Textures and Patterns

 from a recent trip to Blackwater Falls Nat'l Park:

    

"I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along. I am aging and eaten and have done my share of eating too.

I am not washed and beautiful, in control of a shining world in which everything fits, but instead am wandering awed about on a splintered wreck I’ve come to care for, whose gnawed trees breathe a delicate air, whose bloodied and scarred creatures are my dearest companions, and whose beauty beats and shines not in its imperfections but overwhelmingly in spite of them, under the wind-rent clouds, upstream and down.”

- Annie Dillard, 'Pilgrim at Tinker Creek'

Who Can Ride the Dragon?

like a death, this is the true beginning

drag your body to the altar

quality of sweetness, rooted in sacrifice

drop down into the silence

healing by fire

eludes language

the doorkeeper

together in the woods

at the root of our own

she is the passion

swept away in a hurricane

visions in detail

all who dwell

the sacred balance

the sun goes down

and celebration

something in it, offering

chance to let go

return to the sacred

laid down her yarn.

My kind of lunatic fringe.

  The Luna Moth sees me

with her antennae and eye spots too

likewise I see her back with my sensual body

my antennae and eye spots cast and open.

Antennae - feathered and astounding sensorial receptors

Eye spots like velvet alert snakes.

What pray tell is put before me ...

may I know this relationship that has summoned.

My kind of lunatic fringe.

Chop Water

 The first birdsong breaks the call of night

    freeing me from the churning of its depths,

           
gratefully released from the tumult of waiting 

                                                                         for the day    

                                                                         to break.

                                                            Night already having broken itself     

                                                                                                    upon me.

                                                            Taking me, despite its starry silence,

                                                                into the noise of pain past

                                                                                           pain future.



No thunder marked these heaving internal crests, but I was

    struck

    all the same by the rumbling.

The day before, though punctuated by long sought, abiding gratifications,

    was one of those that had to be put out of its misery                         - destruction hard to bear.

    

    on the tail of several seasons that have each and every triggered

    

    in the midst of years of societal growing pains.

We make do

    and we do make

        and it is done.

Life goes on

    with or without us

    I go on

    with Life    

        all of it                                                                                             - creation will take its turn.

Hark

Awakened
        by a Crow
        Cawing in the morning light
I sit up
wresting myself from sleep
        so as to hear their message

        What is foretold
on this bright day becoming
                Light
                upon a smattering of leaves at the edges

                my first sight greeting me from the window

                Crickets
                herald the rest of the vibrant eulogy
                and Cicadas and Katydids soon follow
                for they know in death there is life

All going round
All what is
IS

And with that
I take my first step into the day
one step closer to death
and in that embrace
even more alive than before

With All
I AM.

Coronation, or the Act of Crowning, with Mullein

When I was dealing with Corona in my lungs a couple months ago, I utilized Mullein in my formula.  I had some already harvested and dried at that time, but decided that I should also harvest some more to have on hand with this respiratory virus going around.  Mullein is heavy this year, as plants seem often want to do when they are needed, showing their perfect timing and immersion in the flow.

While harvesting I began to sing to Mullein about what was going on and why I was harvesting her leaves and then to sing to the virus that was meshing with my body. 

I'm not singer, but I am a long-time student of breath as a mindfulness practice, and the virus had made me short of breath, just doing simple activities like picking Mullein.  This shortness of breath for no real reason* (I wasn't running up a hill - nor did I have a knee on my neck) was a new experience for me (having never had asthma or pneumonia or anything like it) and I felt it important that I try to deep breathe and stay in touch with my lungs.  I think this is why the singing happened, this undeniable connection to breath.  I felt compelled and I obliged. 

The vibrations from singing with what little breath I could take felt healing for my body, just as I feel the cat's healing medicine when they lean against my chest and purr.  I am thankful for the ~sound.~  I sang to the virus as yet another way to connect to this other part of life that was finding its terrain in my body - lyrics of a willingness to hear its song too.  A mutual expression of meeting, of life, of relationship, of learning.

And here, this weekend, Mullein comes to me again in the most majestic form.  Truly a crowning.  <3

Corona is teaching us to look at what we are giving birth to; various things are coming to term that have long been in the works, but we still have choices to make as to have they are received and what we do with what is born unto us.

Also, I wanted to share my formulary for those who know the herbs well enough by sight.  I do not want to simply share a list of the herbs I utilized to get through the acute stages as they may not be the right ones for you.  There is not a one size fits all answer in Herbalism as the body that a pathogen engages plays a role in how the pathogen manifests - and even if it manifests at all.  This means that herbs are utilized for the specific body that has symptoms and what those symptoms are; Herbalism is not a 'take this for that' modality.  So my formula for Corona may not be your formula for Corona and you do not want to make yourself worse; so please consult with a qualified practitioner if you are wanting to utilize herbs for Corona.  But for those who know the herbs and understand differential diagnosis, I will share pictures for you to see what I utilized, and feel free to talk to me privately.

Mullein, Raspberry Leaf, and Boneset were infused with the decoction below.

Many of you will recognize fresh sliced Ginger root and dried Citrus peel; these support digestion among other things.  This is the formula I used at the peak of acuity with Corona when I felt I was going toward cytokine storm territory.  Severe lung pain that had began at the bottom and worked its way up to feel it was encompassing them, wracking "bone" pain, could hardly take a breath, headache, strange heartbeat, severe fatigue, runny nose, sore throat, neck pain.  I noticed immediate results from the formula.  I had been on a different formula leading up to this point, and after peaking and feeling "better" I moved to formulas more nourishing and recovery oriented. 
I am still doing this now, but seem to have been left with a strange, but not severe, "achiness" in my whole body and strange pains I am not used to along with hands or fingers going to sleep for no reason.  I am working to alleviate this, focusing on Blood.  I no longer have the list of symptoms I had before, all that is cleared up except I still have fatigue, though it's nowhere near what it was.

words.

words.  seeming inviolable.  and at once perturbed.
a mist receding.
the darkness conjures and the light reflects.
but where did they go.  the tail spins off and I am lost again.
a myriad of destinations.  leading nowhere.
and straight home to me.

Sunset in the Wishseeds

Listening:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFHwg6aNKy0

Cacoethes and 'Roads Less Traveled'

A Bid of Welcome.

Water finds her path to the great body, the ocean, just as we are finding our path back to the Earth.

Many paths, many branches, in the lungs of the Earth.  We share the same breath.

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
(I had to memorize this poem with the whole class in 8th grade; it changed me,
guided me, and patted me on the back...)

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

A BitterSweet Tangle.

 ~

Seeing into the distance...a far-away vista of color and sun through the murky wood, then closer...

...it comes into view:  a centered spiral of hay for winter, stored sunshine.

~

For some the way is known.

~

Paths known. - a revisit.

Paths unknown - possibility for the 'morrow...

And in honor of a great author who died yesterday:

"It is good to have an end to journey toward, 

but it is the journey that matters in the end."

 - Ursula Le Guin

Black Cats, Super Novas, and Flux

The Road before me
tree-lined, meadow-flanked
and upheld by blue mountains
that shift and fade
to blue sky.

My Mind before me
expansive as sky
clouds roll by
I watch
Truth beheld intermingling,

twinkling like pinpoints
of starlight exposed.
Sky goes dark
then one can see 
what could not be seen in daylight.

It alludes, best seen
when not looking directly
simply being
shows it all,
gives it all.

Like the mountain I sit, though moving.

The Universe casts her spell 
upon me
Knows Herself through me
holds opposites at one time.

The convoluted truth touches our skin
but briefly 
and is gone.
Transfigured.
A black cat in the night
eyes twinkling.

Revelations from a Beek

) ( Bee Geek ) ( 

The Reveal

“You carry Mother Earth within you. 

She is not outside of you. 

Mother Earth is not just your environment. 

In that insight of inter-being, 

it is possible to have real communication with the Earth, 

which is the highest form of prayer.”

 - Thich Naht Hanh

"There is a language older by far and deeper than words. 

It is the language of bodies, of body on body, 

wind on snow, rain on trees, wave on stone. 

It is the language of dream, gesture, symbol, memory..."

 - derrick jensen  

"But, child of dust, the fragrant flowers,
The bright blue sky and velvet sod,
Were strange conductors to the bowers
Thy daring footsteps must have trod." 

- Emily Bronte

Purple Deadnettle growing wild at the base of two of my hives:  Ariadne and Stella.  This is a flower that Honey Bees like (it creates red pollen!), but my Honey Bees are not on it, as they tend to prefer large nectar and pollen sources and will often stick to a species; the woodland trees around here provide a much greater "patch" of pollen to collect from.  The Carpenter Bees however, are all over it.  I have, on the other hand, heard of beekeepers, whose bees live near large fields rather than forests, bringing in loads of Purple Deadnettle pollen, and I've seen this flower blanket acres of fallow field.  An enchantment either way...  (plus YOU can eat them!)

These two pictures show resiliency...  you can see where, when the flower bud was just beginning and was small (just the tip), they got burnt by the cold snap we got after the super warm spell a couple weeks ago.  The flower kept growing anyway, pushed the damage out of the way, and got on with it.  The heart of the flower was still protected and unharmed.  This is a Saucercup Magnolia; it is featured in the first image above.

"Someday, after mastering the winds, 

the waves, the tides and gravity, 

we shall harness for God the energies of love, 

and then, 

for a second time in the history of the world, 

man will have discovered fire."

 - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

 

"Once you've seen it, you can't unsee it.

 And once you've seen it, 

 keeping quiet, saying nothing, 

becomes as political as speaking out."
- Arundhati Roy

~