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

O Maria Virgine

O glorious Virgin Mary, in your Holy Rosary, you gave the Mystery of your Queenship of heaven & earth.

The stars about your head, standing on the moon just as the picture shows.

Grant that all who say your glorious mysteries today, may be granted a vision soon, of your beauty and your queenship of heaven and earth,

that they may see and believe. I truly know you my mother and queen, but they have not yet seen, in Jesus name amen

O Maria Virgine, in Rosarii dedisti Reginae caeli & terrae uestrae singulare mysterium. Sidera circa caput tuum, stantes super luna sicut ostendit. Dicentes quod omnes tuae mysteriis hodie per visum concedi primum Reginae caeli et terrae tuae et ut videamus et credamus. O regina, mater scio vere, sed nondum vidi, in nomine Iesu amen

is was and will be. by Paul Manski

is was and will be,

going gone to volcano.
creative destructing, 

dangerous and uplifting, 

I'm sure you'll change creative one.

because so much that is, 

is a drag and a burden and must be levelled.

with blood and fire 

with lobelia and humming bird songs.

you a cousin of hummingbird

always sipping nectar

inquenchable-the journalist going 

dream to dream on the back of humpback whales and airplanes,

smooth firm muscled sweaty warm body.
 there's so much to say

...why was she walking along the frozen green river, near the cora Y, with a black dog?

15 years warm healing mud of paria river rubbed on flesh perfect and ancient piñon pines wait for rain

that seldom comes.

When it comes it fills the spring on the cockscomb, 

cliff rose blossoms and mariposa lily 

i left turquise beads in the slick rock next to a great horned owl feather, 

much is sent in the between time

quiet  hours twilight,

 owl moves the dream time...
i saw antelope ground squirrel bones

In the owl scat left on a rock. 

we're eating and being eaten, 

sucking and being sucked,

 kissing and grasping with our tongue the words to say thanks,
thanks for the vows made in Big Horn mountains,

Above tree line on medicine wheel mountain
heard by the wind, 

fluttering and dancing,
 a piece of your fringed black leather jacket

...a piece of our hair tied with string

a piece of our songs and young giddy laughter.
we ate the heart of a road killed deer and fed the rest of the meat to wild black dog.

there were times when lava rocks barked coyotes words,

oil derricks pumping all night 

where the tipi was set up 

in Utah near Aneth,
we saw ghosts and old women 

they say in a circle around the fire

clockwise, sun-wise

on their Memorial Day 

speaking to dead lovers in tipis

we walked to Emma's grave

and talked to Charlie Hepworth

digging out irrigation canal

love is eternal and never dies,

 in that circle you sit perky breasts and smooth skin 

I could see young men there 

with thick black hair 

his horshoeing tools and a leather apron, tonight they'll share again a cup of kindness.

sing auld Lang syne and waltzing Matilda

She'll taste bitter musky salty taste in her mouth and

 he'll lay next to her exhausted 

could anything be any other way? .

..is was and will be forever...

Aralia racemosa, or just Aralia.

Aralia racemosa, or just Aralia. 

by Paul Manski

"This is one of the plants that you search for if you are an herbalist.

Or you think you want to be an herbalist. Or you are a realist who realizes that from beginningless time we go to plants when we are sick, to heal. To return to balance.

We eat the plants every day to live and in order to heal ourselves whether today, tomorrow or yesterday. we need the plant. we need the strong ones. Or you were a realist who  to wants to be an herbalist.

     The seasons are like saints and holy medals they bring us to where we need to be. Yet the seasons are the dividers for in each season everything changes. The leaves change, and transform  they fall on the ground or they turn yellow or they turn red or they come out soft and green and tiny. In short they change.

     So to find a strong plants those potent medicines that lurk in our memories like dreams just below and come to the surface at dawn like shadows. We need to find a teacher who will walk with us through the seasons and show us the place, the person, and the plants.

    In this bioregion there was an amazing man, who was able to gather others around him, and that learning and teaching goes on, Michael Moore, who taught and taught and walked sat and listened and talked and talked and sold the plants of the southwest. So in some sense everything comes from Michael Moore this herbalist who died in 2009, after awakening and sharing with so many this knowledge of the plants. This comes from Michael Moore and his notes and teaching on spikenard, 

-"Aralia racemosa

Chronic coughing with excess secretions; bronchorrhea; subacute cystitis with mucus in urine, no odor; as an adaptogen similar to Panax.

Chronic laryngitis with excess, abundant mucus.

Chronic pharyngitis with thick tenacious mucus.

Chronic bronchitis with profuse secretions and debility. Acute cough with faucial irritability, wheezing, dry mucus. Adrenal cortex hypofunctions.

Primipara, with irritability, distress in last trimester. - subanemic blood with hypersensitivities."

,because it comes from the same family as ginseng some people including Michael Moore see it, saw it in that light, 

-again quoting from herbalist Michael Moore;

-"The Spikenards are tonics, best in long-term use, and further offer the Ginseng-like effects of modifying metabolic and emotional stresses.", 

"The Aralia or Ginseng Family (Araliaceæ) is closely related to the Parsley- Carrot Family (Umbelliferæ or Apiaceæ), with the main differences being their solid stems, and succulent berries. With few exceptions, the Aralia Family grows in the greatest abundance in cold, wet forests, with acidic, humus-rich soil, and fruit that need constant moisture to germinate.

This makes them far less abundant or numerous than their more adaptable relatives, the Umbelliferæ."  -quoting Michael Moore.

    The eastern tribes the Chippewa, Cherokee, Iroquois have a consensus that the plant is used for colds for what we would describe as the flu or lung infections. In the ethnobotanical literature there's also a historical use for it as a women's for menses or issues with menstruation, and show how versatile in their materia medica, it is it was also used topically for wind wood infections for sprains for broken bones. Some where in there is also the use of it as a tonic, and for protection as we use Yerba Santa, the Chippewa used  a decoction of the root for protection,  "to drive away blue tailed swifts."

It's obvious from reading the ethnobotanical literature that this plant has some magic like Osha or yerba santa.

 Then with the plants, with someone showing you the plants when someone introduces you to a plant. There is some elements of a friend introducing you to an old girlfriend, I guess the question is how recent although it could be just as satisfying, the thought of being a sloppy second does enter-into it. There's also etiquette can you go out with a friends girlfriend? Is that OK?

And what's the role of the friend there's something like an element of being a pimp. Is she a hooker? Are you a John? And then there's that touchy question of virginity. Whenever you enter into the nuts and bolts of things it becomes complex. It's obvious from reading the ethnobotanical literature that this plant has some magic like Osha or yerba santa.

It's like meeting a celebrity at a restaurant, at an intimate restaurant and you want to walk over and introduce yourself or get a selfie. You also want to be a human being you don't want to impose on your celebrity friend. Maybe it would be better just to have the memory in your mind of haing seen them eating a slice of pizza, and leave it at that rather then getting a photographand interrupting their dinner. After all you don't want to be a paparazzi.

We all know what happened with Princess Diana. You don't want to chase the spikenard into a tunnel and kill it just to get a picture. You don't want to have to put to it to death. Yet you are an herbalist and probably paparazzi to boot.

And the teachers not so much a pimp as a teacher wanting to share and preserve the knowledge of the bioregion into the next century. Because as another teacher would begin his daily routine saying to me, "remember, you're one day closer to death". And it's true none of us are going to live forever. is it worth having information and knowledge disappear? 

    There's another story in the ethnobotanical literature. It had to do with a meeting in the 1930s in the Sierra Nevada mountains California.

There were two old men and these two old men were the last speakers of their language. And a noted ethnobotanist got them together so they could talk and he could record them so that their language could be preserved so that their words wouldn't die. At least that's how the ethnobotanist saw it. He was preserving the last of this noble culture, the words their language their history their stories. He assembled the primitive recording devices of that da, he had his students with notebooks present in the room and he brought in the two old men.  He  sat between the men. They looked at each other,  stared at each other for a long time, acknowledged each other, then they cursed one another,  and walked out.

Turns out they were rivals for the affections of a young woman many years ago. And whatever it is that happened meant that they could never speak or even look at each other ever again.  And they kept true to their heart to their culture to their way and never spoke again to one another.

That's how it is with plants you wonder am I doing the right thing? And really I asked the same thing today am I doing the right thing?"

By Paul Manski

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.