I experienced a new use for this word in the class, "Cultivating the Herbal Medicine Woman Within," a class that changed my life. One weekend a month for six months I went to herbalist Kami McBride's house in the hills near Vacaville, CA, and explored the world of plants, women and healing wisdom. It was a profound, life affirming, threshold experience. I walked out of that class onto my path.
We were simply combining herbs, for a tea perhaps. Peppermint, Red Clover Blossom, Outstraw. Pour a measure of each into a bowl and then mix by hand. Garble, Kami said. Garble the herbs.
From Dictionary.com:
garble
1419, from Anglo-Fr. garbeler "to sift," from M.L. and It. garbellare, from Arabic gharbala "to sift and select spices," related to kirbal "sieve," perhaps from L. cribellum, dim. of cribrum "sieve" (see crisis). A widespread word among Mediterranean traders; sense of "mix up, confuse, distort language" first recorded 1689.
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