Epiosde 57 | Muva Earth

Hey! Hi! It’s me MommaQueue. I welcome you to Moments in Queue. 

In Queue Today: Hi Why > Black Business > Who do Hoodoo > and Are you Kinky or Knot

Happy 4/20! Happy Earth Day!
In this episode we talk about herbs, ancestors, foraging, and eating sushi on consenting adults. The things we do on Earth. Stays on Earth. 

Black Business
@blackforager 

Books mentioned
365 Days of Hoodoo by Stephanie Rose Bird 
Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs by Scott Cunningham 

Herb website Richters Herbs 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:34

M-O-M-A-Q-W-E W-E, that's my name.

Speaker 1: 0:37

Mama Q M-O-M-A-Q-W-E, w-e, that's my name. Mama Q, Say it fast or slow, don't really matter, though the U-E gets them in the tongue. Tizzy yo Head, kinda dizzy bro. Who was she? Mama Q, slow, don't really matter, though the ue gets them in a tongue. Tizzy yo head, kind of dizzy bro. Who was she?

Speaker 1: 0:56

Mama q, mama gave birth little waste, no girth several years ago. No, I don't want mo q is a lie and I tried to align this double entendre. Petty ha is one of my mantras. Mama q, I'm the first one in and the first one out. Memphis Tenneke is my whereabouts.

Speaker 1: 1:16

Don't complain, man Say, stick to one topic. I reply your mind is very myopic with Mama Q. You need better optus picking and choosing company. Are you uninspired? Um, definitely no need to whisper gracefully. I like it better off key. Now let's see. Um, do you remember me? M-o-m-a-q-w-e, w-e, that's my name. Mama Q M-O-M-A-Q-W-E W-E, that's my name. Mama Q, that's my name. Mama Q hey, hi, it's me. Mama Q, I welcome you to Moments in Q, in Q today.

Speaker 1: 2:07

Hi, why black business? Who do, who do, and are you kinky or not? Hi, why I give you the greeting of the day, day and I'm explaining the why of this episode Happy 420. Smoke if you got them. Now, look, I don't smoke at all. And I do understand that today is the day after 420. I had every intention of doing my episode, but what had happened was I fell asleep. Now is today Earth Day, because if it is, see, I'm still keeping it real Earth Day for 20. Same thing. So smoke if you got them. I don't smoke at all. I get drug tested, so I probably light up some incense or something like that.

Speaker 1: 2:45

Ok, speaking of herbs, I want to highlight a black person that educates me and others on Mother Nature's beautiful me and others on Mother Nature's beautiful, bountiful blessings in our backyards and our forests for the free, eating off the body and using herbs. And you're working. It's all about Mother Earth. For the most part, this episode, black business. I highlight a black business to bring awareness and my experience with said business. Unless, I say it, it isn't a paid ad. I highlight a black business to bring awareness and my experience with said business. Unless I say it, it isn't a paid ad. I'm open to paid ads, but I definitely want to highlight black business. There's enough money for all of us to get it.

Speaker 1: 3:22

Alexis Nicole, aka Black Forager. She is a foraging teacher, environment science enthusiast, vegan food concocter from Ohio. Let me paraphrase to you this Bon appetite article that was written about her. She considers her online fame a quote-unquote fortuitous accident that occurred during the pandemic whilst working as a social media person for a company. Her family introduced her to foraging, being outside and plants when she was younger. She she loves singing, which is where you'll find her doing a lot of her social media accounts. Her wife for your friends, which matters to the story, never gets questioned like Alex does. Not surprising.

Speaker 1: 4:05

Initially, the idea to share forging education came during the pandemic because people were nervous to go outside and some people live in food deserts. Alexis showed people you can find food in your backyards and or your neighborhood. Now I can't remember how I was first introduced to the black forager, but I'm glad I follow her. She makes chicken of the woods look so freaking good. I remember learning about cacti when she sung about them. She let us know when to eat them and when not to eat them.

Speaker 1: 4:37

As always, to me, representation matters, so I love seeing someone that looks like me, and even quirky too, talking about finding and eating plants for free, making recipes from the findings too, because I'm not there yet, but I do love following her recipes because I am open-minded and I enjoy learning about different foods, and to me, she does an amazing job of putting together the recipes and making the food looks good. Okay. So, of course, she isn't the only black person out here eating from Mother Earth, but her introduction allowed me to learn and look out for others that look like me. More about her will be in the show notes. Who do? Who do I get to the root of? Who do conjure up thoughts that pop into my mind about spirituality. Come on, get this work all right.

Speaker 1: 5:28

So I'm thinking about planting again this year, not the hemp, though I plan to take a break from that. So here's a brief reminder of how I got into being a gardener. And how does all of this have to do with hoodoo? All right, so my mini me learned about germination back in high school and she was like yo, mom, let me tell you about germination, yada, yada, yada. And I was like, okay, let's. She was like let's have a garden. So I'm like, all right, cool.

Speaker 1: 5:55

So we started doing um, plants and stuff, and so at this time I was living at the spot where the woman that gave birth to me is, and even now, some of the plants I planted are still coming back, which is kind of cool and weird to me, because I planted oh my goodness, I think they're iris, I can't remember, but I know for sure green elephant ears and they're supposed to be. The green elephant ears are supposed to be annuals, which means they come back. I mean, they only do one season and then they don't come back. But for some reason, I guess, with us living um where we, then maybe that's why it's able to come back every year. But yeah, so it's pretty cool. And so I did transplant.

Speaker 1: 6:43

Didn't do so well with that that first year, because I didn't know how to do it correctly. I thought it was just easy Dig it up, put the plant in there, but they, the flowers, had died, and so last year I did my first transplantion and, oh my gosh, it was great. Um, first of all I googled it and I went by the steps and everything, and so I was so proud of myself. So, anyway, over the years um, we went from me doing um well, us doing the gardening, to, like, maybe the next season or two. It's just been all about me, because some way, somehow she got um allergies from it, which she really does. So that makes sense, okay. So then we um eventually well, me myself I eventually went from planting flowers to adding um herbs in it and, as you know, I did do hemp.

Speaker 1: 7:37

It was one good year and then the next year, no and um last year, just nothing germinated at all. Fuck, I don't know what's wrong. And then I also tried to take um doing food that didn't work out. My okra last year, um, I planted it wrong um because it got too hot in Memphis Tenneke and it wilted and it wasn't in my um garden. It wasn't in my um garden shed either, my greenhouse, I mean. So I don't know if that would have protected it and stuff. Um, I didn't have a great seasoning at all, um, a great season at all gardening last year. Um, I'm waiting for it to be continuously 50 degrees or higher. Um.

Speaker 1: 8:23

There's this other thing as far as gardening goes, um, I forgot what it's called. I have one of them, I think it's called like a seed starter, where you put the seeds in there and if you do it around, maybe February or March in Memphis, about time we get out of the freezing zone. That should be enough time for you to transplant the plants. But life got busy for me and stuff and I wanted to do it this weekend but we kind of caught a cold shield, I mean a cold season. It wasn't freezing, but it was like 49 and I was super nervous to want to start my plants. So I'm gonna look at my weather app again to see how that goes. I'm all over the place, but you know me, I like to give details, all right.

Speaker 1: 9:09

So, um, last year I had planted basil, ok, and I learned how slightly spicy it is Not spicy in a bad way, but it definitely. The leaf definitely tasted different than the basil that I had in my house and I know that's like duh, but my first time eating the leaf I was super nervous off of it. I'm an overthinker, germaphobe from time to time, and it's weird as I say it out loud because, okay, going into the grocery store where they have all these herbs and who knows how long they've been sitting on the shelf, because until I got with my boo thing, love of my life, um, I never looked at expiration dates and stuff when it came to seasoning or whatnot. So that's that, and it's dried on top of that. I didn't want to get the um herbs with the whole leaf to it because I sometimes didn't know when I was going to um, I didn't know, I didn't know when I was going to cook and so therefore I didn't want the urge to go bad. So sometimes I feel like um, dry herbs would be quote-unquote better. And so, again, like I said, it's weird that I had no qualms at all, qualms at all about getting this food. But the food, as far as from the seeds like I literally planted, I know I didn't put any pesticide in it. I know that in the basil that was inside of my greenhouse, so I knew that no birds got into it or anything like that. So for the most part I knew that it was 99% good for me because no pesticides involved. But you know, you just don't know sometimes what's in the foods that we eat here and stuff. But you know I'm going to get a little bit better about when I'm getting better about trusting myself when I grow things and eating off of it. But I'll go more into all of this stuff a little bit later.

Speaker 1: 11:15

All right, so during my hoodoo journey I've learned a lot about plants. I learned that my mini me has a gift of talking to plants can't make this shit up y'all and so that made sense that many years ago she wanted us to have our own garden. I also learned that different herbs have healing medicinal properties, of course, and they can be used in different workings, depending on what you want. So a thing that some people talk about a lot is that basil is used can be used for prosperity workings, and I think it's also used for protection as well, and for me, I always like to include protection in anything that I do as far as my workings, whether it's prosperity, protection, duh protection. Of course, I want to have lots of protection, but prosperity, because that seems to be one that a lot of people want, and there's nothing wrong with that. But even love, because that seems to be a follow up number two that a lot of people want, and I always like to add protection into it, because you know, in my experience you have to be very specific about the things that you want and you desire. That's one, and then the other things that there could be other forces, whether it's spiritual, family, friends, etc. That could try their best to knock you off your path. So it would be nice to have protection and or to add your spirit teams that extra oomph of protection. Ok, and so I bought a herbal book to learn more about what plants I could plant.

Speaker 1: 12:56

Now, my first introduction to wanting to start a hoodoo garden, if that makes sense, is when I was reading the book 365 Days of Hoodoo by Stephanie K Bird. I'm saying this off the top of my dome. I feel 99% confident that that's her name. Okay, so in there she was talking about similar to what I just said, about having your own garden where you can go to the backyard and get your own items and stuff for hoodoo, and so I wrote down all these different herbs that I learned in the book. And then she had talked about a business that you can get the herbs from, and I saved the business.

Speaker 1: 13:38

I want to say Richter's R-I-C-T-E-R-S herbs, but my small issue with them and it's just me is that they give you a lot of seeds. I don't have that big of a backyard to get a lot of seeds, and at this point I don't know many family members that I'm cool with, or even family members that I'm not that are into gardening like I am so therefore, it's difficult for me to want to buy seeds, since there's about a hundred of them like what am I going to do with them? Of course I could save, but I'm always nervous about saving them because I think the seeds have to be at a certain temperature. Now, look y'all, I have not taken my meds yet. I know I am all over the place. Some of this is notes, some of this is from the dome, but I promise you eventually it will make sense and if I'm repeating myself from when I talked about herbs, when I first started growing hemp last season or season before that, y'all will be okay, all right, okay, so anyway, um, I wrote down all the things and, of course, I learned that you have to be in different planting zones and that'll help you out, which is why I have the greenhouse, because my part of being in Tenneke we are planting zone 7A or 7B, but I just pay attention to 7.

Speaker 1: 15:02

All right, back to the herbal book. All right, this herbal book, if I'm not mistaken, is called Cunninghams, and in this book they have the different type of herbs. So, for example, let's go back to it being about basil. All right, so when it comes to basil you. It tells you the name of basil, obviously the scientific name and also other nicknames of basil, which helps out a lot Because sometimes, as you know, some people might not know the scientific or the common name to it. So if you're looking at other grimoires or talking to your ancestors or whatnot, they might call it. I don't know, I can't think of off the top of my head, but they might call it something differently. Or a book you read might call it something differently and it could actually be basil. Thanks to that, you have the other names that people call it by. It'll tell you if it's a feminine or masculine plant. It'll tell you what um planet it's associated with. It'll tell you different ways to add other herbs to it. It'll also tell you the different ways of um things that can help you with, like I said, basil protection, prosperity, all of that. So I really enjoyed.

Speaker 1: 16:15

Oh, and also a another line that really, really, really is important to know is that it's safe. You know, um, there are some. I want to say what is it called? I think it's called foxglove. That is poisonous to us, um humans, so you don't want to grow it, obviously. So, um, there's also some plants that are um, let me see. If I'm not mistaken, there are some plants I can't think the name of them that you can grow, but certain parts of the plant is poisonous to us and certain parts aren't. So, again, the book helps out that if you want to ingest the plants by any way, you know, in your teas or something like that, or just want to eat the leaves or whatever it'll, let you know what you can or cannot do. And again, I think that's very important because you don't want to pass away, obviously, from eating this and stuff. So I really like that and stuff and so, um, I did not know prior to this that I had a knack for working the roots.

Speaker 1: 17:20

Now, of course, I would not consider myself a root doctor. I personally feel like different titles within the spiritual community means that a person have lots of experience and knowledge and at this point in time I personally don't feel like I don't. Now some people might think that I have more than a newbie that's coming out, which is fine and dandy, but when I think of the word Rue Doctor, I honestly think that this person is like a doctor champion, which I've talked about before, who had well RIP, but he had the background to learning about using the different herbs and roots in order to do the concoctions. That's well known within the city of Memphis. So that's one thing. And then another thing is that I personally feel like they have all of this different knowledge of how the plants look if they want to forage it and things of that nature. And for me this is a journey, not a pit stop. So I don't want to just stop at saying, hey y'all, I'm a root worker and stuff. Now, if somebody else for some reason wants to give me that um title, I may or may not be okay with it, but I don't want to call myself that.

Speaker 1: 18:32

But I do get help from spirit as far as how to use these different herbs in my workings. Would look them up on the internet before I got the book just to make sure that the thoughts that came into my head were correct, because I'm a trust but verify type of person and spirit always gets on me because it's like I use the quote-unquote wrong times to listen to them. But I just wanted to have some kind of self-assurance and so 99% of the time, the herb that came in my head was exactly what I needed. Now, because I've been doing this for a while. I sometimes don't have to look up the name of the herb that I'm using because, duh, I've used it before and I keep, uh, um, reading written of all the writing oh my gosh, writings of what I use, how I use it and the and the reasons for it. Because what I like to do with my workings is, even though I know that again back to using basil, basil's protection. Basil is used for prosperity. I still tell the plant what's what it's going to do. I still tell my spirit guides what I would like for it to do, just so everybody's on the same page of knowing what it's supposed to be. So, anyway, I would look it up 99% of the time. Like I said, it's what I need. Other times I couldn't find it, like, for example, a thought came into my head about milk or magnesia. I couldn't find a spiritual reason for it, but I still wrote it down anyway. So you know, so you know, I would just still roll my intuition after I couldn't find it.

Speaker 1: 20:11

You know, like I said earlier, I'm still nervous to eat plants that I grow and or in and just herbs from it, regardless if I trust them. So recently I have bought a mixture from Memphis Conjurer. It's um, the name of the tea was a psychic tea, and I trust Memphis Conjurer, but just the weirdo in me that likes to double check. I looked up the herbs and there was nothing wrong with the herbs, but I was just so nervous to drink it. So instead I did go to my book to make sure that it was OK to be ingested, and it was so.

Speaker 1: 20:46

I decided to use it as a steam to be ingested, and it was so. I decided to use it as a steam. So once I steeped it and, um, once I used my cure rig full of hot water, I put my tea strainer in it, let it steep and, as the um steam was coming from it, of course I inhaled it, and that was the best way that I could, um, the best way that I felt comfortable with having it so, um, and it's been working. Um, I already the best way that I felt comfortable with having it so, and it's been working. I already have that ability, but I felt like this was a way to reconnect me some more, not to say, in my opinion, that spiritual gifts leave, but I think that sometimes, if you're not taking care of yourself spiritually, or crowded, or have a lot of other thoughts on your mind, if that makes any sense, that that can make it difficult for you to use your gifts.

Speaker 1: 21:34

So for me, I kind of feel like it's equivalent to my ADHD. I have ADHD bad, which is why I'm rambling all over the place, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel type of way, where my boo thing would talk about me. But this is normal to me. But when I take my ADHD medicine which I don't take it on the weekends, but when I take it, I'm calm, focused and I know what's going on and I'm able to, um, sometimes articulate myself a little bit better, because boo thing will say, like, I think, what was? I think he was asking what's a sliding scale? Cause we were looking at Jessica Jones and I gave him all the roundabout way when he, when I could have, he got on me and I don't care. I could have easily said, um, that the amount of money varies of how much money you make, but I don't know. I'd like to give details. Whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever. So, um, again, I, I um inhaled the herbs that came from the tea and it worked for me and, um, I'm back to where I am.

Speaker 1: 22:38

So I also, as I said before, use herbs with spiritual baths or on my candles and stuff, and so I used to have this big old tea strainer and I would use that to put in a in a plastic cup or whatever, as I use my spiritual bath, which is fine, but I also use muslin I think that's what it is M-U-S-L-I-N, which is the bags that I use for my spiritual baths. That's what I prefer to use if I want to reuse them again and stuff, and so I will put the herbs in there, let them steep in the hot water and then that will be another safe not safer way, but another as far as my bath is concerned, another safer way for me to use a spiritual bath in my shower and to ensure that no herbs go down the drain or anything like that. So, of course, you always want to have a strainer so that you won't make a mess in your um bathtub shower, what have you and stuff. So that's what I use, um, because, again back to what I said, you know I want to ensure like what if the person who bought these herbs didn't grow them themselves? Or what if they did and they decided to use pesticides so that they can have an unlimited amount of this certain herb and stuff, because you know we're in a capitalistic society and I remember learning in science class that you're not supposed to to eat everything that you use for science and stuff. So it just brings me hesitations. So, anyway, I do love the results that come from my spiritual baths and using herbs within my candles and learning the knack of it and stuff.

Speaker 1: 24:24

So back to reworking. As know, that is someone who works the roots and they know how to use the works to achieve the goals. And this, being a root doctrine, were very needed during enslavement and Jim Crow laws because, as you know, the enslaved Africans, when they were enslaved and even when they became free, they did not have access to have doctors. They became free, they did not have access to have doctors, so sometimes they had to use the herbs that were around them to help them feel better. And I think Native Americans also use this, but I'm not very familiar with Native American culture so I really don't want to say the wrong thing, but I do feel like Native Americans and enslaved Africans really use the herbs they foraged around to eat. And, again from my learnings, when it came to the enslaved Africans, nasa would give them just a little bit of this, this and that, and so they had to use a garden to make it work and make it do what it do and stuff you know, taking a little bit of nothing and turning it into something. So, again, little bit of nothing and turning it into something. So, again, people would use these different things to help them survive and to last within these trying times. So I think that root doctors are still out there. I just don't know if there's a lot of them or if they are moving in silence.

Speaker 1: 25:45

Again, I don't want to claim that title because I'm not a title chaser in the lifestyles I live. Same thing for me, even though it's not the BDSM section. Same thing for me when it comes to BDSM. I'm just a kinkster. I don't want to be a master, a mistress or anything because, as we know, with titles becomes a lot of responsibilities. All right, um, and I also don't feel like um. I'm educated enough to give anything but my opinion. Okay.

Speaker 1: 26:18

So back to Alexis Nicole, because I think I had said in the last segment I would talk a little bit about this. I learned about um, the loitering and foraging happened after um, the emancipation from Alexis Nicole. Of course I'm paraphrasing, but that's how I think that it came to be quote-unquote. Wrong with people wanting to go to other parts of the land to forage because you know, there's the, there's these plants of duds that are out here for us to use and so to keep black people, they started to have these loitering laws and I remember seeing uh, I don't know which episode it was, but looking at Naked and Afraid with my boo thing we had saw that there was a plant that someone had used and I think there was a larger reaction. And so the Naked and Afraid person has said that Mother Nature usually provides antidote to everything that's poisonous, and so around that area was an antidote and the person was able to use that to to help their partner in the naked and fray challenge.

Speaker 1: 27:28

Um, get better, and I've seen it so many times using plants when it comes to looking at the show alone. So again, it's out there, um for us and I think, with these laws that came to be before some of us in our existence, it makes some of us not all of us, but I know I'm one of them hesitant to want to forge due to breaking laws and not being educated and knowing what is good for you, what's not, and so it's just quote-unquote safer and this is just me talking about a quote-unquote safer for me to do what is okay to eat versus just going out there and finding it. But a cool thing about Alexis Nicole is that she always shows what is the right thing to get and things that look similar to it, so you won't get confused and, you know, get allergic reaction or something like that. Also learned here in Memphis, tennekee, from my friends that the city used to allow people from growing their own food, and I'm like what, and it's so sad, and I'm like how amazing things could be if we were allowed to barter with our neighbors, assuming that they grew their um, their fruits, vegetables and the like correctly, we could feed ourselves because, as we know, groceries bills are getting super experienced. I mean expensive, not not experience, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1: 28:46

So before I end this segment, I also want to talk about a documentary that I saw. It was directed by Chantrelle P Lewis and it's called In Our Mother's Gardens and it celebrates the strength and resiliency of black women and black families through the complex and oftentimes humorous relationship between mothers and daughters. So, like I've said before, it's been a while since I've seen it but if I'm not mistaken, I think there were a couple of times where people were talking about gathering herbs and things of that nature. So you know, for me I always believe that the ancestors find a way that, even though we're so removed from them that some of us, knowingly or unknowingly, are repeating things that our ancestors did. So you know, check out the movie and walk around your plants, garden your forest, etc. And be safe with it doing it, and see if anything resonates with you, and maybe you could start a grimoire where you start writing the workings down with the plants that you used and the date, the time, etc. And maybe things will work out for you.

Speaker 1: 29:53

Are you kinky or not? I'm a proud kinkster of the BDSM community. Let me tell you about this lifestyle to see if you want to come over to the dark side. We got candles. Let me talk about a kink that makes me hesitant to participate, but lovely to see from an artistic point of view natamori. It means eating sushi off a perfectly still woman in japanese. Now, in my opinion, women um includes trans women, because, duh, trans women are women. Um, natamori. Yeah, natamori is the naked adult, is a man, but you know me, if it's an adult consenting with other adults, bon appetit. Let me educate you from the garden the guardian in 2019. The woman is the plate and the sushi is on her. There are leaves to separate the sushi from the skin. The author also talks about this scene being in pop culture. Samantha from Sex and the City.

Speaker 1: 30:47

I remember that scene and that, if I'm not mistaken, when I found, when I did see it, I think I was not kinky at the time, so I was just like oh, okay, whatever. And then, being amongst my ex kinky community, they had talked about it as well, but I don't think there had ever been a time within that particular kinky community that they had an event where a person was the plate for sushi, but they had talked about how cool it was or whatever, and I kind of had this face like. But then they started to explain about the barrier. So I was like like, okay, okay, okay. So, um, if someone that enjoys being naked, I will consent to this, but I have to be covered with barriers, okay, cause, as I've said before, I'm a freak and also a dermaphobe. All right, I would need a bodyguard, literally, so that no one will put their hands or chopsticks where they don't belong. Oh, and wasabiabi gotta be on a whole nother table. All right, because chemical play is not my kink, all right.

Speaker 1: 31:51

So the the delish ironically wrote about this in 2023 because it was for kanye west birthday party and he had a naked body being the plate and sushi on top, and the um author shared some food concerns. So let me paraphrase this as well the model's body should be clean, not just soap and water. I took a bath. Clean, but like. Clean like hydrogen peroxide or rubbing alcohol. Clean because the germs can come from the hair, and you know what kind of hair we all have on our body. We have underarm hair, chest hair, hair on our head and our genital area and let's not forget that germs can come and creep into our fingernails too and you can have hair from others. Ew, because you know people around you. They're treating you like you are a buffet, so they probably don't have the little barriers or making people have masks and things like that. So, um, our rising body temperatures can fuck with the sushi, because you know sushi is seafood and you can't have your seafood too hot because you can have pathogens from that as well, but you know what? I am not gonna yuck your yum. Okay, if you have participated in this, you know. Let me know about it.

Speaker 1: 33:03

Um, if you're curious, it seems pretty easy. You use sushi sashimi make sure everybody's a consenting adult, you have barriers, whether the barriers are these sanitized leaf type of things that you would see at a sushi restaurant. Or you wrap yourself and, um, what is that? Oh, my goodness, yes, the word escapes me, not aluminum foil, but what's the other one? Um starts with s. Oh my gosh, I cannot think of it, but anyway it's. Oh, there we go saran wrap, so you can wrap yourself a saran wrap. Obviously, do not cover up the nose or your mouth, because you got to be able to breathe, okay, um, make sure no one has any allergies. Um, please, please, use face masks, because, again, germs. So happy snacking, don't die.