Crocus on Turtle Island

      Greetings, folk.

Our individual life here together, on what all of us know, understand and love as turtle island, is a brief sojourn. Turtle Island as sacred geography, specific place revealing to person a detailed map of the place. We meet. Personally recall the exact birth moment of infancy and know precisely its denouemont. Recall the genesis. What we remember with, is itself, part of growing, becoming and developing. So the words to describe the it, of it was, have yet to be created for the memory telling story of experience.

Yet even though the wording is not there to explain, a memory exists. What is between the ears as a rationality starts out with the embrace of the loved mother taste, hearing the loved mother hearing, smelling the loved mother fragrance, not with words. Spirituality is the worship of the goddess all mother. Everything in the deepest layers of joy is of all mother. So it makes sense to dive deep into the icon imagery of goddess madonna. 

     The way of salvation is not with words and less with a between the ears thinking self-talk. Between the murky and the shadowy there is here among us light, Sol invictus, actual sun, unconquerable light and warmth of sun, the sun rising higher above the horizon awakening of spring occurring at the eventime days. At the Equinox we pray..."By a single name I have never been known since first I fared among the lands of men." - Grimnismál, Edda, give my tongue words, breath to praise the green. 

    It is ironic impossibility religion that quotes itself as a self contained loop exclusively pointing to a book where for many centuries few of its followers could read. Continuously asking, over and over, ‘what does the book say?’, ‘what does the book say?’. As if any book could answer all life’s questions.  The Sun is precisely what everyone could see. Birthing is exactly what everyone had done. Not birthing in a factory hospital lab, as in the cult of modernism but birth from the real cult of of an actual loved sacred mother person. What prayer is as it does by exercises. Not so much by belief or elaborate declarations but by faith as the observation in the intrinsic inner form. Declaring something is or is not does not necessarily make it so unless it accords with the inner forms of fate. Neither is prayer a wish want list of things to acquire. 

    Crocus spp vernus, growing as a Grammatica parda, tawny grammar, in the sense of Thoreau, not so much Snyder, knowing that dear Henry had barely 40 good years and soon after Walden was published he was gasping for breath, dying of tuberculosis and barely able to walk across the floor without collapsing into a feverish coughing wasted flesh. It was nothing he did or did not do, it was a curse passed from grandfather, to father to son, as curses are wont to do. 

     

Crocus, a perennial low to the ground greening in the Iridaceae or Iris family, Crocoideae tribe, the scientific binomial name Κρόκος, Krókos from the greek word referencing the perennial wildflower, and the spice saffron, Saffron comes from a related though different separate species, Crocus sativa, a fall blooming crocus. The spice saffron consisting of the male stamens of the related Crocus sativa. Vernus, refers to Latin vernalis, of the season spring in the northern hemisphere. Also vernus, the Old French word for green, vert comes from the Latin viridis – green, blooming – which derived from virere – to be green. All these words refer to the latin vernal and the return of greening at equinox. So crocus could be said to be the evidence of greening spring. 

    Crocus was first native to Mary Europa riding the bull. Probably the first memory we have is to resist with every fibre of our being that flag foul  tranformed. Our blue sky and white clouds astened into the wasted red blood of martyrs. Mary Europa told to us on our mother’s knee. We know from the earlier fossil record the people first came from the mountainous areas adjacent to the Mediterranean crescent of Greece, Italy, and Bosnia. Like other plants of the folk they were travelled with intentionally. The corms were planted and the plant grew. The early spring blooming crocus has self naturalized from escaped garden plantings. It is frequently fond of growing at the sites of old abandoned homesteads and woodlands. Crocus continues to grow after the ancestors moved on. Along with daffodils and narcissus and rusted hunks of metal, chimneys and foundation walls, stone fences and walls between this and that. The Crocus grows from an underground corm blooming in March close to the vernal equinox. The leaves are basal, thin, narrow lanceolate, pointed, grass like with a central white vein. It’s not unusual to see crocus blooming poking through a light dusting of spring snow.

    

 There are all sorts of wild stories on how we got here and what we’re supposed to be doing. At the beginning there was only water and a snapping turtle. Snapping turtle dove deep and eventually came up for air. When snapping turtle gradually came up for air, he raised his round turtle shell back up high, all the water ran off. Thus the earth we have today is the shell became dry of the turtle. 

     There soon came a big wind that blew and dried things out. Muskrat and beaver took turns adding more mud and roots on snapping turtles back making hills and mountains, where grew trees and forests. There grew on the turtle island a white oak tree in the middle of the earth on turtle island, and the root of this tree sent forth a sprout beside it, and from the sprout of the white oak grew first man, who was the first male. First man was then alone, and would have remained alone; For a while first man lived alone on turtle island. He ate acorns and talked now and then to muskrat and beaver. Muskrat and beaver told first man to talk in six directions: east, south, west, north above and below, then ask in those six directions.

He asked in six directions in a circle moving east, south, west and north in a circle like the sun moves across the sky. He asked oak tree for help. Oak tree told first man he wasn’t quite ready for help. He told first man to work and maybe later he would send help. He told first man first to build a house with poles and birch bark. He told him the door needed to face the east, and then he would check back later. Oak tree saw what first man had done and was satisfied. Then he told first man to find a spot for a garden. He sent red trillium to fly in the sky and red trillium became the red wake robin. Red wake robin brought first man seeds of bean, corn and squash. He showed him how to do it. First man planted corn, beans and squash in the garden. Oak tree saw what first man had done and was satisfied. He told first man to keep working. One day a great wind came with zig zag lightning, the white oak tree bent over in the wind until its top touched the pile of mud piled up by beaver and muskrat. Where the top came down there shot up another root, from inside the mud and root lodge piled up by beaver and muskrat, from which came forth another sprout, and there grew out the maple and from a shoot on the maple another person grew called first woman.

First woman saw the house made with birch bark and the door facing east. She saw the garden with corn, beans and squash. She saw the fire he had from zig zag lightning. She told first man she wanted to work with him. First woman took care of the house and placed the fire inside the house for cooking. She also took care of the squash, beans and corn. They lived together in the house and worked together. From these two all the people came. Eventually people moved here and there and settled all around turtle island.

   On another part of turtle island oak trees and olives grew. This was called the middle earth. Here lived Krokos. Krókos was a mortal youth from the kingdom of Sparta who one winter was on a hunting trip to bring back meat for his people. During the cold winter he was camped near a grove of oak trees. He stood watch over a water hole, waiting for deer to come and drink. So he could shoot them with his bow. While silently waiting for the deer, watching the water hole he fell asleep. When he awoke he saw the nymph Smilax who lived in the water at the spring in the sacred oak grove. Their eyes met and he immediately forgot hunting, deer, his people and became infatuated with the nymph.

Smilax with dazzling purple blue eyes and hair the color of sunrise, glowing golden. Krókos was enchanted by the power of her dazzling grey blue eyes and fell in love with Smilax, the nymph known as the "air garlanded girl".    

     Smilax's duty was to protect the spring, the deer who lived nearby and the tall oak trees. So she distracted Krókus and provided him with ambrosia and occupied his attention to protect the small deer who came to drink at the spring and eat the fallen acorns that dropped from the oak trees. Krókus misunderstood her intentions, mistaking her protection of the spring as love. Smilax at first enjoyed his company and the ardent attention as a pleasant innocent winter distraction. After a period of time though it became stale, predictable and she grew bored with the mortal whose ways and inclinations were so different than her own.  Krókos was internally conflicted and devastated with rejection. He became love sickened by the impossible relationship with the nymph Smilax, the "air garlanded girl". Krókos and the nymph Smilax had a final quarrel.

Smilax ordered him to leave her spring in the oak grove and return to Sparta. Krókus refused saying, "Smilax I can not leave you and your blue eyes and strawberry hair. If I leave you I will die," Smilax said, "Very well, it is your choice. Trouble me no longer. You will stay here forever. Not as man but as flower." With a wave of her hand she changed him immediately into a purple petaled flower, growing low to the ground with stamens the color of sunlight, the crocus vernus. 

    I will sing of well-founded Earth, mother of all, eldest of all beings. She feeds all creatures that are in the world, all that go upon the goodly land, and all that are in the paths of the seas, and all that fly: all these are fed of her store. Through you, O queen, men are blessed in their children and blessed in their harvests, and to you it belongs to give means of life to mortal men and to take it away. The goddess Demeter Chloê, the blooming, the protectress of the green fields was furious because someone had disturbed the divine order.  No flower could bloom until her daughter Persephone returned from the land of Hades in springtime. Demeter the protectress of green fields, immediately appeared in the oak grove near the spring to investigate.

She saw the nymph Smilax crouched on the ground near the purple petaled crocus. Demeter asked, "Who here defies the sister of Zeus? Who caused this flower to bloom?" She saw the nymph Smilax, the "air garlanded girl", kneeling near the blooming crocus. Demeter the protectress of greening fields, said to the nymph Smilax, "You seem enraptured with this purple flower. You two can remain together forever." She changed Smilax into a creeping vine, the thorny vine green briar. So the nymph known as the air garlanded girl became sarsaparilla or greenbrier plant, an aphrodisiac that bears her name, Smilax. 

     Crocus for us in the story narrative we are living in spring signals the return of Persephone, queen of the underworld, wife of Hades, the daughter of Demeter. Persephone's return is marked by the vital force which returns to roots. The thunderbolts and zig zag lightning of Zeus the cloud gatherer thrown towards earth announce to Hades to release his wife Persephone to do her work. It is by the goddess Persephone that she and the gifts of green may return to mortals trapped on this spinning ball.

     At the Equinox we pray..."By a single name I have never been known since first I fared among the lands of men." 

- Grimnismál, Edda, give my tongue words, breath to praise the green. 

I begin to sing of thick-haired Demeter, ruler goddess —of her and her dancing-ankled daughter whom Aidoneus rapt away, given to him by all-seeing, all-father Zeus the loud-thunderer.

Apart from Demeter, lady of the golden sword and glorious fruits, [5] she was playing with the deep-bosomed daughters of Oceanus and gathering flowers over a soft meadow, roses and crocuses and beautiful violets, irises also and hyacinths and the narcissus, which Earth mother made to grow at the will of sky-father Zeus and to please, to be a snare for the bloom-like girl — [10] a marvellous, radiant flower. It was a thing of awe whether for deathless gods or mortal men to see: from its root grew a hundred blooms and it smelled most sweetly, so that all wide heaven above and the whole earth and the sea's salt swell laughed for joy.(Homeric hymn to Demeter).

   Da-ma-te Demeter, The mother and her daughter Persephone who held below as the roots of the world tree, rises sweet as green of leaf. When at Equinox: despoina “mistress of the household”, thesmophoros “bringer of law”, sito “she of the grain”, and chthonia “she of the earth”, chloē “the green one”, kallistephanos and eustephanos “well-crowned”, semnē and hagnē “hallowed”, and eukompos “fair-haired”. We wash our face and hands, With thanks we offer you these offerings for the turning wheel of sun and season, hands raised All- Father invincible Sun, All-Mother bring the green.

     “Hail Mary, O author of life, Rebuilding salvation, You who confounded death And crushed the serpent Toward who Eve stretched forth Her neck outstretched… You trampled on him When you bore the Son of God from heaven…” –Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)

"Hymn to Persephone. Daughter of Zeus, Persephone divine, come, blessed queen, and to these rites incline: only-begotten, Plouton's [Haides'] honoured wife, O venerable Goddess, source of life: 'tis thine in earth's profundities to dwell, fast by the wide and dismal gates of hell. Zeus' holy offspring, of a beauteous mien, Praxidike (Avenging-Goddess), subterranean queen. The Eumenides' [Erinyes'] source, fair-haired, whose frame proceeds from Zeus' ineffable and secret seeds. Mother of Eubouleos [Dionysos-Zagreos], sonorous, divine, and many-formed, the parent of the vine. Associate of the Horai (Seasons), essence bright, all-ruling virgin, bearing heavenly light. With fruits abounding, of a bounteous mind, horned, and alone desired by those of mortal kind. O vernal queen, whom grassy plains delight, sweet to the smell, and pleasing to the sight : whose holy form in budding fruits we view, earth's vigorous offspring of a various hue : espoused in autumn, life and death alone to wretched mortals from thy power is known : for thine the task , according to thy will, life to produce, and all that lives to kill. Hear, blessed Goddess, send a rich increase of various fruits from earth, with lovely peace : send health with gentle hand, and crown my life with blest abundance, free from noisy strife; last in extreme old age the prey of death, dismiss me willing to the realms beneath, to thy fair palace and the blissful plains where happy spirits dwell, and Plouton [Haides] reigns."

      The Golden Legend, written by Blessed Jacopo de Voragine (A.D. 1230-1298), Archbishop of Genoa, gives the following as one of eight reasons for our Ember Day fasts:

The fifth reason, as saith John Damascenus: in March and in printemps the blood groweth and augmenteth, and in summer coler, in September melancholy, and in winter phlegm. Then we fast in March for to attemper and depress the blood of concupiscence disordinate, for sanguine of his nature is full of fleshly concupiscence. In summer we fast because that coler should be lessened and refrained, of which cometh wrath. And then is he full naturally of ire. In harvest we fast for to refrain melancholy. The melancholious man naturally is cold, covetous and heavy. In winter we fast for to daunt and to make feeble the phlegm of lightness and forgetting, for such is he that is phlegmatic.

Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, 1182-1226 lived in the mediterranean region and wrote the following, 

     Oh, Most High, Almighty, Good Lord God, to Thee belong praise, glory, honour and all blessing.

Praised be my Lord God, with all His creatures, and especially our brother the Sun, who brings us the day and who brings us the light: fair is he, and he shines with a very great splendour.

Oh Lord, he signifies us to Thee!

Praised be my Lord for our sister the Moon, and for the stars, the which He has set clear and lovely in the heaven.

Praised be my Lord for our brother the Wind, and for air and clouds, calms and all weather, by which Thou upholdest life and all creatures.

Praised be my Lord for our sister Water, who is very serviceable to us, and humble and precious and clean.

Praised be my Lord for our brother Fire, through whom Thou givest us light in the darkness; and he is bright and pleasant and very mighty and strong.

Praised be my Lord for our mother the Earth, the which doth sustain us and keep us, and bringeth forth divers fruits and flowers of many colours, and grass.

Praised be my Lord for all those who pardon one another for love's sake, and who endure weakness and tribulation: blessed are they who peacefully shall endure, for Thou, Oh Most High, will give them a crown.

Praised be my Lord for our sister, the death of the body, from which no man escapeth. Woe to him who dieth in mortal sin. Blessed are those who die in Thy most holy will, for the second death shall have no power to do them harm.

Praise ye and bless the Lord, and give thanks to Him and serve Him with great humility.

Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) translation Canticle of Creatures

Cutleaf Toothwort

      Cutleaf Toothwort

Random rambling on early spring emerging ephemeral flowers and taste…within and without have arbitrary components. I am part of the whole space. I am a soldier of experience. One of the first flowers to emerge are the plants of the Brassicaceae family. Here as cutleaf toothwort. In the oak tree forest woodlands this first emergent observation is true as in the piñon juniper woodlands of the four corners. And the truth will set with leaves. With different species observant, there it was wild candytuft, pennycress, fendler’s pennycress, Nocaeae fendleri. Herein the red oak woodland, it's Cardamine concatenata -- cutleaf toothwort. There it was candytuft here toothwort among oaks, hazel nut and maple. There we are ephemeral gifted, here we are ephemeral gifted abundant wild gifts within the paradigm of wild herb ways. Ephemeral toothwort appears for a month or so before deciduous trees leaf out in early spring. They are there the whole year as perennial under different aspects. So if you stop by after the oaks have leafed the toothwort is gone.  Gone in the sense of invisible. With the vital force deepening to the earth as roots.

     Cardamine laciniata, Dentaria laciniata, Brassicaceae Family (Mustard). Cardamine pronounced kar-DAM-in-ee, comes from the Greek word kardamus, which refers to plants in the bitter garden cress family. Concatenate means "linking together. Cardamine from the greek kardamus, which is confusing because neither the name nor the plant is in any way related to cardamon seeds, which come from an entirely different plant. Cardamine and cardamon are related only in spelling by the alphabet. Linnaeus was referring to plants like Cardamine hirsuta or C. sativa, or C. penslyvanica which have a strong arugula bitterness. The bitter cress of Pedanius Dioscorides (c. 40-90 CE), who wrote Materia Medica, in the 1st century was used as a bitter tonic in red wine as a food/medicine plant. Also considered part of Cruciferae family, Latin, meaning 'cross-bearing' for the flowers in reference to its four 'crossed petals'. Some mustard family botanical traits, leaves are variable but frequently alternate along the stem with basal leaves present. Flowers are perfect, symmetrical, with 4 extending sepals, usually green. There are also 4 petals, typically arranged like either the letters "X" or "H", four-parted and arranged in terminal clusters/raceme occuring in a circular pattern. Fruits are two-parted with rows of seeds in a pod. 

     Emergent from earth through a covering of red oak, and beech fallen leaves. Before the deciduous tree canopy above them finishes leafing out, they make their moves. They are quick with above ground dynamics. They bloom, develop fruit, make their seeds. As the canopy densifies above their above ground visible parts fade back.  They spend the rest of the seasonal cycle storing vital energy in their below earth root systems. Paused waiting for their window when Persephone returns the following spring. 

     Mustard family plants have a long synchronous history with folk. All mustard family plants are edible and occur in a continum of hot peppery, horseradish wasabe taste to broccoli taste. What is observable with the senses outside is also analogous inside the observer. As above below, without within. So the observer checklists the sense perception as external. Seeing is looking out while tasting is looking in. There are complex multiple glucosinolate compounds in plants which exist along this continuum of horseradish to broccoli taste. We have these same lock and keys and they signal within us the same messages. The lock and keys are not only in the tongue as taste. The lock and keys as organoleptic testing are indicators of lock and keys throughout the body. 

     “Organoleptic comes from the french, organoleptique, -organo meaning 'organs of the body', thus the senses and -leptique from the greek leptiqos, disposed to take. So through the organs of sense we take in information about the plant directly in front of us. So using all your senses including tongue, nose, touch sensorial input, and the gestalt of biosense, the whole terrain and lay of the land, we can frequently learn something about the plant. Not only tasting the herb, but seeing the patterns in the landscape. Probably being alone with the plant where it grows. Then taking this style of knowledge which is non-verbal and letting it do its own thing developing connections as it goes. Spending time in the bio-environment of whorled mountain mint. Organoleptic perception allows me to get a sense of the herbal nature of the plant and what that herb does in my body. So you get a sense of how the herb lends itself to certain actions within the body.” (The perfect milagro Wild Herb Ways https://pgmanski.blogspot.com/2022/08/whorled-mountain-mint-pycnanthemum.html )

   

(from The miracle teachings of Wild Herb Ways 

     From the tongue, down the food pipe and down further in the gut. The taste is a thought in the world’s mouth.  We can view these compounds through multiple lenses. They are inside and outside. The scientific lens of words tends to objectify. The experience happening as an aspect of science talk reduced to chemicals. Taste occurs on the edge of the tongue front of within. So to use the metaphor of external mechanistic science, a chemical marker. Taste for the mechanist becomes the measurable molecular marker. The quantity of which exists frozen in an objectified given. In the words of reduction, they have additional chemical markers resembling phenylthiocarbamide PTC and 6-7i-propylthiouracil (PROP). “In northern europeans the non-taster percentage (or those that can’t taste PTC at all) is 31.5%, but for some other ethnic groups the non-taster percentage is much higher.” It would be accurate to say the taster is the tasted in a circular loop. 

     “  “ A crucial and important part of herbal study is the actual tasting of plants, this is called the organoleptic approach so that we engage our senses of touch, taste, smell, sight, where the plant is growing. We work with the plant to develop a sense of the energetics of the plant in the human body. So as herbalists we spend time looking, seeing, touching the plant and tasting the plant in various locations to find out the medicinal properties of the plant. One particular plant can vary greatly in its medicinal qualities through different seasons of the year. One specific plant can vary greatly in its energetic and medicinal qualities with regard to where it's growing, what type of year it's been in terms of wetness and warmth. Based on this hands-on, organoleptic approach to plant medicine we begin to understand that specific plants can be vastly different depending on where they're growing and what time of the year we encounter them.

Within this folk tradition, because of this, we have plants that have developed a reputation within the historical context of bioregional herbalism of nourishing and protecting and nourishing the body in disease states, yet also nourishing the spirit.” (Perfect Dharma from Wild Herb Ways, meeting the perfect teacher https://pgmanski.blogspot.com/2016/09/wild-herb-ways-medicine-road.html )

     So like a needle in a haystack, the search for the needle in the dark becomes a search where the light can penetrate, not related to the search for where the needle was lost and is. They look for the needle lost in the dark They look where their flashlights can point. The PTC, PROP, T2R bitter taste receptors, and other bitter taste gene receptor family has implications for BMI hence metabolic syndrome. PTC non-taster status has been associated with a higher accumulation of chunk around the middle adiposity, and unhealthy food preferences and dietary habits (e.g., a higher consumption and acceptance of fat) that favor the development of chronic non-communicable diseases diabetes, obesity and certain types of cancer. "The discovery of extra-oral T2Rs in several metabolically active tissues has generated intense interest in their physiological significance and potential health impact [44]. T2Rs, which are expressed in enteroendocrine cells, can be involved in nutrient-gut interactions that modulate the secretion of gut hormones such as ghrelin, cholecystokinin, and glucagon-like peptide 1, thereby influencing gastrointestinal motility, appetite, and glycemia [41]." So it's not only that the chemical compounds exist in the plant, they simultaneously exist in the human body as part of the communication mechanism. Which has implications for the herbalist in tissue states and plant energetics in a vitalist tradition. 

    The hot watery, acrid (bitter) juice; peppery taste (due to mustard glucosinolates). Brassicaceae Family Mustard family plants have a long history with people as garden plants, with various cultivars selected for their varying degrees of flavor hot, peppery as horseradish radish to broccoli taste continum. Some in the roots as radish. Some in elaborate flowers as brocoli. Some in the leaf as arugala or collard greens.

    The important take on isolated bitter chemical markers, reduced and quantified for approachable study. Is this, our resilient ancestors saw the emergent green and gobbled them up. Thus they survived. That the plants are bitter means we are bitter. 

     “Trusting your own judgment. Use your heart, use your intuition to see the patterns and realize that most of what you see is a reflection of yourself.  The things that you have to work with are close by. We work with our eyes, with our hands, with the tongue. This is the organoleptic  approach to herbs we take.  we taste them, smell them. we touch them we look at how they grow. where they grow. when they grow. Wevwill use that information to speak to us with the herbs. this is the approach to take with herbalism. We work with them, and allow the nature of the herb to enter into her being so that we can remember, knowing the thoughts that fill our mind, taking seriously whatever the herb wants to give us in terms of information. with  sight, with smell, with the taste and form of the herb where it grows before our eyes. on this path of herbal medicine you have to go directly to the plant. On this path of my herbal medicine you have to go directly to the place where the plant is growing and meet the plant in its own space. You need to meet the plant where it is growing. And you need to look at the total picture of you as the person in the place with the plant.” (From the Miraculous Wild Herb Ways, The Commune of Being https://pgmanski.blogspot.com/2016/06/ligusticum-porteri-osha-diaries.html )

Trius-Soler, M., Bersano-Reyes, P.A., Góngora, C. et al. Association of phenylthiocarbamide perception with anthropometric variables and intake and liking for bitter vegetables. Genes Nutr 17, 12 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12263-022-00715-w

Feeney, E., O'Brien, S., Scannell, A., Markey, A., & Gibney, E. (2011). Genetic variation in taste perception: Does it have a role in healthy eating? Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 70(1), 135-143.

McDonald, J.H. 2011. Myths of human genetics. Baltimore: Sparky House Publishing. 2011

Erigenia bulbosa

#Erigeniabulbosa

Harbinger-of-Spring, salt and pepper later after red anthers turn black

Erigenia bulbosa

Carrot family (Apiaceae)... Etymology. Erigenia: Greek for “born in the spring.” bulbosa: from the Greek bolbos for “bulb, plant with round swelling on an underground stem.

Harbinger-of-Spring is a spring ephemeral short lived, in a brief spell or fever wildflower, above-ground activity fast and rushed each year not waiting for deciduous shade to emerge and the canopy closes creating darkness in the understory. 

And Theia was subject in love to Hyperion and bore great Helius （Sun） and clear Selene （Moon） and Eos （Dawn）

who shines upon all that are on earth and upon the deathless Gods who live in the wide heaven. [375] And Eurybia, bright goddess, was joined in love to Crius and bore great Astraeus, and Pallas, and Perses who also was eminent among all men in wisdom. And Eos bore to Astraeus the strong-hearted winds, brightening Zephyrus, and Boreas, headlong in his course, [380] and Notus,—a goddess mating in love with a god.

And after these Erigeneia1 bare the star Eosphorus （Dawn-bringer）, and the gleaming stars with which heaven is crowned. Hesiod Theogony greek Ἠώς Eos is Dawn, a goddess perpetually in love.

Shiny offspring

The offspring of the TITANS Hyperion and Thia are those who shine both on earth and heaven, for one of their children is called Helius (Sun), another Selene (Moon), and yet another Eos (Dawn). Eos consorted with Astraeus 1, the son of the Titan Crius 1 and Eurybia 1, daughter of Pontus (Sea) and Gaia (Earth). They gave birth to the WINDS and to the stars, among which Eosphorus. Eos asked Zeus that Tithonus 1 should be deathless and live eternally. But on asking this favor, she forgot to ask youth for him. So at first, they lived as enthusiastic lovers live, but when his hair became grey, Eos grew tired of sleeping with him, and in spite of she cherishing him and nourishing him with ambrosia, Old Age came upon him, and gradually hardening its grip on him, made so that he could not move his limbs nor do anything except babble endlessly. Yet others affirm that she always loved him, and that she never was ashamed of sleeping with and old man, and kiss his hoary hair.

Always in love

”perennial wildflower  ¼" across, consisting of 5 narrow white petals, 5 stamens, a divided white style, and no sepals. The anthers of the stamens are initially dark red, but they soon turn black.

Harbinger Erigenia "plants have a slow start to their reproductive phase and may spend 5 or 6 yr in vegetative development before producing their first flowers—often blooming some 6 or 7 yr after germination." This species has two disjunct separated populations, one in the west of the appalachian divide in the basins of the  yough, ohio, mon and allegheny rivers  and a western population in the south west lower Susquehanna River Valley. The west population has bioregional ties to the ohio and midwest populations while the eastern variety is a flat population. 

Population Genomics and Conservation of Erigenia bulbosa (Apiaceae), an Edge-of-Range Species in Pennsylvania

Angela J. McDonnell, Cheyenne L. Moore, Scott Schuette, and Christopher T. Martine

International Journal of Plant Sciences 2021 182:5, 344-355 

Hesiod. The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Theogony. Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914.

Lindera benzoin

 Lindera benzoin,

for the aromatic gum, identified apropos in the fasting season, this leafless tree, bending, deeply from the hip. The bark grey dappled with light lenticels, so to breathe, as we transition Imbolc and the feast of the purification at Candlemas.

A bald eagle greets with a shriek, perched on another leafless tree, perhaps a trend? The yellow ovate leafs of autumn, fallen, littered to the ground. A deer hind shows the white center, and drops and nimbles up the rhododendron thicket, thinking herself so clever.

“The trees of the Sun Most High are full of sap; the cedars of white mountains, which he hath planted;” Praise Sun 104:16 These the remembered days, golden low winter light. Buds closed on thin flexible branches. Unable to keep still, pulsating swollen ready to burst. Strong scent of pine and frankincense, delightful with cinnamon and camphor as per its familiar aspect, Lauraceae family with first cousin sassafras nearby asserting the recent snowed lightning shooting spice.

Vital force moves upward from the ground, meeting sky. I wanted to tell you all these things. Our hobbled bodies for an instant passionate and certain.

We do well to imitate the leafless benzoin, muted with warmth. To drink a cup of tea, and taste the soon to be yellow flowers of spring.

Melting ice will you remember to save me a few brilliant red drupes?

Herbal Energetics Opening

      The one principle that guides me is that for every health problem there is an herbal solution remedy.

winter witch hazel flowers

The path of herbalism begins at the beginning, where you are, as best you can, directly face to face, with yourself as a unique person in a specific place. You as a person are the person you are as a unfolding pattern. Therefore your fundamental identity is process, becoming. It is imperative you understand your pattern, strengths and weaknesses and then work to address them. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qw-EsbogfNU

     We understand this as the primal pattern prototype developing according to its innate tendency. Just as Quercus alba, a white oak tree is somehow determined by the acorn from which it grew, to be exactly, unaltered what it is according to its prototype. So an oak acorn planted does not put out maple leaves. The oak is forever limited by its oakness. The oakness of an oak is both its strength and weakness, both its salvation and nemesis. So you too are a living being, whose origins is through your parents and immediate ancestors. In a sense, you are your parents. You can of course react against this, yet even this reaction against who you are, is somehow contained in who you are.

      If you travel to study with plants you will notice that the white oak, with its distinctive paired lobed alternate leaves, will take on different aspects of that prototype depending on where it is located. We understand the unique environment within the bioregion where the white oak grows is significant. Yet somehow the white oak will remain true to its pattern regardless of the environment within which it grows. There is some flexibility within the pattern yet the pattern itself is ruthlessly rigid. There is dialog within the pattern but no arguing with the pattern.

In other words the white oak within its pattern of white oakness doesn’t suddenly begin to grow Acer or maple leaves. In herbalism this unfolding pattern is sometimes called the constitution. The unique responses to the environmental challenges, the coping mechanisms, childhood illness, and subsequent recovery from illness are called the pattern tendencies for that specific individual. These pattern tendencies of both renewal/recovery and sickness in some ways might be the medical history of childhood and adolescence. This analogy of white oak to human person has obvious limitations. An oak tree for all its grandeur is obviously enormously stuck in place. If we define intelligence as skill in survival, expertise in living strategies, the white oak, Quercus alba although enormously stuck, limited to place, also has enormous inherent intelligence. The Bedford oak is 500 years old. The Bedford oak continues to live about 50 miles north of Long Island, NY. It began as an acorn sometime around 1500AD. Another white oak Mingus oak, from West Virgina was dated to be 650 years old in 1938. Several white oak groves in North Carolina Pisgah forest have multiple 300 year old trees. 

     Before we can have herbal cures and remedies, on the most basic level there must be effective nourishment from food, air and water. The person first has to have these needs met with dependability and regularity. You can’t decide to take a breath, then a few hours later decide to take another breath. Choice and volitional control although hallmarks of human will are in short supply and over rated concepts within the functioning of the body. If you break the meta rules of human health whether through ignorance or accident, you suffer the consequence. Obviously if a person is deprived of air, and there is a constriction in the airway then herbal remedies are pointless.

cold and dry

There is a dynamic hierarchy of needs and because a person can only exist within a cultural social community, meeting those needs for optimal health is not only physical interaction but also a social interaction. Within supplying food, air and water there must be in-flow, absorption of nutrients and out-flow, elimination of waste from these things. So these basic concepts: the constitutional pattern, constitutional tendencies, nourishing the body and establishing in-flow and out-flow, understanding specific organ systems, are the essence of understanding the human body within an herbal framework. So the artful interplay and development of herbal remedies between a person’s inherent nature, their tendencies and patterns of illness and the overt presentation of the person in relation to energetics of warm/cool, moist/dry, tonic/relax, tightening/loosening, excess/deficiency, stimulation/suppression, and the corresponding body systems and tissue states is the fundamental stuff of herbalism.

sassafras autumn

     Plants, herbs, hands and fingers working together with what is available to maximize health is the foundation of learning the practice of the herbalism art. Herbalism is an art and not a science. Every unique situation of disease has an herbal cure. The work done with herbs is process in the der Geist, the imagination of the hearth. The herbs and plants of your personal materia medica growing in field, forest and garden are held in the gathered leaves, roots, oils and tinctures we brew in the hearth. For this reason, we don’t begin herbalism with the study of plants. We begin with the study of a plant. We begin with a single plant. Begin with the study of your place. Your place with you in it. Remember when you were a child, or exploring the place around you in a childlike way, walking through a forest. Something catches your eye. You are walking up a steep hill, it’s muddy, you reach out and grab a branch. As you grip the stalk, in the fleshiness of the lobed leaves there is a scent, a spicy, sweetness, sassafras albidum. It may be years later, you are drawn to dig the roots. Maybe in the mean time someone told you more about it.

There is frequently recognition instantly on a certain level regarding plants. Something happens within the relationship of plant, person and place. The plant, person and place are already established, the connection is a mystery. If you are an herb gatherer it is a kind of arrogance to view yourself as creating this connection, as a service for someone. Likewise if you are sick and taking herbs, it’s laziness to think your responsibility is limited to gulp down and swallow. The connection is already present. Whether you are the herbalist or the person seeking to get well, the process is similar. So hone the direct face to face connection of person, plant and place.

cool and dry

      At the beginning working with a specific plant, whenever possible meet and greet the plant where the plant lives. Work with a few plants at a time local to the place. Where you found the sassafras you’ll see other plants a short distance away, maybe mugwort or boneset. You are going to be drawn to certain plants. Again it’s an art form, a mystery, not a science. Look within that small circle. Gather and process the plant, not only with your hands but within the imagination with attention to detail. Be alert around the plants. The plant as an herb is a self contained other with a capacity to heal, produce change in a positive outcome. How that is is beyond our understanding. The endless speculation on the other leads us away from what we can and do know about the other. It is something we can use. Some things we can know and some things we can’t know. It is something we can use to bring harmony. In herbalism it is the plants that bring a kind of memory of the balanced state.

     If you have been around sick people it’s a serious situation. Especially long drawn out debilitating illness. We can word play with diagnosis yet the fundamental issue is withdrawal of energy and redistribution of the energy into a negative energy loop.

wet moving

Things tend to develop in a certain way and keep on developing in that way. There is both inertia in health and inertia in sickness. Whether we recognize or don’t recognize, we are connected. We are members of a team. That team is embedded on a cultural playing field. Whether you recognize or don’t recognize, you are a member of a team. It is like you are a member of a basketball team, the scheduled games can not be postponed. If a member of the basketball team is injured and forced to play with injury, then your team suffers. Then there is the emotional feeling tone of injury. Being laid up. Forced to play games at less than potential, sitting on the bench and watching others play. Or the redundancy of forced idleness. The systemic situation of certain team players disavowed from the playing field. They are capable of playing but the rules don’t allow their participation. So they are disavowed cancelled basketball players unable to take the field. This systemic redundancy leads to resentment, passive aggressive behaviour. Someone sneaks in and damages the back board, another time steals the hoop. This passive aggressive attitude becomes habit, people self sabotage their own health. People become attached in some way to misery and begin to live contagiously miserable lives. The cult of sick infirm people becomes an economic driving engine of the economy. 

great lobelia warm and dry

     When you work with the plant, see it in your mind's eye, recall the smell, taste, color, texture of the leaves, and context of the plant. See the leaves, flowers and if you gathered the roots, see them too. When i say context of the plant, i mean where it lives, the ecosystem, desert, forest, mountain, riparian, wet/dry, sun/shade, flat or hilly, season, the surrounding plants growing around it. Was it tall, or close to the ground? A creeping vine, shrub with woody stem, a tree towering above our heads? Was it still, moving with the breeze? If you are taking a tisane or tincture that someone gathered or made for you, try to have a picture of the plant, and visualize it in your imagination. What is the taste? Sweet, sour, hot, cool, bitter, acrid, salty? What is the smell, fragrance, aroma, earthy, musky, aromatic, floral, what does it resemble in smell? What does it smell like? What does it remind you of? Is it familiar? This will help you to unify the tissue states of the body and the action of the plant on that tissue state. These insights take a long while to develop. So don’t beat yourself up for not knowing what you haven’t had time to learn. Milk thistle, yellow root, mahonia, hydrastis, chicory root all work on liver in a slightly different way. Lacking a dedicated system of learning within herbalism is a problem and one that won’t be solved within our lifetime. The plants are here, we are here, that is enough.

mountain mint warm and dry

     Plants are forms of life with their own sovereignty and nature. We encounter the plant and in our body it’s doing something, creating movement of the body systems. The idea is not necessarily what it should be doing, but what is it actually doing in terms of direct experience. Is it warming? Cooling? Causing sweat? Does it cause us to notice a specific bodily sensation? Saliva in the mouth? A tightening of the throat? Rumbling in the stomach? A desire to rest, or a desire to get up and move about? To close our eyes, or look about?

On the endless road of cold, warm, wet, dry, tightening, loosening, winter towards spring..

cold and wet season

Hydrangea arborescens

 Hydrangea arborescens is an easily found perrenial shrub understory plant of eastern woodlands.

A meter to shoulder height. The leaves are opposite ovate to a sharp point with moderately serrated edges, on an extended petiole, the leaf veination is more pronounced on the underside, and a lighter green. The plant has an interesting cyme panicle with white, sterile 3-4 petaled phlox like flowers around the flat topped bunches. It has an extended bloom time from spring to late summer. If you look at the flowers you imagine they would turn into berries but I don't think they do. There are cultivated varieties around peoples houses that have a more snow ball appearance which I have never seen in the wild free varieties, do not use the cultivated variety only the wild. 

    Hydrangea has diuretic properties, meaning it promotes urination, kidney activity. It relates well to kidney, bladder, uti, prostate and other likewise complaints in male and female. Use the dug up root which you can sometimes clean with a nylon brush rinsing in water, or lightly peel scrape with a knife, then cut into small pieces to dry or tincture. It's easy to find in winter because you can identify the flower tops from last summer if you need to gather in winter.

     Hydrangea root is usually combined with a couple different herbs for a specific condition. For example if uti is the issue you may want to use it with pipsisewa and or uva-ursi, and yellow root, a mahonia or golden seal. These could probably be best used as a strong tea. For prostate combine with carolina saw berries, stinging nettle root. For stones maybe joe pye and some kind of antispasmodic like viburnum cramp bark, silk tassel and so on. 

   

Some people have recently made a topical with hydrangea root a for sunscreen made with butter, lard or olive oil, a little bees wax and creosote bush. The roots contain a compound called hydrangin, aka 7-hydroxycoumarin, which has been used in sunscreens. 

     Definitely spend some time with hydrangea