Rutland Biodynamics is famous for bringing a very wide range of natural fresh organic herbal medicines to the professional practitioner world-wide.
This year, following the exceptionally dry winter on the heavy, rich, fertile Rutland soil, the warming sun smiled particularly favourably on the field-margins, hedgerows and paths around the farm, promoting a more obvious than usual profusion of small erect flowering plants and in particular, Shepherd’s Purse. We were able to gather in and macerate in the fresh state good quantities of this heavenly little herb. The whole place smelled divine when it was being prepared!
We are very grateful to Carole Guyett MNIMH, one of Ireland’s senior herbalists, for so kindly writing the following piece.
I have always loved the delicate heart-shaped seed pods of Shepherd’s Purse and since becoming a herbalist, I love the plant even more for its many healing gifts. As a student herbalist back in the 80’s, I was fortunate to receive training at Janet Hicks’ clinic in Winchester. Janet had a particular interest in gynaecology and in her clinic I learnt about Capsella’s amazing ability to stop excessive bleeding, whether from heavy periods, uterine fibroids, post partum haemorrhage or other causes. I was taught that for haemorrhages, the use of fresh Capsella preparations is crucial and this was later confirmed in my own practice when I tried using tincture from the dried plant and its effects were decidedly poor by comparison. From that point on, while I don’t doubt that the dried preparations may be useful in certain conditions, personally I only ever use preparations made from the fresh plant. These are often hard to find commercially and I was delighted to hear that Rutland will start offering fresh Capsella tincture. Wonderful! This beautiful ‘weed’ is a much under-used medicine. If you haven’t done so already, I heartily encourage you to try it, not only as a powerful anti-haemorrhagic but also for its valuable actions as a hypotensive, astringent tonic and urinary antiseptic that tones the pelvic organs and can be particularly helpful for uterine and bladder prolapse.
Carole Guyett MNIMH
