A bunch of dried mugwort from the Tumulus garden

Artemisia vulgaris smells really good, like cedar-leaf and sage lightly with berry-like and musky with woody undertones. In the Netherlands, one of its names is 'St. John's plant', because of the belief that – if gathered on St. John's Eve, also known as midsummer, it gives protection against diseases and misfortunes. Ruchama collected the mugwort almost a years ago during the Summer solstice. We used it in the raku firing of the ceramic.

Photo by Victoria Ushkanova