Summer Herb Walk

Behold my invaluable stash of Indian Ghost Pipe, Monotropa Uniflora according to the Spirit of Science, or Corpse Plant. "Gold" in the words of Naturopath Maggie Conklin, of Ladyhawk Nutrition and Heirloom Academy of the Healing Arts, leader of last night's summer herb walk. After an hour of walking and talking and identifying various plants and their medicinal (and delectable) properties on a walk down to the Black River, Maggie recognized the dark understory of dense forest around the base of a juggernaut of a Beech Tree on the corner of the front yard as prime ground for the difficult propagation of Ghost Pipe. Then she discovered a significant patch of the delicate, waxy-white ethereal plant, aka "Gold!"

Maggie explained that the herb, unlike most, does not contain chlorophyll, a non-generator of energy from sunlight, hence its white-purple-red hue. Resembling a spine and brain stem, Ghost Pipe is a unique ally in helping human beings modulate sensory input. A tincture of the plant can be used in managing intense physical pain as well as emotional pain. "You pick it with a Mason Jar in your hand, fill the jar, immediately mix it with  100-proof vodka and let it sit for at least a week", the makings of a tincture with mere drops working quickly and dramatically in the face of deep-seated pain - degenerative discs, car accidents, a crushed pelvis and the like. Maggie clarified the mixture is made from harvesting the "aerial" parts of the Pipe, the part of the plant above ground. 

Uncovering a cool cache of Indian Ghost Pipe and getting down with botany vernacular were part of the epic close to our first  informative wooded walk. Being a new student and easily overwhelmed with information, I appreciated Maggie's intention to focus on six herbs - Dandelion, Yellow Dock, Burdock, Dogwood and Goldenrod. "Focus on six herbs for the next six months", she offered. Then concentrate on another six. Ten years from now you'll have quite the knowledge base." We noted Wild Cherry Bark (good for a soothing cough syrup), three-leaved Sassafras (high mineral content) and Black Walnuts (strong anti-viral properties). I'll definitely  be brewing up a batch of Staghorn Sumac tea for visiting relatives this weekend, as I hear through the proverbial grapevine the stuff tastes just like lemonade. Thanks to Maggie and everyone else who came out to make the first Higher Haven Herb Walk a botanical blast. Word has it we'll be gathering together again in September for an early fall mushroom walk and hope you'll join us in finding the clearest way into the Universe through a forest wilderness. 

Hai Cho Hai (2-4-2)

We hosted our second overnight retreat this past weekend, a 24-hour getaway short in duration but long in the ways of spiritual purification. Beginning the begin with lunch on Saturday, June 23rd and running through mid-morning Sunday, June 24th, yoga classes, sitting meditation, Ceremony and healthy, nourishing meals were sandwiched in between - often on gluten free bread. Orchestrating activities that develop people spiritually coupled with the sun-dappled, breezy atmosphere of a couple days living in nature allows people to shake free of agitation and disturbances for a time, offering opportunities to peek underneath the surface of their own lives. Like I explained to the student I was teaching meditation to this morning - a lot of folks want to rearrange the furniture on the sun deck of their lives, or make changes akin to swabbing the floor clean, working at outer constructs to tidy things up a bit. True sitting practice however takes you down into the psychic innards of your own self, down into the engine room, to the devices that drive the vessel that’s you.

It’s dark down there, it’s hot, and not all that comfortable. You’re going to sweat, exposing yourself to the grime and friction of those mechanisms, and there's a high probably you'll dirty up your little white tennis skirt. This is the nose to the grindstone vibe that inspired Carl Jung to say, “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.” True at one time but today growing in popularity, as more and more people realize that despite its challenges, accessing the systems and sub-systems of your own makeup is worth the hassle, literally placing you in the cockpit of your own psychic Spitfire, feeling a lot less rudderless as you find your spot, the place where your world is born into being moment by moment. In time, guiding, directing and controlling - or perhaps not controlling - the flight pattern of your own life becomes a far more empowered endeavor as you step through gateways into the unconscious mind. “It’s not a quick fix,” my own teacher Shinzen Young is fond of saying. “But it’s a very, very deep fix.

With the summer solstice upon us last week, dawning at 6:07 a.m. EST, I didn’t want the auspicious time to pass without running Ceremony or making some type of gesture to The Powers That Be. Fortuitously, a great group came together to open the season with a transformative lil' weekend made up of Steph and Lana, Olivia and Ericka, the venerable rock man and wood guide J. Scott Campbell, and Nancy O’Donoghue, a long-time Red Road practitioner and Sundancer, as well as a great singer. Scott slings hot stones with the best of them, and as I like to joke any rock man not a little jammed up  breaking them in correctional facility works for me. I hope he keeps coming around with his gifts. Speaking of, Tanya Walker joined us from the local wellness center to lead a pair of gentle, centering yoga classes. Olivia and Ericka came from East Lansing, and found The Higher Haven online, a new, encouraging development. “I just searched for retreats in Michigan and found your place and all the reviews were so positive, we wanted to come.” If you take a closer look at that photo of us in the kitchen at the Wopila celebration post Ceremony, Ericka is to the far right, laughing and beaming. She was nervous about sweating, too, as many first-timers are, but clearly got the taste of purification, benefiting from Ceremony. Olivia also looks lit up. In fact, everyone lights up after visiting this place, and I’m happy just being the extension cord that makes the connection. 

I could tell more stories about how they all found the house enchanting, the garden delightful, the woods otherworldly, but then there’d be boring talk of how these reactions served to again dispel all my self-doubts, and self-doubt at this point is just so unnecessary.  I like you have had enough of the same rutted ways of being, and quite frankly am aching to tell a new story, beginning again with how my nature was again markedly changed by Saturday night’s Ceremony. What happened the very first time happens time and again. “At the start, every retreat changes you,” to again quote my teacher Shinzen. “Then every sit changes you. And eventually every moment changes you.” Reaping a growing harvest from seeds planted years ago, I’m elated that I stayed the course doing an awful  lot of things I really didn’t want to do over the last seven years in order to set up an entrepreneurial endeavor that would support me doing what I love and long to do. “If you were to study the Inipi, it would take you your lifetime”, to quote Chief Philip A. Crazybull, and now an incredible clearing is opening up to do just that, mostly in service to others but happy I'm also along for the ride. It’s a wonderful gig overseeing individuals who come together searching for the deeper recesses of their own spirituality. When people connect with others on that level, the experience can be extremely uplifting. Find out for yourself by joining us for the next One Day Overnight at Noon on Saturday July 21st, as we circle up to support one another in the work of finding a better way. 

Plant Medicine

Before I had a chance to convey the latter half of my soulful weekend, another weekend was upon us, with equally upbeat activity. This past Saturday I happily joined the first of a two-day Michigan herb walk with Darryl Patton, a master herbalist and significant figure in the landscape of American plant medicine. Darryl is an amazing guide of the time-tested techniques and pharmacopeia of Appalachian folk remedies. He practices “a component of traditional folk medicine that embodies American self-reliance and creativity, which is still evolving today,” according to his book Mountain Medicine. This work honors his teacher Tommie Bass, one of the last of the old mountain herb doctors and an inspiration to a generation of young herbalists. "The ability of a bark, leaf, or root to transform the body in a positive manner,” says Darryl, “is a mystery that serves to daily rekindle my passion for the natural world."

Hunting, gathering and working with medicinal plants for the past 31 years on Lookout Mountain in the Southern Appalachians, Darryl made the thirteen-hour jaunt to Saugatuck with his wife Jane encouraged by his student, naturopathic doctor, and head of Ladyhawk Nutrition, our own Maggie Conklin. Maggie’s write-up for the weekend claimed our focus was on twelve herbs, six on Saturday and six on Sunday – Poke, Plantain, Mullein, Sumac, Chickweed, Yellow Dock, Squaw Vine, Bee Balm, Solomon Seal, Nettles, Joe Pye weed, and Sassafras. But once the walking encyclopedia Darryl opened up, it was a non-stop botanical schooling.  We learned multiple uses for each herb, eating several and drinking herbal teas.

Part Southern gentlemen, part backwoods badass, Darryl sported a T-shirt claiming The First Rule of Gun Safety: Carry One. His pickup’s license plate read SECEDE, bordered with a Southern Cross. He taught us how to make a fire using nothing but a cotton ball and ashes, drawing from his experience as a primitive and wilderness survival expert. My Native American teacher Phil was what the Lakotas call a Wicasa Wakan, a Holy Man. But there’s another healer, the Pejuta Wicasa, the man whose expertise is in plant and herb medicine, Darryl definitely embodying the spirit of that class of Medicine Men. High class I might add, as no matter how big a deal people make of certain leaders and spiritual men, I always pay attention to how these guys treat their wives. Darryl passed my secret little test, being as sweet to Jane as a sprig of Angelica, taking her hand on each of the wooded walks. Reviewing my scrawl of endless notes – Service Berry flowers as a coolant for fevers, French Mulberry as effective a bug repellant as DEET, Bitter Herb containing more Vitamin C than a lemon, etc. etc. etc. – I’m in awe, awakened to a new awareness of the love and the medicines that surround us, as well as their ability to restore mankind to spiritual wholeness.