Monthly Archives: August 2017

We learn what we love

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I love sitting outside our new home with my Mom. After living 20 years in Florida our New York rural backyard is quite the change of scenery for her. She often asks me the names of our trees and plants. Although, I haven’t had much time to explore our new land, I am able to answer most of her questions along with adding some interesting details. She always seems amazed and asks me how I know all these things. My simple answer, “We learn what we love.” Basically, I have been exploring the natural world as far back as I can remember. Perhaps, she just thought I was simply playing in the backyard as a child, but it went deeper than that. I would observe how the seasons and land changed and what happened to the critters as they go through metamorphosis in our little brook behind our house. I was very curious about everything in the woods and was fortunate to grow up on over 2 acres of forested land in suburbia.

When I was little we went to the Bronx Zoo, and remember reading a poem by a Senegalese conservationist that was engraved into a stone wall.

“In the end, we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand and we will understand only what we are taught.”― Baba Dioum

The quote resonated with me and has stayed with me ever since. I love learning about the natural world, and, I’ve always tried my best to conserve all its wonderful resources. Simply put, I feel at home, at peace in the natural world ~ understanding the flow and connections is down right thrilling for me. The experience centers me. When I go too long without a pause in nature, I can feel its absence deep inside, like my soul screaming for relief. The simple antidote ~ walk outside, hug a tree, and be with the natural world. Some days it may be more challenging to steal a moment from my daily tasks but I try my best to not go too long without it.

I think it is so important to find out what we enjoy in life and pursue it. Yes, we all need to make a living and can’t always support ourselves by pursuing our passions. Nevertheless, it doesn’t mean that our passions can’t be part of our lives. Some lucky souls may have the good fortune to pursue their passion everyday, while there is always evenings, weekends or time after retirement for everyone else.  Regardless, we must all explore life and find joy, whatever it may be.

Know Your Roots found a new home!

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Spring is a time for new beginnings, and so it is appropriate that early this past spring we found our new home. Finding a home for our multigenerational family and business was no easy task. It took almost two years. Our list of needs and wants was great and nothing seemed to fit the bill until we walked into the house on Brook Road. It simply felt right, as if we always belonged there ~ home. Although it was very painful saying farewell to the land we nurtured for almost 7 year; it was clear that we were making the right move.

There are many wonderful features to our new home but the one that is hard to miss, are the gardens. The previous owners had cultivated the landscape for over 23 years with lots of love and intention ~ not to mention, hard work. As an herbalist and forager, the land will present many amazing learning opportunities for me. There are so many cultivated plants that I have never come across before. Some plant varieties are familiar, as I know their wild relative but others are quite foreign to me. It will be wonderful experimenting and learning from all my new green allies.

The land does have some of my favorites, while others are not to be found, so I did my best to transplant my dear plants into the nursery Mike built for them. Folks, let me be honest, this was very difficult for the forager in me. I felt like a fish out of water, I am not sure I did it right, but I do visit them a lot, ask them to grow and water them with lots of love and intentions. I hope they feel comfortable and will flourish on their new land.

Interestingly, Boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum) did not come back in abundance on the land at my old house this year. Therefore, I only took one small plant. Sadly, it wilted within the 2 mile drive to the new house. I was very nervous and planted it on the edge of our little stream bed in the back, as it likes wet feet. To my surprise, it is doing the best out of all the transplants and has already started to produce buds.

I am eager to teach and share our new land with you. My first class “The Golden Answer,” will held be on September 2nd. It will be fun exploring the Golden Goddess on our new land. I am particularly, curious to see how many different varieties of Solidago we will find. There are over 130 different species in North America. Our old land had huge stands of Goldenrod, which predominately 5 species. A time of new beginnings begins…

I am looking forward to sharing and exploring our new land with you.