My mandrakes hatching plots on the patio

I enjoy getting feedback from people about plants. It’s a great way for me to learn, and I like to share other magic workers’ experiences with plants with my customers. I am always open for that sort of thing. But I hate it when people tell me my business from the great heights of their advanced initiation, their supposed intimate congress with deities, their generational knowledge, their exalted titles, and other such bullshit on a stick. To me, that is just arrogance, pure and simple. This was brought home to me recently in the starkest manner by someone who, after buying a mandrake root from me, informed me that my mandrake roots are evil and that I should put up a warning on my page to that effect.

I’ve been growing mandrakes from seed for a number of years now. In all that time, I have never had a bad experience with this plant. I have handled the seeds, the leaves, the flowers, the fruits, and the roots in dormant, live, dried, and alcohol-preserved state. I have been respectful of the plant and not ingested it or rubbed it on my skin, etc., because for me, it is the working with this plant, the proximity to it, the living with it from which teaching visions and dreams come, not from the eating of it, smoking it, etc. Never in all that time have I had an impression of malice or ill will from this plant, in complete contrast to other witchy favorites like belladonna, which IME has as its slogan “I’m going to fuck you up just for the hell of it” (and which I grow anyway, likewise at a respectful distance). If anything, mandrake seems to me a friendly plant, especially for a nightshade. For instance, I have not heard of anyone dying from encountering a mandrake, but I cannot say the same about belladonna, tobacco, or even such ubiquitous critters as yew or even poppy, not to mention a bunch of other plants.

If you are a unstable individual or looking for thrills, mandrake is not the plant for you. You should stick to violets and chamomile and stay away from the nightshades entirely–and probably stay away from magic until you are healed. These things are not for fools or unbalanced people. These plants are for those who approach them with the respect that one accords to other individuals who possess their own knowledge, their own powers, their own identity. What makes these plants valuable to us apes is not just that they contain alkaloids or that they have a long history of associating themselves with us (and so, clearly, need something from us in return for what they give). It is also how they demand that we moderate our behavior with them, that we not treat them like an object, like we might relate to a stalk of corn or an apple, a thing to be consumed or used. These are not plants where we ingest the part we want and throw away the rest. They are not dead sticks we can use to make noise or to pry up a rock. They are not tools. They are not a means to puff up our self-esteem. They are independent beings, subjects and not objects. I don’t know how much more clear I can be.

Maybe, in this world, it is just not possible for most people to wrap their heads around the concept that plants can be companions rather than objects to be owned and used. Maybe what people say about plant teachers is just so much New Age crap. That might be the case for other people, but it is not the case for me. When I say I learn from my plants, I mean it. I do it in what I consider to be the most old-fashioned means possible, by simply opening myself up to them, making space for not only their existence but their selfhood. IMO, this is the path to true knowledge of plants.

Folks who identify themselves as witches should raise their consciousness about plants. That means rummaging around in one’s own heart and mind and tossing out old notions based on prejudice and becoming open to new approaches and perspectives to these plants. Isn’t that a fundamental part of magic and witchcraft, at least the kind that involves plant work? It seems so obvious. Instead, I hear from people who insist that mandrake abide by their crazy, selfish notions of how mandrakes–or perhaps only MY mandrakes, who knows–are evil. I’m sorry, but that is just garbage.

But let’s say you do have the conceit that your mandrake root is evil and is doing bad things without your permission and who knows, even plotting against you(!). What about considering that it is trying to teach you a fricking lesson? That it’s kicking your ass for you? That it’s had enough of your manipulations and hubris? Gee, what an old-fashioned concept. Maybe you don’t want to learn. Maybe you want to insist that you are so evil yourself that anything you drip blood on or work with turns evil also, the underlying assumption being that it’s all about YOU. That’s nice. Enjoy your delusions. Whatever you do, though, don’t email me about how my mandrake roots are evil, because I will tell you the truth you have been avoiding: that you are full of shit. And especially don’t email me about how you are not going to do anything about me right now, like you are going to smite me at some future time, when the notion strikes you. I will banish you with laughter, the true seriousness that destroys all false seriousness.

Okay, you’re saying, then how can you sell these things if they are independent beings? Good question. My answer is that I must deal with the world as it is, not as I would like it to be. If I could support myself by giving away mandrake roots and teaching people how to work with them, I would do so. Until that day, I grow and tend mandrakes, harvest their roots, and sell them to magic workers that I HOPE will relate to them as companions and teachers, as fellow magicians/witches.

May the gods bless us all in our work and lead us to see our blind spots.

The mandrakes are coming out of dormancy, but still nothing seen of the seeds I planted months ago. I will start another batch, as they do seem to prefer to germinate in the fall/winter here.  This plant was hiding beneath a blood-drop emlets that took over the pot this summer. Such proximity seems to have done neither plant any harm, which is neat to learn. This way the pots can do double duty. The blood-drop bloomed profusely and produced seeds, and now here comes mandrake. I also have some scented geraniums growing in a a larger pot with a dormant mandrake. We’ll see if that one comes through as well. It has not poked its head out yet.

My two most robust herbs this year were spearmint (of course) and surprisingly, wild lettuce. I have three of these plants that I started from seeds this year, and their rosettes, as they are called (the circle of leaves lying flat on the ground) are 2 ft/60 cm across. I did not expect them to get so big. These plants should make a lot of good healthy seeds next year (I had to discontinue selling these seeds because they just became ridiculously expensive, so I will be glad to get some homegrown ones to sell). I’m going to harvest some of the leaves this fall, but I’m not sure how many I can get away with taking. Wild lettuce contains the alkaloid hyoscyamine (like atropine only stronger), which is found in much larger quantities in its buddies belladonna, datura, mandrake, and henbane. But it does not contain any of the other associated alkaloids that they do. Hyoscyamine is sedating, drying, and slows down digestion greatly; in fact, in medicine it is given to people who have chronic diseases that feature diarrhea as a symptom. Most folks know about its effects in overdose–hallucinations, possible combativeness, euphoria, short-term memory loss, and sexual arousal. I think I will make the liquid extract described in Bartram’s, which is 1:1 herb and 25% alcohol. Dosage of that is .5-4ml. I have to say if it is anything like atropine, which I had to take for a week or so after eye surgery, I am not going to like it; I felt like I was poisoned. I am hoping that was a question of dosage. Wild lettuce is often combined with valerian and passionflower in equal parts as a tea for chronic insomnia. Oddly enough, Bartram’s lists one of wild lettuce’s uses as a treatment for “nymphomania.” That’s Saturn for you. Still, it’s strange that sexual arousal is a side effect of hyoscyamine and yet the plant containing it is used to stifle that. It makes me wonder if this is one of those herbs whose effects in tiny doses are the opposite of those in large doses.

I ended up doing a lot of pruning Saturday, especially of old wood, which seems like the perfect thing to do on Saturn’s day. I had a new anvil pruner to take for a test drive. There’s a sort of hibiscus bush that became overgrown that I cut back drastically to see if it will flower again. I cut all the dead stalks off the wormwoods and mugworts. I cut the dead branches off the multiflora rose that’s climbing up a Norway maple and then put up a wire arch for it to hang out on. That arch leads into the “way-back” garden, where last year I planted shallots and neglected them to oblivion (I have this problem of plant abuse…). Well, they’re back–a bunch of them made it through the summer. So I am going to leave them there and see what happens. Motherwort, which grows in spades in that area because it loves the shade and I help it along by sprinkling the seed heads around in the fall, is all over in the shallot rows. This year I will harvest and dry some of the motherwort for “Justin Case.” I then went on to cut back the water sprouts on the tulip tree and dragged all these plant bones back to the brush pile, which I have at one corner of the property just to annoy the anal people back there, the one whose dog came and bit Blackie. They have hacked away at the tree on the corner of the property so that it grows at nearly a 90 degree angle into my yard (which is fine). Inadvertently they have created a beautiful tree form. What does not destroy us, etc.

Some of the seedlings I transplanted yesterday look like they won’t make it. Others are grabbing hold already. Sunday I got the rest of the herbs I bought in the ground, put up the bean/pea netting again, and planted a ton of seeds: Harlequin marigold, Day of the Dead marigold (I am determined to get seeds from this thing), P. bracteatum (great red poppy), Mimulus luteus (blood-drop mimulus), vervain (forgot to stratify them, but thought I’d see if they’d germinate without it), the two subspecies of Papaver setigerum (the so-called wild poppy), Elka poppy, ma huang, a variety of extra-strength oregano called Dost, archangel, and eight types of foxgloves, just because I like them (and the bumblebees love them). While I was planting them, a huge wild turkey landed in the yard and scuffled around like a goofball. Blackie was sitting in the window with his eyes like saucers.

I didn’t get the greens or radicchio planted. I did something else instead: mandrakes!

Last fall I moved all the mandrakes into the basement. I harvested the larger ones and then let the rest of them go as too small to bother with. All winter they got no water or light. Today I went to scavenge the potting soil out of those pots. This is some of what I found:

Not only are these roots alive, but they are breaking dormancy.  That large one is over a foot long. So I put these and the others I dug up into large pots with fresh soil. They’ll be living on the patio behind the peas and beans, which will give them good shade and protection–and my attention. Last year they were relegated to the area between the silver maple and the strawberries, and I  ended up kind of ignoring them. They were eaten by slugs and drowned in excessive rain and got algae on the soil and so on.

I also found a pot with a very large root in it that I had missed when I was bringing pots down into the basement last fall. It sat out on the patio all winter, and yet the root was still alive. That was a real eye-opener. When I had to have a bunch of them on the patio when I first moved in, they were killed by very cold temps, I think it was 7F/-14C for at least one night. They turned into mush. But apparently they are more resistant to cold than I thought.

This plant is really something. Every time I think I have got it figured out, it shows me another side of itself. I knew, for instance, that despite its roots being very brittle, I could still press the hardened soil off them when harvesting them or transplanting them. I knew they went dormant at the drop of a hat. If you recall, some of these same plants were flowering when I had to take them inside last year. That’s not a good time in a plant’s life for them to experience a shock. It takes a lot of energy to flower. But look how these pulled that energy back in and soldiered through the dark, dry winter in the basement. It’s just astounding to me.

This also makes me wonder if perhaps it might actually be better for the plant if it goes dormant for the winter rather than trying to keep it growing and so stressing it to the point where it is covered with aphids. When you’ve got a lot of aphids, you’ve got either a very stressed plant or you’re using too much fertilizer–aphids like weak/tender plant flesh. Their teeth get tired otherwise.:)

I’ll see how these guys do this season. It would be great if some of the larger roots bloomed!