As we learned in parts one and two of this Elemental Herbalism series, the Elements are archetypal mirrors that reflect the cycles of the seasons, the cycles of our lives, and the sacred ecology of our individual and collective bodies and Spirits. In this article, we transition into the Yin half of the cycle of the seasons, and look to the Southwest, below our feet, and in our EarthBodies. Welcome late summer Earth with sweetgrass and kitchen medicine.
Sweetgrass is a representative of the grass family (Poaceae), grains that have fed us for eons, like rice, wheat, corn, barley, oats, and millet. These are carbohydrate-rich, sweet foods that anchor us to planet Earth, round out our bodies and meals, and sweeten our lives. Don’t eat the sweetgrass, but take in her honey-vanilla perfume, a sweet embrace from mama Earth, a reminder of the sweetness of life, and how we are held and nourished by our bodies and the land. We are small EarthBodies cohabitating on the great EarthBody of our mother.
Late summer Earth governs your Spleen and Stomach, how you digest food and experiences, and live with intention and integrity. Mama Earth ties everything together with her sweetness, smoothing the eighteen-day transitions between other seasons, and easing between Elements like licorice harmonizing a formula.
Kitchen medicine nourishes resilience. Feed your body well, and the bodies of those you love, and you change the world. Creatively integrate herbs into food via herb-infused everything: decoctions, vinegars, alcohols, oils, salts, and more. Get creative with what grows around you. Eat your “weeds” to make space for native plants to repopulate and flourish into diverse, pollinator-friendly, regenerative, abundant ecosystems— and share the bounty!
Make and savor delicious nutritiousness to fuel whatever actions are uniquely yours, perhaps to move culture, tend the hearthfire, ask questions, and otherwise support yourselves and each other, to be Earth and hold steady ground.
Let’s take a moment of gratitude. Place a hand on your heart, and a hand on your belly. Feel all that nourishes you: food, plants, friends, community… infinite beauty always within and all around. Feel that? Now rub your belly. Go, “Mmm,” and look around!
Water becomes Wood, becomes Fire, becomes Earth, becomes Metal, becomes Water… on and on, we circle.
Seeds become sprouts, bear flowers, become fruits, release seeds that then root, into cycles upon cycles.
EarthBody, you are part of these cycles. You are cyclical, circular, Earthen. And, we are living in complex times. We are living in beautiful times. What a gift to be here.
How are you receiving these gifts of life, and offering your own gifts back to the plants, the land, and other people, our planetary community?
This is the third article in the series, "Herbalism is Activism: Elemental Herbalism Through the Seasons," a six-part journey through the Five Elements of East Asian medicine. Each month, explore different facets of herbalism as activism with a seasonal plant guide. For each plant, hold them, sip them, or spritz their hydrosols. Breathe these words to life.
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