Sweet Confection
Image: Josh Kolbo
As I powdered the herbs that went into the resource packages I put together for Herbal Confection: A Meditation on Sugarcane, Sweetness and Sweet Herbal Medicine Preparations, the knowledge share that I’m facilitating with Herban Cura this Sunday, I revisited some incredible memories with Yarrow, Mountain Mint, Elecampane and Ceylon Cinnamon, the aromatic plants that went into the boxes. And I realized hey, time-traveling is sweetness too. My first encounters with these plants as medicine deepened my awareness that I am loved and cared for by the Earth.
Sugar is delightful. It stimulates our pleasure centers and tickles an evolutionary itch. Its taste is part of our blueprint, in a way: all 10,000 of our tastebuds have receptors for sweetness. It is also hard on the body. It has been hard on my people. The system it helped birth, plantation capitalism, has been so hard on the body of the Earth. How to make sense of all of this, and not lose sight of the plant itself?
I’m looking forward to witnessing what takes shape Sunday.
One intention I have is to create space to connect deeply with sweetness as metaphor. Be it in the scent of an herb that helped deepen our sense of wonder in the more-than-human, or a moment in our lives when we felt especially aware of our power, especially held by community.
For those who may have purchased one of the resource packages that were on offer for the knowledge share, I hope that the memory of their scent nestles into a loving place in your mind. If you are reading this, I hope that you can take the time to powder up an aromatic herb and feel your nervous system quiet as those volatile oils enter your nasal passage and travel up to your brain. Try listening to nice music or doing the powdering with the sunshine on your face, too. I promise you the next time you smell that plant again, you will be flooded with the sweetest feelings. No sugar needed.
Looking forward to Sunday. You can register for the knowledge share until tomorrow. Do so here.