Opening the ditches

In April the farmer walks the field and opens the ditches so the winter water can leave. The old herbalists did the same for the body and called the plants that do it alteratives, though the country name was blood cleansers. Dandelion and burdock root move the liver and the bowel; cleavers and red clover move the lymph, the slow river under the skin; nettle feeds what has been thin all winter; milk thistle guards the liver while the traffic passes. Nothing here forces. The skin clears, the tongue clears, the mornings come easier. Every one of these plants grows at the edge of the path, which is where the useful ones always are. Take it as a tea or a tincture for three or four weeks and then let it go; spring does not last, and neither should its medicine.