Gifts from the Hawthorn

It is the end of 2011. Twenty-nine days into December, and the wheel of the year is turning. Last night’s pounding wind and rain gives way today to a watery winter sun, pouring in on me as I sit at the computer, writing. The picture my sister took of hawthorn fills my screen. Her picture reminds me that in this season, hawthorn gifts us with her presence...

Last week I was down along the Deschutes estuary, birdwatching. It was a clear, cold day with an assertive north wind. I went with my friend to watch the winter ducks that form birdy clots on the shallow sandbars. But our attention was caught, and held, by big loose herds of robins, flying and calling, flying and calling. The focus of their attention was a large shrubby hawthorn, its branches laden with shining red berries. The robins were flocking in, gorging themselves on the sugar-rich fruit, now slightly fermented after several hard freezes.

The robins know what they're doing. These bright red berries are full of bioflavonoids, powerful healing pigments which not only give the berries their color, but also provide key anti-inflammatory, anti-viral and anti-cancer affects. The berries are a calming sedative to people who are nervous, and help calm irritable bowel. They are also anti-spasmodic, helping to soothe and calm muscle cramps.
The robins also love the fermented carbs as a warming source of nutrients in this season of winter, especially when their usual insect grubs are scarce on the ground. Hawthorn berries are good food for all animals, robins and humans alike. And when the robins eat them, the undigested seeds pass through their guts, and are scattered throughout the area, starting new trees.

In Ireland, this plant is known as sceach gheal (Bright Thornbush). It is sacred to the Sidhe, the powerful Faery spirits of Ireland. Traditional Irish Medicine people (also known as Faery Doctors) used hawthorn for all the same uses we have today.
They also knew this plant as powerful magic. Many in Ireland grew hawthorn hedges around their houses, where its two inch spikes provided a potent visual cue to its role as a protector. It was also believed to protect against lightning strikes and storms, so planting it around the house was seen as an all-around smart idea.

I think of hawthorn as one of the Great Mothers: she warms us, body, mind and spirit. She inspires us and brings us her warm red light, to ease depression and darkness in this season of winter. She brings her gentle energy and helps us find our heart’s purpose and destiny. For me, she's like a warm fire in the woodstove, heating the entire house. All of these things are key in this cold, wet time.

Hawthorn is considered powerful magic in Ireland, past and present. If a single tree grows on a rise or hill, it is considered a Faery haven and as such, must not be disturbed. Rational, down to earth highway engineers in Ireland have learned this (to their sorrow) and have had to re-route major motorways. This photo is of a hawthorn tree and a re-routed motorway near Ennis, Ireland.

I think about its magic & medicine when I look at this particular hawthorn bush along the Deschutes estuary. Located on a narrow land bridge between Percival creek lake and the main Capitol Lake, it is “betwixt and between”: this is a place of power in the Celtic world, a place where nothing and everything exists, a place of infinite possibility. It stands alone on a rise of land, which in Ireland would mean that it was surely a place of Faery. And although there are other hawthorns in the area, this is the only one so loaded down with scarlet berries. It casts its own strong spell of enchantment & allure; the robins cannot leave it alone. And I, driving by on my regular route, cannot seem to stop looking.

Here is my recipe for fire/hawthorn vinegar, a fabulously sustaining herbal tonic for winter (modified from Herbal Remedies Info on the internet.)

Fire Hawthorne Vinegar

1/2 cup fresh horseradish root grated
1/8 cup of Garlic chopped
1/2 cup of Onion chopped
1/2 cup of fresh ginger grated
1/4 cup of hawthorn berries; if fresh, mushed up, if dried, just add to vinegar to soak.
1 tsp Cayenne powder

Directions
Place all ingredients in a quart jar and cover with Apple Cider Vinegar. Cover tightly. Steep for 8 weeks. Strain into clean jar.
How to Use Your Fire Vinegar
• Use as a rub for aching muscles and joints
• Make a poultice by soaking a clean washcloth in the fire vinegar to place on a congested chest.
• Mix with some honey to chase out a cold and cough (it's a great anti-viral).
• Drink it straight or diluted in some water or tomato juice. Start out with a one teaspoon or so to test your tolerance level.

Janet Partlow

Resources:
• Hawthorne photos by Nancy Partlow
• Faery tree in Ireland: see story at this link: www.irelandinpicture.net/2010/04/fairy-tree-that-delayed-motorway-ennis.html
• "Healing Herbs of Ireland" by Paula O’Regan
• "Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast" by Pojar & Mackinnon

Falling into Winter

Some years ago, I took a training program in Plant Spirit Medicine. I learned many many things in this medicine path; one of the things that has really stuck with me over the years since is a deep appreciation for the seasons, their changing nature, and also, how the seasons express themselves in me. Honoring the season is not only part of my personal medicine practice, but also part of my work. Sometimes, it is about coaching myself and others to be in and to live fully in the season that is at hand.


In this particular year, I have noticed that we went from a wonderful Indian summer of dense blue skies and abundant mushrooms into a very short autumn and are now knocking at the door of winter. These changes have nothing whatsoever to do with the calendar but rather how Nature expresses herself: the slant of sun heading south, the deep morning frosts, the fog that fills the estuary at night, the occasional nights of icy dark skies full of brilliant stars and a cold moon, the snow we found on our doorstep the other morning.

There's also the way I feel: in this early winter I long for the deep dark sleeps of these nights, going to bed early and sleeping like I've been drugged. There is an irresistible yearning for the warm bed, the thick fleece blankie and the hot water bottle snuggled against my back. I love looking out the kitchen window into the completely dark yard before I head to bed, and letting that silent darkness seep into me as I slide into dream time. Blessed darkness.

There's the deep hunger for hot and filling foods: bean soups and stews, potpies and mushroom stroganoff, macaroni & cheese served cheek by jowl next to piping hot baked potatoes. These comfort foods of childhood continue a long tradition of warming us up and reminding us the there is enough food and yes, we will be nurtured and cared for.

I learned in Plant Spirit Medicine about the critical importance in this time of taking care of our reserves. In this season, the best thing we can do is to stay home, bundle up in a warm blankie by a fire, inviting a purring kitty to share out lap, and reading an absorbing (but not too intense) book. We turn off the TV, turn off the phone and lock the doors. We fix a hot mug of (non-caffeinated) chai, and let its heat and spicy herbs warm us to the core. To the many holiday invitations that come our way, we say no rather than yes. We spend this winter season honoring it and ourselves by going inward, conserving our resources through a dark and cold time. This is my task and my joy during this season of winter. I invite you to do the same.

Janet

Resources: Photos by Nancy Partlow
Recommended book: Plant Spirit Medicine by Eliot Cowan

Plant Dyes Part 2

So I know I’ve already written about plant dyes in a previous blog, but I just COULD NOT stop myself. My herbalist buddies got together again, focusing on plants that produce yellow dyes, and it was just amazing.

There is something powerfully miraculous about putting a couple of handfuls of what seem like ordinary leaves in a pot of hot water, only to see these rich, intense colors come seeping out into the water. After an hour of simmering, then we pull out the plants and put in some basic natural colored wool. Then the proteins in the spirals of wool pull in the plant pigments and viola! We have color.

I wonder how, in ancient times, our ancestors stumbled across these additional gifts from the plants? I imagine a scene in Africa, with a woman sinking down by the fire at the noon meal, with a cup full of hot tea. Her child bumps into her, and she spills the steeped tea all over her leather clothes. The colors sink in and cannot be removed and she suddenly sees that she doesn’t to wear leather tan and brown color for the rest of her life...

So back to our kitchen. The greenish yarn was made by goldenrod, which in late summer sends up spears of truly golden color shooting up into the blue sky of summer. Our herbalist friend Rain sheared off the tops of some goldenrod volunteering on her property and put them in the freezer. In the dyepot, this plany makes a pale golden color, which is “saddened” by iron water (mordant) and turns a rich green.

Then there is coreopsis, which most of us know as a sunny blossom smiling in the summer garden. It turns out it holds intense amounts of plant color. For much of August, I snuck out to garden with the pruners and collected flowers, adding them to the bag in the freezer until we had a full quart zip lock. In the dyepot, these flowers produced a rich caramel gold.

Finally we worked with turmeric. This may well have been the first dye ever used by humans. A root food and medicinal plant beloved in India, every cook knows about its ability to stain. We tried it three ways: the medium yellow is wool only, while the deep orange is turmeric+ alum mordant. (Alum helps the colors be washfast and light fast). Finally we added a bit of iron mordant to the dyepot; here you see Susan stirring the yarn which has become a yummy, nearly edible brown.

At the end of the day, the yarn is hanging outside, drying. In a few days Rain will recruit some friends to wind it all up into lovely balls of color. And soon, I have my share: I cannot stop fondling them. This is one of the best parts of working with plants: seeing up close, in my hands, their mystery, their medicine, their gifts. I share it with you all...


Janet Partlow
Resources: Wild Color by Jenny Dean

Stories from the Stones

Okay, I admit it. For most of my life, I thought of stones as dead rocks, and those weirdos who talked about using them for healing were complete flakes. However, the stones have since taught me differently, and I guess now I must confess
(a little painfully) I too am one of the flakes!

It was about ten years ago that I was driving through the Black Hills of northwestern Thurston county, headed off to one of my earliest training workshops in Plant Spirit Medicine. Highway 12 cuts through the the Black Hills; in fact the roadbed had to be blasted out of some of the only bedrock you can find in our area (the rest was covered up by glacial till in the last Ice Age).

So I'm driving along on a Friday, pretty tired after a long week, just anxious to get to the workshop and settle in for the weekend. As I'm driving through the cut bedrock, I look over and admire the dark basalt, the cascades of bright water flowing down, the clustered green ferns. And then, THE ROCK SPOKE TO ME.

I just about swerved off the road, I was so freaked. And then I remembered a line from one of the Harry Potter books, where Ron tells Harry that even in the wizarding world, it's not a good thing to hear voices. I had brief paranoid thoughts of the inpatient psych ward at our local hospital.

As it turns out, the rock was only saying hello and inviting me to come and spend some time with it. I had a strong sense (once I calmed down) that in the past, humans had connected very strongly with this stone, but it had been a long time since it had had such visits. It felt to me as if the rock was somewhat lonely and eager to reconnect.

Since that time, I have learned that many of the indigenous tribes used stones extensively for their healing powers. Many of these people knew that the stones were alive, just like plants or mushrooms, but living in a different time frame than ours. One of these tribes were the Cherokees; they especially liked to use quartz stones. It's probably no coincidence that part of my heritage is Cherokee and my favorite healing stones are those in the quartz group.

One final story: a couple of years ago I managed to break the fibula in my left lower leg. This was my first broken bone, and I was really shocked how much it ached, for months on end. The pain did not resolve well with the usual ibuprofen, nor even, surprisingly, with my herbal pain oils. Then once again, the stones spoke to me: my malachite stone offered to help. I happen to have a small flat one; I put it over the fracture site and taped it on with bandage tape. My pain calmed down within 5 minutes, and by the next day, was gone. After a couple of days, I took the malachite off; within hours my bone was aching again. I cleaned the stone by running it under water, then put it back on. Once again, the pain resolved. After several weeks, the bone healed, and the pain went away.

I have many other stories like that, too many for this post. Today, in my healing office, I have a shelf full of shining stones. I work with them on a daily basis, and they are a key part of my healing practice. They are also my teachers, my mentors and my friends. Though they come from a world of long ago, they have many lessons to share in this world of today...

Janet Partlow
Resources: Black Hills photo by Nancy Partlow

A Gift from the Herbs: Plant Dyes

It’s a gray day in July. It's supposed to be summer. Outside the skies are clotted with thick gray clouds, weeping a warm rain now and again. It’s pretty gloomy, especially since this summer has been like that: lots of gray, not much color.

But in my friend Rain’s house, there is a riot of color: on her stove, simmering away, we have pots of color. St. John’s wort flower makes a clear ruby red, while red cabbage is giving us a eyeful of purple. And on the back burner, the bright green horsetail bubbling away produces a yellow green. So what’s this all about? A group of herbalist friends have come together to experiment with using herbs as dye plants. This is a first for all of us and we are thrilled.

Among the four of us, we represent about 70 years of herbal experience, from a wide range of backgrounds. Rain Delvin is an Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) acupuncturist, who has a long background in western herbs as well. Susan Monaco is also a TCM acupuncturist, who puts as much emphasis on the use of Chinese herbs for healing, as she does the needles. Joanna Kaye is a Plant Spirit Medicine practitioner of over 20 years experience who is deeply connected to the energy and spirit of the plants. (Here is Joanna, stirring the red cabbage dye. (I think of the quote from MacBeth: Double, double boil, and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble...) And I have already talked on this blog about my western and Ayurvedic herb background, and my work in Plant Spirit Medicine.

With all these years of experience we have with plants, it’s pretty surprising that none of us have ever worked with plant dyes. But maybe not so surprising: I remember from the 1960’s watching my grandma take a packet of Rit dye to color some article of clothing. Now my grandma Helen was born in 1901 and lived on a remote homestead in Idaho; though I never asked her, I’m sure she was very familiar with plant dyes from her childhood. Indeed, human beings have thousands of years experience working with plant dyes. But by the 1950’s, synthetic aniline dyes became the norm, both in manufacturing and at home. And so that’s what she used.

In reading about these aniline dyes, I was horrified to learn that the dust they create is in fact toxic to the workers who handle them. In addition, who even knows where they come from? The plants are right from our own backyards; for example Rain gathered the horsetail from her garden, and my spouse Glen picked the St. John’s wort flowers from an open field near our house. These dyes are available right in our own neighborhoods.

So what is happening here? We took the plants and put them in a hot water bath, simmering for an hour to extract their pigments. It was fascinating to see how the color almost immediately came out into the water; as the hour progressed, more and more pigment came out. We then put in some natural colored wool and let it simmer for another hour. In some we added vinegar and others salt or pickling alum; these are natural substances which can change the color or pH. It was like being in our own personal chemistry lab. Joanna remarked with deep feeling: “ I wished I had learned chemistry in this way when I was in school.” We could all relate.

Finally when done, we hung the dyed wool out to dry. Here on the improvised clothesline you can see them: a rust-red from St. John’s wort, next to the gray-purple of red cabbage, next to the sage green of the horsetail.

We sat out on Rain’s deck for awhile, admiring our handiwork. And though the thick clouds continued to weep warm rain, somehow the colors we had played with warmed our hearts and spirits. Once again, here’s to the gift of the plants!

Janet

Resources:
• Craft of the Dyer by Karen Leigh Casselman
• The Handbook of Natural Plant Dyes by Sasha Duerr
• A Dyer’s Garden by Rita Buchanan
• Susan Monaco: www.mind-body-healing.com/acupuncture
• Rain Delvin: www.healing-roots.net/