A Mullein Harvest on St. Margaret of Antioch’s Eve
We took a drive yesterday evening to Our Lady of Perpetual Help, St. Mary’s Catholic Church, where I had gathered my first mullein leaves of the year on the wild southern side of St. Mary’s Mountain. This was the most abundant patch of mullein I have found so it seemed a good bet I could find a stalk to dry for next year’s hromnička (one of my most important tools) and some smaller, still flowering stalks to nurture at home for the flowers.
Besides the location being a lovely connection to Mother Mary, the timing was perfect. St. Margaret’s feast day lies approximately at the opposite side of the year from Hromnice (Candlemas) when I’ll be making my hromnička and consecrating it. I love to gather plants during the light half of the year with the intention of bringing their energies into rituals in the opposite half. We were also approaching the new moon.
Hromnice falls on 2 February, which is traditionally the 40th day of and the conclusion of the Christmas–Epiphany season. As St. Margaret is associated with birth she seemed a lovely saint to work with for a ritual that will take place at the end of the season celebrating the birth of the holy child.
Also, though I have come in recent years to consider St. Matthew’s Day (folkloric date February 24) to be the beginning of my devotional year as both one of the two days I celebrate my own birth and the day I’ve found to be regionally appropriate to drown Morana, I consider Hromnice to be a kind of liminal, gestational period leading up to it—not quite the old year and not quite the new year.
And St. Margaret’s Day was traditionally the kickoff of the Harvest season in the lands of my Moravian ancestors—so what better day to for an important personal harvest?
In addition to the mullein, on our walk in that liminal space that is not quite the church grounds, and not yet completely wild, I gathered my first sumac of the year for a Lammas first fruits “lemonade”. I also harvested some honeysuckle and shiso to dry for a ritual tea at Hromnice and some golden aster to add to my growing collection of lesser known medicinal plants used by the indigenous people of this land.
