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Sylvan Thorncraft, Late Summer 2006

Burdock sends her plump, creamy, thick root deep into the soil and holds on, strongly anchored in the earth.  Eating burdock or drinking tea from her root brings us back to the earth, she teaches us to put our own roots down in an unsettled world where the events of the day can be overwhelming.  She is a biennial thistle growing wild over most of North America, Europe, and Asia.  Her Latin name is Artium lappa.  For the Greeks she is Arcteion, related to Arktos, the word for bear (the Latin name for our brown bear is Ursus arctos).  This may be a remembrance of the ancient cave bears, massive herbivores that once roamed Europe, subsisting mainly on roots they dug from the glacial soils.  Burdock has large, dark green leaves that are woolly underneath.  Her lower leaves are heart-shaped while the upper ones are more ovate.  She flowers from July through October.

            There are three categories of medicinal plants: nourishing, tonic and medicinal.  Nourishing plants enhance the life force and vitality through nutrition.  They are often used as food, we cook them, make them into tea and salad.  Tonic herbs strengthen and revitalize specific organs and systems.  With tonics consistency is the key.  A liver tonic of Dandelion, Burdock, and Yellow Dock, for example, would be used five days a week for four to six weeks in the spring and fall to wake and detoxify the liver as the seasons change.  Medicinal herbs are used for a specific situation for a certain amount of time.  These are potent plants that help our bodies resolve a specific imbalance.  Goldenseal is a powerful antibacterial and anti-inflammatory, but one should take it for no more than fourteen days to resolve an acute condition as it will disrupt healthy intestinal flora.

            Burdock is a nourishing plant for the liver and kidneys.  An alterative, the root can help alter long standing conditions by aiding the elimination of metabolic toxins on a cellular level.  Alteratives can improve lymph circulation, boost immunity, help clear chronic skin conditions, chronic illnesses, fatigue and swollen glands.  Since Burdock is also a gentle bitter, it stimulates the liver and production of bile, enabling the digestive tract to absorb more nutrients from food while supporting the liver in eliminating toxins.  Burdock combined with her sister, Dandelion, can aid restlessness, irritability, anger, frustration, clearing out excess heat and emotional toxins as well as metabolic ones.

            Her root can be coarsely chopped and dried for use as tea, cooked fresh into soup, roasted with other root vegetables, or tinctured with water and alcohol and extracted for later use.  Burdock root can also be infused in oil and made into salve to aid skin conditions that are deeply rooted in the body, like eczema and psoriasis.  The inulin found in Burdock root contains some anti-bacterial properties making burdock salve good for cuts and scrapes too.

            Burdock seed is wonderful for acute skin conditions of the face: dry, red, scaly, irritated skin… think of how the prickly, dry bur feels in autumn.  Burdock helps support the liver eliminate toxins so the skin doesn’t have to work as hard.  It’s interesting that the seed and root would be so beneficial for the skin, as the leaves and burs can cause irritation.

            We have so many tools to support our vital life energy.  Being well “fed” is the key element to maintain our vital life energy, and though we all have our favourite ways of feeding ourselves… music, art, education, massage, walking in nature, on and on… food and herbs generously offer up their vital life energy to nurture ours.

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