I am participating in a year-long course in shamanic herbalism.

                        The experience is like nothing I have ever done before.

                                                      (hmm, a thought arises as I write those words; interestingly,
                                                           the only thing that seems at all akin to this, was studying music.
                                                 That was also like nothing I had ever done before.
                                                                That also tapped wholly new domains of being and aliveness within myself.
                                                           That also changed my life.)

   
       This is the path of the Plant Beings.
            The Rooted Ones
    the Green Ones
             the Sprouting Ones.

         Their tangibility and their generosity take my breath away.

Plants are the givingest beings in the world.

           The songs they sing
       and the music that thrums in their veins

                               are suffused with tangibleness and love.
  
  
There is a painting by Mary Cassatt which I have loved for many years.

   I have spent hours       
looking into
  the bowl of water
      in the painting;

  the mother’s hand
     the child’s feet

   and I have delighted
in the artist’s hand
      making water
           visible

making love
   visible.
   

              Love is so often invisible.

It’s something felt more than seen.
     Evanescent more than tangible.

The plants aren’t like that.
     The plants are entirely tangible.

They exist in a solidly thisworldly sense

         as hard as tripping over a tree root
      as profound as saving a life.

As real as the water in Mary Cassatt’s hand.
  

Last week my husband came down with a scratchy sore throat.
   I made him up a batch of homemade Elder berry syrup.

Elder is an ally of the body’s immune system
                    especially for colds
                respiratory infections
                        sore mucus membranes.

   She soothes and eases and strengthens
with a gentleness sufficient for even a child.

                                                 a child
                                                              bare feet
                                                          in the water …

I made up the syrup and gave it to my husband
      his scratchy throat never developed into anything worse
   it went away after a few days.
I also took it myself, to protect myself against his bug.

  
This morning, while my stepdaughter and her boyfriend were still with us for the holidays, I spoke about my studies in herbalism. Shared with them some of my delight in it. Shared with them some of the Elder berry syrup.

…and Elderberry syrup is in fact, truly delicious…

  
And then it suddenly occurred to me,
      that I could give them my syrup to take home with them.
   So they could use to protect themselves this winter
      so they could use it to lighten the impact of any colds they might catch.

   It was a wholly new thought
a wholly different way of seeing what I’m doing with the herbs.

      Not just something pulling deep at my soul inexorably to explore
      and experiment with on myself and my husband

the herbs were suddenly a gift that I could already give others as well.
   Give with the same tangible thisworldly givingness
a rooted and sprouting generosity
      as given by the plants to me,
   so that I in turn could give again on, to others.

     Love made visible.

  
In the painting, the love we see is not just the love of the mother for her child.
We also see Mary Cassatt’s love for the mother.
     For the way she holds her child on her lap, heavy and awkward,
                                                                full of quiet patience.
     For the way she is unconcerned that her dress may get wet.
     For the words that pass between her and her child.

Full of ordinary visible love.

  
The love the herbs give us is
           the love of a mother
        for other mothers.

The love of a caregiver
       for the other care givers themselves
   rather than the recipients of the care, as precious as they may be.

The love with which the plants shower us
   the love which the Earth herself drenches us
a bathing in liquid love from which we never truly dry
        itself is the givingness, the sacred tangibleness in these acts of care.

   Music of the heart
a song of the tangible beingness of life.

                   Thank you, Elder.
                      Yours is a gift of rich and hushed honor
               to be given on again, to those whom I love.

                                                          Thank you.