Allowed to forage
I want to start my stating my own lack of understanding and knowledge on this subject. But I feel, as someone with some knowledge, I want to share it. Yes, youβre allowed to pick, eat, forage ANYWHERE you like. Just depends on the manner you do so.
So, Iβve been foraging, or as my dad likes to call it, wildcrafting, for about a year. These past few months I have been very dedicated to the pastime. I have learned a lot about plants, but most of all I have learned to see them on an equal level, and when I pluck or pull their leaves, they can feel it. When I embrace the fact that I am encountering a living being, and extracting from it, I can also embrace that I can create a good experience for both me and the plant. Instead of abrasively taking and pulling, I sit and look at the plants. You can sense the plant that has been around the longest. Often, in wildcrafting, you would find the grandmother plant, the one with the most energy and age, and take several of the youngest plants- full plant. But as an urban wildcrafter, often plucking from people’s gardens, I must respect their care for the plants and take responsibility as a steward to their garden. So, I instead find the plants with the most need of help- pruning, basically. This can involve plucking dead leaves or branches that are sick, or wilting/dried leaves, plucking the leaves that are constantly in shade and will not provide energy to the system, or the ones trodden by passerby. In dealing with flowers, I pluck the ones that will take up space and energy when fertilized, and will not be able to fully fruit, either due to crowding or lack of vitality. I am very select with flowers, and often pass multiple rose or passionfruit bushes(for example) before foraging several from a decidedly fruitful bush. Itβs very important to listen to your instinct, not your thoughts, on the most part- in regards to the health of a plant, or if itβs situated near a toxic or unhealthy site, if you should clean the parts you forage, how much to take, and which plants are ready or old enough or healthy enough to be pruned. I view it as a pruning session for the plant above all else, and I recycle the leaves, flowers, or twigs that are pruned for my own medicinal uses.
All in all, this ideology of foraging is learned from indigenous peoples around the world, who are a force of stewardship and connection to the earth that I greatly admire. In respecting the sacredness of the earth, you respect your own sacredness. In desecrating and harming the earth, you desecrate and harm yourself.
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