teakkurim

21 tamuz 5782 it is summer here in the PNW and although the season started off cool and   cloudy, the sunny hot days are finally here. this means i am trying to spend as much time outside as i possibly can. Part of doing that is by going camping on all my weekends and i finally got to do my first camping trip of the summer. i have weird days off so i wasn’t able to go with anyone on such short notice but going by myself is just as good (and sometimes even better… i like my alone time). this time of year is when i also like to connect with all of the beautiful plants that are around me. something i always do when i go camping is to start my mornings with an herbal tea made with the plants around me. it gives me something fun to keep in the back of my head while i am exploring and getting to know the area where i am. it feels like a good way for me to get in touch with the place and to start to build a relationship with the land. when picking wild plants, a rule that i like to fo...

1 iyar 5781 it is rosh chodesh iyar (the first of the month of iyar). iyar is known for being a month of healing because of the proliferation of herbs that are coming up during this time. the famous sage reb nachman said 'iyar' is an aconym for a phrase form the torah talking about the healing powers present in the world (not trynna get preachy). in honor of iyar, i want to make this post about healing. i try to think of tea as medicine in my life. i try to think of weed in the same way as well as other plants and herbs. yes, tea is a drug, but there is a fine line between drug and medicine (my non-professional opinion is that the difference lies in dosage but that is still a pretty lame definition).    this is something that is especially true during the winter months. i get depressed in the winter. it is the lack of sunlight, the cold, and the more time spent indoors. on a very basic level, my energy goes way down in the winter and it is harder to motivate myself to even do ...

21 shvat 5781 camellia sinensis is not the only ‘tea’ i drink. every morning i drink herbal tea when i wake up. depending on what time of year or how i am feeling i will drink different things. in the winter i like things that are warming and spicy to help generate some heat and give some fire to my digestion. during the summer, i usually wake up with my anxiety at an 11. boom, im awake, time to be anxious. when this happens, i like to start my mornings with some serious downer tea to help me calm down. i like to make my own blends but i also will drink bag tea, especially this time of year when i feel more ‘blah’ and want something convenient. when i go backpacking or camping i love spending my morning by walking around and finding some things to make tea with. i will boil water, make my ‘forest tea’ and sit by some water and pray or sing while i drink my tea.   i love tea because it is a plant. i love interacting with plants. i especially love plants i can eat, drink, or make me...

18 shvat 5781  i have been using the word qi a lot in this blog. i think a lot of it is wishful thinking. i want to think i am perceptive and can sense the energetics of tea. i believe i can to some degree, but any evaluation or judgment of qi in a tea should be balanced with the fact that i am fairly amateurish. i do have a better sense for tea than the average person and i do have an above average sense of plant energetics but i am nowhere near the most experienced or the most perceptive. i want to be. i hope to be, but for now, i just aint there yet.   where does my experience with qi come from? it’s a little hodgepodge. i have done a little bit of qi gong and tai chi with a couple different teachers. mainly, when i lived in north Carolina in the black mountains, one of our neighbors just graduated acupuncture school. he was friends with a bunch of us at the farm which he happened to have previously worked at, and he would hang out with us and on tuesdays we’d do qi gong wi...

15 shvat 5781 today is the jewish new year of the trees. yaaaaaay!  like mnay jewish holidays it occurs on the full moon for extra magic sparkles.   why is today the new year of the trees you may ask. the tradition holds that during this time of year is when the sap in the trees starts flowing. this is a transition for the trees’ life cycle and is the beginning of them ‘waking up’ for spring.   this holiday was originally a time for israelites to mark when trees were planted or started bearing fruit for detaied tithing reasons that i dont fully understand... in the 1500s, kabbalists started to reframe the holiday in a new light choosing to focus on fruits and the beauty trees bring to our world. these sages developed a seder similar in style to Passover where people would gather to eat fruit, drink wine, and share teachings about nature. incase you didn’t know, there are a lot of teachings in Judaism about trees. the foundational ‘tree of life’ being just the beginning....