Category: Health

Ode to Hawthorn Berry Tea

by dawnraver, posted in Gratitude, Health, Mood, Ode, Poetry, relaxation, Wellness, Writing

Thick, soft tresses of maidenly blossom cascade – scented surf in a heavenly flood,  
Pure white dress of the Hawthorn will one day become berry necklaces scarlet as blood
At the sight off a-gathering filling my basket I’ll go for a plentiful store
Of the berry that brews to a tea with the power to soothe and relax and restore
Hawthorn tea you delight me
You calm yet excite me
When daytime to evening gives way
A swift end to anxiety
Drunken sobriety
Perfect for closing the day

I feel I should probably write a second verse to that at some point, echoing the same stanza structure, but for the moment, there it is.

When I started the poem I was just writing about hawthorn blossom but then it came to be about the tea too. So it leaps from early Summer to Autumn with the line: “pure white dress of the Hawthorn will one day become berry necklaces scarlet as blood.”

The effect of the tea is a recognised one by the way – something to do with opioid receptors and vasodilation – a rush of blood to the head. Only thing I’ve ever found that is comparable to alcohol in it’s ability to take the edge off things at the end of the day, but a healthy alternative. Very effective at lowering blood pressure I understand and great for rounding off a day when you’ve been hitting the Java. Hence: “drunken sobriety” in the poem

The bit about gathering them is poetic license – I did do that a couple of autumns back but now I just buy pre-dried. I use about 50 berries, and I leave them boiling in a pan for about 12 mins, then I stand them for a further ten minutes in the water, steeping, having also added a chamomile teabag, then I sup away. I’ll then give those same berries a second boil but in less water and only for a couple minutes, for a second cup.

Bird is Spring

by dawnraver, posted in Feel-good, Gratitude, Health, healthy, inspiration, Joy, magic, Mood, Ode, Poetry, Psychology, relaxation, Self-help, Wellness, Writing

If you go down to the woods today 
you’re in for a big surprise 
as dozens of darling dinosaurs 
compete for their opera prize

A phrase from one may establish its rhythm, but 
then it’s lost as another phrase cuts blithely across it 
with all the informality of free verse, in rich cacophony 

And then that rhythm you heard before 
will suddenly reappear 
in a moment of ordered harmony 
as if made for the human ear  

Then it’s gone again, but the sounds still delight – heaven-storming chitterings 
pulsing scintillating emanations through the sap-irrigated matrix of the Chloromyriad  

The Old Romantics oh!’d and ah!’d  
for they found it uplifting and freeing 
and now the science is backing them up: 
It bolters our mental well-being  

So bathe in the forest and smell the earthy humus for even now  
the Star-lungs are warming up their vox-boxes in readiness – may we likewise  
prep our auro-tubules for sensitive apprecio-resonance with this ancient treasure of our planet!  

If you’re on the road to Chitterfest  
you’d better keep moving fast  
for tomorrow’s the day the developers come  
so this chance may be your last

Sing on, sweet birds, sing on your spasmodic gutterations of brain-brightening liquid light! 
Star-lungs: stars are flowers; flowers is bird; bird is Spring…. No bird, no Spring

Should every bird that ever there was 
stare mute from under glass – 
just dozens of dry, dumb dodos – 
we’ll despair that this came to pass

An Ode to Herbs (spoken word / video)

by dawnraver, posted in ancient civilisations, classical civilisations, classical culture, classical tradition, Gratitude, Health, healthy, inspiration, Joy, Mood, Ode, Poetry, relaxation, Writing

I

For aromatic oils in herbs and shrubs
Let thanks rise to the gods, from whence they fell
When one but holds the leaves and gently rubs
There issues forth a mystic, fragrant smell
   The living plants will ornament
      A tended garden plot
The plants will then provide yet further gifts
   For sprigs of these ingredients
   When added to the cooking pot
         The taste uplifts

II

Hellenic folk in golden ages old
These perfumes of the plants sought to explain
With stories down the generations told
Of how such shrubs some pretty nymph contain
   How when Apollo yearned to kiss
      Sweet Daphne, she, forlorn
With all speed did attempt to run away
   Then saving metamorphosis
   The pretty maiden did transform
         To odorous bay

III

O Sage! O Thyme! O Rosemary! I praise
Your power to boost our health, our pain to ease
Our memory to strengthen, moods to raise
Our sense of sight and smell and taste to please
   It must have been  when we first burnt
      Dry incense, or with mint
We first less pleasant tastes and smells disguised
   That we, now that at last we’d learnt
   To add a subtle herbal hint
         Were civilised

To Wine – an incantation (spoken word / video)

by dawnraver, posted in classical culture, classical tradition, creative process, creativity, Feel-good, Gratitude, Health, incantation, inspiration, Joy, lateral thinking, Mood, mythology, Ode, Poetry, Psychology, relaxation, Self-help, Sonnet, spells, Wellness, wine

To Wine – An Incantation

O Effortless Discoverer! O Wine!
   Two-Things-at-Once! Dark Sunshine! Old-but-Young!
Bestir to tripping dance the Muse of Rhyme
   Great Uninhibitor, loosen her tongue
Send forth your shelt’ring leaves over my mind
   Embrace with dappled shade the grapes of thought
Protect them from the light of Trying-to-Find
   Lest nude in Reason’s burning glare they’re caught
For season after season we entrust
   This treasure to the cave of rustic stone
      As silently the ruby liquid dreams
Long slumb’ring in the cellar’s dark and dust
   What secret mysteries to you were shown
      By under-dwelling nymphs of chthonic streams?
O gen’rous partner in the poet’s art
Now set the pen in flight, and help me start!

To Chamomile – Video

by dawnraver, posted in Feel-good, Gratitude, Health, incantation, Joy, Mood, Ode, Poetry, Psychology, relaxation, Self-help, Sonnet, spells, Uncategorized, Wellness, Writing

To Chamomile – An Incantation

O soft enchantress of the candle glow,
   With gentle, caring fingertips caress
Our eyelids, with a stroke soothing and slow
  Dissolve our thoughts in sweet forgetfulness
Thou angel of the cup, kind Chamomile,
   Thy golden tisane, warming, wets the lip
We feel the face relax into a smile
   Then raise the cup and take another sip
But how’s the mixture made? First fill the pot
   And heat the water till the bubbles roar
      Then add your spoon of flowers and let steep
Until the liquid’s neither cool nor hot
   Now take your chosen cup and carefully pour
      The potion, and partake before you sleep.
  While drinking, say aloud or read this spell,
  Which calms you and by calming keeps you well.

An English Ode – Video

by dawnraver, posted in ancient civilisations, classical civilisations, classical culture, classical tradition, fasting, Feel-good, Gratitude, Health, inspiration, Joy, Mood, mythology, Ode, Poetry, prosody, Psychology, relaxation, Self-help, Wellness, Writing

That famous field where nodding poppies sway
In sunlit grass, where Souls of all the good
Spend sweet Eternity in dance and play
And with the gods, take Beauty as their food
Upon the isle across the sea
That circles all the mortal world
With misty waters like a castle moat –
How like must that famed meadow be
To these fair fields where late I’ve strolled
These hills and lanes, these woods, this very spot!

Was it vain pomp or blind naïveté
That made the folk of ancient Egypt style
Their image of divine Eternity
Upon their earthly land astride the Nile?
Where they might hunt in starry creeks
Beside the starry waterway
Or find in starry gardens sweet, cool shade?
Or likewise made the clan of Greeks
Use Grecian fields where grasses sway
As models for their paradisal glade?

But no, let neither supposition stand
I say, that it was rather that they paid
The greatest compliment to their dear land
When seeing Beauty there, “Divine!” they said
And so to English Summer Time
Such compliment I wish to pay
As will the praise of those old pagans match
The heaven forming in my mind
The isle to which I’ll cross one day
Has village greens and homes with roofs of thatch.

What’s Freyja’s meadow Folkvang after all 
Where valkyries take half the great and best
If not the field with rushes growing tall
Where Hathor greets arrivals in the West?
And what’s that place where Arthur dwells
Where all of Nature’s fruitful gifts
The generous soil untended freely yields –
That apple isle, which by their spells
Nine sisters shroud in faery mists – 
What’s Avalon if not the Elysian Fields?