DECOLONIZING SPRING

Vibrant hues of green, soft pastels, and bitter herbal allies sprinkled across the landscape of the folk herbalist. Nature lures us outward and so we venture outdoors for a sighting of the most beautiful butterflies and happen to stumble upon some of the nutritive herbs that inspire feelings of thankfulness, presence, and abundance. We realize in this moment that the seasons dictate which medicines are necessary to heal with. Our internal geography mapped onto the external plane proving that ease and grace can be grown directly from darkness. We pause and take in the warmth of the newly resurrected sun. Our skin, heart, mind, and spirit yearning for the heat to penetrate the bones, we must dethaw. As spring progresses onward we sprawl our limbs upward and in all directions taking on the various tasks we dreamt of all winter long. Replenished by the fire, the longer days, and the shorter nights, each step we take is imbued with the longing and desire for enchantment.

Dances of elegance, rituals that detox, and backdrops worth painting accompany the spring portal. The Eastern gates held sacred by the winged ones, the eagle, the hawks, and the songbirds uplift with the promise of new life and renewal. Their woven nests and the eggs they hatch symbolic of the nurturing and nourishing Earth Mothers fruitfulness and assurance. Sun's warming rays encourages the flora to stretch forth and grow abundantly too. With these changes, this promise, and the local beauty along with the magic of fertility and growth we are reminded of the timeless commitment of spring. Life will always spring forth out of the dark and fertile ground. The seed is a cosmic blueprint of all life, plant, animal, human, and star lineages. It began and continues to begin with a tiny seed, a teeny nucleus that intuitevly chooses to sprout forth encoded with ancient mysteries, nourishment, allure, and sustenance.

Suddenly as if guided by the little people, the insects, lady bugs, and winged ones the POC folk herbalist takes up the clippers, spade, and shovel. The wild herbs that graced the land full of nutrients to cleanse the lymph, the blood, support the nervous system, and aid in fertility are carefully and intentionally gleaned for medicinal and self care purposes. To know what grows during each spring in ones geographical location is a form of knowledge based care and wellness. The knowledge of what can be found during spring, think Cleavers, Oat straw, Dandelion, Chickweed, Plantain, and Red Clover, is the first step to ensuring wholism and wellness for the seasons that will follow. Spring can be looked at at the first season of the year, a new beginning, new life, and a fresh start encompass the Eastern gates and portals. The first direction to the right of the North is East! North representing decomposition, old age, silence, and completion. Spring mirrors the continuation of the cycles of life, with every budding flower. Slowly the warmth of the sun awakens the otherwise dormant seeds. Similar to our own goals and aspirations Winter is meant for dreaming while Spring is the portal for awakening and conceiving those aspirations. With conception requires patience, we are sprouting new life for the first time and so it takes a caring hand and receptive heart to constantly give water, nutrients, and good energy to the newly sprouted seeds.

Upon giving offerings of tobacco, corn meal, or cacao with intention the folk herbalist uses the spade to dig into the once cold and frozen ground. The freshly moistened soil, active and lively micro-organisms, and carefully added compost becomes the perfectly fertile ground worth planting and sowing seeds into. Our minds, spirits, and hearts mirror that moist-nutrient rich soil we plant our seeds of intention, care, and love into. We witness the garden within our minds when we take the time to be still with the land, hose in hand, belly full with the breath of life. Just like our gardens begin with a fresh idea, "I want to plant Milkweed, Marigolds, Zinnias, and Chamomile this year" the same goes for all of our dreams and aspirations, "I want to have a baby" or "I want to write a book". What follows this beautiful time of dreaming and intentional creating are the preparatory phases that support the dream and seed. We have to make sure our seeds are good and saved with care and our ground is fertile, as nothing says "decolonize your spring rituals" than partaking in thanks giving and fertility rituals. Giving thanks can look like adding organic and natural amendments to the soil, just like we might offer organic and healthy foods to our plate to invigorate our senses in preparation for a new day. Utilizing what the land has to offer, leaves, weeded grasses, forest duff, river silt, and other various mineral rich amendments like nettles, chickweed, alfalfa, and oat straw compost teas is the way our ancestors built up their garden beds. They worked with what they had on hand and for some of our folks that included cow, donkey, horse, chicken, goat, or rabbit manure. Braiding the grasses down as Indigenous gardeners do allows for the roots, which hold in loads of carbohydrates and nutrients, to continue feeding the soil. Layering up, always adding and contributing nutrients to the garden beds and fields to grow our medicine and food, is how we honor and venerate the ancestors hands that cultivated food and medicine for thousands of years.

We are simply reclaiming and reviving our ancestral gardens and by doing so, we stand firmly in solidarity with the descendants and ancestors of the tribal peoples whose land we live on. Regenerating the land is the medicine, all while reinvesting in the traditions that our ancestors held as sacred. We take back what is rightfully ours when we participate in the land based movement to steward life and grow medicine. Every spring offers us this meaningful opportunity to engage our senses with timeless ancestral practices of land stewardship. As the songbird sings, spring becomes a universal choir where all the living creatures on Earth and in the cosmos chime in together to create a beautiful life affirming symphony. The land tells the story and the artist paints it all the while the singer encapsulates the glory of the taken care of land, mapping the prayers of the Grandmothers through the generations. Grandma's garden will always provide for the future generations. My uncle once told me that my Great Grandma's garden was full of medicine, food, and flowers. He mentioned that she cared so much for her garden that she hardly ever had issues with pests and fungal overgrowths. Our ancestors have proven time and time again that their land based relationships and the ways in which they stewarded their sacred gardens, are worthy of homage and admiration. legacies worth striving to live up to!