Sunday, February 19, 2012

Again I couldn't muster the energy for a full walk through the park, due to illness.  Instead, I poked around the edges and saw signs of spring.  The Indian plum is leafing out, not quite blooming yet.  The tall Oregon grape has large flower clusters that haven't opened up yet.  Some of the snowberry bushes are covered with fresh little leaves while other snowberry bushes remain dormant.  Some trilliums have poked their heads up through the leaf litter while others are still sleeping. 

Since I have been reading Pacific Feast, I decided to try a little nettle tea, to see if it would help my cold.  I found nettles on private property that are just poking up, and I harvested less than five percent of the colony, with permission of the property owner.  I was careful not to get stung as I snipped off the tops of two plants.  I steeped the nettles in boiling water for fifteen minutes.  It smelled a bit like spinach, so I added a little sugar before tasting it.  With sugar, it was okay, nothing special that I would seek out.  I can't say that it has particularly made me feel better so far. 

60 minutes had a segment on the placebo effect.  The book by Pojar and McKinnon is full of supposed medicinal uses of native plants, and I wonder if the effect may have come from the expectation of a cure.  If I want to reap the benefits of medicinal plants, do I need to cultivate a peculiar ignorance?  Do I need to believe in the power of the plant to heal me?  I can believe in nature, I can believe in the potential goodness of humans and Traditional Ecological Knowledge, but I don't know if I am able to believe in the curative properties of nettles.  I hope it can still work on a skeptic. 

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