Ritual.

June 2018

Down by the medicine wheel today, I harvested some balsam tips to make myself an herbal body oil. Something just for me, something to rub into my skin during the only time I get to myself, my hot as heck showers.

Herbal body oiling has become a daily ritual I do for myself within the practice of learning to love and care for myself more and more. My mother never really loved herself and struggles with this still. In turn, I never learned to love myself either. I never had a role model to teach me about the things women do to take good care of their mind, body, and spirits.

Now in my mid thirties and a mother, I am finally coming to this place of practice and clarity in the essential importance of the ritual of self care.

Now I realize that this kind of thing can be frustrating to even think of trying when you have children but I’ve also found that just doing it over and over supports the ritual into becoming something you do without having to think. It’s just part of your day just like everything else. I also have found that in herbal body oiling you are not just absorbing the fats and infused oils that assist with so many issues, but you are also sharing the energetic medicine of the plant. This energy lives in your auric field creating a connection to the plant as well as offering emotional and spiritual healing.

For myself, it’s always trees. As far back as I can remember I’ve had a relationship to trees that I can not articulate. I literally cry when I approach an elder tree, my stomach clenches when I see one being trimmed or cut, I am completely mesmerized and healed by the smell of a balsam or cedar in the breeze.

Trees literally hold the ancient wisdom of the earth and our ancestors. They do not see themselves as individuals but rather a collective in the whole of their system of trees. So in creating this body oil from this balsam, I feel as though I’m communicating with every balsam I can see around me. I am asking them all for their help in harmonizing my energies, grounding me, and teaching me what I need to know at this time.