The healing ways of violets

Now that spring has fully arrived, it's time for the harvest of various early season wild herbs such as dandelion, young burdock root, stinging nettle, comfrey, motherwort, and this week's favourite around here, violets.  Violets are beautiful, abundant, fragrant and healing.  Their long list of healing properties has been part of medicinal folklore for centuries, to aid in skin conditions, liver cleanses, inflammation, even cancer prevention.  They can be eaten fresh in salads, taken as a tonic/infusion or preserved as a tincture.  One of the common names for violet is "heartsease", which speaks to it's calming and grounding influence when taken during times of stress and anxiety.    Harvest flowers in the mid morning, after all dew has evaporated and before the hotter sun of afternoon wilts the flowers.  Use immediately to gain the most potent medicinal value of these gentle flowers.