Folklore Fridays & Summer Solstice
of sage and other herbs
Hello friends, today I wanted to share a few of the simple ways I’m celebrating the longest day of the year in addition to today’s poem. If you celebrate, Happy Solstice! I’d love to hear what you are doing today.
"O, where are you going?" "To Scarborough fair,"
[Parsley], sage, rosemary, and thyme;
"Remember me to a lass who lives there,
For once she was a true love of mine.”
~from “Scarborough Faire”, a ballad or song that dates back to early-mid 17th century England.
Welcome to the second of four posts about the folklore of the herbs featured in this song. If you’d like to read the one about parsley, you can do so here.
I want to acknowledge right off the bat that white sage, which is indigenous to Turtle Island/North America, is sacred to First Nations and indigenous peoples and has been over harvested to meet the demands of appropriative consumerism. This article and this interview are good starting points if you’d like to learn more.
That said, as common sage is indigenous to Europe, I am basing today’s poem on that plant. Apparently there is also black sage and purple sage, among many other varieties. I love the colors! It truly is a fascinating herb. Kudos to Icy Sedgwick for her post on the folklore of common sage. At this point, she’s basically sponsoring these posts.
Today’s poem was inspired by sage’s unfortunate association with domineering women (see the above link). In centuries past, men would frantically trim overgrowth of the herb in order to avoid neighbors assuming that their wives ruled the roost (heaven forbid) and the gossip that followed. Sage thrived where families of all girls lived.
Naturally, I wanted to take some of the negative associations here and flip them on their little patriarchal heads.
I hope you enjoy the poem!
Purple blossoms nodding
Sending fragrance through the garden
Where little girls play,
Laughing
And their mother,
The loudest of all,
Joins them in boisterous
Dancing
And their father,
Ignoring the gossip,
Quietly plants more sage,
Smiling.
Summer Solstice 2024
This morning I woke up before my family and sat on the front porch with my coffee, the book I’m reading, and my tarot deck. My cat joined me and made concentrating on anything a challenge, but I sat and enjoyed her company all the same. I also checked on my new plants, mint and French lavender, that I recently bought. Cross your green thumbs that I won’t kill these! Between saying hello to my feline and plant friends, I mostly tried to listen and look around me. This was challenging as my ADHD has been exceptionally loud/busy these days. Still, it was a pleasant morning, full of little rituals I would like to continue until the mornings become unbearably humid.
Later, all of us went swimming in one of our favorite creeks. I think we’ve done this for the past few Summer Solstices. I was telling my children about today, that another name for it is Litha. “Happy Litha, Mommy,” said my youngest. Happy Litha, indeed.
