Healing Gardens

Potato (Solanoum tuberosum)

Kinnikinnick (Archtostaphylos uva-ursi)

Red-flowering currant (Ribes sanguineum)

Rhododendron (Rhododendron macrophyllum)

Oceanspray (Holodiscus discolor)

Salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis)

Thimbleberry (Rubus parviflorus)

‘Indian plum’ (Osmaronia cerasiformis)  wait, is it different than Oemleria cerasiformis?

Vanilla leaf (Achlys triphylla)

Dwarf dogwood (Cornus canadensis)

Hazelnut (Corylus cornuta)

Horsetail (Equisetum spp.)

Skunk cabbage (Lysichitum americanum)

Pacific bleeding heart (Dicentra formosa)

Lungwort (Lobaria oregana)

Fly amanita (Amanita muscaria)

Shaggy mane (Coprinus comatus)

Puffball (Lycoperdon)

Chantrelle (Cantharellus cibarius)

Pickleweed (Salicornia)

Indian pipe (Monotropa)

31 jan- Reflections #3

I am continuing to see the world of plants in new ways, at deeper levels.  Like reading a book I have read several times before and every time I notice different parts because of where I am in my life.  The parts that carry insight for me change as I change and for what I need to learn at different moments. 

So here and now I am enjoying sitting with plants and hearing their voices.  Spending time in my Longhouse garden site I am sensing different energies there every time, and keeping this type of journal is helping me to see how much my perspective changes the more I just pay attention.

Choosing a plant for the monograph assignment was easy because I just listened, and heard Rosemary calling out, inviting me to (or maybe insisting for me to) come and spend time with her.  I really couldn’t not choose Rosemary as my plant to study.  I had thought I wanted to choose a plant native to this area, and also one that I was relatively unfamiliar with.  Rosemary is not native here, I can already identify it unmistakably, and also am aware of the basic medicinal properties and general information about the plant.  I realize that this is the way I will be able to go deeper into my experience with any plant, and I know that the more I am able to be still and listen, the more I am opening up to learning and allowing my life to flow.

7 feb- Reflections #4

3.  What is medicine?  What is a garden? 

(garden)A specified area of plants tended for food, craft, beauty, environment.  ‘Tending’:  planting, transplanting, pruning, weeding, harvesting…this is the definition that has been changing the most in my mind from the discussions and readings in this class.

Keeping it Living

Ch. 3- Intensification of food production on the NW coast and elsewhere 

Summary:

‘this chapter examines intensification on the NW coast and among complex hunter-gatherers.’(p67) 

Food storage-leads to social complexity

Sedentism- requires food storage

Subsistence history- focus has been on animal resources, what about plant resources?(p68-69)

1. Finding evidence for intensification requires looking on both sides of the equation INTENSIFICATION=MORE FOOD.  Evidence for increased effort is as important as evidence for more food remains. 

Also: Plant foods provided only class of ‘new’ resources for diet and could be increased in production. 

Response:

I think work like this is important in that it is questioning other theories that have been widely spread as truth and taught in schools as history.  It reminds me how little we can really know, and to remember that our information is always changing. 

  So what will the theory be in 20, 30, 50 years?  This chapter is just more Theory and I think it is important to present it that way, just as all anthropological information should be presented.  As theories.  How arrogant to think we can really know or understand from the outside. 

Where does all this information come from to form our ideas of the way people lived in these areas?  I recall a story told by someone who had been in the room while someone else interviewed a man about the ways of his people, and after the interviewer had left, the man laughed about the story he had just made up, saying something like, ‘ahh, they love to hear stories like that!’  Also, how many people would tell these white people interviewers about their ways of living?  Was the information true or complete?   What about the photographer who took all those posed photos of people wearing clothes that weren’t necessarily from their own people, posing with the token walking stick?  How many people have thought those photos were accurate historical information, and came up with ideas and theories based on this photographers idea of what an ‘indian’ should look like?

  It is so hard to know what life was (or is) really like for anyone, based on external information.  What conclusions would someone come to about me and my life and motives if they examined my house when I wasn’t there?  Probably some parts could be accurate, such as the food I eat, or my general interests.  Other parts would have to be assumed or interpreted through the lens of the researcher’s own views and experiences, which may be radically different than mine.  They might not be able to see something right in front of their face if it’s not a part of their reality.  Or they might not like it and pretend it’s not there.  And what about the assumptions that the researcher could make about the books on my shelf that someone gave me, that I’m not the least bit interested in?  What kind of conclusions would this researcher come to, and how would they explain to others who I am, what I do, how I live?  What parts would the researcher choose to talk about, and which parts would get left out? 

  The models presented in this chapter are boring to me because I can’t take them seriously. 

 Reflections #7- 21 feb 

I am overwhelmed.  By class assignments by being a mother by being almostsick all the time by too many people and no one I talk to by amazing healings energy shifting learning to be angry learning to be in a body learning to speak learning to let go learning to be who I am and letting that change letting go of who I used to be who I think I am moving through overwhelmed with all this new information coming from everywhere, pertaining to everything - but not really.  I am not really overwhelmed but I really am processing a lot and, oh yeah, class.  What am I here for?  What will I get out of this experience after it’s over, that’s the part I will focus on.  The journaling my personal garden rosemary beautimous rocio del mar wetland habitats class lectures and sharing.  Thank you universe for setting us up.  Peace.

28 feb- reflections #8

1. Respond to Keeping It Living-  Part III Conclusions.  

I felt more satisfied after reading this section.  I know it is probably a good thing to have this book and the detailed chapter in the world, for whatever scientific purposes.  At the same time, for where I’m at personally right now, I think I could have just read this chapter and heard the lectures and discussions in class and that would be enough for me.  

 2.  Describe your personal presentation [weave together three elements: identity, meanings made this qtr, how personal garden vision reflects these] 

Usually it takes me awhile to process and realize all that I have learned in each class I’ve taken here at evergreen.  Same in my life in general.  I’m talking years here. 

  I feel excited and grateful to be learning about these theories of the general cultivation history of this area.  It doesn’t seem that exciting while I’m learning it (it’s like “oh, of course- that makes so much sense” when I hear this information) but it is really a new way for me to see things and is very different from what I have been told all my life.  It is exciting to me to hare it with others who are interested. 

Identity within class context- authority of The Assigned Work vs. What I Care About.  How to balance the two as well as get the most juice out of it for myself.  Also reflections of self in group context- letting go of expectations of who people are/should be, who I think I am/should be, who others think I am/should be [poem from forum]

  Personal garden vision as it connects to my life right now- simplicity; being ok with where I’m at right now, letting go of how it ‘should be’; prioritizing 

7 mar- reflections #9

Describe your experience of Sweet Breathing of Plants as a companion throughout the quarter.  Include specifics both from the reading and from your experiences.  

There are so many different ways that people connect to plants, trees.  The world.  Some talking about the science, some the memories, the connections to people, some about the sexiness of the plants.  It reminds me that everyone has their own way of being.  Everyone has their own special essence and can use it to be a piece of the whole.  It reminds me to accept my own way and the ways of others.  Not trying to be every piece myself- rather, to appreciate others’ special roles and the part we all play in the symphony of the world.

My favorites from this book were Corn Mother –oh my goddess this was beautiful! I read it again and again as I would open the book to read other sections [“boil in lime (it dissolves flesh and bone) and water as ancient as language… grind for 500 years until the flour is fine as Indian bones…”]; House of Wood [“I feel grateful to be surrounded by wood and by the memory of trees”]; Alder; La Limpia; and The Woman I Love Is A Planet; The Planet I Love Is A Tree. 

THE END