May Day, Dandelions, and Fabulousness! Dandelioness Herbals Spring Update

Happy May Day!!!  I can't wait til the festivities!!! After May 1 March for Health & Dignity (info here) at the VT Statehouse at noon, and then at Sovversiva Open Space for an open house, BBQ, and showing of the new film about the life and community organizing work of United Farm Worker Union co-founder Cesar Chavez!!! More info here. 

Hooray for workers rights!  Universal health care!  Anti-biased policing policies!  And all the cross-pollinating happening between individuals and organizations on May Day and everyday, across communities and across borders!  May we all channel the powerful energy of spring into fabulous projects, good medicine, and gorgeous art!

In this Update
-Report Backs
-Dandelioness Herbals Remedies: Green Tech, Fabulous To Go, Activist Self-Care Kit, & 
  Spring Tonic
-Recent/Spring Dandelioness Herbals Blog Posts: Penquins, Self-Care, Creating 
  Herbal/Emotional Support at Marches and Demonstrations
-Upcoming Teaching /Events: Decolonizing Herbalism, Empowering Herbalists (aka 
  Intro the Herbalism for Social Justice), Herbalists Without Borders,  and more!

REPORT BACKS
I was so happy to part of the Migrant Justice/Vermont contingent at the Not One More! Stop the Deportations march and rally in Boston, MA on April 17th, protesting the Obama administration's deportation of over 2 million of our community members and loved ones.  19 community members – both undocumented and documented -participated in a civil disobedience and were arrested, while throngs of supports marched for hours.  Those locked up at the detention center also showed their support through the bars/windows.  There are videos of this event posted here, and photos posted here. 

I was also really glad to attend the annual Reproductive Justice conference in early April.  I attended fabulous workshops: The Revolution Starts with Me!: Recipes, Remedies, Rituals, & Resources for Activist Self Care with Adaku Utah and Nicole Clark (check out their websites, SouLar Bliss  and Nicole Clark Consulting), The Politics of Adoption: Race, Identity, and Our Families' Lives about transracial and transnational adoption (check out Land of Gazillion Adoptees), and a workshop on supporting kids and caregivers, co-facilitated by a co-author of the book: Don't Leave Your Friends Behind: Concrete Ways to Support Families in Social Justice Movements and Communities.

...also at this conference Wake Robin Botanicals and Dandelioness Herbals unveiled their latest three fabulous collaborations, which are now available at…

DANDELIONESS HERBALS' ONLINE ETSY SHOP
-Activist Self-Care Kit: Supporting Change Makers for the Long Haul Dandelioness Herbals, Wake Robin Botanicals, and Mandala Botanicals have teamed up to offer the following three herbals: Speak Truth! Throat Spray, Sacred Basil Glycerite, & Solidarity Salve

-Green Tech: Herbal Support Kit for Students, Activists/Organizers, & Writers
Many of us feel the demands of long hours using technologies that can be draining or wearing on our bodies, both physically and energetically. These remedies support us to not only function, but to thrive while we meet demands and deadlines feeling focused and collected: 
Sharp Thoughts Herbal Tea, Stay Ready! nourishing elixir, Ache Relief Salve, and Calendula Violet Eye Serum. 

-Fabulousness To Go: Helping our real fabulous nature shine through with Brilliant Lip Shimmer, Fancy Glitter Crème, Fabulous Transformation Flower Essence, Fabulousness In A Bottle.  This basket contains all kinds of flower-mermaid-unicorn-rainbow-hippocamp-and-kitten magic.

-Also NEW: Spring Tonic - a blend of fresh roots, leaf, and sap that provides nourishing support during the transition from winter to spring. 





RECENT/SPRING DANDELIONESS HERBALS BLOG POSTS
-Arnica drops and Lavender Spray: Creating Herbal/Emotional Support at Marches and Demonstrations

-Hope! Because Sometimes We Need Some Help: another Wake Robin Botanicals and Dandelioness Herbals collaboration penguins, poetry, & dance routines

-The Sweet Truth About Bitters
-The Dandelions Are Here!!  the whole plant is medicinal - flower, leaf, root, and sap!
-St. Patrick's Solidarity   Mexico/Ireland solidarity!
-In Case of (emotional) Emergency: self-care form to fill out to fill out when you’re feeling grounded, supported, calm, inspired, etc.  to read when you’re not.

                                      

UPCOMING EVENTS

-Sandra Lory of Mandala Botanicals and I will be teaching 'Decolonizing Herbalism, Empowering Herbalists' (aka Intro the Herbalism for Social Justice) at the following event, as well as presenting in the evening about Herbalists Without Borders projects:

URBAN MOONSHINE HERBAL CONFERENCE 
Sat May 24th 2014, Coach Barn at Shelburne Farms, Shelburne, VT 
Inspiring day of herbal classes, walks, talks, & connections, followed by an evening including fresh dinner fare, music, cocktails, dancing, & festivities! We are enthused to offer classes from wonderful teachers: 7 Song, Mary Bove, Guido Mase, Larken Bunce, Betzy Bancroft, Jeff Carpenter, Melanie Carpenter, Sandra Lory, Brendan Kelly, Megan Godfrey, Leyla Bringas, Mary Niles, and many more to be announced! One hundred percent of the proceeds will benefit the Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism's community herbal clinics.  More info to come here.  Facebook event page here.

-The Plainfield Farmer’s Market will be starting up in a few weeks, so you can visit the Dandelioness Herbals booth to taste remedies, purchase products, and chat.

-Interested in growing medicinal herbs for community health projects?  Members of Herbalists Without Borders are coordinating the growing of medicinal plants to distribute via community health projects near and far.  Interested in growing herbs for teas, salves, etc?  Please be in touch.

-I’m excited about hosting herbal medicine making days for community empowerment during the growing season, when the plants are most vital.  Learn to harvest in a good way, learn/share medicine-making skills, create remedies for community health projects, and create a kit to take back to our homes/communities.   All experience levels welcome.  If you have questions or ideas for venues, please be in touch.

Take care,

dana

dandelion778 (at)  yahoo  (dot)  com

Please visit the Dandelioness Herbals Facebook page for info about upcoming events, photos of medicinal herbs, blog posts, links to good projects/resources, and more!

Til next time...

Images from the top:  
Migrant Justice represents! * Activist Self-Care Kit: Supporting Change Makers for the Long Haul

Participants of the civil disobedience at the Not One More Deportation! Boston Rally * As we march by the detention center, dandelion stays rooted beside us, embodying persistence and resistance, sending forth its seeds across borders and prison walls.

They send their love and support through the glass and prison bars.  To our comrades, brothers, fathers, cousins, husbands, grandsons, friends: you are not forgotten! * Green Tech: Herbal Support Kit for Students, Activists/Organizers, & Writers

Basket full of dandelion blossoms

Celebrating after the rally!  We Did It Before, We'll Do It Again! Power to the People! *  Dandelion roots  * Fabulousness To Go: Helping our real fabulous nature shine through 

Honoring ALL Mothers: Mama's Day Our Way

What does Motherhood in a just world look like?

Walking into a store around Mother’s Day, one would think from all the greeting card images that all mothers are white, able-bodied, middle-class, straight, feminine and female-identified women in nuclear families.

This narrow view of who a mother is excludes so many of us - Immigrant women raising their children in bilingual homes, Transgender moms with disabilities, Masculine-identified women raising their nieces and nephews, Incarcerated mother maintaining connection through barbed wire and concrete walls, Indigenous women honoring both their children and Mother Earth in the struggles against colonization and tar sands, Women of color serving in the military and parenting from overseas, Breast-feeding working-class queer mamas, Survivors of sexual violence who are transforming pain and trauma into creating a safe home for their little ones, Mothers working as domestic workers - separated from their own children to raise the children of upper-class families, Mothers of all skin colors and their little ones who may or may not be the same color, Teen mothers taking good care of their babies, Single moms and multi-generational households, Mothers that cross borders and endure separation from their families in order to provide for them, Mothers by blood, adoption, and chosen-mothers.  

This year, let’s honor all mothers! 

Let’s celebrate midwives, doulas, and other birthworkers!  Let’s take this day as an opportunity to learn more about our own birthstory and send some love to uteruses all over the world!  Let’s support motherhood and parenthood as a whole, and create and nourish culture/communities where families are included and valued.

    To all those who help build strong and resilient communities by creating inclusive,     
    multi-generational spaces-  

    To all the mothers and allies working collectively for justice in the realm of  
    motherhood/parenthood and  other aspects of community justice – 

    To all artists who are creating vivid reflections of families in all their vibrant, simple,   
    complicated, and loving manifestations -

THANK YOU!

Please check out Strong Families -"a home for the 4 out of 5 people living in the US who do not live behind the picket fence—whose lives fall outside outdated notions of family, with a mom at home and a dad at work....We see the trend of families defining themselves beyond the picket fence—across generation, race, gender, immigration status, and sexuality—as a powerful and promising development for the US, and we want to help policy makers catch up.  Our vision is that every family have the rights, recognition and resources it needs to thrive.  We are engaging hundreds of organizations and thousands of individuals in our work to get there."

    -and their Mama's Day Our Way  campaign - beautiful and free e-cards here, created by   
    a network of artists and organizations.  Some of their cards are included below.

More resources:
Art of Favianna Rodriguez and Dignidad Rebelde
Radical Doula
The Shodhini Institute
Campaign for Prison Phone Justice  - please sign their Mother's Day petition here.
Brown Boi Project
The Native Youth Sexual Health Network
National Day Laborer Organizing Network

You can click on images below to make them larger.

"My mom would cross 100 borders to give me a better future."

Please sign the petition here.

"Our souls are so much bigger than this"