belonging. ..

something i like to observe with curiousity each season is what is growing here in abundance around me. ..

i think in herbalism, as well as plant based nutrition, there is a temptation to reach for (and sometimes depend on) herbs & plants that are commonly talked about for their various medicinal & nutritional values that are not from here, and do not grow here. for example, goldenseal in herbalism. . . or spirulina in nutrition. ..

while these can both be very health promoting, useful & healing allies to work with, they aren't necessarily easily available, and perhaps not always going to be available to us.

i dont say this from a place of fear, but from a place of curious, resilience based intentionality.

so, what is growing around you?

there is meaning in what surrounds us sometimes. there is meaning in what surrounds us. i believe that plants are intuitive beings with a desire to heal and help. .. and that they grow where they are needed. i think of someone in the city, red faced (sometimes a sign of liver imbalance), huffing as they proceed to poison and pull up every dandelion on their lawn (a well known liver supportive herb).

i think of japanese knotweed, a well known invasive plant villain (!), growing alongside eroding banks at the edge of sprawling capitalism, retaining the soil, literally growing through concrete, and how as lyme disease considers to spread like wildfire, so does japanese knotweed, which has and continues to show great merit in treating many of the symptoms and co-infections arising with lyme. . .

so, an invitation to you to ask yourself (and the plants), what is growing near you in abundance. .. sometimes it's exactly the medicine that we need. not even necessarily to injest, maybe just to sit with, be witnessed by. ..

the last few years, our originally small motherwort plant has spread across the yard and now attempts to enter the house ha! i get it motherwort, i need you. .. i really do. ..i often found our mama cat hiding from her kittens beneath the shade of motherwort. ..

in the winter time what my eyes and mind are drawn to is the evergreens & the medicinal fungi. .. here in mi'kma'ki we are lucky to have some very strong mushroom allies growing amongst us. the eastern coast is home to abundant reishi, chaga, birch polypore & turkeytail mushrooms, to name a few.

turkeytail is a presence that i am curious to see appearing around us. popping up in the logs edging some our our raised beds, as well as in the woods between the gardens & the creek.

turkeytail (tramates versicolor) is a polypore mushroom that grows mainly on dying or dead hardwood, often growing in large patches.

turkeytail mushrooms have been renowned for their medicinal use in asian medicine for centuries. the western world has more recently hopped on the medicinal mushroom bandwagon, with a slew of mushroom based drinks, powders, coffee mixes & substitutes and more. while these can be nice ways of beginning to get to know these medicines and having easy access too them, thankfully there are a lot of them growing here right out many of our back doors.

some of the medicinal attributes of turkey tails are for immune system stimulation, reducing inflammation, helping promote healthy gut bacteria, fighting infection as well as preventing & treating cancer (with or without more conventional intervention such as chemotherapy).

there is really a lot to be learned about this mushroom, i hope to write more about it in the future, and encourage you to do your own research if your interest is piqued and you would like to learn more. .. i really recommend sitting with any plant or mushroom that calls to you as well. .. as well as incorporating asking the plant for permission to harvest (as well as leaving an offering if it feels available), and deepening the intention of your medicine by asking the plant for healing of a specific issue or ailment you may be struggling with. .. i fully believe we have been taught to grossly underestimate out intuition, power of intention, and the wisdom of the plants around us (and our own earthly vessels. we are all on a path of remembrance, wether we know it or not. .. and plants can be some of our greatest teachers.

i also acknowledge that the land we are on is unceded mi'kmaq land. . .. and something that has come up for me in recent years is thanking the land, water & plants in their native language of the land i am on, mi'kma'ki. i honour my connection to the land here and it's history by doing so, it feels easy and simple to acknowledge myself as a guest here, and to have the courtesy that a guest would by this small acknowledgement.

wela'lin. .. which means thank you, or "i do well by you".