Sparkling Lotus Ink

national dandelion appreciation day

our first afternoon at home following closing mid-May '10.  Imagine how happy I was to learn that our farming neighbors kept beehives.

Today is a long way from dandelion flowers at least here in the great Northeast.  but I did snap a very healthy crown at the eastern edge of the field garden. 

I know about the plant's special day via Kitchen Garden seeds.  They're stepping up their usual twice a week growing season email blitz to every other day.  I read an article Thursday or Friday about the seed market going through the roof in the wake of the pandemic.  Kitchen Garden was one of the companies featured with quotes from a representative. 

Today's email spotlight featured dandelion seeds from two German varieties that are highly prized for their leaves.  Sometime in the next little while I'm planning to write a post about dandelion medicine making.  Ditto violet flowers and leaves.  But today my mind is on J's accomplishment of the day.  He broke out the rototiller and created a lovely equilateral triangle bed for the tomatoes. We figure it will take a week of lunch hours or so to have the soil fluffed up, amended as best we can, and ready for deep mulching until it's time to plant the seedlings and sow some giant leaf basil seeds. If you look at the pink flower pot then just beyond it you'll see the straw covered plot I've begun pitchforking for calendula and borage seeding to be sown around one of the garden's lemon balm patches. Behind that is one of the "walls" of the four foot square Sunflower House IF there's time and ability to pull off this hazy dream I've never actively pursued.  There always seemed like there'd be plenty of time to do it later - when I was old enough to sit still and enjoy it from time to time.

 Today's overcast sky was perfect for working without getting over-heated or parched.  The ground was damp and friable.  Earlier in the day we also walked through the woods while I darted around clearing the path behind the utility and potting sheds.  There's a path?  J. had been astonished.  I explained the cat and I used it all the time - that it was actually Mama's path that I was gradually clearing of fallen branches.  I showed him how I'd been widening the trail with an additional 'walking lane" so that I could wander more comfortably along with her.  He rejoiced in the improvement and together we cleared the latest fallen branches from yesterday's high wind.

essence preparation - nuts & bolts .1

  The picture above shows an essence bowl set upon a battered wooden TV tray.  It's sitting within the midst of our evolving sanctuary garden and the bowl is full of Bottle Gentian flowers.   Took the pic just before harvesting and processing the mother stock there in the later summer of '18. 

To successfully make a flower essence you need the following atmospheric elements:

* A sunny day with no/virtually no clouds.  

* Temps somewhere between 60 and 80 degrees.  You can push it to 85 degrees if you have to but setting out bowls in downright HOT weather insures your flowers will fry rather than fuse.  Remember the sun heated glass will in turn heat the water.  It's always going to be significantly warmer for the flowers in the bowl than the air temperature feels against your skin.

* Time in which to keep track of time:  4 hours worth.  You don't have to stay right there, obviously, but you do have to remain aware of the ongoing project (I set both my stove and phone timers) - keeping special track of any sudden/cloudy shifts in weather. 

6 inch bowl of coltsfoot flowers nestled into a stone wall adjacent to the site of the colony where the flowers were harvested. '07

on the material plane you need:

*A pair of small sewing or herb-cutting scissors/snips that remains dedicated solely for harvesting essence preparation flowers.

*Unflavored brandy* to stabilize the harvested mother stock.  I use E&J specifically because Matthew Wood favors it.  Equally specific: he does as much due to the brandy being aged in oak barrels.

* you can also use brown rice vinegar or a red shiso decoction

*THREE size-proportionate glass containers (I use half pint canning jars) per essence preparation. 

*SIX coffee filters - unbleached preferred but we're all pinch-hitting these days - per essence bowl.  You can use paper towels in a pinch although many shed pulp that defeats the purpose of straining.  I've had better luck layering two or three pieces of white tissue paper.

*ONE funnel (large enough to accommodate a coffee filter containing liquid and soaking wet flowers) per essence.

* simple CLEAR glass bowls dedicated to essence preparation and nothing else*.  no pyrex.   I have fairly shallow bowls that are 3, 4, and 6 inches in diameter.  I also have the 12 inch diameter version of the same bowl.  All were purchased at a dollar store 18 years ago after an essence making friend grasped how perfect they'd be for our purposes and tried out the smallest bowl size by preparing an amethyst elixir.  We had the type of friendship that involved excited phone calls when great bargains of vast consequence were discovered.  In short order she'd picked me up and we were on the way to the store so I could purchase a set of my own. 

*if you don't immediately know that you have a bowl or bowls that might work - consider what you're currently unable to recycle due to the pandemic.  Look for short glass jars with wide mouths such as small spice/herb jars or clear glass containers from non-toxic beauty products.  Wash and clean these jars thoroughly.  I like to leave them to dry in the sun.

4 inch blend bowl set upon the breastplate of our natural stone fire pit on the summer solstice '15

[I removed the ant drawn to the meadowsweet in the bowl - and swiftly transported it to a shaded recuperation site - after noticing it through the camera lens]

Additionally - many no-pick flower alchemists work with taller wide mouthed jars that allow for submerging full-peak flowers still attached to the plant or bush.  Have done it sporadically with larger plants bearing flexible flower stalks - mints, bergamots, comfrey, a white lilac flower branch, a spray of flowering quince, etc.

re-imagining tip - I have made an emergency-status essence with just two key lime flowers* and spring water placed in the hole of a plain glass candle holder.

*lime flowers have a special affinity for cleansing the auras and emotional/psychic bodies of healers/teachers/leaders/activists.  At the time of my emergency improvisation I was working between 5 and 10 hours a week with a group of self-described 'disaffected yet enraged' teenagers.  Although I could say tons more I don't think I really have to ...

3 inch verbascum essence.  Two 4 inch blend bowls in the southern bed of my former garden '07.  Note that rather than removing each motherwort and yarrow flower individually, I plunged the flower heads upside down into the bowl's water.  Never did it that way before but I'd observed a friend embrace the method to great success and was glad to try.

and of course you also need

appropriate water.  Avoid tap water that is highly -inated with much of anything.  Some people boil such water if it's their only option then set it in the sun for an hour or so to regain vibrancy.  I don't use our well water because it's very hard and overly endowed with mineral deposits.  This messes with the fusion process and tends to produce mother stocks that spoil in relatively short order or simply feel heavy rather than sparkle-bright.  I collect water especially for this work from a friend's wellspring and when that's gone I break out my yearly purchase of two 12 ounce water bottle six packs from a local source.  Each bottle is enough to fill a few essence bowls at one time. 

How to Proceed:

for Phase One of this process you'll need your bowl,  an easy-pour container of appropriate water, your designated scissors/snips and a well-balanced softly focused mind.

Your intention and practical goals will be centered on preparing the bowl for its four hour sun and water fusion process.  This involves filling the bowl with enough water to hold the flowers you'll collect and then gently adding enough water to allow turning some flowers upside down.

[note:  if you select a large tree flower or something huge like a peony, artichoke, lotus, or dahlia you may need to raid your pantry for a relatively shallow clear glass prep bowl. If you don't have one  - or something else that feels like a strong choice - you'll have to deconstruct the bloom a bit in order to get all of it submerged in the watery bowl.]

GROUND AND CENTER 

breathe deeply a few times. 

If everything within your experience falls into place super easily you may get very spaced out and not realize it until you move back into more normalized and familiar activities. 

Approach your chosen plant.  Ideally you'll already have some type of personal alliance with your first few choices for essence preparation.  This intuitive self/flower guided selection method will make the experience more meaningful in ways that are both universally profound and intimately unique to any given individual.  The experiential commonality is one of cosmic union and coalescence.  It's a lofty plane to seek on any given sunny day in today's world but it starts very simply with cellular connection. 

Notice where the sun is in relation to your chosen plant.  How is the light falling, specifically, on the flowers you'll harvest for your essence bowl?  Make sure that you approach the plant and position your body so that you're not blocking the sunlight's passage.  Throughout the rest of the harvesting and setting in place process you want to keep from blocking the sunlight's path to the bowl and flowers within it.

Above I'm harvesting blueberry flowers so they fall into a six inch bowl.  My left/receptive hand cradles the bottom of the bowl and I'm careful to keep my fingers free of casting shadows on the water's surface.  what's not completely clear in this picture is that I've pivoted my entire right/dominant arm from the shoulder through to finger tips in order to avoid casting any shadows. But look directly below this sentence:

You'll most likely be standing up to harvest tree and bush blossoms.  For lower plants or ground creepers you'll be crouched/squatting, on a gardening stool, or sitting on ground.  You aren't 'supposed' to touch the flowers.  Snip the blooms with just a bit of stem left attached to the throat/base of the petals.

Old schoolers such as myself will recommend making any necessary adjustments or retrieving flowers that miss the bowl by using a leaf pinched between thumb and forefinger to shield the petals from touching your fingers.

If the flowers are large enough to consciously manipulate in a timely way make sure some blooms are face down in the bowl while others face upwards.  I push things around with the tips of the scissors - really saturating the flowers so they'll settle into the water for the 4 hour fusion process.

tip:  It can be surprisingly hard not to reflexively 'arrange' the bowl as if it were a flower vase.  In my teaching and mentoring experience there's nearly always relatively adamant in-person resistance to turning flowers upside down at first because the results aren't as visually pleasing.  What the bowl looks like is immaterial to how it feels vibrationally once the entire process is complete.  To that end it's worth the time and suspended judgement to patiently saturate each flower enough to make them heavier and harder to disturb.

note:  sometimes flowers will not cooperate with being saturated to the point of heaviness.  They sometimes won't seem to  stay right side down, either - as was my experience with the cherry blossoms below.  Do the best you can to inter-mix their orientation.  speak to them if you sense it might help.

If the flowers are small, like blueberries, you either want a proportionally smaller bowl OR the time and patience to fill a larger bowl's surface.  I went with the latter choice because my inner sense was that I might not have another opportunity to work with blueberry flowers in this way.  So far that instinct has proven itself correct.

six inch bowl of weeping cherry blossoms in the southern garden bed at the old place '06

If you have a very large flower such as a Lily you can cut it apart right there at the bowl while it's submerged in water.  This structural mangling is hard to do - at least for me.  But I did put that aside last summer in order to work with a Mona Lisa Lily.  The medicine spirit urged me forward and as I did what needed doing I reflected on several well-known flower alchemists who routinely shred all the flowers before placing them in sunlit water. 

note:  according to Richard Katz & Patricia Kaminsky's remarkably gifted updating of the Doctrine of Signatures applied to flower reading rules of thumb - bell shaped/nodding flowers speak to the mind and soul needs of those who tend to be introverted in life and work practice.  People who are not selfish or socially unskilled but almost supernaturally wise in honoring their need for isolated space and distance in which to do their intentional/healing/creative work.   Blueberry flower essence relates specifically to the needs of those who are undergoing a sense of internal transformation that demands Cathedrals of One's Own even if that sense of inviolate sanctuary is largely metaphorical given our collective experiences of the moment.

3 inch bowl of cardinal flowers elevated on a wooden tray placed beside the bed where the cardinal flowers were harvested

This seems like a good place to push the pause button on an info dump point of view.  If you've already co-created essences and would like to talk about it please comment or email if you're so inclined.  

*****

Consider your options for making a flower essence.  What plants/trees/bushes do you live with that have flowers which evoke something soothing or cleansing for you?  What is coming into flower (looking at jude...) that calls to your soul and heart in an overwhelming sort of way?

  You might also consider what plants/trees/bushes you live with that consistently evoke a sense of balance, unique familiarity, comfort or insight.   Read something about their flowers even/especially if you believe you're too familiar to need this step.

3 inch birthday bowl 2015 composed of offerings from the tiny strips of garden space lining a short brick walkway beside our porch.

as you think about this endeavor and look around your landscape's options for working with specific plants - remember that sometimes it's the in-person flowers that are magnetizing and sometimes it's the energetic vibration of the overall plant that leads to exploration/examination of the flowers it makes.

~~alternatively you can research flower essences more generally here online and match your intentions to the healing and illumination properties of a particular flower~~

I'll write the concluding portion of this how-to post on Wednesday or Thursday and schedule post it for Friday.  Part two of the flowers' transformation process covers the nuts & bolts of how to turn the alchemized bowl's contents into a mother stock.

  3 inch bowl of blended flowers spontaneously collected on the morning of my birthday in '11.  It's a particularly lovely remedy that I still work with off and on.

If such an inspirational self-care endeavor is viable for the place where you live consider preparing a bowl of whatever's freshly bloomed and feels beckoning on your solar return day.   I've been doing this off and on (it often rains that day) during the decade we've lived here. I find it a wonderful way of celebrating both my life force and the landscape's floral bounty just south of mid-summer.  These gifts often serve as constitutional remedies that last all year and well beyond.  The birthday bowl essences nourish and soothe me as time passes in a way that always prompts deeply layered gratitude and respect for the healing properties - and extraordinary sentient intelligence - of flowers and all they hold.

this day as twilight nears

Around noon Mama and I went out J's office door and took a little walk.  She sat at the top of the slope down to the water and observed my ongoing process of being there on the center of the bridge.   She used to feel like she had to be with me - trying to understand.  Think she concluded she preferred to keep my bridge-standing on her radar from a distance.

I take in the water's energy and let it nourish my own.  Sometimes I get an impression that starts an internal dialogue I wasn't expecting or resolves something that felt too messy to untangle so I hadn't tried.  Sometimes - like today - I simply stand and let my mind go blank.  It was a little too chilly to stand there until every muscle let itself go to the sound-healing of water music but long enough to leave the bridge with a sincere smile.

Those soapy looking bubbles come every spring.  It lasts for a while and then stops.  I have a couple different theories about the bubbles but today I thought for the first time to address them.  To ask where they come from - what makes them?

I will admit I did not wake up in a state of open-hearted YES-ness this a.m.  But once I was out and about as part of the landscape I began to get some semblance of a groove back.   Below I avoided cropping for composition's sake in order to show ALL of the frog eggs in the little pond.  And yes I know it's dirty as well as what that 'means'.  But I also know there has been virtually no time since the ice melted when the frogs haven't been going at it.   J. feels it's inhumane to interrupt them when they've just re-animated, etc.  They need to make a lot of eggs to get a few surviving frogs because there's a troupe of sparrows that dine on the pollywogs.  Last year there was a young snapping turtle as well but this surprise addition seemingly disappeared at a certain point in very late summer. 

Once it's clear the frogs' egg laying cycle is complete we'll start gently extracting leaves with the pitchfork from side angles.  We get a bit more skillful and non-invasive each year.

The trees are waking up more and more.  It's a subtle form of springtime vibrancy but very powerful because of its slow rise.  The cat and I stood taking stock of the day's silent messages.  Mama turned with abrupt certainty and led us back to the front of the house.

This volunteer foxglove is so ready to get things going!

PLUS ...
My basement seed starting operation is in use as of this morning!  T. donated his college daze computer table as an adjacent work station.  For me that's an improvement over schlepping the full flats twice a day across the room to the long work bench where I used to do it.  T.'s commandeered that section of the basement at my invitation.  I'd planned to use the top of the freezer but that was far from ideal and a different directional schlep.  Was touched by the contribution.  This is perfect for conserving core energy for me.  Also nice to be working directly beside the plants' heat and light sources once they're growing and I need to water them beyond surface misting.

So far I've planted some of all the seeds pictured above plus dark opal basil.  Used the green and dark opal seedling to help me know the difference between tomato plants from different packets.  Did four of the Blush cherries and eight of the Gourmet slicing mixture.  Also grow a six pack of the San Marzanos.  I also have five more types of seeds to plant in part of another flat.  Yesterday evening there was a momentary kink when I saw the new six packs I ordered are REALLY large.  I must have clicked on the wrong button for the size choice.  So I'll have to go with re-used six packs from last year's seedlings to get started.  I'll transfer from there to the bigger six packs and then, hopefully, into the 'stocky transplant' pots I I also purchased.  

Additionally I'm super happy with the quality of Gardener's Supply Warehouse brand seed starter.  Time will tell how things sprout but I'll then also get to test the quality of the brand's potting soil.   There's a place right up the road selling bags of rotted horse manure but you have to inquire within.  J and I are past the point of being comfortable with that formerly normal and totally neighborly way of getting what you need around here.  Probably 20 or 30 different people are involved "within" as the stable boards and breeds.  So we'll be budgeting amendments from what's on hand until I find something that seems workable for us.  Feel fortunate we over-bought straw mulch last year.  Something told J. it was imperative for the spring.  He's not the type to be that way but every once in awhile he gets feelings.  This hunch will be invaluable for the welfare of the new beds.

*****

Insta-cart grocery shop fulfillment was stressful this time although that's no fault of anyone involved.  There were just a gazillion  substitutions one right after the other and sometimes it wasn't clear which of the alternatives had been selected for us.  But when the order arrived and we got everything situated in the first stage of our decontamination process we saw everything made sense beyond an extra container of cocktail tomatoes but I already have a plan for that.  J. was particularly happy about the meat selection substitutions.  From what I saw from my vegan's 'social distance' it looks like the swap-outs will be more enjoyable for both the guys than what I originally chose yesterday.

(today I also hit Dick Blick online to stock up on gesso, YES paste, hinged linen tape, glue sticks, and a handful of drawing pencils but that's a story for the other blog.  I'll share it when the package arrives and the stock-ups have been through our evolving de-contamination process.  Gassed up and hopefully ready to go absolutely nowhere my car has become a sort of holding tank for surfaces that need more than 72 hours before bleach cloth wipe down, rinse and life-integration.   Virgos do not play with things like a highly contagious rapidly mutating virus and J. has been gradually refining our system. Tonight we're going to re-organize everything on the garage shelf he built to hold the canned/non-perishable food cache.  Make it more of a working pantry than a storage shelf.)

shake rattles & sing .2

Yesterday my body felt too sore and stiff to push any yoga-related edges.  I took the day off and further took my time getting to the point of taking time outdoors.  When I did get as far as planting columbine seeds I worked with Mama's close attendance.  She startled some when I produced the rattle and commenced shaking it but ultimately held her ground there on the ledge where the rattle rests in this picture.  I pressed seeds of the two columbine varieties featured as a visual lede in yesterday's post into the chilly soil.  The predicted n'oreaster is being successively downgraded.  Had hoped for 3-4 inches of snow but now they're saying just a dusting.  That's why I reserved half the seeds in each packet.  Have strong and seemingly good ideas of where I might plant those in another three and a half weeks.  I have viable delphiunium seeds in a box in the dining room closet. I'm thinking of starting them in a whiskey barrel in the field.  See what might emerge successfully enough to transplant into pots until they're sturdy enough to plant-out with next year's garden in mind.

wellness check of the day:  Make sure you aren't adopting habits of shallow breathing patterns.  Take slow steady breaths in.  Hold for release and then exhale slowly.  Shut your eyes and breathe for five minutes - preferably standing in soft morning sunlight and just before twilight descends in the evening.

J. fixed-up a hybrid wheelbarrow from various parts of two useless versions.  We now have two that function just at the time of year we need wheelbarrows most.  It was the first day I successfully nudged myself to get back to reading something I'm glad to be absorbing first thing in the morning.  Am beginning with a re-read of a book I loved the first time through:

It should be said that I met and briefly knew Jay Leutze in the mid-90's by way of a writing class at the Boston adult education center.  He was head and shoulders talented above and beyond anyone else in the room including the instructor.  We sat next to each other and at a certain point after he'd revealed he was working on a fictional trilogy I could not control the NEED to ask if I might read the fair copy (such things still existed then ...) of the first volume.

It was brilliant and as recently as last year I recalled a particular running theme without being able to place the book it came from for upwards of a week.  Shortly after I read that novel he moved Back Home to the mountain that features as a main character in the book above.  In addition to about a dozen books that are new to me I'd also set aside a small pile of re-reads last fall for my 2020 reading goals.  For a small window of time back in January I felt this particular book might not be a good fit since there really aren't any more safety nets left to allow environmental Davids to trounce industrial Goliaths.

but this is an excellent record of the time Before.  In time people will need to study this kind of thing as a way of figuring out how to bring more balance back to the land/people dichotomy.

(also I have never forgotten the way Jay could read a sentence or two of somebody else's draft aloud and if it was yours you'd sit there thinking.  "Wow.  My words can SOUND like that.")

shake rattles & sing .1

It's a sunny new england day but still quite chilly.   I'll add long johns under my gardening trousers and then head out, pomegranate rattle in hand,  to wake up the soil a bit.  Tomorrow morning I'll press the tiny poppy-like seeds into the soil and wish them good fortune.  Word of a nor'easter coming our way with six inches of snow expected is actually perfect for columbines.  I may scatter some larkspur and poppy seeds as well.

Columbines really like it here especially in and around the evolving sanctuary garden.  These two choices have been calling to me since the 2020 Select Seeds offerings went live back in January.  Once I finally did order I dickered for awhile over the "necessity" of them but then ultimately decided new columbine varieties for my garden are definitely in the hyacinths for our souls category.

Just below the trumpet vines you can see the earth I turned and rattled-over.  The seed bed extends several feet and I'll sow two islands with plenty of room inbetween.  Aside from cutting space to stand and tend to the seedlings we needed to cut down two secondary vines that were much too close to an enormous tree-like poison ivy entity.  It never went dormant so we didn't risk cutting it down.

You can see above, the two cut vine stems still entwined in the fence wire.   There's also a stripling elm to be cut on the other side of the ivy.   Just one of the many things that got out of hand the year Jim got Lyme and I was clobbered with an eruption of Graves Disease.   Seems we are still catching up from two critical 'gap years' for both of us.  But we are glad and grateful to have a place to be outside and moving .

There's a lot I'd love to clean up right here but the retaining wall and subsequent ground above isn't very stable.  Upon reflection I'm glad there will be plenty of roosting places available for the dozens of tiny birds who live here.  I want them to stay on general principle but also because they eat the poison ivy berries and also those of a nearby poison sumac.

While we were working two neighbors walked by.  They appeared to be together yet practicing extreme distancing.  J. saw them yesterday and concluded they walk at significantly different paces.   The woman complained to me of an eyesore across the road.  She asked if I had ever complained about it or asked that it be removed.  I said uh-huh same as I'd said when she asked if I wished it wasn't there in place of how beautiful it used to be.

it's taken a decade but I've learned how to fit in. 

My pomegranate rattle is very elderly and every year the seeds inside speak more loudly....

 

today's outside time

Today on J.'s lunch hour we came out to the field to consider the garlic and ... something else not quite gelled yet... bed that he created yesterday afternoon - one pitchfork at a time.  HA!!  I have convinced the usually-has-a-better-idea sorta virgo man in my life that pitchforking rocks everything else if you're truly serious about healthy soil.  He said he saw worms everywhere as he was working.  We stood and considered his accomplishment in silence for awhile.  Silent - or nearly so - brains as well.  Studying soil we played an active part in creating.

We looked around without speaking much and eventually mulched the new bed with a generous layer of straw.   Yesterday while Jim made that bed I eradicated all the sumac trees that have begun to block light on the garden's eastern edge.  Marked places where the sumac runners should be pulled ASAP and also pulled as many as far and wide as I could.  Usually I do that for three hours and then do nothing for another two days.  But I did that for about two hours and then pulled up/cut down dead remnants of last years garden. I needed to do that in order to mentally divide it into a nine patch grid.  That will make it easier to keep track of what needs doing - where and when.

Everything in the natural landscape feels vibrant and fully perked to keep the waking process going.  In the image above the garden bench has been moved farther from the bed.  There will  be a strip of grass path there into the original square growing space.  In my head I see the whole thing dug, tilled and dug, mulched and replanted.  In my heart it blooms to sustain us. 

Later in the afternoon J. wheeled around a corner of our house quite suddenly when/where I didn't expect him but that's how he rolls so I've learned to do the same.  He told me to stay away from the news if I was already upset and so of course I asked why and he told me and then I needed another vigorous eradication sort of project in search of calm or at least some clear space.

I have plans for the space beneath the Japanese Dogwood that's part of the original landscaping and her two self-sown daughters.  I also have plans to get as much of this small corner of pachysandra outta here before everything's too grown around the plant to get to it effectively.  The soil here is SUPER rich and perfect for my intended purpose.

[thought I posted this last night.  today it's snowing but very lightly.  Was expected...]

abundance of care tea

 

 This morning I mixed together a generous cache of nine-herb healing and restorative tea. Something I've been meaning to get to for about two weeks suddenly became mandatory.  I needed a tangible empowering way to attend to my family and myself because we - like so many households in so many places - have been the recipients of a workplace-related Abundance of Caution email.  We knew in our minds and guts it was a when rather than if once facts emerged about Boston area contagion.

My husband has three degrees of separation from the situation - at least on paper and in theory.  What he described to me of physical reality/exposure proximity was close enough for us to conclude we'd shifted from self-quarantining as a luxury feature of his remote work schedule to diligent citizenry. 

Abundance of Care feels like the necessary fulcrum point on which to balance caution and pragmatism.  Everything in the recipe I'm sharing was grown or wild-crafted on our property - save the glorious and ever-healing oats.  Those are from Avena Botanicals.    The blend addresses matters of wellness, systemic purification & protection, and metabolic re-boot at the gentlest possible level.

Over time I've learned to prepare my family's customized recipe in triads of soothing and restorative herbs - to mix based on the most physically stable/inherently strong herb grouping so that the sturdiest herbs are handled the most and fragile flower petals are lightly tossed into the final round of inclusions.  

You'll notice a coded parenthetical after the herb's name in the triad listings .  That's my measuring system of the classic homefolk "parts" methodology.  In this recipe a part is a loosely held handful.  Not too precise for those accustomed to exactitude but definitely viable once you get a feel for how it comes together at the end.   The proportions of this recipe work very well for the 3 of us.  You'll instinctively adjust according to your family's size and needs.  You'll also add and subtract specific herbs based on instinct and gathered experience.

  oats (3P) lavender buds (2P) sweet fennel seed (2P)

Oats soothe and nourish over-stimulated adrenal glands.  They also buffer against expressive anger that gets in the way of collaborative productivity - or knowing when to move on from news ingestion.  Oats' healing signature is emollient in nature.  That's a wonderful property to slowly drink into you body.  Muscle tension will begin to re-tone itself within an hour or two. Oats also provide a modest amount of easily absorbed calcium that helps keep rudimentary bone flexibility. 

Lavender has an ancient collaborative and co-creative relationship with our species.  The flower's healing properties are profoundly antiseptic - also equally compatible & effective with our digestive system and central/sympathetic nervous system.  Lavender's also a reliable source of effective moderate pain relief for anything 4 or lower on the universal pain scale.  And a solid ally to cherish for anyone prone to insomnia. 

Sweet fennel seed - The robust fifties era flower vase shape of fennel seeds is packed with digestive support and reliable aid/relief as needed for the things about shifting reality that we literally cannot stomach.  Fennel is another plant strongly valued for centuries worth of gardening inter-relationship.  There's something very grounding about this inclusion that speaks of timeless comfort and renewed life force. 

Mix these together thoroughly with loose and loving hands.  

Lemon Thyme* (1 generous FULL hand P) Anise Hyssop leaves (1.5P) Tulsi leaves & flowers (2)

*inclusion of ANY thyme should be abandoned for those who are pregnant.  In such cases consider substituting with Lemon Balm or research safe substitutions online.   

I choose to work primarily with Lemon Thyme almost exclusively because a healthy plant thriving in full sun can provide plenty for both culinary and medicinal uses in a single growing season.   In this recipe the herb is absolutely essential to support nourishing a dry throat - especially when accompanied with dry unproductive cough. 

Anise Hyssop's healing signature holds strong sedative and digestive properties.  The flowers are additionally uplifting to the spirits.  The leaves offer support for systemic reboot of the lungs; easing cramping or strained bronchioles with soothing consistency.   They're a gentle and effective tummy soother as well. 

Tulsi leaves and flowers combine to offer mental and psychic elevation.  This medicine spirit nourishes the soul as well as our physical brain.   I've found this inclusion seems to promote peaceful (and oftentimes creative problem-solving) dreams at a time when my waking self really needs that kind of respite and recharge.

Slow your roll to mix the new inclusions into the base mix.  This is especially important with dried thyme.  The tiny leaves are best removed from the stems with minimal crushing.  Work slowly and lovingly.  Remove the empty thyme stems unless you shred them into small pieces.  Put your own intentional/energetic healing mojo into the mixture as it grows and re-blends itself.  This is practical curendera magic at its simplest and most effective level.

Kentucky Mint (.5P) Calendula (2-3P) Red Clover* (2/2.5P)

*Red Clover  holds substantive blood thinning properties.  Do not include for anyone who takes blood thinning drugs, is prone to nosebleeds, or has trouble clotting following a lab draw, scrape, or cut.

Kentucky Mint is my preferred minty tea inclusion because its aftertaste is sweet rather than bitterly astringent.  Its proportionally small but memorably powerful inclusion here brightens the general palate of the blend while it also clears and sharpens the mind.

Calendula flower petals should be dried on-the-head and removed just prior to mixing with light deft motions.  It seems like their proportion rate is over-scaled until you're actually doing the mixing.  This inclusion speaks to substantive arcs of antiseptic and restorative properties that are quite well documented.  This is why I've yet to grow "enough" to yield unto the lure of dyeing with it.  Thought this might be the year that changed but now I'm just grateful I have a place to grow more for health and wellness purposes!

to turn this classic nine into a magical eleven:

lemon balm (2-3P) soothes and sanitizes with a soft lilt of anti-depressant capability.  Anyone with a hyperactive thyroid should embrace Melissa officinalis as a constitutional and very effective ally.  This well-tested ally may become crucial for anyone such as myself with recurring Graves or many forms of Hashimoto's. 

AND/OR

Pineapple Sage  -  This tender perennial's leaves and flowers hold strong anti-depressant properties.  The herb also helps to lower and regular blood pressure.  It's an inclusion in the mixture pictured in the photo lede - I used leaves only because all the flowers that manage to bloom before the first frost are used in tinctures or glycerites.  

OR

monarda fistulosa flowers  may provide a type of specific relief that could make the difference between gratitude and misery for over-extended lungs that need to un-sieze and stay relaxed enough to re-establish a sustainable breathing rhythm.  If I'd harvested more aggressively I would have shredded  2 or even 2.5 P into the blend.  But it was my first year of feeling welcomed to take.  Was therefore very humble in what I took for this beginning opportunity to work with its medicinal properties.  This year there will be bigger colonies and some surprise self-seeded volunteers.  I will cut more accordingly - providence willing.

Hope this recipes offers you ideas of what you might mix or grow with a customized version of this blend in mind.

May we travel safely and in healing grace.

freshly picked Monarda fistulosa flowers during last year's High Summer.   Feel super grateful to have to hand a quart jar mostly filled with dried stems & leaves if things get bad but we can manage to bypass hospitals and doctors offices. 

self quarantine day 1(words only)

Today J.'s entire company stayed home in order to test the viability of their remote network when it's pushed to full capacity.  Starting tomorrow people over sixty will be working remotely for the duration.  So J.'s out of the direct Beltway contamination zone. T. works in western MA and is still going - alone in his electric car.   And while he surely doesn't relish being stuck in the house with his parents for who knows how long he's curtailed his walking-around social life.  I went out yesterday to meet with a friend (see below) and then take a final tightly focused run at the grocery store in town.   Am hoping I did not invoke a regular-flu relapse with my various gathering activities focused on what we determined to be a pragmatic must-have list.

***

   Yesterday I had an in-person conversation with a local friend I'll call Bea.  She is, for me, what grace calls a Big Mind - with a capacity for Overview that's both flawless and creatively applied.  Bea is primarily a college level public health educator.  Her specific wheelhouse is infectious disease and how it spreads at a global/pandemic level. 

below you'll find the gist of what she advised and encouraged me to share in this way:

personal responsibility: 

this first one never changes even though people (including me) fudge it all the time.  This time I'm not.  3 month supply of food and wellness products for each person/animal living in your home.

cough and sneeze properly.  especially in public and multiple-person households

understand the rate of doubling principle.  take it seriously.  adjust your personal schedule and plans accordingly.

Maximize your self-sustainability skill set.

Stay informed.  Science.  Math.  Legitimate information.

Focus on healthy and healthful survival first and foremost.  At a certain point outrage becomes an unsustainable luxury.

family safety and wellness

maintain scrupulous cleanliness.   

stock extra dish washing and laundry supplies in case the grid holds but your supply chain does not.

if you depend on products that generate from highly contaminated places make sure to order/purchase them now from existing stocks on hand.  Practical and prepared Bea mentioned, specifically, that a lot of tools are made in Italy.  Including the ever-popular Craftsmaster line.  She recommends stocking up on anything you'll realistically need if you have to become a DIY expert in a hurry.  For people who address fixing things by calling somebody else to come and take care of it - get a realistic supply of tools that will allow you to keep your house operating somewhat smoothly.  Pick up/dig out a basic repair guide and read it cover to cover.

If you're self-reliant and live far from the maddening crowd take a thorough inventory of what you've got to ride out the contagion.  Measure everything against the likelihood that goods you rely on may stop flowing quickly or with reliability.  Whatever you're currently doing without that you can afford to purchase do it now.

Have a three month supply of any mandatory medications.

Bea stressed, repeatedly, the need to have an ample supply of deodorant.  It caught me off guard.  I don't often use it because it's an unholy nightmare for my particular autoimmune issues.  All the same I grabbed an extra stick at the grocery story.  Panic reflex.  Have gone there twice in the past three weeks but not in a manner of actual consequence.

Batteries at a rate of twice or 3 times what you'd normally stock in anticipation of a weather-driven emergency.

If you're beefing up any sort of flashlight or lantern cache you have on hand opt for solar powered models if you can.

Family/Community

Be mindful that every neighborhood has an at-risk population.  See if you have ways of supporting these people - such as organizing rotating wellness checks or delivering food boxes from donated stock items.

Stay connected to the local people you know whose company you most enjoy.  Utilize social media, group texts and facetime to share whatever you enjoyed on any given day.

Stay connected to yourself by beginning each day with a twenty minute window in which you meditate or read something uplifting before turning attention to news of any kind.  According to Bea this will have a reliably sustaining biochemical impact on how you find your fit with spontaneous community evolution

 For those with enough space to make this sensible advice:  walk, run or work outside as much as you can.  Keeping an active body builds resiliency in the immune system as well as keeping brain chemistry in better balance.

Keep your inner flame strong by staying connected to hobbies that mean a great deal to you.  Share that flame with those who've formed a social survival coalition in your neighborhood or extended social media community.

Make sure your school age kids have a way of staying in touch with their friends. 

Refrain from over-stocking remaining supplies from small neighborhood-dependent stores unless you've no other options.

Consider building a medicinal herb garden and/or keeping bees.

namaste

Perceptual Shifts .16

One thing I'll always love about photography is the way it clarifies how things look when the person seeing hasn't grown so accustomed to the particular view that they forget what seeing them differently used to feel like.  Since this week's water meditation is once again focused on the little stream that cuts through the edge of our property - I'm quite used to crossing the bridge in order to literally see things differently.  Yet when I edited images for this post I was struck by what a different view that seven or eight foot span, bank to bank, affords.  The bank on the far side of the bridge is higher by 3-5 feet.    Tree roots and the bridge's placement don't obscure the beautifully clear scope of the water's modest breadth. 

On top of the many other things to be done I need to rip out the encroaching periwinkle.  It's everywhere here.  So is pachysandra.  The duo is an environmental pairing from hell and all too common blighted mis-step from mid to late 1970's landscape design.  The house (circa 76) and extension (93) can be/has been easily enough retrofitted for today's more mindful geo-footprint but the escaped colonies of this pair that can be found throughout the woods and property lines, as well as running rampant in a liminal range between the dooryards and the field, are a problem we solve a lot more slowly than the plants thrive undeterred.

However.  Due to our odd winter the pachysandra colonies in the woods and encroaching the field are in bud.  They could flower in under a month - right about the time the bumblebee queens emerge to feed exhaustively or die mid-flight in search of food.   It's the only upside I have found so far - the early blooming colony/blankets keeping the bumblebee population on point

I'd come to the water because I'm doing what I can to shed or at least dismantle as much of my own human/media-driven fear factor(s) as possible.  There's politics, certainly.  But more as a plant reader/herbalist-ish person,  I've found It's been disconcerting as well as intellectually interesting to see the way my survivalist/preparedness buttons get pushed by what's in the news - and far more pressingly what is NOT in the news, at least here in the US, concerning coronavirus.  I said more on the subject and deleted.  

My intentional point is that I always come here and stand on the stream's opposite bank when I'm seeking a perception change. A friend of mine calls this kind of move sympathetic yoga.  Same basic premise as sympathetic magic but more about shifting the specifics of muscle memory/psychic elevation than direct energy transmutation.  In this case, I released the pent-up energy of a few what-ifs asked in gentle recognition that I and most of the other earth-loving people I know are strong on multiple levels.  Self-sustaining in ways that always seem enhanced by a desire to be joyful.  To look at what hasn't changed within the resources and wisdom of nature close at hand.

My feet were enjoying a new and vastly improved perspective as well.  After noticing how often the posts here feature me fretting over insufficient footwear I thought I ought to change that dynamic while I'm able.  Have begun my Year of Proper Shoes with a pair of very thick vibram soled waterproof shoes for walking in our woods, on local trails and while gardening.  One pair down, two to go.  Will whittle that down to just one if budget demands -  I have never had decent hiking boots.  And yet.  I haven't just sauntered in the woods.  I have ... hiked - a moderately fair amount.   Just never in proper shoes because - well.  Because I've spent so much of my adult/responsible life worrying about getting/staying sick.  To a degree where maybe splurging in this way would be a waste and thus irresponsibly self-indulgent.

  It's ridiculous - at least in light of today's world.  I intend, given the opportunity, to live long and well enough by my own definition that I wear them down to flaps of ragged leather bursting from their seams.  Thinking such thoughts I walked all over in the muddy goo with the cat jumping lightly from rocks to tree roots.  For awhile after we first entered the woods my eyes misplaced her.  In a previous part of her life she was named ghost.  Sometimes it seems apt to her form if not her personality.

When I took this picture we were right on the verge of the swampier place that we leave to wild creatures.  It abuts a part of the woods and stream's path where I don't go more than once a season.  I really like J. to have it as a form of personal space the way the field gardens have become my ramshackle green nation kingdom-come-true.

Mama and I end most of our off-season woods visits via the path by the old well.  This is a powerful sacred-feeling place of unknown origin/human history.  Many different animals call it Home as do a whole colony of trees.   The path pre-existed our arrival - in large part as a game trail that services every larger creature from turkeys to deer and coyote.   In the green months none of us use this path or those spidering out from it.  We only move along the paths close to the utility buildings and  compost bin.  Early spring and later autumn offer the rare opportunity for exploration that isn't intrusive.  An enormous hare lives back here somewhere.  Also woodchucks and innumerable small rodent species.    Speaking of the field gardens -  I spent a long time prowling around the various cultivated and wild corridors of the beds.  I saw in my mind's eye how the garden might be improved by clearing more of the space claimed by goldenrod.   I want to enlarge the growing space to the left of the edges in this pic - a long narrow strip of an enlargement beginning just a bit left of the whiskey barrels at both end of the bed.  I want this strip to combine calendula, tomatoes and sunflowers.  See how that works.  Maybe also consider a perpendicular strip where the bench currently sits.  Create from it a raised bed for root vegetables.  In the past I've used the whiskey barrels but want to give them over to restorative tea herbs exclusively from this point forward.

Formulating these plans yesterday, and mentally embellishing them just now in my mind's eye, I sense a resilience that's very well-known to gardeners.  I'm deeply concerned by how early in the year the earth is waking herself but I'm also wondering how to make the smartest and wisest adaptation to this kind of shift.  For we humans, sure, but also for everything else that lives here.  When I stood in the garden and visualized its enlargement I had a sense of confidence this was a wise use of my brain's time and space. 

Providence willing, as they say ...

another happy grace note of our mild winter is the alive and thriving condition of a lemon thyme that was stranded on the lower deck for the winter after our late October cold snap froze it solidly in place.  I brought in a few tiny sprigs and a couple precious deep green lemon balm leaves for some fresh green rejuvenative tea.

light and LOVEly dreams to all!

The back of our field in later April 2012.

Valentine's Day has always been my favorite holiday. 

Beltane's second ...