That quote attributed to Martin Luther, “If I knew the world would end tomorrow, I’d still plant a tree today,’ is very alive in me. Endless distractions, multiple avenues to travel, infinite rabbit holes to dive down, so many paths to follow, yet every single day I come back to my center by tending the earth around me, by helping things grow into their potential- plant, human, animal— whatever is there and willing. It’s my calling, after all.
What’s that other saying, “Playing the fiddle while Rome is burning?” I have written about this before- I sometimes have a narrative that what I am doing is not enough, it’s too trivial, not important, but then I come back around to seeing the power in staying connected to the land and present to the Now. I keep leading others across the Green Bridge to make their own connections, and I know it is valuable. We all have a piece to the puzzle— an intentional, conscious pulse to hold as we grieve a dying world and birth a new one. May we each remember and live our unique contribution to the Story and not second guess our worth by comparison.
I am very grateful to say I like my lifework. I am doing green justice. And I want to teach more and more. I want to get more people out with the plants—seeing them, feeling them, smelling and tasting them. I want to offer different options for ways to connect with the plants and each other, that speak to a wide variety of styles and comfort.
I just recently announced on Substack and Instagram my first public class of 2024, my Open Your Heart Elixir workshop, and I have 3 sign-ups so far. (Praises to you 3!) It is so humbling though, because I literally have people asking me every week, can I study with you? Are you teaching anything soon? And then when I finally offer something, I don’t know how to fill it. Feedback anyone? Marketing is not my jam, AT ALL!
On the flipside, I just taught a full class for Wild Abundance, who has their marketing down, along with a great reputation for empowering people with earthskills for self-sufficiency and interdependence! It was so satisfying! I really love teaching and want to do more if it, but I want to fill my classes, too, so I can make it sustainable for me.
With the group last weekend, who was comprised of women from all over the country, I introduced them to plants by foraging, which they took back to the Wild Abundance campus, gathered around a fire, and made a feast of the forage. Collecting plants for food while telling their stories, to me, is an essential thing we can do collectively to heal our bellies, hearts and heads. Collecting Collectively. Gathering Plants. Gathering Information. Gathering Stories. Gathering Around the Fire. Gathering Together. It is what we were made for. We are made to Gather. I want to help facilitate that innate need and joy more often, in any positive way I can, and I hope for the opportunity to do it with you!
Mary Morgaine Squire
Under a waxing Capricorn Moon (my birth moon)
9/13/24
~a Love Letter from Tobacco~
Tobacco
Nicotiana spp.
Solanaceae
Listen to Mary Plantwalker reading a ‘Love Letter from Tobacco’
Hello my people,
Is there a one of you who doesn’t know who I am and also have your own strong opinion of me, one way or another? I am Tobacco, indigenous to four continents, father of about 80 species and an outspoken member of the Nightshade family.
For now, the accepted name of my Genus is Nicotiana, named so after Nicot from Portugal, who introduced me to France in the late 1500’s. And when I first appeared in England, I was cursed and rejected, but 300 years down the road, the British included me in their official pharmacopeia. Ha! It takes a while for you humans to embrace powerful new things!
I, The One and Only Unmistakable, Potent Tobacco, have only two species, two children I shall say, that have been widely cultivated and distributed for ceremonial and recreational purposes, both of whom originate in South America- tabacum and rustica.
My other species are mostly appreciated as ornamentals, some as medicinals, none widely smoked. Sylvestris and mutabilis are grown for their scent and beautiful flowers. I have a tree form, glauca, that has spread rapidly and outcompeted some native species. Africana is endemic to the deserts of Namibia. Australia is home to my suaveolens species, along with many others. And in actuality, the one you all love and consume the most, the tabacum, is a hybrid of three other species: sylvestris, tomentosiformis, and otophora.
Rustica, also known as asemaa or mapacho, gets about 1 meter tall and flowers yellow and is the strongest, most harsh and hallucinogenic tobacco there is. I have been held as sacred for the strong relationship I can facilitate between humanity and the spirit world. I am made into a paste, a juice or an inhalant in order for you to ingest me in the most effective way for this kind of altered, ceremonial use. I support other plants like Banisteriopsis and Psychotria to maximize their healing gifts in plant medicine experiences. I am by no means to be used excessively or disrespectfully and will make you immediately purge if you get loose or greedy with me. I am even so powerful it is essential for you to consider the ripples my second hand smoke will make.
As a kin of rusitca, I, tabacum, have been given the name Whiteman’s Tobacco because I am not as strong, yet I still have enough of a distinguishably noticeable effect on the body/mind that people want me. They actually want me more, because they can get away with using me any old time- it doesn’t have to be ceremonial or intentional, like I was originally designed. My use becomes habitual- to clear a cluttered mind. I have pink flowers and can get quite large- over 6 feet, and you turn me into cigarettes, snuff, chew, cigars, pipe tobacco and more.
Your Surgeon General warns that I cause lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and may complicate pregnancy, but the market for me still remains in the billions $$$! I am no joke. I am highly addictive, and once I have you in my fold, you will need to work very hard to let me go. So don’t feed your hungry ghosts with me. I would rather be smoked deliberately. I give to the spirit world your prayers- I am not here just to pollute the air.
There are multiple insects that also want me- I give them a taste that makes predators flee, so growing me abundantly is hard to do without pesticides. I am not meant to be a mono crop. I am a sticky annual with large alternate and ovate-ly shaped leaves below that become smaller as I grow. Flea Beetles, the Tobacco Hornworm, Aphids, Whiteflies, Cutworms, Whitefringed Beetles and many more bugs get word that I am sitting still, en masse, and they joyfully gather to chomp or suck my leaves and roots. Then you apply toxic spray to kill their innocent feasting, deadening the land upon which I grow. As if the dose of my active principle the field hands inadvertently absorb through their skin by the hard labor of spearing my stalks and hanging them on laths then plucking my leaves to cure isn’t enough, y’all subtly but surely poison them with these pesticides, too. I wish I did not summon such irrational behaviors from you.
Long ago, I revealed to you that the chemicals in my leaves will change if I am cured. In days of old, it was air, wood and time that brought out my gifts. Over the centuries it has been fascinating to behold the innovative ways you have chosen to cure me to elicit certain properties and tastes. With air curing, you bring in the fossil fuels if more warmth is needed- the charcoal, coke or petrol gas, and with flue curing you use a combo of all and keep me completely enclosed during the process. I am probably the most handled plant of all the plant nation, if you counted the number of times each leaf of mine is touched before it turns into smoke.
Now let me remind you of all the ways you figured out how to be with me that doesn’t involve the smoking habit: applied to take the sting out of bites; As a sedative and relaxant; my green tobacco leaf laid upon boils; leaves stuck up your nose to cure headache; hands and feet soaked in tea to relieve arthritis and rheumatism; sparingly drinking a tea of leaves to be rid of worms; taking snuff to sneeze out who knows what; to increase saliva and mucous for clearing air passage ways; for enemas but do be cautious; my juice to cure facial neuralgia; hemorrhoids treated with a wet leaf; juice to neutralize a snake bite. You infuse me for an insecticide, but I beg you to stay away from my synthetic counterpart, Neonicotinoids.
I am an alkaloid that if abused can wear down your heart muscles, make you impotent, crust up your lungs and make you deeply tired. Maybe I make some of you smoked—preserved— so that you live even longer! Each one of you react differently to me! I hold the nicotine, my poison that is also my medicine, which brings about a dependency on me, as your species has already found out. Approach me gently, and with reverence, and I will be an ally. Do not think replacing me with your modern vapes is any kind of healthy alternative. If you need to come off of using me, try smoking Lobelia inflata and Skullcap instead.
I am Tobacco, given to the People, and I will always be with you. I hope for right relations with you as I stay true to my purpose, which was for so long in harmony with you, held inside the rituals of the sacred pipe. I am made to be an offering for the love between Heaven and Earth. Please place my crushed leaves upon the ground when you want to say thank you to the Great Mystery. Smoke me then. Ask for what you need, and give over your grief. I will always be a channel for that.
Let us walk in the sacred manner together,
Tobacco
Carrboro, NC’s Poet Laureate gary Phillips produced a set of plant ally cards written by Aurora Levins Morales that I LOVE. Here is the one on Tobacco:
Weaving Community~
~Our sister farm in Petaluma, California, (my husband Hart’s brother’s farm) is hosting the Soil & Health Forum on September 21, which includes an online platform so you can chat with fellow attendees of the event and more! Author Anne Biklé is one of the presenters and her book, The Hidden Half of Nature, shifted Hart’s relationship with healing his gut, pulling him out of a terrible time that we believe was from Covid.
~And for my local subscribers- Willow Creek Nursery in Barnardsville is having a fall plant sale, 50% off inventory!!! It’s next Saturday, September 21, 10-3. Fall is a great time for planting, and they have lots of fun perennial natives and ornamentals to choose from!
Whoever you are, you are welcome here.~
Wow you just put words to my feelings. Thank you for this Mary. Somewhere I have one of your recipes for an elixir that contained Ashwagandha, and I always wanted to make it. Now inspired to find that recipe and make it. I'd love to take your class, just waiting to see if some travel plans will conflict.
What you said regarding getting more people out with the plants, in a wide variety of ways and comfort really resonated. 💚 I deeply hope you have an amazing group of humans join you for your elixir gathering.