Weedcrafting

    This is a time of Earth challenges, extremes, and disappearing wildlands.  My path during this time is as a Herbalist, following the age-old tradition of collecting what grows around me and preparing it for myself and others to bring more balance to our lives.  The balance may be physical, emotional or spiritual. I do grow […]

    This is a time of Earth challenges, extremes, and disappearing wildlands.  My path during this time is as a Herbalist, following the age-old tradition of collecting what grows around me and preparing it for myself and others to bring more balance to our lives.  The balance may be physical, emotional or spiritual. I do grow some herbs but my great love and passion for herbalism came when I first began seeking out, or hunting, wild medicinal plants.  There is no greater joy for me than to go into a deep dark forest, or a blinding desert and stumble upon a magical remedy.    I like to wander.   My wanderings have taken me all over North America looking for plants.  As gas prices, food prices and quality, and just LIVING gets harder, I find myself staying more and more in one place. 
    I think its an important part of our evolution as herbalists and ecologists to continue to redefine wildcrafting, or wild collecting, of herbs.  I was taught by some how to pick, by others how to see, and still others just HOW to walk in the woods.  Wildcrafting as Howie Brounstein teaches, is stewardship.  99% of what I do is hone my skills as a keen observer of the natural world. I note carefully where the stands of certain wild medicinals prefer to congregate.  As wildlands become smaller, I am again redefining my place as a wildcrafter and choosing to have more of a role as a weedcrafter. 

    Who are the weedcrafters?  Weedcrafters are those of us who love to take in mutts who were abused, turn trash into treasure, find food in dumpsters and camp out in the city greenbelts and forests. 
    Weedcrafting is for those of us herbalists who are surrounded by waste spaces, degraded and forgotten land, land that is no longer pristine and perfect but roughened up, and lonely.  Weedcrafters are herbalists who want to reclaim these feral spaces and steward them.  Weedcrafters pick up trash, spread dandelion seeds and clear out overly enthusiastic plants to use as medicine to help bring diversity back into places.  We watch the cement in old roads and trails break apart and get covered with greenery with pleasure.  We collect seeds from pretty plants in every nook and cranny and throw them on green monocropped lawns.  We protect these places just as we would any wildland, because this is feral land.  It can be found anywhere, in any part of any city or town.

    Weedcrafting is a form of recreating our wildlands, and growing beauty wherever we are.