A watched pot never boils, but a watched kettle sure does steep. “I like to think of the steeping tea as nature’s lava lamp,” says Courtney Merage, an herbalist, ritualist, and owner of The Well and The Wheel LLC, as we watch the ingredients in the tea rise, fall, and dance through the slowly coloring water. Today we are doing an intuitive tea ceremony, which she explains is meant to “empower you to advocate for yourself, honor yourself, and heal in the way and pace that’s right for you.”
We begin by connecting with the elements, our bodies, and our environment in a grounding meditation ritual that awakens all our senses. Once I feel fully attuned, Merage sets me loose in her apothecary stacked with jars of all kinds of herbs, seeds, and berries. I pick five that speak to me and bring them back to the alter we are sitting before. Merage tells me that the five I have chosen are all very energizing, fiery, anti-parasitic herbs, what she likes to call “the herb’s gifts.” On the tail end of a cold I can’t seem to kick, it makes perfect sense that this would be what my body intuitively craved. (Although, Merage is careful to note that she cannot prescribe, diagnose, treat, or in any way practice medicine.) We steep the tea, drinking it throughout the process to taste its subtly first, and then finishing with its bold flavor.
Merage used to be a lawyer suffering from chronic pain until she found a treatment and lifestyle that better suited her. “I’ve had to learn how to heal and solve challenges with almost every one of my body systems, from immune, digestive, musculoskeletal, reproductive, and much more. I’ve been through it all and had herbal and ritual medicine as my allies along the way. And now I have the tremendous honor of supporting others in their healing, too.”
The Well and The Wheel is part of Nurture Wellcare Marketplace in the Highlands and offers herbal consultation, tea ceremonies, and tea leaf readings.
