Is it sweet
to possess utterly?
Or is it bitter,
bitter as ash?
-Sappho, Fragment 40
Full Moon Tea for August 19th:
Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)
Chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla)
Blue Vervain (Verbena hastata)
Experiences of joy, delight, beauty and light-heartedness are to be cherished in this life. We are naturally inclined to move towards such sweetness; we need its medicine to balm and bolster our hearts. Sweetness is warming, expansive, filling and nourishing.
Although we are less inclined to seek it out, we need some bitterness in life, too. It has its own healing powers — cold, cutting and sharp. A dose of bitterness is precise and revealing; it adds clarity where there may have been obscurity; it injects a jolting awareness where there may have been dullness. Whatever it may be — an ending, a loss, an unexpected setback — bitter things loosen our grip on what may be too numbingly saccharine.
There is no need to fear the bitterness of life, nor do we need to avoid its potent and exacting medicine. I believe it is quite the opposite, in fact: we need every ounce of each of our experiences — especially the bitter ones —