One way we can honor the Winter Solstice is by creating a releasing ritual at home or in circle with family or others in order to release what is out of date, outmoded and no longer serves you and therefore the greater whole. Winter Solstice is the shortest day, and longest, darkest night of the year. It holds the promise of the Light, just on the other side of it, beginning to return. We help birth the Sun back into being just by simply releasing what is no longer needed. We are deepest and longest, on this very day, with the Divine Feminine within her dance with the Divine Masculine, which peaks on the Summer Solstice. This ancient practice honors the dance, the medicine generated from their dance, and helps us open to healing. We need only to make ourselves available through simple, intimate acts with our Divine. Creating an altar, making releasing bundles, time together, and sparkling celebratory drinks are our way on the Winter Solstice. My third son was born today and this deepens the already special night that it is for our family. He always tells me he's from the Sun. I believe him. 

Elderberry Bellini
1-2 tablespoons Elderberry syrup
Prosecco
Lime wedge

Mix gently in a beautiful glass and enjoy!

Elderberry Sparkling Water
(The Non-alcoholic Bellini)
Yes! Simply use sparkling water with your syrup. Children rave over this and delight in having beautful drinks in elegant glasses with their favorite grownups. As I'm writing this, I'm sipping this one... it's in the pics and so good! The Prosecco is in the frig for tonight.

Our immune systems often get taxed this time of year, right? Elderberry provides. Elder shores up the boundaries in all directions to the possiblity of passing colds and flus around as we celebrate through the holidays. This is such a delicious, gorgeous, and easy way to celebrate. Who said medicine usually tastes awful? Never with Elder!

– Quick & Easy Elderberry Syrup Recipe–
1 cup fresh (or 1/2 cup dried will do) Elderberries
1 1/2 cup water
1 cup raw wildflower honey 
½ tsp fresh chopped ginger root
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
½ tsp Cinnamon powder

• Slow simmer berries, ginger, and cinnamon in water for 30 minutes. Mash the berries a bit during this simmer with the back of a fork or potato masher. Cool a bit and then strain, mashing the berries to get all the goodness. Compost the solids.
• I pour this infused juice into a large measuring cup and add 1 cup raw wild flower honey and the 1 tablespoon of fresh lime juice for every cup of infused elderberry juice. Stir, bottle and label. This is fine out of the refrigerator for one day or store in the refrigerator and use up within 1 week. 
• Add by the tablespoon to warm water, seltzer, or into cocktails described above.
• ENJOY!
• You can also take by the tablespoonful every few hours when exposed to viruses or have active flu symptoms.

​This is another way to honor the releasing season we are in. As we reflect on the year passing and what worked, what bloomed, what was a complete bomb, and how we may have tripped ourselves up, making bundles to burn today solidifies our accepting of our part in it all. It's a simple act with deep rippling effects on so many levels.
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Here's what you'll need to gather to make your releasing bundle:

• A 6x6" square of repurposed cloth/cotton/hemp and any natural fabric. You can certainly make it larger if you’re feeling that. Any color will do although black is traditionally called upon.
• Offerings of dried plants of loose tobacco, mugwort, or lavender. What do you have and feel you want to call upon? That’s perfect. I use small pinches of any or all of these and always white sage to shake up and make space around that which we want to move.
• Small slips of paper to write your releasing wishes on.
• A natural fiber cord, thread or string to tie it up with.
• I also have cornmeal, natural material beads, and other tiny natural items like pine needles, tiny pine cones, seeds and pods, strips of bark, or tiny feathers

So here are a few visuals of the northeastern lovelies you will need to find either in the woods if you are lucky enough for that (!) or at you local herb supplier store. Sassafras has been getting a bad rap from the USDA for years. They say that the active component of sassafras, safrole, is a “known carcinogen.” Why? Well, the scientists gave quantities of pure safrole (that do not exist in nature in such quantities) to rats and the rats got cancer. Later researchers noted that safrole seems to cause cancer in rats, but not people. Many people still think that sipping sassafras tea will ensure you end up with an oncologist. Just know that there are many times more known carcinogens in a bottle of beer than there are in any homemade sassafras-based root beer product you might make. It has been calculated that you would need to drink at least 24 gallons of sassafras root beer a day for an extended time to get the amount of safrole fed to those rats. Close to impossible. 

With the shift in seasons comes that deep inner knowing in your body that it too, must shift to prepare for change.  This can be more drastic for some depending on where you live. The truth is, we all need a little help and looking to your local plants is the best place to start. Here in the northeastern US, we have such a massive variety of options second only to tropical regions. I bring in a few tropical plants for flavor but rely on our trees mostly for the traditional rooty-earthy flavor and tonifying effects. Remember days are shortening, nights are lengthening and our need to keep warm, quiet down, slow down, sleep more, and go within is increasing. Even our blood draws deeper into the body as surface capillary beds contract to conserve heat. Resisting the natural cycle of things will make you feel out of sorts. Some herbalists will not use their home heat here in NY until after mid-November as a way to honor and encourage this process of shifting that is happening at the cellular level. 

Harvest the leaves of Wintergreen. If you are not sure if it's the right plant, use your nose! Break a leaf and inhale. It smells like....wintergreen!

Shave the Birch bark so you have that inner green fragrant inner bark layer. That's the alive part of the tree! Smell it too - it smells like.... Birch.

If you are lucky enough or skilled enough to find Black Birch, just shave the bark off of the small branches you harvested with your excellent pocket knife you carry for just such occasions. Yes, normally we harvest in the spring for this bark. But I need a little now to finish my syrup just right so I snipped some lower small twigs with much gratitude and wandered home to start working on the bark whittling. Never substitute mints for the birch/wintergreen component. Yuck is all I can say as the mints do not hold their taste with the long simmering. Go the length and get the traditional ingredients, especially for your first time through.

6 cups cold water
4 oz Sassafras root dried (double if you have fresh)
2 oz Sarsaparilla root dried (double if you have fresh)
1oz Burdock root dried (double if you have fresh)
2 Tlb minced fresh ginger root (highly sprayed so find it unsprayed!)
Black Birch Bark shavings - 1 handful; OR 4-6 fresh Wintergreen leaves; OR Wintergreen Extract 1/8-1/4 tsp
2-3 whole cloves
1 tsp Coriander Seed
1/4 cup Molasses
1/4 Maple Syrup -(Real .... from the Maple Tree please; high minerals and goodness!)
Organic Sugar or Maple Syrup to equal your amount of strained final decoction.

PART I:
Place all herbs EXCEPT Black Birch Bark or Wintergreen, into a pot and pour cold water over and bring to a simmer.
Simmer covered loosely for 20-25 minutes.
Add Molasses, stir, replace lid, simmer another 5 minutes
Let sit until cool or overnight. This allows all the nutritive mineral to move into your brew. 
Strain through cheese cloth or fine mesh fabric.
Congratulations!! This is your root decoction! Taste it. It should be good like this so add a little to some warm water and sip.