This week we will continue weeding, as well as prep for the excavating of some of the more strangled established plants.
Now we turn to the Medicine Herbs of the world. From the beginning they were instructed to take away sickness. They are always waiting and ready to heal us. We are so happy that there are still among us those special few who remember how to use the plants for healing. With one mind, we send thanksgiving, love, and respect to the Medicines. Now our minds are one.
Kimmerer, 109-110
Garden Work & Research
04/20/21: Sun in Taurus, Moon in Leo
Today I weeded around a couple lavender plants and the agrimony. The pernicious buttercup seems to have decided to come up in the middle of many of these established plants, making it extremely difficult, if not totally impossible, to get rid of them. The best course of action to take seems to be to completely uproot these plants and shake out the weeds, trimming them up and pruning them while in the process. This will happen next week, since the weather seems to be cooling off a bit, which will cause less stress to the plants and hopefully allow for an easier transition for them.
In other exciting news, the hyssop seeds have started to sprout and will hopefully soon be ready for transplant!
Over the course of this quarter I have been reading Robin Kimmerer’s book Braiding Sweetgrass. I wanted to include this book into my material and research this quarter in order to give voice to the long standing traditions and knowledge held by indigenous peoples. Before anyone like Rudolf Steiner or Han-Kyu Cho, who I discussed last week, were coming up with their systems of farm care, traditional ecological knowledge and a deep, rich cosmology which connected the people to the Earth in profound ways was thriving. In her book, Kimmerer speaks of the ways in which science, though helpful for measuring things and naming them, tends to disconnect us from the life inherent in all the things it seeks to study. The whole of our world has lost its connection with the conscious design and rhythms that move us and shape us. All of us. Humans are not separate, outside observers of the thing as science would like to believe. We are pieces of it, moving in time with it, a part of the whole. And yet we have forgotten this. Forgotten it because we have learned to view everything as inanimate, lifeless, conquerable. Fear of the things we cannot control and do not understand has overtaken our ability to view the abundance and gifts that are being offered to us always by the Earth.
04/22/21: Sun in Taurus, Moon in Virgo
Today we continued to weed in preparation for some plant excavation next week! The more we weed, the more it becomes apparent what is still alive and what has been completely swallowed by buttercup and will need to be replaced or just left out of the garden all together. The question becomes one of diversity vs quantity of material for medicinal use. This fact will need to be discussed with Frederica, who has the final say on what should be done in that regard.
The work completed on Friday
Materia Medica:
This week I will be taking a look at Nettles. Nettles, Urtica dioica, are a perennial plant found in abundance all over Turtle Island, near waste places, roadsides and gardens, among other places. Nettles are an herb of Mars. They are physically very Mars-like, possessing small, bristly hairs which act like a hypodermic, injecting an irritating substance under the skin when touched. They also have martian actions, including being astringent and stimulating. They can aid in digestion, the young leaves eaten as a salad green, cooked into soups, or taken as a juice. Their astringent properties can help to stop excessive bleeding. They are also rich in vitamins and minerals and are useful in maintaining nourishment and good health.
Nettles should be harvested on a Tuesday, the day of Mars. Herbs of Mars are those with actions that add momentum or movement to the body. Energetically they relate to manifestation and a sense of force and vitality.
