'Sunstone Verbena'

Viking sailors navigating the North Atlantic — beyond all landmarks, in fog, in overcast skies — used sunstones to find the sun’s position. The sunstone is a translucid Icelandic spar (calcite) that polarizes light. Held up and rotated until it produces a yellow cross in the viewing window, it points directly toward the sun even when the sun is below the horizon or completely hidden by clouds. The Vikings navigated from Iceland to Greenland to North America with this technology. A stone that finds the light that cannot be seen.

Vervain — verbena — was the sacred plant of the Druids, of the Romans who used it to consecrate peace treaties, of the medieval church that called it “holy herb.” It was gathered at midsummer, at the rising of the Dog Star, in bare feet, in silence. It was used to open the channel, to make sacred what was ordinary, to protect what was vulnerable, to consecrate the work that was about to begin.

A stone that finds invisible light. A plant that makes things sacred. Do not believe anyone who tells you it is not safe to go outside. It is not safe to stay in.

This is for the woman who navigates by inner light even when the outer sky is completely overcast.