Share the Talking Stick

White Feather Art

White Feather Art

www.whitefeatherart.net

About the Artist ~ Sue Whitacre at Whitefeather Art 

I have journeyed as an artist since early childhood. My path has led me through art school, public school art teaching, more art training, teaching private art lessons, and developing my own artistic expression throughout the process. 

I believe there is a deep mystery in the process of creative expression. I believe that this mystery is conveyed when a person is deeply connected with his or her own authentic self. A twelfth century mystic, Hildegard of Bingen, used the concept of co-creation to suggest that we have joined with Divine Source toward further inviting our humanity to unfold. I feel that the current art tradition has distantly removed itself from this connection with spiritual unfolding and co-creation. My own experience of reconnection with Source has come through a process of peeling back layers that have been in the way of my path toward self-expression. As a way of moving closer to my authentic self, I focused simultaneously on my own artwork and on issues of psychology and spirituality, encouraging the layers to fall off. This shedding of layers has cleared a path of creative expression for me that is personal, emotional, and fully satisfying, while being spiritually enriching and enlightening. 

A visual example of layers being shed appears in the shapes of my art pieces. As I became more authentically connected, I realized that the corners of rectangular and square forms felt too sharp to me. I began to round off the corners of the paper that I worked on, and from there the edges gave way to shapes that were more free-form and organic. 

I have always also had a deep love for nature and its inherent beauty. I began taking photographs of natural things that were inspiring to me. I feel such a connection with nature's seasonal cycles and rhythms that I wanted to share that connection here through my photographs. 

Throughout this journey I have been well-companioned by my good and supportive friends. I am grateful for this gift of connection. I invite you to your own experience of this website and the sharing of my art. Feel free to register your presence by contacting me. 

 

Visit the artist's website at: http://www.whitefeatherart.net/

 

The Soul of the Rose

“You of course, were a rose, but were always a rose.”  - Robert Frost

The Soul of the Rose

By Lucia Ferrara Bettler

Annual Garden Blessing, Festival Hill – Round Top, TX. - 2012

 

It is March and our wisteria vines are in bloom, laden with purple grapelike clusters climbing high into the tall elder tree.  The wisteria is in bloom, intertwined with wild, luscious pink climbing roses, from my mother’s garden, now long gone except for the cuttings rooted in my own.  Those fragrant roses tumble and wind to form an arc around the stone statue of Sarasvati, the Hindu goddess of all the arts: poetry and music, sculpture, writing and song.  The roses honor her in their extravagant blooming, and I am suddenly immersed in the mystery that is the rose.

Flowers speak of compassion and openness, gratitude and joy, giving and receiving with an open heart.  They speak of the rhythms of our lives, as May Sarton wrote, “…holding growth, birth, and death . . . the whole mystery in its short cycle”.

 A bower of roses creates a special kind of sacred space, filled with a scent that can connect us to the past.  Whether freshly cut and placed in a crystal vase with winter greens, or tumbling out of an old watering can, dried for a Victorian potpourri or the center of an herb filled tussie mussie, the rose connects us to our inner selves, to memories of another time, another place, as past and present merge.  A dried pressed rose petal, falling out of a precious book, means someone was once deeply loved. 

Throughout the ages the rose has symbolized love, life, sexuality and passion, death, the sun, the  moon, the heart, the soul, perfection itself.  Hafiz, a Sufi poet, calls it the “heart enchanting flower”. A precious gift, the rose speaks of beauty, grace, and silence.  Rilke wrote in his beloved Rose Poems: “I breathe you in as if you were all of life”, and Amanda McBroom, songstress, wrote her famous song “The Rose” to remind us what love is.

What is it about the rose that makes us think of mothers or lovers, friends of the heart, or God?  This beauteous flower, representing the many “Beloveds” in our lives, comes to us in many guises , a blossom that touches us deeply in the center of our hearts.  The rose is the soul, the part of us that unfolds where there is warmth and nurturing, light and love.

The mystic rose is brimming with symbolism and meaning.  One of the oldest flowering plants, she has been honored by poets and writers, musicians and philosophers.  With roots in China, she has traveled the world, beloved by all, as each generation reinvents the rose for itself. 

Throughout antiquity the rose was associated with myths and legends, ritual and ceremony, and life’s pleasures.  Along with apples, lilies, pomegranates and myrtle, roses were sacred to Aphrodite & Venus and are now synonymous with weddings, as flower girls strew petals before the bride. 

Egyptian tombs revealed wreaths of Damask–like roses, dating to 170 AD.  Crete, Rome and other ancient sites show evidence of roses in art and religion.  Roses as a sensuous symbol of love and passion have become almost a cliché… yet...history, magic, art and literature abound in allusions to them. There is Mimi, Puccini’s tragic heroine in La Boheme.  In her aria, Che Gelida Manina, she sings that she loves to embroider roses and lilies on silk, so enchanting are they!

 Roses abound in art, from Botticelli to the Dutch masters, to Georgia O’Keffe.  In the rose is the garden of Eros, the ancient god of erotic passion, and the rose is also the central image in God’s paradise of Dante’s Divine Comedy.  In Flora’s Dictionary, Kathleen Gips, calls her “The daughter of the sky, an ornament of the earth, the glory of spring.”   In the rose are all of the seductive charms of a woman adorned with dew, perfume and loveliness.   She enchants us as she embodies youth and innocence, maturity and passion.  She is the flower of a midsummer’s night dream.  Jennifer Potter begins her tome The Rose, with the words, “I remember the day I lost my heart to a rose”.  Roses live in a world of mystery and romance … meanings subtly shifting through the centuries.  At once she was the rose of pagan Aphrodite, the thirteen petaled rose of Judaism’s Kabbalah, the blood of Christ’s passion, the sweat of Mohammed’s brow, a symbol of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the emblem of Europe’s monarchs.

Later monastic communities did much to preserve roses and explore their uses as medicine.  Rosa gallica, the apothecary rose, was the most famous of those roses, and even  today rose essential oil is used as an antidepressant. This valuable scent can open closed hearts and heal broken ones.

Herbalist and Abbess Hildegard of Bingen referred to the rose in her Physica, and said that roses would strengthen any medication to which it was added.  In amulets it was said to restore “life energy”.

Due to its checkered past under Emperor Nero, the Roman Church outlawed the use of roses in church functions.  Not to be suppressed for long, from the seventh to the twelfth centuries, the rose became a major Christian symbol.  The Blessed Virgin Mary soon came to be honored with roses in medieval abbey gardens, the rose being the emblem of her beauty and her spirit.  Called the Mystical Rose, Mary was adorned with a crown of roses in May.  Pebbles once used to count prayers gave way to beads made from powdered roses, thus the rosary was born.  Out of this devotion to Mary, sprang the Rose Window in Gothic art and architecture, a prime example being the Rose Window of Notre Dame in Paris.

There are paintings of her broken heart surrounded by pink roses, somehow softening the blow of her life’s pain.

 Her apparitions on earth were often accompanied by roses and their sweet scent.  Her famous apparition in Mexico as Our Lady of Guadalupe produced crimson Castilian roses in the dead of winter.

In my little rose garden there is a small statue, which I got years ago from herbalist Betsy Williams, of St. Elizabeth of Hungary holding her apron full of roses.

The legend goes that this “Compassionate Queen “was delivering bread to the hungry against her husband’s wishes.  When confronted by him on her errand, roses, not bread tumbled from her apron.  There are many saints connected to roses.  One of the most well known is the French Carmelite, St Therese of Lisieux ,also  known as “The Little Flower”.  Upon her death bed she promised to send a shower of roses in the form of grace to those who call upon her. Believers have reported smelling roses when praying to her.

In 2001 I was blessed to visit a village in Southern Turkey, near Isparta, the famous rose growing region. There we saw women and men rise very early to go to the hillsides where the roses grow in long rows. I saw the villagers carrying burlap bags and baskets brimming with the fragrant pink blossoms.  The roses were transported to the weighing station and then on the distillery.  The scent in the air was overpowering, the steam hot, as it rose from the copper pots. There were rivulets of rose water running down the troughs.  The joy with which these rose gatherers shared their lives & the flowers was unforgettable!   The scent of the rose did indeed cling to their hands.

A few days later I visited a site sacred to Mother Mary in Ephesus.  Holy water from there and the rose oil from the village have been added to our blessing water today.

The rose and its Eastern equivalent, the lotus, are the pattern for the sacred  mandala, or cosmic wheel. A mandala is a circle that speaks of wholeness. In Sanskrit it means “ to be in possession of one’s essence”. The round moon is a mandala, and so is an egg, and a nest , a fully open rose, the cycle  of the seasons, and a rose window . Carl Jung suggested we meditate on these images to center ourselves as a path to peace.

On the floor of Chartres Cathedral in France is a mandala in the form of a labyrinth.  It is a metaphor for our journey through life. Walking it sends us to the center of the mandala and back out to the edge on the same path. In surrendering to the winding path, our spirits find healing. That center is often called the rosette—a six petaled rose, a symbol for Mother Mary and of the Grail legends that were  prevalent  during the High Middle Ages.

What can the rose teach us?   Look at the beauty of a faded rose and its parchment like petals. Buddhism teaches us to honor the impermanence of all things, and at the same time live in the present moment, savoring the life in front of us.

I am reminded of love’s longing, and how we all long to belong to ourselves, to our families, to our community, to our earth.  We start with ourselves, with the heart center, whose chakra colors, according to Hindu tradition, are green and pink, the color of a lovely rose. We need one another to connect, to go beyond our anxiety and fear. There is a great capacity in us to connect, to love and to care. 

Do you remember The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery?  On his small planet, he loved a special rose, his soul friend.  Later his friend the fox tells him two important things:

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

And “It is the time you have devoted to your rose that makes it so important.”

Our gardens, our herbs and roses are the presence of grace in the world.  Garrison Keillor once said, “I believe that all that is essential is unseen, and that all we did for love’s sake was never wasted.”

Sounds a bit like The Little Prince, doesn’t it?

Rumi, a Sufi poet and Dervish, lived in Southern Turkey, not far from the rose growing regions. Coleman Barks in his translation quotes him: “What was said to the rose that made it open in laughter and full blown beauty –that is being said to me now?…I who am in love with the One to whom everything belongs.”

Many authors are quick to tell us that, yes, roses are lovely, but they also have thorns—thorns to protect a tender heart, and that love too, can cut us open.  One day in 1977, songwriter Amanda Mc -Broom was listening to a song on the radio that said:  “Your love is like a razor; my heart is just a scar”.

As she drove on she thought, “I don’t agree with that.” What do I think love is? Suddenly words came pouring into her head, and a song emerged…a song of courage and hope and love.

Listen to her words. It is enough. . .

 

Some say love, it is a river

That drowns the tender reed.

Some say love, it is a razor

That leaves your soul to bleed.

Some say love, it is a hunger,

An endless aching need,

I say love , it is a flower

And you its only seed.

It’s the heart ,afraid  of breaking

That never learns to dance.

It’s the dream , afraid of waking

That never takes the chance.

It’s the one who won’t be taken

Who cannot seem to give,

And the soul, afraid of dying,

That never learns to live.

When the night has been too lonely,

And the road has been too long,

And you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong,

Just remember in the winter,

Far beneath the bitter snow

Lies the seed

That with the sun’s love, in the spring

Becomes the rose.

 

 

Featured Website ~ Pagan Whispers

Featured Website

Pagan Whispers: Sage Advice from a Young Shaman Priest!

This is a place where you can ponder and explore information on a variety of subjects relating to the body, spirit, and mind.It is sort of a book and compendium of beliefs, practices, and research compiled in my own words and view. Like many other text and information on the same subjects we each have our own unique experiences dealing with such and over time we come to formulate our own way of seeing things, doing things, and believing things. 

Touch Drawing eCards

Touch Drawing eCards

www.touchdrawing.com

SoulCards 1 and 2 are decks of 60 images used for INSIGHT and INSPIRATION. They were created by Deborah Koff-Chapin using the process of Touch Drawing. 

SoulCards e-cards can be used for birthdays, holidays, congratulations, get well or condolences. You may also use them for more subtle or unusual purposes; to send support or inspiration to someone who is in a challenging time, to acknowledge a life passage or transformation, or to let someone you love know  that you are thinking of them. Since there are no set meanings for any of the cards, you can use your intuition to select the most appropriate image. You create your own title for the card, and write your own message. You will also be able to select the colors for the type and background. After you have completed the card, you will be shown a preview. If you do not like your card, you may edit it and then send it. The recipient will receive an e-mail advising them how to retrieve their card. Sending a card is easy. Just follow the step by step instructions. Your email address and communications are kept completely private. Find out more about Touch Drawing and the resources of this site here

Learning Herbs Interview 1.3 with Susun Weed & John Gallagher

Learning Herbs Interview 1.3
with Susun Weed & John Gallagher

The following is a written transcript from John Gallagher’s interview with Susun Weed on November 30, 2006. The interview was part of The Herbal Teleconference Series, which was an event celebrating the release of Wildcraft! An Herbal Adventure Game

 

Susun: YES! Yes, absolutely! That is one of the most beautiful that we can do as teachers is to really take a backseat and let the plants speak for themselves because they certainly have plenty to say.

Now I do have blatant advertising pitch here. I do have a correspondence course for working with a Green Ally. And there are 26 projects that you do over the course of a year to connect with your Green Ally ‑ a huge variety of things, from interviewing people who know about your Green Ally, to actually hands‑on projects with it. With the apprentices who are living with me, however, there is an interesting kind of restriction, and that is, it kind of goes along with what you're saying, and that is, at the culmination of their apprenticeship, they have to give a report on their Green Ally and show us different things that they've done with their Green Ally and how to use it, and so on, but they're not ever allowed to look in a book.

John: Good.

Susun: Right. Now that's because of course they're here, and they're doing lots of other book stuff, and of course if you're doing the Green Ally correspondence course, you're looking in lots of books, and you're making a book yourself about your plant. So it's a little bit different than being here, but I say to the apprentices, I say, "Part of what we intend to do here is to stretch you in two directions." So every day they have to know the botanical name, species, genus, and family of a plant that we can see in flower that day.

John: Wow. That is... I'm laughing because I use to teach a computer course, and I would walk in every day, and I would go, "OK, extra credit: Name five flowering trees that are in flower right now."

Susun: Right now.

John: Every day. And it had nothing to do with the computer course, but I would have a plant question for them every time. And nobody ever got it. The people could have passed the course without even doing any of the work.

Susun; Right, if you just looked and seen what was flowering.

John: "Get your heads out of the computers, people."

Susun: Right. "Look up, look up."

John: You told me the other day that, hey, if you're a teacher, you've got to want to like repeating yourself, and I know there's a lot of new ears out here tonight. And being that I know that, when you're speaking and answered the anti‑inflammatory question for me, there's a whole paradigm in a way of thinking about your approach that you teach people, and so if I'm just going to say, Susun, it's about keeping it simple, standard brews, vitamins and minerals, what comes to mind there for you? What other kind of thing do you want to tell people?

Susun: Well, I'll tell you one of the things that I like to say, John, is that being 60 now I can look back, and I can kind of look at the landscape of the things that I've taught and thought, and I can see that I have indeed had three good ideas. And those three good ideas are: the traditions of healing, the steps of healing, and nourishing herbal infusions.

So I have identified three traditions of healing: the linear scientific, which measures, the circular heroic, which cleanses, and the spiralic wise woman, which nourishes. And I think that has been incredibly beneficial for many people to be able to see that there are many different ways to approach something.

We can't assume that because someone is an MD that they're strictly scientific, or that because someone is a chiropractor that they're not scientific, indeed, in that tradition.

And of course people can be mixes of that. Nourishing herbal infusions, which are called standard brews ‑ that wasn't sexy enough for me, so I changed it.

John: Oh, right. OK. Yeah.

Susun: And standard brew's absolutely fine because I learned it from Juliette Levy, and that's what she calls them, is standard brews. And as I said, it just didn't seem sexy enough.

John: Yeah, you're right.

Susun: People like things that are sexy, that have a little juice in them. So nourishing herbal infusion.

John: I like that.

Susun: Yeah. I took that word "infusion" because it's got a lot of oomph to it there, a lot of energy, like you get when you drink the nourishing herbal infusions. And they're kind of my Aquarius way of finding the one thing that works for everybody. Right. I don't divide people up into casa or zata or any of those things. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. I'm just saying it's not a way that I've found useful to work.

I really want to see, in what way are we all really alike. And one of the bases of the wise woman tradition is nourishment. And so looking at nourishment, it was pretty clear to me that there were a lot of minerals, especially trace minerals and micro‑nutrients, that are missing from the modern diet, and missing for a huge variety of reasons.

And I found that by encouraging people to make strong brews ‑ not teas but infusions, very strong infusions ‑ of herbs that don't contain poisons; in other words, herbs that don't have volatile oils, so we wouldn't use peppermint for nourishing herbal infusion; herbs that don't contain resins, so we wouldn't want to use yarrow for nourishing herbal infusion; herbs that don't contain alkaloids, right. Generally we would want to avoid making a nourishing herbal infusion of something like goldenseal or bloodroot, right. And we don't want to use herbs that contain glycosides, like pokeroot.

John: Right.

Susun: Right. Because those are all poisons. So we're looking at nourishing herbs. And of course the funny thing about that is that there are actually many herbalists, and probably many healers, who feel that any plant that doesn't contain a poison isn't medicinal.

John: Exactly.

Susun: Right. And that the ones I'm talking about ‑ oat straw, nettle, red clover,linden blossom, comfrey leaf, chickweed, raspberry lace, these safe, nutritive herbs can make a real difference in people's health. And of course what's required is a little personal activity, because you actually need to make the infusions yourself.

You can't just take a tincture, or go out and buy the already‑made thing ‑ you have to buy the dried herb and make it yourself. And so, going along with what I know that you do, is that we know that our own health doesn't come from somebody else or from some substance ‑ it comes from us.

 

John: Right.

Susun: Somebody called up, and she was apprenticing with one of my apprentices, and she said she had this great idea, that she was going to make tea bags of the nourishing infusion herbs because she had friends who kind of maybe would do it but they didn't want to touch the herb.

John: They didn't want to get messy, or get their sink all full of...

Susun: Exactly. And I was not kind to her. I said, "No, no, no. Don't do this." We want people to have to touch it. Right. And she said, "Oh, well, but if they didn't have to, they'd do it." And I said, "And maybe scientifically we could say they were getting the same nourishment, but nourishment is not just about things that we can measure. It's not just about vitamins and minerals."

John: No.

Susun: So the third good idea ‑ lest I spend all my time talking about nourishing herbal infusions, which I can easily do ‑ is an idea that I use in my book, especially in "Breast Cancer? Breast Health: The Wise Woman Way" and in "New Menopausal Years the Wise Woman Way: Alternative Approaches for Woman 30‑90", so that when there's a problem, that problem in those books is approached through the six steps of healing, which are, first of all, do nothing. Step zero, do nothing, which is to be distinguished from, don't do anything.

John: Right.

Susun: Right. Don't do anything is to be in denial. Do nothing is to be present and to really understand that something is going on but to take more time. And then of course the next step is to collect information, and to collect that information both from what I call "interior" and "exterior sources." Or what some people would call "intuitive" as well as "rational sources." Right. I don't tend to draw the line between rational and intuitive in that way, but I understand that some people do and it's an easier way for them to think of it. And then we want to engage the energy.

John: Right.

 

Green Blessings.
Susun Weed 

 

Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Year 
Author: Susun S. Weed. Simple, safe remedies for pregnancy, childbirth, lactation, and newborns. Includes herbs for fertility and birth control. Foreword by Jeannine Parvati Baker. 196 pages, index, illustrations. 
Retails for $11.95 
Order at: www.wisewomanbookshop.com

Regeneration of the Land at Pond Farm

    Regeneration of the Land at Pond Farm

It is to understand that nature, the earth, buildings hold the energy of all of mans releases of emotion. The energy of accidents, wars, massacres violence of any kind to man and beast is stored . Unfortunately this has consequences. Life does not thrive in these places and negative energies flock to the areas to indulge in the negativity.

When I arrived at Pond farm, a friend showed me the garden , I could not go in because there was a wall of terrible dark energy that hit me in the chest. I knew immediately that something bad had happened there and it was a huge event, a catalogue of death, many deaths, a massacre, a killing field.

I went home and connected with Pan and the Energy cleansing spirit teams and we put work in place to cleanse and heal. When I subsequently returned the energy had changed , we had removed a layer.

Some months later I visited again this time with a clairvoyant friend, we had cause to go into the farmyard itself. The animals there we noticed were unhappy and depressed. My friend was horrified as she felt and saw much bloodshed, horses being slain, massacre and violence. No wonder the animals were unhappy they could sense this they are very sensitive to atmospheres.

Since the first time I went my healing ability has developed and the energy I use is no longer the White light, it progressed through to cosmic and now universal frequencies. This has enabled the following to take place.

I connected to Pan again and the energy healing teams and was told we could now do a deeper healing; we began the energy cleansing processes at 120 feet below ground, to encompass the depth at which this terrible emotional energy had gone into the earth. We covered the whole farm, all the fields, buildings and farmhouse. The healing went up into the stratosphere.

After this I knew I had to put myself in the farmyard to infuse the area with Universal energy .I was then shown a grid of crystals, the crystals were 3 feet apart creating a huge lattice in effect.  We had to put the grid 9 feet down in the ground all over the farm, this would emit a pulsating universal energy .The energy would begin to restore and regenerate the land.

The terrible energy of the massacre had created a suppurating sore on the earth that had not been able to be resolved, we removed the cause and the grid now is healing the symptoms held in the earth.  Man has to take responsibility for what he does, to be able to begin a change and healing. It will take 20 years to get to full flourish we are told .We have no idea what full flourish is as nowhere on earth is in full flourish. The Devas and Nature spirits of the area had lost heart and were severely disabled, sick and could not function.

My clairvoyant friend witnessed this and she reported seeing the land dark red the colour of old blood , turn khaki then go to the green light of nature, the grid caused a pale blue/silver light as it worked. We both could see a huge vortex of light shining down on the farm, which is still there.

On returning there it was noticeable that  change had occurred there was a feeling of profound peace. The energies were settled , although much work is in the process of being done to rehabilitate the Nature Spirits and aide the Devas.

Robina Hearle.

www.unfoldingenlightenment.com

 

 

Whisperado - Teenage Popstar Girl

Whisperado - Teenage Popstar Girl

The witty, subversive "Teenage Popstar Girl" music video follows an awkward tween who worships an impossibly perfect, airbrushed popstar – only to discover her idol isn't what she seems.  Whisperado's quirky, upbeat song is brought to life as a satiric tale in which singers and celebrities are pre-packaged and mass-marketed like plastic dolls.

The video's 1960s look was inspired in part by the song's Americana sound.  It's a cautionary tale -- a young girl gets manipulated and seduced by a manufactured icon.  The innocent, retro feel of the video also makes for a striking contrast when we see the more cynical stuff going on behind the scenes.

 

The Artwork of Pamela Benda

The Artwork of Pamela Benda 

Fine Art Biography

Trained at the prestigious Arts Students League in New York City, Pamela has been painting and teaching for over thirty years. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including first and second place for portraiture and landscape in the John Sloan Competion in New York city; Best in show, the Pastel
society of America Award, NYC and the Arts Students League Scholarship award two years consecutively.
     
Pamela is represented in over fifty private and public collections in the U.S. and Europe, including the Albuquerque Museum in New Mexico, and has been widely reported on for her unique brand of impressionism in feature articles in Cultural and Arts magazines in California where she lived for most of her adult life.


Known for her portraits of well known citizens on California's central coast, her landscapes, according to Prelude magazine in Carmel, are "characterizations of the land".

"Rather than a super realistic copying, I endeavor to capture the spirit of my subjects...by striving for truth in color". A greater body of her work can be viewed at her fine art print gallery, go to; http://pambenda.tripod.com.

(reprinted with permission from Community Spirit Magazine, Carmel, Ca)

Copyright 2008. Images connot be reproduced without the written permission of the artist.

Art work:

1. Julia Butterfly and Luna

2. Earth Warrior 

3. Three Sisters

The Giveaway

by Pamela Benda

The Giveaway is a spiritual, earthly adventure, and a love story that spans three thousand years. Based on the author’s past-life regression under hypnosis, which begins this novel, we are transported back in time to the drama and pathos that was the life of Ruth, a slave in ancient Egypt.  Her overwhelming yearning for freedom sounds the theme of this poetic “autobiography” of reincarnation, which encompasses five lifetimes, including a validating glimpse into the author’s present life.

The story evolves into a startlingly realistic recreation of traditional Lakota, Sioux culture, spirituality, and world view as seen through the eyes of Cetan sa (Red Hawk), a Lakota Peaceman (councilor and peacemaker), whose extraordinary life and times comprise the bulk of this exciting and enlightening book. Lakota ceremony, community, psychology and dialogue, alive with authenticity, color and depth, lend a real conviction to the author’s assertion of past lives.

A book you will read again and again…for the pleasure and for the subtly conveyed wisdom. The voice of Cetan sa, and a band of Lakota now extinct, rings true and clear across time and culture, with a message both timely and profound.

The author writes: “It is the true story of one soul’s journey…and perhaps it is the story of every soul’s journey.”

Whatever your beliefs regarding reincarnation, it is a journey you will also take, and a story you will never forget.

Contact the author to purchase your copy: freewoman77@live.com

 

 

Learning Herbs Interview 1.2 with Susun Weed & John Gallagher

 

Healing Wise ...
Learning Herbs Interview 1.2
with Susun Weed & John Gallagher

The following is a written transcript from John Gallagher's interview with Susun Weed on November 30, 2006. The interview was part of The Herbal Teleconference Series, which was an event celebrating the release of Wildcraft! An Herbal Adventure Game

John: Since we're a little past the hour here everyone's probably on the call right now, and I'd like to say Good Evening everyone, this is John Gallager, from learningherbs.com, and this is the fourth teleconference in our series, and once again, if anyone accidentally gets kicked off, just call back, you can't disturb anything. 
The purpose of these calls is to talk about how we approach learning about herbs and, so far in the series, we have just learned we've been keeping it simple, learning that it's about relationships with the plant, learning one at a time, having experiences it's all about having experiences, not about, as we were just saying, the dry knowledge in the book, what not. 

So, tonight, we have our owned renowned herbalist,Susun Weed, who has written loads of books and published and re published some great herbal...And I can tell you from my own experience and I know that healing wines have touched my soul and brought me to who I am now as an herbalist and a health care provider. I'm an acupuncturist and I approach it from...I'm a five element acupuncturist and I approach it from a 'wise woman' perspective. I always keep that in mind. When we were pregnant with both of our kids, "Childbearing Year" was the only book we used. You know, everyone wants to give you advice when you're pregnant. Everyone. Everyone has the book; everyone has the piece of information. We just found everything we needed in that little pink book [Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Year]. Thanks for helping us keep it simple there, Susun.

Susun Weed: Oh, thank you so much, John. That really makes me smile from heart right out.

John: Oh, good...

Susun: It's so lovely. I have young women coming up to me, clutching the book and saying," My mother used this book when she gave birth to me and now she gave me a copy."
Susun: So it's very nice to see that wheel turning and going on.

John: Gosh, you must have published that a while ago then, huh?

Susun: Indeed! About twenty years ago.

John: Twenty years ago. You just had 200 people clap when we announced, when we introduced you, but you couldn't hear any of them.

Susun: Oh, well...

John: [laughing]

Susun: I can just be here on this warm Catskills night, unseasonably warm. It's in the 60's today. In the 60's, yes, 60's Fahrenheit at the end of November. In the Catskills Mountains, sometimes we've had feet of snow by this time.

John: I think we've traded weather because we've got it now.

Susun: Oh, I see. [laughs]

John: We've got.. gosh, now, another story...[laughs] You know we were just talking about, you mentioned things when we were talking about women... You said you had your premises ' Pick an Ally.' Now this whole thing, and what I'm doing here, is how to learn about and connect with plants, and I tell you, Susun, with the first time I ever got into plants was with my Peterson's Medicinal Guide. [laughs]

And I'm going around and it's "This plant is good for this, this, this, this, and this. And the native Americans would use it for this, this..." Not thinking that anyone would actually use them now...

Susun: Right, right, right.

John: I think there are some great references. There are some great herbal books out there, but as great as the references are, I think they're a little intimidating for people. If I'm wanting to know how to learn about herbs, I think if you could tell everyone about how to pick an herbal ally, that would be great.

Susun: Oh, well, I'm not sure that anyone could tell you that picking an herbal ally; as a matter of fact, many of the apprentices feel that their herbal ally picked them.

John: Ah!

Susun: But I can tell you what to do once you're either picked or been picked by a green ally and, of course, if you want to be picked by then you simply set that as your intention that you would like some plant to be in touch with you to trip you up outside or to come into your dreams and say," Hey! I want to be your ally."

But once you have made that decision, and you can choose a different ally every year, so you don't to panic about "Oh, my goodness, there's so many plants." Just one will be a lot for a year. We want to breathe with that in a way that sounds almost too simple; but when we think deeply and experience deeply, the fact that what we breathe in, the plant has breathed out. And what we breathe out, the plant is going to breathe in. I'm not talking 'theoretical stuff' here, am I? We're talking actual molecules of carbon and oxygen are being traded between you and the plant. We know that it takes seven years to replace every cell in our body, but most of us don't know that every atom in our body is replaced every four days.

John: Hmmm...

Susun: So I asked my apprentices to spend ten minutes a day sitting right next to their green ally and breathing with it. [pause] Imagining, envisioning, pretending, visualizing... however you can do it to understand that the connection between people and plants is a giveaway dance. That we're dancing together with that breath.[pause]

John: Well, that is... And so then so when you have an ally chosen and you connect with the plant that you want to work with for however amount of time you're working together, you can explore, right? Different ways of learning about that plant and bringing it into your life. I think a great example of healing wines is where you just take all these different herbs, very common and great herbs, and you just have this multifaceted way of relating, whether it be food or medicine, healthcare, I mean, health and beauty, use it whatever.

Susun: Yes. There's a wonderful book called "Planting the Future" which was done to separate the United Plant Savers, and I was one of the thirty herbalists who was asked to write a monograph on a particular plant for that book. And we were assigned our plants, and the plant I was assigned was Mechelen repens. I said, "First of all, this is such a common plants. It's all over." And they said, "Well, actually through much of its range, it's not anymore; and that's why we assigned it you, because its common where you live, in the Catskills." I found it's a very low growing plant, repens means creeping, right? and I found that sitting low in a meditative posture and breathing with that plant wasn't close enough. I had to really lay down on the earth, either on my belly or on my back, in order to get close enough for that plant, to be able to write the monograph for that book.

One of my apprentices a couple of years ago, chose that as her green ally and after the first week she said to me," I don't know. You know, I'm breathing with the plant, but I don't seem to be getting anywhere." And I looked at her and I said, "Are you breathing in the plant's airspace?" She looked at me and I said, "It's a very low growing plant. You've got to get your head Down there." And she came back the next day and said, "Oh, my gosh, I never would have imagined! It just makes all the difference in the world!" I said, "Yea it sounds like a theoretical thing. It sounds like a thing out of some new age book "You Are One With Plants., : breathe with the plant, you will be one." But no, No! We're talking "Susun with Taurus moon and Taurus rising here," who's into what's real! And what's real is that the atoms of you are being made by the exhalation of the plant.

John: I've taught classes where I've said nothing about the plant we're going to learn about, and I have them go and sit with the plant for an hour. When I get everyone back together again and we go around in a circle and they tell me everything they got from that experience. Usually, they've told me everything that's in the book, so...[laughs]

Susun: [laughing] That's beautiful.

John: So they speak before me. I have people come to classes and have the plant teach for me. [laughs]

Green Blessings.
Susun Weed 

 

Susun Weed’s books:
	Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Year  Author: Susun S. Weed. Simple, safe remedies for pregnancy, childbirth, lactation, and newborns. Includes herbs for fertility and birth control. Foreword by Jeannine Parvati Baker. 196 pages, index, illustrations.  Retails for $11.95  Order at: www.wisewomanbookshop.com
	Healing Wise  Author: Susun S. Weed. Superb herbal in the feminine-intuitive mode. Complete instructions for using common plants for food, beauty, medicine, and longevity. Introduction by Jean Houston. 312 pages, index, illustrations. Retails for $17.95  Order at: www.wisewomanbookshop.com
	NEW Menopausal Years the Wise Woman Way  Author: Susun S. Weed. The best book on menopause is now better. Completely revised with 100 new pages. All the remedies women know and trust plus hundreds of new ones. New sections on thyroid health, fibromyalgia, hairy problems, male menopause, and herbs for women taking hormones. Recommended by Susan Love MD and Christiane Northrup MD. Introduction by Juliette de Bairacli Levy. 304 pages, index, illustrations.  Retails for $16.95  Order at: www.wisewomanbookshop.com For excerpts visit: www.menopause-metamorphosis.com
	Breast Cancer? Breast Health!  Author: Susun S. Weed. Foods, exercises, and attitudes to keep your breasts healthy. Supportive complimentary medicines to ease side-effects of surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, or tamoxifen. Foreword by Christiane Northrup, M.D. 380 pages, index, illustrations. Retails for $21.95  Order at: www.wisewomanbookshop.com
	Down There:  Sexual and Reproductive Health the Wise Woman Way Forthcoming Release Publication date: June 21, 2011 Author: Susun S. Weed Simple, successful, strategies cover the entire range of options -- from mainstream to radical -- to help you choose the best, and the safest, ways to optimize sexual and reproductive health. Foreword: Aviva Romm, MD, midwife, 484 pages, Index, illustrations Retails for $29.95 Order at: www.wisewomanbookshop.com

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