Musings on harvesting…

My kids humour me by coming along, (teenagers, you know) but the conversations we have let me know without a doubt that they are absolutely absorbing SO much. There’s a breeze today, and poplars dominate the air… my daughter said to me, “Mom, that smell is the Poplars!” Last weekend we spent hours harvesting poplar buds and other spring medicines and came back to the cabin with sticky resinous fingers. The aroma held onto our skin for days, and we’d catch whiffs of it here and there, and I think it’s safe to say it left an imprint in us both. Scent is so powerful, and I hope when she is grown up and bringing her own kids to these woods, she’ll catch a whiff of the poplars in spring and in her heart travel back to the time we got messy in the woods, sap and resin in our hair, making up and singing silly songs, and laughing our way back to the cabin; hearts and harvesting baskets full.

My son is usually 10 steps ahead down the trails. He likes to be the scout and isn’t so much into the actual harvest as he is remembering the pindrops we leave from previous years. That’s what it is, you know… a pindrop, an echo, a remembering and resonance of the footsteps and paths we took from previous years. And this morning he led us further than previous years and with a shout from up ahead he yelled back proudly that he had found a massive patch of Violets… the very thing we were in search of. Success on so many levels. A glorious morning full of metaphors.

My mom and I gather Rosehips and Hawthorn in the autumn. We have our spots pindropped. She makes jelly and I make tinctures.Together we make memories and inadvertently through the gathering of heart medicine, Rose and Hawthorn, the thorns pierce our hearts as much as our fingers. We weave depth and dimension into our mother/daughter story, and our creations carry that signature.

In the coming weeks we’ll come and visit the places where the Wild Roses bloom. Truly one of my most favourite times. It is possible to feel completely intoxicated after a morning of harvesting this high vibe flower.

In the moment, in the present, in the now, in the Boreal.