The Witch of Forest Grove

On Friday Mojo and I packed up our gear and drove up the Sea to Sky Highway past Whister deep, deep into the mountains to Birkenhead Lake. Every where you look is a different peak, some barren and rocky with Pine trees, others so high they’re still covered in snow. We saw hares, black bears, young black-tailed deer, and plenty of sneaky chipmunks. There were also eagles and osprey fishing in the lake and crows everywhere as usual.  It was sunny and warm with a good wind and we had good friends for company. We sat around the fire and I carved talismans from wood and told stories, and Mojo played his guitar and sang us some songs…

We hiked by the lake and I swam in it’s chilly waters from a private beach along the path.  I saw a beautiful hushed grove full of only sacred Cedars and Devil’s Club. Here’s a picture of Mojo dwarfed in it – the Devil’s Club leaves’ as large as a Big Leaf Maple’s – in other words, huge!

While there I harvested some of the sacred Devil’s Club, a plant revered by local shamans for both its healing and magical properties. Harvested just a few stalks from spread out colonies so as not to disturb them since they’re pretty sensitive – and since they are so large a little goes a long way. Take off the spines but save the green underbark. The bark, stalk and root are the most important parts. The leaf can be dried and mixed with the other parts for medicinal teas.  It is used to treat arthritis, rheumatism, colds, flu, diabetes, healing internal wounds, among other things. The shamans would ingest it at the start of a fast as Devil’s Club is a purgative and in their beliefs, one had to be clean of human waste and pure in body and mind in order to talk to the spirits and the gods and be possessed by them to gain knowledge. The woody Devil’s Club stalk is carved into powerful protective amulets that chase away all evil and the stalk is burned so that the charcoal can be powdered and used to make a ritual face paint to protect from evil spirits and possession during rites. Pretty cool huh? So I’ll be carving some amulets and making some charcoal for facepaint from the stalks I harvested as well as dry some chips of it for healing.