a reweaving of self and world through the thresholds of transformation, guided by plants, nature, and spirit.

Drawing on dream, journeying, plant spirit medicine, and folk traditions, The Wild Becoming guides the reader through the veils of perception, the intelligence of the three brains, heart resonance, intuition, and the reclamation of imagination and sovereignty. It is a journey of descent and awakening, honouring love and grief, boundaries and nourishment, and the understanding that healing is ongoing and cyclical.

Ultimately, The Wild Becoming is a vital call to reclaim the wild, natural soul as medicine for a world in rupture.”

My book is available for preorder now. It’s online at Amazon and Waterstones, and through the link in my bio direct from the publisher Aeon Books with 20% off

Blessings from the hedgerows

You cannot create from a place of panic. You cannot hear the land speak if you are cloyed with the noise of self-hatred. If you cannot hear the land then you cannot heed the wisdom it speaks, and that wisdom is not rooted in fear and panic, it is rooted in remembrance and reconnection. The level to which people defend their need to be in a state of panic is directly related to their level of actual connection to the land.

Re-reading The Wild Life by John Lewis-Stempel after teaching a foraging and wild medicine walk yesterday, I’m reminded once again of how many who are staunchly anti-foraging have no tangible understanding of the hours of work involved. It is not a passive and extractive hobby, but an act of devotion, and it enmeshes the soul into the land, and the land into the soul.

The first picture is of one of foragers yesterday, she looked so beautiful in the meadow with the sun behind her.

You can pre-order my book, The Wild Becoming: Plant Kinship, Threshold Medicine, and Reweaving the Natural Soul now, and sink into remembering your place as a being of nature.

Blessings from the hedgerows.

There’s an awful lot of anti-foraging propaganda about. There’s also an awful lot of eco-fascism about. The most vital thing is embedding, paying attention, and going outside. That’s where the reality of the natural world and your place within it will be found.

Being a responsible being means thinking about what we can do to reduce our dependence on the systems which try to contain and control us.

We are surrounded by a toxic soup of chemicals. Almost every product we use to clean our bodies and homes is filled with unmentionable poisons which have long term effects on our health, and on nature.

As we wash these chemicals down the drain we wash away our natural barriers and turn our homes into sanitised, dead spaces. As the toxins flow away they flow into our water system, taking their deleterious effects to the rivers and seas, poisoning them and the life within them. What we have sacrificed for the idea of “cleanliness” is profound. We must find another way.

Horse chestnuts (conkers) contain natural saponins and can be used to wash clothes, hair, hands, and bodies.

Horse chestnuts contain natural saponins and can be used to wash clothes.

The process is simple:

Collect Horse chestnuts (5 or 6 will do, but they can be collected and dried in Autumn and used as needed)

Smash them up (I put them in a pillow case and attack with a rolling pin)

Put the smashed pieces into a jar

Pour on hot water to cover

Leave overnight. In the morning, shake to see the foamy bubbly consistency.

Use as you would washing liquid.

Free, natural, non-polluting and so satisfying, from the collecting to the smashing to the lovely foaminess of the saponins when you shake the jar.

Just bear in mind that horse chestnuts are not edible, so while this is a natural alternative to washing liquids and powders, it is not to be ingested and should be kept away from children.

Humans and brambles go back a really really long way. They are probably the most commonly foraged fruit in our hedgerows, as they are easy to identify and grow in abundance. They are a deeply nourishing fruit, the leaves make a wonderful astringent tea, and the long spiky stems can be used to make fresh baskets.

According to one story, when the devil was cast out of heaven by St Michael, he landed on a bramble bush and cursed it (probably for spiking his bottom). It was believed this curse caused blackberries to become unpalatable (or according to some versions of the story, poisonous) around Michaelmas, 29th September, after which they should not be picked or eaten.

The blackberry bush in magic promotes prosperity (due to the strong growth energy and abundance of fruit), aids fertility, and offers protection. A fruity relative of rose, who also protects her soft heart with fierce thorny boundaries.

The blackberry is a fruit of the fairy world, and it said to leave the first fruits of the season on the bushes for the fairies to ensure good luck and an abundant harvest.

There are many old stories of healing by passing under a bramble arch, sometimes once, sometimes a few times, with some saying that the affliction is passed to or taken on by the bush.

Come and join me this Sunday in Lavenham for a foraging, wild medicine and folklore walk, a few spots left. We’ll get in just before the brambles become cursed, so that’s good.

Blessings from the hedgerows.

I was in quite foul humour as I started chopping the many many apples from this year’s apple harvest.

As I chopped my thoughts travelled to the trees themselves, standing proud and generous. I thought about the abundance and the nourishment and the perfection of the apple.

I started to feel intense gratitude to the tree and the fruit and everything it means.

Apples are symbolic of rebirth, healing, and youthfulness. They are the fruition of a years worth of growth and energy made deliciously manifest.

They were sometimes buried with the dead to help on their onward journey, and have been symbols of love for as long as they have existed.

Apple is in the rose family, so the love connection makes sense when we know that the apple is thought to have descended from the rosehip.

And so we planted some apple cores in the garden to honour the cycles, to give thanks to the tree and all she has given us, to bury our hopes and dreams in the fertile earth and to invite change and transformation.

I am also trying very hard to give thanks to all the ravenous wasps that my apple chopping and preparation have invited into my kitchen.

I find if wasps are kindly directed back the way they came they buzz off away quite peacefully.

The dog is, however, utterly outraged by wasps and will not listen when I tell her that catching one would not be the victory she seems to think it would be.

The free fruit offered by those with trees and excess at this time of year is something that always fills me with gladness.

• I’ve got a foraging walk on Sunday with only a few spaces left, lots of lovely fruits and second spring wild greens around.

• My book on plant kinship and threshold medicine, The Wild Becoming, is available for preorder now.

Blessings from the hedgerows.

Our words are spells, intentions sent out into the ethers on the wings of our sustaining breath; directed forces of energy and movement. They have power, and voice, and vitality behind them.

My words, words found beneath the hedgerow, brought down from the skies, dug up from the mines of the underworld, are almost ready to fly out into the world in book-form.

The Wild Becoming: Plant Kinship, Threshold Medicine, and Reweaving the Natural Soul is available for preorder. Use code TWB20 for 20% off until March direct from Aeon books (I’ll pop a link in a few places).

If you want to read about plants as the portals and autonomous beings that they are, and how sinking into kinship with the animate world is medicine for a world in rupture, then this may be right up your street.