Every year at the end of August I celebrate the Wild Harvest by gathering elderberries to make a medicinal tincture that I use all year long and share with close friends.
This gathering is a process that begins in the spring as I search for new bushes and then later blossoming elderberry flowers in old and new places. As the summer progresses, I continue to monitor the bushes searching for those with berries. Beginning in early August I am on alert for ripening. I am especially mindful because our weather is changing rapidly. If the trend of bad air, fog, too many deluges continues unabated it’s probable that the times for harvesting berries may shift. In addition, many of the wild places that once supported elderberry bushes have been manicured to get rid of the wild plants by mowing them down, bulldozing the soil to remove all greenery, etc. The rape of wild nature has escalated with time.
This year I have been especially fortunate because I found new clusters bursting out in places they weren’t before. I think the Elder – Berry Woman is helping me. Destroying these precious wild plants and their habitat means that a once common ancient Native plant remedy may be disappearing. Despite horticultural advertising our elderberry bushes do not do well in cultivation, if they survive at all.
I know enough (which a almost nothing) about the mycorrhizal fungal network to know that just the right combination of plants and fungi must be present for these plants to thrive, even if I don’t understand what those relationships could be.
Westerners have yet to return sovereignty to the soil as Native Peoples did from the beginning thousands and thousands of years ago. All Indigenous peoples have names for the fungal power that lies beneath our feet. One such name according to Robin Wall Kimmerer is Puhpowee, an Anishinaabe word for the spirit or force that causes fruiting fungi (mushrooms) to appear out of earth overnight.
Ever since I first dreamed that I needed to use this plant for my well-being many years ago, I have heeded that call. The winters I spent in NM were the only years I didn’t use this tincture. I became desperately ill.
Up until this year I have always done my gathering alone calling upon the Grandmothers to be present for me during this process. Before we began last week I called up the “Elderberry Woman” to be present for our prayers of thanksgiving as Gary joined me as a gatherer.
The actual process took eight days in all. Our first gathering included too many berries that were not yet ripe. After checking my secret places during the remainder of the week I picked another quart and a half determining that this Monday would be just the right day – and it was! Within an hour Gary and I had all the berries we needed!
Yesterday, was the last winnowing day for me. Four in all. The first was frustrating. I lost my glasses, couldn’t see the berries and ended up throwing at least 2/3rds away because so many were unripe (I hate waste). The second time included a brief magical moment, the result of discovering that deadly machines had not wiped out an entire elderberry patch probably because the destructive road work was done above ground. Just finding a couple of tablespoons of ripe berries reminded me of the fact that nature is above all focused on renewal, and if the underground networks aren’t destroyed S/he will rise again.
That evening I sat out with the Yei* as I winnowed the few berries feeling the presence of the Ancestral Navajo Woman Spirits floating around my joy. The third time I found berries was the day before Gary and I went gathering for the second time. I was checking a couple of places just to be sure the harvest was at its peak picking a small basketful of ripe berries in the process. After winnowing them, I had a good idea of just how much we still needed. Knowing just how much was important because I was also focused on not taking more berries than we needed. Some must always be left for regeneration and the birds and animals who eat them. Animals and birds who then deposit seeds that hopefully will end up in another wild place.
Monday’s gathering was a golden moment for both of us with Gary able to walk and reach into inaccessible places that I can no longer reach. We came home elated; the job was done – at least for him.
Yesterday I hoped to winnow the remainder outdoors in the sun, but as usual the air was so poisoned with pollutants (127 – dangerous for everyone to breathe) that I came inside to finish winnowing and bottling the rest, a job that took most of the day.
I always associate this harvesting of Elder – Berries with the late summer sun, so retreating indoors to celebrate a summer harvest was an unwelcome change. Our summers no longer usher in fresh clean air but layers of fog, drizzle, deluges and hazy humid sun and heat. Pollutants abound. I confess I am still in mourning for clean fragrant mountain air that I never took for granted in the first place. To make the adjustment to ‘what is’ requires moving through this grief.
But for the moment I am steeped in gratitude, grateful for a bountiful harvest and giving thanks for Gary’s help. I am getting old and having such loving assistance has become necessity, at least in some gathering areas which are now too dangerous for me to traverse safely.
Additionally, I was able to show Gary how to determine when the berries were ripe and how to winnow them, passing on a beloved harvesting practice to a man who is a powerful healer in his own right. A joyful moment for me.
Every year this particular harvest attaches me to the Ancestral Spirits, and the women who have gone before me but I don’t think I have ever felt this close to the Grandmothers, the Yei, the Corn Mother, all those woman spirits who have been gathering, gathering, gathering, since the beginning of humankind, perhaps because once considered primarily as protectors, men, accompanied their women helped them to complete the task of gathering in inaccessible places?
It’s an interesting thought.
Who are the Yei?
The Yei are the Navajo holy people that are associated with the forces of nature. They are benign female beings who are intermediary spirits between the people and the rest of nature. They are powerful healers that are called upon in medicinal ceremonies.
Although the Navajo now reside in the Southwest, they are Athabaskans who originally came from the Canadian North. Their stories tell us that they migrated from north to south about ten thousand years ago.
The Yei have square heads that are attached to the spirit world, wear skirts and are often depicted with feet planted firmly underground. Some carry an ear of corn, or a bolt of lightning. The bow is probably a recent addition when the women healers became men thanks to Christianity!
The picture you see is a modern Navajo rug that belongs to me. I sit on it outside where it reminds me that the holy people are still around.
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