River Medicine

Just what my Spirit ordered

Swift River

It’s been a rough few weeks, both from a physical pain perspective as well as an energetic one. And, of course, I’m old enough and, I hope, wise enough to know the connection.

Forgive me if this post becomes a whine fest. If you’re listening, and not reading this, know that I mean whine with a “wh” not “wi” as in an alcoholic beverage. I really don’t like complaining, especially about health issues. I feel that it gives them too much power. But, this time around, I learned some valuable lessons about that, as well.

The more awareness we have about energy - that we are energy, that everything is energy - the easier it becomes to detach from a lot of life’s hardships. I have become more adept at recognizing what’s mine and what’s not.

How the collective energy can make us feel like crap.

Take over our dream time.

Manifest as physical pain.

And on and on.

Often it’s both - inner and outer.

We are energy masquerading as humans. — Farah Siddhi

By Farah Siddi1 via Instagram

I have no doubt that my journey in this lifetime has had a lot to do with healing physical pain and learning and growing from it - not by giving up or surrendering to it - but by deepening my connection to Mother Earth, mostly via the plant and animal Spirits who are here to help us heal.

Indeed, it’s in my astrological chart, as more than one astrologer has pointed out. If there’s one modality I had to choose that has helped me understand myself more than anything else, it would be astrology. A session with a good astrologer is solid gold.

Self knowledge is the thing that heals us all.— Lynnette Duncan

When an intuitive astrologer like Lynnette looks at your chart, she or he can see your patterns, your hardships, your shadows, and your gifts, and has a front-row seat into the window of your soul and your purpose in this lifetime.

I never had a reading until I was in my fifties. All I knew was that my sun sign was in Sagittarius. That’s just a wee tip of the iceberg. So, for me, astrology gave me much-needed relief about major things that had already happened in my life. At almost 70, I wish I had known myself a little better. Forgiven myself a little more.

But, what’s that saying?

“All things happen for a reason.”

I had been feeling for a little while that another dark night of the soul was approaching.

Around three weeks ago out of the blue, I found myself with excruciating neck pain. I couldn’t turn my head left or right, and I had to use my hands to tilt it backward, lie down or get up out of bed.

In fact, I couldn’t lie down for days and who can sleep sitting up? Not me. The sleepless nights started to rack up, and that is my worst nightmare. You probably know how important sleep is to me.

My head began to throb in unison with the neck pain which radiated into my shoulders. I couldn’t read or write - it just hurt too much.

No, I didn’t go to have it checked out. I didn’t take any pain medication. I tried some herbal remedies, icepack, etc.

Intuitively, I didn’t think any bodywork would be a good thing. Not that I have any bodyworkers anymore like I did in the city. I just kept hearing that I needed to let my body heal herself. To be patient.

About a week in, things were turning around, and I could just slightly move my head to the side. I gingerly drove to the farmer’s market and made my way back home. Veggies in hand, I walked from my car to the door when a deer fly dive-bombed and bit me on the back left side of my neck. I instinctively jerked my head to the left, reinjuring it. To add insult to injury, another one (or maybe the same cruel fly) bit me on the right side.

I was back to square one but this time it was worse and the pain at night had me in tears.

At some point, the book “Plant Spirit Medicine: A Journey into the Healing Wisdom of Plants” by Eliot Cowan practically leaped out of a pile of books on my bedroom floor. I picked it up and took it outside with me to sit in the sun on my relatively bug-free safe-zone patio.

The book is worn and underlined and well-loved.

It all came tumbling back.

I spent quite a bit of time in 2017/2018 at the Blue Deer Center in Upstate NY which was founded by Eliot Cowan.

It’s where I first met Yarrow.

Smelled the heavenly scent of Milkweed.

Where I began to communicate with and learn from the plant and animal spirits.

A lot of people think that this book is about plant medicines such as ayahuasca, peyote, etc. While Eliot does touch on the use of these plants in his book, the root of his teaching is about working with and receiving healing from the spirits of plants, not ingesting or smoking them.

Plant spirit medicine is the shaman’s way with plants. It recognizes that plants have spirit and that spirit is the strongest medicine. Spirit can heal the deepest reaches of the heart and soul.

There is nothing exotic about all this. Don’t be mislead by talk about the Amazon.If you want to meet the most powerful healing plants in the world, just open your door and step outside. They are growing all around you. If you don’t believe me, or if you have a taste for romantic locations, you can try going elsewhere. But if you stay there long enough it comes down to the same thing: dealing with the local weeds. — Eliot Cowan

And this is how my time with Eliot and a few fellow students was spent. We never made tinctures or even teas from the plants living on the land of the Blue Deer Center. In fact, in spite of the most beautiful lush meadow I’ve ever been in, we were not allowed to harvest any plants.

My first experience meeting with a plant spirit was Mugwort. We were directed to sit with her. Taste her. Smell her. Draw her. Talk to her.

I got antsy sitting there for so long and started to get up when I heard a voice say “Settle down!” Mugwort. :)

Afterward, we would go inside and journey to the Lower World to meet with the spirit of whatever plant we’d spent time with.

We did this all week long.

It changed my relationship with the natural world profoundly.

Last week, I serendipitously found my notebook from “Wisdom of the Divine Natural World’ and flipped through its pages, marveling at all of the synchronicities that have happened since my time at Blue Deer.

I’m working on a post about the Ash trees here and completely forgot that Ash was one of the spirits we journeyed to meet.

I kept hearing the message “Just let Nature takes its course,” and I went into observation mode, getting messages from the plants about what to take, and what not to take.

There were two times when I felt pain-free. The first was during meditation, which I was doing a lot of because I could only sit up, not lie down.

Once, I saw the most beautiful soft Pinkish aura surrounding me, and I was aware that the pain was gone.

It wasn’t lost on me that there was a 5th and 4th chakra imbalance going on here. And so, I put a lot of attention there, especially during meditation.

I flashed back to 2002 when I woke up one morning with “pain all over.” It started in the same area of my body - neck and shoulders. This would be the starting point of several years of full-body chronic debilitating pain. It started two years before my 30-year marriage ended.

I have to admit, just for a moment, I let my mind go to “Oh no, not again. Please, let this move through swiftly.”

This summer, I’ve had little energy for harvesting any plants. The weather has been challenging, and the biting bugs have taken away any enthusiasm I might have had before.

And then my neck went rogue, and I was forced to stop and just BE.

The pain made me slow down. practically come to a halt. I had to move through the discomfort of being inactive.

I sat and listened to the birds. Watched the Turkeys. Put my feet on the dewy grass and really took in all the beauty.

I listened to the plants around me. I felt their medicine without needing to ingest them. Not that I wasn’t making tea or trying remedies here and there. But, for the most part, their healing energy was more powerful than any tincture.

5th chakra work always involves finding one’s voice. Speaking your truth. And its connection with the 4th/heart chakra is one that I’ve worked on for many years of my life.

Expressing grief. Pain.

Telling my stories. Finding my song.

I pulled a card yesterday before writing this post. No surprise here.

The Wild Unknown Animal Spirit Deck

Nightingale: Fearless Voice, Speech, Communication, or Song

The song of the Nightingale is otherworldly. This simple brown bird, almost unnoticeable among the flashy plumage of other birds, transports its listener to the realm of poetry. Nightingale energy is with us when we write, compose, and especially when we sing. It reminds us that music heals the deepest wounds. This card indicates a need to open the bridge between the heart and the voice. Is there something you need to say? How long has it been since you sang? Turn it up, write it down, and let it out.”

—Kim Krans, “The Wild Unknown Animal Spirit Guidebook”

Funny, not funny, that I pulled this card. When the neck pain started, I remembered a song that I had learned from shamanic practitioner Sandra Ingerman, and I’d been singing it as part of my healing ritual. Setting my embarrassment aside, I share it with you now. Thank you to the birds for accompanying me!

The other time during this healing episode that I felt pain-free was one afternoon when I heard the directive - “Go to the river.” I had been mostly homebound, and it was difficult to drive. But, I realized that I needed a change of scenery.

Water Heals.

And, so I drove the few miles to the Swift River, to a spot under a covered bridge where I like to escape to. The first thing that caught my eye was Self Heal, growing on the shore. She’s prolific here, and I’d already decided that she was an important healing plant for me this summer.

With all of the rain, the river was up to my hips. I just stood there in the water, letting it rush around me, listening to my favorite healing sound.

River Medicine.

Standing in the water, I felt my neck relaxing.

I was grateful to be there alone - no humans in sight.

There are people in my life - family, and friends - who perhaps struggle to understand the depth of my solitude.

In a recent astrology class with Lynnette, she used my chart to demonstrate something to the class. She pointed to the top of my chart where both Chiron, the wounded healer, and my North Node lay in the sign of Capricorn. The lone Goat, climbing the mountain.

She talked about my deep need to separate from other people in this lifetime, in order to achieve what my soul set out to do.

That doesn’t mean that I couldn’t be married, have a family, be in relationship with others, have friends, etc. My South Node is in Cancer, which means I likely came from many past lives with an emphasis on family. Being taken care of and being the caretaker.

It’s certainly not an easy way of life, living in a world that places so much emphasis on family and community. I sometimes feel judged for my solitude.

But, deep deep down in my core, I have this need to be the lone Wolf. The lone Goat.

It was no accident, me finding my way to this place, where the beauty of Nature envelopes me in my Solitude.

Standing in the river that day, I was transported back to the Blue Deer Center, where I first met the Saskawhihiwine River.

Saskawhihiwine River

My heart nearly exploded with joy meeting her. I would spend hours sitting on a rock in the middle of her rushing water. Thinking, singing, listening, healing.

Water Heals.

I was enamored with her name and asked Eliot at dinner one night to properly pronounce it for me into my phone recorder.

“Saskawhihiwine,” he said.

I love that I still have that recording because Eliot sadly left this Earth, I believe in 2022.

Here’s a little snapshot of him:

The day after I went to the river, I drove to Lake Chocorua, which lies at the foot of the White Mountains. I brought the Pink styrofoam noodle that I bought last summer. No frills!

I saw that there were other people there (it is July, after all) and silently wished that I had the lake to myself. I got in the water and laid my head back on the noodle. Again, I felt my neck relax into the water.

Lake Medicine.

Lake Chocorua

For a moment, I thought that I’d wished out loud that I was alone because all of a sudden I heard “Time to go!” And then, I was alone. Floating on this stunningly beautiful lake. Water and Earth energies combined.

So, although it’s been a really rough few weeks, I can’t deny how many gems there have been. So many intuitive hits.

I mean, last week as I was eating my breakfast, I saw a shadow cross my kitchen door. There, peering in at me, was a Black Bear. He was obviously curious about what I was eating. I went to the door (I know my sister is gasping right now) and said “What are you doing here? No, you can’t come in.” He immediately turned and trotted away, looking back at me a few times. No aggression at all.

Note to my dear sister: I lock my doors when I leave the room.

Honestly, it blows my mind that the sight of him didn’t elicit even the tiniest bit of fear. A part of me wanted to invite him in for a hug. I needed one badly.

I’ve experienced so much Bear Medicine in the past several years - in my dreams and in my journeys and now in “real” life, that I can hardly believe it.

The Turkeys hung out with me all day yesterday. Grazing at Turkey Rock where I leave some treats. Laying in the shade. Walking in the tall grass nibbling on some sort of insect, I imagine. I haven’t seen a tick in weeks, KNOCK ON WOOD.

And then the Turkeys left, marching single=file down my driveway like they always do. :)

This ongoing experience (my neck is still needing nurturing) has made me realize that I have not been so kind to my body lately. I’ve been criticizing her a lot. Feeling my age, Not liking what I see in the mirror.

I’ve been really sedentary this summer, blaming the biting bugs. My Taurus Moon and Rising signs like to stay plopped at home.

So, I’ve decided that I will smile at her more.

I’ll be more conscious of moving in ways that will strengthen my body slowly, not in the Vata way.

Inside I sometimes still feel like little five-year-old Barbie, talking to the fairies, finding a secret place to be alone with my thoughts. Always riding my bike.

Living out my Crone years here has certainly returned me to a more fantastical way of living.

The last thing I want to say is that this post is dedicated to my four beautiful friends, Christy, Constance, Pamela, and Robin, who kept me afloat, listened to my whining, sent me distance healing, made me laugh, shared voice messages almost daily and music that my Spirit loved, and gave me healing tips when I couldn’t think clearly enough to remember what to do.

I have such a tendency to suffer in silence, not asking for help. But these beautiful women wouldn’t have it. And although none of them would probably call themself a healer, indeed, they all are. Their voices alone were like a healing balm on my heart.

I’m still healing, observing, learning, and growing. Babying my neck. Working on my 5th chakra. :)

Life is Good.

Heading to the river as soon as I hit “Publish.”

So much Love and Healing to all of you,
Barbara

P.S. Enjoy these two songs, thanks to Constance. xo