In the waning light of the days near Solstice, I feel compelled to keep a tiny indoor garden. This dish of paper whites will sit on my kitchen countertop and reach up to the window that overlooks my Thai massage studio.
I will rotate them every day, stake them when they threaten to topple from the weight of their blooms, and smell them when I make cups of tea in the morning.
This year marked a beginning for me. It was the year that I began making my own plant medicine. In June, I interviewed Nephyr Jacobsen about her beautiful collaboration with Pierce Salguero on the second edition of the book Thai Herbal Medicine.
Something about this book got under my skin (where the energy flows). I began gathering plants from my garden and exotics from far-away mail order houses. I marveled at them, tasted them, cooked with them, dried them, gently fried them and made dark, earthy infusions with them.
I will rotate them every day, stake them when they threaten to topple from the weight of their blooms, and smell them when I make cups of tea in the morning.
This year marked a beginning for me. It was the year that I began making my own plant medicine. In June, I interviewed Nephyr Jacobsen about her beautiful collaboration with Pierce Salguero on the second edition of the book Thai Herbal Medicine.
Something about this book got under my skin (where the energy flows). I began gathering plants from my garden and exotics from far-away mail order houses. I marveled at them, tasted them, cooked with them, dried them, gently fried them and made dark, earthy infusions with them.
My first two batches of Thai massage balm got enthusiastic thumbs up from my Thai ex-husband, and the exotic scents familiar to me from my years in Thailand made me feel a little less homesick for Chiang Mai. A little.
Out of my experimentation with balms came an herbal workshop right here on my front porch. Together with a beautiful circle of women, we pounded herbs, sat in my little Thai herbal steam tent and ate Thai food for lunch. It was satisfying on every level.
Out of my experimentation with balms came an herbal workshop right here on my front porch. Together with a beautiful circle of women, we pounded herbs, sat in my little Thai herbal steam tent and ate Thai food for lunch. It was satisfying on every level.
As my garden rests in its season of dormancy, I am looking back and recognizing what the year has meant to me.
The plants around me have always been there. My family too have always been here, part of them anyway, the branch of the family tree with deep, old roots in the Piscataqua region of Maine.
We have no stories, no heirlooms, no family history from the time before we got all culturally-blendy-up, my Native American and Colonial forebears and me. Yet, I begin to feel a very old connection, through them, with the plants. I happily attribute that to the Piscataqua in me.
It is ironic that I had to travel all the way to Thailand to have my eyes opened to the power of plants in order to return home and see what was always there.
A great wave of interest in the herbal apothecary arts is flowing in our culture right now. I hope you can feel it too and that you will invite it into your healing work with massage clients and your healing care for your own dear kin. As I enter my 50's, I see this as one of the most significant things I can pass on to my kids.
The plants around me have always been there. My family too have always been here, part of them anyway, the branch of the family tree with deep, old roots in the Piscataqua region of Maine.
We have no stories, no heirlooms, no family history from the time before we got all culturally-blendy-up, my Native American and Colonial forebears and me. Yet, I begin to feel a very old connection, through them, with the plants. I happily attribute that to the Piscataqua in me.
It is ironic that I had to travel all the way to Thailand to have my eyes opened to the power of plants in order to return home and see what was always there.
A great wave of interest in the herbal apothecary arts is flowing in our culture right now. I hope you can feel it too and that you will invite it into your healing work with massage clients and your healing care for your own dear kin. As I enter my 50's, I see this as one of the most significant things I can pass on to my kids.
My year in plant medicine has provided me balance. All this time being with you here in front of this screen (Love you. Hate the screen.) is okay, because there is a garden to tend, there are herbs to dry and oils to infuse.
When the Big Guy comes home these days and sees steaming mason jars in the kitchen sink, he asks, "You tincturing?" Yes, I am and loving every minute of it.
When the Big Guy comes home these days and sees steaming mason jars in the kitchen sink, he asks, "You tincturing?" Yes, I am and loving every minute of it.
