Dear Francie,
we spent the day in the aspen grove yesterday. it was a cold, windy but clear morning. the road into the grove was especially hard to navigate, filled with large boulders and almost un-navigatable, with drops and ruts. but i made it.
there were about 25 of us. we gathered together in a circle and laid on the earth, covered in blankets and down. the wind blew over us in great exhaling out-breaths.
it was marvelous and... i felt tired...winter has arrived there. the trees are bare, a few with a whisper of leaves, but mainly bare, the land has that quiet 'tucked away' feeling, as if everything has newly gone to sleep. humans are more scarce now, at this time of the year, and everything can rest.
someone saw a bear and in the distance, all day, the sounds of hunters.
we sang. told stories of bear and bear's plant knowing, around the fire. and then it was time to dig.
the wool woman and i ended up under two pines, with large spreading branches. we sang and rattled, and offered chocolate and cornmeal. we put our bellies on the earth and dug with fingers and antler bones. washi was a shy root, mysterious and potent. i prayed for healing, my voice intertwined in earth and pine and root.
we took our time. as the dry earth gave way to her pungent smell. we breathed her in. me in gasping breath-fulls. we worked our fingers in and around her crevices. followed her long limbs into the earth in different directions. we ate her. came up covered in dirt. fingernails caked full.
then it was time to make the root into medicine. we told more stories, helped each other, worked the root into jars of local honey with dirt smeared hands. many of us simply rested and ate.
i've made you some honey. we missed you in the grove and quiet song.
dearly,
L.
