Herbalism 101: This is What You Should Know

Hey Pals


This is what you should know: the green breathing earth is alive out there and waiting for your remergence! You know, emphasis on the merge. As in recognizing, or more aptly, remembering, the inborn harmony of this fabulous ecosystem called Life and the deep interconnection of which we are all equal part...

I am so, so loving life right now. Teena and I have yet to mow our mammoth lawn so it looks like I always wanted Truslow Road to look, like with the tiniest sparkly faces of wildflowers growing every which way and clumps of succulent grass thrusting out of the earth and smelling all fine. I counted eight different kinds of sweet little gentle wildflowers--or weeds--and at least three that I know of (though probably more) are medicinal! Which is rad since I am taking an online herbalism course offered by Angie over at The Herbalist Path. She also runs Authentic Mama, that's the sight where I won the book The Lost Language of Plants.

This past Thursday it was so blue sky clear here, and 60 degrees. The neighbor tilled a plot for me over the weekend so you better bet that on my work break I got ankle, literally ankle deep from all the rain, in mud as I lovingly sung to the land here at Chop to waken it up to me and I to it as I hoed in all the compost from the winter. I am going shopping for starts at one of the many little Eastern Shore back road country farm stands today woohoo I can barely contain myself! Here is my garden-o-gram.

Yesterday it was 70 degrees and I started the day in barefeet and my pjs and a floppy sunhat out in yard. By the afternoon I'd moved to a sundress and the dock, where muskrat hung out literally underneath my feet, chomping away on what I think is watercress woohooo! That was my second upclose--literally I mean two feet away--meeting with muskrat in the past 48 hours. if you recall from a few weeks ago, I learned that he brings spirit medicine of good omens, grace, and wisdom resulted from the seeking of inner counsel. My god if this is not what is happening in my life right now.

Delving deeply in to, and working to witness and clean out some old, outgrown emotional beliefs and tendencies has made all this room for joy, for natural quiet, for art and simple awakening. For my feet on the earth and living life connected, but more and most important, at peace with me beginning from within. And more than anything else in this life that I know from the walking it, I know that the world is interconnected(and therefor inner-connected!) and that indeed every solitary aspect of life is God--or however you define it--but that ultimately there is no separating any of it out. You are God, I am God, that air is God, that muskrat, all of it equal and interconnected and the illusion is we are separate, when in reality we are just merely playing out the landscape of God from day to day, each in various stages of waking up to this most basic of instinctual knowledge and humbling power of existence. This is magic and divinity in its most grace*full form. And I am gratefully and consciously each day tappping more deeply in to this resource and knowledge. And how delightful, as my nature deepens so too does my natural connection to the nature all around me.Whether it is marvelling at the effects, not only physically, of wild chickweed (full of sapopins which are fat emulsifiers) but emotionally and spiritually; or the ability of dandelion infusion to clear up my mysterious skin sensitivity and make me less foggyheaded after a carbs and lots of meat--I am feeling awash with inner walking awareness of the simple divine.

Intuitively, I'm talking in the very membranes of our cells, in the ancient DNA composit memory of our very life we are a part of the earth and it of us. And when we give ourselves, even sparingly at first, to the world around us, I mean feet on the earth, in the river or the concrete of the city block or the high high lawn and most especially to the people, in the form of first from our heart and then from there to theirs, this connection re-livens itself from within.

Night time dreams crispen. Daytime dreams and goals bolster and clarify themselves more naturally. Our very step gains buoyancy. The spirit awakens because we are connecting once again to our most inner and inherent roots. I believe, no, I know quite simply that any place the world is as recked a place as it has become it is because the people living on top the earth, attempting to dominate the wild naturalness of which we falsely believe we are separate from, have lost that inherent connection to the vast and natural rhythms and cycles of growth that emanate in their cells, and beyond to their souls.

Further I believe, and have spent my life to this point learning through the walking of this inner instinct of knowledge, that artists such as myself find creative vibrancy in the form of fine and acute self-awareness when we take the time to rekindle our connection to the earth and her awake and teaching cycles. The cycles of of movement, grace, allowing, letting go, and learning to grow. Thus of the balance of solidity verses fluidity. Going with the flow... There is a literal bounty of life lessons just waiting to be harvested by the heart right out your backdoor!!


So there you are gang. A public service intention for you, my hopes that you may enjoy, as I am remembering to do, the chance of your life-given urge to grow....