Garden Medicinals

Summer brings such beautiful boughs of bountiful leaves to the garden.

It's quintessential nature tamed, yet untamed. I've lost a few arrows from playing archery with Hero. Even in the dead of winter their whereabouts remain unseen. It's become somewhat of a sacrificial portal of foliage.

This weed turned out to be borage, luckily I am always reticent to remove weeds until I can identify them. Borage flowers are delicious on salads. The essential fatty acids contained within them are good for skin. Historically, the flowers have been candied, used in restorative summer libations and given to make folks merry and joyous. For pensiveness, melancholy and forgetfulness.

In only one year, my mullein given to me by a client went from the size of a dime to two feet tall with flowers. So hearty, it made it through the winter, while my my kale and rosemary perished. Look, at how splendid the flower grows.

Mugwort grows wild all over Cape Cod. It is helpful in painful, delayed, scanty and excessive periods. In this way it is an adaptogenic herb, meaning it helps balance you where you need it. It is also helpful in contact dermatitis such as with poison ivy, oak and sumac, although jewelweed is said to be superior. Also, Chumash people rank it above white sage in clearing away negative energy. My late teacher Cecilia Garcia instructed me to boil four handfuls of mugwort in a large pot with a large quantity of water for four hours. The vapors permeate the air and help clear away the energetic residue of former tenants. A cloth can be drenched in this fomentation to clean mirrors and metals such as faucets and doorknobs. I have found it to be helpful in the case of the periodic ghostly visitor.

Motherwort, is very helpful in combination with hawthorn berries to strengthen the heart. It is good for all sorts of heart troubles, palpitations, angina, leaky valve, and even a broken heart. Helpful in neuralgia, sciatic, hysteria, fainting, and nervous debility. It is a antispasmodic, tonic, nervine, emmenagogue. It relaxes muscles, tonifies the female reproductive system, relaxes nerves and helps to bring on menses.

Women as Shamans, Doctors and Priestesses

Max Dashu has been researching women's untold histories for the last forty years. She has created 150 presentations showing images of artifacts which help us to better understand the social structures and spiritual life of indigenous North and South American tribes, and ancient cultures the world over. Some of these intriguing archeological finds date back to 5,500 BCE. Marija Gimbutas paved the way for a clearer understanding of the neolithic matrilineal and matrifocal cultures which revolved around ceremonial life, ancestor worship and the Divine Mother. Her work covers the paradigm shift from early matrilineal cultures where female shamans, doctors and priestesses were honored and respected spiritual leaders to the witch hunts of anti-pagan, anti-earth, anti-self-healing, anti-magic and female subjugating propaganda of the monotheistic patriarchal agenda. Max Dashu will be on my radio program Healing Wisdom in July. Read more about her at:http://supressedhistories.net

Picture above depicts a birthing woman with a snake who tale turns into gourds running up her back. I believe this is a red clay pipe. I wish I had some of the images from the lecture I saw the other night, tri-breasted pots, bee goddess ecstatic dancers, female shamans shapeshifting into tigers, priestess levitating, fountains with nipples for spouts, areola designs, funerary statues with vaginas and clitorises...All of these were clearly products of cultures who were reverent towards women's wisdom, women's bodies, and the sacred feminine!

Longevity, Wisdom and Strength

There have been numerous accidents in the last several days. Thankfully my husband just procured some Chinese herbs on my behalf. Chinese herbs I have found particularly helpful to injury. Last night I took a decoction made of gu sui bu, du zhong, ho shou wu, fu ling, rehmannia, condonopsis and goji berries to a woman across town who was rear-ended and injured in an auto accident. I wish I had a bit of tien chi, but I have found this combination of herbs to work with incredible efficacy in trauma, abrasion, whip lash, and even with broken bones. It heals mightily fast. My formula also improves sleep and appetite, helps to build ligaments even in the case of stretched knee ligaments. It has benefit to the tendons, and even seems to repair and build cartilage to some extent.

Ginseng is a true panacea. These roots help improve energy, rebuild the body in cases of depletion and renew vitality to counteract exhaustion, and support memory acuity. Ginseng is not advisable for pregnant women, people with diabetes, hypertension, or high blood sugar. I highly recommend using decoctions of Red Korean ginseng (Panax ginseng) to enhance libido, if you like being struck by a huge kundalini lightning bolt which creates a surge and uprising of fire and desire in every fiber of your being. If being possessed by Tantric Gods or Goddesses is something on your weekend to-do list, scroll down for the recipe, but heed the cautionary tale below.

I have found Panax ginseng to be superior to Panax quinquefolius (so-called American ginseng), and it is without the kinds of side effects experienced by Viagra users. Traditionally, ginseng has been taken for longevity, wisdom and strength as well as a libido enhancer. But like anything, if your heart isn't in it then the herbs are not effective. A cautionary note for women, if you take the Panax ginseng with ho shou wu and chrysanthemum flowers, you may think yourself impervious to harm as an 'insatiable' Geisha/Tantric Priestess, but try to take it easy on yourself or you may get carried away and experience quite painful post coital cramps.

Yes...my disclaimer is followed by a recipe:

- 2 pints of pure water
- 6 large pieces or 1 oz ho shou wu (Polygonium multiflorum)
- 8 1-in. round pieces of Red Korean ginseng (Panax ginseng)
- 12 goji berries
- 3/4 c. chrysanthemum flowers (Chysanthemum indicum)

In a medium sized pot, bring your ginseng and ho shou wu to a boil. Turn down the heat so that it is still boiling on the lowest possible temperature. Cook for approximately 20-30 more minutes, until half of your liquid has evaporated, making the remaining decoction strong. Your tea will be quite dark now. Infuse your flowers and berries. Do not remove from heat. Once it has cooled to lukewarm, strain into a teapot or other serving vessel. Split the cooked ginseng root pieces with your partner. Eat the cooked roots as well, really, these are quite tasty. Drink 2 tablespoons-8oz depending on your overall constitution and sensitivity to herbs.

This strong tea should not be taken over long periods of time. Chrysanthemum is in the same family as the daisy, and may cause allergies and photo-sensitivity in some people. If you are taking pharmaceutical medications, look at any possible contraindications. Chrysanthemum is a blood pressure lowering herb and therefor in China is sometimes served with ginseng to counteract any strain in could have on the heart. Chrysanthemum has been used to treat migraines, anxiety, mental fatigue, acne and fever. It is antiseptic and anti-inflammatory as well.

Medicine Woman Susun Weed

The acclaimed author and medicine woman Susun Weed will be on my show again tomorrow morning for part two of our discussion on Wise Woman Ways at 9am EDT on 92.1 WOMR-FM Provincetown or 93.1 WFMR-FM Orleans if you happen to be in the area. Or streaming live at http://womr.org.

The Goddess of Herbal Wisdom

Wise Woman Susun Weed is going to be on my radio show "Healing Wisdom" this Thursday at 9am EST! She is a such a Goddess and a wellspring of information. She is the teacher of the Wise Woman Way, a paradigm in alternative medicine which focuses on wholeness of the individual instead of cleansing and balancing paradigm. Intrigued? I am. She is the author of Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Year (now in its 29th printing), Healing Wise (1989), New Menopausal Years the Wise Woman Way (1992 and revised in 2002), Breast Cancer? Breast Health! The Wise Woman Way (1996) and Down There: Sexual and Reproductive Health the Wise Woman Way. This is a conversation not to be missed! On 92.1 WOMR-FM Provincetown, 91.3 WFMR-FM Orleans and streaming live at http://womr.org

Spiritual Pregnancy

I'm so happy to be a contributing writer to this fantastic work. Buy this lovely book from Llewellyn, authored by an OB-GYN husband/wife team!

Dream Guests

Pinch me, I'm dreaming. My next two soulful guests on my radio show Healing Wisdom are Dr. Helen Caldicott, renown author, speaker and physician, and Taylor Negron, playwright, film and television actor and painter.

Thursdays at 9am EDT at 91.2 WOMR-FM Provincetown and 93.1 WFMR-FM Orleans, and streaming at http://womr.org

The Rhododendron Society

For years, periodically when I was channeling on Venice Beach at 3am for my clients, I would hear the term "Rhododendron Society" thrown in randomly to the dictations. I think my guides must have been planting the seeds in my head for east coast living. In retrospect, another indication that a move was imminent, was that for a year and a half my son became immersed in the painting and drawing of lighthouses.. Nearly every day on his easel he would depict a lighthouse, sometimes followed by a ship and a barn. When we moved to Cape Cod I thought back to that curious term that kept returning and my son's fascination with lighthouses. I thought, "Rhododendron Society" must be a reference to the reverence for nature here and the preservation of its beauty, or a reference to the blue blood country club seasonal residents.

Now I think perhaps it was the society of the flowers themselves, as conscious living organisms that the term applies to...The society of rhododendrons, alive, conscious on some levels, chatting among themselves. I like this interpretation the most.

Please, forgive me for repeating myself, don't mean to harp on these silly things, there are more sweeping and dramatic synchronistic events that have occurred, but I really think there's something to the little things...and the idea of plants talking amongst themselves brings a smile to my face. We sometimes take signs with a grain of salt, and in doing so do not fully benefit from their blessings. I should find assurance in fact that every time I have sat down to finish a draft of my book proposal over the four seasons, five crows and one hawk appear from out of nowhere to loudly caw and hop about one of the oak trees for one to three days. I was writing it off for a while, they must be there when I am not here writing some times, but I am often in the sun room...while I see larks, robin redbreasts, woodpeckers, starlings, sparrows, red cardinals, yellow finch-like birds, I only see that unusual bird family when I am working on my proposal. I'm back at it tomorrow to incorporate some memoir, fingers crossed that my auspicious fine feathered friends are back...

The veggies are growing, but the bunny gate needs to go up fast, as we have some hungry babies hopping around. And we need to employ use of some good organic fertilizer too...