Elderberry Medicine

Herbal medicine is the way of Indigenous Traditions worldwide.  Recently, after engaging conventional medicine for a number of years, there has been a revival of interest by the so called "dominant society" in our Indigenous Herbal Medicines as well as in Indigenous European Herbal Medicines.  This is a very beneficial revival and mirrors a revival of interest in our Indigenous Agricultural Methods (now collected under the umbrella term of "permaculture").  It is important for the so called "dominant society" to turn to our Indigenous ways for the wisdom on how to survive the Earth Changes that are already exploding around us worldwide.  However, unfortunately there are those within this movement that choose (through arrogance, ignorance, or prejudice) to diminish the Indigenous hand in creating these traditions of permaculture and herbal medicines. We see this also on another level in what is termed "culture vultures" in terms of our spiritual traditions.   We find it to be of the utmost importance to retrieve this energy that has gone astray.   As Indigenous People, and as People of Indigenous Traditions, we MUST reclaim our agricultural and herbal medicine traditions, as well as utilize those agricultural and herbal medicine traditions of european creativity that suits our present day circumstances.  After all if it is okay for the "westerner" to utilize Indigenous traditions of agriculture and medicine, then equally it is okay for the Indigenous woman, man and child to utilize Indigenous European traditions of agriculture and medicine.  What is essential is that we acknowledge the origins of the wisdom  of whatever it is that we are engaging on a medicinal and agricultural level.  

Elderberry is a powerful spirit that we utilize to create health giving tinctures and syrups.  Elderberry can be found growing wild as well as cultivated and originates from both this continent and europe and in both places it has been used for centuries for is healing properties.  We have Elderberry growing wild in our pastures, which is significant as Elderberry is also an "Espanta Muerto", a herb/ shrub that chases away negative spirits.  It is fascinating that this spirit also strengthens the immune system and helps us to "chase away" weakness, flu, colds and so on from our bodies.  We hold the understanding that our immune systems in our physical bodies are also spiritual in nature, therefore what strengthens the immune system also strengthens the immune spirit!

The elderberry shrub's leaves, roots and stems are toxic, and although these have been used as medicine traditionally, they are aspects of the plant that we choose not to ingest.  Even the elderberry seeds are toxic and must be separated from the elderberry juice or cooked to eliminate their toxicity.  However the berry and flower are both edible and medicinal.

In this article we will share the way we make Elderberry tincture and Elderberry syrup:

Our approach to our Elderberry Medicine is spiritual, and therefore we utilize a ceremonial approach to the making of these medicines.    Our daughter was also present with us, eagerly helping the process, building on her wisdom and respect for Mother Earth's abundance.  Here you can see the various ingredients laid out, along with a particular Medicine Bundle that we utilized to energize and empower the tincture and syrup.  

Obviously the initial step in this process is harvesting the elderberries.  This we do once they are ripe (purple).  The Elderberries ripen over several weeks, so more than one harvesting is possible.  We will go back out to harvest more elderberries in a week or two.

Beginning with the tincture:

Step 1:  Wash the berries, remove stems and any leaves.  Then place the elderberries in a mortar and pound them to release the juices.  This step was particularly important to us as it allowed us to make prayers and invocations along with the pounding of the berries.  These berries are then put in a large bottle that has dark glass.  The berries should fill up the bottle about halfway.

The berries release a purple juice that will stain clothes and hands (temporarily).  Elderberry juice can be used as a natural dye.  The aroma of the berries is excellent, but cannot be shared over the internet.  The only way to truly appreciate this process is to do it yourself!

Our daughter particularly enjoyed this step and made beautiful prayers and invocations, as well as listened intently to the prayers and invocations that we made.

Hands on learning is by far the best method of learning for most children and a method that they truly enjoy, even if they do not like "school" at all.  Our daughter loves to get her hands "dirty", and is excited to also try using the elderberry as a dye for cloth.  We fail to truly empower ourselves if we leave our children outside of our empowerment by excluding them from our processes.  

Step 2:  Add high quality organic alcohol to the berries.  Any high quality organic drinking alcohol of at least 40% alcohol will work.  Here we utilize organic vodka.  The alcohol "extracts" the nutrients and medicinal properties of the berries and will preserve them for years without refrigeration.  We utilize organic alcohol because it does not make sense to create a healing supplement with alcohol that has pesticides in it, we also ideally want to support organic farming methods.  If local or small batch organic alcohol is available, that is even better.  

Once the bottle is filled with the alcohol, leaving a little space at the top to be able to effectively shake it, the bottle is closed.  We then place it out of direct sunlight in a place where we will remember to shake it daily.  In 6 weeks we will strain it and put the liquid into smaller bottles that will be stored in a dark closet for future use.  We take the tincture to prevent colds and flu, especially during the winter, and to shorten their duration.  

Now the Syrup:

Step 1: We take the rest of the washed elderberries, and place them in a pot with water.  We use approximately 1 cup of elderberries to 4 cups of water.  Here we had 2 cups of elderberries left over from the tincture, so we used that.  

Step 2:  We added 2 cinnamon sticks, a couple slices of fresh ginger  and a couple teaspoons of cloves, all organic.  These are all medicinal in and of themselves but they also add FLAVOR to the syrup!

Here we add the water, which is our well water, we do not suggest using tap water, better to use at least Spring Water.

Step 3:  Bring mixture to a boil and simmer until volume of mixture reduces to half of what it was.  So if we started with 8 cups, we should have about 4 cups when we have finished simmering.  This takes about an hour or so.

Note:  The aroma during this phase is incredible, be sure to enjoy it!

Step 4:  Strain the mixture, compost the solids, keep the liquid.  Let it cool until it is just warm, not hot.  We are going to be adding raw honey and heat will destroy its natural enzymes, making it no longer "raw" and destroying its medicinal properties.

Note:  It is also possible to do this on an outside grill which would be really beautiful as then you have the energy of the wood to further enhance the syrup.

We return to our ceremonial matt and continue the process.

Step 5:  Now we add the honey.  We add about the same volume of honey as elderberries.  This is raw honey that has all its natural enzymes.  Raw honey is medicinal, and has been used as a medicine for thousands of years.  (Ideally this would be our own raw honey from our bees, however a nearby farmer sprayed his hay field and we suspect our bees were affected by it and the colony died.  Now we are building a large hedgerow to shield them more, and will start again with bees in the Spring.)  

The honey is stirred into the elderberry liquid until it all dissolves.  Again this is all done with prayers and invocations.  Some people use sugar rather than honey however the medicinal and spiritual qualities of the honey are very important to us.  It is worth it to get the best quality honey possible!  We also utilize utensils and bowls that have been used for ceremonial processes as these further enhance the energy we are working with.  You also see on the matt several rattles and a tobacco pipe that we utilize to empower the process.

Step 6:  We add the same volume of alcohol as honey (in this case 2 cups) to the syrup, which helps to preserve it.  We used organic brandy which was a gift from a dear friend of ours.  It is a plum brandy made by her family, specifically her mother (an old family recipe)!  We were very happy and honored to have this brandy available as it is considered medicinal itself by those who make it!  

The brandy is stirred in and the syrup is ready to be bottled and can be used immediately!  It should be stored in the refrigerator.  

The syrup is sweet, aromatic and a beautiful purple.  It can be taken in small quantities to prevent seasonal colds and flu.  

Again our daughter assists in the process. Her own Medicine Bundle is present as well, and this whole process is empowering her pathway to spiritual and practical wisdom and is also an essential component to her Earth-schooling!

This process also helps her to build her focus and concentration, and to learn to respect spiritual processes and to respect the gifts we receive from Mother Earth.  

Finally here we have the three bottles of syrup on the right and one large bottle of tincture on the left.  These will last us well over a year.   We made a much smaller bottle of tincture two years ago and are just using the last bit of it now!  So this is enough for a large family for a year.  We take the syrup and put it in a smaller bottle for ease of use.  We always use dark glass as it preserves the syrup or tincture for longer as sunlight tends to degrade the nutrients.

On a final note, for us it is especially beautiful to work with the elderberry as we did not plant it, it appeared once we cleared some fields for our horses.  Our horses were essential to us for spiritual reasons, to overcome spiritual obstacles (spiritual enemies, jealousies, envy, hatred) and through them the elderberries appeared which also are about chasing away negative spirits!  Now the elderberries are flourishing everywhere and we cherish their medicinal powers!