Joy as a cornerstone of an Herbal Apprenticeship
“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” Margaret Atwood
Ahhh Spring! This Spring 2023 marks my 23rd cycle of teaching the Beginner/ Intermediate Apprenticeship at Blazing Star Herbal School. For 23 years now on the Tuesday closest to the New Moon in April I welcome a new crop of Apprentices all eager to begin this new chapter of their lives. It is my job to awaken their spirits to the magic of healing with plants.
During our first session together my intention is to plant the seeds of how we will nurture each others growth over the next 10 months of Tuesdays and to create a vessel for everyone to feel seen and heard.
We begin every class session begins with talking circle, a tradition that I first encountered back when I was a live-in apprentice at the Wise Woman Center, and have since experienced in several powerful movements including my time at Standing Rock. This way of starting our time together has several benefits to skillset, development and practice of each budding herbalist. During the circle we spend more time listening than talking fostering deeper listening skills and reflection. We listen for meaning, pay attention to body language, cultivate empathy avoid making judgments, pay attention to the feelings associated with the words. We listen with respect, support, compassion and quietness. Everyone’s contribution is equally important. It is an opportunity for everyone to learn little about each others lives to share what it is we are all bringing to the circle, our individuality. It also is a way to begin our day together in ceremony and connection and to each participate in creating sacred space. We sit in a circle. The circle symbolizes wholeness.
Another cornerstone of our day together has been sharing a meal (though since Covid this is no longer a weekly experience). Everyone brings something to contribute. We welcome all diets and encourage the practice conscious eating which can be defined as learning to pay attention.
A Buddhist sutra says: “When we are intimate with the food we eat, there is
intimacy with all things; when we are intimate with all things, we are intimate
with the food we eat. We should let all things and eating be intimate with each
other because when each thing is Reality then eating is also Reality. When all
things are Suchness, then eating is also Suchness. When all things are One
Awareness, then eating also is One Awareness. When all things are Awakened
Intelligence, then eating is also Awakened Intelligence. Any name that can be
applied to it and the Reality spoken of are this intimacy so we can call all of this
intimately single.”
I encourage adopting a single bowl as the vessel for our meals, helping become more aware of the food you eat, how you eat, and the effects (large and small) of particular foods on your body and your spiritual and physical well-being. From deciding what to fill it with, you will become more attentive to every stage of eating and digestion. For years I have wanted to expand this sacred nourishment ritual into everyone having the opportunity to make their own bowl. By adopting this model, eating becomes a prayer of gratitude! Intergrating the physical, emotional and spiritual, deep nourishment provides the basis for deep change and opens the possibility to connect to the vital resources you have within. Eating well is a form of self respect. Eating is an invitation to show gratitude for your physical body through nourishment. Food sovereignty is a must, it is the food that will save us and help us stay together. Money does not rule the world, food does! Eating together is a very important ritual that restores balance and relationships. Remember every bite that passes our lips connects back to the generosity of seeds.
Another seed planted on the first day of class is the plant ally assignment. Choosing a plant ally that you will work with for the entire program. This plant, (this assignment) becomes the foundation of study as an apprentice. The ability to deeply connect with a plant is life altering.
My first experience with a plant ally was the early 1990’s. I was in my early 20’s like so many of my apprentices are now. I had arrived at the Wise Woman Center in Saugerties NY (by way of Kenya!) to become a live in apprentice with Susun Weed. Though already having trained and qualified as a Natural Therapist in the UK I could barely identify a dandelion but knew all the terminology, pathologies and products. Right away it became clear that Susun was an anomaly! so different to my previous teachers. Classes (can you even call them classes) started late in the day, we sat on ground, goats trampled on us as we spoke and followed us as we wandered, note taking was not encouraged, and there were no term papers exams or curriculums to be followed. I spent the evenings perusing her library, what a collection she had! In no time having handled most volumes making note of where I could find what info and made a long list of books I would read over the next 9 weeks. I had a plan, my own curriculum.
Or at least I thought I had a plan….Susun however had a different plan! a challenge for me “Do not open another book through out this apprenticeship” She wanted me to learn directly from the plants (20 years later I can honestly say WOW THAT WAS THE perfect assignment for me, thank you Susun!- i do often wonder whether the woman who was told not to speak again for a few weeks feels the same way!) The first assignment was to find a “green ally” to work with through out the program.
“Choose a plant that grows very near to you. . . You don't need to know the name of the plant, or anything about it. You will be sitting with your plant every day, dreaming with it, journeying with it. . . You are to develop a special caring, nurturing, relationship with your green ally. Our green allies tend our souls along with our sores.”
I felt lost and overwhelmed, no books, learning directly from the plant, a plant I knew nothing about? A relationship with a plant? Talking with a plant? Is that really possible. How do you pick a plant? They pick you!!!! How do I know when I have been picked...then what? Introduce yourself? and they’ll speak back and I was stuck here for 6 weeks! I had no idea what plants were weeds and what were not, and which had all those good medicinal properties I had learnt about.
Day after day I would gather my journal and supples and head outside to find myself a plant ally, (or to hide and make it seem like I knew what I was doing) getting out of your head is truly a challenge and this is what i tor to help my apprentices with these days. Day after day i would come back a little more anxious. The next morning again, water bottle, bread and cheese in hand I would walk out the back door and get hit in the face or chest by some over grown, unruly plant that was trying to take over the cheese porch,! I would carefully put it back in place so as not to get it caught in the door, wondering why on earth she doesn’t just cut this plant back as I balanced my belongings, held the door and squeezed out. Day after day this plant stood in my way, making me stop and pay attention to it! I do not remember how long it took, or when it finally occurred to me that that perhaps that plant was my plant, my ally. She had found me! an ally equally stubborn and persistent!
That’s how Mugwort came to be my first green ally, a relationship that guided me, rooted me and very much helped form me into the woman I am today. I have had many allies since Mugwort, not all of them have been tattooed onto by body but all have left a mark on my life. Named after the lunar goddess Artemis and, like the moon, invites us to travel with her from the material world into the magical. Mugwort is particularly helpful when facing fears, nutting out problems and overcoming creative or emotional blocks, as it helps to access deep memories (whether personal or collective) and bring them to light. Her intoxicating aroma has guided me for years....so much gratitude to her for the guidance.
Ally comes from the Latin word alligare, meaning "to bind to," like nations who are allies in wartime — they will act together, and protect one another. You can also use ally as a verb, meaning "join forces with." For example, you might ally yourself with influential people to advance your career. As a noun, pronounce ally like this: "AL-eye." As a verb, it's “uh-LIE." If you have an ally, you have someone who is on your side, like a more experienced teammate who is your ally in convincing the coach to give you more playing time. Who could not use “somebeing” on our side!
Students often ask me to help them pick an ally. While I cannot pick an ally for someone I encourage people to think local, think abundant, and this sustainable getting to know your local/regional plants! Plants that have shown up right near you, ones that grow in your driveway, or the local park, ones that can be cultivated in your backyard or community garden. A plant that grows in the Amazon is not a “better” more powerful ally than a common plant that grows on the sidewalk outside your home. Taking a local approach is investing your health in your community! Healing begins at home, the local plants make it possible for us to breathe, growing from the same rich soil we walk on, their lives are intertwined with ours. Traditional healers have long known that the medicine we need the most, grows very near to us.
We end the day hands in dirt literally planting seeds. Seeds that we will tend to, sing to, love and listen to, and nourish throughout the growing season, then harvest and craft into medicines that we will share with our community, before finally harvesting the seed and storing for the next crop of apprentices. Seed stewardship is a form of midwifery. We approach seeds in the same manner we do our children and our babies. It is a great honor to care for them as they care for us.
In this way the seed for the apprenticeship is planted together literally and figuratively on that third Tuesday in April! Seeds hold stories, spread stories and carry stories. Seeds tell stories of human adaption, joy, loss, celebration. transformation and sustenance. Seeds are a diverse expression of life itself. hopeful, renewing, transformative and sustaining. Women and seeds are the carriers of the next generation.
There is no despair in a seed, Joy is very much a cornerstone of the apprenticeship. As Mary Oliver so wisely wrote in “Don’t Hesitate” - “Joy is not made to be a crumb”
Please consider joining the Art and Revolution of Self Care: Winter Edition begins on Jan 21. It is an invitation to rest and re-set, to gather and grow together. Every morning for 28 days you will receive an email with an attached PDF, centered around a self care theme, featuring a prompt, a practice, a sample ritual, a quote/affirmation, and a seasonal recipe or two. Some practices will be cumulative (and others a one time experience). Some days you will find the suggested action easy and some days perhaps a little more challenging, some days the rituals will speak right to you and other days you may want pass and to create your own variation.
(Reprinted from Home Herbalist Mag 2020)