forestsword

[forestsword]

Then, as a psychologist, I think you’re confusing suicide with self-destruction, and they’re very different. Almost none of us commit suicide, whereas almost all of us self-destruct. Somehow. In some part of our lives. We drink, or take drugs, or destabilize the happy job… or happy marriage. But these aren’t decisions. They’re impulses. And in fact, as a biologist, you’re better placed to explain them than me. What do you mean? Isn’t the self-destruction coded into us? Imprinted into each cell.

[forestsword]

[forestsword]

[forestsword]

When the land that gave rise to me caught on fire.

When I went to the rivers barren of salmon.

Both places, both times I wept

But then I knew gratitude.

Gratitude for every snail and fern my eyes rested upon.

Every mountain laurel that bestowed its scent upon me.

Hold onto what you love, let the wonder of this land and the love of your kin non human and human bolster your spirit.

If you are reading this I want one thing for my birthday

I want to hear what you are grateful, who or what do you love deeply?

Blessings of the fern to you /|\

Hail The Dawn

#animism #love #bioregional animism #family #gratitude #nature #coronavirus

[forestsword]

You can't call it The Green Knight if there's no "badge of blame" or "sash of shame". Regardless of whether they maintain Gawain's strong faith in the Virgin Mary, he better wear that green girdle as a symbol of lost faith when he gets back to Arthur's court for Christmas or else that's not my Gawain!

[forestsword]

Albert Lynch (1851–1912), Joan of Arc, engraving from Figaro Illustre magazine, 1903

[forestsword]

In Tolkien lore there is a saying

“Do not trust to hope, it has forsaken these lands”

It is not that hope has no place in our world

Instead we rest upon it too much, we must acknowledge that hope has led us into complacency.

Into a throne of inactions and distractions, forever enshrined in the ice of grief.

But what do we do then?

Is there even anything to be done?

I do not know the answers necessarily, but I do know that laying down and surrendering our hearts to the march of destruction and apathy is not what you or I want.

So Let the hearth be a bulwark against this creeping darkness, build upon your knowledge and practices so they may be passed down to future generations, they will be the ones that will suffer more then you and I.

We can only do so much but those little actions build upon each other, this is the long game and we may not see results in our lifetimes but this matters not, what matters is that we fulfill our oath to the lands that gave rise to us.

To the lands that shaped our childhoods and hearts, you and I are all of this planet, our fates woven into a greater tapestry.

Cultivate strong communities

Grow resistance wherever the soil is fertile

Sharpen your bodies and minds.

We need all kinds of warriors, wielding all kinds of tools, everyone from young to old can help.

After we are gone what memories will we leave?

What stories will be told?

What songs will be sung?

Stories can inspire great things, from inventions to political action. stories are how we grow and sometimes sadly it is how we also rot.

So what story will you tell? What story will you make? I hope this doesn’t sound like a lecture, I have plenty to work on in my own life.

Maybe there won’t be many of us left but I’d like to imagine a time when a group of our descendants huddle round the hearth and tell tales together.

Tales of love, struggle, responsibility and diversity and of course courage.

Courage is what we must keep.

Hail The Dawn!

#environmentalism #bioregional animism #animism #obod #druidism #earth #courage #storytelling

[forestsword]

May you have the courage to speak of what has fallen away.

May you remember your old dreams

[forestsword]

It’s been a wild journey and it always takes a toll.

But I hope that the journeys you will undertake and have taken, leave you unscathed.

Things aren’t easy in this civilization because it

Wasn’t meant for us.

It was meant for the tyrants and the soulless

But know that you aren’t alone.

I know I am not

Everyday the land sees you and every dawn the light rests on your brow.

Power to you.

[forestsword]

John Hargrave (“White Fox”), The Totem Talks (London: C. Arthur Pearson Ltd., 1920).

https://www.ebay.com/itm/The-Totem-Talks-by-John-Hargrave-White-Fox-1920-Paperback/254329001808?hash=item3b37309750:g:C4wAAOSw-hVdUfjb

[forestsword]

A revolutionary phase-change all around. Until that Promethean moment, fire history had remained a subset of natural history, particularly of climate history. Now, notch by notch, fire gradually ratcheted into a new era in which natural history, including climate, would become subsets of fire history. In a sense, the rhythms of anthropogenic fire began to replace the Milankovitch climate cycles which had governed the coming and going of ice ages. A fire age was in the making.

Earth had a new source of ecological energy. Places that were prone to burn but had lacked regular ignition (think Mediterranean biomes) now got it, and places that burned more or less routinely had their fire rhythms tweaked to suit their human fire tenders. Species and biomes began a vast reshuffling that defined new winners and losers.

The species that won biggest was ourselves. Fire changed us, even to our genome. We got small guts and big heads because we could cook food. We went to the top of the food chain because we could cook landscapes. And we have become a geologic force because our fire technology has so evolved that we have begun to cook the planet. Our pact with fire made us what we are.

We hold fire as a species monopoly. We will not share it willingly with any other species. Other creatures knock over trees, dig holes in the ground, hunt – we do fire. It’s our ecological signature. Our capture of fire is our first experiment with domestication, and it might may well be our first Faustian bargain.

- The Fire Age

[forestsword]

Il demonio (Brunello Rondi, 1963)

[forestsword]

“So, if you are too tired to speak, sit next to me because I, too, am fluent in silence.”

— R. Arnold

[forestsword]

The master speaks in wind words

[forestsword]

Dreams 1990 ‘夢’ Directed by Akira Kurosawa, Ishirô Honda

[forestsword]

There is nothing I can say, I cannot hold anyone to action

I cannot sit here and be an armchair activist

You and me are not seperate from this place

We are this place.

There is an oath that you take at the altar of poplar tree and confluence of rivers

[forestsword]

Find of the Day: 🌿 A Guide to Medicnal Plants of Appalachia 🌼

I found this pdf today while doing a bit of research on herbs and plants in my bioregion that have known medicinal uses.

Now don’t get as excited as I did when you look at this and think you hit the jackpot with a list of all the herbs to go find and what they do. This guide isn’t for that.

What this guide does do provide is a list of medicinal herbs that were being bought by the drug companies and drug stores in the 1960s and 1970s. The guide itself was “prepared to help collectors identify, collect and handle plant, plant parts and pollen”

Not only is it a user guide to beginning herb collection it breaks down what part of the plant has medicinal uses. Unfortunately the guide doesn’t list what the uses are. I’ll have to cross reference this with other sources

On its own the guide is a fascinating historical look at the development of pharmaceutical practices in Appalachia. I especially enjoyed the list of buyers for collected specimens.

It doesn’t take much of a jump to think that if these plants were being bought by drug stores obviously folks in the area also knew their uses and used them in their work.

So I intend to use this guide to build a base knowledge of plants in my bioregion whit known medicinal uses and even ones I could eventually grow in a garden or forage for.

I hope that other folks find this a useful post. I though it was a interesting find in a rather mundane location.

I’d like to hear from other folks on how you might use it or if it is all helpful.