This is for the July Blog Party on Adventures in Herbalism, hosted by Darcey Blue of Gaia’s Gifts.
I’m all about the up close and personal. I learn best through my senses and direct experience. This is perhaps more true in the way I practice herbalism and relationship with the plants than almost anything else. While [...]
Green Wealth: Our Wild Plants & Weeds
by Kiva Rose
http://animacenter.org
We meet in a canyon greened by early spring rains and filled with the lush plant life that will fill our baskets and bags by the afternoon’s end. The people who gather to celebrate and learn about the local flora are as diverse as the plants themselves, [...]
A lyrical and personal piece by partner, Jesse Wolf Hardin, on the inextricable relationship between ourselves and the elements. Experiential, vibrant and deeply necessary, Wolf’s piece reminds us to expand our awareness out from out individual bodies into the larger body of the inspirited earth, to cultivate a sensorial awareness and to notice the preciousness [...]
~~~
Every year this special and very focused workshop becomes a little (or a lot) more intense. With the approach of each Shaman Path Intensive, Wolf and Loba and I are all filled with excitement and anticipation of the wonder sure to come! Remarkably, this year’s transformative event created a new threshold for what can occur [...]
Monsoon season is a magical time in the Southwest. The air grows heavy, the clouds roll in and the thunder rumbles across the mountains. Within days of the arrival of the first storms, the golds and sages of the semi-arid woodlands, grasslands and meadows erupt into a riot of vibrant wildflowers and lush green growth. [...]
It’s been one of those weeks, folks. Filled with visitors, stomach bugs, weird accidents and monumental amounts of food preserving. Thus, I am behind. If you’re waiting for a package, email, lesson or phone call, I swear I’m getting there. My own immune system has been tottering on the brink of overtiredness and I’ve been [...]
There’s something so primal and satisfying about a warm vessel of infused herbs in my hands. Sipping a honey sweetened brew of flowers, roots, barks and leaves brings back ancient memories and also spirals me fully into the here and now, fully present in each nuance of taste and aroma. Curled up in Autumn’s growing [...]
Walking the river just now means sinking to my calves in cold sweet mud, every step releasing the earthy aroma of clay. It’s blue-grey and slippery, the primal beauty that so many hundreds, thousands of ancient pots and vessels were made of right here in the cnayon. We have some of the remnants, broken jugs [...]
Harvest Ramblings For the October Blogparty over at Gaia’s Gifts, hosted by Darcey Blue
Nights are cold, and the big down comforter is already on the outdoor bed. Although we’ve been having occasional rains, the plants are withering from the cold, shrinking back to their earthen bed with alarming speed. We’re scrambling for the last [...]
Earlier today, Rhiannon and I took a little walk up the wash looking for acorns and cherries. It was beautiful canyon morning with mist lingering along the cliffs and mountaintops, as the river sang loudly from between its banks. We’ve been receiving generous amounts of rain each night and the river has been slowly rising [...]
Home again, no thanks to the insane traffic and almost getting smushed between a semi-truck and trailer with an exploding tire on the interstate. About the time part of the exploding tire bounced off my windshield and the rest of it slammed into my front bumper, I was really ready to never see a highway [...]
Mornings are cool, with a breeze that rises from the river and sings through the Pines. The sun comes up lazy and slow to peer through drifting clouds and Oak branches. Yellow flowers abound, the tiny gold stars of Wild Lettuce and the rolling curves of Mullein blooms. I sit in the river and let [...]
It finally happened! The oppressive heft of rain waiting to happen broke though into a gentle, unsteady storm that’s been coming and going all afternoon and evening. The season is still building, and fullblown torrential downpours are somewhere in the near future. And now we’ll even be able to breathe without all the smoke hanging [...]
Every afternoon the clouds roll in, and every evening the smoke fills the air. It’s a thick haze that smells like charred Juniper and melted Pine sap, and turns the sunset a rusty gold. There are fires burning fiercely a hundred miles away in several different directions, and the late afternoon winds bring us a [...]
There are fat, dark rainclouds crowding the sky and laying out shadows of birds and junipers and Rhiannon on the swing, long legs pumping the air. Monsoons are coming, and in spite of the work it means, I pray for a wide river and sweet, muddy ground. Thunder rumbles and shakes the air, and tells [...]
