when an ancient Redwood dies
plants communicate with us and our bodies are the messengers
I work in-person or via Zoom. Book using this link or email me directly at alisonRwood@protonmail.com. Learn about my offerings here on my website
the body of a Redwood…
It was a bit over a year ago. We were having an even stormier, cloudier, rainier winter than the one that just passed…
Abalone Medicine Field Notes: Ancient Tree Medicine, 03.23.23
I want to share a story of the medicine my partner Garrett and I received last week during a visit to a grove of ancient Redwoods in Pomo territory.
After all the recent storms the forest was unrecognizable with milky blue silica-rich pools and rivers everywhere that used to be trails
atmospheric rivers now flooding and trickling through the quiet woods
we were hopping over creeks and crossing fallen logs to make our way
a very old large tree had come down and we were climbing on its trunk in wonder
when suddenly we came upon one of the ancients, one of the most massive eldest redwoods in the grove
a thousand-years-old tree that must have come down just a few days before,
its gorgeous fresh massive breath-stopping trunk stretching all the way across the wide expanse of the grove, beyond where our voices could carry
its base was far too tall to clamber onto, so we walked along the fallen body,
navigating the chaos of its boughs, much thicker than our own limbs, scattered everywhere and smelling so fresh...
to climb up onto the massive trunk at its middle, where huge neighboring trees were crushed underneath like matchsticks,
we tried to make sense of the carnage - thick tree trunks had been shot across the forest floor like spears, propped at weird angles against survivors,
swaths of bark and fresh raw wooden splinters as tall as houses, torn off with ease, dangling from the still-standing canopy around us
while I lingered in the tangle of tree limbs in the middle, my partner walked down to the sky-end of the fallen Ancient, looking so tiny down there
It was a scene of power and ravage and peace and beauty unlike any other I have seen.
Imagine the way the Earth must have shaken when this ancient creature fell.
imagine the wisdom it held,
its base hollowed out by fires from before any European stepped on this land.
we were witness to the end of an era.
we walked the long trunk and gathered the flowering tips from its top, they blanketed the ground all around us, a vast sprawling meadow of boughs
said thank you in wonder and took as much as we could carry which seemed like nothing in this sea of powerful medicine. My rain jacket stuffed like a fat and aromatic scarecrow.
at the furthest end, its roots sprawled up and out of the mud, now a silent dark and dripping cavern, a holy well of glittering milky silicate water gathered in the gaping hole at its feet.
the sunlight lit up the pool so it glowed, projecting woven ripples of light across the bark of the base of the fallen elder. mesmerizing
the bark was peeling off in long strips at the base… I gathered a few to repair my old redwood-bark basket which was ripping apart from use.
imagine what such a death long ago offered to the Pomo, who know what to do with such unbelievably bounty and gift, the baskets, the clothing, the houses…
I've been tincturing, infusing, brewing, and singing grateful praise over the boughs since we returned last Friday.
The apothecary now smells like a redwood forest :)
Ask me for a taste when you come in.
I am excited to discover together what medicine these ancient redwood tips carry - I've never come across anything like it.
Present-day update: The Redwood has been quietly releasing its medicine into the brews on my dark shelves, for over a year. It is available now to purchase & enjoy! I have found it to be opening and clearing and awakening to the senses and spirit. It’s quite strong, now.
Email me if you would like to arrange to adopt a bottle and have it shipped.
& a blessing.
Mokosh (Slavic - my ancestors), Pachamama (Quechua), Unci Maca (Lakota)… what Earth-based culture did not call her Mother?
May you have community harvests with songs to the land and plants… may you bathe naked in wild rivers with your babies and friends, may you know who exactly grows, gathers, harvests, hunts, and slaughters your food. May all the wild animals evade your car forever on country roads. May you adopt and tend the oaks in your neighborhood. May you clear and clean and drink from your crystalinne creeks and springs, may you know and eat the wild foods that grow on your path - may you use the plants to heal yourself and your loves. May your measure of time be the sun, moon and stars, the coming and going of the dark and light. May you tend a fire. May your ears fill with the language of birds, insects, animals, may you understand what they say, may it pleasure you. May you feel the heart of Earth, make love upon her body, weep at the beauty and generosity of flowers and watch the night-beetles walk. May you compost your shit. May you tend a garden. May your elders be wise and well cared for. May ‘sacred’ be an everyday word.
I can not name the field better than Robin Wall Kimmerer of the Potawatomi Nation in her address to the UN eight years ago. Where she asserts that the earth's resources are "commons" that fish have as much right to as humans. That no tunnel should be blasted through a mountain unless we first obtain the permission of the mountain. That no one can “own” our living Mother.
We know that it is possible, because until recently, it is what we have always done.
Which brings me to plant medicine- one of the most fundamental relationships humans have always had with our Earth. Plants and people have evolved together and are meant for each other. Humans have always known to use plants for medicine. The relationship goes as deep as we are willing. We resonate with plants. Who has not gathered wildflowers or been attracted to a tree? They have consciousness and sentience of their own - even science now knows this through studying mycelia and measuring electromagnetic fields and chemical reactions.
Plants speak to us - both consciously and unconsciously, through our biology, by affecting the way our blood moves, how our cells work, what we think and feel and see and understand. Plants are deities in a multi-theistic universe. With their own personality, their own powers and gifts, their own cautions… when you come to know the plants, you know when to call upon who. You know how it feels to be with them, how they express themselves, who they will and won’t get along with, what kind of healing they do, what kind of trouble they like to make. Knowing plants as beings infinitely expands our ability to work with them as medicine, as we exit the narrow mechanistic box our culture puts medicine into, and start to traverse the wilds of holistic full-body healing.
Part of how I choose and create effective herbal formulas is by knowing the herbs - drinking, tasting, growing, sitting with, reading about, prescribing, observing effects. They are my friends, and always have been, since my parents raised me among wild flowers and forests. I have a sense of them as beings, and can bring together a formula the way that one creates a team of people to make a project happen. I feel in my body if a formula is a bit off, or needs something - its easier if I have a clear sense of the person who is receiving the medicine - and people are complex. It may take a few circles around different medicines to flesh out the resonant cure. Go in gentle and slow, see what unfolds… there are so many different herbs that can help bring us into balance, that there is no single answer to which herbs. And there are so many time-tested formulas in the Chinese repertoire, to lean on and modify for reliably powerful results. Herbs work.
If you’d like to book a session with me to dive into your elemental patterns and receive a custom herbal formula to rebalance your inner ecology… book here, I’d love to work with you. I offer in person and telemedicine.
Starting May 8th: 8 Week Embody Medicine Circle
My upcoming Embody Medicine Circle starts May 8th, 4-6pm outside the Apothecary in the green beneath the gingko tree. I have space for four more people. Click on the button for details.
Each week when we meet, we begin by getting comfy on blankets and chairs on the grass and I pass out warm cups of strong herbal tea - one plant, brewed in local wild spring water. We land from wherever we’ve come from in our busy lives… we get quiet, drink, we slow down, relax, feel. We meditate for 10-15 minutes with the plant, going inward to listen to the communication of the herb in our body. Then everyone opens our eyes and one by one, people tell what they felt, and I share about how the sensations can be interpreted through the earth-based language of Chinese medicine. We learn inner tracking and mapping.
That spreading warm feeling in the chest could be the herb’s effect of tonifying Lung Qi - and we dive in, what is Lung Qi? The source of our physical energy, that helps protect us from getting sick. How it can be depleted by lack of sleep, by grief, by coughing, by not breathing deeply enough. Each person shares like this and then I go deeper into teraching about the medicine of the plant, reading passages from ancient herbal texts and modern science and sharing my own experience. It is remarkable how the two match up - each person’s felt experience, with the ‘official’ account of what these plant medicines are meant to do therapeutically. Confidence in our own body’s intuition grows with each passing week. And you get a pdf monograph of each herb for your own reference library.
Starting on May 8th, the Embody Medicine Circles will step through two core Classical Chinese formulas and get to know the patterns, signs, symptoms that go along with each formula. They will be formulas that match our group.
I’ll share a testimonial and more details about the Embody Chinese Medicine Circles soon - about the yoga and breath work we practice each week to create a daily home practice; how we learn about everyone’s individual Chinese medicine patterns as everyone shares what’s alive for their health in each circle. We build the 8 weeks around a personal reset and building the muscle of becoming our own self-healing expert. Look for another post soon or follow the button above.
Reach out for more information, book your free Exploration Consult call, or just sign up if you know you’re meant to be there! Early bird pricing ends this week, contribution is $640 before May 1st 🪲 after that, $720. 5% cash discount.
*free* monthly class series on Rewilding our Health 💫
all classes are on Zoom. Register and attend to access to the recording after the class.
This class series is designed to empower our community to use natural healing in our day-to-day lives. I offer tools to become your own healer and gain confidence in caring for your loved ones. I share what I have been tracking over 20+ years of unearthing and remembering the ancient wild gifts of natural medicine practices for self-healing.
May: Sat May 25th, 10 - 11am PCT
Home Herbal Medicine Chest: How to Treat your Maladies with Natural Medicine.
From acute herbal asthma relief to high fevers and coughs, from resolving red-streaking cellulitis to healing sinus infection, to drawing black widow poison and preventing Lyme after a deer tick bite, I’ll show you how to get off the industrial chemical hamster wheel and tap into our birthright of natural medicine to heal ourselves and our families at home.
I have been doing this for 15 years for both my son and myself - healing absolutely everything with herbs and natural remedies - no trips to the drugstore! I will give specific instructions for what remedies to stock and how to use them. I’ll share epic natural healing stories, and also the tale of the one time in 15 years that I needed to take antibiotics, and why… This is one of my favorite classes, and an essential skill set for true earth-based resilience. Sign up here! Its free…
Coming Up Next, Stay Tuned…
June: Natural Bathing Practices for Self-Healing & Wellness. dates TBA
July: Women’s Medicine: Tending our Womb. dates TBA.
Past Classes…
April: Designing your Own 2-Day Water Fast & Home Retreat
wonderful to see all you are up to Alison! and the depths of connection to the earth.