The Portal of the Senses

The Portal of the Senses

Romancing the Plants

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I can’t seem to keep my nose out of anything. I smell my friends, my kitchen mugs, my mail, my cat ….. I may as well have born with whiskers. My sense of smell is on equal footing with the rest of my senses. Even though it doesn't drive my car or find my keys when they’re lost, they are without a doubt navigating me through life.

As I kneel by the cold rushing river with the newly warmed rays of sun beating down on my winter skin, I let the world enter my body. I deeply Inhale the effervescence of the humid air, I feel the resins lured from the bark by the warmth and reach wide from the tree trunks as if to court the fairies with their perfume, the earthly expressions of the moment speak to me in a wordless language. I am touched by the elements; the air in my eyelashes, the moss warming in my hand, the humming of stone, the secrets of the soil. Animated in my nerves is the life force of the land.

My pulse, perhaps synchronizing with the memories of drums or churning of magma. My iron blood hears stories in the rocks. Medicine drips, milky and bitter, from collected stems, sticking unapologetically to my fingers. Cleavers tags along on my hem, while thorns give warning to slow down. Soggy leaves hide waking pupa. It still might snow. It would be a cruel thing for the fruit trees, but humbling yet again for us two-leggeds with the curse of hubris. In the meantime, my mouth gives health orders:  green, yellow, sharp, salty, sour and bitter! I listen. I eat.

In the same way my eyes feast on flowers and my skin drinks in rivers, my skin dessert is touch and my emotions ride the waves of ecstasy through plant oils. Delicate honeyed Elder flowers, sexy Jasmine absolute, the enlightenment of Rose attar, and the seduction of a good, dark patchouli. I’m servant to the muse and the nuance of emotional evocation. Goddesses call to me, stories write themselves, images dance in my mind. My heart pumps and moves closer to the little bottles of heaven, asking for more. More linden, more fir, more amber. Yes.

Rapture of the senses lets me sink. Beyond the forces of duty, of chore, of old wounds. Sinking like a shaman’s journey down a wet root into a sacred spring where the wise woman waits. She touches my throat with her herbal wand, invites me to rest my burdens in the salty pool. Gems and singing minerals glisten as I breathe. I breathe in the memories of Juniper. The touch of tulsi on my arms and legs. The splash of the water ceremony and lingering smoke of palo santo. Memories of Artemisia bundles and blue glass bowls and women shivering and hugging and laughing. Sandalwood oil soft on my feet helps me stand. I’m wrapped in a warm flax blanket and handed a blank book, with a wooden pencil. In my portal, through my senses, I am taught, healed, loved, touched, safe, connected, and ripe with possibility. Experience becomes play, skill flirts with luck, and joy sneaks up on me often.

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xo

Ananda

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For pleasure medicine or a sensory journey of your own, see my new botanical perfumes at my Aromatic Apothecary:

Cocoa ~ Rose ~ Ambrette

Elderflower ~ Rose ~ Silver Fir 

Gaia's Cold Shoulder: Coping With Winter, Nourishing for SADness (a mini-anthology of remedies)

It's that time again

I'm sure you've noticed.

When the leaves flutter from the bark 

and the skies lilt. 

Do you have a sit spot to visit? 

Have you claimed a favorite tree to befriend for the cold season? 

Are you making steamy hot soup? 

Do you have a support system?

If you are anything like me (or how I was for most of my life) you might be crankily bracing yourself for the worst. Once you are forced to put your wool socks on (while everyone is talking about how stinkin' "cozy" they are and what sweater they'll knit next) you are grumbling in agony and despair. The coming of winter feels like a loss - of half your year, of your sanity, of your enjoyment of life, all the green and flowering friends you have frolicked with all summer. Dammit. *just* when you finally got that glowing olive tan, you've got to put on a long sleeved shirt! Hmph.

It's like a dark curtain descending upon you and all you want to do is sleep until spring.

Right? I know. It sucks.

I know deep inside you wish you could be all cheery and gleeful and excited about going out to pick apples on a crisp day or planning a holiday meal with your family.

But if even the mere thought of skiing or Christmas or snow makes you want to hurl, I feel ya. You're not crazy or dark or disturbed. You're a perfectly beautiful, normal, feeling human. And not alone.

If you're bundled up and warm enough to hang out with me a little longer here at this keyboard (grab the fingerless gloves and some tea, ok?) I'd love to share with you a mini-anthology of winter highlights that have helped me bond more deeply with my New England land and make deeper peace with the Seasons.

By sharing, I simply offer up any of these as possibles for you to try - as warming distractions, challenging initiatives, invitations to deeper Earth Intimacy, fun explorations ...... but most of all, to offer a glimmer of possible peace with the "w" word.

I'm not entirely there .... but there are more things in winter that now I actually look forward to. One of my first winter allies was the Cottonwood Tree:

COTTONWOOD TREE ALLY

Scaling down on Holiday Expectations was a biggie:

THE UNDERBELLY OF YULE

And an Article I wrote for Plant Healer Magazine

GAIA'S COLD SHOULDER - The Betrayal and Loyalty of Winter

Using Art to transform pain to ease, ugly to beautiful .... with my camera!

PHOTOGRAPHING ASPEN TREES

May your seasonal toolbag be full, dear one.

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Please note: All writing is copyright Ananda Wilson and may be circulated online in it's original link carrier (Plant Journeys.com) or linked to from another website with credit and captions or quotes, but may otherwise not be copied, reproduced, distributed or reprinted in any manner without express written permission of the author. Thank you for respecting my writing and intellectual property. May it serve you well.
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What Nourishes You Most Deeply? Are You Listening? (Four keys and four herbs for October transitions)

I Know The Way You Can Get 

I know the way you can get 

When you have not had a drink of Love: 

 Your face hardens, Your sweet muscles cramp. 

Children become concerned 

About a strange look that appears in your eyes 

Which even begins to worry your own mirror 

And nose. 

Squirrels and birds sense your sadness

And call an important conference in a tall tree. 

They decide which secret code to chant 

To help your mind and soul. 

 --Hafiz, excerpt

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Did your heat come on this morning? Did you feed the wood stove?

Mine came on for the first time of the season. I smelled the metallic air when I woke, and I knew to grab socks and a sweater.

There was a misty haze of cold dew along the fields, and a quietness of busy people slightly more withdrawn.

The poetry of the horizon speaks of geese pushing time and of leaves blushing red and setting sail.

There is much work of medicine and magic to be done, still.
I feel the stirring of our ancestors asking more of us, and the longing of the Earth for more response-ability.

I watch the squirrel heed these laws every time he digs to bury a nut.

Nature calls us to heed rhythms.

Are you listening? What do you hear?

Four Keys and Four Herbs for October Transitions:

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Temperature:
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How is the temperature in your body? Do you wake feeling cold, hot, or uncomfortably mixed? What do you do support your comfort?


Ginger
Ginger root helps to warm our circulation and regulate our 'triple heater', making temperature adaptation easier for our bodies. Instead of hot cocoa, try a cup of gently simmered fresh ginger root, with a little bit of honey. Or, make ginger root hot cocoa :)


Daylight and Moonlight:
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How is your rest & activity feeling? Are you sleepier or more energized than you were in the summer?

Seaweed
Seaweed is mineral rich giving our bodies the ability to be fully awake, and fully asleep, at the appropriate times. Seaweed is also brimming with both lunar and solar energies .... as it is fed by the sun and nourished by the moon and her watery tides. As perhaps the fastest growing vegetation in the world, seaweed feeds our wholeness and ability to be strong during periods of growth and change.


Your muse:
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How is your creative self? Engaged, disowned, tired, longing or restless? Your sense of divine connectedness to your life and your daily expressions of self? Your time for self care and reflection, meditation, or nourishing touch?

Cardamom
Cardamom is just sensual. It's sweet and spicy, gentle and strong, loving and clear. Cardamom in my warm milk, on my warm apple compote, or in a spicy soup, cardamom just makes me feel inspired. I often combine it with my other favorite muse herbs like Damiana and Kava Kava, but on her own she can re-awaken the imagination and playful self. When our senses and our mind are both playing, we can experience intense creative satiation.


Your footing:
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Do you feel steady, sure footed, and solid? Or frail and precarious? Are you the river, or are you the glass bottle floating down the river, headed for rapids? What is the message in your glass bottle, waiting to be freed, so that you may flow?

Burdock
Burdock to me is a water root. Dug from the wet earth and cooked in soups we are centered deeply in our water-bone humanness. We become grounded, centered, yet not stagnant. Burdock root nourishes our ability to be stable in our bodies, in our truth-speaking, and in our hearts.

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Perhaps you open my newsletter or blog expecting to be more formally taught about herbs.

By now you've probably realized that isn't entirely how I roll.

I could teach you about just herbs, but if you don't have the willingness to listen to your body, herbs aren't going to do much.


I don't teach answers, I teach questions.

I give possibility and options and resources and catalysts .... the answers belong to you. Answers can change over time.

And our bodies are part of nature. In listening to nature, we hear our bodies. In listening to our bodies, we hear nature.

In being honest about our senses, intuitions, impulses, and callings, we access a deep and perhaps ancestral strength that can empower our lives in profound and meaningful ways.

My wish for you is to continually have access to, and connection with, your true source.

May you have a blessed day, dear one.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Methow Valley Herbs 

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Beauty Blessings,

Ananda

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