SubscribeMay 5th, 2012
reading information backwards
I came across this idea — “doctrine of signatures”. I don’t remember ever hearing about it before, despite the fact that I am quite familiar with plant gathering, wild food and wild medicines.
What the “doctrine of signatures” says: “herbs that resemble various parts of the body can be used to treat ailments of that part of the body.”
Of course it’s ridiculous. In fact, it’s right up there with Comfort’s banana idea. Apart from the wondrous silliness of the idea, they both have at least two other things in common. Both arguments rely on 1) the existence of a Divine being that shapes each detail of the universe and 2) that being shapes things with man as center of its concern.
There are two things that interest me in ideas like this. The first is the odd mental “logic” of people who speak about Mother Nature as a being with rights equal to, or in excess of human rights, and then stick with a philosophical system that plops humankind down as the center of the universe. Doesn’t that seem, to anyone, a bit of a contradiction?
The second, and most interesting, thing about this doctrine, is what it actually seems to indicate. The fact that most human cultures have something similar – learning to recognize plants by referring plant shapes to some well known (usually human) attribute – indicates an application of body attribute to memory and to social knowledge.
I think it a bit like reading shapes into clouds. One can do that and others can recognize it once the shape is pointed out. Constellations are the same. As are the dark and light regions of the moon. As far as I know all cultures read clouds, stars, and the moon as meaningful – and Lo! such readings miraculously fit the local stories, traditions, ideas about reality.
The real question seems to me to be why read the information back to the plant (star, moon, etc) and claim that the connection to our lives rests in the external world instead of in ourselves? I’m going to think about that for a bit.
Any ideas?
September 27th, 2011
in between meetings/reading poetry by Charles Goodrich
My day started when I dropped my untasted venti Americano on my front door step. It was followed (after the curse words) by a re-run of the Starbucks trip followed by several meetings spread throughout the day. It wasn’t that bad really. I mean after I got the coffee down.
I took with me on this day a slim volume called Going to Seed Dispatches from the Garden and a file folder of some of my old poetry. I used Going to Seed as a palate cleanser. (OK so some of my old stuff wasn’t that bad. It was bad, but not bad if you know what I mean. No Vogon-worthy verses.)
I did love Goodrich’s book I have to say. What a delightful sense of humor he has. And most of his stuff is just a few stanzas, something I prefer to be honest.
Going to Seed
by Charles Goodrich
January evenings, I sit by the fire, salivating over the latest
fashion magazines—Burpee's, Wayside Gardens, Johnny's Selected
Seeds—dreaming that I'm still a young stud, still up for double-
digging a new bed, getting it on with the latest hybrids.
Once I was biodynamic. I used to do a lot of heavy mulching.
I tried my hand at companion plantings, played around with French
intensive. There was a time I'd dibble seed into any dirt I came
across.
But I'm done sowing wild oats. I'm not planning to graft a
branch on some other guy's tree. Anyway, who cares who can raise
the biggest zucchini. I'm happy just looking at the pictures.
A delight heh?
Here’s another that’s more reflective.
The House of February
On the far side of the river, there's a grove of old
cottonwoods, ragged trees with worm-splintered crowns. Some have
toppled into one another's arms, and all are bare now in early
February. Here and there in the crotches of the branches, the canopy
is clotted with big, messy baskets—nests of the great blue herons.
When the trees begin budding in another month, the birds
will return, carrying sticks as long as their beaks. They'll line the nests
with feathers and moss, lay clutches of eggs, and hatch their naked,
ungainly chicks.
But today, I don't want to think about eggs, or hopes, or
starting over. I just want to savor the desolation of those trees, the
slate sky, the empty nests.
I really do like prose poetry of this kind and caliber.
August 3rd, 2011
just because
Time for me is that which is marked by the differences between things. I don’t experience time directly, is all I’m really trying to say. What I experience is the shift and patterned change of life (in particular) around me. This Lupinus is seeding; I think of them as catkins but they aren’t. They’re pea pods and one can eat the seeds apparently, although I’ve never tried.
The thing is that the pods are here, starting, as the blossoms did, at the bottom of the stalk. Before long the flowers will be gone and the pods will have taken over and that means fall is not far away.
July 20th, 2011
just because
I love many flowers but I think the scarlet lupin is one of my favourites. Here she is just coming into bloom.
June 24th, 2011
just because
Pictures courtesy of George.
Thanks George. Feel free to go take more.
June 14th, 2011
just because
I went to the doctor today to get a few more stiches removed. There is still some infection in the wound but it has markedly improved so things are moving (if slowly) in the right direction. Maybe by next week I’ll be finished with antibiotics and all the stitches will be gone.
But what I really wanted to tell you is that after the doctor, a friend and I went to a local nature center. It is based around a bog environment and so the plants that grow there are the kind that like acidic soil and water. It was a lovely little walk (can’t go that far yet.) Here’s just a few pictures.
June 10th, 2011
trees and mobiles
I don’t have a cell phone and apart from a few years where I was driving in dangerous conditions and had a pay-as-you-go, I’ve never really seen the need for one in my life. This new app has just changed that. I won’t get an iPhone but apparently it’s being released for Android this summer sometime. That’s the phone I’ve considered so I think it’s a go Houston.
Here’s their webpage.
via Eideard. Thanks to you.
June 7th, 2011
locust – the word, the tree
taken by peardg
I love locust trees. The photo wasn’t taken by me and the tree itself is no where near me so I can’t check for the thorns, but I think this is a black locust.
I love locust trees, in part because of the leaf shape, but mostly because of the way the thorns and the name fit together in my head. I’m not a cuddly-bunny kind of person, you know, I prefer badgers. And ravens to robins. So the same goes for trees. I like thorns. Of course the honey locust beats the black locust as far as thorns go, but still what a name – “black locust” – I mean how goth can you get?
Of course the word “locust” comes from the Latin word locusta that signifies both the insect we know as the locust and the lobster. That’s kind of cool. The visual parallel of the hard shell of the lobster and the insect was what must have been significant. The tree got the name because someone thought the seed pod looked like the insect—named though visual metaphor. I find that fascinating; it says something about folk classificatory systems don’t you think?
I think there is another layer though. The biblical place of the locust and the idea of a plague, and the hardship of the locust being your main food source. Both seem very thorny, with respect to the possibility of human comfort. And yet the leaves of the locust are wonderfully graceful and somehow soft and sensuous. The individual blades of the compound leaves even look like the straight wings of the insect. They are both fully strong and fully graceful. For me its the combination of the thorn and the grace that makes the parallel between the insect and the tree both meaningful and apropos.
May 1st, 2011
just because
April 16th, 2011
willows spit in the wind
Standing below this tree; moving through the surging air, I realized that willows spit in the wind. Not saliva of course, but catkins.