Animá Lifeways & Herbal School

It’s a town day again, twice a week in order to get important mail out and bring back necessary supplies.  It is even harder than usual to avoid going in, when we’re walking the nearly two mile trail up the mountain instead of making the trip in the Sanctuary’s jeep.  And we can expect to be climbing this mountain for quite some time to come.  State of New Mexico reports predict there the waters of the Gila and San Francisco rivers will be running at over 200 percent of recent Spring flows.  Given that there has been no quick and canyon-wide flood, with the Frisco for the most part remaining in its primary bed,  we can figure all that volume will be draining slower and at over a much longer time… possibly remaining impassable by vehicle for another 2 months!

Like a complex person with a full range of moods, from heady to placid, the undammed Frisco is never predictable.  And this time it has surprised me by a portion of it moving over into what was Alder lined trail, barely making a 90 degree turn to the right just it reaches our Sanctuary entry gate and the soil and driftwood berms deposited there by a previous high water event.  No telling what she will do next, or how we reroute our trail if we are ever to get a vehicle in again, but then we would not want to see her controlled and bound to any route or purpose of ours.  She is a wild river, and the entirely inconvenient ways in which she demonstrates it are part of the – and her – course.

You can get some idea of how much wider the river is in the photos above, taken of the 7th crossing which in December was only a fraction of this size… and you might get a sense of how fast the waters are if not how bracingly cold.  But to get an even better feel for it, you might want to listen to the attached sound file, an “Audio Postcard” as they say, filled not with clever commentary but the sonorous sounds of the river and my flailing through it, clothes and recorder held aloft over me head.  It was recorded the last time out, when I took the usual canyon route, forced to half wade, half swim across 3 of the 7 junctures where the trail intersects.  If you enjoy audio blogging, we will all do a lot more of it.  The courses, too, will have an audio and maybe even video component someday.

To Download Wolf’s Audio Postcard File

CLICK HERE

Returning just as the canyon was filled with the sun’s last rays, I had to stop and photograph the way the shadow of rock and willow were making even the most predictable of framings come alive with contrast, pattern and implication.

Rhiannon joins me for a period of reflection and shared sense of awe and place, sitting on the hawk-perch above what a month ago was where the beaver dam lay.   As much as she likes to chatter in the house, she becomes naturally quieter when out there with me, like two predators taking in every movement on a known game trail, or more like like a wolf and an otter soaking up visual delight along with vital sensory information about all that could help or harm, give fright or delight.

On the way I pause to shoot the stalks of the several species of river willow, glowing brightly with green energy.

Already, sexy, pillowy “pussy-willow” buds bob in the strong Spring winds. Very soon the long narrow leaves will sprout, nearly concealing the trunks and branchings in their thick green draping.  Mullein are spiraling and unveiling like fatted cabbage, and the first of this year’s grape leaves begin what will become a grand presentation with multiple little, humble swellings all along their hobbit arbor limbs.

After all, along what are record levels of snow melt, is coming what is expected to be the greatest amount of plant growth and flowering since 2001.  In the Southwest particularly, water means life.  And for that reason among others, we will never regret or resent any amount of rain and river that we we get… home, and doing the good work, “come hell or high water.”

(Photos (C) 2010 by Jesse Wolf Hardin.)

Recommended to watch:

SEEDS OF CHANGE VIDEO

There’s been a video on YouTube for some time now that we’ve wanted to recommend to our Anima School and Anima Healing Arts blog readers.  Produced by the creative visionary Bruce Weaver, “Seeds of Change” uses video, powerful stills and artistic editing to tell the story of an earth in need of and ready for a major shift.

This production is about changing how we view the world as well as how we live and act on it, the necessity of bonding with nature and re-engaging land based culture and tradition.  Anima’s own Jesse Wolf Hardin is featured along with a powerful collection of diverse teachers and inspiring quotes… from Father Thomas Berry to the indigenous Momos truthsayers…. creating a living tapestry that tells the story of our times… a vital wake up call.

To View the Video

CLICK HERE

And to read more about the larger movie project to which this is a part, please go to the:

Dances With Destiny Site

Introduction: A Retreat at the remote Anima Sanctuary in Southwest New Mexico is usually as stirring as comforting, stimulating or encouraging honest self exploration and healthful life changes.  Whether a Study Retreat, Couples Retreat or other focus, time in this magical canyon is inevitably a deepening an opening.  And as our student friend Irene points out in her Retreat account below, a Retreat offers something that is vital for each person to take with them, gifts meant to be put to use enriching their lives long after they’re  back home.  Thank you, Irene, for sharing your photographs and your story. -JWH

MY ANIMA WILDERNESS RETREAT

A PhotoJournal by Irene

My Anima retreat, and my canyon walk, began with the company of a hummingbird sitting on a cottonwood branch next to me, peeping its loving sounds and swaying its gem of a head from side to side. Spontaneously I began to sing: Hummingbird, Hummingbird / Bird of Joy / Picaflor, Picaflor / I love you ..and on and on heartfully improvising. At times, she would look upwards and her red breast would kiss the sun’s rays. She seemed to notice the gentle rattle of falling dried cottonwood leaves. We must have communed together for an intense five minutes. I felt so vulnerable and quivered in happiness to be so close to the bird. I began to worry that maybe it was ill, but that distracting thought soon passed. I realized that it requires a huge degree of trust to be so still in front of another being. Her tiny glimmering eyes brought such joy. When she finally flew away I did not feel my habitual creation of abandonment, but rather,  a source of reassuring presence.

In the canyon wind, I could hear a flute calling ever so slightly. Ocean and wind nearly sound the same. I walked through willow trees lanky and inviting. Nettle patches traced the sandy paths which brought me to grounded attention as I soon discovered beloved rose on the edge of the property by the barbed wire fence. Thorns abounded and buds were ready and three or four in bloom which exuded an aroma that peaked and crescendoed then finished off with an adagio of soft pink and a yellow corolla center and its speckles of orbiting deeper yellow moons. The thorns grabbed fierce hold of my skirt and insisted on presence! And lovingly, I unraveled myself from them thanking their presence provoking brambles of beauty interspersed among tender, hovering willow trees.

Just a few steps from the rose bush,  I notice a nearly decayed carcass surrounded by  a thick circle of willows. The fur tan in color felt somewhat grainy; the type of animal it was once was initially unrecognizable. There were some vertebrae, some stark white, other bones were gray where skin had dried. The fur was rough and a piece of jaw, clearly white and canine lay alongside fur stitched in with bone. It could have been a fox.  This might have been just the place for the vixen to die.

My journey downriver seemed unassuming  at first. Beautiful cottonwoods swayed happily on the banks of the meandering San Francisco river. Then,  the river flowed between stillness and crackling white water at most waist deep but the sound to my mind stirred fear and then longing and a primal sensuality.  Sometimes I did not know where the sensation began or ended.

The rock by the river was a volcanic smooth white stone. I found myself licking and kissing its smoothness and hard surface. Bodies as one, stone and I pledged to melt into one another at that moment…Sun kept us continuously present. I waded into the river, sat on the water coursing rock beds and fell into trance as zebra striped ripples caressed my virgin eyes of a sight / sense never before touched. I attempted to lie on my back in the river and the coldness coursed through me too quickly. I chose to submerse my head; and the river softly pulled my hair downstream like the green goddess algae mane I stroked earlier, a uterine pocket in the current. The algae uterine-like bloom felt like an expanded uterus and vulva which had surrendered to orgasm over a thousand years now and the ecstasy of this seemingly small river exploded into the land and flowed like the ancient lava flows of before. Polywogs of various stages displayed their development proudly from sperm-like motility to a reptilian quadruped swim approaching the stage between land and water. I sat with horsetail, ancient plants which grew in a tiny willow grove – its stalk green in color closer to sky and yellow orange stalk closer to sand. Hairs demarcated its various stages of growth and conelike spires grew at the terminal sky facing end.

I spent three nights in the womb of this very sacred land in the Gila. The silence allowed me to feel and hear the pulsating heart of the earth. I bathed in the moonlight softening my burnt face in the lodge.   Rattlesnake told me to seek shade the first day not only for my tender feet but for my soul as well.  Loba kindly brought me into the present with our walk to the rainwater cistern and her generous offering of her sarong to soothe my feet. I am so grateful  for that moment! I learned to siphon out water and once again, Loba and her meals brought me into the sensual moment.  Watercress, tortillas, monarda pesto, stew, nettles and skillet bread were some of the tastes I will never forget. Rhiannon soft knock at the lodge door in the morning was kind and how she gently hugged me good morning as she gently placed the jars of food on the table was so vividly alive.  I tasted young  monarda  and yarrow leaves  on my solo walks.  The smell of the usnea on fallen juniper seemed like what mother’s milk might smell like: something primordial and familiar.   It has been nearly a year since those moments and the long journey to this magical land still continues in my current home of Brooklyn.

(for more information on Anima N.M. Wilderness Retreats go to the Retreats page of the Website)

To Apply for a Retreat at the Anima School & Sanctuary, Download the Retreats application form:

Retreats

ZOMBIE CATTLE HELL:
An Argument for Sentient Food & a More Sentient Life

by Jesse Wolf Hardin
Anima Lifeways & Herbal School

www.animacenter.org

It seems terrible to me, to think of ingesting any creature or plant that wasn’t in its own natural way enlivened: vital, alert and responsive.  And for centuries among many indigenous, land based societies the belief has been that we take on the energy of whatever we consume, gaining some of the strength of the bear by partaking of its flesh, or the litheness of the deer, the courage of the lion, the awakeness of the wide eyed hare.  Such people may likewise insist on avoiding eating much beef, in order to keep from becoming either slowed or borderline oblivious like a majority of domestic cattle.

To the contrary, a growing number of food industry researchers and managers hope to assuage the guilt feelings of empathetic consumers by developing and promoting meat sources that are increasingly dulled, denatured and deadened.  These “knockout livestock” as they are sometimes called, would potentially be unaffected by the worst that was ever done to them, normal looking in every way yet clearly somehow not quite right.  They’ll be just a little too accepting of indignities, and a little too much like the glib, easily appeased, conformist, unaware, barely feeling and unnaturally obedient human populations, stumbling from their own metaphoric feedlot to slaughter house under the influence of calming drugs and the “helpful” control of Big Brother regimes.

Welcome to the world of Frankenburgers, from Zombie Cattle Hell!

Throughout most of my lifetime the line seemed more clearly drawn, with the bulk of conservationists and ecologists, spiritual types, liberals and those into alternative culture have all tended to be vegetarians, and with meat eaters largely either stereotyped or self-stereotyped as redneck right-wingers with no regard for their own cardiovascular health let alone the health of the planet and the suffering of their fellow creatures.  While there were always exceptions, today the dietary divide is more blurred than ever.  For decades I’ve asserted that strict vegetarianism – while well intentioned – is both unnatural and unhealthy, with our ancestral, low carb omnivore diet actually being the closest to an optimum diet for us even today, but these days I am joined by thousands of adherents of high protein and so called primal diets.  The result is an increasing number of consumers of meat who insist on healthy grass-fed animals, raised under cruelty free conditions, cleanly dispatched, and the rise of small farms devoted to compassionate husbandry.

Meanwhile, the few multi-national corporate conglomerates controlling the entire food production of the United States, were seriously stung by criticism that has followed the public exposure of the horrific conditions of corporate farms and factory slaughterhouses, mostly clandestine video shot and released by animal rights activists.  Most anyone who views this sort footage is turned off at least temporarily to eating anything but free range creatures, after the seeing the disregard with which our sources of pork chops and beef steaks are treated, and after witnessing the degree of sheer terror and sometimes acute agony of livestock as they are automatically but clumsily terminated.  Management’s solution, needless to say, has not been to improve the conditions the animals are raised in or to improve the methods and means of the slaughter, but to assign their industry funded laboratory researchers the goal of genetically lowering the animals’ threshold of pain!  Why go to the expense and trouble of increasing the size of enclosures, they reason – reducing the incidences of illness, or improving the methods of killing – if the livestock has been altered to no longer feeling any discomfort or anguish?
To these industry heads, what matters is not vitality but product viability, including the perception of potential buyers.  They recognize that image and marketability are the main impediments to future consumers purchasing muscle tissue grown in cell cultures, providing them with animal protein that has bizarrely never thirsted for water and gone into heat, never known the feel of sunshine, pranced in the grass or even stood up on four feet.  This would satisfy the desires of the industry to produce quantities of a product with as little effort and cleanup as possible, while simultaneously meeting the animal rights groups’ goal of ending the suffering of other lifeforms… at least those which have been engineered to be something less than alive.

It’s been known for some time that the brain has two different pathways for perceiving pain, a sensory avenue that registers the location, kind and intensity, and another “affective” pathway that translates the same impulses as unpleasant.  The reason why people under the influence of opium poppies and their chemical derivatives don’t suffer this unpleasantness, even when being operated on by a physician while awake, is that the opiates chemically disable this second route, resulting in little or none of the normal arousing of what is called the brain’s anterior cingulate cortex.

Neuroscientists from the universities of Washington and Toronto have more recently discovered how to genetically manipulate animals without the peptide proteins necessary for the operation of this cortex.  Livestock engineered in this way would still be able to sense a cut or heat, but it would no longer be experienced as something to be avoided.  Industry heads remarking on this developing technology, have already gone to some length to assure the public that the steaks and chops from such animals would be plenty safe to eat.

Anyone partaking of even burgers and hot dogs, should rightfully have at one time or another killed their own food with their own hands, and have experienced what it’s like to take another creature’s precious life.  Even if the vast majority of someone’s meat intake continues to come the form of disembodied, furless and largely formless factory cuts sold in styrofoam and cellophane packages, we would still do well to have on at least one occasion held the fried chicken prior to its being dispatched and plucked, dismembered and fried, and to have personally stared into its ancient dinosauric eyes, extending its neck over a block of firewood and chopping its head off with the wings continuing to madly flap as it fitfully dies.  Or else we need to have been at one point or another anointed with the spattered blood of a wild animal, a beautiful beast more noble than many people that we nonetheless dropped with a rifle shot, filled with equal measures of awe and sadness, profound gratitude, alliance, and something closely akin to love.

Only in this way can we possibly know deep in our hunter-gatherer souls what it feels like to give the pain of death, the way that mothers give the gift of life… or to empathize in the moment while taking full responsibility for the act, the result, and our inherent place in the food chain.  Only then can those of us who are practicing omnivores begin to grasp at a gut, bodily level the price that is paid by other beings in order that we might survive.  And I believe it is only through a deep awareness and sense of connection, responsibility and gratitude, that we’re made worthy of the decades of nourishing meat that makes it on to our plates.

When it comes to this taking and remaking of life, it’s certainly incumbent upon us to do all we can to lessen the suffering of those sensitive creatures we eat.  I’ve watched as a coyote showed neither mercy nor concern for a crying young elk calf it had wounded and dogged, one example in nature that I’d rather not follow.  Instead, I’ve always went out of my way whenever I hunted to make quick, one-shot kills, stalking stealthily until in close range, or leaning on a branch to consider and steady my aim.  That aim was always to pierce a skull or bust a backbone, immediately disconnecting the wires connecting wound to brain, saving the meat from the bitter hormones released by fear, but mainly going to such extremes out of an intuitive awareness that animals can hurt every bit as poignantly as people.  And when I partake of vegetables, it is with respect and gratitude grounded in the certainty that they, too, suffered in the process of taking its life into mine.

For all of us non-engineered beings, plant and animal alike, painless simply isn’t an option.  Nor would it necessarily be a benefit to either us or our foods.  After all, the intermittent experience of pain stretches and expands our capacity to feel and to intensely take note of what we are feeling, just as do occasions of extreme ecstasy and moments of inescapable bliss, serving as measures of our sentience and hence as indicators of just how truly alive we each are.  Pain can awaken our ability to empathize.  It informs our compassion, adds weight to our mistakes and importance to our decisions.  And it helps us to identify and then either resist or move away from those things that are harmful to us.  In the case of us humans, without struggle and distress it becomes all too easy for us to take things for granted, whereas we can be sure that whatever we do at the risk of suffering is something that we must feel very strongly about, taking more certain satisfaction from whatever we accomplish in the face of – and regardless of – any pain.

The spirit of the child, at home in its body, not yet suppressing pain or denying the causes of deprivation, mishap or suffering, thoroughly celebrating the pleasures of sensation in every non-traumatic moment between.  This is the spirit of wildlife, acutely aware of their surroundings as if their lives depended on it, because indeed they do.  The spirit of plants that have been proven to flinch from trauma like cuts and burns, but that by their very nature remain committed to fulsome growing, expanding, fruiting and bearing seed in spite of of any painful fires, drought, flood, mowing, fires, grazing and pruning.

It is this spirit that we might better look for in the foods that we draw nourishment from, but also in the fabric and experience of our day to day existence… the evidence of, condition of, and intensity of life wholly and sentiently lived.

(Forward and post freely)

Spring will be official in a few days, but he canyon didn’t wait and is greening and blooming like crazy.  Perhaps it the relatively quiet nature of the Winter that Spring seems to reveal itself in a series of “firsts,” not the nose tickling releases of pollen from our year round Junipers, but more like the reappearance of birds whose voices have been for several months absent, the bursting forth of the first of each beloved annual plant species.  This week we saw the first mole poking its head up through the soil, looking for the next food to chomp rather than for its shadow a’ la the proverbial groundhog.  The first bears seen after their low profile Winter lethargy, spotted by visiting herbalist 7Song and Kiva while on a walk to wildcraft Lycium. The first ducks moving back north on their hereditary routes.  The first tremendous gusts from the South that usher in nearly three months worth of dramatic winds.

Among other kinds of firsts, have been the release of new Anima correspondence courses, a newly revised website, and now a new form for our most involved associates and supporters.  Now with us redefining Anima Apprentices as seasonal on-site students here for seasonal classes, we needed a new position for Resolute, our only full Apprentice under the old definition.  She is now the first inductee of what we are calling The Anima C0uncil, an honored position that will be made available only to accomplished individuals serving simultaneously as Anima Student, Sponsor, Assistant and Adviser.  I hope you will congratulate her, for her induction into this inner Council, as for the inner work and project efforts through which she has earned her position.  For another glimpse of her brave growth and developing wisdom, we recommend her following blog post.

Our kind guest 7Song braved the high river with a sore back, in order to have his brain picked for herbal information by our always enthusiastic Kiva, and was hopefully blessed by his time here with us as well.  It was a relief to be in the presence of a decidedly non-PC practitioner with unconventional perspective and snarky sense of humor, further indication that the presenters at our Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference will be anything but predictable stereotypes.  7Song is the experienced director of the Northeast School of Botanical Medicine, and director of Holistic Medicine for the Ithaca Free Clinic in NY, as well as volunteering his services for events where he can help.

The river can be expected to remain high for another few weeks, and the bottom may still be too plowed and loose for crossing with a vehicle for even longer.  For now, trips to town twice a week involve the 1.5 mile and 2,000 feet climb up the mountain to our secondary parking area in the forest.  The up side, is that is downhill for packing heavy groceries and mail in each time.  Even with all that’s going on, Kiva has managed to bring our comprehensive herbal correspondence course to completion, and those of you who have so long been waiting can prepare to register in the next week or two.  Our other priorities will be our outstanding student lesson exchanges and health consultations, before the next big wave of conference promotion and organization.  Wish us well, and thank you for your support and love.  If we are of inspiration or assistance to you in any ways, we are well rewarded.

-Wolf

(Photo is of a bear skull found in the dry wash here, along with one of 1000+ year old corn cobs preserved under rock ledges since the Sweet Medicine (Mogollon) people grew and husked them… part of the archaeological legacy of this wildlife and botanical sanctuary)

Introduction: Everyone knows that I felt called, destined even, to inhabit this magical Anima Sanctuary in S.W. New Mexico.  If that were not the case, however, I would still be torn about whether or not to have a place in the verdant Pacific Northwest.  The only practical reason not to, would be my seeming need for large of amounts of soul warming sunshine through the long season.  Many people suffer depression or at least melancholy in a condition that use to be called the “Winter Blues”, but that we now refer to as “SAD”.  There are few who have had harder time with it than Resolute, or has done a better job of dealing with it.  As with all ailments, effective treatment begins with our recognizing, admitting and understanding the problem. -Wolf

Ode to Seasonal Affective Disorder:

A Call to Transformation

By Resolute (Anima Council)

I sit with a cup of steaming acorn/pine tea.  A bit of summer in the cup in the form of BeeSweet honey.  Yes, there was a summer.  I know from experience there will be again.  But for now, I am waiting, waiting in the stillness of winter’s sleep.  It happens every year, you know.  The darkness; the days as well as the pall over my moods that follows me through the busyness that civilization lays over the grave of winter’s slumber.  I go through the motions. I smile and laugh; I converse, work and play.  And yet, I reside in stillness.  The quiet. The waiting. There are no stars visible, no moon.  Just a low dense shroud of cloud, dusky gray in the glow from the city lights.  Even here, civilization intrudes.  And I will not let it deter me this time.  I will be still this time. I will wait.

So what is it this year?  What will emerge along with the lengthening days after the slow, somber movement to the depths of the darkness?   I feel it in my bones this season.  Something long buried is waiting to germinate in the rich soil of my psyche.  As the earth shifts, I recognize the shifting inside me.  It hasn’t always been so.  I have only recently come to be acquainted with this person who resides in physical form, allowing my body to interact with the natural world.  But for now, the earth is still. Waiting.  And so I too wait, I am still.  I am silent.

I sip my tea and feel its warmth waken the frozen feelings, a stirring of a primal memory. It settles into my belly, warming, and warmer yet.  I realize that the more time I spend in my body, the more I am comfortable with who I am and what I feel.  And oh! what I feel!  I can feel to dance the light forward, only to be drawn back to the soul suffocating darkness as the sun quickly dims with the passing gray mass of cloud, still low in the sky and gone so soon.  It’s a slow rhythm at first, then a quickening that becomes daily noticeable.  I notice a depth in my spirit that matches the dark, and a bursting forth of energy that rivals the sun!  This is disconcerting, these fits and starts, this new way of being. I embrace myself dearly as I come to hold the dichotomy of darkness and light, the yin and the yang.

The winter is receding.  The cup of tea is almost gone and I savor the sweet dregs. I know that it is time for me to stir.  I uncurl and unfurl from the shroud of silence, the power that has been collecting in me ready to be put to the test.  I speak. The voice is clear and true; it now comes from a place of strength and power in my belly. It is so solid, a foundation as old as the ages. A remembering what I have always known.

And the disconcerting days of being jostled by the vagaries of the season are standing me in good stead as I speak my truth from a place of power.  There are those who recognize the voice and rejoice with me. Others fear it and steer clear. The ones who have not been aware and don’t care for my newfound strength are threatened by the possibility that they too could change. It is easier for them to maintain the status quo. But that is not my path.

As the days of shifting light and dark have prepared me for the shifting reactions to this tensile strength, as I claim my power, I shed the casing of that which would hold me back and step into the light, full face to the sun. No longer muddling through the motions of living, I am this time acting from the fullness of my spirit and the richness of my soul!

(Photo of Resolute & her grandson Gabe by son Michael)

(Share and post freely.  For information on empowering Anima Lifeways teachings, go to the Anima Courses Page)

Glad Greetings from the Canyon!  I haven’t posted in awhile, it’s been one of the busiest Springs ever, and even without a lot of Winter retreat guests my time has been well taken.  A first priority, always, is helping Rhiannon with her home schooling each morning, from about 7 to 11.  And for past month we have been catching up on the homestead and sanctuary chores that had been neglected during the cold months.

Thank you for the caring comments that have come in about our Sponsors post here, it means a lot especially from folks who can’t afford to give financially.  For others of you, a monthly amount equal to a Netflix subscription or a nice dinner for two could make the difference in our meeting School expenses and continuing to expand our offerings.  To apply to be a Sponsor, fill out and return the Sponsor Form

Visitation is on the increase with the warmer weather.  Today the herbalist teacher 7Song is arriving for a few days of canyon magic, exploring the early season plants just now sprouting up in this botanical refuge, and talking plant medicine with Kiva even though the river is high, fast and cold enough to really test his “want to”!  If not dissuaded by having to wade the formidable waters, there could be a retreat guest here Wednesday, as well the sky watcher Ron who helped secure this property from development.  Once the river drops back down we’re hoping we’ll get to get to see our dear friend and sponsor Mark, who has been working 6 days a week to try and keep his business rolling.   He gives so much to his projects  and his family, and he gave so much to us when he was still able, no we are rooting on him being able to do things are that are good and nourishing for him!  We then look forward to other herbalists dropping by this remote canyon, the sweet and astute Julie McIntyre, followed by John Gallagher of Herbmentor.com who will be filming a video course taught by Kiva.  If we’re lucky he will be bringing his nature loving little boy as well, and Rhiannon will get to study and play with him.  Dates for retreats are starting to fill May and June up, so anyone planning a sojourn here would do well to schedule with us in advance.

There are just the tiniest patches of snow left up on the mountains around us, and every time I gaze at them, I bid Winter a bittersweet goodbye. What a wonderful Winter it was!! We were so blessed by all the lovely snow and storms, all the cozy days of baking by the fireside, drinking acorn tea and shelling the very last of the precious acorn supply! We’ve been savoring acorn butter on the last of the winter squashes (Thank you Silver for the delicious bounty!), on chocolate brownies, and even on our scrambled eggs, when we’re feeling really indulgent! Thank you Kiva for such an incredible idea!

The dock has been poking its little leaves up from several of our wild garden areas for weeks now, and is now big enough to harvest for the first spring salad! We’ve already been harvesting lots of wild mustard greens and eating them with everything! The so called “dry wash” is running with snowmelt, and the river is steadily still rising too, and has turned that special grey-ish color it gets when it’s full of freshly melted snow.  Right now it is rushing and loud, with the depth of the crossing varying from thigh high to waist high in the channels next to the banks.

One of the things that we’ve been busy doing is a major Spring Cleaning! It’s been going on quite a while! We’re working our way through the kitchen/bus and will continue till all the homestead structures, sheds, and guest lodges are happily settled into better order. It’s so nice having Rhiannon’s enthused company for all this kind of work. We are both so blessed that we so love all the little joys that come along with all the scrubbing and sorting– finding lost treasures, reading memorabilia, petting lovely cloths as we fold them, decorating in new ways, making the windows shine and greasy kitchen shelves seemingly come back to life as they’re scrubbed with a scrub brush! Of course there are times when it does seem a bit overwhelming, and we help each other keep it all in perspective, singing as we work! We’ve been working on learning a bunch of new songs– our newest favorite is The Maid of Cullmore. We’ve listened to Rising Appalachia’s (who will be playing at our conference) beautiful version of this song at least 50 times by now!

Today was balmy-warm most of the day, and Rhiannon and I grilled buffalo burgers outside over oak coals and roasted whole onions and garlic heads and red peppers in the fire and had so much fun out in the wind poking the fire and moving all the food around in it as the sun sank down– and we ate supper with Kiva all wrapped in ponchos getting our hands messy peeling off the burnt outsides of the onions– aahh, heaven!  Or as our self proclaimed redneck neighbors in the county like to put it, “If heaven isn’t a helluva lot like this place, I don’t wanna go!”

Time to get ready for the evening rituals of tea and hot water for washing, maybe settling into a good book for a while before bedtime. Sending you all our love and warmest wishes, dear readers!

Hugs and wild canyon winds to you!
Loba
What I’m reading right now:
Wildwood Dancing (Julliet Marillier)
The Lively Art of Ink Painting (Ryozo Ogura)
Painting Nature in Watercolors
Honey from a Weed (Patience Gray)
Hot Sour Salty Sweet :A Culinary Journey through Southeast Asia (Jeffery Alford and Naomi Duguid)

We’d like to take this time to publicly thank Chris P. for the many months that she served as a devoted Anima Sponsor… or “supporter” as we used to term it.  It was also an honor to be allowed to aid her process and growth, while encouraging her brave changes.  She steps down in order to invest in regional activities and causes, with our deep gratitude and blessings.  And her departure creates a need, position and mantle that we have to hope you or someone you can recommend will feel called to fill… joining folks like Resolute and Nick as Anima’s most intimate and dependable assets.

Becoming An Anima Lifeways & Herbal School

SUPPORTER

To be an Anima Sponsor is to be an honored and integral part of this place and purpose, a committed financial supporter essential to the functioning of this School as well as the continued protection and restoration of its botanical and wildlife sanctuary.  Your regular monthly, quarterly or yearly donations can help determine if the land and school not only survive but thrive, touching, inspiring, affecting, empowering and aiding ever more people.

Unlike with most schools, Anima gets no grants or other means of funding, and there is no charge per se for Anima opportunities and products.  All Anima on-site and correspondence courses, personal counsel and herbal consultations, retreats and books are offered on a sliding scale donations basis… with a majority of students only able to offer the minimum amount, and with some having no money at all to contribute in return.  It is at the very core of the School mission, that its teachings and tools be a gift to the world, with no person in need ever be turned away because of a lack of money.  What makes it possible to continue and further this work with such low funding, is the fact that the school property has already been paid for, that the School staff live primitively and inexpensively… and that Anima has been able to count on a degree of continuous contributions from a select, evolving family of Sponsors.

Donations that come in because of courses and services are valuable, yet unpredictable.  What’s great about contributions from Sponsors, is that the amounts arrive at about the same time every month, quarter or year, making it possible to anticipate when the School’s most crucial expenses will get covered.  A commitment of as little as 50 to 100 dollars per month can do wonders for reducing the amount of stress and worry there… helping make sure that Anima continues to be developed, spread and shared to the benefit of the world.

It is thanks to faithful support, that the Anima websites and blogs have been upgraded again, with many more free articles and resources, and an ever-more dynamic interface.  This expanded internet presence has greatly increased not only the amount of student applications but also the number of first time readers, as the general public increasingly accesses and learns through these online portals.  Several Anima Lifeways and Herbal Correspondence Courses are being created and released annually, featuring both fundamental conceptual lessons and skill based subjects – with courses on Tracking, Field Botany, and Grassroots Activism currently in progress.

In precarious financial times, it is even more important that everyone carefully consider where our precious assets are spent, and what we feel are the most meaningful, helpful, fruitful and personally satisfying.  If at any point, supporting the work of Anima feels more important and fulfilling to you than the many other contenders for your finite dollars, a commitment from you would be greatly appreciated… and never forgotten.  And if you want to help out but can’t afford any size commitment, please consider if there is anyone you know who might relate to the work of this school and feel called to be one of its champions and pillars.

To read the details of the Anima history, sanctuary, teachings and programs, go to the:

Anima Lifeways & Herbal School Website – www.animacenter.org

To pledge, click below, download, fill out and then return the:
Anima Supporter Form

Thank you so much for helping in whatever ways you can, whether with donations, assistance with outreach and networking, participation in courses and events, or simply providing encouragement and alliance.  And just by opening to and benefiting from what is given, you are each valued adjuncts to this school and way.

The day after our last white-out, most of the snow had already disappeared and a warm wind began blowing clouds of golden, nose tickling juniper pollen through the air… yet another sign that dates be darned, Spring is here!  Precipitation continues to blow through, each time preceded and followed by temperatures too warm for keeping a long sleeved shirt on.

The photos are of the wild currant leaves bursting out from what a couple weeks ago were still bare stems.  Already they have a deliriously sweet smell, like drops of honey mead from the licentious halls of Valhalla, or the enticing flower garlands of magic canyon faeries.  Or more accurately, it could be said it is the rest of the universe that seeks in its own individuated ways to be as hardy and eager, fresh and fine, aromatic and alluring as the canyon currants’ new March leafage.

The river is finally starting to rise more, pregnant with snowmelt.  We can tell not only by its growing size, but also its shift in color from clear or blue to a shimmering silver like the sides of salmon or Pacific fog as the sun first hits it.  Kiva had difficulty getting out today, with our specially lifted Jeep still waiting to be repaired and returned.  Soon enough though, we may well find there are weeks where we again have to carry all our supplies in on our backs, intermittently skirting and wading the serpentine swells.  Her purpose today was to upload from town her myriad additions and improvements to the blogs and website, which we will no doubt be ready to announce to the general public soon.

The Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference posters arrived and came out great.  We’ve begun sending them out to anyone who can expect to find herbal or health stores that will agree to keep them up until the event.  Printing costs and postage to mail them is high, but if any of you have places in mind for them please don’t hesitate to write and request a given number.  Already some folks are asking for a signed copy, apparently so that they can be hung as art on their own home’s walls.

We have a number of new articles written that are suitable for magazine publication, so if you can suggest any periodicals in your region to submit to, we would very much appreciate it.
This photo of my in-house bamboo gives the impression that it would like to go outside and play.  It embodies the spirit of growth, change, resilience, and insistence… traits that I can personally relate to.

Below this post you will find our daughter Rhiannon’s latest missive, with a new twist.  Along with the entire text as she wrote it, you will find an audio file that you can download if you would like to hear her read some of it aloud.  We would like it if you could let us know if you’re able to do this or not, since if it appears useful for a percentage of readers I will start posting Audio Tales direct from the canyon sanctuary on a regular basis.  First though, I thought you would like the opportunity to hear this amazing 9 year old girl’s voice, and some of you we know have long been waiting.

Blessings to all, from us all, and from this special place.
Wolf

(photos (c)2010 by Jesse Wolf Hardin)

Hello Everyone!!

When I was on my alone time, I saw a very amazing thing!  A fox!  It was very beautiful and graceful.  I at first thought it was a coyote, but Mama Loba and I discovered by measuring the tracks that it was a fox.  When I saw it, I had been with my stuffed animals looking at a pretty tree and thinking about making a nice home for them.  Then I heard the sound of little feet pattering on the sand behind me, and I turned round and there it was staring at me looking very interested.  I’d seen one before but it had been far away and not close up like this.  What a lesson it taught me, getting near before I noticed because I was so busy talking to my stuffed friends.  I felt so excited, I couldn’t wait to run back up and tell everyone about my magical visitor.

Not too long ago I went on my first dentist appointment! Well I’ve had a dentist appointment before but that was when I was so tiny I can’t remember it. It was rather fascinating, cause I had never spent that long in town with lots of people around me for a long time. I have to say though I rather enjoyed it. I missed home though, and was happy to be home when I got home. Town is very interesting to me for I’m not used to it. I also love going on rides I was happy and relieved to not have any cavities except for to two in my baby teeth which will fall out so we don’t have to worry about those. One of the things I found strangest at the dentist was the moving chair!!  It felt very strange lying in a chair that the dentist pushes a button on and it moves up or down. They warned me it was going to move first of course. I found it very particular though. I also got to see a picture of my teeth I could see the insides of them and everything. I was quite fascinated indeed.

While we were at town Papa showed me something he had ordered off the internet for me and Mama Loba a Chinese Brush Painting set! It looked very old fashion too. It had an ink stick with pictures of dragons all over it. An inkwell or grinding stone to grind the ink stick into. A tiny mini teaspoon came with the set too, you filled the teaspoon with water and it into the inkwell the make the ink you have ground into liquid. There was two brushes and paints and a plate to put the paint in. Last of all there was three books instructing how to chinese brush paint. Our friend Resolute before that had also sent us a calligraphy set. There was bottles of ink the color of black, blue, red, and burgundy, there was two quills that we can dip in the ink and write on the special paper with. Also there was this special was you melt then pour on a envelope to seal and before the wax hardens you push the sealer thing into the wax leaving a beautiful picture of a fish or flower engraved in the wax. So we are sooooo enjoying our calligraphy set.

Lately I’ve been studying botany. A friend of Mama Kiva’s – his name is  7Song – is coming to teach me and Mama Kiva more about botany. I’m very exited to meet him. Botany and herbal lore has been quite a source of interest for me these days. Mama Kiva got me a book on herbal lore and botany not that long ago with pictures in it I can color. I’m very exited about it too.

Papa recorded me speaking this blog too, I hope you can download and listen to it!

I really hope you all are doing well.  I will try to write another blog post soon.

Love, Rhiannon Cadhla Hardin

To Download an Audio File of Rhiannon reading portions of this blog, click on:

Rhiannon’s Recording

(photos (c)2010 by Jesse Wolf Hardin)