Spring is unfolding just as she always does despite the prolonged period of drought this past year. Most people probably have noticed the abundant yellow and purple wildflowers poking up on every hillside. Along with the Lupines, Mustard and Broom we can see the lovely cream colored blossoms of the Elder bush. An extraordinary plant that has a long history of medicinal use in Europe and the United States. Unfortuantely, here in the U.S. so much of our traditional and folk herbal wisdom has been lost. We are only recently rediscovereing the powerful medicinal qualities of plants like Elder.

Many people I know use Elder, especially in the winter time when colds and flus are most prevelant. Many people probably do not know that the product they are buying off the shelf at the natural food store called Sambucus is ELDER. A beautiful and prolific shrub that grows abundantly right in our backyard or at least nearby. Making Elderberry syrup at home is very easy.

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Plants are not humans, but they are no less sentient and complex beings for their differences from us. While not human or even animals, they are people in the sense that they are intelligent, adaptable, vibrantly living and deeply feeling. In our attempts to relate to them, we would be wise to acknowledge and respect their profound otherness....each species has its own special gifts to contribute (checkout: The medicine of All Things) to the whole. We honor those gifts by noticing and appreciating the ways in which we are different as well as the similarities.      -Kiva Rose
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Elder has become one of my most beloved plant allies. My relationship with Elder began to grow as my need to connect more deeply with nature became of primary importance in my life. Plants and people have been intimately connected since the dawn of human kind. Humans have relied on plants for food and medicine, for fiber and shelter and a whole host of other uses. All medicinal plants have physical constituents, chemicals that create an effect whether it is to boost immunity, balance the nervous system or help release a flu pathogen. Plants also have a much more subtle effect on us. Some herbal preparations like flower essences and essential oils connect us to the plants on this more subtle level, but even just taking notice or sitting with a plant can bring about similar feelings and effect.

Elder can help us connect with our ancestral heritage, enhancing our ability to honor our elders and teachers and the importance of mentoring relationships. An important part of reconnecting to nature, to our community and ourselves is understanding and connecting to the practices and skills of our ancestors. I am not just talking about our personal ancestors, but those from a myriad of tradtions that make up our human past. There is so much benefit from looking at how humans lived for millions of years. It is humbling to recongize how short a period of time that we have become so disconnected from our natural surroundings, so astranged from the place in which we live, and so out of touch with the daily rythms of nature. 

WE ARE NATURE, an integral part of it anyway and so this disconnection is not only a loss of understanding and connection to the plants and animals, the cycles of the seasons, but  to ourselves!! Have you ever wondered why you feel so good when you are in nature? It is like a homecoming when we immerse ourselves in nature's green embrace. 

The Santa Monica Mountains are bursting with Elder flowers. Although, I am still in Northern California until August, I was just recently in Topanga for a visit and enjoyed spending an afternoon visiting many old Elder friends and filling a grocery bag full of blossoms. They are very easy to harvest and dry. Once dry, you can store the blossoms in a jar until you need them.

I highly encourage you to look in your own yards, Elder is everywhere! Be sure to take your friends and family for a hike in search of this glorious plant. My kids love helping pick elder flowers and later in the year Elderberries. When they are coming down with a cold or flu they never refuse a warm cup of Elder tea or a teaspoon of Elderberry syrup. They now have a deep connection to this wonderful plant friend.


Elder has many edible, practical and medicinal uses. If you would like to learn more about Elder you can follow this link: Elder, a plant profile.
This is the first of many plant pages that I will be adding to the website.

Happy Spring from the Redwoods,
Stacey

Fieldbrook, CA

 The Lost Coast is one of the most truly spectacular, rugged, wild, awe-inspiring places I have ever experienced. My family has come to know this place very well and it has become like a home-coming when we visit. Being there always helps us to unwind and relax into that place within, where we feel our most natural and peaceful selves. It is an amazing example of the profound effect of deep nature connection and 'knowing our place'.

There is so much beauty in this place that it is hard to know where to put your attention. Golden Eagles and a myriad of other birds fly overhead, the ocean sounds the constant call of its roar, elk graze contentedly on the bluffs above, but it is the low-growing plants that captivate my attention mostly. I am always scouting for edible and medicinal plants and once I get a sense of what is around and ripe for harvesting, I am always looking for more plants like them. The excitement of seeing another yummy Chickweed plant or aromatic Pennyroyal stand, sticky Gum Weed, plump Rose Hips or mineral rich Nettles never diminishes.

One day while visiting the Lost Coast this summer I took a short walk to a bubbling creek behind where we were staying. In one small area around the creek I identified at least a dozen plants that could be used for food or medicine. In that moment I was filled with awe 
thinking about how ALL things of the Earth have their own unique medicine. Each species has it's specific potential and characteristics, but no two plants, like no two people are the same. 

Each individual plant, rock, animal or person has its own MEDICINE to offer the world. We all have gifts, talents and strengths that can be healing and often life-changing when shared with others. When we take a closer look at natural systems we see balance and interconnection. We are all children of the Earth and were once part of helping maintain that balance and flow.

As human cultures have changed around the world, our relationships to the natural world and to each other have shifted. We have forgotten our place and our gifts. Our unique talents are often directed toward work and personal achievement rather than offerings to others and the Earth. Small acts of kindness, mentoring or sharing our skill-set with others, parenting with compassion, and making music are all potent medicine. All have the potential to help, to heal and to restore our world to health and wholeness.

If we were to each recognize the power of our personal medicine and the beauty and healing properties of the things around us, we could co-create a healthier and more peaceful world. 

For the children (or yourself): Make a list of your gifts, strengths, and talents and then take each one and write how you could use It to benefit someone else, your community, or the Earth.

Keepers of the Earth was created with the intention of helping to facilitate deep nature connection, connection to community, and a deeper understanding of ourselves. Over the years it has become increasingly more and more clear how important 'knowing our place' is in really solidifying these connections. 

As I embark on a year long journey with my family into unfamiliar places, I am more aware of how intimately I have come to know the landscape of the Santa Monica Mountains with all of their inhabitants: people, plants and animals and all of the natural features that make this place so unique.

I often have reminded students and workshop participants about the importance of creating a MAP, a mind map that contains all of the details of a place. As we spend more time visiting a place over and over again, the details of our map become more diverse and more concrete in our minds. As this process naturally unfolds, our connection to that place grows.

One example of this for me occurs in late October. I know that it is the beginning of the acorn harvest. Some oak trees are tall and it is often hard to reach the high branches while others do not produce an abundance of nuts each year. So over the years I have had to visit many oak groves, walk on many trails to come to know which trees produce the most acorns and which are the best for harvesting. 

This requires creating a mental map of several places. One such place is the Tuna Canyon Fire Road. I can follow the trail with my mind's eye and see the smaller network of trails leading to a generous Coast Live Oak. I picture the many  plants I pass along the way: horehound, a giant stand of fennel, the eucylptus forest, and then I see the magnificent canopy with it's glistening acorns hanging in anticipation. Many more details come to mind: the time of year I witnessed that particular tree dropping its nuts, the size, the color, the way they felt in my hand, and the heaviness of the gathering bag once full.

I am deeply connected to that tree and to that place. I can still see all of those details with great clarity as I sit here under overcast skies surrounded by tall redwood trees in Northern California.

I am filled with excitement and child-like wonder as I walk among the trees here and on the bluffs of the rugged North Coast, exploring this new and varied terrain. I am a stranger in a new strange land and the threads of connection have only begun to form. When I think of Southern California I am grateful for the thick ropes of connection to the land and to the people and a great love wells up in my heart.

For me connection has become central to my life's purpose as I walk in my middle years, having spent the last two decades asking those really big questions and exploring many different paths trying to answer them. When we are connected to our place and to the people within that place, a sense of rightness in the world emerges.

Remember: you can know many places, create many maps, and form strong bonds of connection wherever you are.

FOR THE KIDS (or yourself): 
Choose a place you visit often, a particular trail, your backyard, a park and create a map of all of the details contained in that place. The different birds, their colors, calls,  and names, the plants and what they look like this time of year, the trees, animals, man-made features like fences, paths, rocks, meadows etc.

Go and visit that place and when you return home try to add details to the map that you have started. Keep adding more and more details each time you visit. As you connect more deeply to that place you will start to notice and learn new things about it.

Blessings from the Redwoods,
Stacey

Fieldbrook, CA