Duan Wu Jie (Dragon Boat Day) and mugwort – fresh thoughts for 2026

It’s Duan Wu (Dragon Boat Day - 端午节) again, this year falling today (on the 19^th of June) – and intriguingly it’s also falling the nearest we can remember it to midsummer.

The best day for harvesting mugwort for moxa

In respect of Traditional East Asian Medicine there’s a long history of this Duan Wu day being the best day in the year for collecting mugwort for medicinal or therapeutic purposes. It’s certainly not the only tradition associated with Duan Wu, and what's more it’s uncertain when this moxa-associated tradition began, probably because it originally emerged many centuries ago as a rural one. But we do know that the famous Chinese physician Li Shi Zhen (1518-1593) espoused the practice, pronouncing that mugwort plants should be scythed on this day for very specific purposes, specifically referencing for moxa. But he appears to have picked this up from his dad (who may have picked it up from his dad, etc. etc.).

The other reason for cutting mugwort on this day

In East Asia mugwort was (and still is in some parts) also traditionally cut on Duan Wu for hanging over doors and windows, specifically for deterring the ‘demons of disease’, and we can suggest that it certainly will have done this in respect of disease carried by mosquitoes - because mugwort is well recognised as a natural insect repellent.

So if you have any mugwort growing in your garden or near you, then for at least two reasons today’s the day to get out a pair of garden shears and get cutting! Whether for moxa, for keeping out those pesky mozzies and midges, or for deterring more mysterious pernicious influences, take your pick.

One reason that Li Shi Zhen may have favoured this day for harvesting mugwort for moxa is because it’s a time when the mugwort would inevitably also get exposed to maximum sunlight as it dried – something which he figured imbued the drying leaves with extra yang energy along with ability to penetrate into the channels. In other words it makes it more potent (though it's worth adding that different strains of mugwort and the soils that it's grown in must affect this too). Unfortunately, many strains of mugwort also flower around this time, however, and it's generally accepted that the mugwort leaves lose some of their moxa-associated power  once flowering has occurred. So if the mugwort you home in on already has those tell-tale flowers at the top, it's best to forget it in respect of refining it for moxa. Unfortunately. It will already be too late this year for this strain.

The coincidences with mugwort and St John’s Eve (June 23rd)

This year’s Duan Wu also falls, not just the closest to Midsummer that we can recall, but also the closest to St John’s Eve (23^rd June). So what’s relevant about this latter Christian festival? Well, it’s because both dates (Duan Wu which fluctuates according to the lunar calendar, and St John’s Eve which is fixed to the solar Gregorian calendar) have some intriguing powerful traditional associations with harvesting mugwort. In fact, not just in respect of harvesting it, but also in respect of doing something uncannily similar once harvested.

Here’s a wonderful 19^th century image of bonfire celebrations on St John’s Eve in Brittany, France.

In old Europe the mugwort plant has been previously called "Cingulum Sancti Johannis" (literally ‘the belt of St John’), it being popularly believed in earlier times that John the Baptist wore a girdle of it in his time in the wilderness.  (In fact there’s no evidence for this in any of the gospels in the Bible unless something got lost along the way – he’s actually described as having a leather belt and living out there only on locusts and honey).  Since St John is reckoned to have lived out there in the desert for somewhere between 15 and 18 years according to most theological authorities (and must have been assumed to have come up against many temptations from the devil) this may explain how this myth came to feed associations of a belt of mugwort providing some srt of security from evil possession. (It may also be evidence of earlier pagan midsummer myths being adapted into Christian traitions of course). Whatever the case, the mugwort plant was also also sometimes known as Zona divi Johannis (again from Latin, zona being a belt as well) so this is no an insignificant association. In some European countries this even led to mugwort often being simply called ‘St. John's Plant’ – with a potent association with St John’s Eve persisting alongside it - and they are strikingly similar to the ancient traditions in East Asia, as being protective at this time of year against both diseases and misfortunes. 

Technically St John’s Eve kicks off at sunset on June 23^rd (prefacing St John’s Day which is June 24^th) – and (far from coincidentally) in Ancient Rome June 24^th was marked in the calendar as being Midsummer itself. So it was part and parcel with midsummer festivities.

Interesting, eh?

One final thought

While today is the latest on which we can remember Duan Wu falling, it’s certainly not the latest it technically can fall on. In 1944, for instance it apparently fell on June 25^th but, despite our best efforts, we’ve been unable to establish the last time (or indeed the next time) it falls exactly on St John's Eve June 23^rd, so rather wonderfully uniting both East and West.

Maybe by next year’s Duan Wu in 2027 (when it will fall on June 9^th) we’ll have figured this out!