Wild Remedies is a book about foraging for wild plant medicines. It begins with a substancial section on understanding your bio region, getting to knoWild Remedies is a book about foraging for wild plant medicines. It begins with a substancial section on understanding your bio region, getting to know plants, and ethical harvesting. Its set up like a course with prompts for you to journal about. The rest of the book looks at 25 common medicinal plants arranged by the season you would harvest them. A chapter is dedicated to each plant and talks about them botanically, medicinally and ecologically. Each chapter includes a collection of recipes to make food, tea, salves and sodas.
This book is perfect for a beginner, its thorough and easy to follow....more
I fell in love with a new book! The Forest Unseen by David George Haskell is just the kind of scientifically informed dreamy musings of nature that I I fell in love with a new book! The Forest Unseen by David George Haskell is just the kind of scientifically informed dreamy musings of nature that I love to read. The first chapter describes lichenization and takes a firm stance against the moral judgements placed on some symbiosis by scientists while really leaning into contemplations of the dissolving barriers between 'individuals' and how the tree of life doesn't just split and branch, it also fuses and intersects. I feel like I'm meeting a kindred spirit. He continues this level of insight and what shouldn't be 'radical' acceptance of life through the entire book.
The Forest Unseen makes me feel like I don't have to write because David George Haskell has already done it. It’s a diary of the wildlife in a patch of forest that he visits a few times a week for a year. He chooses many of the same organisms that I choose to write about but he knows different things than I do, so I'm learning a lot. He talks about fungi, fireflies, snails, spring flowers and explains the biology and even the non biotic systems at play. He believes that non-human organisms were not put here to serve us. He believes that humans and our culture, however poisonous and greedy, are a part of nature and that we should be compassionate with ourselves as well as with the wild.
The book is so wonderfully written because he takes the time to really observe. He doesn't flinch when a mosquito bites him, instead he takes the opportunity to watch and to understand her body and behavior and uses the experience as an excuse to learn about our entangled histories. He describes invisible interconnections between microbes and deer, the digestive strategies of aphids and the regional dialects of insect song.
This book succeeds in revealing the richness of biodiversity of a small area and its dynamism. He visits at all times of year and at all times of day and explains how it’s different every time. He describes what has happened there historically and prehistorically and muses about what might happen in a deep geological future.
As we pass through the months his descriptions deepen and relax. He begins to make beautiful comparisons between evolution and culture and the branching of trees. He becomes aware of his own awareness and knowledge and considers the nature of science and the reasons for its limitations in understanding ecology....more
Walking the Wrackline is a book of prose by Barbra Hurd, who wrote Stirring the Mud, that squishy dreamy book I loved so much last year.
Each short chaWalking the Wrackline is a book of prose by Barbra Hurd, who wrote Stirring the Mud, that squishy dreamy book I loved so much last year.
Each short chapter tells a story of the magic found along the ocean shore. She writes about the microbes in ponds, intertidal zones and the spaces between grains of sand. She muses about the massive gentleness of the tide. Its a poetic description of an indescribable vibe.
She zooms in with her empathy, and shares details of what goes on inside seashells, and imagines witnessing the tide from a star fish's point of view. This book is as much about being a creative person as it is about being a sea creature. It swings back and forth between questioning the difference between making and seeking and exploring the lives of Moon Snails, jellyfish and messages in bottles....more
The Wildcrafting Brewer by Pascal Bauder is enriching my foraging life. He uses foraging for brewing as a way to study, interpret and appreciate the lThe Wildcrafting Brewer by Pascal Bauder is enriching my foraging life. He uses foraging for brewing as a way to study, interpret and appreciate the local wildlife. He talks about the magic that is lost in contemporary mass produced products that replace the biologic ingredients that had medicinal and symbolic importantce with synthetic flavors- that replace wild fermentation, a living process with mechanical carbonation, and sweeten them with mass produced, subsidised corn syrup. Grocery store soda pop is dead but wild fermented sodas and beers and wines are living brews, one of a kind nuanced experiences that strengthen and celebrate the local wildlife an our relationship with in.
His writing style is easy to read, exciting and repeats the parts that you need to read over again. The text works just the way a foraging obsession works. And he's all about figuring out how to express the non monetary value of a plant or place. He explains the magic of knowing the wildlife around you so well.
I've been foraging for 4 big medicinal tea projects since spring. I loved drinking my forest tea every Sunday last winter and wished I could make it a daily practice. I quit fermenting Kombucha, because I didn't need the large quantity of sugar in my diet and didn't love the commercial products I was using but I miss the process.... Duh. The answer is simple. Ferment the medicinal teas I've been working so hard to collect. Use wild yeasts. Throw my own fermenting pots. Taste everything!
I'm very happy that my Underworld Tea is now Root Beer from the Rhyzosphere! My Forest Tea is now Marlborough Mead. I've got Monalulu Scrumpy and Blue Finger Fox Wine fermenting. And Sumac and Rosehip Pop. And my Moon Tea will be medicinal menstrual beer! It's taken no time to get all this going. The book is beautifully illustrated and makes me feel like I've found a kindred spirit....more
I plan to reread this often because it feels like meeting a kindred spirit. He talks about so many things that I daydream about: our ancestral lineageI plan to reread this often because it feels like meeting a kindred spirit. He talks about so many things that I daydream about: our ancestral lineage, the transience of the materials of our body and the flow of minerals and water and air through us. He talks about non human sensory experience shaping the meaning of the world. This book is sprinkled with supportive and loving moments, and forgiveness. It puts life and death into perspective.
My friend had been posting about this and I keep thinking 'oooooh, yaaaa, that sounds like the kind of poetry I like.' so I bought it. I held it in my hand and thought. ' hmm. It's so thin. The pages are so empty. The font and format is terrible. The paper is not nice'. (I've been spoiled by Christian Bok's lovely paper and stylish design.) I thought I'd burn through it in a sitting but after 2 lines I had to stop to think 'oooooh yaaaaaa. This is the kind of poetry I like.' and it kept happening every few lines. So it took some time to finish. It's perfect. Now I look at it and think 'I love the green of this book and the thistles on the cover and how it feels in my hands. He writes about our microbes and the provenance of the water in our bodies and the iron in our blood and wool Sox. I love this book....more
Loading...
