Notes: Dusty looking perennial of the lowland grown, in Europe and eastern North America

Energetics: pungent, and bitter, cool and dry; restoring, relaxing, stimulating, and decongesting

Meridians: Liver, Bladder, Chong and Ren

Cunningham: Cleanse negative influences, but in addition it is protective and enhances psychic abilities. Traditionally leaves are gathered on midsummer’s eve, root gathered in Autumn.. Hung over the entrance to a house to guard against misfortune, if hidden under the doorway, ensures protection against unwanted visitors. It Aids clairvoyance and infusion are drunk as a tea before divination. Fresh leaves can be rubbed on crystal balls or scrying mirrors, and dried leaves can be used as incense when divining. A pillow stuffed with mugwort leaves will help to stimulate prophetic dreams.

Hildegard von Bingen says that Mugwort is very hot and its juice is of very great value. If it is cooked and eaten as a puree, it heals ailing intestines and warms a cold stomach. But if someone eats or drink something which has given him pain, then he should cook and eat warmed mugwort with meat or lard, or as a purée. It will attract the rotten matter which was in the previously ingested food or drink and chase it away. If bad humors gather in some part of the body, flowing out from broken skin where there is no poisoned wound, the person should take mugwort and express the juice. He should spread this on the afflicted area, then cover it with an egg white and tie it with a cloth.

Culpeper: This is an herb of Venus…good success put among other herbs that are boiled for women to sit over to draw down their courses, to help the delivery of their birth; as also for the obstructions and inflammations of the mother. It breaketh the stone, and causeth one to make water where it is stopped. The juice thereof made up with myrrh, and put under as a pessary, worketh the same effects, and so do the roots. Being made with hog’s lard into an ointment, it taketh away wens and hard knots, and kernels in the neck and throat, and easeth the pains about the neck. It is a special remedy upon the overmuch taking of opium. Three drachms of the powder of the dried leaves taken in wine, is a speedy and certain help for sciatica. A decoction made with camomile and Agrimony, and the place bathe while it is warm, taketh away pains of the sinews and cramp.

Peter Holmes: Mugwort root was traditional European remedy for epilepsy. Do not confuse with California mugwort, Artemisia heterophylla which was used by Native Americans for colic, diarrhea, fevers, headache, and rheumatism; external poultices to stop haemorrhage, and relieve, red, sore eyes and poison ivy rashes. The Chinese herb Artemisia, Ai Ye is also a different species, Artemisia argyi; its emphasis is on stopping uterine bleeding rather that promoting menses and also has antiasthmatic, antitussive, expectorant and antiallergic properties. According to Chen and Chen; Ai Ye is the main ingredient compressed into Moxa sticks. When burned, the heat penetrates into the muscles, tendons and bones to activate qi and blood circulation and warms peripheral channels and collaterals.

From Native American Medicinal Plants: Karok- used as analgesic infusion for afterbirth pains; poultice used for colds; Kiowas-worm medicine; Miwok: analgesic-leaves worn is nostrils for headaches; decoction for rheumatism; Paiute-used as a cold remedy; topical for gonorrhoeal sores; used topically for back-ache; Pomo used heated leaves on newborn’s navel; Tlianit-used in steam bath for pleurisy

Grieve: Mugwort abounds on hedgebanks and waysides in most parts of England. It is a tall-growing plant, the stems, which are angular and often of a purplish hue, frequently rising 3 feet or more in height. The leaves are smooth and of a dark green tint on the upper surface, but covered with a dense cottony down beneath; they are once or twice pinnately lobed, the segments being lanceshaped and pointed. The flowers are in small oval heads with cottony involucres and are arranged in long, terminal panicles; they are either reddish or pale yellow. The Mugwort is closely allied to the Cornmon Wormwood, but may be readily distinguished by the leaves being white. The Mugwort is said to have derived its name from having been used to flavour drinks. It was, in common with other herbs, such as Ground Ivy, used to a great extent for flavouring beer before the introduction of hops. For this purpose, the plant was gathered when in flower and dried, the fresh herb being considered unsuitable for this object: malt liquor was then boiled with it so as to form a strong decoction, and the liquid thus prepared was added to the beer. Until recent years, it was still used in some parts of the country to flavour the table beer brewed by cottagers.

It has also been suggested that the name, Mugwort, may be derived not from 'mug,' the drinking vessel, but from moughte (a moth or maggot), because from the days of Dioscorides, the plant has been regarded, in common with Wormwood, as useful in keeping off the attacks of moths.

In the Middle Ages, the plant was known as Cingulum Sancti Johannis, it being believed that John the Baptist wore a girdle of it in the wilderness. There were many superstitions connected with it: it was believed to preserve the wayfarer from fatigue, sunstroke, wild beasts and evil spirits generally: a crown made from its sprays was worn on St. John's Eve to gain security from evil possession, and in Holland and Germany one of its names is St. John's Plant, because of the belief, that if gathered on St. John's Eve it gave protection against diseases and misfortunes.

Dr. John Hill extols its virtues, and says:

'Providence has placed it everywhere about our doors; so that reason and authority, as well as the notice of our senses, point it out for use: but chemistry has banished natural medicines.'

Dioscorides praises this herb, and orders the flowering tops to be used just before they bloom.

The dried leaves were, sixty or seventy years ago, in use by the working classes in Cornwall as one of the substitutes for tea, at a time when tea cost 7s. per lb., and on the Continent Mugwort is occasionally employed as an aromatic culinary herb, being one of the green herbs with which geese are often stuffed during roasting.

The downy leaves have been used in the preparation of Moxas, which the Japanese use to cure rheumatism. The down is separated by heating the leaves and afterwards rubbing them between the hands until the cottony fibres alone remain, these are then made up into small cones or cylinders for use. Artemisia Moxa and A. sinensis are mainly used in Japan. This cottony substance has also been used as a substitute for tinder.

Sheep are said to enjoy the herbage of the Mugwort, and also the roots. The plant may, perhaps, be the Artemesia of Pontos, which was celebrated among the ancients for fattening these animals. It is said to be good for poultry and turkeys.

Matthew Wood: It is a restorative when there has been obstetric injury, abortion, abuse, poverty, deprivation. It is as if the male part has rushed ahead to protect the injured female part. Mugwort is restorative to the injured female nature. In European Phytotherapy, it is considered to stimulate secretion of FSH and LH. It is indicated in insufficiency of the corpus luteum from anemia. It is a remedy for excessive androgneism. In (MW’s experience) excess androgen tends to bring on conditions of chill and fever. “It is as if cold were struck in the system and the heat is trying to drive it out, resulting in chill/fever, or “Intermittent fever”. The muscles are weak and malnourished, subject to bouts of cold, soreness, pain, and spasm. In Chinese Herbalism, the leaves of mugwort are rolled to moxa sticks and burned to increase warmth and circulation. Tissue state of depression, constriction and atrophy

Specific pulse- weak pulse on the right and stronger on the left.

In Japan mugwort is pounded into glutinous rice to make gomogi mochi a food that provides stamina and is traditionally given to new mothers to stop postpartum bleeding and anemia, and to promote lactation.

Dorothy Hall: suited to highly intelligent people with complex thoughts that are difficult to describe, speech disorders and dyslexia, highly elevated senses, sensitivity to light and sounds, with great difficulty getting to deep sleep