Starting the Community Apothecary has probably been a different undertaking for each of us in The BirdHouse’s core team. For me, it has been about reclaiming the knowledge of my grandparents. I was raised in Basque country, where we had a very simple approach to self care in the village, a certain kind of village-mindedness where everybody started from the same place: We all needed to stay healthy in simple ways, so that we would not have to go to the very special and expensive doctor. In fact, we did not even have a doctor within our village. Instead, folks acted with the shared intention of healing through the cycle of seasons and connection with plants.
There was a mature Linden tree in the middle of the school courtyard. When we started school again after the summer, all of us kids would harvest the blossoms of the tree to bring bouquets home to our families.
You could be sure that every night, everyone in the village was drinking Linden tea after dinner, to ensure a restful night of sleep.
It is this sense of village-mindedness, (as Stephen Jenkinson describes in an interview he gave to the BirdHouse), that called Jessica Perez and I to assemble the Community Apothecary. We invited a core team of BirdHouse members and plant aficionadas—the Apotekistas as we call ourselves—to share our skills and bring self-care to all. The Apotekistas all share the belief that everyone should have access to self-care.
As I am writing this article on the terrace of the BirdHouse, I can hear the sounds of people having fun together, and the place is feeling alive and vibrant.
There is a vital connection that exists between medicinal plants and our mental and physical states. Whether these encounters occur while one is restoring the land, through herbal infusions, tinctures, or aromatherapy, plants help us cultivate our personal power, keep our systems balanced, and our emotions lifted!
We started the BirdHouse Community Apothecary by honoring our grandparents, our ancestors, and the land we love, with seasonal Tea Circles. For these seasonal teas, we harvested plants from the garden in ceremonial rituals, dried the herbs, then prepared the teas to drink and contemplate the seasons. We have offered a Tea Circle every Solstice and Equinox for the past two years, to support everyone’s systems.
Then 6 months ago, I was given a 10-liter copper alembic, to distill hydrosols from plant leaves, flowers, and roots from the BirdHouse garden. This has been the beginning of an aromatic journey, with the amazing fortune to work with plants that Cameron Miller seeded or grew from cuttings, which we’ve recognized and watched grow in the garden.
The process is healing on its own, but it’s essential to evaluate the quality of our goods, because we want to pass it on to the neighborhood, in this same “village-mindedness” approach. So for the Apothecary core team, our intention has been to make the best hydrosols we can, to share with our members, and donate some bottles to selected local non-profits who make the choice of giving back with heart and soul to take care of each other within our neighborhood. It’s essential to heal the healer.
A hydrosol is the alchemized water produced during a steam distillation, the process used to obtain essential oils contained in a plant. While the oil floats to the surface, the remaining water is infused with the energy of the plant and some essential oil molecules. This infused water is what is referred to as the hydrosol.
Just like a hologram, hydrosols contain all of the plant and its energetic purpose in every drop. According to Suzanne Catty in Hydrosol, The Next Aromatherapy, a hydrosol has “the water-soluble elements of the plant, its essential-oil molecules, and the life that was flowing through the plant cells when it was collected”—a pretty metaphysical way to open up the portal into the plant world and re-wild our inner selves!
On the other hand, cheaply made, low-quality commercial hydrosols are often produced by mixing tap water with added essential oils. Unlike steam-distilled hydrosols, these cheaper substitutes have little therapeutic value.
To open up this portal to the plant world and connect to our ancestral lineage, we use a copper still rather than a steel one, because copper resists corrosion—and very importantly—it allows vapors to cool quickly, which is needed for the vapor to turn back into this precious medicine that can heal.
Finally, copper removes the sulphur compounds in the plants to be distilled, which could contaminate the fragrance of the final hydrosol. That way, after several days, we can recognize subtle nuances amongst the exquisite flowers and fruits of our canyon, from Vetiver to Meyer Lemons, from Marsh Grapefruit to French Lavender.
Note : Alembics have been around since the Egyptians but in the high times of spagyrics of the 16th century, when herbal medicine was combined in an alchemy procedure with salt, sulphur and mercury, the process of distillation was described in the language of the five elements:
- When plant material (Earth)
- is placed inside a vessel (Space),
- mixed with water (Water)
- & heated with steam (Ether),
- and fire/gas (Fire) …
… it transforms water/earth (water/plant material) into a vapor that condenses down into aromatic water.
This transformation “allows the plant’s body to act on the patients’ body, and the spirit of the plant to heal the spirit of the person.” ~ Paracelcus
Connections to plants are enlivening. All it takes is a subtle tuning, allowing ourselves to slow down in our day, and prioritize reciprocity by taking care of plants, people, and the soil too. Time to take things personally!
