Between the library and gurrella gardening on Thursday, I took a trip up to forest-park to meditate and learn the latin names of trees...forest-park is an amazing, unique-to-Portland urban forest of about 100 acres or so...the largest urban forest in North America....and I love it! Some parts of forest-park are basically a botanical garden; the latin and common names of trees are staked into the ground and I get to wander around and learn them; which is great! I also get to hug and carress trees, and ask them my hardest questions about life. And although they never answer with words, they give me a great sense of "rightness", they tell me to live with my heart, to trust my instinces and to not panic about the smallish questions, but rather to focus on growth and stability. I love that about trees (especially cedars,) the stability and calm you being to feel, after only a few moments with back pressed to bark.
I was amazed to find that all the trees in forest-park apparently think it is spring; it has been unseasonally warm here, and all the trees where budding and sap was running, so strongly, that you could actually feel warmth on the trunks of some of the thinner barked varities, while their branches remanded cold. I found that amazing; I've never felt the pulse of trees before! I also discovered a group of Strawberry-Fruit bushes (their real name escapes me at the moment,) and was able to fill a whole Dickies' purse with Strawberry-Fruit, which made a welcome refreshment at the gurrella gardening project.
Last night, Ian and I went out to Tryon State Park, just outside of Portland, to spend the night so that we could join an herb walk in the woods; the busses out of Portland in that direction didn't run early enough in the morning to make it, so we decided it was warm enough to sleep out in the woods. Tryon State Park is wonderful too...ferns the size of some Jurassic-Park set piece grow under massive Doug Firs, the ground was damp and moist and everything had that lovely forest-mud smell...wet duff is probably one of the most wonderful smells on the planet, to my noise! We found a cozy little spot in the ferns right next to a little gully; we cozied up together and listened with joy to SLIENCE! Or, relative slience anyway, since the woods are never really slient. We looked at un-light-polluted stars and sang to each other the joys of the moon...
Later, we awoke to the hooting of the owl; which was a great relief to me to hear, since I've been hearing lately about how owls everywhere are disappearing, since owls are particularly sensitive birds and need very specific environments to survive and thrive. I lived last year with a couple of bird biologists who kept me filled in on the fates of various birds; they where particularly concerned about owls. To hear an owl was such a life-affirming thing; as opposed to ancient societies, who viewed the owl as the harbringer of death, I heard the owl and thought "yes! Life struggles on, despite it all!"
We joined the herb walk directed by lovely Missy Rohs of the Arctos School of Herbal and Botanical Studies (Arctos is the latin word for bear, Missy explained, and bears are apparently very knowledgable about herbal healing and use herbs for their own healing and health.) Missy taught us about some of my favorite plants, including Oregon Grape, Lemonbalm, Cedar, Hazel, Licorice-Fern, Ladyfern, Swordfern, Salmonberry, Raspberry, Snowberry and many, many others. She taught us the magical properties of some herbs as well, such as the magical properties of the Elderberry, which is a transporting herb, to the land of the Fey, so she said.
Later, we rambled over to Tryon Lifeways Community, an intentional community out in Tryon State Park. Tryon Lifeways is always open to the public, so we wandered around on a self-guided tour, petting miniture sheep and checking out cob-buildings, gardens, teepees, urts and composting outhouses. I began to dream of my eventual community in Upstate New York, and what that would look like. We talked about a community of sorts which had been built amoust the landfill dump in Albany, California, where the government had dumped all the rubble from one of the big earthquakes that leveled San Francisco, I believe.
It was an amazing day; despite the fact that we awoke to frost on the ground all around us, and despite the fact that I had whimpered, more then once about the cold in the night, we awoke to a bright, blinding sun, a tramp in the woods, and leftover Food Not Bombs on the side of the road while waiting for the bus; with insurrectional poetry read to me by Ian.
Love ya,
Carrot
