Animá Lifeways & Herbal School

The upcoming Spring Issue of Plant Healer Magazine will include the second installment of the Herbalist Fashion department, this time focused on wild-hearted Feral Style as modeled by our own Kiva Rose along with Leah and Chloe of Rising Appalachia.  Below is a brief excerpt from the opening essay meant to encourage self love as well as self adornment, with the full article available by subscribing at: www.PlantHealerMagazine.com

Adornment:
Healthy Flattery & Rituals of Self-Love

By Jesse Wolf Hardin

I watch as she stops to admire herself.  Far from conceited about her looks, she has spent much of her life disappointed in her shape and doubting her attractiveness.  Some times she wore formless clothes that hid her curves, other times her outfits and jewelry that none could see past.  I am fortunate to have witness the evolution of a wardrobe that now reveals and accentuates her true, powerful and beautiful being.

Instead of critically scowling at her reflection as she has at other times, this morning she wears a self-knowing smile.  She admires the handwork on her peasant blouse, adjusts it until approving of the way it hangs and highlights, arranges her flowing hair, then one by one lifts her necklaces from their perch and slips them over her head.  The first is a magical bear’s tooth, ivory toned in its silver and moonstone berth.  Next is a bear’s head carved out of sparkling green amber, then a gold capped elk tooth that speaks of her other half.  From her ears she hangs Middle-Eastern bangles that hint at her love of belly-dancing, and native beaded hat bands evoking the spirit of our local Southwestern tribes.  She steps back from the mirror and smiles.

There exists a potential for both enchantment and deep connection every time we mindfully adorn, tend or nourish what is surely our sacred body.  Full noticing is an essential and sensual sacrament: admiring the quality of, smelling the scent of, listening to the shuffling of, delighting in the glint of, savoring the tactile softness of our carefully chosen clothing and decorative jewelry, tattoos and hair styles.  And clothing and adornment are not only a way for announcing our gender, tastes, identities or means of livelihood, she proves that they can also serve as a visible way of honoring ourselves.

Dressing up for ourselves is important, like making a nourishing candlelit meal even when there is no one around to eat with us.  It is an act of acknowledgment and love that the body and the subconscious both appreciate, helping to mend any illusory schism between the spiritual and the physical, helping heal the wounds made whenever we’ve overly scrutinized or criticized our bodily shapes and forms.  To embellish is literally to “make beautiful,” but the act also implies our recognition that what we decorate is deserving of the expense and effort.  In this way conscious dressing-up can communicate to the depths of our being that we believe we are worthy of the attention and embellishment.  In this way earrings aren’t put on in order to win compliments, elicit desire or find a mate – not for any external reason – but as a gift to ourselves, as we continue the healing work of self-understanding and self-love.

The word “adorn” derives from the Latin ornare, meaning “to equip” and “get ready.”  Adornment, at its best and healthiest, makes us each the alchemists and artists of our own existence, a deliberate expressive act equipping ourselves with self-knowledge and self-confidence, getting ready to live ever more beautiful, generous and manifested lives.  As with the similar sounding word “adore,” to adorn speaks of the value of healthy appreciation and ritual tending.  One can dress-up to “fit in,” to impress, to please or even to discomfort others… or we can don and adorn in order to honor and demonstrate our special selves instead.

She  turns her head and catches me watching her, first looking alarmed and self conscious, then her features shift as if to say she feels both honored and recognized.  She then steps outside, not into a busy crowd but a congregation of ancient pines and turquoise sky, gleeful songbirds and gurgling river.  Like her, the sunlit crimson cliffs and brilliant wild blossoms seem to have put on their best, holding their heads high, glowing in the face of every test.

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Now let your wild side shine….

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The Hell With The Calendar, Spring Is Here!

by Jesse Wolf Hardin

Anima School & Sanctuary

The blissful savage view, is that the seasons have changed when it feels like they do.

Anima Sanctuary, New Mexico, in Apparant Spring! Photo by Jesse Wolf Hardin

It’s still three weeks until the start of Spring, the calendar says. Nonsense, I say.

Here in the mountainous wilds of southwest New Mexico, we’ve had barely any Winter and there have been impossible to overlook signs of Spring since the end of January. Spring-like buds have formed on the Alders and Cottonwoods that I nourished in their return to the canyon of the Rio San Francisco. Spring-like, is the eruption of Dock and Lemon Balm leaves from our little raised-bed herb garden area, and the explosive plant-gasms of the Juniper trees doing its best to copulate with every living thing and leaving me sneezing like crazy. Temperatures these sunny days have been mostly in the high 60s, and the water at the top of the rain barrels has only occasionally frozen over in the course of our nights. There are more and more varieties of bird calls heard each dawn awakening, and I sense stirring within me the seasonal re-excitement that has for centuries inspired the abandon of sense-crazed lovers and truancy of still-wild children.

But why qualify such demonstrations as “Spring-like”, instead of simply recognizing, acknowledging, savoring and honoring it as an early Spring?

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Four Seasons art by Hibbary

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After all, the officially designated four seasons are no more than a proportional quartering of a solar year, hinged on the evident shortest and longest days of the year. As significant as the Winter Solstice is, it only marks the true start of a natural year, and not a seasonal transition. And the Fall and Spring Equinoxes don’t mean diddly-squat… in observable, experiential terms. I’ll assume the savage’s viewpoint on this one, one not restrained by civilization’s Roman Empire day planners, divided into unequal seasons according to the arrival of telltale events.

Summer comes with a stilling of the winds and the expected shift in the color schemes of local wildflower conventions. We know Fall is here, when nighttime temperatures began rapidly dropping, when the leaves on these Cottonwood trees that I nursed from babies begin to yellow and bugling elk announce the start of another seasonal run of X-rated stag parties. Winter declares itself with the abandonment of nests by migrating phoebes and the falling of the last deciduous leaf, when the prevailing winds start blowing out of instead of towards the north and east. And so while it is still clearly Winter in Alaska and the Ukraine, here and in many other parts of this country it is already, fully, incontrovertibly Spring.

So the hell with Ceaser’s calendar. Spring has sprung, it’s time to celebrate!

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The hopefully humorous Plant Healer poster below was inspired by an email, received from a onetime subscriber only a couple of months ago. Its author surely didn’t mean anything bad by complaining that Plant Healer provides “too much information.”  A second reader complained she ran out of printer ink printing out every issue of this digital magazine, apparently unaware that she could purchase a hard-copy Annual and save herself the trouble.

Of all the criticism a periodical might ever earn, we suppose one of the easiest to hear is that Plant Healer Magazine is too large, with too many articles!  With so many truly great writers and teachers, we’ve as yet been unable to keep it down to under 250 full size, 8.5×11″ color pages… and we must confess, the upcoming Spring issue is no exception.  A powerful new column by Phyllis Light and exclusive interview with Matthew Wood, combine with 38 other awesome articles to distinguish yet another wild issue of Plant Healer.  Subscribers will be able to download it on March 5th, the first Monday of the month, and others so desiring can subscribe in time at:

www.PlantHealerMagazine.com

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"Too Much Information" - Art Poster from www.PlantHealerMagazine.com

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Here’s a sneak peak at the front cover of our upcoming

SPRING ISSUE

of Plant Healer Magazine, to be released the first Monday of March.  The photo is of a plate decorated with traditional Ukrainian lacquerware technique, entitled “Folk Herbalists in Spring”, making it a shoo-in for this season’s cover choice.  Subscribe, submit or advertise by going to:

PlantHealerMagazine.com

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Dan'l and Avraham get the water tank ready to roll.

Eureka!  Water To The Cabins!

Imagine everyone’s excitement at the Anima wilderness school and sanctuary, when the final bits of plumbing were finished and – for the first time in 35 years of inhabiting this land – water rushed from a pipe all the way to our cabins on the mesa!  Loba squealed in delight, and Rhiannon jumped up and down in celebration.

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Dan'l with much valued first Anima on-site helper, Jason.

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When deciding if these exclamations of glee were exaggerated or not, consider that generally the term “running water” here refers either to the river running 200 yards distant, to rain running into our barrels, or to one of us running to get some whenever we run out.  Getting water for our drinking, washing and plant watering needs has and always will be a conscious effort.  Living in a place that no well-drilling rig could ever get to, has ensured that we would always be conscious of our water use and supply, and thus always in touch in the deepest ways with our elemental sustenance.  Loba has always enjoyed siphoning the grounding motions of siphoning and carrying pails, and accepted the difficulties of chipping through a layer of ice in the barrels to get the water she needed each Winter, but in recent years her back and knees have been suffering from it.  It is surely reasonable, then, that she can’t dampen her enthusiasm for the 1500 gallon storage tank now sitting on a concrete pad, the pipes buried below freeze level and extending to the kitchen, through its wall and over the sink, with only a valve to turn to have a steady stream of precious fluid filling her washbasin anytime we are fortunate to have our tank full.

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Dan'l mounts the fire fighting water pump to a trailer that friend Ryan gave us.

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The inspiration and motivation for all this was not our personal needs or convenience, needless to say, but the Wallow wildfire that for over 2 months raged and blew to within 7 miles of this canyon preserve last Summer.  It was donations to our fire fund from you, that paid for the tank and plumbing we now have installed and working.  With the fire fighting pump purchased at the same time, we can drive protective sprinklers around the structures for as long as we have water.  When it comes to fires in the Southwest, the saying is that “it’s not if any certain area will burn, but when”… and whenever one burns in our direction again, we will have a chance of saving the structures we’d live in while undertaking the healing and planting of the scarred land.

To those who contributed to the fund, please join us in feeling accomplished to at last have this system in place, and well before the next fire season.  And to everyone, please share in our delight.

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Irene, Loba's homestead apprentice, has been here every weekend assisting, and learning skills like grinding on an ancient Indian metate.

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On-Site Helpers

The nearly finished water system, along with storage sheds, a covered outdoor “kitchen” area and more, are largely thanks to the vision, hard labors and sure ramrodding of Dan’l and Trail Boss.  They were here day after day during fire preparations in June, and Dan’l has been down here every few days lately to bring more of the canyon projects to fruition.  A number of you met him as he was working and filming at the 2011 TWHC, and at the 2012 conference in September he’ll be running the sound system as well.

Dan'l guides the construction of an overhang for an outdoor kitchen, which will have a stove and shelves when complete.

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We still could not possibly be progressing the way we have, without the addition of “On-Site Helpers,” a succession of volunteers looking to learn all they can about homesteading and land restoration while being of service and getting a taste of a truly meaningful life.  Tim and Jason were first, and will always have our thanks.  Just today saw the arrival of young Seirra and Nick, who immediately and happily dug in to the daily tasks.

And none have been a greater assist than Avraham, a young man filled with energy, open to experience, and desirous of being helpful to Anima and the world.  He’s been not only been psyched to learn about and help with things like carpentry and concrete work, but also been pleased to learn about bread baking and campfire dutch over cooking, as well as some about medicinal herbs in the little time Kiva could spare.  All this time, the canyon is working on him as well, assisting his realizations, quieting, clarifying and visioning.  Our hope is that the sum of what he learns here will fundamentally aid his vision of creating EcoTerra, an earth honoring social model so needed in the coming troubled times.  We are grateful for his fervent labor on Anima projects, and even more so for his commitment to a life of meaning, purpose and service.  We’ll have his assistance through the end of March, at which time he’ll be settling for awhile at least back in upstate N.Y.

Folks come to Anima Sanctuary for its gift of wildness and beauty as well as to help with important projects.

In the next few weeks, we will be also welcoming Alexandra and Aleah, ecology focused women with lots to offer.  Expect to hear more of them in future posts.

If you are perhaps interested in being a resident aide yourself, you can fill out and return the:

On-Site Helper Application

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Anima Lifeways and Herbal Site Updated

You’re invited to please check out the newly updated Anima school site, featuring simplified pages and easy navigation.  Besides the new look and header, you’ll also find:

•A new Introduction with easy direct links to every section and program without need of the menu
•A “Home Study” page with revised offerings, including the just now reopened Foundations In Traditional Herbalism course
•Extensive “Writings” pages, with a free archive of many herbal and lifeways articles by Kiva Rose, Jesse Wolf and Loba
•A new “On Site Opportunities” page, with On-Site Helper details as well as information on the upcoming “Sacred Indulgence Botanical Retreat & Workshop” in May
•New Applications for Retreats, Events and Programs… so sorry they hadn’t been downloading correctly, all better now!
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Home Study Courses Reopen

Announcing the reopening of the Anima herbal and lifeways courses.  We stopped accepting applications long enough to reorganize our study programs.  We’ve had to cease accepting sliding scale donations due to recent tax and paypal regulations, but have separated most of the courses into 4 easily affordable parts.  Finally, we no longer separate courses into separate teaching path categories (“Village Herbalist,” “Shaman’s Path”), since nature awareness and shamanic work such as increasing our awareness is of importance to student and practicing herbalists, and plant and healing knowledge can be of value to everyone.
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Kiva reopens her Foundations In Western Herbalism Home Study Course.

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Foundations In Traditional Herbalism Course – with Kiva Rose

Now Reopened: A comprehensive exploration of the principles of Traditional Western Herbalism by Kiva Rose, 5 extensive lessons designed to provide the student with a competent experiential grasp of the principles and practical skills that forms the basis for applied herbcraft. Experiential assignments and exploratory questions are included in every lesson to help the student fully integrate the lesson that the next will be built on. This course is accessible to intent and focused beginners as well as clinical practitioners looking to deepen their understanding of Traditional Western Herbalism.  It is, and will remain, the primary foundational herbalism course.  Additional and advanced herbal courses with Kiva Rose will be released in the next year as part of a new Medicine Woman program.
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Join Kiva Rose and Loba in a special Sacred Indulgence Botanical Retreat & Celebration in May..

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Sacred Indulgence Botanical Retreat & Workshop – May 10-13 – with Kiva Rose and Loba

Nourishing the healer! Come spend a restorative weekend at Anima Sanctuary, a lush riparian canyon in the wilderness of southwest New Mexico, learning the rituals and ways of botanical-based self-care. We will be cooking and eating outdoor feasts of wild and traditional foods, learning how to create decadent herbal teas, body butters, balms, blessing oils, chocolate truffles and other treats for you to take home to continue the indulgence. We’ll also be discussing some of the most effective ways of prioritizing our own care and outlining ways of creating rituals of self-love and nourishment, focusing on empowering ways of taking responsibility for our personal well-being and satisfaction.  This workshop is especially appropriate for healthcare practitioners, care-takers, parents, and anyone else who needs more nourishment in their daily lives and has an affinity for plant-based medicine and pleasure.  For an application, go to the Events Page of the revised Anima site.

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Outdoor cooking will be just one component of a Sacred Indulgence weekend.

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Kindly let us know if you discover any broken links or other problems in our freshened Anima website, and enjoy perusing!
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It is understandable to want to think “it’s all good”, that all things are true in some way, and that criticizing or opposing anything is unnecessary and only adds to the negativity in the world.  We are at a disadvantage, however, and less effective no matter what our aims, if we are so busy accepting, tolerating and rationalizing that we forget to discern and distinguish, to think critically and respond wholly.  We are born conscious creatures with a need and responsibility to make choices… and to respond with intent.  It is not through an uncritical welcoming of all ideas and acts that we co-create our reality and our world, but through this choosing and doing.

CRITICAL THINKING
excerpted from
Discernment, Critical Thinking & Response:
Assuming Editorial Responsibility For Our Practices, Our Lives, & The CoCreation Of Our World

The complete, full length article will be available March 1st in the Spring 2012 Issue of
Plant Healer Magazine

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It’s important to understand the two main definitions of the word “criticism,” the first being “an expression of disapproval of something or someone” based on their or its perceived faults or mistakes.  It is the second definition that we find the kind of criticism essential to our effectiveness as herbalists and paradigm changers: vital “analysis and judgment” of an option’s relevance and consequence, or of someone or something’s evident flaws and merits.

For lack of critical thought, we’re in danger of either blindly accepting the findings and proclamations of vested authorities and agencies, or of going the other extreme and dismissing all rational analysis in favor of a comforting method or preferred notion.  In both cases, we would do well to avoid the “true believer” syndrome, whereby we invite and celebrate any evidence supporting our desired means or outcome, and ignore or denigrate any information that might contradict our chosen reality or desired outcome.  Even empirical experimentation and analysis, arising from processes of discernment and critical thinking, does itself require a constantly discerning eye and ongoing critique.  And the veracity of our dear intuition, too, must be reasonably measured against reality and result.

What is needed is aware discernment and critical thinking from all perspectives, reference points and angles, since it is not just analysis and evaluation of ideas or systems but also an ongoing monitoring and analysis of our thinking process and methodology itself.  To be a critical thinker, we examine our inner premises and means at the same time as we explore and parse the truth and significance of the external world we act on and within.  Whether we’re talking about herbalism or history, politics or spirituality, we’re better off not leaving it to strangers with letters after their names – and corporate or government paychecks – to tell us what to believe or doubt, accept or reject.  Nor it helpful to simply “believe what we want to believe” as I’ve heard some people say, contrary to reported and testable evidence, unsubstantiated by our own repeated experience.  The key is a balance and partnership of both intuition and critical thinking, or what Paul Bergner has named “critical intuition”.

“The essence of critical intuition is to develop an identical process about our intuitive insights. ‘Is this impression really true?’” (Bergner)

“Each of us can benefit from a concerted effort to improve our critical thinking skills as a community. We need to consider scientific research, traditional uses for herbs, conventional wisdom, intuitive hunches and other sources of information, seldom wholly accepting or completely dismissing anything, but instead utilizing whatever elements are real and relevant, helpful and applicable. The key isn’t random eclecticism but careful and responsible choice…” –Kiva Rose

It was over 2,500 years ago that the Greek philosopher Socrates made the radical assertion that a person should depend on neither our learned assumptions nor the pronouncements of authorities and their licensed “experts.”   He set up situations and conversations with his students intended to prove how faulty “obvious truths”, “common knowledge”, dogma and tradition could be, while at the same time demonstrating that those with power and position are no less likely to be misinformed, irrational and downright wrong.  He taught that before the acceptance and implementation of an idea, they should first have their character and reality tested by means of a series of deeply probing questions.  He stressed the importance of evidence over here-say, the exacting examination of assumptions and reasoning, and the tracing out of all implications and consequences.   What became known as “Socratic Questioning” still serves as a tool of clarity and critique, discernment and choice, making effective response possible.

Tools For Critical Thinking:

To be critical, thinking must not be an accepting of “facts” or values at face value.  All must be analyzed and assessed for their accuracy, relevance, breadth and depth, logic and effects.  All perception and reasoning occurs within the constraints of perspective, frames of reference, points of view.  It has an informational history, base and bias, purpose and aims.  All concepts and data are interpretable, all interpretations tend to lead to assumptions, and every inference as well as idea has implications.  In all cases, you may want to look for, and deeply into an idea, concept or choice for:

• The exact wording and toning of questions, as well as their context or lack thereof

• The perspective from which, and frame of reference within which the reasoning takes place

• Likely underlying assumptions

• The actual sources of facts, information and anecdotes

• The quality and methods of collecting information

• The mode and parameters of the reasoning used

• Concepts that make their reasoning possible

• Implications following the use of this line of reasoning

• The possible objectives, aims and agenda

• Potential consequence and unintended results

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It’s only when we can discern clearly and think critically, that we can most effectively respond, act, help and heal.

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From Plant Healer – The Magazine Different

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I confess I dress anything but normal, or at least, abnormal for our society and times.  The mix of Thai fisherman’s pants, Ukrainian shirt and pirate belt, bone earring and damascus steel knife, for example, would be a sure to arouse comedic derision on modern American streets, though I might have been honored for my style at a Viking party or Tuvan camp.  The point, however, is not to dress to fit in, but to express who we really are.

The Spring Issue of Plant Healer Magazine will be out on March 1st, and will include an Herbalist Fashion department focused on Feral Style as modeled by our own Kiva Rose along with Leah and Chloe of Rising Appalachia.

You can subscribe at: www.PlantHealerMagazine.com

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