Blog
Beloved: Dreams + Medicine
February is the only month in our calendar year when we are encouraged to not only celebrate, but explore love. It is a time of both recognition and seeking… and sometimes visionary revelation. Far beyond the commercialism of candy hearts, the sparks created by this fiery heart-centered holiday can be profound. It is…
A Snow Globe, Shook
I was watching a cat, calico and sunning herself on the metal roof of our shed, when the weather suddenly shifted. One moment the light was grazing contentedly upon the emptied winter landscape and the next, the whole earth had clouded over with snow. Moody and feline, more than falling, the thick flurries raced…
A New Year
The new year arrives subtly. After the long holiday build-up of champagne and anticipation the calendar shift, so stark on the page, sneaks slowly into our consciousness. Like a low draft from the hem of a door; you have to get used to its breath on your skin. The change happens in almost…
Harvesting Wild Rice: The Poetry + The Process
The Initial Daydream This August I fulfilled a long haunting dream of mine – to harvest rice in the wild beds of Minnesota. The idea began as a simple seed in my early twenties. I was idealistic, entranced with the world and still exploring the ideas of living close to the land, harvesting the natural nourishment…
Mythical Mushrooms & Dark Magic Reishi Tuffles
It’s summer in Appalachia and there is endless rain. Some days it has poured from grey dawn to greyer twilight, the sound of it like trees harshly arguing. It’s become a rhythm: the rain, the rain. Last week, it reached a pitch. The soil was saturated; every step raised small lakes of footprints. Low…
Oh, Roses: Medicine, Magic & Honey
On the craggy side of our driveway, arching over a rusty fence, there is a rose bush that has grown wild. Once upon a time, I imagine, it was planted by a quiet, well-mannered couple. Decent, hardworking folks who placed that bush, square and manageable, at the far end of their placid yard and…
Avena Sativa: The Warm Weather Medicine of Milky Oats
We’ve slipped into one of the most delicious times of the year– that liminal, lofty space between spring and summer. The raucous rush of springtime ephemerals has died down, leaving a haphazard cascade of petals dissolving beneath the trees. And yet, the hot days of dry grasses and hibiscus have yet to arrive….
Spring Cleansing & Eating Wild Greens
Spring is the season of renewal. It is a time for cleansing, releasing, letting go of all that which you kept and counted and swaddled throughout the long winter months. Every spring, the thaw has each of us dropping the heavy robes of winter, and inviting in something entirely new. In the forest, flowers…
