Sensing

Autumn is a calling.

If nostalgia could be a gift, it would unwrap the glorious memories of childhood, moments of being held tight by your first love, and of dreams not yet realized but still vibrating with hope.

The leaves are at their peak of beauty before swaying to their death.

The air smells of apples and wood smoke.

I've been out harvesting nostalgia; collecting memories that buzz in the middle and then reverberate each time I smell the same season's breeze or catch the same angle of sunlight. In my hot tea before bed I stir these thoughts of wonderment as the honeyed steam rises up.

The summer's floral display is changing into spikes and burrs and puffs. The tree trunks are showing shades of gray and black hardly noticed before. The skies are furious and haunting with clouds only October can boast. I've been watching closely. I gathered a thick bushel of the sweetest goldenrod flowers, small bundles of sweet everlasting, and hug-fulls of my dreamy mugwort. I have many magic potions from my summer's course, glistening on my countertops in shades and textures not unlike the autumn trees.

The last of the determined flowers have bloomed. I admire with sharp feelings the unusual juxtaposition of pink flowers, colored trees, and October snow. I am grateful for Elderberry elixir and my Monday hot soup tradition.

Grateful for working in a place where the land speaks to me, and the people are wise and humble. For where else would I learn how to respectfully dress a groundhog?

Grateful for the copious boughs of Thuja that I made into oil.
And while my Anima Medicine Woman Mentorship is coming along, it brings many surprises with it. It's going slower than I planned, and with different emphasis. I envisioned spending much time on herbal learning, but in fact I am spending more time on my own healing, paradigms, and sensory gifts. I work slowly in general, not because I am slow, but because I take in an enormous amount in each moment and that requires time and assimilation. I am allowing myself to be slower with less punishment. One of the delicious benefits is simple observation and receptivity. This has been perhaps the most exquisite Autumn I have ever seen; the colors are beyond spectacular. Is this because of weather and patterns? Or is it simply because I am watching so carefully the turning.....

from greens.........

to pinks............to golds..............
I am awestruck by Autumn this year. Despite my very busy schedule, (and my ruthless hatred of winter present or pending) timeless moments have blessed me often.

Like the day the bobcat walked through.

And the day we found fresh black bear scat in our front yard.

And the day we took a twilight hayride through sacred land.
And prayed and laughed in the corn maze.

And the day the honey came.
The Anima pulses through me a little stronger each day as I write and rewrite myself. I'm inviting back in my muse and prepared to let her take me over, trusting she won't let me fall. I see her in the flowers of the boneset, the breathing mist on the river, the cascades of leaves everywhere. I see her in the innocent eyes of my dance and herbal students. She is leading me again to poetry, to movement, to feeling. She guides me to before; before the chopping and blending, before the herb articles are written, before any assumptions are made.

She seduces me into the bittersweet nostalgia of receiving beauty right now.

~~~~

Feet planted firmly in the hurt

I sprout tendrils from the dirt

Grounded heart

Receptive mind

I open to the gifts I'll find

In waves of curling shadow grief

Surrender into risk

~is relief~

In bowing prayer

Twisting faith

In moving love, my heart is safe.

Longevity Electuary: an East-West Chyawanprash

The August air is surely one of the most pregnant of the year. The air smells of sweet mead and layers of flowers coming and going. The bees are stupefied on the Rose of Sharon trees, heavy with so much pollen they can't even steer. The sunlight pours at noon, then tilts her smile a little earlier, luring the garden into fruition. The morning's air cool on my cheeks, nostalgically reminding me of desired goals, intended actions. After the crisp morning has tricked me into working, the warmth brings me back into my body and into nourishment.

Upon inspiration from my summer herbal intensive students, I replenished my jar of rejuvenative honey paste, and am offering the recipe here.

There are a million and one ways to make an herbal honey, an electuary, honey syrup, and on and on. My intention with this honey paste is for deep energy, somewhat in the tradition of Chyawanprash, the complex rasayana paste in the Ayurvedic tradition of healing. I do not have access to the vast array in the original recipes - and my simple formula is quite lovely.

You can play with your own variations as well.

In an 8 oz jar, add:

3 tsp Ashwagandha and or Shatawari powder

3 tsp Spirulina powder

3 tsp Slippery Elm or Mallow powder

2 tsp Siberian Ginseng (Eluthero) powder

1 tsp Cardamom powder

1/2 tsp Turmeric powder

Cover almost full with good local, raw honey

Add 1 tsp of Rose hydrosol or Rose elixir

dried Elderberry powder optional as well!

Feel free to create your own, according to your personal herbal needs or constitution. Black pepper or ginger can be added for kaphas, extra rose or cherry for pittas, or taken in oatmeal for vatas.

Slowly (as to avoid the infamous "cloud poof") stir with a spoon until all the powders are smoothed into the honey. Label and store. Refrigeration isn't necessary.

Your longevity electuary is intended to be used daily, eaten by the spoonful, used on toast, stirred in warm milk with ghee, or in yogurt or smoothies. These herbs will provide you with stamina, clarity, physical and mental energy, good digestion, and strong mucous membranes. It is also a notorious aphrodisiac.

Sweet Medicine

This month's blog party hosted by Kiva Rose is all about Sweet Medicine. Thank you Kiva!

I know herbal honey, cordials and syrups are well covered ... so I hope to offer something a little different... one of my dearest specialties, if I do say so myself.

Sweet oil.

I'm probably most in love with making herbal oils over many other menstruums. I love the feel, the versatility, the romantic, sensual nature, and really everything about it.

One of my formerly best selling skin products was my Lover's Cream ... a sweet, light, edible cream with herbal oil, herbal honey, and some tingly yet gentle essential oils.

But you don't have to get that complex... for sweet oils are easy to make!

First, you may want to use a different oil than the usual olive, as some sweet herbs taste too culinary in olive oil. But suit yourself. My favorite is apricot kernel, with it's fresh cherry-almond aroma. You can also use grapeseed or sweet almond oils. Unrefined coconut oil is especially sensual, and is lovely to use from it's semi-solid state, or warmed until liquid. Yum.

Next, you'll want to comb your cabinets or garden for your most favorite sweet or aromatic herbs. Fresh herbs should be carefully made or wilted first to avoid mold. Herbs that I really adore infused in oil include:

Vanilla beans

Cardamom pods/seeds

Stevia leaves or powder

Damiana leaf

Anise

Fennel

Grated Nutmeg - in moderation

Lavender

Lemon Verbena

Meadowsweet

Orange peel

Dried roses

Peppermint leaf and flower

Hyssop leaf and flower

Freshly ground coffee beans

Sassafras root

Cherry bark (Prunus spp.)

Birch (Black birch or yellow birch bark, also leaves)

Next, fill your jar 1/3 full if using powdered herb, or full if using loose dried herbs or freshly wilted herbs. It's best if freshly harvested herbs have wilted 2-5 days, depending on how much water content the plant has.

Cover your plant material to the brim with oil, label and cover. Let steep in a warm spot for one moon cycle.

If you're using powdered herb, stir it at first to saturate the herb in the oil. I have also found the taste and fragrance releases better if gently warmed before straining.

If you wish to use a fresh root such as ginger, a yogurt warmer or carefully watched crock pot method (two days intermittent low heat) work beautifully.

When your sweet oil is ready, strain it through muslin or layered cheesecloth, bottle, label, and store in a cool dry place - that is if it makes it to storage.

There are a million lovely ways to use your oil, both internally and externally. Obviously, you can use your oil for sensual massage with your sweetie, without displeasing your taste buds. But you can also enjoy the health giving benefits of self massage, using this heart centered oil to massage gratitude and attention into your own muscles and skin. Sweet herbs relax the nerves as well as work through scent to relax the limbic system - all too hyper in this day and age. These herbs, combined with self love in the form of intentional massage, can serve to clear up stagnation in the abdomen, throat, and neck areas, as well as feeding and soothing all your layers of skin. For more information on the rejuvenative powers of Ayurvedic self massage; abhyanga; you can read the description at the Maharishi website.

If you are a cream-maker, you can invent lovely creams with your sweet oil. If you are a kitchen Goddess, you can use your sweet oil in desserts, sweet bisque soups, or in your warm milks and hot toddies. If you are a locks lady, you can treat your dreads or tresses with sweet warmed oil mixed with vitamin E, shea butter,or Basil essential oil. And ... if you make salves... you can make the most sensual of body butters and lip balms when combined with cocoa butter and unrefined beeswax.

Gifts of sweet oil are well loved, too, and look so pretty in a basket. Women experiencing female transitions or discomforts appreciate a belly and breast soothing oil, and women dancing with breast issues or ovarian cysts can benefit greatly from applying healing oils, especially when combined with specific herbs such as Red Clover blossom, Violet leaf, or Dandelion flower oil.

I hope you will gift yourself with a little collection of sweet herbal oils for all of your daily treatings.

(photo of sweet oil #9: pink rose powder, sassafras root, vanilla beans, and crushed cardamom pods in apricot kernel oil)

Moments

The wildflowers are at their peak, a lacy profusion of petals, happy faces, feathery leaves and a finale of dancing butterflies sewing the design of next year's arrangement.

The air is sweet and thick at high noon, with honey-hay breezes anointed by evaporating river mist. The water has taken good care of the plants, and as I wade carefully down the current, I can brush my fingertips along the flowering vervain. I crush a little watermint and inhale it's beatific scent deep into my lungs and belly. The cool ripples float along my calves as I step in between slippery rocks. All around me there is bounty; canopies of grape leaves, frosty thickets of young willows, sassy bull thistle, and half eaten boneset patches. Many creatures have stepped along this mud before me.

Nearby the raccoons forage. They are tiny little new ones, crunching along last year's leaves, digging into the dirt for edible treasures, and waddling from spot to spot. The bitter mugwort and wormwood are nearly ready to make flowers, and so I collect many stalks for potions. My big jar of vinegar sits, luminescent, on the counter top, and the drying stalks hide in the shade. Clever in the corners of the riverbank are the stunning blue singing mouths of Skullcap... soothing my spirit as I listen to their colorful melody.
My basket is full this summer. With water plants and meadow plants, flowers and fragrances.
With beauty.
And exquisite moments of sharing.
A page is turning, and the suspense is heavy. What moments lie ahead? Where do I put my energy - so that it will be multiplied, not stolen? What practices can I cultivate that will nourish my authentic being.

I will ask the plants and pray to the river.

Herbal Roots - a blessing to all plant folk

Greetings!

I have been wanting to do a little promotion for Herbal Roots - and have been having a hell of a time trying to insert a picture/link widget into my wordpress blog for the Wilderness School (I still have my hair but it was getting close)

SO.... I am going to sing some unabashed praise here, and add, as you will see, her sweet little badge/link on my side bar.

Simply put, I LOVE Herbal Roots. Herbalist, Homesteader and loving Mama, Kristine Brown of LunaHerbCo., hand writes and illustrates every sweet little morsel in there.... and they are generous 20+ pages of herbal wisdom, games, lore, projects, and medicinal facts.

I've enjoyed playing in these pages myself, and have also used them for our little ones (the Micro-Scouts) at our Wilderness Homeschool programs, who adore it.

I love the accessible nature of the information ... such a breath of fresh air compared to the dense reading in many herbal books. I love that I can learn it and immediately go and DO it ... it is satisfying and leaves a lasting imprint of each of the plants.

Each plant is picked in a timely manner - at least for much of the eastern/central part of the US, the plant written about won't be far from reach, and ripe for the pickin'

At a superbly affordable price, I assume it a part of my own monthly growing as an herbalist, and I love supporting another Green Mama.

For your own PDF copies.... go here: HERBAL ROOTS ... and don't forget to share on Facebook or any other networks you might belong too.

Thanks!!

My heart in the palm of your land.

In the center of the chaos, stress, and struggles of life, there remains a special place. It's a place that breathes new life into me the moment I set my feet on the ground. This place is a tapestry of forest, meadow, wetlands, and every kind of terrain you might find in New England.

In the mornings, If I get there early enough, the mist curls around the mountains like a morning steam facial; the leaves reaching for the kiss of moisture. The trails are sometimes flooded, and the cherry trees are the biggest I've ever seen. Aside from my own home, it's the land I've watched over the last three years. I've watched the Nettles cover fields, and the poison Ivy grow angry patches along the mowed edges. The Groundhogs have reproduced three generations and are now the animals which greet all the newcomers as they arrive. The landscape has blossomed a million wild roses, and given heaping pots full of ramp stew. It's given deep mentorship to the most extraordinary people I've ever met.

Along the high waterfall, the red efts hide under their log huts, while the solomon's seal flickers in the cool shade of the hemlocks. The birch saplings bear the sweetest leaves for chewing. The wintergreen crawls along the edge of the cliffs like green lace along the mossy shawl. In the forest circle, the dewdrops linger like little fairies on a sleep-in morning. The bobcats leave signs but never show their face. I know the bear are not far.

The edge lining the river rolls into a thorny stand of black locust... so tall it's only a matter of a strong storm before they timber over. The beaver have abandoned this small valley, moving upstream to riper lands. They've dammed the brushy area where the kingfisher lives, along with the snakes, turtles, frogs, and songbirds. The great blue heron makes her way up and down the river way. In the beaver's wake are stands of coppiced willow, cattail, and stately blue vervain. The cottonwoods lay across the water.

It's here - despite the conventional pressures of making business work - of striving to impart this same sense of wonder to children - where my heart opens. Despite my profound hatred of winter and my longing to include dance in my life again - on this land my heart opens. The generosity of the Mugwort and the sound of the tumbling waters and a place where my beloved medicines grow everywhere.... lining the walkway as if welcoming me home, how could I not?

It's the land I know the best out of all the places I've been .... and it never ceases to astonish me. I don't know if I'll ever be able to serve this land, the way it serves me.

Who knows what seeds I'm planting. Who knows where it will take me?

Summer Herbal Intensive

I am offering an Herbal Intensive for adults this Summer. It will be once a week (Wednesdays) for seven weeks, 9am - 3pm. I am very excited and I hope some of you can join me.

It will take place where I work, Great Hollow Wilderness School, in New Fairfield, CT. The land is enchanted and we will get to see plenty of it, since this course will not take place indoors. We will be on the land for the entire time aside from snippets where we may need a kitchen. All other heating will be over a campfire.

We will learn first hand from the plants, and use all our senses to gain information. We will hike through different habitats and examine them. We will learn some simple botany, plant families, and practical herbal wisdom. We will teach each other, get wet in the river, harvest and prepare medicinal and edible plants growing in abundance. We will cover a lot of material, yet it will be simple, digestible and applicable in everyday life. Indexing, journaling, and homework will be implemented. We will also be exploring herbal energetics, vocabulary for the herbalist, and probably a few unknown surprises too. :)

Herbal Intensive for beginners, ages 18 + 

Wednesdays June 24 - August 5, 9 am - 3 pm

Fee $ 450, deposit required

For registration go here

To learn more about Great Hollow Homeschool go here

To learn about all of Great Hollow go here

Green Blessings!