Awaiting the budding of trees, boots caked with dried mud from the last woods walk to see what was sprouting, I sit inside remembering the feeling of summer on my skin.  Early in the morning, the birds are lively outside, their songs pulling me out of sleep.  The tree outside my office is showing the first signs of green unfurling shyly and slowly.  The peas I planted three weeks ago are starting to show their first leaves.  Everything is waking up, including the wildcrafter in me, who is anxious to get out there and find some food growing.  The dandelions in my garden are just popping up, though I’ve seen them in some sidewalk cracks next to buildings for weeks now.  It is a stirring time for an herbalist and gardener.

Planting seeds with my biodynamic calender, I wait until the moon is just right to seed leaf, root, fruit, and flower crops.  My tiny incubation area is crowded with spilanthes, sacred basil, okra, tomatoes, and tobacco.  I am working on my first real design for a garden to produce medicine for our community apothecary at Justice in the Body.  This is a thrilling adventure, but I’m nervous.  I do so little planning in my own garden that to finally apply some of my permaculture design skills is a challenge and a discipline.  I can imagine it, though, this 40×20 foot plot of land that will be lush with medicinal perennials and stunning annual crops like calendula and sacred basil.  It’s going to be a beautiful, fertile summer.

Through the snow, the slush, and the grey skies, our bodies are attuning to the flowing sap, the mud softening under our feet, and the flashy promise of spring’s return.  It’s hard to see through the 5 foot snow banks, ground blanketed in soft, white snow, but it’s there, calling.  The robins feel it, the geese feel it, and I can feel it in my skin as I notice the sun higher in the day and more westerly at sunset.  It’s all bubbling there under the surface and we are getting impatient with the pelting ice and blowing rain.  Come on, already!

 

The full moon earlier in the week showed me that I had to wait for the skies to clear, that I need not be so impatient.

And so, I waited and watched and realized that no matter how much I wanted to drink the sap from the maple tree outside, I would need to wait a few days so that my bucket would not be full of snow and rain.

The first sure sign of spring arrived today, though.  I opened a glorious box from Fedco to find my garden waiting.

  

The names tell stories of the garden to come–Sugar Ann Snap Peas, Cajun Jewel Okra, Champion Collards, Scarlet Runner Beans, Shintokiwa Cucumber, Peacevine Cherry Tomato, Resina Calendula, and so many more.  The poetry of these flowery descriptors never fails.  Now, for the mapping, the seed starting, and the memory of stretching my body against the warm earth soaking up the sun, the sweet buzz of pollinators, and the joy of growth all around.

The crows were raucous as I walked through the woods this afternoon, feeling the cold on my face and the sun warming me through my coat.  It was warmer than it has been in days, but when I walked on the leaves in the woods, trying to follow the sound of the crows, my crackling footsteps on frozen leaves made for a less than quiet approach to the scene.

In many ways, the last year has been a deep inward turning to sort out just what I wanted and needed, and how I imagined my life going forward.  From what I can tell, many of my friends and peers were doing the same thing.

My introspection often led me to thoughts of mortality as I felt my health yo-yo between states of wellness and illness.  I have spent a lot of time working on coming to terms with what it means to live with a chronic dis-ease and how it shapes my relationships with others and my view on the future.  And then I considered how quickly life can pass by, and I vowed to stop waiting for my real life to begin.  Perhaps you know the bargain–when this happens, then I can do this thing that will make me happy–that’s how I’ve lived much of my life up until now.  Waiting.

I have often wanted and wished, but believed somewhere at the core of me that there was no way that thing would ever really happen.  I had a lot of stories to buffer the disappointments that life put in front of me.  Stories that have some basis in truth–like being in debt and having struggled financially for most of my life–but that really don’t serve to move me any closer to my dreams.

Last year, I started imagining and visioning and opening up to the idea that maybe, someday, I could actually have an herb farm and teaching center and an old farm house with woods all around it.  I started feeling myself grow into that vision.

While I am still living in a rented apartment with a small growing space, I am teaching herbalism classes at Justice in the Body in Portland with a wonderful new friend.  I am making creams and teas and herbal elixirs and syrups that are gaining some momentum.  I am learning how to be an imperfect teacher, a not-totally-together teacher, a teacher who is-still-and-always-will-be-a-student.  I am learning to remember that I am speaking for the plants, not for this human body called Cathleen.  I am being called to share this knowledge because the world needs it, because people want it, not because I am ready to teach.  If I had not been pushed hard out of my comfort zone, I would still be looking for the right class, the perfect training to mold me into the most skilled clinician and teacher I could be.  I would not have leaped off that cliff back into the classroom.  My stories would have held me on solid, rocky ground.  Instead, I am swimming around in the ocean of becoming.  I owe a great debt of gratitude to Sage Hayes, who gave me a good, gentle nudge into the unknown.  And I owe a lot to my ongoing meditation practice, which has pushed my edges and reminded me of the beauty and pain of the dissolution of the ego.

So, here I stand at the beginning of my 40s, looking at what I might create in this next decade.  I am grateful to be here, to be imagining, because when I was 10 or 20 or even 30, I’m not sure that I could have looked beyond what was right in front of me to really dream about what might come next.  I feel a vast expansion of my spirit, and I aim to use that expansive energy to work toward inner and outer transformation.  I began my 40th year with a ritual to let go of some of the grief I have carried through much of my life.  I stood, with people I love, under the white pine on a damp January day that was the record warmest for that date.  We stood in a circle around a fire and contemplated shedding energy that held us back, and then we let it all go in the flames.

I know that this fire was just the beginning, but it felt important to mark this day with a shedding of skin, an acknowledgement of impermanence, and a joyful movement into the next decade.  My thirties were all about healing wounds.  I hope that my forties are filled with embracing beauty.

This week, with the arrival of (first) Hurricane Sandy, Samhain, and then the Day of the Dead, we are being thrust into the darkest time of the year when the light wanes and the days grow shorter and shorter. It is a time for going inward, for sorting out what is working for us and what needs to be discarded to make way for the new growth that will come.

We can look to the world around us to find examples of how to honor this time of darkness. Animals are readying their nests and burrows for the winter to come. Trees are letting go of their leaves (especially after the wind we had yesterday!), and the energy of most plants is now settling into their roots. We too need to use this time to go down and in, to reflect upon our lives as they are and as we would like them to be. We are offered gentle reminders to slow down when we get a fall cold or find that we are needing more sleep. We often find ourselves getting sick during the fall because we are still running on the energy of the sun, the summer, called to do instead of be quiet. Rather than listen to our culture, which fills this time of year with activity, we should tune in to the rhythms of the plants and animals outside to see what we truly need. And if we’re lucky, we can actually hear our own intuition telling us exactly what will serve us during this season of change.

Hurricane Sandy reminded me to respect the immense power of the force of wind, and to consider the massive changes that winds can bring with them. In a literal way, winds knock down trees and blow roofs off of buildings; in the symbolic realm, winds shift the energy–sometimes too quickly–throwing us off balance, or creating irritability.

When I consider the larger transitions afoot–be they the small political shifts or the massive global climate crisis–I can see why we are all just a bit off balance, forgetting that we have roots under our feet, that we have the ability to change things, that we are held within a larger web of life.  Just as we are looking at the animals and plants around us for cues about how we might approach a seasonal transition, we need to be looking much more adamantly to our communities of neighbors, friends, families, and acquaintances to weather the big transition that we got a hint of yesterday when Sandy made landfall.  We need each other much more than we want to admit. We rely upon so many other beings for our lives and our safety, and it is time for us to declare that we are interdependent. There is no such thing as an independent being; we would not be alive if not for millions of organisms, plants, animals, other humans, and energies we cannot even fathom. Sandy is just a reminder of our interdependence, and all of the people who are coming to their neighbors’ aid to help them during this crisis are examples to us of how important we are to one another’s survival.

When last I posted, it was the dead of winter–grey some days, bright others, but the days were short and the darkness long.  Now, the days are nearing their longest, and while the sun still alternates heartily with rain, we are beginning to see the summer’s color and blooms begin.

The birds are singing and scavenging, and the garden is alive with native bees, bumble bees, ants, and (yes, my favorite) slugs.  I have planted nearly everything I have room to plant, and now the task is to wait for it all to come up, mature, and bear the gifts of food and medicine that we long await.  The garden is filled with medicinal and culinary herbs: yarrow, mullein, mints, valerian, elecampagne, tulsi, sage, lemon balm, motherwort, comfrey, nettles, bee balm, saint john’s wort, thyme, calendula, lavender, oregano, dandelion, rosemary, garlic, echinacea, borage, hyssop, and anise hyssop.  In pots, I have cilantro, ashwaganda, and tulsi, along with tomatoes, beets, greens, carrots, and chamomile, nasturtium and calendula. I have been putting things wherever I can make an inch of space for them, hoping that they will flourish in the chaos of it all.  So far, except for the continual feasting by the slugs, everything is doing well.

While I wait for the garden to come to fruition, so to speak, I also watch and wait as dreams I have been working toward also come closer to me.  The herbalist path has been winding through everything I do lately, and there are some budding opportunities to take my work more purposefully into the world.  As I study and read, I think more and more about what the world needs right now, and what feels right is making herbal medicine more accessible and available to every family, every individual.  Many of us are beginning to see our way out of the confused and broken system upon which we currently rely–unfortunately, many here in Maine (and around the country) are being forced out of the system because of cuts to important social services for needy families.  What herbalists can do is help to fill the gap by providing health information classes that will serve people throughout their lives–classes about seasonal eating, tonic teas, and using herbs in daily life.  I am excited to begin to step out of my fear of not being an “expert” and into a role of truly helping people who need or want to care for themselves and their families in a different way.

I am grateful for the ways that this year has been unfolding for me, even when things seem most dark and heavy, there is a continually positive force that urges me forward through the fear and the “I don’t want to”s.  I hear it in the twittering birds’ voices outside my window, and I see it every time I look at the plants that teach me how to be present every single day.

I will post more as things develop over the course of the summer.  Happy growing!

 

1.23.12

Your water dragon

.           has delivered   its liquid

haul,     fluid and warm

against a stark white set–

the dusky cemetery

.                  a perfect backdrop, shrouded

.                  in mist–

After last night’s state of the union speech, I was pulled to compose this piece.

Thanks, Mr. President.

___________________________________________________________________

1.24.12

Our waters are strong

our shores ready for jobs

we pledge to open our waters

for more drilling,

.     more spoilage,

.     more fire,

.     more chemical dumping–

we pledge to make

Sunoco and Exxon,

BP and Shell,

Halliburton and Chevron

more profitable, to put America

back to work.

Our strong waters are open

to the drill.  We stand,

feet firm on these stolen soils,

and proclaim, we are bigger

than the ocean–

I have been a bit behind in posting.  I hope you have had a good week!

Here are the newest water poems:

1.17.12

Each day, my twitter feed

lists dramatic weather, pleas for

snow, concern about our

lack of winter.

Each day, I look out the window

to analyse cloud formations.

Each day, the sky yields

disappointing results.  Water

is moving in a different direction.

Drip. drip. drip

of rain or sleet

crossing this boundary,

lakes open to the clouds above.

1.18.12

a wash    a shore    a drift

and this settling

rough seas ahead       see the waves

off in the distance?      Thisness

called tidal pool

tribal remembrance of what

echo on land             pulse of the planet

plants speaking     deep under

reef and ledge–

1.19.12

here,     and here,     she

.               said pointing

to the spots where we would

apply drops of luminous water–

a clear glass filled,

map charted — first, California

and Colorado, Arizona and Nevada,

the snaking pipelines emptying–

Your last drop of water

might appear as a snowflake

or morning dew on a leaf in the garden,

we just don’t know what

this will look like, he said –

what waters’ rise will

teach, we here learning how

to build bridges, roads,

and houses –

an exhale and the hum

of the unforeseen –

1.20.12

Ocean just warm enough

.                  clouds catch   dump  drown

the small towns underneath

rainfall exceeding records not by decimals

.                   but by double digits

sand on fields that used

to feed hundreds

acres bare,

waiting–

Our human estimates conservative

.         this agenda radical

have more fun being

.         aggressively naive–

we just don’t know, he shook

his head, voice softening–

1.21.12

how the snow–

how nothing happened –  just

a spin, slight fan, ice melting

down the back –

how the dishes in the sink –

how hot-headed, I –   just

loud enough to be

heard in the bedroom –

how the ordinary afternoon –

how ice and shovel –    just

then they emerged,

offered hellos and quips about

the plowman’s precision,

garden unscathed –

1.22.12

I was just thinking how I always needed

an ocean grandmother to hear my stories –

I looked in my cupboard and found it

wanting — no sea salt, no foam, no striped

stones for wishing –

I was just thinking that I needed

this roar,      this deep silence,

but I couldn’t ask her for it, could I?

I have been thinking that all I needed

were a few sand dollars, a stone in the shape

of a heart, and the surf lapping

at my winter boots –

it was this, tonight, this sunset,

the eider ducks bobbing with the waves,

that reminded me that all I needed

was –

1.16.12

water, kettle on, hot water, tea

soak beans, mix yeast and water, wait

wash hands, rinse dishes

tea, shower, flush toilet, wash hands

fill kettle, wash dishes

clean counter, wash sink, fill sink

soak mushroom bag, water dripping, drain sink

heat kettle, make tea, drink water

mist rosemary,  boil beans

drink water, heat kettle, make tea

wash hands, drink more water

rinse mushrooms, wash dishes

condensation on the window glass

soak pots, wash hands

heat kettle, drink water, wash pan

wash face, wash hands, brush teeth

refill cat dish, flush toilet

wash hands