a yarrow pillow

i sit and write by my window, and look up often to the twin berry in the garden i tend, yellow bell flowers often visited. a jar of marbles is close-by because my dad told me no one plays with marbles anymore, but my friend and i have small collections and one day we will trade in play.

one of two black cats who live with me crawls down the space between the back rest of my soft suede office chair and my own back where i sit, now pushed forward. for meetings i am backset by the abstract painting of my dear friend's late-grandmother's dear friend, and i feel a part of a wider garden, visited by hummingbirds, foraged by bees, home to many.

the window the photo is framed through is an arched portal of sorts from one room to another. and in the composition of this collage of two photos, the round plastic of the seedling pot is matched, conjoined in a double arch. because perhaps i too am a yarrow seedling, rooting, unfurling.

i've been following yarrow for many seasons now. tending them in gardens. sitting with them on lakeside rock and oceanside cliff, finding them in glacial meadows. i first fell for the openness of the many flowered bloom. then for the lore embedded in the latin name, relating of achilles: dipped into the river styx as a child, waters of the underworld as a mother's protection spell. alas, the pinch point of the child's left heel was untreated, no one is invulnerable, and what a gift is vulnerability.

i learned of the use of the crushed fresh leaves to stay nose-bleeds. of the dried leaves and flowers for digestive teas and healing balms. and then, after seeing it written time and time(s) again, of the use of yarrow's hollow stems as grounding wands in the casting of the I Ching, the reading of the book of changes.

i harvested 50 stalks, dried them. i set the first aside, each time i cast, as witness. held in hand, the remainder are divided, cast off in fours, re-joined. this cycle repeated in movements of yin and yang, chaos and balance, division and unity. from six movements, six inscribed lines, broken and un-broken, are formed: two (of eight possible) trigrams, which are combined to locate one (of sixty four possible) hexagrams. each hexagram connects across ages to accompany change. i never go lightly to the I Ching, but in times of big transition, when i know what i am seeking, i ask the yarrow to come with me.

this is the first year i've started yarrow from seed. and in choosing to love in this way, i'm deepening my relationship. to plant a seed, cast into nutritious soil, placed in the sun's radiant path. with water carried daily, a cotyledon emerges - seed leaves round and impossibly small. and then, with patience and care, the first true leaves appear, and i realise: i've never seen them of yarrow before. they are small, featherlike, an inkling of what they will become. i check them daily. i tell them about my days, in hummed songs i quietly weird. i transplant them when they are ready to a place in the garden near older yarrow - who might know a few things, share about the seasons, support their growth, encourage them to be open to loving.

today i learn that in ireland, ancestral lands i dream towards visiting, yarrow is named Athair Thalún (father of the land) and that come Samhain, when the veil is thin between this and the otherworlds, i might place yarrow under my pillow to see the face of my future love. dream augury. sensuous spell. yarrow gift.