Love and Beauty at my Doorstep

This piece is the first of three articles I wrote for Susun Weeds' Wise Woman eMagazine ind 2008. You can read all three installments here...http://www.susunweed.com/herbal_ezine/June08/goddess.htm

The Journey of the Rose
A Shamanic Herbal Tale in 3 parts ~ Part I

I am looking forward to the blooming of the wild roses this year. Each day making my way down into the yard to “check on them”. We have lived here on this land for just over three years. When we moved here in December of 2004, I remember one of the first things we did was to walk down into the wetland area. My husband was on this trek to “claim” the land he had chosen to steward. I was in search of plants. Who lives here? I saw the thickets of thorny bushes, but I didn’t yet know for sure they were roses.

Around 8 years ago, I discovered a magical place on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington where there are acres and acres of wild roses. I began to travel to this place to harvest the blooms in May/June and then the wild rose hips in October. Year after year I would make this pilgrimage to commune with rose. Wildcrafting wild rose blossoms is bewitching.

It begins like any other wildcrafting task..... asking, listening, thanking, plucking the blooms, sniffing here and there, tasting. But then as I continue, I find myself entering another world. Soon I am mesmerized by this thorny priestess; I am inside the realm of love and beauty. Peace abounds in this space. Loving myself is simple. Wild Rose tells me tales of how to love, who to love and how to teach love. This sacred space that beckons me, welcomes me is difficult to leave. It is soon time for me to stop harvesting so that I may get to the ferry before the last boat. Wild rose is saying pick me, pick me, more and more. I am pulling myself away from her, telling her I will return in fall to harvest her hips. I discover that even after I leave this space between the world, I can still travel there in feelings and sensations.

As spring came ‘round, our first spring here at our farm, I discovered the wild roses...still doubt sets in about whether it could possibly be true that I had chosen to live the rest of my life surrounded by this sorcière couverture. I made plans to travel to the Peninsula to harvest once again my beautiful blossoms. I returned to the spot where the wild roses spoke so loudly to me, seeking that feeling, craving the realm, hungry for it. The wild roses did speak loudly to me then and startled me. “What are you doing here?” they yelled. “You have roses on your land to harvest? You can harvest a few petals here and then you must return to your home and begin your journey there with wild rose.” I was heart broken or might I say that my heart was broken open at that moment. I realized that up until this time, I had to go seeking for love and beauty, I had to leave home to find it. Now I am being called to a simpler and yet more difficult task, to find love and beauty at my door step.

This year, I am restless to discover what wild rose will teach me. Her subtly, fragrant green leaves have already taken me in. Within her wise teachings, there is more difficulty in peeling away layers, in finding more love for myself and there is also laughter and singing to come.

May it be in Beauty.

There are three spaces left for...
The Journey of the Rose ~ Weekend Immersion in Shamanic Herbalism
May 29-30, 2010 ~ Amongst the blooming wild roses at our farm on Whidbey Island
Visit our website www.crowsdaughter.com for detailed information and to register and email us anytime.

The Green Teachings of the Fairies

“Green! ‘Tis the fairy garb of spring with million dew drops glistening.” Pedro Caulderon de la Barca, “Green and Blue”

It was just over five years ago that my husband Taddeusz and I came here to this land on Whidbey Island in Washington. We moved here from the rentals we had lived in for 7 years after selling our house in Seattle. Because we had moved so much, lived in so many places around Puget Sound, getting here to this place didn’t seem that significant at first. Another place to live, to discover, another adventure. What was to unfold as winter turned into spring could not have been known, but perhaps in the holy darkness of my psyche, I knew about the enchantment that was calling me forward.

I offered an herbal class at our farm the spring after moving here. As we walked on the land to discover the wild plant populations, one participant walked ahead of the rest of us. I saw her looking down at the ground and pointing. She said, “Look at this.” I came to the place where she stood and saw an old dead tree stump, quite small actually, with shelf mushrooms growing out of it. I knew immediately that this was the place where fairies dwelled. A gateway into their underworld sanctuary.

This place on our land became known as “The Fairy Dell” As spring came into her fullness, we discovered that “The Fairy Dell” was in the middle of a great thicket of wild roses. We told everyone who came to the land that this fairy sanctuary was off limits to humans, showing everyone where they could walk no further.

I didn’t know much about fairy lore. I had attended some talks given by R.J. Stewart and Dorothy Maclean at the Fairy and Human Relations Congress and listened intently. I read stories. And then I began to offer herbal mentorships for girls here at the farm. I did my journey work to discover what I could offer the girls. The fairies appeared in my journeys, giving me shamanic exercises in which the girls could connect with the unseen realm of these enchanted beings. The girls, ages 6-13 years old, understood the fairy language. They were delighted and seriously indulged in these experiences.

We listened, offered trinkets, libations and blessings. When the old tree fell over in a storm we created a staff with ribbons, herbs and beads to mark its place. It was this relationship that the girls had with the fairies that created a place in me to believe and to listen.

The fairy realm is intricatedly connected with the green world. A deva is a plant in its true and entire essence. Offered here are a few shamanic exercises in which you can discover the teachings of the fairies first hand right where you live.

This First Meditation/Journey can be done in a comfortable chair in your home:

• Close your eyes and find yourself at home outside in your garden or yard.
• Within this space, go to a plant with which you feel a connection.
• Notice your breath.
• Breathe in and out 3 time naturally.
• Now breathe and imagine you are breathing in the breath of this plant. Breathe out and offer your breath to the plant.
• Ask your plant, this plant, “What have you for me?” and listen.
• Now look down at the base of the plant where it comes out of the ground. Look for movement, as if you can see the wind.
• Acknowledge this as the fairy beings that dwell around this plant.
• Watch this energy move, and see if you can sense this energy communicating with you. What might it be telling you? Listen.
• When you sense this is complete, step back from the plant and acknowledge it by saying thank you.
• Open your eyes.

Activating the Fairy~Plant Connection: You are going to be activating the fairy~plant connection. The Devic realm will be honored and blessed. The magical realm of the plants will be activated. Fairies and Devas work together in the magical realm of the plants. This ceremony will open these realms. It can be done in each season.

• Fill a bowl with water, and place plants in it.
• Choose plants with which you feel a strong connection. Ask permission before gathering these plants and offer gratitude.
• Hold the bowl of water and plants in your hands.
• Breathe in and out, allowing the entireness of the plant to be breathed into you. As you breathe out, offer your entire self to the plant. Do this for 21 breaths.
• When this is complete, offer this water at the base of an old tree and offer gratitude to the fairies~devas~plants~water.

Song of the Birds: The fairies say that when you breath the song of the birds into your body, when you are in the garden or surrounded by plants, that you go to the place where plants walk around like humans and speak in the language you can understand.

• Find a place where you can sit and listen to the song of the birds.
• Close your eyes.
• Listen to the songs, breathe the songs into your body, feel it enter you body.
• Allow the song of the birds to take you to the unseen realm of the plants. And see what you discover.
• When you are home, cooking in your kitchen, open the window and allow the bird song into your kitchen. Breathe it in. This will bring the fairy energy into your home.

The connections with the fairy realm are not always light and fanciful. The fairies are powerful beings with strong intentions and will ask you to do things for them. Be strong in your own intentions as you begin this connection and trust your own intuition always.

May it be in Beauty.

First Printed in The Beltane Papers, Journal of Women's Mysteries, Spring 2009
www.thebeltanepapers.net

Guts and Sass

Maybe life just takes some guts and sass

To rub blindly up against the rough bark of a dream and laugh

at the furrowed trunk of growth and the rings

of years sustained amidst the pains of sins

pulling so hard on those reigns of belief, chaffed with will

power, your muscle of dreaming still

holds fast

without fail

without steering you

wrong

Maybe the chains of life's confinements

are glass and foil.

My dagger dreams come sharp

committed, mapped

like yours do

not trapped - they are wild, enraptured

entranced.

In this life we need guts

and sass

to run towards those mirrors of glass: they are lies

and trash. Run buffered by animal tallow and run

fierce

like Buffalo. Pierce

the shadows of crumpled foil and run

wild with dreams of your own

Recklessly owning your

own vision.

i listen

A rule for participants visiting our land and farm:
Do not to pick any plants or gather anything unless you ask me first.

please honor the land
come into relationship
with plant and animal
people grab and rip grass
seeds taken
tulip petal stolen
Crazy witch?

noticing grass
between my fingers
i greet my apple tree
she shares her wisdom
voices of the land
whispers of plants

a feather
on the ground
is this something
for me?
compassionate beings
changing me

breath
attention
intention
a whole world
opens

i listen

March Nature Observations

March 29-Drizzly rainy day after yesterday's blustery clouds.
March 28- Motherwort and catnip leaves beginning to show in N. Vermont!
March 26- Forsythia are starting to bloom in various spots
March 25 - Hard frost in the early morning
March 24 - Ice is melted completely on the pond at Robin Hood Park
March 22-23 Steady spring rain, and a little sleet
March 17- first crocuses, oaks starting to flower
March 15- Red Maples flowering down the road