June Gathering

It was nearly two years ago when a small group of women began gathering with joint interest in plant medicine. It began as a gathering at one of our houses and turned into a monthly event where we would connect, talk, rejoice in our love of plants, and harvest whatever wild abundance was coming up at that time. The gatherings moved from a social event, to a blog and finally found form as a service project. As many of you know, it has been sometime since we all gathered last. In the past many months I have been sitting with what I felt we needed to do and what the community was searching for. And this is what has come to me. Im writing all of you to you share the opportunity to gather together again. This will also be a monthly gathering, beginning with fellowship and a plant meditation to start of the day, I have written to several local teachers and asked if they would be willing to skill share with us, perhaps for a small donation (10 dollars each.) These teachers include medicine makers, shamanic herbalists, wildcrafters, plant walk leaders, and several local plant people that all have unique perspectives to share and skills to teach. After the plant meditation we will work with what ever teacher was willing to participate that day. Following the lesson we will proceed to plant harvesting, woods-frolicking, basket filling and dirt worshiping And the finale of the day will be our group medicine making, this will include the creation of a small number creams, salves, tincture, vinegars, liniments, oils or balms ect. All the items made will be sold online (hopefully on Poppyswap ) and the proceeds will be given in whole to rotating charities or organizations that we choose for that month. To participate you need not have any prior experience with herbalism, only a deep desire to connect with the green nation and to learn more about bringing health to to your community with herbal medicines through learning and sharing in a cooperative environment.

 

I had a pretty magical weekend ( not counting the death of a goat   )  and am very excited to meet with you all on Wednesday.  I will bring the tincture for the meditation and jars.  What you should bring

Olive oil, almond oil ect.

Vinegar

Vodka or Grain Alcohol

Baskets

Gloves

Tarot cards,  or anything of that sort for the plant meditation

Any good herb books (if you have them) for reading about the plant we are going to sit with afterwards

A snack to share

Love to put in the medicine we are making!!!

ALso, please let me know if there are any charities that you would like to donate the coming months sale to.

This month we will be gathering a special plant,  I won’t tell you yet  but you are definitely going to like it!  Its a plant that often grows by the water  so we will be meeting at Bay View State park.  I hope to find us an actual facility in the future so we can make slaves, cream ect.  But this month we’ll just play outside.  The weather looks great for Wednesday.

We will meet at the group picnic site if its a available if not we will  I will be nearby.

 Next Month I have Julie Charette Nunn planned to join us and teach as about shamanic herbalism and connecting with the spirit of the plants.   August has the Nw Herb Faire in Mount Vernon,  Im thinking it would be fun to put a little both selling the items we’ve made and letting other locals know about what we are doing and giving them the opportunity to join us if interested.  Let me know if any of you would be available to help man  small booth for a few hours.  We also have the option of planning a short day (or overnight trip) to the eastside to gather so many of the wonderful plants that live over there.  If that something that would be interesting let me know.

And as always feel free to invite anyone that you know who may be interested in gathering with us.

Blessings,

Kate

One love

I found this prayer on the motivational activist Starhawk’s blog. The context it was posted in there was entirely different. When I read it, I couldn’t help but think of what is happening in Japan right now. For all of the exhausted and suffering people there, I pray that love is somehow rising to their shores. Fo the Earth, what can we do but pray…..pray, respect and apologize.

Prayer For This Land
by Dana Lyons

Won’t you please hear my prayer for this land
Won’t you please hear my prayer for this land
And you know that I’m ready to do my part
I’m just standing by waiting for that wave to start

Only the moon can turn the tide
Only the moon can turn the tide
So I kneel and I pray at the ocean side
And I watch for that wave, that great green wave to rise

There’s a sparkle of hope in every eye
There’s a sparkle of hope in every eye
And when those eyes sparkle at the same time
That’s the time when that wave, that wave of love will rise.

Be Love, Kiki

Colony Collapse Disorder: not an acceptable reason to take the day off!

My friend Crystine of Uprising Seeds shared this with us. The full 50 minute video can be found here.

“Pay attention to the tears you might shed and then do something. Plant a garden for goodness sake!”

Thanks Crystine……..and thanks for the dedication to us, the bees and the seeds.

Rise up among the flowers, kiss the grass, contribute to your colony.
Love, Kiki

Some wounds do heal

If you have been reading this blog for awhile, you may have picked up on the fact that I am, on occasion, a bit clumsy! Life moves fast through this little body. Sometimes I think I am spinning around the Earth rather than passively orbiting the Sun. About once a year, I get a little knock that reminds me to come back down and just enjoy the ride for awhile.

The good news is that as a practitioner, this provides ample opportunity for “research.” I always feel better when I can test out an idea on my own body before asking some one else to be the trial run on one of my inspirations. Herbal Medicine has some wacky moves; some are hilarious……some can be dangerous. What’s amazing to me, is that what all of these years of experimentation have consistently affirmed is that with the right presentation and application they tend to work!

The remedy of the day, however is neither absurd nor intimidating. It is simply DELICIOUS.

It was the night before Thanksgiving and we had a blustery snow falling hard on the island. I got home late to the sweet surprise that my neighbors had come over to turn on the fire for me and toast up the cabin. The big “Yes!” I felt when the warm air hit my face suddenly flipped to a holy “Oh No!” when with robust swing to pull the door snug from drafts, I landed my thumb right in its hinge. Now, my cabin was built in the 70′s by artistic, idealistic hippies. They had artistic, idealistic building skills and nothing says this more than the doors of my cabin. They are GORGEOUS 6″ thick slabs of buttery wood with light beam madalas and hand carved handles…..that have no locks and leave enough gap to fit a tambourine through.

So, basically, I destroyed the tip of my thumb. I can’t in 37 years remember ever hurting myself to this degree. It was gory. Halloween level gore. The bad news: my 3 days ski blast on Crystal mountain was instantly cancelled. The good news: it was the night before Thanksgiving and the family already had enough wine in them to not pass out at the sight of me.

We cleaned it well but I was done in. The entire base of my nail had been pulled out and I had a deep crevasse of soft human parts that had lost their form entirely. It was impossible to tell what would happen. Once my shock settled, I crawled in to bed to nestle my nerves. Long story short, over the next few days, there were consults with surgical nurses and hand specialists but the prognosis was vague. It was an awkward messy wound with not much to do but let it be until it showed it’s own fate. I kept it clean with a mix of colloidal silver and triple anti-biotic cream. I soothed it with lavender and helichrysum oils. I evolved from your average clumse to a four fingered klutz.

Two weeks later, nothing much had changed. All of the tender skin was still slashed open and exposed, the nail was lifted and protruding. I have to admit, I was a bit hopeless by the lack of healing. After our holiday lotus party, I was up late cleaning and when I finished my routine of care and I was moved to try something new.

I have a shelf of raw honey for my patients that I recommend as the first step of treatment for heartburn and reflux. There is research being done in New Zealand which suggests that honey is inhibitory to the bacteria h. pylori (which is the primary cause of heartburn). For about 85% percent of my patients, it has been a silver bullet and has allowed them to go off of antacids within 10-14 days of therapy. I have another patient, Irmagard, who is an 86 year old woman who has a slow healing leg wound that she has dressed at the hospital 2-3 times per week. The hospital is currently using honey bandages.

(My apologies.) There was a “before” photo but I found even glancing at it on my phone provoked nausea! This is the “after” picture. Ok, it is admittedly still horrific but that fresh line of clean pink skin at the base of the thumb was simply gorgeous to me. That skin was grown by honey alone! It was fast. It was clean. And within 2 days of applying honey at night and in the morning, hope had returned. Happily 2 months later, I have full use of my thumb and even the healthy start of happy new nail to protect it.

So many remedies can remain “something we read” until we have the opportunity to learn from experience. Keep your fingers clear of doors and rely on my earned wisdom:

Some wounds do heal.
Much love, Kiki

Viable Tincture Press Alternative Discovered!!

I am sure that over the years we have all struggled to figure a way to squeeze every last drop of tincture out of our plant material.  I have heard several alternative ideas and known people that spent hours attempting to build their own tincture press.  A tincture press can run you several hundred dollars and for most of us lay herbalists it is just too much to justify spending for the pint of tincture we have made.   And so most of us just forgo the whole thing and lament at how much medicine we are loosing when we lay the spent plant material in the compost.  Until now!

 

I wish I could take credit for this,  but I can’t, a friend of mine named Jodi who I met in a wildcrafting class gifted us with this idea that she came up with on the spur of the moment.  It does require a piece of equipment,  but its a kitchen item many of us already have or can purchase for under 40 dollars.

 

What is it?   A wheat grass juicer!!!

 

Let me share with you Jodi’s experiement;

I took 4 cups of drained St John’s Wort plant material (I drained and pushed on it with a spoon to get as much out as is possible)

The material was still wet and glossy.

The ran it through the wheat grass juicer and the results were…… Ta Da…. drum roll please!!!!!

1 whole more cup of tincture

2 cups of bone dry plant material…. Impressive!!

 

Here are her pictures to prove it.

 

4 cups of St. John's Wort plant material, drained of menstrum

 

Before running through the juicer

After running through the juicer

I cup extra tincture, 2 cups plant material!

 

And so our trials are over,  we can all now have ensure that  we are getting every bit of medicine from the plants that we so dearly love.

 

If any of you would like to send lavish gifts of thanks to Jodi to thank her for her brilliance,  let me know  :)

 

Green Blessings.

Kate

Ablaze

I try to imagine that death

will be like Fall;

wrinkles will be

not signs of wear,

but colors of age.

In Fall,

excitement is mingled with relief.

In Trees,

red and yellow are the

accumulated remnants

of what the plant could not use.

Perhaps, when we die our pains will blaze like sunset.

Like colored leaves;

those of us left to watch the process

will get to view the demise in glory.

RED.
Gold.
yellow.

BARE…

 

Please watch this

and if you ever have a day when you are feeling cynical……please watch it again.

Sporatic love, EKG

Mushroom Season

Ok, so the Northwest has it’s limitations. I can’t grow a cantaloupe here or body surf without binding my self up in a rubber suit. Good thing I love mountains and mushrooms….

Identifying Artemesia

After I wrote the post on how to make moxa, I came across some of my photos of different species of Artemesia. I hope these are helpful for those looking to make moxa or identify artemesia in their neighborhood.

These photos were taken in the Bastyr University garden last summer.

we ARE nature

I came across this video tonight. It is an interview with NW carver Ralph Bennett. The madrona center is a community space on Guemes Island that is run by my friends Lane and Susan.

Unfortunately, the interview gets cut off at the end but the mask is stunning and it is beautiful to hear Ralph talk about his expression and the intention that it carries. I think some people will dig it. So here it is:

Love, Kiki