Juicing with bitter Herbs

Juicing with bitter herbs: spring/winter tonic. Chicoria Catalogna, cilantro, lemon, peppers, apple and kale, ginger: Building a green juicePuntarelle or cicoria di catalogna, Italian Chicory is a nice green with a pleasant bitter edge that goes well in a green juice.

     The bitter greens are good sources of vitamin K, folate and Vitamin A. These herb power foods, open up the liver and gallbladder, they stimulate digestive enzymes. I also and galanga root and ginger to further actualize the stimulating warming properties. I am using the dark green poblano pepper, jalapeño and habanero papers. This juice is a good tonic for the blood and thins the mucus secretions.

Lemon Green Ginger Pulse; How to

 Lemon Ginger Green Pulse: dandelion, parsley, cilantro, cucumber, green apple, poblano, Serrano, habanero, lemon, ginger, galangal root. Dandelion opens the liver and gallbladder, good for digestion, Vitamin A and C, lots of enzymes, warmth from ginger and galangal. Giving thanks to God for green juice. A short talk on the Conversion of St Paul and Green Juice.

Torote, Bursera microphyla, this is the way to return, by Paul Manski

Torote, Bursera microphyla,  this is a way to return, if you are lost, or have been lost. The plant taste is aromatic, hot dry and astringent, the gum like resin sap or copal comes out of the tree, pictured below and is a prized medicine. The aromatic scent is a combination of orange peel and piñon pine resin. 

I’m continuing to work with these plants and use them from a bioregional herbalist perspective. I first met them 25+ years ago in the Sonoran desert west of the Colorado river, in eastern San Diego and Imperial counties,  California, while working for the California Department of Parks and Recreation.      Torote is a powerful plant that can define the bioregion.

It’s scent is warm maybe pine sap maybe orange peels, kind of like both, you decide. It also has a hint of fresh cilantro seed/coriander. It’s a perennial, a tree. It keeps it’s small leaves year round except in drought and cold, in Arizona and California it’s at the north end of its range. It’s aromatic leaves are on cherry red stems coming from a swollen white papery trunk. In the south and heart of Mexico it is more evenly distributed, but in Arizona and California it grows in the warmest mico-climates often situating itself near dark desert varnished boulders or at it’s reported most Northern point in the Harquirvar Mountains 33.7N, 113.4W near Salome, AZ it will be in the wash. 

Thin papery bark admits light to photosynthetic layers beneath. Given rain it may leaf out at any season like an Ocotillo. Bursera Microphylla is considerd a sarcaulescent tree and stores water like a cactus in its lower trunk.

This sarcaulescent quality means it can survive dought alough it tends to like the summer rains coming from the Gulf of California. It has a an affinity to the grey vireo who eats and speads its seeds.

      I’m not sure I should mention any of this, I have no right to speak, probably no reason to speak, yet I’m speaking. I’ll tell you why, maybe one person will hear it and and it will help them come back to center. Robert Levi a Cahuilla elder and bird singer passed away August 29, 2007 he was 89. He talked to me one day about Mukat and Temayeit and bird songs. I listened to what he said, you couldn’t ask him if he remembers, he’s dead. I’m still alive so I”ll tell the story and no one can argue with it. That’s just the way it is.

     I found this tree maybe 30 years ago or at least 25. I was looking for something, I’m still still looking for something. I found a few things here and there, in the deserts. Probaby want to know where? Well this tree speaks for itself. It tells us where we are. It shows us which way to go, here, home. I can’t even tell you where it grows I found it at Bow Willow, Martinez Canyon and Ocotillo Wells when I was a young man.

My hair was brown and thick and I used to enjoy sleeping and cuddling with a beautiful woman , a youngish girl actually, my wife and friend, Eileen. She had my son and I named him after the tree that grew east of us in the Mohave, Joshua tree, with its arms out raised. I felt lost in the desert somehow I would see the promised land, but I wouldn’t enter like Moses, but Josh my son would, that’s another story. I just want you to know that now I think more of the past than the future, and if I think of anything it’s these plants growing here. They have an ability to pull us into the conversation of place.  I want you to remember them and seek them out, like I did and do. These plants and stories connect us to each other and the place we share. A place beyond fronteras, beyond jurisdictions and boundaries. Place is like that it is and will be, after our time is gone.

     Like Torote Colorado, the Bursera Microphylla, Robert Levi said the bird songs were songs of people looking for a place to live, looking for good things

Bird songs were in the Cahuilla way of making connections to this place of abundance and riches, beauty. They were sung in ceremonies and at a certain point Robert Levi recognized his work was to sing. His work was to preserve the songs. So he traveled and sang, he would shake the rattle and sing all over the Mohave, Banning and Morongo. He came to the Borrego valley a couple times and sang.

    He said, "So everyone are like these birds, looking for a place to live." Robert Levi was interviewed by LA Times, Jennifer Warren August 31, 1990 and he talked about the bird songs,

   “In one song, for example, the First People "feel this strong wind, coming up behind them, and they are looking for a place to stay," Levi said. "Then in the next song, it's getting cold as the wind is catching up to them."

The following piece tells of "clouds of rain gathering, and then of the rain falling on them," Levi said. "There is talk of the mournful cry of the bluebird, and the blackbird, and the cold rain.

http://pgmanski.blogspot.com/2009/10/climbing-san-ysidro-peak.html

  "It goes on like this and they finally come down on a high plateau or mountain, and see this lush valley below," Levi said. "This, the songs says, is the land where they will stay."” 

     I heard Robert Levi

sing them at Borrego Springs, Banning, 29 Palms, and up above at Los Coyotes. I had a cassette recorder, I would listen to them. I wrote a poem about Robert Levi, and the mountain in back of where we lived. The stories I knew, even though they weren’t mine, I asked Robert if I could record his songs and tell his stories, he told me yes, I needed to do that. He was a good man. I’m glad I met him only briefly.

   OK back to Torote. the Elephant Tree kelawat eneneka. This was an important tree in terms of medicine, song and story.  I went to the museum in Morongo and met Catherine Siva Saubel who was known in legendary terms, (by me mainly) as a Cahuilla woman who knew the stories of the plants. She was elegant and had a strong presence about her. I feel fortunate to have met people who loved the plants and their stories.

    My question is this, how can we describe our place? It’s important for me to use a bioregional perspective, the rivers and watersheds will do. It’s of the greatest importance that you know the first flower of spring, that the bushes are people just like you and I. When a drop of rain falls where does it go? That’s your life’s work, place. Where you are. Not so much where you’re from, or where you’re going but here and now, where does that drop of rain go? Follow it home. See it in your dreams, the clouds and the rain, four directions.

     Here where I live, it travels to the Colorado and the Gulf of California. I live just north of the Salt River, and the Agua Fria comes from the North, then the Gila River, we follow these rivers. This is how we describe our place. Now it’s work to say where you’re your from with the rivers and mountains. Then there are the plants. Saguaro, goes a long word towards describing this place. Yet here is Arizona, both torote and saguaro are at their northern limits. Torote much more so than saguaro. Torote is a guest here, saguaro is a local, and defines the bioregion. Saguaro i would say, makes known  us the place.

Another one, is ocotillo. In one place you'll find torote  ocotillo and saguaro together all three at the same time. Ocotillo crosses the Colorado into California. Saguaro does not cross the river. Saguaro and ocotillo coinhabit a large swath of Arizona. Then somewhere along the Gila near Safford, the saguaro peters out, too much cold but the ocotillo continues into New Mexico and Texas, places the saguaro doesn't go.

Then with the Madraen Sky Islands we have higher elevations, more rain and here we have pine, and Fir and Cedar. 

So within any watershed or drainage we have the Sky Islands that collect rain and these plants that go with the rain in these sky Islands are circumboreal. Often plants in these islands come from the north, Asia, Europe, Norway, they creep down these sky island roads like Juniper communis does, or Aralia spp, that is the north and a good thing. I met Juniperus communis plant with Aralia and Osha in the Sierra Blanca. These are for Bears, beaver and Elk and in the same way the south creeps up here. Bursera microphylla is like that. It creeps up following the sun, it’s part of us too. Just as much as deer and pine.  it’s not really belonging here. Yet it defines Sonora. These treaties of Hidalgo and Guadalupe, Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo, didn’t touch Torote, or any of the plants or animals, even the people, no one can live by lines, we breathe beyond lines and we move too. So I’m not good with borders, I do my best, but my thing is the plants, they are beyond the lines of Hidalgo.

     Bursera Microphylla defines Sonora, and yes I live in Sonora, I live with Torote. From Borrego Springs to Marana, Arizona it’s a place defined by Torote, the medicine. So I make medicine beyond the borders, I try to respect the borders but the medicine comes first.

     Michael Moore in his Materia Medica writes, “BURSERA MICROPHYLLA (Elephant Tree, Torote)
GUM. Tincture [1:5, 80% alcohol], 5-20 drops, and diluted for mouth wash. TWIGS/LEAVES. The torchwood family contains 550 species of shrubs and trees worldwide. Torote trees are nearly unknown to the general public, but nearly everyone has heard of their Old World relatives. The aromatic sap of the Boswellia sacra (Frankincense) and of Commiphora spp.( Myrrh) were once worth equal their own weight in gold. They were offered to Christ by the 3 Magi, the wise men who came from the east. Both myrrh and frankincense grow as small trees, on the Arabian peninsula or shrubs; they are of the botanical family Burseraceae. The Chineseview of these resins are,  “When combined, they provide these properties:

Fresh plant tincture [1:2], 10-30 drops.” And further in his book Los Remedios writes, that the resin or gum, is tinctured in alcohol and appled to sore gums, cold sores and tooth abscess, also the dried stems and leaves drunk in a tea for both painful urination and as an expectorant for lung, colds and chest congestion.

"One tends to rectify the blood; the other to rectify the qi;

When these two medicinals are combined together,

they complement each other.

Together, they effectively move the qi and quicken the blood,

dispel stasis, free the flow of the viscera, bowels, and channels,

quicken the network vessels, disperse swelling, stop pain,

constrain weeping sores and engender flesh."
     So now you have Torote. There was a place called Rabbit House, I would watch it way up there near Toro Peak in the Santa Rosas. There was an eagle flying, and called it Umna’ah, it was a good medicine with brittle bush and Elephant tree bark , for asthma and the resinfor dreaming  medicine, gambling medicine. An extract of the branches was effective against Staphylococcus aureus. {"Cahuilla Indians called the Elephant Tree kelawat eneneka and believed that the sap, ... red ..., had great power and was dangerous to be kept in the open. It was always hidden and used by tribal shamans"

    A teacher i studied with, John Slattery, of Tucson, AZ writes,

http://www.desertortoisebotanicals.com

“Bursera sp. – Elephant Tree/Torote bark

Bursera spp. only grow in diversity from there(Mexico)...  Closely relate to Myrrh which was traditionally used to stimulate vitality in response to an infection, oral infections being foremost.  In the past, I have thought of it as a local analog for Echinacea, but it doesn’t do everything that Echinacea does (nor vice versa, for that matter).  It has been used for scorpion bites, cough, and bronchitis throughout our region.  I see it as a lymphatic, antitussive, and expectorant great for thick, mucousy, intractable coughs.” Another teacher I have studied with Michaeal Cottingham, of Siver City NM, writes,

“ELEPHANT TREE (Bursera microphylla)

Some observations and notes

A remarkable plant medicine

 for depressed white blood cell count

and endogenous and deep tissue infections, and can be helpful in these conditions:

MRSA, Sepsis, Periodontitis, Herpes, Gangrene (bacteria - Clostridium perfringens), Streptococcus spp., Staphlococcus spp., Lyme and its many coinfections, Venomous Bites with Sepsis or Tissue Necrosis, Pediculicide (Lice treatment), Venereal (gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis) and other problematic and deep infections.

Elephant Tree (ET or Bursera) -

Is an antiviral, anti-fungal, antibacterial, astringent, anti-inflammatory, antiseptic, mucolytic, diuretic, diaphoretic, emmenagogue (lightly), vasodilator, and immune stimulant.”

https://www.facebook.com/michael.cottingham.Herbalist/posts/256028524607724

I wanted to end the blog post with quotes from these two teachers, because they bring the circle around. They both studied with South west herbalist, Michael Moore was passed away in 2009. They both teach and communicate the knowledge of plants in the Southwest and I am grateful for having met each of them and been able to hear their stories of the plants from this unique place. The Gila/Salt River Sky island province.

Prayers added to Mass

"Now of all God's creatures Mary is the most conformed to Jesus. It therefore follows that, of all devotions, devotion to her makes for the most effective consecration and conformity to him. The more one is consecrated to Mary, the more one is consecrated to Jesus."

-St Louis de Montfort

   I myself would like to attend the true mass. Not only today but always. I currently attend the society of St. Peter here in Phoenix Arizona. 

     Currently with the society of St. Peter, I see the Vatican II practices and teachings slowly creeping in, and I am concerned. Not alarmed but concerned. I know our priests here in Phoenix must also be struggling, with the new pope Francis. Of course there is nothing said from the pulpit to indicate a struggle, yet there is a vague feeling that we must be cautious and prudent, guarded perhaps.

     With Pope Benedict it was clear we were reforming the mass, reforming the reforms of Vatican II. With Pope Francis now it becomes murky and I wonder if we're slipping into some kind of a highbred mass. For that reason I think it is imperative for the Mass to be the Mass of all time with no additions or improvisation.

     Strangely as it sounds some of the things that Pope Francis has said resonate with me. They resonate with me in a way in which I don't think he intended. In the recent interview he did on the airplane, he mentioned that Catholics the traditional Catholics are too concerned with things like abortion gay marriage and homosexuality, and as strange as it sounds I agree with him. I don't think you can rank sins according to their degree of evil. Abortion the terrible evil, is a terrible evil among many. And it is certainly an evil but not the source of all evil. A mortal sin, is a mortal sin. Its disconnects us from the flow of God's grace especially the sacraments. So to mention abortion in connection to the Mass the Mass of all time is itself an improvisation that I believe we should do without. I am speaking here of the prayer for life which is said after the Leoline prayers at the society of St. Peter Latin mass as it is said here in Phoenix Arizona. 

     Of course it would be absurd to speak of Roe versus Wade at Mass in France, or a Mass in Argentina or any other country so to speak. Yet at the end of the Leonine prayers is inserted this petition to end abortion. Clearly this goes beyond the 1962 missal. So in a sense rather than the mass of all time we are having an American mass. We have an American mass rather than the mass of all time, by inserting this petition prayer which is a local American situation. This of course is the type of thing that you have in the Vatican 2 mass that is said throughout the world. You have a local mass rather than a mass of all time. 

     When I go to mass with the Society of St. peters, one of the things that I am concerned with has to do with. Of the mass actually when the mass is ended. The leonine prayers that we say after the mass has technically ended, have been altered by the Society of St. Peter here in America. They have inserted a prayer to end abortion. A noble cause yet none the less not something that should be added to the mass. They mention specifically the roe versus Wade decision. Now I am no fan or supporter of abortion or birth control. Yet I don't think it is appropriate to insert this fixation on abortion as the primary sin, and connected somehow with the leonine prayers originated by Pope Leo. Although the mass has ended at this point, I don't think it appropriate to make this addition. I don't see how this reference to the roe versus Wade decision is appropriate at that point. Even though the mass has ended it is still somehow connected to the mass and therefore to make this addition, is to alter the basic liturgy of the 1962 missal. 

      To me the various prayers and petitions that are said during the Vatican 2 mass have nothing to do with the mass. while it is certainly noble to enter some prayer petition for disaster victims or some cause of some kind for world peace or what have you, yet it is not appropriate to insert this into the mass. If you want to have a prayer service or something after the mass fine but all these petitions and prayers and so on have no place in the mass. And although the intention is good I do not see the purpose in the society of St. Peter inserting this petition into the liturgy. 

      Although I support and attend the St. Peter society mass here in Phoenix Arizona I am now leaning more towards the society of Pius the 10th,( I am also strongly considering attending a retreat here in Phoenix run by the SSPX), I am praying very strongly, praying for a way to reconcile myself to the Latin mass and the choice I must make. Although I support & bless and in every way support our new Pope Francis, I feel that he may not be the pope that we need now in relationship to the changes that Pope Benedict was making with the liturgy, of course only time will tell. With Pope Benedict I felt a visceral gut connection to our holy father the pope and his dedication to healing the wounds of Vatican II. With Pope Francis I don't get this connection, knowing however that many Catholics do feel a stronger connection with Pope Francis then they did with Pope Benedict. So I have this dilemma which is connected with my own salvation. I have this heartfelt dilemma and crisis in my faith. It's something that I cannot deny or change. Sadly I want so much the mass of all time as the good Archbishop Marcel Lefebre so heartily stated. I do not want to fight or argue or take anything away from anyone anywhere, I only want to pray I only want to experience the grace of God through the holy mass.

     I continue to heartily be drawn to our virgin mother Mary, and the message of Fatima. I firmly believe in my heart through the grace of God that an emphasis on Mary the mother of God, our Lady of Mount Carmel, our Lady of Guadalupe , is the only solution that can work for me. And although this is the height of you Breese and arrogance, I also feel that this is the only way that the church can come out of its crisis that our liturgy of the holy Roman Latin mass can be sustained and fulfilled. As we all know one of the primary elements of Vatican II was to reach out to the lost sheep, to reach out to the Protestants to the Lutherans to all the various sects, to the Anglicans to the church of England to the Methodists in general reach out to the Protestants. Now as we all know one of the primary stumbling blocks of the Protestants is the Catholics connection and love and fascination with the virgin Mary, the mother of God. The aftermath of Vatican II besides all the changes in the liturgy the promotion of the vernacular, was a deconstruction of Mary.. Although it was not stated in any of the Vatican 2 documents, although there was no mention to somehow eliminate Mary, it was done. Mary was in practice removed from her pedestal. In practice Mary was deemphasized. So that the Catholic faith could be more attractive to a Protestant Mary was deemphasized.

     For me the renewal of the Latin mass, the promotion of the Latin mass, must go hand in hand with the promotion of Mary the mother of God the Virgin, the immaculate conception, the immaculate heart of Mary. This of course flies in the face of ecumenism of the reaching out to Protestants, because you cannot reach out to the Protestants if you focus on Mary. The Protestants have a stumbling block with Mary. So the Vatican II practical application was to remove Mary all references to Mary and focus on Jesus. 

      Anyway, I pray for the grace of God to get through this personal crisis and work instead on my salvation and the goal of eternal life, in Jesus and Mary blessings always

orange desert mallow

orange desert mallow, red dunes with verbena  sassafras, yucca stalks glow starlight, wallflower & sego lily, evening primrose, rice grass, salt bush and rabbit brush, a bouquet I picked I picked with josh for Eileen

An Early Ohio Epistle 9th month 1818

An Early Ohio Epistle  9th month 1818 by Sister Charity Rotch

From our Yearly Meeting of Women friends, held in Mountpleasant, by adjournments, from the 7th of the 9th month to the 12th of the same, inclusive, 1818. To the Yearly Meeting of Women friends to be held in Philadelphia
Dear Sisters,

As "deep calleth unto deep" so we can feelingly acknowledge your acceptable Epistle with others read at this time have been like a renewed call on us to dwell near the Fountain of Truth, that will cleanse and purify all our efforts to promote the welfare of Zion and "the enlargement of her Borders."may acknowledge that the precious union and fellowship which we have felt in the Bond of Peace have proved strengthening and encouraging to many of our minds; and though some have been ready to say in doubtful dismay, "who is sufficient for these things," yet we are sensible that as the day of trial and baptism is pateiently abode under, the unslumbering Shepherd of Israel will arise for their help. , Oh that these tried ones may be enabled to say, "Wash me, make me clean"; "let not thy hand spare nor thine eye pity, till thou hast brought forth judgment unto victory," till thou has cleansed not only from the dross and the tin, but also from the Reprobate silver. 
 have had to view with solemn awe the high profession we are making in the world; and earnestly desire in that spirit which wisheth well to the whole human family, that our lives and conversation may adorn the doctrines we profess, that we may become as a light to the people, and an ensign to the nations, that none may be dwelling as it were in their ceiled houses, saying to themselves, "We are Abraham's children," and thereby become a stumbling block to those who are inquiring the way to Zion. 
We feel drawn tenderly and affectionately to salute the rising generation, the hope of succeeding times. May you not, beloved young sisters, suffer your minds to be deluded by the vain allurements and fascinations of this world, which passeth away as a shadow;nor too much of your time engrossed by these pleasures and pursuits which may be termed comparatively innocent - but as a means of alluring your attention and unfitting the mind for the reception of substantial good, and consuming the precious moments which never can return, are inimical to your progress towards the land of Promise.The safe design of the Enemy of your souls is answered if he can beguile by the very least of his baits.But the earnest breathing of our spirits is that the Shepherd of Israel may watch over you, and keep you as within the "Garden enclosed" where no hurtful thing can enter; that you may yield now in the morning of your day in submissive obedience to the visitations of the Father's love made known in your hearts; and there be qualified to fill the places of those ancient Worthies, many of whom have been removed from works to rewards.
Our annual assembly has been large; and though we have not, as heretofore, had the company of many of our friends from distant Yearly Meetings, one from yours has been acceptably with us. And we trust the Master has been graciously disposed to bless the few loaves and fishes to our strength and support.

We remain your affectionate Sisters,

Signed on behalf of the Meeting,
Charity Rotch,
Clerk this year.