Holy Ghost root

The first time I tasted you, something woke up inside of me.

The first time I tasted you, something woke up inside of me. I swear that dormant genes, passed down from my great-great grandmother stirred from their slumber as you touched my lips and your spirit entered my body. 

We don’t have words in this language for that feeling, try as I do to contain it. The homesick, strange knowing that fills you with both grief and joy. Like meeting a long lost relative on a dark road, a stranger who you do not know; yet under the dim light of the moon, you notice the same lines are etched upon their face as your fathers, and your blood still sings the same song of snow and ice. 

Do you know what that’s like? To be caught in the crack between familiarity and otherness? 

There are names that my mouth does not remember that my heart does. The vowels feel strange on my tongue and I speak them with the tilt of a child, ending in upward inflection, like a question.

When I taste you, I hear the otherwordly song of the northern lights, echoing across dark water and white snow. 

Have you ever heard light sing? Have you ever called back, in return?

That, is Angelica. 

When I dig my bare hands into the earth, loosening your roots, the smell of you washes over me like a wave. It is musky and warm, like reindeer breath and sunlight. Involuntarily, my chest takes in a breath that has my lungs opening like wings.

That, is Angelica. 

You bring clarity like a north wind, blowing away all the clouds in the sky leaving only a stark blue in your wake. You are a tether between worlds, both seen and unseen, your stalk a great ladder I climb to get a better view. 

I could spend my whole life at your feet and leave this earth still humbled by your presence, hvǫnn, ancient steward of my people.

There are roughly sixty species of Angelica found around the world. Angelica archangelica is the variety local to Scandinavia, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Russia. The species most common in the United States is A. atropurpurea, a native of the eastern half. Here in the pacific west we have dozens of different Angelica species, most being difficult to find or identify given the unique, obscure ecosystems they dwell in. The two most common varieties are firstly, Angelica arguta, who grows on slopes, well drained meadows, and beside stream banks along the northern coast range, southwest and central Oregon, east of the Cascades from Washington through eastern Oregon, and onward through Idaho, Montana and into British Columbia. The other variety, Angelica hendersonii, is a small and squat plant growing only on coastal bluffs from Northern California through Southern Washington and is the closest kin I have to work with.

For the first two years, Angelica grows as a cluster of wide leaves on purple-pink and green hued stalks. Usually it is the third year where they send up a tall, hollow, flowering stalk. Angelica is noted as the tallest wildflower on turtle island, with heights reaching nine feet or taller. They are self pollinated and monocarpic, flowering once, going to seed, and then returning to the earth. 

The flowers are white, sometimes tinted with pale green or pink, and the seeds are round and winged with three ridges on the lateral sides. The entire plant is fragrant and full of presence. Angelica’s taste has been likened to cardamom, juniper, licorice or wild celery, however I believe their scent and taste to be wholly their own, nothing quite compares. 

Every part of Angelica is medicinal and every part has been used throughout history, from seed to stalk to leaf to root. For the indigenous Sami people of Scandinavia, Angelica is a shamanic ally held with extreme respect and value and is considered one of the most important plants in their diet with limited access to anything herbaceous. They have distinct names for each of Angelica’s life patterns.

Noted by Carl Linnaeus, in Flora Lapponica, a personal account from his 1732 expedition:

“The Lapps [Sami] terms the first year root, not yet holding a stalk, for urtas. They call the first year’s herb fatno and the second year herb botsk. The peeled stalk is called rasi’”

Angelica is harvested in spring to early summer around the solstice, at the height of the sun's power. The roots were dug and dried to be chewed on or made into tea. Stalks were cut before flowering so as to preserve the plant, which will die after having gone to flower. The stalks were peeled and eaten raw as a snack or cooked into desserts. 

Linnaeus wrote in Lachesis Lapponica that his Sami travel companion simply "seized it immediately, and peeling the stalk, which had not yet flowered, ate it like a turnip, as a great delicacy. Indeed it tasted not unpleasantly, especially the upper part, which is the most tender. This dainty is in great request amongst the Laplanders."

The seeds and some stalks were used to conserve the reindeer milk into a thick cheese-like dish called gompa which can be stored for several years. Milk preservation was essential to survival for the skilled reindeer herding Sami, Linnaues in Lachesis Lapponica noted: 

"...when not occupied in following or attending the reindeer, [the Sami] remain in idleness for whole days together, feeding on nothing but milk, and the dishes prepared from it." 

Angelica is said to be a traditional food of the reindeer themselves as well. 

Sami children eating Angelica in Umbyn Sami village. Photo: Ernst Manker 1935. Stockholm

It is known that stems of Angelica were harvested and traded through Europe in the Viking age around 900 CE and Norse records show laws describing penalties for stealing Angelica in the mid-twelfth century (1150-1175).  The Old Norse names for Angelica are hvǫnn (singular) and hvannir (plural). Sentences referring to specific hvanngarð (literally translates to, “angelica garden”) in old Norse laws show the value and importance of Angelica as an agricultural resource. By this time the cultivation of Angelica was wide ranging across the North and a “well-kept angelica-gardens enclosed with stones” became the “pride of a household.” 

In addition to growing Angelica near settlements and homes, Northern peoples have always engaged with wild stands of Angelica and participated in reciprocal exchange of seed spreading and the beneficial selection of strong, or especially sweet or medicinal plants. Across Norway and Sweden, taking long collective trips to harvest the plant in the wild to be brought home to trade was a historic tradition. “Rótarfjall” or “going mountain rooting” was the expression used for gathering Angelica roots in Iceland. For the Sami, whom Angelica is kin and part of their lifeway, they have tended vast Angelica gardens, with isolated populations still existing in Sápmi (Sámi territory spanning from the northern parts of Norway, Sweden, and Finland to the Kola Peninsula in Russia). In recent decades these have become contested spaces where the Sami fight to conserve these sacred sites in the face of proposed plans for industrial freshwater production. 

"Angelica is their fruit. Apart from that, and what God gives the poor from the sea, here is nothing but the skies, water, and stone."

- Erik Schonnebol, 1581

Energetically, Angelica is warming, drying, and tonifying. Their taste is sharp, aromatic, bitter and pungent (especially the wild varities, more feral than their garden breathren.)

Angelica has an affinity for the blood. Anywhere there is stagnancy and cold, Angelica can warm and move the energy, making them a valuable circulatory and reproductive tonic. They relieve stuck and cold cramping, specifically the root which is antispasmodic and can bring on delayed menses. For PMS symptoms that dwell in the colon, with menstrual cramps intermingling with constipation and bloating, Angelica root will provide relief. If your blood is dark (indicating blood stagnation), slow to start, scant, and accompanied by cramping that feels better when heat is applied, work with Angelica. (I don’t recommend Angelica for already heavy flows or when the blood is bright and the womb feels hot as opposed to cold, as a more cooling herb is indicated.)

Angelica cares for our respiratory system deeply. They dispel the damp cold that creeps into the lungs in wintertime, causing phlegmy hacking that never quite leaves and lingers like a ghost in your chest. Angelica carries away bad spirits and trapped energy up and out of you, like their diaphoretic qualities instigating sweat to break a fever. Both the seeds and the roots can break fever.

For bloated and uncomfortable bellies, stomach cramps, or nausea, Angelica seeds, eaten straight, brewed in tea, or tinctured are exceptionally effective. I find the root to work well here too, given that I primarily work with coastal Angelica varieties which are notoriusly more bitter and pungent than tamed garden Angelica. However if your Angelica is on the gentler side, use the seeds for digestive upset. For those whose constituion runs cold, Angelica is an herb that can add warmth and stimulate the liver and digestion. Angelica can harmonize and strenghten the digestion over time, getting rid of chronic digestive complaints which are rooted in a damp/cold gut.  

“Its virtues are praised by old writers, and the name itself, as well as the folk-lore of all North European countries and nations, testify to the great antiquity of a belief in its merits as a protection against contagion, for purifying the blood, and for curing every conceivable malady: it was held a sovereign remedy for poisons agues and all infectious maladies....

The root stalks, leaves and fruit possess carminative, stimulant, diaphoretic, stomachic, tonic and expectorant properties, which are strongest in the fruit, though the whole plant has the same virtues.”

 - Maude Grieve, A Modern Herbal, 1931

While not often discussed in monographs, one of the primary actions I find Angelica has on the body is a resounding and sharp clarity. After taking Angelica, your breath becomes deeper as your lungs open and expand. Inevitably, this has a grounding effect, a feeling of being fully present in ones body. Angelica has this gift of simultaneously anchoring us in grounded embodiment while stimulating our senses, heightening perception and clarifying our thoughts. Angelica is like standing atop a mountain where the land rolls on and on and the air is cold and alive and the sun warms your face and for a second, with your arms stretched out on either side of you, you feel you might just take flight. I learned recently that the highest mountain in Iceland is named Hvannadalshnjúkur, meaning "Angelica Valley Mountain Peak." They felt that same feeling. 

Herbalist Jim Macdonald says Angelica is plant to call on when you are “so despondent you can't even pray.” I think this speaks volumes to Angelica’s strength of spirit.

Photo : Colin Gioia Connors

Resources:

Grieve, Maude. 1931. A Modern Herbal. 

https://intercontinentalcry.org/medicines-land-sami-reflections-role-use-indigenous-medicine-today/

Linnaeus, C. 1811.  Lachesis Lapponica: A Tour in Lapland.  

Moore, Michael (1993) Medicinal Plants of the Pacific West: Museum of New Mexico Press, Santa Fe

Rautio, A-M., Axelsson-Linkowski, W., Josefsson, T. & Östlund, L. 2016. 'They followed the 

   power of the plant,' Historical Sami Harvest and Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) 

   of Angelica archangelica in Northern Fennoscandia. Journal of Ethnobotany Vol. 36, #3. 

Rautio, A-M. 2014. People-Plant Interrelationships: Historical Plant Use in Native Sami      

   Societies. Department of Forest Ecology and Management, Swedish University of      

   Agricultural Sciences, Umeå, Sweden.  

Teixidor-Toneau I., Kjesrud, K., and Kool, A. 2020. Sweetness Beyond Desserts: The           

   Cultural, Symbolic, and Botanical History of Angelica (Angelica archangelica) in the 

   Nordic Region. Journal of Ethnobiology 40(3): 289-304. 

Wood, Matthew (2008) Earthwise Herbal; A Complete Guide to Old World Medicinal Plants: North Atlantic Books, California