Calming Down Cramping, Sore Muscles with Cramp Bark

Wine making is usually a spring through autumn activity.  Most berries and fruits we make our wines from come to be ripe between those times.  One of the extremely few berries that we wait until the Winter Solstice to make is highbush cranberry.  Highbush cranberry wine is one of the easiest to get right.  In fact if you did nothing more than crush the berries in water and let them sit for two weeks before you strained them you could make a fair wine without even adding any yeast.  The berries will produce their own yeast in a pinch. 

Highbush cranberry berries are pretty bitter when they first ripen, but leave them on the bush for several freezes and they sweeten to a great wine making or even jelly making berry.  I try to start mine right around, if not on, the Winter Solstice or Yule.  By spring the berries are fermenting within their own skins and if you watch early returning robins eat them before the worms come out, you will get to see very hammered robins. lol

But this plant has another name, a secret identity if you will.  Many of the old timers called it cramp bark because of the wonderful pain relieving power that comes from the inner bark of the plant.  This bark is best harvested as the sap is rising up through the bark in the spring, usually before the leaves reach full size.

To describe the bush can be hard, because some people call it a small tree while other call it a large bush.  Either way it is a smooth and upright shrub, usually five to twelve feet high.  It leaves are often described as maple shaped, with three lobes each with a prominent vein.  The flowers are white and form a drooping umbel shape.  The fruit, which stays on the tree all winter (unless a hungry animal, bird, or human consumes them) and very importantly, hang DOWN from the branch in the umbel shape.  It is easiest to find in open woodlands, but the fuller the sun they are in, the more fruit they will produce.  I have them scattered through an old orchard I bought a few years ago, but I mainly harvest the berries from a smaller stand of them along a fence row just because they get more sun.

The berries and the bark both have the same medicinal qualities but the berries have very little of it, while the bark has a great deal of it.  There are two ways of harvesting the bark.  One is where you take a vertical rectangle of bark out the main stalk, making sure not to cut all the way around the stalk, girdling the bush and killing it.  Carefully peal the bark out of the rectangle and immediately peal off the outer bark.  The longer you wait to peal off the outer bark, the harder it can get.  Dry the inner bark for two weeks and store in a dark, dry place.  Or you can cut branches off the bush, right next to where they branch from the bush.  From there make one slit up the side of the cut branch and peal the whole branch.  With the branch method you will get more bark, but you will need to work fast to get the outer bark peeled away before it get too tough to do it.  Then, like above, dry the inner bark for two weeks and store in a dark place.

Cramp bark can be used by mixing with mints to help soothe an upset and cramping stomach.  It can be used with charcoal to help a person recover from food poisoning.  Combine it with motherwort and willow bark and it can be used to help ease menstrual cramping.  Drinking a strong tea of it with many glasses of water can help relax muscles that tend to cramp at night.  Wintergreen and cramp bark tea can help ease the aches of over worked muscles.  Basically what it does is relax muscles without making a person drowsy.  If you do want it to help you sleep through the night a good recipe is:

2 oz Cramp Bark 
1 oz each of Skull Cap and Skunk Cabbage
1/2 oz each cloves and ginger

Bruise or coarsely chop these and add to a pint of at least 80 proof vodka.  Let sit for a month in a dark place.  Strain out the plant material and you have a relaxing tincture.  10 to 50 drops of this into 8 oz of water before you go to bed will help you get a good night sleep.  Try the smaller dose first working your way to the larger dose it the smaller one doesn't work.

Highbush cranberry wine and jelly and cramp bark as a medicinal.  This plant is an important part of my life, if only to be out gathering the berries on the Winter Solstice and reminding myself that even in the coldest, most silent time of the year, life still goes on.

Listening to the Plants

It is a cool weekend here in Wisconsin, made to feel cooler because we had hot weather not much more than a week ago.  We were a bit spoiled when the temperatures drop to a more seasonal level.  Many of the students were shivering in their coats today. 

In the morning my good friend and one of my teaching partners taught part one of her drum making classes.  Always popular, people get to create and connect with a very spiritual tool.  The drum was considered to be so powerful that many American Indian tribes did not allow women to play them.  It was the belief that women were already so powerful that it would be dangerous to add the power of the drum to that energy.  Thank goodness this has changed because I love to raise energy with a drum circle and many of my drumming friends are HoChunk (Winnebago) ladies who really know how to "rock the house" with their drumming energy.

In the afternoon I took the students on a wild medicinal plant walk and then we ended up in the kitchen preparing our herbs.  It is another popular class that some take just as a day class instead of staying for the whole weekend and doing the other activities.  It's cheaper to do this too. 

As we were walking I noticed that one of the students refused to gather any herbs.  This is fine, some people like to go back and meditate over the plants, others are uncomfortable about a certain plant, others just came along out of curiosity, but they really came for another weekend class.  I do not want to push anyone into doing something they do not feel like doing.

When we came across a stand of violets, I was quite happy.  Violets are a wonderful medicinal and high in Vitamin C.  Adding the flowers and leaves to a spring salad can make a pretty and nutritious meal.  We gathered some up to take back to make a violet cough syrup.  One can either take the long way of adding violet flowers to honey, then letting it sit for 2 months to infuse the lovely color and healing directly into the honey.  Or one can put the violets into water, let this sit on a sunny window sill for three or four days (until the violets all float in a line at the surface of the water), then strain the flowers out and mix the remaining water with double the amount of honey to be used right away.  Either of these syrups makes a gentle cough syrup that actually works better on children than over the counter DM does.  Studies on DM prove that it is not only unsafe for children but simply doesn't work.  Most people believe this is true for adults as well, but there are no studies to prove it one way or the other.

Well, finally the student decided to speak up.  She told me that she refused to gather any plants because it was not the full moon and EVERYONE knows you only harvest during the full moon.  While she came off a bit angry, I understand that she had been taught something and to see others going against her teachings seemed very wrong to her.  I told her if that was what she had been taught, she did not need to gather any herbs.  Some of the other students looked around at each other like perhaps they should not be gathering either.  It was time to put an idea to thought.

I asked everyone to come to the idea that we are only to gather during the full moon, then I asked them to tell why we followed that rule.  The one student said because that is the time of the month that plants show their best side.  Hmmm, an interesting idea.  Why else?  Because witches of old only harvested on the full moon.  Okay, that I understand...Why would witches only harvest on the full moon?  Another woman spoke up; "Because people use to be persecuted for harvesting medicines.  Witches of old often had to hide to gather their plants.  Still they had to see the plants to harvest them so they went out during the full moon."  Well, that idea makes sense.  Then why would we do this now?  "Because the plants are at their highest energy at the full moon," the student answered.  Okay, if this were true, then that would be a very good argument for only harvesting on the full moon.  So, if we wait until the full moon and come back to harvest these violets, what will we find?  "Nothing," a wise student answered.  "These violets are fleeting and there will be no flowers on them by the full moon."  That is a true answer.  If we were to wait until the full moon we would miss out on gathering this wonderful wild edible and medicinal.  So, does that mean we shouldn't use violets unless they bloom on a full moon?  Most of the students did not think this was a good idea.

We each have to make our own way in the world.  If following the moon or following a calendar to harvest plants is the way one person's path takes them, this is perfectly fine.  While I am trying to not sound like I am cutting that way of thinking down, I chose to instead of asking the moon when to harvest the violets, I ask the violets themselves.  For me, the violet presents itself when it is ready to be harvested, it didn't read the latest spiritual book on the shelf, it doesn't consult the calendar.  It comes when it is warm enough, when the ground is soft enough, when the air is still enough, and when the rain gives it just the right amount of moisture to send forth its flower in hopes of breeding. 

I, myself, would LOVE it if all plants came into harvest time on the full moon.  It would make my life sooo much easier.  Instead of having to go out into the wilderness or garden everyday, instead of having to join into communication with a being that is so different than I am, all I had to do was look at the calendar to see when the moon would be full.  Then and only on that day, would I have to go out into the wilderness and garden.  One day out of every 28 days!  For a wildcrafter, that would be the epitome of easy.   More than likely this is where this man made rule came from.  So that a teacher didn't have to work as hard, they only took the students out once every 28 days.  Simple and easy, one could literally write down a yearly schedule for gathering plants.  Unfortunately, those of us who have worked with plants for a very long time learn this is not so.  Plants present themselves when THEY are ready, not for our convience.  Human created rules means very little to them.

I am afraid that no matter how gentle you try to tell someone you don't follow their way of belief, often those people get very angry with you.  I'm not saying this woman's way of thinking is wrong, I'm say from what I have learned it would not work.  I am not the end all, be all of knowledge.  A person must always follow what they believe to be correct.  Still, I should be able to say why I believe as I do just as well as this person says why she believes the way she does.  Neither of us should have been trying to cut the other's beliefs down.  The other students turned both ways over in their minds and began gathering again.  Perhaps they will think more about it later and decide that gathering when the full moon is out is the best way.  Both ideas were presented so that people can make their own choices.

For me, I listen to the moon for many things, usually anything that has to do with water, such as weather, emotions, and births.  A crazy time can become more crazy during a full moon.  A storm can become stronger during the full moon.  Babies of all kinds of animals seem to like to come into the world when the moon is full.  But plants have different rules to live by and if it is dry during the full moon or too hot or too cold, the plant will wait to come later.  They will not present until they feel that it is the right time.  When it comes to harvesting plants, I ask the plants, not the moon.

Teacher; Slippery Elm part 2

In my earlier post I wrote about the healing qualities of slippery elm bark, but as a teacher slippery elm has lessons to teach.  It is an ambassador to the plant world for many new herbalists.  It "speaks" in a language that, if observant, even the biggest newbie can hear.  Slippery elm is a tree that talks about hard times and good times, all one has to do is listen.

Many trees, such as nut trees, maple trees, or elm trees have what are called 'mast years'.  These are years where every nut tree in the forest will drop literally tons of nuts or elm and maples will produce thousands of seeds.  Other years they will produce few or even no nuts or seeds. 

There is a very good reason for this.  These seeds are predated on by many animals.  Trees like oaks feed many different animal with their acorns, wild turkeys, squirrels, deer, humans, even coyote and fox will eat acorns.  But the oak tree doesn't drop those acorns to feed animals.  They are trying to create a new generation of oak trees.  Basically those acorns are their babies.  If oak trees produced the same amount of acorns every year, the predators of those acorns would keep the same population every year and consume all of the acorns.  So what the oak, and many other trees do is have several years where they drop little or no seeds.  Oaks keep the population of acorn predators down, then, one year every oak tree in the forest will drop tons of acorns, so many that the limited number of acorn predators can not consume them all.  This way the oak tree knows they will create a new generation that year.  

Slippery elm trees do this very same thing.  Most years the trees do not produce any seeds, then suddenly one year (and 2012 is the year here in Wisconsin) the branches are loaded with seeds.  The difference between nut trees and slippery elm is that scientists cannot tell why nut trees chose one year over another to drop all their nuts.  The slippery elm tree however chooses to produce seeds during stress years.  Often we humans can't tell what is stressing the elm until after the year is up (hind sight is 20/20) but when we study the elm we can see that the year following the mast year is stressful in one way or another.

So to those who observe the slippery elm, harvest from her, care for her, they can tell when nature is about to send a stressful year.  We, in our bumbling ways, may not be able to feel something coming, but the elm can.  Listening to her makes us wiser.  Just like none of us can know everything, no one species is so smart it doesn't have to listen to the other species around it.  

The slippery elms are really talking this year.  Their branches were coated with flowers and now they are heavy with fruit.  Something stressful is coming for the elms.  Are we listening or do we turn a blind eye?   I will not.  If the elm tells me something bad is coming, I listen...and get ready.  Slippery elm is too wise of a friend to do anything else.

Healer and Food from the Edge; Slippery Elm part 1

Early spring slippery elm branch covered with fruit

Since I was a child slippery elm has been in my life.  If one of us kids got a sliver that we couldn't get out, mom would make up a poultice of wet slippery elm bark to draw it out.  It was often mixed with herbs like plantain or comfrey and slapped onto wounds.  If the wound was festering, thyme would be ground up and put into the poultice.  If one of the guys "indulged" during the weekend on too much rich food and good booze, they would finish off the weekend eating slippery elm gruel with a bit of catnip added.  If someone would have gas in the house mom would just put a glass of watery slippery elm bark gruel on the counter and walk away.  The person with gas would discretely go into the kitchen, drink the gruel and no one would say another thing (no teasing allowed in earshot of mom).  Healing from stomach distress or if we had diarrhea was done with gentle slippery elm bark soup.  When grampa was in the hospital for his heart, granma would take him slippery elm bark powder because the hospital food upset his digestive tract so badly.

I would help my aunt heal with slippery elm bark in her practice for several years.  She fed slippery elm bark gruel, mixed with the appropriate herbs to many people with digestive problems.  From simple upset stomach to bleed ulcers, slippery elm bark mixed with warm or cool water has a gentle, coating  action that can deliver medicine to the digestive tract and keep it there like an internal bandage.  Adding powdered goldenseal or barberry root to the gruel puts an antibiotic right at the source of the infection and holds it there.  Small amounts of comfrey mixed in can coat the esophagus and help heal acid reflux disease.  Any eating disorder seems to be helped from slippery elm bark and catnip gruel, from appetite fatigue due to stress to anorexia due to emotional problems.  Even a weakened body can get the nutrients it needs from slippery elm bark gruel.  Often a bit of duck weed or chickweed will be added for an extra nutrient boost if the patient can handle that.  Mixed with marijuana it can help a cancer patient to regain their appetite.  Aunt Carol use to make enemas of a cup of water, 1 teaspoon of slippery elm (it expands a great deal so you don't need much), a tablespoon of dried chamomile, and a tablespoon of white elm bark to use for anal infections or internal hemorrhoids.

Today I use it for all those things, plus now I sprinkle a pinch of powdered slippery elm bark over one of my dog's food.  She was a rescue and had come to me with irritable bowel syndrome.  If you love your dog, don't feed them manufactured dog food.  Really, who thinks dried kibble (what's in that crap?) from a bag is what ANY being that you love should eat?  Would you eat it day in and day out?  I switched my Siere to an all natural diet from my farm, started giving her yogurt and a sprinkle of slippery elm bark and marshmallow root and within 2 months her intestines had healed from the chemical laden diet she had been fed for the first year and a half of her life.

In a survival situation people think they will just eat whatever they have available.  This has actually been proven not to be the case however.  When a body gets stressed a syndrome called appetite fatigue happens where a person will literally stop eating anything that they are not use to.  This is why we crave "comfort foods" during stressful times.  We crave what we are use to eating.  People who were caught in wars sometime would starve to death because their bodies refuse to add the stress of a new diet to an already stressful situation.  A gruel made of slippery elm bark can ease us into a different diet than what we are use to eating, taking the stress out of digesting new things.  Slippery elm bark gruel is a way to get nutrition to those who's bodies simply refuse to eat.

This winter a friend was diagnosed with an ulcer and we healed her with no chemical medicines with a gruel made of catnip, comfrey, and slippery elm powder.  The use of comfrey internally is controversial so research it before you use the following recipe:

1/4 oz of dried catnip
1/4 oz of dried comfrey leaves (1/8 oz of dried comfrey root if the ulcer is bad-but use at own risk)
1/4 oz slippery elm bark powder
2 cups of good water (not fluoride or chlorinated water)

Boil the water, turn off heat, infuse the water with the catnip and comfrey leaves.  If using comfrey root at your own risk, boil the root in the water for 10 minutes before turning off heat and putting in the catnip leaves.  This should sit for at least 30 minutes covered with a cloth.  Healing teas are stronger than you everyday drinking tea.  Strain out plant material and add powdered slippery elm bark.  Allow this to swell for a couple minutes.  Take sips of this several  times a day--no less than 7 times each day. 

Mixed the same amount of these herbs with 4 to 6 oz of water and you have a healing paste that can be used on most skin ulcers as well. 

Fruiting slippery elm branch

To find slippery elm you need to look at edge areas because that is where they grow most numerously.  If you happen to find one in the middle of a field it will be large, growing up to 100 feet tall, but the majority of slippery elms grow along the edges of fields or disturbed lands and only grow to be about 40 feet tall.  It's bark is quite rough, but the top of the ridges on the bark are flat.  The leaves are like an pointed oval and are quite rough.  It flowers very early in the spring and this is often the best time to look for it for not many other trees are even leafing out yet.  The flowers aren't showy, but they are unique, looking kind of like someone put a whole lot of bunches of thin red wire onto a tree along the branches.  By this time here in Wisconsin the flowering is over.  Usually it happens in March, the further south you go, of course, the earlier the tree blooms.  Now the "fruit" or seed pods have take over from the flowers.  They tend to be flat circles that have a visible seed in the middle. 

Slippery elm fruits

This is when I harvest, before the leaves come out, when the sap is rising up through the inner bark.  It is the inner bark that we harvest and this can damage a tree.  While not quite as much as the American elm, which is almost extinct, the slippery elm is susceptible to Dutch Elm Disease, a parasite that gets under the bark and slowly kills the tree.  Once there, there is no stopping these little beetles and the tree will die, so it is best to put a mud plaster or bleach spray over the wound you will cause to the tree.

Bark of slippery elm

Cut a vertical rectangle into the bark, making sure that you do NOT cut all the way around the tree.  This is called girdling and it will kill the tree.  Many commercial sources of slippery elm do this, so if you are buying slippery elm bark, make certain you are getting it from a reputable source.  I can not image that a tree will give as powerful of healing if it is dying while giving up the healing source.  Try to stress the tree as little as possible.  It is shown that plants and animals who live less stress filled lives give better tasting, and higher in nutrients flesh than those that are stressed.  Even if you have no caring for the life you are taking know that you will not have as strong of medicine in something you allow to be stressed (and I can't think of something more stressful than dying).

Peal away the rectangle you have made and spray the area with 1 to 4 ratio of bleach and water or put on a mud plaster to protect the wound until the tree heals itself.  Then peal off the outer bark.  If the tree is healthy this happens quite easily.  The bark "slips" because of how mucilaginous it is.  This is why it heals so well.  Dry the inner bark for at least two weeks.  I like to store all my herbs as whole as possible so I don't grind or grate my elm bark until I am ready to use it.  I feel this preserves the nutrients in the bark, but the mucilage will be there even if the nutrients have faded, so if you mix it with other nutrient rich herbs you don't need to worry about preserving the slippery elm's.

People are often amazed at how well this herb works.  Some people who have never trusted herbal medicine will get very excited at how well slippery elm bark powder heals all sorts of ailment.  Many hospitals used it in great quantities until Dutch Elm Disease made buying it a bit more expensive than the pharmaceutical companies could make their drugs.  For those of us that can gather it or don't have the access to a doctor's prescription pad though, slippery elm bark is often a cheaper, safer, and more effective cure than many drugs created in a lab.  This is one of the first herbs that people new to herbal healing should learn, especially if you live in an area that it grows.  It is a healing ally in uncertain times that as a herbalist I can not do without.

Sign of Spring; Fiddleheads

The leaves are turning green, the birds are singing, the fish are moving to spawn...all signs that spring is here.  Despite all these signs and the calendar itself, here in Wisconsin we know that Old Man Winter may not be ready to throw in the towel just quite yet.  There is a good chance we will have another snow storm in the next couple of months and it would be a pretty good bet that we will have several more nights of below freezing temperatures.  Don't be too quick to get those tomatoes into the ground.  Our average last frost date is May 15th and though this year we may be able to jump the gun a bit, March 30th is still too early to be making that 2012 dream garden into a reality.

Instead I'm turning to nature to feed me my early spring vegetables and one of my favorites just poked it's head out of the ground.  In the woodland swamps the ostrich fern fiddlehead is popping up from it's mound-like cluster.  Fiddlehead have been a favorite food for many people for generations.  There are fancy eateries that charge good money to serve this wild edible to their more affluent customers.  Some people make a few extra dollars harvesting this spring delicacy and selling it to restaurants in the cities.  And those restaurants pay good prices to trusted sources.

With all of this going on someone new to the game of fiddlehead hunting might believe that all fiddleheads are safe to eat.  Not quite so.  In fact the list of "safe" fiddleheads that restaurants want to buy is getting shorter and shorter.  For the most part it has come down to the bracken fern fiddlehead and the ostrich fern fiddlehead, though many of us ignore modern safety standards and eat the fern fiddleheads we were raised on.  And now even these two come with a warning that, despite the fact I don't believe it, I should offer to pass on.  That is, don't eat fiddleheads raw.  Some people say that eating any fiddleheads raw will make your body not be able to absorb your B vitamins.  Diseases like pellagra can come from a vitamin B deficiency.  Okay, now that I warned you I just want to say that I have eaten many a fiddlehead raw and my skin has yet to break out in black pustules.  Still, you have been warned.

Ostrich fern are probably my favorite fiddlehead to eat, mainly because they are so plentiful here, but also I like their flavor.  For me it's not quite as "woodsy" or gamey as other fiddleheads.  They are also very easy to ID (but then, so are bracken ferns fiddleheads).  All one needs to look for is the fertile "plume" of the last year's fern cluster and you know you have ostrich ferns.  This plume is how the fern got its name, old timers thought it looked like an ostrich feather, though where the old timers saw an ostrich may be up for debate.

Ostrich ferns tend to grow in mounds.  The ferns, as well as the fiddlehead have water troughs, or grooves that run down the inside of the stem that directs rain water to the center of the mound.  Before the green fiddleheads emerge the mound seems to grow higher from the leaf litter until the first tender green shoots appear.  This is the time of harvest, because once those fiddlehead begin to unfurl, they should not be eaten.  You want to harvest them when they are small (less that 5 inches tall) and when the tops are still curled up.

Harvesting and preparing OF fiddleheads is pretty easy.  With a sharp knife cut the fiddlehead as close to the ground as you can while still staying in the green part.  Because ostrich ferns tend to grow in colonies it is best to only harvest one fiddle head per mound.  This assures you that you will have years and years of yumminess to harvest in the early spring.  Then take your treasures home to be cleaned and cooked.  Rub off any papery hairs that may be on your fiddlehead.  Some OF fiddlehead may be lots of these hairs, others may not have any.  Then wash them in cool water to get any swamp dirt off of them.

From there you can do so many things with them.  If you had a good year and you harvest more than you can eat, they can be lightly steamed and frozen for eating all year long.  Many people like them steamed and then covered with their favorite butter or cheese sauce.  Sauteing them in a stir fry is a great way to use them and will blend their flavor with all the other goodies in your wok or frying pan.  Fiddlehead pie is another backwoods favorite.  My mother use to bake this main dish in a wood burning kitchen stove and even modern day convenient stoves can not take away that old timey taste you get with this pie.  The recipe I most often use is:

2 cups of cleaned fiddlehead
1/2 cup diced onions
1 cup of favorite mild cheese
3 eggs
1 cup cream
*1/2 cup flour
*1/2 cup milk
*1/4 teaspoon baking powder
*1/4 cup butter or shortening
1/4 teaspoon salt
grind of black pepper
pinch of cayenne pepper

*all of so marked ingredients can be replaced with 3/4 cup of Bisquick.  Yes, I have been known to cheat this way too, so you don't have to be a purist.

Heat oven to 400 degrees F.  Grease a standard pie plate.  Heat a pot of lightly salted water to boil.  Once boiling add fiddleheads and cook for 10 minutes.  Drain, then plunge into cold water to stop cooking. Dry.

Sprinkle onions into bottom of pie plate.  Arrange fiddlehead over the onions to your liking.  Sprinkle evenly with cheese.   

Cut together flour, milk, baking powder, and butter to make a crumbly, mixture.  Put this into a large bowl with all the remaining ingredients and whisk this until smooth.  Pour this mixture over the fiddleheads and onions.  Bake until the top is golden brown, about 35 minutes.  An inserted knife in the center should have no liquid egg on it.  Let cool for 5 to 10 minutes and serve.  Best served warm.

Mmm, just writing this down makes me want it.  I think I know what we're having for supper tonight.

The simplest and wildest way of cooking fiddlehead though is to find some wild ramps as well.  Those two spring wild edibles were meant for eat other.  I scrub them both up really well and trim off the root end of the wild ramps.  Then I drop a good chunk of my fresh, sweet, homemade butter into a frying pan over low-medium heat.  When it gets melted I toss a handful of fiddleheads and about 1/2 as many ramps into the pan and cook them slowly.  Ramps aren't like other members of the alum family, if they get a bit brown they actually taste better.  I cook them until everything goes slightly limp, scrape them onto a plate and eat a delicious dish that came from the wildlands that surround me. 

It is also wonderful if this whole mixture is stuffed into the cavity of whatever fish you caught in the stream that day, then wrap it in foil and put on coals near the fire for about 15 minutes one side and 10 minutes the other.  As wild foods go, this is one of the best.  Sitting by the creek as night falls, listening to the frogs singing their spring chorus, waiting for the moon to rise and listening to the geese flying overhead, smelling your dinner cooking.  Add to that fact that your connection to nature and not your slavery to the grocery store is what will feed you and it makes the feast all the better. 

Freedom has a wonderful flavor!

How Does a Person Describe Themselves?

This is yet another attempt at me trying to describe myself for an introduction.  I often have a hard time doing this because I find it is easier to say what I am not than what I am.  Such as; while I am a witch I am not a New Age witch....  Which is fine except that people might want to know who and what I am instead of what I am not.  So, this is me trying to describe myself to anyone who wants to know about the posts they are reading from.

To start with how I came to be me, the easiest way is to say how different I am than most people.  I am seventh generation farmer and was raised very poor.  While my family had a great deal of land, they had VERY little money.  Before I went to college at age 17, I had electricity in my life for only 1 year and 4 months.  I was not raised with running water, or lights that just flicked on, or kitchen appliances, or...and this is big...TV.  Before my twentieth year I could count how many time I had watched TV on one hand and all of that was in school.  This is a huge difference between my and most Americans because TV regulated society for a very long time (now we have to add the Internet as a regulator of society) and not watching it means I did not receive that regulation.  I have always been a bit odd because I wasn't told how I was suppose to live as a child when those lessons are cemented into our brains. 

My parents are another thing that makes me the strange person that I am.  My mother was uncomfortable around any religion.  I tried asking her why once and THAT made her uncomfortable.  So, needless to say, we were not raised in a religion.  How I always describe us were that we were non-practicing atheists.  Though atheism would have probably made mom uncomfortable too.  When I began to look into religion after I went away to college I was literally starting with a clean slate.  Because of this I tend not to have as many religious laws and rules as most pagans and witches do.  I have always felt that people do good things because they are good people, not because they are afraid of a religious law.  If people want to do bad things, no religious laws will stop them because they can justify their ideas within most religions.  To put it another way, we can kill in the name of God just as much as we can love in it.

My father was a swamp rat.  I always joke that he was the wild man who fell in love with the farmer's daughter.  Dad was raised in the bottom of a skiff (a boat for shallow water) and spent most of his life traveling in gypsy style up and down the waterways of the Mississippi River.  The old codger, as he and now I like to call him, was more comfortable living out of the rivers and swamps than he was living in the human created world.  He passed this trait onto most of his children.  I have always felt more comfortable in my canoe gliding through back waters and blackjacks than I do walking city streets.  I am less frightened of the bears that I shush out of my gardens than I am of people.  Human wolves are more scary to me than canine wolves.

Despite all of this, humans are still companion seekers.  My friends are truly the greatest people in the world because they see all my weirdness and still accept me as I am.  I would die for both my friends and my family.  My friends accept that there will be times that I just disappear into nature and they have had to learn not to worry about me.  They know this is just they way I am.  I will be there for any of them, but sometimes I have to have that very important alone time that helps me breath through the bad times.

Hmmm, what else about me....I live surrounded by an Amish community and can drive a horse and cart as easily as I can drive a car.  I believe in being as self sufficient as possible because I don't like being at the mercy of big business.  I am not a prepper, per say, because I am not trying to survive some future disaster, I am more staying true to myself by trying to not be owned by those who use modern society's addictions (oil, electricity, easy food, clean water...) against it.  I spent a good part of my childhood living with an aunt who was the neighborhood healer so I enjoy practicing herbalism and natural healing.  I live on a 652 acre farm, plus I own another 100 acres on a hidden creek which is my bug out cabin.  I am off grid, using most solar and wind for my electrical needs.  I raise Scottish highlander cattle for milk and meat.  I do butcher because predators are as much a part of the natural world as prey species are.  I also raise pigs, sheep, llamas (guard animals), horses, chickens, turkeys, quail, geese and ducks.  I have 5 dogs, three of which are flock guardians and two are bums in the house.  The normal amount of barn kitties call my barns home.  My rule for cats are they can stay, I will feed them, but if they are on my land they will be spayed or neutered.  Don't let your prized breeding cat near my farm...:-)

So basically I am a nature centered witch who believes in being self sufficient and living with the natural world.  My spirituality works with nature's laws, not man made religious laws.  I have no true belief in a deity because I was not raised to believe in the invisible, but I do feel the connection of all things, because without each other, none of us exists.  We are anchored here by our diversity not our monotony.

I guess this rather long post is it then.  This is me in a long, rambling nutshell.  It is hard for any of us to put our whole life into words.  Especially since, because we are part of life, we are always changing finding new things that excite us, discarding old things we no long follow, and creating new memories that will forever make us who we are.  Thank goodness for this because we would probably get bored with ourselves if we didn't.  LOL