Whenever I travel I always pack a medicine pouch. Over time this has evolved. From bandaids and salves to flower essences, stones and talismans. As the years flow by my very definition of medicine changes, grows, and transforms. From the sturdy resiliency of the western medical breastplate, to the more ineffable healing of the natural world— quiet and effective as the swoop of silent downy owls. Whenever I travel I like to carry medicine with me that helps me connect into the deeper, less tended sides of myself. The underground streams that are only healed when I untether and take myself away from it all. When I travel my medicine pouch is more than just a stockpile of first aid herbs, it is a reminder of the transformation that is possible.
Traveling itself is a deep kind of medicine for me. It is a time when I am allowed a kind of shaman’s-view of my life. I slip out of the confines of my day-to-day and journey, meeting strange and wonderful allies, encountering obstacles, seeing life from an expanded perspective. Every time I travel I come closer to home. I am able, with distance, to see more clearly – what is feeding me, and what isn’t? What newness would I like to call into my life? And what can I let go?
For the next few weeks I’ll be traveling to California and back again to share earth medicine. This week I’m headed to the Spirit Weavers gathering, nestled in the heart of the Redwoods, to teach about plants and stones. And when I return I’ll be heading straight for the Firefly Gathering here in western Appalachia with several classes in intuitive plant medicine and dreamskills!Every single time I travel my medicine pouch looks a bit different. In preparation for this journey I’ve spent several dreamy weeks slowly feeling my way into what medicine should be brought along for these particular travels. Herbs, talismans, tinctures and stones. Sometimes the medicine that decides to come into my pouch is a mystery to me. Just like ocean waves, and the contents of my own dreams— I may not grasp the fuller picture, but the meaning stirs me . Each medicine, subtle, ineffable, irreplaceable, brings me closer to embracing the medicine of the journey itself.
A Flower Essence
Every time I travel I choose one core vibrational elixir to imbibe every day.
Traveling is a unique time of stepping out of your day-to-day life and embracing a more potent experience of being alive. As Rick Steves says, Traveling is living intensified. And so when we travel, the deeper emotional and spiritual healing in our lives is intensified as well.
In the days or weeks before my trip I like to sit down in my apothecary of flower essences and intuitively select a blend of one to four flowers based on my intention for the travels. I let my hands and my heart choose, allowing my brain to be quiet for once. When each element has been selected I combine them into a dosage bottle and give the mixture a name. For this journey I called my formula, “The Heartwood.” The name helps me to remember and reconnect into my original intention for this time of inner work and outer travel. I find that taking a step out of my normal life can help me tune in even more sharply to the workings of subtle and vibrational plant medicine. And when you take such medicine every day of your trip, the journey itself becomes a true passport to a new era.
Try making a blend for yourself before your next trip. One Willow’s Flower essences (like most essences you purchase in the store) are all stock bottles, so you can begin to collect your own stock apothecary of flower essences and create literally hundreds of dosage bottles (for you, your mom, your dog… no joke, the use of flower essences in veterinary practice is booming).
(Not sure what stock + dosage bottles are? Or how to make them? Take a gander at our handy Flower essence FAQ )
A Stone
For every trip I choose one stone to be my talisman. Journeying out of your normal, everyday routine provides you with an incredibly rich opportunity to enter into a time-out-of-time space and tap into a meditative state of receptivity. This is often my favorite time to go deep with a particular stone, letting it potentize my journey.
I let the stone choose me. I visit my stone drawers or the crystal shop or the creek beside my house and see which stone waves or sparkles at me. I particularly love when I know very little about the stone, and so I can start with a blank slate in which to learn through my experiences. Either way, my relationship with a stone deepens dramatically when we travel together. I will often sleep with the stone under my pillow. Hold it in my hands during stressful moments and bring it out to bathe in wild waters or under the moonlight with me.
Two stones I often love to travel with are:
Lepidolite
Deeply calming, soothing and lithium-filled this stone is my go-to for airport anxiety and travel insomnia. I particularly love finding tumbled pieces and holding them in my left hand while I practice deep belly breathing or EFT tapping to refind my peace.
Black Tourmaline
Like many black stones, Black tourmaline creates healthy psychic boundaries as well as protects against negative energies. As someone who identifies as unavoidably empathic (sometimes detrimentally so!) I value the companionship of this stone deeply. Known to help those who hold a lot of energy to “decharge”, it is a vital stone for anyone who facilitates healing work. Tourmalines in general help us to understand that it is okay to go within, to bring your energy down into your personal self and refill the well, a sacred reminder that cannot be repeated enough when we are in the midst of travels.
(Want to learn how to select the right stone for you? Check out my new online course, How Stones Communicate! )
My Top Three Tinctures for Travel
Spilanthes (Acemlla oleraca) – I always bring an immune stimulating herb with me whenever I travel. When we journey out of our comfort zones it’s common to be a bit more susceptible to passing colds. Having an immune stimulant in my pouch has often meant the difference between a day of feeling gunky and the full-blown flu. This zesty flower is one of my all time favorite immune herbs. Stimulating and antimicrobial, I take a couple dropperfulls of the tincture whenever I feel the icy approach of a cold or illness. It is particularly helpful when you are wanting to avoid airplane plagues. Spilanthes is easily adaptable to a wide variety of garden soils and such a curiously fun plant to grow.
Tulsi (Ocimum tenuiflorum)- Traveling is wonderful and exciting … and it can also be downright stressful! To help downgrade the overwhelm, I always travel with at least one adaptogen (an herb that helps your body, heart and mind deal with stress gracefully), and Tulsi is my absolute go-to. A student once asked me if I could bring only one herb to a desert island, what would it be? My answer was Tulsi. In the realm of the multitudinous, the complex and the mysterious manifold, Tulsi (or Holy Basil) reigns queen. A sacred herb of the Ayurvedic traditions, Tulsi has one of the longest lists of herbal actions I’ve ever seen. Along with being an adaptogen, it is also considered an anxiolytic (anxiety reducing herb), anti-depressant, nervine (an herb that relaxes our nervous system) antimicrobial and immunomodulator. It is calming and focusing for the mind and can even lower blood pressure. Tulsi embodies so many different medicinal properties, it is considered a virtual panacea in some traditions. And as such, Tulsi is a brilliant ally for helping us to integrate complexity within our own journey, expanding out into the possibility of all those open horizons.
Sassafras (Sassafras albidum) – Traveling to strange and foreign lands often means eating strange and foreign foods, am I right? I’m normally pretty on point with my diet but when I travel, well, sometimes the best laid plans get thrown out the window! Whenever I journey I never leave home without a digestive bitter. Largely eliminated from our modern diet, bitters are a cornerstone of traditional eating. Bitters, which often accompany food that is difficult to digest or even potentially toxic, send an important signal to our digestive system to stoke the digestive fires. Taken in small doses before a meal, bitters can greatly increase our digestive powers, aiding absorption of essential vitamins and minerals and eliminating bloating, gas and indigestion. Bitters also help bolster the liver, thus increasing the elimination of toxins. Recent studies have found an inextricable link between our brains and our guts. When we improve digestion we can actually improve our mental health and mindset.
Bitters are often chosen by constitution. Do you tend to run hot or cold? Would you be better benefited by a cooling, simple bitter (like dandelion)? Or by a warming, aromatic bitter (like cardamom or sassafras)? I run on the cold side so I always gravitate towards aromatic bitters. And Sassafras is simply my all time favorite. This important Native American medicine is an aromatic and delicious medicinal. The root (or more specifically the root bark) is one of the most traditional spring tonics, due to its blood cleansing and stimulating nature. It is also strongly anti-inflammatory, carminative (gas relieving), and diaphoretic (warming, sweat-inducing and helpful in breaking fevers). I take 5 drops 20 minutes before a meal to stimulate and warm my digestion.
Medicine to Give Back
It is important to me to bring offerings whenever I travel. Hand-harvested sage, tobacco from my garden, stones I found and greatly love. I like to leave offerings wherever I lay my head– at the roots of trees, on the banks of rivers, and with friends who graciously offer to host me. Medicine is a moment of exchange, so give back to the people, places and friends who have gifted you such essential experiences.
Blessed travels everyone!
For me, it began with the plants. By which I mean that it was the plants who first helped me to see that the world is alive with medicine. It started slowly, with noticing how blackberry blossoms can dust a hillside like snow. With seeing the dandelions sprout between the pavement, the plantain flourish in the driveway. With hearing the way two maples will rustle together in full leaf, like grandmothers in conversation. A sound that wasn’t just a sound, but a whispered realization of the aliveness happening all around me. The Anishinaabe people have a whole word, just for this kind of conversation. “Si-si-gaw-d,” the sound trees make when they talk amongst one another.*
