And there he was, gone

 Hello dear bots who cruise through and raise the stats on this blog, making it appear as though anyone still reads it.

And hello to any humans, too.

I've just popped in to let ya'll know that my beloved Paul (partner in crime, photographer for this blog and all around good guy) up and died in the wee hours of Thursday June 6. Poorly for a few months, he took a sudden turn downhill, was rushed to hospital and was gone before any of the several doctors whose hands he passed through could agree on a diagnosis. Me? I say he was tired. He was done. He was ready to move on to the next big adventure. 

Happy trails my love.

Sharing is caring

 

The wild part of the garden.
Well .. one of the wild parts..

That's a blanket of Self-Heal, the blue you're seeing in the photo.

 I learned, in that moment, that it's true what they say about mosquitos being pollinators as well as bloodsuckers. I reached down to pluck a leaf and up from the blossoms came a cloud of thousands of them - and straight for my tender hide, of course. I was forced to flee the area. Ha! 

We're having the perfect spring. Granted, there's been some Weather, ie an ice storm that was, okay, a bit dramatic in terms of power outages from falling trees. But it came before the leaves were leafing or the crops were cropping so no losses there. And it has meant a plethora of material for those of us who make use of such things as downed branches. I've got jars and jars of aspen oil and a particularly fragrant pot of poplar buds. Yum.

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day

 

I've been thinking about Time, recently. 

How much I appreciate Time, for one thing. 

I like how dependable it is, how it carries us along to, or away from, situations and people .. and how it dovetails with Law of Attraction so neatly that (providing we've got our vibrations sorted out), Time takes us where we want to be.

And if we don't have our vibrations sorted out? Well Time & Law of Attraction take us to some (seemingly) random places! And that can be fun & exciting. Or it can bring us to our knees in despair. 

In either case, Time always brings clarity. 

It was in one of those places of despair, a couple of years back, that I first felt the kind hand of Time on my shoulder and heard its gentle whisper saying, something like, "fret not, I can carry you through and beyond this. I am your Friend." And it was then I had the chance to look at my vibration and see the parts that needed sorting out, do so, and simply let my new Friend, Time, take me where I needed to go. 

There's a cute, yet slightly spooky story behind that. I was alone - pandemic was raging, lockdown in effect so friends & family unavailable to me, while Paul, who had lost the use of his legs due to a fast growing tumour on his spine, was in the hospital. There were surgeries. There were infections. There was a lot of touch and go .. Fucking crazy shit, man. 

One night I took it upon myself to move some furniture around in our little spare room. I was turning it into a meditation space - because when the world is FUCKING UP all around you, meditation is a life saver, believe me - and as I moved an antique clock that had not worked properly in all the years we'd had it (we didn't care, we just liked the look of the thing), it suddenly began to tick. "Huh", I thought, "I wonder .." Inserting the key to wind it, I found the previously stuck mechanism as smooth as can be. I set the time. It kept ticking. On the hour, it chimed! Beautiful Westminster chimes. I wound it weekly, and it worked like a charm. Because it was.

For the four ghastly months of that time, a couple of hours a day spent at Paul's bedside watching him fade & return, fade & return, the rest of my day and all of my nights spent locked down, alone, that clock was my companion. Tick-tock tick-tock, the sound of Time carrying me through and beyond.

A crackerjack surgeon removed the tumour from Paul's spine, fully restoring the use of his legs. The various and numerous infections didn't kill him. He was released - frail, weighing 100 lbs, ravaged with pressure sores and chemo side effects. He walked in the door, threw away his walker ("I don't need this fucking thing", he said) and although it didn't seem quite the version of reality Time had promised, yet, we were close.

And as I went to meditate that evening, the clocked was stopped. The mechanism jammed. It hasn't worked since.

Time, however, has kept its promise. We're through and - most importantly - beyond. We've gained clarity, and our vibrations are full of joy. 

So in case you've been wondering why this blog has been quiet for a while, now you know. 

And maybe it's Time to play here again. 

Medicine Chest: Prickly ash harvest, learning from the plant ..

I've already written a post (it's here) about my personal experiences using prickly ash for pain. Might be useful to read that first, then read this one.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - I particularly like prickly or thorny plants. Hawthorn, rose, nettle. Motherwort with its scratchy 'crown of thorns' seed heads. And, of course, prickly ash. (Interestingly, all of these have pain relieving qualities - here we have the Doctrine of Signatures in action again ie what a plant can cause, it can treat.)

These plants also make us pay attention to where we are and what we're doing when we hang out with or harvest them. I like that singular focus required for the work. And I don't mind a bit when one of them pokes or scratches me back to the task at hand if my mind has wandered. In this world of multi-tasking as a way of life, it feels good to have hands and mind working together as one.

Medicine Chest - birch bark (saves the day)

Don't read this if you're squeamish about feet. 'Cause this is (partly) about feet stuff. Winter weary feet, to be precise. It's about hair, too. Winter weary hair.

But if you have feet, or hair, or even both, and they're troubling you at all, you might want to read on.

Shared air

I found this post waiting patiently in my draft file; it was written before "shared air" became something that we're all being taught to avoid .. these are strange days indeed.

But in looking it over I think it may be even more relevant now than when I wrote it.

Chakra work, er no, make that chakra play!

For anyone interested in Chakra work, I've just tripped over an excellent page to explore, it's here.

Really nice illustrations.

There's a forum connected to the site as well. You really can learn the most amazing things in forums tucked away in quiet corners of the internet!

Turns out, there's a chakra I've never heard about before, positioned between the heart chakra and the throat chakra. And my goodness, it seems to be the most important one of all! (she says with tongue in cheek)

Ease and flow, pandiculation and meditation

'Tis the winter of the nap, as far as we're concerned.

And why not? There is nothing sweeter than snuggling down for a snooze whenever we might just feel like it.

We're up before the sun most mornings anyway, in time to catch moments when the little orchard that we've created in our back yard looks like this:

Just before dawn.

Yep.

Life is easy. Life just flows.

You know that moment when you wake up well rested and relaxed and you yawn and have a really delicious stretch and then just lie there for a bit?

The Sunshine Gang

There are plant allies for those of us trying to hone the skill of sustainable happiness.

I like flower essences for this, because their actions are subtle and gentle. I think the flower essences are closer to the vibration of the heart than anything else I know. I particularly like how they can be used so specifically, to light up the dark places inside us.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and what could be sunnier than a flower?

That middle layer of ick

I sleep really well at night, and I have great dreams. Dreaming is something of a sport to me, I can have a lot of fun there. My waking moments are fun, too. My life is joyful and satisfying.

But sometimes I'll be cozy in my lovely bed, drifting off happily into la-la land, and suddenly some scene of tragedy is playing out before me. A refugee camp. Or an accident scene. Occasionally, when waking up from a perfectly nice sleep, I'll find myself in the midst of swirling thoughts. Worries about loved ones or even just acquaintances from the web.

Has this happened to you?

What the hell is that, anyway?

Faffing about with lanolin and ending up with a "cleansing cream"

This project was a fiddly business!

And the resulting "cream" does not have the light and silky feel of something like Nivea would make, that's for sure. It's actually quite heavy and at first I was pretty crestfallen about that. But stay with me here, because in the end it turns out to be doing wonders for my (ahem) mature skin.

This version is adapted from Sarah Garland's "The Complete Book of Herbs & Spices". I say "adapted" because, well, at first I was winging it, then I realized I was, in fact, fucking it up, then I referred to the book. And I wasn't even trying to make a damn cleansing cream, I was trying to make a moisturizing balm for my feet .. but then .. well, I'll start from the beginning, okay?

Help is on the way

Our bodies respond to our emotions, so (I figure) probably the most important thing we can do for our health is to cultivate a conscious sense of well being. After all, the body will do its best to maintain health; well being is its natural state. Best not to undermine that with a conflicting state of mind.

That bears repeating, perhaps?

Well being is the body's natural state.

Some seeds

Most of the seed planting I do takes place at this time of year, the fall. And sometimes in the winter, too. It's really a delightful way to go about expanding one's stock of flowers and medicinal plants; calendula, mullein, evening primrose and pansies do particularly well this way, and no doubt there are others. Echinacea, too.

I wander through the garden foraging for seedheads that have matured on the plants and scatter the seeds on the surface of the soil where I want them to come up next spring. No particular care is taken, just a whole lot of fun is had.

Betony for tinnitus

(Please note - Here I am referring to Wood Betony - Stachys officinalis, formerly known as Betonica officinalis, a plant that comes to us from Europe. It is not the same plant as Pedicularis canadensis, also known as American Wood Betony. If you are looking at commercial sources, it is essential to ensure you know which you are getting, as they do not have the same uses.)

Regular readers will know that I'm a fan of the Doctrine of Signatures (see top bar), and also that I do crazy things like let plants instruct me on how to prepare and use them .. so the following is an example of how those sorts of things play out in my world.

I'd been drinking betony leaf tea off and on throughout the summer, "keying it out" over a period of some weeks. ("Keying it out" is herbalist-speak for getting to know a plant's personality.) I made a very mild brew, just 2 or 3 leaves fresh from the garden to about a litre of freshly boiled water, steeped for about 10-15 minutes. I added a couple of tablespoons of that tea to each glass of water I drank throughout the day, so each batch lasted me a few days. See? Not very much betony in my system at any one time, but enough, and for long enough, that I could get a sense of what its more subtle effects might be.

I dunno if that's what other herbalists and plant folk do, it's just the way I like to do things.

What the Raven says

wooOOP!

wooOOP!

Just exactly how does a Raven make those w or p sounds without lips?

Wild plums (and other fruit), slugs, appreciation and the heart's desire

I really like the word appreciation.

It's got this neat built-in deeper meaning to it that just tickles me pink. For not only does appreciating something mean understanding its value, the dictionary also tells us that "appreciate", used as a verb, means to grow.

So in a way, when we appreciate something it grows in value.

I find that there's a difference in .. er .. tone between when I am feeling grateful and when I am appreciating. They're both positive, of course. But grateful implies (to me) a sort of selfishness .. not the right word, I'll try again .. grateful implies that this thing or event benefits me. Appreciation opens me up to see the value in that thing or event in the larger sense.

Once more, with feeling

In this world where information has become currency, words seem to have come to matter more than the meaning behind them.

It's because we miss that meaning that we just keep looking for more words.

We're obsessed with collecting information, horde it in files

                      like pirates with chests of gold doubloons 

only to bring it out and look at it now and then, memorizing terms and phrases we think are important - we call that learning? - never realizing that information, without meaning, is like food without nourishment.

How I spent my summer (and a flower essence story)

Off the internet, that's how I spent it!

And wow .. I highly recommend it. But more on that later.

First, a nifty, and just a little spooky, story about a flower ...

Gardens have their own plans

There are sunchokes coming up in my monarda patch.

The monarda patch itself is obligingly moving eastward to give the sunchokes the space they seem to think they're owed.

The motherwort plants - 2 of them are gigantic already - have produced litters of babies amongst the sedums.

Yellow dock? Don't talk to me about yellow dock. It's in the lawn. It's also in the monarda patch. It's .. well, it's everywhere you'd expect to see a dandelion, and if you think it's tough to get a dandelion out of the ground you oughta try yellow dock. The leaves slide off if you try to just yank it, exuding this slippery mucilaginous stuff (good medicine, no doubt) that makes a second attempt laughable. Only a big digging fork going down a foot or more (at least) and getting to the root is going to even half way discourage those buggers.

But on the other hand ..

2 large plastic bins, 1 plunger, an assortment of basins and one big laugh

I didn't get where I am today without learning to be resourceful in the face of challenge!

Here's the story - thanks to the ongoing Great Flood of 2019, and 1/3 of our village being under waist-high water (and looking to stay that way for a few more weeks), our wastewater treatment plant is rather taxed at the moment and on April 29th we were asked to limit what goes down our drains.

Okay then. It certainly seems a reasonable thing to do under the (apocalyptic) circumstances.