loving in the war years: day twenty two

a day of mothering: milky oats

trauma and grief
have actual effects, not just on the heart or the mind, but on the body as well. and more often than not, when trauma and grief are mixed with stress, a body has almost no choice but to move into a ‘fight, flight or freeze’ state.

or, in other words, extreme stress can cause extreme reactions–even if you are not physically under threat (like, from a lion). you may feel like you are, however, and so you become highly anxious, snappish, have insomnia, and maybe always feel like you drank too much coffee. or, conversely, you’re sluggish, sleep all the time, have no interest in life, and like it wouldn’t matter how matter how much coffee you drank, you’ll never be able to move again. or you’re too fearful to move, or all you want to do is move. or a combination of all these things, just depending on the time of day.

the thing is though, is that when it comes to grief and trauma, the fight, flight or freeze state doesn’t ramp up and then work back down again as it would with a lion. because grief and trauma stay with us, because grief especially never really ‘goes away,’ you can stay in fight, flight or freeze for decades. needless to say, you’re body is not built to handle that sort of stress for that long.

enter milky oats.

milky oats come from the same plant that gives you your morning breakfast. they are the tops of oat plant, and provide concentrated nutrition. within that nutrition, they also work to revitalize your very overworked body, you’re body that just seems to be too tired to work its way out of the hyper-vigilant state it’s in. too tired to do anything but be anxious or stressed.

milky oats is a long term herb, one that works best the longer you take it. it is an herb you build into your routine, that you have a relationship with. in these days when people are used to desperately searching for the miracle herb that ‘helps,’ many don’t find much use for milky oats. people have been trained by pharmaceutical companies to expect immediate relief from whatever ails them. milky oats doesn’t generally immediately help (although on some it does). and even when you take it long term, you don’t generally just wake up one day and know you feel better. the effects are so gentle, so nourishing, it tends to be more like one day you notice that you’ve taken the stairs every day that week instead of the elevator. you just sort of slip back into feeling ‘normal’ again. not the immediate relief many need (there are other herbs for that), but definitely long term healing.

it’s best to take a tincture when it comes to milky oats, so you can get the full benefit of the ‘milk.’ and the highest quality milky oats tinctures are cloudy green in color. but there is benefit to drinking a cup of dried oat tops or oat straw (the stalk/leave of the plant) tea. Susun Weed talks about the benefits of oat straw here. and you can read more about milky oats here (scroll down past the nettles information) and here.

it’s often very difficult to fit in a new daily routine in your life, but if you think of milky oats as less of a ‘routine’ and more of a small moment of daily mothering, i’ve found i rarely forget to take my tincture when i need to. in times of mourning and grief, even taking 30 seconds to drop a few drips of tincture into some water can be enough care taking to help you get through one more day.

loving in the war years: day twenty one

https://dellanohlphotography.com/2014/10/27/oaxaca-at-night-dia-de-los-muertos/
dia de los muertos en oaxaca
foto credit: della nohl photography

i still observe dia de los muertos.

even after a white lady invited me over to her house to ‘celebrate’ with drinks she made from a new recipe she found,
even after i was informed by a mexican mexican (who, unlike american poser mexican me, never suffered from assimilation) that i was doing it wrong,
even after all the articles declaring dia de los muertos to be the ‘mexican halloween,’
even after the thousands and thousands of white women with the money to get skeleton face make up tossed their braided hair at me,

even though i have so many questions: do you remember/honor children on the first or the second of november? how do you construct an alter? what do you say? what do you do? do you pray? do you cry? i search the internet for answers and curse again–oh, how i wish the internet was not my elder, my mentor.

even after the insecurity confusion anger
suffering.

i still observe dia de los muertos because it is a mourning ritual that still exists. it still exists. it survived.
the whispering wind calms me. lets me know. it’s ok.
it’s ok.
we’ll survive.
even after.

i honor
Berta.
Charity.
Jess.
J.
Maria.

because even after all this time.
i still miss them.

loving in the war years: day eighteen

grief

it is something we are so rarely allowed to feel or to see or to even imagine
lasts more than 2 or 3 days.

i’ve studied war for over a decade now, and what shocks me, still, after all this time,
are the people. 50, 60, 70 years after vietnam, korea, ww2…they still cry when talking about loved ones lost. they still get choked up and can’t go on. they still hurt,
after all these years,
from the empty place that used to hold their loved one.

so different from the movies. so different from the television shows. that assure us. after one episode. after one glorious show down in court. after one big battle or one big yell or one big slow motion attack of the murderer…
it is better.

i was once yelled at by a person for mentioning being against a past war. i’ve been yelled at before over my anti-war stance, so i wasn’t surprised or even taken off guard. not until the tears started and the soft ‘you don’t know what it was like back then, you don’t have any idea what it was like, half of my friends never came home’ fell out of quivering lips over and over again. i didn’t have the heart to tell this person, this grieving person, still grieving after all those years, that their grief was why i was against war.

i just patted their back. and looked the other way. so they could pretend i didn’t see their tears.

what does grief look like?
what does it smell like?
taste like?
sound like?

is it different for everybody?
or is grief the one universal that draws us all together?

is the complete invisibilization of grief the only way the current world can continue to exist?

loving in the war years: day sixteen

a day of mothering: motherwort

i didn’t know anything about motherwort the first time i tried it. motherwort is not one of those flashy herbs that ‘they’ promise is the next cure all. don’t get me wrong, it’s an herb you can find in whole foods or your local health food store. but it’s never been one of those herbs that is supposed to cure cancer, relieve migraines or add 20 years to your life.

that’s probably because motherwort is most closely associated to women’s health. it does a lot of good things for things like menstrual cramping and PMS and helping with cramps after giving birth.

but even more so, it is a ‘comforting’ herb. one that helps a lot with heavy anxiety and whirling brain. but most of all, it helps with a broken heart. from herbalist susun weed:

In addition to its health-promoting effects on the uterus, motherwort heals the heart. It is, in fact, one of the world’s best heart tonics. Its name means “lion hearted” or “strong hearted.” Daily use helps new blood vessels grow to the heart. I call it “a bypass in a bottle.” (Yes, motherwort increases vascularization to the uterus as well, so daily–but not occasional–use is contra-indicated for women with endometriosis or fibroids.) A dose of 10-20 drops, taken several times a day, can lower blood pressure, improve heart action, and strengthen electrical activity in the heart.

New research showing that the heart has the same memory cells found in the brain may lead us to another use of motherwort: to help relieve heartache, especially from childhood injuries. Let motherwort ease your bad memories and open you to more joy. Try 5-10 drops before meditating and see what happens.

i am lucky enough to be in a place where motherwort grows prolifically. so i’ve seen motherwort out relaxing in the sun, been able to gather her fresh. and there’s a certain line of thinking in herbalism that some herbs sort of ‘look like’ or ‘mimic’ the area of the body it works best at healing or the action it takes on the body. you can definitely see this principle at work with motherwort. It is a lovely flower that you can’t mess with–there are prickers all over the flower area that hurt when you touch and get imbedded in your skin if you grab too hard. our boundaries are important, and if somebody grabs too hard, it’s ok to prick them till they leave you alone. they’ll know next time to treat you more respectfully and with more care.

a lesson we could all learn, one that we hopefully learn from motherwort as she helps us to heal from trauma and pain.

you can read more about motherwort here. and watch a video about motherwort here.