Forest Medicine

Long ago and far away, in the time of my great, great, great grandmother's 

grandmother's grandmother's grandmother, it wouldn't have been odd, living at 

the edge of the forest, knowing medicine to be something other than what comes

in bottles from a store. I am grateful, that the source of greatest healing for me 

wraps me in evergreens and softens my footfalls with great tribes of mosses. 

  

Months, days, hours of doing, accomplishing, making lists, grant paperwork, setting

up shop, web sites, meetings and lastly a shiver-making dentist drill and novocaine 

piled up one upon the other like sacks upon my back 'til worn out I halted, and remembered the wild that would heal me. 

Walking out into the forest in a healing way, a medicine way, requires a deepening

into the moment, a slowing - reverence. Beginning inside unplugging phones and

holding an intention to bring with me on my journey, I packed a basket of offerings.

My prayer eggs from Equinox, nuts, and cornmeal, sacred to the first people of North America. 

Snow boots still needed, but, thankfully, not snow shoes. I crossed the paths 

of many critters, though with the wet snows of late, hard to know which was 

animal and which snow-plop. Some places full of deep snow, some bare ground. 

I left my offering at the Forest Circle, pouring cornmeal into the toe track of a 

fisher who trotted right across the altar. I wonder which furry neighbor will

be the first to eat from it? 

It seemed that everywhere I looked, Tree Spirits were watching me... 

Do you see the one below? 

At a favorite spot, I stopped to place a spiral of cornmeal on a stone, 

and to listen awhile. 

      When I turned, another face peered down from a towering, hemlock snag. 

      This old tree is a favorite of the woodpeckers and I imagine a home for many. 

 Faces, everywhere, with astonished open mouths and wide eyes.... 

I realized this might be the reason my sculptures look as they do. 

Such a beautiful, slow turning to spring. Grandmother Winter gently pulls the snow 

away from the edges of things and collects it in her cauldron to take with her as 

she journeys to the south. Delicate ferns emerge as the snows recede, many having 

stayed green under the warm snow blanket all winter. 

A tall, healthy beech tree, rare in these parts because of a blight. Her 

smooth, silver trunk right next to one gnarled with disease. 

 Peeling bark of the paper birch. 

Pasha, off on his own journey, finds me at last. 

He invites me to sit with him to share stories.  

He tells me of Partridge Berries and looks quite dashing 

on his stump-perch: moss-colored eyes and coat of 

hemlock brown. 

I see what friends have long said, that he and I have 

the same mossy eye color.... I think my mane is also turning 

into tree bark. 

 With me on my travels these days, is a beautiful, 

Enchanted Forest necklace from Delila in Finland, 

a country not far from my father's, father's father's home. 

I like that. 

There is magic in this necklace, I feel the forest whisper 

to me when I'm away.