Days Nineteen and Twenty - winter medicine

Mmmmmm feeliig sleepy tonight - Friday! One week until Solstice.

I just got done watching a documetary about Joni Mitchell, one of my all time favorite artists. She expresses so much through her music, and hearing her story about the struggle with balancing creative expression, love, and freedom, I can relate. And I'm feeling more of my own passionate shadow, evoked by her music, and dedication to authenticity.

Tonight I'm sampling a Winter Ale, made with spruce tips. More winter medicine. This tree, that we here in the US know as a Christmas tree, has a long full relationship with humankind. The etymology of the word spruce goes back a long way - and possibly into many different cultures - intimating at ancient connections between us. Seems to involves the idea of "fat" or "sticky stuff" or "pitch" that comes from one of the tree's offerings - and also and ancient name for Prussia. Check out the details are http://www.billcasselman.com/canadian_garden_words/cgw_four.htm

Spruce (Pinea sp.) is of course, another source of winter medicine. According to one website, "spruce pitch or sap placed on wounds for healing, to stop bleeding, and to prevent infection; heated pitch brought relief to burns, sore muscles, and toothaches; tea from the bark was used for relief of symptoms with cold, flu, and sore throat; spruce needle tea was used for stomach ailments and kidney problems; juice squeezed from the new spruce tips at the tree top or end of the branches was used to relieve sore eyes." Spruce tips are high in Vitamin C; in the 1700's sailors drank spruce tip and bark tea to prevent scurvy.

And now, in addition to our holiday "Christmas" tree, we can enjoy Alaskan Winter Ale with spruce tips, available at your local BevMo. The old is ever new. Just a little "spruced up" - pardon the pun.

And speaking of winter medicine, let's again consider Amanita muscaria. Yesterday, I was reminded of how the shaman dresses as the sacrament. That's why Santa looks like this mushroom. What is an Amanita ritual about? I think it's about visioning, and how much is enough. A little Amanita helps depression, yet too much will kill you. A little bit would lift us from a belief that life has no meaning (an upper (6th/7th?) chakra issue) while too much would destroy the body. How interesting that this comes at the time of year when the Sun moves form Sagittarius ("ruled" by Jupiter - the largest a planet can get without collapsing into a star) and Capricorn ("ruled" by Saturn - the most distant visible planet) at Solstice . The edges of light and darkness. Expansion and limits. OMG fudge! How much is too much? Let's find out! Did I get the right gift for [fill in the blank]? Is it enough?

Is that the holiday season or what?

There is a Sanskrit phrase for something like "how much so much?" that I cannot remember nor find at the moment. Yet I bring it up because, like so many other helpful ideas, we can find it in yoga. Discernment. How much IS enough? Shopping, shopping, shopping, doing, doing, doing, Could it be that in this season of giving, that too much too much giving gets on the way? Might it be more compassionate to take care of yourself? Give, yes, and keep some room to receive - give the gift of your presence!

I think an important key here is context. When I understand the context of this ritual in which I'm participating - I can choose what is meaningful to me and align with it. Taken out of context - must...buy...gifts...- the meaning is lost. Just like when a whole plant medicine is turned into a toxic mimic by extracting it's most prevelent component and placed into isolation (in a pill, or some such) - what pharmaceutical companies do - and called medicine. It's out of context. That's like removing my lips and offering them - alone- to you as a smile. Not the same, is it?

Yet there is a choice to stay whole. And revel in it.

Humble Thanks and Bright Blessings to our plant allies. May we know who they are as we trim the tree, and enjoy so many of their fruits.

Oh, and my practice?

Yesterday, I dressed in red, white and brown to teach yoga class - with a theme of being the change we want to see in the world (see Ghandi 101...). We can all be the sacrament, be our vision.

Tonight I lifted a spruce tip beer, in honor of winter medicine.

That's my yoga.