In deep gratitude to all of you for being you.
Saturday, 31 December 2011
Tuesday, 20 December 2011
Christmas Quickie! (an Easy Oxymel Recipe)
A blog post especially for Poppy Swappers!
~~~~~
Rushing at the last second? I won't even keep you with long-winded writing. My kids and I whipped up this beautiful, delicious, and easy oxymel yesterday for neighbors and friends ..... you can too! It took us less than an hour.
{An oxymel is an herbal preparation using a combination of vinegar and honey as the menstruum. It's delicious and very useful, as well as being a very forgiving recipe to make - anyone can make an oxymel (also known as "shrub" by some) at home}
Here's what to grab at the store:
- 1 case (one dozen) 8oz food grade sauce jars or canning jars
- 2 bottles of Apple Cider Vinegar, 32 ounces each (a total of 64 ounces)
- 32oz (4 cups) by volume of Honey
- One large-ish chunk of ginger, enough for about 2 slices per jar (total of 24 slices)
- One lemon (we used an in season Meyer lemon - yum!)
- You will need dried (or frozen if you gather) elderberries, about half a cup's worth (maybe less). If you don't have some at home, see if your health food store has them in their bulk herb section. If you're stuck and cannot find them, don't fret - use little frozen blueberries or dried cherries! Oxymels are super-versatile - and for skeptical neighbors, they'll be healthy without even knowing why ;)
TO MAKE:
Add to each bottle/jar:
- 3 tsp berries
- one slice lemon
- two slices ginger
Mix the honey and vinegar together in a large container, and after thoroughly combined, pour it into each bottle, giving some head room at the top for a little swelling action from the herbs.
Label and give! Your recipient can opt to wait until it gets stronger and use it in a couple weeks, but with the fresh ingredients there will be a lovely taste after just one day.
Q: "What the heck is this for?" (Likely the very words from my neighbors lips when they get this)
A: "It's excellent for curing heartburn; take a little spoonful before and after your meal. It's also delicious on salads, and is a wondrous cough and cold remedy; sip a tablespoon in a cup of hot water! Feel free to strain out the herbs if you wish. Happy Holidays!"
 |
| My silly monkeys :) |
Ta-Da!!
xoxoxo
Saturday, 10 December 2011
Early Registration for Weaving the Wheel of the Year is Dec 15!
"The mother of us all, the oldest of us all, Hard, splendid as rock, let the beauty you love, be what you do. There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the earth"~ Rumi ~
The Early Bird registration date for Weaving the Wheel of the Year is approaching this week! Anyone who registers by Dec 15 is going to receive a sweet welcome gift package right around Yule time! If you've been thinking of joining in for the journey, don't wait, and get started with your connection to yourself- to the Earth- and to Spirit in the season of Yule!
Weaving the Wheel of the Year
Do you feel the seasonal shifts of the Earth in your heart, bones, and spirit?
Are you yearning to find meaningful ways to connect with and honor these energies of the Earth and your spirit?
Do you have a sense that the power and magic of the Earth and the plants is something you could tap into for your healing and well being?
Do you notice the ways that certain plants seem to become more vibrant and powerful at different times of the year?
Would you like to learn practical and effective ways to nourish and prepare your body, your home, and your spirit to live in tune with these seasonal cycles and shifts through food, herbal medicine, ritual, and community?
Do you feel like a kitchen goddess, who enjoys brewing up pots of soup, creative meals, herbal brews, and magical potions for your family and friends?
Are you ready to dive whole-heartedly into all this and more?
In this unique program you will receive an in-depth, hands on and heart-centered lesson and herbal medicine for each quarter and cross quarter day for a full year. That is 8 lessons and 8 seasonally appropriate herbal medicines to help you balance and attune to the energies of the earth happening around you and within you. Plus access to a community of like minded spirits, and specific practices and suggestions for you from me as you explore!
Then join me on a powerful journey deep into the medicine and power of the seasonal shifts that our beloved home, Earth, moves through each year. I have spent many years as an herbalist wandering the wild lands of the west- the deserts and mountains, and the east- forests and fields, watching, sensing, and learning about how the seasons, and the seasonal shifts effect our biology, our spirits, and our life journey. I have sat with the plants and learned so much from them through personal experience and communion. They have shared how to spiral into the energy of each season with plant medicine, with appropriate foods, with ritual and ceremony, and nature awareness. My life has been deeply changed and fully nourished by sitting on the Earth and feeling her power and her moods. Now I would like to share this experience and journey with you- so that you too may be deeply nourished from Gaia’s healing plants, foods and energies.
In this unique program you will receive an in-depth, hands on and heart-centered lesson and herbal medicine for each quarter and cross quarter day for a full year. That is 8 lessons and 8 seasonally appropriate herbal medicines to help you balance and attune to the energies of the earth happening around you and within you. Plus access to a community of like minded spirits, and specific practices and suggestions for you from me as you explore!You will recieve every 6 weeks (8 times per year):
- 1 seasonally appropriate herbal medicine to help you attune and adjust to the seasonal energy (2 oz tincture, 2 oz tea, 1 plant or flower essence, 2 oz oil or salve)
- 1 surprise gift for your ceremony, practice or celebration of each season
- A lesson jam packed with information about the seasonal energies present at each quarter and cross quarter day, plants and herbal medicines that can support you in each seasons energy and work, seasonally appropriate activities to do alone or with your family, journaling questions and more.
- Periodic emails highlighting special natural events, shifts, and resources as you work within the program.
- Access to a private community web space to share your discoveries, challenges and inspirations and stay in touch through the years changes.
- A private teleconference for participants only each 6 weeks with Darcey on a seasonally appropriate topic and Q&A session.
If you are ready to discover your deep and powerful connections with the rhythms of the Earth and her seasons through herbal medicine, healing foods, and time spent on the Earth, then join me today for this amazing journey!
Program begins on Imbolc/St. Brighid’s Day, February 1, 2012 and continues through mid January 2013. Space is limited in this unique and transformative journey, and will close early if all the spaces fill before the deadline!
Registrations accepted through Jan 15, 2012.
Ready to sign up right now!?
Class: Love Medicines: Herbs for the Heart, Love, & Romance
The Power of 9
Join herbalist Darcey Blue for an evening exploring and experiencing the plants that serve us in our LOVE. Plants can help us center our consciousness in the heart, open the heart to love, heal and soothe heartaches, stoke the fires of love and passion, and increase the power of the senses.
Come learn about these special plants, essences, aromas and foods that are heart healers, heart allies & aphrodisiacs and how they can support your heart in Love and beyond. We will be tasting and experiencing the herbs first hand! Be prepared for a sensual treat! 
$35
Prepayment and register by contacting Darcey Blue -shamana.flora@gmail.com
Friday, 9 December 2011
Class:The Art of Healing Herbal Tea
The Power of 9
Join herbalist Darcey Blue for an afternoon learning the secrets of blending delicious and effective herbal tea blends for daily nourishment, family wellness, acute care, and pure pleasure!
We will learn about what kinds of plants are best used in tea form, various tea preparation methods, how to blend for taste, recipes, basic formulation techniques, herbal energetics and each student will get to take home a tea blend that we make during the workshop!
Plus we'll get a chance to taste various herbs and tea blends! An herbal tea party! Tea making supplies provided at the workshop, please bring your own mug for our tea tasting party!
$35, includes tea making supplies
Prepayment and register by contacting Darcey Blue -shamana.flora@gmail.com
Saturday, 3 December 2011
Home is where the Heart is....
Here I sit- on the verge of embarking on another cross country journey (in winter no less), another move (the 5th in the last two years), and another resettling, resetting, creating, crafting, dreaming of my life. I'm going home.
For many years I hesitated to call the desert land I lived in for almost 10 years home. I told myself that I didn't want to stay there forever. But, I did everything I knew how to root myself deeply in that land- learning the wild medicines, the wild foods, the plants that stood sentinel in the desert valleys and mountain peaks, drinking the rain water, returning to the same tree and same exposed mountain top to outpour my sorrows, and to receive the life flow from the Earth. Because as an Earth daughter- that is what makes me whole, this is what keeps me sane in this insane time.
And then I left it all behind- for love, for learning, for a journey that would take me deep into the depths of despair, take me to the breaking point, and that would leave me totally empty and drained- and that would fill me up with new loves, the sweetest friendships, the beginning understanding of all the ways I can share what I love with the world, the ways that i have the power to create everything i need and want- the miraculous embrace of green, wet, fertile earth and tree guardians all around. Sweet birch trees- sexy, gentle, vibrant ladies of the wood - insisted on living inside me, in my head all the time. Wild secluded river sanctuaries begging me to bare skin and surrender to cold, cleansing flow.
And as I sit today- all my possessions, all my medicines packed away in giant box to be shipped cross country,
I'm crying for what I am choosing to leave behind again. I know that none of it is lost to me, I carry it in my heart. This is home too.
But I long for the land I am native to, that grew me into the plant whisperer I am today, that holds my life history, my heart history.
To some it might seem silly to feel attatched to a place. I could make my life wherever I choose. In time.
but i'm choosing- because its what my heart cried out for for months and months on end. I belong to the Earth- no matter where I am, but my soul longs for that deepest, wildest connection with the land I love.
But- I know that my heart is in so many places- all at once. it lives in the wild trees of eastern forests, it lives on that ravaged and rewilding piece of land protected by hawthorn and fae in maine, it lives in the most precious friendships i've known, it lives in desert peaks, it lives in saguaro flowers and cactus fruits, it lives in a wild southwestern canyon, in lives in the lovers i have known, near and far, old and new, it lives in the moonlight that shines down on the fecund body of Gaia each night.
I almost don't know how to hold it all...how to breathe with my heart living in so many places, so many people, so many lands, so many rivers, so many plants. So i guess that means my home is everywhere....maybe it really doesn't matter where i go. my heart is of the earth...it lives everywhere that i have loved, lived and been authentically me.
I shall build a temple
to every land I have loved with my deepest heart
to every water course that has caressed my skin
to every fallen trunk I have straddled between my legs
to each wild tree that has beckoned me to press my breast
against their firm body
to every lover’s skin I have tasted
to each steamy breath exhaled in reverence for beauty before me
to every anguished cry uttered to the wind to carry away
to every ardent kiss of warm sun on my body
to each rock that has begged to be touched with tender lust.
I shall build this temple in bones
with walls of muscle and sinew
with fountains overflowing with fertile blood
with my voice in song
and passionate drum throbbing of my heart.
My tears to purify, my breath to stoke the sacred fire
Each moment of blissful ecstasy the daily prayers
each agonizing moment of grief the offering and sacrifice.
I shall build this temple in my living body
that each cell become a testament to holy presence
that each morsel, each thought, each memory
be sanctified in its consumption.
That when I die my temple will live on in the fecund Earth
live on in the song in tree leaves
live on in the mystery of blooming flowers
live on in the magic of rapturous lovers in the moonlight.
I shall build a temple to a sacred
Life.
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