Maianthemum racemosum, False Solomon Seal at Deer House by Paul Manski

 

Maianthemum racemosum subsp. amplexicaule, false or true Solomon seal or false true Feathery False Solomon Seal? Lot's of name changes with plant Botanicaistas these days, here is the plant that I use for my plant medicine.- I make medicine with the plants it's what I do. I work from the place where I am.

I think the most important thing in my herbal medicine is where. Where is always a question. I'm not so involved with what's going to happen with the where after I work with it because that is outside of me. It's outside of what I can address and compensate for. So with the medicine road that I'm on at this time it is all about where. Where these plants are growing is important. It is about the house of the plant so I am looking for the plants house. Just like I look for the deer house. I spend time at the deer house looking for the deer house who create the plant songs and stories.

 I always acknowledge the Creator who brings us this plant medicine Road and put these plants here for us. For me I think Deer is in charge of putting the plant medicine in front of us and of course there are teachers that come and go and can sometimes drop plants right in front of us. I've seen this happen when we seek them out, some of the old teachers they're not even alive in the sense of having a body anymore but they're dropping the plants down right in front of you sometimes,  and you're finding them. Of course they were connected with Deer House and the Deer House teachers and in that ways since were still connected to them. 

    'Where' is who holds for us the question. Now sometimes I'll meet someone and they will say, "where can I find that?", "how my going to find that medicine? where can I buy it?" So we're using words in this way to talk plant story and it's going this way and that way and sometimes we have to ask some questions to find out if we're on the same page with it. First of all if it's a simple question where?, "where, can I find it? what store can I buy it in?" I'll pretty much tell you straight out you can't buy medicine. You can make medicine, that you can do. Yet you can't buy medicine because medicine is connection. You can't buy connection. Connection is what describes you're being outside of words numbers and labels so you can't use the things that you usually used to remedy the situation of disconnection. Maybe I can help share a connection, maybe I can do that and maybe I can't.   I think the more that I think about it,  medicine is a verb it's not a noun. And this whole illusion of disconnect kind a world that we are supporting in different ways makes itself known Lotta times in our language and our thinking process. You see this a lot of times with things like maybe for example basketball, someone might say basketball and it's one of those words it's supposed to be an action and activity yet somehow in this illusion of disconnect world it's been converted into a passive thing. So if someone says basketball they may be talking about eating chips and salsa in front of the TV and they make in their minds all this into a kind of basketball. Let me tell you this is not basketball. Basketball is a game that you play by running around and dribbling the ball outside, shooting it. You're jumping up-and-down. Maybe you're yelling and screaming and high-fiving and your body is sweaty and your heart rate is being fast. OK this is basketball. Eating chips in front of the TV with salsa and guacamole is not basketball. We could call it eating chips and salsa in front of the TV-ball, or make up a new word for it that someone has never said before. Yet it's nothing to do with basketball. And it's the same way with medicine. It is the same way with our bioregional plant medicines, with our plant medicines with our medicine. It is the same way with our spirit songs that the deer house keepers bring to us now and then when we're ready for them.

With medicine it's all about the heart connection. With our medicine it is about a profound connection with the hearts that goes from our hearts into our feet and from our feet into the ground and from the ground into the earth and from the earth it becomes a root route and that root-route is our heart medicine roadway, now in that way there is something happening with health and with healing.

     Now going to store's fine. there's nothing wrong with going to store and getting what you need and anyone who tells you anything different is just creating a problem we're no problem exists. And yet going to a store is going to a store and making medicine is making medicine, and it's very true I haven't been to all the stores so it's very possible there is such a place as a store that sells medicine. Yet it's very important to know that if you're going to a store you are going to a store and if you're going to store then we are you are going is the store. And going to a store is a fine thing to do and a fine way to spend your time, and it's what we do as human beings we go to stores we buy things. Medicine our plant medicine though is something else. Going to the medicine is not going to the store and though there may be medicine stores it's important to realize that going to the store is going to the store and making plant medicine is making plant medicine. 

Going to some store and laying down frog skins or sliding plastic, buying something in a bottle or a bag and then going home and then putting it in your mouth this is like eating chips and salsa with guacamole in front of the TV and calling it basketball. It's not basketball, it's Chip eating, and maybe the chips you were eating are organic kale chips and maybe the avocado  is organic from Ecuador and the salsa is made from Himalayan goji berries, you know even then, even if it's all so good in that way, still it's not basketball. so we have to make sure that our herbalism is a dribbling the ball, running, jumping,  sweat in our eyes, with our hearts beating fast kind of basketball- herbalism and not an organic chip eating salsa guacamole in front of the TV-herbalism. 

 

Maianthemum racemosum back to the Solomon seals, it's  well, it's here and there, up at higher/mid elevation at the Deer House. The Solomon seal? the false Solomon seal? , feathery false and what not, lots of name changes. You pick a name maybe Deer House Root seal? Or Deer sael, or deer root seal? Anyway 'lily a da valley'-like-looking, reminds me of childhood days underneath the apple trees. 

     So this is how you  put up all these plant medicines in growing your medicine bag. Find somebody to show it to you and then you'll know what it is, you can spend a little time with it. Taste a few leaves, see where it grows. Smell it, taste, touch it, be with it, then you'll know what it is, then you know how it is, why it is, when it is,  where it is. The connection comes from connection. The connection does not come from disconnection. The connection is a process of being with the place with the plant in the place of the plant. 

     On Questions and answers: All these kinds of questions will come up. The best way is never look for answers always look for questions. It's not about finding it's about asking. So it's like when you're at school and someone comes up to you, and whispers, "do you have the answers for the test?",  so this time you tell him,  "no no, I don't have the answers but I do have the questions." The question always belongs to you, the answers don't belong to you. The answers will be coming from someone else so if you ask a question,  someone else's 'why' will answer it, that someone else is outside of you.  the answer is always outside of you. So even if someone gives you a test and the test has 20 questions and you answer them all correctly, if those questions were not your questions then the answers cannot be your answers.  You have to ask your own questions. You have to write your own test and then if you want to answer them you can do that but it's really up to you. The question is not going this way and that, it's not like the Ocotillo branch

that's blowing this way and that way in the wind. going this way and that way whichever way the wind is blowing.

The question is like the Ocotillo roots standing still, always supporting the ocotillo. Always creating new ocotillo branches. We ask ocotillo-questions that go deep down into the earth and they don't really move this way and that way they just sit there deep in the earth. Pulling up all the nutrients. Pulling up all the water. Even if the earth is dry, even if there is no rain somehow these ocotillo roots are making rain. They're pulling up water from stone. And our questions have to be like these ocotillo roots that go so deep that they can perform the impossible like creating water from rock. Finding water in the desert where everything is dry, this is the way our questions have to be. Pulling up everything that it needs to make the plant medicine to make the ocotillo medicine The question  is what you have inside of you so it belongs to you. The question is the root that you have that makes anything you do possible. It is the question that makes the impossible possible.

Now here's a footnote, having the question is not the same thing as asking the question. We are looking for questions. We hold our questions. You may meet someone who's always talking saying,  "oh what's this? what's that?  what do I do now? what kind of plant is this one?  is this is this in the same family is as parsley? or is this a different plant? is it the same as the plant how do jing in Chinese medicine?", all these kinds of questions, that is like questions jumping out of the mouth and that is like the Ocotillo branches swaying in the wind.

    The questions we ask are silent deep questions with the roots. The roots are pulling up the nutrients very slowly they're not like the ocotillo branches waving this way and that way in the wind. We are holding the question. We are not answering the question. We are holding the question. We are not answering questions that is not what we're doing, we're not asking questions outside of ourselves. Our herbal medicine requires of us to look for questions. As herbalists we look for questions. As a bioregional herbalist you cultivate questions. You worship authentic  questions. It is only by having a deep burning abiding question that you can take it to the next step of breakthrough. What we are trying to do here with our Bioregional  herbal medicine is to have a question, hold a question.  you couldn't leave asking the question for someone else because having the question and asking question, are two different things.

   

 Maianthenum racemosum, false Solomon Seal, Growing this kind of way, soft, north side shady, cooling, moon-story, wind sheltered, likes to spend time with poison ivy. So watch out or you'll get all kinds of welts and wet itchy hives because where Maianthemum racemosum is so is poison ivy . 

Now with herbalism and the the plant medicine road, we are going for a smooth gradual shift that is of itself connection. So in that way it's not a sudden revolution like a heroic medicine.  It's slow gradual shift we are working on. We're working on slow shift of the roots, a root shift. As you look at the ocotillo root you realize that their deep in the ground, invisible yet working all the time behind the scenes making things happen, slowly pulling up the nutrients and that's the shift that we're going for. It is about nourishing  becoming. If you look at the leaves and branches at the tips of the ocotillo  with brilliant sweet smelling orange red ocotillo  flowers, you'll see them moving in the wind back-and-forth in whatever way the wind moves. now this is how heroic  herbalism functions. Heroic medicine is in the very periphery of the leafs and top branches. In heroic medicine we go from symptom to symptom and as we know from allopathic medicine, from side effects to side effects, from side effects to symptom of the side effects, to the side effects of the solution we create more side effects so now we need to dress more symptoms and we just keep going around and around is a circle, like the ocotillo  branches way up at the top of the plant, with a lot of movement yet not a lot of direction. The direction we are seeking is self-thus from the inside of the being, from the roots which as its nature is flowing with homeostasis and healing without thought or plan always becoming real healing movement. The heroic herbalism of the ocotillo branches is kind of going without any plan.  We are jumping. We are suddenly and impulsively  acting and we are jumping in the air. Now we are landing on our feet awkwardly maybe falling down after jumping too high and trying to attend our balance. Now we are going to left, now we are going to the right,  and we become very worried. We're practicing to be very anxious and very fluttering like the very tips of the leaves of the ocotillo. We are  always reacting.  Acting without a center is the anxiety illness way. A lot of people in this illness disconnect kind of situation become very familiar and close to their emotions and will put a lot of value and importance to their emotional states.  A lot of people when they think of emotions they think of emotions as in their heart. They'll say something like "my emotions",  "my feelings". They think of emotions as something that are very deep and central to their being. Yet emotions are very much with the leaves and branches of the ocotillo. Emotions are very much at the surface and they are not at the heart. We may feel emotions inbour heart but they are not central to our being, in fact they are a symptom of the illusion of disconnect. In fact if you want to find a situation of imbalance then focus on the emotions. If you want to increase your disconnect then center your focus on emotions, work with your emotions if you want to stagnate and go nowhere. Emotions can only take us a very short distance because they are at the surface. Emotions are like the very top orange red flowers ofthe ocotillo they go this way in the wind they go that way in the wind. May be a rain will fall and then there will be green leafy branches.

Then it will dry and become warm in the leaves will fall. These are like flowers the opening is short, very quickly and even though they were important they are not central to the function and being of the ocotillo. Yes we need flowers for reproduction and as we know the emotions are very important for romance, feelings of love and whatnot the heightened sense of sexuality. Yet this is not central to the relationship. The relationship between a man and woman is centered on a long-standing deep commitment. 

Maianthemum racemosum, False Solomon Seal this is a great medicine for the joints, & soft connective tissue- cartilage & sinews, for the whole body system. It is spring tonic/restorative & blood purifier in terms of old ways plant talk story. Maianthemum racemosum 

has an amazing opening quality of healing that engenders soft tissue to be restored especially in areas of injury. Learned about this un fren John, he knows it good and help me out with it, straight me out by it. This great plant medicine has many uses and is valuable for anyone who has arthritic sore joints or recent injuries to the body to the soft tissues of the body, the cartilage, sinew and  ligaments. It is an amazing healing herb found in our desert southwest mountains.

Here you can see the knobby roots which are used as one of our powerful plant medicines. This medicine is found at mid-high elevation on  more  north facing hillsides. It is a powerful yin medicine growing on the north side of slopes and is definitely a great healer for athletes with their strong yang go-go-go constitutional things. 

     So when you see the plant you see it growing where it is. Where it is, is a lot of the work of what it is. Where it is can answer the question of what is it for. Yet even with all this sort of good questioning it's still very hard to answer who is it for. You have to look deeper and look away from the plant to see what nurses and nourishes the plant. The most important part of her medicine in this way is that slow gentle shift and although heroic medicine with herbs is done and will be done it's better to go with this slow change,  it's going to last a long time. You can go from symptom symptom and analyze the symptoms with a microscope even down to the level of the blood cell and then take it further take a bigger microscope and look beyond the blood cell to the actual chemical components all these elements that are in the blood. Yet whatever it is that is what it is so we can really only go so far with heroic medicine and then we have to say OK feed the body, nourish, rest and re-create the body, hydrate the body, get the body ready for action, actionate  the body, act, move do. This nursing and nourishing of the body with the plant medicines comes from the relationship that the plant had with where it is,  how it's growing and what it's doing in the place where it is. So with the, Maianthemum racemosum, Solomon seal of the false Solomon seal what we have is the plant growing in a very cool shady spot. It's roots are in a rich black well-drained soil. It's slope be in hilly areas and as I said there are big trees, a shady spot with creeping vines, Vitus Arizonica wild grape vines,  Rhus radicans poison ivy, and ponderosa pines, raspberry, Juglans major walnut. And if you are listening you can hear the soft gurgling of water for the snowmelt above coming down the creek and the waters cold clear and here in there you may see some hummingbirds gathering nectar gathering pollen making their medicine, following their medicine roads. So this is a very calm peaceful place shady even in the hot sun it's still cool it's still very gentle and soft and even if the wind is blowing very hard above the tops of the mountains down here it's not very windy and this is the place where Maianthemum racemosum is making medicine. 

     When we make plant medicine, when we take these plant medicines we are taking in the relationship of the place into our body for healing. So were taking that very cool energy of the mountain

into the insides of our joints. We're taking this soft north side of the mountain energy of moistness and bringing it into our very windy, very dry joints that I've become crackly like static electricity very dry and brittle. We're trying to bring in something very cooling to this hot sticky kind of irritable situation it's happening in our knees and elbows and whatnot and we're bringing in the False Solomon Seal.  We are calling it in or calling in the medicine or calling on the deer house. Calling in the medicine girl calling on the medicine girl and all that knowledge of the deer house

and all the deer house teachers and all those lineages the people that lived in those stone houses way up there on the mountain and use these medicines. We are asking all that to come inside. We are asking all of it to calm down. We're asking for the slow gentle shift of beauty and harmony in our joints in our knees and  elbows in all the parts of our body. 

     So in that way were making some medicine with the false Solomon seal, with 

Maianthemum racemosum. 

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

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’.