Animá Lifeways & Herbal School

Our Sanctuary partner Van of Stream Dynamics led volunteers from Upper Gila Watershed Alliance, Sky Island Alliance and Anima Center in planting 550 willow starters on Forest Service land downriver from us, with permits kindly facilitated by John Pierson and Justin Schofer of the Reserve Ranger District.  Willows have spread effectively northwards (upriver) from our rewilded private inholding, primarily spreading by root and no longer assisted by us.  Downriver, however, there remain a lot of uncovered and untethered river banks, one section of which is now thickly planted with willow starters.  These bank stabilizing trees are so hardy, that any branches pruned off have a high likelihood of growing into whole new trees when stuck a foot or more into moist sandy ground.

In this first photo are the plantings the day they were placed, thanks to the hard work of the land-loving volunteers.

In the second, we see the same stand one month later, already leafing and branching out.  All of the environmental consciousness and Mother Earth bumper stickers in the world won’t do for the planet or ourselves what a single direct action, restored park or yard or planted heirloom garden will.  Groups like the UGWA and Sky Island count on volunteers such as yourselves, to find meaning and satisfaction in giving their time to make real their priorities and beliefs.  Heartful Hand-Work.

Confrontation and resistance have their place in any movement or cause, as do education, litigation and legislation.  What is great about watershed restoration in comparison, is that it benefits all manner of land user or owner and can therefore enlist the support and even assistance of a wide range of folks.  The same revegetation that lessens erosion and contributes to wildlife habitat and proliferation, is also the best known means for ensuring the continuance and purity of surface water for human use.

Our gratitude to everyone that came this year to help out, and we look forward to future groups.

-Jesse Wolf Hardin & Family

Anima School and Botanical Sanctuary

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THE GREENING:

Nature’s Insistence and the ReWilding Within

by Jesse Wolf Hardin

When I was a relatively impressionable teenager, I remember reading a book by a sociologist named Reich I believe, titled “The Greening of America.”  In it, the overly optimistic author outlined a future in which the progressive values and rich diversity of the 1960’s and early 70’s would continue and grow, with wall street executives increasingly exchanging their suit ties and dress shoes for sandals and Nehru shirts, giving their energies to green ventures that would benefit humankind and the planet.  While current events continue to belie such hopes, there is indeed a visible greening, one that will one day recolor and recolonize our sterile asphalt and concrete habitats, and one that has its way in nature each Spring that thankfully comes around.  Wherever you are, far north or heated south, mountains or coast, you have joined us in witnessing the uplifting seasonal changes by now.

Since my May 1st update, the bare Cottonwood trees have nicely filled out, with leaves wh0se green has the yellowish tint of arboreal youth.  They show up nicely in the photograph above, taken on the trail approaching the forested line of the Anima Sanctuary proper.  The comparatively barren scrubland in the foreground, gives you an idea of how the entire canyon looked prior to my moving here and initiating its protection from livestock grazing and land gobbling developers.  As you’ve seen and will see in other pictures, along the river the vegetation has now spread to over a mile from this land where the greening first began.

Here we are looking downriver from the new 6th crossing, just inside the Sanctuary gate that Van, our partner in rewilding this place, has installed.  None of the 100 feet tall Cottonwoods that you see, and none of the 4 species of willow were here until I made their return possible with an ornery attitude and loving heart.

These leaves are from the narrowleaf cottonwood, one of the main two varieties found here in the canyon.

The second type we have are the Fremont cottonwoods, seen here between the 6th and 7th river crossings.

In the pic above is the 7th crossing, greened out, and hard to tell the river was raging chest deep through here a month ago.  Hard to tell, even, where the jeep-wide trail exits the water on its difficult and winding way to town.

The edible wild mustard has grown 2 feet tall since it first sprouted during the uncharacteristic late rains.

The local strain of Honeysuckle have prospered as well, and have just now begun blooming.  How sweet it is!

The roots of the wild Grape I helped plant and spread here, continue to grow all Winter long, supporting ever longer vines tipped by fresh sprigs like we see in the pic.

Thanks to all the water they got, plants like this Ragwort are blooming early.

And acting as the strongest perfume in this heady canyon embrace, is the now leafy Currant bush.  Thanks to their proliferation, walking through the mid May Sanctuary is like a trip through a pastry shop or organic fruit market.

The healing and prospering of this land and ecosystem is in part a result of our 3 decades of effort, but it was in another sense inevitable.  The spirit that drives me as its care-taker is the same that drives its ever more varied selection of flora and fauna, doing my best – like the dandelion-looking Silver Puffs – to seed the world with irrepressible wildness and endless expressions of nature’s truth and beauty.  It’s only right that we help the process along in every way that we can, but on the other hand it is the wondrous greening that will in the end prevail with or without us.

The exciting option, then, is to be a conscious and deliberate part of this continuing process, exceeding rigid customs and laws and imagined inadequacy the same as the plants break through layers of concrete in their hunger for life and light.  There will be a “Greening of America,” one day returning the continent to its garden splendor, flowering even in the middle of our cities at the start of every Summer until then, and growing its seditious and wondrous wildness within the best of each of us.

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(for information on Anima Lifeways and Healing BOOKS and COURSES click here)

(Please forward and post freely)

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SHAPESHIFTER:

The Humbling Unpredictability of a River’s Form and Course

by Jesse Wolf Hardin

www.animacenter.org

One thing about river morphology, is that is only in the broadest terms predictable.  We can predict what events might lead to the water curving or diverting at a certain point in the landscape, and we can bet that a stream devoid of bank-stabilizing plant life due to overgrazing or other causes, will tend to straighten out and speed up, with less saturation of the earth nearby.  What is a continual surprise is how a high water event will alter the streamflow.

Without constraining dams or concrete channels, a river does whatever it wants… and as with certain people, it can prove unwise to assume we know what will or won’t trigger a certain mood, or result in a certain reaction.  Like a willful child, just when you think you know what it will do next, the river will do something entirely unexpected and seemingly improbable or even unreasonable.  One flood may fill in a channel with silt and debris, while the next one might strip it bare or dig it deeper.   It can remain within the same bed for years and then suddenly jump to another, straightening out a lovely meander or suddenly begin weaving thanks to a fallen tree or rockslide.  One time, the river might swirl and excavate a ten feet deep swim hole that lasts even through the Summer months of hot days and low flow, a delight to dive into from the rocky cliffs… but another time, it will shift away from the rocks and leave us with nothing to leap into but a fresh pile of wet sand.  Willows may be ripped up from one stretch, as a Spring season’s snowmelt gobbles up the banks, but then a short while later reappear along the new water’s edge, springing up from a vast an insistent mat of roots that survive every fickle shift in river height and path.  I assure you, the ultra attentive resident of decades is still regularly surprised.  Even the shaman – who usually perceives and predicts the unfolding patterns of weather, human events and the intentions of an inspirited land – must nonetheless be humbled by a wild river’s unexpected course.

This year’s mountain run off has been no exception, and after two months of our having to wade out through high flow, it has now dropped enough to un-curtain a river unrecognizable in places.  Nothing illustrates this more than the area by our green Anima Sanctuary gate.  A gate, of course is meant to be a point of ingress and egress for walking visitors and our supply laden jeeps.  Ours, along with the plethora of Anima School, United Plant Savers and No Trespassing signs no longer face a drivable trail but a branch of flowing river, and what used to be our sixth crossing coming in is now no longer.  In the photo below, the gate can be seen in the center of the image, to the right of what is the new river channel.

We would have no objection to any new way that the rewilding canyon shapes up, if not for the need to be able to get a jeep in at least part of the year.  Food and mail can be transported in backpacks the 2 miles from the Sanctuary to the pavement, but the blocks of ice we need for refrigeration during the hot Summers can’t survive the hike, and over the years it has gotten less and less doable carrying full propane tanks in on a frame strapped to our backs.  With the ever denser conglomerates of thick willow forest and accumulating driftwood, options the sixth crossing have all but disappeared among the impenetrable rows of 15 feet high willows and young 100 feet high cottonwoods.

Thanks to water dropping to thigh deep, yesterday we managed to drive all the way to the cabins for the first time in 9 weeks.  Note that I said “managed,” as it was indeed a well considered and intrepidly carried out system, requiring 3 radically raised vehicles, an offroading paraplegic project foreman (“Little Brother” Ryan, pictured below), 2 strong backed adventure loving boys and a red bearded anti-roads author to alternately cheer and grumble.  Even with Samurais and our Jeep “The Beast,” we still managed to get stuck in the river over a dozen times getting in and out, each time sucked down by wet silt reminiscent of the explorer-gobbling quicksand seen in old B movies.

Our chosen path stays out of the floodplain for longer stretches, and will result in a larger portion of the Sanctuary proper being able to re-grow where the old track used to be, but the crossings themselves are still many weeks away from being solid enough to drive over without a 50% chance of bogging.  The plan for now is to try and ride in as far as the well discussed sixth, and then carry everything the remaining few hundred yards up over the precipitous “Winter Trail.”  The next test will come tonight, as I shuttle Resolute in for a week stay, no doubt hooting and hollering as we make our brave splash.
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P.S.:  I’d like to take this time to welcome our many new Foundations in Western Herbalism and Journey Begins correspondence students.  Your responses since their recent release have been very gratifying for all of us here, and we hope the will continue to serve you well.  You can expect a series of pieces on various aspects of healing here, as well as increased coverage of our homesteading and wildcrafting activities.

And a note to everyone: You will notice yet more updates to the Traditions In Western Herbalism Conference website, with a few more additions coming to the Anima site as well.  The site links to the course, retreat and events applications will be fixed, but until then please continue emailing us with requests for the right form for whatever it is that you are applying for.

Forever wild,

-JWH and Family

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Gathering Wood at Sunset and other Joys

I was getting ready to clean up after supper yesterday when I remembered an errand I’d wanted to do before dark. I was especially happy to remember it because “glowy time” was just beginning! As many of you know, what I call “glowy time” is that special time of morning or evening when everything looks kind of candlelit from within, if that makes any sense. There is always some degree of glowy time every morning and evening, but sometimes it passes so quickly it can be easy to miss it. I love it when glowy time lights up the sky with colors so amazing that even indoors everyone’s faces suddenly look extra radiant, the walls turn shades of pink and orange, and it becomes completly impossible to stay inside!

By the time I got out to the shed with the wheelbarrow, there were big streaks of rosyness in the sky, with streaks of brightening blue-grey-purple in between.  I got what I needed into the wheelbarrow and felt myself pulled to admire the cliffs on the north side of the dry wash, and found a beautiful fallen oak that I couldn’t believe I’d never stopped to marvel at before. I wandered around for a while enjoying the crisp air and incredible sky and then came upon a fallen tree with many dry limbs that had fallen across a trail. I broke off a number of the limbs and brought them back to near the kitchen, where Wolf took my picture before I broke them up for kitchen wood. I love having a nice pile of biggish kindling for fire tending, to get the fire going well again when it’s died down. And I get so much pleasure out of gathering wood myself, whether it’s for the kitchen, the den, or the bath, or if it’s serious hunting of big pieces of oak for a sweat fire. It’s a special thing to have the chance to connect with the trees, whether they’re fallen over, or I’m leaping up to break off dry limbs. It gets me in my body and fills me with so much gratitude getting to spend time with them in their whole form before they’re in the fire. I love to admire the special ways they’ve grown around rocks or lightning scars, the patterns in the bark, the amazing gesture in each tree that reflects its many years of dancing with the wild canyon winds. It’s very similar to me to the feeling of honoring a wild animal we’ve hunted by petting it and giving it love after its death, though I’m sure that might seem a strange parallel to some folks!

Well, now it’s morning, and I got up very early so now it’s glowy time again! Time to bring my tea outside and give so much thanks for another beautiful day in this land of my dreams-come-true!! So much love and glowyness to you all, hope you all will be sure to catch the glowies coming your way each day, and honor the trees and fires that help bring light to this season of blessed darkness!!

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Rhiannon and I spent this evening inspecting our baby plants, part of our native flora re-introduction project we’ve been working intensively on for the last year. Funded by a generous USFWS grant, we are engaged in introducing native plants that will provide diversity, soil nutrition and forage for all canyon residents, whether four or two footed.

Walking barefoot beneath the Maples, Oaks and Junipers, we examined each little plant carefully for signs of growth and vitality. Rhiannon was very proud of each healthy baby, since she has been taking on the sizable responsibility of filling jugs from the river and watering many of the plantings with Loba’s help.

Although most of the trees we chose are still small, we were especially excited over the two and a half foot tall Saskatoon sapling that is already covered with beautiful white flowers! And to our delighted surprise, all of the seemingly delicate Hawthorn trees have not only survived but are sprouting rich, red-tinted foliage. The Elder trees have also exceeded all expectations, with even the tiniest four inch seedlings digging in and sending out leaves and branchlets. Wonderfully wild and nutrient rich Nettles are thriving on the forest floor, and Rhiannon and I stepped carefully among them to avoid being stung as we crouched down to look at each tiny flower or uncurling Wild Grape tendril.

As the sun slipped behind the canyon wall, we ran down the sandy trail to the river for one last splash among the Willows and Mugwort before heading back to the cabins for snacks and bed. Rhiannon danced her way back up to the mesa, her arms above her head and her skirts spinning wide. In the growing dark, we could hear the sweet trill of the tree frogs and lonesome call of the poor-wills. Below us, we feel the forest growing — drinking in sweet river water and extending soft leaves toward the rising moon.

The example of these wild, and willed, beings serves to remind me of my own core strength and innate knowledge. Every year, the plants teach me again what it means to drink in nourishment, sink my roots deep and unfold into my fullest self. Each Spring, I experience anew the exuberant expression of the earth bursting into flower, and feel myself fall further into her primal rhythms.

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