Elecampane Harvest

A few weeks ago I woke up after a long night of coughing looking for elecampane tincture only to find the bottle as well as it’s mother jar empty.
Without stopping to grab a cup of tea, I walked outside in the rain with my slippers on and dug through the bare garden bed for clues to where elecampane is. I spy little red tops and feel around in the dirt to estimate the size of the root, then plunge the shovel in just once to loosen the deep soil. There are many shoots that radiate off of the main shoot so you have to be careful to not cut them with the shovel.
I am crouched, still coughing, asking the plants: "who wants to help me?" There are three big roots. I dig around in the cold dirt with my bare hands and am able to get all of the many fingered roots until I pull out an enormous root that looks like an ancient sea creature.
I hose it off, bring it inside and begin deciding how much I can use, how much I need and which parts I will replant again.
With my best knife I begin cutting off the roots, lining them up and slicing them like carrots into little rounds.
I throw some ugly pieces into a pot of water with fresh ginger so I can have tea as soon as possible.
Some of the roots go into a jar with diluted organic ethanol for a tincture that will have a ten plus year shelf life. Some of the roots go into another jar that I cover with hot honey, which will be an amazing liver and lung tonic when added to tea. The remainder I fill a parchment lined cookie sheet with to let dry.
The tea is ready, my cough is subsiding and it’s time to re-plant the parts of the root that will re-grow new medicine this year and next. I say blessings and give thanks.
It’s taken a couple of hours, but now there is a specific kind of medicine for coughs, lung ailments and grief. A bitter tonic for digestion as well as a grounding, focusing energy that is calming without making you sleepy.
The photo below is the hollowed out place where I harvested from a couple of years ago, the pink shoots are the newest growth. I re-planted nearly all of the pink shoots.
They will likely flower this summer.

an inadvertent ode to Cascade Anderson Geller

I woke up with a pain deep in my lungs.

The pain was as if I had been running in the artic or smoking cigarettes made of ice.
The lung pain was my only symptom, but I got right on treating it, just in case.

I began with hot tea and *local honey with our basic family tincture **the anti-infection blend.

I added about 10 dropperfuls of this to my tea a couple of times the first day. That night I had a dream where Cascade was with me. I told her about my lung pain and she warned me that it could be very serious. I asked her what I should do about it. She looked at me with her head tilted to one side and said "you're the herbalist, you tell me"

"Elecampane" I said. She smiled and said "good".

I woke up the next day and started a pot of super bitter tea. I knew I would be flying in a few days and wanted to really nip this illness in the bud.

The tea I made was elecampane & dandelion root simmered on the stove for a good long time.

Elecampane is a true love to me, the only plant I ever wrote a song for. That's cheesy, I know, but Elecampane is complex, strong, bitter, sweet, rich and unlike any other taste around. Elacampane is in the sunflower family and quite closely related to the sunchoke and even though it's called elf wort or elf dock, I find it to be a plant related more to Gnomes.

I drank some of this brew with honey and then added more water and let it continue to simmer. I must have drunk a gallon of this uber bitter brew throughout two days.

My lungs got better quickly but the pain and sickness had moved up into my upper chest.

Bummer.

I was sicker than I wanted to admit.

I kept on with my treatment. Stay the course.
This is the part where you get to hear the mantra that comes back to me often from fabulous local herbal teacher Cascade Anderson Gellar who once said to me "herbal medicine is arduous"
Basically why everyone takes anti-biotics these days. Herbal medicine is arduous, it takes time and patience and patience.

Cascade was the one who taught me all about the anti-infection blend.

The "infection" as it seemed to be, moved up out of my lungs and then out of my chest and now had fully landed in my throat.
Jeeze.
I was trying to get things caught up at the store and make the million arrangements for the children, the house, the dog, the chickens etc.

I finally packed about 10 minutes before we had to leave for the airport.

At this point, I begin to feel better, with the illness mostly in my head, ha ha, not like that but in my physical head.

When the cabin of the plane pressurized my head began to seemingly swell with pressure from the inside that was threatening to burst. I was yawning and sucking candy and pulling on my ears while yawning, I was massaging my eustation tubes. I was dring sips of water. I was miserable. I was trying to be patient. I was using calming techniques. Breathing exercises.
The flight attendant came over to see if we were alright. My travel partner explained the problem because I could not hear very well, nor tell how loud I was talking at this point, and asked if she had any suggestions. She looked at me and said "did you try yawning?"
I honestly wanted to hit her.

So back on earth, I now had a killer head cold, plugged ears and still tons of pressure in my head.
This day was all about the runny nose.
The day consisted of putting salve on my nose where the skin was raw, finding kleenexes, sucking cough drops, blowing my nose, disposing of kleenexes, repeat.
Oh and did I say that I was at this point in Las Vegas at the World Tea Expo where I was supposed to be tasting and smelling teas all day.

to be continued: part 2 will include the second half of the super-fun week that was the tea fair which includes a double ear infection, oh joy.

**Anti-Infection Blend

Like all good recipes, it has guidelines and parameters, but is made differently based on the season and what tinctures I have on hand.

Here's a basic recipe:
each tincture is already made seperately then blended after they're complete.
25% echinacea root, dried
25% echinacea root, leaf and flower tinctured fresh
15% fresh ginger root
10% usnea
15% oregon grape root
10% licorice root
We go through about 32 oz of this throughout each year. It takes care of practically everything.
Thanks Cascade.

*a great book to recommend about the healing and magic of honey is Stephen Buhner's book Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers

***all of this is recommended for using your own judgment, I am not a doctor, I have no letters behind my name, I make no claims, this is my own experience.***