the neighborhood herbal, episode 5: A FIRST AID KIT FOR FINDING YOUR GIFT
Greetings my winter herbal swans,
Across the pandemic continuum, I made us a herbal first aid kit. Depending on where you live, this winter may feel like one long, cold night of the soul. First aid usually means gauze and bandaids for booboos. But in these times, we need first aid kits for our souls. This one is all about supporting you to shine. It's about finding your special sauce. It features a new juicy potion, made with key herbal players. I know it takes a whole different spell of energy to read words on screens right now. I hope this herbal love box guides you to be in ritual with the life all around you.
This is an herbal first aid kit for Finding Your Gift. It’s a toolbox for supporting the birth of your unique contributions into the world. Your creative expression. It's an invitation towards mastery in an unwritten field. To what brings you never ending curiosity. Is it inspired by old Sarah Lewis TED talks? Yes. Your purpose can save your life as much as anything. Imagine the land supporting you to find it.
FEATURING:
WISE GURL FRUIT JUICE is a potion for seeding your inner fire into sustained action. Add it to your daily routine (form below).
Hundreds of pomegranate seeds bring a burst of aliveness, while offering a clarifying zing that sharpens our energy. This oxymel (i.e. herbs + fruit infused in vinegar and honey) holds the nutrients of the whole fruit. The practical herbalist says the fruit teaches us to “be uncompromising of the conditions we require for our own growth.” I hear this as getting super specific about what we need-- so we can do what we came here to do. To clear our path from distractions. It dares us to be precise with how we live out our days. It’s also sweet nectar for our skin, heart, and joint health.
Rosemary, sage, and thyme form a triple threat of wise grandmother energy. Hence, wise gurl fruit juice. Rosemary improves our memory and ability to focus. The scent alone keeps us alert and knowing. Sage and thyme are those broomstick aunties who shoo away colds, flu, and sore throats.
Made with raw honey and apple cider vinegar, this potion is a daily blessing for our immune system.
Doses: Start with 1 dropperful / per day to test it out and go up to 1-3 dropperfuls/ 2x per day if you like it. Take before public speaking, at the top of your day, or to nourish your focus when you need to handle your business.
$12 / per 1 oz bottle.
Made during the moon in Capricorn.
PAUANE / WINTAUK / KVFI / SASSAFRAS
There’s a saying in herbalist circles that the plants that support your healing are the ones that grow right around you.* This is why I love neighborhood herbalism. On my daily walks, I came across a patch of pauane, wintauk, or kvfi (also known as sassafras) trees growing. Me, a lover of things with paws, was so happy to meet this spicy-smelling tree on my path. (Sassafras is well known for flavoring root beer.) I’d take a leaf and mash it up in my hands to release the citrusy, dark-spice smell. For me, that scent is a spell of aliveness. I felt that luck you feel when you experience kinship with the living world -- belonging. Called pauane by the Timucua and kvfi by the Choctaw, this plant has thrived here pre-colonization. If you’re local, you can visit a patch of pauane in the forests near the Edison Johnson Aquatic Center.
Pauane’s shape and smell is unique amidst the other forest trees. I believe pauane teaches us to find our special offering. Pauane flower essence supports us with “appreciating one's uniqueness and inner gifts, and offering them from a place of self-love.” Pauane is a self-love teacher. One day, they cut down some of the young pauane trees on the trail. I walked home with a few branches from the forest floor and pressed the leaves to remember our neighborhood pauane. When putting this first aid kit together, I found them, already waiting for me in the box.
Each wise gurl fruit juice potion will come with a dried leaf from this special tree.
OTHER ELEMENTS:
WHITE FAWN LILIES & WILD OAT
For every complex emotion, I love to tell people, “there’s a flower essence for that.” A flower essence is made by placing a flower in water, leaving it briefly in the sun, and then taking that flower water, diluting it with an alcohol like brandy (to preserve it) a few times, and then taking a few drops at a time. You can learn more about them here. I don’t make flower essences often, though I love to read about them. It’s fun to learn the spiritual medicine of the flowers we encounter. Here are two for finding your gift:
White fawn lily flower essence for “when you feel unsure of offering the gift of your authentic self.”
Wild oat flower essence for when you want to do something meaningful with your life, but feel unclear about how to proceed.
If you’re interested in finding flowers or flower essences for your soul work, start to notice the flowers you come across on your daily walks, or ones you’re drawn to at the grocery store. Research what different folks have to say about their meaning, or do a plant meditation and listen for yourself. It’s common to ask, ‘how do you know that this flower supports you with xyz?’ My favorite response is: they tell you.
THE CHARIOT
If wise gurl fruit juice was a tarot card, it’d be the chariot. This card is all about focusing your energy and your actions. I’m familiar with letting my circular tendencies -- an old story of how I didn’t act in time -- get in the way of taking centered action now. A detail I love about this card is how the stars loom above the crown of the chariot driver. It reminds me that living out our gift is part of our celestial connection, a thread between the heavens and earth.
I can’t say if finding your gift will translate to how you earn a living. (If you’ve ever felt like you have to monetize your skills, or else it’s not worth pursuing, you grapple with this question.) What I know is that it will increase our clarity about how we build people-centered economies. The polar vortex across the deep south is showing us how essential our neighborhood practices really are. Everyday people will do the life-saving work that we so often wait in desperation for expect the state to do. From mutual aid networks, to the neighbors we’re calling on for heat, we are each other’s water, bread, and warm place to sleep. Recognizing this awakens the revolutionary potential of our gifts.
If finding your gift is a question you’re in, I hope this first aid kit helps you go towards what you already do in community. Walking around the block, cooking hearty meals, recording voice notes for the queer group chat. What is the essential magic that we can commit to practicing over and over again, and still search for our edge? Study those places where satisfaction comes not just from praise or accomplishment, but deeper self-knowing. To what ties you to the soil and the stars. Your gift connects you to what’s needed right now, and to the beyond.
*I would love to hear more about where this comes from, if it’s shared across many ancient cultures, etc.