Walking Stick Cholla (Cylindropuntia spinosior) skeleton in the snow.

Last night while I laid back in our old wood-fired clawfoot tub and felt the giant snowflakes falling on my face in the dark I was entirely consumed by how beautiful and precious these long nights and cold air are to me. All around me in the evergreen forests of my home, the snow fell silently and the ice grew a little further over the surface of the river that runs through the center of the canyon.

While I’ve always enjoyed the quiet and beauty of Winter, it seems to me that this particular cold season is the most pleasurable and lovely I’ve ever experienced. Part of this is no doubt simply due to how much I needed the slowing down that this time of the year brings for our family. Another aspect is my deepening relationship with the special medicine of the snow moons. It’s so easy for us plant-obsessed folks to feel abandoned by their herbal allies as they recede into dormancy. This combined with the lack of sunlight and insane way in which our culture insists we keep up the pace of Summer is a dangerous equation that often results in depression, lethargy and sadness.

Along with building up adequate Vit D levels for the first time in years, I’ve been immersing myself in the pleasure of the long nights with evening walks in the snow by star and moonlight. Climbing trees and gazing out over the sparkling canyon, or sitting for long periods of time examining the growth patterns of lichen or the slow descent of leaking resin have also assisted me in staying connected to the plant I love. Evergreen medicine, food and scents have been nigh on an obsession this Winter, with Loba and I competing for who can make the tastiest Fir-flavored treats and me working feverishly to figure out the most effective ways of infusing the scent and medicine of the evergreens, lichens and resins into all of my current projects.

Creating hand-ground incense from local plants to burn on the woodstove, formulating coniferous forest inspired perfumes and an endless stream of new elixirs, syrups and vinegars are all ways I’ve been engaging my senses and enjoying the current season. Our family enthusiastically celebrates the Solstice but leaves out the baggage-laden gift giving tradition which frees us all up to spend more time just indulging in the pleasures of long evenings together, seasonal food and inventing every possible White Fir flavored recipe.

Barks and roots, lichen and mushrooms, resin and sap, needles and boughs are my lights in this fertile, rich darkness of Winter. In too many years past, I found myself wishing for the season to pass me by in sleep and to live in perpetual green and constant flowering. While I certainly realized all the reasons why the land and we humans need the rest and time turned inwards, I met this shift in seasons with a certain amount of resistance and defiance. This year I finally realize, gut-deep, how much I benefit by the sweet silence and visceral rooting that can take place only now. Such a huge shift has left me not only enjoying the snow and dark, but relishing it and realizing I’ll actually feel sadness when the wheel turns and the next season emerges, even as I welcome the return of the light.

These pictures tell the story of a few of my recent rambles through the white mantled forest of my canyon home and the life that surges through the land even during the coldest nights.

New Mexico Ground Cherry (Physalis foetens var. neomexicana) shines a beautiful ivory-gold against the snow.

Red Stemmed Filaree (Erodium cicutarium) blooming in shelter of a rock crevice even under the snow and ice.

Gorgeous Juniper Mistletoe (Phoradendron juniperinum subsp. juniperinum) in fruit.

Piñon Pine (Pinus edulis) resin leaking from a wound in the tree.

Pointleaf Manzanita (Arctostaphylos pungens) bark red and curling in contrast with the evergreen leaves.

Harvesting early Narrowleaf Cottonwood (Populus angustifolia) resinous buds from a fallen tree.

Bracket fungi growing on a Juniper tree.

Silk Tassel (Garrya wrightii) leaf.

Scarlet Beehive Cactus (Echinocereus coccineus) persisting beneath the ice.

A Cliff Fern (Woodsia spp.) peeking out from under a rock on the side of the mountain.

Tarantula in the snow.

The amazingly fragrant Desert Cypress (Cupressus arizonica) infusing into oil on the wood stove for medicine, sensory bliss and food.

A great way to become more deeply connected to the seasons while studying earth-centered herbalism is by taking the Weaving the Wheel of the Year course with my long-time friend and Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference teacher, Darcey Blue!

This is a post by both myself and Loba for the Wild Things Roundup which is focused on Acorns for November

From Kiva

Our family had a wonderfully wild foods infused Thanksgiving this year that was especially rich in roasted Acorns and White Fir, as Oak and Fir trees are common plants in the canyons and mountains of our bioregion. Despite the fact that there was not even a single acorn on the Oaks this year because of the severe drought the SW has been experiencing, we had enough stashed to create an incredibly tasty Thanksgiving dinner. For this Acorn themed Wild Things Roundup, I’m including recipes by both Loba and I, and all sweet! While our family isn’t particularly sweetener centered, we decided that the holidays are a great time to share these decadent recipes.

Here we have a recipe for Acorn syrup, one for Cranberry Acorn Compote and one for Acorn Cheesecake that utilizes the first two recipes.

My apologies for the lack of food preparation pictures, I’m afraid we were all too busy celebrating and cooking and eating to bother with a camera.

Here are a couple of previous acorn posts I’ve written.

Acorn-Infused Butter

Wild Woodlands Morning Brew

Please Note: We’re using our local SW acorns from species such as Quercus gambelii, Q. emoryi, Q. turbinella & Q. grisea which only need to be roasted before shelling and using. If you live somewhere besides the SW, your acorns may be more labor intensive and require leaching.

Simple Acorn Syrup

The point of this recipe was just to find another concentrated acorn preparation so that I could add more acorns to everything. Especially combined with maple syrup, this is a great way to add the rich, nutty flavor to many desserts. Just try to avoid drinking it straight out of the bottle.

Ingredients

1. 1/4 C Roasted and smashed/ground Acorns
2. 1.5 pints of water
3. 13 oz Sugar or about 3/4 C Honey or Maple Syrup
4. Pinch of salt

1. Decoct acorns in water for appr. half an hour to an hour.
2. Strain, reserving liquid and saving acorn pieces for other recipes.
3. Add sweetener and salt to 1 pint of the decoction (if you have any leftover you can use it for tea)
4. Simmer for 45 min or until reduced by about 1/3 of volume.
5. Store in fridge or other cool place.

Cranberry Acorn Compote

This recipe results in an aromatic and rich compote that works great as a topping but it’s really pretty hard to resist just eating it out of the pot as soon as it’s done. The White Fir (Abies concolor) is an incredible match with the sweet-tart flavor of cranberries.

• Reserved acorns from Acorn decoction or syrup recipe (about 1/3 C after being decocted)
• appr 3 heaping Tb Honey
• 4 Tb White Fir Infused Olive Oil (oil infused with other evergreen needles or even Rosemary could work here)
• Handful of dried Cranberries (sweetened)
• 1/4 Tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1 medium sized crisp Apple like Honeycrisp, diced
• 1 Tb butter or Acorn infused butter
• pinch of salt

1. Grind acorns (preferably while still damp from decoction) with food processor or mortar & pestle to a rough meal
2. Stir in honey and place on low heat on the the stove
3. Let barely simmer while stirring frequently for half an hour
4. Remove from heat
5. Place cranberries and 1 Tb of White Fir oil in small skillet or pot
6. Cook over low heat for appr. 1/2 hour (can be done concurrently as the Acorn honey is cooking)
7. Add cranberries and oil to acorns and honey, stir well
8. Saute apple in butter until tender but still crisp
9. Stir apple, vanilla, salt and remaining Fir oil into acorn mix.
10. Allow to sit for a few hours before eating

Makes about 1/2 C of compote. If you wish to use this compote to make a thick topping for your cheesecake, you’ll probably want to double the recipe.

From Loba:

Acorn Cheesecake with Cranberry-Acorn Compote Topping

As soon as Kiva made her magnificent compote, we knew it had to be made into something truly worthy of its genius. Pie was on our minds. Kiva suggested cheesecake, and offered the use of the lovely acorn syrup she’d just made. I gladly tinkered with my favorite recipe to make this version. Cheesecake is one of those things I’m always happy to provide. I was thrilled to remember I’d just found a bit of acorn meal hiding in the pantry to flavor the crust. Try as I might, I couldn’t wipe the slightly anguished look on my face the whole time I was eating it– it’s that painfully good. I don’t think I’ve ever been quite so sad to see that cast iron skillet empty.

The crust is gluten-free and very reminiscent of traditional graham cracker crust in flavor and texture. You could substitute wheat flour for the oat flour, but you’ll lose the crumbly effect. If you don’t have any in your kitchen, oat flour can easily be made without a food processor by rubbing rolled oats together in your hands– makes your hands really soft, too!

The acorn meal I use in the crust is from Southwest acorns that I have simply roasted before being ground into flour with an ancient metate and a coffee grinder.

The Crust:

• 1/2 cup melted butter or acorn infused butter
• 1/2 cup acorn meal
• 1/2 cup almond meal
• 1 cup oat flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• several grinds fresh nutmeg

In a medium bowl, mix together all the ingredients. Form into a cohesive ball of dough and press into the bottom of a 9” cast iron skillet (if you have one without a wooden handle) or a 9” pie dish (not a tart pan– too shallow). I like to bring the crust only about halfway up the sides of the pan, making it fairly thick. Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes, watching carefully. Be sure to take it out as soon as it gets evenly browned. When pressed with a finger, the crust will collapse a bit and seem a bit too fragile. Taste it to make sure it’s cooked all the way through before adding the filling.

The filling:

The piima (a cold process culture somewhat similar to yogurt)  I use in the filling is made with half heavy cream, half half & half. I like to soften the cream cheese in the warmer of my woodstove while I’m making the crust. Setting the packages by a sunny window or in a bowl over some steaming water for a half hour or more works well, too. Don’t be tempted to skip or reduce the rather large amount of alcoholic substances– they help provide a lovely depth and a great balance to the acorn flavor. Be sure to taste the filling before putting it in the crust– you may wish to add a bit more acorn syrup, if it doesn’t seem sweet enough to you. Also, please know that I bake my cheesecake in a woodstove oven, so the timing is not terribly reliable– this one is truly worth watching like a hawk! Do be sure to set the oven temp as low as I mention, it will result in extra creaminess. You could even bake this in a water bath to make the edges of the cheesecake as creamy as the middle, if you’re really devoted to perfection. If you don’t have a cast iron skillet of the proper sort, this would be an extra good idea.

• 2 8 oz. packages Philadelphia brand cream cheese, softened
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup piima or sour cream
• 1/2 cup heavy (whipping) cream
• 4 tablespoons Kiva’s Acorn Syrup
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract, preferably homemade with cognac or brandy
• 2 tablespoons spiced rum, or 1 tablespoon cognac and 1 tablespoon brandy
• 1 tablespoon Acorn Infused Butter (see Kiva’s recipe)

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs and softened cream cheese, then beat in the piima or sour cream, the Acorn Syrup, Acorn Butter, vanilla and rum. Taste and adjust if you like. Pour into crust and bake at 325 degrees until just set, about 35 minutes. I find it perfectly done when it’s puffed up around the edges but the center is still just the slightest bit wobbly. Closest attention must be given, however, to find this magic moment. Cool and refrigerate before serving, if you can stand to wait that long. The center will firm up perfectly after proper cooling, and maintain an ecstatic level of creaminess that can be lost if the whole pie puffs up in too perky a manner.

After the pie has chilled completely, cover the top with the Acorn Compote. Serve slices with black chicory coffee, or Acorn-Fir Tea barely sweetened, and if you’re being crazy-indulgent, maybe some homemade whipped cream or homemade eggnog on the side, as we did.

This post is part of the July Wild Things Roundup, a great blogparty-type event created and hosted by my student Rebecca of Cauldrons & Crockpots and Butter of Hunger & Thirst focused on recipes and info about foraging wild foods. I always enjoy all the great posts they put together for each month but thus far hadn’t been able to make time to participate myself. With July’s theme being Wild Rose though, how could I NOT join in? Also, if you don’t already follow the aforementioned blogs, I highly recommend them.

Rosa woodsii growing on the banks of the San Francisco River

Gathering Rosa woodsii flowers and leaves

I work with Rosa spp. extensively in my practice and have a personal affinity with it. Every May I hike through riparian canyons and mountain meadows in search of one of my most beloved plant allies. The most common local species is Rosa woodsii, a common Western wild rose that rambles across riverbanks, canyon walls and the borders of upper elevation swamps.

Even this year in the midst of drought and fire I found a few roses blooming. Perhaps the most striking scene was during my drive up into the White Mountains for the first time after the Wallow Fire swept through eastern Arizona and western New Mexico. There on the side of a road in the middle of the burned out forest, surrounded by ash and blackened trees was a single Wild Rose bush, untouched and covered with late blooming flowers that were fragrant in the muggy heat of late June.

With its sweet flowers, rambling ways and formidable thorns the Wild Rose serves as something of a personal emblem and role model for me. In general,  I tend to relate at least as well to plants as I do people and usually prefer their company, especially when I’m stressed, overtired or upset. Spending time with Roses, especially the crazy haphazard hedges that grow head-high along the river here in the canyon, is both nourishing and challenging to my inherently pitta-fied ways. Their curved thorns brazenly grab and hold my skirts whenever I try to hurriedly maneuver among the plants to gather their petals… and the more I move the more tangled I end up. Until I learn to stand still and sort skirt from thorn which causes me to slow down long enough to breathe in the entirely intoxicating scent of the flowers combined with the musky aroma of the red-tinted leaves.

Rosa woodsii blooming by the San Francisco River

The medicine of Rose is not only in the lessons that entangled interaction can bring, but also as a traditional remedy throughout its growing range. While often mostly thought of as a pretty flower or invasive nuisance (Multifloras), they don’t always get their due in regards to clinical significance. I’d be hard pressed to imagine my practice without Rosa’s amazing nervine, cooling, mood enhancing anti-inflammatory, anti-infective, astringent, bioflavonoid-rich medicine. Whether for gut inflammation, sunburns, anxiety or constitutional heat, this common herb’s actions are widely applicable and incredibly useful. I won’t belabor the point here as I’ve already written a great deal about this plant previously. Check out the links below for more of my Rose-centered ramblings:

• Rose Monograph
• Sweetbriar by the River: A Romance in Pictures
• Step by Step Rose Elixir
• Rose Vinegar: My Favorite Sunburn Soother
• Sweet Medicine: An Overview of Honeyed Healing and Sensory Delight

Wild Rose Birthday Feast

Rhiannon dancing around the kitchen to the music of Gipsy.cz while she, Loba and I cooked the birthday feast.

When my 31st birthday rolled around recently in the second week of July we celebrated in traditional canyon feasting form, and I spent much of the day happily in the kitchen listening to Ukrainian and Romani music while cooking. For the dessert I decided to prepare Wild Rose Baklava and Spiced Wild Rose Ice Cream. Considering the drought this year, I was extra grateful that I’d stockpiled so much Wild Rose infused honey over the last couple of years. The fresh flower infused honey was the perfect consistency to blend with the crushed pecans for a flavorful yet delicate confection that was indulgent but not overly sweet.

While I certainly enjoy the traditional Rosewater flavor present in many traditional Baklava recipes, I have to say that the addition of Wild Rose to the mix definitely increased my love of this particular dish, accentuating the rich butter flavor and adding a wilder note to the whole affair. Next time around I might use the Wild Rose infused honey in the nut mixture again while making a Cinnamon spiced Wild Rosehip syrup to drizzle over whipped cream to top the baklava. Below you’ll find my approximate recipe, as always please feel free to experiment and adapt to your personal tastes.

Wild Rose Baklava

As most of my regular readers already know, I’m not one for exact recipes. Consider my instructions to be guidelines and remember to taste and adjust according to personal taste as you go along. There are many many regional variations on baklava, my recipe is based loosely on Claudia Roden’s Turkish recipe from her New Book of Middle Eastern Food. However, mine is a creamy variation (somewhat like the Turkish muhallebili baklava) which helps hold the nut filling together since I use far less sugar/honey than most recipes and also includes a Persian influenced spice blend. You can also use your favorite recipe and just substitute rose infused honey or add Rose water to the sugar syrup.

Some people are intimidated by making baklava, but really, it’s super simple and easy if somewhat time consuming with all that butter brushing and dough layerings.

Ingredients

• 1 /2 batch or 1/2 package of phyllo dough
• 1-1.5 C butter roasted Pecans (or similar nut), coarsely ground
• 1 package cream cheese, warmed until soft
• 1-2 sticks melted butter to brush on phyllo dough (more or less depending on how you feel about butter )
• 1/2 C Wild Rose infused honey (Yes, you can use any Rose infused honey you like the taste of. This is just standard Rose petal infused honey, you can even leave the petals in the honey if you like the texture rather than straining them out). You may want more honey than this. I don’t care for very sweet desserts, so if you have a serious sweet tooth, you’ll want to adjust for that.
• 1-2 Tbs Rose water (optional)
• 1 Tbs Orange zest, finely chopped
• 1 Tsp Cinnamon
• 1 Tsp Vanilla extract
• 1/2 Tsp freshly ground Black Pepper
• 1/2 Tsp Cardamom
• 1-2 Tsp salt

Instructions

1. Pre-heat oven to 300 F
2. Butter a square baking pan
3. In a mixing bowl combine nuts, rose water, orange zest, vanilla, salt, all spices and 1/4 C Rose infused honey. If you’re using fresh Rose infused honey then the honey should be thin enough to pour and mix well. If you used dry petals, you may need to warm it in order to mix it.
4. Fold in cream cheese.
5. Blend until smooth. Add more spices etc., to taste. Then set aside
6. If  using packaged phyllo dough, remove dough from package and cut appr. in half or a little larger than your pan. Wrap one half in damp cloth or similar and return to a cool place.
7. Begin laying the sheets of phyllo dough, one at a time, brushing butter over each layer as you go. If your sheets of dough are somewhat rectangular even after cutting in half (this is normal), just layer it so that you rotate how you lay the long side in the pan so it ends up fairly even. Layer half of the phyllo dough.
8. Spread the nut/spice/honey mixture evenly over the sheets.
9. Cover with remaining phyllo dough sheets, remembering to butter between each layer.
10. With a very sharp knife, cut diagonal parallel lines about 2 inches apart in diamond shapes. Be sure to cut all the way to the bottom.
11. At this point, I often add more butter by pouring some into the cut areas.
12. Of course most people bake their baklava in their oven. However, it was way too hot in our cabin to have the woodstove going so I cooked mine by putting the baking pan inside in a large cast iron pan with a pot lid over it and cooked it on the propane stovetop over low heat for about 45 min. It worked great, and I just browned the top by warming each piece in a pan face down before serving. Most of my readers probably won’t want to mess with my elaborate parlor tricks, so just figure baking in the oven for about 30-45 min at 300 F or until golden brown.
13. Then pour remaining Rose honey over the top of  the still warm baklava and let it soak in a bit before serving.
14. Top with whipped cream or ice cream as you like.

We ate ours warm topped by homemade Wild Rose ice cream while sitting in the garden with the beginning of a summer rain falling on us.

~~~~

©2011 Kiva Rose

A freeze damaged Opuntia pad

The drought withered leaf of Lonicera albiflora

With the current drought here in southwestern New Mexico only getting worse right now, I have never been so grateful for widely available, locally abundant, feral as all hell weeds. So much of the land in every direction is eerily brown and dormant despite the warm weather. There are very few birds or insects compared to a normal May in the canyon. And from photographs, you’d be likely to think it’s Winter right now. The quickest way to get a fix of lush green is to find a perennial waterway like our lovely San Francisco River running just below the mesa our cabins are situation on and…. checking out the weeds in people’s yards, in vacant lots and other disturbed areas. Some of these species are native, some are not, but what unites them is a particular tenacity and insistence. While many other plants have pulled back into dormancy to await the next rains, this particular botanical cadre is fiercely green in the face of unquenched thirst and scorching sun.

Indecorous Plants

Lemon Balm bursting back after being chewed down to nothing by hungry critters.

One of the primary indications that a plant will be called a weed is that it is common and thus giving the implication of being vulgar. And in fact, the word vulgar has its roots in the Latin vulgus, which appropriately enough means “folk” or “common people” but has the common definition of something (or someone) that is unrefined, ordinary, coarse… and even indecorous (lord protect us from indecorous plants) to the point of being obnoxious. Low class in other words, usually relegated to that status primarily by their commonness, their ability to thrive. This is not a matter of competition between plants within a particular habitat but rather a troubling projection of human origin. Wherever we are, modern humans have a tendency to most highly value what is hard to come by, that which is rare, exotic and comes at a great price.

It seems to me that if we’re going to place value judgments on plants as medicine and food, it makes a hell of a lot more sense to greatly value (getting past ingrained ideas about economics) what we have access to, what is sustainable and what we are able to cultivate intimacy with. The herbal community often excels at this, and I am eternally heartened by the excitement that a patch of Chickweed or stand of Wild Roses can evoke in any number of plant people. The exuberant pointing, shrieking and jumping up and down of otherwise dignified adults at the sight of Stinging Nettles on a riverbank is certainly one of the reasons I adore what I do.

The Why of Weeds

Japanese Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica) in our garden struggling to grow back after very hungry packrats have stripped much of its bark.

Personally, as much as I love and work to preserve rare or endangered plants, it is the common weeds that I am most likely to get excited about as an herbalist. Why? Because there’s lots of them and lots of potential for working with them and helping people without endangering the species. Think about it, a tiny stand of delicate and slow growing plants may have good medicine but the capacity for real life use is small. On the other hand, a yard full of Dandelions, Chickweed  and Mallow that just seems to multiply like rodents in Spring no matter how much you pick, pull, chop and run over them has HUGE capacity for treating and feeding people in a way that doesn’t harm the plant community. This seems especially important if we recognize that plants have intrinsic value in and of themselves outside of human use and deserve to thrive and live their own lives regardless of their value to us.

I also appreciate the feral nature of plants that survive where and when they can, digging in with roots and tendrils and running wild across the face of buildings, fences, lawns and whatever else will sit still long enough for them grow in, over or through. For me, the plants serve as role models and teachers, friends and confidantes. I’ve always found this especially true of unruly wildflowers and rebellious weeds that give the finger to herbicides and lawn regulations, busily growing and blooming from every crevice and empty patch of dirt.

Especially during dry times like these, I’m incredibly grateful for the soothing mucilage of Siberian Elm (Ulmus pumila) and Mallow (Malva spp.) that somehow still manage to leaf out and spread along sidewalks and doorsteps. Last week, I was struck by the sight of a young Elm tree sawed down about four feet from the ground and all its branches stripped off with its remaining trunk a strange black color. It was positioned in the middle of a gravel pile at the center of the village in a place where everything near it was dead from lack of water and soil. And yet, the Elm tree had dozens new leaves emerging from its ragged stump. Not just growing back from the roots, but shooting out from where it was broken. I keep its image in my mind as an emblem of hope right now as the leaves on the Oaks hang shriveled and black and the absence of the Canyon Wrens’ song renders the mesa scarily silent. Life is insistent, it will find a way.

Rhiannon with a green handful of River Mint in an otherwise barren field.

Weed Tending

What qualifies as weeds surely differs from place to place. Herbs like Plantain often known as weeds in moister climes are actually fairly difficult to track down here in southwestern New Mexico. And this year, with scarcity and fragility of many otherwise moderately common plants has me carefully considering what’s really ethical and sustainable to harvest and use as medicine. My goal is to adapt my current practice to what the land can easily bear and what the people need. I aim to be flexible enough to provide effective treatment while not presenting a burden to already stressed land. Some elements in this approach include:

1. Only harvesting from plants and plant communities that appear to be healthy and able to reproduce. This means staying away from plants that have only partially leafed out, are dropping leaves, have brown or black leaves or are unable to flower. Another reason for this, besides consideration for the plant, is that stressed plants can have somewhat different balances constituents than what we’re accustomed to and the medicine may not behave as we expected.
2. Going out of my way even more than normal to help plants reproduce by dividing roots and replanting rather than taking the whole root system when harvesting, waiting until a plant is in seed before harvesting roots and being sure to spread the seeds, making cuttings of plants easily spread that way as with Salix species and even being extra careful where I walk on wild land. This may seem somewhat ridiculous in lush habitats, but here in the dry SW, compressing the soil and squashing barely surviving plants can have a very noticeable effect.
3. Sorting through my existing stock of herbal preparations and preserved foraged foods and being sure to carefully note what I have and what I really need more of. Then making a point of using what I have abundant stores of rather than impulsively going after whatever new creature catches my fancy. It’s likely that even the weeds are under stress this season and I prefer not to add to that if possible. I’ll also go out of my way not to recommend larger doses than necessary and more likely to admonish people not to lose, ruin (kindly don’t leave your tincture bottles and tea mixes on the dash of your sealed car in an Albuquerque parking lot, people) or otherwise waste existing medicines.
4. And for my own sake, I’ll spend a great deal of time with both the thriving and hurting plants, noticing how they respond to the current conditions and appreciating even the ones I know are dying, thanking them for their beauty even as they lose their life to this painfully dry season.

Village Weeds

The very persistant Periwinkle (Vinca major)

As I mentioned above, here in the SW we don’t always have the same weeds as other places, but here are a few of our most persistent and multi-purpose weedy plants at the middle elevations along with a selection of their primary qualities and uses.

• Siberian Elm (Ulmus pumila) – Basically interchangeable with Slippery Elm (Ulmus rubra), making it an exceedingly useful constitutional tonic for those who tend in the direction of dry as well as a remarkably effective gut healer, useful even in extreme digestive debility where there is inflammation and pronounced irritability of the gastric mucosa. Also useful externally as a drawing agent or soothing abraded areas.
• Sweet Clover (Melilotus spp.) – This fragrant and abundant roadside weed is not only an excellent wild food (especially in pesto) and tasty beverage tea but also a useful medicine. A notable aromatic, its carminative properties work well on their own to resolve bloating and discomfort or blend well with more obvious choices such as Chamomile. Sweet Clover is also a very useful anti-inflammatory, especially for soft tissue and the vascular system. Topically, it makes an excellent first aid salve  and a poultice, soak, salve for vascular weakness.
• Periwinkle (Vinca major) – The astringent flowers and leaves of vining, groundcover-like Periwinkle are an effective vascular tonic, serving to tighten up the tissue of the vascular system wherever there is laxity. Based on this same systemic tonifying action, I frequently utilize Vinca as a vasoconstrictor for certain kinds of migraines.
• Evening Primrose (Oenothera spp.) – Despite its delicate appearance, I’ve seen Evening Primrose bloom from the cracks in rocks, in parking lots and even sprout of the crevices of old building foundations. The aromatic species are relaxant nervines and very effective antispasmodics, especially useful in the treatment of mild to severe uterine/ovarian cramping with accompanying tension and irritability. All species seem to act as mucus membrane tonics, reducing inflammation, tightening lax tissues and preventing further degradation. This is especially useful in formulas for gut, reproductive or respiratory inflammation.

A Feral Heart

Fragrant Evening Primrose (Oenothera caespitosa)

Yes, I love and identify with the common and vulgar, the feral and fierce. I’m as likely to call myself a weedwife or plant lover as clinical herbalist, although I would consider all of these term to be true to my work. I value the common, the ordinary even, for its vitality and profusion. For its resilience and flexibility in the face of droughts and floods, habitat change and ever shifting interactions with the humans they share land with.

This applies to herbalists as well. Sure, there’s lots of us at the level of herbwife, kitchen herbalist, practitioner and village herbalist. There are no rock star requirements for what we do and in fact, such a status can keep us from being maximally approachable and accessible to others. There’s an ancient lineage for our work, for mothers and wildcrafters and weedwives, of the common people working together with common plants to bring a bit more healing and beauty  to the world with our work. Our resilience and adaptability is part of why we survive and revive time after time, despite periodic suppression and stifling regulation.

Digging In

In this vein, I’m offering a free webinar on May 18th called Root to Fruit: Folk Herbalism From the Ground Up where I’ll be discussing one of my favorite weedy plants, how to both deepen and broaden your materia medica and elements for a balanced approach to practicing herbalism.

And oh yes, during the webinar (sponsored/produced by Learningherbs.com), we’ll be giving away a free ticket to the Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference, a free copy of the sold out Culinary Herbalism online course and all sorts of other lovely things.

To listen in, you have to register ahead of time, so just click on the link below and sign up to participate.

Root To Fruit: Folk Herbalism From the Ground Up

Water Crowfoot (Ranunculus aquatilis var. diffusus)

]]> http://bearmedicineherbals.com/weedwifery.html/feed 9 http://bearmedicineherbals.com/wildcrafting.html http://bearmedicineherbals.com/wildcrafting.html#comments Thu, 15 Jul 2010 03:45:16 +0000 Kiva Rose http://bearmedicineherbals.com/?p=1190 This is for the July Blog Party on Adventures in Herbalism, hosted by Darcey Blue of Gaia’s Gifts. I’m all about the up close and personal.  I learn best through my senses and direct experience. This is perhaps more true in the way I practice herbalism and relationship with the plants than almost anything else. While [...]]]>

This is for the July Blog Party on Adventures in Herbalism, hosted by Darcey Blue of Gaia’s Gifts.

I’m all about the up close and personal.  I learn best through my senses and direct experience. This is perhaps more true in the way I practice herbalism and relationship with the plants than almost anything else. While I enjoy reading and hearing about herbs, my most significant learning happens when they’re about two inches from my face, or when ingesting or actually applying them. I cherish the tactile, the sensual, the immediate.

Nearly all of the herbs I work with in my practice are wildcrafted, and so I have myself a fair number of plant adventures. Whether fording shoulder deep, fast-moving floodwaters with Darcey Blue to harvest Hops stroibles, climbing rocky hills in high heels (I don’t recommend this) in search of Desert Anemone with my local friend Sarah, hanging from tree branches with Loba while looking for berries or crawling through twelve food snow drifts on top of a semi-frozen creek by myself while trying to reach White Fir branches, I tend to like my wildcrafting a little on the extreme side. My family make our home in some of the most remote and least developed country in North America, which definitely creates some great wildcrafting opportunities all on its own.

If you happen to be around to witness such adventures, you’re very likely to catch me squealing like a teenaged girl in a mall, but over wildflowers and roots rather than boys or clothes. Or I might be down on my belly muttering random latin words under my breath while examining some hard to identify species. By the end of any given expedition I’ll likely have leaves tangled in my hair, briar scratches on my arms, dirt streaks on my face and a vehicle full of plant matter. This suits me just fine, and I’d rather have a picnic and muddy adventure in the woods than dinner in a restaurant and a movie any day.

I’ve sliced any number of fingers open, sprained various joints, hung by my hair from Juniper branches on the side of a mountain and even gotten myself quite stuck halfway up a cliff or two. At this very moment, I have several wounds on my hands in the process of healing (be careful with those hori horis, people), a strained wrist, scattered phytodermatitis on my arms and Willow whipmarks on my face from recent wildcrafting journeys. If you don’t yet have the particular disease that compels you to stalk your own herbs and food, you may well wonder what the hell possesses me to brave floodwaters, crawl through mud and avoid nosy authorities just for some weeds.

Why? Because it’s great fun, and nothing quite beats the thrill of finding the one small patch of sticky plants with smelly roots you just walked five miles and climbed a mountain for. Because being dirty and exhausted means I’m alive and living (not the same thing, in case you were wondering). It also gives me a specific and direct connection to the medicines I work with that simply can’t be obtained through ordering herbs online or even growing them in my garden. Getting to know them in their wild habitat provides me with insight and intimacy that I consider invaluable to my practice as an herbalist and vital to my personal relationship with the land and myself.

Truth be told, most of my trips to obtain supplies for our remote homestead are really just excuses to find the herbs that live a little bit further from home. When I make the four hour drive to Albuquerque I have at least a dozen different favorite spots I like to stop at to collect desert herbs. While heading for any city tends to leave me a bit cold, I do get awful excited to go visit my favorite  You’ll never see me as excited as when I’m exploring a new plant place, especially if that happens to be in a high elevation mountain meadow or remote Aspen grove. Despite the fact that I’m fairly afraid of heights, I do manage to find myself on a great many very steep roads and on the edges of dramatic ravines in order to get closer to new and mysterious green thing.

I’m not implying that I think this style of harvesting works for everyone (or is sustainable for the current population), but it is one of my own biggest joys and most persistent obsessions. While I enjoy gardens a great deal, no domesticated plant or pretty plot can compare with the rush that hits me every time I get to know a new wild place, inch by feral inch. Down in the dirt I can feel the world through my senses, direct and up close, as personal as skin and flower and as deep as root and song.

For those who don’t regularly read the Anima Lifeways and Herbal School blog, you might be interested in my newest series of posts over there called The Forager’s Basket. Mostly made up of concise profiles of common wild foods, this series aims to give people an ongoing look at the wide array of easily available edible wild plants as well as suggestions on how to harvest, process, preserve and prepare them. Yes, that’s right, free information about free food, what could be better?

You can take a look at the series so far right here, and if you enjoy them, you might want to subscribe to the blog via a feedreader or email to receive updates about new posts. Enjoy!

~Kiva