09/05/2020
This quarantine I have been spending time in the garden, out in the wilds, and in the mad scientist's laboratory (?!?) learning from the plants and their guardians.
Blessings from our garden, together from seed to the harvest that keeps giving ~ what a gift to be witness to and lend a hand to your process, thank you plantitas
~ organic tomatoes, blue corn, squash
~my baby California Poppies, Calendula, Cornsilk, Lavender, Sage
~fig leaves, artichoke leaves, Fennel seeds
Wandering through the trees, finding medicine and listening to their wishes, asking permission and making offerings
Thank you, Horsetail, Wild Fennel, Stinging Nettle, Raspberry leaves, Hierba Mansa, Arnica...and others
Modern consumerist society, capitalism, has taught us that the more stuff we can accumulate, the better. We have so much stuff, that we often don't really feel grateful for what we have, but take it for granted. We no longer have a relationship with the objects that surround us, all we had to do was go to Walmart and buy a piece of plastic molded by a child sweatshop worker in China, which we'll most likely throw away after a year when it has a dent in it, because we can just buy another one. Tons of meat from animals that were brutally sacrificed for our own consumerist pleasure get thrown into dumpsters to rot, every day. Many people who consider themselves 'modern' and 'civilized' look with prejudice upon the traditional people who hunt and conduct sacrificial ceremonies with their animals before they eat them, and call them barbaric. After these ceremonies, most often, the whole animal is eaten or used for some purpose. On the contrary, the makings of the modern consumerist culture is what decimated the buffalo that once ran wild through the plains of the Midwest and was life source, Tatanka, of the Indigenous people of the plains. The Euro-Christian culture claims that nature exists only for the use and pleasure of men and left the plains littered with rotting buffalo carcasses for their amusement- target practice. The scriptures that were carefully selected by the men who composed the Bible that has been used to eliminate Indigenous cultures for thousands of years, from the Pagan tribes of Europe to Indigenous tribes across the globe today, and the priests who preach its word, say that God created the Earth for the use of humankind. But I cant stop wondering how, if one believes that God created the Earth, how can the people who follow this God, destroy it?
The church never wanted to acknowledge that humans have their own relationship to the Divine, because they would no longer hold power over the people. They took the image of the Horned God, a European Pagan deity, and created the image of the so-called 'Devil,' so that people would think that the Pagans who worshipped the Earth were really worshipping the devil. The healers, so-called witches were also connected with the spirits of the Earth, but this was all deemed a threat to the Church, so they killed them by the millions and thousands of years of traditional wisdom and practice was lost over time, only some vestiges of which to be maintained in secrecy, and the people had to pretend that they didn't feel the sacred among the fields and forests.
It is part of my journey to reconnect with the Earth and the Divine and to learn about my own ancestral traditions, whatever is left of them, from Pagan Europe. I have been so blessed to learn from many different people from cultures that are not my own that have resisted colonization for generations to maintain their traditions and beliefs into the present age - Lakota, Tibetan, Gurung(and many other ethnic groups in Nepal), Mexica, Pataxó(Brazil), and so many others that have welcomed me and shared their medicines with me. I thank the wisdom keepers from those traditions and the people who are still fighting to preserve them. To the comrades that are still blocking machines doing corporate bidding that are ra**ng the Earth, facing the barrel of a hired gun, may all the protector spirits be with you always. so that humankind may continue to exist and return to the Earth. May we never forget to support the people on the frontlines, and, when possible, stand. May we NEVER stop fighting corporate greed and the complacency that has infected society. This Earth is our life source, not a garbage can.
I hope that the medicine that I share from these plants may help people to light a fire in their hearts to re-connect to their birthright, their relationship with the Earth - the elements of which make up our bones, blood, breath, heat- to cultivate a relationship with plants and animals, to appreciate and take care of them, and to Listen, harder, to what they have to say.
