The Wet Meadow continues to be a source of beauty, medicine, and amazement. On Sunday my student Robyn and I walked into the Wet Meadow and found the Boneset just bursting into bloom. The white of the Boneset flowers combined with the magenta of Gravel Root blooms; the stiff pink spires of Steeplebush and the softer ivory flower heads of its Spirea relative Meadowsweet; gently swaying yellow Goldenrod contrasting with the rigid antlers of the Blue Vervain against the beige and green hues of fading seed bearing grasses was enchanting. This is not the mundane world of 21st Century New England . This is the natural world of timeless beauty and connection to innate wisdom. Here you can be at one with the environment.
Eupatorium perfoliatum or Boneset
Eupatorium purpureum or Gravel Root
Spirea tomentosa Steeple Bush or Hardhack
Spirea ulmaria or Meadowsweet
Solidago or Goldenrod
Verbena hastata or Blue Vervain
Anyone who stepped into the beauty of this Meadow and communed with the plant beings living here would be hard pressed not to make all efforts possible to step lightly on the planet in terms of energy use, recycling, and organic living. The truth of the matter is that every inch of Mother Earth is just as precious as this remote bog of flowering meadow plants. Your yard, the parking lot next door, the smog smothered Los Angeles highways, the stagnant water-filled ditches lining a rural gravel road that leads to a landfill are part of the whole of the Earth Mother. All these less than attractive areas need your love and help. You can start by picking up road litter on your walks, or by letting your lawn go natural (no chemical fertilizers or weed killers). The lawn here at Lichenwood is full of plants that give an overall green appearance, but also provide medicine and magick.
You might also like to use a technique of active meditation. As you enter the meditative state, envision some part of the landscape that surrounds your home. Send love to it. Envision it in a clean and healthy state. Now widen your focus and visualize the larger landcape in which your home exists, sending love and seeing it in an environmentally healthy state of being. Continue moving your view outward to your town, your county, your state, your continent, and eventually the entire globe, sending love not only to the environment, to Gaia, but to all sentient beings on the planet.