I was visiting St Hildegarde’s sanctuary when I came across a poster for a walk with Metis herbalist Lori Snyder. The community priest, Melanie Calbrigo, organized the walk. Having recently moved back to Vancouver, I felt this was a good way to learn more about my neighbourhood and about the indigenous plants that call this area home.
When I was living oversees, much had transpired in the way of reconciliation. In 2014 the City of Vancouver officially acknowledged that we are in the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.
The archipelago known as Queen Charlotte Islands when I was growing up was “renamed” Haida Gwaii in 2010 (part of the Haida Gwaii Reconciliation Act). The Haida people have lived here for over 10,000 years. It’s a beautiful part of the world and I hope to make it there with some friends next fall. Search for photos on Instagram and you’ll get a glimpse of the stunning land- and seascapes plus the Haida culture.
Synchronicities in Life
Synchronicities are beautiful in life. It is amazing to visibly see the threads. In Lori Synder’s intro to the talk, she mentioned a few books, including Braiding Sweetgrass. I had just come across this book, also recommended by someone just the day before. During the walk, she also mentioned foxglove. This is a plant used in an episode of Bull I just watched and in Hannah Gadsby’s Netflix comedy show I’m listening as I write this.
What I’ve found is that I tend to come across parallel or complementary threads that I weave together when I write, read, or otherwise connect in. I learned how to macrame, for example, the same time I was listening to and reading about string and superstring theory.
As I wove each string into the tapestry, every time I folded over a rope I imagined I too was creating a wormhole folding space time onto itself, putting more focus – changing the vibratory rate – here and there as if to ground the story into reality more firmly in those places. The piece became a moving contemplation to allow the reading to fall into place, as best as it could since string theory is mind-bending science.
We construct our personal myth from the random facts that life presents us, connecting dots to make a shape, devising plots from circumstance, changing characters, fashioning conflicts, adjusting structure, settings, and themes, as our lives unfold over time.
Mark Matousek
Lori Synder shared how trees are connected to each other. Through the mycelia, they share nutrients with those in need and in doing so, ensures the health of the ecosystem. [more on this mycelia superhighway of info] She also reminded us that we are all indigenous, we are all part of Mother Earth. And in my search for a primal theology, I have come to believe that nature is the gospel, the mysticism that underlies all religion. Nature is a portal to listen more intently, more openly, more lovingly to the microcosm within which is the macrocosm without. Our world is full of correspondences, full of medicine, full of gateways to reconciliation, healing, and fulfilling our potential.
We do not have to quash another – to destroy them – to be right. Far too often we want to be right, above all else. What we want is inclusion and acceptance. In an evolutionary sense, being excluded and exiled meant hardship and possibly death.
It’s also left-brain mechanism, to filter the world to be congruent with the beliefs we hold, rather than the right-brain which seeks connection, the whole, and the new. The old writings, the creation myths, the songs, and even scriptures are often couched in poetry, paradox, symbols, and “right-brain” non-linear non-causal language. The truth is large enough to encompass all of us.
We’ve felt the winds surf the waves
Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings
Alongside the canoe
This is where joy lives
This moment of earth breath
Lifting up with us
Letting us go with us
One blue circle of bliss following another
Back To The Plant Walk
Learning about indigenous and invasive foreign plants in my “backyard” is both practical and a metaphor for allowing multiple perspectives, more ways to find what I need, from whatever traditions, cultures, or philosophies they may find roots in. Because these thought forms are manmade and before that, there was only nature. And I’m not appropriating, I’m appreciating respectfully.
In the event details, we were asked to come in comfortable shoes. We began our walk from our meeting place in Kerrisdale. Just a few steps away, Lori pointed out Yarrow, Sweet Clover, Red Clover, Plantain, and Purslane. All in that one small patch of seemingly wild, unkempt and some may say unattractive ground.
It’s a lesson not to overlook something because it doesn’t fit our own expectations or current understanding. Even in dry barren land there is life. Plants like us have our own preferences, own needs, and it’s this diversity that creates our stunning landscape and tapestry of life.
We didn’t get very far on our walk, just around another corner. There we found local indigenous blackberries and Oregon Grape as well as the transplanted Himalayan blackberries, along with Camomile, Wild Camomile, and Sweet Alyssum. In the distance were hemlock, fir, and pine trees. We were surrounded by an abundance of medicine, that we can make teas, tinctures, and salves with. For infection, indigestion, liver detox, skin ailments, insomnia.
We took turns to taste a tincture she had made with apple cider vinegar, infused honey, and a beeswax salve with chickweed and other plants. She also gave us each a beautiful handwritten and hand-illustrated handout of many more plants we did not discover on this walk. The amount of information she gave us was astonishing, sparking countless ideas for the next step. Learn one plant a year, she suggested if we were feeling overwhelmed!
I believe in the sun.
Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings
In the tangle of human failures of fear, greed, and
forgetfulness, the sun gives clarity.
When explorers first encountered my people, they called us
heathens, sun worshippers.
They didn’t understand that the sun is a relative, and
illuminates our path on this earth.
St Hildegard’s Sanctuary
7284 Cypress Street, Vancouver
Phone: (604)266-8096
www.StHildegards.ca
Inharmony Innature Collective
website