Thinking in Plants

    Earlier in the year, when the spring ephemerals were on stage, I drove out to a favorite foraging site with the intention of harvesting wild leeks, bloodroot, and wild ginger roots.  As I drove down a steep hill into the valley I saw a large, dense patch of wild ginger on the wooded edge of the embankment.  I wasn’t even going that slow, or actively looking for it yet.  It impressed me deeply that I was able to “see” the wild ginger at such a careless, drive-by pace, without even trying.  Throughout the rest of the spring harvest I began paying more attention to this phenomenon of “seeing” and “thinking in” plants.

    Foraging is deeply instinctive, an instinct that is suppressed by our urbanized culture, but latent within each of us nonetheless.  One of the joys I receive when I teach workshops is seeing this ancestral connection to the plants kindled and awakened, and the deep yes response in the participants.

    The skill involved in foraging ranges from natural talent to carefully cultivated skills.  In tribal culture, plant wisdom was regarded as a special gift in certain individuals, even though every member was adept at utilizing the plants for basic needs.  But there is a real thrill in the cumulative knowledge gained from years of experience that eventually hits a critical mass and the connection with the plants becomes almost psychic.

    One of the mental processes I have noticed in myself is something I call “mapping”.  Wherever I go, I am keenly aware of the plants that grow there.  For example, if I visit a friend out on her farm, from the time I get out of my car my mind starts mapping the plants there---the herbs that grow on her doorstep, along the walkways, around the barn, in the pastures.  These plants are filed neatly away and readily retrievable anytime thereafter.  I could go back 5 years later and remember where I saw that good nettles patch, that lush chickweed, the elder along the hedgerow.  This thought process is happening automatically, even while we’re having conversations about babies or the weather or the latest news.  I am sure the hunter/gatherer people also did this habitually, instinctively, and probably didn’t perceive it as a unique ability.  This mapping process is key to locating good harvesting sites, and the ability to store these “maps” in the memory is important in the off-season, so when things do come ripe you have a file of optimal harvesting sites.

    Another thought process that happens is a sharp attunement with the seasonal progression of the plants.  There is a certain “knowing” when things are ripe and ready for harvest, even without checking the patch.  Some of this is based on an awareness of phrenology and synchronistic events in nature.  For example, when I see the wild plums blossoming I know the morels are starting, and when the lilacs bloom I know it’s peak season.  I know when I see the first robins arriving that it’s time to visit the spring for watercress.  But just as often it seems to happen on a psychic level, the black raspberries start “calling” me when they ripen, I feel a sense of urgency about harvesting the tender parsnip roots before they toughen, I suddenly remember the St. Johnswort up in the meadow.  This seasonal attunement can be developed to a high degree especially when one is able to live in the same place for a number of years, or a lifetime.  During my years of travel and adventure I had no sense of this and much of my harvesting was serendipitous and lacked an overall strategy.

    The ability to see and recognize plants without even having to really look at them is pretty interesting to contemplate.  I am aware from teaching experiences that many people do not know how to look at a plant and see its character and features.  When they look at a wild garden it’s just sort of a green blur unless there’s some striking feature like a vivid flower or the tall spires of mullein or something very familiar like dandelions.

    I think to learn to see plants you first have to fall in love with them and have a sincere interest in getting to know them.  It’s also helpful when they are perceived as serving a purpose such as food, medicine, fiber, beauty.  Unfortunately, profit is a real motivating factor in learning to recognize plsome of our plants, such as the nondescript little ginseng plant.  Or morels.  In fact, morels are a good example of someone training themselves to “see” them to the point where they feel as though they sense them and even smell them before they find them.  This same process applied with a broader brush can be used for a multitude of useful plants.

    When I was a young girl, I used to pore over field guides.  I especially loved the Golden Guide to the Wildflowers and the colored drawings imprinted indelibly in my mind, along with their common names, and to this day I occasionally encounter a new flower and “remember” its name.

    This same imprinting process happens for me out in the field as well, especially with the plants I use a lot, the ones that have become good friends or allies as Susun Weed calls them.  I can recognize them at any stage of growth, from little sproutlings in the early spring to dried, brittle seedheads sticking up out of the snow.  I can recognize them at a glance in the same way you can recognize a person you know coming up the street long before you see any distinguishing facial features.  I can recognize them going by in a car at 60 miles an hour and sometimes from a surprising distance away.

    Sam Thayer gifted me with a term to describe this—he calls this mental imprint a “search image”.  We use this same process to read, and the same process is used when we read the landscape.  That green blur becomes very distinct, like the letters of the alphabet on a printed page.

    This search image ability also seems to transcend the ordinary in moments like my experience with the wild ginger.  I was probably registering the dark green color and the low, close-to-the-ground growth, and possibly the circular shapes of the leaves enough to ID them, but it happened so quickly and peripherally it seemed psychic.  Or maybe it was psychic and my spirit recognized wild ginger spirit.  Who knows?

     My sense of time and place are woven together intricately with an overtone of plant imagery.  Many of my memories include the plant communities I shared them with, even long ago childhood memories.  It is impossible to separate myself from the plant kingdom; even in stretches that I spent in urban environments there were always plants growing up through the cracks in the sidewalk, potted plants on the windowsills, ornamentals juxtaposed with the concrete, and I noticed them and I mapped them...........