Sun soaked Calendula


  • 4 cups of Calendula petals
  • 3 cups of Apricot Kernal Oil
  • 1.5 cups of Brandy
  • 10 Sticky fingers
  • Sunshine, a cool breeze and Bliss

I am happily tired, sun-kissed, freshly showered and fed on fresh greens. I am sipping sun infused herbal tea on ice. I am recalling the day, the subtle sunshine and the slight breeze, the sound of the wind chimes gently. The hummingbirds, bees and butterflies visits. The soft textures and bright colours of full summer.  It is truly remarkable how entertaining it is to simply sit and watch a garden grow. 

There is dirt under my fingernails, and a recently built and finally soil filled (because I finally fixed the wheelbarrow) flower boxes along the garden shed (AKA the "Possibility Pagoda"). Peppers and cucumbers transplanted, a makeshift trellis constructed, and a couple of Datura discovered in the compost heap moved into a more central and stately location... where I can more easily sit in the moonlight and watch them bloom. There is Calendula tinctured in Brandy and infusing in oil, resin on my fingers from picking hundreds of flower buds and I've only pulled less than a third of the flowers currently blooming in my garden... hundreds more buds await, hundreds have gone to seed already. Calendula is abundant, it is sun soaked and giving. It offers a taste of the sun even in the dark of winter.

There is a kind of euphoria that accompanies the scent of Calendula, or the direct infusion through the skin of the resin from handling it. A feeling alike spending a little too long in the sun, but without getting burned. A slightly narcotic feeling gained by simply picking flowers, sitting cross legged under the little cherry tree and making medicine from what grows so readily and near at hand. This is magic, this is bliss, it's soul calming... it's a calling.


At this moment in my life, this garden is my salvation, my sanctuary, my solace. It is at least one thing I know I am doing right, during a period of change when so much feels off, so many layers to shed and re-shed, depths to find and find again. Finding that Spring within, the Source, the Beloved can be such a challenge amidst a life full of stress and busyness. To just sit and breath and be in the garden brings peace and connection, and the sensation of inspiration bubbling up from within.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bliss and a Red Bicycle

Dear Facebook [originally published there, republished here for Sarah Osborne], we both know I am too verbose for this to ever work. I would apologize for my selfish ways but I will never curb this habit and so it would be terribly insincere of me to do so. I suppose I could publish this instead on one of my many blogs but I'm pretty sure only Sarah Osborne would see it there. I might post it there just for her anyway. A few days ago I purchased a less than shiny but nonetheless glowing in a new-to-me sort of way cherry red bicycle. I am in love with it. We've had such wonderful times together already in our still fresh and short affair. I was just riding it home from my favourite coffee shop in downtown Boulder which was beginning to wind down for the night anyway and I was beginning to develop a fierce and insistent hunger for the avocado I'd been meaning to eat these past few days. Perhaps in part due to the feeling of joy I experience riding this bicycle, perhaps i...
Read more

Two months later... (for Aviv)

Once I dreamed of the Sea in Springtime and the dream filled my soul with music and beauty, with impulse and desire and yearning for a different way. Though the Sea in Springtime was often unpredictable I loved it, too, for that. It could be rough and tempestuous at times, but it was all part of the spell. The depth and hue of the Spring Sea was so enchanting and captivating, none who dreamed the dream wanted to wake only to find themselves again on on hard, dry land. Those, like me, who dreamed this dream, found all they wanted to do from then was float in the Spring Sea again. She was always obliging, inviting. Anyone who dared enter Her domain were welcome to stay, to flow along as long as they could, or would. Welcome to shine brightly under the sun, glow under the moon, welcome to keep mystical secrets with Her, to speak Her language. The dreamers were welcome to surrounded by Her beauty if they were willing to taste also Her salt. I dreamed this dream, once, of the Sea in Springt...
Read more
Image
Aviv´s awesome tattoo. Reads: ¨podran cortar todos las flores pero, no podran detener la Primavera¨-Pablo Neruda. Transalation: "you can cut down al the flowers, but you can't stop the Spring"
Read more