Body Sense

I like to periodically share offerings from other herbalists here and I couldn’t resist passing on the info for this free webinar being given by midwife, herbalist, doctor, Plant Healer columnist, and TWHC teacher, Aviva Romm. This 90 minute presentation will discuss first aid for summer, focusing on herbal treatments for the most common summer issues like bug bites, sunburn, and poison ivy. Aviva will also be covering how to build a first aid kit for your family and ways of getting the kids involved with the plants! The webinar is this coming Thursday, May 3rd, 8:30 pm Eastern time. Be sure to sign up beforehand, right here:

Outdoor Kids: Herbal First Aid for Summer

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”
– Albert Einstein

Elda Mor, the spirit of the Elder Tree, by Arthur Rackham

Most of my readers realize by now what a love of fairytales and folklore I have. This affection is not born simply out of how I find  beautiful and interesting they are, but also because they’ve taught me so much. I struggled with rote memorization when I was in school, and found that the only way I could actually recall much of what I was supposed to be learning was by telling myself stories that included the information. Woven into the context of a tale of faery creatures, wild landscapes, and relatable characters, everything suddenly became so much more memorable and accessible.

Twenty years later, I’ve seen my daughter struggle with the same issue. Memorization and regurgitation is a poor substitute for the depth, color, and insight that can be provided by learning through story. Dates, places, and timelines slip in one ear and out the other, but if woven into an exciting tale, she’ll be retelling it for months. And as much as she loves plants, the same principle applies. Lists of actions or factual soundbites just don’t penetrate much, but tell her a story about where the plant came, how it grows, or how it helps someone, and suddenly it’s so much easier for her to understand and remember. Taught hand in hand with real life experience with the plants results in a profound understanding of and relationship with the plants!

Of course, this doesn’t just apply Rhiannon and I, but to what is probably the great majority of people. I certainly find it true for most of my students, that teaching stories are far more effective than information without context. The more I teach little ones, the more I understand how all of us learn, especially in connection with the natural world. Traditional cultures have known this all along, and usually see formal schooling as a poor substitute for how children learn and develop ~in context~ with their world. It is through stories (plus handson experience) that we learn about relationships, roles, and our place in our community.

In the past few years, I’ve been enormously excited to see more and more herbal material for children emerging online and in print! It’s been exciting to follow the work of Kristine Brown with her Herbal Roots Zine, which involves children in herbalism on many levels, from games to medicine making to stories to artwork, bringing kids into alliance with the plants.

And today, a wonderful new resource for children who want to learn about herbs has been unveiled! Kimberly and John Gallagher are parents, teachers, and herbalists who place a huge emphasis on accessible learning rooted in the natural world, and especially herbs. Kimberly has poured her heart into this new project, a series of 13 interactive fairy tale stories to help children learn about herbs! I’m so excited to see this material released and can’t wait to share it with many of my friends who are also parents and/or teachers of young ones. And of course, this is also a great introduction to the world of herbs for adults who learn through story as well. You can learn all about it at:

Herb Fairies

November 11th, 1911 - May 28th, 2009

Juliette de Bairacli Levy’s contribution to modern herbalism has been enormous and her work has inspired and informed countless herbalists, not least Rosemary Gladstar and Susun Weed. In a  time period when herbalism was being shunned as old fashioned and ineffective in the United States, Juliette was reviving and introducing important healing knowledge from all over the world, including Turkey, North Africa, Israel, Germany and Greece. Her time learning from and living with the Romani (Gypsy) is especially notable. I so wish I’d been able to meet Juliette in person before she passed away to personally thank her for sharing her experiences, knowledge and wisdom.

Juliette's daughter Luz with an Owl friend.

Often called the grandmother of American herbalism, Juliette’s contribution to our current herbal community is invaluable, the knowledge and inspiration she continues to provide to generations of herbalists is remarkable and certainly worthy of celebration. Her books were some of the very first I read about herbal medicine and the rambling stories, wise insights and straight common sense have stuck with me throughout my practice and I appreciate them more and more over the passing years. The generous and unpretentious approach she took to healing inspires me every day, as does her alliance with common, weedy plants that she found around here wherever she traveled during her often nomadic life.

Not only a fascinating example of a multi-cultural, place-based approach to folk herbalism, her persistent love for animals, children and plants is as valuable as it is endearing and resulted in a body of work oftentimes specific to animals and children in a way not often found in modern writing. Her tales of simple, joyful meals and wild adventures blended with her knowledge of herbs and healing are a joy to read. My ten year old daughter Rhiannon becomes completely absorbed in the narratives and I’ve found the books a great way to give her a different perspective on place, history and herbalism.

I especially admire her willingness to jump into difficult situations where she was often unable to speak more than a few words of the language in order to learn or understand more. Stubborn, independent and able to navigate complex cultural situations while still tending her young children and caring for those around her, Juliette’s legacy is ever more relevant to herbalists, homesteaders and travelers today. I’m pretty certain that most of my readers will love her books if you haven’t read them already. They’re perfect not only for learning from but for staying focused and immersed in earthy, simple ways and for introducing friends and family, especially children, to the stories of our the art we each practice as herbalists.

Susun Weed is doing us all the great service of keeping these books in print so that we can continue to enjoy and learn from them. Not only that, but she’s also offering a number of discounts or gifts to anyone who buys any of the three re-released books. The series started off with Summer in Galilee, A Gypsy in New York is the newest installment and coming up August 15th is Spanish Mountain Life

To learn more about Juliette’e writing and work, take a look right here.

Anyone who’s been reading my blog for more than a month or two knows how much I think of John Gallagher and what he’s doing with Learningherbs.com. What I like most about John’s work is his focus on keeping things accessible to a wide audience of those interested in herbalism. Whether it’s teaching kids about common plant medicines through his game Wildcraft or the incredible network of interviews, courses, forums and more at Herbmentor, he approaches his work from the ground up. And that’s exactly why I was so happy to do the Herb Energetics course with him last year.

John is continually searching for the best ways to help people understand herbalism from new angles and on different levels. In that vein, he’s recently produced a NEW online course called Culinary Herbalism that is focused on using food as medicine. As most of you know, this is a subject I consider to be of great importance, especially considering the current nutritional state of the average American. I spend a great deal of time counseling people about nutrition and dietary choices in my practice and can’t emphasize how important it is to make appropriate food choices to maintain wellness and in the treatment of dis-ease. This course specifically covers how to incorporate culinary herbs and spices into food in a way that both tastes good and utilizes the medicinal benefits of these common kitchen items. It also looks at the overall therapeutic benefits of whole foods.

This course is taught by a clinician named K.P. Khalsa from the Pacific Northwest. While I am not personally familiar with his work outside of his reputation in the herbal world, the material from the course that I’ve had advance access to seems solid and very useful, as well as accessible to a wide variety of learning levels. I encourage my readers to check it out and consider pursuing it if it seems like a good match for you.

Click here to check out Learningherbs.com’s new Culinary Herbalism course.

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Pic courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Spring in the Country of Lichen & Spines: Fragments of Home

by Kiva Rose

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Warm temperatures have arrived early in my corner of the Gila, with the Golden Smoke blooming sooner this year than I’ve ever previously seen. This follows a cold (-35F is plenty cold for me, thank you) and dry Winter. Now our seasonal winds blow the sand up in spiraling circles until it dances like the shifting forms of whirling dervishes against New Mexico’s lapis colored sky. The skeletal limbs of shattered Russian Thistles caught up in these little whirlwinds give sharp edges to the dancers.

Golden Smoke (Corydalis aurea)

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The Canyon trees bend in the same wild winds and yet last year’s withered purple Juniper berries cling to their branches as they’re tossed about in the breeze. They retain their pungent yet sweet flavor as well, a little drier perhaps, but still strong with the distinct magic that comes only with being the fruit of a Red Cedar tree.

One Seeded Juniper (Juniperus monosperma)

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Even in drought these mountains remain a country fraught with magic. If anything, the enchantment is turned up enough in these extreme conditions. Walking among the apricot and lavender colored volcanic rock I often find myself with a sense of the surreal, or more accurately, the hyperreal. The contrast of the barbed tips of white and black cactus spines draped in swaths of green Usnea fallen from the limbs of tall Pines is in itself strange enough to be disorienting at times. The sharp wrapped up in the soft, the colors blending and emerging as something altogether new.

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Mountain Candytuft is our first showy flower each and every year since I’ve come to the Canyon. It’s purplish leaves and violet to white flowers dot the mountainsides and draw the first butterflies. A member of the Brassicaceae, the spicy-sweet taste of its flowerheads is reminiscent of a more flavorful broccoli and I’m always so excited to add it to my Spring soups and salads.

Mountain Candytuft (Noccaea fendleri subsp. glauca)

Mountain Candytuft (Noccaea fendleri subsp. glauca)

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The Cane Cholla is blushed a vivid pink from the cold temperatures but will return to its usual green color before producing flowers in a month or so. Clambering up and down the arroyos and dry creekbed, I peek under likely boulders looking for a few fronds of green and rust colored ferns and run my fingers along the ragged margins of the many-colored lichens that grow from almost every stone surface here.

Cane Cholla (Cylindropuntia spinosior)

~~~~

The New Mexico Olive has just begun blooming and it’s golden spray of flowers will eventually give way to the bittersweet blue-purple fruits that Loba and I will harvest and brine and use as tiny but flavorful olives in our meals. When I stopped on my way home to photograph the flowers a spring-mad hare leapt from the brush and went galloping off in typical jackrabbit fashion, too quick for me to even snap a picture.

New Mexico Olive (Forestiera pubescens) in flower.

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Moonwort emerges from dust and sand, its silvery leaves streaking the landscape with a tenacious grace and filling the air with the warm sagey fragrance so peculiar to the West. The sweet butterscotch scent of Ponderosa resin mingles with the Moonwort and makes the canyon air at once heady and sensual. Crouching down in the leaf litter as I gather the Moonwort leaves and chunks of pine resin to infuse into warm oil, I press my face against the puzzle piece bark of a Ponderosa and breathe in the medicine of place. I sit back on my heels to absorb the whiplash power of something so simple, so fragile as awareness of this unbroken moment where I remember that this is what I’ve always wanted – all my stories and songs unraveling in the face of amber-skinned trees and downy bitter leaves. Sometimes the beauty of life just can’t be comprehended as anything rational, my body (including my brain) just have to experience it as this tactile, skin-shivering beast that it is. Fuck analysis for a moment, just drink it up.

Moonwort (Artemisia carruthii)

~~~~

Arizona Sycamores raise their tangle of bone-white branches to the sun and drink in the cold water that curls down the mountains to pool around their roots. The first hummingbirds beat the air with a breakneck rhythm that well suits their warrior ways yet also belies the expectations sometimes created by their seemingly delicate beauty. Like the land itself, what appears fragile at first glance may be reinforced with a deeper strength.

On the Catwalk, near Glenwood, NM

Femail Broad-Tailed Hummingbird (Selasphorus platycercus)

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My home is a fierce place, fragrant with the scent of aromatic plants well adapted to aridity, populated with the varied songs of the myriad birds that take refuge in the trees and long grasses and sparkling with the glint of the Southwest sun on a thousand volcanic rocks forming these cliffs and arroyos. The Canyon is wild with the tracks of mountain lions and coatimundi, the soundless rush of opening flowers and the singing winds that circle and play among the emerging leaves.

~~~~

In the river, blue mica glimmers among the sand as the fish gather and part, gather and part with the tidal impulse of all things that love water. Spring in the country of lichen and spines feels warm under my bare feet this evening, and I dance to its strange, liquid music.

Bluestem Willow (Salix irrorata) staminate catkins

All Photos ©2011 Kiva Rose

Yes, it is January here in the mountains of New Mexico.

Yes, it does get to less than -10F out there some nights.

And why yes, that is a lovely new vivid green leaf from a picture I took just yesterday.

Specifically, it is the leaf of a Wax Currant (Ribes cereum) growing down by the river among the Canyon Walnuts and Grape vines. While it will still be quite some time before they flower and fruit, they are well known for their persistence in leafing out even during some of our coldest weather. I greatly appreciate this tenacity, especially as we get to the part of Winter where I feel an increasing longing for green growing plants.

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Another persistent plant that manages to grow throughout the Winter, and sometimes even flower, is one of our native vervains. Dakota Vervain (Glandularia bipinnatifida) is a sprawling, colorful plant that grows in gravel, creeps from rock crevices and sometimes flowers in great cheerful clumps by the river. There’s no telling where it will pop up from year to year, but it is consistently abundant and beautiful. This particular plant is growing from a pile of rocks where the arroyo runs into the San Francisco River. I find its vibrantly pink and purple tinted leaves especially uplifting and frequently go sit near it during my recent afternoon walks. This Vervain is also one of my favorite medicinal plant and has relaxant nervine properties similar to other Verbena species. However, Glandularia bipinnatifida lacks the bitterness typical of most Vervain and seems to specifically excel as a nervous system tonic or trophorestorative.

~~~~

Pointleaf Manzanita (Arctostaphylos pungens) is a common evergreen shrub at middle elevations in the Gila bioregion. It reddish stems and brilliant green leaves are always a welcome haven even in our snowiest, coldest months. And of course, it’s another favorite medicine. For those of you less familiar with Southwestern herbs, Manzanita has very similar properties to a more widely known medicinal plant usually known as Uva Ursi or Bearberry (Arctstaphylos uva ursi) and is particularly useful where there is atony of the uterus and urinary tract. It’s often just known as a plant for UTIs but this is a vast oversimplification of the far wider usefulness of this herb. I am especially inclined to work with Manzanita (or Uva Ursi) when there are chronic reproductive or urinary tract infection, often accompanied by discharge, a dragging sensation in the pelvic region and overall tissue atonicity.

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The Mullein (Verbascum thapsus) leaves tend to be mostly died back this time of year, but some of the yellow and green leaves still persist, usually in great floppy masses that make for rather cuddly looking Mullein piles. Those of you who’ve been reading my blog for a while and have read my previous ode (otherwise known as a monograph) to Mullein, know how fond I am of this common and valuable medicine, whether roots, leaves or flowers.

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American Speedwell (Veronica americana) thrives in our river, usually on sandbars, where the bank meets the water or in this case, in rock crevices where small boulders jut from the river surface. The petiolate leaves are especially sweet and juicy tasting this time of year, perfect for adding the zest of wild greens to any meal. They combine well with Watercress and Dandelion greens, both of which are sometimes found this time of year but seem to be in short supply this particular time around. Speedwell is also a traditional medicine, although not much used in US herbalism as far as I can tell except by those either well versed in traditional European herbalism or indigenous medicine. It’s a favorite alterative of mine for where there is lymphatic stagnation, “bad skin” (including eczema in many cases) and frontal, nauseating headaches. It combines well (once again) with Watercress for all sorts of hepatitis (meaning any kind of liver inflammation), especially where the urine is dark and scant.

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And of course, we mustn’t forget the Nettles! Our local species, the annual Mountain Nettle (Urtica gracilenta) is a common and vibrant presence throughout our Canyon winters. No matter how many times it freezes back, it reemerges in brilliant shades of green as soon as we have a few warm days in a row. I have worked with (and written about) Nettles at length, but continue to be yet more amazed by them as each year goes by. My favorite medicine are almost always also foods, and this goes triple for Nettles, which end up in so many teas, infusions, soups, dips, tincture formulas and other recipes that it’s hard to keep track of. Whether root, fruit or leaf, this plant is a medicine powerhouse and one recognize the world over for its healing and nutritive powers. And in the middle of Winter, with snow and dead leaves all around, its glittering greeness is a medicine all its own. One that never fails to put a smile on my face, even on the chilliest, darkest days.

As the light grows longer and stronger, and humans grow restless in their cozy dens, the plants begin to reemerge, to spring in small but decisive bursts from sun-warmed and snow-wet ground. I know that for most of us, there are still several long months to wait before the season begins to truly shift. In the meantime, there is still time to rest and to watch the quiet persistence of green medicine through evergreens, seedlings and the tenacious leaves that grow back, time after time, from the roots.

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Monkeyflower (Mimulus guttatus) leaves in the riverbank sand.

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All photos ©2011 Kiva Rose

Thank you to everyone who has encouraged us to take a break, after nonstop deadlines around the 2011 TWH Conference organizing and the production of the first ever Plant Healer Magazine.  There are still lots of tasks to be done this month on both projects, as well as tons of emails needing answering… but that said, we’ve still been treating the last few days as a bit of a break, and are feeling more relaxed and rewarded right now.  7Song, our valued herbalist ally and friend has been visiting and checking out what he can see of Anima Sanctuary’s plant life in Winter.  And for the past week we’ve had almost Summer-like weather, the “Indian Summer” Wolf had predicted.  While the nights have been getting down below freezing, the afternoons are brilliantly sunny are warm.

We take to heart the rewards of the work we do, the people we affect and community we so our part to help grow, the getting to work here in such a wild and special place, and the blessings of the plants.  And we’ve taken to heart the meaningful gifts we’ve received from folks since the conference, most recently one pulled last night from the volumes of careful padding that encased and protected it.  Sandwiched between clear glass is our poster memorializing the first annual Traditions In Western Herbalism Conference many of you attended last September, its peach toned canyon cliffs exaggerated by the complimentary hued and agate textured frame that surrounds it, each piece bound to the other by glimmering strips of beaded copper leading.  Herbalists and fellow wildland residents Denise and Pepper have blown us over with the beauty of this gift, the hours that went into its creation along with the suggestion of folks thinking about us so sweetly, and caring this much.

-Wolf & Kiva

A new, interactive way of previewing the sample issue of Plant Healer! For those of you who prefer to browse the magazine online or don’t want to deal with downloading the pdf file, we now have a viewer for you. This is also available in the Plant Healer site for viewing the full version of the Journal. Just click on the magazine cover to view it in full screen mode.

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The first issue of the much anticipated Plant Healer Magazine is now available for download on your personal membership page at the Plant Healer site.  If you haven’t subscribed yet – or would like to give someone a subscription for the holidays – you can still do so at the special introductory price of only $37 for 4 issues… a $20 discount off the regular $57 per year cost!

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Plant Healer is garnering attention as a unique and beautiful, personally empowering and thoroughly thought-provoking journal of Traditional Western Herbalism, featuring informative articles and inspiring columns covering Field Botany and Plant Profiles, Wildcrafting and Propagation,  Diagnostics and Case Studies, Constitutional Approaches and Energetics, Medicine Making and Tools and Tips, conservation and activism.  With your one-year membership, you receive:

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Issue #1 features: detailed, vividly illustrated articles by Phyllis Light, Rosemary Gladstar, Robin Rose Bennett, Rosalee de la Foret, Julie McIntyre, Barbara Hall, Ananda Wilson, Virginia Adi, Sean Donahue, Darcey Blue French, Deborah Wallin and Loba, as well as what will be regular quarterly columns by Jim McDonald, 7Song, Kristine Brown, John Gallagher, Kiva Rose and Jesse Wolf Hardin, and Paul Bergner:

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