Otherworldly Water

This month’s Contributors: Coby Leibman & Anais Szabo

Tending, Gathering and Preparing in a Sacred Way

The Ancestral Cooking Pot and The Wild Song of the Land

When I start out at sunrise on the trail to Pomo Canyon, through a marshland of swaying grasses and birds singing the sun into the sky, there is an old feeling that ripples through my bones. Its an ancient song that I’ve forgotten most of the words to but if I sit in front of an old spindly grandmother live oak tree and try to remember the words to properly greet her, a song starts pushing up from my belly. I can feel the sadness of forgetting this song and the joy at once again beginning to learn how to greet this one that kept the ancestors alive on this land for thousands of years.The ones that lived here before me kept their relatives the oaks healthy by burning all the acorn hulls at the end of the season at the base of the tree. The alkaline rich soil from the ashes would nourish the tree and ensure a good harvest the following year. They would hold great gatherings under the wide sweeping arms of the mother tree, sing songs, offer prayers and offerings in thanks for life itself for without her life would not go on for the people.To learn to live and pray with our plant and animal relatives and the food they offer is no easy task. When I go out to gather in the wild I always try to greet the one I am harvesting from properly and leave a gift of some kind even if it is in the form of a song. I watch the plants every year and learn the times to harvest when the berries have the sweetest flavor and when the nettles are the darkest richest green. I try to tend to the area around the plants, snapping off dead shoots and clearing space for them to grow back again next year.

These wild plants are a strong medicine. They connect us to the subtle rhythms of the land we call home and feed us the proper enzymes, minerals and nutrients for the seasons and the environment where we live. They help us begin to study the land around us carefully and watch our movements and how we flow with life around us.

I always try to honor the great offering of a plant or animal relative sacrificing its life so that we the people can go on living with a beautiful preparation. I often cook in clay vessels I’ve made, like micaceous clay pots or our wood oven, addressing the ancestors of the fire and the mother clay. I tell the people I’m cooking for the story of where each ingredient came from and thank each animal, plant relative for their long journey to our plates and bless them. We leave an offering bowl to the ancestors and the wilds and then we all sit down to feast on the living body of the holy for it is not some far off idea in the sky but right there on our plate.

Feasting in a beautiful way with the full story of the journey of our food and our role in that story creates the beginning of a song in our bellies. With careful tending we begin to greet the natural world and our relatives with this song, adapting it to feed each relative and what they love most. Finding our song and rhythm in this dance is in our bones and can always blossom forth when we open ourselves to finding that connection again and reclaiming the longing to feed life as it feeds us.

For information on foraging events, ritual dinners, catering and private chef work visit
www.cobyleibman.com or email blossomingcaravan@yahoo.com