My kind of herbalism

The sky is still pale with the rising the sun and my chooks have only just started asking for food. They recently learned the trick of wandering around outside my window and hollering as loud as they can. It's an awful sound and it works...

Ok. Chooks are fed and have a fresh cup of cacao (me, not them).

I have long liked the idea of having an email newsletter to share my herbal experiences, but I also had ideas of what it should look like. And those ideas came from what I saw other people doing and what I liked in other people's writings and offerings. The truth is, I am a major over-thinker and I like it. I LOVE imagining, plotting and planning and pondering and allowing my thoughts to meander in constructive ways. BUT, I over-think myself out of doing anything, because my expectations quickly outgrow my capacity and probably also squish my actual desire to do the thing.

Another truth is that my herbal practice is pretty low-key. The foundations are probably the passing moments of glee I experience when I see a beloved plant has come into flower, or if I unexpectedly feel them brush my skin as I pass them by, or when I unexpectedly brush their skin as I pass them by. Little moments of affection with my kin. Their existence in the world brings me so. much. joy.

Yesterday I went to a friend's place to harvest some calendula. I was having a flat day, but as I stepped into the garden it felt like the world was suddenly singing again, or more that my hearing aid was suddenly switched on. I wandered for a while, then went to a patch of calendula and just sat in awe with their radiance. I watched a golden garden spider who looked like it had built a cubby out of the calendula petals.

I always ask before harvesting plants; it's asking the plants themselves, but also asking the whole - the whole ecosystem of the garden and earth and also the ecosystem of myself. For me, the asking is much more felt than expressed in words. But I use words too, to make it real and to make it fun. And yesterday the words that came were

"Mother, may I?"

I don't know if this means anything to anyone else, but Mother May I? was a chase-y game we used to play when I was little. From what I remember it was akin to What's The Time Mister Wolf?

Who know which dark corner of my mind the phrase popped out from, but it was amusing.

And then the reply that I felt was them asking me back... if, while I harvest from them, they could also harvest from me?

Sure! I said and laughed. I had no idea what they were talking about/what they wanted to harvest, but it didn't feel important for me to know. I trusted them to take whatever they needed and to honour and leave what wasn't for them to harvest. Obviously.

And then, I started picking flowers and as I was picking I started singing. It just happened to me and we had such a joyous time; the flowers, the song, the sun and bees and gratitude and me.

I gathered calendula, california poppy, catnip and plantain.

Where I live, now begins the herbal harvest season. This week I'm also looking towards the milky oats, horehound, hawthorn flowers and wild rose.

Seeing the hawthorn trees come into blossom is one of the greatest joys of each year. I adore the way the white flowers sit on the tops of the branches and look like a gentle layer of snow weighing them down. Sometimes I get the delirious giggles, when I drive roads lines with hawthorn trees while they're all coming into bloom. Even from my car, it feels like they're reaching out and brushing my skin as I drive past them. It tickles. And they just make me so darn happy.

And this, is the essence of my herbal practice. I don't always harvest their bodies to make medicinal extracts. But, by building intimate relationship with them over many years now, the medicine of the joy which they bring to my heart is so much more potent than anything I could ever possibly hope to pour into a bottle. Some years, some plants, I just sit with them and don't harvest anything material at all. And I trust in what feels right.

Say hi to a plant today, let them touch you, maybe tell them something funny.

x Rosie

Threshold

I stopped at the threshold between here and the other side. Why is my heart breaking in my chest? My every sense is alert, attuned for the tiniest threat, a reason to run, to turn away, to slink back once more to somewhere 'safe'.

I know this threshold well, I've come here before with dreams and plans held close to my heart, staring over into the deep unknown. I've thrown stones across The Step and watched until I saw a light come on in the distance and someone stirring in the shadows coming to meet me. That was when I'd run.

Other times, I would just find myself there, staring quietly into the forest on the other side, grateful to that which had led me to this beautiful and mysterious place, while I stand, quietly bundling the dream into myself and carrying her away.

But all the times I came and left, I always left something behind, something of myself would stay at the threshold and over time The Step become an alter inscribed with the words

“I'm not ready, this precious gift/dream/vision is too small. I can't do this.”

I stopped at the threshold between here and the other side, holding my everything, so tenderly wrapped in the cloak of Who I Am. The trees on the other side look the same as where I stand, but I don't know if they're real. I don't know if a black hole is waiting to suck me in, all of Who I Am, all that I carry so precious to me; to suck away all that isn't true, and to leave me bare with nothing to do or to be or to offer.

As I look into the mystery across the threshold, I know to lay one foot in that land will be received as an invitation

Dear Mystery,

You are invited into My Life

Please show me what I do not know and do not want to see

Turn me around and upside down if that is what it will take

Have your way with me, move me when I don't know how

I surrender

Carve out that space a little more,

The space inside me where wonder resides, where silence is the realm,

Where magic moves and the unseen are deepening always

Bring me to my knees Mystery, break me down to the ground

Make me know my roots are strong, that they are holding me,

That my roots come from deep below, many many long times ago.

Dress: however you will

RSVP: when the time is right

Sincerely yours,

….

Who are you, who I am running from? Who are you who dwell on the other side? How did you come to be there?

I hold this tattered invitation in my hands, the edges of the paper are soft and worn from many foldings and unfoldings. It's written in every cell of my body, but I keep it scrunched down in the corner of my pocket, with the fluff and the five-cent coins and the lonely cashews who fell to the bottom.

Now I unfold the invitation once more, I lay it out flat. Carefully, I write it afresh; neat, clear, inviting and honest...

Mystery, I am here

Standing at the threshold, I lay this invitation upon my skin until the words are wearing me all over. They glow warm in my body and I see my cloak, a pile on the ground, a nest to come back to if I want it. I'm not cold.

I am alive and attuned for the tiniest magic, a reason to move.

I move, my foot passes through air and lands on the other side.