Sweet Medicine

This month's blog party hosted by Kiva Rose is all about Sweet Medicine. Thank you Kiva!

I know herbal honey, cordials and syrups are well covered ... so I hope to offer something a little different... one of my dearest specialties, if I do say so myself.

Sweet oil.

I'm probably most in love with making herbal oils over many other menstruums. I love the feel, the versatility, the romantic, sensual nature, and really everything about it.

One of my formerly best selling skin products was my Lover's Cream ... a sweet, light, edible cream with herbal oil, herbal honey, and some tingly yet gentle essential oils.

But you don't have to get that complex... for sweet oils are easy to make!

First, you may want to use a different oil than the usual olive, as some sweet herbs taste too culinary in olive oil. But suit yourself. My favorite is apricot kernel, with it's fresh cherry-almond aroma. You can also use grapeseed or sweet almond oils. Unrefined coconut oil is especially sensual, and is lovely to use from it's semi-solid state, or warmed until liquid. Yum.

Next, you'll want to comb your cabinets or garden for your most favorite sweet or aromatic herbs. Fresh herbs should be carefully made or wilted first to avoid mold. Herbs that I really adore infused in oil include:

Vanilla beans

Cardamom pods/seeds

Stevia leaves or powder

Damiana leaf

Anise

Fennel

Grated Nutmeg - in moderation

Lavender

Lemon Verbena

Meadowsweet

Orange peel

Dried roses

Peppermint leaf and flower

Hyssop leaf and flower

Freshly ground coffee beans

Sassafras root

Cherry bark (Prunus spp.)

Birch (Black birch or yellow birch bark, also leaves)

Next, fill your jar 1/3 full if using powdered herb, or full if using loose dried herbs or freshly wilted herbs. It's best if freshly harvested herbs have wilted 2-5 days, depending on how much water content the plant has.

Cover your plant material to the brim with oil, label and cover. Let steep in a warm spot for one moon cycle.

If you're using powdered herb, stir it at first to saturate the herb in the oil. I have also found the taste and fragrance releases better if gently warmed before straining.

If you wish to use a fresh root such as ginger, a yogurt warmer or carefully watched crock pot method (two days intermittent low heat) work beautifully.

When your sweet oil is ready, strain it through muslin or layered cheesecloth, bottle, label, and store in a cool dry place - that is if it makes it to storage.

There are a million lovely ways to use your oil, both internally and externally. Obviously, you can use your oil for sensual massage with your sweetie, without displeasing your taste buds. But you can also enjoy the health giving benefits of self massage, using this heart centered oil to massage gratitude and attention into your own muscles and skin. Sweet herbs relax the nerves as well as work through scent to relax the limbic system - all too hyper in this day and age. These herbs, combined with self love in the form of intentional massage, can serve to clear up stagnation in the abdomen, throat, and neck areas, as well as feeding and soothing all your layers of skin. For more information on the rejuvenative powers of Ayurvedic self massage; abhyanga; you can read the description at the Maharishi website.

If you are a cream-maker, you can invent lovely creams with your sweet oil. If you are a kitchen Goddess, you can use your sweet oil in desserts, sweet bisque soups, or in your warm milks and hot toddies. If you are a locks lady, you can treat your dreads or tresses with sweet warmed oil mixed with vitamin E, shea butter,or Basil essential oil. And ... if you make salves... you can make the most sensual of body butters and lip balms when combined with cocoa butter and unrefined beeswax.

Gifts of sweet oil are well loved, too, and look so pretty in a basket. Women experiencing female transitions or discomforts appreciate a belly and breast soothing oil, and women dancing with breast issues or ovarian cysts can benefit greatly from applying healing oils, especially when combined with specific herbs such as Red Clover blossom, Violet leaf, or Dandelion flower oil.

I hope you will gift yourself with a little collection of sweet herbal oils for all of your daily treatings.

(photo of sweet oil #9: pink rose powder, sassafras root, vanilla beans, and crushed cardamom pods in apricot kernel oil)

Invisible, Special. The Ramp

For this Month's Blog Party on spring greens, Hosted by the lovely Darcey of Blue Turtle Botanicals, I'm highlighting Ramps: Allium tricoccum.

I've been internally dancing between these two very primal, indelible needs. The need to be invisible; the natural disposition of the human in a vast world, of the mother serving child, of the changeable human nature in a society that wants identity. Novelty becomes novelty. The name, the choices of smell, of visual reference, of color and vocation, they all anchor who you are. Who you are attracts the right audience. Your whole brand become an essential player in what you believe and what kind of life you want for yourself. Your life, way of life, becomes a spell cast unto the universe.

In the forest, somewhere between the spell of trees and water, are the common novelty of a two-leafed spicy personality. A small, crisp underground bulb stalks upward into one purple stem, then into the green linear veins in each leaf. The tips of the leaves reach to a fairy towering height of about 6 to eight inches. Pressure on the leaf reveals it's mouth watering aroma of Grandma in the kitchen sauteing garlic and onion. An eyeballs scan of the mature ramps lends itself to a healthy harvest of this delicate yet intensely satisfying spring green. Pushing my thumb into the cool wet soil, I can begin to wiggle free the bulb, and with a slight angle and a little prayer, they click out like a trimmed fingernail. Some might tell you they want to grow another year - severing itself like a legless eel and offering only their green tops for eats. Ha ha they snicker! Good for next year. Some root themselves passionately between rock and tree root, making for either simple or impossible harvest. The lessons abound in each tug of oniony hope. Some release so easily you think the world is at your fingertips. Some so stubborn your head gets big and bossy. But the basket filling up with our next meal, remind us of gratitude while gathering abundance. Of hard work and reward. Of natural bounty at Mother Earth's breast.

In an invisible moment in the forest, I've filled my arms with these wild leeks. I know that in a couple weeks they will be on their way to making seeds for next years crop. I take a moment to inhale their pungent, cleansing aroma. The green, almost plantain-shaped flags glint and twinkle in the tree broken breeze. I take in the scene of neighboring Hellebore, Bloodroot leaves, of sun filtering hemlock boughs and brainy morels. The air is so honeysuckle sweet I almost can't fathom it all. I know that within a short walk, the nettles flourish, the chickweed plays, and the motherworts stand watch. The world is bountiful when ramps are found. They like that. They like to play invisible, even though they are novelty. A delicacy, really, yet unassuming and celebratory they come, filling up the forest floor in a mischievous rampage.

Embracing the paradox, the ramp tells us about being special yet invisible, unique without greed. It reminds us of seasonality, of abundance, and of versatility. Potato leek soup, leek omelette's, a chiffonade over salad, a ramp smothered pasta, are just a few of the myriad ways they can be enjoyed. Any show where your leeks, garlic, or onions would play an important roll, ramps are a well rehearsed and stunning understudy.

Your liver will thank you. Your blood and lymph will cheer. Your taste buds will be delighted. And if you have a cold, forget it. Chicken-ramp soup will knock it out in no time. Ramps freeze too, if your looking to extend your pleasure even longer. The entire plant is used, bulb stem and leaf. chop it all up for your recipe. But don't miss out. Ramps grow all over the North and Southeast U.S., and upwards into Canada. If your lucky enough to live in Tenessee or West Virginia, you can participate in one of their traditional Ramp Festivals. Or you can gather together and have your own!

Kitchen Witch, Welcome!

Well .... I guess my brain got twisted up or something .... because I was suppose to include Sasha's exquisite take on Manzanita for our blog party last week. And I never put the link up.
Of course, this was after I had reminded participants to include a link-back to Herbwifery. !
The gall I tell you.

I'm so sorry!!

I added it to the original post, but since people may not return there after reading the first time ... I'm re-posting it here to give more folks a chance to indulge in reading and to redeem myself as blog-party hostess.
:)
Thanks Kitchen Witch for your writing! And Amber for your nudge.

http://kitchenwitch.typepad.com/

Green Blessings

Ananda

Blog Party: Plant Devas

Here are the wonderful entries for this month's blog party! We have some new folks with us ..... Welcome!
(ALL the posts are just beautiful. I could hardly read them through my tears.)
Enjoy!

Sasha at Kitchen Witch takes us through the beautiful world of the Manzanita.

Darcey Blue from Gaia's Gifts on Grandmother Juniper

Tales of a Kitchen Herbwife on Yarrow

Kiva from The Medicine Woman's Roots on The Heart of the Forest

Urban Herbwife on Willow

The Witchen Kitchen on Self-Heal and other healing friends.

Granny Sam from The Poke Patch speaks about her ally Poke

And mine is below.

Happy reading!

Sister Secrets

She arrives early, ready to take on the tasks of the season with sheer delight. There is no hesitating, no questioning, no doubting. She shakes off the wet soil as if it were fresh water after a swim. She is perfectly refreshed. She isn't worried that obstacles will come her way, for when they do they are mere reminders of life's surprises and unexpected turns. She tames them with her candied lemon perfume and soothes them with her hypnotically bright green skin.

Despite her popularity and host of extreme talents, she is not obnoxious. For any troubles you might have, she's listening, openheartedly and with a full embrace. A long lost sister she is, braiding your stories into pretty sounds, offering to you her older sister secrets. Big sister Melissa knows all about real beauty, real confidence, real magic, and true sisterhood. If you meet with her, she'll share.

I first met sister Melissa when I went to the Coventry Herb Farm, Caprilands, many years ago. The garden's were something of another land, like I imagined England or Ireland to be. So many sweet little plants everywhere. I stuffed my nose in every one I could, soaking in the prana. Sister Melissa struck me with a consciousness that was something of an ancient memory, a playfulness and abandon and depth of beauty. Ever since I could have my own parcel of land to grow, I would always plant her right away. She always grows big and bushy. Like a good Auntie, she comes when my children are ailing; when life has gotten them down with a bug or an ache or a woe; she heals all. She knows that restoring joy is priority and even more so with children for that is their source. She wastes no time worrying if that is true.

She comes to me when my skin is troubled, soothing it with her cooling oils. She flirts with me when I am grumpy, gently lifting my eyelashes. Her incredibly feminine flowers are small but many, swarming the bees right to her. She knows the Matriarchal family secrets of the Labiatae. She is sweetness! She knows honey and alchemy. She knows change. Dear Melissa isn't afraid of grief. She grows in rich soil and poor soil as well, knowing how to make glory out of any situation. She is unconditional. She's happy in Grandma's garden and happy in the best of the Botanical Gardens. She teaches me adaptability, and versatility.

I am an only child. Where else will I find my Sister?

In the Green.

Plant Devas, myths and spirits: April Blog Party

This months Blog Party is all about unveiling the Oz behind our plant allies. What is the archetype, deva, or spirit of your favorite plant like? What are their healing lessons and gifts? How do they reveal themselves to you?

Post on your own blog and send me the link at the herbwifery forum, and I'll post all links here between Thursday April 3rd and Saturday April 5th, 2008.

Happy Plant Journeys.......

Blog Party: Aphrodisiacs

Welcome!

The Herbwifery Blog Party is anchored here this month, with lovely herbalists sharing their favorite routes to a juicy libido.

UPDATE: A new guest post from Robin Rose Bennett on Passion Honey has been added! Yum!

Kristena from Blessings of an Herbwyfe shares with us the sensual wisdom of Damiana.

Julie at Crow's Daughter takes us on a lyrical journey with our ally Hawthorne.

Darcey Blue at Gaia's Gifts offers a Lover's elixir recipe. mmmmm

More entries can be emailed to me, posted at Herbwifery.org, or on a comment here.

Green Blessings!

February Blog Party ~ Aphrodisiacs!!

Raise your Kundalini this Valentine's Day with nourishing herbal aphrodisiacs!

To participate:

Write a blog post about your favorite Love potion number nine's and send me the link or post it on the Herbwifery thread. Entries are due February 5. I'll compile the final list here.

Invite the birds to come out and court!

Dreamwort

Blog Party~Local Herbs

She, like Inanna, is a Goddess of many names. ............Mugwort, Cronewort, Moonwort, Black Sage .........

She is the shapeshifter, the birther, the sorceress, the omnipotent Midwife. She is Artemisia Vulgaris. She shines her Moony underside like Sheela Na Gig, shameless, striking, healing. She weaves her roots like fierce threads of a timeless quilt that holds the stories and memories of women and mothers and midwives since the very beginning. She is the keeper of the womb. Guardian of any element. Bringer of vision. Weaver of magic and of sisterhood and of radical self acceptance.

Her fragrant command clears the senses and brings the spirit home. Her tough love bitters demand healthy blood and guts. Her silvery flesh touches us with the Moon-fingers of Artemis, protecting scathed skin or ceasing the foolish itching of ivy. Her taste released in steaming water lulls the heart into dreamland, where epiphanies live and souls remember wholeness.

Her chopped up leaves love to be soaked all 28 days in a good apple cider vinegar, for her green bones are strong with calcium and minerals. She readily gives this gift to us, laying herself across our meals in tangy surprise of how good it feels to nourish ourselves to the bone.

She dries on a table top or dangling from a beam, easily in a matter of days. Her fingers curl up into rest while she awaits her next request. Should a bundle be made from her body, she will burn gracefully in smokey homage to all the witches burned before. She holds smoke powerful enough to cast protection over any space, and evoke transformation of the deepest kind. Her Moxa holds the key for many sessions of healing. Her heady smudge a direct route to our deeper selves.

Her stems, long and wispy, can be crafted into a besom of magic. sweeping away old beliefs and brushing new joys into life. She pleases children's fingers who love to create. Dreamwort reminds me of my own dream, of how life could be, of what changes I want to manifest for women and families today. She leads me to my dreams and remembrances, and then dares me to bring it into reality. She never denies the truth of our visions. She embodies health, wholeness holiness, hope.

That is of course what she does, create, this magic lady of many names and faces, Maiden, Mother, and Crone, my very favorite local plant and spirit friend, introduced to me by my very own Mother.

Talk to her, this Green Wise one, see what gifts she holds for you. She's powerful, yet approachable. Fierce, but not scary. Strong, but never a bully. Loving, unconditionally, wildly. She grows everywhere, she's sure to find you sooner or later.

I'm stuck on my first love

I've opened this 'new post' page quite a few times in the last week. The theme for this month's Blog Party is 'What is your first ally'. I've thought of about seventy. There is just no way to narrow it down. So I've taken the old fashioned writers block route and am just writing exactly what I am thinking and feeling without too much purpose. Perhaps that will reveal itself by the time I finish. Or not.

You see, I grew up in an Ashram, basically. Fairfield Iowa to be exact, the belly of the Maharishi movement, Transcendental Meditation and Ayurvedic Medicine in the Western World. Leaving my bad memories out, I have pages of memories containing plant medicine of some kind. And although I didn't really ally and journey intentionally with one plant until I was older, these imprints are just as lasting and profound, if not more.

At my favorite park, Hempstead Park, my girlfriend Corrina and I used to collect pillow-cases full of sourgrass. Chewing on this sour delight all the while, I remember the carefree, self-sustaining bliss of this bountiful, giddy harvest. And the power of a pure friendship with a female friend which has been something of a rare treasure in my life. This beautiful, clover leafed Sheep sorrel was my insurance that should I be lost like Ayla, I could get by.

Honey. I love honey. My mom bought me honey shampoo when I was just learning how to bathe myself. I loved smelling like honey. When I walk past my sweet honeybee hive today, I still feel the innocent wonder of the first smells of honey. I know Mother Earth holds bounty. I know she provides medicine.

Grass. My favorite picture of myself is of when I was about four or five, laying deep in the throws of a meadow green as can be, long, willowy grasses. Running through a meadow had to be one of the purest joys of childhood in Iowa. The sunkissed smell of hay, the wavering silver, green, silver, green, as the wind changed. And there I lay, smiling as Mona Lisa, contented in my neverland of green grass.

Mulberry's. My Mother and Father owned a ten acre parcel of unbuilt land. We would go there on weekends to plant fruit trees and my mother would mow sky clad. They would put a hay bail staircase up to the Mulberry tree for me. This tree had to be a hundred feet in my child eyes, raining with sweet berries forever. I would eat until my heart turned purple. For free. With no time limit. With no manners. with no limits. I was free!

Green Beans. My father is a Taurus. In other words, a master gardener. He grew the best organic green beans ever. I remember just sitting in the garden eating these little morsels all summer long, when I was about six. Yeah, I'm only to age six, sorry.

Then I started getting chronic bronchitis. This was around school age, and in hindsight I think it was a communication glitch. I was too shy too tell all the rotten people to fuck off. And I got it baaad. That spasmodic, gasping, barking cough, pain all down the sides of my neck, burning face, just miserable.

So Mom took me to the Vedic doctor. After taking my pulse, told me that I needed to take turmeric and honey every day, and that I had a week bladder and to watch that when I got older. The latter didn't help my bronchitis but I still remember that.

To this day I adore Turmeric/honey paste. It's lovely and soothing going down and great for the digestion. Even better if you can get fresh turmeric root! The taste is exotic and wonderful. I take it still if I get a bad cough. That was the first medicine I remember where I was aware that it replaced taking a pharmaceutical drug. Wow, I thought, I can eat roots and get better without poison. "There will always be an option" I remember noting - and this is an imprint that effects my philosophy today.

Chaparral. Sitting across from my Mom, some afternoon around age 8, I think. We sat at a small, round, card sized table, surrounded by the heady smell of Earth's depth. Slightly dry, slightly putrid, slightly burnt, and mildly sweet the way a spent goldenrod smells after a fall rain. Her fingers worked deftly, pushing the fragrant green-brown powder into clear capsules. I worked to match her. "They are taking this off the shelves". She said to me. "So I'm stocking up now, as much as I can."

"Why?" I asked. What 8 year old wouldn't ask that?

"Because people are taking too much of it and getting sick, and they are blaming the plant. So I am stocking up before they ban it."

"Oh." I reply. "But isn't that the humans fault, not the plant's? I ask.

My 10 year old daughter said the same thing to me, nearly word for word, a couple weeks ago in a conversation about Comfrey.

"Yup." She responded. "People have forgotten how to respect medicine and how to use plants for healing. So they are getting sick from it. This plant is Chaparral. A powerful herb that should be used with care, and when done so, can help heal a wound, a flu, and bad viruses. If you take too much, it is too much for your liver to manage."

"Oh" I answered. And my insides feel as though a portal has opened. I realize my Mother is ............. something.

A witch?

A medicine woman?

A secret healer?

Now I know she is just a Mom. Equal to all of that by birthright.

The smell was intoxicating, like a journey through the wet roots of a California river bed. I notice the iron patterns of the table beneath the glass cover where our fingers work. And up from the table is a corridor of old wooden shelves and packets of herbs hanging from racks. The shelves have jars and jars of herbs. I am in an herb shop, I remember. The bags are brown with a clear window in the front. And the bulk herbs are beautiful, magical, present. We brush our stained fingers off, trickle every last capsule into the packet, and bring our medicines to the old wooden counter, and check out.

Brahmi. Better known as Gotu Kola, is a child's dream come true if you have a parent willing to rub it into your feet. Being that I was a gymnast, my mother had ample excuses to massage me. And the Brahmi oil was my favorite - besides the creamy almond, honey flavored massage lotion that I later found out was a Kama Sutra cream (nice one Mom:). I loved the dark green glass bottle and the fancy sanskrit writing. I loved the thick, sweet green oil inside. Brahmi has a deep nervine quality, apparent when smelled or rubbed into skin, it soaks in like a warm cloak of serenity. Indeed my memories are embedded into my smell-memory as much as anything, but perhaps this particular unguent was one that brought me to one of my closest allies; Oil. I love to infuse herbs in oil. Olive oil, almond oil, coconut, jojoba ..... give me an oil and I will find herbs to immerse in it.

Those Ayurveda people you know like a LOT of oil. They like to drizzle it on by the gallons! So I was around a lot of folks walking around in oiled hair wrapped up in white turbans. And they all smelled so good! The vatas wafted a hearty Rose-Sandalwood .... the Kaphas smelled peppery and minty, and the pittas smelled light and cool, like roses and lemon drops. And the rosy glowing cheeks were shiny with fresh oil. I identified oil with nourishment, healthy touch, and radiance. And comfort.

Apple tree. It was my favorite climbing tree. The one who's branches I could reach and the closest to my house. The elevated wonderland where I first learned the word 'booty' from a neighbor girl and that it wasn't a small sock. Where I sat and ate powdered cinnamon from the spice cabinet and pretended it was my 'Medicine'. Where I sat and watched each season change. Where I could see over into the park where the sourgrass grew. Where lover's stopped to kiss not knowing there were eyes watching. I loved her knotted strong hands and sturdy arms. Her apple pie smell. My apple tree, my love tree.

And there are so many more. My inner books of beloved smells, tastes, healings, and mother made potions. Rose whipped cream. Four things soup, potpourri joints, and tonka bead necklaces. Horseradish/Osha tincture. Fresh Basil on everything. Damiana love elixir.

Mugwort Journeys.

Edible Rubies - Blog party!

This month's theme? Berries!!!!

These addicting sticky sweet-sour little jewels, appropriately named wineberries (Rubus Phoenicolasious) are ripe in profusion along our hills. They have been providing plentiful pickings since mid July. The hill is steep, fit for a goat, and quite rocky. But there are ledges enough to scale along and collect until the rhythm of the harvest has got you entranced. These
succulent little morsels are shiny, unlike the opaque look of the other raspberry varieties. You can tell it's a raspberry by the little 'cup' that you see inside the berry, where it was picked away from the stem. Other berries just have a flat surface where the berry was attached, but no hole.

Now, I have failed for certain on one point of this blog party. And that is, that we haven't been able to make anything from the berries. Oh we get plenty of them ..... we could have made jam, or pie, or liquor, or .......

But we can't seem to keep them. We eat all of them. Every last one.

So, I suppose at the very least, I could mention some good tidbits about her famous sister the red raspberry, as I speculate that wineberries could be used similarly. Red Raspberry leaves are famed for enriching the blood of the uterus and feeding nutrients to the fetus in preparation for birth. It's a powerful female nutritive, the infusion being drunk daily offers the body lots of vitamins and minerals while balancing and nourishing the reproductive system. It's especially wonderful as a galactagogue for nursing mommies. The leaves are only slightly astringent, indicating a gentle tonic action. The leaf infusion is also very good for the health of the blood in general. During my pregnancies I kept a pot brewing of Nettles, Alfalfa leaf, and Red Raspberry leaf and drank it daily. My babes are good and healthy!

Red Raspberry and wineberry, the berry itself, is sweet and sour in taste, telling me first that it is food, and second that it is a perfect summer food. Nearly all sour tasting things are cool in nature, offer vitamin C, and contain electrolytes. Perfect for keeping the body cool in hot weather and for avoiding heat related ailments such as athletes foot, ringworm, yeast rashes, bad temper flares, and dehydration. Ever take a cranky kid to a raspberry patch just for the fun of watching their frown turn upside down? It's a sure spirit lifter.

Now, with all due respect to the raspberry, I actually love these wineberries more. They are more tart, juicier, and so dramatically beautiful that you'll think you found a bush dripping with edible rubies. They fall into your hand when rubbed the right way, and though some say they are seedy - mine are not at all. They are heaven on a hill just a skip away. Perhaps the name is such simply because they are intoxicating!

So, I apologize for eating my blog post, but we couldn't help ourselves. To read more on wineberries, there are some more great resources on the web if you give it a google.

Happy Lughnasadh everyone! Eat the harvest!