Midsummer is the peak of the herbal year — the moment when months of concentrated sunlight have made every plant most fully itself. St. John's Wort bleeds red oil that brings light into depression. The Elder Mother offers her lace-white flowers and demands acknowledgment in return. Meadowsweet fills the river margins with the smell of honey and hidden medicine. Vervain waits in the waste ground to be found by those who know how to look.