Harvest + Enjoy: Elderflower and Elderflower Cordial
Note: This post should have been shared back when elderflower was in season, but as you know, I was in my shell and couldn’t share anything at the time. So I’m sharing it now. Because I did the work and I learned a lesson from it. If you missed the elderflower harvest this year, perhaps this post will inspire you to collect those beautiful blooms next year.
I disappeared for 5 months earlier this year (explained here) largely because my soul was a bit weary. The wars, the suffering, the dark forces that seem to try to infiltrate our psyches and families from every angle — I just couldn’t bring myself to write. I felt frightened, honestly. What will the future look like for my daughters? What is this world I’ll have to someday leave them in? Why do the bad guys always seem to win?
It’s enough to give a person a panic attack (speaking from experience). I kept doing the Good Work that I committed to though and I discovered something magical.
There is a healing tonic for all of that fear, I’ve discovered. Or rather, a healing cordial.
Elderflower cordial — it’s as magical as it sounds. Even the word elderflower evokes wisdom, tradition, and delicateness.
While the world goes to hell in a handbasket, the elder tree continues to create these lacy, pungent blooms. Nature continues to do her part in giving and creating, even if many humans have forgotten our belonging in the cycle. And so we harvest those blooms every year. We wait for a dry day, to get the most of the beautiful flavor, and we pick blooms big and small off this relatively common plant. Most of our roadways here in northern Slovenia are lined with elderflower (bezeg). It is such an ordinary sight but if we stop to remember what they signify — what spirit lives within — a moment of deference would seem appropriate.
The elder tree.
Feared by the devil, so they say. To plant an elder tree next to one’s house offers protection, according to ancient tales. What does that say about the forests that they guard everywhere around us — they must be sacred, protected places. I believe it. I can feel it when I walk through them. Cutting down an elder tree without first asking for permission from the mother spirit within is said to be very bad luck. There are even biblical stories involving Sambucus nigra, and we all know about the elder wand and its cultural significance.
In the spring/early summer it boasts beautiful white blooms that turn into dark purple berries. Every part of the tree is poisonous except the blossoms and the berries, which, on the contrary, contain incredible healing properties. It’s a powerful tree full of contrasts.
The flower is said to help with several things - from colds/influenzas to stopping bleeding.
The berries contain high levels of vitamin C and the list of benefits is too long to discuss here.
When we pick the flowers, we always think to leave enough for berries in the fall to turn into syrup to support our immune systems during the dark cold months. And also to leave enough for the birds and critters who need them too.
But the healing properties of the elder tree don’t stop at the physical.
For me, it’s the cycle of repetition that brings peace to my worried heart and mind. The world might be scary, but the elder tree does what it’s meant to do. The ritual of finding those blooms in the spring, reaching to pick them, letting the bugs clear off, and then turning them into a delicious cordial (and sometimes drying for tea) that we enjoy throughout the summer and fall brings so much comfort. It’s expected. The design works well for both us and the tree if we remember the respect it deserves. We enjoy and we heal from it. And it serves as a reminder that even a common roadside tree has a beautiful purpose in the madness.
As long as the elder tree keeps blooming, everything will be ok.
So every year, no matter what I’m struggling with or what I’m dealing with, I will do everything I can to celebrate the gifts of the elder tree, starting with its lovely flowers.
This is the recipe we use for elderflower cordial — you can translate it if you’d like. We’ve still got 5 liters left in our root cellar, which should take us well into the cold months. We enjoy it to sweeten summer lemonades, with sparkling water as a special celebratory drink or drizzled over a bowl of the first snow (really!).
Elderflower life lesson: If you need wisdom and comfort, look in the most humble of places. Even a common roadside tree can heal a weary soul. Don’t let the madness of the modern world overpower the magic of the seemingly mundane.
