Wort Journal issue 2

Description

Wort is an independent journal of grassroots and radical herbalism. Published twice-yearly, it offers a platform and a resource for those working with plants in ways that resonate with the long traditions of world-entangled, community-embedded folk herbalism. Contributions range from poetry to polemic, with beautiful illustration throughout.

Issue two was “pieced together alongside the unfolding” of the horrors of genocide in Gaza. From the editorial: “In this issue, there are accounts of plants teaching cooperation, hope, resilience; offering their help in rooting in land, culture, identity, in our bodies; kindling connection with other historical and global struggles. May our work align with these plant-wise offerings, to bring the monster down.”

In this Issue:

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Adam Dickson – Dandelion a Deity/Blessed Bramble

Two short poems challenging the vilification of these plants as weeds.

Claudia Manchanda – From the River to the Trees

Cultivating hope with Olive, Ginkgo, and other beloved medicinal trees.

eleni ‘officinalis’ bourou – Bloom a Little Bloom

Poem: reflections of spring_reflecting on myths_connecting with plants

Katie Hastings, Sinéad Fortune, Palestinian Heirloom Seed Project – Project Focus: Saving Seeds

Three projects working to save seed as a form of social, cultural and ecological resistance. Katie Hastings on Llafur Ni‘s revival of rare varieties of Welsh black oats, Sinéad Fortune on the Seed Sovereignty Programme UK and Ireland and its revolutionary work supporting growers and an article written at the invitation of the Palestinian Heirloom Seed Library on the connections between people, seeds and stories.

Louisa Chase – In Collaboration with Woad: An Artist’s Year of Listening

Working closely with woad in my eco-somatic art practice over the space of a year; historical, sociocultural and ecological researches and embodied explorations with/ in the liminal terrain of the Fens.

Matilde Wyrdlea and Libby Bove – Plant Medicine and the Tarot: Magician-Calamus

The second in a series looking at Tarot and Plant Medicine as allies to psycho-emotional health and exploring tarot through a traumatised lens.

Natalie Gubenko – Slavic Oak

The symbolic significance of oaks in Eastern European folklore and rituals.

Randa Toko – Foraging as Resistance

The cultural importance of foraging as a timeless practice in the context of the recent resurgence of interest. Drawing from my own practice, I speak of foraging as a research lens to explore historical and contemporary struggles for land sovereignty and cultural preservation against erasure and disconnection from lineage. With illustrations from Maia Magoga.

Salamis Aysegul Sentug Tugyan – Crafting a 19th century Herbalist as a Character in a Novel

Reimagining and reclaiming Cypriot histories, identities and possibilities through metafictional storytelling and the research and creation of a herbalist character.

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Illustrations:

.     Ross Fleming (www.henstongue.com)