For our weekly homeschool learning cooperative, we hired one of our wilderness school teachers (they both happen at the same facility). She is the wonderful E. Barrie Kavasch; accomplished author, ethnobotonist, artist, Reiki Master, poet, and craftswoman, not to mention the direct descendant, trackable, by 15 generations, of Pocahontas. Truly someone to learn from. I was lucky enough to assist in the class we brought her in to teach, which was an authentic leather working series. Something I have never done and was eager to experience. All the different types and textures of leather were amazing. The children designed their own little pouches, satchels, book covers, and even some tribal jewelry, of their own imagination and newly learned techniques. She told wonderful stories of Native traditions, taboos, foods, and even song.
I didn't expect to make anything myself, actually, as the assistant I mostly expected to help with hole punching, supplies, and maintaining group focus. Lucky for me, she offered up an extra of a couple projects. Lucky indeed! I crafted a journal replete with bound paper, a sacred pouch perhaps for tobacco or some such treasure, and as pictured above, a lovely satchel witch I feel is to be my gathering bag, for small tools and quick to reach items while I prowl for wild medicines.
I love my handmade treasures and feel the sacredness of the animals from which they came. I am grateful to have spent some time with Barrie, a Wise Woman and herbal grandmother.
I love my handmade treasures and feel the sacredness of the animals from which they came. I am grateful to have spent some time with Barrie, a Wise Woman and herbal grandmother. If you live in the Northeast I highly recommend her book, pictured above. A thorough first hand account of foraged goodies, recipes and traditional tribal foods, plants, medicines, and ceremonial preparations. Beautiful and practical. A perfect accoutrement to an identification guide and very useful for teachers.
The plants seem to be yawning. I imagine the roots just stirring from slumber... the kind that keeps you in bed, lucid for hours, on that rare Sunday morning of lavish time. The hours where reality and dreams mesh together like layers of pastel gauze on a tutu. Their deepest little rootlets take a deep breath, and notice the trickle of melted snow beginning to penetrate the soil bed. The sun, brightest of the whole year it seems, triggers the plants into waking. My mom used to wake me by doing compressions along my legs to get my circulation going. It's just the same under there, as the heat and cold expand and contract, massaging the dirt into life. The red roots of the bloodroot, the first to begin the rise of green, remind me that won't be long before their little hooded beings come out of hiding.
Or Maybelline, proper. She is the stunning Eastern Hemlock on the far right edge, (there are two), and she lines my view with her feathery limbs through each color of the day's sky. I've taken countless photos of her, since she frames each season with a consistent beauty. The kind of beauty that *I* feel is the real Maybelline kind. Natural. Maybelline guards us against the harshest of Northeast winds, and offers a showcase of bird perches for us to watch. She delights in the diamonds of winter's snow and ice, showing them off like a million bucks sprinkled with fairy dust. And her arms hold at least one visit each summer by a large bird of prey.
