Archive for the 'Wise Woman Wisdom' Category

Reclaiming My Voice

tammy July 8th, 2010

I just read over some of the posts I wrote here over the last couple of years, and find myself feeling very sad, even shedding tears.  I think I am mourning the spiritual connection and authenticity that exuded from my writing as I was on the threshold of a major transition in my life.  I seem to have misplaced that connection, along with my writer’s voice, as I have navigated the waters of tremendous change recently, and I long to have it back again.

You’ve probably noticed that I haven’t been writing very much here at all the last year or two.  Back when my marriage was ending in 2008, I found that my writing voice was stronger than it had ever been. During that time I was suffocating and needing freedom, and I found space through which to breathe via my relationships with plants and my writing on WitchenKitchen. Oh the dreams I dreamed, the insights I gained, the personal growth I experienced during that time!  I connected to the plants and my innermost self when I couldn’t connect to my partner, and my, how the words did flow!

But when that relationship was actually over, I unexpectedly found myself adrift at sea with nothing but emotional survival on my mind.  I no longer had a home with plants I knew intimately just outside my door, no herb cupboard or kitchen to experiment in.  By my own choice, I moved all my furniture and personal belongings to a hot, musty storage unit, put my jars of tinctures and oils and dried herbs into boxes and stacked them in a spare room at my mother’s house. I knew I would get back to them someday, but for the time being, I could only look longingly at the boxes.

I wouldn’t even open those boxes to get tea ingredients, because I knew I’d only have to pack them up again, and it was all just too, too sad for me.  During this transition, I couldn’t communicate at all with the plants, could barely even go outside and just sit with them.  I could hardly write a word on the topic, save short little snippets on my Facebook page.

Then a little while later, I fell in love and started a new relationship.  Suddenly I was whirling around, caught up in a fantastic and blissful adventure.  You’d think my thoughts would be overflowing and spilling from my pen, but being in love can be one of the most overwhelming things a person can experience.  As we busily went about establishing the foundations for a long term relationship and making a home together, I still could not find my spiritual center, and I could not write.

I tried a few times.  I can’t tell you how many drafts of articles I penned, but ultimately trashed because they had no authenticity.

As my partner and I began our journey together, I unpacked most of my herbs and put them in a cupboard in our home just for them, but I would almost never go get anything out to actually use.  I grew vegetable gardens, but that was hardly a substitute for connecting with wild plants as I had once done.  I would walk around our yard sometimes looking at wild, growing things, but lacked the motivation to go get my books and try to i.d. the unknown plants, or bring any of them into my kitchen to get to know them better. I maintained my interest and a certain longing, but from a distant, uncommitted place.

My priority and focus through all this relationship upheaval has been to re-establish solid human connections…  the plants and my writing, well, they just had to wait.

My new relationship has stabilized and grown a solid base now, and I feel my feet touching the Earth again.  I feel I have regained a home base and roots from which to spread my branches. My heart is telling me that I can now safely turn my attention elsewhere from time to time and be sure that I won’t go spinning off into the unknown, unconnected abyss. I am ready to reclaim myself, my spiritual connections, and my words.

I felt my passion for all things green rekindling during our recent family beach vacation, when the local plants began calling out to me again. I heard them intensely and insistently, and felt a familiar and overwhelming desire to research and write about them again.  Perhaps they have been calling all along, but only now have I come to a resting spot where I can hear them.

I hope you will continue this journey with me, as I find the words to share it with you here.

:-)

A Sweet Little Herbal You May Not Have Seen Before

tammy December 28th, 2008

When I read this herbal by Linda Ours Rago I felt like I was reading about my own little piece of the world.  The achingly beautiful descriptions of the land and the plants she examines make me feel homesick and anxious to step outside my door, where I know I will find the very same plant communities, the very same smells, the very same colors.

In Blackberry Cove Herbal: Healing with Common Herbs in the Appalachian Wise Woman Tradition, Rago details the seasons and plants common to the region around the Blue Ridge Mountains, specifically at her Blackberry Cove Appalachian mountain farm in West Virginia.

The herbal is organized by season and gives lots of specific information about which plants are available for wild crafting in this region during every month of the year, and also lots of ideas for what to do with them.  She includes many recipes for time honored herbal remedies of the Appalachian wise woman tradition, and also weaves in the lore and magick of the culture as they relate to the plants.

I live on the other side of the Blue Ridge, in Virginia, so my ecosystem is pretty similar to hers.  I have found all the plants she covers growing at pretty much the same times she describes.  This herbal would make a wonderful beginners guide for a year long study of common local plants if you happen to live in this bio-region.

And even if you don’t live around here, many of the plants described are quite common in a variety of regions and much useful information can be gleaned.  The book is also beautifully written and beautifully illustrated, and is an enjoyable read, regardless.

Here is an excerpt from “December”:

…[O]ne hearty cup of pink sassafras root tea every spring will charge up your metabolism and thin your winter-sluggish blood.

The oldest Appalachian grandmothers say we should find a spot plentiful with sassafras seedlings.  Then after a hard frost in December, near the dark of the moon, tell the whole grove that you appreciate their strength and beauty and need their good medicine.  Pull up one entire small seedling, cut off the whole top, and save the roots.  Wash them well in running water, cut in three-inch lengths, dry slowly in a warm oven, and store away until spring.

In early spring place five pieces of root in a pot with a quart of cold springwater.  Bring to a boil and simmer gently for fifteen minutes. The water will turn a rosy color.  Sweeten with sugar or honey.  Take no more than a cup a day for several days.

Save the roots, dry them again, and resuse them over and over until the decoction no longer turns pink or has that distinctive sassafras aroma.

And speaking of digging Sassafras roots, I promise that post on root medicine is coming soon!  I had forgotten how busy this week would be… no time for root diggin’ yet! Today will be nice, so I think I will get out there later this afternoon.  Sassafras is on my list of roots to gather, along with Poke, Blackberry, Mullien…

Dead Christmas Trees

tammy December 9th, 2008

Since the kids have grown up and had kids of their own, it’s very seldom we are all together at the same time for meaningful activities anymore.  But Saturday turned out to be very magical for us in that way.  We got our first real snow (which only amounted to less than an inch, but hey!) while all of my kids were at the house with their children, so we decided to put up the Christmas tree together.

We’ve been using an artificial tree the last few years, but found when we hauled it out of the shed that mice had made their home in its branches this past season and had peed all over it!  Sorry, not putting the lovely odor of mouse pee all up in my house for Christmas!

So it was snowing, all the kids and grandkids were there together… seemed like perfect timing to go out in the woods and find a live tree this year.  And that’s just what we did.  It was a very special memory we made together, all of us bundled up tromping through the woods, AND we found a beautiful, fat cedar in the perfect shape.  It’s bare on one side, but with that side against the wall you can’t really tell.

At first I had a few reservations about cutting down a perfectly healthy and living tree just to indulge our holiday hoopla, but I have since come to terms with that.  Part of being on a spiritual and sacred earth walk means understanding that all living things participate and contribute to the whole of life, sometimes in life and sometimes in death.

We take the lives of plants and animals everyday to sustain and enhance our own lives.  The hard truth of the matter is that no life can continue unless something else dies to feed it.  I also believe that in some mysterious way, when we honor and gratefully receive these gifts, each living being that gives its life does so as a willing participant.  It is good to honor these everyday sacrifices and give heartfelt thanks when we eat a meal, use a plant for medicine, or even cut down a live Christmas tree.

I believe that in the grand scheme of the Universe, this particular tree we brought home grew in that very spot, to just the right size and shape, for just that moment when it gave its life to be a part of our family’s unity and love.  We will honor and embrace that sacrifice.

When I went to put water into the tree stand after we had set it up, one of the grandchildren asked me if the tree was going to keep growing.  I told him, no, it would begin to dry out and it would die within a few weeks.  He was sad about that and thought maybe we shouldn’t have cut it down.  I had to scramble to explain to him the understanding I had come to about life and death and this humble tree, in a way that he could understand.  I also wanted to find a way that we could honor the tree’s life, one that would be meaningful to the children.

What we came up with was that after Christmas, when we take down all the decorations, we will carry our tree to our bonfire spot and have a grand smudging ceremony!  Cedar is a traditional sacred smudging herb, and this seems a fitting end for our lovely tree.  We will thank our tree for being part of our family celebrations and for making our holiday so special.  Then we will burn the tree and watch it’s spirit rise up to return to the Great Spirit, carrying our prayers with it.  The children think this is a great idea and they are excited.

I used to feel so sad when, the week after Christmas, I would drive through my city and see all the dead and discarded Christmas trees lying on the curbs up and down the streets, with stray pieces of tinsel still clinging in odd places, just waiting for the garbage trucks.  The holiday was over and now they were just thrown out like nothing special, the people moving unceremoniously on to the next thing.  I am very glad to have found a way to make the death of our Christmas tree just as meaningful and special as all the rest of our celebrations.

Bringing an evergreen tree into the house to decorate and celebrate around is but one of the many ways to mark the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, with the days growing longer and longer thereafter.  Many religious mythologies symbolize this phenomena of “light triumphing over darkness.” Whether you celebrate the return of the sun to longer days, or the coming of the Son, or something else entirely, may you all find special meaning for this holiday season.

Meet Nuisance

tammy November 25th, 2008

Well, we’ve been chosen.  This guy showed up at our door a few days after Halloween and decided to stay.  We tried to get him to go home by refusing to let him into the house, but he just stayed at our window all night meowing, tearing screens off the window, and pawing at the door like a puppy.  We’ve decided to stop fighting what seems meant to be.  So, now we have a cat named Nuisance (that, by the way, our dog hates! yikes!).

It all started with the tuna fish.  When he came to our door, he was very skinny and obviously malnourished, and seemed to be in some pain also, as if he had maybe injured his tail or his pelvic area.  Whatever injuries he had weren’t too serious — he could walk and jump just fine — but I noticed an odd twitching in his tail when I rubbed him and felt a lot of heat in the lower regions when I moved my hand down his back just above his spine.  How could I not open up a can of tuna for the sad little guy?

In the few weeks he’s been with us, his belly is no longer sunken and his fur is getting shinier.  He likes to be massaged, and the twitch in his tail is diminishing.  He’s looking quite healthy these days.

Nuisance truly lives up to his name in the way he demands attention and a thorough rubbing down every time he comes near, how he wants to be fed 15 hundred times a day, and the way he regally commandeers the warmest spot by the fire.  He’s definitely got a strong sense of what he wants and when, and doesn’t settle for less. He’s teaching me a lot.

It’s also a big hassle to make sure the dog and the cat are never in the same room together (no, no, no — fur will fly!).  But he is so darn lovable and rewards us with such satisfied purrs after he gets us in line, that we don’t really mind the nuisance all that much.

The Best Things I Did For Myself All Week

tammy October 5th, 2008

When I get sick, my first thoughts usually turn to, how can I make this GO AWAY!! NOW!!  But I’m learning through experience that this approach is not always the best way.  It seems the more I push at an illness, the more it pushes back, and the longer I have to deal with it.

If you remember from a previous post how sick I was recently, and how well Butterfly Weed helped me, you may be surprised to learn that I got another virus just as that never-ending one cleared up.  I went to the doctor to rule out a more serious infection like pnuemonia and such.  Clear mucous, no fever… probably just another opportunistic cold virus catching hold while my immune system was still weak and vulnerable — from my recent illness and also from racing through life at a frantic pace without enough rest or self care! 

With that original illness, I had thrown everything herbal at it that I could think of.  Lots of tincture taking and impatience as the symptoms hung on and on.  Even the more nourishing remedies, such as hot bone broth soup, were administered with a forceful attitude.  I was wanting to get back to my busy life at full speed, but I felt like shit.  My thoughts were, what can I take that will zap this thing out of me and let me get on with it????

Susan Weed teaches a lot about “problems as allies.” The idea is that when an illness shows up, your body is trying to speak, to get your attention.  It’s not an enemy to be thwarted, but an ally that can help you move toward greater wholeness and health.  What was my body saying to me?  When I became sick again so soon after just starting to get well, I decided to stop “fighting off illness” and embrace it so I could pay more careful attention to my body’s voice.  It was saying that I needed sleep.  I needed comfort and warmth.  I needed nourishment.  I needed some TLC and gentleness.

So…

I took a couple days off from massage school and a day off from work.  Through those days and into the weekend, I slept a lot more than I had in months.

After waking up from a nice long sleep on one of the days, feeling pretty relaxed, but cold and congested, I went to my herb cupboard and picked out herb for a hot steam.  Calendula flowers, yes, that’s what I wanted. Some may think of the more aromatic herbs as the most appropriate here, but for some reason, I just wanted the calendula.  I boiled some water and poured it over the dried flowers into a bowl and then covered my head with a towel to breath in the warm steam, letting in cool air as needed.  Pure bliss, deeply penetrating warmth and comfort for my lungs and sinuses.  When the water had cooled enough, I took some of the warm moist flowers and laid them over my eyes and sinuses, absorbing their healing energy.

My lungs were still feeling weak after these many weeks, still hanging on to a lingering, nagging cough.  My glands and lymph were still swollen a bit.  I went back to my herb cupboard a little later for infusion ingredients – to soothe my symptoms, not force them well, just soothe them.  And I FOUND SOME MULLIEN!!  I had thought I was out, but there it was, this wonderful lung tonic.  Into the infusion jar went a small handful.  Mellow oatstraw was calling to me also, so a handful of that next.  Hmmm… dried elderberries… I briefly wondered if they would be good as infusion (I’d only been taking it as tincture so far).  I thought yes, so a few of those added to the jar, too.  Finally, some more of the yellow calendula petals (just petals, not the whole flower head; just what my body seemed to want).  Pour boiling water over, cap, and leave for a few hours.  Strain and drink.  The taste is smooth, mellow, slightly fruity, divine.  Everything elderberry is supposed to do for a cold or flu seemed magnified ten times over compared to the tincture. The the taste of mullien is like something I’ve been craving for a long time. The infusion soothes my cough.  It relaxes and nourishes me deeply. I make this brew again the next day and the next and the next.

 

Chicken soup several days in a row, made with bone broth, lots of sage and thyme and pepper and salt.  The warmth down my throat, the herbs, the minerals, all work together to start weaving back together my frayed system.

Several hot baths with bundles of herbs thrown in.  Red clover blossoms and, once again, sunny calendula.  Bone penetrating warmth, just as I needed.

By Monday, I felt rested and relaxed and just about back to my old self.  My lungs felt healthy and strong, all my upper respiratory passages felt moist and at ease.  An interesting side note – the tennis elbow I’ve had for months now STOPPED HURTING ALSO!  Somehow through this process, that elbow got what it needed, too, so it stopped yelling at me.

This experience was two weeks ago.  I’ve been mostly well since then, but everytime I start to over do it, scrimp on sleep, or fail to nourish myself properly with fluids and good food, that little tickling cough starts to creep back, and I understand the message immediately.

Notice all the water-based, warm, nourishing herbal remedies I instinctively reached for when the focus became listening and nurturing, instead of squashing and conquering.  This is kitchen medicine at its best.  A great lesson this whole experience has been for me in the art of Healing Wise, one of many I’ve been blessed with recently.  

Who Needs a Fancy Yogurt Maker?

tammy September 12th, 2008

When you could have this little homemade beauty? This was my first batch of homemade yogurt and it turned out really well, I’m happy to report.  And so did the cream cheese I made from it!

To make your own homemade yogurt, you will need 1/4 C starter yogurt for every quart of milk.  Buy a cup of good quality plain yogurt with live cultures from the store to use for this purpose.  The milk can be any kind as long as it is not ultra-pasteurized. Ultra-pasteurized milk has damaged proteins that will not work well to make yogurt.  Get organic if you can; raw is even better.

Heat your milk to 185 degrees, let it cool to 110 degrees, stir in the starter yogurt, and then keep it warm, between 90 and 110 degrees, until it has transformed into yogurt, usually about 12 hours later.

Most homemade yogurt instructions tell you that you need to have a thermometer so you can keep the yogurt at the proper temperatures. But hey, I’m a wise woman!  I don’t use fancy thermometers either!

When initially heating the milk to the requisite 185 degrees, I just use my senses to tell me when it is the right temperature.  185 is steamy, but not boiling.  This step is for the purpose of killing any bad bacteria, which I’m guessing is not a big problem if you are using pasteurized milk anyway, but I still do it.

When the milk is slightly warm or even a little cool, it is probably within the 90-110 range.  Just gauge it based on your own body temp as a starting point.  Your body temp is around 98.6, so if it is exactly the same you won’t feel either cool or warm when you stick your finger in, if it is a few degrees warmer, it will feel slightly warm, a few degrees cooler, it will feel slightly cool.  You get the idea.

To keep mine between 90-110 degrees while it was setting up, I wrapped a heating pad set on low around the jars and put a towel around the whole bundle.  My home is air-conditioned, so it was important to have heat source, but if you are in a warm climate and don’t have air-conditioning, you may not need this. My heating pad automatically turns itself off after a certain number of minutes, and every hour or so, I would turn it back on.  There are many other ways to keep the culturing yogurt warm — set in warm water in a cooler, set in an oven set on 100 or so, etc.

I kept half the yogurt to eat with fruit and in smoothies, and the other half I turned into cream cheese.  To make cream cheese, line a strainer with a clean cloth and set over a bowl, pour in the yogurt and let the whey drip out and into the bowl.  It takes a long while for all the whey to drip out, and toward the end you’ll probably need to take the yogurt filled cloth out of the strainer and tie it to a large wooden spoon or other such device and hang it over a taller pitcher to finish dripping.

When the cream cheese is firm, store it in an air tight container in the fridge.  You can eat it plain or stir in some flavors as you like.  You know that shelf in the grocery store with all the flavors of cream cheese?  Use that for ideas, or make up your own combos.  My favorite so far is dried apricots and ginger. Yum!  Next, I want to try some savory herbs.

Keep the whey also.  This can be used to soak beans and grains before cooking (to increase their nutritional value) and as a starter for fermented (pickled) vegetables.  For more information about using whey in food prep, see Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats.

Whey is also very medicinal as a topical on itchy rashes, as is the full fat yogurt.  This helped clear up a severe, long-lasting, angry, red and itchy rash on my arm last summer when nothing else helped.

Now that the weather is a little cooler, I feel like I’m finally emerging from the August fog that washes over me every summer.  It’s time to start thinking about Fall medicine making.  This weekend I’ll be working with the poke plant… the berries are almost ripe for drying and juicing, and I want to try making a psoriasis salve from its leaves.  More on all that next post…

Synchronicity

tammy June 11th, 2008

I have been perimenopausal for some time now and so last month when my menses didn’t begin on schedule, I thought, well I must have missed my first period. But nope, that wasn’t it. In reality, my cycle was simply synchronizing with my daughter who was about to give birth.

Very early on Friday last week my daughter called me to say her contractions had begun. Soon after getting that phone call I started very lightly spotting, nearly nothing compared to what I am used to, but still a period.

She had a very long first stage of labor that lasted the entire weekend. Her contractions would come regularly for a while, then stop, then start again. On Saturday, I noticed that every time she would begin contracting again, I would begin cramping and have more flow. Her real, active labor didn’t begin until late Sunday evening, at which time my cramps became more intense and the flow more heavy. I didn’t get a full, “normal” period, though, until she had finally given birth early Monday morning. She released fully, and so did I.

Isn’t that neat?

Having been immersed in the reductionist, scientific world view my whole life, I am still just amazed at the energetic influences we can have on each other in general. In the past, I often have synchronized my cycle with other women I have worked along side of daily. This seems common among women who are in close physical proximity on a regular basis.

But I have to say I am even more amazed at the synchronicity I had with my daughter. Due to work and school schedules, we haven’t really spent a lot of time in the same physical location during her pregnancy. Though we talked on the phone often, weeks would pass without seeing each other. That maternal bond is apparently very, very strong.

But it’s not just mothers and daughters. I remember experiencing the same thing — delayed menses triggered to flow as soon as labor started — when my son’s partner gave birth almost five years ago, though I wasn’t nearly as synchronized with her in more subtle ways such as particular ebb and flow patterns. And I’ll say, too, that this energetic type of influence and communication is also not just mother’s and daughters and menstrual cycles. I’ve had plenty of strange energetic “knowings” regarding my sons also, though none of these were at all related to menses.

So in any case, we’re all synchronized now and we have a beautiful new baby boy! My fourth granchild, Jelani Davis R.  I was in the delivery room and helped to birth him.  As his sweet little head emerged, he christened me with a nice warm shot of amniotic fluid!  Wasn’t that nice of him to make sure I was fully included? lol

Shout Out to My Mom

tammy May 11th, 2008

To one of the greatest inspirations of my life…

Mom, you were one of the few people in my young life who truly believed I could do and be whatever I wanted to be, that my life could be bigger and better despite limiting circumstances.  Thank you for that.  You tell me all the time how proud you are of me, but the truth is that anything I may ever accomplish in this life can be traced right back to those early seeds that you planted in my heart. 

And thank you for your example of how to be a strong, fierce, independent woman.  You’ve been beaten down in life more than once, but I’ve watched you get right back up every time.  There is always a way to move forward, there is always hope for a better tomorrow.  You taught me that.

And thank you for refusing to give up your dreams just because making them come true was difficult.  Against all odds, you persevered through Nursing school while working long hours to support yourself, when you might instead have been thinking about retirement.  I was so very proud this past Friday to watch you walk across that stage and receive your nurse’s pin.  My mom, the R.N.  How awesome is that? 

You teach me by example that the world will still be wide open to me, no matter how far in life I may have already traveled.   Thank you for that, too.

Mom, I love you with all my heart.  I hope this day is filled with utmost joy and deepest satisfaction in the life you have created and the numerous ways you inspire me and others every day.  Your life giving strength, your resilience, your willingness to make the hard choices and persevere… I’m sure you make the Great Mother Spirit, Mama Earth, proud.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Come, meet my new plant friends!

tammy April 1st, 2008

I’m excited to be participating for the first time in the herbal blog party this month, being hosted by Ananda at Plant Journeys.  This month’s topic is “Mythical plant personalities.”  Below is my contribution..

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I’ve spent a great deal of time this last year trying to get to know the plants all around my house.  I want to know more than just what a book can tell me about their chemical make up, their botanical name, or how to use them for medicine or food.  No, that’s not enough.  I want to also know them as unique spirits.  My favorite herbalists, who often write about their own relationships with plants, assure me that plants do have unique personalities, and that they can communicate with us if we will learn how to listen to them.

So this past year I’ve been teaching myself to listen.   

Long walks, stepping gently.  Sitting in the grass, sitting in the forest, exchanging breaths.  Gentle touches.  Watching carefully.  Tuning into my heart, sending out love.  Responding with joy when they send some love back to me.  It’s all quite fulfilling.

The first plant to introduce herself to me was the Self-heal, last Fall.   I kept noticing it in passing, as I was rushing in or out of the house, off to that appointment or this errand. I kept saying I was going to look closer… just as soon as I could find the time.  When I finally did stop to pay attention the summer was gone and we were well into Fall, and the patch had nearly died back.  But there was this one beautiful stalk still flowering, thank goodness.  If there hadn’t been, I’m not sure I would have been able to identify her.

I sat with her and thumbed through my field guide until I found out her name.  I carefully examined the beautiful crown of flowers she wore, and was struck by how it seemed to want to sing, yet could not make a noise.  I almost thought if I could just listen a little bit closer I would actually hear the sounds.  It reminded me of myself and my painful shyness, and how difficult it often is for me to shout out my song, my truth.  I knew that there was much this plant could teach me. 

This interaction was so much different from all the times I had read my favorite herbalist’s account of a plant, and then gone out to find it and use it in the ways they had described.  No, in this case the Self-heal reached out to me, and not the other way around.  It spoke its truth to me directly.  I understood at least part of its medicine through my heart.

That was my first encounter with a plant spirit but since then I’ve met lots of other plants and began to get a taste of just how unique and varied their personalities can be.  After two years of sharing the same ecosystem, I sense that they are all finally getting used to me around here, and they convey themselves to me more and more often.  I am even beginning to discover certain “neighborhoods” around my land, each having a distinctly different energy. 

The young saplings in the forest on one side of the meadow are very playful.  Last week I was walking there where I discovered an evergreen plant growing at the base of many of the trees – the Spotted Pipsissewa, Chimaphila maculata (more on that soon!).  I bent down to examine it more closely and snap a photo.  Then when I stood up, the spindly branches of a skinny young tree caught in my hair and gently raked its boney fingers through, caressing my scalp as it moved along my head.  I had the distinct impression that the tree was intentionally petting me! 

When I stood up and looked around, still amazed and slightly awed at having been petted by a tree, the young Beeches nearby appeared to be giggling!  Every one of the faded dry leaves still clinging to their branches from last season were trembling and wiggling as if the tree was hopelessly caught in a fit of shaking laughter.  I couldn’t help but laugh myself.  It was a very joyful moment.

But on the other side of the meadow, the forest is ruled by a very wise and commanding Oak.  The moment you step among the trees the feeling of being in a sacred space is palpable.  There is no leaf litter in this neighborhood.  Only many ancient layers of spongy, peaty soil.  There is no sound when you walk.  The air is cool and permeating.  The holy silence is audible.  The Oak in the center is easily two of my arm spans in width. As soon as I saw it I was filled with pure awe. I walked up to it and put my arms around it as far as I could.  I felt loved and protected.  I just leaned into it and let the raw strength flow into me.  It seemed I was in the presence of a fearsome, yet gentle and wise, lover. My heart grew at least two sizes during that embrace. 

And then there’s the Poke that keeps showing up at my door.  Literally, it grew right by the front door last year, so that the storm door would knock into it every time we opened it.  My husband kept pulling it down, and it just kept growing back.  I find this plant the most intriquing yet, a little sharp around the edges and a bit of dark mystery and danger there.  It seems a little harder to get to know, not quite as friendly as the others so far, but I’m definitely drawn to it.  I think it, too, has much to teach me, so I’ll be spending a lot of time with it this year.  

I’ll keep you posted on the lessons it shares, as well as probably introducing many, many new plant friends during this growing season.  Stay tuned!

New Year, Novels, and Nurturing with Red Clover

tammy January 6th, 2008

Boy am I glad to be done with all the holiday hoopla!  No matter how I plan, it always gets away from me before its over, leaving us all exhausted and dazed.  I was fine until I took a moment to relax — around the 31st or so – then the exhaustion hit me and I’ve been recuperating since.

I was thinking during this down time how much things have changed for me over the last few years.  Instead of grabbing the bottle of Advil for those tight sore muscles all through my shoulders and down my spine, I instead took relaxing herbal baths, massaged with golden rod oil, used my own homemade herbal pack as a heating pad, drank hot teas and infusions of anti-inflammatory herbs, and overall just made it a truly nurturing experience. Where the Advil may have relieved my muscle pain temporarily, it would have also irritated my stomach and left it aching, making my food hard to digest for a while, and the pain would have likely come back with a vengeance after a few hours.  How much better to get to the source of the pain and nourish it back to relaxation.

Same thing with the cold I just had, the one that finally got me after several weeks of fighting it off.   I want to go into more detail on that nurturing process, so more on that in my next post.

Other things I’ve been doing while enjoying my relaxing free time are reading novels and in between experimenting with a couple of different oil infusions and trying to devise my own recipe for a breast massage cream. 

I decided to reread the Earth’s Children series of novels by Jean Auel.  I just finished Clan of the Cave Bear and The Valley of the Horses, and I absolutely can’t wait to get back to the library and pick up the third in the series, The Mammoth Hunters.  These novels are the ultimate wise woman experience!  All the books in the series are huge, three or four inch thick books, but even so they just don’t last long enough for me.  I’m excited that I still have three more to go before I’ll get to the end of them.  They leave me feeling so inspired in my chosen path of the wise woman way!

Since it is now winter, I don’t have any fresh flowers to make oil infusions with, so instead I’ve been experimenting with making oils from dried red clover and calendula blossoms.  Later, when I can get fresh flowers, I’m going to make another fresh flower oil from each and compare them. 

The red clover has been calling my name lately.  I’ve been craving infusions of the blossoms, and have been putting them in a bundle to soak in my bath water, and now I want to capture its essence in an oil or cream so I can use it for breast massage. 

Breast massage, I’ve learned, is an important part of keeping the breasts healthy, especialy as we move into the wise years.  It makes those monthly self exams for lumps a more pleasant experience and it promotes circulation in the tissues and lymph glands, where a big percentage of cancers can form as women age.  And red clover can dissolve growths magically –  I’ve seen it with my own eyes!  Click here to read how I got rid of a little growth almost overnight with a poultice of red clover flowers. 

But even with no lumps, Red Clover is known to be very nourishing to breast tissues.  I’ve decided to pair it with the Calendula because it is just plain good for skin.  I don’t yet understand exactly how Calendula works, but I do know how my skin loves it.  So, I’m trying to formulate an oil blend or cream using these two flowers that I can use for breast massage.  I’ll let you know when I come up with a recipe that works well for me.

So, more on that cold I told you about next… 

Happy new calendar year to all.  May you have all the desires of your heart in 2008!

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