NOTE: I am grateful that you are taking time to read this and engage — hitting the like button is a free and much appreciated way to support this newsletter. Thank you!

I’ve been working on this newsletter for a while and initially I was going to start this writing series with Mango, but Mauby bark pressed me to go deeper. Indigo Investigations is part of my workshop, research, & writing series “Ecologies of Color: probing the blues”. an expansive aspect of my inquiry with Ecologies of Color is investigating the various hues of blues and other potential colors which may be rendered when reducing Indigo with bioregional, ancestral, and / or discarded foods and herbs. through these investigations, it has become undeniably evident that the Indigo dye process is facilitated by the expression of many elements within an ecosystem, hence the designation Ecologies of Color. with this entry into the series, I elucidate beginning stages of the process of developing an Indigo vat with Mauby bark as a reduction agent and elemental precursor to the introduction of electrons into a solution.

in July I spent most of the month in NYC and NYS, both celebrating loved ones’ birthdays and participating in a residency program. a lot of things became lucid, one of those things being the fact that I most certainly want to focus on developing my knowledge of Indigo dye technologies and the intricacies of “The Blues” — a concept but also the continuation of legacy. this began a while ago on an auspicious spring day in sunny Florida almost 10 years ago with a full moon and a flower essence all aligned and conspiring to clarify my conceptions. it started with “The Medicine of the Blues” which later evolved into “The Indigo Keys and the Spiral Portal”, furthermore becoming “22 Flowers of Life” and “000 Womb Way”. all of these have been a method of inquiry into The Blues — everything from herbs whose flowers are blue & purple to remedies that target the womb, heart, throat & 3rd eye chakras to (flower) essencing the life within several ancestral bioregions to Indigo dye as a trigger for awakening latent memories, discharging curses, and traversing portals of remembrance & reclamation.

during this past July in NYC, my birth place, the 2nd place my parents arrived to after migrating / returning to the United States (1st place was Florida), I went with my lover on several dates to Mr. P’s, a family-owned / Trinidadian-owned ice cream shop in Flatbush, Brooklyn. they have a vibrant and delicious variety of ice cream flavors and some seasonal offerings like the elderberry-ginger ice cream that we tried this past summer. many of the flavors use ingredients such as soursop, elderberries, sorrel, guava, banana, and avocado — fruits found growing wild on the islands and grown throughout some states and in other places. the fruit and herb infusions make Mr. P’s ice creams reminiscent of other Caribbean preparations which use some of those ingredients. one of the flavors they have is Mauby bark.

as we scanned the menu on one of those dates, my boyfriend’s eyes stopped on the Mauby and he asked me about it, “what’s Mauby?”, immediately I responded by asking him, “have you ever had Mabi in DR?”. he told me he’d heard of it but has never tried it, so I explained to him that one of the main ingredients in that drink is Mauby bark. we both decided to order the Mauby ice cream, and then walked outside to where an elder sat on a lawn chair on the sun-drenched side walk, blasting through Bluetooth speakers a 90s and early 2000s DJ set by Nico Blitz. good ol’ NYC, good ol’ Little Caribbean — some things never change. so we stood there eating our ice cream and dancing as we sang some of the lyrics to old favorites and then asked the elder what mix it was. I loved that I could very distinctly taste the licorice-like sweetness in the ice cream with hints of spices, and sometimes I crave for more.

who is Mauby bark?

first things first: Mauby is definitely a Caribbean thing.

I don’t have enough fingers on my hands to count the many times in my childhood and teenage years when my father, uncles, aunts, cousins, and I made our way to Barahona to procure some Mauby bark for a bebida (Spanish for drink or beverage). it was almost ritualistic and definitely a sacred experience I treasure even more now as an adult. though I didn’t always drink Mabi, I loved the adventure of it, felt excitement witnessing my father or aunt make the drink while recounting family lore, and threw my head back as I poked my nose up to fully inhale the brewing spices’ evaporation in scent notes of cinnamon, cloves, and kin. this bebida has a slightly tangy, earthy, and refreshing flavor, often compared to root beer, and is a significant part of Dominican cultural heritage.

Mauby comes from the Snakewood tree native to the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, parts of northern South America, and South Florida — Colubrina elliptica also known as Caribbean Buckthorn or Bejuco Indio. while throughout the Caribbean it is regarded as medicinal and often sought by Mabi makers and sellers, it is grown ornamentally in places like Florida. Colubrina elliptica is an evergreen shrub or small tree that grows up to 20 feet with thin yellow-green leaves and a slender bole & branches. this tree prefers drier forest-like environments for a bit of shade though it enjoys sunlight and benefits from organic matter in the soil — Snakewood loves the tropical rocklands.

it is not uncommon for beekeepers in the Dominican Republic to establish their hives in the regions where this tree grows as it often serves as nectar and pollen for bees while also attracting wasps, butterflies, moths, and other pollinators. being an evergreen perennial, it blooms year round with yellow, white, and green flowers, fruiting orange-red on occasion. the bark appears to be flaking on the tree and is sometimes found shed around the base of the tree. this bark is high in tannins and thus renders a yellow-brown color when decocted — the color of the Mabi drink occurs naturally from the tannin levels in the bark. these tannins also contribute to the bitter-astringent aftertaste that many people speak to when drinking Mabi. astringency is one of the reasons why Mauby bark is also used to prepare solutions effective in repairing the skin. the bitterness of it supports digestion by activating saliva and the secretion of bile; this is perhaps why Caribbean peoples say that Mabi is good for diabetes, too. there are many confirmed and some not confirmed health benefits — when Caribbean folk love a plant, they LOVE that plant and may even attribute imagined benefits just to drive the point that they think the plant is special and “good for everything”.

in the early 1900s, street vendors known as Mauby women walked around with vessels of homemade Mabi on their heads — old time Dominican Mabi is most often fermented, of course depending on personal, communal, and / or familial preferences and passed down recipes. these women, with their incredible balancing act, would travel through the villages skillfully pouring Mabi through the tap on the vessel. it was not uncommon for community members, expectant, to wait outside their homes and around their work areas in anticipation of the Mauby woman, not wanting to miss her passing. in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Puerto Rico, and I’m sure other regions of the Caribbean, there are still remnants of this time. you might see a certain frutero (fruit seller) driving by with a truck bed loaded with plantains, aguacate, guanabana, limes, lechosa, and other delights, and then shortly after and at a distance see the woman approaching with the container atop her head ready to quench your thirst if you can tolerate the slight bitterness of such a refreshing (and fizzy if fermented) beverage. this is even more likely around Christmas time.

there is so much more that can be said about this beloved tree and drink, so I have been working on a full monograph for Bejuco Indio including history, memory accounts, as well family lore and recipes that have been passed on via the oral and written traditions of storytelling and recipe writing.

*note: Colubrina is listed as “Endangered” in Florida and other bioregions. more on that in the near-future monograph.

upcoming Ecologies of Color installations and other workshops

October and November are loaded, and I am grateful. I recently facilitated Intro to Bioregional Herbalism at Eartha’s Farm and Market. there are several other knowledge and plant / herb shares coming up including —

• OCTOBER 26th, NOVEMBER 2nd, and NOVEMBER 9th, 12:30-3:30pm EST

  • Ecologies of Color installation no. 4: Indigo dye workshop @ Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens

  • a 3-part workshop happening on 3 consecutive Sundays

  • inspired by the upcoming exhibition and book “Away with the Tides” by Calida Rawles. the exhibition opens at the museum on October 24th. the book is available online and I wouldn’t be surprised if the museum is selling it throughout the duration of the exhibition.

  • the story behind the coming together of this 4th installation of Ecologies of Color is loaded with synchronicity and kismet. I recently shared some* of the back story on Instagram, but can you believe that’s not even the whole story? ha!

• NOVEMBER 1st, 2-3:30pm EST

  • Coffee and Cacao Tasting @ Yellow House in collaboration with Flowers and Coffee

  • Noelle will be sharing coffee from the Black Producers Program in Brazil and I will be sharing a drink made with Cacao grown, harvested, and processed by my family in the Dominican Republic.

  • save the date and be on the lookout for registration info

• NOVEMBER 8th, 3:30-5:30pm EST

  • Community Conversation & Roselle Harvest @ Kaki’s Farm in collaboration with Clinical Traditions Herb Co

  • tour of the new farm

  • I will be leading a Roselle Harvest and facilitating a conversation around Roselle history, lore, usage, and recipes.

  • RSVP here to receive locations details and other important information

• NOVEMBER 15th and 16th, 10:30am-12:30pm EST

  • Ecologies of Color installation no. 5: basics of Indigo resist dyeing with Cassava @ Eat Your Yard Jax

  • a 2-day workshop in which we will be diving into Adire Eleko (Cassava resist dyeing) as practiced in Nigeria

*note: click the blue letters to learn more and register. hope to see your beautiful faces soon!

initial notes and recipe on developing a Mauby bark Indigo Mother

continue reading below for further disclosure of:

• phytochemistry of Mauby bark

• preparing Mauby bark for use in the vat

• where to source Mauby bark

• in the upcoming “Indigo Investigations” newsletter: how to start an Indigo Mother (with or without Mauby bark), notes and images from experiments with Mauby bark reduction

*note: this post is really “Indigo Investigations” and “Indigo Ethnobotany” all in one — those are the names of various writing series found on this Substack site.

phytochemistry of Mauby bark

the primary chemical constituents of Mauby bark include polyphenols, saponins, and alkaloids.

polyphenols have been extensively studied due to their ability to reduce and / or prevent chronic illnesses such as diabetes and hypertension. a study done by brewing

Read more

NOTE: I am grateful that you are taking time to read this and engage — hitting the like button is a free and much appreciated way to support this newsletter. Thank you!

after a hiatus from sending out newsletters and an even longer hiatus from writing Herbascopes, I am offering an expanded version of this work called Earthascopes. it arrives at no financial cost for this month, in gratitude of the support I continue to receive through the years. I am kindly asking for your engagement — a like, a comment, a share, some feedback — it contributes to what helps to keep me motivated. Earthascopes is an upgrade and update of the previously loved and sought Herbascopes. Herbascopes still exist within the Earthscopes, but it is through this progressed iteration that I am able to fully express the scope of my communion with the natural, the nature within self and all of the living encountered throughout a bioregion, between rivers, lakes, streams, and oceans. though in this channeling I continued with a focus on herbs, plants, fruits, and foods as I previously have, you will find that in future divinatory poetics, a bird, shell, rock, or sound may appear. these divinations highlight the practice of Earth communion and the ways that deep listening can change perception and alter consciousness. they are shared in the spirit that keeps us breathing, being, alive.

Mother                   loosen my tongue, or adorn me with a lighter burden. 

- Audre Lorde

for 13 days, I woke up at dawn and channeled messages for each of the zodiac signs. for 13 days, I rose in prayer with a plant, a vegetable, a fruit, an herb, a flower. in every one of those days I proceeded through the minutes and moments embodying the frequency of each sign and earth material, probing the vibration of what the stars & earths emanated. on day 1 I was Aries, and on day 12 I was Pisces. day 13 culminated with me breaking through the stellar blueprint and more fully into myself. along the way I walked with Lucille Clifton, a powerful spirit writer I have come to know through my otherworldly communications. the ritual was simple but effective — wake up at dawn, bibliomancy one of Lucille’s poem, read it twice (once in silence and once aloud), write, be the sign throughout the day, repeat for 13 days straight. my girl is rigorous in her ways, however intuitive.

day 8’s bibliomancy in How to Carry Water, a collection of poems by Lucille Clifton, rendered a reading of water sign woman. here it is —

the woman who feels everything
sits in her new house
waiting for someone to come
who knows how to carry water
without spilling, who knows
why the desert is sprinkled
with salt, why tomorrow
is such a long and ominous word.

they say to the feel things woman
that little she dreams is possible,
that there is only so much
joy to go around, only so much
water. there are no questions
for this, no arguments. she has

to forget to remember the edge
of the sea, they say, to forget
how to swim to the edge, she has
to forget how to feel. the woman
who feels everything sits in her
new house retaining the secret
the desert knew when it walked
up from the ocean, the desert,

so beautiful in her eyes;
water will come again
if you can wait for it.
she feels what the desert feels.
she waits.

I had to let this one marinate. it took me til dusk to be able to sit and write the ‘scope for Scorpio. like Aquarius, Scorpio has a penchant for diversion from the expected — sudden, abrupt, random shapeshifting. the process of all 12 was divine, entirely cosmic this portal of psychedelia. during several days of this ritual I was participating in an herbalist / writer / earth artist residency in New York State, specifically the Catskill Mountains region. it awakened something within me; it was both meaningful and consequential to go there and find almost all of the herbs, flowers, and trees that I have been working with since the very early days of my herbalism practice. this, a true full circle moment — being in my birth state and really understanding that the land has been speaking to me since birth. this, a clarity loud and altering but melodic. the melody imprinted itself in me through a live stream. (ha.)

the visions that occurred while channeling these messages contained a common thread that can be summarized in phrases such as: turning away, reassessing, reconciling, reconfiguring. there seems to also be a lot of looking beyond the self, looking beyond the immediate environment. looking toward the world and how we can best fit this enigma that is life to be in true original connection with it. we yearn to “fit into” the organic template, to be with the land, embodying truly the sanctity of what it means to have come here and now. some folks may seek to formalize teachings by aligning with certain institutions and organizations, what some may call higher education; this also signifying the inclination to deepen spiritual study and meditative practices. even more, while some may encounter happy reunions with family and friends, others are dealing with the weight and shadow that relational dynamics bring. the call will incite active remembrance (through application) of the lessons learned. evidence of progress is promised — you will inevitably feel and notice your growth. things simply won’t be the same.

for some: a lot of alone time.

another vision: a lot of women, femmes, and feminine folk coming into the spotlight, “positions of power”, serving as mentors, being seen in new light. the mother’s voice resounds; she will be heard.

without rambling further, I welcome you to take your time with these ‘scopes, share them, read them more than once, and give thanks to the plants who show us power through wisdom and love.

please note: the following does not constitute medical advice; it is shared for educational purposes. please seek proper medical support when making decisions about what herbs to consume, especially if there are physical conditions for which you are currently taking medication or receiving other therapies. do research and consider contraindications.

EARTHASCOPES

(I invite you to read the ‘scopes for you sun, rising, moon, stellium signs, venus, jupiter, north node, south node, and / or saturn signs in sidereal and / or tropical astrology.)

ARIES | calendula + cilantro + dong quai || the formula for you performs a balancing act – hot, dry, and moist all at once, the herbs & flowers here come to further accentuate your magnetism by tempering the flame and simultaneously prompting smoother flow and output. your current energetic frequency is showing up emblazoned yet overwhelmed by its own fire; it leaves you yearning for a relief and this relief comes in the form of something so simple as both water and air – the moisture and lightness of calendula & cilantro, the fluid swelling incited by dong quai through movement of the blood. you are invigorated by the life coursing through you, and maybe it has been a while since you felt so…. alive, awake, aware. you are attracting and attractive, yet this also means you must sift through all the incoming in order to mindfully / heartfully and properly preserve that which is worth keeping and integrating – everything should not be welcome.

for the bleeding womb-bearers, there is also a particular message – pay attention to what happens between your menstrual and follicular phases as these parts of the cycle are especially conducive to you attaining long-sought clarity and evolving into desired expansion. the menstrual will urge you into quiet, while the follicular will enable you to act on the wisdom realized during your bleed. sip on a light infusion of dong quai and calendula on those days for the next couple of months and watch the magick unfold. with calendula as a partner of your progress, you are afforded support for longstanding stagnant conditions – physical, spiritual, emotional, and / or mental. cilantro also aids the overdue movement and may even come in handy during instances when your head, in these times, could experience ache and otherwise sensitivity. make a fresh apple juice, add some lemon, cucumber, basil, and cilantro – your body and, specifically, your head will thank you.

TAURUS | sage + fennel + queen anne’s lace || are you coughing a lot lately? or maybe not saying it “with your chest”, so suppressing what wants to come up and out? all of these plants possess some degree of aromatic qualities, so it is giving that there is an air in you that needs to be released through words, a cough, song, a sigh, a fart – you need to just let it go, for real. the plants are also saying that you haven’t been spending nearly enough time nourishing your body well enough and need to clean up your eating habits and spend more time preparing your own meals. stop eating out so much; it is not helping your pockets nor your belly. you are being given seeds to plant and grow, perhaps literally, and you’ll need to retreat into solitude to adequately nurture what is being born. the vibrational signature here is of high fertility so you can be sure that if you've been trying to get pregnant, you soon will, or if you have been working to manifest a vision, it will swiftly make its way out of your head within the coming seasons (autumn to spring). before you can get there, though, you need to clear your vessel / stomach and open your heart.

congestion of the chest, heart, stomach, and reproductive regions is slowing you down. queen anne’s lace & sage have an affinity for clearing congestion of the respiratory and reproductive systems, while fennel & queen anne’s lace also support digestive wellness. for all of this, the root of queen anne’s lace can be eaten as you would a carrot. drinking a cup of infusions of sage & fennel 30 minutes before or 30 minutes after a meal on an every two day’s basis for a couple of weeks will also enhance your body’s self-cleansing functions. because some of the less than healthy tendencies you have recently been acting out are in part influenced by some of the company you have kept, it behooves you to retreat for some time until you break through the impact of being so easily affected by others. this isn’t a “bad” thing; it really just speaks to the level of sensitivity you possess – you feel deeply and pick up on energies that aren’t even yours, and while that is a gift, you must learn to wield it with better precision. tune out the outside chatter, and tap in. you will emerge as a more disciplined, devoted, and developed being. protect your precious energy; it is your greatest resource.

GEMINI | spearmint + onion + mullein || you are in need of the old-time remedies, and all 3 of these have figured heavily in folk formulae from the past still offering support for our ailments today. not only do the allies coming through for you offer a physical revival of sorts, they also prompt you to “go back and get it”. return to your roots, retrace the steps of your ancestors, gather that information, document those stories lest they die with those passing and are forgotten, never told. there is a healing coming through for your lineage, a reconciliation happening within you on a genetic level which has been prayed for by spirits who, for one reason or another, had / have lived in opposition to each other. there is a coming together. are you going to a family reunion soon or going to visit family? pay attention to what is said by your people, however unsettling. you, more than anybody else in your lineage, will know exactly what to do with what you learn at this time.

onion is a fire, and it doesn’t just burn – it awakens and enlivens. the past is coming to the fore for resolution, and the herbs provide you with the power to break curses and dispel the idea that you are bound to stay stuck in loops that are actually spirals. there is always a way through just like there is a way out. a bath with spearmint and mullein while you burn like incense the skins of red onions will serve as a much needed boost for your vitality. if, as you are doing the inner labor of breaking through, you begin to experience respiratory congestion, make an infusion with these 3 and drink as needed until the issue clears up. there are so many ways you can work with these plants, so the charge of the moment is also inciting creative expression. whether a bath, a burn, a drink, or an offering, each of these herbs can aid and exalt the potency that this moment is giving you. stay steady with them and within a few months you will have experienced major necessary changes.

CANCER | nettle + feverfew + yarrow || a new strength is born in you, and it is supported by an enforcement of boundaries which serve to protect you from intrusive forces – thoughts, ideas, habits, people, even places. you are encountering nascent discipline, something that may have felt elusive to you in the more recent past. life really is changing, for the better, despite the fact that this moment could very well be calling you to do things that could initially feel difficult – maybe it is spending time doing workouts that could feel a bit more on the intense side, releasing relationships and partnerships that are overdue to change form, or perhaps it is the nagging need to dopamine detox and take time away from social media or other streams that otherwise consume a lot of your time and attention. in either case, strength is indeed activated and you find it easier to do these things however daunting the tenacity required may at times feel. nettle steps forward to offer both the deep nourishment and the sometimes uncomfortable medicine that you most need in these moments. they challenge you to persevere despite the ‘sting’ you may feel when trudging through the unruly landscapes within.

this is all assisted by the magick of feverfew which, in various traditions, is employed to shift the emotions into more harmonious and balanced dispositions. in medicinal application, feverfew is ideal for headaches, fevers, menstrual cramps, and even digestive issues. like nettle, they are powerfully anti-inflammatory and, in combination, will serve to dispel the irritations that arise as you continue to build your strengths, physical and otherwise. other qualities of feverfew which will feel supportive to you in this time is the way that their headache soothing attributes translate to clarifying thought and dispelling feelings of discomfort and negativity. yarrow has also shown up for you here, especially indicated as one to support the so-called ‘limits’ you are setting for yourself – limitations to the unhealthy and unhelpful aspects of your expressions, limitations that will inevitably enable expansion toward what you actually want to create and experience. yarrow also touches upon the head space which is so active for you in this season, enhancing psychic energies and promoting a deeper innerstanding of perceptions. the remedy here is an infusion of nettles with a couple of feverfew flowers and leaves. before imbibing this mix, place a couple drops of yarrow essence on your tongue and let it marinate there for a bit. sit with these 3 and allow them to work on you without the expectation of any particular outcomes. magick, strength, and clarity of direction will abound.

LEO | jasmine flowers + peaches + ginger || I love this for you, Leo, because even if it may not immediately feel like it, you are overdue for celebrations. I see children around you, and while Leo is THE sign of children and playfulness, these children are representative of the spirit of this time in your life. people around you, if not yourself, may be having babies or may ask you to care for their children at some point. beyond that, you are also being asked to tap into your inner child self, play a bit, release the tension in your shoulders, unclench your jaw, unfurl your brow, jump 3 times, let loose. if you’re invited to a party or other form of celebratory event, go. you will find that it is exactly what you need and, who knows, you may even meet someone who will figure heavily in your future. there is also a lot of ‘family’ energy around, so there is something good and beneficial for you and your close loved ones. it could be that the person you meet while out will feel like family, a soul mate, someone you’ve known for lifetimes. the sweet heat spirit here is bringing you the warmth of love and kinship while also bestowing you with the pleasures that you know and enjoy all too well.

eat a peach if that is a fruit you delight in. savor it, take your time. recall – where in your childhood was peach present? how was it consumed or prepared? how did those moments feel for you? you may want to do some journaling here. make a sweet heat infusion blend and sip it slow – a teaspoon of jasmine flowers, 2 teaspoons of ginger root (or more to your liking), a peach cut into pieces and mashed in mortar & pestle all simmered in 2-3 cups of water on low heat for a few minutes. add a bit of honey after you pour some in a cup. ginger promises to animate and activate you, get you out of whatever slump you could experience. ginger also helps to restore vitality and health to cells and organs while speeding things up, something that is ideal to bring into whatever you are working on and through. jasmine, as a symbol of creativity, is excellent to pair with ginger because they work well to support us with the courage and confidence needed to see our visions into fruition. it is truly no wonder that a fruit showed up for you. with all the energy you are putting into expressing the creative spark in you, you are bound to see returns on the labors of your heart and mind. feast!

VIRGO | tulsi + watermelon + strawberries || the signs on the road you travel read, “take pause”, “cool down”, “breathe”, “be patient”, “you’re almost there but… not quite yet”, “you know a lot but not everything”, “living is for learning, learning is for the living, and you are alive”. a synthesis is occurring within which you are holding containers with ingredients that offer you an array of combinations. these combinations afford you particular results, yet your current work is to first and foremost figure out what you really want. you may want to write it down. after you write down what you think you want, spend some time investigating why, for who, and the longevity of what you may create. if it’s for views and likes, you already what they are going to say – immediately no. it’s “funny”, but your spirits ain’t playin’ with you. at this point in your journey, you have experienced enough to know better and, thus, do better. your spirits aren’t reprimanding you in their seeming demand to shift your methods of and motives for operations, but they most certainly are ready to travel with you to the next level. you will be required to change several things, mainly habits and, in some instances, your relational circle. adaptogenic and calming tulsi offers their energy to the endeavor of clarification and may be supportive to the meditative moments which accompany renewal. make an infusion with their leaves to sip on in quietude or sit with the plant in silence and listening — a new day and way frequents the bed of your desires.

some of these things are as simple as changing how and what you’re eating. in this case, it benefits you to increase your intake of fruit while decreasing the intake of certain denser foods that, while tasty and delightful to your senses, make you feel actually weighed down through the way they increase discharge (mucus, mostly, through its various outlets). pay attention to what you’re consuming in general and opt toward the seemingly(!) more difficult task of doing something that feels nourishing even if it’s just taking a walk instead of doomscrolling or looking for / thinking about the next thing to post. this vision of you with containers that hold certain ingredients also indicates that you are perhaps cooking more, spending time preparing things with your hands, looking into recipes for healthier alternatives to your favorite dishes, and / or otherwise in contemplation of what you have been gathering and the results these elements render. fruits in general or, specifically for you, red fruits, strawberries, watermelon, cherries, raspberries, pomegranate are showing up as especially ideal in feeling and act of self-love. strawberry is not only beloved, but also symbolic of love, supportive to fertility, and storied. watermelon is equally storied, signaling to resistance in many histories. for you and in your story this resistance should be toward what no longer serves your process, progress, growth. as you eat these fruits, feel the love and resistance that creates revolution in you.

LIBRA | burdock + zinnia + strawflower || akin to your nature, this season has been and will continue to feel ‘airy’ for you. the airiness can take a variety or combination of forms – you may feel a playful spirit within and around you, you could also experience ungroundness, lack of clear direction, or otherwise a sense of ‘being in your own world’. maybe you’ve been smoking or smudging? whatever the case, burdock came through to give you grounding in the form of nourishment. burdock is a cleansing and nutritive plant which assists in a sort of decluttering of our insides to make way for proper integration of the good the body is receiving while also supporting the function of hormonal signals. because the sense of ungroundedness that some of you are experiencing may come from feeling like you are in a waiting period, which is oftentimes a liminal space, you are advised to transmute that sense of liminality into preventative actions so that when the next phase shows up you are well-equipped with health and internal stability. the transmutation could be accessed through you cleansing some of your eliminative and transportive / transformative organs – think colon cleanse, liver cleanse, lung cleanse, blood cleanse. you may also be up for a mid-late season home, phone, or studio clearing. donate, delete, reorient, reorganize. throughout all of this, it is important that the child-like and playful spirit is kept alive and fed with regular doses of literal sunshine, active wondering, and encouraged curiosity. is there something you have been wondering whether you should spend time and money to take a class on but haven’t done it because you don’t see the point or how it would be profitable in other ways? do it anyways. everything does not need to become a public spectacle in order for it to be worth your doing and pursuit.

procure a flower essence of zinnia. this is a flower whose imprint inspires joy and humor. while the times may be trying and tense, the reminder is that we should not feel guilty for finding moments of laughter and pleasure even when the going and global affairs feel rather tough, bleak, or dark. a couple of drops of the essence when you are beginning to experience uncertainty will help to quell the discomfort and guide you toward a lighter disposition. a potent decoction of burdock will also come in handy when irritability sets in and could show up as inflammation in the body. burdock supports liver function that helps to regulate inflammatory states which sometimes show up as anger and annoyance. as a recipe for light-hearted grounding – put a couple of drops of the zinnia essence in the burdock decoction. perhaps before this, you would have gathered some strawflowers, dried them while also gathering the other materials for a wreath, floral bouquet, or other creative expression that calls to you as you pass through this in-between time and linger in your own worlds. let your mind and heart meander through the “pointless” yet fulfilling activities which call to you. when feeling mentally exhausted and lethargic, just sip some tea and let yourself be without expectation. await what naturally follows – something else, something different.

SCORPIO | rompe saraguey + echinacea + corn || it happens randomly, but what you keep replaying in your head is the cause of the heartache that still assails you on occasion. it happens randomly, and you want it to stop when it starts and say you don’t know where it comes from. it comes from before you and it is a spell overdue for breaking. this is the grief that sometimes wells and settles in your chest, leaves you breathless before you even realize what’s happened. it goes and leaves in parts and pieces every time you sigh and yawn and sneeze. it’s not meant to stay, it’s not meant to be this way forever. but for now and for a while, you are still facing the past ignoring that some folks keep saying “today is different and new”. and your ignoring is for good reason – you’ve never been one to shy away from confronting the harsher reality of things. it’s hard to turn away because every time you hear about something else happening in this world, something more painful somehow, you are reminded that the past remains in the coding memory creates, that there is a lesson in the suffering and sometimes this knowing makes you believe that suffering will always be necessary for learning, but here the spell broken reminds you that is not true. but it feels persistently present, right? because someone in your lineage before you experienced it or something like it, too. have you inquired to find out who? the answer may come to you in dreams, or somewhere and some time within your days hearing names you don’t immediately have connection to but which resonate as a familiar sound “for some reason”. pay attention. listen.

rompe saraguey is a plant used through Afro-Caribbean practices, and it is known to be a ‘spell breaker’, with the word “rompe” translated as “break” or “to break”. its medicinal application affords us respiratory and immune support, an essence which translates into the subtle qualities of breaking up of stagnant conditions, repelling influences that feel oppressive, and offering protection to our body and auric field. for its strengthening effect, rompe saraguey is used in baths to boost energy and clear whatever may be dampening one’s chi and power. break ‘saraguey’ (break ‘adverse conditions and connections’) in a spiritual bath could prove to be ideal for you in this time, while drinking a light infusion of echinacea, another strengthener, combines well with the immune supportive qualities of rompe saraguey and thus further enhance the shield created around your force field. because you are a force to be reckoned with, you ought to maintain your hygiene on all levels, lest the power leaks through holes created by lingering too long with grief without giving it a proper outlet. this bath and infusion is also ideal in establishing boundaries with ancestral energies and trauma that has been passed through genes for too long. this time is about code shifting to create a more sustaining and sustainable matrix. the corn here comes to reveal something about how sometimes our genes can be modified into a weakening or a strengthening, so corn is a warning and signal that though it is natural and even necessary to love who and what we come from, we do not have to accept nor infinitely continue to loop according to trauma which weakens.

SAGITTARIUS | sarsaparilla + sunflower + marigold || to start – bring more warm colors into your life perhaps through wardrobe, adornments, or home decor. to continue – pace yourself; none of what you’re doing or thinking of doing has to happen all at once. your “game” should be played for longevity – don’t get stuck on seeing immediate results because you’ll surely get stuck, going nowhere knowing dang well you love to go far. the warm colors are here to help keep you active and motivated while also accentuating the lighter aspects of your temperament. in the coming months you are journeying through the effort and work required to create behavioral liberty by establishing better habits which support your goals and, ultimately, outcomes. as you are making strides en route to this upgraded sense of sovereignty, it is important to tune into physical messages and cues as to what you should be giving attention to and taking care of. you may notice that your skin may experience inflammation or irritation more easily or even feel drier than usual. for some of you, liver and kidneys may need some loving care, while for others the digestive system has been feeling particularly sensitive – perhaps some unexplained nausea, occasional constipation, or other sense of digestive upset.

it is useful to stay grounded in the practical aspects of what you’re moving with; your health should be a priority right now to avoid the development of unwanted conditions. sarsaparilla, sunflower, and marigold all have in common that they are effective for skin healing. sarsaparilla powder is used in face masks, while paired with a decoction of its root, you receive double the skin healing through the cleansing effect that this root has on the liver. combining this decoction with the infusion of marigold flowers can also benefit all of the aforementioned organs and functions – marigold has been reported as a digestive aid clearing aches, inflammation, and indigestion. besides their physical qualities, they each impart a magickal essence that helps to support action and enhances a sense of motivation to maintain beneficial habits. the warm color you may need to bring into your life could come through simply sitting amongst a group of sunflowers and / or marigolds; maybe even planting some of their seeds and nurturing the connection made there. in your doing, make sure to carry forth the requests of your creative yearnings; and in building a relationship with these plants, be open to learning more about them and allowing what you learn to serve as inspiration for how you may further commune with each of these spirits. for your fire, the element of earth is showing up as a vital source.

CAPRICORN | blue lotus + marsh mallow + okra || you are cloaked in a blanket of protection and care; you are carried even and especially in the moments when you feel most alone and insecure – trust the benevolence that walks with you. there is an image of a particularly spiritual figure showing up in your surrounding court. it could be a physical being such as a teacher, mentor, or someone from whom you are receiving guidance and instruction; it could be an aspect of yourself. it appears that you are being prompted to interrogate certain ideas, beliefs, and perspectives to avoid allowing your sense of self to become compromised for the ideologies and belief systems which are born of questionable intentions and less than honorable motives. the remedies here, calming, cooling, slightly warming with certain applications, and moistening facilitate coherent decision-making and the mild “detachment” necessary to break through what may feel illusory. this being around you, whether an energy within yourself being expressed to ensure a smooth transition, a mentor, or a spirit guide, offers you a sense of security and trust in your own knowing. if you feel called to step away from a particular institution, group, or set of rules and systems, spend some time interrogating why – these meditative moments will prove revelatory.

that two mallow family plants showed up, marsh mallow and okra, is indicative that the water is an essential element during this time. if you have been feeling thirstier than usual, especially with the heat of this summer, remember to hydrate regularly. okra water has become all the craze these days, and it is a drink that would serve you well in these times. in various diasporic traditions, okra is regarded as both cleansing and protective – two qualities which are well-suited in the current transit you are experiencing. a boost to that could be through making an infusion of blue lotus or a decoction of marsh mallow root, and adding a couple of ounces of either or both of these to your okra water, sweetening with honey to inspire benevolence, and adding a bit of lime or lemon juice to ensure a thorough cleansing and full protection. blue lotus enhances clarity of mind and heart, so as you are sifting through the ideas and beliefs that seem to lack integrity, blue lotus will help to reinforce your own lucidity and support your voyage toward new beginnings. to support throat activation and harmonize the vocal cords, marsh mallow and okra, with their mucilage, soothe, soften, and supply vitality. drink more water, infuse it with herbs and fruits.

AQUARIUS | hawthorn + skullcap + black eyed susan || it would benefit you to stop isolating yourself “on the path to success”. it would benefit you to embrace community, however risky, and apply the well-worn and worked power of discernment. if you move in trust of what you know of people, human behavior, and your own intuitive nature, you will be safe. and even in moments when both insecurity and ill-intentions threaten, you will know exactly what to do because you are listening to the voice in you. wherever you go, you are with yourself – that can’t be lost to traveling in the circles of friendship and other relations. though weary, wary, and probably still grieving certain fall-outs, community calls you to integrate and build networks in the ways that only you can and know how to. there is something you are working on that would be easier and probably more successful if you brought people in to support the process and offer their talents in the spirit of collective development. the reason you may feel stuck in some areas is because you are not engaging the potential for other input and, thus, a greater outcome. trust yourself but also trust those who show up wanting to help or collaborate. again, discernment here – you are not wrong in the sensing that some do come with dubious intentions or simply for their own gain.

wherever you go, you are with yourself – and you are not alone; hawthorn, skullcap, and black-eyed susan want to walk with you. one of them, especially, has made their presence known lately. skullcap and hawthorn both have a shielding power; skullcap soothing and thereby shielding the nerves, and hawthorn supporting the heart and blood. the combination of these perhaps as infusion or tincture can benefit grounding through enabling us to tap in to the wealth of relief that is always available to us in many ways, and in ways as simple as stepping outside and taking a deep breath, stepping out and laughing with friends, stepping out in trust of the goodness that exists. black eyed susan furthers the medicine by gifting you insight into the lingering shadows and methods for transmutation. as a flower essence, black eyed susan is a catalyst that unlocks old and repressed emotions and memory allowing them to meet the light of day and find a new path. the remedy calls for engagement and communion – procure seeds of skullcap. in a cup, place a couple of drops of black eyed susan essence in hawthorn infusion. sip on this infusion and essence blend while you hold a couple of skullcap seeds. later, plant the seeds as you utter affirmation for what you envision. share this ritual with a loved one.

PISCES | fenugreek + beets + apples || you have made good decisions which afford you much of the balance & harmony you feel these days. doors opening, dreams coming to fruition, and still so much left to do and become. you grow weary at times in recollection of the sacrifices required for what you are creating; sacrifices which have asked you to release certain connections or forgo the instant gratification of socialization for a more ‘set apart’ life. what is showing up here is also about finally recognizing where your greatest power lies and deciding to exert more energy there as opposed to toward areas and ideas that aren’t empowered by your truest self or deepest desires. the frequency of this time encourages you to be self-aware and find comfort in knowing that the path you walk is distinct and especially yours. developing this image further, it seems you are actually walking through the woods, in an area with a lot of vegetation or ease of access to it, so it could be that the abundance bestowed on you is a deepening connection with the natural and a sense that you need to return to or continue a journey with the land. whether you decide to expand upon an herbal practice, take your garden to the next level, or engage in more physical activity (dance, yoga, regular exercise, etc), the earth element is strong here and the fruits of labor surround you even if you don’t immediately see them. whatever the case, the foods and herbs presenting themselves as your accomplices are charged with constituents that make them ideal for physically demanding days and labor laden tasks.

beets and apples are symbols of love – from their often redness to the way their juices invigorate blood, beets and apples are known to activate the heart and feelings of contentment. I see you making a juice with these two and drinking some before having to engage in labors of love, toiling on the land or maybe preparing remedies for the beloved. beets contain compounds that support oxygenation of the blood and brain making it ideal for days when physical endurance is demanded. fenugreek have a similar quality, having been tested and found to increase durability, extending the length of continuity on the journey. in certain magickal traditions, fenugreek is regarded as a money-drawing herb and it seems that this is another aspect translated from its ability to aid endurance and enhance stamina, allowing one “to do” for longer and perhaps see returns on that doing. through whatever grounding of visions you are traversing, these 3 allies say that they provide a vibrant disposition and a strong body to help you progress and proceed.

other offerings

though still in the throes of expanding upon the visual language of my practice (what some would call “rebranding”), the shop is currently open and I am also offering tarot divinations. your support of the shop and work will help me to fund this new iteration of Gold Water Alchemy, pay some bills, and buy food / food ingredients for my cats who often sit with me while I am divining.

here is a breakdown of tarot divination service and how to book a reading with me —

• 30 minutes for $60 / answers up to 3 questions

• 60 minutes for $110 / answers up to 5 questions

  • once you make payment, please email me (goldwateralchemy@gmail.com) with confirmation of payment and your questions

  • turn-around time is about 72 hours from the time questions are received

  • you can pay via ~

    • Zelle (preferred) - goldwateralchemy@gmail.com

    • Cashapp (preferred) - $goldelsie

    • PayPal - goldwateralchemy@gmail.com

I will close the books to scheduling divinations on August 15th. after the 15th, I will only be reading for those who scheduled by that date.

thank you!

in health and abundance,

Elsie

NOTE: I am grateful that you are taking time to read this and engage — hitting the like button is a free and much appreciated way to support this newsletter. Thank you!

Remedy Recipe is an ongoing series of formulaic writings featured on this Substack, and it is born of the knowing that the word recipe has origins in that which is prescribed for purposes of healing. in the late 1500s, recipe was used to denote “a medical prescription, a formula for the composing of a remedy written by a physician”. whether one was writing down the details for how to bake a cake or how to make a cough syrup at home, recipes had similar goals outside of just tasting good or being appealing to the senses — they were intended to be crafted as health maintaining and promoting. thus Remedy Recipe is shared as a method of recalling the origin of these older “recipes” which were created with health in mind.

this word, recipe, also has other implications — it has relation with the words receive and even receipt. it implies a give and take dynamic — the one being given the recipe / prescription is both recipient and executer of a particular order or instruction given for one’s benefit.

but, oh, how times have changed!

in Spanish, the word for recipe & prescription is the same — receta. it is used in culinary & medical terms. the first recetas came from our grandmothers, and then surrogate systems were created so now most prescriptions get passed on by doctors in white coats who connect to us very little and know us not at all. we now take our prescriptions to pharmacies which mirror the way old scripts would be taken to a farmacist (herbalist) skilled in the art of compounding (processing, dosing, blending, & mixing) herbs and minerals and who would then craft the medicine. today’s process has remnants of that time yet is evidently different.

much of the formulation process by the farmacist was often accompanied by ceremonial & ritual work, at the very least an incantation. in those times, the process of restorative healing was one which included awareness of the spiritual facet of our existence — the “gods” / spirits in the plants were invoked for their healing powers. the practice has not been lost entirely — us so-called “eclectic doctors” still partake in the expression of this practice. maybe in a past we might have been burned at the stake, but we are here again today — seeds sprouted from a rich soil. such is the spiral of life.

one of the earliest known (surviving) recorded recipes is from Mesopotamia and it is for a brew or stew of sorts. the record does not include extensive instructions for preparation methods but rather features a listing of ingredients and is considered to have been a memory account for more experienced cooks. one can assume these cooks knew exactly what to do with these ingredients. the process may have been one of trial and error, but those ancestors knew the importance of writing down recipes for posterity. I like to imagine that once they found something that worked, they would write it down to make sure they / we could remember it later.

there is plenty to give thanks for because it is also true that some of our folks got sick or died formulating recipes and remedies, dealing with the chemistries, trying to figure out what would be helpful for this or that ache, pain, and ailment. they wandered through the woods, into their yards, and in wild fashion would taste plant parts that they did not yet know to be poisonous at a certain dose. so as I look at these “vintage recipes”, I also consider that many of them feature ingredients one would readily find in the kitchen because that was the best way to ensure safety, life, and longevity. like we are now, they were still learning.

kitchen herbalism is storied

the herbalism I grew up on was practiced at home, in the kitchen. no fancy laboratory equipment necessary, no clinical training hours because my people carried information that they received from generations prior — and thank goodness I paid attention! while I’ve formalized my herb studies through various institutions and teachers, the wisdom of my elders has remained the most impactful foundation for what has become my life’s work.

for us anis, canela, albahaca, ajo, cebolla, jenjibre, romero, oregano, cilantro, perejil, manzanilla, hoja de limoncillo, and several others have long been staples. recipes / prescriptions including each of these abound on both sides of my family, and this speaks to me of how the land connects us through food & plants despite whatever distances in physical location. before my parents met, their families were crafting formulae, food, and story with these herbs, and perhaps in some silent magickal way weaving the threads that eventually brought my parents together. these instances & histories are part of both the mystery and beauty of life.

“My daddy used to cook medicine – herbs medicine; seamuckle, pine top, life everlasting, shoemaker root, ground moss, peachtree leaf, big-root, bloodroot, red oak bark, terrywuk,” said a lifelong resident of Johns Island, one of many sea islands off the coast of South Carolina.

I read this quote in an article titled “A PLACE IN HISTORY: Black herbal medicine has a long history” by Don Scott. what stood out to me about the quote, besides the listing of herbs, was that the person said “my daddy used to cook medicine”. cook, not only because that is what actually happened but because it likely happened in the kitchen or something likened to a kitchen, at the very least containing some sort of kitchen apparatus.

kitchen herbalism is old.

“Yet, the medicinal creativity of African Americans persisted with the likes of my “Big Momma,” utilizing plants such as pine needles, peach leaves and red onions for chest colds, witch-hazel leaves and bark for skin irritations, Spanish moss for high-blood pressure, mushrooms for sores, silkweed root for rheumatism and pumpkin seeds for dropsy, just to name a few. Today, huge corporate conglomerates have investigated many of those so-called “old time” remedies and made much money from the medicine or active ingredients that unheralded folks like “Big Momma” knew about all along – more than a few likely brought from Africa”, writes Don Scott.

in reading all of this, I am also reminded of George Washington Carver.

the story goes that Ancestor Carver, after a boll weevil infestation had caused much damage to cotton plants, planted peanuts, had already planted sweet potatoes and pecans which all resulted in an unexpected abundance of harvest. in an effort to not waste anything he developed recipes with each of these, producing a wide array of goods including the widely loved and often used peanut butter. there’s an even more interesting story about how Carver, who’d long been an artist, also created color out of the skin of sweet potatoes and other plant, fruit, & food parts developing paints of a variety of hues including the world’s favorite - blue. this is an important anecdote because it illustrates the expanse of innovation which begins in the kitchen and how it often happens alongside plants, herbs, food.

rubbing salts, marinades, seasonings, and other flavoring agents are often composed of herbs and figure heavily in modern development of recipes. these earth materia are charged with story as they also speak of the impetus for ancient voyages and world exploration. many if not all of us have heard the tales of how them old Europeans sailed the sea in search of spices. but it wasn’t just them. in fact, they’d learned a lot of things from the folk who built their homes along the coast of the Mediterranean, all sides. a triangle of trade had previously ensued and enabled folks to come into contact with elements that only certain environments could afford them. people paid in gold, silver, ebony, and ivory for spices and salt. to me, these narratives are imbued with an undercurrent of something greater at play — natural intelligence, the land itself, urges us into movement & communication. the seeds make their way around the world through many species, humans included. so while we like to imagine that we have dominion over the earth and enact it through pillaging and bloodletting, all of these stories cause me to wonder - whose will is truly being enacted?

on earth as it is in heaven.

kitchen herbalism calls us into reciprocal relationship — you have to pay attention. if you add too much of this or that, the result may be too sweet, too sour, too bitter, too salty. the result may be sickening, a poison.

lean not (only) on your own understanding. the earth is a tireless teacher.

Emma Dupree, also known as Granny Woman, Aunt Emma, and Little Medicine Thing, is another herbalist who left us a rich legacy. Aunt Emma formulated and prepared elixirs, tonics, salves, infusions, and decoctions. using herbs like mullein, rabbit tobacco, catnip and various other mints, tansy, goldenrod, and others she established herself as an indispensable & frequently consulted figure in the community. she was also an early proponent of mutual aid systems because she wanted to ensure that the folks who sought her had access to healing regardless of whether they could afford it or not. rather than charging a fixed price for her remedies, she would often barter for supplies that she could use in future preparations. these would include molasses, lemon, vinegar, and oils — items we regularly find in kitchens.

the recipe

decoctions are some of my favorite preparations — I know I have said that in the past. Traditional Dominican Medicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Traditional African Medicine, Ayurveda, and others all have some rendition of a decoction. the premise is that certain plant stuffs (the heavier ones - seeds, berries, barks, roots, etc) require longer exposure to heat in water so that the constituents and medicine can be fully extracted. decoctions simmer over a heat source which is different from an infusion where hot water is poured over the herbs and then the material is allowed to steep. decoctions are deeply medicinal and can be equally delicious depending on the herb flavors being combined. infusions are most ideal for the softer plant parts including leaves and flowers.

note that there is a lot of nuance to preparing a decoction and certain plant parts, even though dense, warrant an infusion. for instance, fennel seeds and valerian roots both contain volatile oils and constituents which can be evaporated & lost if decocted, so it is most beneficial when these are infused instead. herbalism is as much a science as it is a traditional art.

here, I am sharing the recipe of a decoction that is supportive for the transitional period between seasons and will offer nourishment and power to the organs, our vital energy, and the visions we are carrying forth into our tomorrows.

this recipe will call for schizandra berries, burdock root, and hawthorn berries. schizandra berries is a medicine for the times. frequently used in Traditional Chinese Medicine formulation, the five flavors berry (as it is otherwise known) is a full body tonic that supports liver function, boosts energy, and provides stress relief and hormonal balance. schizandra berries, by way of its action on the blood & nervous system, is also effective for cleansing the body of heavy metal toxicity and exposure to radiation. this is supported by the action of hawthorn berries which are rich in vitamin C and thus provide the body with antioxidant support, while burdock root brings minerals and nutrition deep into the tissue, serving as a great follow-through agent for the processes that schizandra activates.

preparations —

• gather the following plant materia — burdock root, hawthorn berries, & schizandra berries

• gather these materials — a pot with a lid, spring water, strainer, stirring spoon, serving vessels, sweetener (raw honey is ideal because it is both nutritional and medicinal)

• grind or break up the plant material and / or add into a jar and cover with room temperature water and allow it to sit for 1-2 hours before brewing

measurements & ingredients —

• 2 tbsp schizandra berries

• 1.5 tbsp burdock root

• 2 tsp hawthorn berries

• 4-6 cups of cold water

• honey to taste (optional)

process —

1. place ingredients in a pot and pour cold water over them. cold water is ideal here because using hot or boiling water can impact the herb materia’s mineral matrix causing the constituents to resist extraction by sticking together.

2. cover the pot with a lid and turn heat on to low-medium.

3. slowly bring water to a boil.

4. shift to low heat and allow it to simmer for 30-45 minutes.

5. turn off the heat source.

6. the water level will have decreased and resulted in a concentrated preparation which can be “diluted” with 1 extra cup of water.

7. strain and serve + sweeten to your liking (but not too much, you should still taste the flavors of the formula).

8. whatever you do not drink on the day of, store in a glass jar and keep in fridge for up to 3 days.

9. when reheating, do not place in a microwave and instead heat slowly on the stove ensuring it does not boil.

upcoming workshops & events

there are several things happening in March and April that I am looking forward to and hope you will join me at.

MARCH

• 9th — 2nd Annual Spring Herbal Festival at Eat Your Yard Jax from 11am-3pm EST

  • I will be sharing some new remedies, GWA’s signature herbal blend infusion Wild Heart, Clear Mind, seeds, and more.

  • herb tea tastings

  • I will also be doing three 15-minute tours of the Herb Growing Garden, EYYJ’s herb garden that I have been improving and revamping. come see what I have been working on; it is a work-in-progress!

• 23rd — Womb Wealth, Wisdom, and Wellness: healing, hearing, and feeling ourselves at Adanne Bookshop (in Brooklyn, NY) from 2-4pm EST

  • this workshop is an introduction into using herbal medicine to heal, hear, and feel ourselves. among much information, it will feature a womb massage demo and an herb crafting session.

APRIL

• 12th — Food is Medicine: crafting culinary herb remedies for every day use at Eat Your Yard Jax from 10:30am-12:30pm EST

  • a deeper dive into the information shared in this post, including herb craft and more

• 27th — Jax Veg Fest at Myrtle Avenue Brewing from 11am-5pm EST

  • I will be vending infusion blends, extracts, seeds, and other goods.

  • herb tea tastings

in health and abundance,

Elsie Lopez

NOTE: long-form is really my thing, (I am working on writing succinctly), so I kindly recommend that you read this on a browser or the Substack app. Substack warned me that the post is too long for email so it may get cut off and you will not be able to read the full thing via email. Thank you so much for taking the time to reminisce with me.

Also, hitting the like button is a free and much appreciated way to support this newsletter. Thank you!

it’s been an arduous and rewarding 10 years since Gold Water Alchemy became a public practice, and it’s been well over the 10,000 hours that is regarded as the amount of time it takes to become an expert inching toward mastery of a craft. while I am wary of such terms and regard myself as more of a lifelong student, I do take the time to literally give myself flowers while I can still smell them. there is much to celebrate and give thanks for. what started as a deep journey of remembrance evolved into something greater than me and greater than I initially imagined. in 2014, after several friends repeatedly encouraged me to join Instagram as a way to share my photos, I obliged and joined the ‘gram — at that time I’d been shooting on a 35mm Pentax film camera while living in Chicago. on the first account I made I would post a lot of images of the things that I was doing, seeing and feeling inspired by. there were lots of pictures of infusions and herbs and me playing around with labels for some imagined collection of blends and elixirs.

my follower count increased and amongst those followers was Lauren Ash who founded Black Girl in Om in 2014. on an auspicious winter day accentuated by a clear sky and crisp air, I was looking at messages in my phone while on a bus commute through the west side of the city and saw that Lauren had sent me one in response to a post of an herbal infusion. in it she asked if I was willing and available to share my teas with a wider audience. I gratefully said yes to which she further responded with a formal invite to curate a tea-tasting and sharing experience at Alexandria Eregbu’s artist residency at the Chicago Cultural Center. Alexandria’s residency was titled On the Spirit and it included a series of creative wellness workshops featuring yoga, meditation, breath-work, herbalism, and other healing experiences alongside the display of her visual art and explorations.

my first couple of herbal blends included infusions for immunity, chakra balancing, cellular health, and womb wellness. it was like this, in a simply intuitive and spirit-led way, that I began with the endeavor.

prior to that fateful day I was already doing things like leading a ‘trial’ herbalism and plant science apprenticeship which I offered to my friends Christine & Marq for free. we would go to the Garfield Park Conservatory and spend hours in intimate investigation of the plants, learning their names and language, feeling their texture, tasting their flavor, listening, feeling. in the years following January 20, 2015, I have traveled with this work, cried about it, felt exhausted by it, celebrated the process, experienced burnout, registered it as an official entity, collaborated, concentrated, been interviewed about it, learned, unlearned, constructed and deconstructed. I mean - a world and then some has been built out of a single, simple seed.

it is like this with that same intuitive impetus inspiring inception that we are here 10 years later and still I feel like I am just getting started. Gold Water Alchemy and Education Center is not yet in her final form though I have done a lot with this entity and, because of my faithfulness, devotion and trust, her mystery continuously reveals itself to me. this work is not just for me; it is for you, for posterity, for prosperity, for the plants, the waters, the animals, the earth — it is for all of what lives and dies.

today I reflect on Gold Water Alchemy’s annual progress and successes as an alchemical apothecary, experiential education center, remembrance research studio, and growing garden.

2024 : a year in review for Gold Water Alchemy and Education Center

FEBRUARY —

• shared interactive education on plants, gardening, and herbalism and vended herbal elixirs and infusions blends at STEM and Health Expo hosted by River City Science Academy. “STEM” is an abbreviation for “Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics”.

• vended at Eat Your Yard Jax’s 1st Annual Herbal Fest

• vended at Mini Market Tuesday’s Black History Month Edition

• vended at Max Living Chiropractic’s Patient Appreciation Day

• shared Gold Water Alchemy’s signature herbal infusion “Wild Heart, Clear Mind” and other herbal preparations at Eartha’s Farm and Market’s Roots of Southern Cuisine weekend. “Wild Heart, Clear Mind” is made with calendula flowers, tulsi leaves, rosemary leaves, and other herbs. it continues to be a community favorite.

MARCH —

• featured at POWER: Black Art, History, and Culture hosted by the Museum of Science and History. my contribution was a sampling of infusions while speaking on black folks’ influence in the realm of herbal medicine, health and healing. I also sold some apothecary goods and had meaningful conversations. it was beautiful to walk through the museum on that day and encounter a hall of “Black women in STEM”. I felt pride in seeing them and also for being myself a black woman in STREAM — the “R” standing for “reading / writing” and the “A” meaning “arts”. the flow is real.

• planted herbs and fruits in the growing garden including yarrow, dill, basil, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, okra, rue, and more

APRIL —

• offered womb & heart healing elixirs at Eartha’s Farm and Market’s Mommie & Me Day in collaboration with The Mommie Collective

• I met Jai Graham during the STEM and Health Expo and she invited me to share herb knowledge for an online series titled “I’m working on me”. for the series I shared Nourishing Herbs and Embodied Connections, a discussion on approachable and beginner-friendly herbal preparations.

• planted Japanese Indigo seeds in the growing garden as part of High Hog Farm’s Indigo Grow Along

MAY —

• deepened & expanded my relationship with Indigo, a long-time plant guide, and continued to develop Indigo vats and experiment with dye technologies. I’ve been working with natural pigments from elderberries, pokeberries, and other plant parts for some time, but the color work with Indigo is something I’d begun doing in 2021 and had taken some time away from. prior to 2021 I spent a lot of time looking at images of Indigo dyed textiles while working on the Indigo Keys collection and listening to Blues music. also: recurring dreams about being submerged in blue waters from which I would emerge in true blue form.

JUNE —

• traveled to Kiskeya for plant research, genealogical studies, and herb harvest

• led a natural dye workshop at Eat Your Yard Jax. we dyed with onion, turmeric, and Indigo — Indigo was indeed the main focus.

JULY —

• Gold Water Alchemy and Education Center turned 7 on July 8th. this is the day that I launched the virtual platform / website for this work. up until then everything was done word-of-mouth and very grassroots. we love our humble beginnings because it makes it easier for us appreciate the growth and elevation as it happens.

AUGUST —

• used various methods to extract pigment from Indigo leaves as part of an informal Indigo internship at EYYJ.

SEPTEMBER —

• co-led and participated in an Edible Plant Walk with Tim Armstrong of EYYJ. I served as a resource, sharing my knowledge on the use and wisdom of the plants we encountered along the way.

OCTOBER —

• made beautyberry jams, jalapeno jellies, a variety of tinctures, beautyberry leaf bug sprays, and other things with food and plant stuff harvested locally. sold them during the Slow Food Farm Tour in which community members traveled to 5 different local farms and learned about slow food, foods and plants growing at the farms, and more. EYYJ invited several local, food / plant focused businesses including Gold Water Alchemy. this added a dimension to the experience of witnessing the slow food process : how we transform earth material into creations which nurture and heal us. of course, some of the materia can be eaten raw and ‘straight from the tree’ without preparation. humans are just highly creative beings who have developed ways to enhance the earth tings. shout out to natural intelligence.

• conducted research and experiments using Indigo powder and other material, developing ways to strengthen the depth and hue of the blue

NOVEMBER —

• participated in EYYJ’s Persimmon Fest as a vendor and speaker. for this I crafted persimmon jam and an oxymel blend also made with persimmons. throughout the day, I shared education on the importance, impact, and benefit of bioregional herbalism.

• demonstrated Indigo dye research findings through a workshop I facilitated for a group of homeschool children. they were also able to dye their pieces using turmeric and hibiscus. the result of the Indigo dye research offers us a very deep coloration in which the dye is more of a purple than a blue.

DECEMBER —

• vended at Spring River School’s Winter Market which they hosted at Eat Your Yard Jax

• shared some of my research through a knowledge share titled Solstice Sweetness. we crafted herb-infused honeys and electuaries and set intentions for the season.

2024 alchemical apothecary additions

1. Angel in the Flesh - an extract of Blue Lotus + Damiana with a dual effect of grounding & elevating which aids in perceiving guidance with clarity

2. Crow Dance - a flower & feather essence blend inspired by Zora Neale Hurston

3. Golden Blue Drip 777 - an altar oil corresponding to the sefirah of Binah and drawing influence from my kabbalistic studies

4. Cacao Cura - the 1st public share of Cacao grown and processed by my family in Kiskeya

5. Night Light - a flower essence blend effective for shadow work, womb work, soul retrieval, and more

6. Flowers of Life 7 (borage), 9 (Japanese Indigo), and 21 (aloe) completed the 22 Flowers of Life collection

7. Wild Heart, Clear Mind - the infusion blend which has become a GWA signature in the local community

8. Protection Potion - a tincture of Spilanthes made with the plants I seeded in 2021 and who spread themselves throughout the whole bed, offering me plenty to make medicine with

9. Gold Water Drops - a double extract of Lion’s Mane which I made using mushrooms grown locally and shared while vending at various events

10. Sweet Hot Thing - an oxymel made with persimmons and datil peppers harvested at the farm. it sold out during Persimmon Fest so I didn’t get a chance to add it to my website as initially intended.

11. Beautyberry leaf bug spray - this bug spray flew off the apothecary shelf and inspired a lot of conversation on DEET-free alternatives to repellants. DEET is a commercial chemical (chemical formula C12H17NO) which is made by converting certain acids to certain chlorides and provoking / allowing the reaction that then results in the substance added to repellant products. it is a synthetic chemical which has various known adverse side effects, so people prefer DEET-free. Tim often recommends application of the bug spray to folks attending the plant walks.

12. Beautyberry jelly - this jelly was shared at the end of the Edible Plant Walk. participants ate them with crackers while commenting on how delicious it was. I also gave some away to family and sold the rest at several events.

13. Persimmon jam - it is so good and I have been savoring the last jar of it. suffice it to say it sold out during the festival in November and people emailed asking for more.

14. Jalapeno jelly - spicy & sweet is one of my favorite flavor combos which is well-pronounced in the Jalapeno jelly. this one also did well during vending. I gifted a couple of jars to friends.

15. Datil hot sauce - another creation which sold out at the Persimmon Fest. I made it from an adapted recipe I found in my aunt’s personal recipe folder. her recipe was not made with Datil peppers, so I learned a lesson on how the heat levels of varying peppers create differing reactions depending on the ingredients they are combined with and how the resulting creation is stored. pepper chemistry and the Scoville scale has become an area of exploration since then.

16. Four Seasons Syrup - an elixir made with Elderberries and other plant material harvested in Kiskeya such as Anisillo leaves, Cinnamon bark, and June Plum leaves. this one was dispensed locally and online.

so much more was done, experienced, and created in the past year, but these are some highlights of the 2024 adventure. there was a lot of reading, writing, researching, seeing, hearing, feeling, thinking, teaching, tasting, tapping (into), planning, planting, plotting, growing, connecting, conducting, conversing, and converting. 2024’s trajectory was affirming and involved a lot of full circles moments in which the fruits of the decade’s labor were made manifest and evident. I am grateful for what has been accomplished.

this is a one-woman venture — there is still plenty left to do and ample expansion steadily happening. with your continued support, I intend to proceed in evolving my practice and progressing along this road less traveled.

thank you for joining and supporting me and Gold Water Alchemy on this wild ride in an enchanted life. the way you all hold me up brings tear of gratitude to my eyes and opens my heart wide. there is so much that I look forward to sharing in 2025, and I hope you will stick around to witness and participate in it.

in health and abundance,

Elsie

once a snowflake fell
on my brow and i loved
it so much and i kissed
it and it was happy and called its cousins
and brothers and a web
of snow engulfed me then
i reached to love them all
and i squeezed them and they became
a spring rain and i stood perfectly 
still and was a flower

- Nikki Giovanni, Winter Poem 

Rest in Peace & Power to Nikki Giovanni - June 7, 1943 to December 9, 2024

the story goes that alchemists of old would gather the dew drops of Lady’s Mantle / Alchemilla vulgaris, call it moon water, and use this water to create formulae with the intention of achieving the Philosopher’s Stone & transmute lead to gold. later on, doctors & physicians would advise their patients to drink the dew drops on flowers & leaves to support the balance of mind, heart, and spirit. this practice has undergone standardization and is now known as flower essence therapy.

the use of flower essences has gained global recognition due to the support they offer for healing especially when it comes to working within the psychoemotional & spiritual realms. essencing is a time-tested botanically-based system that has roots in many ancient societies including the Sumerian, Kemetic, and Chinese. indigenous peoples in the Americas, Australia, and the world over have also regarded flowered waters as therapeutic. yogis and solitary meditators in the Himalayas have often used flower essences to support endurance & focus. Buddhist monks in Korea and elsewhere make floral waters with Lotus, Chrysanthemums, and others. even more so, in some ancestral traditions these waters are referred to as aguas serenadas or aguas encantadas, meaning serenaded waters or enchanted waters, which speaks directly to the vibrational, musical, energetic, and magickal charge that is created in the dance of water, flower, air, sun, moon, stars, environment, biome.

Dr. Edward Bach is regarded as the father of modern flower essence therapy because he both standardized and popularized the practice. in the early 1900s, Dr. Bach trained as a medical doctor but was torn between being that and going into the path of religious ministry — his aspiration had always been to help people heal on a spiritual / soul level. through his practice as a medical doctor, Bach worked with patients who had fought in the 1st world war and were experiencing what was then known as “shell shock” (which we now know as post traumatic stress disorder) to support not only their physical ailments but also the consequent psychoemotional maladies. Dr. Bach was on a steady journey toward understanding the deeper connection between and the deeper energy within the lives and landscapes he encountered, and after some time this included the lives of flowers. eventually, the doctor left the comfort of familiarity for Wales where he set out to formulate remedies using the immensely natural landscape. Bach flower remedies were born out of this life path shift, and they have lived on since. these remedies consist of 37 English wildflowers + 1 water essence that correspond to a variety of emotions. they were created with the intention of bringing the personality and soul back in alignment with each other for integrative wholeness.

in my praxis with flower essence therapy I have experienced and been witness to this life-changing soul healing which resulted in the development of my own innerstanding and consequently a system through which to both observe the wisdom of the flowers and also encapsulate the language of a bioregion via essencing with the vibrational frequencies of that landscape. it has been an intuitive history learning process, an excavation of the latent and hidden. simultaneously, it has been an unlearning of what ‘medicine’ is.

in the summer and spring of 2020, I spent a great deal of time essencing and exploring the landscape of the territory I was then dwelling in, Seminole & Timucua territory in Central Florida. prior to that between 2016-2018 I apprenticed with one of my elders, Ingrid - a certified flower essence practitioner, esthetician, massage therapist, and reiki conduit. she would give my daughter and I facials & massages using flower essence & aroma therapies, these sessions often concluding with a lesson or a story of the experiences she’d had in her heyday as an essence consultant. some of the experiences, she said, brought up things that wore her out, that she felt too sensitive to deal with. I didn’t have the language for it then, but when speaking on her experience of the depths of what was being excavated in some families she worked with, she was describing something that I was all too familiar with being both black sheep and scapegoat in my own family, inadvertently always calling in scrutiny of the ways that have kept us in loops of trauma with family secrets and the like. Ingrid was unearthing the secrets and traumas in these families, some which shattered the illusionary realities they had been existing in. for me it was overwhelming and overstimulating to be the only one confronting these sorts of things within my own family, just as Ingrid described, so I left home and kept leaving. I never would have known, however, that flower essences would be the remedy which would enable me to heal enough to return home more whole and with a fresh set of eyes, deeper compassion and stronger boundaries in place. I kept learning from Ingrid as I was leaving and returning home. she told me that the proof of her work with the flower essences came during a time when she was working with incarcerated folks and saw the depth of transformation that would occur in them, the softening, the opening. these weren’t folks who had prior experience working with plant spirit medicine, and they didn’t need that experience for the flowers to work as they would. she saw, very clearly, that this was more than just placebo.

flower essences are simultaneously powerful, humbling, and humble. they do their work so subtly that it may be easy to miss the fact that one is making quantum leaps and shifts upon commencing the work with the essences. there have been times when I have felt myself within a momentum that was previously hard for me to access only to be reminded by looking at my potion counter that it’s been this way since I started to work with an essence.

essencing is not limited to flowers — naturally, when we make a flower essence we are also gathering the energy of the environment and atmosphere that the flower grew & lived in and that the essence is made in. I have also made essences with seeds, roots, mushrooms, gemstones, fruits, and animal skins, feathers, and other living parts. I liken the process of making a flower essence / mother essence to the process of taking a picture in its technical sense, though essence-making involves a deeper vibratory capture than what a camera can achieve because it is storing in water an imprint of the knowledge and information of the flower, air, and environment. the sun or moonlight work in collaboration with the flower, mineral / gem, or environment to impress the water — this works because water holds memory. when we place the flowers, leaves, or other fresh and living matter on water, we are creating a ripple effect that, during the time we are essencing, begins to become a stabilized frequency. this is the essence, the vibrational current of that being. the flower essences work on the principle of resonance and within the subconscious emotional body, through memory. by impacting our auric field and touching upon ingrained, inherited, learned, and constructed emotional presentations, these remedies have the capacity to help shift our behavioral patterns. through sympathetic affinity, they support the relief of vibrational disharmonies.

what is Indigo Ethnobotany?

Indigo Ethnobotany is an extension of my project 22 Flowers of Life which is part of The Indigo Keys and the Spiral Portal collection & series. it is another mode of deeply researching, remembering, and excavating hidden histories & earth treasures through direct engagement with recipes and formulation, somatic exploration & sensory activation.

Indigo Ethnobotany focuses not only on the flowers collected for the 22 Flowers of Life project but also on a series of other essences of flowers, feathers, leaves, seeds, fruits, skins. it includes inquiry into other earth material, earth interactions, plant and people habits, growing patterns, and formulae not part of that collection and beyond essences, while speaking to and searching within the environments and people where & by whom these vibrations were gathered and plant kinship experiences had. this project also highlights the travel and journey that affords me communion with these entities and their magick. through Indigo Ethnobotany, I am also studying the human body as a site which, like the Earth, contains vortexes and ley lines where certain stirrings and impetus for expansion originate and inform what we create and become in space and through time.

the reason why I call it Indigo Ethnobotany is because the Indigo plant is central to my spiritual and creative praxis and informs a wellspring of investigations which remember the indigenous and their / our in-depth communion with the plants.

working with Night Light : zig zag zeitgeist essence blend

when “something” wants to show you your power, it may initially reveal to you that its magnitude also contains destructive potential, that the Power of All is so mighty that it fears no death, that our inability to feel everything at once is part of the intelligent design that perhaps saves & protects us from complete obliteration. this is the case with the medicine that the Night Light flower essence blend has been offering me. for a while, the image of Black Eyed Susan would pop up in my mind at random times and eventually it was the memory of the essence I’d made with it that would flood me. during walks I would encounter the flowers everywhere, and when walking by them would feel full body chills knowing that Black Eyed Susan / Rudbeckia hirta was embueing me with a particular charge. that alone would send me into cleansing frenzies where I would survey my life and begin processes of eliminating and breaking old contracts, getting out of loops and undoing behavioral patterns. at that time I was in an unhealthy relationship in which I saw no light at the end of the tunnel, the darkness descended and consumed my life and I knew I had to make a change. it took a while but breakthroughs were made.

eventually the essencing happened and after it was stabilized with alcohol, I put it on my shelf knowing that when the time to work with it was ripe, it would make itself clear. approximately 3 years prior to that, someone had gifted me an essence of Black Eyed Susan. but it was in late 2022, roughly 6 years since I’d received Rudbeckia’s gift that I wrote in my note book “winter shadow psychoemotional landscaping” as the title for the journey I was embarking on with this blend. an instinctual, intuitive thing happened and I saw this blend like a literal night light as I envisioned myself walking through the dark night of the soul into a new day. this parallels a preference of this flower - they love full sun and, in the same way, they illuminate fully our face and the spirit within which we are operating, so Black Eyed Susan is considered a potent essence because it leads us straight to the darkness and helps us to see what it is made of — Rudbeckia is an undoing for any masks and illusions we want to desperately hold on to. so while some may shy away from this communion, there are practitioners such as Marisa Raggio who regards that it is a great one to work with as a foundation for deeper soul retrieval and healing, to become more truly ourselves,

“I myself used Black-Eyed Susan and it helped me to recognize my own ‘mask.’ In a period of my life when all of my securities were completely destroyed, Black-Eyed Susan brought me to see that I viewed myself as a very strong, aggressive woman. I realized that it was simply a construction, an idea about myself. However, with Black-Eyed Susan, I began to recognize that the baby, the child, the girl inside me was ashamed…”

Jasmine is a soother for this impact. the day that I made the Jasmine essence was a cloudy full moon day. I found them climbing on the wooden posts of a porch - a climbing pattern reminscent of the way Jasmine elevates our energies and helps us tap into our divinity, intuitive gifts, and the power of imagination. soon after the Jasmine essence was made, I shared Black Eyed Susan and Jasmine essences as separate remedies with a friend who later commented on the changes that occurred in her life upon beginning the flower essence therapy. because she was experiencing mental blockages, clouded thinking, and difficulty accessing memory of her dreams, I advised her to put a drop of each essence on her 3rd eye and mix several drops of them into some of her hair products. she proceeded as I advised and within a week had a testimony to tell me she was remembering dreams from days before, feeling like herself again, and able to finally work on projects that she’d been sitting on for over a year because her focus and devotion just hadn’t been there. another thing she mentioned was how it was illuminated that so much of the blockage was created due to a fear of being truly seen, fear of truly seeing herself - something that Black Eyed Susan gives us no option but to allow. so for what Black Eyed Susan unearths, Jasmine presents possible alternatives and other pathways for action. because these profound processes can bring up feelings of grief, despair, and even depression, Jasmine shows up in the work to lighten our hearts and clarify our minds - a signature which reflects the brilliance of its color.

the beauty of Night Light is that it enables us to embrace with tenderness and compassion the parts of ourselves subjected to western diagnoses and labeled as problematic. that embrace softens the shadow into a light, facilitates a shapeshifting. Black Eyed Susan is exceptional for shadow integration while Jasmine offers us the divine support and assistance needed as we move through this. while saying all of this, it is important to mention that the goal of shadow work is not always nor merely to “transmute the shadow into light”, sometimes the shadow must just be in its form and fullness without us trying to change it into something more palatable, comfortable or bearable. sometimes just staying with the trouble, the problem, the ugly, the bad, the fear, the anxiety, the exhaustion, the grief, the irritability, the destructive tendencies, the hypercritical thinking is all that needs to happen — being in a state of super consciousness and awareness of the levels, dimensions, and spectrum of light & dark existing within us all at once.

there is much to be said and experienced. elucidating Black Eyed Susan, Jasmine, and flower essences in general, how they work, and how to work with them is a long-term endeavor. the Doctrine of Signatures applies not only to the appearance of a plant but also to the growth patterns and environmental preferences of plants which may offer us some understanding of the potential medicine their essence can offer. I intend to dive deeply into this through these ongoing writings, upcoming flower essence profiles, and more creative and poetic scribings.

thank you for reading.

alchemical cure rio / curio / healing waters have been added to the site. Night Light is current now. it is potent for this shadow working season at the portal between autumn & winter — increasing sun rays cast long silhouettes.

there are also several Flowers of Life currently available in my shop including flower essences of gardenia, romerillo / spanish needle, hibiscus, morning glory, ixcanan, azalea, rose, and more.

25% off sale still happening - code: GOLD25.

Sugar come
and sugar go
Sugar dumb
but sugar know
ain’ nothin’ run me for my money
nothin’ sweet like winter honey

Sugar high
and sugarlow
Sugar pie
and sugar dough
Then sugar throw
a sugar fit
And sugar find
a sugar tit
But never mind
what sugar find
ain’ nothin’ run me for my money
nothin’ sweet like winter honey

Sugar come
and please don’ go
Sugar dumb
but oh-my: Oh!
Ain’ nothin’ run me for my money
nothin’ sweet like winter honey

- June Jordan, Winter Honey

since the first time I found and read this poem several winters ago I have read it over and over again during the solstices, feeling it as a prescriptive force in its own right.

ain’ nothin’ run me for my money

nothin’ sweet like winter honey

June Jordan writes real down to earth and her words linger in the hovering air, causing visceral responses in my body with each recall. from these words by June to Badu’s lyrics to the lore of Oshun, honey / miel has long been associated with abundance, wealth, richness, and prosperity. considering the supposed barrenness of winter, considering the spring & summer labors of the bees, it dawned on me that honey ought to be regarded as an indispensable staple for the colder months. though cooling with some applications, honey is nourishing — it enriches and enlivens the body. and I’m sure that if we were to look more closely, on a cellular level honey activates & animates, resounding with buzzing harmonics on the soul plane & vessel that is our physical form.

honey is a sustaining comestible, penetrating our organs with nutrition.

in Michele E. Lee’s Working the Roots she writes,

“Honey’s other health benefits are: immediate energy booster, stimulates the immune system, and may have anti-cancer properties. Honey is a food and medicine rich with minerals like magnesium, potassium, calcium, sodium, chlorine, sulfur, iron, and phosphate. It also expels mucus. Honey contain vitamins B1, B2, C, B6, B5, and B3, and several kinds of hormones.”

the composition of honey is nothing short of a supernatural wonder easily touted “miracle”. I think it’s important to note that she mentions its potential anti-cancer properties as cancer is often a matter of cellular dysfunction and honey’s antioxidant quality is especially suited to target those matters.

honey is medicinal.

the above image features depictions of the common phenolic acids and flavonoid compounds that have been identified in honey. to summarize what this information tells us - the acids in honey exhibit antioxidant capacity with greater free radical (dead cell) scavenging activity due to the bonding habits of these molecules which impart stability and enhance functional strength. it is no wonder why honey has such an extensive and expansive history around the globe. many cultures have long known its benefits, revered it as holy and sacred, and regarded it as the essential and transformational golden viscous water that it is.

in Kiskeya (Dominican Republic & Haiti), honey is one of the main ingredients for the commonly known and widely used botella Mamajuana. botellas are bottled herbal mixtures that are made of a combination of plant parts, a solvent, sometimes animal parts and other non-plant ingredients. Mamajuana (Mother Jane) is one such preparation which is often used as a daily tonic, sexual revitalizer, immune fortifier, and digestive aid. traditional preparations involve placing the parts in a barrel in honey and water as a solvent mix; this is then allowed to age. during early colonial times, a variety of alcohols were introduced to this preparation, and it has remained the common mode since.

Chinese Medicine doctors and practitioners such as my friend Dr. Duong often do things like stir-fry their roots in honey, before decocting them, to expose more of the surface area and, thus, the mineral matrix that lends the medicine. I learned this technique from him close to a decade ago and have been teaching it to my herbalism students since. beyond that, TCM regards honey as essential to the energetic signature that the winter is & calls for - not only does honey replenish the blood, yin, and Qi, it also supports restful sleep and eases the anxieties and afflictions of the mind & heart. known as feng mi in China, miel has a long history of use as an agent to make herbal pills that are administered to children, adults, the elderly, and animal companions alike and this is considered the origin of using honey-based preparations, such as electuaries, in veterinary care.

this frenzy, like bees stinging the heart all morning

- Anne Sexton, Frenzy

as the refrain goes, (honeybee research) “has me in a chokehold”. I am fascinated to tears by the efforts of the honeybees. their design and labor is so precise and perfect that it is truly fascinating to contemplate how & what evolutionary impetus led to their expansion. at a certain point the earth was not populated with fruiting trees and plants, so it is curious to deduce that honeybees came to evolve with the onset of a particular necessity, i.e., that of fruiting plants needing the bee’s pollination practice for ensured longevity. indeed there are many pollinators, yet the bee’s care and accuracy leaves one with much to marvel at and speculate about.

there is plenty that can be said about this miracle compound we know as honey / miel and the beings that conspire in its creation. honey has so many nutritional and health benefits that a single post about it will not suffice - I can go on and on about honey for days / daze, straight tranced out on the sweetest tangent but I’ll spare you the virtual chatter. in my upcoming workshop, Solstice Sweetness, I will be diving way deeper into the power of honey, its cosmic chemistry, and how we can more creatively incorporate it into our lives along with sharing some tips on bringing out the warmer potentials of honeys, enhancing the flavors of honeys and their nutritional + medicinal profiles. the workshop will go deep with information including how honey has been used for life and death rites in certain cultures. I have some surprises for participants, too.

Bees do have a smell, you know, and if they don’t, they should for their feet are dusted with spices from a million flowers.

– Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

DECEMBER HAPPENINGS

7 : Winter Market vending at Eat Your Yard - featuring electuaries and other honey-based preparations made with herbs used in both Traditional Chinese Medicine and Traditional Dominican Medicine

9 : Indigo Ethnobotany 003 - featuring a brief history of flower essencing & field notes from personal study with Black Eyed Susan and Jasmine (Night Light)

13 : 22 Flowers of Life collection completed with flowers 7 (borage), 9 (Japanese indigo), and 21 (aloe)

15 : online Alchemical Apothecary closing until next year

21 : Solstice Sweetness workshop at Eat Your Yard

30 : Indigo Ethnobotany 004 - borage flower essence profile

31 : Earthascopes 003 - rebirth

APOTHECARY SALE

we currently have a sale until December 11th. this applies to any order and can be used multiple times.

• CODE: GOLD25 for 25% off any order

• sale ends 12/11

• shop closes 12/14

• orders ship 12/30

here is a profile of the energetic correspondences & application suggestions for Ezili’s Azalea, one of the 22 Flowers of Life currently available for purchase.

feel free to share in the comments regarding your experiences, knowledge, and curiosities about honey and the honeybees, and let me know what reading this sparked in you. I look forward to sharing more soon <3

in health and abundance,

Elsie

salud y saludos! salute and salutations! good health and greetings!

it has been some time since I have shared thoughts and processes here, but the digital garden is loaded with seeds ready to sprout, grow, bloom, feed.

during the initial stages of Gold Water Alchemy I shared through the OG Gold Mine, so I will be spending a portion of the spring expanding on and transferring those writings to this platform elucidating further according to the experiential knowledge & wisdom I have acquired over the past couple of years since the last post I made on that earlier blog.

in early April I softly & slowly reopened the shop featuring a new remedy Angel in the Flesh made with Blue Water Lily (aka Blue Lotus) and Damiana. it also includes an essence of Barbados Lily which was the first flower essence I made while living on & stewarding 10 acres in the rural farm town of Osteen, Florida in 2021. the moon was full that day & it was shortly after the spring equinox, so for a tincture of such liminal caliber, this essence is more than fitting.

[CONTENT WARNING for the words that follow : brief mention of death & dying.]

encounters with an angel

in May 2016 my grandmother died exactly 3 months after my birthday and approximately 5 months after she’d said she wanted to make it to / live to experience my birthday one more time. she did make it, though she’d also said she was ready to go — her life had been lived full to the brim, her body was ready to empty all life force energy into the ethers. what kept her tethered to this realm was her children, mainly my father / her firstborn; the one who grieved inconsolably in anticipation of a dreaded transition.

my grandmother’s name is Angela and I inherited plenty from her including a rendition of her name as my middle name, Angely.

years before her passing, I had begun my explorations with a number of flowers, vines, & roots often used for entheogenic expansions. Blue Lotus aka Blue Waterlily was one of several I encountered on this journey.

on a Friday the 13th in May, I prepared myself an infusion of Blue Lotus. I added more flowers than usual, opening myself fully to whatever expressions & impressions the Lily wanted to imbue me with. that day was eerily quiet, I noticed the birds were silent, the squirrels nowhere in sight. after enjoying several cups of the infusion, the urge to dance set upon me as I turned the speaker volume up, playing a variety of Palo music from the island of Kiskeya. Palo is a spiritual sound that is named after the wood & other earth matter which is used to make several of the instruments heard in the tones.

the sway began in my hips and gradually took over my whole body. often when I dance I feel as if possessed by spirits who know exactly what to move when. the energy builds in spirals then crescendos & crashes like a waving whale song rippling through the whole ocean. at a certain point in all the motion, I felt the frequencies rise into my head and by then I didn’t have any control over how I was moving. I was moving & I was crying, weeping actually. if asked in that moment I wouldn’t have been able to explain why. the gyrations and gestures were so vigorous and intense that my legs eventually gave out, causing me to collapse to the floor still weeping. the force concentrated in my head had by then become an ache, a dull pain in my temples.

and there was a presence that was not merely my own.

my instinct upon getting up from the floor was to disconnect the WiFi router, turn off my phone, laptop, and any other electronic device that was nearby. the headache had become extreme and my only relief came from laying in bed ailing, distressed.

24 hours passed with me in this sort of comatose state. the 2nd night was laden with strange sensations and unusual discomforts, but unbeknownst to me something was afoot. the head pains had become a shattering ringing in both ears, and looking at the lights outside the window proved to be nauseating.

what was happening?

opening my eyes again, I saw a figure sitting on the edge of my bed and having experienced this many other times, I knew it was my grandmother. but how? she was miles away in another country. but she spoke to me, saying things that won’t be repeated and other things that inspired me to action — divine instructions all the same. in everything she said, there was the recipe for a remedy that would later be known as Mama Drops.

a lucid dream offering clear direction.

in a stupor of concurring awe, confusion, and disbelief, I dozed off until the early hours of Sunday the 15th when my mother came ringing the doorbell & bearing news — my grandmother had passed away that morning.

and mourn we did, but I knew an Angel had finally begun the ascent she was long ready for.

a formula to support holy communion

this preparation was initially formulated at the beginning of 2023 and the herbs macerated for quite some time in a mixture of organic cane spirits & honey. it’s a strong one made with Damiana found growing wild in Kiskeya; the honey used in the mix is from my beekeeper cousin who also lives in the same countryside.

Angel in the Flesh is simultaneously elevating & grounding through its capacity to activate super sentience, animating both instinct & intuition.

Blue Lotus is a guiding key in this portal potion. continue reading to learn more about this mysterious flower, or visit the website to purchase a bottle of this empowering elixir.

a short-form blue lotus monograph

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we are currently in preparation for many things, and at the forefront of those things is a relaunch of my work with Gold Water Education Center. in the past years, I have learned many lessons on how great a responsibility it is to be an educator and the importance of strong boundaries, deep clarity, and devotional discipline in the process. this is applicable not only when imparting knowledge and wisdom on adults but also while educating and edifying the youth. some of you may know I am currently a 1st grade Science teacher and have been working in schools for over a decade. perhaps cliché, but children are my greatest teachers — their nature is wild, yet part of the programming in the schools is to talk and sometimes yell us out of our wildness, so I often feel more like a protector of the wild & unruly than a teacher who cheats people out of their power by coercing them to conform. because of the programming, I have caught me shaming myself in moments when I am expressing what is most true but it feels “childish” because I was once told it is childish to affirm my wants and needs, to let my no’s and yeses be heard even when it makes others uncomfortable, to let my body move to the beat of my heart-drum as it should. when I am saying,

“this does not feel good”,

“what’s wrong with dancing ‘for no reason’?”,

“no”,

“I want to play, I don’t want to work”,

“I want to talk to my friends, I don’t want to be isolated at this desk on this tablet”,

“I love you, I just want you to know that”.

the education system as many have experienced it is not aligned with the values of what it truly means and feels like to be human, to be spirited.

this train of thought will get its own post, well-deserved.

in the shapeshifting process, Gold Water Education Center is a long-term vision of offering a safe, co-creative, experiential space for us to be intimate with natural fierceness and to cultivate the indigeneity of our senses. so with this, I have also been in conscious communion with and devotion to the plants for well over 2 decades, GWA and GWEC (GWAE) being the most current iteration of that. through Gold Water Education Center, I have taught about plants, food, ecology, gardening, spiritual hygiene, and the more esoteric aspects of life & living. I have led herb walks & tea ceremonies, taught people culinary herbalism, divined with aid & direct messages from plants, and held space for many at the crossroads. years ago, I even served an unschooling family as a herbalist educator for their children. the extent of this practice is difficult to enumerate, but surely it is of quality and quantity. this work continues & expands, yet it has taken on a more refined form supported by all that I have learned and witnessed in this path of professing and guiding.

one of the first things I will be sharing as I reinitiate Gold Water Education Center (or Gold Water Alchemy Education) is a workshop on Cacao medicine and their usage and application throughout the Americas & the Caribbean. prior to then, in just a few days, we are unlocking a new offering which will be available through my website — Cacao Cura / ceremonial-grade Cacao grown, harvested, and heartfully processed by my family in Kiskeya / Dominican Republic. it has been a long time coming and we have finally arrived at the point of being able to offer you this medicine, intentionally cultivated & curated. I am grateful to my father for supporting this vision and my uncle whose relationship with the land spans over 5 decades. they are my partners in this, so the proceeds from all Cacao purchases will be going to my uncle in Kiskeya so that we may continue to share this medicine with the world, receipts always included. Cacao medicine is for heart-dwelling which is where I suspect children also live. Cacao medicine opens us and reveals wealth, medicine, water overflowing.

herbascopes

as I was ruminating on the signature of Cacao, I recalled herbascopes I wrote last year which feature mallow family plants and some other accomplices. Cacao is in the mallow family, and amongst Cacao’s siblings and other kin are Hibiscus, Marshmallow, Okra, Baobab, & more, all of which have extensive use and application within black, indigenous, and (ab)original melanated cultures and communities. the mallow family has traveled with & through us for many lifetimes. in this autumn season, they come forth as balancing spirits offering moistening nourishment to our organs and water for the seeds in our minds & hearts. these herbascopes were written with counsel from fruit & leaf whispers in the form of steam dancing on the surface of a ceremonial Cacao preparation, and the opening afforded to me through my receptivity to Cacao’s love.

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context —

an eager anticipation for chinola grows as the fruit ripens and readies during the spring and summer months. it has been decades & many seasons of relationship with this plant. para y huele la fruta / stop and smell the fruit — this is a phrase i often heard my great uncle say to many people including myself. naturally it became a practice, and in time i realized that the fruit i can always smell from ‘miles’ away is chinola.

some of my favorite fruit memories feature my campesino*, intrepid cousins with a machete slung across their back in a sheath connected to a fabric strap, climbing trees with the motion of a rising hug using legs and arms, arriving to knock coconuts off for us, later teaching some of my siblings and i how to climb these same trees in the same ways, foot straps included. chinola seldom requires such an ascent. instead, the vine’s grasping tendrils will cling onto any structure within reach, the fruits at arm’s length. so after gathering coconuts, we would walk along the rows of mango trees living on my great aunt’s old land toward the chinola growing ubiquitously and conspicuously entangled on avocado trees and wild coffee bushes.

during the harvesting process and immediately greeted by the delight, i could barely contain myself and would use the tip of a machete to cut the fruit in half, slurping bright yellow pulp from the cup of its thick skin. without fail, someone would end up preparing a hand-pressed chinola juice at the house, and this we’d enjoy for several days, satisfied like the first sip with each serving. i never get tired of chinola juice, but an experimenter and experiential learner i am, so i set off to concoct with it a medley of complementary flavors and energetic profiles to supplement the body with a sweet and savory, nourishing harmony.

recipe preparations —

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passion fruit kisses, a tropical breeze
     butterfly flickers, your lashes do tease
cherry encounters of promised delight
     spray of seduction, the sea mist at night

mango martini of unmatched desire
    touches of jasmine, fuel to the fire
liquor of palm tree, coconut dew
     will keep me forever enchanted with you

sunset of satin against raven hair
     pineapple mornings to bless skin so fair
passion fruit kisses, a tropical breeze
    to love you forever, papaya agrees
                       - Michael Gentile

intimacy is not a species-specific merely sexual phenomenon ; this is to say that as humans we can be intimate with more than just humans and these particular interactions will sometimes have nothing to do with sex. say we want to know more about a fruit and experience its wonders, so we may take the time to buy or forage it. we study it, pick the “best-looking” or “most-vibrationally-yoked-to-us” of its kind ;

of course, the calling is always there.

we bite into it and say “mmm, you taste so good”, and if your approach to fruits, flora, fauna, fungi, plants, water, the land is similar to mine, you may even cry a little and say “thank you thank you thank you”. at times there may be an inclination to lay in a bed with the fruit on the pillow next to you. while in act of ecstatic consumption, you’ll hear whispers of “save me. save me for later”, and so you’ll decide keep the seeds to grow in a garden somewhere. the potential of closeness with plants is vast. in the past, i have gone on fruit dates — stepped out into my yard or the porch or a botanical garden with a fruit in hand, a blanket in my bag. the blanket is laid out on the grass somewhere and i sat down, placed the fruit across from me, gazed lovingly in a meditative state, wanted to know more without immediately consuming. thank you thank you thank you. you are so good to and for me... going on fruit dates with friends and lovers is a thing, too. i’ll say something like “have you ever tried this fruit before?” and whether they have or haven’t, i like to share it with them. mmm, this is so good. wow.

of course, there are other possibilities.

the intimacy prompts deep inquiry. i started a plant study series called Indigo Ethnobotany to explore the relationships of indigenous people to the plants in our bioregions including local decolonial nomenclature and folk lore + history surrounding usage and application. a driving force here is seeking to know more about what sorts of language transmissions and confidentialities enabled our ancestors to conceive timeless plant wisdom and also the recipes which would be regarded as serving particular purposes for generations to come. this started about 8 years ago after curiosity regarding the preparation of ayahuasca was piqued — i mean, who was the first person or people to think of mixing banisteriopsis caapi with chacruna and other earth elements for the decoction that has since been known as a sacred medicine? this piece is not about ayahuasca, but surely there will be more on that one in the future.

my intention with Indigo Ethnobotany is to bring more of this aspect of history into the general consciousness while also preserving it as memory and story for posterity. something worth noting here is that the interactions between our well ancestors and the earth was often a consensual connection based on reciprocity and deep presence + listening. my practice in plant communion involves respect, reflection, cohesion, and collaboration ; i invite you to consider what respect, reflection, cohesion, and collaboration looks, sounds, feels, tastes, smells like to you — what does it all mean? — and furthermore extend that depth of consideration into your human and non-human relations. in these moments we remember that the experience is one of learning and that an aspect of manifesting and living in these dense forms implies an inherent process of refinement and continual organic organization.

praise and thanks.

the first plant we are exploring in this series is a summertime bloom who i grew up calling “chinola” and that is known by others as passion vine, passion fruit and flower, maypop, calala, granadilla, lilikoi, parcha, parchita, maracuya, mburukuja, and other names. some of these names also refer to different species of passiflora. chinola is passiflora edulis. i carry memories of drinking chinola juice, eating chinola under a magnolia tree that has been living in front of my aunt’s house since i was a child, and gathering chinola fruit from the climbing vines in the campo. this plant brings me so much happiness, and in kiskeya it is regarded as a sacred one. lately i have been preparing other foods and beverages with this fruit — everything from chinola iced tea to chinola glazed mushrooms. some of those recipes and other ethnobotanical notations will be shared here but before we get to that, let’s reflect on the meaning of the word passion.

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the other day a friend asked me if i had ever heard of chaga and what do i think of it. yes, i have heard of it and i think it’s great. she told me she’d been communing with chaga, she got some of the “tea” at a store. intuitively i knew she meant tea bags but i asked to confirm, and yes. chaga tea bags?! what?!

i should start off by saying that chaga is not a mushroom as is widely believed. it is a mass, a conk that is formed from decayed bits of birch tree and mycelia all mixed together. because of the type of material chaga is, the full benefits will not be afforded through a simple “tea” bag. chaga, like other such dense plant matter, needs to simmer in water for a certain amount of time in order to extract polysaccharides and other constituents which render the healing properties so many seek when communing with these plant beings.

enter the process of decocting.

decoctions are the most common form of herbal preparations in Traditional Chinese Medicine. in Kiskeya (Dominican Republic and Haiti), decoctions are employed for all sorts of maladies ranging from physical to spiritual. they are made using 1 herb (not too common) and up to 20 herbs. herbal formulas involving multiple herbs are more common in China because their decoctions are usually administered as part of a treatment program.

my love of decoctions deepened after they became a main source of nourishment following a surgery — i was drinking decoctions every day for 40 days, multiple times a day ; quite an expansive process. making a decoction is relatively simple yet deeply rewarding. from a decoction you receive a wide array of the nutritional benefits available in plant medicine. these preparations are effective for pulling constituents out of the tougher parts of plants including bark, seeds, fruits, and roots. they also excel at breaking through the super tough fiber in mushrooms and helping release the medicine contained within. some plant parts which lend themselves well for this include roots such as burdock and astragalus, seeds and fruits such as aniseed and schizandra berries, barks such as cinnamon, and mushrooms such as reishi. some high-mineral herbs like oatstraw, horsetail, red clover, and nettle leaf also fair well when decocted. decoctions are incredibly potent, nourishing, and making them can be a deeply meditative process.

to expound on all of this, i am offering a free knowledge journey on sunday june 25 at 6pm EST. registration will close on saturday the 24th at 4pm EST.

what to expect :

• a brief history of decocting

• brief intro to water-soluble phyto-constituents / chemicals

• materials and components for a decoction

• important notes on proper temperatures and times for decocting

• an answer to the question: are decoctions broths?

• 3 insights into making more potent and nourishing decoctions / herb soups

materials needed :

• 2 medium-sized ceramic or stainless steel pots

• a gallon of water

• strainer

• cheesecloth

• wooden spoon

• mason jar or other container to serve decoction in

• 1 to 2 oz. of each : burdock root, astragalus root, and schizandra berries

register here.

Available Now

environment 2 : plant study — ethnobotanical and culinary musings on chinola leaf / flower / fruit, Zora Neale Hurston’s maypop remedy, and the true meaning of ‘passion’

on the summer solstice menu : chinola / maypop infused preparations —

- sweetened chinola iced tea

- braised chinola glazed lion’s mane mushrooms

- frosted chinola cake

(read environment 1)

+

OG forest bathers
meet in the water to play -
duck, duck, let loose

(video : two ducks ducking in a pond, forest-bathing. duck and water dip sounds, also including the sound of a flying aircraft.)

i’m trying to remember when it first occurred, this image : my hands are cupped around a clear glass bowl filled to the brim with water presumably from a spring. i sit on the forest floor, i am absorbed by moss. i gaze at the water, i am in love. i bring the bowl closer to my face, i lower my head and lick at the water ; i am like a cat - i pray my tongue into a bowl of holy water and ask god to never leave you thirsty. lick instead of sip. the water pools on the cup that is my tongue, trickles along the inside of my cheeks ; i don’t have to swallow, it sinks into me. suddenly i am feral, unmistakably wild, finally alive ; my senses, heightened — the water, psychedelic.

this image is constant and it comes to mind at least once a day, and there is more to this sight — we are still exploring the meanings.

may you be quenched through the desert moments of your life, secured by inner bounty.

the image rose in me again as i sat to type the herbascopes ; i want to provide you with refreshing in-sights that will stay, offer you a medicine meditation to carry in the bag of your heart.

the plants speaking here are those i encountered in savage spaces untouched by civilized pretense — unruly grapevines hugging oak trees. fiddlehead ferns with ancient genetic codes displayed in curls, twirls, spirals, circles. conspicuous blueberry plants surrounded by deer tracks, triangles. brilliant green yarrow leaves caressing the ground, their best friend a milkweed. and forged in the rough earth, we are diamonds — carbon creatures communing, tight-knit. in the ever-changing woodlands there exists an intersection of scents, soil, sound, water particles in the air, an unpicked bouquet ; a world replete with sentience, filled with fierce displays of love and tenderness — this is where i feel most at home, where information transforms and we be more fully embodied, where the myriad things gather to self-realize in company of the beloved.

these plants want to remind you of how the world wild web is in a continuous act of shape-shifting, of being and becoming over and over again. today there are leaves waving at us from the trees, tomorrow we walk and they crunch under our feet. a dance, a movement, a moment, great gestures.

the earth contains and provides, so the wild is a force that innovates changes in form, energy, spectrum. our mother whence we are birthed contains multitudes — she is of many names and faces.

but

what happens to a holy land when we alter / altar its sacred grounds? in many a garden, poets have written — knowing the forest in itself is a mutable poem. the litany recited daily by birds, incantations for ecosystemic balance. a medley of air and earth waves — screech, hum, hissss, pant, grunt, moan, sigh, breath, dirt, funk, flower, vine, trunk — merging to form natural verses that will speak in a variety of ways for generations. through time and presence we come to know the secrets of the land.

how does the land change and shift as we gather materials from it to use for our survival and creation? how do we ensure that life remains after we have taken from this energetic, dynamic source of all? the sun graces us with activations for many of the processes we readily depend on. what shapes do we make with the material we carry? what forms does the earth take with and without our assistance? to where do the ants scatter as our giant footsteps land on the forest floor? how does the mycelia bend and tilt following the impact of our movement?

“...to the National Park Service, nature is something to be managed in order to keep it natural. This myth has spurned devastatingly foolish policies, like the active suppression of fires in the Sierran forests: What stronger symbol than fire to rattle the vision of an undisturbed wilderness? The forests, in fact, need fire, to clear lower brush, to aid certain trees in reproduction. It is now widely accepted amongst forest managers that indigenous people regularly set fires as part of broader practices to actively cultivate and tend to the forest. It never occurred to the first white settlers who came to Yosemite and exclaimed that it had the pristine beauty of a European garden that it in fact was a garden, that this untouched wilderness was formed from intentional and continual human interaction.” — Ana Cecilia Alvarez in “Look for America”

but

the forest is touched by more than us. when the winds blow, the trees can fold. the sun shines and leaves sigh. the cooling of temperatures brings rest upon the land, and with the rising of the sap the sleeping wild ones begin to feel alive again. ecotones happen at many converging and ultimately diverging points within the woods and throughout the seasons that the earth experiences. the tension inherent in the liminal is a fire that reshapes structures within the core and on the surface of this planet.

and we stand, move, fall, sit, sigh, gasp, flutter, fly, breathe, and be as a microcosm of it all.

+

may these herbascopes soothe and protect, a balm and a sword — the power of words made clear. may the shapes of you become evermore lucid as you traverse the bush and brush of the raging earth, home, hearth.

these herbascopes are presented as a walk through the forest and the changes of energy, consciousness, and form we encounter and experience along the way, so you can read them all the way through as a soul journey that happens within your self regardless of personal placements. you can also specifically read the ones for you sun, moon, rising, venus, mars, and north node placements in sidereal and / or tropical tradition. at the end of each herbascopes, you will find a short recipe that can be prepared literally or not, such as otherwise in meditative states where you imagine yourself crafting potions with the plants. you will know what’s for you.

(because this is the documentation of an oracle, these words are considered harvest in the digital garden.)

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the ocean's soft sound
lifts the toll of a far bell
to the half-seen stars
             - a haiku by Richard Wright

(video : sound of a water stream)

if you are receiving this email, it is because you have signed up for Gold Water Alchemy’s newsletter via this platform or my website. in either case, welcome! i have merged the mailing lists into one place — substack — which feels cozy for me in terms of virtual spaces. it’s been a while since i have felt this comfortable online, so i am grateful to return with clearer energy and greater definition in terms of what exactly i am doing.

this email is a series of quick announcements.

the first one : i am switching newsletter service, so all missives will be launched from this springboard. i am happy to FINALLY be writing a newsletter after what feels like so long.

my initiating intention is to use this platform to explore and share long-form, research-based, experience-informed, nature-inspired experimental expression. to create a digital garden.

here is what you can expect going forward —

• at least 3 posts a month (starting March 2024)

• i will rarely ever send out more than one email / post / letter in a day.

• the once or twice a month newsletter is free for all subscribers. in the newsletters, i make announcements regarding Gold Water Alchemy and may occasionally share some anecdotes.

• paying subscribers receive the newsletter and so much more.

  • what paying subscribers get :

    • herbascopes, florascopes, fungascopes

    • poems

    • recipes

    • mysteries

    • plant & fruit history

    • seasonal guidance

    • research on land tending, ecology, and culinary herbalism

    • read here for more info

• the newsletter for all subscribers (free and paying) is sent once a month or once every 14 days, depending on what’s going on for / with / through Gold Water Alchemy

I really appreciate every one who has subscribed and look forward to opening this portal into the foundation of my first book. Not everything I write here will be in the book, but for me the utility of this space is part of the organizational process of writing it. Comments, emails, likes, and other forms of engagement are very much welcomed and encouraged.

other announcements :

• a Gold Water Alchemy exclusive — Florida Water made with water from Florida is available now for pre-order. the pre-order form will close on 6/11/2023.

• i am offering a free knowledge journey — deeper decoctions : herbal soups for organic nourishment, and it is available for registration now.

• after a much needed hiatus, the foundations in phytotherapy apprenticeship commences again in September and application is open now. the application is free. all selected applicants will be notified by July 24, 2023.

some things i’ve been reading / paying attention to / communing with :

• chinola / maypop / “passionfruit and flower” is heavy on my radar. recently got a box of the fruit in the mail from friends in Miami. so much discovery happening, so much to say about it. soon.

• Undrowned by Alexis Pauline Gumbs is doing a number on my heart. have cried at the end of every chapter.

• foraging laws are causing me to think twice… about everything. there is always something to be said about laws that don’t apply to the people who are making the most money from enforcement of those statutes.

• there is a cat who comes to visit me every day ; I have been calling him “Lilo”, and I think he likes that name. he is friends with my cat Indigo. my other cat, Cosmo, does not pay him as much attention yet. i am worried because it seems he has lost his voice ; his meow is not quite as loud as it was a few a days ago and his voice breaks when he tries to speak up, so i am monitoring him to make sure it’s nothing too crazy. i wondered if his throat is dry, so i placed a bowl of water alongside the bowl of food that is outside for him.

• have noticed that recipes and menus (with foods listed) are some of my favorite things to read. in another life, i might be a world-renowned chef. food instagrams get my attention a lot.

• haiku is a poetic form that draws on musical metrics in order to really be the expression that ancient poets, writers, and composers knew it to be. once i learned that, i realized that writing true haiku can be challenging but it is very rewarding. haiku is a song that never gets old. Haiku by Richard Wright features some beautiful poetics.

• plants with red, purple, and pink flowers

thank you for reading! your support means a lot.

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