Yeaaaaah…. Hi y’all.
Some variety of catastrophic failure befell my website, ending in me having to reinstall WordPress entirely…and, uh. I never backed up my damn posts. Luckily, this site was pretty new, and the only thing I really lost was my post about Oxymels, which I will recreate at some point.
We’re due for a what’s in the works, though, so what better time to rebuild!
Winter 2022 herbal emotional support & Regulation workshop
As of earlier today, we wrapped the winter session of the herbal emotional support & regulation workshop! It was lovely. I will likely write a reflection post in the coming days.
self-check guide (1.0)
Finally finally finally, I am releasing the self-check guide I’ve been working on since December. Here is the post with a PDF.
I feel the slightest bit conflicted about releasing this piece, honestly. I think it’s better than it used to be, for sure, and enough people have asked me for it that I feel like it’s the right choice to release it instead of sit on it for another few months, but at the same time I worry. Self-policing is an issue I don’t think is taken seriously enough, and I have major concerns about presenting to the world half-cocked practices that give a veneer of mad liberation but fail to actually dismantle the ideas that western psych rests on.
Suffice to say, new and updated versions will be coming.
Summer planning
Extremely excitingly, I will be spending the summer on a breathtaking patch of land in the Appalachian mountains, re-establishing and encouraging native plants (including a breathtaking array of woodland medicinals), and building trails and… well… a whole-ass cabin.
Internet privacy and good sense dictates I not share too much about this project, but I am so, so, so thrilled. I have never tended a garden I knew would still be there in a year, much less potentially lasting for generations, and to do so surrounded by friends (human and otherwise) is the greatest honor I can think of.
A lot of my plans are heavily dependent on site assessments, and considering I’m 2k+ miles away at the moment it’s been difficult. I’ve done quite a lot of research though, and there’s tons more to learn before I return to the holler.
For the cabin we (my compatriots and I) and building, we’ve decided to go UNDERGROUND–this is because 1) There is no flat land that doesn’t flood in the holler and 2) I’m heading up this particular construction project and I would rather dig than fuck with trying to build level above-ground platform. This will be the first permanent structure on the land, and it’ll basically just be a big kitchen–massive stone fireplace included :Hearteyes:. The Fifty Dollar and Up Underground House book by Mike Oehler and Chris Royer (link) has been a fascinating starting point. Despite being sexist as fuck and having the worst opinions about carpet on god’s green earth, this book has some really valuable insight about eliminating the drainage problems of underground houses. I’m especially excited about the construction method they suggest, which incorporates terraced gardens and as much grow-able outdoors space as indoor space.
The main goal on the land is forest gardening, but having some easy-to-access more developed space as a nursery and for growing food close to the kitchen will greatly lower the energy needed for long-term occupancy.
Ideally, I’ll be able to finish the cabin at the beginning of fall, in time for fall seed sowing. Even if the terrace gardens aren’t finished, I’ll be getting native ginseng sowed in the forest this fall so-help-me-god in order to repopulate the area that has been wracked from decades of overharvesting. Other exciting plants on the list include wild columbines, maypop and wild yams snaking up the terraces, and wood betony (a hemiparasitic plant) interplanted with the native sedges that are going in as structural support for the terraces and cabin roof.
I FINALLY GOT A DAMN HORI HORI
Is it worth this kind of update? Probably not. But I’ve been wanting a hori hori for months and FINALLY got one, so I wanted to share.