MedicineCrow Blog

Dear friends:
Many of you are familiar with the stories I have told about my first journey to Ecuador six years ago, and the many synchronistic events that led to my meeting the man who distills the Palo Santo oil for Floracopeia; many of you are familiar with the oil itself, but perhaps have not heard these stories yet.

David Crow is known for his visionary ecological approach to business, a cosmological view that keeps the focus on the plants in the center of the mandala. This view was never better expressed than at the In the Garden of the Medicine Buddha retreat in 2009. Just before the retreat, David expressed the entire worldview in a concise, profound, and inspiring talk: The Dharma of Essential Oils and the Flowering of Spiritual Culture.

MedicineCrow Teacher Community
Represented at National Ayurveda Conference

National Ayurvedic Medical Association hosts one of the primary conferences for professional practitioners of Ayurveda. These annual retreats feature the most brilliant teachers and thinkers as speakers and attendees. Many MedicineCrow interview videos were created at past NAMA conferences.

The 2012 conference will feature MedicineCrow founder David Crow as a keynote speaker, opening the conference on April 19th 2012. David is known as an advocate of grassroots healthcare, which he defines as local, affordable, and non-toxic, and his classes are well received by home enthusiasts and professional practitioners alike.

Flower Essence Making on the

Islands

On this tiny island out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for the Feast of Nectars with the moon illuminating the immense night sky with its venerable champagne beams, inspired by the immense lush beauty and abounding ojas spilling out of every nook and cranny, David and I decided to explore yet another nectar for the soul.

In most cultures, dew is seen as a life-giving substance both in terms of providing necessary physical nourishment and that of spiritual sustenance and transformation. The droplets of water that appear in the early morning light are an important source of moisture and nourishment for many plants and animals; dew has also been collected by people since time immemorial, and used for agricultural, healing and mystical purposes. For others, dew symbolizes a type of inner alchemical process of transformation, a substance that grants liberation and immortality.

David Crow Interviews
Deb Soule

Deb Soule is a lifetime herbalist. Her small herbal company Avena Botanicals continues to grow, prompted by friendly visits from government officials. David Crow visited the Avena Botanicals farm and wrote about his experiences in October. More recently, Deb was interviewed by David as a guest on MedicineCrow, when she shared her experiences as an herbalist, farmer, and business owner.

The end of each year brings the temptation to predict the next. This coming year in particular, with the approaching conjunctions of untenable political, unsustainable economic and uncontrollable ecological trends, the increasingly outrageous madness of so-called leaders and those who follow on display for everyone else, the overwhelming forces of whirlwinds that we are now collectively reaping, and the portending astronomical calculations of an ancient human-sacrificing culture, make 2012 a uniquely apocalyptic future to ponder, with all the potential victories, freedoms and joys that such a cataclysmic time might offer. Here, then, is my own list of prophesies, predictions, probabilities and presciences.

David Crow

An End of the Year Message from David Crow
(Completed at midnight on Christmas Eve)

I am comfortable on my meditation cushion, wrapped in the silent darkness and shining constellations of winter Solstice.

Many wise teachers have shared their contemplative practices with me, but there is one practice I come back to more than the others: listening to the heart. No one taught me this, however; I discovered it myself, which is like saying I discovered that I am breathing. So many spiritual insights are like this, yet we think illumination somehow lies outside the fabric of our own being.

I am listening to the pulsation of my heart. Join me…it is easy and very profound. My right thumb is resting on the radial artery of my left wrist, where the pulse rises and falls.

The artery undulates as the waves of nutrient fluid pass through it. If we listen attentively, the wandering mind will gradually become calm and steady, and in this flowing together of heart and awareness there are many revelations waiting to be known.

Feather Jones
Southwest Herbalist

The Poetic Truth
of Our Biological Existence

Creativity is a fascinating process. At times I have found it to be like an ephemeral breeze, floating here and there without any apparent cause as I walk through the forest searching for its inspiration or sit in silent contemplation hoping it will alight nearby and bless me with an outpouring of thoughts, words and insights. Sometimes it is like moving between waking and dreaming, or descending into the embryonic cavernous space that births mythology, hoping to bring something back that doesn’t evaporate into forgetfulness in the light of day, or worse, reveal the triviality of my mind. Sometimes, it seems more like a river that moves with its own rhythm and direction, appearing and disappearing as it will through the course of days or seasons, sometimes with some rhyme or synchronistic reason but most often without.

Chronic Inflammation
"The Silent Killer"

Inflammation, the body’s natural immunity and healing response, when unchecked causes damage to the body. Acute inflammation such as redness and swelling ought to resolve when the trauma or illness has healed. However contributing factors such as diet or radiation can cause inflammation to become chronic.

David and Sara Crow
Explore the Islands

Aromatherapy Expert
Goes Deep Into the Skin

A cursory look at popular fashion advertising suggests that beauty is created with an elaborate array of expensive cosmetic products. The dizzying selection of commercial cosmetics are mostly designed to alter or cover up a person's features with a layer of stuff. What's more, the industry is slow to adopt non-toxic ingredients. Since the skin absorbs whatever is applied to it, by using these cosmetics we are ingesting more toxins through the skin than through the digestive tract.

David Crow Interviews Phil Goldberg, Author of "American Veda"

Last month I had the pleasure of meeting with a fellow writer who I had not seen for many years, and interviewing him about his latest book.

Phil Goldberg is one of those writers that I admire, not only because most of his work has been related to the field of consciousness, spirituality and natural healing, but simply because of the sheer volume of material that he has produced. Having spent ten years writing “In Search of the Medicine Buddha,” and having spent another ten years since writing a sequel that is still not completed, it strikes me as an immense accomplishment to be able to write not just one book, but twenty-three. I have great respect for anyone who can do this, not only because of the high level of self discipline it reveals, but because of the cumulative knowledge and wisdom that one gains from doing so.

An Evening of Poetic Magic and Enchanted Stories

Last night in our town of Nevada City, CA, David blessed the local community with an unforgettable evening of profound and heartfelt poetry, gorgeous images, intoxicating aromas and captivating stories of his many travels to sacred places, meetings with holy people and studies of powerful plants. This offering was held so perfectly in the beautiful, warmly lit, cave-like exposed brick tea lounge, Haven Underground, as a benefit for our local non-profit health alternative and herbal apothecary, HAALo.

To many of us, everything David does is extraordinary.  Last night, however, was a deeply intimate and momentous sharing of sublime and personal poems that left us all feeling permeated and activated by this visionary's reflections and tales of the sacred.

Reflections on the
Grassroots Healthcare Revolution

Part 3:

One of the fundamental concepts that William and I have emphasized in the Farm to Pharmacy series is the importance of having simple herbal gardens at home as the basis of grassroots healthcare. As our starting point, we identified about thirty species that meet the following criteria: easy to grow in most parts of the U.S., relatively safe and nontoxic, possessing a wide range of therapeutic benefits, and easy to incorporate into a home pharmacy and herbal lifestyle. The lectures, plant identification and medicine making workshops revolved around becoming familiar with these important plants. It is our belief that if families know how to incorporate these herbs into simple kitchen medicines and basic home remedies, as they once commonly were, that a vast amount of unnecessary toxic medications could be avoided and general immunity and health levels in the population increased.

Reflections on the
Grassroots Healthcare Revolution

Part 2:

In addition to learning plant identification, each intensive also taught us about the growing habits of different species. As we toured the gardens and learned to recognize each plant, we also began to understand why it liked that particular place on the farm. Even within the small four acres on a gentle slope we discovered numerous miniature ecosystems, which William had either developed or exploited to maximize growing conditions, allowing him to cultivate many species that would not otherwise thrive in the Northeast.

Reflections on the
Grassroots Healthcare Revolution

Part 1:

One week ago William Siff and I completed teaching the fall season intensive at Goldthread Herb Farm. It was the sixth week-long program that we had done together, which included spring, summer and fall this year and last. It was again a unique and memorable event, filled with shared learning, healthy work with the healing plants and a sense of restoring and creating something precious and meaningful for our society. It was also a time to reflect on what we had accomplished, and where the program might evolve to next.

Last week we had the pleasure of visiting Deb Soule at her beautiful herb farm and apothecary, Avena Botanicals.  I had just finished teaching the Farm to Pharmacy week with William Siff at Goldthread Farm in Massachusetts and a weekend class in Portland, Maine, hosted by Gina Mastroluca. Gina had made arrangements in advance for us to make the trip north to visit Deb outside of Rockport.

Somali Immigrant Revolutionizing Frankincense Industry with Fair Wages for Harvesters

Frankincense has been widely regarded as one of the world's most precious sacred scents.  Brokers purchase the resin in massive quantities and auction with large markups while the land-owners earn a fraction of the value of the substance, while the harvesters are paid only in food.  The trees must be scarified to express the resin, and as international demand rises, the trees are dramatically over harvested, threatening their fragile existence.