📜 Of Deer Clover & Weather Herb: The Old Names
In the Ancestral Knowledge, it is known by many names: Water hemp, deer clover (Hirschklee), liver solace (Lebertrost), Kunigunde’s herb (Kunigundenkraut), nightmare herb (Alpkraut), thunder herb (Donnerkraut), man’s strength (Mannskraft), weather herb (Wetterkraut), and pagan wound-herb (Heidnisch Wundkraut).
Its botanical name is truly steeped in history: Eupatorium cannabinum.
The Royal Roots: Eupatorium comes from Eupator. In ancient times, this was an honorable epithet of Syrian kings and profoundly means “of noble ancestors.”
The Hemp Connection: Cannabinum refers to its delicate leaves, which strongly resemble those of the hemp plant. Hence its rustic, traditional name: Water Hemp (Wasserhanf).
🌩️ In the Sign of Thunder: Ancestral Traditions & The Old Gods
The hemp agrimony was a vital part of the sacred herbal bundle in many regions. This wild plant is deeply regarded as anti-demonic and therefore fiercely keeps everything bad away from us.
Cleansing the Space: For this magical purpose, an infusion is carefully prepared from its blossoms and leaves and respectfully sprinkled with a flower stem in rooms where one suspects negative, lingering energies.
The Thunder Herbs: Like the hemp agrimony, many wild plants carried the word “thunder” (Donner) in their traditional names among our great-grandparents, because they were deeply dedicated to their ancient God Donar (Thor). Many other plant souls also carry these powerful names in the Old Beliefs, such as:
The Thunder Vine (Donnerrebe) for the ground ivy (Gundermann)
The Thunder Green (Donnergrün) for the orpine (Fetthenne)
The Thunder Broom (Donnerbesen) for the mistletoe (Mistel)
The Thunder Flight (Donnerflug) for the corydalis (Lerchensporn)
Or the Thunder Beard (Donnerbart) for the houseleek (Hauswurz)
The Day of Donar: What unites them all is that they possessed the mighty properties to protect against lightning and severe storms. Against these raw forces of nature, and also against heavy diseases, these wild plants were traditionally gathered only on a Thursday (Donnerstag), so that they could gift their highest power to the people. The God Donar was not only a god of thunderstorms, but also blessed the land and fields in the deep belief of our ancient forebears. The day of Thursday is rightfully named after the God Donar.
💨 Smoke of Merging: Ritual & Higher Consciousness
The hemp agrimony is often burned purely on its own out in nature.
Opening the Heart: The sacred smoke conveys a profound feeling of merging with nature itself. It gently opens our hearts to feel and think much more intensely.
A Shield of Clarity: During a smoke-cleansing outdoors, it keeps wicked nature spirits far away from our consciousness, and through this, we attain a much higher level of awareness. We reach a sacred state of forgetting, of turning completely inward, and of overcoming our deep problems. It is a true gift of nature that we can switch off our negative thoughts and feelings for a short time to find true clarity.
Clearing the Mind: Burned water hemp roots fiercely detoxify and clear our spirit when we only think or speak negatively – especially when we cannot seem to climb out of a so-called black hole.
Ancestral Blends: Water hemp also smoke-cleanses wonderfully together with elecampane (Alant), tansy (Rainfarn), and wormwood (Wermut), along with a little piece of amber (Bernstein).
🌕 In the Light of the Full Moon: Magical Harvest
Gathering Time: Its true nature-magical gathering time takes place exactly during the bright full moon nights.
The Plant Parts: The carefully dried blossoms and leaves are used for the magic. However, the dried roots of the water hemp are by far the most intense.
