Outside, it’s cold and the plants have turned all colors of the sunset. The Epazote is a beautiful red streaked with orange, yellow and green. The Salvia coccinea that was in full bloom when it got a light freeze still has brilliant red buds even as the leaves fade to olive, then gray, before finally [...]
I’ve spent much time over the last few days carefully processing and storing the herbs I’ve gathered this growing season. I made a huge effort this year to gather almost all of the herbs I would use for myself, my family and my clients. And with the addition of some trading with other herbalists and [...]
Harvesting Motherwort from the Weed Garden this morning, I grinned like a little kid as I snipped each fibrous stalk and added the feathery green beings to my basket. It’s so simple and maybe even a little silly but this is what I’ve wanted to do my whole life. Not just working as a healer, [...]
October Blogparty: The First Ally In the beginning, in even the coldest forests of the North, grew a tree with so much power that her flowers could cure blindness and the healers of many peoples held her in the highest regard. A tree so sacred that her limbs couldn’t be gathered without permission and her [...]
I found it! High Mountain Herb Heaven is very nearby! Yesterday, Loba and I were on a mission to find local Apples, mostly because they taste better but also because the cardboard Apples in the store are something like $1.50/lb. We asked around and all the usual suspects had lost their Apple flowers to late [...]
Early yesterday morning we journeyed from the Canyon towards the Arizona border, up into the Aspen forests that lie less than an hour from our tiny mountain village. It’s a swift rise from Piñon/Juniper and Ponderosa to Mixed Conifer woods, going from the 6,000 feet we normally reside at to almost 9,000 feet in the [...]
Wherever I go, I carry a red woven wool bag from Guatemala. It can be worn as a backpack or carried over the shoulder, I’ve even attached it to my belt on a few occasions. Inside the bag lives many of my most important tools, medicine items and plants. Since students keep trying to peek [...]
The nights and mornings feel much cooler since the lunar eclipse and the plants are responding to the temperature change through shifting color and vigorous fruiting. As the light shifts from the summer fireball blast to the luminescent gold of another mountain autumn I’m out checking on the plants, making a few lists and prioritizing [...]
Last weekend I got a chance to experience the magic of working with wise woman and herbalist Robin Rose Bennett. It began with a beautiful walk in with Loba, Robin and five other plant obsessed women who’d joined us to learn about local herbs and experience the mystique of the lunar eclipse within the mothering [...]
The River I love Cabin view from the river. The Den and Treehouse Me banging on things. Rhiannon & her Papa Loba making ymminess Rhiannon and her treehouse
I don’t know if I’d recommend it, but it was kind of fun…. It all started with Rhiannon’s birthday walk and the fact that I’d left my shoes at the bottom of the path below the mesa we live on. And the huge storm the night before that had washed away said shoes. I like [...]
My family, both sides, came from the Appalachians, and before that from Scotland and before that from Northernmost Europe…. there’s something of those people still in my blood. A bit of melancholy, a lot of storytelling and a deep love of forest and river. My mother played the fiddle, and sang those old sad songs [...]
Today I turned 27! To celebrate, Loba, Rhiannon and our intern, Kyra, climbed the arroyo to seek out the (hopefully) ripe Gooseberries. Much to our delight, about thirty percent of the Gooseberries were indeed ripe. So into the brambles we went to gather the tart black berries, between the four of us we managed to [...]
Here we are! Happy Wild Women getting ready to sing together and howl at the moon. I’m there in the middle with the brown dress, Loba to my right and our apprentice Annie to the left. Our new intern, Kyra, is to the far left in the pretty pink peasant blouse. All of the women [...]
Loba and I woke up early this morning to prepare a picnic lunch to take up the arroyo on a berry picking adventure. We were hoping for ripe Gooseberries and maybe even a Saskatoon (Serviceberry, Shadberry, Juneberry or whatever else you’d like to call it) or two. In the early morning the air was still [...]