The beet is the ancient ancestor of the autumn moon

The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious.

Slavic peoples get their physical characteristics from potatoes, their smoldering inquietude from radishes, their seriousness from beets.

The beet is the melancholy vegetable, the one most willing to suffer. You can’t squeeze blood out of a turnip . . .

The beet is the murderer returned to the scene of the crime. The beet is what happens when the cherry finishes with the carrot. The beet is the ancient ancestor of the autumn moon, bearded, buried, all but fossilized; the dark green sails of the grounded moon-boat stitched with veins of primordial plasma; the kite string that once connected the moon to the Earth now a muddy whisker drilling desperately for rubies.

The beet was Rasputin’s favorite vegetable. You could see it in his eyes.

In Europe there is grown widely a large beet they call the mangel-wurzel. Perhaps it is mangel-wurzelthat we see in Rasputin. Certainly there is mangel-wurzel in the music of Wagner, although it is another composer whose name begins, B-e-e-t—.

Of course, there are white beets, beets that ooze sugar water instead of blood, but it is the red beet with which we are concerned; the variety that blushes and swells like a hemorrhoid, a hemorrhoid for which there is no cure. (Actually, there is one remedy: commission a potter to make you a ceramic asshole—and when you aren’t sitting on it, you can use it as a bowl for borscht.)

An old Ukranian proverb warns, “A tale that begins with a beet will end with the devil.”

That is a risk we have to take.

~Tom Robbins

The Best Medicines

The Best Medicines are the ones that nourish our bodies, have little or no side effects, are available to all of us, and prevent as well as soothe symptoms and restore our bodies back to our natural balance of health.

Laughter-Love-Positive Energy: For me these three are a given. When you surround yourself with these three things beautiful there is a special kind of healing that is more powerful than we give credit to.

Touch: As a massage therapist one of the first things we learned in school was the Gate Control Theory: this is the simple idea that touch, makes everything feel better. Its the reason why we immediately touch a wound or place of pain. It’s why mom rubs our tummies! I recently had a friend I care very much about tell me, his mother never rubbed his tummy when he was sick! I was astounded and sad! The power of touch is a force to be reckoned with.

Herbs: mmmmmmmmmmm Over the past 9 months the deep beliefs I had held onto became validated. There is an herb that can help our bodies in almost any way that common drugs can.  little to 0 side effects and the pleasure of meeting the plant spirits that come with them. while I still feel new to this modality  of healing it seems as though I have been doing it for centuries. There is an ancient ache that calls me to this practice, it is the eyes of my classmates and the heart in my chest that I find a deep knowing that Mother Nature is our best Medicine.

The flower that lives above the clouds

Long Long ago when the flowers first awoke to life on dear Mother Earth, each got to choose the color of it’s petals and live wherever it chose.

          “I will cover the ground and make the bare soil happy with bright green blades” Cried the Grass

“I will live in the fields and by Roadsides” laughed the Daisy.

“I too” Echooed the buttercup, the cornflower, the poppy and the clover.

“Oh give me the ponds and the lakes” the water lilly called

“and let us have the streams and the marshes” begged the Irises & Cowslips

“We love the shaded woodland spots near our friends the ferns”lisped the shy forget-me-nots and violets

“And we wish to be loved within the gardens” declared the Roes, and the pansies.

“I love the warm dry sun, So I will go to the sandy desert” Called out the cactus.

Soon all places within mother nature had been filled with the beauty and medicine of the flowers and herbs except the bare ridges of the high Mountains. For no plants wished to venture to such cold and desolate places. “there is not enough warmth, there is not enough food, it is so bare and chilly” They all decided “ let the gray moss go and cover the rocks”

The gray moss did not like this idea “ How can I live without moisture, warmth or nourishment? Surely the bleak places of the mountains must do without flowers. How foolish it would be to try and make the ragged mountain tops lovely?”

But the Gray moss had not yet chosen a place to live and everything else was taken.

So the gray moss climbed over the bare rocks and beyond the places where the forests ceased to grow. All was desolate and silent up there. Up higher and higher he crept until he reached the jagged rocks above the clouds covered in ice and snow. There he stopped short in amazement.

For quietly clinging to the crags and blossoming was a gentle star shaped flower. It was as white as the snow and its heart was soft and yellow. So cold was it atop the mountain the little flower had covered its leaves in soft wool to keep warm and alive despite the bleakness.

“Oh!” Cried the gray moss in surprise. “ Who are you? What are you doing here where there is no warmth, no moisture, no nourishment? We are high above the forests, even higher than the clouds. Did the others make you come here like they have made me?”

The little starry flower nodded in the chill wind “welcome, I am Edelweiss, I came here on my own, quietly. I came because the mountains needed me. A blossom that might brighten this solitude, for there are no flowers up here but me.”

The edelweiss is closer to a star than to the daisy, the buttercup, or the rose.  It holds a special place in the hearts of those who have courage, those who dare to seek it out high above the clouds, where it grows ever gladly. They call it Nobel White- Edelweiss! Love, like Edelweiss, knows self-sacrifice.

A special note: I did not write this story, I merely adapted a version that I found. I have yet to find out who the real author of the story is or if this is just a legend passed down to children. Should you know the original author, please let me know so that i can give proper credit.

Herbal Intuition~ The importance of your own journey

“It is through science that we prove, but through intuition that we discover.” – Henri Poincare

I was recently asked how I knew that herbalism worked. Was I certain it wasn’t all just hocus pocus, and how did I know? My first instinct was to get all of my facts together, to try and find all of the research and scientific studies about the chemical components that made up each plant and how they reacted with our bodies. I started typing up the information about how many of our modern medicines really came from the herbs and plants I now keep in my kitchenn, but then…… Then I realized that wasn’t my answer. That was not how I knew that all of the plants I had just fallen in love with was not hocus pocus. Sure there are studies, but the person asking could have very easily looked them up herself, so to answer how I knew, meant I had to throw all of that information to the side for a moment.

The truth is I know because I know. I have not just read about these herbs from a text book, or listened to a lecture about their ability to raise my vibration. It is much more simple than that. I have sat with these herbs, I have invited them into my home, which is my body, and I have asked them for guidance. I have drank them, ate them, smelled them, covered my body with them, soaked in them, prayed to them and with them, meditated with them, and watched others as they had done the same. I have witnessed others find joy in and connect with these herbs in such powerful and intimate ways. Some of us connecting strongly with particular herbs while others finding their medicine with herbs my body is not ready for, or does not need. I remember the first time that as a class we had experienced pine resin. Each of us reading back from your journals “It feels like coming home” almost like clockwork the majority of our group had written down the same phrase individually/privately about the herb. I think of Nettles who some people fell in love with right away, yet I couldn’t get passed the first few sips. This medicine was NOT for me, NOT YET, according to my intuition. While everyone balked at the bitterness of Blue Vervain, my father who was in much need of her medicine, didn’t find it bitter at all.

It seems as though each of us are different, we all experience things in different ways, and we all are in need of different medicines. We may indeed use the same herb for very different reasons, and it is here where the importance of knowing our own bodies becomes evident. Using our own intuition, listening to the needs of our own bodies and how they react to a particular plant is paramount in our own healing. All healing is self healing and therefore we, our individual selves must play a part in our own journey to wellness.

My My My Miss Peach

 Well My my my Miss Peach,

I can’t believe I have forgotten just how intoxicating your scent can be. Has it been so long since I have spent the day with my hands all over those leaves of yours? Blissed out and your green love stained upon my skin for days.

YES! That delicate fragrance of yours has become a part of me. It stirs awake that which has been kept quiet and still, and I long to drink you down warm and slow.

Protectors of the Earth

Disconnected. We are a culture of people who are disconnected from the Earth. We rely on Walmart and shopping centers to provide our meals and write angry letters to supermarket managers when they are out of our favorite boxed cereal. We have no idea how long it took for that orange to make it into town. We no longer worry when the rain  decides to stay too long among the clouds or whether or not the cows have been fed properly. We only know what we read on labels and the sensationalism in the media. We’ve all scanned the articles calling out Monsanto and our decisions about GMO’s are based on the majority of our most annoying facebook friends not on facts. Our attention is glued to the bright little screens that contain our whole world and the real world …… is completely ignored.

Change is slow

And when so many voices are yelling out to be heard all that becomes audible are muffles. Again the world is completely ignored. One person, one moment, one conscience decision to make a difference. Mother Nature bides her time, she makes her changes slowly, subtly and with the power or persistence. For it is in haste that destruction follows, Tornadoes, Volcanoes, Earthquakes, Landslide, but the colors of a sunset take their time, and the growing of our trees moves slowly. So must we.

Deliberately choosing to make our own contributions, our own subtle movements. Through acknowledgement, Through Prayer, Through Gratitude and Ritual.   By making peace with own place on this beautiful planet, by Joy and by action. Making our own choices to do better…be better and finally sharing this with our kindred spirits. One by one, two by two until we all finally stop to notice soil beneath our feet and the blue above our heads is actually our “real world”

Dear Rose

How your hugs have touched me so. Rising from the soft moist dirt, reaching for me, as if Mother Earth herself seeks to embrace me through you arms. I have breathed in those hugs. Warm. Fragrant, Your scent like a cloud of armor wrapped around my soul. I have lived in those hugs! Cried in safety and soothed my bleeding wounds with the softness of you loving petals. And there you’ve held me, healed me. Sacred and loved! Unconditionally! And even in your absence you stay within my heart, gentle yet strong and remind me: I Am Enough!

For there in my heart you will always have a home

 Oh Yes for there in my heart you will always have a home.