Tags
albiza, appalachia, being in the present, flower mandala, herbal medicine, invocation, leisure, lyme disease, mimosa, poetry, relaxation, summer, summertime, walt whitman
This past weekend I let myself be free. At around 2:00 o’clock in the afternoon on Friday I pushed all my lingering work in a drawer, packed the car with a basket of food and my favorite blanket, and drove west into the sea-blue mountains. I stopped often, taking time to dip in the river and swim under the branches of mimosa trees in their full fuchsia-bloom. There was no aim, other than to sit on thick river moss and find familiars in the stones. Later, after the swim, after a thunderstorm, after the sun crept back out to dry my hair, I took a winding road up to a high mountain meadow to watch the sun set. One of my favorite places on earth, Max Patch looks out onto the blue folds of mountains in all directions – north, east, south and west. It was all the food I needed. I drifted up to the top of the world with a bottle of sparkling water and my thoughts. Quiet wind and clover up to my knees. I watched the sun descend through the clouds in bright drops of strawberry and wine. There was nothing to do but be. It was sherbet-perfect, nothing less than divine.
It’s been a while since I’ve taken myself on such a date. The months leading up to this year’s Solstice have been beyond full, brimming. Tending the garden of one’s life is a full time job. Planting, planning, nurturing the germination of every single seed. I have sometimes felt like a clematis vine…. my spirit having gone from its early days of sleep, to creep, to now leap… and it’s all I can do but continue to climb. After a long season of work, everything inside of me seems to ache for the kind of exploratory leisure that makes even the smallest moments come alive. With the sun at her lazy zenith, and the whole hemisphere saturated in life, I find myself seduced by a novel concept – the leisure of time.
We spend our time. Have you noticed? Day-in, day-out I often find myself quantifying time in dollars or what “makes sense.” Parceling out hours into quarters, constricting it like a cuckoo to a small wooden clock. Yet… in my best and most transformative moments, time is a kind of creature– shapeshifting and alive. Time is as diverse as a well-fed creek. On a slow sunny day, wind-blown and dry, it may move as slow as threads down the mountainside. And yet, on the next, with thunderclouds overhead, hours rush as fast as ocean waves. Time moves the way we invite it to. Our attention, our intention, is the spring that feeds all waters. In every moment we have the opportunity to decide: how do we want our time to flow?
To me, it is a simple fact. When I let myself wander, allowing long moments of soft fascination and pause, life feels eternal. When I un-dam the spontaneous flow of my imagination, creation simply flows. The best inventions are born from such spaces of effortlessness. What if all we needed to feel fulfilled, as rich as strawberries in a bowl of porcelain cream, was to allow ourselves time to ripen?
Reishi bud
When I was a child, summers were like fairyland eternities, and I was invited, every hour of every day, to play. Bare feet and half-finished flower crowns, cold sprinklers and baskets of berries. The whole landscape of my imagination unrolled, like cloth at an emperor’s rich feet. The older we get the more we are encouraged to step away from this imaginal realm, pushing ourselves out into a terrain where the space between thought and creation is so much denser. As we grow, many of us abandon our beautiful tapestries of imagination and play, and the weave, like a well-loved but forgotten dress, fades.
California poppy harvest
Every moment of every day we choose how to experience our lives. When I focus on that which feels incomplete, stressful, small or scarce, I bring the whole of my being into relation with limitation. When I consciously choose to shift my mind, investigate the beauty, the blessings my life (and all the beings in it) my entire existence expands.
Intuitive plant medicine altar
This past Fall I contracted Lyme disease. It has been a long road of rebalancing and recovery, and a seriously deep journey of learning. In truth, one single revelation has been my biggest teacher: Whenever possible, do what you want to do, when you want to do it.
When I engage in the activities that feed me – writing, reading, medicine making, exploring – I am full of energy and vigor. I forget that I even have spirochetes in my body. When I linger too long on the computer, push my body to work past dark in the garden, or pour too much energy into other people’s projects— I get sick. It’s that simple. It’s that novel.
My invocation for this summer season is plain but powerful. To enjoy. Life, like rivers, like well-fed streams, moves fast. If I don’t take pleasure in my existence now, then who will? When?
Mimosa flowers
So how about a toast?
To choose, in this moment, to invite the deepest leisure into our days. Let’s allow ourselves the time to be delightfully present, inquisitively alive. Seek soft adventures, bask in sunlight thick enough to drink. Let’s invite life to ripen in its own time. Allow our deepest fascinations be our guides.
As Walt Whitman says: lean, loaf, invite your soul. It’s summertime.
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In the spirit of following ones fascinations and inspirations, I am delighted to introduce One Willow’s newest elixir (and my most constant summertime companion).
Sundresses and sangria, fresh cucumbers from the garden and mint tea. In summer, even the simplest things can be a cause for celebration. Frisky and effervescent, Easy Livin’ elixir incites a deep devotion to summertime’s bliss. Crafted with melon-scented wildflowers, strawberry syrup, birch bark mint and champagne, Easy Livin’ encourages you to embrace an expansive season of
leisure. Whether you are reclining on sun-warmed rocks or falling under the spell of a twilight romance, Easy Livin’ invites the softest fascination to be your guide.
Summer is a time of deep abundance— baskets of blueberries and rope swings into cold mountain streams. Easy Livin’ reminds us that our richest creations arise from such moments of effortlessness; the best ideas appear like fireflies, bright and fluent in the dusk. This sun-drunk elixir encourages us to live from the inspiration of the present and recognize that all we truly need to be fulfilled is to let ourselves feel free. Picnic in fields of wildflowers or watch the crickets jump in cascades. Sip mojitos in the early moonlight and flirt with the very idea of evening. Easy Livin’ reminds us that we are allowed to take the deepest pleasures in our lives. Today is a fizzy drink, full of lively possibility and faint notes of jubilee. You must only tip your cup and toast to your own vibrancy.
+ Extracts: Black Birch (Betula lenta), Pedicularis (Pedicularis canadensis),
Kava (Piper methysticum)
+Essences: Strawberry, Hibiscus, Kyanite
+Strawberry syrup & Champagne
