June is the month for brides. And roses are the flowers of love. So I think it fitting to focus on roses this month. Don't you? Not only are roses beautiful, they are good medicine and fine food.
Yes, all roses that haven't been sprayed with poisons (more about that later) can be eaten, whether cultivated or wild, climbing or bushy, white, pink, yellow, or red. My favorite June breakfast is whole wheat toast with butter or cultured cream cheese and a double layer of fresh rose petals. That sure wakes me up! It's a nice change, too, from my spring fancy breakfast, which is whole wheat toast with butter and violet flowers.
Roses capture our imagination like few flowers, and that's saying a lot, as any flower can trigger a wonderfully imaginative burst from even the least poetic of us. "How sweet to seize the blushing Prey,/ And snatch it from the Thorn away!" said Anacreon in the fifth century BCE (translated by Addison, 1735). In mythology, Flora, the goddess of flowers, asks the gods to help her revive a beloved, now dead, nymph. Apollo gives her the breath of life; Bacchus washes her in nectar; Vertummus gives her a lovely scent; Pomona makes her fruitful; and Flora herself gives her a crown of shimmering petals. Thus Rose, the "queen of flowers," is created.
Roses are painted on fine china, splashed across wallpaper, fashioned out of satin and silk and sewn onto clothes and hats, even dipped in gold and silver. Roses are the very image of innocence; roses are filled with sexual allure. Roses are chaste and pure; roses are wanton and wild. Roses bloom and fade in a day, like love, perfect but passing. Roses endure, blooming year after year, like love, eternal.
Rose gardens are found all over the world. Notable rose gardens include the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in New York, Kew Gardens in England, Westbroekpark in the Netherlands (with twenty thousand plants), the Parc de la Grange in Geneva (with twelve thousand plants), and the gardens of the Italian Rose Society in Milan. The largest garden in the world devoted entirely to roses is in Shreveport, Louisiana, where more than seventy thousand plants are collected into forty different rose gardens.
There are at least two cities that claim to be "The City of Roses." One is Portland, Oregon, where the ten thousand roses of the International Rose Test Gardens are terraced on five acres of hillside in the shadow of Mt. Hood. The other is Chandigarh, the capital of the Punjab in India, where sixty thousand plants make up the thirty-acre Zakir Rose Garden, including a Museum of Roses, a Moonlight Garden of pure white roses, and a scent garden where roses are bred to be especially high in rose oil, the mostly costly fragrance made.
Roses are not especially easy to grow, for they are attractive to a number of insects and fungal pests. Sprays can keep pests at bay, but even organic pesticides and fungicides can be unwholesome if eaten. Instead, I use a strong brew of horsetail (Equisetum arvense)--one cup of dried herb brewed for four hours in a quart of boiling water--diluted, a cup at a time, in a gallon of rain water, to spray against black spot and other molds. Seeding lawn areas with milky spore is the best control for Japanese beetles which can eat through a rose bush in minutes, it seems.
If you enjoy an abundance of roses, as I do--through no effort on my part, I assure you, for the wild roses are rampant in my area--you may wish to make rose beads. Natural Rose Beads are sweetly-scented black lumps made by throwing wilted roses into a cast iron pot and allowing them to rot for several months. Before the rose paste dries out, gather it into balls by rolling between your palms, then thread carefully onto a thick string and hang to dry completely. Rose beads will last for decades if thoroughly fermented and carefully dried.
Wild roses have five petals, each gently notched in the center and arranged in a pretty, open star with a cluster of stamen (the pollen-producing parts) in the center. Cultivated roses have petals in multiples of five. The five-pointed star is a pentagram, or pentacle, which is, of course, the symbol of magic. The rose, a blooming pentacle, is as magical as a flower can be.
Eating the petals of roses will get you lots of healthy flavonoids and vitamin C, as well as coloring materials that contain polyphenols and other heart-healthy, cancer-fighting compounds. If you eat the whole rose, you'll also get allergy-busting pollen to help get your body in tune with your environment.
Besides sprinkling the petals lavishly in salads and across toast, try making Rose Honey. Fill any jar to the top with roses and rose petals. Pour honey into the jar, stirring as needed to remove air bubbles, until the jar is full. Cap securely and label. Wait for at least a week before eating. The longer you wait, the better the taste. You can make Rose Hip Honey the same way; be sure to remove all the seeds and itchy hairs from the rose hips before putting them in a jar and adding honey.
Rose petal or rose hip honey is splendid on toast or taken by the spoonful to soothe a sore throat. To forestall a cold, put a tablespoon of rose honey in a cup, add the juice of half a lemon, then fill the cup with hot water.
Roses are especially cherished as a remedy for "women's problems." The growing tips of the rose canes are rich in hormone-like substances that help women with menstrual difficulties get into an easy flow, those with libido problems to feel frisky, and those who want to conceive to be more receptive. Rose Hormone Remedy: Harvest leaf and flower buds just before they open, preserving with honey, or a mixture of one part glycerin and two parts water. The dose is a teaspoonful several times a day.
Roses are part of a very large family of plants, many of which are medicinal and edible. Raspberry is part of the rose family, and raspberry leaf infusion is a fine uterine tonic. Hawthorn, the heart remedy, is also part of this family. As are most of the non-tropical fruits we enjoy: apples, pears, peaches, plums, apricots, strawberries, cherries, blackberries, raspberries, and even almonds.
If an apple a day will keep the doctor away, what will a rose a day do for you? Try it and see!
These one-day workshops (10AM-5PM) are taught outside among the plants, with Susun and the goats. Open to men and women, they include a wild-food lunch.
At each workshop we will identify, harvest, and use local plants for food and medicine. Registration Fee: $75.
Women can join us for a moon lodge on the Friday of each of these weekends.
Overnight lodging for Friday and Saturday nights is available nearby.
Includes the Three Traditions of Healing
Susun Weed reads aloud - just for you - her alternative medicine
classic Healing Wise. Her wise observations and warm voice
add special savor to a rich and satisfying feast of ideas
about health and healing.
6 CD's; 5hrs, 33min
by Susun
S. Weed
Introduction by Jean Houston.
Superb herbal in the feminine-intuitive mode. Complete instructions for using common plants for food, beauty, medicine, and longevity. Seven herbs -- burdock, chickweed, dandelion, nettle,
oatstraw, seaweed, and violet -- are explored in depth.
A Special Tenth Anniversary edition of this
classic herbal, profusely illustrated. 312 pages.
I just started reading your book, Healing Wise. Your
humor and approach to life seem so "down-to-earth",
just like your favorite powerful weeds. Thank you for sharing
and nourishing! ~ Diane
by Robin
Rose Bennett Follow the path to physical and spiritual health with this how-to
manual filled with ancient lore and wisdom. Using stories, songs,
rituals, recipes, meditations, and trance journeys, it suggests
more than 100 ways to practice the art of magical healing. Find
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with the power of the seven chakras, make use of moon magic and
women's wisdom, prepare herbal infusions and baths, work with the
medicine wheel, and cast spells for love and wealth. No matter what
your beliefs, this guidebook will open your heart and mind to the
joys of everyday life.
"Robin has been practicing Earth Spirit healing, herbalism and Wise Woman ways for twenty years and is an incredibly gifted spiritual teacher, healer and ceremonialist. Robin's powerful teachings come to the reader through a personal writing style that is immediately engaging, sharing practical wisdom through anecdote and example." Jen Prosser, Sunstone Herbs
Green
Witch focuses on personal and spiritual development. You'll
create rituals, prepare an herbal first-aid kit, encounter your
Goddess archetype, discover the magic of menstrual & menopausal
changes, and develop wise woman ways of living and healing. Learn
more ...
Green
Allies explores herbal medicine through direct experiences
with plants, plant spirits (fairies, devas), and plant medicines.
For those who want to deepen, rather than broaden, their knowledge
of plants: a year's worth of investigation and experimentation
with one plant ally. Learn
more ...
Spirit
& Practice of the Wise Woman Tradition focuses on understanding,
internalizing, and using the Three Traditions of Healing (Wise
Woman, Heroic, and Scientific) and the Six Steps of Healing.
Health-care practitioners find this course exceptionally helpful,
but anyone who cares for the health of others (even family members)
will benefit. Learn
more ...
ABC
of Herbalism!! This is a special course for the aspiring
herbalist who'd like to have me "by your side" teaching
you how to harvest, prepare, and use 52 healing herbs. Your
studies will be both experiential and intellectual and you will
make and use herbal remedies as well as reading about them in
a variety of sources. Learn
more ...
These one-day workshops (10AM-5PM) are taught outside among the plants, with Susun and the goats. Open to men and women, they include a wild-food lunch. 
