Wednesday, August 5, 2020

El Empacho Remedio: Nebada, Poleo, Hinojo, Menta de Lobo and Hinojo

     Understanding El Empacho:

   Empacho is a term used in the south west and refers to stomach distress, Empacho is when food gets stuck in the intestines or accumulates around the stomach. It often manifests with a blocking in the epigastric area. I was wanting to make this formula for a while now. Published original 2015.
Today while walking along the river the herbs came to me. Our recent mild October weather brought up new growth of Bugle weed, Poleo and Catnip- the 3 ingredients along with fennel seed which are the basis of this remedio.
    In empacho the food becomes stuck and digestion suffers. This can lead to bloating, gas and constipation in dry empacho, or loose stools in wet empacho.  There is dry empacho with constipation and wet empacho with diarrhea. It can occur for several reasons including:
eating fatty foods, eating outside the normal rhythm; eat faster or slower than usual, eating foods that are not well prepared; They may be raw or eating foods that are difficult to digest like too many beans and not enough vegetables. In different biospirits,  empacho can occur from eating too much bread, pizza, eating on the run, eating with strangers.
Poleo and , Menta de Lobo grow together in families 

Menta de Lobo 

Poleo

     In traditional south west teaching, eating should be done with friends and loved ones.There should be harmony with the cook, and the people eating together. You should avoid for profit restaurants where people serving and cooking the food may be angry, judgemental or hostile to various biospirits. Crowded dining with diverse groups of people who may be jealous or confused by dominant culture meme pathogens. Women who hate men, men who hate women and all this will go into the food and cause a severe kind of indigestion. Especially people who cultivate programming in dominant culture cinema, music and literature. These people sometimes with and sometimes without intention seek to even a score for perceived past grievance and although no one can atone for a grievance not done, they seek to inflict justice by causing others to suffer, creating havoc in biospirit. These types of people can transfer this type of fearful paranoid energy to the food. Food must be balanced. Balanced in relation to the hot and cold intrinsic characteristics of the elements consumed. It's best not to eat too late, the last meal should be finished near sunset. If you are having this type of stomach upset you can make this remedio or find someone who honors the unique biospirit of each, to make it for you specifically. Often herbs are made in big batches and then someone will take the herb and wonder why it didn't work? Herbs should be made in small batches, for specific purposes, for specific people, with specific conditions. If at all possible a cleansing should be done, with the various prayers that we have been taught to use by Father God.

https://youtu.be/uEMI1dALX2Q

    There is a special type of emapacho that occurs with nursing mothers and their babies. Women and girls are often nursing, feeding babies and both their state of mind and what they are doing influences their milk. This can create colic in the baby drinking the mommas milk. Therefore fruits that are "cold" like oranges and watermelons, should not be consumed by pregnant women whose nature at that time is "hot". Likewise they should avoid windy places because the wind can enter the milk. In this sense, the ingestion of "cold" or "hot" food in the nursing mother can cause milk "curds" and harm the infant, just as if being in the sun too much she in excess or suffers a "cooling off" when wash or take a bath. Consequence of this is the "enlechamiento"  a variety of 'colic' that occurs when the child eats breast milk under the conditions listed, or mom offers her milk too frequently, too much,  or Mom nurses her baby after suffering a surprise event (shock) or a stressful event. In all cases, the milk is in lumps, and produces colic in the baby. The baby will be filled with gas and crying, if it progresses the baby will lose sleep and lose weight.
     If the Mom is frightened, or mistreated by her husband, if there is a lot of yelling in the house, this can spoil the milk. The idea that a husband and wife should always be together, always sleep together, is a crazy idea. During certain times a woman and man should not spend a lot of time together, they should not be intimate because they will make each other sick. If a husband and wife need to fight and argue, they should do it outside rather than in an enclosed space like a moving car or inside the house.  Often times when men and women separate and divorce it is because they were fighting inside the house. They want to break up and separate from the fighting angry energy in the house. That's why if you work with herbs you should also do house blessings and cleansing. If the woman is angry or jealous she may spill bile into the milk, creating empacho in the baby. Empacho can also be caused by older women beyond child bearing years who is jealous of the Mom with her baby. Jealous of her youth and beauty, she may intentionally or unintentionally stare at the Mom or kiss the baby and create a special type of empacho which can be helped by this remedio, but it may require a cleansing by someone able to do so.
     Recently I was with a woman who had some how been exposed to this type of 'susto' or fright. She was a bright, attractive and well educated, yet she was living in her car. Moving continuously from place to place she wasn't able to accomplish her goals. Then I noticed she was drawn to some herbs I had on the table, some traditional Remedios. She was drawn to the Espiritu de Poleo I had made and some yerba santa smudge sticks. In another south west tradition this is called moth sickness. Moths are drawn towards flames. Someone with moth sickness is unable to remain in one place. They are continually coming and going. Often seeking romantic relationships of a transitory nature, they may leave their partners unexpectedly seeking to hook up for one night stands. They go again and again towards the flame, eventually burning in the flame. Something outside of themselves is compelling them to run around. Leave their loved ones and family and go tramping about. It's not like they enjoy this running around. They are suffering. She agreed to try a limpia, which I did with yerba santa, and tincture of osha, Ligusticum porteri. It was a great help to her. In this type of susto, it's often necessary to use herbal formulas and techniques to resolve the condition.
     (left to right)  Poleo, Menta de lobo, Nebada

     El Empacho Remedio is a traditional remedy for treating empacho. I use the following 4 herbs together in a formula called El Empacho Remedio:Nebada, Poleo, Hinojo, and Menta de Lobo. Nebada is catnip Nepeta cateria. Poleo, is our native bit Mentha arvensis. Hinojo is Foeniculum vulgar or Fennel seed. Menta de Lobo is Lycopus americanus or Bugle weed. Use fresh herbs and try to gather the herbs from the same place. Don't mix herbs from far away places, they all come from the same place.
    The first ingredient is Nebada, or catnip, Nepeta cateria. I prefer the catnip which grows wild along the river. Nebada relieves stomachache, cramps, and spasms of the intestinal tract. The second ingredient is Poleo, Mentha arvensis. Poleo is a sweet and spicy mint growing in riparian areas. It relieves stomach pain, and settles the stomach along with dispersing heat. It is used as a colic remedio for infants. The 3rd ingredient is Menta de Lobo, Bugle weed, Lycopus americanus. The traditional name Menta de lobo refers to Lycopus refers to the greek 'lyco", wolf and 'plus'-little foot, referring to the plants leaf shape. You can find out about these herbs from books but it is best to encounter them face to face and learn them that way. Michael Moore, in Medicinal Plants of the Mountain West, states, "Bugle weed is specific to nervous indigestion, being both tonic and nervine. As a sedative and tranquilizer it is strong but not druggy, producing few symptoms other than relaxation...much better than something like Valerian...", this combination of equal parts Nebada, Poleo, Menta de Lobo with seeds of Hinojo makes an exquisite remedio for empacho. I encourage you to try it. 

Monday, August 3, 2020

Bugle weed, Lycopus

Lycopus, Bugle weed is an important herb to know on our Heavenly Father who breathes in our nostrils  biospirit worship as healing continuous no-separation endless medicine road.
Lycopus uniflorus, Northern bugle weed in flower

     lycopus asper, rough bugle weed, lycopus uniflorus, northern bugle weed
Lamiaceae (Mint Family)
Rough Bugleweed (Lycopus asper) is distinguished by its (usually) hairy stem and calyx square upright stems. The various bugle weed Lycopus like all herbs are moving, walking here and there. In finding a Lycopus that is active, use your organoleptic taste and harvest the bitter ones, they be most active for biospirit and what we are doing rather than specific botanical names. Although it is helpful to loupe them and know the subtle differences. This wet swampy northwest medicine garden has two different Lycopus species i have been working with. 
Lycopus asper, rough bugle weed, 2 stamens, purple tinge flowers

      Undivided with no separation medicine road garden Bugle weeds are a perennial, short low to the ground wet mint, growing from a thin white nodular trailing root. The white knobby root has a crispy texture and varies in bitterness, having been eatable by many. In this sense bugle weed is a food/medicine plant, maybe more medicine/food in certain stands. As such it is a relatively safe, non-judgemental plant that works for people. Not a heavy medicine plant it does have a complex chemistry. You gather the whole plant in flower with occasional roots as they present. FPT 1:2 it's a delightful abundant and frequently encountered plant with a wide distribution from east to west, north to south Arizona to Cascadia. 
    Lycopus in the northwest hugs lake edges, marshes, watery boggy swaps and small feeder creeks that tend to dry out mid summer. Bugle weed has erect square stems, leaves serrate to deeply saw toothed. Usually there are several species growing together. Often bugle grows with other water loving mints such as Scutellaria galericulata hooded skullcap, Mentha arvensis, Mentha canadensis in little groups. Telling the bugle weeds apart is easier in the field than on paper because in one place the same species will tend to have different growth patterns and character. Generalizations don't apply to species across broad areas outside of a face to face encounter. You will find 2 foot high hairy spindly varieties and short varieties. 
     

 Lycopus bugle weed is an important herb to know on the continuous endless medicine road. what i am seeing? i am seeing a lot of flowering Bugle weed. Like every single person reading this, i am feeling wet mud between my toes. Lot of mosquito bites, sunburned, everyone, anyone reading this, without a doubt you are walking through the mud on undivided endless biospirit medicine road. 

https://youtu.be/uEMI1dALX2Q

    Here at this medicine garden there are two different bugle weeds. After sloshing about the mud for a couple of weeks we see everyone going from one wet muddy boggy swamp to another. Begin to acknowledge the patterns of growth in the species. Lycopus asper, rough bugle weed can often be distinguished by its frequent densely hairy stems, and purple spots on the flowers. Lycopus uniflorus tends to be shorter and more in clusters from a thin bulbous trailing root node, although this is a local trait that varies. All the bugle weed i have encountered in the west have white flowers around the leaf axil, four lobed flowers with two stamens unlike most mints. While most southern bugle weed flowers in arizona and new mexico are white in some northern populations i have worked with in Nevada, BC, montana, washington and idaho on continuous medicine road you'll see pink and purple splotches in the white. Flowers occur in all varieties in dense clusters around the opposite leaf axils, tiny 1/8 inch or less, tubular four lobed white with two purple tipped stamens unlike most mints. 

      Many mints are highly aromatic, bugle weeds are not strongly aromatic in the mint sense. Northern bugle weeds do have a distinct scent in the crushed leaves. You recognize it in time. It is not a typical mint mentha scent. It's a iodine and sulphur scent. This scent says about its relationship to thyroid gland as sulfur and iodine are connected there. Look for a bitter bugle weed that is best for tincture. A good bugle weed will have bitter taste not immediately noticed because it can be so wet, the bitter comes on stronger as you chew leaves. Look for that taste and smell in your bugle weeds. 
      Bugle weed is an excellent folk biospirit  plant due its mildness and complex chemistry. Bugle weed nourishes glands in the body including the kidney. It works on many body systems and lends itself to wide presentation. It promotes blood circulation and prevents blood pooling. It can encourage movement of fluid accumulation in lower limbs. It will support the kidney. In a superficial rapid thready pulse it subtly decreases pulse while increasing more definitions in the beat, so fluid moves. It is a quieting relaxant to the nervous system. 
    Although mint plants are usually aromatic this one is not. So many good changes as biospirit folk plant more and more people are gathering closely intimately together using bugle weed...Undivided. Most mints also are not hemostatic, bugle weed is. As such it can be used by women in heavy periods or in older women who are losing their monthly but then it returns spotty. It is also a useful herb for women to try in menopause for night sweats and hot flashes. It combines well with motherwort. It can be helpful for sweating, bounding pulse, at night for women with these hot flashes and promote relaxation and sleep. 
     Although not widely known in biospirit positive circles bugle weed is becoming more and more useful as a mild nervine. For insomnia and sleeplessness it works best for people who tend to jump and look around when there's a loud sound, and continue to look around after the sound is gone. It works for people who become afraid at the sound of thunder and lightning. In short people who are thin, naturally don't gain weight, tend to be jumpy and worry about what people think about them. In generalized uneasiness and hesitancy with an anxious dark worried mind it can work to relax and calm. In these cases it can be a valuable nervine ally. It's not a druggy sedative chemical it's more of an alterative to support the hormonal stress glands. Especially the thyroid and pituitary complex, that tend to get switched on and locked on, so the natural loops that turn things off and on are stuck on. 
      If the pulse is too fast and there is a tendency for breathlessness where the heart beats quickly and thumps, then decreases and a person is anxious it can encourage the heart beats to be more distinct and separate, like a bum-bump, rather than b-b-b-bum,  rather than all clumped in quick little beats that don't move stuff around very well. Because this herb grows in wet moist cool slow flowing water it tends to balance flow of blood with the kidney so the water can mix and piss out of the blood and get to a proper thickness.  
    This folk formula growing together in moist wet swampy low places, the three herbs catnip, poleo and bugle weed or minta de lobo grow together and create a polycrest place formula. It addresses accumulation of hardness in the belly which is called empacho. In children this can be colic, crying fits, and restlessness. This formula can sweeten the milk in a breastfeeding mother, especially if she has been sad or crying, fighting with her husband's family, or arguing with her husband about money, and not sleeping well, or sleeping too much. In adults this can be either hard or soft, with constipation or loose stool. Often in adults this formula will help heartburns below the  small space between ribs in the upper abdomen. 
      So apparently appreciate this Bugle weed medicine and enable it to appropriate biospirit wellbeing, now going free do no harm bless and praise His holy name. 
Lycopus Bugle weed with nutlets and flowers

Sunday, August 2, 2020

Scutellaria galericulata, Marsh Skullcap

Scutellaria galericulata, mint hooded marsh skullcap. Square stem mint family Lamiaceae. 
Hooded flower appearing opposite 

Saturn Pluto Jupiter conjunction rising in sidereal Capricorn, full moon in sidereal Sagittarius August 1 2020

Found from the arid southwest to Canada and Alaska. Found here in moist swampy areas, adjacent to northwest mountain lakes, about 18 inches tall to a foot high, square stem leaves, opposite, lanceolate, crinkled, strongly veined on underside, directly from stem, stems tend to be reddish brown at Midsommer flowering. Light blue hooded flower at leaf axil, in opposite pairs, with smaller leaf axils. Flower the upper lip entire, shorter than lower and hood-like, the lower lip 3-lobed observed with a loupe 10x otherwise appear fused. Fruit is a nutlet in pairs turning brown.

     Botanists arrange plants according to their protocols and herbalists to theirs. While a particular plant genus and species maybe present botanically across a wide geographic range, it doesn't mean it's the same plant herbally. It's important to spend a lot of time with your skullcap populations. It is empowering to know wherever you are you will find Scutellaria galericulata and a familiar bitter, cooling taste with demulcent texture.
      Scutellaria galericulata is an excellent nervine used both as a nurturing supportive herb alterative for the nervous system and for acute sudden onset anxiety as they arise. Known for its ability to relax tension without strong sedation. Antispasmodic action makes it useful in menstrual cramps, restless leg at sleep and combined with anodyne herbs. Due to its bitter cooling energetics it's useful in dispelling liver heat that manifest with anger, rage, short temper, restless insomnia. It helps to move this stuck liver energy and is alterative in unproductive mind states that appear volitional choice when they are more rooted in a body condition of blocked liver. It can be combined with estafiate in this condition.
     The whole plant in flower with occasional roots that pull up, FPT 1:2. Potency of this and similar herbs can be increased by gathering skullcap with biospirit specific protocol practices taught by face to face teaching and gathering during full moon.      

      Another way to access this plants bioenegetics is smoking it in a pipe, or rolling papers. Smoking this variety of skullcap will definitely work immediately to calm. It can useful combined with other herbs, like lobelia for tobacco nicotine withdrawal formulas. Although since nicotine withdrawal is so smoking dependent it may be more useful to use a formula that doesn't include the physical act smoking. Provide separate nicotine containing tobacco tincture, for intense cravings, with straight lobelia tincture, and pedicularis tinctures. In my experience Scutellaria galericulata is too strong to smoke alone, just to much spaced out quality, although in an acute anxiety attack or combatting withdrawal from, alcohol, tobacco, opiates, late stage Meth syndrome after the 48-72 meth crash stage, it could be useful. Since harm reduction is a legitimate strategy in tobacco dependence it can be combined with other herbs including tobacco in a kinnikinnick blend to wean someone from acute nicotine addiction. Or to create a relaxing non tobacco smoking mixture combined with Pedicularis bractiosa or Pedicularis racemosa, uva-ursi, prince of pine pipsissewa, dwarf dogwood bunch berry leaf, red ossier dogwood bark, manzanita leaves in a kinnikinnick. 
       One way i am on this endless medicine road well being through herbs is by biospirit specific protocol practices face to face. You will find this herb is useful in substance withdrawal, anxiety reduction, as a part of formulas for many presentations. Skullcap combined with Pedicularis, Lobelia spp, and other herbs elaborate further, deeper, more completely face to face. This is a face to face journey you can make a huge difference for those desiring to go free here now from substance dependence other forms of biospirit erasure with these plant teachers provided by and through spirit. When you focus on your personal relationship with plants you can't go wrong. Endless medicine road Scutellaria galericulata. 
Underside leaf deeply veined

    Even though others divert biospiritual energy into regime clinic cults, that don't permit biospirit flow it maybe these forms are the only permitted forms available in a reduced situation. Know that bowing, bending, taking a knee and apologizing on the way to your video game medicine show debt payment gig is eventually going to block and suppress your own biospirit.
     Endless medicine road for wellbeing continues for those on that road, the decades and decades, 100+ year long regime program to deface-erase-replace our people's biospirit for 4 generations in their hot-cold-hot agenda from their 30 year brothers war 1915-1945 till today, via meme pathogens, erase-deface-replace, brother-sister shun-styles, yet i still gather healing plants for our people with love, service, do no harm, sharing open go free here now these herbs...
      Going back to the Greek, Egyptian, Aryan Indian subcontinent and Chinese cultures opiates, marijuana, and mind altering substances have been noted historically. The epidemic is not new what is new is the addiction death-style marketing rap. The new rap is, your addiction is regime conviction. Your condition, our regime permission. We gave you meth-salts, benzos, oxy's, now try our prescription methadone, or how about a reformulated meth adderal to put pep in your step, it's all covered by regime dumb down health wealth care. We will redistribute your wealth to deserving others while you rot in your drug infested no go zone replace-erase cities. The regime can't stop cheap meth, black tar heroin, xani bars, but it can support the cure, our regime approved death-style, Buprenorphine/Naloxone (Suboxone). 

     In the Bible the greek word pharmakea which is the root of our word pharmacy, has been translated meaning sorcery, mind control by practices using pharmakea, witchcraft, sex and worship of strange gods. In the Bible these practices are understood as poisonous to the biospirit which Father God has breathed in us his people. Other teachers in their respective  traditions understood substances that cloud and confuse the mind as being not only personally debilitating but also a part of subduing and enslaving people. The essence of this is Titus 2:12 "Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;"Any time a culture allows addictive debilitating drugs to be widely circulated there are nefarious elements in that culture promoting erasure and wealth redistribution. This wealth redistribution is an attack on an important foundation, sovereignty, dominion and private property. In many areas state, county and local taxes mean that sovereign private property is converted via exorbitant money lender usury and yearly taxation schemes that mean your property is not held by you and your birthright children. Your private property is owned by the state, proof being, avoid paying their yearly tax and see who is the real owner of your property. Property state inheritance death tax, means your own children can not inherit your property unless they first pay a death tax to the state. A death tax on property that is owned free and clear.
    These intricate tax wealth redistribution schemes are hatched in a group identity politic with you as the only identity group not allowed to represent yourself within a group identity political system. In the mean time while we are redistributing your families accumulated wealth piece by piece in escalating yearly installments, we are going to infiltrate your community with insidious addictive drugs. If we don't hook your children officially and legally in the schools with a toxic mix of methamphetamine salts, and bizarre chemical pharmakea, we will get them on street drugs which are conveniently available by dope dealing classmates. Just as the regime police step down and take a knee during mob riots, looting and criminal bravo sierra chaos. Isn't it convenient that your regime police do a step down hands off approach to illegal street drugs decimating our nation. In case you forgot, it's no longer your nation. Because in a governance that has evolved to group identity politic, you are the only group not permitted group representation in that identity politic system. Isn't it predictable that once again you are now an absolute minority in a country where just 40 years ago you were the majority group? The regime did another convenient step down on illegal immigration. Just as the regime steps down when criminal gangs loot, burn, topple monuments and historic sights. They do a stand down on illegal immigration. They do a stand down on a flood of addictive poisonous drugs. They don't stand down at home foreclosure. They don't do a stand down for tax liens on private property.  They don't do a stand down on enforcement of an absolute ban on your speech when you demand representation in a group identity politic government. Simply use the word white with regard to any meaningful activity. White political caucus. White business. White community. White schools. White education. White studies in a antiwhite regime school. See how fast the regime responds. No stand down of the antiwhite regime forces when any element of white is mentioned. Yet you can say, Black political caucus, Latino representative, Black studies at a publicly funded college, Black lives matter, Native american owned business, any identity group can advocate publicly for their concerns, you alone cannot. Regime controlled social media will immediately ban any in real life IRL activity that links to white wellbeing.  
        Here when I say widely circulated, highly addictive poisonous drugs, I mean descriptive rather than prescriptive. It is not a question of if these drugs are here. They are here and they are destroying your community. The community you can't call your community due to hate speech laws. You can say asian community. You can say black community. You can say latino community. But you can not say white community. If you say white community you will be fired from your job. You will have vigilante mobs at your door. Your name and address will be publicly posted. The police will thoughtfully step down while you are assaulted because you said white. Well there are white people and yes it is to our advantage to acknowledge ourselves as a group and establish white well being community awareness.
      If there is a society nation where copious amounts of widely available addictive chemicals are in use then it's pointless to call it prescription vs illegal. It doesn't matter whether your addicted to prescription percocet, illegal heroin, methadone or suboxone, the bottom line is putting a substance into a legal illegal box doesn't change the reality of people developing and participating in substance supply as their basic livelihood. Whether illegal drug dealer, or licensed nurse practitioner, registered nurse, behavioral health counselor, a major part or eaches life is tied to addictive substance trade. A regime that tolerates these scenarios destroys biospirit. Their pathway of addiction is policy of erasure. The good little do bees, in helping medi police state regime take a knee, paint their hair blu, apologize on their way in their prius to regime debtor McMansions, thinking this will get them through the next 4year plan are wrong. Stalling for time is not a coherent strategy. Look, this shit show is about to be blown wide open. You will lose your stuff. The banks and debt recirculation team will get your stuff and your payments will be taken over by another useful idiot, while you get a free trip ticket to the homeless camps. You may build a better air conditioned nightmare boogaloo box for your northern biospirit but eventually you'll lose your take a knee, i apologize wife who will see you for who you are, a northern biospirit. Your mixed children will hate you as much as you hate yourself via ever more complex meme pathogenic dis-ease. Your boogaloo air conditioned nightmare box can not house your northern euro biospirit. It's as fake as your fake virtue signal apologetics. It's not possible to atone for a grievance not committed. At your heart you know the wealth redistribution tax structure is tyranny because you have no representation. You as a non-group group member can not legitimately enter a group identity political system. Love based on erasure fear is tyranny and try as you will, you can not overrule your biospirit created over 100's of generations. 
     There are many specific examples of addiction as a tool of various regimes to debilitate a biospirit group and transfer wealth. There are too many examples to list, the British with opium trade in China, alcohol in colonial expansion in native american communities, the United States in Indo China, Vietnam, Afghanistan. 

      So there is nothing new in the use of addictive and mind altering substances for a regime political end. What is new is the quantity of these substances. What is new is the volume of these substances. From opiates, synthetic opiates, benzodiazepines, amphetamine, methamphetamine, alcohol, psychiatric drugs, antipsychotics, genetically enhanced marijuana, and modified synthetic substances, there is an arsenal of weapons against biospirit. A person in youth who goes to these substances like amphetamine salts whether prescribed by regime behavioral health counselors or distributed illegally by antibiospirit runs the risk of immediate catapult into life long zombie erase-replace status. Potential is immediately erased in an unavoidable algorithm. That regime pro pharma dope is clean, pure, predictable versus regime sanctioned non-sanctioned dope does not address harm to biospirit. The unprecedented assault on biospirit requires not only a psychological defense against generational meme pathogens but knowledge and sharing of biospirit rules and regulations for well being. Plant, person and place is one aspect of going free here and now. 
      Patrick Henry: "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or ?", there is no or. 

Thursday, July 30, 2020

Pedicularis racemosa, parrot beak

Pedicularis racemosa
Pedicularis racemosa, Leafy parrot beak 

 Leafy Sickletop Lousewort, Parrots Beak Pedicularis 
Selkirk mountain meadows

On the endless medicine road today with Orobanchaceae Pedicularis racemosa. 

https://youtu.be/k1uFBwBuI-g

     Selkirk mts 6000 ft. Known by the names Selkirk Sickletop Lousewort, Parrot's-Beak, leafy lousewort. A perennial from a thick stem-base from thick fibrous roots. Leaves unlike many Pedicularis with a fern like leaf pattern leaves of P. racemosa are entire lance like, deeply toothed opposite. 
Lance leafed toothed opposite

     The flowers in a terminal raceme of several flowers. corollas cream yellow 2-lipped with the bottom in three fused lobes with the upper arched and hooded, in a long curved delicate beak curved down in a graceful arch towards the lower lip. It's range is from salt lake utah and mountains northward into British Columbia. It is found below coniferous forests.
Parrot beak upper lobe curves down

     Its energetics are cooling, slightly bitter, with demulcent sweetness. It can be considered as a skeletal muscle relaxant with mild pain relieving qualities and tends towards nervine consideration with sleep inducing, relaxing qualities. If a person has trouble sleeping due to muscular spasm and pain, whether recent or long standing Pedicularis racemosa is a good candidate. Especially for weekend warriors, after long distance training sessions, cycling, backpacking, running, cross country skiing, weight lifting or heavy repetitive labor splittingwood, stacking bales of hay etc. Also for electro chemical nocturnal muscle spasms and cramps. 
Pedicularis racemosa, leafy Lousewort 

      Pedicularis racemosa due to its unwinding, calming and laid back quality is often thought of as a nighttime herb. Some find it useful as an aphrodisiac where anxiety and tension are interfering with intimacy. Some people describe pedicularis like walking on the moon, dreamy, like your lower limbs are not fully connected. Other people find pedicularis appropriate for day time use as relieving social anxiety and calming the mind, softening the armour. 
    Pedicularis can be used alone or with other herbs for a sleep formula, valeriana and 5% pulsatilla works well, other candidates would be hops, skullcap. Because it has antispasmodic qualities it can be added to cough formulas with cherry bark, Angelica root, arrow leaf balsalm root. For menstrual cramps it goes well with Actea rubra. For hot flashes Angelica, lycopus, and Pedicularis can be effective for some. 
Terminal flower raceme



     One thing to be aware of is there are many kinds of pedicularis species and they are going to interact differently. It's important to develop a relationship with the herbalist to get continuity. You want to experiment with how a particular species is going to unfold for you. I have harvested and made medicine with at least 5 different species, and they are all slightly different, from tiny dwarf species to 6 foot tall giants, from the madrean sky islands to the Selkirks. Important to work with someone who knows and works with it.
Finely toothed leaf edge

     Finally being a parasitic herb connected by root  to specific immediate host plants, it's important to understand these host plants. Pedicularis can be thought of as itself and some quality of the host. Certain plants make the pedicularis unusable and potentially dangerous. Senicio with poisonous alkaloids, Helenium hoopesii with helenalin and other lactones, lupine, and other questionable plants nearby mean that particular pedicularis is unusable and to be left alone. When harvesting it's important to be cognizant of these relationships. In general you want a neutral plant host. This stand of Pedicularis racemosa was growing in open coniferous forest meadow, under sub alpine fir and dwarf huckleberry Vaccinium. 
Endless Medicine Road 

Monday, July 27, 2020

Valeriana scouleri, rambling road

Valerian 
Valerian scouleri lower leaves Midsommer 

     Valeriana scouleri is a 1m/3 foot high perennial growing from a matted thready root mass resembling southern species we looked at earlier. It is at the north limit of range and will mix and merge into V sitchensis down the slope. 
    Valeriana scouleri on the underground endless medicine road show, Valeriana scouleri, is a tall perennial from a matted fibrous root complex whose root presentation is similar to V. acutiloba or V. Arizonica which we studied in other areas. We continue uninterrupted as a group on the endless medicine show. Scouleri is a 90's term and there seems to be a broader move towards sitchensis. The leaves on this bunch have triangular patterning towards the leaf edge tending towards smooth though not toothed. They have wavy leaves and doing a montane thing but the big river is down in the valley so they're doing their thing in this area.
Valeriana flowers

      Like actutiloba and arizonica you'll do a whole plant rather than the commerce-able big taproot stuff to get a whole plant thing going and capture the whole complex complexity nuance. Completely folk  homebrew artisan comparing the grey nondescripts sold powder there is no comparison this is strictly hand to mouth subsistence herbalism. 
roots mass with above ground


      Some people love the scent of wild valeriana and rub fresh leaf and roots on underarms and private parts, while others prefer a more petro chemical amazon google cocacola pepsi walmart standard. And of course anyone thinking a counterculture fragrance movement backed by big pharma, youtube, twitter, cosmopolitan, bank of america, and the national football league is underground is a moron. This montane high meadow montane scent sticks, stinks and permeates. Some people like it others don't. The effect of montane valeriana is variable on the person. If you're wanting xanax without a prescription just find your local ms13 at the church of circle K and buy mexican-zani bars.  
        Fresh valeriana is like cat nip for cats including little domestic mousers and big cats like lions. So if you have a cat they will get into it. Guaranteed when your camped you'll see glowing green translucent eyes peeking out at you from dark shadows checking out your fresh roots so beware, especially if you're sleeping with Angelica, you'll be candy man for bear and a big cat magnet. 


     As far as what V scouleri does, pretty much the same as the other miniature diminutive more southern relatives. In a modern medico police state, televised online doctor paint by number, nurse practitioner with an online virtual degree, connect the dots to illness diagnostic model, valeriana is a poor fit. For a person to person constitutional face to face thing, it's an important plant ally. It works best for cold types like big boned blonde germans not so much for wirey dark skin hot bloodeds. It can wake up the tiger and keep a person awake alnight. So it's important to try this plant during daylight waking hours to see how it acts. Because if it's 1:30AM, you can't sleep, you're tossing and turning and you have to be up at 5am, and you've never tried it before, best to not try it. Use something like a P. bracteosa with A. multifida 90/10 for knock out drops. It's important to understand your own racial biospirit inheritance which manifests as constitutional type when using valeriana. Since for the last 50 or 60 years biospirit has been a fundamental cultural political no-go zone to transition us to a vast consumer tele-police state, valeriana is tough to grind. Since many young people attracted to herbs are in this no-go, thought free zone it takes some subtlety to coax them into a going free grasp of plant medicines in order to nourish well being for their kind. A universal treatment thing based on diagnosis and floating disease is herbal deconstructionism. You are always treating a person, if you can't see the person, you can't facilitate healing, alterative change. 
Stem leaf

     When valeriana is when working best it will calm and soothe, not sedate. A person will rest more effectively. For this person valeriana can be a day time anxiety relief thing, taken before awkward social situations, before intimacy during times when both partners are troubled and scattered and need to come together but are instead ripping apart that thing which nourished and brought them together and so on. On the right person it will stimulate gastric secretions, mildly potentiate heart contraction for more efficient profusion, and calm the brain. On the wrong person it will overstim the heart, you'll be all awake and dressed to the 9's with absolutely no place to go at 2:30AM. Plant, person, place, So when working with these plants it's important to know the plant in and out. You need to be able to see the person in a non-judgemental process and here let's not confuse a virtue signal with seeing the constitutional type and ongoing process, probly best that women do the people stuff and men do the plant stuff. Men tend to be just unaware of people, even that there are people, or that they are themselves, you guessed it, people. Which is why over the last 250,000 years we contracted out birthing babies, cuddly live or die breast feeding, nursing them and raising them to our vagina-ette moms, who now seem to have a monopoly on tact and herbal outreach. We all need to do the place thing, it's the nourishments of being here doing the real work. 

    So any way get to know your valeriana ally friends, don't keep fresh root in your tent, sleep with your glock loaded and pray for rain, blessings y'all. 
     

Friday, July 24, 2020

TwinFlower, North Forest Medicine

TwinFlower, North Forest Medicine. Linnaea borealis -- twinflower formerly considered in the Caprifoliaceae. One of plants my teacher talks about extensively  is twinflower. "Probably one of the more important plants to know, use and understand is twinflower", so true today especially for treating aspects of the so called new illness. 

Considered Honeysuckle family now in its own family. Linnaeaceae, named for a favorite plant of Carl Linnaeus founder of our binomial system and borealis, from Latin Borea, meaning the intrinsic biospiritual principle of cold north shady stormy energy, like a precipitous yin energy, and Balto-Slavic (Lithuanian girė, Old Church Slavonic gora) for "mountain" (also "forest" as if "those living beyond the mountains. You'll find this plant while crawling around as most of us do in the forest. It is a dense mat forming perennial tiny low to the ground moss and tundra plant, twin globe evergreen leaves and twin tiny downward dangling flowers. If you are finding this plant while crawling around you're blessed and sharing those blessings with others is the real work. 
     

     Laying on your belly for hours looking into the tiny forest kingdom world of Linnea borealis it feels as it is. Twin flower is a window into relic remnant places. It is a relic north circumboreal plant from our 100,000 year long ice age, an ice age that we still are in as evidenced by our ethno relic biospiritual honoring of winter dark as a supreme über-holiday. This plant swings and circles the north like the bear constellation in acidic forests of sweden russia, and new world americas. The plant flowers have a deep residual aroma of crushed Prunus serotina leaves and tones of ligusticum sweet root. Barbara Thiem in 2017 wrote a nice paper on Twin Flower", and many are finding this plant vitally important to a veriditas materia medica. Twinflower has a rich chemistry including kaempferol (kaemp- ferol 3-O-glucoside) as well as apigenin and luteolin, coumaric acid, caffeic acid, quercetin, vannillic analogues. Our White native Euro-indigenous folk usage includes a complex of uses that could be understood broadly as pain relief, anti-inflammatory, painful menstrual period stimulation, effective pregnancy tonic, and topical skin eruptions including viral herpes shingles outbreaks and that's how it's been shared. 
     This plant makes an excellent plant to gather and dry for teas and tinctures. It makes an excellent soothing direct application field plant as a topical poultice. Make this plant your go to plant for soothing nourishing salves, and skin cremes. Use it for topical applications for herpes simplex and genital herpes outbreaks and a maintenance formula. It combines with a Hypericum perforatum infused oil topical applied and tincture internal for both genital herpes flare ups, cold sores and herpes zoster outbreaks. Use it for formulas with painful menses low back boggy crampy pain combined with your native cohosh. 
     

     This plant has so many uses what a blessing to have it near you at all times, in all situations. It is said 90% of all our people using native herbs today began studying with students of Jethro Kloss or through Back to Eden. Part of how God has as Jethro Kloss said, in Back to Eden, "I wish to bring to the notice of the general public the untold blessings that our Heavenly Father has provided for all the world. It can be truly said, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." Hosea 4:6." Herbalists agree and acknowledge God the Father as present in our Bible, made a remedy for all our ills if we seek out Him. So our practice becomes with twinflower, being in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing, in the right way, to do no harm and offer herbal knowledge to all because “but don’t forget to be friendly to outsiders; for in so doing, some people, without knowing it, have entertained angels.”  (Heb)‬ ‭13:2‬ ‭CJB‬‬

Jethro Kloss, Back to Eden 1939
Field Notes from class field study 
Hildegard Bingen: Study lecture Notes
Twinflower (Linnaea borealis L.) – plant species of potential medicinal properties BARBARA THIEM1* ELISABETH BUK-BERGE2
1Department of Pharmaceutical Botany and Plant Biotechnology Poznań University of Medical Sciences
Św. Marii Magdaleny 14
61-861 Poznań, Poland
2The Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research** Postbox 8119
Dep. 0032 Oslo, Norway

Tuesday, June 16, 2020

Abies grandis, Fir Tree Medicine

Abies grandis, Grand Fir, Pinacea family
Abies grandis, Grand Fir

Fir tree Pinacea, pine family medicine. 
        
    In a face to face community herbalism you want to go directly to widely available plants. You don't need elaborate conspiracy theories to know an overt restructuring process of erasure is rapidly unfolding. All kinds of unimaginable scenarios are unfolding that make the simple act of being together with your kind publicly some kind of treasonous act. More than ever before it's vital to gather face to face IRL to learn these accessible tree medicine plants. Plants you can meet without a filter, face to face in small groups of friends without dogma, or baggage. Albies grandis, a fir pine family tree is an excellent starting point. You can find stands of fir from Arizona to British Columbia, from Maine to California. It's a tree you'll be instantly familiar with as soon as you crush the needle leafs or smell the sap in the resinous bumps and blisters, and smell the citrus pine aroma. 
Underside dual white stomata

      There's a good chance you've already embraced this tree in the form of wreaths hung on your door, or had it in your house as Christmas tree. In a sense you have worshipped this tree, you or your children opened presents underneath. The citrus piney scent went through the house. While making love to your wife, wrapping presents, it was there watching you. Informing you of our ancestral resilient bio-spirit for hundreds of generations in the darkest of winter. Fir is a circumborreal northern tree of Europe, Asia and North America. It's scent and medicinal authenticity's in our DNA of westernkind. It speaks to our well being now as it spoke to our fathers and mothers, to our noble good people. It is wanting to speak to you now just as it spoke to them before, keeping them alive during dark winters, with vitamin C, and alterative healing sap. It's both magic and mundane. All of the northern westernkind made a ritual of bringing this tree into their homes. If you are reading my words, know your kin used this tree. Know it. Feel it. Believe it. Become it. Whether pagan or Christian it's part of our tribal identity. Christians unbeknownst to themselves worshipped and prayed to this tree yearly at winter solstice. Even today atheists, Christians, agnostics, pagans do the same and bring the Wild Herb Ways into their life via this tree at solstice time. You see our old ways have been replaced and rewritten many times. Even bringing a plastic, fake machine made tree like form into our homes at solstice approximates and acknowledges these tribal suppressed memories still alive in the archetypes of the unconscious. We have been and forever will be a northern tree people. 
Top side leaf glossy green 

     Abies grandis is a tall evergreen conifer, with a symmetric conical shape, aromatic flat leaf needles, grey furrowed bark with resin bumps or sap filled blisters. The name Abies is of uncertain origins, perhaps a transliteration of the Greek 'pithys'. Pithys was a woman loved by both Panas and Vorias, the north wind. Vorias made too much noise, keeping her restless and on edge. So she went with Panas. Vorias the northern wind was jealous and angry and in a lovers rage, blew her over a cliff. Panas found her in the valley below and transformed her beautiful lifeless body into a fir tree. In her sadness for losing her human life and her longing for her lover Panas, she cries whenever the Vorias Northern wind blows. Her tears are the medicinal clear resinous sap from the sacred fir tree. The word 'fir' from the old Danish 'fyr', and old english 'firgen' or mountain forest, and fairgunni, gothic, originally refers to oak. During the three thousand year period 3400 BC to 400 BC, conifers, firs and birches displaced oaks in westernkinds northern european forests during a climatic shift., not different than climate shift today. A climactic shift that speaks to many of westernkind to move further north and touch base with our northern roots. "Hence it is no surprise, that in the early history of our germanic languages, fir referred to oak forests and shifts to reflect the transition to fir conifer forests." (Thomas V. Gamkrelidze; Indo-Europeans and the Indo-Europeans. 1994)
    It's range is from British Columbia on the west side of the cascades south to north California with a sub-species Abies grandis idahoensis in Idaho, Montana and far eastern Washington. Identitfy Abies grandis by the familiar conical Christmas tree shape, the grey bark with bumps blisters, and the flat needles rounded at the edge bright shiny green on the top side, grey dull green with two distinct whitish bands of stomata underside. 
      One tendency to avoid in western herbalism is the focus on the flashy, talked written about then talked written about some more, exotic, rare, endangered plants rather than the common, widely available, endemic, easily obtained plant medicines. Whether yarrow, dandelion, fir and pinacea tree medicine, balsam root, canadian flea bane- so many easily sustainable harvest wild plants are there for you and your families, don't overlook them. Abies grandis, grand fir, is one such tree medicine. Besides the medicinal constituents, it has a cultural aspect, it describes in intimate terms where and how you are and who your heroic ancestors are. It's a plant deeply present in our lineage. Our bio-spirit is called and is calling you to these old ways. In many ways your well being is my well being. 
The clear sap can be gathered with spoon



clear sap gathered by pressing


grey bark has blisters filled with clear medicinal sap
      Abies grandis is a potent sustainable abundant tree medicine. The needles and other fir and pine needles were long used as a winter tea with vitamin C that sustained people in the north. A quick tea is a good way for families and friends to meet this tree all. Take one cup of the new growth needles, a handful of Nootka bush rose petals or hips, some aralia nudicaulis root, asarum caudatum leaf or root, juniper berries or herbs spices you have around your kitchen ginger root, cinnamon, fennel seed, boil some water place the grand fir needles or any fir you may have growing nearby, pour the boiling hot water over the fir and add the the other roots you have, let steep and enjoy. 
     Grand fir tree medicine has a distinctly aromatic respiratory effect with a pine lemon orange scent, lightly astringent, the disinfectant topical sap as an ointment for open skin wounds, internally mildly diuretic, importantly as an expectorant especially the runny sap and fragrant needle leaves.  With most long lived trees, the resinous sap functions to heal wounds on the external tree surface. These saps and resins have broad antimicrobial action and have been refined for hundreds of thousands of years in the crucible of the trees evolutionary history. You can easily gather from the blister bumps on the lower portion of younger trees. The leaf needles produces a light clear aromatic essential oil through steam distillation useful in salves, as an ingredient in a pleasant aromatic room spray, a few drops in a cup of fir needle tea, in boiling water as a steam inhalation for colds, as an addition to formulas for coughs and respiratory congestion. Fir medicine has an ability to produce a productive cough and seems to go directly to the lungs. 
      Using the medicine: immediately upon ingestion the terpine lipid aromatic constituents travel into the bronchial lung world environment and lend their aromatic anti microbial, anti-viral, anti-bacterial qualities to loosen secretions, helping to produce more effective cough. The same constituents which ensured the survival of the tree against physical stress from wind storm and pathogens in the environment begin to work in some of the same ways in your body. Just as breaks in the integrity of your skin can open pathways for infection, so too breaks in integrity of the tree surface open ways for pathways of infection in the fir. The easily gathered sap can be used topically, directly on the surface of warm, hot inflamed skin wounds to both aid granulation and address infected wounds to speed healing, acting as an alterative in wound healing. It has a soothing quality and doesn't pinch or burn. It has a mild anesthetic quality and draws down the sharp inflammation. It helps to form granulation tissue in wounds. 
young small fir are best for leaf needle tea




     When using abundant fir tree medicine in your herb think tank, use your entire folk herbal base knowledge with fir. It's forgiving and easy to work with. It's available winter, spring summer. Often with hard to come by exotic rare herbs, using the herb gets locked into narrow pathways due to availability. Those herbs are expensive. Maybe you've only seen it once or twice face to face. Or maybe you've never seen it. Or it grows a hundred fifty miles from you and your car has bald tires and the engine light is on. You only have a tiny bit, you may not see it again, so you hoard its use. You heard and read from an expert, who heard and read from another expert, that such and such herb does this or that so you repeat, and re-repeat the cliche expert phrases. The pinacea fir tree medicines you can make your own. If you make up a formula that doesn't work out, you can trash it and start fresh, knowing that for hundreds of miles fir will be with you, year in year out. You don't have to order online, it's right there. You don't need 190 proof alcohol, you can use vodka, tequila, honey, vinegar, hot water, or just the resin itself direct. 
     It lends itself well to instilled oil, steam distillation, oxymel, steam, cough syrup, tincture, chest rub, glycerites and salve. In addition fir is a circulatory stimulant and function well in topical liniments, rubs, massage oils, and salt rubs. 
     Playing around with Fir: it's important to play around with herbs, to experiment and experience whatever fir has to say. Start with one tree plant medicine and use your insight to go outward to other similar trees. Fir is light and doesn't have heavy complex chemistry. Some of the other conifers are harsh, almost at the point where the taste is too astringent, too aromatic. Fir needle is a tasty tea beverage. You don't need complex intricate tools or understanding to work with fir. You don't have to pay to attend an online seminar done by a expert rooted in complex cliche verbiage mainly designed to befuddle rather than clarify, to approach fir tree medicine. You know this plant since childhood, whether your family were catholics, pagans, atheists you already have deep memories and experience with this tree. You don't need to wack out or puke out in the rainforest, fir it's near, right there wherever you are and importantly where you need to be. 
Get to know Abies, Fir forest medicine
      Let's play around with some basic simple stuff you can begin right now. Reread if you need to the identification. I put some pictures up on the leaf needles. As far as a look alike, there is one plant in the pacific northwest you don't want to confuse with fir. In the Pacific Northwest there is yew. Yew has a much more complex chemistry. Kind of like an advanced level, maybe some time down the road you can check it out. The bark on yew is papery and brown. The berry like seeds called arils are pulpy and red, fir lacks any kind of red seed. The needles on yew are much shorter, they lack the dual white stomata on the underside of the needle. Know your fir, work with one tree at a time, get to know it in and out. Once familiar with fir then move onto other widely available tree plant medicines. Understand the basic principle that trees through thousands of years have developed complex broad spectrum antimicrobial substances in their sap and resinous pitch that are easily utilized in your herbal medicine practice. 
Steam distillation essential oil
      Abies grandis is unique in that the bumps and blisters contain a runny clear liquid that is easily gathered. Go from tree to tree and gather both the visible pale yellow drips, and using two spoons press on the blister and with the second spoon collect the clear liquid. There are some other ways to gather the sap but at the beginning try this gathering method. It's straightforward, you see a bump on the grey bark, you press on it, and a light clear liquid squishes out. Place both the visible dripping golden sap and the clear liquid you are gathering and mix them together in a small jar. This antimicrobial liquid can be placed on skin, or with gauze to heal any kind of boil, red raised warm infected puncture wounds from splinters, relatively superficial skin scrapes, road rash from scapes, blisters etc. It's an amazing liquid and since it's labor intensive to gather you'll treasure it. 
     The Abies grandis clear liquid gathered from the blisters and the visible gooey pitch is extremely mild compared to hardened yellow pine pitch. Compared to other conifers it is slightly salty, sweet, neutral astringency, not as hard on the kidneys yet highly aromatic. It can be applied directly to open wounds and skin, either while in the field or saved in a small jar for later use or to add to formulas.
The silver grey bark, Grand Fir



The golden sap drops Abies Fir
     An excellent cough syrup can be made from placing fir needles chopped small covering with brandy, tequila or whiskey. Letting it sit for 14 days then strain, then adding honey in a ratio of 1:3 one part honey to 3 parts of the strained liquid. You can make all kinds of adjustments as you get to know the plants in your area. 
    Depending where you are Prunus spp bark, Mainanthenum racemosum root, Osmorhiza spp, sweet cicely, Balsamorhiza sagittata, arrow leaf balsam , rose hips, along with Abies grandis needles can be added to the first liquid, tinctured, strained then to the mixture add 3:1, 3 parts tinctured herbs to one part honey and have an exceptional cough respiratory syrup.
     Another method is to place the herbs finely chopped in boiling water, making sure they are covered with 2 inches water. Cover and let boil for an hour, when ready the water will just cover the herbs, usually an hour over low heat. Turn the heat off, let the mixture cool overnight. Strain the mixture and for every cup of the liquid 8 ounces, decoction add 1/2 cup or 4 ounces honey. You could add one ounce of tequila, whiskey or rum per 12 ounces of liquid as a preservative but in my experience this has not been necessary. A dose would be 1 tablespoon every hour, or a teaspoon every hour for children until improving. 
    To make a simple oxymel, fill a quart Mason jar 3/4 full with finely chopped fir needles, add apple cider vinegar to cover fir needles,  then add enough honey to fill the jar with 1/2 inch to the top. Cover the top with wax paper, shake every day and the oxymel wil be ready in 10-14 days. You can use it mixed with olive oil and salt on fresh dandelion or any salad greens. You can add garlic, onion, cayenne, ginger to make a fir vinegar to have at table as a condiment and seasoning. 


Going Free
All lyrics and music by Paul Manski, recorded 6/5/2020, all music vocals, bass, and guitar by Paul Manski

“ Going Free, going free, 
We’re gathering our tribe and family.
Going Free, going free,
We will never apologize or take the knee.

Brothers and sisters, strong are we,
We will live out the truth
Recapture our destiny.

We will walk confidently,
We gather to live the truth
That is meant to be.

Going Free, going free, 
We’re gathering our tribe and family.
Going Free, I’m  going free,
I will never apologize or take the knee.

Our blood is great and good’
I promise you will see.
Walking hand in hand,
In the forested north country.

We will take our place
And make a stand.
In the north doug fir
Red cedar land.

Going Free, going free, 
We’re gathering our tribe and family.
Going Free, we’re  going free,
I will never apologize or take the knee,

You’ll be my woman,
I’ll be your man
We’ll secure the existence of our children
In this promised land.

Going Free, going free, 
We’re gathering our tribe and family.
Going Free”

By Paul Manski
Recorded June 5,2020


     I need and want you to get comfortable with fir medicine and all the plants growing around the tree. Start with fir then move outward in a circle. A lot of folks ask, 'what's the best way to get started? an online class? a herb school? a book?', yes all of that, yet fundamentally from my perspective the best way  is to find one plant that you can meet up with face to face. Herb schools and online stuff have become problematic because there's a lot of agenda that's connected with them. The teachers are oftentimes appealing to a demographic to sell more seminars, more this and more that. These agendas can sabotage your learning journey with the plants. Especially if the reason you have been drawn to these plants is to use these medicines to increase the circle of well being of not only yourself, but for your family, for your people, our westernkind. Trees don't live in classrooms unless we redefine classrooms to mean forest. So one way or another we have to meet in the forest where the trees grow. We are not only learning about these plants for physical healing or to duplicate some medicine you can get at the pharmacy. We are doing what our ancestors have done, what you are going to do, and what you will teach others to do- heal this sickness that has entered our bio-spirit. The complex association of plant community can't be captured in a classroom or online.  Online stuff is absolutely problematic because there is no such thing as an online tree medicine. The entire composite of smells, taste, sight, hills and meadow can't even be approximated in an online class. If you want to give money away, just send the teacher some green frog skins and say, here's some money! Books are another story, well written plant identification field guides, botanical key and check lists, a loupe, topographic maps, they can really help. I don't know where you live but I have to drive 15 miles in any direction to get a cell signal so books are the way to go. Online apps and the portable cordless cellphones young people are so fond of, not so much. We will figure out how to make it happen, it will happen because we can't allow our kind to be erased, to be reduced or diminished. We will heal one another because more than anything we love one another. We love our people, that's the bottom line. 
      We can get focused on illness, what causes illness? We can put our doctor and nurse stethoscopes, put on masks, put on rubber gloves, play hospital 911 show with illness. Microbes, virus, blood work, CT scans, put on our emt first responder doctor hats...but the biggest cause of illness, sickness, dis-ease is the individualism and the disconnect that has broken up our families, broken up our tribe, broken up our westernkind culture. So what we are doing is building connections, community, family. Re-building, re-connecting, re- family-ing, becoming familiar with tree, familiar with each other. 
     So go directly to the plants. Learn that one plant in and out, topical internal, winter summer. Tree plant medicines are best for this, they don't disappear in winter. They are tangible and long lived. If your basic personality type is introvert intuitive, you can use that to get to know the tree better. Sit with it. Do simple breathing exercises where you visualize the roots and the visible tree body above ground. Get to a place where the energy transfer from the underground roots to the sunward above ground portion of the tree synchronizes with your in out breathing. Visualize the roots and put your breath into the tree. You can visualize the North Star polaris overhead and how the bear and dog turn around with polaris unmoving. Plants  are in families, not unlike human families. If you know Mary Beth Sullivan and she liked carrot cake on her birthaday, chances are if you meet Diedre Sullivan and she's Mary Beth's sister, you can probably count on if you baked Diedre a carrot cake for her birthday she's going to appreciate it. It's not much more complex than that. By going into one tree plant family medicine like fir, you'll understand the other Sullivan, Pinacea pine family tree medicines. Another plant tree medicine to start with might be Populus, aspen, cottonwood, just go deeply into that one tree. In the process of arranging your time with that tree plant medicine you'll find other, annuals, shrubs, green things growing under the fir. Branch out to those plants one at a time, get to know them. For that reason it helps if the tree plant medicine grows right close, as in outside your window. You don't want to start out with elaborate exotic far away plants. Here I don't mean invasive or non-native, by exotic far away I mean close by, for example eucalyptus is from Australia, but if it's growing outside your window, and there are eucalyptus growing near by, then that may be the tree for you. In general though pine, fir family, cottonwood, aspen, birch, maple, tree family medicines are the best to start out with. You don't want to get baffled and confused. Look for a tree family medicine that is abundant and near you then branch out in a circle from that specific tree. Everything you need to know is close by, right there. 
    For instance in the picture below is a young Abies grandis, Great Fir. In the bottom left of the tree is arnica, to the right bunch berry, above past the bunchberry are wild strawberry, although blurry some avens and cinquefoil, bottom left uva-ursi, pipsisewa- there is basically a northwest medicine garden without going anywhere. So hunker down, find your tree, find your spot and dig in for the long haul. It's about bringing these plant medicines back to your, our people for the long haul. On a basic level, security is at risk because the fundamental relationships that make up our western society are no longer trustworthy. Going to a physician or clinic is also going to the new stasi-police-medico conglomeration. What you say or don't say to the nurse, nurse practitioner, physician could affect your employment, your ability to keep your children in your home under your care. A simple matter of fact statement to a health care worker could easily land you in an observational lock down psych-facility. A statement your son or daughter makes to a school counselor could wind up landing your child in state CPS child protective temporary foster care, with a lengthy complex hearing process to get your children back in your home. People are literally fired from their jobs for making statements that oppose a new cultural narrative. People are right now at this present moment in prison for statements of belief in western countries. 
young Abies grandis, Great Fir with plant community 
     Know that these plant medicines as I have directly seen recently can be the difference between above ground vs below ground status on a gut level. I can say without reservation that by doing this plant study, you or someone you love and care about will be alive versus being a memory. I had to deal with this scenario directly, face to face as the bug hit with infection and the enforced lockdown protocol. I was able to use the formulas of native wild plants I have worked with to recover and claw back. Know that all that went down is a dress rehearsal for deeper and more severe enforcement and erasure of resistance. Whatever is going down now as portrayed by the media is not remotely resistance, it is capitulation and cooperation with the regime agenda. The window of opportunity to peacefully gather together in love is seriously diminished. I advocate health, peace and love for our people, nothing more, nothing less.
     We are heading into some dark times and it's becoming more and more difficult to rely on things and institutions that nurtured and protected us and our loved ones in the recent past to carry on into the present restructuring and erasure process. You need not only the herbal medicines to get you through the infectious pathogens, you also need a psychological defense against the meme pathogens widely infecting our sphere. Many disease processes are made more insidious via an impaired altered immune response due to a complex psychological assault on the unique bio-spirit of westernkind. The ubiquitous self-inflicted dis-ease processes of alcoholism, drug addiction, depression, autism, physical self mutilation are now rights of passage into a partial slow process suicide cult. The paralysis of the bio-spirit encouraged and inflicted by a multi-factorial regime agenda must be both outed and dealt with effectively and compassionately.  More than anything,  right now I invite you to enter this positive sphere of well being via the pathway of love through these plant medicines. There are compassionate friends here. We have no experts only facilitators. These future meet ups are about going deeper into the process of allowing the spontaneous bio-spirit archetypes to be returned to function, to heal one another through a circle of love. At this point there seems to only be this choice to care for one another and re-invigorate our common resilient ancestral spirit alive in each one of us, and work together going free.



     You need to learn these plants and medicines now. I can't tell you how many plant medicine books are in my hand that a few years ago were in libraries. Libraries are being de-populated by an algorithm of erasure. That erasure process is accelerating on many fronts. Just yesterday I talked to an older man, he bought 3 acres for ten thousand dollars. Not that long ago, not in ancient times, fairly recently. He was making at the time thirty thousand a year. So for one third of his annual income he was able to secure for himself a homestead. If you are a young person living in 2020, you may have to pay, ten to twelve times your annual salary to secure a homestead for your family. In many ways that is not doable. That's how the subtle erosion and erasure occurs in real time of our people. Learning, re-learning these plant medicines is the real work of existing in love, doing no harm into the future. Do it, don't delay. Know that it's not only for you but for those who will live and love on after you've gone.
    ...share these plant teachings freely 
     
Nootka bush rose petals excellent in fir tea
     
     
     


Monoterpenes (62.95%)
Esters (18.65%)
Sesquiterpenes (12.93%)
Other (3.31%)
Monoterpenols (1.70%)
Aliphatic Aldehydes (0.26%)
Ketones (0.20%)
Beta-pinene, alpha and beta pinene, bornyl acetate, beta-phellandrene, limoline, methyl thymol

References
  1. Moerman DE. Native American Ethnobotany. Timber Press; 1998.
  2. Wood M. The Earthwise Herbal: A Complete Guide to Old World Medicinal Plants. North Atlantic Books; 2008.
  3. Bensky D, Clavey S, Stöger E. Chinese Herbal Medicine: Materia Medica. Eastland Press; 2004.
  4. Moore M. Medicinal Plants of the Mountain West. Museum of New Mexico Press; 2003.
  5. Thomas V. Gamkrelidze; Indo-Europeans and the Indo-Europeans. 1994
  6. Charles W. Kane. Medicinal Plants of the Western Mountain States. Lincoln Town Press. 2017
  7. Tokos, George Mike. The Nature of the Chemical Constituents of Grand Fir Bark (abies Grandis Lindl). : Oregon State College. 2012

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