Love Potion ~ January Gathering

Sunday at one we started to arrive at Carrie’s sweet little house in Bellingham. Coralie and I arrived first and Mishon made a surprise appearance coming all the way from Port Angeles.  Michele from Living Earth Herbs, Hollie the Naturopath and her sister Corrie, who works doing human rights activism in war zones, were coming.  Megan was going to be joining us for the last time before she left on her adventures in Thailand and beyond.  We were pleased that Suzanne, our dear teacher, was also able to join us this month.  Whitney had returned from her travels through California and the SW and was bringing another friend from Lummi Island and was going to lead us in making a Love potion.

We all arrived with offerings for the pot : herbs, fruit, chocolate, mead, brandy, infused honey and precious stones.  We gathered in a circle and began by smudging with salt water and rosemary.  We took turns around the circle speaking the intention we had for gathering and what aspect of love we wanted to offer to the “potion.”  Someone suggested we call in our grandmothers and around the room we called in our female ancestors.

The next hour was spent with each of us offering our contributions to the pot with words of why and where they were gathered or in what way they exemplified love.  Mugwort, rose quartz, vanilla, poppy buds, tobacco,spoonfuls of herbal honey, cinnamon,violet, willow, kava kava, oranges, a lingam,  a garnet geode from Lummi,  cedar essence, roses, lots of roses, lavander, and many handfuls of damiana, various spices, and lots and lots of chocolate.  I know there were more ingredients but those are all I can remember becuase our offerings were exercise in abundance; so many of  so much and each representing a part of love.

After so many loving plants and sweet additions were added to the bowl, we passed the brandy and mead and each of us poured it into the pot.  I brought some Moxa that Ellen had made and because she was away for the gathering we burnt it in a shell gathered from the sound and let the smoke waft over the potion.  We then passed it around the circle and smudged ourselves.  The smokey enchanting smell of mugwort overcame the room.

We had not seen Whitney since August and we asked her about her travels and she gave detailed accounts of her experiences at the Grandmother’s Council in Sedona.  We all asked Megan questions about her upcoming adventures.  Happiness at having Whitney back was mingled with a certain sadness of losing Megan.  As conversation settled we lit a candle and held hands and Michele led us in a few rounds of song about being medicine women.

The potion was made two days past the new moon, it will sit and macerate for one moon and Whitney has brought the contents with her and she will meditate with it and daily send it loving thoughts and energy.  One moon will be soon before Feb 14th so we hope to have our love potion ready by then.  A physical representation of the love we all share,  love of self, family love, romantic love, love for life, communication, nuzzling,love of the planet,  indulgent love, love of magic and imagination, love of community, love of the feminine, love of the masculine, love of the divine, pampering, cuddling and swooning.   We hope you might be inspired to make a potion of your own, there is always space for the creation of more love, lets us all commit to making it and sharing it alike.

Winter’s Fool

Oh Dear, the weather has

fooled us all.

The eagles have moved down the

Valley and are bothering

Herons that are beginning to roost.

Swarms of red wing black birds

send thier eletric call over the pond.

A dipper flies up the creek

lands on a rock, pumps it legs and takes off

swimming up stream.

The Alders have dropped catkins

that hang like tiny fox tails

on leafless branches.

And the Salmonberries have sprouted

green rosettes of spring leaves.

Should I be the one to tell them its only

yet January?

Lessons Learned ~ The Art Of Ethical Wildcrafting

I was listening to an interview with Paul Bergner the other day and in it he discussed briefly ethical harvesting.  He’s a very emotional speaker and I love how often he gets choked up when discussing various plant encounters. His words on the subject were touching and inspiring. However, there was one aspect of the subject that I feel could be discussed in greater detail, it is the one thing that nearly all of my herbal trainings have failed to really discuss in detail and that is what “ethical wildcrafting” means on a technical and personal level.  Many people use this term and many of us upon hearing it understand immediately what it means.  If we are coming to the plants for healing and teaching then it is only natural that we would respect them and bring with that respect a sense of what quantity we need when harvesting.  Included in that respect is an immediate understanding that whether harvesting leaf, flower or root we are taking from the plant of its body. Though it may seem to give us the medicine freely, it is my conviction that the plant is always aware that its hard earned growth is being taken. We owe it to the plant to at least honor it by taking only what we need. The question then is “How much do I need?”  Many of you that have been wildcrafting for sometime might be familiar with your needs at this point but I hope I can spare those of you who are not yet as experienced the trial and error process that I engaged in before feeling like I really had an understanding of what ethical wildcrafting meant to me.

The first herb I ever wildcrafted was dandelion.  I remember it vividly, it was early January and I walked out into my teachers garden with a small shovel. After she showed me how to wrest the root from the ground, it was my turn.  The black soil of the garden gave way with ease as I used the blade of the shovel to cut a neat circle around the plant.  One last push into the ground and I leveraged the plant, root and all out into the cold winter air.  I picked up the plant and began removing all of the earth that still clung to it revealing a long white taproot the size of a carrot attached to the a green rosette of leaves.  It was beautiful, it was magical, I was in love.  Food and Medicine it seemed now clear were all around, the often disdained plant of dandelion held a wealth of healing and sustenance and all I had to do to use it was dig.  I was so excited by this experience I quickly went home and spent the next day gathering buckets of dandelion.  I washed and chopped and carefully dried the many leaves. I filled five pint jars with carefully cut and packed root and poured vodka over them.  I labeled them and put pretty stickers on the bottles and set them up on a shelf and thought they were beautiful.  Can anyone see the problem here?  When would I ever be able to use five pints of dandelion tincture?  Unless I planned on making dandelion infused martinis (hmmmm?) what use would I or anyone ever get from all this medicine?  Of course I was new to herbal medicine and had no idea how things were dosed but still I could have guessed what would happen, yet nowhere had I really been given specific ideas of how much herb I would use.  I soon realized five pints was far too many but I continued making my tinctures the standard way of filling a pint jar and covering it with menstrum and still have some remnants of old faded tinctures I made many years ago on my medicine shelf.  The same is true of medicinal oils and god help me if I ever make another herbal vinegar (they are fabulous but I simply don’t use them.)  So the question I posed myself was “Is this ethical?” “Was my excitement in connecting with the plant overriding my right to take of it? Even though I approached the plant with so much love and gratitude, even if what I took with me was a small portion of the total amount of wild growing plant,  was it respectful and in line with my relationship with the plants if I took so much plant material that in the end was sadly composted or tragically poured down the sink?  I think not.

I think to really be in a relationship with the wild plant one must consciously put the effort into knowing how much they actually need or if they need it all.  I feel and have heard from others that sometimes the only medicine you need from a plant can be gained from sitting in its presence with the intent to learn from it.  I have often felt so drawn to a plant and have only recently begun deeply noting if the medicine I need is physical or spiritual. For instance, for many years I have been unduly attracted to Hawthorn, I never seemed to come across the plant when it was blooming or in fruit and yet I was hoping for its medicine.  After doing some research seeing that it was only noted as heart medicine I realized that perhaps the medicine for me had been spiritual.  Every time I approached the plant I was elated, I felt a clear sensation of  being wrapped up in the arms of a lover and of as though I was transported to another time and place, is this how it was to give me heart medicine?  This year I hit the mother load of hawthorn.  My eyes were constantly seeking them out, I would dangerously take my eyes of the highway when I spotted one hidden among the highway greenery,  I’d see them in people’s yards and in fields and always those pretty gingko-like leaves sparkled as they blew in the wind and dull blood red fruits tinted the branches.  One day, I finally stumbled on a patch ready to be picked and the welcoming for me to do so.  I harvested a couple of cups and made Rosehip-Apple-Hawthorn Butter. Feeling finally the call to make it into medicine, I reserved merely half a cup and made it into tincture.  I felt clearly that seeing as I had no need to use the tincture as a heart medicine I would make a small amount this year and familiarize myself with it and then reassess my need next harvest season. I am finding it to be a soothing tonic for the emotional heart.   I feel really good about this process and only regret that it has taken my this long to figure it out.

I thought I might give to you some visual examples of how I base the quantity of medicine I gather now in comparison with my vaguely unaware consumption in the past. Here is pint of Violet Tincture I made three years ago. It is far more then I would ever use of this gentle headache healer in this medicinal form.  Below it is the batch of tincture I made this year after careful thoughts on how I made it in the past.

My final suggestion when harvesting is to do the math.  Think of some preliminary calculation of how much you or your family and friends might actually need,  if you drink nettle infusion make a rough estimate of how many ounces you use daily and multiply by the how often you estimate you might drink it.  Balm of Gilead is a tempting plant to harvest and indeed most of the buds are harvested from fallen branches but still, will you ever use three quarts in a timely way?  These are the questions I learned over time to ask myself, I hope I can spare you the experience of feeling the need to apologize to our beloved plants as I have had and afford you the opportunity to get another layer of medicine from the green world.

the constancy of flux

this one’s for you Laura, happy solstice

Don’t Grieve. Anything you have lost
will come around again, in another form.
The child weaned from mother’s milk is
now drinking honey mixed with wine.

Joy moves from unmarked box to unmarked box
as rainwater down to flower bed,
as roses up from ground.
Now it is a plate of fish and rice.
Now it is a cliff covered in vines.
Now it is a horse being saddled.

It hides within these things
Until, one day, it cracks them open.

There is the light gold of wheat in the sun.
And there is the gold bread made of that wheat.

Always Believe. Anything you have loved
will come around again in another form.

-Rumi (with a dash of EKG)

Rattlesnake Plantain: The Dance of Gratitude

Rattlesnake Plantain (Goodyera repens) is a perennial orchid that grows on the bark of fallen conifers. Harvest (thoughtfully, for it is sparse in some areas, and doesn’t grow once a forest has been too disturbed) in the fall and you’ll see that it truly is an orchid, with spongy roots that thread their way through narrow passages in rotting pine bark. The roots are impossibly soft, and seem to wind their way into places unfit for heartier roots, and so its wisdom unfolds with its form, and we can see the brightness offered in this seemingly shy forest plant.

Rattlesnake Plantain (Goodyera repens)

Despite the environment of decay, or perhaps because of it, there is no more joyful plant in the forest than Rattlesnake Plantain. The rosettes, hugging the ground and hiding in the darker places, catch my eye like little jewels every time I am in the forests near Portland, even in late fall. It is a deep forest plant, not a city dweller, but not for a lack of agreeability. Its job requires solitude and darkness, as well as the home of an old pine tree’s body, and so a stand of largely undisturbed conifers where traffic is light is where you’ll find it. This signature makes it a good plant to give attention to as Winter Solstice approaches, for the promise of Solstice is Rattlesnake Plantain’s yearlong message: Light and Dark are in harmony and together they bring us life. Light consumes darkness and darkness is nourishment for light. Life is sponsored by death. They belong together, the most primal of couplings, and one we struggle to understand. But Rattlesnake Plantain is not struggling. Look to it and you’ll see.

Rattlesnake Plantain can be used topically for scratches, much like the more common Plantain of the great american lawn. It’s juice can be consumed or used directly for soothing eyedrops, but the most widespread use of this little orchid was as a childbirth aid. The native people of North America, as well as Northern Europe, all used the plant for the same reason according to Michael Moore, for “birthing women who [were] having more than the usual pain, discomfort, and panic” (217, Medicinal Plants of the Mountain West). They would chew the leaves fresh according to Moore, although they can be dried and used later, whenever they felt the need for support in birth. My experience with Rattlesnake Plantain leads me to suggest it for birthing problems as well, but more specifically for the mental or spiritual kind.  For cuts and scrapes I can go to many plants who are plentiful and unthreatened in their habitat, including the little Plantain at our feet wherever the ground has been disturbed, but for the primordial darkness before the birth of something new, Rattlesnake Plantain seems specially suited. I feel a kind of birthing panic in the dark of the year before Solstice, when many things are dying, and the rebirth of other things seems far away, or difficult. The promise of a new beginning is not yet realized. For this existential discomfort, give your attention to Rattlesnake Plantain.

I stopped to sit with Rattlesnake Plantain in the forest this fall by accident, if you believe in such a thing, after I was caught by its intense joy on my way to the ever-demanding future. Stumbling through a small patch of woods towards more Elderberries on a bright day in late September, I found myself surrounded by dozens of Plantain rosettes, scattered about my feet like spilled treasure, and my mind turned to harvesting them for the first time. But when I bent over to make an offering to the little beauty, I was directed to give my acknowledgment to the large tree to my right instead. I was surprised by the request as I squinted into blue sky to drink in the magnitude of the nearby pine, and realized it was the largest conifer in this patch of forest. The pine, a remaining old growth tree that had been left untouched in the previously logged area, was a serious presence. As I looked the other direction, I saw the remaining upright trunk of the pine tree that had fallen, undoubtably the former elder in this small village of plants, whose body was sponsoring the many Rattlesnake Plantains now growing at my feet.

After acknowledging the pines, both standing and fallen, and feeling permission to harvest, I set about removing one of the rosettes from it’s home. It wasn’t easy removing the plant’s roots from the intimate pathways it formed in the bark. Soft and deeply embedded in the rotting wood, Rattlesnake Plantain partly lives inside the fallen body of the pine it so reveres, gently breaking down its mightiness with the most delicate softness. Why the plant would want me to acknowledge its benefactor instead of it was no mystery now. The joyful support of little Rattlesnake Plantain is the former grandeur of a mighty pine, and this debt of sweet gratitude is never forgotten as it grows. What has been is in harmony with the life that now is: they are deep allies, the pine and Rattlesnake Plantain, richly complicit in their life and death.

So Rattlesnake Plantain sings the body of its beloved elder back into the earth, and we step over such small and potent miracles nearly every time we wander off trail in the conifers of the Pacific Northwest. Here is the grace I hear in the voice of Rattlesnake Plantain as well as in Solstice: that just a small amount of light, if consistent and joyful, is enough to herald great change. Whenever you feel like you cannot shake your grief, that you are not strong enough to meet your dreams in the face of significant loss, consider Rattlesnake Plantain.

You might not even need to harvest this little gem for a significant effect; it seemed odd to try and tincture the little bit of it I brought home, honestly, like I was doing something very unusual. Perhaps the plant has no familiarity with being tinctured at all, and wondered, out loud if you will, at my methods. Looking in the photo below, you can see it has lost some luster just a few hours later in my bowl, probably mostly due to a loss of moisture, but the tincture has a notable energetic imprint, and one I’ve barely begun to explore. Even a few drops are soporific and relaxing, and make it easier for me to remember what is lovingly allied with me. Perhaps even an essence of the plant would offer the same wisdom. Consider your method before harvesting. Many subtle medicines are grandly healing, and a gross amount of this plant seems unnecessary, indeed, even its signature suggests otherwise.

Rattlesnake Plantain 4 hours post harvest

If available to you, sit with Rattlesnake Plantain in a shady bit of forest someday. Stop, at least for a moment, and try a nibble of the leaf: fresh, grassy, and a little nutty. It might be enough to help you remember that what has come before supports you now; something to grease the wheels of your grateful acknowledgment. Turn your reverence to the sweet harmony of the dead and the living so native to this Plantain’s life. Remember the joyful complicity of the mighty and the small. With the help of Rattlesnake Plantain, remember that Life isn’t a competition, a war, or a cause for endless lament; Life is a dance of gratitude, and everything that has ever been is invited to join.

Solstice Blessings,

Laura

December Gathering ~ Percolations and Solstice Celebration

I awoke Sunday morning to the first snowfall in the Puget Sound lowlands.  The mountains have been getting dusted and accumulating thier white winter robes for the past few months. But Sunday the rain finally turned solid and floated softly from the sky and coated the trees and grasses in stark white.  It seemed appropriate for our Solstice gathering, even though it made driving out to Ellen’s peaceful cabin on Fidalgo Island a bit more challenging.

Seven of us braved the white roads but poor Michelle and Kelsie, who were coming the farthest, were forced to turn around after making it well over half way here

In accordance with the season our gathering activities are relegated to indoor activities or nature communing  as there is little to be harvested this time of year. We planned to gather to celebrate the season change and try our hands at percolated tinctures.

Last month when Carrie and I were scouting Devil’s club harvesting grounds I mentioned to her that I was interested in attempting a percolated tincture.  I had researched the subject online and found very little information regarding how to make them.    As it turned out Carrie had made a few while attending a class with Micheal Moore in AZ and she offered to lead a demonstration for our little group.    I’m hoping she will update the site with a detailed post on the process but I’ll go over it briefly.

A percolation is a tincture that can be made fairly fast compared to an infused tincture.  The process takes roughly 24-48 hours from start to finish.   I was interested in trying it out for those occasions where a tincture is needed sooner rather than later and you do not want to buy a tincture from the store.  It also seems like a good choice for when a herb is out of season as you use only dried herb for this process.  If you are not familiar with percolations think coffee,  dried coffee beans are ground to the consistentsy of sand and a menstrum is poured over it and the resulting liquid that drips through is rich and dark and coffee laden.  In the case of a percolated tincture the process is very similar only the menstrum is high percentage alcohol instead of boiling water.

Carrie, a Montana native, drove fearlessly down the snowy highway hills from Bellingham with Shana and arrived with a large box of all the tools she had brought for the demonstration.  The night before she prepared the herbs we were going to be using.  She ground up dried roots of echinacea and burdock and then mixed them with alcohol until the ground herbs were as moist as sand for building sand castles.  That herb sat overnight and was slightly rehydrated.  She next brought out her Perc Cones which were San Pelligrino bottles with the bottoms cut off.

We proceeded to place a small bit of cotton in the neck of the bottle and then began lightly packing the herbs into the cone.  After they were packed we placed a bit of a coffee filter on top and some clean stones and poured the rest of the alcohol over them and waited… after a few minutes a dark, potent medicine began to come out the bottom, drip by drip.

Megan getting the first pull off the Echinacea Perc

It was a really exciting skill to learn and we were all thankful for Carrie’s well worded teaching and effort she put into guiding us through the process.  She is definately a skilled medicine maker.

After the demonstration we gathered around the table, food was layed out and then the really fun part began- Presents!  Trading gifts with other herbal enthusiasts is certainly a treat.  It was so amazing  because not one item was duplicated and each was certainly given with love.

Shana gifted us each with special blend of tinctures and oils she has made,  I ended up with a gorgeous styptic blend of calendula and yarrow.

Megan brought a lucious lemongrass cream made with aloe butter and clay masks made with French green clay, oatmeal, hibiscus flower and willow bark.

Ellen gave the group spray bottles of the awesome Hyrdosols that resulted from the essential oils she made this fall from geranium, cedar and rosemary.  And of course many of us left with green, cottony bundles of her specially crafted Moxa.

Carrie brought a selection of lovely lip balms in peppermint, rosemary and lemon, each in colorful containers reminiscent of their contents . She also gifted us each with oat heads that she and harvested.

I arrived with a homemade soap  made with cottonwood and lavender infused oil. I also brought an elderberry, rosehip, ginger and cinnamon syrup and dream pillows filled with lavender, pacific mugwort and desert sage.

We all got quite a take if you ask me

I watched happily as Coralie was passed from the arms of all of these wise, strong women. The gathering activities were to include time in the wood fired sauna in Ellen’s circle of cedars, but snow kept falling and we parted a bit early to avoid trecherous roads.  But as always, we enjoyed a lovely early winter day in shared company, each of us working to build community and share our love of the plants with one another.

Happy Solstice!

January Gathering- Reunion with Suzanne from Good Natured Earthing and Cedar Mountain Herb School

The Slightest Idea

At our gathering on Sunday, Carrie ended the meeting by reading this poem.  I thought it was a beautiful contribution.

The Slightest Idea

The moon

and I call each other moon.

And the sun and I call each other sun,

all while this truth also

exists:

I have been so crazy in love with the earth for the last fifty years

that not for one second have I lifted

my head out from beneath

her skirt.

Who

is that

wild looking character then,

who can shop in the market and tend for his family,

that some may call

Kabir?

I don’t have the

slightest

idea.

~Kabir

The value of herbal medicine

This past weekend, I had an interesting conversation with a physician. At one point she commented, “I just can’t understand why creating a chemical replication of a plant compound isn’t the same or better than using an herbal remedy.” We were at a lunch table and trying to keep the conversation as inclusive as possible, so I answered with a question and a metaphor. “Which is better,” I prodded, “getting a neck rub from a friend or sitting in a vinyl massage chair at the airport?”

Let me just say, that was a metaphor lost. Hopefully, she will return to her senses (literally). Yet, the question remains. Why is herbal medicine important? How is it relevant today?

I want to preface this by saying that I am not speaking out against modern medicine as a whole. To speak out against our current system would be to speak out against people. We are the ones who have created it all. And people are brilliant. Doctors care. Medicine works. Surgery saves lives. There is an infinite amount of suffering on the planet that calls out for relief. Compassionate people are doing their very best to help and our system succeeds in phenomenal ways.

So what’s the problem?

The problem is that the dominant cultural values of instant gratification and competition are directing the development of medicine and they are completely distorting how we define wellness as a society. Much of what is being practiced today while scientifically impressive, insults common sense and degrades our intelligence. Essentially, we keep mopping the floor when there is a hole in the roof and wondering why the floor is beginning to sag. We have to ask ourselves, what are we willing to call medicine?

-If poor diet and environmental toxicity damage the liver’s ability to manage cholesterol, should we treat high cholesterol with statin drugs that cause liver damage?
-If the immune system fails and infection sets in, should we treat the infection with anti-biotics which damage the foundation of our immunity by depleting the digestive system?
-If estrogen levels in our environment are contributing to cancer and thyroid disease, should we continue to use birth control pills as the primary solution to reducing our bio-impact and managing the population crisis?
-Does it make sense to treat depression with medications known to increase the risk of suicide?
-Are narcotics really a reasonable solution when people are getting muscle soreness just from being sedentary?

These are examples of some of the most common protocols used today and they are not examples of good medicine. They are examples of poor management. They are displacement tactics and they are dangerous ones at that. The bottom line is that however ironic, we have a health care system that is actually manufacturing disease. We create disease on a physical level through the side effects of toxicity and addiction caused by medication. We create disease on a mental level by promoting avoidance rather than engaging in real problem solving. We create disease on a spiritual level by colluding with the inherent contradiction that arises when we participate in the degradation of life in our quest for biological survival.

Now let’s be clear, I am not talking about the practice orthopedic surgery or stroke rehabilitation, I am not talking about cleft lip repairs on children or the management of diabetes with insulin therapy. I am talking about the social value system that abuses the convenience of pills and promotes fear around the development of true health that can only be earned through responsible choices. I am talking about the reality that almost every tool an allopathic doctor is trained to use, damages the patient’s body and poisons the planet. I am talking about the defilement that occurs in society when a group of incredibly talented people start out their careers inspired by compassion and commitment but succumb to greed and convenience. I am talking about the inevitable loss of human respect that occurs when their precious resources are spent giving Burger King his double bypass and Dairy Queen her steroid inhaler.

It is high time we address the motives that drive our value for the extension of life. I am not going to inject my own belief system here, but with the state of the world as it is today, we are clearly not under pressure to populate our species.

So here is my argument for herbal medicine. The primary argument is that we need, as a nation, to resurrect the hipporcratic oath. In herbal medicine, the practice of “first do no harm” resonates with far more integrity. Generally, side effects are minimum and rarely life threatening. There is no bio-hazard waste produced. Potential environmental damages such as habitat destruction or species extinction due to over-harvesting of plants can be controlled behaviorally. In fact, an increase in the demand for herbal medicine would most likely benefit ecological health and, therefore, benefit human health. There would be great value in reducing the glaring paradox that we are destroying our planet in our response to disease. It only makes sense that a true worth for our lives is predicated on an intimate and reciprocal relationship with the natural world that is our source of sustenance.

Unfortunately, the manipulation of science has degraded the value of herbal therapy in a cars for bikes sort of way. Like bicycling, herbalism can be considered archaic, impractical and naive. But as humans we must honor that we are not immune to the simple pleasures of a bike ride and we have not lost the sincerity and humility required to connect with the natural world. When we apply herbal medicine, we create opportunity for healing through experience and transformation. The values of insight, development and engagement take precedence over the value for immediate and/or temporary comfort. Symptoms are not suppressed, they are addressed. Potential exists for bodily systems to restore to complete and independent function. Lasting changes in health status and profound recognition of our lives and our relationship to nature as a whole can occur. These types of transformations benefit more than the individual. Families, communities and humanity at large responds to such transformation.

There are, of course, the practical benefits that come with reduced cost of materials, shortened length of treatment time and minimized use of technology. Ultimately, humanity will decide as a whole how we progress but let me ask you once again:

When you are feeling uptight and tense in your body do you prefer the touch of something divine or something vinyl?

When you feel weakened in life do you crave something prophetic or something synthetic?

Be sincere with yourself and reach out to them. You already share the breath of the plants, they are just waiting to put their arms around you.

With Love, EKG
*Let the heart be the pulse of your life*

Healing: The Long Road to Where We’ve Always Been

It’s taken a while to realize I don’t know what healing is… really, at all. It’s a bit like sitting in yoga class and realizing I don’t know how to breathe, or what breath really is. How could something so basic escape my attention? Many of my attempts to “Know” healing have some virtue to them, but they also expose a kind of well-intentioned arrogance in me, and some heady naivete. But whenever my effort to know is met by an acceptance of my own ignorance, then a relationship begins to form and the wisdom that is ever present becomes clearer. If I know I don’t know, then the plants become my teachers.

Rattlesnake Plantain near Mt. Hood

People often talk of moving towards or away from healing, as if it might be a location, or a direction. There seems to be somewhere to go when many of us speak of healing. To that end, there are many guideposts pointing the way to healing, and so many of them seem like fine ideas. There is no doubt of the value of structure and theory, but the philosophies always overlap in my mind, cluster and spin, and ultimately collapse. Holding the idea of healing without injuring it is difficult, if not impossible, ironically. There is less active relationship inside intellectual understanding, however valuable it is in other ways, and relationship is essential to healing.

For this reason, like many others, I return to simple experience to find healing. For experience, there is nothing better than a walk in nature, as Kate describes so eloquently in Verdant Healing. The forest is unfathomably true. And truth, in all its evolving diversity, is the calibration point for us all. How could it be otherwise? And how could a plant be anything but true?

Elderberries in October

But I also want the truth of nature to be portable. To move around with me wherever I am. I wonder about and work at bringing the truth of nature into the city where I live. How do I do that? It can’t always be literal, as in a garden, and gardens do not capture wildness, do they, so what do I do? Like many herbal healers, I attempt to carry the wisdom of a plant in a bottle. It’s easy to pack, easy to pass on, and gives form to something exceptionally abstract. But what, exactly, does that bottle contain that makes it healing? The question is less naive than it sounds.

I entertain many answers, but I come back to one simple truth: I must form a relationship with plants for true healing. I need to form a real relationship, and feed it daily, then the bottles I fill, or whatever I do with the plants to heal, will have meaning. At it’s best, the prepared herb is more than alkaloids, certainly, more than an archive of memory, and more than a packaged intention (which is magic enough), what the medicine also provides is a focal point for a living relationship.

The relationship I speak of is not significantly different than forming a relationship with a person. It takes time, devotion, and patience. The plants already embody these traits, it is I who must learn them, and keep them with me, even as I move. I have compassion for how difficult this task of keeping relationship is as a person. All this moving and trying to remember. All this dreaming without losing the present. It’s not easy.

To form this relationship I devote time to meditation, alone and in groups, focusing on a particular plant until I can experience it in my body and mind. I keep pictures of the plants I spend time with, for surely their images are part of their healing power, and they evoke powerful memories in me. I keep memories of time spent with plants in the woods in my mind, and I call on them when I feel myself getting lost. I drink tea, and I carry and use tinctures, but these days the tinctures feel more like a locket worn around my neck than medicine. The power of the healing seems to lie in what the tincture helps me to remember, not in a series of constituents which act on my physiology, although surely both are happening. The unseen and seen worlds mirror each other, yes, but it is the unseen world we are likely to neglect.

Red Belted Polypore near the Salmon River

So the plants give of their bodies and spirit, and I give of mine: relationship. They remain in truth always and when I drop some tincture on my tongue, or sip some tea, or burn them in fragrant bundles, I am enveloped in an experience with them again. I always have a choice: I could drink a cup of constituents that have some effect on my body, true enough, and no harm done, but the sacredness of healing is not in that act. When I choose instead to open my spirit and acquiesce to remember the plant, and let it be my experience one more time, then I am in relationship and I find healing. Healing surrounds me again and I know it has never gone anywhere, but it is I who have wandered, and I return, however briefly, back to everything.

Verdant Healing ~ The Evocative Nature Of Plants

The snow level has fallen and the mountains, now colored black and white, threaten to begin blanketing the river valley with the same frozen rain that will cover them through the winter and into summer. Smoke from the moxa Ellen made wafts out of the bamboo box it burns in and the room is doused in the earthy smell of Artemisia. The smoke drifts through the air and I sence it has latched ahold of my spirit and carried it with it. Bundles of dried Pearly Everlasting, Lavender, Pink Hardhack and Goldenrod hang from a solid wood beam and serve as reminders of summers flourish. The grasses outside remain green and tendrils of Usnea hang from tree branches while the staunch Cedars wave their feathery arms in the cold wind.

Pacific Mugwort ~ Artemisia suksdorfii

Plants are full of medicine, medicine of the mundane and medicine of the surreal. They evoke their healing powers in ways both physical and ethereal. They are our co-inhabitants of this planet, our green ancestors who have sprouted from this earth from times well before their mobile offspring. Their existence is a spiritualists dream, organisms that consume nothing more than light, rooted in place, presence must not be a practice but a compelled state of existance.I come to the plants for healing, they heal the body and do so with intelligence that begs the existence of a god. I come to the plants for more healing, they heal the spirit with undue compassion the likes of which a buddhist could only strive for.

Red Cedar ~ Callitropsis nootkatensis

The magic of this healing is twofold, much time is spent speaking to the physical healing aspects of the plant, but I experience so much of the work in mere communion. A barefoot walk to the river brings my body in direct contact with plantain, chickweed, grasses, dandelion and fallen pine needles. A glance out the window frames a world of varied, green giant trees. An evening meal is comprised roots and leaves and flowers. All of this is plant medicine.

Walking fern ~ Polypodium hesperium

The plants have the power to evoke experiences both unique and universal. The smell of the  Cottonwoods in a river valley rouses memories of smelling them before and affords me the ability to remain in the present and yet ply it with the experiences of the past allowing for an ever-growing sensation of life. Rather than life loosing its lustre after so many years of living, it gains the depth of feeling and love and color given only by many layers.  Think of memory and presence as co-celebrants, creating a life full of depth just as a painting is comprised of so many layers of paint but only one picture.

Goatsbeard ~ Aruncus dioicus

The plants also lend us a macro model for the micro-experiences of our life. They offer a model of strength and a promise of outcomes. In the winter, when much is dead or dormant, the plants that remain green remind us that the wheel will turn again. The spring is likened to the quickening, the first sence that life is growing among us, tender and new. Summer is a glorious and intense labor: long days and short nights, heat and power and production. And Fall is the ecstatic moment of sitting back and holding the harvest in our hands: a ripe tomato, a newborn baby and a deep full breath. It is followed again by the pause and the promise.

Devil's Club ~ Oplopanax horridus

In an abstract sence, healing the body begins first with healing the mind. The plants are an access point, a way to engage in the act of returning to wholeness. I suppose we are born whole and either through outside guidance or our own mis-informed acts we begin chipping away at that wholeness. Many of us later engage in a conscious path of healing or home-coming. We seek to return to the place we sence we once were. This, for me, is the true power of the plants, their physical acts of healing are merely door shows meant to entice us to buy a seat to the Big Top.  And once inside the path home is illuminated in green. Step outside, notice your ecosystem, let the green neighbors conjure images of what our lives could look like if we remembered ourselves as unbroken and again intact.

Old Man's Beard ~ Usnea longissima

Near my little home, a walk in the woods gleans views of trees strewn with long strands of Usnea longissima hanging from the giant rainforest trees like fairy-made tinsel. Usnea  is a powerful anti-microbial, assisting our bodies  in warding off unwanted intruders. But there is more. Walk through the woods and bring your awareness to the lichen: half plant, half fungus. Notice where it takes you, what thoughts it excites or inhibits. Sence your place on the planet in connection to it’s environment. Breath deep. Do this again with dandelion, with hawthorn, with beebalm, with whatever grows around you.

The plants evoke shifts in consciousness, they remind us to think of healing as wholeness and to notice that the planet is a web of healing. Everything we need is here and every living being, every mineral and every formation truly is our kin.  We are whole and we are not alone, never are we separated from other life. Let the plants remind us of the closed system we live in, let them tell us how our bodies feed the smallest life forms and make soil, which feeds the plants, which in turn feed us.  We all share air that has been breathed in and expelled by countless bodies, we drink water that has been ingested by inumerable entities and travelled through the skies and down mountains and rivers and again to the ocean. The basic elements that afford formation of our cells come from the rocks and the soil. Remember that the very air we breath is a creation of the plants.  It is the elixir they released and began summoning us out of the waters and into life. They are light eaters and without them we would not exist.  Look to the plants and let them remind us that we all live off light.