Hawthorn for our Tender Hearts

May is the season for Hawthorn flower. One of my very favorites! The writing and recipe below are an excerpt from my 2019 zine, Protection and Abundance: Hawthorn.

Color cover of the zine, Protection and Abundance: Hawthorn

Hawthorn is a complex creature rich with contradictions (as we all are). Attributed to both Mars and Venus, its presence marking both good and bad luck. Deeply protective, yet manipulated to do harm. 

Another name of Hawthorn is May Flower for its beautiful and delicate blossoms that mark the transition from winter to spring. May Flower the name of the vessel that brought so much destruction and displacement to this land. 

Hawthorn marks the opening to the otherworld, it is inhabited by spirits and the good people. Hawthorn was used in England and Ireland to enclose the commons - a process that both required and facilitated the disenchantment of the world. 

Hawthorn serves to mark both sacred sites and private property. 

I feel deep sadness when I think about how this fierce and tender plant has been woven tightly into impenetrable fences and full of hope when I see other animals nourished and housed in the thorny branches. 

I sit with these contradictions as I walk under the Hawthorn on my block. They are not hedgerows, but do mark another process of displacement and colonization: gentrification. So while in these pages I also imagine the restorative potential of Hawthorn I also sit with the ways in which this plant has been used by people to uproot and the resistance to enclosure which meant uprooting the plant itself. Which history and legacy of Hawthorn will we follow? We don’t really get to choose. We don’t only get to reclaim the magic of our ancestors. We also have to look at the violence done.

Tender Heart Tincture

This is a sweet and simple formula for when you need some thorns around you to help you release sadness and grief. It makes use of all parts of the hawthorn tree. 

Ingredients

1 part rose petals

1 part hawthorn berry

1 part hawthorn leaf and flower

Brandy

Instructions

In a jar, cover rose petals and hawthorn berries, leaves and flowers with brandy. Let sit for 6 weeks. Shake often. Strain, bottle and label.