The Season of Pleasure

30 Tuesday May 2017

Tags

herbal medicine, passionflower, pleasure, summer

In the wheel of the year each season has its distinctive gifts, its own character and flavor. There is a time for hermitage and planting, harvesting, seeking, risking, budgeting and even dying. But it’s only in summer that pleasure takes center stage.

Here in the mountains, we are just now tipping into the true growpoint of summer and a particular richness is beginning to take center stage. An invitation to kick back, practice relaxing and let senusousness take center stage.

As Ella Fitzgerald so famously popularized in the song “Summertime”, in summer the livin’ is easy. The intensity of building and seeding wanes, the rush of spring fades out of focus like a sunspot on the water and we’re left with an invitation to simply enjoy. Roses are fat on the vine and the fields are sweet with berries. Trees give ample shade to doze and the nights are warm enough to sleep out underneath the stars.

In summer there is something in our animal bodies that sighs. Here, we will not freeze, we will not starve, we will easily survive. It’s a curious but time-worn fact that when human beings aren’t under the immediate threat of survival, we can soften into a more deeply creative state of mind. Without the need to focus on the basics of our existence we can allow ourselves to shift our awareness into more subtle, expansive and fantastical pursuits. In the summer heat, when it’s all but necessary to take a siesta on the front porch, we are given permission to let ideas flow like wine, to indulge in the tiny pleasures of our soul. The poet Walt Whitman gorgeously embodies the restful cauldron of summertime daydreaming in his poem “Leaves of Grass”— “I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.”

Every day of our lives we are guided by desire, the innate ache to capture certain feelings so we can achieve a juicier, more fulfilled, richly embellished state of mind. Far from distractions, our desires can help us understand exactly what we are craving on a deeper level. Desires tell us where we want to go, and what we want to leave behind. And when we indulge our desires, we can begin to understand why we yearn for them in the first place. In our country of religious over-work, summer is often a nationwide sanction to follow one’s desire. Vacation, beach lounging, full-bellied barbeques, late-night mojitos and midnight romance.

Far from the puritanical work ethic that seems to pervades so much of our contemporary work-culture, the hedonistic aspect of summertime invites us to inhabit a more fluid state of being. A tantric exploration of our inner feelings, and a softer, more liberating gateway to soul.

But the only way in which we can both feel and feed our desires, the only way to truly take pleasure and give ourselves permission to enjoy it all is to s l o w d o w n. And though the heat of mid-day seems to demand it, the buzz and rush of summer can sometimes make it feel near impossible. This, is when herbs become heroes.

Passionflower at Sunset

>> Passionflower (Passiflora incarnata) <<

Of all my time on earth I don’t think I have ever seen a flower that is more exquisite, exotic, and captivatingly otherworldly as the Passionflower. Passiflora is one of those honest to goodness botanical show-stoppers and once people meet this exquisite flower they tend to fall head over heels in love. A crush of mine once told tell me that if I was any flower, I’d be a passionflower. I was, of course, endlessly flattered. And you can bet that one statement tipped me right over into full-blown amour.

The name of Passionflower comes from early Christian missionaries, who saw the unique arrangement and presentation of the plant’s floral parts as a prime opportunity to illustrate the crucifixion of Christ (otherwise known as “the passion” of Christ). I can’t say this would have been my first thought, but to each their allegory! The name has stuck, however, because there is truly an aspect of this vigorous vine that not only excites passion, but invites the softness of space to find heady pleasure in one’s life.

Native to the southeastern U.S, Passiflora incarnata thrives in warmer climates and can even become weedy in far southern climes like Florida. Other species of passiflora can be found throughout the world with their own local history of use. In US zones 5-9 Passiflora incarnata is relatively easy to grow and cultivate. Once established in the garden, the swirling perennial vine will quickly take over trellises and send shoots out in all directions. It will bloom all summer long and any blossoms left on the vine will grow into deliciously round fruits call maypops, which contain tartly cooling inner piths.

Historically both the roots and above ground parts have all been used as medicine, but contemporary herbal material medicas focus mostly on the leaves and flowers. Passionflower is one of our safest, yet effective, hypnotics (or sedatives). It is my favorite herb to help soften into sleep, especially for those who have a hard time shutting down their brain and tend towards circular thinking. As I’m prone to mental merry go-rounds, I often take passionfower before bedtime. It is so adept at shutting down well-worn circuits, I sometimes find myself on such a different train of thought, I can’t remember what I had previously been ruminating over! Unfortunately, sometimes it takes a while to get off the beta brain wave state all together and ease into sleep.

Passionflower is also a lovely nervine and anxiolytic. It is one of my most treasured allies for agitated anxiety, buzzing minds, busyness and overwhelm. In tea or tincture form, this mandala-like flower is indicated for those who feel trapped in a cycle of repetitive worries and race track thoughts. As such, it can offer sweet release for those who experience headaches from such brain ruts. Passionflower is also an anodyne (pain reliever) and can be used as an ally for menstrual cramps, PMS and bodily tension.

Blooming in mid-summer, Passionflower helps us to slow down and relax in body, spirit and mind. Each open passionflower is an invitation to let go and recline. You can see this illustrated most effectively through the bees. All summer long these winged imbibers crawl into the corolla of the passionflower, coat themselves in pollen, and then let themselves drift into somnolence for a while. It’s not unknown to see a bee taking a mid day nap in the lap of a passionflower.

Passionflower essence square

The first time I met this plant I had a deeply powerful experience that has shaped the way I’ve understood its medicine ever since— and it began with one sleepy bee. I was in herb school at the time and as we were just meeting passionflower on the vine. As we looked over the plant we found a wee bee asleep in the bloom. In the midst of copying down material medica, an enterprising friend of mine attempted to “wake up” the bee, effectively knocking it out of its perch and onto my arm where it promptly stung me, no doubt quite disgruntled at having its beauty sleep disturbed. Thankfully, I am not allergic to bee stings so, though I had quite a large welt, I was bodily fine.

The very next day I drove with some friends down the coast for a weekend at the beach. A short vacation devoted to pleasure. I was walking back from the ocean on our last day when the welt on my arm began to throb, almost like a homing beacon. I slowed and placed my hand over it and suddenly, I just knew— passionflower was close. Following my instincts I ducked between the houses, through several backyards, and wandered towards a small open space of weeds and debris when, suddenly, there it was! Cascading down a wall of shrubbery was a gorgeous passionflower vine, alit with blooms. It was my first time finding passionflower growing wild and I was as giddy as a child in a field of lollypops. I gathered as much as I felt I could and skipped back to the house to tell my friends so we could all admire. Later that day, I got into the car to drive home and felt a curious shift begin to take place inside of me. I was on the cusp of ending a long-term relationship and had been delaying the decision due to a never-ending circuit of worrisome doubt. But sitting next to that passionflower on the long drive home, something inside of me just snapped. The same repetitive thoughts of fear seemed to break open and before I knew it I was bawling my heart out to this magnificent vine, and coming to a realization that it was time to break the cycle. I realized that I needed to leave behind this relationship to follow the true map of my desires. That ceasing this partnership would open me up to accessing more relevant passions, allowing whole new avenues of creativity and self growth. When I got home I made the decision, and I never looked back.

Years later I was sitting with a group of students who elected to make a passionflower flower essence. I wasn’t surprised when, during the attunement process, this was what they picked up on: “Passionflower is a powerful essence for connecting to the deep reservoirs of your creativity and the guiding voice of your passions. Both opening and grounding, passionflower helps us to let go of outside expectations, express our truth and honor the beauty of who we are. A valuable ally for times of self-realization, intuitive expansion, and compassionate beginnings. passionflower encourages us to embrace the power of our vulnerability, the chaos and symmetry of profound growth. Recognizing the wholeness within new beginnings. This exotic bloom can show us just how many possibilities exist within our individual realm.”

Processed with VSCOcam with f2 preset

Passionflower Sun Tea

One of my absolute favorite ways to imbibe passionflower is to use the distinct alchemy of summertime to create a gentle, relaxing daytime tea.

Collect fresh passionflower blossoms
Float in a glass of water (I use about 1-2 blooms per quart)
Cover with a lid and let jar sit out underneath the full sun for 1-3 hours.
Retrieve sun-warmed jar and uncover. You can leave the flowers in or strain out if you’d like
Sweeten with wildflower honey or a tart home-brewed shrub. Serve over ice for the ultimate in a mellowing brew. Sip, sigh, sit back. Enjoy life.

Allowing on a Late Summer Day

13 Thursday Aug 2015

Posted by Asia in Appalachian Beauty, Earth Medicine, Inspirations

≈ 31 Comments

Tags

allowing, appalachia, baked goods, contentment, loving what is, lyme disease, meditation, pastries, self love, summer, sunflowers

There is a specific slant to the late afternoon sun that floods my living room with a cast-iron butter of deeply heated light. It’s always that last stretch of sunshine that seems to glow the hottest. In the downward arch of day, the fever of collected sunshine gathers like a stove coil around the rim of the sky, flooding the world with heat. That glow itself kicks up a kind of exhaustion, the feeling of every hurried project just aching to be complete. Recently, it seems the close of each day comes with a command: find your completion or, for goodness sake, find some release.

In Appalachian summertime each day marks a creation in progress. The basil leafing out in pairs from where it was last snipped. The sunflower rotating like a mandala from pollen to seed. The bees carrying fulfillment from one flower to another, rubbing their bodies against everything soft and petaled in their path. Every morning it as if the rising of the sun turns on the great hearth of the world and each new creation, stirred of dirt and mineral and rain, is placed within the hearth of the earth to ripen.

Throughout the summer months there are so many individual projects, visions and collections, tiny destinies awaiting to be fulfilled. I imagine the sun must be like a pâtissier in the great kitchen of kings, sending out emissaries in every direction to tend the grasshoppers and zinnias and bees. Perhaps the clouds take part as well, gentle assistants roaming over the hillsides to check the cobalt beginnings of the blueberries bushes or tend the heavy branches of peaches. Each cumulus a white haired women, trailing cotton aprons and the tracks of great care.

Just as the embered end of a long day in Summer bring forth an almost overwhelming peak of heat, the last stretch of August can, at times, seem almost impossibly bright and big and full of needs.

Sometimes, in the thickest ring of a day, I’m just able to keep up. Matching my pace with the flowers expanding ever-wider, the vines finding new perch, or the grasses that risebefore your eyes like well-leavened bread. But then, just as the sun begins to ease back towards the horizon it is as if someone finally opens the door to the oven of the world, to halt all of creation at its peak. The earth floods with a deep heat and everything living is given the signal that it is okay, okay now, to nod your head like the sunflower. It’s okay to give up creating for a moment. To take oneself out of the furnace and find a peck of shade. To put your feet in the creek, to allow yourself some peace.

Perhaps, all along, summer has been the ripest season for such reprieve.

We often see high Summer and the dead of Winter as opposite wings on the wheel of the year but the truth is that they have more in common than we might imagine. Like the Yin and Yang, anything that is opposite also holds the other within it. The essence of Winter, and its demand for rest, recuperation and the regathering of vision, is flecked like mica throughout the high summer months. In Winter, we rest because there is nothing to plant but dreams. In high Summer, there is a similar pause. At the hottest peak of the day, there is often nothing to do but take our well-mixed creations out of the oven. Let them cool on the windowsill and give ourselves a moment of quiet regeneration and soulful reprieve.

Summer as a time of rest is almost unheard of around these parts. For all those that garden or homestead it can feel as though the tasks are never-ending. And even those who don’t tend the land seem to fill their coffers with well-intended parades of vacation, work projects, or pie making, but the end result is often the same. We pray for Autumn to come so we can receive a break from the break.

Like the waterfall buzz of cicadas, the high-whine rush of summer always seems be repeating the need for growth. We see the sunflowers grow twice our height in the span of a month, the grass following quickly behind, and there is some deep internal nudging inside of us that says. You, too, must grow so tall, so quickly, so fast! In high summer, however, there comes a natural time when all our bustling projects fall flat. Like seltzer water left out on a sunlit patio. Try as we might (and, to be sure, we try mightly!) we never get quite enough done as these long sunny days would suggest. And perhaps this is when we should simply it let all fall like the head of a blossom gone to fruit and seed.

This Summer I have had dedicated myself to practicing the art of relaxation. At the beginning of this summer I contracted Lyme disease (for the second time in two years) and so, very quickly, my attention to plans, both bold and bland, fell away. Rest became my most important prerogative; I went seeking the mica speck of Yin amongst the overwhelming sunshine of Yang. Most afternoons, when the heat reaches its peak, you can find me lounging in bed (the darkest and coolest room of the house) with a tall glass of chilled tulsi tea and a good book. Some days this Summer this was about all I could manage. And it was enough.

This season, I find myself asking new questions. What if we can find our fulfillment in long tides of rest? What if, going even deeper into the season, means finding stillness in the rush of summersong? What if, the most profound lesson of all is to be able to bask in that mirror of Yin within the Yang? And what happens when our entire structure of To-Do lists collapse in the face of allowing ourselves something the nectar seekers never once deny themselves– good old fashioned contentment.

// Allowing Contentment //

Every day, in every way, we are all trying. Trying to weed the garden, or get dinner on the table, or find the love of our life, or heal our heartbreak. We try to be better, be happy, to take care of ourselves. Some days I think we are the only beings in all of creation who try so hard! The sunflowers in my garden dwarf me, but not once did they ever stop to try to be magnificent. They simply took in their surroundings and grew. The hummingbird tests each fushia flower and never once grows frustrated. Even the ants, those who work to rebuild their colonies with each overturned stone, go about with a dedication that excludes even the option of trying. They are simply doing what they must. It makes me wonder, what would happen if we stopped trying, like the sun in its last sling of heat easing in the horizon, and simply allowed ourselves to move in natural ways of contentment.

Allowing is a difficult concept for most of us to swallow. Allowing doesn’t mean comprising your goals, your dignity even your boundaries. It means making space for what is. And when we allow for exactly what is, doing what needs to be done without telling ourselves that we are trying to do it, we make the space we need to truly live.

After I was diagnosed with Lyme disease this summer I was left with one simple goal. How can I enjoy, I mean truly, enjoy myself. How can I be so filled with my own contentment, that spilling fullness of life, that there is room for little else in my body but more own vital vigor, my own zest for life?

On the days when all I can do is lie in bed with my books and watch the fan whirl, I embrace allowing. There is no trying in this moment, only the sense of doing what I must. It has been rough in patches, I won’t lie. But over my time spent in bed this summer I have learned something incredible.

Allowing is the gateway to loving what is, yes, but it is also the gateway to embracing exactly who (and where) you are. And when you can love that person, and all her needs for quietude and nourishment and podcasts and comfy pillows then you can accept almost anything. Including the slow tendriled creep of healing back into your life.

Self love is a term that is often thrown around, but not fully embraced. And frankly, it can feel incredibly difficult to try to love oneself. And so I say, stop trying and instead, on this hot and humid day, simply allow yourself the pleasure of finding contentment. Contentment is a gateway to recognizing yourself in your most peaceful form. It is a way of being receptive to oneself and ones destiny. And it feels so damn good.

So, for today, I ask you. What brings you contentment? Can you take yourself away from the To-Dos for an afternoon and let yourself be like summer scones just out of the oven. Sighing, resting, sweetening before your eyes. Because this is the truth that is sung by the hearth and the oven, the fire and the sun itself. Creation never becomes complete until it is taken from the heat and allowed, with time and space and tender breath, to let go of the hubbub of transmutation and find its final shift into peace. After all, this— the cooling, the rest, the reprieve— is what makes any fresh baked delicacy ready to dined upon. And what makes that banquet of being alive so very delicious indeed.

Summer’s Fullness

16 Tuesday Jun 2015

Posted by Asia in Earth Medicine, Inspirations

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

bill plotkin, busyness, consciousness, earth, earth-based living, ecocentric, ecology, fullness, gardening, herbal medicine, meditation, nature, philosophy, sacred work, soul work, summer

On the other side of the strawberry moon, after the late spring blossoms of Beltane and the thick pulses of Hawthorn blooms arises a season that weaves itself around the helm of a single word – fullness.

At this point in the season the full arrival of summer is undeniable. Roses are spilled like wine over the countryside and the branches of riverside trees are heavy enough to sweep the water’s surface with their wands of green. Light finds its way into every leaf of the day and even our nights are lit by the floating embers of fireflies.

Here, the fullness of summer arrives in waves both infinitesimal and quick. Like a jar left open in the rain. Slowly, in swells beneath the perception of our fast moving eyes, everything becomes full. The arrival into summer can be like waking up with a jolt in the bright light of late morning. As your eyes adjust to the fullness of the day you realize that the slow trickle of dawn, with its dispersed moons of early morning fog, have all but disappeared. There is only the high sun and ocean-bright light and insects running like waves through the thigh-high grass.

Summer’s fullness is a mantra, known and carried by every species in these hills. For us humans it means planting the last stragglers into our gardens and tending the sudden tangle of weeds, late-night parties and an endless train of events. It means wild harvests of herbs that last only a week and calendars so full of bustle there is barely enough time to keep the floor swept of barefoot dust and weeds. To embrace summer fully is to be like a bee, in constant motion from the lip of one sweetness to another, to exhaust oneself with so much color and opportunity.

We are just a few nights away from the longest day of the year, our Summer Solstice, and the very strand of life has tightened into an almost watertight weave. Open fields are a ticket of thimble flowers, blackberry fruits and rose thorns. The canopy is crowded thick with ropes that wind themselves from forest floor to crown heights in a cordage of grapevine. What was once a wind blown cove is now a cave of green and shadow. Every branch is so full of life, the mountains themselves change from the blue hue of a winter-colored moon to a newborn coat of emerald. In Summer, the entire world of growing beings weaves itself into a kind of container, a place to hold even more than was possible before. The crosscatch of canopy and forest floor braids itself tight as rivercane, the traditional baskets of the Cherokee people of these mountains. The sheer abundance of life works together to create space for more.

++ Weaving Yourself into the Basket of the World ++

In Appalachia, life grows upon life. There is no end. As a temperate rainforest with some of the highest biodiversity in the deciduous world, the warmer months can be dizzying. Summer here is an initiation into a world of almost overwhelming life. This year I seem to have taken on more than ever before (Hence my two month delay in getting up another blog post!). My schedule from now until the last sigh of summer is already at its brim and, if I’m to be honest, sometimes I wonder if I have enough hands to hold and plant and tend it all! On those days, I like to walk out into the arms of our forest caves, or find the perfect circle of a deer bed in the high grass, and remind myself that the world can contain it all, and so can I. I must only let the earth weave me into its own way of embracing fullness.

Whenever it seems that I am whittling away my life with To-Do lists and calendar dates, I remember this—we are, in truth, nature creating itself. We are a part of this vast and precious ecology, a spectacularly tiny but unbelievably special node in the consciousness of this entire world. When I feel as if I couldn’t possibly hold it all, I return to my place as co-creator on this earth. I bring my heart back to its roots, at the humble foot of this mountain of growth. I am here to bring the gift of myself to this world and when I allow myself to become a prayful part of the container of life on this earth, I can always hold more. In nature there is always space for growth that benefits the whole. When I connect into the gifts that arise from a consciousness of connection, there will always be space. When I give such soul gifts, the world itself expands, and I end up finding more fulfillment than I ever thought possible before.

In Bill Plotkin’s book Nature and the Human Soul he talks about this idea of widening the circle of your identity to become a part of this basket of the world. In an eco-centric society (a culture based around the ecology in which they live), as a person ages they naturally come to a place where the hoop of their recognized identity includes the more-than human world. As we come to understand ourselves deeper we can find more levels on which we can identify with the earth and through this widening we stretch ourselves into vessels of meaning that can literally hold more.

What makes busyness so exhausting is its divorce from soul. The problem isn’t that our days are full, it is that we don’t fill our days with that which truly fulfills us. The only reason why we can look at the growing world and feel such dismay at the blackberry bramble that continues to peek up through the steps or the weeds that must be pulled is because it strikes such a low-hearted chord of recognition in us. So many of us are like gardeners, pulling that which grows wild and cultivating perennials that don’t actually bring us joy. So how can we begin to grow gardens that truly sustain us? Find work that, through its fulfillment, we feel deeply soul-full? Perhaps the best place to begin is simply to ask yourself what you truly want to be full of…. Curiosity passion, wonder, trust? Begin here.

++ Into Emptiness ++

In these mountains the stumble into summer means the arrival of near-daily storms, afternoon tempests of thunder and green. After a full day of humid rocking the very mountains themselves seem to creek with the need to release. Soon enough, a dark, wasp-like cloud gathers on the late afternoon horizon and you know relief is just a strong wind away. The fullness reaches it brim, and then it spills over. The gardens are watered, the plants in the meadows drink deep. There is an almost audible sigh as the forest refills its streams. It is one motion, the filling and the spilling. Without reaching such a state of fullness, the rain in the wooly tangle of clouds would never be released. Without this constant emptying, Appalachia wouldn’t be the unbelievably ecological rich place that it is.

If I watch long enough everything in the world seems to tell the same tale. Fullness leads to emptiness, and emptiness to full. In order to experience emptiness (the pause before the inhale, that space in which anything can shift, the nothingness out of which newness can take hold), we must always move through a moment of being unbearably full. Even as I resist the fullness of my schedule I look out upon the world and see a place that relishes such a brimming basket. Waterfalls and the full blown bloom of lupines. An entire ant colony under each rock in my garden and the red clover blossoms that arise every time I neglect a corner of my lawn. The world speaks in such tones of fullness, and so I embrace my own place in creating more. I spend my mornings writing, I prepare for classes until late into the night. I eat honey by the spoonful and tend my garden between bursts of harvest rains. I buzz from flower to flower covered head-to-toe in the sacred paint of this earth’s pollen and, in between, I find moments, if only as brief as the span between a hummingbirds thrum, to empty once more.

Summer Cocktails: Herbal Syrups, Bitters + Recipes

25 Monday Aug 2014

Posted by Asia in Domestic Bliss, Earth Medicine, Wildcrafting & Collecting

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

bitters, cocktail party, cocktails, daiquiri, gin and tonic, herbal cocktails, herbal medicine, medicinal plants, medicinal syrups, mojito, summer, summer heat, summer sun, syrups, wild food, wild medicine

Fresh herbs, warm breezes and evenings that come to life. Summer is one of my favorite seasons for luxury and languor. When the days are hot and the hours long I usually find myself gravitating toward nighttime kitchen crafting and, of course, cocktails.

I am a night owl by nature. I thrive like a moonflower in rich evening hues. When the clock strikes midnight something about those high shadows bring me to life. It’s been that way since before I can remember, I imagine it’ll remain that way for the rest of my life. Summer, in all its bounty of cucumber nights, tangy sunsets and sherbet-colored sunrises, is the one season where such late night behavior is not only condoned, it’s encouraged.

Last month we hosted our annual summer cocktail soiree. Every year we kick the gathering up another notch. Usually we put out at least several herbal cocktail potions for people to sample, often with a written invocation to read and a deep intention to set the mood. This year, inspired by the rainbowed bounty of our well-tended garden, we offered a whole bar of fresh squeezed juice, seasonal syrups, and medicinal bitters for our guests to peruse.Herbs are the original liqueur accoutrements; they have the ability to give any drink a touch of the sensational. Long before herbalists were making tinctures, herb folk of all kinds were using plants to ferment meads, spice cordials, and smooth liquors. The whole ritual of a pre-dinner cordial originated as a way to improve digestion by imbibing medicinal digestive bitters.

Crafting your own bitters and syrups is simple, and sure to make a wave at your next soirée. I love to focus on what is most currently bursting into bloom. Medicine making, like superb hostessing skills, is about way more than just combining the ingredients. It is an alchemical mix of season and sensation, temptation and mood. I prefer to create my syrups and bitters in tune with nature’s own rhythm, encapsulating each herb at the height of their potency or bloom. By doing so each bottle becomes a kind of capsule, an entryway into a distinctively fragrant, intoxicatingly specific moment in time.As a hostess, I am interested in creating an experience that can be remembered with every one of the senses. Unique, exploratory, and delicious—Herbal bitters and liqueurs will never be forgotten. Interested in crafting your own medicinal syrups and sensational brews? Read on for some simple how-to’s…

+++ Medicinal Syrups +++

Medicinal syrups are simple, versatile and oh-so delicious. Syrups make wonderful medicine for young children or the picky of palate, and are simply divine when mixed with late-evening cocktails.

Gather, Harvest, Chop. To start, harvest or gather your material. I like to collect what is most fresh, abundant and seasonally sensational. How much material you harvest will depend on how much syrup you’d like to create! In general, you can guesstimate by chopping or otherwise pressing your herb into a measuring cup. You can expect the finished product to produce about as much volume as the original fresh herb. (Ex: If I harvested ½ oz of fresh lavender flowers, I will generally expect ½ oz finished syrup)

Note on processing: Some small or delicate herbs, like lavender flowers for example, will not need to be further chopped or processed. Simply add them straight to your water. Bark, like black birch, will need to be stripped from the branches with a knife. Roots must be roughly chopped, a butchers knife or pair of pruners work well.

Dry vs Fresh: Fresh herbs already have a good amount of water content inherent to them, so they will be fluffier, bigger, and more voluminous than dry herbs. As a general rule I use a 1:1 ratio of herb to water if using fresh herbs, and a 1:2 ratio of herb to water if using dried herbs.

Make a strong tea. Once you have your herb chopped or otherwise processed you are ready to make the base of your syrup…a strong tea!

If using herbs + flowers: Make an infusion- bring your water to a boil separately, than turn the burner off completely. Remove from heat and add your herb content to the hot water. Cover the whole concoction for 20-30 minutes to steep. (Examples of herbs to infuse: lavender, lemonbalm, mint, basil)

If using bark, roots, berries or seeds (tougher material): Make a decoction- add your herb directly to your water and bring the whole mixture to a boil. Reduce the boil to a simmer and cover for 20 minutes. (Examples of herbs to decoct: sassafras, cinnamon, elderberries coriander, black birch, wild cherry)

Strain your tea. Once your tea is done steeping or simmering, run your tea through a strainer to filer out all the plant material. (A fine mesh spaghetti strainer perched over a wide mouthed bowl works supremely well)

Gently reheat your tea (sans herb material) and add the sweetener. What makes a syrup so sweet? Why, sweetener of course! The sweetener is also a natural preservative, which is how syrup came about in the first place (and to get children to drink their medicine!). A general ratio is 1 cup sugar or honey per 1 cup water. But you can add the sugar/honey to your taste. The higher the sugar content the longer your syrup will keep.

Storage. Plain syrups are best imbibed within two weeks of creation. If you’d like to keep your syrup for several seasons you can add alcohol to preserve. In general, a syrup with about 20% alcohol content will preserve long-term. If you have dipped into making infused liqueurs or tinctures it’s fun to experiment with preserving your syrup with an already altered alcohol (such as adding a dash of ginger tequila to a cinnamon syrup). If making syrup as medicine, adding a medicinal tincture to your syrup greatly increases its potency. When I make elderberry syrup I combine previously infused elderberry tincture to my freshly made concoction for full spectrum medicinal mixture. Store your syrups in the refrigerator to prolong their life.

+++ Herbal Bitters +++

Herbal bitters are a hot commodity these days, as our modern diets are embarrassingly lacking in this traditional taste. Bitters are amazing agents of digestion, helping to increase the production of our digestive juices, dramatically improving processing, retention and even our mood! (If you haven’t already, check out the bevy of research illustrating our brain/gut connection) Bitter constituents are prevalent in many of our healing herbs, and can often be used as an indicator for a plant’s medicinal strength! Bitters are the prince who has been unceremoniously turned into a frog and I think it’s time to give all our bitters a good kiss on the lips and induct them back into the romance of our kitchens.

Making your own bitters can be as simple as covering a handful of dandelion roots in some alcohol, or as complex as creating your own Peychaud’s. I’m offering a very simple guide here, but feel free to be as creative as a butterfly between hibiscus leaves!

Gather your bitter herbs. Some well known and deliciously effective, bitter roots include dandelion, sassafras, elecampagne, Oregon grape, angelica and ginger. You might also want to try citrus peels, vervain, cacao pods, coffee beans, fennel, and (the gold standard of bitters) gentian (I recommend using the flowers of gentian, rather than the root, as it is over-harvested)

+Aromatic vs simple bitter: Aromatic bitters are bitters that have a warming, stimulating, often quite spicy flavor. They are bitter… with a kick! Some good examples include elecampagne, angelia, sassafras and ginger. Simple bitters are just that, simply bitter. Simple bitters include gentian, Oregon grape root, yellow root and dandelion .

Create your tincture. Making bitters is basically just a process of making a tincture. You can choose to create single herb batches or throw it all together into one! The benefit of single herb batches is the ability to mix and match. Also, kitchen-sink batches can sometimes end up tasting dominantly like one herb or another, depending on what heavy hitters you’re using. If you are interest in a whole-shebang type of bitter I suggest looking up recipes for proportions online! (These recipes from The Kitchn look divine)

Chop or otherwise process your herb so it is in small pieces. The more surface area of herb touching your alcohol, the stronger your mixture will become. Put your herb into a glass mason jar and cover with booze of choice. Store your bitter brew in a dark place for 6 days up to 6 weeks! Sample your bitters frequently, their taste will change overtime. If you are in a hurry you can make your bitter batch the very week of your soiree. Just remember, bitter compounds often take a few days to really steep. I have a friend who found this out the hard way when he was making a stevia extract. He let the stevia leaf sit for longer than the recommended couple days and his extract turned out mouth puckeringly bitter, which would have been wonderful for some pre-dinner digestive, but not so stellar for making sweets!

A note on alcohols: I really enjoy vodka for my bitters. Vodka tends to have less of an innate flavor than other alcohols. If you want a fuller, huskier batch of bitters try brandy or even whiskey. Gin is already chocked full of herbs, but I bet it wouldn’t mind a few more companions!

Press and Bottle your bitters. When your tincture brew has sat long enough to pucker your taste buds, it’s time to press and bottle your bitters. I like to pour my alcohol/herb slurry through a fine mesh strainer first to separate the alcohol from the herb. Then, I take the left-over herb content and press it in a potato masher to extract every last drop of juice. Conversely, if I don’t have such a press, I dish out the herb into a tight weave cloth and wring it by hand. Whatever method you choose, as long as you are separating the alcohol from the herb content you are doing it right!

Now is the time to add in any extras. Perhaps some fresh pressed OJ to your orange bitters brew? Mint syrup or wildflower honey? Is your bitter crafted for any specific drink in mind, or a simple pre-dinner sipping cordial? Your bitter is your tabula rasa, feel free to get wildly creative.

When you bitters are mixed to your taste filter them into a bottle for storage. I will often line the filer with some fine meshed cheese cloth to catch any last debris, and funnel directly into the bottle. Label, cap, store! Your bitters should last decades if they are a simple alcohol solution. If you added any additional juices or sweeteners you can refrigerate and keep your bitters for 2-5 years.

+++ Garnishes +++

Great cocktails (and parties for that matter) are all about the accoutrements. Here are some great hints to add some extra sparkle to your night.

Edible flowers: Summer is a bounty of edible flowers, including calendula, daylily, lavender, beebalm, mint, honeysuckle and sage. Don’t forget to scatter your bar with fresh flowers and garnish your drinks with their petals and blooms. Spilanthes makes a particularly striking edible flower when skewered on a tooth pick and floated into a drink. Sometimes called eyeball plant, this mouth-tingling (and immune enhancing) flower is an oddball cocktail garnish that has been gaining popularity amongst the herbally inclined.

Creative citrus: Simple lemon wedges are so utilitarian. Try slicing a rainbow of citruses into wheels instead to illuminate your drink with vibrant moons. Zest your lemon or lime on top of a well mixed drink for some extra magic in your sipping experience.

Decorative ice cubes: Why should ice be boring? Anoint your ice cub trays with edible flowers from the garden like borage, bee balm or calendula. Just add your flowers to your ice cube tray, cover with water, and freeze. Use immediately to preserve the flowers color and flavor. (On that note, would you like to see the most gorgeous herbal ice cube blog post on the internet?)

+++ Herbal Cocktail Recipes +++

You’ve sampled your syrups and bragged about your bitters, now is the time to become a maestro (and maybe get a bit tipsy) with your herbal creations! For our part we cajoled our friend, and esteemed cocktail Prometheus, Curtiss P. Martin to bartend at our party. After stealing fire (and sassafras syrup) from the gods he came up with the following cocktail mixes. Read on for details about how to shake up such treats, and what medicine is inherent to each drink.

This evening, or sometime very soon, I invited you to whip yourself up one of these drinks. Kick off the day’s to-dos. Let down your hair and get barefoot outside. Drink in the cool of these ephemeral summer evenings. Sip, enjoy, let go, luxuriate.

Watermelon Mojito
2oz Rum
1oz Fresh-pressed Watermelon Juice
1/2oz Fresh-pressed Lime Juice
1/2oz Tulsi Syrup
4-6 Mint leaves, Muddled
Dry Shake, Add Ice, Soda to Fill
Mint + Lime Garnish

Tequila Honeysuckle
2oz Tequila
1oz Fresh-pressed Lime Juice
3/4oz Local Honey Syrup
1/2oz Fresh Orange Bitters
Garnish with thin lime wheel and fresh honeysuckle flowers

Birchbark Sassafras Daiquiri
2oz Spiced Rum
1oz Fresh-pressed Lime Juice
1/2oz Sassafras Syrup
1/2oz Black Birchbark Syrup
Thin Lime wheel Garnish

Black Birch bark: Wintergreen minty and delicious, Birch bark is a lovely remedy for muscle aches, joint pain, headaches and inflammation. The secret of Black Birch’s minty relief lies within its methyl salicylates— the aromatic pain-relieving compound from which our modern day aspirin is derived.

Sassafras: One of the original ingredients in rootbeer (and America’s first wildly successful export) sassafras has a distinctly exotic flavor. The root bark of this yummy plant is known to help stimulate our bodies and minds, ease indigestion, alleviate inflammation and cleanse the blood. Used acutely for colds, flus, fever and rheumatism, Sassafras has been a beloved medicine in North America for thousands of years.

Pineapple Sage & Tulsi Tequila
2oz Tequila
1oz Fresh-Pressed Pineapple Juice
1/2oz Fresh-Pressed Lime Juice
3/4oz Tulsi Syrup
4-6 Sage leaves, Muddled
Sage Garnish

Tulsi Gin + Tonic
2oz Gin
3/4 Tulsi syrup
Tonic to Fill
Lime wedge +Tulsi sprig Garnish

Tulsi: One of the most sacred herb of India, this holy plant has been grown as a truly miraculous health tonic for thousands of years. Tulsi (or Holy Basil) is a gentle and effective adaptogen– it helps the body and mind to deal with stress, encouraging gracefulness in your every day dealings. Tulsi is also an antibacterial, antiviral, antioxidant, antiinflammatory, antidepressant and immunomodulator. Traditionally, holy basil was called upon for colds and flus, indigestion, and as a tonic for asthma and sinus allergies. This sweet and tasty herb is also a supremely clearing tonic for the mind; it has found to be helpful in unfocused thinking, poor memory, forgetfulness, ADD and ADHD. In Ayurvedic medicine, Tulsi is though to balance all seven chakras and considered to be a rasayanic herb, or a medicine that brings balance to the emotions and promotes the feelings of devotion, love and compassion.

Lavender Blueberry Ricky

2oz Vodka
1oz Fresh-pressed Blueberry Juice
1/2oz Fresh-pressed Lime Juice
3/4 Lavender Syrup
Soda to fill
Lavender flower Garnish

Lavender: Oh, the joys of fresh lavender. This much beloved flower is known to help soothe digestion, calm the spirit, and settle the nerves. Used for centuries to freshen dwellings, lavender is a renown antibacterial and antifungal, as well as a beloved herb for rest and relaxation.

Cheers!

Summertime Leisure

01 Tuesday Jul 2014

Posted by Asia in Earth Medicine, Inspirations

≈ 4 Comments

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.

*************************************************************

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

//Visit Easy Livin’ in the shop//

Oh, Roses: Medicine, Magic & Honey

13 Thursday Jun 2013

Posted by Asia in Earth Medicine, Inspirations

≈ 23 Comments

Tags

family history, herbal liqueur, herbal medicine, herbal recipe, infused honey, inspiration, musing, poetry, rosa, rose breeding, rose honey, rose liqueur, roses, summer

On the craggy side of our driveway, arching over a rusty fence, there is a rose bush that has grown wild. Once upon a time, I imagine, it was planted by a quiet, well-mannered couple. Decent, hardworking folks who placed that bush, square and manageable, at the far end of their placid yard and expected it to behave. Fortunately for us, it never has.

The first year we moved in, the roses took to bloom in a flurry of surprise. Like the vivid adventure dreams of a midsummer’s nap. Pop! Suddenly, they were exhilarating and everywhere, speaking to us of something grand. The next year, we had only a few blossoms. I almost forgot about the scraggly vines. But this season…this season has been something closer to resplendence. The blooms are opulent, bellied, swollen with perfume and that ineffable scent of ahh, a bewitchment that never fails to make my knees go slack and my eyes close…

Their petals cover the ground, like small mouths softly consuming the soil. Every day a new bloom pushes outward, begins its slow and sensuous unpeeling. I stand with both arms stretched out like wings beneath the tall canopy of pink. I carry them into the house, watch the chambers unfold by candlelight. They are like perpetual poets. Sometimes I get so close to them, my hands, my face, I feel as if I am drinking.

Roses. They hold a power over me.

Maybe it’s in my blood. According to family lore, my great great grandfather died for the sake of a single rose. An English gardener and flower breeder by trade, in the late 19th century this passionate predecessor entered a maddening race: to be the first man to breed a black rose. He tried for months. Time and time again, there was simply too much purple, a discouraging dash of pink, a ruining run of crimson. Finally, one fateful day, a new bloom opened and there it was, dark, rich, fulfilled– the black rose (or at least as close as anyone had yet come). At this point, the race had become so vicious, so contested, my great uncle refused to leave the rose. As my grandmother tells it, he decided to sleep out in the greenhouse rather than leave his beloved black bloom to the threat of poachers, known to be keeping close tabs on the race. The way I see it, the glory of the black rose drove him into a steeply dedicated madness. In a plot twist worthy of the romantics, my great great grandfather, who slept dutifully besides his single rose, caught pneumonia in that green house and fell deathly ill. Within months, he passed away, out of the history books and forever disqualified from the race. All for the sake of a single rose.

Souvenir de Docteur Jamain – Illustration by Carolyn Jenkins

Crushed, coddled, beloved– Roses have surpassed that solid, statuesque position of symbolism. In the rich tableau of our cultural history, story, and song roses have come to hold a meaning that belongs to them alone. Like catching a heady embankment of your lover’s old perfume, Roses have simply become that which we have always ascribed to them. Love, longing. The double-edged sword of opened beauty and hidden thorns. Protection. Delicacy. The bravery to open fully to the delights of existence. I once read that there is a term for an object or creature that has come into being–exists– simply because so many people, for so long, have believed in its reality. Perhaps, this is the case for our roses.

I like to think that the roses always knew we would adore them. Perhaps it has been planned from the beginning. Maybe they visited the Ancient Persians, the first to cultivate the wild rose, in their dreams, swept them under the velvet robes of their bewitchment, and bid them to begin their devotion. And I’m sure it was the inner ebb of those blooms, the voice that belongs to them alone, that first told us of their medicine. In traditional Western Herbalism, rose petals and buds are prized for their nervine properties. They are powerful medicine for healing grief, loss, sadness, fatigue and heartache. Cooling and uplifting, roses are also used as a general anti-infective and anti-inflammatory. They are a sumptuously effective remedy for wounds, burns, traumatic injuries and sore muscles. Rose medicine is as diverse as the incredible multitudinous of their species (Dive into southwest Herbalists Kiva Rose’s Monograph for a rich introduction to the healing powers of Rose).

Rose Honey & Liqueur

One of my favorite ways to preserve the medicine of rose season is to craft a fresh batch of rose honey. Sensuous, evocative, and downright delicious, capturing this sweet stretch of profuse blooms is wonderfully fun. Visit your roses in the evening. Wait until the light has grown honey-warm and the scent of the blooms has spread like wine through the air. Or perhaps you’d like to venture out first thing in morning to shake off the dew. What matters is this: take time. Learn how to make the moment delicious, and all else you do (including your honey) will spin out from there. Get as close as the rose will allow. Slide your nose into the velvet folds and deeply inhale. Close your eyes. Feel their scent stir something inside you, humming some deep part of your body. Run the tips of your fingers across the arc of the petals. Watch how the unopened buds bounce in the wind. Observe, reflect, share your breath with this wild plant. When the time is ripe, gather. Wait until you have drunk your fill, and have been acknowledged by the rose…(and what an extraordinarily enthralling idea, to be recognized and accepted by such a specimen of perfection). Bring a basket or a woven bag of cloth. Collect the blooms, open and budding. Be gentle, touching the thorns on occasion. Once you have collected a few good handfuls, you are ready to make your honey.

Recipe & Directions

1. Destem the blooms.
2. Roughly chop the petals and pack lightly into a mason jar. (Add one intact bud for extra invocation of fullness and enchantment, the beginning of something new)
3. Pour honey over the mixture until the petals are just covered.
4. Add a good dash of brandy or your favorite alcohol to make a seriously seductive liqueur (you can choose to do half honey, half liquor for a stronger brew)
5. Cover and let the honey sit in a dark place for at least 6 weeks. (If the mixture is close to the rim of your jar, line the underside of your lid with parchment paper)
6. Sneak off spoonfuls as needed (eating the petals as you go) or simply strain by pouring your mixture through fine cheesecloth. If your honey mixture is stubbornly thick, pour the contents of the jar into a double boiler and gently heat until the honey is warm enough to run. (If you don’t have a double boiler you can easily create one by placing the metal rim of a mason jar in a large pan and covering with water. Balance your smaller pot onto the metal rim with its bottom just submerged in the water of the larger pot. Et voila).

Rose honey is a fabulous remedy for wounds and burns, you can apply directly to the skin. In my life however, this nectar almost always ends up dedicated to the realm of the edible.

Unveil your honey at a late summer garden party and serve with warm scones and sweet basil cocktails. If you made honey liqueur, try bringing your homemade elixir to the riverside with a lover and a picnic basket full of pillows. See what unfurls. Savor the special medicine of rose season in any slow corner of the year.

Exotic LA

24 Monday Sep 2012

Posted by Asia in Earth Medicine, Inspirations

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

california, colors, fennel, flora, hibiscus, LA, landscaping, malibu, ojai, pacific palisades, photography, sage, santa monica, summer, swimming holes, travel, yerba santa

It was the beginning of August and I was home for a hurried weekend before I rushed off once again to foreign lands. This time, I was traveling to LA. My family had rented a house up on the high bluff of Pacific Palasaides so we could spend time with my sister in her natural habit and hopefully get nice and leisurely on a beach somewhere.

I had been to LA several years ago when my sister first started college at UCLA. I remembered loving the beach, despising the driving, and giving the whole city an appraisal typical of my attitude towards all urban places: “interesting…can I leave now?” What I didn’t expect was to be so thoroughly, completely, shockingly blown away by the flora.

It was as if some magical ink vat had exploded in a swirl of neon and settled like confetti in every nook of the city. Fuchsia, tangerine, indigo, bright white and electric greens. I was transfixed, craning my head out of the back of our boat-like rental van, trying to identify anything and everything before I became seasick with the sway.

I cajoled the family to stop at a Barnes & Nobles so I could rifle through their botany section and find a guide that could unlock the mysteries of these maddeningly gorgeous plants. The selection was about as diverse and well-attended as a bible study at burning man. Apparently, most people shopping in Santa Monica aren’t necessarily looking for flora books. I settled on a guide to Western wildflowers, knowing full well it wouldn’t be able to cover the mind-altering array of succulents, blooming trees and exotic landscape imports, but it was better than nothin! Camera in hand, I just explored.

It was incredible. The curbs overflowing with zinnias, fennel growing wild inbetween cracked cement, the carefully placed shadows and sharp rivers of light. I never got over the succulents. The same aloe we grow as puny house plants towered as large as cars alongside the highway; the blooms of yucca hung from the sky like a chandelier of celestial bells. It was like living your whole life in the company of hills and suddenly being dropped at the foot of a mountain. My dad (who is an incredibly talented and devoted photographer) and I spent a lot of time lingering behind the rest of our caravan to capture it all. Everywhere I looked was a perfect picture.

One day we drove up the coast to Malibu. It was rugged, windy, and bright. The trail to the beach was threaded with cherries and sandbar willow. At the water surfers drifted like buoyant, brightly colored debris across the waves. I largely ignored the surf. Instead, I spent hours hopping rocks in the tide pools– peering at the hapless captivated sea creatures, watching anemones move as slight as branches in the wind and delighting in the rainbow of hermit crabs, which crawled like spiders between webs of richly colored seaweed. It was bliss.

Another day we drove out to Ojai a stunning valley Northwest of LA. Ojai, which comes from the Ventureño Chumash word ʼawhaý meaning “moon,” is one of those places you visit and then immediately begin to envision as a future home. You can’t help it, the idea of retiring there, in the golden years of some distinctly contended future, seems so perfect it’s almost palatable. The climate is Mediterranean: the summers are hot, the winters mild. Succulents grow in a tangle across front yards and the simple ranch-style houses sit cozily along rivers dotted with swimming holes. The valley is surrounded by clear blue mountains and the air just lifts you.

The land is full of white sage; its distinct smell seems to be embedded in the very rocks. As I wandered I carefully harvested small, precious bundles of this sacred smudge herb (and awesome topical anti-microbial remedy!). I also met Yerba Santa for the first time, a medicinal bush so sweetly aromatic and distinctly resinous it is almost erotic. Traditionally, Yerba Santa was used for bruises, sprains, achy joints, and rheumatism — the sticky leaves were employed as a kind of primitive band aid. It’s real notoriety, however, comes from its incredible ability to heal the respiratory system. It’s a popular remedy for coughs, colds, asthma, bronchitis, and TB. I collected only a small handful (which promptly glommed onto one another like lollipops left on a hot tabletop).

We stopped to dip in the cold, clear water– a welcome refuge after the heat of the exposed valley. The silver of the day began to sharpen and diffuse. The later it became the more the colors of the landscape, borrowed by the high overhead sun, returned to grow heady in their own shadows. We lingered for hours, and then we finally left. Later, back on the coast and still smelling of sweet sage and desert air, I set the herbs out to dry. I had one more day and already I was thinking about my return trip. How I would tincture the small harvest of Yerba Santa and dry the sage in a crown of strings around my bedroom. The reality of my life was sifting back in, honeyed and familiar. Once again, I turned my attention as slow as a ship towards home.

Woolgathering & Wildcrafting

Tag Archives: summer

The Season of Pleasure

Allowing on a Late Summer Day

Summer’s Fullness

Summer Cocktails: Herbal Syrups, Bitters + Recipes

Summertime Leisure

Oh, Roses: Medicine, Magic & Honey

Exotic LA

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