Blue Vervain: The Enchanter’s Herb
Common name: Blue vervain
Latin name: Verbena hastata
Family: Verbenaceae
Parts used: Leaf and flowers
Actions: Bitter, diaphoretic, diuretic, expectorant, hypotensive, nervine, relaxant, antispasmodic, febrifuge,
Active Constituents: adenosine, aucubin, beta-carotene, caffeic-acid, citral, hastatoside, lupeol, ursolic-acid, verbenalin, verbenin
Energetics: Slightly cooling, drying, relaxing
Blue vervain. She likes disturbed places; find her growing wild and tall throughout North America, in prairies and meadows and low, open woodlands. Square strong stems with fine white hairs and deeply purple-blue flowers in a candelabra of elongated panicles that bloom mid to late summer. Verbena; the enchanter’s herb, sacred to Isis, the Egyptian goddess of magic and wisdom, the Great Sorceress with a thousand names.
Let a tincture of the fresh plant sit on your tongue and you’ll notice immediately the bitterness, and how it untangles the tense stress from your shoulders and face. To me, it feels like a cool blue flame at the bottom of my stomach, unleashing flickers of wildness.
Clinically, it is indicated for people suffering from long-term stress. Detail-oriented, tense people with shoulder pain, who feel like they’re tied up in knots. It eases tension, specifically in the head, neck, and jaw, inviting energy to ease downward and out. It can relax irritated, tense PMS, and cool anger, and it is especially helpful with stomach upset associated with suppressed emotions, most notably, anger. It works on patterns of hot, tense, and excess throughout the body, encouraging release and a coming back to one’s feral, wild, unfettered self.
Blue vervain binds to estrogen and progesterone receptors, specifically balancing progesterone in the luteal stage. This makes it an important ally for folks experiencing PMS and hormone-relate anger and cravings, and who feel “tied in knots".
I find this plant to release the tense states, shed stress, and relax the defenses of holding yourself tight and constricted. It ignites the wild and the magic, unleashes the dark feminine shadow-self which demands attention. Blue vervain likes to grow in disturbed places, she likes the edges of places, the in-between. As such, she asks us to look within at the disturbed, the shadow, those uncertain wild parts that flicker in our periphery.
