Cleavers For Cleansing

My favourite time of the year is here, I can feel the warmer days coming as the sun begins to raise higher in the sky, and as the snow melts the spring tonic herbs arrive like clockwork, bursting out of their dormancy. Full of new life and energy they show up as our allies, ready to nourish us as nutritive, tonic powerhouses that support our overall health. Tonic herbs are rich in phytonutrients that support detoxification, reduce inflammation, stimulate sluggish digestion, and stimulate circulation after winter.

One of these plants, named Cleavers, has traditionally been worked with as a Spring tonic for hundreds of years.

Just like a Spring clean, when we open windows to let in the fresh air and clear out the dust - Cleavers work in the same way throughout our body, clearing out stagnation and metabolic waste from the body's lymphatic system. Belonging to the coffee family 'Rubiaceae', its seeds can be ground to make cleavers coffee! It's small and thin, lance shaped leaves appear in radial formations around the square stems, at regular intervals. It's resemblance to a pipe cleaning brush is one of its doctrine of signatures, signalling to us how it can be our ally, scrubbing through the lymphatic vessels and helping to flush out metabolic waste.

Known by many names it has also been called, Stickyweed, Goosegrass, Velcro Plant and many others! The Latin name for Cleavers is Galium Aparine, which hints at its identity, Galium meaning 'thread like lines', or 'milk' and Aparine meaning 'clinging', or 'seizing' and if you have ever seen the plant growing, you know how it can take over an area and cling to anything that comes near it! With its tiny hook shaped hairs coating the leaves and stems, Cleavers easily sticks to everything, it's stems creep along the ground and branch out to envelop other nearby plants.

Originally native to Europe, parts of Northern Africa and wide areas of temperate Asia, it has today spread throughout all regions of the world. In Europe, the dried, matted foliage of the plant was once used to stuff mattresses, a favoured food for geese, hence the name ‘goosegrass’, both the Greeks and Swedes fashioned sieves out of the stems of Cleavers, as a filter to strain milk. Cleavers were grown in Medieval kitchens because it could be picked in frost or snow and it has provided hours of entertainment for children throughout history in various forms of play, such as mock camouflage and various pranks.

In spring, when does are giving birth to fawns, they too make use of the Cleavers for their beds, not only for it’s lush, billowy growth, which makes a fine bed – but also for it’s scent, which disguises theirs as they hide from predators during their period of vulnerability. In other uses, now passed into antiquity, the sticky seeds were used by lace makers to enlarge pinheads, and the root itself yielded a red dye.

Cleavers are rich in vitamins and minerals, and contains flavonoids, coumarins and various alkaloids. It is a valuable plant in cleansing remedies, supporting the lymphatic system, kidneys and nervous system. Culpeper says 'It is a good remedy in Spring, eaten (being first chopped small, and boiled well) in water-gruel, to cleanse the blood, and strengthen the liver, thereby to keep the body in good health, and fitting it for that change of season that is coming'.

Working with Cleavers would have been a yearly tradition for our ancestors, helping to clear out the body from heavy winter foods. Their winter diet would have been very carbohydrate rich comprising of grains, seeds and root vegetables. As the spring greens arrive, with it comes the chance for the body to cleanse and take in those vital vitamins and nutrients, which would have been missing over the winter months.

By gathering spring tonic herbs we are joining in a long tradition and engaging in a meaningful ritual of renewal and health.

Cleavers are classed as an alterative plant in herbal medicine, due to their ability to gradually restore the proper function of the body. It is a cooling herb, reducing heat in the body and has a diuretic action which helps calm irritated and inflamed bladders, it is also helpful for cystitis, benign prostatic hyperplasia, prostatitis, epididymitis, urethritis, chronic UTIs and interstitial cystitis. This plant provides two methods for cleansing the body, draining toxins from the body through both the kidney and the lymphatic systems.

Famously worked with as a 'lymph mover', Cleavers work at a cellular level to improve lymph function, helping reduce swollen lymph nodes, it is considered for immediately when a lymph node becomes newly enlarged, as it’s cooling nature can combat the inflammation. It is also very supportive towards our skin health easing, red and inflamed skin such as Psoriases, or dry skin conditions.

The nervous system can benefit from Cleavers as well. Matthew Wood’s specific indications for someone in need of Cleavers are: nervousness, sympathetic excess, skin tickles and itches easily, a feeling of fussiness, insatiability, irritability, and “not myself”. Thomas Easley notes that Cleavers acts on the sheathes of the nerves, and that fresh cleavers juice should be considered when exposure to gluten is causing inflammation.

To sum up the many 'actions' of Cleavers within the body it is a diuretic, lymphatic, nervine, hypotensive, mild laxative, alterative, aperient, tonic, inflammation modulator, astringent, antibacterial, nutrient, refrigerant, vulnerary, hepatic, antinodular and adaptogenic.

Along with the numerous ways to work with Cleavers there are also numerous ways to create remedies with it. A poultices or wash that is made from Cleavers, has been traditionally applied to treat a variety of skin ailments, such as dry skin, wounds or burns and will stop bleeding, as a pulp it will relieve poisonous bites and stings. To make a poultice, the entire plant is incorporated, and applied directly to the affected area.

The fresh plant can also be infused with a variety of different menstruum's, with an oil infusion it can be applied topically as a salve or ointment to support the skin, with alcohol it can be made into a tincture to support the lymphatic and nervous system, apple cider vinegar is exceptional at extracting the mineral content and water will provide a tea for kidney associated health.

Making a tea with the dried or fresh plant is most common, and can be brewed hot or cold. For a cold infusion, steep in water and refrigerate for 24–48 hours. For kidney stones it is suggested to steep two tablespoons of dried Cleavers in two cups of warm water for two hours and take 2-3 tablespoons three times a day.

The folk method for infusions involve filling a glass jar 3/4 of the way with chopped plant material and then filling all the way up with your choice of oil, alcohol or vinegar. Leave for six weeks, in a cool dark place, shaking it each day for the first week, every second day for the second week and every few days afterwards, remember to label and date your concoction:) After six weeks strain off the plant material and pour the liquid into a jar you can seal.

Dosage:

Fresh juice (succus): 1 teaspoon to 1/4 cup per day

Tincture or juice preserved with alcohol: 5-15 ml, three times daily

Tea: 10-30 grams