This, the first day of the rest of our lives

and as I swatted at the fly
it was as if sliced through spacetime
breaking it into a kaleidoscope of many
I usually do not like to kill things
but this death brought more
and the more was good.

And so our story begins

I closed my eyes
it was as though illuminated from within
darkness did not fall as usual
with the falling of my lids
but rather light
and the more I looked
I began to see
my own eye looking back at me
and it blinked
and looked around
seeing me from within
seeing everything at all.

A myriad of bug bites
had appeared overnight
itching up a storm
like mystical pinpoints of union with the divine
infecting me with an awakened fury
recalling a time, that as a child
I had that fever
and that fleeting glimpse

The song, it played for me,
and I for it.

Oh the muse
from whence does she go
to where does she come

All of our knowing
is built on a foundation
of indigeneity -
no matter how far we have strayed

it’s there
at the root
our core churning
out the truth
ineffable though it is
it calls to us on the wind…

The Queen, She is reborn.

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.

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

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

~ 

Gail Force: The Irrefutable Invitation

The call
The caw
It issued forth
          from the Crow's mouth
          but it was prayer
               on my lips.
It pierced the morning
          separating night from day.
I clung to its echoes
     the way a bird clings
     to a ferocious wind
          no choice
     as it cleaves its space from the air. 
          Slicing the indivisible
               the way a moment
               slices future from past
     yet changes in each instant
     always different, always the same.

I knew the day'd be bright
     whether or not the sun shone
for I'd spent my ~time~
     in the blackness of that night. 

 

The Yang within the Yin: Hear the Music

"Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on."
 - Mary Oliver

In this dark, inner time of the year, that coincides with this dark transitional period for our society, and this dark time for the entirety of the human race and world, as we know it, itself...
I want to remind you, as I remind myself...
that it's always darkest just before the dawn...the deepest Yin turns to Yang,
Spring always follows the darkest, coldest (warmest?) Winter...

Here is a video that shows the seed of Spring that is within the Winter; revel in the exuberance of new bees taking their first flight and know that we too shall fly.




If you haven't yet, plant some seeds of the new, the next,
for now is the time to nurture them in the dark of the earth...
so they may burst forth with strongly rooted growth when the time is right... 
Within Yin is the seed of Yang and within Yang is the seed of Yin.  Extremes turn into themselves.

"You should be angry. You must not be bitter.
Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host.
It doesn’t do anything to the object of its displeasure.
So use that anger. You write it. You paint it. You dance it.
You march it. You vote it. You do everything about it.
You talk it. Never stop talking it."   - Maya Angelou.

And as a reverse to these times, here is tomorrow's seed, the Yin within the Yang.

“I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing;
wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing;
there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.”
  - T.S. Eliot

"And those who were seen dancing 

were thought to be insane by those 

who could not hear the music.”
  - Friedrich Nietzsche

~~~

Woman

'And She Calls' (from the archives, 2007)

Woman.
You are so powerful.

Lesser men will try to smother that radiance,
squash it by a multitude of means.

Be ever vigilant
and take necessary actions to shine on.

It's been long enough.
The time is now. 

A Breathing Meditation

Get into a comfortable position, spine straight, but not rigid.  Can be sitting or laying (if you won't fall asleep).  Can be in a chair or on the floor.  Bring your thoughts to your breath, and keep bringing your attention back to your breath when it wanders.  No judgment on the wandering, just notice and bring back.
 

In Breath:
Born Anew,
Out Breath:
and We Die,
In Breath:
Born Anew,
Out Breath:
and We Die,
In Breath:
Born Anew,
Out Breath:
and We Die,...
(continue this for as long as you will, 5 minutes, 30... until you rest in the ever-present NOW,
and the fleeting nature of our existence becomes all you are - nothing -
along with the knowing that YOU ARE EVERYTHING).
In Breath:
Born Anew,
Out Breath:
and We Die,
In Breath:
Born Anew,
Out Breath:
and We Die,
In Breath:
Born Anew,
Out Breath:
and We Die,In Breath:
Born Anew,
Out Breath:
and We Die,
In Breath:
Born Anew,
Out Breath:
and We Die,...
And the Birth and Death that is This Lifetime
Is but a Breath of a Greater Lifetime. 
A Lifetime where We Are the Mountain.

 

A Break in the Rain, A Walk in the Woods - Photo Journal

If you aren't able to get out in Nature at this moment,

may these picture suffice,

bringing you the beauty and solace this walk did for me.

Alder Reflections

It was pouring all morning then this afternoon I noticed it stopped and suddenly the sun came out.  I went outside to bring in firewood, and the raindrops sparkling on everything like gems drew me out for a longer perusal.











On my way down the mountain (I live on a small ridge in the Appalachias of northern Virginia), I stopped at the hives and checked on them as I am wont to do whenever I am near.  I noticed a bee at an entrance with its tongue out getting water from a rain drop.  :)  It's too cold and wet for them to actually leave the hive.

Goodness, I love that green color.

I brave gentle rain to stay out I am enjoying myself so much; it being warm enough in February for this is the new normal.  I'm not even dressed all that warm (sweater and scarf); am a bit cold, but less than a mile from home.

Happy Moss

I went to my most regular woodland sit spot,

the place where when I go there I feel like I am coming home,

home unto myself.  The Self that is everything and nothing at once.

Where the flowing waters wash my spirit clean.

Microcosm within Macrocosm

Tiny fungal start

As soon as I came in from my couple-hour-ramble-through-the-woods it started absolutely pouring, a full-on deluge.  I feel I am on the "right" schedule when my timing is this impeccable.  I was not dressed to be caught out in it; but I was in the moment and willing to take the chance.

 

"Come forth into the light of things; let nature be your teacher"

- Wordsworth

 

This Sycamore tree in the next picture is such a great example of strength and perseverance. Over years the stream has flooded and carved out the earth that used to hold its roots, but still it remains out in the open, exposed and only half supported, but still full of life.

Seeming to sit, perched in the air.

Witch's Butter Brewing

Now that I am constructing this blog, it has turned into a thunder storm with crashes and flashes right outside the window.  This has happened the past couple of winters, but never in my life before, thunderstorms in winter.  "The times they are a changin'."

I am sad to see that there are areas of these woods where the ground, the fertile seedbed of tomorrow, is covered with the invasive Bittersweet berries/seeds (picture above).  This plant was not noticeably here when I moved here over 18 years ago and now it pervades.  It is not readily edible or medicinal, being more on the poison end of the spectrum and wild life does not seem to favor it.  I hope it's not the next Kudzu, because it'd be worse - at least Kudzu is a great edible/medicinal plant.  This next picture shows Sycamore seeds - a beloved tree and one of my first tattoos.

 “I only went out for a walk 

and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, 

for going out, I found, was really going in.”

- ​John Muir

Lake Rorschach

A language as old as these hills

 Update:  The thunderstorm resulted in losing electricity mid-blog, and for 5 hours.  This always drives home how much I/we rely on electricity.  Candles were lit and books read!