Keeping it Real + Vitex Praise

If I’ve ever reached through this screen and touched tenderly into your heart, then it is worth staying online, I think. I fantasize of handwriting every Earth Devotions and mailing a copy to each of you to encourage less screen time for us all. But for now, it remains a fantasy, like the many other fantasies I conjure up to cushion the hard edges of this reality.

Eleven days ago, I sprained my ankle pushing a wheelbarrow of Hurricane Helene oak branches, on a day I was already having a meltdown over inner personal changes. For the first couple days afterwards, I could only crawl around on my hands and knees which gave me new insights from this humbling perspective. Then my dear friend Jessie brought over a boot and some crutches and helped get me upright again, but I still needed to stay off of the ankle as much as possible from the pain.

I felt so fortunate that I could do that- that I had support to handle the daily tasks and did not have to push my body beyond its limits. I thought about people who injure themselves and have no choice but to keep on going, and then things usually get worse or cause long-term pain and suffering. Or they can’t keep going and things fall apart because there is no help. And then there are those who can stop, but won’t. It’s too mentally painful to slow down and do nothing. The constant distractions of being ‘so busy’ protect us from facing the harder truths that unconsciously fuel our lives.

You would think that I had time to do plenty of writing, just sitting in a chair for days, but instead I was in a very poor headspace, facing some grounding, hard truths. I gave myself permission to go there because I know the only way out is through. I spent much of the time just being with the uncomfortableness of not only my ankle but the patterns, narratives, neuroses and choices that have created my reality. I also spent a good portion of that time overwhelmed with gratitude for the uncountable things I have going well for me and the things of this world that are marvelous and beautiful. I did a lot of crying. That felt good, actually.

I have all this creativity inside of me that I want to be able to share with you- through writing and collage and classes/ceremonies, but I have been really stuck. I do feel things moving though, energies shifting on a very core level. Thank you for being with me along the journey.

One Vitex flower as seen under my hand lens.

Vitex flowers are so showy and pretty yet it’s really a hundred flowers in one spike that makes this ‘flower’ appear so lovely. Were it just the one, we would probably not notice it. It’s like each one of us, so uniquely beautiful, but it is when we show up together, united in that beauty, that we really make an impact. I pray that our common love of plants, our earth mother and goodwill toward humanity will keep calling you back here, for it is together that our joys are doubled, our sorrows halved and our gifts amplified!

Mary Morgaine Squire
12/6/24
Under a waxing crescent moon

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~Love Letters to our Plant Allies~

Vitex or Chasteberry
Vitex agnus-castus, negundo
Verbenaceae

Dear Vitex,

Who is that beautiful, purple-flowering shrub that looks like a giant Butterfly Bush, I wondered to myself as I drove along the interstate? Shortly after this curiosity, I saw a row of the same bushes growing at Herb Mountain Farm when I first arrived in 2005, and asked my new employer Hart who they were.

“Vitex,” he said.

“Vitex?” I asked. “Oh Vitex!”

Listen to Mary Plantwalker read a Love Letter to Vitex

I had bottled hundreds of tinctures of you when I worked at Red Moon Herbs in 2002, but I had never called you into my life or had any idea what you looked like. Hart said he had started all but one of these bushes from seed he had collected. Wow! I rubbed your hand-shaped leaf and you released a heavenly scent. It made me think of freshly cleaned, sun-kissed laundry, blowing in the breeze.

Hart then told me he use to have an even bigger row along the creek that Red Moon Herbs would come and harvest berries from each fall, but the weeds had overtaken them. Here was Red Moon Herbs again, connecting us all. How lovely!

I had learned while bottling you that you were a medicine for irregular menses and infertility, and, having neither of those things, I just didn’t give you much attention. Until that day I saw you in flower with all those butterflies dancing up and down your elongated, purple spikes and smelled your leaf. Ok, I want to know you now, Vitex, I thought, as I stood there and ate those lavender flowers and nibbled on your palmate leaf! Later that season when your berries formed, I nibbled on them and was surprised at the spicy taste.

I mentioned to my then partner, Frank Cook, how Vitex berries left this acrid, spicy taste on my tongue that I kind of liked and also didn’t like. He told me another name for you was Monk’s Pepper because your berries were ground and added to meals for those living in monasteries to curb libido. Keep them celibate, chaste. Thus your other names of Chasteberry or Chastetree and the species name of agnus-castus.

The Vitex in the Glad Garden that keeps getting whacked back to the roots in the winter. In one season though, it sends up all new shoots and still flowers.

I started an agnus-castus from seed and planted you out in a prominent place in the Glad Garden because I was so excited to harvest you and teach about you ‘in person/in plant.’ But then I sorely regretted it for two reasons: with climate extremes our winters are wonky and you sometimes die all the way back to the root which inhibits you from growing into that huge shrub I had envisioned there. Also, you are so beautiful from June till October, but for the other 7 months of the year (forgive me) you look like a skeleton of little sticks.

You can see the old growth of the Vitex where I cut back the limbs that died from cold. And for 7 months of the year in Zone 6, Vitex looks like a skeleton of sticks.

So I tried to dig you out of that spot and that is when I learned something else about you—you have such muscular roots! I then had a couple different men try and help dig you out but there was no way we were breaking through the stone roots, so unless I get a machine up there to pull you out, I guess you are staying.

I was envisioning the Glad Garden Vitex growing big like this so I could climb up in it to teach about plants, but our winters have gotten too cold.

You are a woody shrub of the Mediterranean that likes to live in moist places, even seaside. Your medicine is contained in your purple-gray drupes. If we want to grow you for that fruit, its best to prune your stems in autumn. These medicinal species of you are temperate but most of your Vitex genus resides in the tropics. You are one of the Verbenas, so often confused with Mints because of your opposite leaves, square stems and aromatic scent. Your cousins Lemon Verbena, Teak, American BeautyBerry, Clareodendron and Vervain are all uniquely special plants. What a royal family you have, Vitex!

Vitex, you have another analog species named negundo that is more cold hardy and fruit-full. Hart purchased some of those seeds several years ago from Strictly Medicinals and I have been harvesting your berries (which are actually drupes) from this bountiful hedge he planted. Your leaves of this species are more frilly and the branches are downy, and it’s called Horseshoe Vitex, for what reason I have no idea.

A little hedge of Vitex negundo

The root of Vitex means to weave because your young stems make excellent basketry material! Perhaps this name also originates from the gift you have at weaving balance into our hormonal phases. For this work, you get the reputation of being a reproductive tonic for women. Somehow you’ve got an ‘in’ on communication with the ovary diplomat, mister pituitary gland. It’s like you can coax Mr.P. Gland into doing the right thing when he has forgotten how to do his job. Like reduce the secretion of prolactin or increase progesterone or just balance out our estrogen/progesterone levels which lessens the symptoms of PMS, regulates our cycles, assuages tender breasts and can bring on a healthy supply of breast milk production for lactation.

Fertility is likely to increase with your use; hormonal acne may retreat; menopausal symptoms like hot flashes, vaginal dryness and anxiety are reduced. You are an excellent ally when coming off the birth control pill to help us return to a regular cycle and prevent mood swings.

The berries are the medicinal parts of Vitex

Extreme cramping, polycystic ovary syndrome, endometriosis and uterine fibroids have all been known to be healed through taking you as tea/tincture or capsule. You like long-term relationships though. You ask us to ingest your berry for months until we can really get to know you and receive your healing effects. I have heard that taking you with omega-3 fatty acids increases your properties.

We can sometimes experience adverse effects from ingesting you like nausea, headache and/or itchy, rashy skin. Although I have not personally experienced this in my long-term relationship with you, it does happen. Dopamine-related medications and some other Western medicines do not work well in conjunction with you, so let us pay attention to the whole picture before choosing you as our healing herb.

Vitex, you are not just a medicine for the female-bodied, however! You will reduce cravings and withdrawal symptoms from opiates by binding with mu-opiate receptors. Not Methadone, but still powerful! Your leaves can treat scabies, eczema and ringworm. For those with an out of control libido, your anaphrodisiac qualities can relieve this obsession. On the contrary, if our libido is low or non-existent, you will arouse us. And you make a beautiful bouquet!

I harvest your berries each year and put them in my daily tea blend. For a while there, I was having serious hot flashes and irritability so I increased the dose, even bringing in some tincture to my daily routine. My hot flashes went away and then I decreased the dosage and sure enough, they came back. So I recently increased it again and have not had any hot flashes in a month, yahoo! I love having a living relationship with you, Vitex. And when I no longer feel the need to take you, I will still grow you, visit you, talk to you and appreciate you. Thank you for giving nourishment to so many insects, and for being the shrub my kitty likes to hide under for shade. Thank you for making leaves that look like hands and for being easy to start from your seed. Thank you for being my plant ally. Thank you for being you.

Love,
Mary Plantwalker

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Weaving Community~

~I mention Red Moon Herbs in my love letter to Vitex and this Asheville, Wise Woman Ways-based company is still going strong. Started by Corrina Wood and Jessica Godino 30 years ago, and now owned by Jeannie Dunn, Red Moon has not ‘sold out’ in all these years but kept the integrity of the medicine locally-based. This company is an inspiration for any herbalist wanting to run a business with tried and true herbal preparations for the whole family from local, abundant plants. Here’s a link to their wonderful Vitex tincture.

~I also referred to Strictly Medicinals in this letter. Anyone here remember back when they were Horizon Herbs? Richo has several Vitex plant and seed options for purchase. We have gotten so many of our medicinal seeds from this great company!

~My family enjoyed reading “Holy Troublemakers and Unconventional Saints” by Daneen Akers each night after dinner, one troublemaker at a time;-) It’s made up of stories and portraits of people of faith who worked for more love and justice in their corner of the world, even when that meant rocking the religious boat. And now Daneen has written a Holy Troublemakers Volume 2!! Visit the Kickstarter to help launch this wonderful book into the world!

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Thank you for reading Earth Devotions and Bless your life~