Due to the globalized state of the world, many plants, such as ginger, garlic, and rosemary, can be found virtually anywhere, and are amazing staples that you can thankfully buy anywhere.
However, if you grew up in one place, with your parents or grandparents making you specific teas and you uprooted to a new place with a completely different ecosystem and you were left without a remedy, have no fear.
One of my teachers taught me that in every place I went, there would be seven plants that could solve all of my physical ailments. As I travelled, I began to experience the magical truth of this first hand. Even in the middle of the desert I ran into a magical being who trotted around like a deer making me sniff and taste all of these random shrubs, sharing with me all of their properties. Nature shares with us it's lessons, but we must never forget the rule of exchange, of receiving and giving.
So here is a beautiful set of principles that we have learned works for us (some from our human and plants teachers, some directly from the cloud) when foraging in this beautiful exchange so that not only we get healthier from them, but so does Gaia as a whole:
- Firstly, get familiar with the plant: its medicinal qualities, which parts you want to harvest, and when in the plants growth cycle you should harvest them, and how you will process the plant once harvested.
- Set an intention; as you set out to look for your medicine, speak to Gaia, tell her what you seek and why. Give thanks for the abundance she shares with us.
- Leave an offering; these things are quite personal. While some might prefer to leave an offering every few weeks or months, others do so before every forage, and others even do it when they find their first plant (and don't harvest anything from that first plant), and some do it after. I say go with your gut! This will be different for every person, and possibly in every exchange. However I do think it is very important to give back something, it can be literally anything; for me it helps to meditate and ask them what they want, sometimes it's as simple as a note, other times it has been more intense like my favorite piece of jewelry, locks of hair, or I've even been asked to leave my blood. Beware if you don't ever leave offerings, Gaia has a way of taking them from you.
- Ask permission before harvesting. Even if a plant has medicinal qualities, it may not want to be medicine! ASK FIRST. I even go as far as to ask which parts of the plants I can take, how much of it I can harvest, and sometimes even how it prefers to be used. One of my teachers even taught me to ask it how it wants to be used because maybe it has an effect on you that differs from the traditional use, and that is amazing to find out. Meditating with the plant always helps. If it is a new plant, he also taught us to meditate with it repeatedly for at least a week to get to know it before I start harvesting to better focus my intention.
- There are few plants you need to wholly kill to take from. I personally prefer to harvest a little bit from many plants instead of a lot from a few. That way I don't cause them too much harm and if someone else comes along they can take some as well.
- Give thanks
- If the plant has already flowered and has seeds, spread some! Help it keep spreading its information (you can find out what the seeds look like in your previous investigation as well).
- Process the plan. Depending on the plant and how you will be using it, the process for medicine making will be different, make sure to learn about this beforehand as to not let the plant you've foraged go to waste.
We will try to cover the specific details of foraging certain plants in future posts.
We hope this was helpful! Happy foraging!