Healing happens when we ingest certain foods and medicines, but many other factors come into play when a person is fighting for his or her health, as have I for some time.
Healing, however, does not necessarily come from what we put inside our bodies; healing can come from without. My wonderful massage therapist Hania is a case in point--after an hour under her ministrations, I feel like a new woman.
In my case, though, the greatest sense of healing comes to me while in the forest. Yes, many of the plants I've identified in my woods and yard do have medicinal properties, but in this case I'm talking about healing on an aesthetic and spiritual level. And this is where ferns and their allies come in.
Ferns are not edible except as fiddleheads, the newly emerging sprouts in the spring, and only two or three species of ferns produce palatable fiddleheads: the ostrich fern, lady fern, and, arguably, bracken. Eating fiddleheads of other ferns may make you sick.
But ferns are healing to me without their ever touching my body, much less going inside it. A woodlands filled with ferns and their allies, moss and Solomon's seal and Jack-in-the-Pulpit, to name a few, is not just a forest; it is a sanctuary.
Although there's no lake in my yard, my woods remind me of one of my favorite lines by one of my favorite authors in one of my favorite essays--one I can't decide whether or not to teach this fall given its "old-fashionedness" (however, this is also a point in its favor).
In "Once More to the Lake," E. B. White describes an early morning on the lake he'd visited as a child. Of moving through the waters in his canoe, E. B. writes that he is "keeping close along the shore in the long shadows of the pines . . . being very careful never to rub [my] paddle against the gunwale for fear of disturbing the stillness of the cathedral."
That's how I feel about my woods. A cathedral with a ceiling painted not by Michelangelo but by the filigreed limbs of maple, basswood, and black oak.
I have been unaccountably blessed in life to have purchased my modest home, my "cottage," as I refer to it, which sits on the edge of a forest. With its northeastern exposure, my wooded mountain slope produces countless members of woodlands species.
It is here, while I sit under the green hardwood canopy on one of the huge sandstone boulders scattered across my property, that the stresses of hypertension, cardiomyopathy, and neuromuscular/degenerative disease fall away from me. No longer am I Mary Dell, individual human with compromised vigor and health; I am a part of the forest, this vital ecosystem, this magical place where fairies still roam.
I breathe in the ancient air, knowing my landscape of ferns and moss is one of the oldest to exist on this planet. I breathe in the rich scent of humus--that moist, nearly black soil resulting from the slow decay of yearly leaf litter, fallen from trees that in autumn turn my little mountainside gold and red. I breathe in the eons of this planet in this sacred place. I breathe in the healing that comes from nature's undiluted elements.
I'm thinking that "nature therapy" needs to become more emphasized for the chronically ill--for anyone who is in need of healing, in fact, whether mental or physical. The idea formed (though I realize now it's not an original one on my part) after watching a Facebook video in which several firefighters grant the request of a man dying in a hospice. They roll his gurney with him, gaunt and pale and looking hundreds of years old, lying there, from the pavement to a wooded path, and then they take him through the woods. The man's dying wish was to be outside among the trees and flowers and underneath the blue sky, not a bright white ceiling with blinding hospital lights.
Where would you rather die?
So that got me thinking. It's a crime, really, how we close up oldsters in ever-smaller spaces that have little to no access to the wild, wonderful outdoors--or even a nice, tame park. I'm struck when watching older television shows, and some more current ones from the UK, in which persons trying to heal spend time in sanatoriums or other spaces that include expanses of grass and gardens and woods--and the sick persons can be found outside on a bench, or even sitting in a wheelchair, not stuck in bed in a tiny airless room.
Nowadays, sick equals small, supposedly sterile places. And that's just wrong.
In fact, I found a Web site, naturetherapy.org, that describes the very approach I envisioned. It's somewhat annoying that they have trademarked the term "Nature Therapy," which seems so simple it shouldn't get a trademark, but so be it. At least the healing arts are on to this wonderful approach.
The healing aspect of the forest doesn't end when I leave it. My healing also comes from learning all I can about the plants in my woods and anywhere else. While it's certainly possible to find healing in simply sitting outside and soaking up the sunshine and perfumes and microscopic things-we-know-not that check the degenerative processes (I have to believe), another way of connecting with and becoming part of "nature" is learning as much as we can about it. (I use "nature" in quotation marks because we are ourselves a part of nature, of course; we cannot truly be separated from it--but we humans do a very good job of removing ourselves from our Mother Earth with structures and pavement and ideas favoring urban life and man's "primacy" over everything else on this blue marble.)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the French philosopher whose ideas helped spawn the French Revolution (and the U.S. one, actually, through English writers who took up his ideas), called botany "the salutary science," or the "remede dans la mal" (remedy for illness). That was in the 1700s, for heaven's sake! Why have science and medicine taken us so far away from our valuable relationships with the plants that surround us and through which our planet, and we humans, breathe?
Well, so much for philosophy. No doubt you'll hear more of these ideas on upcoming episodes.
In the meantime, here I will mention the ferns I've found on my property, which may or may not be of interest to you, Dear Viewer--but call this my virtual plant collection. Rousseau also recommended this nearly lost diversion; gathering and pressing flowers and plants was a pastime of his while in exile from France for his revolutionary ideas. This is a gentle activity that can be done even by the likes of me, as weak as I've become in the last few years.
And so I've started my pressed plant collection by attempting to preserve fern species in my yard. I'll post photos if they turn out.
Ferns are notoriously difficult to identify. Since I haven't positively identified all the ferns in my yard, I'm listing some that may well grow there, based on descriptions and photos from a wonderful Web site, Discover Life.
I'll put a question mark next to those I'm unsure of and, if I make a positive ID, will then take the question mark off. Obviously, all of this is far more useful to me than you, so feel free to go on to another episode of The Mary Dell Show!
Ferns Found on My Property
Eastern Hayscented Fern - Dennstaedtia punctilobula
Glade Fern? - Diplazium pyncocarpon
Goldies Woodfern ? - Dryopertis goldiana
Intermediate Woodfern? - Dryopteris intermedia
Interrupted Fern ? - Osmunda claytoniana
Lady Fern?
Marginal Woodfern ? Dryopteris marginalis
Mountain Woodfern ? Dryopteris campyloptera
New York Fern ? - Thelypteris noveboracensis
Northern Maidenhair Fern - Adiantum pedatum
Rock Cap Fern - Polypodium virginianum - I discovered this darling little fern on a boulder behind my house and transplanted a small amount to a rock in my woods-edge garden. It's done extremely well and has even spread a little.
Spinulose Wood Fern ? - Dryopertis carthusiana
Virginia Chain Fern ? - Woodwardia virginica
Ferns I've Found In the Area (Not in my Yard)
I am more certain of these IDs because they were impressive finds, and ones that don't look much like others.
Lycopodiella appressa - It took me a while to identify this strange-looking plant. Little did I guess it's a type of fern (well, fern-ally, actually)! I found it in the Savage River area near Honey's summer place on the River.
Hanging Clubmoss, Creeping Cedar, - Lycopodium digitatum - (Actually, a fern ally, not a fern per se) - This is a creeping plant with needles or leaves (I'm not sure which) that look like cedar. This grows very close to Honey's summer place on the Savage River. He tells me of a man his mother had seen for many years, a sort of mountain man, who knew "everything" about the woods. He would collect this pretty plant and make wreaths of it for Christmas.
Ostrich Fern - Matteuccia struthiopterus - This is a real beauty, and a Very Big Fern. Ostrich fern fiddleheads (early sprouts) are one of the two species that are palatable when sauteed. I've seen this fern growing in many places in Garrett County, Maryland, one of the state's three Appalachian counties and the county next to mine.
One day, on my way to teaching English at the community college, I stopped on the roadside and tried to dig up one of these oversized ferns, but I couldn't dig deeply enough to actually uproot it! They like very moist areas, even growing in streams, and I got my feet wet that day to no avail!
Honey's sister has a huge swath of very large ferns in her yard, and she bequeathed us some when she and her husband thinned them out. I don't think they're ostrich ferns, however, because they don't have that huge, meaty root. A few of these to-be-identified large ferns ended up over at the cottage, and I can't wait to see them take off. If they're happy there, I should have a nice swath of them as well, since I planted them in a moist, shady place similar to their home in Honey's sister's yard.
The woods behind my home are filled with ferns, and I've been transplanting a number of them into the yard proper. Every moment I spend in those magical, fairy-filled woods makes me stronger inside and out.
Healing, however, does not necessarily come from what we put inside our bodies; healing can come from without. My wonderful massage therapist Hania is a case in point--after an hour under her ministrations, I feel like a new woman.
In my case, though, the greatest sense of healing comes to me while in the forest. Yes, many of the plants I've identified in my woods and yard do have medicinal properties, but in this case I'm talking about healing on an aesthetic and spiritual level. And this is where ferns and their allies come in.
Ferns are not edible except as fiddleheads, the newly emerging sprouts in the spring, and only two or three species of ferns produce palatable fiddleheads: the ostrich fern, lady fern, and, arguably, bracken. Eating fiddleheads of other ferns may make you sick.
But ferns are healing to me without their ever touching my body, much less going inside it. A woodlands filled with ferns and their allies, moss and Solomon's seal and Jack-in-the-Pulpit, to name a few, is not just a forest; it is a sanctuary.
Although there's no lake in my yard, my woods remind me of one of my favorite lines by one of my favorite authors in one of my favorite essays--one I can't decide whether or not to teach this fall given its "old-fashionedness" (however, this is also a point in its favor).
In "Once More to the Lake," E. B. White describes an early morning on the lake he'd visited as a child. Of moving through the waters in his canoe, E. B. writes that he is "keeping close along the shore in the long shadows of the pines . . . being very careful never to rub [my] paddle against the gunwale for fear of disturbing the stillness of the cathedral."
That's how I feel about my woods. A cathedral with a ceiling painted not by Michelangelo but by the filigreed limbs of maple, basswood, and black oak.
I have been unaccountably blessed in life to have purchased my modest home, my "cottage," as I refer to it, which sits on the edge of a forest. With its northeastern exposure, my wooded mountain slope produces countless members of woodlands species.
It is here, while I sit under the green hardwood canopy on one of the huge sandstone boulders scattered across my property, that the stresses of hypertension, cardiomyopathy, and neuromuscular/degenerative disease fall away from me. No longer am I Mary Dell, individual human with compromised vigor and health; I am a part of the forest, this vital ecosystem, this magical place where fairies still roam.
I breathe in the ancient air, knowing my landscape of ferns and moss is one of the oldest to exist on this planet. I breathe in the rich scent of humus--that moist, nearly black soil resulting from the slow decay of yearly leaf litter, fallen from trees that in autumn turn my little mountainside gold and red. I breathe in the eons of this planet in this sacred place. I breathe in the healing that comes from nature's undiluted elements.
 |
| "My" woods--highlighting hostas; I will post a new photo filled with ferns and moss soon! You can see a few fern fronds on the right here, though. |
Where would you rather die?
So that got me thinking. It's a crime, really, how we close up oldsters in ever-smaller spaces that have little to no access to the wild, wonderful outdoors--or even a nice, tame park. I'm struck when watching older television shows, and some more current ones from the UK, in which persons trying to heal spend time in sanatoriums or other spaces that include expanses of grass and gardens and woods--and the sick persons can be found outside on a bench, or even sitting in a wheelchair, not stuck in bed in a tiny airless room.
Nowadays, sick equals small, supposedly sterile places. And that's just wrong.
In fact, I found a Web site, naturetherapy.org, that describes the very approach I envisioned. It's somewhat annoying that they have trademarked the term "Nature Therapy," which seems so simple it shouldn't get a trademark, but so be it. At least the healing arts are on to this wonderful approach.
The healing aspect of the forest doesn't end when I leave it. My healing also comes from learning all I can about the plants in my woods and anywhere else. While it's certainly possible to find healing in simply sitting outside and soaking up the sunshine and perfumes and microscopic things-we-know-not that check the degenerative processes (I have to believe), another way of connecting with and becoming part of "nature" is learning as much as we can about it. (I use "nature" in quotation marks because we are ourselves a part of nature, of course; we cannot truly be separated from it--but we humans do a very good job of removing ourselves from our Mother Earth with structures and pavement and ideas favoring urban life and man's "primacy" over everything else on this blue marble.)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the French philosopher whose ideas helped spawn the French Revolution (and the U.S. one, actually, through English writers who took up his ideas), called botany "the salutary science," or the "remede dans la mal" (remedy for illness). That was in the 1700s, for heaven's sake! Why have science and medicine taken us so far away from our valuable relationships with the plants that surround us and through which our planet, and we humans, breathe?
Well, so much for philosophy. No doubt you'll hear more of these ideas on upcoming episodes.
In the meantime, here I will mention the ferns I've found on my property, which may or may not be of interest to you, Dear Viewer--but call this my virtual plant collection. Rousseau also recommended this nearly lost diversion; gathering and pressing flowers and plants was a pastime of his while in exile from France for his revolutionary ideas. This is a gentle activity that can be done even by the likes of me, as weak as I've become in the last few years.
And so I've started my pressed plant collection by attempting to preserve fern species in my yard. I'll post photos if they turn out.
Ferns are notoriously difficult to identify. Since I haven't positively identified all the ferns in my yard, I'm listing some that may well grow there, based on descriptions and photos from a wonderful Web site, Discover Life.
I'll put a question mark next to those I'm unsure of and, if I make a positive ID, will then take the question mark off. Obviously, all of this is far more useful to me than you, so feel free to go on to another episode of The Mary Dell Show!
Ferns Found on My Property
Eastern Hayscented Fern - Dennstaedtia punctilobula
Glade Fern? - Diplazium pyncocarpon
Goldies Woodfern ? - Dryopertis goldiana
Intermediate Woodfern? - Dryopteris intermedia
Interrupted Fern ? - Osmunda claytoniana
Lady Fern?
Marginal Woodfern ? Dryopteris marginalis
Mountain Woodfern ? Dryopteris campyloptera
New York Fern ? - Thelypteris noveboracensis
Northern Maidenhair Fern - Adiantum pedatum
Rock Cap Fern - Polypodium virginianum - I discovered this darling little fern on a boulder behind my house and transplanted a small amount to a rock in my woods-edge garden. It's done extremely well and has even spread a little.
Spinulose Wood Fern ? - Dryopertis carthusiana
Virginia Chain Fern ? - Woodwardia virginica
Ferns I've Found In the Area (Not in my Yard)
I am more certain of these IDs because they were impressive finds, and ones that don't look much like others.
Lycopodiella appressa - It took me a while to identify this strange-looking plant. Little did I guess it's a type of fern (well, fern-ally, actually)! I found it in the Savage River area near Honey's summer place on the River.
Hanging Clubmoss, Creeping Cedar, - Lycopodium digitatum - (Actually, a fern ally, not a fern per se) - This is a creeping plant with needles or leaves (I'm not sure which) that look like cedar. This grows very close to Honey's summer place on the Savage River. He tells me of a man his mother had seen for many years, a sort of mountain man, who knew "everything" about the woods. He would collect this pretty plant and make wreaths of it for Christmas.
Ostrich Fern - Matteuccia struthiopterus - This is a real beauty, and a Very Big Fern. Ostrich fern fiddleheads (early sprouts) are one of the two species that are palatable when sauteed. I've seen this fern growing in many places in Garrett County, Maryland, one of the state's three Appalachian counties and the county next to mine.
One day, on my way to teaching English at the community college, I stopped on the roadside and tried to dig up one of these oversized ferns, but I couldn't dig deeply enough to actually uproot it! They like very moist areas, even growing in streams, and I got my feet wet that day to no avail!
Honey's sister has a huge swath of very large ferns in her yard, and she bequeathed us some when she and her husband thinned them out. I don't think they're ostrich ferns, however, because they don't have that huge, meaty root. A few of these to-be-identified large ferns ended up over at the cottage, and I can't wait to see them take off. If they're happy there, I should have a nice swath of them as well, since I planted them in a moist, shady place similar to their home in Honey's sister's yard.
The woods behind my home are filled with ferns, and I've been transplanting a number of them into the yard proper. Every moment I spend in those magical, fairy-filled woods makes me stronger inside and out.
No comments:
Post a Comment