Herb Journal: Yerba De La Negrita (New Mexican Globe Mallow)

I'm just going to start off as saying: YUMMMMM, I really like this herbal tea. It smells amazing, first of all. This is the first thing I noticed, as some herbs are much more aromatic than others, and then there is the case of, well does it smell good? Hmmm... okay that aside, this is a good tea. Just yummy. It has a yellow-greenish color, and is incredibly warming to the heart as well as to the body. It is what i needed, right now, at this moment, for whatever reason. But lets dig deeper. Why does this feel so good to me? It tastes kind of nutty, for one. It is the first in a while in the course of doing this journal, where i wanted another cup, immediately. The tea that we made is full on. It's got the bark, stems, leaves and flowers. This makes it complete in a way that a lot of the other herbs we have been sampling have not. It would be really interesting to try the tea of dandelion leaves with the root, as well as yerba mansa leaves and root, for example. I'm guessing it would perhaps have a much more wholesome flavor, well-rounded, as perhaps is this tea. And it is making me wonder, if perhaps that is the best way to make teas in the future, even if the root, branch, leaf or flower has a different effect, wouldn't it be wonderful to just at least try each tea, with all of it's ingestible elements.. altogether, just to get the full picture. Love it, and this will be one of my future projects. For now, again, one of my favorite teas. Interestingly enough my favorite teas that I have sampled in the past several, have been used in Native American culture as "protective herbs" having sort of magical powers to protect a person in various circumstances. No wonder these herbs are so good to me. We all have vulnerabilities. Mine is that I am sometimes thrown off.. very far, by emotional issues that arise, especially when they are unexpected, creating a certain fear, shock, hurt and trauma. The cure is to feel safe, loved, and to be able to release, which is something I scramble to do, but can't help but to be like a hurt puppy dog, licking my wounds and not finding the way to just kick them out of my mind/heart/body. So to me, the herbs that are seen as protective, motherly some might say, are the ones that heal my heart. As of now, I need some love, and if herbs, that are living, thriving, breathing things, and have each their own energetics, can bring their life force to me, and help me to deal with grief, I am althemore grateful. Interestingly enough, both this herb and yucca have been tremendously to my liking very recently, and they are both used in the Southwest as cleansing agents (as soaps, shampoos), and metaphorically, as I feel I need some cleansing of my mind, as there were some pretty disturbing thoughts and images that I have been struggling with this past week or so, it does make sense. I need a "limpia" ... of my soul, bring me back to mother earth, to the state of my innocence that I feel at this moment in time, is lost and blighted. Mucilaginous, soothing, moistening, cooling.. and sweet. Just what the doctor ordered. Thank you Globemallow, for being my friend and ally today. I will hold you dear to my heart. 

Herb Journal: Yucca

Yucca has a light uplifting nuance. It is soft on the tongue and the tastebuds, and hearty as well. It is, afterall, a nutritive plant, as it is something that is eaten in several different places in the world, as a staple carbohydrate. The tea feels like it's rich in vitamins and minerals. Like a liquid meal. The taste is kind of sweet but refreshing. It's sudsy, which is kind of funny, because it makes it look as if its carbonated. But its this fizz that made it something that has been used (along with the fibers that can scrub things to clean) as a soap and shampoo, as well as just a basic cleanser for what have you. Energetically it lifts my spirits, makes me feel literally lighter. My mood is brighter and my problems less menacing. Suddenly the sun looks brighter, my day looks longer (in a good, productive way) and I feel more sound, altogether. Probably because I didn't eat much today, the yucca helped my body by integrating its nutritive value, protein, beta carotene... and perhaps the pain killing/anti-inflammatory benefits of even its small amount of salicin helped the headache I've been fighting the past few days.

Herb Journal: Dandelion Leaf

Dandelion Leaf: It's funny, nobody thinks about dandelion in any way other than this pesky weed. I remember having an argument with my former roommate about this, and feeling angry when he was talking about all of the irritating weeds in the backyard, as well, I am studying herbal medicine, and I happen to know that these so-called weeds to which people so often refer with such contempt, are only undesireable when you look at plants for what you want them to do to beautify your lawn, yes, plants are beautiful, they help to purify the air, but these pesky weeds? poor unloved, misunderstood plants. They can make you healthy when you are sick, and you are tossing them in the garbage because they are ruining your landscape architecture. So it goes, this is why we are sick as a nation and as a world. We throw away plants that have tremendous health benefits and then drive to Walgreens to pick up our latest prescription. It is not the people's fault. What do they know? But I feel sorry for the lonely unloved dandelions, who are not only there to help your body, but also are there to actually aid your gardening efforts. Well, dandelion tea, it is a pretty yellowish-green color, it tastes pretty good, and it has a strengthening effect on your life force, meaning it is a strengthener, well of course, it is, actually a nutritive herb, and thus a blood strengthener. It tastes sort of sweet, and somewhat mellow. A  nice flavor, and one I can say is a pleasurable tea to drink. It gets your fluids flowing, as it is a "bitter" herb, although that is not its ovewhelming characteristic in my opinion, it stimulates bile secretion and makes you salivate... a lot. Dandelion leaf is AWESOME. It contains tons of calcium and vitamin C and iron, it can be like a daily multivitamin, plus it tastes good, controls cholesterol, helps with type 2 diabetes, PMS, stimulates kidneys and liver function, reduces inflammation, and is a all around basic detoxifier. This herb is so incredibly useful for so many things, I have used it often, in so many different formulas, from calcium and iron nutritional supplements, to chlorophyll blood alkalizing formulas, to external healing salves. This is one of those stock herbs to keep on hand, if you are going to treat yourself herbally for various issues that arise. 

Herb Journal: Cota (Navajo Tea, Indian Tea, Greenthread)

Cota: I almost want to issue a sincere apology to whoever thinks that cota is so great. I know that it is the tea of several native american tribes in the Southwest and people drink it like its water, or coffee, and they just love it so much. To that I have to say, I just dont get it. Not that it's terrible, it's not. but its definitely not my cup of tea. It just isn't all that. There are a lot of teas that I would rather drink on a daily basis than this one, that have a wonderful aroma, taste and sensuality. So, cota, the tea is orange. That in and of itself makes me laugh, don't ask me why. Out of all of the plants that we have seen, I just thought that cota was the weirdest  looking one, and that is certainly not a bad thing in my book, but it stands out, these long long long stems, like giraffes, with a tiny head on top. How do they survive, these spaghetti like plants, they are so strange. But they do, and are the pleasure of the Hopi's, Navajo's and who knows however many other native tribes. I find it to be more or less devoid of flavor. Perhaps this is why I find it so bizarre. Before I discovered that the reason I never found myself interested in tea before was because it had never been made correctly, and as a result, I just found it something of a waste of time, in terms of taste.. it was just some hot water, with a tiny bit of almost imperceptible flavor, that i didn't even find so delicious in the slightest, and therefore, just a waste of my time. I might as well just drink hot water. And I dont like to do this, so I just stuck to things that brought me more pleasure, and that felt like I was accomplishing something reasonable by drinking it (if only sensory, but that is a big part of our pleasure in life). Cota in other terms, is very drying, that is the sensation that I have. If I need an antiviral, cancer preventive or bactericide, I think I will defer to lemon balm, red clover, and any number of antibacterial teas that i actually find some reward in imbibing. So, I tossed the rest of the cup, I have never been able to drink a full cup of this tea. But you are an interesting looking little plant, I have to say, Cota, like the little plant that could.. 

Herb Journal: Yerba Mansa

From the start, I always just found it strange the way the herb was spelled. I guess, knowing Spanish, it seemed strange, because, well, the word herb is hierba in Spanish, and so, what's with this yerba stuff? Are we that dumb that we can't even spell it right, we have to make it into whatever it sounds like to us? Rhetorical. Then someone informed me, and I'm still not entirely sure if this is true or not, that even in Latin America, these herbs are spelled Yerba, at times, well, such as Yerba Mate, so, well, okay then, but for some reason, it still makes me twitch. I have learned to love yerba mansa, not for its flavor.. noooooo, but because it seems to be the go to herb for things that have been pestering me the past few months. At first, I didn't want to listen, to be honest, because I just wasn't familiar with it, and as it is used quite often as a substitute for goldenseal, I didn't get it. I know that goldenseal and echinacea are the "immune boosting" herbs, but what did this have to do specifically with this irritation I was having in my uterus. Well, after using Tomas' tincture that he made specifically for my condition, which co-starred yerba mansa, and his advice as well to chug yerba mansa tea as often as I could, I started to see why. I was feeling better, and well, there's no better testimony than that. I started to just infuse the root in water and always keep a mason jar of it in the fridge, drinking it then filling it up again, it just became my drink, basically, along with ocotillo, osha root, chapparal, rosemary and pine tar infused water. I would just take turns, drinking a mason jar of each, and in the meantime let the others steep. These herbs are all antimicrobial, and at least I felt some relief after drinking all of those listed. They were altogether anti-inflammatory as well, but a few had some unwanted side effects. The pine tar water was making me spit up phlegm, and it became a nuisance. Well, of course, it's an expectorant. The chaparral was making me incredibly constipated. Well of course, its super drying and astringent. yerba mansa became my daily friend, and I have really come to appreciate it's immense power and beauty. If you leave it soaking in water for long enough, it tints the water red, and if you make a decoction, it becomes a dark red. The decoction is powerful, but as I felt that I just really needed to chug as much water as I could, not sip sort of distinctive and uncomfortable teas as much as I know I probably should have, I just infused everything in water, and it was more palatable to me. I still have yet to use yerba mansa for deuching, probably more than anything just because the situation has been so unpredictable, so many things that have brought me relief from infections, in particular, in the past, were just NOT WORKING in this situation, some actually making me feel worse, and the pain has been unbearable at times. The problem is, that once you put something in your vagina, well, you just really can't undo it. My acupuncturist gave me a deuche solution, something she has had for a while and used successfully. I tried that once, so I suppose I did deuche with yerba mansa, although it was a collection of herbs and a tincture as well, so its not so easy to discern. Especially because the alcohol itself, I don't know if that might inflame the tissue in their despite the helpfulness of the herbs. In the end, maybe yerba mansa is not the most pleasant tasting herb, I started out drinking the tea of the leaves, until Tomas corrected me and said that the root would be much more effective. The tea of the leaves I find nauseating. Again, I would drink anything though if I felt it helped whatever condition I was fighting, but I'm glad that we transferred over to the root. I seem to have more of an affinity to roots and bark in general. I do like teas of leaves and flowers, but roots, well, tend to balance my dosha I'm guessing. I'm a water sign, and so anything that is rooted in the earth is somethign that grounds me and is sort of what I need to keep myself in order. Not only that, but i see examples of this in my love life as well. Random, and straying a bit off the topic, but I find myself happiest with men who are earth signs, and I notice, very clearly that they tend to balance me out, ground me, as I can be like the sea, tumultuous and everchanging with my moods and emotions, and someone who is fastidious and consistent is the perfect person for me, to keep me rooted, as well, on the ground. 

Elder Berry: The Tea For your Heart

Elderberry. My first sip was unimpressive. Only because I saw the deep burgundy color of the tea, and expected it to be very rich and flavorful, and.. well of course sweet, as it is a berry afterall. But, it wasn't very flavorful, not the way I had assumed it would be, but oh well, you can't have it all. I remember in class, munching on a few dry elderberries, and well, they weren't very sweet either. So, it is what it is, so they are not that sweet. It's okay, everything can't be what you want it to be, but it can still be something awesome. So here we go. I had a sip, it was bland and boring, but how do i feel. I feel a sudden sense of mental clarity, my nose is starting to run, meaning it loosened the hardened mucous in my nose that has been making a tremendous amount of snot that has been hardening along my nasal cavity for the past.. gosh, i dont know, ever since I've been here, but more often the past few weeks. I had to start putting oil in my nose every day just to try to keep it down, but this tea, is very clearly, loosening the mucous and making it run... not a bad thing, just need some kleenex and a place to spit out the mucous that is now coming up from my throat. Also, a good thing in my mind, as this climate is dry, and even your mucous dries up and sticks around (no pun intended). Loosening it up a bit and getting it out can be pesky and annoying, but we all know, expelling mucous from ones body, as annoying as it might be, is fundamentally a good thing, kind of like having a bowel movement. You are just getting the shit out of your body. So thanks, elderberry. You are a friend. Also, my stomach was feeling weak and agitated, definitely a result of a rocky relationship I had been having with a close friend, that was making me borderline crazy. My stomach was in knots and feeling just as jumpy and uncomfortable as my emotions and mind. I feel a strength settling in there, like a good book, that resolves your inner conflict, and makes it all make sense, or just takes the edge off, since certain things bring calm to your spirit, like a book that puts nice ideas into your head, or a movie that brings that happy feeling, and totally takes you away from whatever it was in your head, because it's always, and all, in our head... and brings you to a happy place. That happened to my stomach from elderberry. I feel anchored in my stomach. The butterflies are dispelled into the air to fight their own wretched battles, and my tummy is full with the sense that hey.. go fuck yourself fairy tale worries, this is all in your head.. and i'm gonna fuck you up. Elderberry gives you a certain confidence, that whatever it is that has been bothering you, it is nothing and you are bigger and stronger than that. I like this as a confidence tonic. It is strengthening, no question. I feel like a warrior. Not in a voilent way, like in a Pat Benetar "Shooting at the walls of heartache, bang bang, I am the warrior". That's a bit aggressive. Maybe more like "I am woman, hear me roar". Something more like that, although I like the strength that this gives in the face of something menacing and threatening. It's telling me, you don't need to fight. It's okay, your battle is imaginary. The threat is only a figment of your imagination, as it almost. always. is. Or rather, it's how you percieve it, or if you let it ... Well, I just wrote happy birthday my love, to my aunt.. so, there must be something incredibly healing (and heart-opening) to this tea, because although I am always kind, it's not something I would ordinarily say, and perhaps, it gives you courage when it comes to love, to just be as loving as you can, and not hold back. We all have it in us. Don't we? Although they say that Hawthorn is the heart tea, I believe I just stumbled upon one that is just as good. Elderberry, the tea for your heart :)

Thank you Mother Earth: Harvesting Red Clover and Arnica

I don't know why, but I have been somewhat obsessed with red clover lately. In fact, I've been meaning to do a FB entry on it for some time now, but I didn't feel that it was important enough. Now, I'm getting over that. I don't care about my audience as much as I did before, and I don't want to do the herbs that I think the "audience" would want to hear about. I want to do the herbs that I want to do and that's all that matters to me. I know that they would want to hear about lavender and st johns wort and arnica and kava kava, but I feel like writing about whatever I feel like writing about on any given day. Anyway, there are 365 days in a year, and I feel like at this point I can already take it halfway through with the herbs that I have in the house. Well, maybe not, but I do have so many and there are too many that I want to try and look into, more than one a day. It can be limiting actually. Maybe I should stop saying herb of the day, and just write about an herb when I feel like it, however many times a day I feel like it.
So why have I been so infatuated with red clover? Perhaps because it is just so amazing to look at. I'm not sure about the taste. its okay. its pretty good i guess. I have to look into what it does, and that might explain it better. maybe the fact that its one of the first that i learned to identify, and that mouna asked me to harvest. I had so much fun doing that. its a good association. if I could have just been asked to harvest one herb every day.. how much fun that would have been. I suppose I could always go back, but i would have to be much more focused on learning the herbs, and insisting that i do things a certain way, so that i learn what it is that i came to learn.. and also contribute enough to make it worth her while to take me in the way she was before.
So ... red clover, such pretty flowers, the heads of them such a pretty color pinkish red, and a big poofball, like the ones that used to be attached to certain socks as decoration. They are truly beautiful. and I noticed that i am drawn to red and yellow plants the most. Then again, perhaps because those are the most common. But I love rose and evening primrose, and calendula, and dandelion, and the reddish/purple ones like borage, which might just be the most awesome plant in terms of the design, color and texture of the flower. Wow, its enough to absolutely blow you away. And self-heal, which I just discovered in the wild on our camping trip in Colorado. Wow, a huge meadow full of self-heal. supposedly good for migraines if my memory serves me right, and they are drying right now on the table beside me as we speak. The saddest thing is drying the flowers, how they lose their life and love and vitality as they dry, and shrivel into a slight skeleton of what they once were, bright, vibrant, alive in the fields, they shrivel to nothingness, but nobody knows this but the gatherer, because when you turn it into medicine, the last thing on a patients mind would probably be.. what does this plant look like in the wild? Its almost bizarre, being able to see the plant both ways, as this beautiful, vibrant piece of nature, true beauty, like a painting that you are looking at in real life... and then the way that it is almost butchered... well its beauty, for the medicine. I understand now, those rituals, in a way, and how medicine people say please and thank you to the plants, we kill them... you know. I never thought of a plant this way, I never saw them as these amazing vibrant things that they are. They are alive. They are amazing. And then we cut them from their source of life, and we take them home and we dry them and they shrivel into these silhouettes of what they were even hours before. Nobody knows. Nobody cries for the plants that we took from natures cradle. Now I get it, mother nature. These plants belong to her. She nurtures them, feeds them, provides for them just like a parent, they only survive because of the things that nature does to make sure they live. The minerals in the soil, the insects and worms that feed on them and keep them alive, pollinate some of them, the water that rains from the sky to quench their thirst, to keep the soil alive and healthy, the sun that gives them the vitamins and the energy to grow up.. up to the sky towards the sun, the moon that lulls them to sleep, the streams that carry nutrients to the soil and water to the roots. Its incredible, this amazing ecosystem, that survives in spite of us. We are just visitors here, we don't get it, we just walk all over it, we don't understand that everything is alive, and we are just walking around on this earth, having nothing to do with all of these things that happen on their own, so we must try to see, see beyond ourselves, what the forest is doing when we are not looking. Everything happens without us. Bridges are not being build without us, but animals are still living their lives out in the woods, and they don't care what we do, we are just a part of this whole enormous life system. It is quite intimidating if you really understand. And it is quite fascinating. So that these plants die so that we can survive, so that we can heal ourselves, so that I can help you heal. Can my patients really understand? I doubt it. I don't mean to make them seem insensitive. You can't know things that you never saw, that nobody explained to you, or showed you. I never knew. Until I went into the woods with my friends and looked all over the place for small amounts of arnica, and my friend, who I am so impressed by, who is so good at identifying plants.. who could tell us.. "look there is some arnica" even while there were yellow flowers all over the place that looked quite similar, she could tell the difference, and there were quite few.
So the four of us scoured through the forest, and found these delicate, lonely little yellow flowers that were absolutely stunning, staring at us, giving the earth the gift of their existence. thank you arnica, for being this beautiful flower, that nobody knows about when they go to Whole Foods and buy their arnica rub to help heal their painful shoulder. That the source of this medicine, is a silly little yellow flower that hides in the forest, and we yank it from the earth, and we take it home, and dry it.. and it looks so different afterwards, just a shadow of what it looked like in the ground in that forest so full of life, it is this shrunken dried out broken version of itself.. the raw beauty gone, and now a puffy whisper of what it once was.. hard to grasp... cut the puffy dried heads from the stalk, and let them fall one by one into the olive oil... and there they will stay for a week or so, I will put them in the window or outside in the sun, so that their properties can soak into the oil, and give us their magical gift of healing.. their amazing medicinal qualities, they dance around in the oil, mimicking themselves and giving us this gift, this amazing gift of healing, nurturing and care. In the end, these plants sacrificed their lives for us, unwillingly.. yes, we must be grateful, as we should be to the cows who died so we can eat steak... and so on. Do we ever think of the sacrifice of life? Wow. It's enormous. I am so amazed. amazed. Overwhelmed, and grateful for these beautiful living organisms that live on the earth along with us, that we also call our home, it is also their home, and they give themselves to us, mother nature gives them to us, so that we can heal ourselves. Thank you arnica, looking at me now from your sad glass jar, melting away into the olive oil. I know that you will make us better. And I know that we must use you wisely. Because you are alive, you are amazing, you are intense, you are beautiful. God Bless You, and thank you plants, thank you flowers, thank you bees and worms and insects that keep our plants alive, and make sure that they are safe and sound, so that when we come to harvest them for our own use, they are healthy and well.