I have had the fortune of being surrounded by Larrea tridentata in the lower desert elevation of the town of Truth or Consequences. This is an ode to chaparral otherwise known as Larrea tridentata, Creosote Bush or in Spanish communities Hediondilla which means smelly one. I am developing a new relationship with this plant not only as a physical medicine but also as a uncanny muse protrayed here.

Larrea, Mi Hediondilla, Wise Green One of the Desert
Oh Hediondilla, Larrea
Holder of soil of southern desert,
Soothe my cracked lips,
Cool the cracked earth,
Crack open your glands,
To Moisture in the open sky,
Open Heart of Chaparral,
Teach us your lessons,
Of cracked souls, soles, soils
That here in high desert, hot aquifers
spring internal lessons of the lost langorous
hag revived by your yellow blooms and resinous leaves
Rubbing against her leg with the snake rattle bracelet
Awake and focused!

My wise hag hugged me here
In this oppressive
Beautiful stillness
Larrea, I know why they call you
Hediondilla
Your smell can be both
 provocative and revolting
And an Utter relief
Follow a morning Rain

And I run with the coyotes within your
Scraggly branches
My sores are healed by you
And we howl and we claw playfully
Your song rises from the canyons
In an oily mist
There, there mi hijita
Mira la luna, llueve mucho
a veces in el desierto
There, there my daughter
Look at the moon, it rains much
at times in the desert

This blog is an amalgamation of sorts of flashbacks and flashpresents of my wild nature. I cannot say what it will become except that it is about my experience with plants and their medicine. 

My partner came upon a butterfly party nestled on top of southwest beebalm  (Monarda menthaefolia). They were slurping up its peppery juices. I should not say that. Within my constitution, they taste peppery and hot. As beebalm settles past my tastebuds and into my innards, they possess a diffusive, cooling quality; I wonder how they taste to butterflies? Gathering them alongside what looked like prunella vulgaris (self-heal) brought me into the intense presence of not so distant thunder above the ponderosa and douglas fir. Is this what being an herbalist is about? I know that my itchy legs are okay in these tall grasses. I learn to trust the process of wildcrafting. And while I know all these sensations are a coming home of sorts, I lean into some more grassy experiences despite my discomfort.
All along this creek and not more than one hundred yards grew a plethora of plants, I am coming to know: plantain, monkeyflower (mimulus guttatus), yerba mansa , monarda menthaefolia (beebalm)  and Rosa Woodsii.
Tassel Earred squirrel scrambled down the vanilla scented bark. My partner liked to hunt them as a kid in Meadow Creek. He knows this land from his childhood and points out Quercus hyperleucoides / Silver leaf oak and Southwestern White Pine. Southwestern White pine from my personal eyes looks much like the White Pine out East. I've yet to make medicine with it.
Medicine comes in many forms, yet what I am speaking of reveals the medicine of my direct experience in the woods of Meadow Creek. Medicine can take the form of a story. And this blog will tell a raw story. These upcoming stories blend into the herbal medicines I make in the form of tea blends, tinctures, salves, ointments, liniments and infusion. For example, this afternoon Meadow Creek oozed a trickle of water which nourished a community of plants interspersed between rocks. The sky was unusually clouded and thunder and moisture pervaded the air. I mindfully gathered beebalm and plantain. My white dog scampered nearby and alerted me to a large sound in the brush in the hills above. Mellilotus / White sweet clover grew abundantly where we pulled over and gathered the plants which were not populated with opalescent white butterflies.
On our way home, we drive part of the way down a private road where a place was for sale. We did not go all the way down this road. I would have like to; however, I was gifted to spot a large unripe walnut fruit dangling from its branch. I could imagine the bitter taste of its hull and its aromatic leaves that serve gentler digestive purposes than the walnut hull. Juglans major which resides in my high desert home is a new ally and tends well to belly woes.
New beginnings are present. Homesteading with Loba at Anima Canyon has rekindled the hearth of my heart.