Photos courtesy of Kiva Rose Hardin
Our botanical sanctuary and primitive homestead in the mountains of New Mexico runs on solar power, and during these shortest days of the year, solar can be in short supply. While this can make keeping up with online work more challenging, it also means we’re more likely to take advantage of the quiet and dark to reflect and reset. As I write this, our usually calf-deep river is raging through the narrow mountain canyon, too deep and fast to cross even in a kayak, much less on foot. The clouds are thick overhead and freezing rain pelts the gray skeletons of the cottonwoods.
I can neither leave our property for supplies nor even turn on most of our LED lights in the cabin, but candlelight and storms certainly make for a cozy atmosphere to consider the year past, and the years yet to come. We are at the cusp of change, a liminal space between the growing dark returning to the growing light, although it will be some time before we’re able to really see that shift. Likewise, internal shifts we choose to make this time of year may take a while to show up in the visible world, but that doesn’t make those changes any less real or profound.
I’ve been an herbalist for almost twenty years, and plant-obsessed since I was a toddler, so I naturally measure time in the rhythm of the plants themselves. My work and year are based around the seasons and the coming and going of the plants. The regenerative powers of the green have been a powerful guide for me in my life, over and over teaching me not to ever let go of hope, and to allow death to become rebirth. Death has the potential to become fertile soil for a new life, new directions, a revitalized path.
One thing I always ask myself this time of year is what I want to nourish in the coming year, and what I need to thin or do away with. It’s easy to become overwhelmed by commitments and obligations that build up over time and the New Year is the perfect spot at which to stop and examine what we can sustain, where we’re headed on our path, and what it’s time to let go of. I don’t think so much in terms of goals as much as cycles, direction, transformation, and commitment. In a culture already too invested in success at all costs, it’s easy to become over-focused on external standards. I see this time of year as an opportunity to go within and seek alignment with ourselves, principles, and overall orientation in the world. A way of resetting the inner compass. If we find that we’re already satisfied with our lives and ourselves, then this would be a great time to focus on gratitude and finding new ways to nurture what we love about our path. Regardless if we feel pulled toward change or not, we can build deeper relationships with the plants.
I find it useful to ritualize both the letting go process and the commitment or recommitment, if only because it helps me to remember the importance of what I’m doing and mark it as an event in time and it also gives me a chance to involve plants more in the process. Whether through handmade botanical incense or home-brewed libations or a relaxing elixir, the herbs can assist us in making the occasion and creating a memorable moment in time that helps to anchor us in the coming weeks and months. Alongside creating whatever ceremony we find helpful, journaling can also be a useful tool.
The act of writing down thoughts, ideas, and insights can provide structure as well as a record of what we’re learning and where we hope to head in the future. I also enjoy notating my growing relationship with whatever herbs I am currently working with most closely. It’s much too easy to forget a special moment or gem of wisdom garnered while caught up in the moment! Even after working with a great many plants for so many years, I still find it beneficial to my relationship with the plants and my herbal practice to each month spend time going deeper with herbal allies I’ve been working with for years as well as introducing new plants and mushrooms into my practice and getting to know them this way. The world is often chaotic and overwhelming, but focusing on a single plant or mushroom as a form of intimacy can be a way of breaking through that overwhelm and allowing myself to focus intensely. This kind of prioritization is valuable in any relationship, and I notice that my ability to work with that herb in my practice is greatly enhanced by this focusing process.
Even as the river pounds against the canyon walls and long shadows drape themselves across the forest, I feel the year turning and life shifting around me. The winter may be long but the sun is beginning to grow even now. Potential begins in these liminal spaces and sprouts from the moments in between. This return to the light will be noticeable in our solar battery banks, in the ever-changing cycles of plant life, and in the very way the light slants across the canyon walls. The new year is waiting for us, and now is the time to discover what might bloom when the green returns!
Topics: Aromatherapy, Recipes, Green Living
Herbalist, wildcrafter, artist, and storyteller, Kiva Rose lives in a canyon botanical sanctuary within the Gila Wilderness of New Mexico. She is also the co-director of the Good Medicine Confluence, held each year in the mountain Southwest, coeditor of Plant Healer Magazine, and publisher of the just-released historical novel, The Medicine Bear by Jesse Wolf Hardin. She also maintains an herbal blog, The Medicine Woman’s Roots.
Photos courtesy of Kiva Rose Hardin
Our botanical sanctuary and primitive homestead in the mountains of New Mexico runs on solar power, and during these shortest days of the year, solar can be in short supply. While this can make keeping up with online work more challenging, it also means we’re more likely to take advantage of the quiet and dark to reflect and reset. As I write this, our usually calf-deep river is raging through the narrow mountain canyon, too deep and fast to cross even in a kayak, much less on foot. The clouds are thick overhead and freezing rain pelts the gray skeletons of the cottonwoods.
I can neither leave our property for supplies nor even turn on most of our LED lights in the cabin, but candlelight and storms certainly make for a cozy atmosphere to consider the year past, and the years yet to come. We are at the cusp of change, a liminal space between the growing dark returning to the growing light, although it will be some time before we’re able to really see that shift. Likewise, internal shifts we choose to make this time of year may take a while to show up in the visible world, but that doesn’t make those changes any less real or profound.
I’ve been an herbalist for almost twenty years, and plant-obsessed since I was a toddler, so I naturally measure time in the rhythm of the plants themselves. My work and year are based around the seasons and the coming and going of the plants. The regenerative powers of the green have been a powerful guide for me in my life, over and over teaching me not to ever let go of hope, and to allow death to become rebirth. Death has the potential to become fertile soil for a new life, new directions, a revitalized path.
One thing I always ask myself this time of year is what I want to nourish in the coming year, and what I need to thin or do away with. It’s easy to become overwhelmed by commitments and obligations that build up over time and the New Year is the perfect spot at which to stop and examine what we can sustain, where we’re headed on our path, and what it’s time to let go of. I don’t think so much in terms of goals as much as cycles, direction, transformation, and commitment. In a culture already too invested in success at all costs, it’s easy to become over-focused on external standards. I see this time of year as an opportunity to go within and seek alignment with ourselves, principles, and overall orientation in the world. A way of resetting the inner compass. If we find that we’re already satisfied with our lives and ourselves, then this would be a great time to focus on gratitude and finding new ways to nurture what we love about our path. Regardless if we feel pulled toward change or not, we can build deeper relationships with the plants.
I find it useful to ritualize both the letting go process and the commitment or recommitment, if only because it helps me to remember the importance of what I’m doing and mark it as an event in time and it also gives me a chance to involve plants more in the process. Whether through handmade botanical incense or home-brewed libations or a relaxing elixir, the herbs can assist us in making the occasion and creating a memorable moment in time that helps to anchor us in the coming weeks and months. Alongside creating whatever ceremony we find helpful, journaling can also be a useful tool.
The act of writing down thoughts, ideas, and insights can provide structure as well as a record of what we’re learning and where we hope to head in the future. I also enjoy notating my growing relationship with whatever herbs I am currently working with most closely. It’s much too easy to forget a special moment or gem of wisdom garnered while caught up in the moment! Even after working with a great many plants for so many years, I still find it beneficial to my relationship with the plants and my herbal practice to each month spend time going deeper with herbal allies I’ve been working with for years as well as introducing new plants and mushrooms into my practice and getting to know them this way. The world is often chaotic and overwhelming, but focusing on a single plant or mushroom as a form of intimacy can be a way of breaking through that overwhelm and allowing myself to focus intensely. This kind of prioritization is valuable in any relationship, and I notice that my ability to work with that herb in my practice is greatly enhanced by this focusing process.
Even as the river pounds against the canyon walls and long shadows drape themselves across the forest, I feel the year turning and life shifting around me. The winter may be long but the sun is beginning to grow even now. Potential begins in these liminal spaces and sprouts from the moments in between. This return to the light will be noticeable in our solar battery banks, in the ever-changing cycles of plant life, and in the very way the light slants across the canyon walls. The new year is waiting for us, and now is the time to discover what might bloom when the green returns!
Topics: Aromatherapy, Recipes, Green Living
Herbalist, wildcrafter, artist, and storyteller, Kiva Rose lives in a canyon botanical sanctuary within the Gila Wilderness of New Mexico. She is also the co-director of the Good Medicine Confluence, held each year in the mountain Southwest, coeditor of Plant Healer Magazine, and publisher of the just-released historical novel, The Medicine Bear by Jesse Wolf Hardin. She also maintains an herbal blog, The Medicine Woman’s Roots.
