For the love of spring
As the pace of my days pick up and they extend like the rays of sun moving towards solstice, I can’t help but tend to all the seeds that I’ve sown and continue to sow this year. There’s nothing like manifesting a vision, from seed to reality, all with a little help from my friends. My human, animal, and plant allies helped pull me through the seemingly strong current of this past year. And it’s felt like a sticky, strong, pensive, ease into the year. Good thing there are chi-moving plants to help move through the residual dampness of winter and into the sprightly pace of Springtime.
The movement that I’ve felt from wild tending to the patches of wild plants behind my house in the Oakland hills is dynamic and chi-moving. I’ve been picking cleavers, chickweed, CA hedge nettle, and miner’s lettuce and cleaning it, spinning it in the salad spinner, chopping it, and letting it infuse in filtered water for a day in the fridge, before blending it and then filtering it for the most green juice ever. It’s definitely a wonderful ode to spring and great way to get minerals from and cellular level intelligence from wild plants. Try making this Cleaver’s green juice, it’s delicious! I especially love making cleavers ice cubes! Try making cold brew cleavers tea mixed with decocted and cooled fresh ginger tea. The cooled result is so refreshing on a hot day, and can also help move some of that residuls winter dampness.
Spring is a time of celebrating the verdant energy that moves through the natural world, causing all of northern California to explode into all shades of green, from the smallest blades of grass to the most extravagant flowers in all of their energetic glory. It’s a time when the earth wakes from its slumber and starts to bask in the sunshine. Those glorious rose blooms have softened the aura around me and reminded me that we are all love and connected in the rose garden, where all are welcome. In mid-May, I harvested a crate full of all different aromatic rose petals for distillation and made the most gorgeous hydrosol! Try it here.
There’s something magical about hydrosols. I’m talking about the life force, or “viriditas” of the plant, that is captured through the alchemy of a water cycle that mimicks our macro water cycle on earth, but happening on a much smaller scale. I believe that water has the ability to hold consciousness, memory, intentions, so the hydrosol that ultimately gets sprayed onto your face and penetrates into your skin cells through osmosis holds that magical life force, and delivers that cellular knowledge straight into different pathways through your skin barrier. Water is life! Plants are life!
I couldn’t wait to get started planting more roses and distilling! I’m mostly excited to work with these plants and deliver them to your face.
In the garden of the senses, lies the pathway to the spirit!