“Your task is not to
seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.” -Rumi
Hawthorn (Crataegus
spp.) is a type of small tree or bush that produces red berries. These
tasty and edible berries, along with the flowers and leaves of the tree, are a
medicinal heart tonic. Hawthorn’s medicine is gentle, so the tea or tincture
can be taken as a long-term heart and circulatory tonic. As a nutritive herb,
it restores damaged tissue of the heart. Hawthorn also strengthens the heart
beat and regulates blood pressure. Good for connective tissue, Hawthorn can be
used as support for joints, veins, tendons, and ligaments. It also helps with
circulation, improving blood flow to the extremities.
The Heart of the
Matter
 |
| By Morgan Phoenix via Wikimedia Commons |
While this plant provides great benefit to the body,
Hawthorn’s ties to the heart go far beyond the physical realm. The plant spirit
of Hawthorn is one of the most beneficial for healing and opening the energetic
heart. This is a very important medicine, as Western culture suffers greatly
from physical heart disease and emotional heart blockage alike.
The heart chakra is the very center of our being, the middle
ground between the earthly, lower chakras and the heavenly, upper chakras. The
heart is what allows us to rise above mere survival,
pleasure, and will-power
and to feel true love for others and for life itself. Our hearts connect us to
our families, partners, and friends, as well as to the world at large. The
heart is now being recognized as a primary organ of perception, with an electromagnetic field many times larger than the brain's. Our
hearts process our emotions and allow us to feel the greatest feeling of
all—love. Getting the heart pumping with feelings of gratitude and joy also
boosts our ability to manifest our desires. Clearly, caring for our hearts,
both physically and metaphysically, is of immeasurable value to our lives.
An Introduction to
Plant Spirit Healing
 |
| By Nyps151 via Wikimedia Commons |
Hawthorn certainly holds a special place in my heart--this
was the first plant spirit I consciously connected with. It was during my
internship with Herb Pharm, where I’d gone to learn the nuts and bolts of
herbalism. I got a lot more than I bargained for when plant spirit healing was
introduced in a weekend-long seminar. Up until that point, I had always felt
that plants had a magic about them, but had no clue that they also possessed a
spirit or consciousness. But that weekend, everything changed.
I have to admit that Hawthorn reached out to me even before
this experience. I’d been working as a buyer in a health food store, and it was
my job to order the bulk herbs. There were some old Hawthorn berries that
nobody had touched for a long time. We discontinued the product, so I took the rest
of them home. There they stayed in my cabinet, untouched for many months. I
told myself, “I don’t have heart problems, so I don’t need this medicine. I just
don’t have the time to mess with it right now.”
To introduce us to the Hawthorn spirit, our teacher had the
class of about 15 people sit in a circle around a small Hawthorn tree. She
explained that Hawthorn was a fairly accessible plant spirit, and I got the
impression that she would be working her shamanic mojo to help open us to the
experience. She passed around two bottles of tincture, which were used as a
drop dose to connect with the energy of the plant.
 |
| Hawthorn Blossoms |
This is great exercise, by the way--sit quietly in a relaxed
state and place a single drop of tincture of any medicinal plant on your tongue.
Get quiet to absorb the taste as well as any feelings or images that come to
you. I’ve seen this done as a kind of blind test in many classes, and it’s
amazing what people can tap into. Even those with zero experience in herbal
medicine can often pick up on the essence and purpose of a plant without even
knowing its name. I think it’s partly intuition, partly the plant spirit
communicating with us, and partly the age-old DNA connection that humans have with
medicinal plants which has aided our survival for millennia.
Back to our story--when I first tasted the tincture, I was
instantly transported back to my childhood. The taste of the berries alone was
reminiscent of cough medicine I’d had as a child--sweet and comforting. On another level, Hawthorn was a bittersweet
medicine that made me feel my heart very deeply, including its wounds.
I began to spontaneously recall instances from my childhood
that were painful in some way: the time my brother tricked me by saying we could
play hide and seek, only to leave me hiding by myself outside for a long time
while he went back inside; the times when I had nobody to play with at school recess
and sat by myself on the jungle gym; the time I skinned my knee and cried in
the bathroom until my brother came in to say, “Everyone knows you’re just
doing this for attention.”
 |
| By Zsoldos Márton via Wikimedia Commons |
This seemed, to me, like a clear metaphor for how easy it is
to forget about the heart. It was then that I recalled my own Hawthorn berries
sitting in my cupboard, unused. Having just had a powerful experience with the
plant, I now understood how much value I had completely overlooked. Those
berries had been a gift from the Universe that I had ignored. Hawthorn wasn’t
just about keeping the physical heart healthy. It wasn’t something that only people
with heart disease needed--it was something that everyone needed.
 |
| By Lauren raine via Wikimedia Commons |
Feeling rather humbled, I took a larger dose of the medicine
and headed for my tent. As I lay in my sleeping bag, the memories continued. I
relived more moments from my childhood, which eventually gave way to more
recent painful memories of lost or broken relationships. It was a huge
catharsis, like a tidal wave of pent-up emotion finally having an outlet for
release.
More importantly, Hawthorn began to show me patterns. I
could see how the times when I felt a lack of love as a child had translated
into patterns of grasping and insecurity as an adult. Even more painful, I was
shown how some of my actions--based on pain, fear, and lack--had in turn caused
pain for others. It was a cycle in my life, repeating itself over and over
again through my various relationships. I got very little sleep that night, but
I received a teaching that would last for a lifetime.
.jpg) |
| By Matt Lavin from Bozeman, Montana, USA via Wikimedia Commons |
Flowers and Thorns
This experience had lasting effects on my life. Within six
months of returning home from the internship, I ended an unhealthy partnership.
After gaining some distance from that situation, I was able to see how the four
major romances of my life had all mirrored the dynamics of my relationships
with the four people in my immediate family. It was kind of eerie, really, with
patterns and similarities so striking that I couldn’t believe I had been blind
to them all these years.
Plus, I am now more open about shedding tears in front of
others, even in public, when something moves me. Though I still sometimes feel
embarrassed depending on the circumstances, it’s become a lot easier for me to
open up to people and groups in general. It’s as if all along, I’d
unconsciously feared that having an open heart would make me weak. But on the
contrary, it’s made me stronger.
 |
| By Reinhardhauke via Wikimedia Commons |
The Hawthorn tree is a member of the Rose family, and both
of these plants reflect the connection between joy and sorrow. Roses are a
classic symbol of love and the ever-opening heart. And yet their stems contain
wicked thorns, so that if you hold on too tightly to the experience of love,
you will draw blood. Our earthly existence is temporary, and so we know that
everyone and everything we love will eventually pass. Often, what we love most
in life breaks our hearts the most as well.
Hawthorn also has thorns covering its trunk and branches. I
see these thorns acting as acupuncture needles which, when stuck in the right
places, can release long-held pain. Hawthorn finds your heart’s tender spots,
even the places you’ve forgotten about. When she sticks her needles in, the
pain intensifies. But when it’s over, you feel much lighter, healthier, and perhaps a bit wiser.
Grandmother Hawthorn
I see the spirit of Hawthorn as a grandmotherly figure who
delivers just the right dose of medicine at the right time. Her lessons can be
stern, but they are always fair, and she never gives you more than you handle. She
won’t spoil you, but is able to show you the kind of tough love necessary for
the healthy growth of strong children. Grandmother Hawthorn can open your eyes
to issues you’ve been hiding from yourself, and unconscious patterns of action
and reaction that wreak havoc on your relationships.
 |
| By Intel Free Press via Wikimedia Commons |
This is why I say that everyone
needs this medicine. Even those like myself who were blessed with great
parents and a healthy upbringing can still point to painful childhood memories.
Nobody is perfect, and so nobody makes a perfect parent or sibling. And yet,
injuries of a familial origin are often what linger within us into adulthood.
As psychologists know, our primordial relationships with immediate family members
form the basis of our tendencies as adults. With the lens of
truth offered by Hawthorn, you are more able to protect yourself and your loved
ones from unnecessary sorrow.
From the Heart
If we truly acted from our hearts, imagine how the world
might be different. Would people still spray chemicals on their food, eat meat
that came from suffering animals, dump trash into the ocean, or go to war?
 |
| Saint Augustin by Philippe de Champaigne |
And yet, it is very easy to forget all about the heart. In
fact, I believe that our culture teaches us to shut down our heart centers.
Rather than being taught to feel and process our emotions, we’re expected to
hide and neglect them in order to succeed in our jobs and our lives. Even in
the realm of romance, people tend to jump from one relationship to another
without allowing themselves the time to grieve, much less change the pattern
that manifested a non-functional relationship to begin with. I’ve done this
myself, only to find that while I had changed the name and face of the person whom
I was with, the patterns stayed much the same (and actually worsened).
Until we face our fear of vulnerability that comes along with
opening our hearts, this won’t change--not on the personal level, and not on
the global level. I know it’s scary, but I promise you that it will be okay.
While I sat tearful under the Hawthorn tree, nobody laughed at me or shunned me.
In fact, the more I open up, the more surprised I am at just how kind people
can be.
Working with the Hawthorn spirit can dislodge emotional
blockages in order for you to start pumping love more freely through your
veins. Under her care, you are able to handle all of life’s bittersweet ebbs
and flows, its joys and sorrows. If you open yourself to the wisdom of
Grandmother Hawthorn, you will receive a mighty reward—nothing less than a
greater depth of feeling and a higher capacity to love.
.jpg) |
| By Eneas De Troya from Mexico City via Wikimedia Commons |
