Ethical Wildcrafting and Making Mountain Medicine
Every summer, I head to the mountains at about 10,000ft for my annual botanical medicine making retreat. I hike for hours each day, communing with the plants and making wild medicines. This medicine making trip is by far my favorite time of the year, in my favorite place in the world.
I've been cultivating my relationship with the plants and nature spirits at this sacred spot for nearly a decade now. My understanding of the unique gifts each plant offers, my ability to discern what is actually being offered and what wishes to remain untouched, has grown deep with time and intention.
There’s something about being at such a high elevation when I collect and commune with these plants. I know it’s silly, as spirit is within and around us always, but I do feel just a bit closer, as if the veils thin with the atmosphere. Plus, the resilience in these high-altitude plants is astounding―to survive the alpine winds and winters and then the scorching summer sun...they have so much to teach us.
As I've nurtured my relationship with the plant spirits over the years, I've refined the “mountain medicines” I'm able to share, as I call them. This year, I'll be adding new flower essences, teas, smoke bundles, elixirs, healing salves, and maybe a few tinctures to the apothecary, all full of wild botanicals.
All geared up and on the trail for some legit mountain foraging!
In order to gather the plants I work with, I hike for miles and miles everyday. This is in part because the plants I work with are spread throughout various micro-climates. But it’s also to support sustainability: When I make my smoke bundles, I clip only one or two sprigs from each Great Western Sagebrush. When I gather my resins, I take only what falls from a tree easily, so as not to hurt its defenses. Gathering this way might be a slow, laborious process, but it’s an enjoyable one. And the sustainability of the forest always comes first.
As interest in wildcrafting and foraging grows, attention to the sustainability of our wild places becomes ever more important. During my most recent stay in the mountains, I encountered another woman gathering rose petals. I must have come at the end of her harvest, because when I arrived almost no roses were left at all.
Part of me wants to give her the benefit of the doubt―it was the end of a bumper rose season and many hips had formed already, so perhaps there weren't many blossoms left to begin with.
Still…I have an especially protective instinct when it comes to wild roses. When I harvest rose petals, I do so very judiciously. The bees and pollinators need the flowers more than I do, so I want to make sure they have plenty to enjoy during the rose's short season. Plus, roses also turn into rose hips―one of the most important food sources for many animals during the winter months.
This is why when I harvest rose petals, I ask myself, "Could 10 people come to this same spot and harvest the same amount without making a visible dent in the blossoms?" The answer must be yes.
These sacred offerings are true gifts from the spirits of nature and provide us with a deeply wild healing—a healing so many of us could use these days. In a world where we’ve become overly domesticated, it’s critical that we remember to rewild a bit. When we touch into our innate wild natures, we tap into a well of resilience, sovereignty, and inner knowing.
Preparing a basket of mountain medicine ❤️
Whether or not you have the desire or the ability to escape into the natural world, I hope the wild offerings in my apothecary will bring the healing wisdom of nature to you. Each carries the energetic imprint of the wilderness, an imprint which is passed onto you when you use the products. Plus, wild plants are especially potent healers on the physical level. I really can’t say enough about how much these products have changed my own life.
As for those roses…
I have a longstanding love of rose medicine, which you can read about here. But what did I make with the petals I carefully gathered?
Wild rose elixirs! They are my favorites. Sweet and floral, these elixirs open and protect our hearts. To make the elixirs, I use wild rose honey with organic wild rose-infused grape vodka and wild rose flower essence. If you happen to grab one before they sell out, take one dropper full three times a day to bring more love and sweetness into your body and energy field. (Rose elixir is also delicious added to sparkling water!)
A strawberry cupcake? Nope! Wild rose-infused honey in the making :)
And, if this looks like way too many petals for such a small jar of honey…it is! I hike with only a small jar, cover the petals to preserve them, and transfer this to bigger batch of honey when I return home. But it is quite the image :)
