May 14, 2012
The Green Report
by Susun Weed – May 15th, 2012
Greetings!
Come with me into my early garden. I have some lovely plants to share with you. You probably won’t find most of these beauties growing wild where you live, but they are generally easy to grow. Beware! The flowers we choose for our gardens are often poisonous! Some of these garden plants are medicinal and a few are edible, but they are in my garden primarily for their sweet scents and their glorious colors.
Your project this week is to make a wild salad including as many wild flowers as you can. Enjoy!
Green blessings.
Susun
The Green Report
Lungwort (Pulmonaria species)
This member of the Borage family is related to comfrey and was formerly used in much the same way, especially, as the name indicates, to resolve lung problems. Poisonous alkaloids are found in the roots, leaves, and flowers of all members of this family. Hybrids of comfrey have been created to avoid this problem. (See plant 16 in this list.)
Frittilary (Fritillaria meleagris) AKA Checkered Lily
This was my favorite flower as a child. I walked to my grade school in Dallas, and a garden with this pressed up against the fence was on my way. Perhaps it was here that I first felt the fairies and allowed them to guide my life into green blessings.
Bleeding heart (Dicentra spectabilis)
This stunning and unusual flower is found wild in shady hollows and forests in Japan and Siberia, making it one hardy beauty in Northern gardens. The wild relatives in my neck of the woods are called Dutchman’s breeches (Dicentra cucullaria) and Squirrel-corn (Dicentra canadensis). They are all part of the poppy family, which is perhaps why I have never been tempted to even sample one of the flowers.
Wild yam shoot (Discorea villosa)
The root of the wild yam is a valuable source of drugs and widely used in herbal medicine as well. It contains precursors to hormones, including progesterone, but does not contain actual hormones. Whether these precursors are active in the human body is a subject of much debate. United Plant Savers gave me this root, and, to my delight, it has produced a vine that is hardy and quite interesting. I will continue to bring pictures of it to you as it grows.
Lilac (Syringa vulgaris)
I live in lilac country. The gardeners around me love forsythia and lilacs. As the last of the yellow forsythia flowers fall, the lilacs burst into scented bloom. My earliest memory is of this. When I asked my mother about it, she was shocked. A large lilac bloomed under the window of the room where I slept for one month, when I was thirteen months old!
Azalea (Rhododendron species)
Hundreds of wild rhododendrons and azaleas grow wild in North America, Europe, and Asia. The entire plant, including the flowers and the nectar from the flowers, is poisonous. Bees foraging on these plants are said to get drunk. Honey made from the nectar is said to carry the poisonous compounds.
Tulips (Tulipa greigii)
Tulips (Tulipa hybrid)
These edible members of the lily family (which contains some very poisonous groups, like daffodils), bring vivid color to my garden and are a stunning addition to salads. I wait until the tulip petals are drooping before harvesting them to scatter atop my daily wild greens. The darker colored ones are an extra anti-oxidant boost and helpful to the immune system as well.These edible members of the lily family (which contains some very poisonous groups, like daffodils), bring vivid color to my garden and are a stunning addition to salads. I wait until the tulip petals are drooping before harvesting them to scatter atop my daily wild greens. The darker colored ones are an extra anti-oxidant boost and helpful to the immune system as well.
Phlox (Phlox pilosa)
“Phlox” means flame, in honor of the many colors this plant flowers in. From matting, creeping plants, to waist-high stalks, there is a phlox for every garden. They require virtually no care once planted, and will continue to give delight for decades. I have never eaten phlox flowers. Have you?
Queen of the night (Hesperis matronalis) AKA Dame’s rocket
This wildflower is often confused with phlox, for it comes in the same color range and blooms at the same time as the spring blooming phlox. But, as a member of the cabbage/mustard family, Queen of the night has four petals, while phlox has five. I especially enjoy the flowers in my salads. The bigger thrill, however, is to sit by a group of these plants at dusk when they exude a marvelously sweet scent that calls to their pollinator: the hummingbird moth, a moth fully as big as its namesake. Enjoy!
Common blue violet (Viola papilionacea)
Sweet white violet (Viola blanda)
Freckled violet (Viola species)
Broad leafed wood violet (Viola latiuscula)
Violets seem to bloom forever where I live. Not only do the individual plants bloom for a long time, there are so many varieties that one picks up as another is winding down. All of the violets pictured are wildflowers, which I have encouraged in my gardens. I’ve never had to plant them.
The freckled one (and there is only one!) is probably a natural hybrid. The colored flowers of the violets are not reproductive, so we may harvest as many as we like without harm to their continuation in our woods, fields, and gardens. (The reproductive flowers are green and hidden beneath the leaves and come later in the season.)
There are so many ways to use violets and violet flowers. There is no finer early summer breakfast than a piece of home-baked whole wheat bread spread with butter and piled high with fresh violets. I use violet honey to soften the skin and ease away wrinkles. Of course, they bring antioxidants and sighs of delight to our salads.
Violet leaves are also tasty in salads; they provide lavish amounts of vitamins A and C. Violet leaf infusion is a renowned cancer cure; before the price got steep, it was one of my regular infusion herbs. Want more, more, more on violet? Recipes, stories, and medicinal info on violet are all to be found in my green book: Healing Wise.
Rhubarb on top – Comfrey on bottom
Rhubarb (Rheum rhabarbarum) AKA Pie plant
The petioles (leaf stalks) of garden rhubarb are the only part free enough of poisons to be food. Rhubarb root is a powerful cathartic laxative that was an absolute necessity on long ocean voyages of discovery and whaling. Imagine a diet of salted meat and dried beans, where water is strictly rationed, to get an idea of the value of an explosive gut opener. Approach the roots with extreme caution; or do what many herbalists do, and rely on its less aggressive sister, yellow dock, when things need to be moved in the gut.
Comfrey (Symphytum uplandica x)
Comfrey the comforting is one of the most important healing plants in the world. It strengthens and increases the flexibility of bones (AKA Knit bone), ligaments, tendons, skin, and mucus surfaces, including respiratory, digestive, and reproductive tissues. It also contains proteins used to create short-term memory. I will re-picture comfrey for you when it is flowering and ready to harvest. I have used comfrey leaf infusion as a regular part of my diet for nearly 30 years with no problems. (My liver is very healthy, thank you very much.)
Wild Salad with Wild Flowers
You will need a sharp pair of plant scissors and a few baskets. For safety sake, I harvest each plant into a different container. Keep the chickweed stalks parallel as you cut them and place them in your basket that way, making them much easier to cut into uniform pieces.
Largest basket (about 50% of salad): chickweed leaves, flowers, and stalks
Large basket (about 25% of salad): first year garlic mustard leaves
Medium basket (about 5% of salad): mild leaves, your choice, mallow or five-finger ivy (Virginia creeper)
Smaller baskets (total of 20% of salad): aromatic, strong-tasting plants like lemon balm, wild oregano, bergamot, cronewort, mint, catnip, and thyme
Smallest basket: Mixed flowers. Individual blossoms of Queen of the Night, violets, periwinkle, and wild geranium. Entire flower heads of garlic mustard and barbara’s cress.
Preparation: Cut chickweed into small (1/2 inch) pieces; tear garlic mustard, mallow, and five-finer ivy into bite-sized pieces; finely mince aromatic plants. Combine in a bowl. Add a splash of tamari, a good pour of herbal vinegar, and plenty of extra virgin olive oil (at least one tablespoonful per serving of salad). Toss, artfully arrange flowers or simply toss them on the salad and serve.
I like gomasio (sesame salt) on my salads, so I shall have to teach you how to make it soon! Green blessings.
Salad with gomasio
She Is Enough by Roslyne Sophia Breillat
Throughout the mythology of ancient and Indigenous cultures she is Goddess, deity, cornucopia, spirit, wise and passionate womb of plenty. She is enjoyed as fulsome, celebrated as abundant, respected as wise, awed as untamed. Honoured and revered for her mysterious capacity for transformation, creation and change, her rhythmic dance flows wildly and freely from cycle to cycle, from lunar phase to lunar phase, from season to season, from birth, to death and beyond, an infinite circle swirling within an infinite universe.
The sublime integrity of her ancient wisdom and her wild, wild ways were never challenged, doubted or questioned, for the chaotic yet radiant beauty of her sacred essence was perceived and received in humility, awe and gratitude. Without needing to know anything, without needing to learn anything, the wise heart of her abundant womb always knows how to transform night into day, bring the buds into blossoming, sprout the fragile seedlings of the mighty forests, provide nutritious food, pure water and comfortable shelter for all, orchestrate her magnificent creation, every season, every cycle, every moment. The tribes and cultures who lived in sacredness and harmony with her inherent rhythms did not need satellite and computer technology to interpret her cyclic weather patterns and her seasonal transitions, for they were so deeply attuned with her natural ways. And those who loved her and lived in humble gratitude for her wisdom and her beneficence had no need for more, or for her to become more, for she was enough.
Ever since patriarchal civilisation deemed her as “not enough”, humanity has believed it is better, stronger, more important, more powerful, more resourceful than her. This ignorant belief of a society where knowing is more important than not knowing, thinking is more important than feeling, force is more important than power, doing is more important than being, busyness is more important than rest, mind is more important than mystery, intellect is more important than heart, has now seeped insidiously into the female psyche, creating deep wounding amid myriad layers of fear and doubt. Through forgetfulness and repression of their true nature, too many women now believe this untrue doctrine that emphatically declares, “I am bigger, better and stronger than you, my God is better than your Goddess, my wars are more important than your children, my technology is more potent than your natural healing, my toxic chemicals are more important than your humble herbs, my rape is more powerful than your lovemaking, my intellectual capabilities are far superior to your intuition. For you are not enough unless you become like me and the womb of your beloved Earth is not enough because I can do better than the Earth.”
The natural ebbing and flowing of a woman’s innately lunar cycle and her innately lunar essence is not enough for a world that does not acknowledge her need to turn inwards, to enjoy peace, rest, inner nurturing and the replenishment bestowed by her changing female consciousness during her sacred moon time. For, according to this world, her moon cycles and her womb cycles are not important, they are not worth honouring, they are not enough. Being a mother is not enough, for too many women must work long hours to support their families, because according to this masculine world, being a woman, being female, birthing and nurturing her children are not enough. She is expected to do more, to add to who she is, for she is not honoured as simply being who she is.
Her body, the abundant creative body of the Earth, is not enough, for it must be forced, dieted, starved of her natural flowing curves until she becomes too thin to be who she is and too gaunt to know who she is. Her nurturing outpouring breasts are no longer enough, for they must be enhanced, reduced, enlarged, reshaped and displayed by ugly synthetic underwear. The passionate life-giving wisdom of her female loins is not enough, for it must be suppressed by physical violation, interference, force, rigid timetables and toxic drugs, until she births her babies when and how others decree, instead of sweetly surrendering to this wise life giving and love giving power of her womb consciousness. She must aspire to become more, she must force herself to do more, she must accumulate more, for contemporary society perceives her as less.
The ancient powerful wisdom that choreographs her mighty menopausal metamorphosis from deep within her womb must be suppressed and denied by this mechanical, technological, linear world that thinks it knows more about the intrinsic, healing, cyclic ways of the female body and psyche than she does, for this world sees the menopausal woman as not being enough. She is not young enough, she is not fast enough, she is not beautiful enough, she is not useful enough. And so this world suffers by not receiving and enjoying and being grateful for the power of her wisdom, the passion of her transformational fire, the chaotic dance of her wise, wild ways.
Close your eyes… Remove your shoes, feel your bare feet merge with sand or rocks or dirt or grass or stream or lake or sea… Lie down with your bare belly resting gently against the Earth… Feel your sacred womb pulse as one with the sacred womb pulse of the Earth, feel her support, her power, her love… Breathe deeply and slowly and softly into the vast depths of your womb consciousness, into the stillness and darkness and peace of your deepest womb heart, into this heart and womb of the Earth… For in this vast and true inner place of your exquisite female essence, beneath and beyond the untrue ways of the outer world, you dear woman, like your beloved Earth, are enough… And this is more than enough…
Written and illustrated by Roslyne Sophia Breillat
Copyright ~ Roslyne Sophia Breillat ©
Not to be reproduced without author’s permission
Sophia is a wise woman who lives, writes, and paints from the heart. Her prolific articles and paintings embrace the wisdom and grace of the female essence and the beauty of the earth. She is acknowledged as a powerful and courageous writer whose creative work features throughout many international websites and magazines and she is the author of the book, Womb of Wisdom, The Sacred Journey of Menopause. Her website is an abundant offering of female wisdom that nurtures and inspires and she is available for wildheartwisdom mentoring and counselling consultations via telephone or skype.
Website ~ www.wildheartwisdom.com
Email ~ sophia@wildheartwisdom.com
Wise Woman University
Being Woman with Roslyne Sophia Breillat
This online course provides a sacred and nurturing space where woman can learn to surrender more deeply to the natural receptivity of the female psyche. Throughout this series of lessons she will learn to trust the innate flow of her intuitive nature and to listen more intimately to the wellspring of her inner source. And we will explore together how to live more fully as the embodiment of the feminine essence within the structures of a masculine civilisation.
Dawning of Wisdom with Roslyne Sophia Breillat
This online course provides a sacred and nurturing space where woman can learn to surrender more deeply to the natural receptivity of the female psyche. Throughout this series of lessons she will learn to trust the innate flow of her intuitive nature and to listen more intimately to the wellspring of her inner source. And we will explore together how to live more fully as the embodiment of the feminine essence within the structures of a masculine civilisation.
The Wise Woman Center
May 19, 2012 – Herbal First Aid with Susun Weed
The best way to develop confidence in the healing powers of herbs is to use them for first aid. From bruises to burns, cuts to stings, and beyond, we will focus on the herbs to reach for first. We will identify and talk about plantain, comfrey, yarrow, aloe vera, and a variety of plants to help you. Register Here …
May 20 – 2012: Hands-on Herbal Medicine/Early Summer with Susun Weed
Join Susun for a walk and a talk and hands-on experience identifying, harvesting, and making wild meals and herbal remedies from the lush variety of plants that early summer offers us. We will make a wild food salad and create one or more tinctures, vinegars, or oils. Register Here …
GODDESS!! Manifesting the Goddess in YOU – Intensive with Z Budapest
Focus the intentions in your life towards creating a better world. Make your dreams and aspirations a reality. It is possible! Think you need more time, more money, more skills to create what you truly desire? Go deeper with Dr. Z! See that your true potential isn’t rooted in those mundane tokens, but within your inner-Goddess. Learn More Here …
Wise Woman Radio
Susun Weed interviews coach, writer and speaker Sue Rasmussen
Susun Weed on You Tube
Learn about beautiful Chickweed with Susun
Published by wwezine on May 14th, 2012 Tagged Events Calendar, Ezine Articles, Wise Woman Radio, YouTube Videos | Comment now »