I'm writing from the perch of my study, at this shared liminal space of mid-march. 
Bridging time. Winter and spring, water and fire, ending and beginning, contraction and expansion, death and rebirth. 
Snakes shed their skin and we can, too. Eggs and seeds carry the recipes for the diversities of life, and we can, too. In one day the sky can hold sun and cloud, clear and rain, calm and wind, and we can, too. 

It's Sunday March 19th and we're in the portal, my radishes, and I can't help but continue to share how adventures with the planets, relationships with the plants, can and do inform how to human better, how to do the earthly things with some guidance from Elders and Teachers of the more than human kind is salve for souls and part of the birthrights of folk medicine and culture.
 
I've been taking a long view into what is considered the 'proper' measure of the year, beginning at the Spring Equinox, Ostara, Aries season, and can't help but continue to invite you into some pattern perception and active participation with the very real magic all around. 
Let's define magic as this:
collaborating and co-creating with energies and matter for the pursuits of wholeness, independence, vitality, liberation, for all. 
If we use this definition we can see it's relation to the M. Scott Peck's definition for love: "The will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth". 

​The Planets and Plants love us, and I guess I'm warming up to the idea that I may be doing my version of spreading the gospel, with love in my heart, and rage in my belly, and fear in my feet, and longing in my bones.
To offer anything that eases the sharp, softens the landing, reminds us of what is possible, still, here. And it IS something like magic, isn't it? That after all the destruction and despite all the fear, life emerges. The birds return. The radicle roots in and the stem and leaves break from the dark. We can, too. 

Today, Sun and Moon meet again in Pisces, the culmination of a cycle, a bridge into new beginnings through endings. I wanted to share with you some seriously rad, auspicious, juicy and delicious things happening right here, right now, right where you are. 
S
The Moon New in Aries, Tuesday March 21 at 0 degrees Aries: the start of the entire wheel of the year, the onset of initiation, at spring equinox, where we can be one with The Dark and The Light, the and also, the self and more than self. I talk a lot about this in the Longview guided adventure recording for the year because it shows up again, and again, amongst different planets and signs and transits all year long.
I've been saying this for years now, and experience /perceive it regularly, it's not always easy but it's always rewarding: the entire cosmos is co-conspiring for our greatness. 

Over these next few days and nights, spend time here, on this bridge, in this portal, still and inside you there is something longing for your attention, maybe. Mimic the Moon, look into the dark, invite them to tea and dream some dreams. 
Use it to inform how to actionate desires and values, make your plans, set your goals, follow through on that chat with that collaborator, do what you do. 
Because check out this gift . . . . 
The next New Moon in April on Wednesday the 19th is in Aries again! This time at 29 degrees, the culmination, and yet another beginning. 

Are you seeing what I am seeing? 

The April New Moon Aries is also a solar eclipse, hybrid style as the north node culminates in Taurus, bridging to a new moon in Cancer in July when the nodes of the eclipse axis officially move from Taurus - Scorpio to Aries - Libra. 

What I take from this, and what you can apply with more depth, personal experience, natal charts, your rituals, reflections, new year celebrations, strategic plans for the next 3 - 6 - 9 - 12 months, or **anything that resonates for you** is a huge, auspicious, clear, supportive, wild window of opportunity to be with the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Jupiter and Chiron in Aries, and any and all Aries archetypal resonance, throw Mars the ruler of Aries in there as he completes a long ass time in Gemini before moving into Cancer (another bridge) on the 25th. 

What I am saying is, if you needed a sign to say no, sit still, reflect, investigate, experiment, discover and adventure with this particular time frame and choose to bravely wander into making meaning for yourself, in relation ship to these things, NOW IS YOUR SIGN. 

What I am saying is, there are seeds within you that are longing for your stewardship, and plants and planets out there who can help guide us through the processes that increase vitality, interconnection, and that this kind of interaction is a relationship, and relationships help us heal. 

What I'm saying is, here are a bunch of Planet Elders, Archetypes, ancient tradition, nature centered, juicy and delicious pals and allies who, just like the Plants, love us, and want to make love and magic with us and through us. 

I know, I know. But just remember, I say this all with such vervor and the passion of a pentecostal because I've seen it. I see it save lives. I've seen once impossible to even imagine things become moments become more. And I can't help but encourage you to see what an adventure that requires a bit of bravery, decision magic, your dark depths and radiant joy, your wounds you think will never heal, wild dreams and sustaining action can be like, embodied, for you and yours.
Healing of the self is never done alone, and always positively impacts the world. 

Suggested materials:
notebook, planner, pens, pencils, art stuff 
candles
eggs, seeds, blossoms, fruits
water fire earth air 
quiet solitude and reflection, introspection time
cleansing, clearing, literally and energetically
calculated risk taking
archetypes and models for Bravery, Courage, Discernment, Follow Through, Endurance, Resilience, Creativity, Healing
Sow Seeds, of all kinds, within and with out, and commit to the processes of cultivating care 


Suggested Plant Pals 
Nutrient rich Nettle 
Debris clearing Dandylion
Heart centering, softening, protecting Rose 
Cooling Mint

Choose Your Own Adventure: Imbolc   it's still a lovely season for these pals
Choose Your Own Adventure: Venus Physica
Breast & Lymph Massage
Springin Tonic tea blend
Chill Joy tea blend
Focus Potion
Damiana tincture


When we cultivate relationships with plants and planets, we experience safety and trust, connection and reduction of harm, and what better medicine is there than relational healing? Thank you for being here, reach out with anything, and have a fantastic adventure through this bridge and beyond. 

Love, 

​Lu and The Plants




If you'd like to purchase the 1.5 hour recording Lu's Longview for the year, it's done via Venmo at sliding scale, email me. 

      When I feel compelled to offer something like a beacon through the dark despair of systemic violence I try to remember my role in community, through meraki farmacy. I could offer the relationships with plants to help us hold our Grief and Rage. I could remind you that folk medicines from meraki are subsidized in cost as a form of reparations. I’d let you know that I am headed to the post tomorrow and will get you the plant care you want from here. Motivated to give timely and appropriate care, not to make a sale. And then that sense of persistent disgust for the commodification of health care makes my nose pull up, the precursor to a growl. My ongoing disdain for the constant advertising and performing is pulled up right now, because it is intricately woven with the Other Things: the systematic and systemic, calculated, hundreds of years old war against Safety, Community, Sovereignty, Indigenous belonging, Partnerships with the Earth, unfucked with access to care and interdependence with people and plants and places. 

This thing happens, when the gates within holding the beasts are opened. This thing is maybe called a trigger, colloquially or clinically. What I think this thing happening is, is rather normal. When I feel the Rage Against The Systems because patriarchy kills, because cops kill, because corporations kill, because imperialism, because capitalism, because ,  because some of the humans consciously choosing to be complacent or complicit and selfish and enemy to the People, because THE NOISE, because there is no accountability or repair or prevention system because that all comes from outside the systems, from communities, I feel the Rage Against Betrayals, the Grief of Harm, and sometimes I can remember that under and beyond and within all those big feelings is Love. And the Snarl ready to Bite is back because thoughts and prayers and instant access to all the violence all the time is not looking like it solves the problems. I snarl at my own love, you see, because if it were as simple as love solves all things, well.
I don’t want to feel Love, you see, because once I do all gates are opened. 

So what can i possibly offer?

I could tell you that my face is tight and tense with disgust and sacred rage. I could tell you that writing out my feelings often helps me process, as does drinking plants infused in water for a few hours, plants that will support my own bodies’ processes of regulating stress of all kinds. I could massage with a plant infused oil in the places of tension, for me right now that is my Jaw. That is where My Rage lives, to best actuate my rage in my oldest weapon of a mouth full of swords, sometimes lanterns.
I can lean into the relation ships that hold and buoy so I can navigate with more skill, hold the plants with all I am as they hold all of us, so i can access my breath and tears and friend ships and hope, faith maybe too. 

I could remind you that whatever emotions and body feelings you have, they are not the problem. They are not a symptom of something malfunctioning within you. I would encourage you to allow the rage and the grief and even some of the despair to have some space. If it feels overwhelming I’d remind you to practice things to help compartmentalize and self soothe, so we don’t get engulfed by it all. I would say “I started all this because of acute awareness of pain and suffering, because chronic stress and stress disordering underlies all dis-ease, and until I know better how to affect systemic change, all I know to do is grow with the plants and dispense their wisdom and care for us, so that while we Fight and Build, we can decrease the deleterious effects of pain onto our bodies, relationships, hope and experiences’.
I would say your sensitivity is a power house, a testament to our bodies as vessels for the divinity of feeling being connected and care full with Life, for the sanctity of Life. 

I retrace my steps to remind myself of the things that are proven to help me hold the multitudes. Outside. Nature. Plants. Dogs. Breathing with attention and intention. Moving dancing hiking running stretching bathing massaging. Turn off the news. Stop the scroll. Grab the notebook. Write or record something and share it with people so they know I am here and there are so many More Than Us, even though I am not there, we are here, now, and that there are people all around who are feeling howling crying dreaming building the world we need deserve want long for. 

I feel that longing for a pinot noir or a pack of IPA or any delicious cocktail that will numb the pain and disconnect me from the intense awareness of so much stimuli. I remember that I don’t do that anymore, because I don’t actually want to disconnect or not feel or not think or not know. And there that voice is again: I’ve been so ‘good’, I’ve worked so hard, this is decades of work of process of diving into the dark, of accountability, feeding the desires for something like self mastery more than the desire to feel less discomfort,
what’s one little day as the snow falls and the tears aren’t accessible, and I don’t live near friends, and there’s a collection of fine spirits to soften the edges. 

It’s so tempting. And easily justified, as our corporate culture thrives and feeds the reasons and seasons to consume and distract and pretend to forget for awhile. 
And it’s a betrayal, isn’t it? Not just to me, but to my pain and my desire. No one cares, that voice says, because it’s not as though I am affecting change or easing pain anyway, i can hardly call it a business or even a community service, not with the levels of engagement , response, requests, sales, opportunities. I haven’t once offered a linear path or task analysis for the cure to the cultural virus spread by thought. 

I remember that most of my life I have accomplished something or enacted a desire from sheer stubbornness. Sometimes it's more like a deep knowing.  I remember my dedication to the paths & practices of Decreasing the Suck and Increasing the Rad, and how sometimes harm reduction has replaced my defining identity with trauma. 

So maybe that is what I can offer, the reminders I so often share. 
That our choices are potent and powerful, that it’s all about the practice and the process. That maybe there is some truth, regardless of our awareness or consciousness, we are all alive right now right here in this seemingly never ending hot mess of destruction to usher in new paradigms, as individuals within groups and community. I want to confidently believe that we have all the solutions, right here right now.
We know that mutual aid is how we care for each other while co-existing with late stage capitalism. We know that learning the skills and languages of emotional awareness & literacy is also unlearning the methods of disconnection. We know that everytime we drink a tea instead of alcohol we are reducing risk and increasing the practices of response-ablitiy. We know that we are in flux, as is our shared world.
We know that there is no external authority sanctioned by state that will offer timely response to reducing harm. We know that within us and around us are the renewable resources of nourishment, with people and land and water and birds and animals. We know that we can hold more than one thing at a time. We know that there are friends, human and more than human, that are capable and willing to help carry the heavy. We know, too, that there are shifts in culture.

I would remind us that we are in an age of great reckoning with reality, and there are millions even billions of people in their places in our world who are doing it - the radical honesty, the deep introspection, the making a different choice. There are farmers, educators, writers, artists, activists, parents, children, providers of care and services, neighbors, People that are dedicated and diligent in aligning action and values. We know that all these individuals are members of groups, alliances, and other entities, combining their powers and creativity to do what they can, with what they have, where they are. 

You are that person. You Here Now is a protest, a living monument, and that most certainly is the revolution. You caring and making choices to reflect your values for Life are most certainly the solution. 

Thank you. I see you. I honor you. We continue to do The Things. Yesterday, today, tomorrow, until our last days. Today by Grace is not our last day. We Carry On. And however I can help hold, I am Here.

Howling with you, 

Lu 

Please feel free to drop any comments here to have a conversation or something that feels good for folks who find themselves this way.
​You can *always* email me at merakifarmacy@gmail.com 
And if you are looking for some Plant pals specific for grief, courage of heart, or anything else we can most certainly connect you. MF folk medicine is available at cost, and you can support that for others in a few ways. Whatever methods of community care, thank you.