Love Medicine & Tea
Years after Natalie Goldberg recommended The Beet Queen, a novel that will forever remain a favorite, Louise Erdrich’s name remained etched in my mind. So when her name jumped out at me from a Goodwill bookshelf, it felt like an invitation. I picked up Love Medicine and from the first page I was pulled into a world of women, family, hard truths, stories of love, loss and resilience unfolding across generations, carried by the quiet strength of those who refuse to be defined or broken.
This is a novel that stays with you long after the last page. Erdrich reveals the complexities of family life, its secrets, betrayals and unwavering bonds through voices that are honest, flawed and achingly human. The women in this book persevere, do what they want, and never look back, shaping their lives with courage and defiance.
Her characters speak with a raw, unflinching clarity. “I don’t pray,” one says. “When I was young I vowed I would never be caught begging God. If I wanted something I get it for myself.” That strength pulses through the pages, a testament to women who claim their own power in the face of fate.
Woven throughout is a deep reverence for life, nature and the unmeasurable, captured in the line, “All through my life I never did believe in human measurement. Numbers, time, inches, feet, ploys for cutting nature down to size. I don’t believe in numbering God’s creatures.” Erdrich’s prose honors the rhythms of life that cannot be contained by clocks or rulers, the cycles of love, grief and family legacy that shape us more deeply than we realize.
Love Medicine is a gripping, unforgettable exploration of what it means to be a woman, to belong and to survive. It is for anyone who wants to witness the quiet ferocity and resilience that lives in families, in women and in the truths we carry across time.
A Love Medicine Tea
An earth-honoring ritual inspired by Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine
This is not a remedy meant to fix what is broken.
It is a tea for remembering.
For listening.
For sitting with what endures.
Ingredients
(use dried herbs, ethically sourced)
Red clover – for ancestral bloodlines and the women who came before
Yarrow – for resilience, boundaries, and survival through hardship
Rose hips – for love carried through loss, sharp and sweet
Sage (culinary or garden sage, not ceremonial white sage) – for clarity and truth-telling
Mint – for the breath, the present moment, and stories spoken aloud
Preparation
Bring water just to a boil, then let it rest—
do not rush it.
Place one small pinch of each herb into a teapot or jar.
Pour the hot water over them and cover.
Let steep for as long as feels right.
This is not a tea measured by minutes.
Ritual
Drink slowly.
Think of the women in Erdrich’s pages
flawed, fierce, unbreakable.
Think of your own lineage, spoken or unspoken.
What was carried for you?
What do you refuse to carry any longer?
This tea is for sitting with complexity.
For honoring family stories that do not resolve neatly.
For remembering that strength does not beg—it endures.