Month: August 2020

Immerse Yourself in Hildegard’s Rose

What do you love about Rose? Such a glorious flower, one that speaks to our spirit, hearts, and mental and physical bodies too. Revered for generations, the “queen of the flowers” as been used medicinally throughout the ages as well.

Hildegard von Bingen was a 12th century German Benedictine abbess, mystic, composer, skilled healer, and saint. In this video we share and teach a little of Hildegard’s chant and how she used Rose medicinally. We also make an oil with Rose.

This video is a preview of what we’ll be teaching at the Pacific Women’s Virtual Herbal Conference taking place on Sept 25-27, 2020.

How do you work with and enjoy Rose? Please share your experiences with this lovely plant. Viriditas!

You and A Little About Us

If you’re here, we imagine you love chant, are fascinated by Hildegard von Bingen (12th c. abbess, composer, physician, speaker, mystic, saint) , or are curious about herbs and their medicine. You love the garden and nature, are striving to live a life attuned to the Sacred, or a combination of all the things mentioned here!

Maybe you are fascinated by the medieval mind, or of ancestral ways of knowing, and maybe you have a regular practice with healing, giving and receiving. Likely you want a better world to flourish that includes all humans, all beings, and serves as a true gift to our beautiful and generous Mother Earth.

Maybe you sense — or know — that other ways of engaging with the world can lead to peace and wonder. And maybe by stepping into these other ways of being, sensing, perceiving, and expressing, that new thoughts can come forth, new ways to work, engage, and play and celebrate the music of life with one another,

We are Erin Durrett, cantor, chant specialist, and vocalist, and Jane Valencia, harper and herbalist. We love to discover and share what chants and plants reveal about our world and our deepest nature.

We delve into Hildegard of Bingen’s music and herbal medicine, medieval and Celtic chant and herbal traditions, into myth and lore, and beyond. Chants and plants can help us experience the soul of the land, the sacred of nature, and to discern the mythic and sweetly personal that surrounds and includes us in every moment. You’ll find all this and more as we grow this site.

We’d love to hear your thoughts, your experiences, your discoveries as we head out together into the realm of Chants and Plants. Please introduce yourself. We’d be delighted and honored to get to know you!

Honoring the First People

We honor the indigenous sx̌ʷəbabs (Swub Áhbsh) people and acknowledge the fact that Vashon and Maury Islands are within the area where the sx̌ʷəbabs have built homes, buried their relatives, told stories, celebrated, fought battles, made art and medicine, and lived in unity with the natural world since time immemorial. These lands on which we now live are the traditional lands of the sx̌ʷəbabs and remain a vital part of their cultural sovereignty to the present day.