On Being a Bioregional Herbalist, revisited and Nuestra Señora de LosRemedios

    So here is herbal medicine and here is silence: firstly when I say 'medicine',  i am speaking of a principle which is in my self and in the world around me which tends towards healing and balance. So not pills or surgeries but healing, which in my path centers around herbs and plants growing in the southwest, which i consider to be the Gila/Salt rivers bioregion. The ocotillo-saguaro landscape filled in with various degrees of madrean sky islandness. Medicine is accessing the bounty and richness of this ecosystem.

     Secondly for me or maybe firstly for me, it depends, is Nuestra Señora de los Remedios. Nuestra Señora for me defines the spiritual portion of my herbal experience. She is the name for what i feel in these desert/mountains and sky islands.  She is all that came before. For me she is the oral and written tradition of this place, going back to the hidden message of Guadalupe. In a sense we know her through Juan Diego, we know her because he knew who she was immediately. She was waiting for him to walk by, they knew each other by sight. They could see into each other's needs and there was trust and compassion, She healed Juan's uncle, then she provided him with plants. I consider this the traditions of remedios, remedies for our sickness and problems. I am not alone in this, if you are Catholic, or Mexican, Latino, or a Mexican Catholic, it's not a difficult concept to grasp. 

     Juan Diego was like all of us sick, with problems, with family members with problems and he met Guadalupe on a mountain, she healed his uncle, and told him to collect and gather plants. If ever an herbalist was looking for a story it is this story. And in the land of ocotillos and cactus, deserts mountains and sky islands: this was and is the story. The great mother who heals with special plants that she gives and provides, the remedios, the remedies. 

      This is where i have to stand, live and breathe, because i was born Catholic and my grandparents, mothers we all said the rosary, even in the biggest darkest industrial city, we believed and knew of a mother, with many names who had good things in store for us. Even if the present day was rotten, that didn't matter, it was faith. Faith in the Cross, the saints, the Virgin to triumph.

     She is Our Lady and Mary who appeared to San Juan Diego. When she appeared it's said she spoke words and gave instructions to Juan Diego, saying, "Go up, my dearest son, to the top of the hill, to where you saw me and received my orders and you will find different kinds of flowers. Cut them, gather them, put them all together, then come down." It is sometimes said these were roses, but I like "different kinds of flowers". She said to him, "Allí verás que haya variadas flores: córtalas, reúnelas, pónlas todas júntalas. Luego baja aquí; tráelas aquí, delante de mí.”- She said, 'there you will see all the different flowers: Cut them, collect, gather them, put them all together and pack them up and bring them down here, place them before me."

To me this sounds like herbalism, as it was taught to me. When she said, 'place them before me', she meant connect your heart with mine, with the highest intentions for healing with those plants. That is service, because as herbalists who exist on the frontera, on the border of experience, undocumented healers, who have been called to do this work, we have this work and we have the laws, and often we are outside both, yet there is work to do. There are choices to be made, that's just how it is right now. And probably always was and will be. Often times i'm waiting for something, someone to happen not sure who or what it is.

    

One of the first steps to resolving an illness, towards remedying a disease state is to acknowledge that there is discomfort and pain.

And to know there is a remedio, a remedy.

    On some level you have to admit there is a problem before you can find a remedy for the problem. In many ways pain and discomfort, and acute inflammation  from a disease state are important because as they become more and more strong they demand attention. Uneasiness demands a remedy and requests a conversation. So when opening up a case first there is talking story and listening. A conversation is the first step.

    I often bring together the silence, occasionally only the silence and often not by choice, the silence is for me the place where I can acknowledge the disease state. It's where and for what I seek a gateway, insight or a remedy. No one should be silent all the time, that goes against who I probably need to be.  No one should be a partner in enforcedsilence , and silence should not be enforced upon another. Speaking listening and learning are part of the human experience. So as i said. begin with listening and at best a conversation, a dialogue with silence and listening as a conspicuous portion.

    Of course a long silence can be like a gestation  where something else is being born. A pause where something comes to be. So when conversing don't run towards silence or blah blah blah.

     So it's not so much listening or not listening, silence or speaking, but preparing for something new, preparing for something someone to come. "What would be the reason why silence would be imposed?"   Well that's a good question, and questions often have to remain just that, questions. It's important not to rush and run towards answers, when what is required, is time with the question.

     For me the silence has become intolerable so I give you the person, the place, and some of the plants that i know and love on the sky island in this Sonoran Desert home. I am lately calling it the Gila/Salt river, ocotillo saguaro, desert mountain, sky island province, yes bioregion but you can call it anything you wish. Outside of names it stands strong on its own.

     i bring myself , my place, my plants and my silence. Actually it is my silence that is the most important part of my herbal practice. It's important to realize that silence is not only not speaking, but speaking and not speaking within the silence.  Silence is also not listening, not hearing, not doing while being part of the flow. Much of the work of silence has to do with not listening making a conscious effort to not listen , or to hear the silence that surrounds 'not listening', paying attention to the non-attention, so that when someone speaks you make it a point to hear them, to notice them, to acknowledge their presence or their existence, that's part of silence and that's part of the herbal practice. That is called not blocking. This is where not listening is not opposed to listening, in the sense of the polar flux of let's say day/night, light/dark, like/dislike- just what is. So that one comes to terms with the is-ness of a thing.

     

     After all this is 2016, and counting and I live in America. 

    It is a work in progress and progressing. i am overcoming silence.  It is my work and I am claiming it and encouraging it as my work. It may,  in its present state be able to lead to connections that i can use and share. That is one reason why i share it. it may help someone in someway, as it has helped me. But mostly it helps me because when you speak so infrequently, it helps to write things down. It helps put pictures to them so that you can see your life and it's steps, at least the good ones. And as far as who is helping who, let's just say , we help one another. There is help being done but i'm not doing it. Help is there for those who need it, that's a degree of optimism. Pessimism is to imagine yourself, dream yourself into a helper. Why? Because they can't help themselves. Mostly everyone can help themselves to the degree that they need assistance. Trust Mary and the saints to do healing. Maybe it will happen, or maybe nothing will happen. 

    I write things down because If you don't put down the words on paper and if you don't take pictures you can forget that you've been places. you can forget that you've done things. It is one thing to be silent and another thing to be silenced so I choose to listen in that way I am at least part of a process of communication. i may be moving slowly but i am moving. In the same way Arizona Cypress may have difficulty even with their feet in the water in their head in the clouds yet they are still growing slowly. They were alive and still are alive. They were moving and still moving, they are becoming. And sometimes I realize I must embrace the gradualness of this process. Like the Arizona Cypress. The Arizona Cypress has a very warm medicine. It's antimicrobial and when you see the sap the drips it looks like blood, or like glass wet with water sparkling in the sun. The golden red sap is good medicine. Pick the last years growth of the branch ends. Make a tea, very nice. Or brew up a fresh plant tincture. It's very very warming in the Lungs. Takes to the kidneys, diuretic. Also for fungus, topical. All this valley fever, with Yerba mansa.

    i have found i  forget i'm alive and on a journey because when the silence is so profound that surrounds me and everything i do it's important that i  make some kind of a record of the plants I've seen, felt and encountered.

of what i've done and sometimes just making the record means that you've done something this is the state. This is America. This is me and what's left of me, This is 2016. 

     I go months on end sometimes years without speaking to anyone so it's important that I write things down because i could forget where i've been. maybe if I write things down, i'll see a pattern there and be able to change it or develop something out of it I guess that's why I do this blog.

However at this time I would have to say that the reason I share it is because it may help me and at this point that's the only person I'm thinking about.

    I think in America 2016 we often have a distinctly American herbalism. 

    Actually there are many herbalisms. There's the selling herbalism. People selling all kinds of things. Buying all kinds of things. A lot of it compulsive , repetitious and complicated. Putting it in a jar, putting it in a bottle, pills, powders and potions. Maybe best described as intranet herbalism. Commerce herbalism, herbs of commerce.  Silent herbalism, the herbalism of silence. So here I am exploring the  herbalism of silence. It may or may not be a bioregional herbalism. It is often is an herbalism of herbs without much sharing of the medicine. An herbalism of weak medicine. In many ways I hope to move beyond the silence into speaking. If you're reading this you're part of this journey of herbalism and moving beyond the silence.

    I am employed as an RN. I work 5 days a week. My work is divorced, estranged from my herbal practice. This separated fragmented divorced and strange quality pervades much of my life. Often out of fear and lack of confidence in my skill, and outright lack of skill in knowing how to do what need to do I have clung to the wastelands of the dominant culture. i've lived in America's 5th biggest city, capital of this bioregion, Phoenix, Arizona. Not in the suburbs of Phoenix, but right in the center, anonymously down town, literally and figuratively, down town.

  In fact don't mention herbs in the context of my job at work. Herbs are kind of medicine. My work is on one side and the herbs another, they don't often meet. As a nurse I am somewhat of a spokesman for the pharmaceutical industry and the medical establishment. My work as a pill pusher. I guess what I'm getting at is i compartmentalize my life so i can live my life, there's an uneasy truce with my little boxes and I'm working towards moving beyond that smallness into a more freestate. 

   This is healthcare 2016, i am in the photo, looking at a most amazing plant, the roots of Aralia racemosa, one of the plants i fantasized about since the 1980's. Spikenard was one of those mythical plants like ginseng, osha or Aristolochia that i dreamed about holding, touching and seeing growing wild. This is an example of how I am fragmented, separated from those things that are most meaningful to me are seldom shared. So in a sense I attempt to maintain traction so that I keep moving forward and don't lose momentum. So much of my energy is connected with my work. And it is draining so I'd like to focus on the herbalism and my Herbal studies, because it's easy to forget herbs plants and natural things when you're involved in a very mechanistic lifestyle. The clock is ticking too, how many more years?

     Just last week I was speaking with someone that I work with and he mentioned that he has severe allergies. He's always clearing his throat and coughing and making a loud sound sucking up the mucus that's clogging his sinuses. It's that stuck condition that lingers and then brings inflammation and the inflammation becomes further irritation. I kept hearing him cough and spit. It is the classic stuck conditions that my teachers and past teachers

John Slattery and Michael Cottingham 

have mentioned many times in their lectures and talks. It would definitely be an opportunity to utilize the herbal medicines that i have been working on. Yet i have a reluctance to share what I've learned mainly out of fear. I could be exposed as a fraud in terms of being an herbalist practicing without a license and could be exposed as a fraud in terms of being a registered nurse with a license.  In many ways I am seduced by my salary I don't want to let go of that security, that paycheck that comes in every two weeks.

    So now I am thinking of what it's like to be at work listening to my coworker with his mucus. He clears his throat loudly and then spits in the toilet in the bathroom. And he's telling me about all the allergy medicine  he's taking. all the anti-inflammatories and antibiotics and antihistamines all the over-the-counter meds and prescriptions that he's taking. how he's going online and he can see a doctor for free online and not even have to get in his car to see the doctor. he gets a free prescription that he can download on his computer and then take to the pharmacy and get more meds.

   Well just that weekend I had been out spending time with Torote, 

Bursera,  brittlebush, Encelia,  desert lavender, 

Hyptis and ,Triangle leaf burr sage, ambrosia and I was thinking this would make a perfect medicine for him and his allergic condition. I mentioned it to him. Then the usual fear came and I said to myself I can't give him this medicine. What if he has an allergic reaction to the medicine that I made? Then I thought to myself what if the medicine works? I should've just made the medicine and gave it to him let him try it and left it at that. Yet I couldn't and that's where I stood with that one.

     As a side note without drama, i  recently worked successfully to address bronchitis woman here in town with a local woman. So i am seeing progress. It was able to provide to her a custom made bioregional herbal formula i gathered and processed consisting of a tea i blended, two alcohol tinctures and one elixir.

     Here are the formulas and dosages: 1st dropper is Red root/Ceanothus fendleri and Ocotillo/Fouquieria combination 2:1 50%. 1 dropper PO Qid/by mouth 4 times daily- to enhance efficacy of the other herbs and red root used by eclectics for stubborn cough and facilitate waste removal.
Second 1oz dropper is a combination Spikenard/Aralia racemosa fresh root tincture , Osha/Ligusticum porteri fresh root tincture , yerba mansa/Anemopsis californica fresh root tincture ,
/warming start 5-10 drops PO Qid-4x daily
Third: is the cough syrup which is base of Aralia racemosa honey and tincture , with Prunus serrotina/wild cherry bark fresh bark tincture , osha glycerite and osha tincture , yerba santa/Eriodictyton angustifolium fresh plant tincture, native licorice/Glycyrrhiza lepidota root tincture  , Lobelia cardinalis fresh plant tincture -use by the tbs spoon for cough.
Fourth: the plastic baggy has a three ingredient tea; Yarrow/Achillia millifolium, Osha root, Yerba santa/leaf= in equal parts. Divide bag into 5 equal parts, add the osha root portion(osha is the thinly chopped dried root) 1st to boiling water, boil 10 minutes, turn off heat and equal amounts yarrow and yerba santa once the water stops boiling. You can inhale the steam it will help loosen secretions. Let water cool, add to quart jar. Keep in fridge. Drink tea during the day, if too strong add 50% water, may add tinctures to tea in amounts previous, or drink tea straight. Tea energetics will be aromatic and warming/

    

    There is a strangeness in America and Americans. In many ways we are thrown here by forces of biology and we're still trying to figure out where it is that we are, and what it is like to live on turtle Island. From my early childhood I would say that strangeness defines the America i know as it defines me and defines my herbalism.

Just as an example my grandfather was from Lebanon, my middle name is George, for my Syrian grandfather's first name, named for the patron saint of Lebanon.

My other grandfather was Italian his first name was Mario, he loved the mafia and ran numbers at a place downtown.  He also said that everything is a racket. My father was a policeman so it makes perfect sense that he had a friend  of the mafia living upstairs in his house and of course he sang opera, not Italian opera but  Russian opera. So I never knew about Elvis Presley but I do need to hear Boris Godunov  and Mussorgorsky at least once in while to feel rooted. 

    It was just last night at work

when I for the first time i explained to someone what I was doing. I explained the cultural milieu and wrapped and spun it as best i could in a warp of magical realism, linking the herbs, my spiritual tradition and my place along with devotion to Mary,  the mother of God that I inherited from my own mother who was devoted 

to Mary.

     Explaining how all of these elements are part of my herbal practice. It went well and i was able to explain my perspective and i felt there was mutual recognition and sharing. 

    I am working on freeing up the communication process and I am open to communication just speaking the words, sound, and experiencing others openess has been empowering. 

 It can be hard to link together things like herbs and plants, healing, folk medicine, botany, the eclectics of the late 19th century

and the angels, Saints,  Mary the mother of God, our Savior Jesus Christ. I work in a hospital as a registered nurse. As a registered nurse most of what I study I cannot mention- silence is somewhat comforting yet it is awkward.

and I have a limitation on what I can talk about in terms of something like bear root, osha, la Medicina de oso. Yet occasionally i am able to weave and spin it in it helps that many of the patients in the hospital are Latinos and they have in their heritage the use of these plants, like estafiate, osha,

yerba mansa, oregano del campo, and in general people have a hunger and desire to connect with place and herbs and plants of the bioregion tie in with this desire all of us have to belong. 

   Lately, over the last several years I have had some good experiences and reactions in mentioning some of the herbs and plants that have been used traditionally in our bioregion with the patients at the hospital that I work. I would say nearly in every instance there's been positive feedback and often times they mention a relative, a tia, an abuela, someone in their family who has used herbs. My intention is to empower someone with their own ethnicity. So that they can have some confidence, some point of reference where they can be themselves.

   I am glad that my mentioning of Latino herbalism goes to good effect. So for that I am very happy both among the people that I work and the patients that I treat. they have a positive regard for the herbs. It's good to see and experience that. Yet there is a clandestine, secret quality to this communication. Which i have come to see as necessary to the process.

    So I may speak but I cannot tell anyone that I've spoken. Yet I am speaking and getting good reaction, good reactions to my little talks here and there. We have a holistic health but not that holistic. Likewise in the community where I live similar blocks to communication occur. Based on race and ethnicity,  based on the transient quality of living in Phoenix Arizona. Phoenix Arizona is a city that is very young. It's vast and very fluid, it came out of nowhere and the disconnectedness is one thing that pervades life in this big southwestern American city.

    I am sure that there are curanderas, yerberas, abuelas, who i could make trips to the mountains with to gather herbs here. It would be amazing and wonderful yet it is a slow process.

 I live in the barrio Central, Primero Calle, for 10 years in the same place,

there is a 'tortilla curtain', yet as a neighbor told me, "Donde hay una cortina también es una ventana.", where there's a curtain there's also a window.

    Among herbalists there are   groupings among age, sex, and economics cohorts and ethnicity  although it's different it still has the feel of a club. It's part of the process and not an obstacle.

     

Whenever such a constellation  occurs it can often make it a challenge yet overcoming challenges and obstacles is essentially the path that I am on at this time. It helps to remember that herbs, healing and love belong only to those who use them. 

     i open to change growth and development. i continue my Studies as best I can within the understood parameters of silence and share  them with anyone willing to receive. I am moving on in the best way that I can using available tools.  I accept  the situation that I'm in I created because I created it and I can re-create it or perhaps uncreate it. I only seek to be someone who can better explain the herbs and plants. Someone who is open. Someone who can make available the plant teachings and speak for the plants. Yet I know I can't be anyone else so I work with what I have in the way that I can given the situation that I'm in. 

     i hope that someone else may one day say as I did to my teacher, "“Because of you John I saw the Anenome bloom, the tuberosa. I tasted it, I drank it every night from my tincture I made. The tincture you taught me to make. I saw the ocotillo, and heard her story, I looked I listened. I felt and tasted. This was what I needed to do.I listened to the desert willow, and I listened to you talk about the desert willow. And what you said was the same as what the desert willow said. As Gary Snyder said, we must be in a circle, able to be their representatives in the council of beings. We must be their voice, and we must hear their voice, what ever it’s saying. This takes courage to speak for those whose voices may be whispers. The world is a world of yelling and screaming. These things are soft… I think one thing you taught me John was to establish the importance of context; the person, the plant and the place…. I am proud to say you were my teacher. You are my teacher and you taught me how to have the plants be my teacher so I could listen again. I don’t know if anyone else had this experience in the class. I’m sure they did, it will come up for them in some way. They were beautiful gifted people who attended the program. I can’t look in any direction without seeing their eyes, and their faces and I am grateful for having met them.”   – Paul

     

     As I read over what I have written I realize that some of this has to do with the time of the year that we are in autumn/winter. Autumn is the time we reflect over the year and the things that we've done and the places we've been. 

    This time of the year is when we go to the roots. We go to the mountains and we harvest the roots. It is also the time when we nourish our own

In the spring and summer The energy of the plant is thinking of seeds and leaves the energy is moving from the

earth to the sky this is called the upward moving energy. You can see it in the osha, Ligusticum porteri,  how the leaves turn to yellow. You can feel the medicine going deep into the earth and taking with the night sky in the coolness of the evening. when you harvest the roots they are specially fragrant with licorice, carrot, celery and energetically it's a warm hot clearing medicine. I was washing the mud off the roots in the black river, several miles from where I had harvested them, and I could see just the oils rising to the top of the water and my hand stayed sticky with the oils of the osha  for several days.

    Now in Autumn we have the opposite, we have the downward moving energy, the energy now comes from sky, from the Milky Way, from the stars and from the moon and moves into the earth and the spiritual and chemical energy of the plant moves into the roots

For this reason the herbalist calls the Autumn,  The time to find the roots. And we call this time of the year the full moon for gathering roots or Root-moon.

    This time of year when the maple, Acer is red and osha, Ligusticum porteri  is brown,  aspen is yellow,

pedicularis is black.

The water of the Black River is not muddy, it's milky

    Now as a bioregional herbalist i have no problems praying on my knees to Mary the mother of God, some may know her as Queen of heaven and earth. I see her as the keeper of the plants. And in my understanding of the virgin of Guadalupe, it is she who's brought the medicine to the people. When I say a rosary I always enjoy the fifth glorious mystery, when I meditate on Mary as the woman crowned  in heaven with stars, the moon below her feet. Several times when I went alone up to the mountains to pray, at night when I was praying and searching for a vision  I could see the Virgin Mary in the Milky Way and around me at my feet was Artemesia estafiate. I realized that Mary and the healing plants are the remedy for the anger that I was facing. And also in the studies I was doing with John he talked of anger and the liver and how they are connected and in my vision of the Virgin Mary on the mountain when I was praying she confirmed that to me. She also communicated to me that she was just not the Mary in the church. She is not the Mary who is the statue made of wood or plaster. She is a living Mary who works with living things. She is Mary of medicinal plants. She wants to heal people with the plants and she wants to have people have gardens and grow plants. She said for us to say the rosary and I kept hoping that by now I could've found a woman who felt the same way and we could say the rosary together. And we could go to the mountains and gather plants. I had a kind of opening or vision about finding this woman who I could attend church  on Sunday and maybe open an herb store. It was like a dream that you get when you're praying all night long with the drum or with the rattle. One time Mary said to me I will show you the plants, I'll show you the plants with my rosary. So sometimes I will say the rosary for a while and then place my rosary on the plant and Mary the mother of God will usually show me something about the energetics of the plant and how it can be used as medicine.

. 

Nuestra Señora de Los Remedios, and others as Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe.   

For me Mary is the spiritual force that guides me in herbal medicine. I base this on my personal faith in the Virgin Mary to lead me to medicinal plants in the sky islands and deserts of Southwest Arizona.We are today still working with the person, the plant, and most importantly the place.

    One of the main tasks of the herbalist is to facilitate miracles, to make room for good things to happen. We are in no way different then our great San Juan Diego.

500 years ago our lady came and told him what he needed to know. She told him there was no need to worry. Besides speaking directly to him as she still does, she also communicated to him that she is in charge of the plants and medicine, and the removing of suffering. She said,

"Go to the top of the hill, to where you saw me and received my directions and you will find different kinds of flowers. Cut them, gather them, put them all together, then come down here and bring them before me." So I follow that advice of the Virgin of Guadalupe given to Saint Juan Diego and I go to the mountains and I gather the flowers and the roots. I find a way to place them before her and ask that people can use these plants as medicine to get well.

....and I put them altogether.., then I bring them down here....and I  make medicine with them that I can give to people suffering and help them get better. Living in America 2016 it's not so much the herbs alone that keep me going as the spiritual force of the mother invested and found in place. Lately I have been involving the angels, Saints, Mary and positive intention in my practice. I'm not sure exactly how this will go but I feel this is the way that I am being lead and I have confidence that the healing we need most today is a spiritual healing. A holistic healing with the herbs and plants of the bioregion and a spiritual cleansing or limpia. Without the three things, faith hope and charity, it's very easy for disease and illness to come back into the body. 

     So this is part of how i got through the plants. I bring the plants that i have used that we will use, i bring them before the Virgin Mary and the mother of God. I offer and communicate to the plants through the virgin. 

    Very often you may see an herbalist with a rosary and a magnifying glass. You may see an herbalist making the sign of the cross and dropping yerba santa into the salt River.

    I seek out the boundaries of places,

I look for saguaro  cactus,  Carnegiea gigantea, when it grows at the highest place. Or Torote, Bursera microphylla, at its northern most range.  

 look for the limits,  for how far things can go. go to the edge and then stand at the center in the middle balanced. acknowledge the natural world and the spiritual world. The sacredness of crossing the river. The absolute necessity of dancing, the therapeutic nature of sadnesses. I am not afraid to take refuge with the kings and queens of old Spain, of Europe, and say the stations of the cross. There is no escape in the present. in the same way i acknowledge the bear dance of the Ute. What ever i have come across is part of my arrival, part of the journey to health. For us it makes no difference that Our Lady of Guadalupe came and brought flowers. I gather flowers in summer and dig roots in Autumn. That is the herbal season.

After all we study flowers and group them by their ovaries.

i acknowledge the sexuality of flowers. i know  trees are male and female. i study in schools that have no rooms, or schools of mountains. i study flowers. And when i think of the mountains for us as poets of herbalism we have no problem with mountains constantly walking. 

     i am comfortable with science and i am comfortable with stories. i enjoy to sit and listen to stories, then later we will sit around the fire and tell stories stories that we have heard. And sometimes the storytellers become the story. When i see cactus explode with lightning or small medicine deer

dancing, sometimes the deer will dance with the skunk and i will see them as friends. We as bioregional herbalists listen to the skunks. i may sit with them and ask them questions. Really I have to sit more with the skunk and squirrels and listen to their stories more because that is the way to learn herbal medicine in this bioregion. Just like i may use a computer or a chainsaw, or a knife or a digging stick. The difference, and the distance between the distance of the difference is crucial.

For I seek to tell the story of the plant from the perspective of the walking Mountain.

i investigate the story of the medicine from the perspective of the skunk in fields of Yerba Santa.

   Yes ..pleasant dream.. Beautiful lady with auburn hair, in your eyes I see clouds down the back of your neck icy rain, in the folds of your armpits I smell medicine plants, I smell osha  and wild licorice,

the spiciness of yerba mansa runs down along the front of your body, your legs are strong because you support all the plants and animals of deer house, and from your ears i hear the songs of the canyon wren, red tailed hawk are your crown. 

     

     Nuestra Señora de los Remedios. I connect herbal medicine faith, hope and charity in the ability of God to cure illness.

It is very important that i view the plant medicines that we use as coming from Creator. 

You bring us, you bring to me the medicine of the mountains, the medicine of saguaro desert, with ocotillo,  mallow and brittlebush, so i am grateful

when  your voice is clear like the scent of piñon pine, in the desert pine with citrus peel, torote elephant tree,

all these prayers that i say are the plant medicine you give. When i as a bioregional  herbalist study with my teachers i bring your scapularios y medals for Milagros, miracles . Botany y rosaries, for me it's no different that your benediction is of skunks and toads, st john's wart and lobelia, poleo mint and skullcap.

Keep me going on this medicine road, you are Osha Chuchupate.

You are Mary the mother of God. You are our Savior's mother. You bring us so many good things. You show us the way to Sierra Ancha, 

you Open the door to the deer house, you bring us good ocotillo medicine for the heart,

you bring us the feathery Solomon seal, 

osha and aralia, Yerba Santa and Torote, Saguaro fruit. 

our holy Mary protected us...Nuestra Señora de Los Remedios

You have many names Mary. Whatever name we use you answer us because you love us. You are my lover because in my heart you have planted the seed for the flowers, the roots and seeds. In my heart you have placed the Lily. The feathery Solomon seal, to make me strong, when you call me to the mountains.

And do call me to the mountains, if you call me i will go, wherever medicine grows iwill go. i go in your name so remember me. I will not leave behind the rosary with the crucifix because you walk with me and you hold my hand and show me all the medicine plants I need to know. I remember one night alone on the mountain when I was praying you told me to bring the rosary and that through the rosary you would show me the plants i needed to know and even though I was alone someday there would be people and this too would probably come from you and I give thanks for that. 

You have brought us all the plants,

 all the animals, and you're blessed son Jesus, he is with us true true
Our Holy divine perfect Mother, with the moon shining..
.the stars a road 

from here to tomorrow..
.far beyond this way...with the wind blowing...Changing Woman Nahasdan Nadle', 

Sash nadle, 

Beautiful bear woman,

Turquoise Woman..
Leading us on the Corn pollen road...
Look at the stars the Milky way, Corn Pollen road...

past the red slick rock mountain singing...
 our house is the Changing Woman...
Cedar from up on the Bear's Ears mountain...

Sash Cedar moutain song..
.way up following the stars, the snow is falling. The snow is falling, the clouds are coming the rain is falling the clouds are moving quickly across the sky,
stay asleep a a little longer sash, 

Wait for the zigzag lightning to come back in the spring time, sleep sleep

,
when you wake you"ll tell us about the spring flowers and new grass...tell us about the bear medicine, osha 

When you wake up in the spring time dance, show us where the osha root grows,

La Medicina del oso.

Take me to the Black River

Yes ..pleasant dream..our holy Mary

Show me many things

Show me the ocotillo medicine,

Take me to where Yerba mansa grows

Bring me strong Yerba mansa medicine so i can help others love you more

And the Torote tree and copal resin

protected us...

with Yerba santa 

Our Holy divine perfect Mother, with the moon shining..
.the stars a road from here to tomorrow..
.far beyond this way...with the wind blowing...Changing Woman Nahasdan Nadle', Changing woman, Turquoise Woman..
Leading us on the Corn pollen road...
Look at the stars the Milky way, Corn Pollen road...
past the red slick rock mountain singing...
Our hogan is the Changing Woman...
Cedar from up on the Bear mountain...
Sash Cedar moutain song..
.way up following the stars, the snow is falling. 
stay asleep a a little longer sash, 
when you wake you"ll tell us about the spring flowers

and new grass...
Changing Woman, you are mother Mother...you belong to yourself...
You bless everyone always...
Black Obsidian woman moving from Natsin'an Navajo mountain to Dok'ad'slid-to Flagstaff, 
you're bringing us snow...
you're teaching songs, dropping like falling stars silent across the sky...

some day we will remember there is one mother blessings! always

Changing Woman, you are mother Mother...you belong to yourself...
You bless everyone always...
Black Obsidian woman moving from Natsin'an Navajo mountain to Dok'ad'slid-to Flagstaff, 

you're bringing us snow...
you're teaching songs, dropping like falling stars silent across the sky...

some day we will remember there is one mother blessings!always good medicine

this is the deer house, this is the medicine road, by Paul Manski

this is the deer house

http://youtu.be/QYcnljTX5zw

"...water is moving along the blue river,

in the deer house,

in the sierra ancha,

in the sierra blanca up near paddy creek,

you can feel the water with the St. John's wort and the horse tail,

coming down the creek,

nourishing the sycamore and cottonwood,

you can smell the narrow leaf cottonwood blooming in the springtime,

up at the deer house, big deer house,

where deer make their strong medicine,

with pine, fir and the walnut trees,

this is our sky island home,

along the sierra ancha,

where the water is constantly flowing,

and the mountains are continuously walking,

this is the deer house,

this is the medicine road..."

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

So, what are the properties of this tea, now that I have had a cup.

D:So, what are the properties of this tea, now that I have had a cup.

what are the properties of this tea that I drink?

Paul Manski grin emoticon at the dosage that we talked about, ...dipping of the plant in hot boiling water and then removing it immediately....we would have a very light tea it would be useful for arthritic conditions because it deals with the inflammatory process in the sense of cooling it down. Another use would be topical, bath with the branches and water for arthritic conditions. At the same time due to its moderating the inflammatory process it also would be useful in asthmatic conditions. A poultice of the plant leaves would also be effective apply topically for anti-inflammatory arthritic conditions in the joints. Furthermore as far as topical I would describe it in stronger dosage is as we talked in a tincture applied as remedy for fungal infections as in nail fungus. In dilute infusion in water topically would be effective both as an aid in dealing with psoriasis and eczema as a wash and also in its role as an antioxidant in preventing skin damage for instance something for sunburn. 

       The way that I described D , is the way that my teacher often worked with a plant with us in order for us to hang out with the plant and understand the plant intuitively and experientially. The plant is a living being and often times when you approach the plant you want to speak with the plant in terms of describing your condition and your intentions for use. The idea is that we need to understand the plant. So in this sense in that very very light tea you were experiencing the plant and it would be worthwhile if you told me what you experienced with the plant. One of the things that you could answer is how did it taste?

Was it sweet?salty?bitter,? Was it hot or cold? Did you feel it anywhere in your body when you drink the tea? Was it moving from the inside of the body out towards the skin?did it produce sweat or heat? Also was there any place in the body where you felt the herb? 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 present somewhere in the body. These 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 is medicine, yet the plant is also a life and the plant is also a being, as we talked that has lived in the desert and actually DEFINEs the desert. The plant is called the governess,

meaning the lady who rules like a queen. 

So D I encourage you to continue with this experiential learning about the plants and we can talk about it a little bit later thanks so much for sharing ,Paul

D just to show you the ethnobotanical usage of this plant being so broad, I'm going to focus on one of the desert peoples the Cahuilla who lived & encountered this plant in the desert and how they 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 ethnobotanical use of Larrea:

it would be useful for arthritic conditions because it deals with the inflammatory process in the sense of cooling it down. Another use would be topical, bath with the branches 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 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)

Thanks Paul, I also like the slightly bitter taste of the tea!
How often can I have this tea?

D my teacher Michael, describes plants in this way.

There are 1)food plants, there are 2)food/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 and plants: potato, broccoli Sweet potato, carrots. The food/medicine plants are plants we can take every day, although given our current American situation they're often underused not included in the diet. Some of these plants may be plants that are ancestors ate daily or seasonally but we eat rarely or never, some of these plants may be Tumerick, nettles ginger garlic, a lot of these plants have become what we call now "spices", if we encounter them at all will meet them as spices in our daily food/plant life.

They're really food/medicine plants, These types of plants we can have every day without any issues. Now the third type of plants that we have are medicine plants. 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 the medicine plant. And the way that we approached it is the way that you approach medicine plant.
Thank you Paul!

You you look at the plant, you 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 like 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 you want to take it when you need it and then stop taking it. The plant that we talked about is like this if you had a cold or a flu coming on, or us a skin condition or an arthritic condition that warranted it then you may want to use the plant during that time.

But it's not an every day plant. I'd like to talk to more about this in person 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's the medicine plant. So what we were doing D is meeting the plant for the first time which is something unique and it's how we first meet the plants it's the first step.

D this plant I call a Doorway, entranceway plant something like an entrance way, and in our area you can go from Las Vegas to Las Cruces and you will see this plant everywhere, now when you travel you will see it.

Before maybe you didn't notice it 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.. I'm sure they use the same plant just like you did, and I'm sure that they drunk the Tea just like you did. So from now on you I, and the silent 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. And now when you drive from Las Vegas to Las Cruces 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 will make connections and have fun times or play the piano, or maybe you won't. That's how anintroduction is you make some contacts, 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. An introduction is the beginning of a relationship. And it's very important when you go to a party to meet the right people and by meeting this plant, you have met the owner of the house where the party is. In other words you've met the party giver, the host, that's 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.

We live in a bioregion those canals that flow those are canals of the Salt & Gila River, and these are the canals it a flowing for a thousand years. And the mountains where the water falls, with the clouds meet the mountains in 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, an 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 my teachers use to explain the plants and that's the way that I use too. So de meet the governess governess D

,