About the time I started gardening regularly, towards the end of my undergrad days, I also become interested in herbal medicine. Quickly, I learned that many of the common weeds gardeners, farmers, and lawn enthusiasts tends to despise are, in fact, medicines. Dandelion, plantain, goldenrod, milk thistle, nettle. All of these have excellent health benefits and – their tenaciousness usually translates into invasiveness if left unchecked.
Probably reminds some of you of certain personal habit patterns you have. The critical thinking that turns into heavy negativity and pessimism. The awareness of potential dangers that turns into chronic worry. The desire to satisfy your sweet tooth that turns into overeating.
How do you handle such issues? Are you like an angry gardener violently trying to eliminate them, or are you more patient and curious about them?
Like with “weeds,” I’ve noticed a lot of all or nothing thinking surrounding these things. Note the presence of anti-intellectualism in some spiritual circles, thinking that thinking itself must be eradicated or else it destroy our chance at liberation. Or how people decide to become vegans and remove all possible “toxins” from their diet, not because of it being an appropriate response to their conditions, but because they believe this is the only way to be “right” with nature.
There’s a lot of ignorance when it comes to the nature of ecosystems. Our minds are ecosystems, just as with the natural world. A thinking pattern that might be poisonous in large quantities may be the perfect medicine if understood, and kept from taking over the rest of the mind.
Conventional gardeners and farmers think nothing of removing – often eradicating – every last plant they deem “unnecessary.” Never mind the medicinal qualities of a given weed, how many folks are simply clueless as to how these plants are supporting other species and the soil, which benefits the plants they want to grow?
In my own garden, plenty of “weeds” flourish. I leave wild patches grow, which brings in more bees and butterflies. I have a patch of nettles that I trim throughout the summer, both for teas and greens, and also for growth control. I also regularly remove those plants that attempt to take over the plants I’m intending to grow, and use their decayed bodies to enrich the soil.
I’d like to think that I’m working with my mind in the same way. Learning when to til the soil and plant new “mind seeds,” when to be curious and patient, and when to simply let some wildness be.
I’ll readily admit struggling with hatred towards the grapevines that spread like mad every year, despite the annual attempts to remove them completely. Perhaps they are my ecosystem teacher, and perhaps it’s okay that I don’t like them much.
Photo Credit:
Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.
Recent Nathan Thompson Articles:
- A Balm for Your Body and Mind
- The Gifts of Comfrey
- Learning in the Community Garden
- Passionflowers
- The Beautiful, Powerful Coneflower
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