One of the saddest days of my childhood was the day the new next door neighbors cut down the Maple tree that was right outside my bedroom window. No longer was I able to watch the grey squirrel scurrying in and out of his hole, nor the swaying and dance of the Tree itself.

My family lived in a small city south of N.Y.'s Catskill Mountains. The streets were tree lined and the forested hills were nearby. summers in day camps and overnight camps and camping out with Scouts and family fostered an awareness of Nature as a part of Life itself. But it wasn't until working towards my Eagle Scout Award when I was required to identify varieties of trees that I learned there's more about trees than meets the eye of the casual observer.

My 10th grade biology teacher, Wilbur Schraer ( a lover of spiders) suggested an intriguing science fair project to me 'Are Beavers motivated by instinct or intelligence?' He kindly took me out to frozen beaver pond and thereby introduced me to beaver energy. After studies of instinct , intelligence and beavers I came to the unpopular conclusion that beavers, like people rely on both instinct and intelligence. A year later I received an Honourable Mention in the National Council of Teachers of English Writing contest. I was the first and only person in my high school or the area high schools to have 'won' any award in that contest.

After 2 years of formal college education at Haverford College ( Haverford, Pa) I tried the experimental Rochdale College in downtown Toronto for a semester. There I learned to decide what I personally was interested in and to search out resource people and resources to help me learn my subject. While at Rochdale a friend said "What are you doing in the city?" Then he gave me a ride up to his friends farm near Killaloe, Ontario in mid- winter. That night I saw more stars than I ever guessed existed. Liking the terrain, I was easily persuaded into buying an abandoned 100 acre farm with another friend for $4300.

We moved in mid-March 1969. On toboggans we dragged all our supplies a 1/4 mile through knee deep snow. A visitor soon painted "Morningglory Farm" on the mail box. We had lots of visitors for varying lengths of visit. Here I was first introduce to firewood as the only source of heat, and life with our electricity phones or any news media. Life here is still like that except we do have phones subscribe to the local weekly and occasionally listen to the CBC Radio news. In July 1969 a friend from my hometown showed up with news about a music festival soon-to-be just outside our hometown. Off I went first helping by washing dishes for the staff then joining the Hog farm family ,setting up campsites and the free kitchen and as a part of the security please force and finally cleaning up for a week after the woodstock festival.

It was while washing dishes that a piece of steel wool lodged in my finger tip. The infection became quite noticeable while at the campsite. A doctors efforts still left it open and raw, so red dog put some golden seal root powder whereupon it healed over quite rapidly.

My introduction to herbal medicine converted me. I'd experience 14 years of continual allergy shots and pills and I was ready for an alternative.

When I was visiting Madonna House an R.C. "training centre for the lay apostolate" a half hour south of here for three months in 1971 I experienced a very strong case of jaundice. I opened Jethro Kloss classical herbal "Back to Eden" and followed his instructions to the letter: no animal protein, lots of juices and herbal teas especially dandelions. After one week my blood test showed me almost back to normal. Two weeks later the doctor said my blood was better than most and I went back to work on their farm, albeit slowly at first. One of my jobs was helping the resident herbalist to establish a new herb garden. The spark of interest had been flamed to life.

The following summer I helped the herbal medic at the first Rainbow family gathering Colorado.

Another summer I helped in a macrobiotic vegetarian restaurant (5 Rock City road) in downtown woodstock NY. There I met many other people interested in herbal medicine and learned a lot from them. For a month each in the 2 winters of '73-745 and '74-75 I was in small towns in Mexico. There I learned a little from herbal doctors and wildcrafters openly selling their wares in the market.

While a child my family was friendly with many doctors and their families. One doctor told me how he felt people would consult doctors for maladies that didn't need a doctor and for things which they could have helped themselves. Since then I've been interested in self-help care methods and have rarely visited a doctor for my health. In the same vein, I have helped others when asked and I've been privileged to attend several home births including those of 4 of my 5 children. Courageous, brave women all.

It was during a period of enforced austerity (1977-81) that I realized I couldn't just run down to the corner drug store or herb shop an pay for a remedy for what ailed me. So I began more seriously to gather my own. Then came winter and I realized most commonly used herbs were not available for gathering in that season and it is a long season here.

While perusing Back to Eden I noticed a section on the herbal qualities of some trees. It rang a bell that is still ringing in the [ Healing trees book} The bark and buds and needles of trees are available all winter. All one has to do is learn to identify trees and help is at hand. But most people don't know trees can help people in a healing way. Like the canoeist who visited here after a long canoe trip much of it spent in stomach pains. I asked her if there'd been any poplar along the shore. "of course ". And they could have been her help if she had known. Or Jaques Cartier, whose whole crew was sick with scurvy so he asked the Iroquois for help and they gave him piles of hemlock tree branches which cured them all right away and even cleared up some cases of syphilis.

My lessons as a student led me to further research. The words of Tom Law the yoga instructor at the Woodstock Festival, "Whatever you learn you take on the responsibility to pass it on", came back to remind me that I wasn't just learning for my self and so it must be well written down and organized. Madonna House kindly opened their herbal library to me and I spent several days copying down everything written about the herbal and edible qualities of trees. I also sought out other sources anywhere I could and talked with people who used trees as part of their diet or remembered their parents doing so. Like the neighbour whose father chewed a bit of White cedar greens before going to church as a breath sweetener.

It was also about that time that I built myself a beaver lodge amongst the pines. With a door to the east, a window to the south, and a tin airtight for heat, I enclosed a 10'x10' space with cedar logs for walls and roofed with Balsam fir poles for rafters covered with old boards, covered with birch bark and covered with sod. Easy to heat, cozy and gentle on the earth. I had lived much of the preceding 4 years in a tipi but this suited the environment better for me. I enjoyed 2 winters there. It still stands though my family can no longer fit in it. I miss the presence of the pines and their tender buds I nibbled every spring.

Being a luthier who crafts simple acoustic instruments of wood keeps me in touch with and in appreciation of the trees. In the raising of my children, we used diet and herbs for nearly all our health concerns. We grow large gardens for much of our food, have enlarged our orchard and gather and grow most of out herbs from field and tree., We have done wildcrafting commercially for a professional herbalist.

Two years ago I ran a regular column using chapters of the "Healing Trees" in a local weekly newspaper. My springtime job of pruning local apple orchards gives me a great opportunity to climb trees and nibble their bark. Its sweet and nourishing but like the beavers I most often find myself attracted to poplar for a nibble or white pine when I feel the need for vitamin C.

Addenda:

I've been using the other name of 'Beaver' or 'Eagle Beaver' for nearly 24 years now. This grew out of a time when I consulted an MD doctor about a lump in my toe: "Is it OK or is it some thing to worry about?" "Have I got some medicine for you!" whereupon he proceeded to pull out a sack of peyote buttons. soon thereafter we met with a small group of other in a tipi by a beaver pond in the mountains west of Woodstock NY for 4 weekends of sweat lodge and all night singing and praying. More than that I won't now put to paper, but I will say the lump went away.