Lady's Slipper Portraits...

Farmacology

Today I was thankful to have ended my mono-diet a day early — and equally thankful that my body bounced right back from the short but challenging cleanse I imposed upon it, soaking up dinner and breakfast like a wrung-out sponge. The return of physical energy and mental focus allowed me to be fully present at the farm today, a priority, as this experience feels far more healing to me at the moment than a restricted diet and the guzzling of ghee. 

Above is the beautiful, heart-shaped leaf of Wild Yam, which grows in the woodland/shade garden. I think the leaf veins look like garden rows, stretching to the horizon, invitingly.

And this is Horseradish, with delightful-smelling flowers.

In the greenhouse the last of the seedlings were potted up today. Giddy with the return of my stamina, I chose to work outside in the field, using a pitchfork to fling soggy bales of decomposing hay to the top of a giant compost pile, helping to drag a tarp full of branches and woody stems to the edge of the field, weeding clumps of grass from the beds, and finally planting some seedlings outside...

namely these Ashwaganda, an Ayurvedic herb used as a restorative/tonic/aphrodesiac for men. "Ashwa" is Sanskrit for horse. Need I say more? Two of us planted this whole bed today, three seedlings in a row with rows one foot apart - perhaps 75 - 100 seedlings, with more on the way. In the neighboring row Dandelion seedlings were being set out.

Rainy day mushroom friends.

The nettles patch, amazingly vibrant.

Comfrey in bloom. What an exuberant, fast-growing plant this is!

During the class section of the day we discussed both stimulating and relaxing diaphoretic herbs, which warm the core, encourage perspiration, and increase blood flow by dilating the capillaries and blood vessels. These actions are useful in treating a fever, working with the body rather than against it. This is where herbal medicine differs from modern medicine, this concept of asking what is the body trying to do and how can I assist it? rather than immediately trying to fight against what's happening by grabbing a drug to ease the symptoms as quickly as possible. There are common sense exceptions to this approach, of course, such as when a fever is 104 degrees and over...

This subject of both allowing and alleviating suffering is a whole blog post in itself!

A parting shot of the hills today, which I plan to photograph every week. So much greener than they were in April...

Snippets of Spring

 While I'm at the farm today here's what's going on around my own garden.

The woods have been gloomy for well over a week now, all my spring flowers opening in the rain, the unmowed lawn an overgrown jungle of green.

This is a new Iris for me, transplanted from the garden of my friend's grandmother. It grows only about 4 inches tall before blooming and revealing this fabulous shade of purple.

Last week on our daily hike into the woods I stopped briefly at this tree and peered into the space between its living and dead part. I don't know what drew me to it initially but I remember that as I stepped away I noticed how rotted the dead part had become and had a "what if it fell on me while I was standing here?" moment. The next day J was eager to walk back up into the woods with me - the dead section of tree had indeed fallen, exactly where I had stood the night before. I love that he thought this was meaningful and knew that I would too.

One of you will remind me of what this is, I hope.

My beloved patch of Ladyslippers are in bloom this week...right on time. I've photographed and posted about them for the last 3 years, here and here. Every spring I worry for their safety, as the land isn't ours and is steadily being logged and torn up. These are the only Ladyslippers I've found in the woods, and it would be nothing short of sinful to destroy the magical spot where they rise up out of the pine needles and leaves every May.

Spring Cleaning

Kitcheri kitcheri kitcheri. And then more kitcheri. That's what the past couple of days have been like for J and I, who are in the midst of our first mono-diet Panchakarma cleanse — day three, which I think will be our last full day of it. Some people go for a lot longer, but I suspect those people have time off to relax into their new calorie-deficient reality.

I went into this cleanse as an experiment, as seasonal Panchakarma is one of the cornerstones of an Ayurvedic routine. I expected to feel hungry without between-meal snacks, and to mentally crave sweets, but cravings didn't end up being the problem. Yesterday's problem was an intense headache, body ache, and complete and utter listlessness. Luckily the weather wasn't exactly beckoning me outside to the garden, because I could just barely get out from under a pile of blankets on the couch.

I'm not an expert on this subject, but from what I've read, this is the body's natural response as one begins to shift into fat-burning mode, releasing fat-soluble toxins from the body (man-made toxins like heavy metals, parasites, pesticides, preservatives, food additives, pollutants, plastics and other environmental chemicals hide in fat) where they begin to recirculate in the blood stream. As you can imagine, the liver finds itself pretty busy at this point, doing its best to filter these released toxins out through the digestive system. To facilitate this filtering, the body's energy heads from the muscles inward, to the organs, where it's needed. Thus the lethargy.

To help the liver, gallbladder and colon prepare we added both bitters and beets to our diet last week, and drank a decoction of dandelion root while easing off hard-to-digest foods like glueten and sugar. Now that we're on the mono-diet, a morning teaspoon (or two) of ghee helps to further stimulate the gallbladder, and the three meals a day of kitcheri provide easily digested nutrition. The system is already too busy filtering to be bothered with an onslaught of new, difficult foods.

Emotionally this process has been more difficult than I expected. I've been dealing with a lot of anger that I think stems from feeling somewhat out of control - I had a preconcieved notion of how my physical body would react to the cleanse, and by Sunday night I felt that things were not going as I'd planned. I felt far worse than I'd expected, and wanted to lay blame somewhere - even on Ayurveda itself. What kind of idiot makes herself sick? I wondered, even in the name of health? Not to mention how terribly J was faring.

This morning I woke up cursing the thought of taking more ghee (I love it in my food, but swallowing straight oily butter sickens me), and insisted, in language far too colorful for 6:30 am, that I would go no further with this "stupid, f-ing cleanse." But once I was up and about, almost headache and lethargy free, J convinced me that we should stick it out and continue for another full day. So kitcheri breakfast it was...though I couldn't eat too much of it.

I'm amazed at how quickly I've been able to profoundly affect my body and emotions through diet, and as I head towards lunch at the office I feel very still, both inwardly and out. There's a lot of letting go in this process, and that may be what triggered my anger and resistance. I now understand why fasting is a spiritual practice - there's some dying in it, as well as a lot of acceptance.

We shouldn't have to think about doing another cleanse until summer turns to fall, and perhaps now that I know what to expect I'll be more prepared and be able to go longer. Or perhaps it will be easier, because I won't be dislodging decades worth of toxicity from my body. I don't know.

Ironically, tonight there's a drawing for a week long Panchakarma retreat in NM this fall — I bought a ticket last week. Panchakarma at an Ayurvedic center involves a lot of cleansing therapies - herbal steams, marma therapy, massage, Shirodhara...any and all of which would have felt pretty good during this process and no doubt helped to distract me from my misery.

If I haven't completely turned you off to the cleansing process by now, you can learn about home Panchakarma in this book.

Hmmm....

Maybe the end IS near! Looking at the horizon and hearing the storm approach...I just hope our big pot of kitcheri finishes cooking before the power goes out.

Becoming the Answer

I picked up a copy of this book from the shelf at work today...

and opened to these words...

We Have Become the Lamp

Once we grasped the things we needed
in closed and anxious fists.
Now our arms have opened wide
and the whole world has tumbled
into our lap.

Instead of looking to the world for answers
we have now become the answer.
Inside of us is all we ever needed,
and it is beginning to shine through.
Others can see it in our eyes.

We have become the very lamp 
by which our path is illuminated. 
If you continue to conquer outer worlds,
who will take the journey inward
and discover the waiting treasure
who will light your path?

I thought you might like them too.

Weaving...

". . . you must aim at integration of mind and body, hand and head, serving mother earth. 

Working on the land is the path to spiritual enlightenment." 

— from No Destination, the Autobiography of an Earth Pilgrim, by Satish Kumar

On Monday I registered for WEAVE, a weekend of movement, permaculture, wellness, wilderness skills, herbal medicine, dance, nature awareness, and community — all happening this September at Earthdance, which is only about 5 miles away from Casa m. heart.

Here's a description from the Earthdance website of just one of the many workshops offered...

INVASIVE PLANT MEDICINE
with Timothy Scott Based on his book INVASIVE PLANT MEDICINE, Tim Scott will demonstrate the ecological benefits and healing abilities of invasive plants. Contrary to conventional thought, these prolific plants are actually serving essential environmental needs by protecting disturbed areas, enhancing biodiversity, purifying ecosystems, and revitalizing the land. While at the same time, these widespread plants are also providing inhabitants powerful healing remedies, which in many cases have documented medicinal uses for thousands of years, and are desperately in need today. 

Was I not just rambling on about this very subject?

There's also an intriguing-sounding workshop about trees...

In this interactive workshop we will learn about the medicines from the trees — herbal healing medicines for our bodies, and spirit medicines for our soul. We will practice simple ways to connect with and work with the energy of the trees around you, receive their teachings, and make medicines from their branches, barks, leaves and fruits. We'll discuss folkloric information and traditions around trees from around the world, and share a plant spirit journey & sharing circle to discover and get to know a tree ally for each participant to work with. Come prepared to participate and share your love of the trees!

and another about permaculture, a topic that, for the past month, has been wildly waving it's arms at me, trying to get my attention. It all began with this movie, Natural World: Farm for the Future, which unfolds so beautifully from a state of "overwhelming problem" to one of "graceful solution." Grab some popcorn and you can watch it in its entirety right here:




Speaking of permaculture, here's another local opportunity that's caught my eye...

A new 15-credit program in Sustainable Food and Farming offered by nearby UMASS Amherst, most of which can be completed online in conjunction with a summer internship. Something to keep in mind for next summer maybe...in fact the farm manager joked yesterday that perhaps I'll want to come back and do the internship again next summer so I can add a work study day...

And speaking of weeds and wild edibles, here's a video from the Sustainable Food and Farming Program youtube channel called "Eat the Weeds." I had no idea the purslane I've been ripping out of my garden beds by the handful every summer is edible, full of Omega-3's — and was Gandhi's favorite food.


I also loved discovering in this video that the crushed and macerated stinging nettle leaf is also the remedy for a stinging nettle induced rash — this concept of a plant holding both the poison and the antidote is something I first learned of from Dr. Lad last summer.



At the end of this summer I'll be 40 years old. Sometimes a little voice inside my head whispers, "You're too old to be pursuing all this farming and medicinal business. You should have started on this path when you were in your 20's. You should stick with what you're already doing, take the easy road."

It's a tiny little voice, but sometimes I still hear it. 

The fact is, I'm actually too old to NOT be pursuing these interests. This discovering and learning and loving process feels far less static than sticking with the status quo of acquiring, consuming, and then fearing the loss of those acquisitions, fearing change. Loss and change is inevitable — the most inevitable thing of all, actually.

 Besides, all of this frolicking in the fresh air is part of my "applied spirituality," a term I spotted in this wonderful post by Nancy today and have decided to adopt. If, according to Ayurveda, "food is medicine and medicine is food" is there ultimately any difference between planting a tomato and planting Echinacea? For that matter, if both food and medicine heal the body, is there any difference between studying how to take a pulse reading, how to grow a row of food organically, or how to distill a medicinal tincture? No. So all I have to do is keep that little voice quiet, follow my heart where it leads, and trust. Herbal medicine, farming, deep ecology, Ayurveda, Sanatana Dharma...all threads in the same cloth. It's really about the weaving. 

Just like the plants, we each posses the ability to manufacture both poison and purity for ourselves and the world around us (Ayurveda also points out that anything can be a medicine and anything a poison. Of course, because everything in the universe is Adviata, non-dual.) The creation of either poison or purity begins in our mind, where little voices whisper before manifesting themselves in our bodies, in our lives. Which voice is allowed to speak  — the one of fear and clinging and regret; the one that closes us off from our True Nature and keeps us away from our destiny; the one that will eventually manifest as Dis-Ease in our minds and bodies? Or the voice of encouragement and hope and faith, and courage, ultimately of love?

Incidentally, neither voice is the real us. The real us is silently observing.

*******

The real beauty of realizing your true nature is in the freshness,
peace and deep bodily relaxation which touches to the core of
your being, flows into your everyday life and bursts forth naturally
into blossoming from within itself. Without you 'doing' a thing
about any of it.
This is a beautiful and simple change of lifestyle.
A lifestyle of letting go and living openhandedly, curled
up in the sunlit warmth on the lap of
the Divine (your heart).

  

— julie sarah powell

Singin' in the Rain...

Well, we weren't actually singing today, as we shoveled and spread compost in the beds, but the birds around us raised their voices in the rain, a chorus of cardinals and blue jays and robins. I even caught a fleeting glimpse of a tiny indigo bunting as it flew up from the edge of a garden path into the branches of a blossoming apple tree, probably filching some mulch straw to build a nest with.

The healers, the herbs, are singing too as they emerge from sleep. In the book Plant Spirit Healing I learned that "throughout the indigenous tribes of North America, plant songs were an integral part of the healing process. It was when the plant had given you its song that you knew you had received the healing gift of the plant." These songs, perceived through the heart and not the ears, must be learned from the plants themselves and can't be taught to you by another person. In the book, David Winston, a carrier of the Southern Cherokee tradition explains "...if I learned the poison ivy song and you had also learned it [from the plant itself] we could sing it together and sure enough it would be the same song. The songs are fairly simple and in my experience have an odd tonal scale that is very different than human songs."

I'd be honored to know the song of a plant.

But back to earth now, or at least closer...clouds? Fog? I've lived here for almost 2 decades and I'm still not sure of the difference. All I know is that on days like today the hills are topless (gasp!) and the sky is reachable.

Due to the rain and the amount of work we needed to get done this afternoon our official herb walk was brief — a visit with Elacampane and Osha in the circular learning garden (above). While there we took tinctures of each — both are stimulating, warming, expectorants and beneficial in the case of (for example) a rattling, productive cough. Perfect for a cold, wet, heavy day such as this.

I did slip out during our lunch break, however, and visit each of the gardens by myself. I'm already getting a bit attached — all week long I think about these plants, knowing through the experience of my own gardens how much they'll change in the course of 7 days. I want to take in as much of the process as I can while I'm there on Tuesdays.

Elacampane and Osha were the only two tinctures we sampled this week, but since we began learning about the respiratory system today we switched our focus from tinctures to essential oils: hemlock, spruce, white sage, thyme, lavender, rosemary, coastal yarrow, cinnamon, catnip, Dominican sage, and attars of saffron, Nerolli, rose and jasmine. An attar is a perfume oil made from flower petals distilled in water using low heat and pressure over the course of several weeks. The steam containing the fragrance oils is collected into a container of mild sandalwood oil, and there, the oils blend together until the sandalwood is completely saturated with the fragrance of the flowers. "Heavenly" doesn't even begin to describe the scent and power of a proper attar, but here are some beautiful words about them spoken by an elegant teacher...



I also experienced the scent of Tulsi, my plant ally, for the first time. "Complex, sweet, sad, and somehow familiar" I wrote in my notes.

Sniffing that many aromatic oils made me a little giddy. I have strong emotions and memories tied to scents, and as they passed from hand to hand around the room each little brown bottle opened up a whole new world.

As much as I've shared here there's still more to tell you about what I learned today...

about pine trees, specifically. I'll have to save it for another post if dinner is to become more than a vague concept.

ps: thank you J for rescuing this post for me. If you hadn't checked the blog when you did I would have had to somehow rewrite all it!

Kicking it Up a Notch in the Garden

 Friday morning's dappled sky

 

On Friday J and I both had the day off. It took some doing for me to finish up at the office on Thursday (and on Friday morning I still had to meet with a print rep in my living room to review proofs)...but it was well worth the extra push. With rain in the forecast for Saturday and Sunday I felt desperate to spend a day working in my own garden, which is exactly what we did...

... converting the vegetable garden design from 4 square beds of single rows to wide, raised rows, each 3' wide by about 25' long (there will be 6 by the time we're finished), with 2' walkways in between them. We'll use straw mulch between the beds (if I can ever find some) and do more companion planting than we've done in the past. Hopefully by the end of this week 7 cubic yards of organic compost will be delivered — with another 17 going to the herb farm — so I foresee lots of shoveling and wheelbarrow-maneuvering in my near future.

This year we're adding a new crop — Amaranth. More about this grain in a future post. I've had so much to write about lately, and so little time to sit down to write. What I will say is that there's a lot of synchronicity happening in my life right now.

Is anyone else experiencing this?

Anyone else trying new things in the garden?

Friday's sunset...it's so good for the soul to spend the whole day outside, observing.

As I type this on Sunday afternoon a hard rain is pouring down and the yearly Tractor Parade is passing by the house. The first thing I noticed was a police car with flashing lights outside the kitchen window. I initially assumed a speeder was (finally) getting pulled over — then I heard the rumble of tractors. Three followed the police car. The rain will keep this year's turn out small I thought, but minutes later the first three were followed by more...and more...and more. 50 or 60 I would guess, hardy New England types undeterred by a little bit of water falling from the sky. As I peer out from my cozy kitchen with a fire in the woodstove and a mug full of hot dandelion root tea, the tractor drivers hunch down in their safety yellow and orange rain slickers, one holding a green umbrella in front of him, another with a giant American flag waving behind him, still another holding a giant picnic table umbrella (tasstles and all) above his head!

I'll leave you with this image taken out the front door...

Happy spring.

Arnica, getting some group love.

Goldenseal in the "woodland" garden.

Fellow dirt touchers.

The "Big Top" where we hung this shade cloth last week.

Continued growth in the greenhouse.

Today I left the farm with: a serious blister; visions of toasting my own home-grown Amaranth for breakfast cereal; an increased appreciation for all the bitter greens nature provides to us in spring, as they help to detox and awaken our sluggish winter livers; chia seeds on my shopping list (for eating, not for this); plans for adding some wild trout lilly leaves, tubers, and flowers to my salad plate tomorrow night (who knew I could eat so much of my own lawn?); and a few clumps of Chocolate Mint plant so I can start my own patch...

Happy...

...Mother's Day to all of you
who create and nuture.

Sunset Woods Walk...

 

...crowned by a crescent moon.