Ocotillo, a Foundational Remedy... for the Heart
Through the lens of Bioregional Herbalism - Developing relationship with plants opens doors within us and around us.
As a student of ocotillo for many years now, I have been given many lessons along the way to bolster my understanding of who she is as well as what she has to offer. The process of learning has involved continually coming back to the plant at different times of the year, under different sets of circumstances, in different locations, and often with groups of people along with me.
Sometimes my agenda has been clear and sometimes I approach simply with a curious and open mind to observe. In either case, I may learn things I’ve never even considered, felt or thought before, or I may perceive, or feel, things more deeply such as to usher in greater understanding.
All of this is what I have come to term “bioregional herbalism”. It is a way of relating, both internally and externally as well to the life around us. The external part stems from proximity - what are the plants in my local environment and what are the environmental/elemental conditions that we, as humans, share in our coexistence with these plants?
Internally, the process is centered around getting in touch with our feelings. Do we know what our body is feeling at this moment? Can we identify pain, tension, discomfort, tingling, numbness? Can we tap into any sense of awareness in our hearts or wherever we may be able to connect to an emotion within our bodies? How does it feel to walk on this landscape here??
By beginning to become aware of our own feelings, we may not only become more attuned to the emotional ebb and flow within, but we may also become more attuned to impressions made upon us by the life around us.
This is what I call ‘coming back to baseline’. And it is through the breath that we can arrive at our present awareness of the great mystery that surrounds us.
It is this place within ourselves that ocotillo first seeks to cause us to become aware of, then seeks to enter us, by its awareness, through its Nature, to assist us in clearing that path between true self-awareness and self-expression. It is along that path that healing takes place, such that even our physiology can transform.
I’d like to leave you with a sharing from one of my Bioregional Herbalist Apprenticeship field classes in which we’re preparing to sit in meditation with ocotillo to prepare ourselves for gathering some branches to make tincture together as a group.
The approach to gathering the plant may not only prepare our own minds for the process and what we put into it, but also how that experience may enable our own learning about the plant and ourselves.
These are the varied and complex layers of an approach to working with plants where relationship is foundational. This is, inherently, a creative approach which opens up possibilities not only for our own personal growth but for what is able to come through in the preparation of the plant material. It is far more than its chemical constituents. Perhaps, those molecules may be nothing more than the manifestation of the energy that is put into the plant by its existence in this place which is then amplified, let’s say, by our presence, attention and action. That’s something to ponder.