Healing Gardens

Body:

Alix Jopp

January 17, 2007

Response #1

 

1. The Natural History of Puget Sound Country recognizes two major schemes for zonation, both of which are based on vegetation response to climate change. It focuses on a zone system based on dominant tree species and recognizes four that occur in the Puget Sound Basin. These are Western Hemlock, Pacific Silve Fir, Mountain Hemlock, Timberline-to-Alpine zone (122). It states that "'zone' and the adjective 'zonal' in the jargon of the ecologist, means a belt of climatic climax vegetation, where the dominant species reproduce to maintain a steady state (i.e. climax), generation after generation (123). The Natural History of the Puget Sound Country poses the question of whether or not any part of the living environment can be distinct and independent of any other neighbouring segment. I feel that it answers with the phrase "the living landscape is a continuum…an ecosystem is an abstraction for dealing with the openendedness and interconnectedness of living things and their life-support contacts with the physical universe.' The living, the dying, and the dead all coexist; life and death are inseparable and indeed interdependent (131). In Keeping it Living, the Pacific Northwest is described as extending "along the Pacific Coast of North America, encompassing a narrow strip of coastline bounded on the inland side by the Coast and Cascade mountain ranges, running from the Oregon-California border north to the Copper River delta on the Gulf of Alaska (8). Within that, "Meidinger and Pojar identify four general "biogeoclimatic zones," defined by vegetation, topography, and climate, within the Northwest Coast region" (9). These zones are Coastal Douglas-fir zone, Coastal Western Hemlock zone, Mountain Hemlock zone, and Alpine Tundra biogeoclimatic zone.
2. The Pacific Northwest is linguistically and culturally diverse. There are many isolated, focused, food gathering sites that were of tremendous economic, social and dietary significance (Keeping it Living, 10) with indigenous people making time/place specific migrations between important resource sites (12). Plants provided the majority of materials required to manufacture the items—nets, snares, spears, bows, or weird, for example—that were used in the procurement of animal resources. Not only were plants nutritionally important in their own right, they also allowed the acquisition, as well as the transport, processing, and storage of the animal foods so significant to the Northwest Coast diet (14). Plant tending…involves the minor modification of environments to encouraeg the growth of naturally occurring plants in situ, while plant cultivation involves a more intensive and extensive pattern of environmental modification (15). These agroecosystems represent human-fostered and often genetically simplified environments, maintained by humans to increase the output of valued plants by replicating or enhancing certain naturally occuring conditions. Often in these systems it is not just a single species that is enhanced, but a complex of culturally important species, varying in their growth forms or morphologies, co-existing in complementary associations.
3. Lodgepole pine, salal, tule,cattail, stinging nettle, sword fern, douglas fir, western hemlock, western red-cedar, cascade oregon grape, trailing blackberry, vine maple, black cottonwood, red alder, bigleaf maple, madrone, devil's club, red huckleberry, wild ginger, grand fir, sitka spruce, western yew, western flowering dogwood, birch, garry oak, ash, wild crabapple, hawthorn, willow.
4. a) I've been thinking a lot about stories of place and descriptions of plants. The two textbooks are so detailed and beautiful, I really learn about the plants/stories. I wonder how we could make the ethnobotanical gardens so interactive and intentional. How can we tell the plants stories? How can we tell the stories of the Puget Sound and its indigenous inhabitants? How can we tell the stories of the garden? b) I'm very interested in participating in vegetative and floristic analysis of the longhouse garden sites (specifically the mixed forest areas).

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January 24, 2007
Response #2

1. I am still waiting for my copy of Keeping it Living to arrive, so my response paper will be somewhat limited. I feel that I can be an active participant in the plant/human community. I was inspired by the symbiotic (and parasitic) relationships discussed in The Natural History of the Puget Sound- how can I be like fungus??? The Herbalists Way imparted empowering knowledge. I am not a professional herbalist, but I know that comfrey eases pain and ginger can induce menstruation.I feel that I will be able to connect with people and plants through sharing knowledge. I think that roles I could play as an agent of healing could include herbalist (for my community and friends), a storyteller (telling the stories of the plants and the people of the Pacific Northwest and their intersections and connections and the importance of both in creating the ecological landscape that has and still exists), and a gardener (tending/gardening the earth). I want to work with plants in harmonious relationships that involve mental/physical/spiritual connection. What kind of healing can we give each other?
This weekend my friend Ross and I were talking about some dried daisies he has in his yurt. They open and close, like a barometer, depending on the outside weather. I told him about a possible original meaning of the word daisies (day’s eyes) and how they open in the day and close at night. They also look like the sun.

2. Kinnikinnick, rhododendron, labrador tea, gorse, english holly, hazelnt, mock orange, salmonberry, thimbleberry, scot’s broom, poison oak, blueberry, snowberry, wild ginger, skunk cabbage, bleeding heart, mullein, yarrow, st. john’s wort, comfrey, calendula, dandelion, burdock, echinacea, rosemary, lemon balm, self-heal, valerian, garlic, peppermint

3. a) I want to create a materia medica of the plants in the garden. Students can garden some spaces at the farmhouse, what if there was a medicinal gardening area any student could participate in? How could this empower the community?
b) What is the importance of the plants that are already existing/growing in the Long House garden? What do they tell us about the soil and the relationships between the plants?

 

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January 31, 2007

Reflection #3

 

"History, as nearly no one seems to know, is not merely something to be read. And it does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do. It could scarcely be otherwise, since it is to history that we owe our frames of reference, our identities, and our aspirations." James Baldwin

During winter quarter, I am connecting my interests of ethnobotany (in Healing Gardens) and gender studies (in Strong Women: Transforming the Known). Both courses focus on women's personal herstories/experiences within the "known" (dominant mainstream culture) history/present. As I read The Woman Who Watches Over the World and The Sweet Breathing of Plants I engage in conversations with the authors. Their lives/words have the potential to challenge what I have held to be true and give truth/context/meaning to my emotions/thoughts/experiences. As I read their stories I see my own unfold.

I was told a story and it is this: brewing was traditionally a woman's craft. During the middle ages, a brewer would place a broom in front of her house to signal that beer was available. Female brewers, like women healers/herbalists, were targets of witch hunts because of their power (economic, social, and spiritual). Their myth is passed on through the iconography of witches riding brooms, but their stories/realities are forgotten.

I have chosen to study hops because:

1) They are often categorized, misunderstood and decontextualized in our society (in part because of their potential to inebriate)

2) I am drawn to study hops and want to understand them better, and

3) I want brewer (inebriater?) to be a part of my identity.

Language/stories are important because through them we communicate what matters most to us (individually and societally), we use them to define and explore our boundaries/selves/relationships. When my group discussed plants at the liberal arts forum most people didn't have (or felt they couldn't share) stories about their relationships with plants. I remember thinking I didn't have experiences with plants/nature and I think with wonder how Healing Gardens helped me re-member that I am a part of nature, I exist within it. I wonder how many people cannot remember their hi/stories with plants? Is it a part of cultural erasure/mythologizing of what surrounds us and exists within us?

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February 7, 2007

Reflection #4

1) Winter is everywhere. It's physical presence is manifest in the grey of the sky, the cold rain thundering down, the dark and early hours, the leafless trees, the green grass, the monochromatic colour scheme. I am told that winter is a time for reflecting, drawing in and letting go. It feels like time moves slower, there are fewer changes, the days blend into one another, the day to day sameness of place/sky/weather allow for self reflection. I have been listening and reading and writing and thinking and speaking a lot this quarter. I am letting go of a past of iron-clad beliefs, of relationships, of expectations, of limits. I am beginning to understand that I do not understand and through that I find freedom. Everyone I talk to is changing, is (re)awakening to different new/past thoughts and consciousnesses. We are beginning to speak less and listen more. We are beginning to be still. We are waiting. Yet, we are waiting for change.

2) I look back on my journal intention/dedication, my desire was to create a "love story about that which is and that which was but is no longer." When I read the pages, I see myself telling my story through scenes and moments where I find truth and beauty. I see the parts of myself that pine for the past and hope for the future and exist in the present. I see the questions I am asking, the answers I find through the books and essays I read, the poems I hear and my conversations and relationships with others. I look in my journal entry and it is full of hopes/dreams of spring and summer. My journal reminds me that I am ready to move forward, but that I have to be patient because there is so much more I can learn.

3)Medicine: everything we do which has the potential to heal us or to prevent dis-ease. We live our medicine through the daily choices we make.

Garden: A place to grow, heal, change, and transform ourselves. An intentional place whose purpose can be one or many or all of the following (and much more): beauty/food/healing herbs/work/smell/therapy/communication/expression/devotion.

I am beginning to think that gardens and medicine are an intrinsic part of one another. Gardens can be our medicine, or, we can find our medicine in gardens. Gardens and medicine are potential creators and a part of creative acts. They are forever changing and shifting and becoming what we need them to be. They truly are present everywhere in our lives, healing is present everywhere in our lives.

 

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February 21, 2007 

Reflection #7

These days, Megan and I have spent our time talking and listening. We talk about how words are abstracts and constructions; we can never convey the full idea and meaning behind what we are thinking. And we try to understand one another through understanding that we don’t understand. Our different experiences give words different shapes and values in our minds.
 

I’ve grown up in a way where I haven’t thought about the meanings, both personal and societal, behind words. I wonder what it would be like to share a vocabulary. To have a language that runs strong and deep and understood by many others. How would that confine or deepen or expand our lives? Where do words belong in my life? When and where do they matter?
 

My journal is coming together (for me) as a story. It is captured moments, visions, memories, questions, answers, hopes. We define and present ourselves through our stories. We tell others what seems most significant or important or essential to our being.

I think my journal is an awakening, it is an arrival and departure point from who and where I am now.

Does thinking in words limit our experiences in the moment? Does just being involve words? What kind of words? What kind of language?

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March 7, 2007 

Reflection #9

 

Plants save us. They help us re-member ourselves: we use them to carry our pasts, prove our existence, and hold our futures. Plants are composed of the same universal fabric of life that weaves us all together. They enter into our lives and teach us in unexpected and countless ways. The way in which I responded to the different love letters and stories taught me so much about myself. It makes sense to me that orchids would, of course, be loved and admired and written about even though I have never seen one in real life because they are known to be beautiful. Yet, I recoil and repulse at the idea (and sight) of fungus (which I come across often) because I have seen it as something that has “gone bad”. I do not want to reduce plants to metaphor, but I do use them to remind me of the complexity and fragility of all existence; there is so much beauty to be found, so many different ways of seeing. So much of The Sweet Breathing of Plants challenged my notions of and (re)introduced me to plants and my relationships with them. There is so much to wonder at in the world.