Ever since I started noting the plants and flowers around me as I bounce around the city, I feel like I meet a new plant every season. The Osage oranges plopping onto the sidewalk and the gingko leaves getting a tinge of yellow on their edges lets me know a crisp is coming. The persimmons on a neighbor’s tree are starting to balloon on the branches, the coneflowers are popping, and on my way to a friend’s event the other day, I finally met Boneset.
Boneset is native to my region, and this was my first time noticing and identifying it growing in the wild. When I first started studying the plants around me, I didn’t realize that Boneset and Comfrey are different plants because many herbalists refer to both as Boneset and I thought I’d never seen it in the wild. Now that I know what it looks like, though, I see it everywhere in parks and on the trails that I regularly go to. It can grow up to 6 feet tall, so it’s hard to miss once you know what to look for, and the first one I saw in the wild was almost taller than me!
Boneset is native to the eastern and southern US and Native Americans and Black folk across these regions used Boneset to treat stomachaches, the flu, and to induce sweating to treat fevers and colds. In fact, it got its name because its fever-inducing qualities were used to treat breakbone fever (now known as dengue), which causes bone-deep pain and shivering fevers (Covey, 2007). Like Comfrey, internal use is not recommended, though it has a history of being ingested in teas to induce vomiting and sweating. Boneset’s association with soothing stomachaches and treating fevers makes me think of Virgo season and the transits of this new moon/solar eclipse in Virgo.
The Sidereal Cosmic Forecast: Eclipse Edition
Every transit builds on the last, but eclipses are something special. The lunar and solar eclipses are always continuing the stories of the lunar and solar eclipses 6 months back and forward like a loop. You may be seeing the themes from the previous 6 months finally reach their conclusion today or over the next few days, or maybe you’re starting something new that will play out over the next 6 months. Either way, eclipses are always something to pay attention to.
6 months ago (March 29), we had a new moon and solar eclipse in Pisces with Saturn joining the Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Neptune, all in Pisces. That eclipse and the transits it brought with it shook up our relationships and the ideals we had around them. This time we have the new moon and solar eclipse in Virgo with the Sun in Virgo and Mars in Libra making some powerful aspects to Pluto in Capricorn the next day.