…So, in this time of great grief - of guns in schools, deranged teenagers, direspect of womens’ bodies, fear of womens’ power, the loss of ecosystems, animal and plant species, the list goes on…let us call upon the medicine of tress. In the words of John O’donohue:

“...The tree rises from the dark. It circles around the "heart of darkness" from which it reaches towards the light. A tree is a perfect presence. It is somehow able to engage and integrate its own dissolution. The tree is wise in knowing how to foster its own loss. It does not become haunted by the loss nor addicted to it. The tree shelters and minds the loss. Out of this comes the quiet dignity and poise of a tree's presence…”

…Our physiological patterns are weather patterns, similar to the weather patterns in nature - our bodies reflect our surroundings, our environment, the Earth. Nearly all forms of traditional medicine have some version of elemental theory - a framework that recognizes the elements of nature as foundational components that govern Life and its cycles. They often orient to how our bodies express their own unique weather patterns, how the elements of Nature are expressed through our physiology, our temperament, our mood, etc. They also acknowledge and address how our bodies and nature can get out of balance, expressing patterns of excess and/or deficiency.

Sprouts are emerging from the rich darkness of soil, reaching skyward, drinking in the lengthening daylight hours. Medicine is popping up on roadsides, through cracks in pavement, in the most unlikely of places...

I'm inspired to orient to ground and soil here, to start with some basic questions, which I have been hearing and receiving lately, and sometimes take for granted: what is herbal medicine? Let's start there...

…Remembering, thus, is a kind of antidote to forgetting, and inherently part of the process of ancestral lineage repair. And it is no easy feat. Rather than the hard thinking, mind concentration, trying to picture where you last saw your car keys kind of remembering, I understand this to be the opposite of dis-membering - a stitching things together again, a coming back to wholeness kind of re-membering…

The heart of herbal medicine lives in cultivating relationships with the plants themselves, as the living, sentient, intelligent beings they are. This offering is an introduction to 5 plant allies: mugwort, stinging nettle, yarrow, rose, and juniper.

Ode to Ocotillo

The Tree of Life is a symbol that appears throughout the world, across time, space, cultures, and continents. It consistently appears in some relationship to cosmology, creation story, and mythology, and is nearly ubiquitous in the cosmologies of traditional cultures living with indigenous connections land…