Monday, February 22, 2010

coconut rose love oil



i suddenly have way too many ideas about what to write about... man, this shit's addicting. i've officially become one of those people, who has to carry a notebook in their pocket everywhere they go- so i can write down all my dreams, visions and insights. for those of you who know me, this is somewhat difficult as i am on strict skirt and dress only wardrobe kick (until farm season hits again). Damn.
so now i am one of those people who has to wear a belt everywhere i go, with my hipster fanny pack attached-- so i can keep my little book of inspirations and my camera ready, to give visual to my journey.

I'll try and keep it to one topic though-- of the many things i feel excited about lately-- okay, really just from the last few hours. umm, have become narcissistic so quickly?
no, but really, it's like i am permanently caffeinated (but without the caffeine)-- but, truthfully I am more likely high on life. my near constant excitement has gone so far as to allow only the lightest state of sleep vivid with dreams, if any sleep at all, and I am up early in the morning ready to GO! i am not used to having this much life pumping through my veins.

damn, is this what it really feels like to love life? i am praying if i ever come down off this high, it hits me gently. well, here in the northeast, its warming enough for the sap to start running--- and i am running with it!

so today, i settled into my new home (if you call running around from project to project in a constant state of dance, "settling in")-- and did one of the most enjoyable activities i can think of- I made things, all day long and used my hands to create! I tended to my sourdough starter. I made a new batch of kombucha. I stood still hovering over the stovetop for twenty whole minutes, straight! (which is hard to do with my new found enthusiasm) making a dank batch of ghee (dank-- like the good kind, not like the moldy basement kind). and finally, I made one of my favorite creations ever- coconut rose love oil!

okay, so i totally love all things fat and oily-in so many ways. in my vegan years, i became addicted to coconut oil and shamelessly indulged in it daily and now as an ecstatic ex-vegan, I have discovered how amazing ghee is. between the two of them-- i use them in all my cooking and also all over my body. I plan to share several stories about fats in the future- and hope to correct all the misinformation around them-how terrible of a rap they have gotten. partly i think this is due to the profit driven product makers and partly due to our own cultural fat phobia. both of those negative forces-- which really feed each other- are strictly based on ignorance and inaccurate information. but more of that another day.

coconut oil (semi-solid or liquid fruit fat) is my favorite massage oil. i can't even begin to explain how luxurious it is. plus it smells so ridiculously sexy.

yummmmmmmmmmmmm!

So, a few months ago i decided to combine my love of all things coconut & all things rose-- and made a batch of this decadent rose infused coconut oil. insert millions of exclamations here- this shit's the shit! there was like a magical love party in my kitchen. making it is almost as sexy as using it!

so, beyond what i have already shared with you about my love of roses, rose petals and flowers-- as we all know, and have had shoved down our throats by those trying to comodify our feelings-- are associated with love and romance. They are also wonderfully medicinal on both an energetic and physiological level. Roses are cooling, anti-inflammatory, astringent (toning to the skin and mucus membranes)and help cool all sorts of hot-irritated skin ailments. On an energetic level, the same applies. Roses cool heated and inflamed emotions like irritation and anger, while toning or giving gathered strength to our feelings. A massage with rose oil, is one of the greatest remedies to calm an agitated body and mind. To add to yesterday's post, rose oil would be an amazing way to love your premenstrual bod.

Coconut oil is also considered cooling (in the same ways) and may even be anti-viral (on an energetic note, viruses are generally considered to be "hot" conditions in the body). It also is soothing, softening and moistening-- and just fucking delicious. In Ayurveda, both roses and coconut are considered toning and pacifying to "pitta" types as well as "pitta" symptoms (more on Ayurveda later- and how uncomfortable it can make me as a privileged "westerner" to think I might be contributing to a mass cultural appropriation. For now, I share those last thoughts from personal experience-- and for that reason, feel good passing them on).

I add a tiny bit of jojoba oil to this blend-- to keep the final product a little softer than plain coconut oil- which will harden at low temperatures. in most of the poorly heated households i have lived in this oil ends up pretty semi-solid- but melts at body temperature-- go ahead read into this, it's hot! Jojoba oil is not a true oil, but actually a liquid ester wax (lets call it fat!) that almost mirrors the human sebum-our skins natural coating. Jojoba oil softens the skin, while still allowing it to breath and is incredibly healing for stubborn skin ailments.

Now...here's how it's done. Sorry for the lack of measurements. I like to make this oil in a double boiler, bringing the water in the bottom part to a boil, then turning it down to a low simmer. In the upper pot, i add several scoops of coconut oil and a splash of jojoba oil (about 1/3 the amount of the coconut oil) and let them melt before adding a handful of rose tops or petals. I have only used dried petals, as it's what I have had on hand- but in the summer I'd love to use the fresh petals from the rosa rugosa (as a hint when fresh plant material in oils, as a general rule, I would let the fresh petals dry wilt overnight- so they end up somewhere between fresh and dry- and less likely to contain excess moisture). The most important things to note about making an infused oil this way, is to make sure the herbs are fully covered with oil-- as any plant part sticking out could introduce moisture and bacteria from the air (same goes for keeping the lid off, as the condensation would collect and drip into the oil), and not to heat the oil TOO much. You don't want it to be boiling, but gently heated, because you'd end up losing the volatile oils in the roses- that which makes them both smell amazing and gives them their magical medicine. The scent is the essence of the rose!

Today, I let my oil infuse for about an hour and a half-- but feel free let it go longer- up to four hours. i usually take it off the heat, when i visually notice that the plants in the oil just look "spent"-- like they've lost their essence. Pour the liquid oil immediately into a jar, filtering it through a cheese cloth or strainer. I like to add a few drops of rose essential oil directly to the jar at this time-- don't add it any earlier or the scent will evaporate with the heat; but this is optional as the oil smells pretty rose-y on its own. Cap the jar, and let cool (up to24 hours) to solidify.

A hint about cleaning up: Cleaning up oil can be hard-- but as a lover of oil and an ex-grease (for fuel) collector, (read: several hours of collecting, filtering and making a mess with this shit from the local restaurants, every week. I was like living in a permanent state of grease!) I have learned a trick or two about getting that heavy stuff out and away (fryer oil is not an oil that makes my heart sing, I'll just say here). The first thing I like to do, is give everything a good wipe-down with paper towels, newspaper (both which you can compost) or a cloth (i keep packing tissue and napkins just for this reason and they go in my herbal product making kit-i am such an herb geek). Then without adding any water, I add dishsoap to all the oily items and give them a "dry wash" with only the soap and slightly damp sponge-- oil will bind with oil (which soap is made of), but separate from water. Then I go ahead and wash them with really HOT water.

Okay, so really my first cleaning method is to take off all my clothes, and wipe off all the excess oil from the double boiler, and soak it up in my skin. Getting warmed up yet? :)

One day I had a friend stop in, to find me completely naked making cream in my kitchen. Um, excuse me, could you put some of that on my back?

Final step, if you haven't already... is to slather yourself with that goodness and love it up- feel it! With yourself and with those lucky enough to share your body! and let it all go! I find one of the sexiest things about this oil, is its ability to help me feel calm, cooled and centered-- and free to express my feelings!

mmm, and i imagine it would go quite well with coconut bliss-- (for those of you who havent been introduced to this truly BLISSfull coconut-milk ice cream-- you don't know what you're missing. it might change your life. this is not an understatement. oh, and i am totally their unofficial spokesperson-- just passing on the coco b love here)! when are they coming out with their rose flavor anyway?

disclaimer
: it is called love oil, but please note if you are thinking of using it as lube, that any oil-based products are not meant to be used with latex barrier methods, as oil will break down and decrease the life and safety of the latex- which, frankly, is not sexy. If you are using polyurethane barrier methods, this oil would be fine to use (which oil does NOT break down). I can post recipes and info in the future about herbal water based lubes-- as well as other fabulous sex positive info, links and musings. Edible body butter anyone?

Sunday, February 21, 2010

the flow of life

Since I started blogging (wow, did I just say that?) I have had several flashes a day of stories I could tell, insights and knowledge I could pass on, ways I could intermix the personal with the political through shared words. But I am not in the habit of writing- but rather in the habit of letting it all stew up there, on a steady simmer, cooking slowly-and when it’s good and done, perhaps I’ll share. But lately something has really moved me-- I have really felt things more deeply than I have allowed in the past. I find myself walking around in near constant openness and excitement- and I keep having these incredible clear insights about my process and our process as humans and I surprise myself, by really wanting to share.


So, I am making the commitment to start writing some of it down- try my hand at doing some external processing. Writing has always been a longer process for me-- I don’t know if I’ve ever wrote a single rough draft in my life, but I’ve come to see that I am constantly drafting my thoughts, creating paragraphs and merging topics; it just happens internally. In some ways I am quite impressed by the amount of sorting and juxtaposition my brain can allow before letting it out in words or expression (and sometimes even better, I let my mind stay out of it and free those raw unprocessed messy feelings in their whole form).


So while all those stories are brewing and forming-- I’ll keep my head out of it and just share my day-to-day process, which feels easy with where I am at currently. I am wicked premenstrual- and I love the feelings that come around my moon time, at least when I am gentle with myself. I always feel so exposed, so open at this time- I am still figuring it out, after all these years as a person whose body has a designated monthly process and release (bless goddess). But only recently am I able to articulate, what has often made me feel so uncomfortable premenstrually: my body just wants to let things out, and I don’t fully embody that. It’s hard, it’s risky, and as womb-en we have had to rise up strong against so much negativity and lack of ritual and sacredness in regards to our cycles. But we move, like all things- the ocean, the waves and tides, the moon and the seasons of life-- and if we don’t allow that, we disturb that natural flow of life and create imbalances- in our bodies, in our worlds, in our culture.


So I am trying to dedicate myself with the tone of deepest self-respect, to letting myself have that emotional release that comes up every moon cycle, and also to not let anything too intense in. As a life long feeler and especially as an excelled crier, I have the personal experience to say that not letting things out, that need to come out, can be extremely painful and damaging. and I realized what was making me so goddamn uncomfortable right before bleeding every month, is that I didn’t feel I let myself truly allow that flow of release.


So, I’ve always been one to feel a little enraged, when well-meaning folks, tell their bleeding allies to not take those feelings that come up at “that time of the month” (grr!) too seriously…. “just let a few days pass and you’ll feel better.” While, I recognize some truth in this for myself, and know its not exactly the ideal time to make life altering decisions or get too lost in my emotions, I think those feelings are as valid as any other. What gets confusing is how we react to them.


My deepest wish is to simply HAVE feelings, SHARE them and feel SAFE in doing so. To me it’s just a process- and sometimes all we need to do is let them go, to give them the respect they deserve. Feelings aren’t static, their job is to ebb and flow, and make the most of themselves. But to express anger, does not make you angry, to express grief does not make you a sad person-- you’re just someone experiencing those particular feelings and doing your job to best play them out. And I have learned to hold back many feelings, based on those reactions (my own included) that are associated with them. This can be particularly challenging when I am about to bleed-- when all I wanna do is let my feelings out, be gentle with myself and move on. I don’t want those feelings to be held to me, or label me. So if that external processing can’t happen with a caring, trustworthy friend or lover-- well, it all goes back to what I am always trying to really get at --that I am trying so hard to be my own best friend, and all those things can happen within myself, with myself and for myself. and damn, it feels good.


Right now what I really want, is to be held and comforted and weep-- and let it all go in the presence of the sweetest love.


So, I do that in my own way. I journal. I give voice to my feelings. I give myself the most loving massages. I let things touch and move me and let myself pour those feelings out. I make myself nourishing herbal teas and soak in the tub next to warm candlelight, and cuddle up with my hot water bottle at night and let myself feel love. and most importantly I move through things. Its amazing what can come up every month-- it can be quite a surprise to find long “forgotten” feelings that have been hiding out deep in my blood and spirit, suddenly surfacing within the safety and sweetness I offer them. I fucking love having a womb!



It’s funny- this was actually going to be an entry about making herbal infusions :) as I was inspired by a sweet and simple blend I had made when I started to feel the first twinges of uneasiness under my skin and cramping in my body. As, I write I am sipping on oat top, mugwort and rose tea- and it has reached me on exactly the level where I wanted to be touched-- and let this gentle flow of words spill out. I think this is one of the immense beauties of plants and our relationships to them-- if we allow them to, they will really touch us and see us, and gently move us, where we need to be moved. I was going to share some of my favorite recipes and comfort measures for painful cycles, but I feel pretty released for now and we can get into that at another time. I've got some self-care to do. Trust yourself. and do yourself and all of us an incredible honor-- let yourself feel and be moved. You are safe. You are loved.


It’s bath time.


on a final note, I wanted to express my deepest gratitude for all my friends and family who have taken an interest in my online explorations and story telling. I am in complete awe of the amount of support, love and encouragement I have received in a few short days of this journey.

Monday, February 15, 2010

roots of a rose petaled uprising



there came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. anais nin


I wanted an association of movement, when thinking of what to name this new undertaking, what we call a blog; as I hope it serves as a force to move me. But my endless search for a positive and inspiring definition of “uprising” eluded me. In my first round of searching I was discouraged by words like violent, futile and short lived. I want my personal uprising to continue raising me towards my highest self-- which I imagine to be a life long journey -- I want it to be empowering, bursting with life and beautiful enough to move one to tears. Upon further searching, I gleaned some inspiration from the definitions and adapted them to my movement.


uprising : organized opposition to authority; a conflict in which one faction tries to wrest control from another.

synonyms : rebellion, insurrection, revolt, rising.


This blog was partially enkindled by a late night of internet travel-- lost in the world of this so called web- I stumbled across an informative and gorgeous herbal blog by a fellow plant loving friend of mine. I was thoroughly impressed and totally inspired. I have never before followed a blog, nor much less had any interest in them; in fact I perceived them to be a little self-indulgent and narcissistic (though indulge, I will- it’s hard to hold back excitement for the things I both love and find important to share). But this one was different; to say that I was inspired is also to say it gave rise to something in me-- a connection was made. It seemed like a wonderful possibility for my own self-growth.

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I am a budding herbalist, having dabbled in the study of plants more “informally” for many years and now suddenly finding myself in the midst of a formal clinical herbalist training program here in north-central vermont, my home for the next few years. I have found the first month of my program challenging and a bit of a change in reality. Let me explain. The classes themselves and the structure are certainly nowhere near rigorous- it’s just that there is so much to know. and I think there always will be- especially with what you love- the learning and trails and pathways of this type of exploration are endless. But it feels a bit overwhelming-- especially because one part of me is itching to just go ahead already, and be that superstar herbalist, or that amazing plant buff. I want to be able to answer all the complex and varied questions that get thrown my way as an extremely out of the closet plant lover-- like NOW! I want to understand how the body works, how the plants work, how people work and how they all synergize together. and another part of me strives to really enjoy the process. or so these are things I’d like to believe……

I’ve been uprooted for the past several years (if not much longer)- traveling the world so to speak, crossing the terrains & landscapes of life. These journeys have solidified what I truly consider to be our human needs- plants (who provide our food, shelter, oxygen, clothing, medicine), water, love and each other (all creatures of this earth). More recently in just the past two years having decidedly given up flying, I’ve crossed the country a mere thirteen times!!! (moment of pause)-- by means of train, car, thumb, bike and VW bus (I count these as any journey of 2000 plus miles with a significant amount of belongings in tow). You could certainly say I have been looking for something……many some-things. But in the process of searching I have also been in the process of unfolding my self. As much as I try not to- as much as I try and remain that intact body of substance- I’ve been coming to my core, my center- and to the end of this form that once resembled “me” but now looks more one long rolled out piece of thread spread in all directions or a million pieces of a complicated puzzle-- exposed in its nakedness and waiting to me made into something more complete and whole. or perhaps, on a rare glimpse, what shines through is purity and light: truth.


It’s a funny thing to travel from place to place and manage to keep some sense of identity intact. It can be challenging- and I’ve noticed this amazing pattern. I am on about a two to three week cycle here- I try not to stay anywhere for too long. At about the two-week marker on my visit to any given place- I start getting this itchy, uncomfortable feeling humming through my body. I start to have doubts and insecurities and feel myself losing steam-- and then, all of a sudden (read: week three) I am overwhelmed with the knowledge that all the shit I carry with me, that I’ve always carried with me- all the emotional baggage that lives with me under my skin-- can’t be left behind from one place to the next. It certainly seems like it can- just drop it all off and book it- full speed ahead-- but to my great surprise (even still after all these years) it comes trailing behind- often just a little delayed. I took the shorter route, and it got caught up in traffic-- but ultimately we end up in the same place, staring at each other with unblinking eyes.

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I have taken a great interest, post public school and following a brief spell in college-- in what is referred to by many autodidacts or self-taught, as “unschooling”. I didn’t so much drop of out school, as they say, but rose up. I read “The Teenage Liberation Handbook” by Grace Llewellyn the week after making the choice to leave school- after leaving “what I was supposed to be doing at that age” and whatever security came with it, including a specific amount of emotional support from my elders-- and the words of encouragement and stories within opened up my world. It was like this amazing reassuring hug, a confirmation of life. Someone was telling me I was on the right path, when so many people where saying something quite different.


At first I was angry (well, this is one of the first steps in the grieving process right?) and then, even worried it was too late for me to be one of those highly motivated, ambitious, incredibly smart self-taught creatures that I so admired. But I am not much of an angry person, so I turned next to something I felt more familiar and safer-- tools I had been using for years “successfully” and really quite mastered…… guilt, lack of confidence and negative self-talk. I take much responsibility for this myself, but also I blame public schooling. School is one of the first places we are taught whether or not we measure up, whether or not we are enough… smart enough, capable enough, interesting enough-- and whether or not we have what it takes to be on top, to be admired and approved. Where we are shown the “effective” and “motivating” tools to help us become our highest selves- grades to measure our lack of worth, tests to see how much we “really” know or how good we are at knowing what they tell us to know and being what they want us to be. We are talked down to for bringing our true interests into our lives (reading a novel during science class, drawing artwork during math class), for not doing as we are told, for not really engaging in one topic as much as the ones that really grab us. Where we are taught to believe what there is to learn, lies in the power of authority and in the books of scholars and not in everyday life.

So, with the tools I learned in my domestication-- but with a new and more hopeful spin on the learning process itself- I started to call myself an unschooler- I started to really think about where my passions lay, where I found beauty and what I wanted to do with my time here- in this life I was given. But, it was a slow process-- and guilt crept in all around. I would spend whole days reading, “getting nothing done”- indulging in my new-found free time. It proved surprisingly hard to just do wanted I want to do- day after day.


And I felt guilty too- because I didn’t feel like I was really learning anything. I devoured books on health and healing. I read Dr. Christiane Northrup’s “Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom” and herbalist Rosemary Gladstar’s “Herbal Healing for Women” in a matter of days. I felt a notable kick of excitement about connecting with nature, learning from plants, and learning how to heal and how to prepare herbal medicine. I had had an interest in herbs for years, since my mom studied under Rosemary Gladstar herself and had introduced herbal medicine into our home, just a few years earlier. And I used herbs and truly believed in their healing powers, but there was an entire world of beauty and intricacy in the realm of plants and healing that was out there waiting be explored. I loved reading those books, but I treated it like school or how I engaged in school- I would finish a book and move on and not really do anything significant with that new found knowledge (minus the fact that I could now make some decent herbal tea) and could easily forget everything I read, except that it touched me, somewhere deep within, in a way other things didn't. But, I let the negative self- talk rule. I was losing hope and structure-- and felt unmotivated.



I had read that the kids who happily dropped out of high school often spent the first several months to full year, “doing nothing” - practicing complete freedom, while their parents sat on the sidelines either with great trust or fear, but that they eventually found their “way” again. They became motivated, engaged learners- especially when they really figured out how it is they actually learned or when they figured out that how they already chose to live their lives was filled with great lessons. I felt a lack of enthusiasm weighing me down and wondered if my time would come. Again I partially blame public schooling-- I did not know how to structure my own life, how to find the resources I needed to learn, how to actually engage in my learning and how to best find that for out myself. Sure I knew how to use a library, do research and find a certain amount of physical resources- but what next? and what about all the ways to know and to learn that public schooling hadn't already taught me? For over thirteen years, I had been told how, when and in what way to do everything. I’d spent most of my life- without my consent (without my enthusiastic YES!) inside, all day, interacting mostly with people in my own peer group, and not out in the real world- engaging like a functional, interactive, inspired human being with a variety of friends and companions and self-motivated interests.

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So to make a long story a bit shorter, I set out on a quest to figure out how it is that I best learn. Well, in truth I didn’t know exactly that this was the path I was on- and in fact I’ll probably be on it for life- it is the path of life.


And damn, it all sounds so good and lovely- following your dreams, following that path, but it’s not so easy-- there’s a lot of undoing, unwinding and breaking down to be done. Positive role models seemed few and far between-- and I was so set on doing it unconventionally. But in truth, I continued in a relatively conventional way for a some time; I belittled and scolded myself in the ways I learned in the public school system, feeling I was never smart enough. I participated in so many meaningful activities, but since my realization that the way I was living and expected to be living, wasn’t how I wanted to be, it took me a great while to rouse from the deep slumber I had been in since childhood- and it’s taken much longer to truly begin to engage in my education. To really get in there and take risks. And I’m not even close yet- the potentials are limitless.


So, I’ll tell you perhaps the most important thing I learned over the years and am still learning everyday…… to be kind and gentle with myself, to treat myself the way I would want any positive force in my life to treat me, to treat myself the way I would treat any friend if they felt discouraged or disheartened-- that is, with the deepest love, great belief, trust and faith in their amazing abilities. I would hold them in my arms and tell them, they were beautiful and I would really believe that. I mean if we really listen to ourselves, and the ways we can beat ourselves up- I think very few of us would treat someone else, especially a dear friend, in the same harsh way. It would be abuse.


and dammit! its taken me sooo long to see that above all, this, the one of the least effective tools I can think of- this self-abuse that passes as so completely normal- if I really want to help myself fully become the highest most beautiful version of myself.

amen!


and damn, I’d better well make good friends with myself- because we are constant companions- we go everywhere together. Sometimes we are all we have.
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Then one day, I just got it (well, conceptually anyway). I had been in an abusive relationship with someone for several years, and I’ll say now that for me to be in an abusive relationship with someone else, was to be in one with myself-- because I didn’t take my own value and worth seriously. On some subtle level this relationship outwardly mirrored the ugly ways in which I thought about myself; it confirmed the ways in which I saw myself as incapable. In the recovery period, I felt this incredible freedom and really began to act on for the first time in years, what I wanted to be doing. What came to me was…. I want have real to life experience with what I love. I want to travel…..far away….and I want to farm.... and I want to work with plants. I want to feel free and silent, but I also want to continue learning skills that keep me on the path towards service and self-sufficiency and interdependency.


So before I packed up my life and jumped a plane across the seas- I was accepted, at the very last minute into a short term "apprenticeship" with Rosemary Gladstar, a very full week (aka herbal bootcamp) of herbal studies and exploration in Vermont. This was something I had thought doing for years, but hadn't really owned it. I met plants, I met people, I got a feel for what more hands-on learning looked like and generally saw real excitement pulsing through the veins of all of us- learners and teachers, one in the same. We were hooked on plants and where our excitement led us, was real learning. And I feel in love with Vermont-- I had this strange feeling, like I was "home."


Then I crossed the sea to Italy where I harvested olives for oil, for three beautiful enchanting weeks- and loved every sweet, luxurious minute of it. I love olive oil and I use it all the time, as food and medicine. There was not much more of a reason for wanting to have this experience- strictly because I want to really know and connect to the processes of life, especially that which I love. Also, I can not understate the importance of connecting to what we put in our bodies and on our plates and what comes from the earth. At the end of the season there, I decided to head to Portugal- where the weather was still warm and there was more farm work to be done. It felt like a mistake immediately, and when I arrived I got an unanticipated bad feeling about my host. On a very subtle level, I didn’t trust him; I didn’t know why, I couldn’t place it- but he didn’t feel completely safe. We started work the following morning and enjoyed each others company reasonably- as we started to work side by side, day after day, in the garden, on the land and eventually moving on to some building projects. I wasn’t completely happy- certainly not enchanted- but keep thinking, and knowing there was something to be learned there despite really wanting to just up and go. But I held strong and started to learn a lot of new skills; I used a lot of tools- most new to me and really let myself be vulnerable in my learning process.


As a female-socialized being, I have come up against a lot of gender assumptions in regards to learning and who-does-what in my culture, and perhaps I’ve felt this even more strongly in the counterculture of the west coast- where I’d been living for most of my adult life. There’s nothing worse, than a seemingly helpful male bodied person overly engaged and set on being instrumental in my empowerment as a woman, via using tools or learning new skills that have been typically relegated to biological males. Its so unattractive- it doesn’t feel safe to me- and it has yet to be a useful way for me to overcome sexism- in fact, it seems to just reinforce the externalized sexism present in our culture and really my own internalized sexism and oppression.

Working along side this man, mixing cement, plastering, creating, measuring, building, it came as the greatest surprise-- that my own attitudes and actions and feelings contributed to this great force: sexism and oppression, and the pain and suffering associated with them. I had really learned quite well to check out, when being shown more “male” oriented tasks-- perhaps not believing I was smart enough to get it (and getting that vibe from my culture too) and I had really learned to keep myself safely on the outskirts of my interests-- instead of taking a risk, getting involved and failing, or worse, looking stupid. Then one day we were mixing up some earthen plaster and applying it to a garden door frame we’d been working on- and I was really enthralled in the activity, excited by my new undertaking- the textures and feel- and paid a complement to my teacher on his teaching skills. I really felt he treated me like an equal and was just happy to pass on skills to me, without letting any concepts of gender "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts" stand in the way. What I had been feeling was my own internalized sexism rearing it's ugly head. But, I was having such a good time learning with him and feeling so safe in that environment- of one-on-one, hands-on training. Without a moment’s hesitation he said to me “Well, you are really easy to teach. You get things fast; you’re a natural.”


Now I don’t know if anyone had ever said this to me, or if my own disbelief, deeply engrained in my being, shouted more loudly than any compliment I’ve been given, but I believed him....and it felt good. Or at least I considered believing him. Imagine that, I thought, he thinks I am a fast learner- that I really get things. Damn, fooled him. But I did feel more confident in myself and the work we were doing. That night, alone in my cabin- over the evening ritual of tea and warmed by the woodstove-- I thought, what if I told myself that? Everyday? What if I talked to myself like that? What if I said, Laurel, you are such a good learner. You learn well, and you really get things. You are so capable. I don’t think I had ever said that to myself-- even if I had, those statements probably would have been significantly outnumbered by the number of times I told myself exactly the opposite. How would my life be different if I gave myself this possibility? How would I interact with the world? how would it change me? and how would it alter the reality of my capabilities? Now, I wasn’t planning on going around thinking I was the shznit, all the time, and I don’t mean to say either that I walked around my whole life shit-talking myself,- but damn, wouldn’t it be so much easier to be a good learner if I really believed I was a good learner?!!

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But it's one thing to recognize what looks good for you, and another to really integrate it-- and especially to really overcome a lifetime of bad habits. I went back to the states, my last plane ride ever(?)- I kept up the exploration of self. I fell in love, with people, with plants, with service to others, with herbal medicine and healing-- but I isolated myself, I lost confidence in my abilities, got lost in the troubles I find when I spend too much time doing my own thing- when I spend too much time in fear, unwilling to engage. Which is to say, I am still not all that skilled at just doing my own thing- I am still not highly motivated on my own. I used to be hard on myself for that-- but then I realized I really need people in my life- to inspire me, to engage with, to bring spice and connection to my life and stoke that fire within. and fuck society! for keeping that from me- for making me believe the ultimate goal is total independence! fuck society, for allowing romantic relationships to be the most acceptable source of deep connection, bonding and feeding. I want that from all around!! I want that from all things!


In the midst of these dark days, weeks, months- the darkest I have ever had- I lost real connection to myself, to land, to spirit and to purpose. the days were a blur and I was lost in this weighted darkness, forcing myself to do the minimal every day- just get up and move in my body. In the middle of all this, I took a walk one day, to the end of a my driveway, retrieved a letter from a dear friend, and walked a little ways further reading his loving words. At the very moment I finished reading the letter, I stopped walking, stood still, and my eyes were drawn to a bright flower I had never before seen on the Wisconsin roadside. One single slightly damaged, radiant pink, wild rose lay nestled amongst dull shrubs and grass, vibrating with life. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I felt a surge in my heart and shed tears of both joy and grief. I knew that flower was there for me- it appeared right there, right at that moment, just to tell me something. I felt like I had just seen a long lost friend, one I didn’t even know I had. I bent over, kissed this steady flower- and with a little light in my step- returned home to look it up in a flower essence book.


The Flower Essence Repetory by Patricia Kaminsky and Richard Katz reads:

“Physical incarnation in a body is a experience fraught with difficulty and struggle, and for the Wild Rose flower essence personality the effort hardly seems worth making. Such apathy suppresses the soul’s interest in life, and cuts off the individual from his or her inner source of healing. This flower essence is very helpful for those who linger in long, drawn-out illness, and who seem to recover only fitfully and slowly. Wild Rose restores the vital forces of the soul, particularly its connection to the physical body and to the physical world, helping the individual regain an interest in earthly life.


This flower essence teaches that life is a sacred and precious opportunity which the soul must make every effort to embrace, if it is to find the true meaning of love and physical incarnation.”


I was completely struck-- something really deep inside me started to move. I thought about my purpose in life-- and what I had to give to the world. At the very core, I knew my deepest purpose was to be a service to people and to the plants-- and bring them together to heal each other. I had been so very lost from this in my own grief and depression. I had this visible reminder now-- and roses consumed my world. They helped soften the grief, they brought color, vibrancy and gentleness to my life, they brought the sweetest love and purpose. Well, okay, it didn’t all happen that quickly-- but it started to. I became fixated on roses. My friend later told me she had been at a workshop where a Plant Spirit healer had said, that we all have an empty space in our chest; perhaps we can’t even feel it-- and when we find the right plant, it fits right there in that space and completes us. Apparently I had been walking around with a wild rose shape hole in my chest all my life and not even known it. But I feel it there now, pulsing through me. Sweet whisperings of encouragement.


I moved on, I started gardens, I wildcrafted plants, I made medicine, I made love, I traveled, I cried, I really felt my body, I joined a free herbal clinic, I taught classes and spent a season working on a medicinal herb farm-- and above all, I healed, I stay connected to my purpose-- and I really loved myself. I rose up! oh, and I made it back "home" to Vermont (some odd thirteen trips later)! I continued to really learn-- to learn. I’ve discovered that I experience the greatest learning in touch, in sensation, in tactile experience- full bodied experience. To really learn something I have to know it with my body. Also, I have to share it- let it be known what I love- to let it touch other people, to propel that love and enthusiasm and tremendousness on and out into the hands of others.

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These pages and these sharings to come are one way for me to do this. So, I am once again “back in school”-- doing the formal training thing. It was a surprisingly easy choice to come to. I realized I needed a few things -- I need a supportive learning community of other herb enthusiasts and I needed other people to hold me accountable to that learning or I would continue to get lost in the darkness all alone. I realized this was a very specific and commited way for me to help more and more people- and truly be a force in their healing. I realized, to my counterculture surprise, that I wanted to work somewhat within a model of medicine that already exists in this culture. I want to understand the common language we already use in regards to our health and healing-- and above all I want to be apart of what will change all that, the uprising. I want to help make medicine available to ALL people; I want to make connection to the land and to plants, available to ALL people despite the constructs and barriers that now stand in the way. I want people to really know that plants heal. And people heal. This is the outward uprising- where we wrest control from the larger forces that be, and put it back into the hands of the people where it belongs.


It feels like a good choice to be in school, but I struggle with it too. I feel myself reverting to old patterns, to looking around my class and thinking everyone is smarter than me, more ambitious than me, more motivated than me. I find myself not knowing how to integrate my lessons- the lectures- all the hand- off stuff. But this is something that I really want to know, and feel-- and I don't want to sit back on the sidelines and expect that my learning will happen for me. I wanna be it! I take responsibility for all this--- and I'm dreaming and scheming up how to really embody all this learning and all this power. I am capable of so much. I have so much to offer.


So, this is also the inward uprising where I continue to work toward really knowing and loving myself, and where the most beautiful, highest version of myself wrests to gain control and power over the version of myself that says that I am not good enough. I picture this to happen "petaled" or powered by the deepest love and compassion-- and may the path be softened by the sweetness and gentleness that I have found in that rose, deep in my heart, as I remain connected to my purpose. My rose petaled uprising. This budding herbalist is ready to burst open in bloom.


I will exit with a final quote by Marianne Williamson.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”