Autumn Reflections

Autumn is a time for remembering… the weed walks, the plants, how they have been in my life this year; moments of green stability in a world that is rapidly changing. The plants do not hate or fear. And though they give freely of themselves to be our companions and medicine, the reason for their existence does not revolve around us.

They are expressions of the life force, just as we are, dancing their days in the wind; being themselves in they fullest way they know how. They deal with the challenges of their own lives. Here that is scorching hot summer sun, the bugs, too much wet-dry-cold-hot, and people wanting to pick them.  And they communicate what they learn between them, as conditions change.  They contribute to, and are a part of the other lives around them, filling niches in ways that we rarely pause long enough to observe, and learn, but that may be critical for some of those lives.   They are far older on this planet than we, and are willing to teach us ways of being in the world that we have not even thought of yet, or maybe have just forgotten.  They have lived through many climate changes in their long, evolving history;  and may be our next, best guides as we navigate the consequences of what we have done to our home.   All this is part of their medicine, and they share. Sometimes we make them part of us through breath; or eating and drinking their nourishment. And sometime just sitting with a plant is medicine  enough — perhaps the best of all.

I am remembering the plants of this year — sudden discoveries such as that wonderful stand of Horsetail; the Solidago that came as if to my wish, blown onto my fence line; the amazing profusion of our local mugwort, Artemisia ludoviciana, lining the fence rows in the countryside; the Peach, Pines, Borage and Yellow Dock; and the startling growth of mistletoe on the rare river alder. All of them are part of this year’s medicine, though with some I picked no plant, and made no tea or tincture.   Just finding the hidden, sandy place of the horsetail with it’s dappled sun was magic enough, and the mistletoe went to ceremony, for a druid circle at Lammas.   The alder is too rare to harvest any part, but she was a brave spirit, and left me inspired.

We are alive because of our relationship with the Plantae.  On this full moon of October, the Hunter’s Moon, my thoughts  go out in gratitude to a kingdom of beings upon whom we are wholly dependent for our breath and our food: The oxygen-givers, the medicine givers. And to the community of earth keepers, wise women and others who are engaged in Remembering the ancient connections, one plant at a time.