The Studio Sale: December 2011

Despite the fact that I neglected my blog,  I did have a very productive season in the stillroom, preparing for the annual Studio Sale that my husband and I hold in our barn every Christmas.


This year, the long warm autumn allows me to continue harvesting late into the fall, gathering huge bundles of Sage and Marjoram and Lemon balm, bundling them to string across the beams above the wood stove, piling them in chaotic heaps on the drying rack frames.

 

We buy a cord of wood and settle into a rhythm of spending the evenings compounding mixtures for baths and dream pillows, steeping, straining, bottling and labeling, framing and matting.
We take turns choosing the music.

Gloria keeps an eye on the proceedings.

Teas and tinctures, herbal baths and organic catnip cat toys, all arranged for the sale.

Winter Recap

The Ides of March are almost upon us, and I am just now finding time to update this blog with the activities of the winter....well, of the fall and winter actually. So this will be a sort of highlights reel, a quick tour with images of some of the highlights of the seasons past.

I am not one of those people who likes to rush through winter, joining the headlong surge towards spring. The quiet and enforced interior life of the cold months, the luxurious length of the nights, the fires, the cozy post-holiday hybernation: I love all these.  Not that there was much Winter to speak of this year, here in Philadelphia, where an unexpected Halloween snow was just about the only wintery bit we got.

In day-to-day practice, this experience, another "warmest winter" on record, is quite lovely, but one cannot help but wonder, and perhaps even to feel that something is slipping, askew.

a field of valerian, escaped from some early garden

On a boat ride to this island, off the coast of Maine, we hike to the seaward side in search of sweet fat mussels for dinner.  The remnant fields are filled with St Johnswort, heavy with a late bloom of yellow flowers, and i am glad I've tucked a small gathering bag in my pack.

Here I have the luxury of just stripping the blooms themselves (I take only about 1/3 from any individual plant, and, again, only harvest from 1/3 of the population.I steep half in alcohol (100 proof Vodka) and the other half in olive oil.

After just a few hours, the characteristic red color is already intense!

The hardy proliferation of these two European plants throughout these cold northern islands seems like a special gift, attuned to the needs of the 'settlers'

It provides an aid to the depression and light- deprivation of these long dark months, in the case of St Johnswort, and a sovereign pain medicine, in the case of Valerian.  How necessary and fortuitously hardy they must have seemed to these early herbalists!


Modern herbalism tends to pigeonhole plants into a fame based on one use (depression in the case of St Johnswort) whereas a reading of the early texts reveal that this is good, as well, for burns and for the deep nerve damage that accompany 2nd and 3rd burns ---

This deep red colored oil is strained and compounded into a deep healing salve, with the addition of beeswax and 12,000 units of Vitamin E  (d-alpha tocopherol: natural)

The finished products

In the stillroom...

The Women's Herbal Conference: more images

Women, Women, Women!

Its always amazing to me to see this event come together -- a three-day celebration that creates an instant community around the study of herbs. My tribe. I love visualizing all of us setting off from our normal lives, kissing kids and responsibilities good-bye to come together for these three days. We four, leaving from Pennsylvania, drive most of the way up into New Hampshire on thursday, and stay overnight at a motel.   We find this unexpectedly lovely spot hidden behind the dumpsters!  Gotta be a good sign.

This year the organizers were challenged by moving the event from a long-beloved camp near Peterborough

to a new site....

But, as we came out of  registration, we looked up to see a a bald eagle
circling above the tennis courts...no lie! really, a Bald Eagle,
circling once, twice, three and four times. ....
The new site was thus blessed.

This year I was honored to have been asked to teach, and I presented my first workshop on Friday,

5. My Mother’s Booke…
or Reclaiming the hidden legacy of western women’s herbal wisdom w/Jeannine Vannais.

Women’s medicinal, herbal and household remedy books offer a window into the sophisticated and nuanced herbal knowledge they possessed.  The English Housewife, as characterized by Gervase Markham (1615) was a storehouse of herbal knowledge: a botanist, gardener, and chemist; an estate manager, distiller, brewer and compounder of everything from cordial waters for the plague to lavender washing balls. We will give voice to this rich legacy as well as discuss some of the many important herbs ceded to us from our European  heritage.

 It turned out to be a pretty free-form lecture, with time at the end to

  compound a blessing bag from lavender, calendula lemon balm and orris root.

That evening, we gathered in the tent, laughing, dancing, telling stories, sharing tales of the afternoon's workshops, and being stirred by the drums and dancing some more... 



Five-hundred and some amazing women...
kicking up our heels.



The Women's Herbal Conference: belated images

"My Mother's Booke..."
I set up my display at home, first, and Dory took some pictures
before we packed it all up to take to the Conference



My handout



"Off to College" Medicine Chest



Peppermint inhaler for studying, Euclyptus inhaler for sinus or chest congestion, Green clay for zits, Recue remedy,
 St Johnswort and Wild Rose for emotional health, Vitamins C & E, Echinacea and Herbal Vapor Rub.
 A copy of Herbal First Aid booklet. 



This medicine chest is literally 'a mixed bag' of things I wanted to send away to college with my daughter, Xina. She has become used to all variety of herbal cures: steams and honey pills and awful tasting tinctures, so I was happy to include a wide range of herbal products, both commercial and home-made.

(She also took these awesome photographs)



Lavender for anxiety and headaches, as well as  sleeplessness, &
 Balsam Fir for focus on higher goals, strength through community.



Aromatherapy sprays can be sprayed on bedding or clothing, as well as being sprayed into the air as an air-freshener.  Since they are made from pure essential oils, a bit of vodka, and distilled water, they do not stain.

Traditional Medicinal Teas

 A variey of teas.
Nothing is as comforting.

Be sure to steep
 the teas
 for at least 15 minutes,
 covered by a lid,
or in a teapot.



The usual band-aids, etc, for cuts and scrapes.
Arnica, in contrast,
 should only be used on unbroken skin:
 strains, sprains, bruises and the like.

 



Coughs, constipation, toothache, stomachache...





 

Earthquakes, Hurricanes and Travel

This past month has been tumultuous.  Mother Nature first shaking and then throwing us a curveball of spinning water in the form of Hurricane Irene, dumping 10+ inches of water all up the east coast and into Vermont and New Hampshire. Torrential, scouring, and perhaps also rejuevinating what is not swept away.

 It brings to mind a saying from an Iroquois elder that I came across some years ago.

There is a river flowing very fast

It is so swift that there are those who will be afraid.

They will try to hold on to the shore. 

They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly.

Know that the river has a destination.

The Elders say that we must let go of the Shore.

Push off into the Middle of the River.

Keep our eyes Open and our heads above the Waters.

And I say, see who is there with you & Celebrate.

At this time in our history we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves. 

For the moment we do --- our spiritual growth comes to a halt.

The time of the lone wolf is over.

Gather Yourselves together.

Banish the word Struggle from your attitude and vocabulary. 

All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner

&

In Celebration

In the midst of all this, I have been traveling, first to Maine and from there directly to Cape May, New Jersey, three days home and then off to New Hampshire for Women's Herbal Conference, home again to pack up my youngest and deliver her to college, driving directly through NYC at night, skyline beckoning. At each locale I was able to do some gathering, (retail heaven at the Conference!) and returned laden with goodies., many of which got assembled into an herbal medicine chest that I sent to school with Xina.  This included:

1. Five vials of Ginseng extract from Chinatown.  In small doses, it is a fall energy tonic, and in full-vial doses it is good for late-night studying or for hangovers. (!)
2. An assortment of teas: Traditional Medicinals Teas: Heartburn Tea, Breathe Easy, Throat Coat, etc.  These formulas have all been developed by Rosemary Gladstar, who recently presided at the  Herbal Conference, and are wonderful. Also Pollution Solution Tea a wonderful mix good for detox after a day in the city, and Catnip for cramps, both stomach and menstrual. Steep 10+ minutes with a lid!
3. Aromamists: Lavender for sleep, Mint and Orange for studying, and Eucalyptus with Sandalwood to clear the air.
4. Yarrow Flower Essence to banish negativityand Wild Rose Flower Essence for exhaustion and despair.  Rescue Remedy for accidents, emergencies and for shock.  St Johnswort tincture for mild depression.
5. Aloe vera gel for burns, Arnica cream for muscle soreness and overexercising. Calendula Cream
6 Assorted band-aids, gauze pads and tape, alcohol wipes, Benedryl and Motrin.

Photos will follow.
Time to get back to work, to hit the books, unpack from all my travels and to reorganize the stillroom in preparation for the last of the harvesting signalled by these cool crisp autumnal days.

"My Mother's Booke..." two works in progress

"My Mother's Booke..." is the title of a lecture I give about the legacy of the William Penn family women as revealed in the handwritten books they left behind.  In the case of the Penns, these included ledgers and account books, and an amazing cookbook/medicinal manuscript.  One of the Penn sons had this last one copied out for him before he set sail for Pennsylvania, and to our luck he chose to use the blank pages at the end of his Grandmother's recipe book, Lady Katherine Partridge Springett: an oculist and herbalist in England the 1640's.  In this way two books had come down to us, though none of that was immediately evident and had to be teased out of the clues in the book, the handwriting and usages.

These books offered me a glimpse into the stillroom of the past, the place where medicines were made, liqueurs and cordial waters compounded, poultices and fomentations prepared. It links us to these herbalists through the most basic components of life: their food and drink and medicine.  This is the reason for the title of this blog, which i hope will be your glimpse into my stillroom.






There are very few images of women in their stillrooms, but in this c1736 picture shows a well-stocked
herbal laboratory and its confident mistress.

  






































 My Mother, Maxine Rose Booth Vannais, was a wonderful cook, and after her death last year, her file boxes of recipes were lovingly saved and her worn and taped-together cookbooks added to our shelfs.
But having studied cookbooks, it got me to thinking...

So I have decided to put together a small volumn of her recipes
 ( or receipts, as they were called in the 17th century)

 which you can read more about in the sidepage
Perhaps my own version of  "MY Mother's Book"
                                                          without the 17th century "e"

By the way,
 I am giving an expanded version of
 "My Mother's Booke" a look at the herbal legacy of European women"
 at the Women's Herbal Conference this August in New Hampshire this year.
 JOIN US!
It is a wonderful fun learning space among the beauties of nature: us and the trees!

http://www.womensherbalconference.com/