It is my pleasure to share Steve Tallamy’s Monthly Article “Foraging in America.” We had a wonderful visit with Steve and are very grateful for his presence in our lives.
Happy Holidays Everyone from Living in Courage!
Foraging In America
Many of you will know that I have just come back from the colonies having spent a wonderful week with Debra and her wonderful husband Cody (even if he did drink my beer!) at their home in Laguna Beach, California and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them both for the wonderful time they gave me – Thank You Debra and Cody.
Although we did many lovely things together and I met a whole host of amazing people out there one particular morning will stick in my memory for a long time. Debra and I walked into town to get some breakfast using the back streets and side roads away from the main coastal highway and along the way we stopped now and again to graze from people’s garden produce. (Debra assured me that we had permission to do this but I’m not quite so sure!)
Debra and Cody are part of the Transition Laguna Beach scheme encouraging and helping people to grow their own vegetables and herbs, so there was plenty of foraging to be had and the peppery tang of the Arugula (that’s Rocket to us Brits) was definitely a hit with me and my taste buds. This walk into town enhanced my belief that everyone should be a part of a scheme such as Transition Laguna Beach. Not only do you get to produce great tasting healthy food but it brings the community together in a wonderful spirit of kinship, and the exercise and fresh air does you good as well.
Foraging is fun and free and as you can see you don’t have to set off on a major expedition to do it, it can be done right in your own backyard, or someone else’s come to that! Waste ground (I’m sure most of us have some of that close at hand) can be a great place to forage as Nature soon fights back against neglect and usually the first plants to take a foothold are herbs of some variety or another. Most plants that we call weeds because of their rampageous habits are either culinary or medicinal herbs, but always make sure that you know what you are gathering is not poisonous or that the ground has not been contaminated in any way.
It really gladdened my heart to see a town being returned to Nature. Connecting or re-connecting with Nature is the purest form of spiritualism I have found, it has to be, it is all around you, it keeps you alive and it brings so much joy to all of your senses that you just have to embrace it. Small steps such as this trigger off an avalanche of positivity right around the world. It’s the everyday folk like Debra and Cody, you and me (Yes YOU!) making small contributions that is creating an ever growing light at the end of the tunnel for the preservation our planet, and seeing this growing light Mother Nature will respond in kind. And that’s a promise, trust me I know.
Thank You Everyone.
Steve Tallamy
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