How a wedding is related to an herb.
Traveling and moving from place to place is beautiful, but sometimes it can be very demanding and exhausting. I could write a book about it 🙂 .  After each move to a new place we need to arrange fast Internet, a new address, find a recycling place, a laundry, a good healthy grocery store and learn what is growing wild in the new area.
Because we have lived in various parts in North America, I know which herbs grow almost everywhere and which are harder to find. For example yarrow, wild rose, wild mint, juniper or arnica are fixed stars and you can find them almost everywhere. It’s usually much harder to find St. John’s Wort or Labrador Tea. They grow in their specific areas (and you just have to know where to go).
This year I discovered a beautiful herb here in Wyoming: Balsam Root. When the snow finally melted, it was the first flower that appeared above the ground. I recognized it immediately – it has large, almost velvet-like leaves and bright yellow flowers. I made sure by consulting an amazing book about medicinal plants by Michael Moore, as this was my first time I saw it in the nature. This breathtaking spring plant actually bloomed just in time, because me and Drew unexpectedly decided to get married, so I picked these beautiful yellow flowers of balsam root like a bridal bouquet. Yea!! Given the circumstances and the speed at which we decided to get married, the wedding was without families and friends. We got married in the courthouse in Afton with two witnesses of the courthouse. The ceremony lasted only about five minutes and I must say that all those words I repeated were really significant and it sent shivers down my spine. Our wedding was very modest (total costs were $30 for the marriage license – funny right?) but it was beautiful! The rest of the day was miraculous – it was the first warm day after the winter. And a wedding supper? Beef Bourguignon over the open fire. Yum! We even had one guest here on the hill – our neighbor Gerry came to see us, without knowing that we had just gotten married – what a surprise!! Such a beautiful day! To enjoy the special moment with our folks we are planning to have couple more (literally 🙂 ) wedding across the continents.
But let’s get back to the roots. Balsam root grows really abundantly here in Wyoming and thanks to the wedding it will be always a special flower/herb for me. Full of these essential impressions I decided to capture the moment into to a special healing salve from balsam root, enriched with sagebrush – another local plant.
What is the balsam root salve good for? It is disinfectant, stimulates healing of mild burns, chronic skin ulcers and minor inflammation affecting the skin. The roots of this herb are used to prepared as syrup or tincture, which is something I’m looking forward to in the fall.
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