Estafiate y La Senora Rosa and Other Mugwort Musings…

Estafiate y La Senora Rosa and Other Mugwort Musings…

I approached Rosa’s house. New Mexico license plates proudly framed the entrance.  Her husband had a goat caged in the truck ready for slaughter. And humble rose bushes lined the chain link fence blooming in the rocky soil. An alfalfa farm grew across the road. As we did exercise together to assist with her cellulitis and get her back on her feet is when her stories rolled off her tongue.

Her husband wants to remove the rocks in the front yard, she said this is not good because they strengthen the soil beneath her. She wished for rain. Sky and mountain backdrop surrounded our bodies seated in rusted metal garden chairs as we exercised together.  For many years she was a cook in Guanajuato, Mexico. She remembers cooking endless stews for the patron who forgot that Rosa herself had to eat.

Clumsily, I asked her if she was an herbalist. She said no, but that her mother always had bags of herbs that she would buy from “la gente de la sierra”, the mountain people. She remembered seeing little slips of paper inside the carefully packaged herbs with its identification and its usage. “ My mother was always curious and said that herbs healed better than any medicine given by doctors. She insisted that we remained aware of them.” She recounts this story smiling.

There were a couple of plants, one a young sapling and another familiar plant adjacent to her trailer home that looked rather familiar except for its large leaves. Leaves were upward facing and spread in a double pyramid shape mirroring one another. I asked her what it was, “Estafiate” she said in a matter of fact manner.

Rosa told me about how estafiate was used for people “con bilis”, with the “bilis”. Bilis is someone with a temper. Estafiate helps calm them.

Michael Moore discusses “biliousness” and artemesia as a useful ally:

Frontal headaches, a bad taste in the morning, with a coated gruff tongue (and a coated, gruff personality) is what the terms means, usually the type of person hankering for lots of fat, poor quality meat and hydrogenated, crank case grease…some of the artemesias …have been shown to decrease the ill effects of lipid peroxides (rancid fats) on the liver.”

She explained specifically how she prepared it:

Put the whole plant in a pot to boil with a cover top. (She emphasized the importance of having a top to cover it) and let it simmer. Too much simmering can make it unpleasantly bitter, but if it is prepared right, you can drink it as a tea. It’s good for those people who possess anger and Mexican women rave about it, she says.

“Estafiate is one of the most important Mexican-American medicinal herbs, is used to treat a variety of common ailments. Since it is more potent if used fresh, it is often cultivated in kitchen gardens.” Joie Davidow –

Artemisia has been a close ally on moonlit nights. I was taught its medicine by first teacher Robin Rose Bennett who said it could induce dreams if drank, smudged or smoked. Dreams can be revelatory to the growing psyche and can provide yield signs for those consciously exploring them with the aid of artemesia or mugwort as it is called. Sometimes however, if one has had significant trauma artemesia can evoke unpleasant nightmares.

Once while hiking the Middle Fork by the Gila River, I came upon artemesia in flower. I had a bellyache, chewed on a couple of flowers and it seemed to ease some of the turbulence.

Once while visiting my friend, we had a back yard artemesia mini-bonfire in a Brooklyn building back yard. It was growing wildly. The scent sent us into giggles and the landlord threatened to call the fire marshal since tenants said we were smoking pot.

La senora Rosa had a stone mortar and pestle in her trailer home and she smiled and told stories of estafiate otherwise known as mugwort. Mugwort is a close ally of mine and an invaluable one to carry as tincture following long car rides.

I loved watching it sway in the breeze when I lived in New York. Its leaves upturned reflected its shiny white backside reminiscent of the moon. A woman can say that artemesia is great ally to bring on menstruation. And both men and women can find it helpful for digestive woes. I would say that this is a lovely plant to hold dear in one’s medicine bag. To cultivate a relationship by tasting, smelling, being with the Artemesias in these ways can strengthen our latent organoleptics and resurrect primal enlivened ways of being on Earth.