7d • General discussion
🌿 Thicket Thursday: Arugula (Rocket), or the Salad That Was Too Hot for the Monastery
Eruca sativa. Rocket. Arugula. This is hands-down my favorite salad, and it's got a filthier reputation than anything else in my garden!
The scandal:
The Romans were convinced arugula was an aphrodisiac. Virgil wrote the line that follows it through history: "et Venerem revocans eruca morantem," "and the rocket, which revives drowsy Venus" (that is, reawakens flagging desire). Pliny the Elder echoed it in his Natural History, noting arugula as both a stimulant and a mild anesthetic. And here's the part I love: because of that reputation, growing rocket was reportedly forbidden in medieval monasteries. The monks couldn't have it in the garden. It was too much fire for a house of restraint. 😆 So when you toss it raw with lemon and olive oil, you're not making a side dish. You're making a small fire spell. 💃
The medicine:
Arugula earns its place beyond the mythology. It's genuinely good for you — packed with vitamin K, folate, vitamin C, vitamin A, calcium, and iron, all in a handful of leaves. That peppery bite comes from the same natural compounds that make its cabbage-and-mustard cousins so healthy. It's also gentler on the body than spinach because it’s lower in the acids that can block your body from absorbing minerals. It's an easy green to eat a lot of. And its old reputation isn't pure folklore: a 2013 study found arugula extract raised testosterone and boosted fertility in mice. Early, small, animal-only research — but a real wink from science at what the Romans swore by. (As always: this is food and folklore, not medical advice.)
The magic:
Correspondences line up exactly with the myth. Arugula is a plant of Venus and fire: passion, courage, vitality, the spark that gets you moving. Where garlic protects and chamomile soothes, rocket ignites. It's the herb for when you need to stop hesitating and act. To reawaken desire, yes, but also drive, nerve, appetite for life. Eat it when you need your fire back. Add it to a working for courage or passion. Grow it where you want liveliness in the garden and the plate.
From my own thicket:
I grow plenty every year, and mine has already bolted and gone to seed in this heat, which is exactly what rocket does when summer turns up the temperature. So I'm planting my second batch this week. If yours has bolted too, don't mourn it too long: let some go fully to seed for next year, and sow a fresh round now for a fall harvest. Fire likes to be tended more than once.
👇 What in you has "gone drowsy” lately, the fire you're ready to reawaken? Name it, and eat something peppery about it. I'll go first.
En Erebos, Phos. In darkness, light.
Blessings, Tirza 🌿🗝️🌙
#ThicketThursday #HekateanHealing #Arugula
📚 Further reading: Virgil, Moretum (the "drowsy Venus" line) | Pliny the Elder, Natural History (arugula as stimulant and anesthetic) | Padulosi & Pignone, Rocket: A Mediterranean Crop for the World (the monastery-ban tradition) | Scott Cunningham, Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs (Venus/fire correspondences)
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🌿 Thicket Thursday: Arugula (Rocket), or the Salad That Was Too Hot for the Monastery
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