Westward and Inward

Thoughts From the Road + A Medicine Story: Mullein

Thoughts From the Road

I am sitting cross-legged on the bed in the back of our car. Victor is driving - the road is broad, flanked by endless swaths of sagebrush, rabbitbrush, and all the other high desert plants in their winter attire. The ceramic hummingbird we brought home from the Cayman Islands is hanging from the rear-view mirror, dancing to “Come Over” by Kowloon, currently playing over the car’s speakers.

I like driving west. It feels soothing to me to leave the hustle of the midwestern world behind - to pass through the hardwood forests, into the driftless regions the glaciers left untouched, through the wild prairies, and out onto the Great Plains, a vast expanse of sky and earth. I used to think the plains were incredibly boring. It was only when I started to really look at the landscape - look for what was there to appreciate - that the exceptionally raw beauty of the plains came into sharper relief. Now I love when the forests give way to the endless open sky and the oceanic firmament. The sea of my thoughts part in the face of so much unbroken space.

Out the window to my right is a scene so majestic as to defy encapsulation within words. A sweeping vista of mountains is draped in long dark shadows from the clouds overhead. Snow falls in one valley. Sun shines in another. Here and there a few white dots speckle an area…a grouping of houses, a ranch, a town.

When I consider the massive tract of earth that is the Great Plains, my mind glides between the forests to the east, and the mountains in the west like a pendulum. In between, the plains are an immense pause - a stretch of land that feels timeless. Only the wind knows the full extent of this territory, roaming as it does with such power and gait, like the spill of wild horses galloping with their own secret purpose. I love to allow myself the feeling of astonishment that people live in these places - not that the land seems uninhabitable per say, but rather I cannot conceive of how the people who do live in these places bear any connection to the rest of the world. The plains are another dimension entirely. I am sure of it.

We move through space, and our path can be plotted on a map or charted in a digital rendition of what a satellite knows. Yet, who can truly say here or there isn’t a crossing into another universe? A map is only a representation. A sheet of music is not the song. We who move within the territory, our experience is wholly up to the present moment synchrony of our ability to be present to what-is. What-is, is most certainly predicated on what we conceive to be possible. As for myself, I have intentionally maintained the knowing of my child-self: it is possible to pass through space into another realm entirely.

I like the idea of hidden lands, sacred valleys, and divine abodes - places of coherent, blissful frequencies where harmony, peace, and fulfillment abound. I like the thought that these kingdoms exist even within places we think we know well. With the right key, the resonant tone held in the heart, we can step through a portal into a wholly different state - state of mind, state of being, state of affairs.

Moving between ecosystems is a form of interdimensional travel. As we roam across the land, we shift between one state of mind and another, and another. The mind of the mountains is very different from the mind of the grasslands. The mind of the hardwood forests and dark, clear lakes is a realm completely different from the mind of ocean. We move between cultures, languages, and ways of seeing - all organically arising out of, and as an expression of, the regional ecosystem. Language is as much a part of an ecosystem as are certain birds or plants. The same language may be spoken in many lands, but there is always a cadence, a lilt, jargon, a pronunciation that is specific to that place, growing out of the land itself. Cultures and languages that have migrated across oceans have morphed in relationship with the natural world within which they have embedded. The variety of cultures reflects the multidimensionality of life in form.

There is an old Buddhist adage that says “half the dharma is accomplished by leaving home,” where dharma means the practices or path which lead to enlightenment. Here, home represents a certain state of mind. A place or space where we have long ingrained habits and tendencies. How refreshing and illuminating it is to step beyond the borders of our known and practiced ways, into the places uncharted within our own cognition. By all accounts, leaving home could simply mean walking out the door and intending to see the world anew. A more explicit demonstration would be to get in the car and drive for three or four or ten days. Or as some people do, put on a backpack and walk hundreds or thousands of miles. The funny thing about these sorts of journeys, is that eventually so many different realms are seen, that the sense of home expands. We become comfortable in the unfamiliar - and our relationship with life is changed forever. We have tasted different states of mind by virtue of moving through space and time - and we ourselves have changed. It has been our own tactile sensing, our own mind merged with that of nature, offering us initiation into new ways of thinking, perceiving, feeling, and being.

The old yogis carried everything they owned, moving from mountain to valley, to town, and beyond. When asked where they were coming from, they would say, “behind.” When asked where they were going, they would reply, “ahead.” The Divine Fool steps fearlessly into the unknown, having given up all attachment to the past and the future. May we all be so wysely foolish as to follow our hearts, over the ledge into another state of mind, another adventure - where perspective and contrast shed new light on who we are, and our sense of comfort in ourselves and life opens that much wider.

The waning crescent moon and Venus alight the morning sky, above the Carson Valley, Nevada

Since the last True Nature, Victor and I completely emptied our storage unit, repacked almost every box, and moved everything into a small shipping container. Then we loaded up Boss and Little B (vehicle and trailer) and drove three days, mostly on Interstate 80 - across Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada. Our first night on the road, we slept in a state wildlife area in Nebraska - alongside a small lake. Our second night, we slept at a rest stop in the middle of the Wasatch Mountains an hour and a half outside of Salt Lake City. We woke up inside an igloo, our car covered in fluffy white snow.

Now we are settled into our cozy cabin in Genoa, Nevada’s oldest settlement - a tiny, unincorporated town nestled against the base of the grand Sierras. From where I now write, I can see the Pinenut Range and the flickering lights of the Carson Valley. I am going to finish this piece, make another batch of sauerkraut, and get tacos fired up for dinner. After a beautiful and transitional fall season, it feels right to settle in with the snowy mountains for the Deep Winter Turning. This year, the Winter Solstice falls on Thursday, December 21st - at 7:27pm PST. In less than two weeks we will cross the threshold into Yule.

I decided not to share a Thought Bath this week, on account of traveling around, and also with much due respect to my own sense of inspiration. True Nature is my place to share what moves through me, sometimes it is little else than the sound of the wind rustling through the grasses. My primary intention is to remain true to my muse, which is my own living of life in connection with nature. I have come to accept myself as a non-linear being, and I know you are the same. So, I am henceforth choosing to adopt a less scheduled approach.

Alpenglow along the Pinenuts and the edge of the Sierras

Mullein: Nothing is Ever Broken (a medicine story)

Mullein is one of my oldest plant friends. It was the first medicine plant I was ever introduced to, by a woman who took us foraging up in the Pecos Wilderness of New Mexico. We gently plucked the canary yellow flowers off the stalk, leaving the seeds in their capsules. Back at her home, we filled a small jar with the flowers and olive oil. She instructed us to keep the jar in a warm place for a month, after which the oil could be strained and used for earaches. I don’t remember if we ever used the oil, but I do remember driving back to Wisconsin in shock to see mullein everywhere. I had simply never noticed it before.

In the years that followed, I learned more of mullein’s ways and habits. A biennial who loves rocky soil, mullein develops as a green, fuzzy-leaved rosette during its first season. In the late autumn and winter, the energy returns to the roots, which send up a tall, straight stalk the following summer, adorned with its signature green, fuzzy leaves, and topped with yellow flowers. Mullein leaves are long-standing lung remedy, documented as far back as Ancient Rome. Whether made into a tea or tincture, the leaves impart cool, moistening properties to the lung environment - excellent for dry, wracking coughs. My first experience with mullein leaf tincture was one of my very first observations of the efficacy of herbal medicine. Victor and I were on a road trip down to Florida, and he came under the weather with quite a cough. We had learned about mullein’s properties from the woman we went foraging with in New Mexico, and we decided to give it a try. Within one dose his cough became more productive. Over the course of the day his coughing fits eased, and within a few days disappeared altogether. It was many years later that I learned how to work with mullein roots, thanks to herbalist Jim Macdonald of Herbcraft in Michigan. Jim writes about the efficacy of mullein root tincture for issues of the spine. When I first read his article, I was skeptical of how taking a liquid extract of an herb could readjust the spine and remediate conditions such as a herniated disk. Victor, who seems to have a propensity for mullein’s assistance - demonstrated the power of mullein’s root medicine just a couple years ago. At the time he was experiencing strong back pain, from what we determined was a clear misalignment in (at least) a few vertebrae. I remembered Jim’s article, and also happened to have a freshly strained mullein root tincture on hand. I gave Victor seven drops before bed. As he describes it:

In my dream that night, I was feeling an energy that is very similar to a deep meditation with a body buzz. I woke up out of that dream and sat up - when I sat up, my spine cracked in five places. I felt a huge relief, laid back down, and slept for ten more hours. When I woke in the morning I felt better. Completely.

Two summers ago, Nature suggested to me that I make a mullein flower essence on the Leo New Moon. In the weeks that followed this knowing I had a string of mullein synchronicities, including retelling Victor’s experience with mullein root to a person named Mullein, while incredibly at the same time (I found out moments later) Victor was retelling the exact same story to another group of people. When plants speak up, sometimes it’s pretty loud.

Given the years I had been working with mullein, I was honored by the invitation to cocreate their flower essence. The Leo New Moon was still weeks away, and in the meantime we picked up our camp from the Okanagon National Forest in Eastern Washington, and drove eight hours southeast to the Umpqua River, just thirty miles from the Oregon Coast. Mullein is a fairly ubiquitous plant, given the right conditions, and I felt certain I would easily find a beautiful mullein to cocreate with for the upcoming lunation. As we settled into river life, I noticed that the only mullein within miles that I had seen were vast colonies inhabiting the clear-cut lands. As the day drew closer, I realized that I still didn’t have a mullein “spot,” so I sat down in conference with Nature to kinesiologically test out some possibilities. I found it hard to believe when the clear-cut was the spot Nature was choosing, but since I had no other real options I decided to play along.

There is very little that usually inspires me about clear-cut lands. My heart hurts to see the ground torn up and sun baked, all the trees gone, with all but scraggly plants surviving. That and mullein. Giant magnificent mullein standing like sentinels, their torches ablaze with yellow light.

As soon as we stepped into this scene, I felt some kind of significance I couldn’t put my finger on. I was admittedly still feeling reserved about making an essence here, I had a bias to cocreating in what felt like “pristine” wild or beautifully cultivated places. This was a rag-tag zone, and it seemed less-than-perfect in my eyes.

We picked our way across the land, testing different spots and stands of mullein, until we came upon “the one.” There was a grouping of many large flowering mullein, with a stump in the midst - a perfect table for the essence set-up. I connected with all the intelligences involved, set up the essence bowl, supportive crystals, and water. My very last step was to use metal tweezers, cleared with selenite, to pluck three flowers from two different plants. I approached the first mullein, thanking it for its participation in this medicine making, and ever so slowly, and what I thought was delicately, attempted to pluck the first flower. It ripped in half, my heart sank, and I heard these words echo in my mind:

Nothing is ever broken.

I brushed the words aside. Even though I knew Nature did not need a perfectly intact flower to derive a perfectly coherent essence, still it felt almost inauspicious to me. I didn’t like it. The next two flowers came out cleanly, and then I proceeded to the second mullein plant. This time, the first two flowers both ripped in half, with the final third coming out cleanly. I honestly felt a bit of failure, even though I kept hearing

Nothing is ever broken.

I tested to see if the torn flowers would affect the integrity of the essence (they wouldn’t), and then left the essence to be with itself for the new moon moment.

In essence cocreation, from the minute the process begins - as far back as gathering supplies, traveling to the location, meeting the plant (or other wild intelligence), physically setting up the essence, and bottling it - all parts of the process can offer information as to an essence’s character, its medicinal identity.

A medicine maker intimately understands that insight into the deeper qualities of a medicine can be received by virtue of the focus needed for its creation.

Some essences I have come to understand only through observing its creation experience, and pairing that information with the testing information for when it comes up in an essence reading. I learn about my remedies through the context within which they are made, and within which they arise for others - rather than predetermined qualities I think I understand beforehand.

Victor and I spent the lunation in meditation, and then drove back down the road to the clear-cut to collect the essence and bottle it. I had my mind firmly fixed on the whole scenario, mullein and the depth of relationship I had thus far, and what I felt was less than perfect - the clear-cut land and the torn flowers. And those words,

Nothing is ever broken.

Hiking back to the essence spot a very clear stream of thought dawned in my mind, offering me insight into the nature of mullein’s essence. At first I had only applied those words “nothing is ever broken” to the torn flowers, as if they were a consolation offered to counterbalance my disappointment.

I saw mullein plants all around me in the clear-cut, absolutely thriving in conditions that to my eyes looked broken. Suddenly I could see through the lens of mullein’s presence on this land, to see that mullein’s thriving here and now was part of the land’s continued evolution. There was nothing truly broken about this land, unless I decided to stop the timeline at clear-cut and call it over. That was impossible, nature was already moving forward. In the broader scope, there was nothing whatsoever truly broken - only my human concept based on limitation.

Thoughts of mullein’s physical medicine streamed to my mind. Its action on our lungs, helping us quite literally take in life. Mullein leaf is widely known to be a grief medicine, as grief is thought to be stored in the lungs - the physiological tension pattern of grief is such that it constricts our ability to breathe fully. Tea or tincture from the leaf not only influences the lungs, but influences our capacity to release and let go of grief so that we can be fully open to life once again. The medicine of mullein’s flowers has an affinity for the head region, whether as an ear oil, or a tincture that addresses nerve pain and moves lymph - mullein flowers bring clearing energy to the head, and by connection to the mind. The root medicine as aforementioned is primarily for our alignment - structural alignment is the physical corollary of our inner alignment. Everything about who mullein is, speaks to moving up and out. Up and out of our grief. Up and out of our mental constriction. Up and out, back into our center, back into our alignment.

I saw how within the context of the clear-cut, mullein was simply doing what it does best: absolutely thriving in the disturbed, rocky soil. Then I thought about how we humans often look outside ourselves at situations, places, certain contexts - and label them as broken. Whether it’s our body, our finances, relationships, an ecosystem, a city, a country, or even the entire globe, we have a habit of stopping the timeline when things seem at their worst. Yet, when we find our own alignment, find our own center, find our own thriving in the midst of what seems wrong - by virtue of that freely flowing vital life force energy, we contribute mightily to forward movement, and the positive evolution we ultimately seek.

Essentially, mullein conveys a powerful truth of wild nature - the truth of our quantum nature: limitation is an illusion - nothing is ever truly broken.

Winter Solstice Essence Drop

⟡ Mullein Flower Essence ⟡

Leo New Moon // 5°38’ // 7-28-22 // Umpqua Rivershed, Oregon

Nothing Is Ever Broken

On a personal level Mullein reminds us that there is no state of health or life beyond attainment; on a collective level Mullein shows us that our best service to the whole is through our own thriving and alignment; on a universal level Mullein teaches us that well-being is the true basis of reality.  Mullein invokes electrical patternings that feel like trust, which as they gather momentum, evolve into knowing.

The deadline for new paid subscribers to join this quarter’s essence drop will be this upcoming Wednesday December 13th

Mullein Flower Essence, just prior to bottling