Poplar Bud Medicine

 

 

 

It hit me that we have disconnected from our wildness, the untamed, the raw… the freedom to know that every living thing has a spirit.  I knew this about trees as far back as I could remember.  We had a wall of tall poplar trees bordering our yard around the windy side of our house.  I climbed those trees, thought up stories, felt sad and received comfort, up in the crook of a tree. 

Being up in a tree is primal and the more we spend around or up in a tree, the more we get connected to that which is holy.  It is as if your cells recognize the cells o the tree (in the veins of rising sap).  The more in tune we get with trees, the more we are in tune with the seasons, unencumbered with modern-day thought and lifestyles. Our cells drink up the language of trees.

 Early, in spring, sticky buds appear on every shoe and you find their tracks into the house.  And, if you look closely, you see tiny leaves drinking up sunshine and preparing to leap.  Poplar buds have their own special medicine.  Their shadow side, they show us, all winter. Suddenly you begin to notice that, although the breezes are not warm and the sun may seldom chine, they prepare and they begin to tremble in the foolish winter that does not let spring quite appear.  The tree has emotions, just like us.  They are highly sensitive, responsive and their trembling releases fear, the same trembling does for us. 

It is best if you reconnect with the trees, because, once we do, we become connected to all living things.  We can learn to let out our emotions because we see them do it.  They know when to rest (in winter) and the slightest hint of near-spring causes them to unfurl.  We, too, go through dark times.  We too have longing, like sap, waiting to rise, after dark hard times.  This is good medicine to learn.

We can learn to adapt, to appreciate lightness, and to change according to the right time.  As the poplar tree releases dead branches, we know it is okay to lose some things about ourself that no longer serve us.  Their branches break off and are flung far and wide. 

Poplar leaf buds are good medicine and should be harvest just before spring has the stickiness rise to them.  The resin is most strong then and we should harvest them as long as they are still closed.  Wait for a time when wind breaks off branches from the highest point of the tree.  This is how to harvest the strongest medicine of the buds.  A side medicine to collecting the buds is that we walk amongst the trees.  It is there, amidst them, that we begin to hear their stories.

Bees will be seen collecting the sticky resin from spring buds.  They use it to seal their hives and because the resin is a disinfectant, kills off bacteria, and stops fungus, it works for us as well, for these things.  It is an anti=inflammatory. 

Poplar bark can also be harvested in Spring.  Be sure not to take so much that you wound the tree.  Only take the bark from pruning small  branches. 

Once you get small buds with resin, you can use the bark as well and put them in water and boil them to release all the resin.  It becomes like an oil.  The oil can be used for sore muscles, sprains, arthritis when applied to sore areas.  Do not boil, simply simmer for a few minutes or the tea you could make from simmering it can turn bitter and not taste good enough to drink.  The oil can be used to rub on the chest and becomes a expectorant. 

Poplar bud infused oil has a distinctly warming energy. When applied tropically to sore muscles, sprains and strains, or arthritic joints, it has a soothing and pain-relieving effect. It is also expectorant and wonderful as a chest rub for damp coughs.  The oil you skim off is great to apply on burns, including sunburn.  The medicine of unopened buds is strong, good medicine that has been used by our ancestors as traditional medicine. 

The medicine of trees and the scraped white stuff from the bark is aspirin.  Aspirin originated from the knowledge ancestors passed down. How did we fall into using chemically processed medicine from trees?  Let us take a step back and learn how to collect and make medicines.  (I used YouTube and google).  Let’s give the medicine of trees another try.

©Carol Desjarlais 3.6.23