The Medicine In The Moment
The Medicine In The Moment
a quick post exploring how everyday tasks in the kitchen and garden offer immense gifts for healing, personal growth and expanding our understanding if we simply choose to be present and receive them
Today reach into the freezer and pulled out a big bag filled with frozen ripe elderberries from our late garden harvest (I reserved some from our best harvest) to make a batch of plain elderberry syrup for my wife. I typically make my elderberry syrups infused with a long list of additional medicinal plants and fungi, such as White Pine Needles, Ginger, Tulsi, Goji Berries, Echinacea, however, she prefers a more simple and “unadulterated” elderberry flavor (so, knowing this, I reserved some berries in the freezer for this specific purpose.)
The way I often harvest (in a rush after work) and save them in the freezer (by snipping the whole ripe cluster of berries off, rinsing, drying them, then putting in ziplock bags with the berries still on the stems) requires separating the frozen ripe elderberries from the stems by hand once they are removed from the freezer (and before you cook / process them to make syrup/ jam etc). The stems contain compounds (that if they ended up in your finished elderberry preserve in large quantity) could be problematic. The (necessary) process of rolling the berries between one’s fingers to pop them off the stem is simple and goes smoothly but it is seem by some as tedious.
Today when I gently rolled the ripe elderberries between my fingers (which quickly became stained with anthocyanin as some of the berries are so ripe they pop open and release their antioxidant rich juices with the slightest touch) I chose to use the fact that I was required to stand there separating berries for about an hour as an opportunity to become present in the moment and open to perceiving and receiving the gifts that are offered by the experience.
As I began to separate the elderberries from the stems I thought of how the Vietnamese Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hanh was known for his wise suggestion to “wash the dishes as though you are washing a baby Buddha”. Many who are performing a repetitive task in the kitchen or the garden end up seeing that process as just “a means to an end”, even sometimes resenting that process of working with one’s hands , frantically moving through that act of co-creating while wishing it would be over sooner than later. I have done this myself on many occasions.
Today, however, I made the conscious discussion to embrace the moment fully during the repetitive task I had chosen to invest my time in. I chose to give my full attention, not only of my mind , but also the attention and love of my heart and my spirit to the moments in which I was choosing to do this task.
This choice to not avoid and rush through experiencing moments but rather to co-create with love and giving my full attention and gratitude to each moment offered me a sort of medicine for my mind, heart and spirit. Instead of hurrying through separating the elderberries from the stems in a rush to get to the destination of being able to give some simple elderberry syrup to my wife, I instead chose to “separate the elderberries from the stem as though I am holding a sacred connection to the past, future and the earth, an opportunity to learn from the ancient wisdom of my ancestors and the sacred geometry imbued into each cluster of berries and a means to boycott big pharma while healing the mind and body in my hands”.
As I held each berry cradled within my purple stained fingers and palm I realized that I was holding the same medicine that my ancestors and the people who called this land before me also gathered, cultivated and preserved to keep themselves and their loved ones healthy, so the act of creating medicine with these plants connects me through the living heritage of the plant world to those that have walked this Earth before me.
That same handful of elderberries also connects me to the future and generations yet to arrive on this beautiful Earth as I am offered the opportunity to save and share elderberry seeds at the same time as making medicinal preserves. Through saving and sharing seed each season this process also enables me to nourish myself and my loved ones in a way that aligns with the covenant of The Honorable Harvest.
This brings me to how the act of making elderberry syrup with mindfulness offers me a sacred connection to the Earth. Not only is the medicine I will create with the berries infused with the natural essence and lifeforce of the Earth, and not only can I plant the seeds to help future generations of humans and non-humans also have access to the abundance that elderberry shrubs provide, but I am also left with the stems which make for a perfect addition to our compost bin (providing aeration between more dense and finely ground ingredients allowing the aerobic composting organisms to do their important work) and allowing me to give back to our Mother Earth through building living soil.
This process also offered me the opportunity to learn from the ancient wisdom of my ancestors and the sacred geometry imbued into each cluster of berries.
Last but not least, this act of growing (and/or foraging for) elderberries and making my own medicine to heal the mind and body provides a means to boycott big pharma and to live by example to show people there we can be our best selves through teaming up with nature and seeing our food as medicine.
The the final destination of the above described process offered a valuable blessing of the syrup I can now gift to my wife. However, it could also be said that an even more powerful medicine was offered to me through my choice to be present, grateful and open in the moments I spent separating elderberries from the stems, juicing them, separating the seeds for sharing and making the syrup itself. The process in and of itself (filled with moments of loving presence, pattern observation and openness) offered it’s own powerful medicine to my own heart, mind and spirit.
One of the reasons I emphasized the potential to use seemingly tedious moments in the garden and the kitchen (especially in food preparation) as offering immense potential for cultivating mindfulness, opening windows to expanding our understanding is that such acts also open gateways to amplify the medicinal properties of the crops, food or medicine being tended, prepared or preserved. This is made possible via the fact that the thoughts and emotional states we chose have been scientifically proven to have a profound effect on water molecules.
Thus, when we tend our crops (plants mostly made of water), save/share heirloom seeds, prepare our food (which invariably involves water) and create medicines (like my elderberry syrup) each thought and emotion we choose during the act of tending, preparing or preserving that food/medicine is infusing it’s molecules with information and literally altering the structure (and by extension the health and/or medicinal/nutritional potency) of said crops, meals or medicinal preserves.
Of course, even solid (so called “inanimate”) objects are receptive to the energy emitted by our thoughts and emotions, so it is not just water that is worth considering in this sense, though, water is particularly receptive. I thought it worth mentioning as we humans are mostly made of water (living on a world mostly covered in water).
Therefore, this holiday season, as you are creating in the kitchen, I invite you to give yourself (and those you are preparing the food for) the gift of the medicine that is only available to you when you choose to be present (and in a state of love/gratitude) in the moment.
Each moment you spend sorting heirloom seeds, preparing a meal or washing sink full of dishes offers you the opportunity to give yourself the gift of medicine for your soul and to intentionally stimulating neurogenesis and renovating your synaptic scaffolding.
Here is to making the most of each moment and choosing share medicine with our selves as well as others through mindfully co-creating in the garden and the kitchen!
You’re a beautiful soul. I wish I had met somebody like you and had kids with them.
Beautiful.