New Moon Gathering

Every New Moon, Motherhouse has a gathering. A place women can come together to share in stories, company, activities, good food, and honor our cycles. Yesterday, the new moon gathering was at Perry Hill Farm. We ventured out in a field of ours to pick black raspberries, gather motherwort, mullein flowers, plantain, yarrow, and St. John's Wort. As we gathered our goodies, we spent time sharing stories and support through our friendship.

Once our goodies were gathered, we sat at our outside table under a large white pine tree and begun to make our tinctures and oils for salves. We sat in the shade sipping on mint water, laughing, taking in all the wonderful smells around us and we listened to the birds chirp. We read information from Susun Weed's website about tinctures. We discussed the many uses of these wonderful plants we harvested. We laughed at how picking the black raspberries stained our hands. We especially giggled when we tried a skin conditioner I had made previously from mullein and wild lettuce on our faces with those same stained hands. Now our faces had a lovely berry juice color!

I never realized just how beautiful these tinctures and salves in the making are! It was amazing to see how quickly the St. John's wort started turning the alcohol red. Motherwort and St. John's wort will be soaking in 100 proof vodka for 6 weeks. Mullein/yarrow/plantain will be soaking in olive oil in the sun for 6 weeks.

It was a peaceful empowering new moon gathering. --- Vicki