So I ate smoked trout from relatively nearby (nothing's too close in the mountains) last night in sushi. Wow. I have no interest in eating sushi in a restaurant, but it's damned good homemade, especially with pickled ginger and daikon and plum vinegar. Gosh, I didn't know. We had some with cream cheese and shiitakes fried in butter. Woah.
Plant illustrations are quite interesting to me, and I've been really considering where the interest lies. It struck me today, looking at this image of a dandelion on botanical.com (where they have most if not all of Maude Grieve's A Modern Herbal for perusal), that they represent a most complete plant, in fact a beautiful and unblemished version of a plant all by itself and in its entirety. Something in me is fascinated by getting so much information at one time about a plant in visual format. No words. Past a general understanding of plant actions, generally gained by a moderate ability to cook with foods that are not much processed past their living state, I think all you need do is to be with a plant for an understanding of how you can be of assistance to each other. Giving attention or awareness to anything, whether our body, our family, our friends, plants, trees, animals, any living being, elicits a response and inter-action. Moving right along with this concept, here is a beautiful essay on Anarcho-Herbalism by Laurel Luddite on the Southwest School of Botanical Medicine website. Read it and weep. Actually, I also want to say that she is so right on, and I've thought of this regularly- even here, in the highlands of the eastern US, in a tiny but vastly rich biosphere protected by law, where lights don't even show up on satellite imagery, we are still losing the struggle to keep our ecosystem thriving.
We live in one of the last remaining temperate rain forests on the planet. This is excrutiating for me to consider, thinking of the vast virgin forests that connected the south to Canada and on over to the prairie of the midwest that's nowhere to be seen today, despite being destroyed more recently than the forests. It reminds me of the largest remaining reserve of the long-leaf pine, the trees that held dominion in the south from coastal North Carolina down deep into FL and over to Texas, a deeply complex and rich ecosystem that today is alive only on Eglin Air Force base and is also one of the last in the entire world. But, in the style of our mothers who tend to absorb anything we might do to hurt or offend them or ourselves, the earth keeps pumping its love and abundance out towards us. That's a deeply calming image and reality that I experience each and every day. I don't know how anyone stays sane without it.
Plant illustrations are quite interesting to me, and I've been really considering where the interest lies. It struck me today, looking at this image of a dandelion on botanical.com (where they have most if not all of Maude Grieve's A Modern Herbal for perusal), that they represent a most complete plant, in fact a beautiful and unblemished version of a plant all by itself and in its entirety. Something in me is fascinated by getting so much information at one time about a plant in visual format. No words. Past a general understanding of plant actions, generally gained by a moderate ability to cook with foods that are not much processed past their living state, I think all you need do is to be with a plant for an understanding of how you can be of assistance to each other. Giving attention or awareness to anything, whether our body, our family, our friends, plants, trees, animals, any living being, elicits a response and inter-action. Moving right along with this concept, here is a beautiful essay on Anarcho-Herbalism by Laurel Luddite on the Southwest School of Botanical Medicine website. Read it and weep. Actually, I also want to say that she is so right on, and I've thought of this regularly- even here, in the highlands of the eastern US, in a tiny but vastly rich biosphere protected by law, where lights don't even show up on satellite imagery, we are still losing the struggle to keep our ecosystem thriving.
We live in one of the last remaining temperate rain forests on the planet. This is excrutiating for me to consider, thinking of the vast virgin forests that connected the south to Canada and on over to the prairie of the midwest that's nowhere to be seen today, despite being destroyed more recently than the forests. It reminds me of the largest remaining reserve of the long-leaf pine, the trees that held dominion in the south from coastal North Carolina down deep into FL and over to Texas, a deeply complex and rich ecosystem that today is alive only on Eglin Air Force base and is also one of the last in the entire world. But, in the style of our mothers who tend to absorb anything we might do to hurt or offend them or ourselves, the earth keeps pumping its love and abundance out towards us. That's a deeply calming image and reality that I experience each and every day. I don't know how anyone stays sane without it.
I just noticed the first flower on the Rose of Sharon bush.
It's raining. I put on my swim top this morning on waking, blinking at the sunshine that graced us momentarily, and now I'm simply more flabbergasted at the precipitation. My housemate is kindly playing some Moondog, after even more kindly making me tea with garlic, ginger, clove and fresh turmeric. I suggest you, whosoever you is, check out Moondog. Think oboes, think orchestra, think homeless. You're on the right track, now.
Today is a day for tincturing! On the agenda, reishi mushroom (adaptogen; broad-spectrum tonic), fresh dandelion from first-year plants (nourishes the liver, allowing it to function better eliminating toxins, which is what it does), and astragalus (strengthening, especially for young people; immune system tonic).
with my heart on this misty afternoon,
(sending some cool air on down from the highland to any of y'all suffering from the heat),
thinking more clearly after drinking too much gingergarlicturmericclove tea,
abigail
ps- Let me know if my wonder woman color scheme is alarming or otherwise bothersome.
It's raining. I put on my swim top this morning on waking, blinking at the sunshine that graced us momentarily, and now I'm simply more flabbergasted at the precipitation. My housemate is kindly playing some Moondog, after even more kindly making me tea with garlic, ginger, clove and fresh turmeric. I suggest you, whosoever you is, check out Moondog. Think oboes, think orchestra, think homeless. You're on the right track, now.
Today is a day for tincturing! On the agenda, reishi mushroom (adaptogen; broad-spectrum tonic), fresh dandelion from first-year plants (nourishes the liver, allowing it to function better eliminating toxins, which is what it does), and astragalus (strengthening, especially for young people; immune system tonic).
with my heart on this misty afternoon,
(sending some cool air on down from the highland to any of y'all suffering from the heat),
thinking more clearly after drinking too much gingergarlicturmericclove tea,
abigail
ps- Let me know if my wonder woman color scheme is alarming or otherwise bothersome.
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