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

,

Osha, Medicina Del oso, bear medicine, Ligusticum porteri

Ligusticum porteri:

most commonly called osha, significantly in Spanish 'oso'  is bear.

There is a deep connection with Ligusticum porteri and bear, across all the plant/people/place interface of the sky islands and montain southwest where Ligusticum porteri lives as low as 6500 feet in Nuevo Mexico but in general from 8000-11,000 feet. Strictly a mountain plant. It is found near or within groves of aspen, conifers, fir and oak.

Geographic range

: L. porteri is distributed throughout the Rocky Mountain range, spanning Montana and Wyoming in the north, through Colorado, Nevada and Utah, to New Mexico, Arizona and Mexico Chihuahua and Sonora.

   

Bear root is a perennial plant that greens out in the spring, grows its seed in the summer and then turns brown and dies back

in the fall. It was considered part of  Umbelliferae family, now renamed as Apiaceae family.   Known as the carrot/parsley family. The seeds and flowers have an umbellifer look about them hanging down in clusters.  

     The importance of the bear and the bear stories of Osu, osha, in Ligusticum porteri. One of the peoples who have lived with osha  in the Southwest are the Utes, and the Utes of stories of the bear which are important for understanding Ligusticum porteri. 

One of the stories of the Utes who live in southern Utah near Blanding, UT, is two brothers were out and about in the spring time hunting and gathering and they saw a bear in the standing upright and clawing, marking a the tree, making a loud scratching sound and digging around for roots.

The bear talked to these two brothers and taught them how to dance, and sing the bear dance. The Bear asked the two brothers to go back to their people and teach them the bear dance. To do the bear dance in the springtime when lightning and thunder renew the earth once again after a long winter.

The bear taught how to gather together with others and celebrate the energy of the spring the new life that comes the greening of the plants. Up to the present day the Ute people have kept this connection with the spring bear dance

at Sleeping Ute Mountain. It said that the dance is held in March when the first thunder and lightning signal the awakening of the mountains of spring.

The dance is opens with the rubbing of a notched stick making a sound that is said to be this the sound of the bear scratching on the tree in the spring time.

Dancing is a way of connecting to the flow of the energy of the earth, of the lightning in the spring time,  

and mobilizing connecting this event in a personal way with the group.

In the bear dance the cat man makes sure that any woman's request to dance is honored, the bear dance is a woman's choice and the when the woman will ask a man to dance that can't be turned down.

In the traditions of the Southwest there are stories of the bear woman that she-bear and this has been carried on into the present time.  

There's a strong female presence in bear and in the renewal of spring, and there is an honoring of this female prerogative in the place and in the fertility of the place that happens in the spring time.  

     

    In the folk tradition osha is considered a plant protection and this is also mentioned in an old ethnographic study on the Pirates In "Southern Paiute Shamanism" by Isabel T. Kelly published in 1939, she mentions Ligusticum called, paxu'rani was applied for snake bite and the roots rubbed on moccasins and carried as a talisman to avoid snakebite and for protection. 

It is a tonic not only for the body, but also has uses for the psyche: the heart and mind. 

      The Navajo also dwell in the area of Ligusticum porteri. They have stories that can only be told when the bear is sleeping and they determine that time from the lightning in the fall during winter and then when energy from zig-zag lightening returns,

the lightning in the spring this is the time when the healing generative energy of the earth returns. 

    Now I as I look osha  with only a few green leaves remaining.

I make sure that I scatter and plant the seeds around osha covering them with soil. There is a chill of coldness in the air, most of the aspen leaves the fallen and those that remain are yellow.

With the clouds running across the sky and another full moon it has the feeling of energy going back to the roots. This is the time to gather osha up on these high laying down mountain plateaus.

I am reminded of the bear with osha the long nights of winter. 

    Plants of Protection: Like yerba Santa, Eriodictyon angustifolium, osha is a plant of protection. As I mentioned earlier it is used both for an actual rattlesnake bite and also rubbed on the body on the soles of the feet, moccasins and or tied on the shoes to ward off rattlesnakes when traveling through areas where one is likely to meet a rattlesnake.

Question may be why would one need protection? And why protection from a plant? How can a plant protect me? Protect me from what? This is an important question because as we approach herbs and plants from a bioregional herbal perspective it becomes clear that not only do herbs nourish. Not only do herbs nourish in the sense of nourishing the body, of addressing imbalances, deficiencies and usefulness in a disease state, herbs herbal medicine and or preparations also enter into the spirit in the greater health of a person, the soul.

 In the sense of plants, as I explored earlier, plant/medicine and medicine plants: there is also the aspect of nourishing the greater body nourishing the mind the heart the spirit in a bioregional sense. As we live and take roots in a place it becomes important to visit the same place time and time and time again when gathering plants during all times of the year.

To not only see the plants in it's dried or prepared form but to see the living plant in all its phases. In this sense one is completing oneself within the bioregion by taking notice of the plant not only taking notice of the medicinal properties or energetics of the plant but also taking notice of the plant itself and what it can give. Listening to the plant itself and spending time with the plant develop the aesthetic sense of communication with the plant., and acknowledge the connection to the natural world around you. A lot of this information and knowledge has less to do with reading or studying and more to do with just spending time with the plants where they grow. Because as human beings we are intimately connected with the plant both in the present moment now and throughout our history. Within this folk tradition, because of this, we have plants that have developed a reputation within the historical context of bioregional  herbalism of nursing, nourishing  and protecting the spirit. Oso,  la Medicina del osa, medicine of the bear, Ligusticum porteri is one of these plants. Sometime the plant due to its scent and physical nature, or due to the power of smell can remind us instantly and immediately of a greater whole, a  greater reality. Can awakening us a sense of a larger context in which we are acting. Especially if we have sought the plants out ourselves,  in their own environments, spending time with them in the spring, summer, winter and autumn. They can be reminders. They can remind us that we have power and resilience to overcome the current situation and this can be a strength.  This can be the plants role as a talisman, a charm to ward off evil. Evil whether  rattlesnakes or sorcery which may or may not of been used against us. And here let's remember that sorcery and witchcraft has to do with peoples view of us. Sorcery is an attempt to place a concept of self upon us that does not correlate with our inner nature and current situation. Often times a self concept can be an implanted thought.  That places us in a limitation which is no longer valid. So when we are in a time of stress or turmoil or crisis. The plant can remind us of our resilience in the face of crisis by placing us in a larger context.

This contextual shift is part of the work of plants. Much of our anxiety stress and issues have to do with the purely human realm,

and although we spend much of our time in this place our depths of our being go much deeper than that and part of the healing energy the plants can summon is this reminder that we are bigger than the situation we face.

     Plant energetics: