Plants: Green Backdrop for Human Life? | EcoTrain Question of the Week
Name one small change you have made or could make to your life that would be of great benefit to the world if everyone did the same
~ EcoTrain Question of the Week
We like to call Mountain Jewel a Center for Earth Connection.
I've delved into this a bit- to describe what it means, but haven't really written a post on its full intention.
Let us start with a quote from Arne Naess, the founder of the Deep Ecology movement,
The Ecological Movement asks for a deep identification of people with all life.
This is pretty simple, humans have a great disconnect with the natural world. To many humans the earth is just a backdrop to human life.
Plants: The Green Backdrop to Human Life
People exploit what they do not care for. It is much easier to disrespect something if we aren't connected to it or if we don't know it.
Humans are currently suffering under (and causing all of life on the planet) to suffer under the disease and repercussions of disconnection (also a lot of greed thrown in there too.)
I remember when I got into a University class on Wild Edibles. It changed my life. I had started farming at this point and getting into permaculture, but my fluency with the natural world was still very elementary.
In the class, we studied from the book, Botany in a Day, and I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to get to know plant families.
After this class, I started seeing food everywhere! Plants were not just a green backdrop on the stage of human life, but friends!
This is the small change that has happened in my life that I would love to pass on to others. Get to know 1 plant. Then another. That is how it starts. Pretty soon you start seeing friends everywhere.
Now, no matter where I am in North America, when I take a walk around outside, I see familiar plant faces!
This is at the heart of our homestead being a Center for Earth Connection.
It is destined to be a place where people can come (retreat to) to get in close contact with the natural world. A place humans can re-member their part in a much larger whole, one that is not contingent upon them for furtherance (the earth would get along just fine without us). It is worth noting how human-centered our cultures have gotten. We have forgotten that we are a part of all of life and that we are not above everything else.
I believe we are hungry as humans for this connection.
The earth is our home and getting so wrapped up in HUMAN culture, we have forsaken our healthy and respectful relationship with the earth.
It astounds me, in fact, that you can truly exist on this planet without really ever leaving the human bubble. Every person who has grown up in a city can attest to this. What nature? Nature is something you go to - it is something you must seek out. I believe this is the cause of many of the high anxiety and depression rates that we see.
So, again, my proposal is this. Start small. Identify one plant that you walk by every day. Get to know its family. The mint family, characteristics pictured below, is a great one to start with as mint is easy to grow and found all over the world both cultivated and in the wild. It is hard to throw a stone and not hit a mint plant at our homestead- and much of it are plants we haven't even planted. It's not the traditional "mint" smell or taste necessarily, but they are certainly a part of the family.
I will never forget this one time I had eaten a psychedelic and went into my garden. It was beneath a full moon and I was blown away by how beautiful the plants were. How vibrant and alive and so so kind and giving!
As I bent my head down to take in the smell of my sage plant and as I started nibbling the leaves right off the plant with my teeth, I heard with my inner sense that the plant was delighting in my enjoyment of it!
It was then that I realized that this life---death---life---death cycle we are a part of is all of us taking one another in. The plants give their bodies for us so that we can have life and health. They are so kind! They, in large part, make up our bodies. It's really pretty amazing.
I think if more people had contact with plants, they'd realize that human life isn't the only or best thing happening on this earth and we'd all be a lot better off if more and more people have this realization.
All it takes is getting to know 1 plant in the sea of green.
After plants, the sky is the limit. Humans can start to see themselves in communion with all of life and not above it.
Banner by @radicalunicorn
This post was written by a passenger of the #EcoTrain for the Question of the Week. We invite you to write on this question with us and use the tag ecotrain as your first tag.
I love the point you make about seeing ourselves as a part of nature, not above it. We have a problem with hierarchies and elitism in general as humans, partiuwhen it comes to how we view other species.
I also resonate with how you talk about life eating life and the naturalness of that. We can make responsible choices about how we do that, but ultimately we cannot escape the fact that in order to survive we must eat things that are alive... or at least were before we decided to eat them. And this doesn’t have to be an act of violence. Life consuming itself is not by nature a violent act. We must give up our shame around this so that we can come into deeper intimacy with how we eat and actually become more non-violent than guilt will ever allow us to be.
yessss!! your last paragraph brings up so much passion in me! this deep sacred respect for everything we take in is so important as it is unavoidable and the furtherance of life is made up of this "i give my body for you" type of thing. it always strikes me as odd that by and large we do not connect this very sacred act of eating with our spiritual traditions (well some do, but for the masses it is more a "material" thing). i think humans have largely forgotten and are on autopilot- that's just food! (not knowing its source or previous life.)
the disconnection so many people have to what they eat i think is the root of this. it's also a fairly recent thing, too, for humanity as in the past most people were connected to their food. it's very humbling to grow things and eat them and even moreso to save the seed. it is so very empowering and truly i believe one of the most radical acts that humanity can return to. thanks for your thoughtful comment!
Damn you are QUICK... quick draw wren!!!
I love this post. Plants have always been in my life and i cant imagine not identifying or understanding their use, beauty and spirit but for many its a mystery. Yet it can become a full blown addiction!!! As well as a boon for our lives and the Earth herself and a connection to the divine. I always feel like its a communion of sorts to step barefoot onto the soil and connect to plants and trees... its deeply reverent. Thats why i used to like shrooms in particularly as it was as if the plants were SHOWING me this path.
YES! Our wise kin literally do show us these paths don’t they?! In this case it was LSD, but I’ve had many super connected moments with fungals as Well. I feel (and Ini and I talk about this a lot and I know I’m “preaching to the choir” here) that these medicines have the ability to give us “eyes to see” in so many ways. As I said, I never forgot that night! It changed how I looked at food and life! When I was writing that part I thought hmmm maybe I should say Eat a psychedelic- that’s the one thing if everyone did that it would change the world 😉😂😂 I know I’ve thought that many times. 😘😘
Very well said. Right on. 💚
thank you! glad it resonated with you 💚
I love this, I totally am with you on how disconnected some people are, like you said it allows them to get away with this dominant view over nature. Oh if everyone connected more with plants and the many benefits that they have for us and for the planet. If only more could open their eyes to the gifts that have been bestowed upon us. Great great response to the ecotrain question xx
💚💚💚yes so true. Slowly and steadily eyes become open. Thanks dear 😘
Its so sad to think that all the things we took joy in, which we now as your story describes sometimes need to get a little bit tripped to feel the energy and beauty that surrounds us.
I'm sure if we less distracted by modern life we would all enjoy this more.
Yes it is a little sad- we need new “eyes to see” in many cases. Very thankful for these powerful medicines that remind us. 💚
haha this is like a full page explanation of your comment to me yesterday. Lovely post though. I will take you up on learning about a familiar plant on my daily morning walk.
haha! this arose spontaneously and not directly in reference to our exchange ;) obviously it is a message very close to my hear though. please keep me updated on your plant walk- that's very exciting!!
Here's my first post https://steemit.com/dailypost/@steven-patrick/kniphofia-popsicle-plant-or-red-hot-poker-or-torch-lily I plan to start picking a plant that is a part of my everyday life and learning more about it.
Sorry for the link. I know posting links in comments is generally bad form. Just excited about this right now :)
Nice job well done! I use Gina bot too so she alerted me ;)
I love your answer to the qotw! It is so true that when we we establish a relationship with nature we realize that we are part of a collective consciousness. I totally agree with you that when we start to learn and understand what each plant is and it's own relationship within the eco system it opens our eyes to a much larger picture. Something that humans have certainly become distanced from. <3
yes! really well put @holisticmom :) it was the gateway to understanding these connections for me and reminds me daily of them <3 blessed plants!
STOPoh wow.. what a LOVELY idea! i really like it.. i studied biology and botany and was always terrible at names.. now i live in nature with SO many plants.. many of which are edible and medicinal.. but i never know what is what.. so i rarely pick them.. I can see also how meditative it would be to look at each plant and be forced to really study it to figure out what it is..
I think im gonna try this!
<3
Oh, guys, you keep surprising me - such a valuable advice!!! I think we are mostly lost the connection to Nature and study one plant at a time can be a really good way to start getting it back%) So today I learned about a dandelion. I recently saw a dandelion tea and were wondering what it is used for%)) Now I know that it is not only very healthy but it can be a really great help for me personally! Thanks for reminding me again that simple steps can lead us to a better life! Big hugs to you!
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