I've a Notion for Things

My Intuition in Full View, Hard at Work

Sitting here this morning by the fire I felt like burning some mugwort. For a few days in the fall of 2025 I was compelled to spend my time driving around in the truck searching roadsides for this plant. I found small stands of it here and there, parking my truck in all sorts of odd places while I got my garden clippers ready to trim away the stalks. As I tend to do in these situations, I followed my intuition on where to travel, quite literally using stop signs to take stock of which direction to turn. I had a window between school drop off and pickup to go anywhere I was guided to be. Although I did have a list of things to do on these two days, I use the word compulsion to describe the innate pull that I feel in these moments. The idea of not spending these two days gathering roadside mugwort felt very out of alignment, so much that I agreed, silently, with myself that I would put off the day’s errands + tasks and wander the towns to find this plant. I ended up at a local trailhead managed by a group that has physical offices, and a monster of a mugwort stand next to one of their outbuildings. Within minutes I had asked and received permission to remove the entire stand as they were trying their best to eradicate the plant from more than one location on their properties. WHAT?! Color me guided + validated!!

“What’s it all for anyway?” is the question I was asked by so many people during the gathering. I ended up filling the back of the truck bed with mugwort stalks as tall as me, sometimes taller in one afternoon. The first time someone asked I laughed, and I’m still smiling as I write. I think the answer was something along the lines of, “I feel like it, or I feel called to.” The conversation usually landed on asking what I was going to do with it. Very good question. I honestly had only thought of making smudge sticks out of them. So that was the answer. No need to make it more complicated than that really. The heaping pile of stalks lay on a pallet table in the greenhouse for a long time. I’d rotate them as they dried and move them around so the middle didn’t mold. It was later in the season and the greenhouse was not very humid so this idea worked out really well. At some point I realized the seemingly insane bulk I ended up with and how little of it was actually needed to make a smudge stick.

And as the universe would have it, there came a time where the plants needed to be processed or I was going to lose the plot entirely. That timing coincided with two of my girlfriends and their girls coming over for a smudge stick making party in the greenhouse. It was casual, fun and everyone got to take home their own stock. I think I recall having somewhere around 50 smudge sticks at my disposal by then with more prepped to make. Here’s an in process photo of some sticks ready to be wrapped with twine and cut to size.

That night the husbands joined in on the fun and we had a fire outside while the kids ran around the trail with flashlights. We burned a much larger mugwort smudge stick that I made as a half serious joke to ward off the chaos of politics in these barely united states we live in.

Since then, I used a lot of the mugwort stock during Christmas to give as gifts to family as either a bug repellent or mediation tool. Now and then I’ve used one down in the greenhouse to burn during mediation. Despite not liking the scent, Georgia (our female cat) and Luna (our female dog) have joined in on the fun.

PRESENT DAY

Today I was called again to burn some mugwort in the woodstove. Burning it inside the house leaves a scent that lasts a little too long that not everyone in this house enjoys, so in the stove it went. The glass front gives the aesthetic I think all writers in colder climates long for: sun shining in the windows while the fire crackles and radiates warmth quite opposite of the white ground outside. Ideally I’d find myself sunken into a deeply luxurious chair or couch, but for some reason I’m camped out on the floor fireside pondering this mugwort situation. As I sat here earlier staring at the fire having just recently woken up I heard the words, “I’ve a Notion for Things”, which became the writing prompt, and the title. Because, you see, I do have these notions. I’ve had them ever since I was a child.

The notion to follow the urge to collect mugwort, the notion to have a community gathering to bundle it up into smudge sticks, the notion to gift those same sticks for the holiday and the notion today to simply pile one on the fire and sit to write about the fact that one day I had a notion to spend two days supplying myself and my family and friends with enough mugwort to last at least a year.

The initial notion to gather this plant en masse felt important. Looking back, I can see all the threads that have come together to form this little area in the tapestry of my life, intertwined with the people in the story and with the people who found me scouring back roads in search of a particular plant that many discard as an undeniable weed. Interesting, though isn’t it? The way this plant has me writing for hours now. I find it beautiful, in ways that I am sure will inspire awe some time and place further down the road.

Among the many notions that waft in my conscious and subconscious mind, plants and their spiritual properties sit rooted deeply. On a regular basis plants will come into my life, my mind or land underfoot during the warmer months to send their own messages of healing, growth, opportunity, protection and even luck. Or, a quick note of “ruh roh raggy”.

PLANT MEDICINE + FRIENDS ALONG THE WAY

In this journey of following my heart, these notions and my intuition, I see a sort of clarity pulling itself together through plants, trees and animals that are so keen to guide me in my adventures. And truly, I am forever grateful for the details that have come to pass. In a session with one of the most beautiful people on this planet, I chatted with Nicole Birkholzer, an animal communication specialist (who also does gorgeous carvings of your pets on coffee/tea mugs that you’ve got to check out!). Nicole uses flower essences in her work to offer balance to animals in the ways they need the most in their current season of life. In our delightful conversation Nicole said something to me as I walked around in my backyard. She talked about my innate awareness of the plants in the space I live in and the medicine they offer.

Now that statement sparked a memory, and then handfuls of memories of my time as a child up to the age of five where I spent hours outside with plants. Hours in the sun playing with flowers and mud and dirt and sticks and rocks. I recall one very powerful moment where I mixed a certain set of ingredients in the dirt driveway, just to the side involving pine, plantain, a stick, gravel, water and pinecone. A protection spell, of safety and comfort to find me when I needed her most. To this day, I have had that memory of stirring up the earth, using these plants and their properties. It is only now in the haze and glow of this moment that I can recall the intention. I am brought to beautiful tears of joy and satisfaction of these threads of my life coming together, pulling tight and weaving this gorgeous tapestry. I am all that I need. Sigh. I’ve always been that. I’ve always been what I need, over and over again. And I have this gorgeous amazing intuition to help me see what these plants offer and to help me SEE ME. And a special thank you to Nicole for being in my life. You are an absolute gift, my friend.

Speaking of gifts, if any of you are listeners of the Medium Curious podcast, you may be familiar with the work of Mary Porter Kerns, who’s work centers on the ancient wisdom of flowers and the messages they may offer us. While Nicole and many other people all over the world utilize flower essences for healing, connection, balance and the like in very profound and professional ways that I tap into as needed, I also love love LOVE the ways we can simply allow plants and flowers to play in our spaces.

Check out this stunning little dandy I made one day! Simple, fun, engaged, and ohhhh so delicious in that moment.

The creation just soothed something. I personally don’t have a library of what these flowers mean available in my mind. I’d have to look it up. But I can FEEL it. And that was Nicole’s message to me. My ability to sense and feel into the offerings of plants and flowers is something I hadn’t quite focused on with my conscious awareness. To be honest, I still am not so sure that I do. I think a lot of my time with plants is subconscious. I have dried plants, living plants, a 40’ greenhouse that sometimes gets attention and sometimes not. And yet, they always come back with some sort of message or nudge. The notions come in and I get to work. And that’s the whole point for me. When I’ve got a notion, I follow it to where it feels aligned. And aligned feels like a good place to be. Just like the greenhouse. Here’s a peak inside during a greener season than March for your viewing pleasure.

There’s a long table for dinners or projects, an old couch down at the end, a handful of plant beds, four seed starting tables in each of the corners and a set of french doors in the back to access an old garden full of comfrey. Maybe someday I’ll find out why I’m obsessed with comfrey. Until then, I hope that when you get a notion you’re invited to consider it and maybe even follow it. And maybe even consider this little spot of time to dismiss some internet fad that calls it some combination of letters that stands for something that people want to think is broken and needs to be fixed. You, my darling, do not need to be fixed. But maybe there’s a plant around you that can offer up some sort of salve for your energy.

Onward as usual,

T