Mugwort plants

Digestion - Mugwort is a digestive bitter, and is helpful wherever digestive stimulation is needed. Bitters aid liver function and bile secretion. When your body produces enough bile, your body digests more effectively, particularly fats, and can also absorb more nutrients from food. Using Mugwort can improve appetite, digestion, and nutrient absorption, ease nervous indigestion, colic, gas, diarrhoea and constipation.

Female Health - Mugwort stimulates circulation in the uterus, promoting balanced menstruation.  It can bring on delayed wai whero, ease menstrual cramps and balance menopause symptoms, reducing the frequency and severity of hot flashes.

Intestinal Worms - Mugwort can be used as an anthelmintic against roundworm and pinworm.

Sleep & Dreams - One of the most interesting uses for Mugwort is to stimulate lucid dreams - the type that feel very real and you remember clearly when you wake up. It has been used for this purpose for centuries, even being considered a "visionary herb."

Dreams are an opportunity for the subconscious to go to work on the lessons of the day, and integrate them into the deeper mind, as well as bring messages from your higher self.

If you tend not to remember anything about your dreams, Mugwort will help you recollect more of your dreams, and help you construct a more complete narrative thread. It also has the tendency to add colour to your dreams as well as other senses like sound, touch, smell, and taste.

Mugwort is helpful for disrupted sleep, specifically those who wake in the middle of the night and have difficulty falling back to sleep.

Calms Nerves - Mugwort has wonderful relaxing properties. It has been used as a nervine to calm the nervous system and reduce depression and tension, which also makes it beneficial for getting better sleep at night.

Arthritic & Rheumatic Pain - Mugwort can be helpful in pain relief, specifically from arthritis & rheumatism. In some studies, it was used in an ancient Chinese technique known as moxibustion (in conjunction with acupuncture). In another one, it was used as an extract in a formulation given to participants with hip and knee osteoarthritis. The results so far in both cases have been positive: reduction of pain and better mobility.

Topically - Mugwort is also antibacterial, antifungal & antibacterial, and it can be applied topically to relieve itching and burning. It is said to help with rashes, poison oak, and many other skin disorders. Mugwort would make an excellent additive in a healing balm.

Insect Repellent - Mugwort is also used in summer to keep insects away and to repel moths from clothes. The whole plant (fresh or dried) can be used to repel insects. An infusion of the plant can serve as as a general-purpose insecticidal spray which is especially effective against insect larvae.

Spiritually/Energetically - Mugwort helps us to connect to and release our wild, untamed selves. It aids both men and women to connect with the divine feminine within, to open our third eye to our visions and dreams. It encourages flow, removing stagnation and easing transitions, in both our physical and energetic bodies. It also boosts intuition and creativity within.

The benefits of Mugwort are highly energetic, so ideally harvest Mugwort near the full moon, when she is at the peak of her mystical potency.

You can use Mugwort for smudge sticks, a herbal vinegar, and also dream pillows, adding a little lavender to the dream pillow mix.

Add a few sprigs of Mugwort to a warm bath, with epsom salts or magnesium, and lavender.

For sleep and dreaming, you can try simply placing Mugwort under or near your pillow or take it internally as a herbal infusion.

Precautions - Not to be used by hapu (pregnant) or breastfeeding women.

The hallucinogenic properties of Mugwort are slim to none, but caution should be exercised due to its ability to enduce lucid and vivid dreams and even sometimes trance-like half dream states.

Organically grown herb in a recycled or compostable pot.