{"id":90135,"date":"2024-10-18T16:56:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-18T23:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/?p=90135"},"modified":"2024-09-17T16:03:12","modified_gmt":"2024-09-17T23:03:12","slug":"introducing-the-friendly-spirits-of-the-big-horn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/?p=90135","title":{"rendered":"Introducing the friendly spirits of the Big Horn"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cTouching grass\u201d\u2014 Leaving our little digital bubbles and getting in contact with the natural world around us. It\u2019s usually part of a joke when this phrase is typed out on the internet, but what it implies about our human need for connection with the plant world is real. As someone who\u2019s been touching grass professionally for the last two and a half months, I think I\u2019d do well to ponder it for a while. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had the wonderful opportunity late this August to attend a presentation at the local \u201cfood forest\u201d by a Northern Cheyenne elder and his son. They are both ethnobotanists and spend their time learning about and sharing the stories of the Cheyenne\u2019s traditional way of life and relationship with the plants of the region. They spoke of a people whose lives were intertwined with native plants not only out of necessity, but also voluntarily due to affection and desire for kinship with these spirits that surrounded them.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEvery plant has its own story\u201d, they said. On the table in front of them were many plants that I have seen on the forest this summer\u2014Artemisia frigida<\/em> \u201cWoman\u2019s sage\u201d and Artemisia ludoviciana<\/em> \u201cMan\u2019s sage\u201d, ceremonial gifts; Ratibida columnifera<\/em> \u201cRattlesnake medicine\u201d, which reduces the effects of rattlesnake venom when chewed into a poultice and placed on an incision near the bite; Prunus virginiana<\/em> \u201cChokecherry\u201d, which Cheyenne would harvest in the late summer and fall to be crushed and dried into patties that would feed hungry mouths through the long winter.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From left to right: Man’s Sage, Woman’s Sage, Rattlesnake Medicine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Their relationship to plants doesn\u2019t end with the products that the plants provide; It extends to the inter-plant-personal\u2014living being to living being. The elder and his son told about grandmothers laying out hearty meals at the feet of trees for them to enjoy, about how complimenting a particular patch of poison ivy on its beautiful sheen persuaded it to hold back with its itchy attacks, and always they imparted that we, humans and plants and even the soil, are all spirits connected through community as part of creation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m cheating a little with this blog post by merely recounting what I\u2019ve heard (but that\u2019s what stories are for, anyway). Here\u2019s a bit about seed collecting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An attendee at one of the elder\u2019s presentations once asked permission to take home some seed, so he told the attendee \u201cyou don\u2019t need to take any seed\u2014all you need to do is to touch the tree\u201d. He told us, \u201cplants have a way of following us home. There\u2019s a magic about them. They\u2019ll spring up in your yard\u201d. I\u2019ll take his word for it\u2014there’s been many a day when the seeds of needlegrass burrow deep into the hem of my pants and spill onto the floor when I take my boots off at home. That said, I won\u2019t be altering the protocol when we\u2019re out in the field. We can\u2019t count on enough needlegrass following us home to satisfy what we need for this project. We do need to actively harvest.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a different kind of relationship that we have with plants as seed collectors this summer, but I\u2019d say it\u2019s still one based on respect and mutual good will. We leave plants be when the population isn\u2019t large enough or healthy enough to withstand the stress. We collect no more than one fifth of the seed to leave plenty for the seed bank in the soil. Some members of the botany crew have even told me that they say thank you to the plants when they collect seed or take a specimen. What we\u2019re doing, while perhaps reparative and necessary only due to our own impact on plant life through development and contribution to increasing wildfire risk, is an act of love and care for the plants and for the world community that they are vital to. And we benefit greatly from their fruits and the fruits of our labor through the maintenance of the vitality and beauty of our public lands, which are nourishing to people in many ways. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From left to right: Chokecherry, Echinacea<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen they are upset after being punished, children run and climb up high in a tree, not to come down until suppertime. Just touching the plant calms us down and takes away the bad feelings. When the child comes down and goes home, everything is alright again<\/em>.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like I said before, we\u2019ve been touching a lot of grass, and other plants for that matter. We can be in a field for hours on end, stripping seed from heads of grass, inhabiting quiet save for the sigh of wind and the chirping of crickets. For me, it\u2019s time with brain empty. We\u2019ve had other people from the office come collect with us, and they describe it in a nicer way: \u201cmeditative\u201d. Either way, all this grass touching does something for us. The same way that working in the garden, or walking through the woods keeps us grounded. It\u2019s an inter-plant-personal relationship that we\u2019re all lucky enough to enjoy this summer. Whether I\u2019ve got my nose in the wild mint while at work, or my toes in the lawn playing corn hole on the weekend, I\u2019m glad to have a connection with plants. I hope they\u2019re happy too. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cTouching grass\u201d\u2014 Leaving our little digital bubbles and getting in contact with the natural world around us. It\u2019s usually part of a joke when this phrase is typed out on the internet, but what it implies about our human need … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[3634],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90135"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=90135"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90334,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90135\/revisions\/90334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=90135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=90135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=90135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}