I have a confession to make. Although I’m ridiculously well-versed in all things sleep-related, I will reluctantly admit that I don’t always follow my own advice. Like now, for instance. Ever since I moved from the desert to the tundra, I’ve had a very hard time getting out of bed in the morning. And since my “work” is primarily freelance writing, I don’t have external demands forcing me to be anywhere at a specific time. Getting up late means staying up late, and on and on it goes . And so it is in this very blog series, a countdown to my lovely sleep workshop, that I plan on taking my own advice as my circadian rhythms are all out of whack.
Melatonin has been touted as the cure-all for sleep-related issues, but it really shouldn’t be. As herbalist Paul Bergner points out, melatonin affects the entire metabolic cycle, not just the sleep-wake cycle. Taking large amounts can affect the pineal gland over time. Still, dosage and duration is really variable, and a small dose taken a half hour before bedtime can help straighten things out. Research indicates that tiny doses (such as 0.3 mg as opposed to 3 mg) can be just as effective.
Melatonin must be combined with exposure to light during the day, and turning the lights off at night. Yes, this includes computer screens. For many people, just these two things (melatonin and lights out) could be enough to bring the body back to a more natural cycle.
This is the first of a two-week series on sleep, which will cover herbs, diet, supplements, hygiene and more. Please post any questions and comments you may have… I will try to answer questions over the course of the series.
One of the most challenging aspects of moving from the Sonoran Desert to somewhere with seasons that include a cold, grueling winter is not being able to grow food year round, which is something to which I’d grown quite accustomed. In the wonderful book Full Moon Feast, Jessica Prentice breaks down the agrarian year by moon cycle. We are in the heart of Hunger Moon. Prentice points out that very few of us in this country have ever experienced seasonal food shortages, or the cycle of scarcity and abundance. Food is shipped, refrigerated and available year round and grocery stores are stocked to the brim.
Not being able to go to the farmer’s market each week, though, feels like a sacrifice to me. I feel that in many ways I am, in fact, experiencing the cold of winter both externally and internally, circumstantially and otherwise. The slow pace and unfamiliarity coupled with the weather and what seem like plateaus in my own crafts of choice do seem like a famine of sorts. But they appear far more meaningful when viewed as a form of purification, a part of a seasonal cycle of hunger and want.
What is needed in these circumstances a deep nourishment. Food that is well-prepared, thoroughly cooked and warming feeds the internal furnace. Deep rest helps us conserve our energy and resources in this inward and sensitive time. Rest and self-reflection leads to replenishment.
Following Prentice’s lead (and recipes), I’ve been cooking with local winter vegetables. The most familiar ones are leeks, carrots, onions, potatoes, winter greens and cabbage, but I’ve been throwing parsnips, beets, turnips, rutabagas, parsley roots and sunchokes into my food as well.
Although I’d seen rutabaga in Cleveland when I volunteered to cook food for a macrobiotic dinner about a decade ago, I first discovered parsnips as a vegan living in Oxford. I remember blending potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, leeks and parsley with these two strange vegetables for a delicious winter soup. Roasting root vegetables (beets and rutabagas and parsnips and carrots and sunchokes, perhaps potatoes, and turnips or celeriac, too) with some fresh rosemary, olive oil, salt and pepper is also delicious.
I first discovered sunchokes (aka Jerusalem artichokes) when instructed to pull them out of the ground as part of a permaculture internship in the desert. Pull we did and it was the most fun we’d had in a long time. There’s something about eating food you just pulled out of the ground. We boiled them and added a little butter and ate them. The texture was potato-esque but the taste was so much earthier.
I managed to grow sweet potatoes in the desert, although I’d heard it was impossible. In fact, I’d all but given up on them but was clearing my community garden plot (as instructed) shortly before leaving town. Sure enough as I dug around I found baby sweet potatoes. These were peeled and boiled and mashed and taken to a Thanksgiving dinner.
I’m still in search of salsify and celeriac, but I’ve managed to source some raw milk locally, making whey and cream cheese and using the whey to make sauerkraut (and soon, beet kvass). Creamed soups with many of these roots are earthy and warming on a very deep level. I save the ones that are exceptionally starchy (with potatoes and winter squash) for a post-workout meal, assuring that the sugars replenish muscle glycogen.
Not only are these winter roots nutritious and appropriate for this time of year, they are also quite affordable… and it is nice to support local farmers, although I haven’t met many of them yet. Other winter treats include lacto-fermented goodies which are excellent for digestion. A simple cabbage with some sea salt and whey makes for delicious sauerkraut, good with sausage or served with borscht. Lest I forget, I still have containers of dried beans gifted to me by a farmer long ago which I intend to soak and cook and eat. Taking the time to prepare and process food not only saves a pretty penny, but is rewarding and empowering.
I just made borscht today for the first time in ages, thanks again to Prentice’s recipe. I think today of how recipes are a luxury. The last time I ate borscht was when it was cooked for me by some very thankful house guests–two Mormons who I’d met at a poetry reading who were looking for a hostel which was closed down. They had just done missions in Russia and spoke of the scarcity of vegetables. They would go to the grocery store and buy whichever two vegetables were available that day. My borscht has not only beets but also onions and carrots, tomatoes and celery… The borscht they made in Russia may have only had beets, procured after standing in a very long line . And there may not even be any left that day. I reflect on the abundance available to me even in what seems like a time of scarcity. All the organic root vegetables in the world. A freezer full of local, grassfed beef. Being able to share it with someone I love. And the promise of spring, right around the corner.
I first met Andrew Millison in January 2003, when I was living in a tent in the desert at this weird hippie commune Windspirit Community, where I was hiding in my tent completing a drylands permaculture internship. Andrew had been teaching Permaculture to a group of Prescott students who were visiting different sites as part of their class. Their visit was really the highlight of my four-month experience. Also, Andrew sang some beautiful songs, and I spent the next two days following him around with a notebook and a pen trying to get the lyrics down. Finally, these eco-reggae-esque songs are available online… though there’s still a good one I’m waiting for…
Leaves are one of the easiest way to identify trees. So what do you do in the winter, when only coniferous trees (evergreens) have their leaves and deciduous trees have none? One good first step in any bioregion is to try to figure out which trees are common in the area (often by looking in a book* or asking someone else). But I hadn’t even gotten that far yet, as my focus has been primarily on trying to stay warm, and my nature observation had been limited to figuring out what that white stuff falling from the sky is. I trekked out to Beaver Creek Reserve in Fall Creek, Wisconsin for Jim Weishoff’s class on winter tree ID to get a little bit of guidance.
The first step in identifying deciduous trees is looking at the branches, of which there are two types–”opposite branching” (where branches are directly across from each other) and “alternate branching.” In this bioregion there are only five types of trees with opposite branching. The term we learned was MAD BUCK–which stands for Maple, Ash, Dogwood (which aren’t common) BUCKthorn or BUCKeye. Maples can be further classified as red maples, silver maples and box elders. Ashes include white, black and green ashes. And, as mentioned, there are buckthorns and buckeyes.
Opposite branch trees can be further narrowed down by looking closely at the branches and twigs. Are the twigs slender or coarse? How thick is their diameter? What color are they? Are they fuzzy? Do they have thorns?
Looking at buds helps one narrow trees down further still. Are they fuzzy? Are they blunt and rounded or pointed? What color are they? Are there round, reddish buds with clusters of red flower buds, indicative of a red maple?
Bark characteristics, location and buds and leaf scars are incredibly helpful in differentiating between the three different ash trees. White ash trees, for instance, typically grow on dry sites and have soft, finely furrowed bark with a diamond-shaped pattern, whereas black ash trees grow in wetter areas and have a soft, corky bark that has no distinct pattern.
Plants with alternate branches are also identified by a variety of characteristics. Again, it is often easiest to narrow down the most common trees that you are likely to find, in this case aspens, oaks, birches and elms and some other varieties. Birch trees have a papery bark, which peels easily off the trunk. Aspens have light greenish-gray or greeenish-brown bark, which is somewhat smooth but not papery. Oaks are known for their strongly ridged bark (and presence of acorns in white and red oaks but not bur oaks). Thorny trees include hawthorns, buckthorns and locusts. Several varieties of elm trees are common in the area– American elms (with their lopsided buds), red or slippery elm (with its hairy buds), and Siberian elm, an exotic invasive with distinctive beady black buds.
So many trees are similar to others, especially when you aren’t aware of the characteristics or only look for one trait or at one tree. The old bark of an aspen can look like a cottonwood or an oak, and it is difficult to differentiate between bud clusters or depth of fissures with an untrained eye. As a kinesthetic learner, I was entirely frustrated when I first attempted to differentiate between types of plants until I started softly touching the leaves between my fingers. And the characteristics that will help one person really know a plant in their heart as well as memory, of course, vary between individuals. Identifying branches, buds and barks may be the most logical way to differentiate between plants, but it is scratching a twig a bit with my fingernail and then paying attention to the smell that often sparks my memory–the wintergreen scent of yellow birch, the bitter almond smell of cherry… Of course scratching every twig in search of the elusive scent will likely lead to disappointment, so having a rough idea of the characteristics you are looking for will help you forge your own path.
Knowing how to identify every plant you see is a badge of honor among some naturalists and herbalists, but I find comfort in the wisdom that there is no hurry.* This is true in general but is particularly true with trees, which won’t exactly run away from you. The sense of wonder in approaching a tree and trying to learn its name by what it looks like and smells like, what it’s bark feels like and where it hangs out will not diminish if, when the leaves come out, I discover I am wrong. As Shakespeare aptly put it, that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
I find myself longing for the desert trees I loved–the desert willow, which the hummingbirds loved as well… the mesquite trees, which was a great source of dappled light (and yummy pods, to boot)… The palo verde with the light green bark and branches (branches that would fall off during storms as one of the plants’ adaptive features). And, of course, the saguaro cactus (technically a tree!), which take 75 years to grow a single arm and often provide homes for the Gila woodpeckers.
Still, there is a promise of spring and, as the days slowly get longer although we can barely feel it, I find myself thinking about all the edible fruits coming in the spring–black cherries, juneberries, hackberries, nanny berries… I think about the elderberry shrubs growing in creeks here that I hope to use for medicine. I take studious notes on where these trees can be found so I can get a little bit closer to making this new bioregion feel like home.
*I have had bad luck with field guides in new locations, spending hours outside in the desert with a Newcomb’s wildflower guide that differentiates flowers by petals. I was staring what I later learned was lantana, and couldn’t even tell what would count as a petal, let alone how many there were
*Though attempting to use plants you cannot positively identify as food or medicine is, of course, inadvisable.
One of the most challenging aspects of moving from the Sonoran Desert to somewhere with seasons that include a cold, grueling winter is not being able to grow food year round, which is something to which I’d grown quite accustomed. In the wonderful book Full Moon Feast, Jessica Prentice breaks down the agrarian year by moon cycle. We are in the heart of Hunger Moon. Prentice points out that very few of us in this country have ever experienced seasonal food shortages, or the cycle of scarcity and abundance. Food is shipped, refrigerated and available year round and grocery stores are stocked to the brim.
I just made borscht today for the first time in ages, thanks again to Prentice’s recipe. I think today of how recipes are a luxury. The last time I ate borscht was when it was cooked for me by some very thankful house guests–two Mormons who I’d met at a poetry reading who were looking for a hostel which was closed down. They had just done missions in Russia and spoke of the scarcity of vegetables. They would go to the grocery store and buy whichever two vegetables were available that day. My borscht has not only beets but also onions and carrots, tomatoes and celery… The borscht they made in Russia may have only had beets, procured after standing in a very long line . And there may not even be any left that day. I reflect on the abundance available to me even in what seems like a time of scarcity. All the organic root vegetables in the world. A freezer full of local, grassfed beef. Being able to share it with someone I love. And the promise of spring, right around the corner.
