Finding Your Place with the Plants

 

Participants in the Plant and Place Connection Series: Siri, Christy, Felice, Christina, and Dixie

What a plant-filled season! So much that I've had little time to document here at the blog. I've been too busy being in it. I hope you have been too. Here in Northeast Pennsylvania, spring swept in hot and dry. I feared our garden might never grow, the soil dusty and sprouts tiny. With summer came the smoke and humidity and almost daily drenching storms. Well nourished, despite the smoke, the plants took off. Our garden is now a bounty with a flush of the tallest bee balm I've ever seen, spires of anise hyssop, towering elecampane, and more zucchini and cucumbers than we know what to do with. Our tomato plants hang heavy with green orbs soon to ripen. The meadows have been abloom with ivory clusters of yarrow now on their way to seed, lavender crowns of bee balm reign over an ocean of grass-leaved goldenrod, and the first flowers of tall and rough-stemmed goldenrod have just begun to adorn delicate racemes. Amidst all this glory of growth, I, too, have been growing my offerings. 

In the spring I was pleased to mentor a fellow naturalist. This nature-lovin' mama is adept at owl calls and bird song, frog croaks and coyote scat, and can start a fire from scratch. In September, she's starting a nature-based preschool for youngin's. No stranger to plants, she wanted to dive deeper into how to work with them medicinally so to better serve her family and enhance her work. We explored medicinal mushrooms, spring ephemerals, wild greens, crafted double extractions and nutritious vinegars. It was a joy to work one-on-one, customizing her lessons to suit her interests. 

Emily making a reishi mushroom double-extraction

In May, the School of Plant and Place Connection jumped off with the Plant and Place Connection Series. I've been stewing for a long while now just how to provide a cohesive program to the public, and really simmering with intention since last autumn's trek on the Susquehannock Trail. This series was an abbreviated, introductory version, of the five-month immersion program I'll be offering in Spring of 2024. I sat with a whole lotta plants, sipped a whole lotta tea, and scribbled a whole lotta notes considering how best to consolidate all that I wanted to offer into three days. 

Felice and White Pine

We began by connecting to the land, the plants, and each other through forest bathing. Forest bathing is a simple but profound practice. But in forest bathing, we aren't seeking results, we're seeking experience. Through forest bathing, we engage with the natural world through the senses rather than the intellect. Awe happens. Embodiment happens. Clarity happens. A sense of interconnection creeps in. I chose to lead with spirit rather than intellect because it's the foundation for working with plant medicine. Reverence for plant and place inspires ethical wildcrafting, transforms food and medicine into the sacred, and inspires us to connect more deeply with that of which we are a part. We explored the materia medica of spring greens, learning the medicinal actions of these plants on the human body, and enjoyed a wild salad drizzled with dreamy spring greens dressing. Participants' homework until we met again - spend slow time with a plant.

Christy and Mullein

July's session brought stories and sketches. This was personally my favorite part of the whole day. The plants inspired connection, not only plant-person connection but person to person connection. Then we dove into the intellect with a botany lesson and practice with a plant key. Terms like calyx and corolla, pinnately lobed, and petiole rolled off our tongues. We took to the meadows to identify the flowering plants. Lady's thumb, red clover, and yarrow gave us an opportunity to clarify irregular versus regular flowers, simple versus compound leaves, and to further explore the medicine and food that summer yields. Bee balm and hibiscus tea offered refreshment as participants documented materia medica of yet more plant allies. 

Botany lesson

Keying out plants in the meadow 

Participants have now been identifying and studying plants on their own in preparation for our third and final session that will take place in just a couple of weeks. I can't wait to see what plants they've discovered! In our last session, we'll explore late summer plants, learn about resources to further our knowledge, and interweave all that we've learned in our journey together with plants and place. These participants, who began as acquaintances have now become friends and I've had the joy of guiding these sweet folks further down their plant path one green step at a time. 

A winding path

Many years ago, I took my own uncertain steps down the plant path. I didn't really know where I was headed. All I knew was that the natural world called to me and that was where I needed to direct my energy and attention. I sat in meditation and sang praises to the full moon. I worked in an organic garden and studied nature writing and environmental philosophy. I managed a health food and supplement shop. I walked from Georgia to Maine on the Appalachian Trail. The natural world was where I belonged but how to honor that sense of belonging, expand my relationship with and weave the natural world into my every moment, was foggy. When I really dedicated my awareness and energy to the plants, it all came together. For some it will be the birds, for others the four-leggeds, yet others the rocky strata or the fungal threads that probe the soil; there are so many ways to attune to the natural world and reawaken the wild that exists within each of us. For me it was the plants, once I found them, I found place. 

Nature provides endless opportunities to reawaken connection

It seems like more and more people are awakening to the need to reconnect. To dig roots down deep and leaf out. To slow down and take notice. And it's not easy given the times we live in. We spend most of our time in human constructs, the natural world a mere backdrop, a well of resources, a place to fence in, subdue, or improve. We spend way too much time staring at screens rather than gazing at trees or at the turf beneath our feet. I am so grateful for those who follow that, oft buried, instinct to engage with the living world and its many inhabitants. They help to keep me on my path too. And that's my greatest wish for my plant work going forward, to assist others in finding, or rather remembering, their place with the plants and to support one another in our reconnection.

Christina and Siri and the plants

This fall, I'll be continuing with a series' participant in a private mentorship. We plan to dive deeper into botany and explore tree identification, we'll craft herbal preparations, and plan for spring herb cultivation. I'm also looking forward to offering an afternoon workshop on tree medicine in October. Through the winter months, I know I'll be dreaming deeply on how to best inspire others on their plant path through the upcoming five-month immersion program. If these offerings sound intriguing, drop me a line or take a gander at: www.schoolofplantandplaceconnection.com to find the program that best accommodates you. I'd be honored to have you!

Stay tuned, too, for my end-of-summer journey by foot! Amos and I will be hitting the trail for some much-needed wilderness immersion!