Dear friends and fellow Dreamers,
It’s the Waning Half Moon, and you can listen to this episode on the usual platforms, or here on my website, with my accompanying images.
Today we Dream with Fireweed, or Rosebay Willow-herb, and there’s a Waking Dream from me. I hope you can listen along,
With Courage, Imagination and Love,
Beth
Firstly an image for the Waning Half Moon, so that you can imagine how she is if you can’t get outside, or the night sky is thick with cloud. She’s up there, and she’s looking like this !
Next is a swathe of magenta pink Fireweed, or Rosebay Willow herb, and a video of them moving gracefully in the wind. We can thank them for their voice through this episode. These photos were taken yesterday before the RAIN came…
Here are some photos of my Ivan Chai making process, first the fresh flowers and leaves as I picked them, and then the dried flowers and fermenting leaves at the start of the process.
Here is the beautiful Lords and Ladies stalk, with his early bright green berries, who sat opposite me as I recorded this episode.
And finally here is the transcript for our Waking Dream today, for those of you who might want to do it again or share it.
Waking Dream
So close your eyes, and on the out breaths I want you to visualise first a 3, now a 2, and finally a 1, tall straight and bright.
See yourself on a pavement, in a busy town. The air is dusty, dry and still. Everything is in black and white. People are walking to and fro - traffic goes past, the world moves around you. See your feet walking on the tarmac. You are walking back and forth, up and down, first in one direction, then in the other. Feel the tiredness of this movement in your body and the weariness in your heart.
Now notice that there is another road, that you hadn’t noticed before. It doesn’t lead left or right, but goes in a new direction, straight ahead.
As you look at the new road, see it appear in full colour. It is a beautifully coloured space, there is only colour, slowly changing and shifting. Coral pink, sky blue, saffron yellow, emerald green. It feels cool, fresh and lush. You see this road has great depth and width, it is different.
See yourself step off the busy grey street and into the new road. As you step you realise you are in another medium, it’s completely new. It feels infinite. Your arms and legs move softly through the spacious colour, and your body feels charged with a new energy.
There is warm golden light high above the horizon, which shines towards you through the different colours. As it touches your face, feel it soak through you, let it shine directly into your eyes, nose and mouth, down your throat, through to your arms, hand and fingers, down through your heart, lighting it up as it goes, and into your belly, legs and feet.
As you move forward, a new landscape opens up on front of you, you feel curious and strong, and you feel a sense of possibility.
Open your eyes and with them open, feel what is possible here.
Ivan Chai Recipe
So to make this tea, all you need is a quantity of Fireweed leaves ( make sure your identification is good, it’s not difficult, but this is your responsibility! ) some of the bright pink flowers, which aren’t essential but make the tea pretty, and some time and patience to prepare and ferment the leaves.
Pick the leaves on a dry day, when the sun has been on them a bit, and when the flowers are open nearly up to the top of the spikes. The best way to do this is to hold just beneath the flower with one hand, and with the other hand around the stem, pull downwards, gathering the leaves and clearing the stem completely. Or pick them any way you like. Do this until you can pretty much fill a mixing bowl at home. Pinch off the whole flower heads to process at home. I use two bags while I do this, leaves in one, flower heads in another.
When you get them home, you’ll have to take each little flower off its stem one by one. This is fiddly, but satisfying, and it’s a time you can spend really enjoying contact with the plant. Leave these flowers spread out thinly on a piece of paper, or on a clean, empty patch on the table, until they’re completely dry. Turn them over occasionally if you think they need it.
Chop the leaves (with a large pair of scissors is easiest) into smaller pieces, maybe three or four pieces per leaf. You can do this in big handfuls, quite roughly - this part is not critical - but keep the pieces sort of equal ish in size. They’ll shrink when they ferment, but the pieces will be what you end up with in your teapot, so it’s nice if they’re somewhat uniform!
Now is the time consuming bit - you want to get another bowl, and pinch by pinch, take some leaves and rub them vigorously between your palm. You are aiming to break them down slightly, to bring the moisture out, and to help the fermentation get started. Do this with every pinch of leaves in the best way you can, until they’ve all been handled.
Then you want to cover the bowl - I use a plastic shower cap - and put it somewhere warm. If the day is hot, you can leave it on the side in the kitchen, but if it’s cool, use a heated fermentation mat if you have one, or put it in the airing cupboard, or anywhere warm. You want to ferment this for about 5 days ( give or take - this isn’t an exact science, and there are MANY variables to fermenting) and turn it and mix it regularly with your hands ( I do this four or five times a day ). It will start to change colour, get darker, and a bit browner, and it will take on a different smell - richer and more fruity. This is all good, and really only experience will make you feel certain, but after you’ve done this for a few days, you can take the covering off the bowl, and dry the tea, much like you did the flowers. I put the fermented tea in a large baking tray so it’s easy to turn and mix as it dries. You want to do this every couple of hours, or every time you walk past, to ensure the tea doesn’t go mouldy, and it dries evenly.
When it’s BONE dry, put it in a tin or a lidded jar and there ya go! I hope you try making this, because it’s a beautiful plant and a wonderful tea. Thank You Fireweed !
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