I wake up slowly on the second day of a writer\u2019s retreat in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains in Washington State.\u00a0 The morning is cool, the air gray and hazy.\u00a0 Unzipping my tent, I\u2019m surrounded by green. \u00a0\u00a0Moss-covered trees flank rolling hills just beyond a forest where coyotes, mountain lions and wolves hunt in freedom.\u00a0 In the clearing, I see that dandelion flowers have gone to seed, overnight changing from sun-yellow to moon-white to form hundreds of pale spheres.\u00a0 Painted in the morning mist, they look like spirit flowers.<\/p>\n
My dreams from the night before were of water.\u00a0 \u201cDistill\u201d was the word that came.\u00a0 The story that I\u2019m writing is dense and layered with too many characters.\u00a0 The dream tells me that I need to get to the heart of it.\u00a0 In order for the story to live, I need to become quiet.\u00a0 I want to be filled with gratitude and little else for awhile, and so I go to my teachers, the plants.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m drawn to one of my most beloved medicine plants, Alchemilla, also known as Lady\u2019s Mantle, the shawl the Green Woman wraps around her shoulders as she walks at sunrise.\u00a0 Drops of water coalesce around the ruffled edges of this silver-green plant, catching the moisture from the pregnant air, dozens of tiny globes refracting the weak morning sunlight.<\/p>\n
My grandmother, a Welsh witch, poet, and herbalist taught me that women who wash their faces in this liquid at dawn stay beautiful forever.\u00a0 Her memorial service was packed to standing-room with male admirers.\u00a0 And so I dutifully press my sleepy face to the furry wet leaves each morning.<\/p>\n
Alchemilla can also save your life.\u00a0 Tincture of Alchemilla will staunch bleeding in childbirth or with menstrual hemorrhaging.\u00a0 Its astringent and skin healing qualities will staunch any wound.<\/p>\n
As the name implies, Alchemilla has long been used in magic.\u00a0 The plant has many secrets.\u00a0 Today I will ask it to share some of them with me.<\/p>\n
The air here is full of birdsong: chickadee and robin, Western jay, red-winged blackbird and swallow, all high in the towering cedar trees above me.<\/p>\n
The ground is wet and little cold, but I know it\u2019s best to go barefoot when listening to the plants, and so I take off my Wellies to walk to the bottom of a rock garden behind the main lodge where Alchemilla has become quite at home.<\/p>\n
After introductions, letting the plant know my name and intention, I give Alchemilla an offering of my breath, breathing from my belly and imagining the energy of my spirit flowing out to meet her.\u00a0 I look at myself inside the tiny orbs of water dotting her toothed edges.\u00a0 I look like an eyeball.\u00a0 I am tears outside of time, not flowing but hovering, reflecting all of the lush green beauty around me.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, \u201c Alchemilla says, \u201cI can teach you to be <\/em>gratitude, rather than just to have it. \u201c<\/p>\n I have become quiet enough, sitting here in the wet grass, for a robin to come close, hopping hungrily after his morning worms.\u00a0 For a time I\u2019m blissfully empty, like a cup, like a vessel, like the Alchemilla plant that catches the wondrous morning dew.\u00a0 This state is necessary for creativity, and later I reap the benefits with a burst of inspiration.<\/p>\n I think about this state of being in terms of physical pregnancy as well as that of ideas.\u00a0 Alchemilla, when taken regularly internally, typically in the form of a tincture, helps to balance women\u2019s hormones. In this way it is a fertility plant as well as a help with PMS and menopausal symptoms.<\/p>\n Alchemilla holds mysteries that cannot be written down in prose.\u00a0 They must be sung or danced.\u00a0 But I can say that they have to do with a state of being that anyone, male or female, young or seasoned elder, can attain and revel in\u2026 that state of catching what falls, of being open, of being in gratitude for beauty and possibilities.<\/p>\n Alchemillia is truly a goddesses\u2019 chalice.\u00a0 May you find her and glimpse yourself within.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n **The magical retreat place is called Mosswood Hollow, the wonderful writer\u2019s retreat was Robert Moss\u2019 Writing as a State of Conscious Dreaming, both of which I highly recommend.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I wake up slowly on the second day of a writer\u2019s retreat in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains in Washington State.\u00a0 The morning is cool, the air gray and hazy.\u00a0 Unzipping my tent, I\u2019m surrounded by green. \u00a0\u00a0Moss-covered trees flank rolling hills just beyond a forest where coyotes, mountain lions and wolves hunt in freedom.\u00a0 In the clearing, I see that dandelion flowers have gone to seed, overnight changing from sun-yellow to moon-white to form hundreds of pale spheres.\u00a0 Painted in the morning mist, they look like spirit flowers. My dreams from the night before were of water.\u00a0 \u201cDistill\u201d was the word that came.\u00a0 The story that I\u2019m writing is dense and layered with too many characters.\u00a0 The dream tells me that I need to get to the heart of it.\u00a0 In order for the story to live, I need to become quiet.\u00a0 I want to be filled with gratitude and little else for awhile, and so I go to my teachers, the plants. I\u2019m drawn to one of my most beloved medicine plants, Alchemilla, also known as Lady\u2019s Mantle, the shawl the Green Woman wraps around her shoulders as she walks at sunrise.\u00a0 Drops of water coalesce around the ruffled edges of this silver-green plant, catching the moisture from the pregnant air, dozens of tiny globes refracting the weak morning sunlight. My grandmother, a Welsh witch, poet, and herbalist taught me that women who wash their faces in this liquid at dawn stay beautiful forever.\u00a0 Her memorial service was packed to standing-room with male admirers.\u00a0 And so I dutifully press my sleepy face to the furry wet leaves each morning. Alchemilla can also save your life.\u00a0 Tincture of Alchemilla will staunch bleeding in childbirth or with menstrual hemorrhaging.\u00a0 Its astringent and skin healing qualities will staunch any wound. As the name implies, Alchemilla has long been used in magic.\u00a0 The plant has many secrets.\u00a0 Today I will ask it to share some of them with me. The air here is full of birdsong: chickadee and robin, Western jay, red-winged blackbird and swallow, all high in the towering cedar trees above me. The ground is wet and little cold, but I know it\u2019s best to go barefoot when listening to the plants, and so I take off my Wellies to walk to the bottom of a rock garden behind the main lodge where Alchemilla has become quite at home. After introductions, letting the plant know my name and intention, I give Alchemilla an offering of my breath, breathing from my belly and imagining the energy of my spirit flowing out to meet her.\u00a0 I look at myself inside the tiny orbs of water dotting her toothed edges.\u00a0 I look like an eyeball.\u00a0 I am tears outside of time, not flowing but hovering, reflecting all of the lush green beauty around me. \u201cYes, \u201c Alchemilla says, \u201cI can teach you to be gratitude, rather than just to have it. \u201c I have become quiet enough, sitting here in the wet grass, for a robin to come close, hopping hungrily after his morning worms.\u00a0 For a time I\u2019m blissfully empty, like a cup, like a vessel, like the Alchemilla plant that catches the wondrous morning dew.\u00a0 This state is necessary for creativity, and later I reap the benefits with a burst of inspiration. I think about this state of being in terms of physical pregnancy as well as that of ideas.\u00a0 Alchemilla, when taken regularly internally, typically in the form of a tincture, helps to balance women\u2019s hormones. In this way it is a fertility plant as well as a help with PMS and menopausal symptoms. Alchemilla holds mysteries that cannot be written down in prose.\u00a0 They must be sung or danced.\u00a0 But I can say that they have to do with a state of being that anyone, male or female, young or seasoned elder, can attain and revel in\u2026 that state of catching what falls, of being open, of being in gratitude for beauty and possibilities. Alchemillia is truly a goddesses\u2019 chalice.\u00a0 May you find her and glimpse yourself within. **The magical retreat place is called Mosswood Hollow, the wonderful writer\u2019s retreat was Robert Moss\u2019 Writing as a State of Conscious Dreaming, both of which I highly recommend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":203,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/203"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8256\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}