Manzanita Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, little apples Manzanita

Manzanita Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, little apples Manzanita.
      So here is Arctostaphylos uva-ursi,

little apples Manzanita. Rich red brown shiny bark, astringent sour leaves.

A tree a bush, a friend who reminds me of an anonymous spring somewhere in Southern Utah, up on the Cockscomb above our house at Paria.

 A seep of water, canyon oaks, coolness and hair like water grabbing the minds eye. 

Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, Manzanita:Sp 'Little apples", at Oak Flat, AZ

       Pale pink trumpet delicate flowers that bloom quickly in early spring. I searched for years to see those flowers up on the coxcomb. And they were always gone. Always too soon or too late tour too early or just not the right time. 

Now I find them everywhere,, I see them in the Santa Catalina's, along the rim rocks below Saguaro. They are always near the oaks, you see them with the gamble oak,

 with the white oaks, the Black Oaks, the blue Oaks, Manzanitas love the oaks. You see them with the silk tassel, with the alligator Juniper you see them all together growing happily. 

    For me always the smell of the manzanita leaves mixed with pinyon pine pitch,

juniper and artemisia: to take the Manzanita leaves and mix them with piñon pine sap Juniper

and sagebrush and then make an incense and use it as a way to pray. It makes a very thick fragrant meditative smoke.

I would go up to the slickrock and gather the piñon pine pitch & the Manzanita leaves, put them in a little depression in the slickrock and light them on fire and use it as incense. It sat on a piece of slick rock, wafting up and swirling around into the sky. Reminds me of prayers or "intention",

like Kristina said, or dreams or blessing and protection. With every dream or intention or prayer there is memories of dreams that were only dreams, no more no less, but dreams only. Smoke that didn't rise, fires that burned out, roofs that fell in leaving only rusted tin and walls. Yet still we pray

and we follow our dreams and make new dreams and new prayers a new medicine.

I now use Yerba Santa in the same way. As Kristine would say, "I make my intention."

          Manzanita is a good medicine for physical ailments to for the burning itching of a urinary tract infection. It's good for those itchy burning down there sorts of things that some unlucky are prone to, even though they wipe the right direction. Moist warm hairy soft places are sometimes problematic for multiple reasons, manzanita leaf tea can help. So Manzanita is for urinary tract infections, UTI. It's the medicine for that painful burning itching, it can be used The same way that people talk about cranberry juice to drink cranberry juice. Well drink leaf Manzanita Tea, you make a tea from the leaves and it has the same type of properties as cranberry. It would be good to mix it with the bark of the Mahonia the Berberis

or creeping Oregon grape which also grows around these manzanita.

       Then there's the apples, the little apples that tempted and nourished and guided us back in a dream, those fruits are there for jam

and tea and just to have and hold a tiny apple less than your baby finger nail, ripening in the sun. Nice to know and praise fertility and youth.

Arctostaphylos Sp, growing at Oak Flat, AZ 4100 ft

          But back to the name and burning dried manzanita leaves mixed with pine pitch and juniper branches. This is the bear. The north circling above, the hunter, Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, the bear

that circles upon which all the stars follow like shadows, like dreams, like prayers. Good to see manzanita again and in that pollen of spring a memory of hair sparkling like water drawing the eye in closer and closer. Manzanita.
by Paul Manski