The
beauty of Serenity is that you, well…do your own thing. Kim has picked out a few activities she
thinks people might like but they’re all strictly optional. And yesterday the opting went up the mountain
to meet a …what? A wise woman. A wondrous witch. A shamanka.
An Amazon. I’m not sure Brigitte would
describe herself that way; she’d probably settle for ‘phytotherapist’, a
herbalist you might say.
She
lives in a tiny village tucked away right up in the green mountains that rise
up behind Nikiana and she is passionate, beyond passionate actually, about the
Earth and the plants that grow on it.
She
took us on a walk – more of an amble really – stopping every few yards to
investigate some plant, to learn its biology, its pharmacology, its
mythology. ‘We’re not conscious
anymore,’ she said, with a sad shake of the head. ‘We don’t listen. Each plant comes out at the right time to
help us. Like nettles in spring when we
need to cleanse our bodies.’ It was
intriguing – some of us loved the scent of plants that others hated. ‘Listen to
your body,’ urged Brigitte. ‘Your tastes will tell you what you need.’
We
learned which plants can help the circulation, which can ease migraine, which
can boost the immune system, which can prevent balding. At this point she fixed a beady look at Max, the only male in our little group.
‘Men eh? Too much
testosterone.’ Max looked like he was
stifling an apology.
‘I
need to pee,’ said Claire, darting behind a bush before swiftly re-emerging. ‘Umm, it is okay, isn’t it? I mean, is it okay to pee here?’
As
in, is it really okay to pee on the mound of wondrous sacred oregano we’d just been honouring? We exchanged glances. Was it okay, or was it
some kind of dastardly sacrilege? It
could have gone either way.
‘Of
COURSE it’s okay,’ boomed Brigitte. ‘We
take from Nature, so we give back to Nature. Spit, pee, blood…is all good.’
Er…blood? What was
she up to out here?
‘Menstrual
blood,’ she said with relish. ‘Blood is
not dirty. Let the menstrual blood flow freely.’ We glanced at one another. Apart from Max who looked…pained.
‘We should bleed on the Earth... Tampons!’
spat Brigitte, turning it into a whole new swear-word. ‘Invented by men of
course.’
Bloody
men. Or not.
Eventually
we fetched up at the abandoned monastery, Ayios Georgios. Did any of us go to church, Brigitte
asked. Not particularly we said, apart
from for the architecture of course. ‘Well, I’m nominally Christian,’ said Max and Brigitte gave him a kind of ‘yeah, right, well you would be, you patriarchal
chauvinist MAN,’ look.
‘Adam
and Eve, okay?’ she said, with a challenging stare. ‘So Eve gave the apple to Adam but did he
have to take it? Did he?’ She looked fiercely round the group and Max shuffled his feet. ‘I mean,’ she
continued. ‘He could say yes or no, right? He didn’t have to eat the apple.
Hey, you men, don’t make us women responsible for your own choices!’
Damnit Max, why did you take the fecking apple?
It’s all your fault, all this darn mess.
Jeez, who’d be a man? Son of weak-willed Adam, liable to baldness due to
ineffective hormones, completely lacking in Earth-nourishing menstrual
blood. Bloody losers, huh?
Bush
and Obama got a bit of a tongue-lashing next, followed by a swift dismissal of
the Vatican and religion and politics in general. ‘All those people killed in
‘holy’ wars, eh? All those women they
burned at the stake? Where are their
monuments? And what about that
commandment about killing?’ What indeed?
Truly she was magnificent, a wild-eyed
Valkyrie, or should that be Athena of the flashing eyes?
‘Don’t
get me wrong,’ she said, with a pitying glance at Max. ‘I’m not
anti-man. Not at all. Just that we need
balance. Yin and yang, light and dark.’
Inside
the church we gazed on icons, we stared up at the broken wooden ceiling, still
showing vestiges of its original blue (symbolizing the heavens). Examined the rood screen with its acanthus
winding around and its encircled cross, a version, Brigitte said, of the
medicine wheel, the stations of the sun, the spinning of the year. ‘There,’ she said, pointing at the altar.
‘What’s under there is the source. The
wellspring. This church, like so many others, was built on something much
earlier, a temple…to the goddess.’
And
then she led us down a narrow track to the village to meet Maria, a true
kitchen goddess, a Demeter, who cooks food straight from her garden and serves
it lovingly in her home to the few people lucky enough to be in the know. Long peppers stuffed with deliciously piquant
cheese and herbs; aubergines, tomatoes and bell peppers gorged with rice,
onions and herbs; tzatsiki and fresh bread; Greek salad and, for the
meat-eaters, spicy meatballs. Total
heaven. A million miles away from the standard tourist fare.
Eventually
we waddled out to Brigitte’s house and workshop – with bundles of herbs drying
in a shed, hanging from the rafters or stretched out on racks. She makes all kinds of wondrous potions - teas,
oils, ointments and tinctures. It was
hard to choose but I came away with Wellbeing elixir (“to give strength from
within”) and Daisy tincture (“gives light to the body, soul and spirit”). But really I wanted the lot.
The
herbs are mainly wildcrafted, harvested at precisely the right moment of the
right day and made with total respect, love and dedication.
If
you ever come to Lefkada, you absolutely have to find her. Though if you’re a guy, you might want to
bring a mate for moral support.
And, if you can't come, you can still buy a little witchy magic, from Brigitte's website. :-)
AromatikaPhyta, Alexandros, Lefkada, Greece.
