Zoe Gobernadora
Zoe: What was that tea that I drank? It tastes familiar?
WildHW: Good questions Zoe, I honour your question. Keep your question, hold it, make your questions your own questions. Because you know asking a question like that, What ? Familiar? Taste? In these times frequently our life is like a helium balloon tied to a string, the only thing that keeps us tethered, breathing above ground, in the light, are our questions. If we lose our fundamental questions we effectively cut the string holding the balloon. With regard to the remedios, the plants, that is how we reach This, teach This, grow and mature in This. My whole goal is that I become obsolete. So you can go beyond what are my limitations and go further. That place of honouring not only questions but honouring observation and listening, honouring our senses. So by honouring and holding a question we create space for honouring the answer, to that question but not before. (breaking off conversation, abruptly walking away. Almost 7 years later)
WildHW: It is Larrea tridentata. Its latin binomial name. Plants have two names, if I was a plant I would be Ways wild and my sister would be Ways eileen, you would be Angler zoe, reversed. Larrea refers to Juan Antonio Herandez Perez Larrea, a Spanish Catholic Bishop and botanist who lived from 1730 to 1803. Tridentata refers to 3 lobes, to be honest I am not seeing three lobes here, I will have to lope it, but that is the meaning. This chaparral, this T’sug’a, La Gobernadora, hediondilla, greasewood, creosote bush plant. It is first a polycrest. Boom kind of plant. As you are working it, it is working you. Host guest, observer observed, which is how I describe a situation that some people notice when working with living, local, close by plants. Be open. Now you're doing it. It’s a plant to use. You can use it without any woo woo mumbo jumbo, or if you’re like me, with as much mambo jumbo woo woo as possible. Hediondilla refers to anyone who's lived longer than a few months here has encountered it, that sharp biting, sulfur sweet smell, the desert smells like rain, like hediondilla, the gobernadora.
Speaking of avoiding religion, let's talk religion and spirituality. For me I don't like spirituality at all but I definitely do religion. La Gobernadora is a very interesting concept. You will read about the word gobernadora and people will say it means governor, like the governor of state of New Mexico. However gobernadora is feminine and is really more about a governess or gobernanta. Rather than a boss we have a feminine female teacher, of music, arts, literature, a companion. Maura Laverty the Irish writer 1907-1960 or so, as a young woman of 17 left Ireland to work as a governess. She traveled to Spain to work as a live in teacher, for a wealthy Spanish family. This common arrangement was familiar in literature and the life of Europe and New Spain or Mexico for centuries. La Gobernadora or La gobernanta was always a woman, she took care of all aspects of the home life with regard to the young children of the house. The boy children of the house before they went to school at age 8-10, and the girl children until they married, girls rarely went to school and their lives, as their mother’s were centered around the house.
So gobernadora is a rich nuanced concept and I think it ties in strongly with La Senora. Wherever people lived they had little shrines to the feminine female deity, who they called, Mary. Nuestra Senora, Our Lady, Notre Dame, mother, Maria, all the same word. It is about reverence. Archaeologists have found consistently below the temple of Mary, older Mary’s with different names but similar function in terms of honouring the green, life, life to come that has to come by the mother, by and through a woman. Often times at these marian churches is a spring, a grotto, a cave, a well. Again for life to happen there has to be wet within the landforms. So La Gobernadora has this connection, a female presence as a person who instructs and educates people, children. Nourishes them, instructs them. I think the idea of control is there too as in the plants inhabiting an ecosystem, and nurse shelter plants.
Zoe: How do you use it as an herb, just like we did in a tea? It seems really strong.
WildWW: Here I happen to have some tincture, try a drop and compare it to the fresh tea…At the dosage that we talked about, ...dipping of a little sprig, tiny branchlet, or maybe a small little tiny teaspoon, pinch of the dried herb, the plant in hot just boiled, but not boiling water and then removing it immediately....we would have a very light tea or tisane. We have something like an easy light brewed cup of tea. So we're not talking about a big quart of strong infusion. Nothing like oar straw or nettles, both food/ slash medicine plants.
Again nothing precise, very down home. The tea we have would be useful for arthritic conditions, not joint replacement surgery for the super medico, but rheumatism, aches and pains, stiffness… because it deals with the inflammatory process in the sense of cooling it down. Another use would be topical, topical is really the most appropriate use for this plant, and secondly protection, talisman for the evil eye stare down from the mal ojo. Sorry no mask no service. Where’s your face mask? Use a bath with the branches with herba del vibora bundles and water for arthritic conditions. At the same time due to its moderating the inflammatory process it also would be useful in asthmatic conditions as part of a formula for some people. Not acute but chronic base line conditions, like cold weather exercise onset tightness in the lungs. The key is small amounts, for short periods of time, not a lot. Larrea is a full spectrum, complex plant and definitely not used in chomping down large quantities.
The best way to use La Gobernadora is on the surface of the skin, topically. A poultice of the plant leaves, ground or crushed, slightly moistened, held in place with bandage gauze wrap. It would also be effective applied topically for anti-inflammatory arthritic conditions in the joints, but even more so, the poultice as wound dressing, as an ingredient for skin wounds with pus, hard to heal stagnant boils, mrsa, diabetic skin ulcer wounds. La gobernadora also works great as an easy to make infused oil then used topically. The desert smells like rain, take it with you. Stuff fresh or dry Larrea in your shoes overnight, as a shoe deodorant for running shoes and hiking boots. Furthermore as far as topical I would describe it in stronger dosage as we talked in a tincture applied as remedy for fungal infections as in nail fungus or problematic skin issues. In dilute infusion in water topically would be effective both as an aid in dealing with psoriasis and eczema as a wash pat dry and also in its role as an antioxidant in preventing skin damage for instance something for sunburn. Some people use the infused oil topically as a sun protector for exposed skin, the infused oil with tallow and or bees wax for an emollient skin rub. Larrea tridenta in a simple infused oil either with olive oil, or a more neutral scented oil, avocado, added with shea butter coconut oil with bees wax as lip balm, hand cream for rough winter skin, or after a project where your hands are cut up and raw, on foot blisters especially anywhere on the feet. Any rough skin elbows.
The way that I described, is the way that teachers often work with a plant in order for us to hang out, spend time in a rather relaxed way, with the plant and understand the plant intuitively and experientially. This plant, like all plants is a living being, made by Creator and often times when you approach the plant you want to speak with Creator. Have a conversation between yourself, Creator, and the plant in terms of describing your condition and your intentions for use. Or simply use the plant, as it is, using your sense of taste, smell, touch, sight. Depending on your tradition, and what you are comfortable with, you want to focus on several things, our Creator, the plant which is part of creation as we are, and the specific person for who you are gathering. The idea is that we need to understand the plant within creation made by Creator and then what you are doing, why you're there, and what you're doing. Of course it's possible to just gather the plant, without any woo woo mumbo jumbo. Use the plant, buy the plant at a store and use the plant and never see where it grows, Seattle, Miami, Detroit Michigan. It's up to you. For me though this is my approach according to my spiritual background and herbal understanding. Our Creator has created something with this plant, and you are going to create something too with this plant. To do no harm and share the possibility of mitigation of suffering by these herbs, as we are taught, to forgive but never forget. In the sense of not doing the same mistakes over and over. Yet it’s important not to be too heavy handed, Larrea tridentata is the southwest. It defines the south west, it is everywhere. It is plentiful. Many times with wild harvested plants there are serious sustainability issues, ethics of harvesting a wild plant. Considerations such as sustainability, endangered plants, wild harvesting are not at all part of dealing with creosote because of its extreme availability.
It's good to work if you can, with the plant itself, yourself and practice getting into how the plant works in a face to face directly where the plant grows native.
So in this sense in that very very light tea you were sipping, drinking, experiencing the plant, it would be worthwhile if you told me what you experienced with the plant. So some of the questions to be aware. One of the things that you could answer is, how did it taste? How did it feel on your tongue? Was it sweet? Salty? bitter? Drawing? Was it smooth, slimy, demulcent? Was it hot or cold? Warming or cooling? Did you feel it anywhere in your body when you drank the tea? Was there a specific place you felt the herb,? Throat? Stomach? Digestion? Your head? The outside of your skin? Was it moving from the inside of the body out towards the skin? Was it moving from the outside inward? Did it produce sweat or heat? Also was there any place in the body where you felt the herb working? This particular herb has affinity for the liver and although the dose you had would be very very light in the way that I described it, you may have felt its presence somewhere in the body. These sensations, insights, seemingly random thoughts, fantasies, mind wanderings are all very important and are part of the ways that we get to know plant. The idea is that the plant is somehow a medicine although true, is in someway beside the point. Yes the plant could be described in terms of pharmacy, chemical, medical medicine, yet the plant is also a life and the plant is also a being. As we talked, La Gobernadora has lived in the desert and actually defines the desert. The creosote bush is herself La Gobernadora, the plant is called the governess, the ruler, the queen of the desert, meaning the lady who rules like a queen.
So Zoe I encourage you to continue with this experiential learning about the plants and we can talk about it a little bit later.
Zoe: thanks so much for sharing…
WildHW: To contextualize La Gobernadora, just to share with you a little tiny picture of the ethnobotanical usage of this plant being so broad. I'm going to focus on one of the desert peoples, the Cahuilla who lived up around both sides of Rabbit peak, the valley all the way to Los Coyotes and Los Coyotes & encountered this plant in the desert and how they used it. Catherine Siva was from Banning Morongo, and she would come to the visitor center. I told her I'd like to ask her some questions about the plants, so i went to Morongo and we talked, and she told me about a person at Los Coyotes.The pattern of usage of creosote bush is the same wherever people used it. Their usage pattern is very much descriptive and indicative of the Odom and Apache and other native peoples of the Southwest with this plant: examples of just a few, off the top of my head references, on ethnobotanical use of Larrea:
"as a general health tonic before breakfast.
Bean, Lowell John and Katherine Siva Saubel 1972 Temalpakh (From the Earth); Cahuilla Indian Knowledge and Usage of Plants. Banning, CA. Malki Museum Press (p. 83)
Larrea tridentata var. tridentata
Creosotebush; Zygophyllaceae
Cahuilla Drug (Pulmonary Aid)
Infusion of stems and leaves used as a decongestant for clearing lungs.
Bean, Lowell John and Katherine Siva Saubel 1972 Temalpakh (From the Earth); Cahuilla Indian Knowledge and Usage of Plants. Banning, CA. Malki Museum Press (p. 83)
Larrea tridentata var. tridentata
Creosotebush; Zygophyllaceae
Cahuilla Drug (Pulmonary Aid)
Infusion of stems and leaves used as a decongestant
Larrea tridentata var. tridentata
Creosotebush; Zygophyllaceae
Cahuilla Drug (Gynecological Aid)
Infusion of stems and leaves used for stomach cramps from delayed menstruation.
Bean, Lowell John and Katherine Siva Saubel 1972 Temalpakh (From the Earth); Cahuilla Indian Knowledge and Usage of Plants. Banning, CA. Malki Museum Press (p. 83)
Larrea tridentata var. tridentata
Creosotebush; Zygophyllaceae
Cahuilla Drug (Pulmonary Aid)
Infusion of stems and leaves used for chest infections.
Bean, Lowell John and Katherine Siva Saubel 1972 Temalpakh (From the Earth); Cahuilla Indian Knowledge and Usage of Plants. Banning, CA. Malki Museum Press (p. 83)
Larrea tridentata var. tridentata
Creosotebush; Zygophyllaceae
Cahuilla Drug (Pulmonary Aid)
Infusion of stems and leaves used as a decongestant for clearing lungs.
Bean, Lowell John and Katherine Siva Saubel 1972 Temalpakh (From the Earth); Cahuilla Indian Knowledge and Usage of Plants. Banning, CA. Malki Museum Press (p. 83)
Larrea tridentata var. tridentata
Creosotebush; Zygophyllaceae
Cahuilla Drug (Respiratory Aid)
Leaves boiled or heated and the steam inhaled for congestion.
Bean, Lowell John and Katherine Siva Saubel 1972 Temalpakh (From the Earth); Cahuilla Indian Knowledge and Usage of Plants. Banning, CA. Malki Museum Press (p. 83)
Zoe :Thanks, I also like the slightly bitter taste of the tea!
How often can I have this tea?
WildHW: My teacher MC, describes plants in this way. There are 1)food plants, there are 2)food/ slash medicine plants, and then there are 3)medicine plants. The food plants of course we need to take into our bodies every day, and we all know who they are. They're food plants: peanuts, pine nuts, potato, broccoli, Sweet potato, corn, berries, carrots and so on. The food/medicine plants are plants we can take every day, although, not always included in the diet. Some of these plants may be plants that our ancestors ate daily or seasonally but tend to be eaten less frequently, some of these plants may be, nettles, black and cayenne pepper, onions, mints, turmeric, ginger, garlic, and many others, a lot of these plants have become words, what we call now "spices", if we encounter them at all we will meet them as spices in our daily food/plant life. They're really food/medicine plants. These types of plants usually we can have in larger amounts and more often.
Now the third type of plants that we have are medicine plants, straight medicine plants, exclusively medicine plants, that we take, ingest in much smaller amounts. These plants are inherently different in that they are used differently and used less frequently than the other two groups. The plant that we met last night is a pure medicine plant. No one eats Larrea tridentata for breakfast. No one eats a creosote salad, but you can lacto ferment the buds like a southwest caper. And the way that we approached it is the way that you approach a medicine plant. You you look at the plant, you touch the plant, you smell it, you place it in your hands you look at it with your eyes, you may take a small piece of it and taste it and try it, or you may do what you did take a small twig place it in hot water drink it and look at the plant and feel it's effect on your body. There is also an element of reverence because when we need these plants we need them right now. So you get to know the medicine plants when you're healthy and strong but when you need them it may be very different, a very different condition or situation. Also when you gather plants for medicine you gather them for other people and you also gather them in a different way because you're thinking of the other person who you might not know physically at this time who may need this plant. Because it is a medicine plant it's not a plant that we want to take every day,. Although native peoples, especially the people who lived in the desert, living where we do right where the plant grows, wouldn't be hesitant to take a light tea every day or on most days. As an example with the Western medicine plant echinacea, with echinacea you don't want to take it every day. It’s not a vitamin supplement like vitamin C, there’s no minimum daily requirement for echinacea. You don’t take echinacea every day like a supplement.You take it, in small amounts when you need it and then stop taking it. The plant Larrea tridentata is like this. If you had a cold or a flu coming on, or a skin condition or an arthritic condition that warranted it then you may want to use the plant internally during that time. But it's not an every day plant 24/7 365. I'd like to talk to more about this specifically in person, because there have been cases of chaparral being misused in association with specific inherent organ weaknesses, so there are contradictions and the reasons that I have for explaining it in this way. But to answer your question it's not an every day plant. It is a medicine plant. Here I am not saying it is a medicine plant in the sense of a pharmaceutical. I mean with regard to the grouping we use to understand plants, food, medicine/ slash food, and medicine it is a medicine plant.
A:Thank you!
WldHW: D this plant I call an herb of protection, a talisman to use when you feel compromised or threatened. I would explain La Gobernadora as a helper. Many plants considered protective on the psycho-social level are highly aromatic, though not aromatic in the same way. Frankincense and myrrh, mints, cedar, pine, spruce, are some of the many aromatic plants which help us feel more comfortable, safe, cozy, centered, at home in a place. Protective plants have been used in all cultures in this way, burned as incense, used as a smudge. Larrea tridentata or Gobernadora can be seen as doorway, entranceway, boundary plants, something like an entrance way, or door to keep things in and some things out. As a way of saying this is my space, I take care and manage this area. Respect my boundaries. In our area you can go from Las Vegas to Las Cruces into Texas and you will see this plant everywhere, like ocotillo, or prickly pear, in the lower elevation areas where most people live. Now that you have been introduced to La Gobernadora, when you travel you will see it. Before maybe you didn't notice it before, but now you will see it everywhere and you will wonder how could I have not seen it before? And the way you met the plant by touching it, leaves and stems, smelling the leaves, tasting the leaves(in the mild light tea)seeing what it looks like, it's silhouette. Watching how it looks when it blows in the wind. So now when you go to work you'll think about work differently too, because it's growing right outside there in the parking lot on its own without any help from any one. And the people who lived nearby, the Hohokam, Pima, Odum.. they all used La Gobernadora, the same plant, just like you did. The thing to remember is just like the plant. La Gobernadora is still here, so are those people. I'm sure that they drunk the Tea just like you did. So from now on you I, and the ancient ones who are still with us, and all the people who acknowledge the bioregion, the plants in the space that we live. We somehow now have something in common. We have this plant that we tasted and smelled and touched. When you drive from Las Vegas to Las Cruces, into Texas you will see the governess along the highway and you will now know where you are in a different way. This is how my teachers have taught me to know the plants. You begin this way by touching. It's like an introduction at a party and maybe you shake hands, or fist bump, make eye contact, acknowledge one another. You will make connections. Later these initial first impressions may turn into deep long lasting friendships. You have fun times or sing songs, jam together, or maybe you won't. That's how an introduction is. It is a first step. You make contact. You connect. You look the person over. You hear a few things that he or she has to say and then you pass on because that's all an introduction is. You don’t go from introduction to hooking up in one evening meet up, but maybe you do. It all depends. An introduction is the beginning of a relationship. And it's very important when you go to a party to meet the owner of the house where the party is happening. Or else you’re a party crasher. That’s not a good place to be. You meet the right people. By meeting this plant, you have met the right person. You have met the owner of the house where the party is. In other words you've met the party giver. You have met the host, hostess, the owner. You met La Gobernadora, the governess. In the Southwest this is one of the most important plants to meet and know and understand because it says who she is but it also tells us where we are. Larrea is who, what, where and when, everything. We live in a bioregion, those canals that flow those are canals of the Salt & Gila River, and these are the canals flowing for a thousand years. And the mountains where the water falls, with the clouds meet the mountains and the rain happens. The snow and rain falls and flows all the way to Mesa, Arizona. It's important to know those mountains, these sky islands. So we begin where we are. Exactly right where we are. This is really the best way to meet herbs and medicine. Of course you could go to a herb shop or go to a medicine store, or go online to amazon dot com, go to an online herbstore, or go to Walmart and look at the bottles of herbs they have and maybe buy a bottle off the shelf and try it, that's OK. That's also one way to meet the plants. This is another way to meet the plants to meet them directly. That's the way that teachers use to explain the plants and that's the way that I use too. So Z meet the governess, governess .
