Wild Raspberry Cordial for digestive health

Acknowledging liminal spaces and Merry Christmas

Photo by Josh Boot on Unsplash

This is the last Substack for the Wildcraft series. Thank you to everyone who has joined me for the Wildcraft series here this year. Your support has meant so much to me. I’m sending my deepest love and gratitude for this festive season. May your heart be filled with love and your life be filled with blessings.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

As much as I feel the pressure within me to share ‘what’s next’, (there is a online mini foraging course in the works and some wildcraft workshops coming up next year, I’ll be sharing more in January) but beyond that I honestly just can’t right now. I’m in too deep of a liminal space to give sold form to things right now. I’m in the cocooning stage were the caterpillar has dissolved but the butterfly has not yet emerged.

Societal pressure urges us to be productive at all times. Pumping out content, showing up, endlessly needing more money for an ever increasing cost of living, giving, giving when there’s nothing more to give, holding space, being available to everyone all the time. I. Just. Can’t.

I’ve been taking great solace in the book Wise Power by Red School founders Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer.

According to this book I’m in the ‘Repair’ stage of my menopausal journey. There are 4 stages.

Stage 1.Betrayal - Stepping into the unknown

Stage 2. Repair - Do nothing for a while. (A sabbatical is recommended)

Stage 3. Revelation - Receive yourself

Stage 4. Visioning -Recognising your unique gifts

The Repair stage is a bit of void and I’m here to honour it. I gave everything I had in my 30s and 40s to birth and raise two children, write and publish two books, run hundreds of courses and teach thousands of people. As much as society is pressuring me to ‘keep going’ ‘don’t stop’ ‘be more productive’, BE MORE!!!

I’m done with the capitalist dream. It’s over boys, the feminine is not just rising, she has risen! and she has her own ways that feel more urgent and more needed right now. She honours cycles, knowing that there are times for productivity and times for stillness, times for talking and sharing and times to be still and listen, times for taking and times for giving. I can sit with my financial uncertainty (the beast breathing down my neck, drooling on my shoulder) while I honour my stillness. Feeling the words of kae Tempest from her beautiful poem Hold Your Own (2019)

Know the wolves that hunt you
In time, they will be the dogs that bring your slippers
Love them right and you will feel them kiss you when they come to bite
Hot snouts digging out your cuddles with their bloody muzzles
Hold

I’m holding…

Liminal spaces

It’s a strange time not just for me personally as I navigate the inner world of my menopausal journey but for the world as a whole as we navigate the uncertainty of the times a head. We are sitting in this eerie liminal space where the old ways of being no longer feel relevant but the new ways have not yet fully emerged. Planning to far ahead feels pointless.

According to googles AI

“Liminal spaces are transitional spaces that are often associated with feelings of eeriness or discomfort. They can be physical, emotional, or metaphorical, and are characterized by a sense of being in between one place or time and the next. The word "liminal" comes from the Latin word limen, which means threshold.

Here are some examples of liminal spaces:

• Physical spaces: Empty parking lots, hallways, stairwells, abandoned malls, airports, and streets

• Emotional spaces: Divorce

• Metaphorical spaces: A decision

• Internet aesthetics: Images of empty or abandoned places that appear eerie, forlorn, and often surreal

• IKEA: The showrooms are immaculately constructed and can provoke a sense of calm”

  

  Photo by Miha Rekar on Unsplash

You are welcome to sit with me in this liminal space as I move through it over the coming weeks and months. I don’t know how long it will last?? Not knowing is part of the process. Mainly right now I’m just painting. I have energy for nothing but art right now. I will paint my way through this space and see what emerges. I have become childlike in this liminal space and my childlike self loved to paint and draw. So now I’m remembering. I’m working on this character study from Rachel Azzopardi Carbonese portrait painting fundamentals online course. The remembering is awkward, I’m clumsy and my skills weak and undeveloped but the inspiration is insatiable.

As we wind up 2024 I want to invite you into your own liminal spaces, to give permission, and acknowledge their existence. Take all the time you need.

Wild Raspberry Cordial - A recipe from From the Wild

Wild Raspberry Cordial

(30 minutes, makes 500 ml)

This wild raspberry cordial is so yummy! It has a strong raspberry taste and the lemon gives it just that bit of an extra sour kick which balances the sweetness of the sugar perfectly. Studies show that wild raspberry cordial is good for diarrhoea and reducing naughty bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract. There is also some anecdotal evidence from farmers to suggest it reduces the risk of infections from parasites, making wild raspberry cordial a great way to maintain gut health.

If you are concerned about the sugar, you can make it without the sugar by boiling down the raspberries on their own for an unsweetened sour juice.

Ingredients

2 cups wild raspberries

1 cup of golden caster sugar

300 ml of water

1 lemon, zested and juiced

Method

Sterilize a bottle in the dishwasher or by boiling for 10 minutes.

Put raspberries, sugar, water and the lemon zest (but not the lemon juice yet), into a saucepan and bring to a slow rolling boil until the sugar dissolves, then simmer for 5 minutes.

Allow to cool for 15 minutes.

Now add the lemon juice.

Pour through a sieve and press with the back of a spoon to get the liquid and pulp through but not the seeds.

Pour into your sterilised bottle and label with the date and the ingredients.

It can be stored in the fridge for approximately a month.

How to use the cordial

Serve diluted with still or sparkling water and ice.

Use as a sauce over ice cream, yoghurt or pancakes.

Christmas Presents that celebrate the Earth

Wildcraft (Flexicover feild guide)

Wildcraft covers everything from the energetic/ spirit qualities of the plants; to botanical identification; nutritional profiles; chemical constituents; folk medicine; how the plants are used; cautions and contraindication; and some of the most extensive research on the topic of wild plants as food and medicine to date.

From the Wild (Hardcover Book)

Make remedies from 30 of the world’s most common edible wild plants, from cat’s ear to cobbler’s pegs, dandelion to dock, and nasturtium to wild raspberry. Enjoy over 100 recipes including a spring salad full of wild edibles, nettle gnocchi verde and clover muffins, along with lantana itch balm, chickweed anti-inflammatory gel and St John’s wort pain ointment.

The Medicine Makers Bundle (downloadable medicine making videos and PDFs)

This bundle includes 12 videos and 8 PDF documents detailing everything you need to make your own herbal medicines.

I would like to acknowledge the Kabbi Kabbi/Gubbi Gubbi peoples on who’s lands I live and work. I acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded and pray this truth be acknowledged and respected by all who live, work and govern these lands.