Roses petal medicine

ROSES!!!    🌹🌸🌹🌸🌹🌸🌹

Sorry for yelling.  But ROSES!!!!

A friend asked me today what can be done with roses that are in full bloom right now and I thought let's make a collective list!   What are your favorite rose recipes and potions??

*ROSE TIME ~ First of all, I highly encourage sharing time with roses.  Stop to smell the roses, sit with them, listen to them.  Last week I did this on the summer solstice and the deep pink rosa rugosa bush felt *very* different than the white one.  Totally different energy.  You can also draw it, photograph it, noticing who's gathering its pollen and who's growing nearby.  Notice the soft, gentle petals and the strong, fierce thorns and feel free to reflect on opening and protection and how this plant embodies both.  And so can we.

*ROSE BATH SALTS ~ Layer rose petals in a jar with sea salt to make lovely bath salts.  Simply pour in some salt, then scatter a very thin layer of rose petals {fresh or left for a few hours or overnight to wilt and dry a bit}, more salt, and on and on. i like to use plastic or glass lids, as metal ones can corrode from the salt.   Add these salts to your (foot)bath water for a special treat.

*ROSE OIL ~ Wilt or dry the rose petals and infuse them in oil.  You can use this as a soothing massage oil or create a salve or balm with it.  Instructions on making herb-infused oils, balms, and salves here::: (Im)migration and Lip Balms for Social Justice?!

*ROSEWATER (aka hydrosol).  Instructions here::: Do-It-Yourself Hydrosols - Making and Using Flower Waters for Community Health and Self-Care

*ROSE ELIXIR ~ Infuse fresh rose petals in brandy or vodka to capture fresh rose petal heart-medicine for all year round.   I like to add local honey or maple syrup to this.  If using honey, I pour it over the rose petals and stir it so that the petals begin to release their moisture and medicine right away into the honey.  This also helps incorporate all the ingredients, so they don't separate out {as much}.  Then I pour brandy in, stir or shake it up, and let it all infuse for an entire mo(o)nth cycle. {proportions-wise, probably add about 1-1.5 cups of honey to a quart jar that's half-full or full  - but not packed tight - with rose petals and then fill it to the top with brandy.  You just want to keep the total alcohol content about 20-25%}  If i'm adding maple syrup, I infuse the rose petals in the brandy or vodka for a month, and then add the maple syrup when I'm pouring it up into individual bottles.  This remedy can be taken by the drop or dropper full when needing some heart-support, such as grieving a loss, opening your heart, mending a broken heart, or exploring personal or ancestral trauma.

*DRYING ROSES ~  Having a jar of dried rose petals is amazing medicine, just looking at it, opening the jar and smelling it.   You can add these dried petals to tea blends, baths, as edible decoration for fancy cakes or to freeze into ice cubes, and for craft projects like adding to collages and dioramas or placing in tiny vials to wear as jewelry {just know that they will fade with time}.   Dried roses can also be added to local honey {with cinnamon or other herbs} to stir into tea or spread onto treats, or added to bath fizzies. instructions for making bath fizzies here: The People's Spa: Reclaiming Relaxation and Cultivating Collective-Care!

*HARVESTING ~  If you're gathering roses to make remedies for internal use, harvest them away from roads, railroad tracks, and other areas that can be sprayed with chemicals.   If there is a special rose bush you want to gather from that is right on the road, you can use those to place on your altar, to add to a footbath, etc. ///   I like to gather roses by gently plucking their petals, leaving the centers to grow and ripen into rosehips come autumn.

*OTHER IDEAS? ~  Please feel free to add your recipes, comments, and questions below...

And if you love ROSES feel free to visit my online Dandelioness Herbals shop and check out the ROSY REMEDIES there such as *Love It Up! breast and chest massage balm, LionHearted, Heart Elixir, Calm the Rage, Crampease, Restorative Moons, I Kant Slep, Replenish, Thorn Essence, Protective Ocean Essence, Heart Centering Blend (aromatherapy roll-on), Global Citizen herbal salve, Relaxation Rose Bath Fizzies (in the Self-Care Kit: for emotional first aid), and Calendula Violet Eye Serum*

Please click here for the Rose petal medicine slideshow or press play in image below:

                    

*St. John's wort Harvest and Remedy Making* with Dandelioness Herbals + Wake Robin Botanicals

Presenting the first of hopefully many video collaborations between Dana of Dandelioness Herbals and Atalanta of Wake Robin Botanicals!!! For those of us living in places where spring has been slow coming, we thought we'd share this video that we made at the height of summer on a super sunny day. 

In the video we harvest St. John's wort (Hypericum perforatum) flowers and buds and make blood-red herbal infused oil.  This oil can be used as a massage oil or transformed into a first aid salve, lip balm, sore muscle rub, salve for nerve damage and burns (including sunburn), sunscreen, and more.  Because it has not only physically soothing and healing properties, but also energetically protective ones, I commonly include it in remedies that I send to No More Deaths/No Más Muertes (en Español here) and other humanitarian aid organizations supporting those crossing the desert from Mexico into the U.S. 

For more information about making infused oils, salves, and lip balms are posted here:::
(Im)migration and Lip Balms for Social Justice?!

If you'd like some remedies that capture summer vitality in a bottle, check out DH + WRH remedies with Lemon Balm, St. Johns wort, Rose, and other medicinal herbs. We have tinctures, elixirs, salves, balms, and more...

Lemon Balm Elixir, Fabulousness In A Bottle, Milky Oat Elixir, Protective Ocean Essence, Love It Up! Breast and Chest Massage Balm, and more from Dandelioness Herbals here.

St. Johns Wort oil, Lemon Balm glycerite, Sacred Basil elixir, Luscious Lemon Cream, Rose Elixir, Don't Bug Me Spray, Teatime tea, and A Pause in the Day tea, and more from Wake Robin Botanicals here.

And you can help reunite Atalanta's family by donating and/or sharing here.

Here's the video:::

St. Johns wort lip balms and sore muscle rub
for No More Deaths/No Más Muertes

Dandelioness Herbals on Moccasin Tracks radio program with Linda Black Elk

In late May I joined Deb Reger as co-host on her radio program Moccasin Tracks on WRUV/University of Vermont to discuss plants, healing, and justice with Linda Black Elk.

Linda Black Elk was coordinator of the Oceti Sakowin Prayer Camps' Medic and Healers Council at Standing Rock. She is an ethno-botanist, healer, herbalist, teacher, mother, Water Protector and so much more. During our conversation she talks about the ongoing Water Protector Camps and support that has been building for the Mni Wiconi Clinic which will be a free wholistic clinic at Standing Rock. She also shares about restoration ecology work being organized for the area of the former camps in N. Dakota.

Later during the program, I speak with Deb about my recent visit to the Arizona/Sonora border, doing humanitarian aid work supporting those crossing the desert with No More Deaths/No Más Muertes, People Helping People, and Kino Border Initiative/Iniciative Kino para la Frontera,  We also talk about ancestry, herbs for emotional support, mutual aid, rural organizing, and give a shout out to Migrant Justice/Justicia Migrante and their Milk With Dignity campaign.

The theme of the program and our time together was reciprocity and relationship.  May we continue to cultivate relationships with each other and create reciprocity with the plants that nourish us and our movements for justice.


Our conversation with Linda Black Elk here:::





My conversation with Deb Reger here:::

The conversation felt like a tea party, the station felt like an electric garden!  I brought along  Restorative Moons at the station.  This remedy is burnout prevention/repair in a bottle, with rose, milky oats,  a collaboration by Dandelioness Herbals and Wake Robin Botanicals.