Traced Elements

Author: Kera Willis

Plant Yourself: A Recipe for Being Here
I was originally going to call this post “A Recipe for Ordinary Wonder.” I’ve already written about wonder here, and while I think it’s essential, it remains a little ephemeral. It slips beyond the edges of our understanding. I feel the medicine of this particular moment needs to be earthy, grounded, real. Needs to be practical enough to lift us out of our fear and isolation. It needs to come in bite sized pieces, like good dark chocolate.

I’m a horse and nature based teacher. Or rather I was, until the recommendations for social distancing led me to decide to cancel my spring break camps and enter self imposed quarantine as I’ve taught students from all over the Sea to Sky corridor (and the world, via Whistler) over the last two weeks. Yesterday while picking out the paddocks, I asked myself this question: if I’m not able to teach in person– to create the kind of meaning filled and deeply felt transformative encounters between horses, humans and land I feel we so badly need right now– what can I offer through other means that can give people the skills to create experiences for themselves?

There’s a lot of writing swirling around about reconnecting and seeking stillness right now. What I think we’re being invited to do is to expand our consciousness past our own perspective. To broaden it past the narrow road of our individual lives and the lives of our families; to open to the collective whose voices move close against the boundaries we’ve made around ourselves. As I write this, an image comes into my mind of a dog shaking its head: one of those proper shakes where their ears flap up against the sides of their skull, and you can almost hear their brain rattling around in there, rearranging their neural pathways.

These times we’re in are like that. We’re being shaken out of our patterns. We can choose to steel ourselves against what’s happening and create more rigidity in response to change (which we know we’re going to see a lot more of in this lifetime…) or we can get curious and explore it as an adjustment in our perspective, an ear shake that opens us to something wider than what we were.

I want to give you a set of tools, something real and grounded and simple, that you can play with. Play with these with your kids. Pull one out each day and see where it takes you. You don’t need anything special. Just your body and the body of the world. Some of them might seem a little silly. That’s on purpose. They’re meant to enliven the younger parts of ourselves. That’s often where our biggest perspective shifts lie and where the more authentic parts of ourselves are buried. They’re also meant to give us the kind of connection we crave right now, an empathetic, felt sense of being known by an other. It’s just that, in this case, “the other” isn’t human. Even better! Nature is endlessly forgiving of our bumbling attempts to re-mind ourselves of our relationship with her. There’s no judgement here. Think of these exercises as lighthearted games, little valentines we can exchange with the more-than-human-world that surrounds us.

If you try these, I’d love to hear about your experiences in the comments. Share your valentines with me. (I promise I won’t judge you either. ❤ )
1. Take off your shoes. And your socks. Find a patch of ground that looks warm and safe and inviting and stand on it. If you want more, go for a little walk. If you’ve tried a warm and inviting patch of ground already, try standing on snow. Try pavement. Try mud. Try exploring a liminal zone by walking from a shadow to sunlight, and track the differences in temperature with the bottom of your feet. Want to level up? Watch my video, “Place Based Walking,” for some ideas. Or walk on some gravel for a free acupressure session. (Top tip: touching the earth barefoot grounds and stabilizes the electromagnetic systems in the body. It literally rewires us to attune to the larger electromagnetic field of the earth, which helps us to come closer to a state of heart and brain coherence. Think of this as your antidote to all the wireless technology we’re saturated with, and the true savasana with which to end your online yoga class.)
2. Let yourself be touched. The next time you’re out on a trail– or in your backyard, for that matter– notice the shrubs and trees that lean close to the edge of the path. It may be an errant twig that brushes across your cheek, or a cottonwood limb that’s come down across the over the course of winter. Or perhaps a low hanging cedar branch that brushes the top of your head and releases its scent. Just before you move out of the way, stop. Let yourself come into contact with this tree. You are nature touching nature. See how many different trees, bushes and branches you can let make contact with. Try not to do it on purpose. What happens if you turn off the path and into thick brush? Is it easier to find the gentlest way through? Is there something in your walking that becomes a kind of dance? An intimate exchange with the life forms we’ve believed to be inanimate all around us? What thoughts do we dance with in our psychic space in this same way? What reaches always toward us, yet remains unnoticed? What do we cut through in order to continue to travel in the direction we want to go? What does it take for us to be touched by a different part of nature in this way? A rock? A lake? How would we have to move our bodies to make contact?
3. Fall in love with something small. Go outside. You can go to your favourite patch of woods or rock or field, or give yourself a challenge and start on a sidewalk or in the middle of your street. Your goal now is to wander. To meander with no destination in mind until something tiny calls your attention and makes you stop. Look down in the direction of your feet and keep your eyes soft. Look at the trunks of the trees. Look at everything without really looking at it. Keep your attention soft, like a photograph that’s not quite in focus. Wander until something, of its own accord, pulls your attention toward itself. It might be a bright green wolf lichen, or a pattern the compression of the snow has left in last summer’s dried grass. It might even be a chocolate bar wrapper with half of its colour worn away, held to the ground by a fallen stick. Once something tiny calls you awake, then give yourself to it entirely. Bend down and get close. Learn everything you can about it without causing harm. Then stand up, zoom out again, let your attention go soft, and start wandering again until something else calls to you. If you’re with your family or a friend for this, tell each other something you love about the tiny thing you discovered without giving away its identity. See if they can guess what it was. (Top tip: if you can cultivate this kind of “falling in love outside of yourself”, this sense of your attention being called to something of its own accord, it’s the best state of consciousness for finding mushrooms and other medicinal plants, and a profound way to activate our intuition. This form of listening to the being-ness of the world has been essential to the survival and evolution of human beings up until the last hundred years or so, when we started to place our emphasis on the rational, linear parts of our cognition.)
4. Look up. Go to where there is nothing a human has made between you and the sky and look up. Bring a blanket and lie on a rock and look up. Let the sun heat your eyes behind your closed lids. Sit with your back against a tree and trace the line its trunk makes on the way to the sky with your gaze. Follow that line out into the crown of the tree, as if you were drawing the lines of each branch into the sky with your mind. Or look at clouds and then trace them in your mind’s eye in this same way. At night, look up at the stars. Imagine you are sailing on a ship a thousand years ago and this is the only map you have to guide you into the unknown. Learn a few constellations, or trace lines between the stars and make up your own patterns and give them names. Learn a star or a constellation as a family and know that every time you go outside and look up at it, you are connected. Look up. We need to remember the world is bigger than us again. (PS: I have a secret theory I have only anecdotal evidence to prove, but I’m still going to share it with you anyways: I think looking up in this way– actively tracing and engaging the muscles of our eyes in unfamiliar patterns of movement, specifically looking up into the worlds that exist above the plane human live on– causes our vagus nerve (and our autonomic nervous system, which governs our heart rate, breathing, digestion, hormone levels, AND THEREFORE OUR STRESS RESPONSE) to shift from fight/flight/freeze back to social engagement.)
5. Leave a gift. Make something beautiful out of some bits of nature you find around you. (Three year olds are great at this, as they haven’t yet been trained out of this kind of reciprocity with their environment. ) Arrange a line of pinecones that marches across your street and makes someone else wonder. Create a spiral made out of pine needles for the wind to blow away. Line up twenty sticks from longest to shortest. Write “I love you” in pebbles across the valley trail. It doesn’t have to be profound, and it doesn’t have to be ‘Art’. Making and creativity are part of the basic tenants of humanity. Nature is always taking chaos and creating something more complex and more beautiful. How can we invite some of this elemental and playful creativity into our lives? How do we share our energy with others in ways that add to the glorious mystery of the natural world? Be inspired by the ephemeral earthworks created by Andy Goldsworthy or the morning altars offered by Day Schildkret, but don’t get trapped by the idea that your gift has to be a grand gesture. Gratitude, giving, and making are ancient parts of our being. Make something now, in this field where we’re standing, with just the materials of the field itself, for nature herself to wonder about.
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March 18, 2020
Courting Wonder

On my desk right now is a gorgeous little collection of essays called Wonder and Other Survival Skills, put together by the editors of Orion magazine. On its cover, a young girl presses her hand against the surface of a lake: skin of girl meeting skin of lake. From this meeting, a ripple moves.

“Is wonder a survival skill?” H. Emerson Blake asks in the foreword. “The din of modern life pulls our attention away from anything that is slight, or subtle, or ephemeral. We might look briefly at a slant of light in the sky while walking through a parking lot, but then we’re on to the next thing: the next appointment, the next flickering headline, the next task…Maybe it’s just for that reason—how busy we are and distracted and disconnected we are—that wonder really is a survival skill. It might be the thing that reminds us of what really matters, and of the greater systems that our lives are completely dependant on. It might be the thing that helps us build an emotional connection—an intimacy—with our surroundings that, in turn, would make us want to do anything we can to protect them.”

By my own definition, wonder is the ability to travel beyond attention, beyond mindfulness–to truly make an encounter with the world in a way that, for the slenderest of moments, lifts us out of ourselves and returns us back with something more. Something of the ‘other’ we’ve encountered travels with us. A little of the world comes into the interiority of us and lodges there. Permeates.

Winter is a season of rest for most of us land-based folks. A season of living in a place of dreams and visioning (literally, as we get caught up on sleep, and plan for the year ahead.) This is the first season I’ve stopped teaching completely. I felt the need to let the work do a deep dive into silence, and (beyond the day-to-day chores of keeping animals, which never go away), to truly let myself drop out of time. I sleep when I’m tired. I wake up when I wake up. I have breakfast and a cup of coffee, before I go out to do chores. Which sometimes makes me feel like a slacker, but it also feels… luxurious. Luxurious in a simple way I haven’t allowed into my life before. A spaciousness that holds its own kind of wonder.

The other reason I decided to stop teaching completely once the snow hit in December, was I wanted my horses to feel like they belonged to me again. 2018 was our busiest year teaching together (THANK YOU, PEMBERTON!) but I wanted a chance to ride when I wanted to again, instead of working a horse so they would be ready to say ‘yes’ to a student. I wanted to WANT to ride again. To wander about aimlessly bareback with nothing but a lead rope joining me to my horse’s mind. I wanted the horses to be able to choose who came out to play with me, whenever I showed up at the gate with a halter or a bridle.

What’s emerged out of this unravelling is that I was finally able to back Besa, my big paint/Friesian mare. When she came to me 18 months ago, she was an untrained 6-year-old, freshly weaned from being a mamma to a feisty filly. She made it very clear to me- in her lack of desire to be caught and her extreme reactivity, power and athleticism- that I’d have to take my time with her. Given space and the permission to approach me (instead of me expecting to approach her and do what I wanted), she decided that humans were worth being curious about. Her curiosity flowered into full-blown affection. She’s the first horse to come to anyone out of the field now, and she sometimes chooses to pull me (or whoever I’m accompanying into the field) in against her chest with her muzzle, the closest a horse can come to giving a hug.

Besa’s been asking me to do things with her for months (Proper things! With a bridle and tack like all the other horses!) and all summer and fall I just didn’t have the capacity. But these last few weeks I’ve slipped onto her back and let her carry me around our little maze of snow paths in a mutual exchange of trust: I will trust you with my body, if you will trust me with your body. The ‘training’ part of it can come later. For now, all I want is her to turn her head to me, so she can look at me fully out of her huge dark eye: Oh. So now you’re up there now. So that she can yawn and snort and let all the tension go out of her nervous system, and get used to this strange new way that horses and humans can be together.

Perhaps it’s me she’s been waiting for all along. Perhaps I needed to drop into this spaciousness for us to find this way to trust each other.

There’s one essay that stands out for me in this slim little collection that sits on my desk. It’s Chris Dombrowski’s Kana: a father grasps at the nature of wonder. In it, he defines Kana as “a word or figure the Japanese haiku poets used as a kind of wonder-inducing syllable (it translates loosely into English as an exclamation point.)… that heart-stutter we receive when an image of the world takes root in us…”

His essay shares the spell of a day spent morel hunting with his twenty month old son. The way the boy wanders across the face of the burn, trailing a whitetail’s antler behind him, carelessly decapitating the very mushrooms he’s hunting for:

…he is either in a daze of boredom or he is walking kana, penetrated each step by the world, not penetrating it. It’s tempting to call this spirit naïveté, but it’s not: it’s wisdom we lose along the way.”

Perhaps that’s what I’ve been courting this winter: wisdom I’ve lost along the way as I’ve been coerced into ascribing to linear time, to capitalism, to the many demands the constructs of being human impose upon us. There is gentleness here, in this wonder, that doesn’t feel rushed or imposed. A hand resting against the surface of a lake.

I’ve wanted to broaden the scope of my horse and nature based teaching practice to include workshops for adults since I started Mountain Horse School in 2012, but I’ve shied away for a long time. I’ve always felt comfortable with kids because they’re so immediate, so open still to this touch of the world upon them. Grown-ups’ responses are layered. More conditioned. We need more language to access understanding, and experiences that can operate like keys opening the locks of ways of perceiving we’ve long put away. Grown-ups want reasons to pacify our rational, linear ways of thinking, and we want to know if playing with opening the doors to wonder, if walking Kana is ‘worth the investment’ of our time. We’ve become used to being sold meditation through a list of its benefits. A walk in the woods has become a thing we could pay for. Forest bathing, it’s called in the brochures.

What if wonder is the gateway to possibility? What if it’s the only skill that will give us the tools, insight, and power we need to move into (here I am, throwing another book title at you!) The More Beautiful World That our Hearts Know is Possible? What if the benefits of wonder—similar to its more lauded cousin, gratitude—might be the resurrection of a life woven into belonging with the wider world that sustains us?

Small watercolour of a whale’s ear bone from the intergalactic spaceship that is my desk. Because of the complexity of their hearing, whales’ inner ear bones are contained within a separate chamber, not encased inside the skull as ours are. It amazes me how much this bone looks like a shell. If I held it to my ear, would I hear the sound of the sea?

It’s not up to me to answer these questions. I can only speak from the lens of my own experience, my own perceptions. In lieu of that, I can say with certainty that this winter’s dreaming I’ve been luxuriating in, this kana I’ve been walking in my own life, feels absolutely essential to the future that comes next. I can say—if I may speak with authority based on the way things feel from the intergalactic spaceship that is my writing desk this afternoon—that it HAS been absolutely necessary. That nothing is currently more important. Oh, the great irony that ‘doing the work’ this winter has actually meant ‘doing less work—!’ (Is that an exclamation mark or is it kana? You decide.)

So, in the spirit of wonder being the gateway to possibility, I’m issuing a little dare to myself. Actually, it’s not little at all. On Feb 17, I’m offering a one day workshop called Lightning Seeds: Opening the Gateway of what’s Possible, in collaboration with my dear friend, animal listener and translator Guliz Unlu. Come play with us as we walk kana in the company of the horses and other animals at Mountain Horse School, and court wonder through a combination of equine guided learning, animal communication, intuitive herbalism, earth wisdom, and soul craft. Curious to know more? Please visit our website or facebook page for all the juicy details!

January 29, 2019
Old Fashioned Egg Nog
I grew up in rural Ontario, and every New Years Eve my family and I would drive 3 miles down our snowed-in gravel road to the farm of Joanne Cowling. Having come to Canada from England many years earlier, Joanne kept her meticulous British accent and a series of beautifully maintained gardens, complete with goats, sheep, pigs, geese, ‘chooks’ (chickens) and a pony named Sandman. Upon entering the red brick farm house my brother and I would remove our winter clothes and make a beeline for the kitchen where Joanne would ladle out a hand-thrown clay goblet of homemade egg nog for each of us. As I sipped its heady creamy goodness, I always wondered what made the adults laugh so loud as they drank theirs. (I suppose I did not see the brandy making its way from goblet to goblet, how conversation slipped more easily in its presence). Then my brother and I would weave between the legs of neighbours to get to the large table that was laid out with hundreds of Joanne’s famous hors d’ourves: crab wrapped in filo pastry, thin slices of marinated beef tongue, smoked salmon sprinkled with capers, warm brie cheese, and Christmas cookies cut into the shapes of animals, decorated with fancy icing and tiny silver balls. But in the collage of these most delicious morsels, it is the egg nog that I remember most; that rich impossible creaminess.
About 10 years ago, through a series of arm wrestles, afternoon coffees, and barn chore trades, my mom finally convinced Joanne to write her recipe down, and the ‘nog became part of our family tradition. Every year when I go home for Christmas there is the requisite jug of thick, creamy (and quite boozy) ‘nog chilling in a snowdrift outside the back door.
Over the years I’ve sampled many attempts at the enigma that is egg nog. And I have to tell you that nothing, and I mean NOTHING has come close to the velvety indulgence of this homemade ‘nog. It takes a little bit of time and effort, a little bit of coaxing and folding and stirring and chilling. But the results are worth it: a rich, milkshake-thick ‘nog, meant to be sipped, savoured, and shared- or stirred into your morning coffee.

Recently, concern had been expressed over the consumption of raw eggs (which are essential to traditional egg nog’s frothy texture) because of the possibility of exposure to Salmonella bacteria.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency states that “Although Salmonella is rarely found in eggs in Canada… foods made from raw or lightly cooked eggs may be harmful to vulnerable people such as young children, the elderly, pregnant women and people with weak immune systems.” (A study conducted by the USDA in 2002 showed that only one in every 30,000 eggs in the national food system was contaminated with Salmonella bacteria).
In quest of an opinion closer to home, I visited Trout Lake farmers market and talked to vendors selling local eggs. “An egg is an egg.” One farmer told me. “I’m a big believer in cooked food. But I’ve got a friend who gulps them down raw all the time, and never seems to have a problem.”
“The big thing is to know your farmer” another told me, restating the mantra of the local food movement. “You want to know that the flock has no history of salmonella, and that the eggs have been properly washed and stored.” Eggshells themselves form a hermetic seal, which means they are impervious to contamination once they have been laid, unless the shell has been cracked or compromised. So when sourcing eggs for this recipe, choose ones with shells that are clean, uniform, and unbroken, that have been refrigerated as soon as possible after laying, and that are not past the best before date. (If you’ve bought undated eggs from a local farmer, use them 3-4 weeks after purchasing, and don’t be afraid to ask if he or she ever eats them raw.) If you want to be extra cautious you can always buy cartons of pasteurized egg yolks and whites from any large grocery store. I personally prefer the full-bodied taste of eggs from organic free-run hens, and believe that chickens who’ve had a chance to scratch in the dirt and get splashed with the occasional raindrop lay healthier, more nutrient-rich eggs. I also like knowing the name of the person who hands me my carton, rather than selecting one from the cold glare of a supermarket display case. Whichever source of eggs you choose, after you’ve whipped, mixed and folded a batch of this incredible egg nog into being, take a moment to send a few thoughts to the chickens that have made all of this possible. Then take a sip. Let the holidays begin!

Old Fashioned Egg Nog
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Makes approx. 2 litres
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I find it easiest to separate eggs by cracking the whole egg into the palm of a clean hand, and then letting the white drain out between my fingers. You can also use an egg separating tool, or pour the yolk from shell to shell until all the white has drained away. Be careful not to get any yolk in with the whites, or they will not whip as well.

If you wish to make a non-alcoholic ‘nog, substitute 1 ½ cups whole milk and 1 tsp vanilla in place of the brandy or rum.

10 Egg Yolks
3 1/2 cups white sugar
1 1/2 cups Brandy or Rum
10 egg whites
1 litre whipping cream
½ tsp fresh grated nutmeg

Put a bowl in the freezer to chill for making the whipped cream.

Whip the yolks together with the sugar using an electric mixer until they are light in colour and a consistency similar to buttercream.

Add the alcohol a little at a time, mixing all the while. Continue to mix until all the sugar has lost its granular texture.

In a clean stainless, ceramic, glass or copper bowl, whip the egg whites until they form stiff peaks. Room temperature whites whip best. Fold the egg whites into the yolk/sugar/alcohol mixture.

Whip the cream in the bowl that has cooled in the freezer until it is stiff. Gently fold it into the ‘nog along with the grated nutmeg.

Store in the freezer for a milkshake-like consistency, as the alcohol will keep the ‘nog from freezing. Or keep refrigerated. Either way, the ‘nog is better if allowed a few hours for the flavours to mingle. Stir before pouring, and grate additional nutmeg over the top of each glass before serving. Enjoy!
*Author’s note: this article originally appeared in Edible Vancouver’s Winter 2011 issue, but as the online edition is no longer available in its entirety, I though it was worth a repost. 🙂
December 23, 2018
Space Saving Sauerkraut
I live in a barn. Between the barn and my little house is a mud room. It’s a liminal place: half barn, half house. These days, it’s where I keep all my tack, tools, and wild/crafting materials for the camps that I run. The counter is generally littered with things that need to be put away. Like that unidentified bracket fungi that smells like apricots… and the bags of sand and gravel from October’s Fairy Gardens.

Because I keep it at about ten degrees all winter (to keep the various stored items happy and the pipes from freezing) the mud room is also where I throw all the veggies I pull out of the garden and procrastinate about dealing with. One morning a few weeks (when I had to remove 6 large pumpkins from the top of the washing machine so I could do a load of laundry) I realized things were out of hand. The pumpkins were still too intimidating. I couldn’t quite look them in the eye. Plus they were in great shape so there was no need to rush processing them. The cabbages on the other hand… and the bowl filled with unwashed root veggies… oh dear. Definitely starting to go. I cut away the rotting bits from the cabbages, washed the salvageable carrots and beets, and then did the only responsible thing: I made Kraut.

Sauerkraut is the best way to make a large volume of cabbage store in as small a space as possible. The lactic acid fermentation process loads it with helpful wild gut bacteria, boosts its nutritional value, and enables us to store it for a long time. It also makes a boring vegetable delicious. ‘Kraut- while traditionally just cabbage, salt and water- is also flexible and can accommodate the addition of a wide variety of veggies and flavours. For mine, I used the 3 small heads of cabbage, two handfuls of carrots and beets, kale stalks and leaves from Four Beat Farm, and two wild apples that I picked on the way home from Clinton last summer. For flavour, I added a small thumb of ginger, a handful of dried Saskatoon Berries, and five Juniper Berries.

Kraut-to-be: here you can see the texture and flavourings before salt is added

Directions:
First, shred or chop your cabbage. If you are going to play with adding other veggies, make sure you keep about 75% cabbage to make sure achieve a good lactic acid ferment. You add use almost anything you can think of to flavour your ‘Kraut. Caraway seeds. Black peppercorns. Seaweed. Dried fruit. Spruce tips. Citrus zest.

Add salt, and mix/rub it well into the veggies with your hands. You want to macerate your cabbage, as you want the salt to break down the cell walls and begin to release water. How much salt should you add? Well… more than you think you should. The salt acts as a preservative, and will help your ‘Kraut keep its texture so it doesn’t ferment down into a goopy mess. Taste your cabbage/veggie mix. It should taste quite salty. As you rub them, the veggies should start to shine a little bit, as well as moisten and soften.
Pack your crock! I use a small pottery crock I found at a thrift store. You can also pack your ‘Kraut into a large mouth Mason Jar. You can use utensils for this, but I prefer to use my fist. It’s fun to punch your food, and you can put more pressure on the ‘Kraut. You want to REALLY mash it down so that all the air pockets are squished out and it starts to release water. Add more handfuls of cabbage/veggies, and press down. Continue in this way until all your Kraut-to-be is in the crock. You should have enough water that’s been released at this point that it covers the top of the ‘Kraut when you apply pressure.
Because you can’t stand there squishing it forever, you need to add weight to the top off your ‘Kraut. The ‘Kraut needs to stay submerged in its own juices so that it doesn’t mould as it ferments. (Fermentation=good, mould=bad.) I use a large class coaster that’s a little smaller than the diameter of my crock, topped with a Mason Jar. You can also use rocks as weights, provided they’re clean! Then you can cover the top of your crock with cheesecloth or a dishtowel to keep out dust and mould spores but still let it breathe, which is essential for the Lactic Acid fermentation process. If you don’t have enough juice that’s been released from the veggies to keep your ‘Kraut submerged, you can top it up with a little water or brine.
The crock and (and accompanying Mason Jar of water that acts as a weight to keep the Kraut submerged)
Wait and taste! How long it takes your ‘Kraut to be done depends on how warm your environment is, and how tangy you like your ‘Kraut. The usual window is one to four weeks. The longer you let the fermentation go, the stronger the flavour will be, and the more beneficial bacteria you will cultivate. However, the longer you wait the softer your veggies become. If you keep tasting the ‘Kraut as it progresses, then you will be able to stop the fermentation it when it reaches your favourite balance of flavour and texture.
When you’re smitten with your ‘Kraut, take it out of the crock and compost any bits with surface mould. (Sometimes a little ‘Kraut will stick to the sides of the crock and turn white and fuzzy, but the rest of the batch that is still submerged will be fine). I pack mine into clean half pint jars and keep them in the fridge. This stops the fermentation process, but does not kill any of the lactic acid and other goodness.
Enjoy! Yum. Cleaning up and making more space was never so delicious…
November 24, 2018
Taking My Own Medicine

Every October I sort of lose my mind. I could choose to call it seasonal affective disorder, depression, pieces of shadow I have not eaten. But I am careful not to put it into any of these neat little boxes, because then I would stop extending my most compassionate curiosity toward this strange seasonal storm. I want it to remain a wild thing, an unknown tempest of fury and flying sticks, because every time it shows up it serves a purpose. I’d even go so far as calling it sacred, because each time I allow it to sweep my floor clean, something I have been praying for enters.

There’s a pattern here. A seasonality. Every October, I used to migrate like a swan. As soon as the last of September’s warmth sank over the horizon, I blew up my life, put the pieces in a backpack, and left. Later, when I stopped traveling to far-off countries and instead moved in a series of lunges across the North American continent, October became the month I put everything I owned into my car (or my truck, or a suitcase in the underbelly of a Greyhound bus) and drove until I hit a coast and had to stop.

Now that I’ve rooted myself in the kind of life that contains four horses, one sheep, one pig, one dog, twelve ducks and two roosters, the ferocious energy of THE MIGRATION THAT SHOULD BE HAPPENING no longer blows me across the continent. Instead, it bowls me over. This year, I looked out over the crazy abundance of harvest season, my belly full of squash and roast duck (all the incredible generosity of the natural world!) and was so irrevocably angry that nothing made sense anymore. The anger burnt until there was nothing left but nothingness. While all around me trees dropped their leaves in an incredible display of letting go, I was furious at them for making it look so easy. This is insane, no?

How does this connect to Pemberton food culture, you ask? Well, it doesn’t. But it does. Because a couple of days ago, before this year’s particular loss of mind levelled out and let me think with something akin to clarity, I opened my medicine cabinet and saw this:

“This” is the library of wild-foraged tinctures I’ve created over the past 4 years. (Their labels are double-sided, so the essence of the words can seep into the medicine.) As I read their labels, I realized something: I created each of these medicines in October. Each was created as a support for weathering that particular year’s energetic storm. As I felt into their contents, I realized that looking at the interior of my medicine chest was like looking at the growth rings of my own evolution, as well as my connection to this wild part of the world I call home.

2015: Love, Compassion, Congruence. Usnea longissima: the long, delicate single strands of lichen that hangs from trees like the animate glowing trees in Avatar. Potent antiviral and immune support, grows only where the air is pure and the forests contain old growth.

2016: Changes toward Infinite Potential. Again Usnea longissima, this time with Lungwort Lichen (Lobaria pulmonaria.) I was still working with air beings, still striving for lightness. This one recognized the animus of the invisible transmission of air as connector between the animal and plant realms and between all beings. (If I breathe in air a tree exhaled and then YOU then take in the air I breathed-)

2017: Liberation. Atonement. Unity. This was a graduation ceremony from air to earth, something I created specifically when I moved from Squamish Valley to Pemberton. Devil’s club root and bark (adaptogen), willow bark (for deep pain and calling in receptivity and remediation).

2018: Belonging, Lightness, Radiance, Love. This one I made in secret after hiking up to Tenquille Lake with Pemby herbalist Evelyn Coggins this summer. We were not supposed to take any plants. (Evelyn, I am sorry I am so terrible at obeying rules.) There’s a chance a few flower heads of Valerian and River Fireweed (along with a few hemlock tips, a piece of old man’s beard (another Usnea!), and a piece of quartz may have made their way into my pocket on this hike. (Barely a handful of plant matter, I swear…) Covered in 100 proof vodka and shaken every day for 20 days, this one is light and floral but POTENT. Holy $^%&. The first time I tried it I almost fell asleep in the library. It’s for taking before bed, to encourage new neural connections to form through dreams…

Then I had a conversation with myself that I’m embarrassed to disclose. But I will anyway, because I think we all have these sorts of conversations from time to time. It’s just not something we talk about.

“Well Kera, you should try to remember to take some of these. That was the point of making them.”

“Humph.”

“??”

“Oh, right. Okay, okay.”

“And you know that St John’s Wort tincture you have in a mason jar under the kitchen sink? You should take that too. Because you made it SPECIFICALLY for coping with Octobers. Remember?”

“Um, yeah. Yeah I did.”

I did. I do. I am. Taking them. Ten drops in the morning of Liberation/Atonement/Unity and 6 drops of Belonging/Lightness/Radiance/Love before bed. Could the prescription be anymore poetic?

Pharmaceutical companies, take note. You could do better.

October 24, 2018
Software for Wild Intelligence
“Seeds are software, and we have the seeds” -Representative of the chemical giant Seminis, just before selling out to Monsanto

Usually, plantain is a quiet, unobtrusive little plant. She is known for her excellent healing properties, her usefulness as a spit poultice, and her excellent nutritional properties. She is generally soft spoken, and most people are surprised to notice she has been underfoot all along. She is like coffeeshops in Vancouver: ubiquitous. But lately plantain, sometimes called ‘white man’s foot’ for the way she has followed our footsteps across North America, has been shouting at me. She is poking me with her seed spears. Every time I turn around, there she is. Usually when this happens it means the particular plant that is ‘shouting’ has some particular medicine I need to pay attention to. My resistance is generally high. You think I would actively cultivate some sort of porosity towards these sorts of encounters, but no. When a plant is trying to get my attention (or most things, for that matter) my first response is resistance. When I finally let plantain in all I do is look at her for a moment, but that look takes a photograph that embeds her in my mind and from there she begins to communicate with me.

Plantain

Because of the way the summer has gone- hot and dry- Plantain is setting seed earlier than usual, and with an abundance I did not notice last fall. Perhaps she is foretelling the future, but it is more likely her actions are a reflection of the present. (When a plant is stressed, their seed production tends to be prolific. Cue the fallen black cottonwood I stood in the ruins of this past spring, who released her white parachute fluff designed to float her future progeny over the entire province OVERNIGHT WHILE SHE LAY DYING ON THE GROUND, while most of the trees were barely starting to open their little seed casings.)

But that is not what I want to tell you. What I want to tell you is that I want to cry. Each time a Plantain seed spire touches my ankle it is a reminder that things will never be the way that they were. A reminder that I do not have the time and that I am doing too much, too fast, to really listen, to really hear, to really feel any of it. There is grief in these too-early seed spires. Grief that the world is burning; that part of the morphic field of these seeds will always contain the memory of smoke.

I believe a plant is a part of a specific ecosystem’s innate intelligent awareness made incarnate, and that a seed is the plant’s answer to the questions of its times. And the answer will be different, even among similar species, if they are growing in different locations. A seed is this wild intelligence made portable, designed for dispersal, a portable currency of consciousness.

So if we really want to rejoin the dance, if we really want to be a part of what is going up in flames around us, what is burning and the new seeds that will be born out of this fire, we need to eat of the wild, NOW. We need to take a little of the otherly intelligence that is the essence of the natural world into our bodies so that we can start to belong to the place in which we are standing. Perhaps this is the beginnings of true reconciliation. Or at least the seeds with which to begin.

Please don’t think I am being trite. I am not making small of atrocities that have been committed both by and against humanity. I am not saying that by taking yet another thing from the wild we can heal from the many woundings of the entitlement we have been taught to assume. I am saying that we need to begin to build a bridge to another way of being, of living, of feeling, and that if we can ingest the local wild plants that are doing that all around us in the places where we live, who have not cut themselves off from the responsiveness of the wild innate intelligence of their own sovereignty, then we begin to take those transforms of meaning into our cells, and that begins to alter us.

Do you remember at the beginning when I said Plantain shouted at me? Well obviously she didn’t, at least not in words. But when I started to pay attention- when I started to unravel the thread of meaning she held for me- she led me here. When I went out to shoot the pictures for this post I stripped a handful of her seeds from their spire, winnowed their husks away by breathing into my palm, put them into my mouth and chewed. They popped between my teeth like chia seeds, and had a similar mucilaginous texture. They didn’t really taste like much but maybe that’s a good thing. Something about pulling the seeds from their stalk felt familiar, the way I sometimes recognize the face of a stranger I have not known in this life.

Plantain- the tall darker seeds stalks are ready to be harvested

Plantain seeds, slightly winnowed by blowing into my palm

Beside the Plantain (and remaining mostly quiet all this time) was a stand of Dock, with seeds also ready for harvest.

Dock seeds dried on the stalk and ready for harvest

Dock seeds close up- note their papery hulls which do not need to be winnowed- they can be ground along with the seeds

So here is where we get to the practical and super-actionable and amazing part of this post: you can make flour from both these seeds. Yep, that’s right. SUPER SOVEREIGN INTELLIGENCE WILD MORPHIC FIELD FLOUR WITH BONUS SUPER NUTRITION! (Or as we more quietly call it, Plantain/ Wild Dock Flour.)

Plantain/Wild Dock Flour
1. Simply go out and gather as much Plantain and Dock seeds as you have the patience for, checking that the ground the plants grow in is free from contaminants and roadside pollutants. There is no need to winnow (separate) the seeds from the hulls as from both kinds of seeds’ hulls are edible and add extra fibre to your flour, as would happen if you added rice bran. If the seeds do not pull off the seed heads easily when you are harvesting, they are not ripe yet and should be left on the plant to mature. As with all wildcafting/foraging, be considerate of the plant’s needs to reproduce and other animals who may depend on the seeds as a food source. (A good rule is to not harvest more than 25% of the yield of a patch, but in the case of weeds like Plantain and Dock (which are prolific) you can sometimes take a little more without ill effects.
2. If you wish to increase the nuttiness of the flavour of your flour (OR if you are worried about bugs, OR if you are not sure your seeds are completely dry) you can roast your seeds on a cookie sheet in the oven, stirring several times at 200 degrees until seeds have darkened slightly.
3. Store whole in airtight containers until ready for use. Grind seeds and hulls in a coffee grinder until they reach a flour like texture. Substitute 1 for 1 to replace up to 1/2c of flour called for in the recipe to add extra nutritional value and wild intelligence to whatever you are baking.
Author’s note: The seed harvesting in this piece was originally inspired by Katrina Blair’s book ‘The Wild Wisdom of Weeds: 13 Essential Plants for Human Survival” which is an excellent resource for anyone wanting an accessible way to learn to incorporate edible weeds into their diet!
August 24, 2018
Time Versus Rurality

July 24, 2018
Wildflower Gummies!
On May 11, I hosted a camp where we were supposed to make dandelion jelly. I had all these beautiful ideas in my head about the kids picking a huge bowl of blossoms out in the back field with the bees and other pollinators, their, fingers becoming stained yellow with pollen… how romantic. Of course, this is not how it happened in real life.

“Jelly, what’s that?” one of the girls asked.

“Well, it’s like jam, except there are no chunks in it, and we can make it from flowers!”

“THAT SOUNDS GROSS!!” They replied in chorus. “EWWWW! WE ARE NOT MAKING THAT!! DISGUSTING!!”

Well, that stumped me. For a moment.

“Wait… we could make dandelion GUMMIES. Would that be better?”

“YES!!” It was unanimous. GUMMIES were obviously WAY better than jelly.

While we were waiting for our gummies to set in the freezer, we went outside and picked dandelions in the front yard. I showed the girls something my dad taught me when I was a little kid: that if you pick the largest dandelion stem you can find and take off its flower, it makes a noise like a kazoo! It takes a bit of patience to find the right stem, and sometimes you have to break it shorter and shorter before it will start to make noise. It’s some kind of magic that happens when the dandelion milk in the bottom of the stem starts to vibrate, so it helps to have a juicy one! Two of the girls got bored and wandered away to play tag with Vinnie the sheep. But Avery was very excited about playing dandelions. “This is the best day of my life!” she exclaimed. “Now I can annoy everyone FOREVER!”

Our gummies after being cut into bite sized morsels!

As we cut up, divided up and packaged our very own homemade dandelion gummies, I realized this gummie making is an incredible way to get even the most squeamish of kids interested in the world that is growing all around them. If seasonal edible flower gummies can lead them to being able to identify a few species growing in their own back yard, then they learn to have a relationship with that particular plant, and that relationship can be a gateway to curiosity. In what other ways that plant can be used? What kind of environment does it like to grow in? Knowing a single plant intimately is enough to make the natural world come alive. I bet that even from reading this post you will notice dandelions more. Your awareness of them will become sharper, more open. And this kind of curiosity- this relatedness- is precious. It leads to a sense of belonging to the maze of green abundant life that exists outside our windows, the same way that knowing a friend in a crowd makes being amongst that many strangers less overwhelming. So if all we need is a few cups of cane sugar to kindle this relationship, then so be it!

Posing with our finished product!

And don’t worry, I am going to give you recipes. I am also going to acknowledge I am leading you on a little, as dandelion season is almost completely over in Pemby. Don’t worry, you can use any edible fragrant flower to make your gummies. That means, lilacs = yes. Peonies = yes. And those wild roses that are just starting to bloom? Yes, you can use those too!!

First, you need to make a flower syrup. I make mine in big batches, as I like to be able to keep some to make into summer drinks (a few tbsp and a bit of mineral water over ice on a hot day = heavenly). Please note that the syrup recipe is not intended to be canned, as the proportions are not tested for safety. So please keep your syrups in the fridge! I am confident you will use them up before they have a chance to go bad. This recipe makes about 6c of syrup, which is quite a lot. You can always halve or quarter the amounts if you want to make a smaller batch.

Wildflower Syrup:

2c flower petals

4c cane sugar

5c water

1 organic lemon, sliced
1. Prepare your flowers. It is best to harvest them in full sun at the height of the day. (From noon to 3 pm.) That way the flowers will retain the most potency and fragrance. Whichever kind of flower you are using, do your best to use only the petals. (In the case of dandelions, this means removing the green base of the flower.) Use flowers as close as you can to the time of harvest, as they will lose potency as soon as they are picked.
2. Bring the water to a boil and add the cane sugar and stir until dissolved.
3. Add flower petals and sliced lemon and cover your pot or bowl with a tea towel or cheesecloth to keep out flies, and leave out at room temperature to infuse for 2-4 days, stirring once per day. You want to optimize the length of your infusion without your syrup starting to ferment. If you see lots of bubbles or you are happy with the flavour, it’s time to move onto step 4…
4. Strain and bottle your syrup. Enjoy!
Wildflower Gummies

1c flower syrup

3pkj (3tbsp) gelatin*
1. Find a mould for your gummies. I used the bottom of a tupperware container and cut them into squares, but you could get super creative here. You don’t need parchment or non stick spray or anything.
2. Heat your flower syrup until just before boiling. Separate 1/4 -1/2 c of syrup and shake or whisk the Gelatin into it. (I used a small Mason jar and shook it to combine the gelatin, then strained out the residual lumps using a tea strainer as I feel you get less foam this way.)
3. Add the gelatin mix to the rest of your syrup, stir well to combine, then pour it into your mould. If foam has accumulated on top of your gummy, skim it off with a spoon.
4. Let your gummies set. I put mine in the freezer, but if you are not in such a rush you can just leave them out.
5. To get your gummy out of the mould, dip your mould into warm water for a few minutes (being careful not to get water on your gummy). Then run a knife around the edge of your mould and you should be able to pull it right out. Don’t be afraid to use your fingers to pull it out of the mould- you won’t wreck it.
6. Now you can cut your gummy into shapes with a sharp knife or cookie cutter. You could also roll them in sugar and leave them out for a few days is you want a chewier texture. I was happy with mine as they were as I found them already quite sweet. If you don’t go the additional sugar method, I would keep your gummies in the fridge as they do have quite a bit of moisture in them and will mould if they are not devoured within the first few days. Enjoy!
*I used Knox Gelatin which comes pre-portioned in little paper packages, but I saw Stay Wild has boxed gelatin that is also gluten free!
May 23, 2018
Taking the Sting

I am one of those weird and fantastic people who get really excited about the plants nobody likes. The wild ones, the weeds. The FLOWERS OF TREES. The pesky dandelions old men spend hours picking out of their lawns. The patch of chickweed I found growing in the horse pasture… and made into lip balm and a series of green juices that impressed even my mother.

I want to share a little about a spiky, prickly friend of mine, otherwise known as Stinging Nettle. Nettle is the star of the show right now. When I filmed the video I was fresh from two hours of editing a manuscript, and an hour of harvesting Nettle tops. The result? One part medicinal plant talk, two parts deep restorative ecology of the human ecosystem, and one part neighbour’s chainsaw as background noise. You can’t get more ‘weedy’ then that!

April 23, 2018
Burn Your Plan

A very long time ago, I passed a man on a couch at Burning Man Festival. It was so late it was almost morning, and the sun had just begun to paint the edges of the mountains with the faintest of light. The man struck up a conversation. And as I warmed my hands at the small fire he had lit at the edge of the road, he told me something that has come back to haunt me more times then I would like to admit.

“You know” he said, hanging in the pause to build up the effect, “sometimes you have to plan your burn… and then burn your plan.”

In this rural, beautiful, messy, animal filled life- where some of the beautiful things you want to create never happen because you have to fix fences instead, and you show up at the grocery store wearing boots covered in muck no matter how hard you try to remember to change them- burning your plan is inevitable. And actually, I think it makes for more love filled creations most of the time. In being willing to let the universe lead the dance every now and then, we make space for magic to happen. And when we have magic, well then anything is possible. We do need a bit of a plan to start with, otherwise we would never get out of bed in the morning, a container and a direction in which to move. But then the more we can be open to running with what happens in the moment, the more our creations and actions can start to suddenly seem a little bigger than ourselves. And that’s always a good thing.

I run a horse and nature based teaching business called Mountain Horse School. This past week I ran 4 days of March Break camp for an amazing little group of kids. I was so proud of the design for this camp: I had found the most amazing natural art activities, and had planned everything out as far as two weeks ahead. But then I found I was unable to source one crucial item for each creation. Then the weather was freezing and that changed the plans I had made too, and one of my horses was terribly grumpy, and so I pulled him halfway through camp and let him watch from the bleachers. Given the circumstances, we did the only thing we could: we improvised.

When things got a little too frantic, we held chickens in our laps and waited until they felt safe enough to close their eyes…

My newest mare Besa (who is not yet trained to ride and was NOT part of the plan for camp) kept insisting she be included. On the last day as we were getting ready to do horse painting she asked again. I looked at her big black head hanging over the gate, and weighed my options and risks. I was doing something more than that too: I was feeling towards her and towards the empty space between us, to see what might want to happen out of the moment. The look in the mare’s eyes was definitely an invitation. Ok. I thought. The kids have enough horse sense that if something goes sideways, we will all be able to stay safe. We’ve been studying their behaviour and body language all week, and imagining our way into their thoughts. It might be neat to have them involved in the process of introducing Besa to something new.

Juliette introducing Besa to the colour fuchsia.

Not only did Besa decide it was ok to be painted, she stood in a kind of trance, with a look on her face that I have only seen in horses who are very, very deeply concentrating on the work at hand. She didn’t even shiver her skin when the first wet blue brush touched her skin. And now, two days later, she has not rolled, and the colours shine brightly out from her white coat.

If you are driving out in the meadows this week and see a black and white horse with a brightly coloured wing, apple, and heart on her side, you are not losing your mind. You are seeing my plan as it has gone up in flames, and the much more beautiful genuine messy thing that has come in to take its place.

March 24, 2018