Desert Lavender, Hyptis emoryi

Desert Lavender.
Hyptis Emoryi
Lamiaceae (Mint Family)

        Hyptis Emoryi, Desert Lavender, Bee balm. Likes to grow near bursage, ocotillo, creosote and Encelia.

It for me is an entrance plant and communicates transition. It feels fertile and cooling and the buzz buzz buzz of the bees tells you 'something's going on', 'come over here take a look'. It calls and speaks with fragrance, lavender flowers and dull green leaves that fold up.

Hyptis is loud and in your face, and it's fragrance is over the top, overpowering and hard to miss. 

       For me the fragrance takes me back to better, brighter days, children's voices laughter, the soft gargle of water. Barefoot walking in soft moist sand, the soft folds lingering beneath granetic schist walls red and stoic. A softness and female place connected to the father aloof and distant on high.

Desert Lavender is moist wet cooling and protective. It's the intention to nourish and protect, as a gambel's quail mother protects her brood. 

         Protection is a big part of Desert Lavender. Because we're not too much different than the gambel's quail youngin wandering in the desert pecking at seeds and catapillers, it's easy to get distracted and forget about the Sonoran gopher snake waiting hungry for a meal, waiting for baby gambel's quail.

It's not bad to be eaten clean, with one swoop, sudden and eternal like a dust devil, lightning crack boom. That's not what what we require protection from. 

          It's the slow subtle rotting death that overtakes us gradually and imperceptibly with a dullness and loss of function, sin. There you need protection, it's good to know how to protect yourself from contagious toxic stuff. Like a lingering cough that's uneasy and is a little more than biological. Losing your heart, desert lavender is good for that. Keeping us well, more than well, life abundant.

Hyptis Emoryi, Desert Lavender, growing on bajada desert floor near Santa Catalina mts, Tucson, AZ