Cheryl Dolby's Isis Sculpture

Granny Woman Revival

I found this lovely article today as I was doing some research. I simply have to share it.
by dcoda

The storms of time and medical hubris have erased her. Successfully tending the sick and injured in the back country, she held out in hidden pockets of the Ozarks well into the 20th century. Elsewhere she may have been called a wise woman healer or even denounced as a witch. Here she was humbly called, “granny woman”.  Knowledge of plants and healing technique passed from mother to daughter for centuries. Memory stretching across the ocean to roots in Europe, she quickly adapted Native American know-how as she discovered new marvels in American landscapes.

Well aware that herbs alone cure only when blended with an expectation of healing, she was also psychologist, spiritual ally, carrier of ritual. She knew which plants to harvest in the full moon, what to plant when oak leaves mimic mouse ears, how to render bear fat into the best carrier oil for her ointments.

She brought children into the world and took them out again when all else failed.  Steadfast for so very long, she faded in a whisper as we filled our ears with shouts of scientific discovery and its “superior” medicine. By the time we realized we still needed her knowledge, that nature cure has its place after all….she had taken her centuries with her — back into the earth. Now we comb our archives looking for clues. We ask her descendents what they remember. Not much. Why should they? She was dismissed as “backwards” wasn’t she?

At the recent Ozark Studies Symposium in Missouri I met with two academics involved in their own search for her. When I mentioned it was time for a granny woman revival they enthusiastically agreed. Is it even possible?

Yes. Many dedicated herbalists have traced the broken trail enough to begin to piece her back together. Mind you, she was adaptive, she would quickly embrace what we know today from our cross-cultural studies of therapeutic herbalism. She would draw it all in to weave her own pattern of vitalistic sacred touch to the weary and worn.  She understood that good medicine is always creative application based on a firm foundation of reliable instruction. She was ever open to inspiration and insight.

Don’t you find that women are still open to inspiration and insight? Aren’t they especially hungry to take granny woman’s shawl off the rack, dust it off, and wrap themselves in its authenticity? As natural healers?

Dr. Hunter's Rosewater & Glycerine Hand Creme

Dr. Hunter's Rosewater & Glycerine Hand Creme by Caswell-Massey - one of the oldest American brands founded by Dr. William Hunter in 1752 in Newport, Rhode Island - smells like the roses cultivated by our grand-mothers in their gardens, in the best sense possible of this representation. The scent of the cream is delicate, fresh, very realistic and refined enough to evoke the fruitiness of Nahema by Guerlain; in short, it is an impressively scented hand cream. So much so that more than a good hand cream it can double up as a fragrance cream as the perfume feels intense enough to fulfill this purpose.

We noticed that it is best to apply this cream like one would a mask rather than a cream that would need to be rubbed in. The rose perfume just smells much better when left alone as much can be...... 

Using Dr. Hunter's Rose & Glycerine Creme as a mask for the hands is in fact one of the two recommended usages.

Here is what one can read on the package regarding the mask tip,

"For exceptional results, use as your grandmother would have - apply Dr. Hunter's Rosewater and Glycerine Creme quite heavily, and then slip on sleeping gloves. Morning will reveal hands as soft and tender as those remembered caressing your childhood cheek."

The packaging is lovely, Victorian in style, with a "Secrets Worth Knowing ™" section offering an advice from Dr. Hunter. No. 49 is on the sense of touch. 

The immediate beauty results of applying the cream are that one's hands feel ultra soft and smell as if they had macerated at leisure in a bowl of rosewater and rose petals. The cream is said to be perfumed with a "rose fragrance" on top of the rosewater, almond oil, shea butter, etc. 

Our understanding of the potential "drying effects" of glycerine is that this happens when the weather or the environment is particularly dry so that then the glycerine tends to pump up humidity where it finds it, under the skin, while it tends on the other hand to act as a magnet for it if there is enough of it in the atmosphere. These effects are explained by a chemist in The Perfect Scent by Chandler Burr.

A 2.5 oz tube retails for $12. Currently they offer 3 mini 0.5 oz tubes for $5. A pair of sleeping gloves retails for $6.

Info Via Marie-Helene Wagner

Moon Goddess Garden

Jai Kali Ma Jai!

The power of the Mother! The Mother of all powers!

Cultivate receptivity to the Transcendent Peace, Light, Bliss, and Power.

I understand the great Forces that come through us and the earth-consciousness.

Divine Mother.

“There is a force which accompanies the growth of the new consciousness and at once grows with it and helps it to come about and to perfect itself. This force is the Yoga-Shakti. It is here coiled up and asleep in all the centres of our inner being (Chakras) and is at the base what is called the Kundalini Shakti. But it is also above us, above our head as the Divine Force – not there coiled up, involved, asleep, but awake, scient, potent, extended and wide; it is there waiting for manifestation and to this Force we have to open ourselves – to the Power of the Mother.”
Both Yogas have a twofold opening: the opening of the heart centre, and the centre above the head. Aurobindo further says: “The opening through the heart puts us primarily into connection with the individual Divine, the Divine in his inner relation with us; it is especially the source of love and bhakti. The upward opening puts us into direct relation with the whole Divine and can create in us the divine consciousness.”  ~ Sri Aurobindo

GrandMother Drum White Eagle

Lá Lugh - Bealtaine Song

Here is some music to tap your feet to:

May-day, season surpassing! Splendid is color then. Blackbirds sing a full lay, if there be a slender shaft of day.The dust-colored cuckoo calls aloud:

Welcome, splendid summer! The bitterness of bad weather is past, the boughs of the wood are a thicket.

Summer cuts the river down, the swift herd of horses seeks the pool, the long hair of the heather is outspread, the soft white bog-down grows.

Panic startles the heart of the deer, the smooth sea runs apace-season when ocean sinks asleep-blossom covers the world.

Bees with puny strength carry a goodly burden, the harvest of blossoms; up the mountain-side kine take with them mud, the ant makes a rich meal.

The harp of the forest sounds music, the sail gathers-perfect peace. Color has settled on every height, haze on the lake of full waters.

The corncrake, a strenuous bard, discourses; the lofty virgin waterfall sings a welcome to the warm pool; the talk of the rushes is come.

Light swallows dart aloft, loud melody reaches round the hill, the soft rich mast buds, the stuttering quagmire rehearses.

The peat-bog is as the raven’s coat, the loud cuckoo bids welcome, the speckled fish leaps, strong is the bound of the swift warrior.

Man flourishes, the maiden buds in her fair strong pride; perfect each forest from top to ground, perfect each great stately plain.

Delightful is the season’s splendor, rough winter has gone, white is every fruitful wood, a joyous peace in summer.

A flock of birds settles in the midst of meadows; the green field rustles, wherein is a brawling white stream.

A wild longing is on you to race horses, the ranked host is ranged around:

A bright shaft has been shot into the land, so that the water-flag is gold beneath it.

A timorous tiny persistent little fellow sings at the top of his voice, the lark sings clear tidings: surpassing May-day of delicate colors!

~ The Boyish Exploits of Finn

We hope that you all have a splendid Bealtaine, May Day, Walpurgisnacht, Roodmas, or plain old Happy May! :)