Manzanita, Little apples, Arctostaphylos pungens

So here is Arctostaphylos pungens, Pointleaf manzanita, Family Ericaceae, little apples Manzanita. Rich red brown shiny bark, astringent sour leaves. A tree a bush, a friend reminds me of an anonymous spring somewhere in Southern Utah, a seep of water, canyon oaks, coolness and hair like water grabbing the minds eye. 

     Pale pink trumpet delicate flowers that bloom quickly in early spring.

For me always the smell of the manzanita leaves mixed with pinyon pine pitch, juniper and artemisia, 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.

     Manzanita is like that 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. 

     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.

     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

Phlox, jojoba and Junior Thompson

Phlox tenuifolia

family Polemoniaceae

Desert phlox growing together with jojoba. They support one another these plants growing together. These plants support one another the one is so strong and everywhere. The other one is there but needs a lot of help so we can stand in the sun and grow. I was taken back by the beauty of the phlox supported by the jojoba.

 I understood that we need to be open to support one another. Some of us with different talents, different strengths. 

     I just spent a couple days in ceremony with Randolph "Junior" Thompson  and ate a lot of medicine and I was thinking of how I need to change my life.

How I need to gather songs and flowers and listen to the words of the flowers are singing. May be the medicine already changed my life and brought me to a new appreciation of sobriety and sober living. I need to do something different something that will bring these plant medicine songs to people. These plants are songs. These plants are singing and you can listen to their songs and invite them into your heart. 

    These two plants growing together touched my heart, because my heart is open. The azèè shima, brought back from the medicine garden Texas by Daniela and Junior, the fresh strong medicine of this amazing plant. Praying for the water, praying for the water of the Gila River and all the waters that we drink to nourish and restore bodies. I'm seeing what the rain brought here in the desert, bringing up these flowers, raising up the songs. how these flowers support one another.

I realize that I've been supporting only myself and haven't been true to my calling. We need to support one another like these Plants support  one another so that we can grow and be who we need to be.

      

    I was recently spending some time with Simmondsia chinensis

at about 3500ft/1067m, you can see the opposite leaves, the pairs erect-ascending, dull green, and yellowish-green male flowers are borne in clusters. Their upward tilted leaves are opposite, the pairs erect-ascending, dull green, simple, entire, coriaceous(leathery; stiff and tough, but somewhat flexible) evergreen, obscurely pinnately veined, elliptic to oblong- they maximize their position for photosynthesis in the early morning and late afternoon hours, during the midday sun avoiding the harsh heat their leaves thus deflect the sun. I was sampling pollen when i saw the vine phlox

growing here supported by jojoba.

The Phlox corolla narrowly funnelform, brilliantly highlighted by the dull green Simmondsia background looking vibrantly white creamy colored, the soft lobes , obtuse to truncate. Leaves linear to narrowly lanceolate, flat, glabrous(without surface ornamentation such as hairs, scales or bristles) The inflorescence with 2-3 flowers pedicelled delicately in yellow green; pedicels sparsely glandular to short pilose.

    I saw a lot of things with the medicine. I spoke to several people that have passed on that I needed to say, "Thank you, good morning. I missed you since you've been gone. I've been here learning about the plants, just like I told you I would." I asked the medicine to give me some more years here, because there's a lot of work to do and people need to hear about these plants and use them for medicine. I need to learn so much more and spend time with these plants where they grow. I need to spend enough time with them that I can hear what songs they have to sing and bring them back for the people that need help.

     These two plants grow together and they support one another, even though very different it works. It works because our creator is made it that way the things that are very different work together to help one another. 

     It's been about 25 years since I sat in the tipi, we're back at square beauty with grandfather Bennett, and back at Aneth, Utah with the Fats and the black horse clan. A lot of things of changed I was much more of a young man then now I'm much more of an old man although there are still parts of the young man here. 

      'Junior' and Leeroy said, "you've got to go to the plant, bring some tobacco done with the plant till the plant what you need. Tell the plant what you need for and why you're gathering it so you can make good medicine. The plants, the water, everything that our Creator brought us. Everything the Creator put here, they're all here to make it a better day, make it a good morning and feel really good when you wake up. Be grateful for everything, for waking up. Every day commit and promise  sober living because that's what the medicine wants us to do,  to be clean and sober.

     

Little messages and teachings are everywhere if you just open up your eyes and spend some time with this creation, if you want to know what the flowers, what the plants can do, look at them, watch them, listen to them. Talk to the plants because you're part of our family, listen to them, here with they have to say. Every plant is singing a song and that song can help you on your way. If you want to work with the plants then you have to listen to what they have to say, ask them what you need, tell them you have a need and that's why you're picking them it's why you were going to use them in this way.

Plant Medicine Roads

"What we are doing is helping people connect, and unless we connect, then we can't help people connect unless we ourselves connect" - Michael Cottingham

so connect.

if you want connection, connect. Connect with the place. If you want to connect you must connect. If you want to help other people connect you have to connect.

Your connection is important. You can't bring them a connection unless you are connected. so that's really all we're doing is connecting. to do this work of connecting connect with the plants.

Connect with the songs and stories on the plant medicine road that the plants have given us, are giving us and will give us.

Listen as much as you can to the stories. talk plant story where ever you go. everything is a story. everything about the plant is a story. always be listening to hear what the story is. what the connection is, what the connection does. 

     Aho, hello all friends on plant spirit song medicine road. & you are all my friends if you are on this plant medicine Road. that's how the road works, if you're on the road, then we are on the road. that 'we' is the friendship, that we share and will continue to share.

Nourish those relationships on the plant medicine Road. they are precious. They are precious events when you meet a friend. it is just like Pulsatilla

 when you met Pulsatilla  it was a great friend! so if you meet a friend on this medicine road know that it is not an accident!  You two are meant to be together forever on this medicine Road, on this plant medicine spirit Road, whoever you meet on this road becomes part of your family forever.

 thank you for sharing your heart thoughts and feelings, prayers and faith go out to brothers and sisters Zachary, Raychel, Cyndi, Janet, Eva, Greg, Michael, Heather, Doña Melodía, Amelia,  (and anyone i missed.!) i read your words thru several times and i feel blessings flowing from the plants and so thru our teacher Michael, who brought us together & the plant teachers  growing in these medicine gardens who speak to us and show themselves to us.

i thank spirit of earth & sky,  wind and stars, thanking flowing warm waters of Eden. 

we all know plant spirit songs have called us before ever much time, & before this time they spoke to our fathers and mothers and called them, nourished their bodies and sang songs for all to hear. it is now becoming for us about the plants, we are becoming plant/people, plant/persons. this is hard because maybe before we lived for ourselves without plant spirit medicine songs.

many of us lived without a teacher to provide for us the plant stories, to show us the plants in the medicine gardens. we lived in a place but we didn't hear the plant medicine songs of the place. now we flow in this oral tradition with a teacher to show us the place. now old things pass away, things are born and now somethings are dying in us, we are giving birth to ourselves through to the plants. we are all called in some degree to follow  the plant medicine road and walk in balance and beauty where we are traveling sometimes far away to the mountains places were warm waters flow.

      plants have always been calling us singing songs, telling stories, showing us the way on this medicine road. we pass them by on the road. these great plant medicine road friends and teachers, they have been very sad because we haven't touched them. they see us with our cellular telephones and we're always touching our cellular telephone and they're very sad and they say,

"why can't you touch me? what, can't you hold me in your hand like you hold your cellular telephone?  why can't you put me in your mouth?  can't you taste me? why can't you kiss me on the lips? why won't you follow me all the way down to the ground caress my body?"

 we haven't used them.  we seen them by the roadside and wondered what they are?  they always been there for us powerful teachers, friends, family, right there beside us and they been sad because we haven't used their medicine power to uplift this world. 

     plants have always been here with their songs and stories. everything about the deer house that you heard is true and it was always this way but the road to deer  house was somehow closed. we couldn't pass through the mud. the rocks and the rough road blocked us with illusion of disconnect but now the road is open the illusion of disconnect is all about what?

disconnect is about finding ways to separate us from one another and this plant spirit medicine road.   This is our plant spirit song medicine road traveling. after class i was at Deer House talking & hearing plant story, i could see people... this one i know was sad, crying, another felt lost, others happy and filled. this is a hard road, much beauty but hard. don't give up or give in to despair. i know each one of you are finding good plant medicine, use your plant medicines.

Rely on your plant medicines. Trust in your plant medicines. if somethings come up use yerba santa,  

call on la Gobernadora, Lady Pulsatilla, talk to the plants, sob cry to the plants, let them know what you need. 

don't compare don't despair. everything that you need to know the teachers will show you.

the plants will come to you in dreams. singing their stories for you already told, not small stories but long stories that go all the way from the tips of the trees down to the roots. you'll see where the roots are deep in the ground and those roots will become your own. you will stand tall and your standing there as a man as a woman, as the person you need to be. don't be afraid! gather together.

sing the songs and stories that the plant medicine road are giving you. sing them together. be strong in those medicine Plant Road songs. 

this great illusion is strong and calls you back with fear and phony promises. this medicine plant road is calling, you're being pulled both ways, to go back to the worlds of disconnect. disconnect will call you.  listen to the message now, things will start to come up, problems, issues, roadblocks. i promise you will see them. oh shit! what now? what the fuck? that's just how it is. doubts & problems. a roadblock, a tension, a conflict  whether ON the road or in your mind, if it hinders your medicine road journey you can be sure it's something you need to address and act upon.

we now have our plant road medicines that for sure. yet the Illusion of disconnect wants to pull  back, pull us apart and will find ways to sabotage and play with our heads. when Aristolochia came to Julia and Doña Melodía  i realized the plants have their own agenda, i need to respect that.

it was a message to be friendly, work with that friendliness energy,  welcome all these new faces, "she is my friend.", that what the plant said. Porange, Julia, Paloma, D- new people and just not new people but new plant people,

plus i am meeting these people through Michael, thru Eden, through the plants- i have to respect and trust that.

Be strong with your plant medicines and let's help one another- all your words are worth hearing-thank you all and let  plant songs guide.

    thank you, as you all know i started our eden voyage silly, prideful rough, reckless and embarrassing puking in my jeep, especially in front of young Zachary, who reminds me of my son Josh, yet you all allowed me to continue on, & forgave, thank you. I honor and appreciate your forgiveness.

it makes me stronger to know that you could love me in that way in the Goodway in that plant medicine road way that we follow, with sweethearts of-forgiveness, without judgment. you practiced it. your practice is your teaching for that too I am grateful. and I am grateful. i know it could have gone the other ways. laying in the shade underneath my jeep, wandering here and ther i realized i needed to, 'change my ways'

i had and have violated the plant teachers with carelessness, greedy harvesting and disobeying my plant teachers. i still have some hard lessons to learn, i know they'll make me stronger but i don't relish those hard lessons to come.

sometimes the plant teachers punish me mainly by hiding from me. they are my lover and sweethearts so they hide themselves, i say, 'honey can I have a kiss?', 'no not tonight, i have headaches', the front door is locked so i sleep in my truck or in the doghouse. everyone on this plant road is helping me, i accept that, i know that. i bring that in, '"how is she helping me? how is he helping me? what do i need to change to make this work? why can't i see it? what do i have to let go of, change, or nurture to see beauty in this situation? to see goodness? something good happening?'"

my main job is to acknowledge illusion/disconnect mind is in there, fouling things up but so is plant medicine road mind, so i need to get out of the way and allow flow - 

Mrs "N"- said, "Meet people where they are at. Healing doesn't occur in an environment of judgement...healing is not a destination but a journey we are on, i don't practice heroic herbalism, i work on long slow lasting shifts."

 that is not only for guest, it is host. you know we have the guest and we have the host, we have the entertainment and we have the entertainers. we have all the donuts stacked up and we wonder what is the inside of the doughnut? what is the outside of the doughnut? well there is no inside of the doughnut hole. sometimes host sometimes guest, either way if we see something we're not sure if it's inside or outside, and it doesn't matter where does the inside begin? what is the outside begin? If you see it, if you feel it, then it's something that's important to deal with.

see it? Then own it. that is our road, that is the Bioregional medicine road. Our path is on this plant medicine Road. not only other/patients but self.

 i have to allow some space for good things to flow in, i need not only to stop judging others but stop judging myself. illusion of disconnect mind is mainly in the soft ego judgment,

picking and choosing, the good and bad, the right and wrong, the goodway/bad way, so i have to get to a space where there is clarity openness and the blue sky mind. a conscious let go, let it rest, let it be, give it a space to be whatever it needs to be outside of my control...
As Zoe said, "Your confusion is better than my clarity." -

so i actually bring in & invite blue sky mind into the mix. i ask blue sky mind, "show my clouds, please? Let me see clouds and sky." my thoughts, feelings, goals, problems, tape loops- whatever- i see it with background of blue sky,

clouds. i allow/invite ego concern to be clouds moving across blue sky, dramas, big-plans, hopes, fears all get blue sky mind treatment for a while...until all i see is blue sky, 4 directions, beauty, Hózhǫ́ náhásdlį́į́’. then maybe i see hawk and eagle playing on the thermals flying in the blue sky, way up there, then i go back to whatever and know plant beauty way is there for me, Hózhǫ́ náhásdlį́į́’.