Gozo Herbs

Gozo Herbs I’m Alessandra, historian of religions and practitioner of Traditional Mediterranean Medicine. Gozo Herbs is my fieldwork

I offer herbal consultations and create personalised remedies tailored to each individual, based on ancient Mediterranean knowledge.

03/09/2026

MANDRAGORA — BEFORE THE WITCHES 🌿

We know her as the plant of witches.
The poisonous root. The psychoactive plant surrounded by stories of magic, madness and death.

But long before the medieval legends, Mandragora was telling a very different story.

In the ancient Mediterranean world she belonged also to love, desire and fertility. Aphrodite herself was known as Mandragoritis — “Aphrodite of the Mandragora.”

In Genesis 30:14–16, Rachel asks Leah for the mandrakes found by her son Reuben. The plants become part of an extraordinary exchange involving sexuality and the hope of fertility.

And then there is the root.

Human-like. Male and female. A plant that seemed to carry the shape of a body beneath the earth.

Some traditions went even further, imagining primordial human beings as enormous Mandragoras emerging from the soil.

And here the story echoes something much older.

In the Sumerian Song of the Hoe, from the tradition of Nippur, Enlil prepares the earth for humankind to grow from it. Humanity emerges from the ground almost as vegetation emerges from the soil.

Different cultures. Different stories. No claim that one derives from the other.

And yet the same extraordinary image returns:

the human being as something that germinates from the Earth.

Perhaps, long before the witches, Mandragora was already asking a much older question:

Where do we come from?

SOURCES
G. Samorini, Mitologia delle piante inebrianti
Genesis 30:14–16
The Song of the Hoe — Nippur/Enlil (ETCSL)

27/08/2026

PLANTS OF THE GODS — Episode II 🌿
From the potato to Datura

From the common potato to Datura: surprisingly, they belong to the same botanical family — the Solanaceae.

But with Datura we enter a very different world.

Some of the most powerful psychoactive plants known since ancient times are deeply connected, in myths and traditional narratives, with gods, spirits and sacred powers. They are born from gods, offered to gods, used to communicate with the divine, and their knowledge is often entrusted to shamans, healers and sacred figures.

In Hindu tradition, Datura is sacred to Shiva. One ancient story connects its birth to the cosmic poison swallowed by Shiva to save the world.

Across the ocean, among the Wixárika (Huichol) people of Mexico, Datura appears again in a complex universe of visions, magic, sorcery and encounters with the spirit world.

Following the fascinating path traced by ethnobotanist Giorgio Samorini, we are exploring some of the myths and legends surrounding psychoactive plants known since ancient times.

Our journey is historical, ethnobotanical and folkloric: we follow the stories themselves, asking how traditional cultures understood these plants and why their extraordinary powers were so often placed in the hands of gods and sacred figures.

What did our ancestors know about these plants — and how much of that knowledge survives inside the myths they left us?

Next time, we return closer to home to meet Datura’s legendary Mediterranean relatives.

And yes… Mandragora is waiting. 🌿

Further reading:
Giorgio Samorini — Mitologia delle piante inebrianti
Carl Lumholtz — Symbolism of the Huichol Indians (1900)

23/08/2026

PLANTS OF THE GODS — EPISODE II

THE SOLANACEAE: A BORDERLINE FAMILY

Tomato. Aubergine. Pepper. Potato.

They are ordinary foods, familiar presences on our tables. They are not psychoactive plants.

And yet, they belong to one of the most fascinating and controversial botanical families: the Solanaceae — the same family that includes mandrake, belladonna, henbane and datura, plants historically associated with medicine, poison, altered states of consciousness and magic.

But there is another connection, less obvious and particularly interesting from the perspective of Traditional Mediterranean Medicine.

Many Solanaceae were understood through qualities associated with coldness and black bile — melancholia. Even the edible members of the family could be considered foods capable of increasing or weighing down the melancholic humour, especially when consumed in excess or by someone already predisposed to it.

And for ancient physicians, melancholia was not simply sadness.

Black bile occupied a complex territory between body and mind. When excessive or altered, it could affect perception, behaviour and mental balance. It was perhaps the most mysterious of the four humours: the one most closely associated with the darker and more unstable territories of human experience.

This is where our apparently harmless vegetables begin to reveal their more intriguing ancestry.

They do not produce the effects of mandrake, belladonna or henbane. But viewed through the lens of ancient medicine, they still carry an echo of the melancholic nature traditionally associated with this extraordinary botanical family.

From the tomato on our plate to the plants of poison, medicine and magic.

Food, medicine, poison.
The Solanaceae have always lived close to the border.

🌿 Plants of the Gods — Episode II

What a beautiful experience!Today’s workshop with FataMorgana was a wonderful journey through ancient medicine, the pla...
22/08/2026

What a beautiful experience!

Today’s workshop with FataMorgana was a wonderful journey through ancient medicine, the plants of Mediterranean tradition, and the archetype embodied by the great women healers of the past.

Rediscovering our roots is not about going backwards. It is a powerful step forward in our personal and collective evolution.

Thank you to everyone who shared this journey with us. 🌿

22/08/2026

thank you Fata Morgana and all the participants

What a beautiful experience!Today’s workshop with Fata Morgana was a wonderful journey through ancient medicine, the pla...
22/08/2026

What a beautiful experience!

Today’s workshop with Fata Morgana was a wonderful journey through ancient medicine, the plants of Mediterranean tradition, and the archetype embodied by the great women healers of the past.

Rediscovering our roots is not about going backwards. It is a powerful step forward in our personal and collective evolution.

Thank you to everyone who shared this journey with us.

17/08/2026

PLANTS OF THE GODS 🌿 | The O***m Poppy

I am currently reading a fascinating book by the Italian ethnobotanist Giorgio Samorini, Mitologia delle piante inebrianti (Mythology of Intoxicating Plants), and it has inspired me to start a small series of posts.

I don't want to summarise the book — I would rather recommend it to anyone interested in the subject — but its pages have brought me back to something that has always fascinated me: the extraordinarily ancient relationship between human beings and psychoactive plants.

Some of these plants have accompanied us for thousands of years. Humans encountered them, observed their effects and learned to use them in many different ways: as medicines and poisons, to relieve pain or induce sleep, in ritual practices, and to influence dreams, perception and states of consciousness.

And humans were not necessarily the first to discover them: animals, too, have been observed deliberately seeking natural substances for their intoxicating or psychoactive effects.

Many of these powerful plants eventually became connected with gods, myths and sacred narratives. Their extraordinary effects demanded an explanation.

So, while I continue reading and researching, I thought I would occasionally share some of them here, following their traces through history, mythology and ancient medicine, particularly in the Mediterranean world.

I am beginning with one whose relationship with humanity reaches back into remote prehistory:

Papaver somniferum — the o***m poppy.

Archaeological evidence of its relationship with humans reaches back to the 6th millennium BCE. Over the centuries it became medicine, narcotic, poison, painkiller, symbol and sacred plant.

A remarkable example of the ambiguous power expressed by the ancient Greek word pharmakon: a substance that can heal, alter or harm.

And the timing seems particularly appropriate: while preparing Pharmaka, our next workshop, I keep returning to that ancient world in which the boundaries between plant, medicine, poison and magic were far less clear than we tend to imagine today.

This is simply the first plant. 🌿

For those who would like to explore the subject further:
Giorgio Samorini, Mitologia delle piante inebrianti, Edizioni Studio Tesi, 2016.

13/08/2026

The Festival of Ideas is a good opportunity to share opinions and knowledge about the Heritage of Malta and its traditions. Do not forget!

12/08/2026

A diverse ecosystem takes a very long time to develop. Any artificial intervention risks damaging or even destroying it. Comino is a precious treasure that must be protected at all costs.

10/08/2026

Festival of Ideas 2926 Metamorphosis: how to transform a plant into a balm using simple ingredients, following the ancient receipt

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