Solomon's Seal root - with tangents

This, ladies and gentlemen, is now my Favourite Plant of All Time.

Over the years, many a plant has nudged me in the right direction, others have comforted me in a time of need and one or two have even saved my sorry ass.

Solomon's Seal is changing everything.



Which makes sense, since it's classed as "Wolf Medicine", and that's what the Wolf Medicines do, so there you go. I'll address that again further down.

Solomon's Seal - Polygonatum multiflorum - is a creature of the forest floor. There, in the dappled light under the high canopy of maples, yellow birch and other deciduous trees, it shares a home with wild ginger, trillium, jack-in-the-pulpit, lady's slipper, blue cohosh, ferns and mosses. I know of a place where it grows in abundance. But if I told you where that place was, I'd have to kill you, because even up here in the wilds of Quebec such pristine forests are becoming more rare, and so too are Solomon's Seal and all its companions as a result.

So, after reading what I share with you today about why I love this root as medicine so much, IF you want to work with Solomon's Seal, please think carefully about how you source this beauty.

Sure, you can take it from the wild if you have a locally abundant source. But please do NOT buy a "wild crafted" source unless you know the wildcrafter personally and you can be assured they're not a jerk about what they do. Commercial sources of Solomon's Seal that say "wild crafted" and/or "sustainably sourced" are suspect, period. Just like with goldenseal, ginseng and other forest dwelling plants, there really is no such thing as sustainable levels of wildcrafting for the mass market. These delicate eco-systems simply can't recover quickly enough.

Instead, look for a source of Solomon's Seal root that's listed as 'organically grown'. Because you really don't want to be a jerk and support companies that contribute to the downfall of our forest eco-systems, now do you. Of course you don't.

There's another great choice available to those who want to use this plant - just walk down your street and look at people's flowerbeds!

This plant grows very happily indeed in gardens, sun or shade, and because it's so lovely, it's popular as an "ornamental", very often grown alongside hostas. (if people only knew it's such great medicine, and that hostas are actually food, how different the world would be!) Solomon's Seal readily forms quite large colonies, which means that if you ask the gardener nicely (gardeners tend to be a generous bunch) they might just be willing to dig some up from their beds if you tell them you'd like to start growing your own. (Don't tell them you're really going to chop it up, put it in a jar and pour vodka over it, that doesn't generally go over too well). And if they're really generous, you should start a colony of your own with what's left over after you make that tincture.

This is the plant you're looking for:





I can hear the readers' murmurs from here, "hey, I think I've seen that before .."

Yes, you have. You may even have some in your own garden.

It has .. oh hey, I'm feeling lazy today. I'm going to quote our good buddy Matthew Wood from his website article and intersperse my own comments:

"Solomon’s seal is a member of the lily family. Various spp. are native to Asia, Europe, and North America, where they have been used as food and medicine. The soft, sweet white/yellowish rhizomes look like bones and vertebra, while the leaves wrapping around the stalk look like tendons and ligaments wrapping around bones, so Polygonatum has been used to strengthen the bones, marrow, and tendons." 

Which is exactly why I began working with it.

It just so happened that I dug the Solomon's Seal from my garden (and tinctured it) (and nibbled a bunch because it's just delicious) one day, then wrenched the hell out of my shoulder the very next day! Would have been nice if I'd made that tincture about 6 weeks previous, now wouldn't it? Such is life.

Nevertheless, about a week after the injury I tasted the tincture and it tasted plenty active to me (it's VERY sweet, with a hint of the taste of cabbage) so I started slathering it generously on the wrenched muscles. Yep. I just dipped my fingers in the jar and spread it on.

I wish I could say it healed that mess instantly but alas it was a pretty wretched injury. What it did do, for sure, was make everything feel just a little less inflamed, and offer me noticeably better mobility so that I could do the excruciating exercises and free the damn thing up once and for all.

(Speaking of inflammation - what a marvellous term that is, in-flam-mation, to describe the feeling of intense burning that often accompanies an injury. Before dipping into my Solomon's Seal jar, I reached for my trusty rose petal tincture. Nothing takes heat out like rose! Rosewater works too, although to a lesser degree than tincture, and it's readily available in most Indian or Eastern European style food departments, so pick some up next time you see it. And if you have unsprayed roses in your garden, do take the petals as they begin to fall and tincture them. You'll thank me for it one day.)

Wood continues:

"The “seals” on the rhizomes, where the stalk rises up, look like the sigils used by magicians (circles with marks inside them). Hence, the plant was named sigilum Salomanis or Solomon’s seal, after the wise king. It is one of the plants known in Afro-American herbalism as ‘High John the Conqueror,’ in reference to magic or ‘conquering.’ It is worn as a mojo or chewed for ‘conquering.’"

Back in my witchy days, I had a piece of "High John the Conqueror" root. I probably still have it kicking around somewhere. I treasured that thing, although it's not like I used it for 'conquering' (I'm not that kind of witch). But I really "felt" something from that wizened up lump .. and here it is, back in my life again. Hmmm.

Anyway, back to the medicinal aspects ..

True Solomon’s seal is used in Asia, Europe and North America as a sweet nutritive for tendons and joints. It is of such widespread utility that it can help almost any one with muscular and skeletal problems. 

Now there's an interesting turn of phrase that you'll never hear an MD use - "a sweet nutritive for tendons and joints". I'll break it down for you as best I can .. a "nutritive" not only contains some nutrition, it somehow better enables the body to get nutrition into the tissues in question. We're used to the idea of anti-this or that (anti-inflammatories in the case of an injury) but herbal medicine is more "pro". Hence, we have remedies that feed and strengthen, like Solomon's Seal.

"It also has a beneficial demulcent nutritive influence to soothe irritation of the mucosa, hence it can be helpful in the lungs, gastrointestinal tract, and female system." 

And here we have the wonderful "side effects" that I've experienced.

After a while, I realized I was going through my supply of tincture far too quickly, so I switched to taking it internally and using a variety of my home made infused oils - aspen and alder for the muscles & tendons, St. John'swort for the nerves - topically. Since taking Solomon's Seal internally for my shoulder (3-6 drops, a few times a day for several weeks now), I've noticed that my "innards" (for lack of a better term) have begun to feel strangely better, too. My whole body feels more at ease.

Remember when we were talking about the importance of knowing our personal constitutions when choosing which remedies to use? When we're under stress, our bodies tend to slide more into the negative side of our normal constitutions. I tend to run a little hot, a little dry, so during all this falderal I was feeling excessively hot, excessively dry. Solomon's Seal has been cooling and moistening, so much so that a little irritated cough I've had for a long time is gone, I have better saliva flow and even my skin is softer. Meanwhile, it has nourished and moistened the soft tissues in my shoulder, helping them to heal up.

And it strikes me to wonder, because I tend to be dry anyhow, and because as we age our soft tissues tend to lose their moisture and elasticity, this injury could perhaps have been prevented if I'd been making use of Solomon's Seal in the first place. I'm not young any more, and although I'm plenty active, it seems I could have used the support of this plant before now.

"Polygonatum spp. is used in Chinese herbalism, where it is known as ‘yellow essence.’ It is classified as a sweet, neutral yin tonic, or moistening, lubricating, and nourishing tonic." 

Using an herb as a tonic means a relatively long term relationship, weeks or perhaps months as opposed to a few days. While most of what I've read "out there" discusses the short term use of Solomon's Seal's for injuries, it's my own experience with the beneficial side effects that keep me reaching for that jar, even now that the shoulder is just fine.

"It lubricates the heart and lungs, tones the middle region (abdomen), builds the marrow, and increases semen (essence). As a yin deficiency tonic it is used for dry throat and thirst, cough due to dry lungs, diabetes, and grey hair from kidney yin deficiency." 

There's something interesting there. It's a yin deficiency tonic, yet it increases semen. Most of us, if we've heard of "yin and yang" have been led to believe that yin = female, yang = male. But that, of course, is a massive oversimplification.

One of the reasons that I so appreciate Matthew Wood's writing is that he includes information from traditions other than the American/British schools of herbalism. If I'm honest, I have to admit that Traditional Chinese Medicine makes my eyes glaze over, it is just such a massive subject I can barely begin to grasp any of it. But Wood does a great job of illustrating the concepts involved in a way that my addled brain can begin to absorb.

I've had more than one reader tell me they thought Wood was too "all over the place", but for the serious student he's worth sticking with. He doesn't dumb things down, that's for sure! I've spent (to me) a small fortune building a library of his books and I don't for one moment regret it. Just this experience with Solomon's Seal (and prickly ash, see the previous post), which I wouldn't have tried if not for his writing, has been worth it.

Last quote from that article:

"Modern research shows that it can be used to bring down high blood pressure, protect the liver, treat fatty liver, reduce blood sugar levels, and blood fat."

While I'm not aware of having any of the above issues, I'm certainly content with knowing I may be preventing such troubles by using this plant!

Let's see, what else can I tell you?

Well, for those of you who make your own tinctures (I recommend fresh root, I don't see how it could be the same using dried) there's this - as mentioned, I started using mine when it was barely a week into the maceration process, which is very early, it should have gone a good 6 weeks. So even at less than full strength it's been a godsend, and that's interesting.

As also noted, I went through my supply at an alarming rate. Knowing I was going to run out (eeek!) I strained what was left at the 6 week mark and looked long and hard at those roots. They were roughly chopped, so the pieces were still fairly large (about half inch pieces, give or take). And they looked (and tasted) as fresh and crunchy as the day they were first tinctured. So I chopped them a little finer, put them back in a jar and re-tinctured them. A few days later, that tell tale taste is already coming through and the liquid is starting to feel thicker and stickier. Amazing.

This plant is so loaded with sugars that a tincture can turn into a syrup. And if you make your own, don't be surprised if any that gets stuck under the lid crystallizes and seals it shut (it's Solomon's SEAL after all har har). Those sugars are prebiotic, by the way!

What an amazing plant.

Also mentioned above, Solomon's Seal is considered one of the Wolf Medicines. The "signature" for the Wolf Medicines is a right angle somewhere on the plant - in the case of Solomon's Seal, that right angle is where the stem rises up from the rhizome (the stem then leans over, the signature for a plant that treats "debility"). That right angle signifies profound changes, the crossroads in life.

Here's something from a piece I'm working on, still in draft, about the Medicine Plants versus the plants we use as medicine.

"There's medicine - that which helps us recover, physically, from illness or injury.

Then there's Medicine, that which supports us through life's transitions and stages of growth.

Most people, when ill or injured, simply want to be able to return to their "normal" state of health. But in the Medicine tradition, it is understood that to return to how - and who - we were before the illness or injury is impossible, and to try to is unwise. We are changed by each of these events. They are - or at least should be, from this point of view - opportunities for growth."

If you've ever had a serious illness or injury, then you know how important processing it, psychologically, is to recovery. This was a big one for me. I had the choice, really, to surrender to the idea that old age was creeping up and I had better get used to it. It was time to embrace the new reality of slowing down and doing less. While that might have seemed like the "sensible" lesson, every fibre of my being told me that was wrong.

Solomon's Seal supports my choice to not surrender. It has not only helped me recover, but is putting me in better health than I was going in to this. Now that's Medicine.

Here's a really nice in-depth article on Solomon's Seal from jim macdonald's clinical experience with Solomon's Seal which I strongly suggest you read.

A couple of videos:

Solomon's Seal, with some of today's best herbalists:

And a "read between the lines" look at what the Wolf Medicines can do for us: