Then there was December

& a little sale

Apothecary News: As we’re getting back into the swing of things, we’re having a little small business sale on the 2025 planners in the shop! They make great gifts for the gardeners, herb lovers, dreamers, whimsical folks in your life. The sale will continue through December 6 if you haven’t already snagged one.

---

November here in Michigan feels like the month where the scales finally tip and all of this external energy used to germinate and fertilize and bloom and fruit travels downward. The landscape fades to a new, just as beautiful, palette of burgundies, olives, maroons, and browns. Some geese still pluck at the barren cornfields, but they will leave soon too. I also feel a bit this way. Now that Asher is out in the world, my body quiets and withdraws from its overripeness.

I venture out of my postpartum bubble to walk our old trails. Unfortunately, I find it isn’t just the season that changed while I was gone.

The trails I hike around my house are all on state land. There are no manicured paths or signs. They are remnants of logging roads that meander off for miles into the thickets or dead end just half a mile in. In the fall I may run into a hunter or two, but other than that, I’ve never seen another soul out for a casual walk.

This time though, there are fresh tracks on the old roads. The woods are gone.

Being on state land, I always know it’s a possibility, but to see it cut down so quickly was a shock. The trees and plants will regrow in a span of time that is a mere blink to the universe. But it feels like something essential has been lost when it’s been destroyed in this way. There is no reverence, no offerings, nothing given back. They select cut the lots, but the white pines that are left are sliced, crooked and bleeding from the machinery and trees falling around them.

Before & After

I couldn’t wrap my head around how I could have this new life bundled against me with the land in shreds in front of me.

Still, Odin, Asher and I walk the trail as their machines pluck the ground clean around us. This is public space after all, and the land still needs love. We don’t stop loving places because they are no longer convenient or beautiful. I can’t stop them from being cut down, but I can love them more, and maybe assure this place I’m still here with my familiar boot prints.

I’ll be here in the dead of winter when the loggers abandon it and no other human comes to comfort it. I’ll be here in the spring when new seeds sprout. I’ll be here in the summer when it learns how to grow again. I’ll be here in the fall when it tentatively falls asleep, not knowing if it will wake the same next year.

Walking the trail used to be a practice in meditation and silence. Now, it is a practice in learning how to hold on to love with a bleeding heart. To accept things as they are and move forward. Life still needs to be lived, babies need to be fed, work needs to be done.

Some sketches from the end of pregnancy/early postpartum.

One of my favorite experiments was working with some lesser known herbs and vegetables that are used in Polish foods. At first glance, this Rosół recipe looks just like chicken noodle soup. But, the magic comes from the unseen. You first brew bone-in chicken, celery root, leeks, parsnips, carrots, and lovage to make a rich root broth before straining. This makes for a rich soup full of flavor and nutrients for cold fall nights.

Towards the end of my pregnancy, the cats became popular models in my sketches as I never had to move far to draw them.

After visiting the horse chestnut tree in my local cemetery, I wanted to study horse chestnut a little more. While it’s rarely used in modern herbalism, the extract of the seed has been shown to increase blood flow to the lower extremities. This has made it useful for infertility in men, as well as CVI (swelling, pain and itchiness in the legs).

More grannies, I was inspired by Natalia Goncharova’s costume designs and paintings. The aesthetic, magical, and symbolic significance in folk clothing and embroidery is fascinating to me.

I like to follow the work of various photographers so that on days when I can’t spend much time outside, I can still get some sketching in. One of my favorites is Klamath Podlasia. They post almost daily photos of the seasonal and daily lives of a small village in Poland.

I sing I Will Remember You by Sarah McLachlan to Asher almost nightly, and cry almost every time!

As we begin a new month, my hope is that you find some time to muse, daydream and go down all of the rabbit holes.

Much love,

Val

P.S. Feel free to share with friends, family and strangers! It’s always appreciated.

---

If you want to move deeper into a seasonal land-based life, consider ordering my 2025 Lunar + Seasonal Planner. Because learning to live in tune with the land doesn’t come from grand gestures or life-altering shifts, but rather from daily routines, devotions and observations of the land and how we relate to it.

This yearly planner weaves seasonal land-based practices with modern living so that you can live more intentionally and presently within every season of your life. It was created for the plant people, the land lovers, the gardeners, and the seekers to plan their lives around the rhythms of the earth as our ancestors have for thousands of years. More than just a planner, it is a practical yet spiritual guide to living, working, gardening, and celebrating in tune with the ever-shifting world around us.

Become a free subscriber for weekly musings from the forest. To receive seasonal guides and explorations, consider becoming a paid subscriber.