Plant-led Tea craft: The "Viriditas" that Guides Me

In the 12th century, Hildegard Von Bingen, a powerful female leader of the Church who was also a mystic and master Herbalist, coined this word. It means “vitality, fecundity, lushness, verdure, or growth,” and Hildegard used it to refer to or symbolize “spiritual and physical health,” often as a reflection of the divine revealed in nature. The more I work with plants, the more intimately I have come to understand this word. It refers to a lush, green vitality we feel in our cells and spine, and that floods our hearts, brains, and body when in the proximity of plants. It is a gift of our relationship with them; and, once established, we can feel it even when we simply are thinking about them. Veriditas is like the feeling of falling deeply in love with all that grows greenly—all that vines, climbs, twists, and roots down. It is an experience of longing for the vital earth, and a desire to be contiguous with it. I am sharing it because it is the word that guides the work I do at Artemis Tea & Botanical, and that urges me to create special botanic blends that capture and share, in various small ways, my own experiences of veriditas, in the hope that they will resonate in similar ways with you. In all ways, may you be well.