The rain-soaked lichen glows so loudly on the boulders under the full moonlight that I swear I can see it pulsing, hear it breathing. I wouldn’t be surprised if it arose from the stone face and began to dance. It’s hours before dawn, and I am wandering around the garden, pausing at the wood’s edge to stare at the fullness of La Luna. Junipurr is in my periphery slinking around like a wild cat, as she tends to do at night when the moon is bright. It’s so balmy warm, after that wicked cold spell, and if everything weren’t soaking wet, I would drop to the ground right now and roll around like an animal in reverie of earth’s glory.
A sound drifts through the darkness, and I grin so big my face feels like it’s caught in an awkward yoga pose I can’t get out of. This is such music to my ears— I have no control over this smile! The frogs! It’s the Frogs! They have arrived at the ponds and begun their mating rituals! The Male Wood Frog Chorus has commenced! What hope my whole being is granted when I hear this familiar sound for the first time each year. This song that says: Earth is alive! Spring will come again! Frogs are still here! Life is regenerating!
I pay attention to the annual date the frogs begin this reproductive performance. I notice that it changes with the inconsistency of the weather, occurring anytime between December and March. What I have also noticed is that they don’t mate until the coldest day of winter has come and gone. Yes, the cold will return, but by frog signs, it won’t get as cold again as it already did this season. Deep sigh of relief. We made it through the roughest patch of cold. I am awed by how folks in the North handle the lingering freeze. I lived in New York for a couple years and left because it snowed in November and I didn’t see ground again until April. I couldn’t handle it, being a southerner. Here in the mountains of North Carolina, if it snows or is really cold, the next week it may hit 70 degrees, which is what we are experiencing right now, actually. Old timers around here say “If you don’t like the weather, just wait a while.” These days, though, the weather is even moodier than me PMS-ing.
I will follow Frog’s mating story from song to egg to tadpole to frog again. I love Frog and Toad medicine as they are one my greatest animal teachers. Frogs lighten my load by bringing humor into a situation. All I have to do is remember to call on them. Oh how frogs make me laugh- to me, they are such funny and fun creatures of earth! They also model patience. And caution. “Pay attention!” the frogs are telling me. They show me how to adapt and change and deal with the elements. I will swim with them in the freezing dipping pool during my morning cold plunge and, in later months, soak my feet in the water while the tadpoles nibble at my toes. Working in the garden, I will invariably come across a frog resting in the growth of summer. We will sit and silently commune a while. In winter, I am mindful where I dig because a frog might be hibernating in the leaf litter. Thank you, frogs, for coming back here once again to procreate and be my neighbor.
In my frog and moon bliss, I take my clump of hair and toss it into the woods and whisper to the birds that it’s there, a ritual I do each full moon with the brush and shower hair I have collected in one moon’s time. I return it to the land with a prayer for letting go of what no longer serves. Later, I will find bird’s nest woven with this hair. It is a small way I can give back to mother nature. I let my eyes follow the huge ring of light that encircles the moon, making it appear as an eye of heaven, and it beckons a prance, a hop. I would howl, but the neighbors are sleeping.
I wonder who else has also been out worshiping this moon that can be seen all over our planet? This satellite that is always there, whether we see her or not, this ancient friend, ever present. Grandmother Moon looking down upon both the still waters and the bombing, both the screaming and the singing; the parades, the funerals, the melting Arctic, the bumper to bumper traffic, the burning, the flooding, the majestic forests, the whales breaching, the birds soaring, the humans begging for mercy. Under the moon, we are united. I say a prayer for help. We need serious help down here, celestial ones. This dawn, I will call upon the powers and grace of an early Frog Moon, and wonder who else is, too?
Mary Morgaine Squire
1/26/24
~Love Letters to our Plant Allies~
Comfrey
Symphytum spp.
Boraginaceae
Dear Comfrey,
Winter greetings to you, Knitbone. How are you doing underground? I see your little green leaf tips patiently awaiting another couple months of cold to be able to safely emerge and rapidly grow into a lush, compact spread. I love you and your family, Comfrey! So many of your kin to love, too- Forget-Me-Not, Viper’s Bugloss, Alkanet, Lungwort, and my North Star plant, Borage, with those delicate, pastel, five-lobed flowers blooming in cymes, shaped like stars or bells.
We named you Comfrey after the latin words con firma, acknowledging the firmness with which you knit broken bones. Your botanical name Symphytum is also a tribute to how we see you- root word here being sympho-to unite. Native to Eurasia, you are an official globetrotter. We have your uplandicum hybridized species planted under every fruit tree on our farm. Hart was given a few finger-sized roots of you decades ago and with his tilling he has unintentionally spread those roots everywhere, giving us enough of you to heal an army. If I need to relocate one of your plants, I better get every piece of your root out of the ground or you will sprout again like Medusa. Your grandiflorum species is a creeper, spreading from runners which no other Comfrey do I know does that. I am very cautious of where I would put your grandiflorum even though those blue flowers are gorgeous, and I won’t sell it at my plant stand. Sorry. But I will sell your uplandicum and officinale!
What a controversy you have sparked, Comfrey! People in the herbal community have all kinds of differing beliefs about you. Some believe your pyrrolizidine alkaloids can do damage to our livers, yet I have taken you both internally and externally for over 30 years and seem to be doing ok. I look to the old ways people interfaced with you, before you were broken down into all these constituents to be examined inside laboratory walls, like poor Sassafras. I look to the way rural people still are with you. I once gave a plant walk to a man new to America- he was from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and when he saw you he got so excited! He said your young leaves were a main vegetable in his homeland. I think there are far worse things we can ingest than you, like processed food, and so I will continue to make you into tea and encourage your growth in my garden.
I notice you like plenty of water and a little shade to grow your best. You give and give all growing season- once your leaves die, new ones immediately sprout and you are up to photosynthesizing yet again! I have had a lot of trouble drying your leaves without some pats turning brown. What’s the secret, comfrey? If we are in need of your root, you are always there, easy to harvest, ready to use, so I have no need to dry this part of you. Thank you for being so available! And for making so much biomass—a living green manure!
Fresh comfrey roots are available all year round, easy to dig and snap!
I wanted to tell share with you two personal testimonies regarding using your leaf and root that I will always remember. You were one of the first herbal remedies I learned, Comfrey. I found out about your property of regenerating cells first hand (pun intended) when I sliced open my pinky playing around with a jackknife. There you were, growing right next to where I was standing when I did this, and so I dug a little root and picked a leaf and made an ‘on the spot poultice’ for the deep, bleeding wound. It was a bad cut and we thought I may need stitches, but instead your medicine sealed the skin within a day. Then, because I did not clean it first, it got infected. Ow! I learned the hard way to apply Yarrow and Calendula or Lavender or Rose and use soap, before sealing off the wound! I had to recut the skin, to clean the infection, your allantoin had worked so quickly doing its firm uniting.
And with both my labors, I tore during childbirth and reached for you. I even needed stitches first time around but called you in for the long-term healing. Because of your sitz bath infusions, I healed without even a scar. You did not disappoint! I feel muchos gratitude for you, Comfrey.
Thank you for also being a balm for lung ailments, your mucilaginous qualities soothing and repairing irritated tissues. And although I have not tried this, in herbals of old, you are combined with chicory and dandelion roots as a coffee substitute! There’s even a book written solely about you, called, yep- you guessed it- ‘Comfrey’ by Lawrence D Hills.
Chickens and ducks go crazy over your greens! If I had other animals, I would try you out as fodder for them, too, as you are rich in the nutrients we mammals need to thrive and you grow so abundantly and easily—free food, basically! Oh, and let me not leave this letter without praising you for your stinky manure tea that fertilizes my gardens.
You bring up a feeling in me, Comfrey, that is not easy to describe in words. There are thousands of plants in the plant kindom1 but a relatively few that evoke such a strong affinity. You are one of those plant allies I will always have growing nearby if I can. You help heal the wounded healer, knitting back together what has been broken and teaching us to come back even stronger when cut down. With much respect for you,
Love,
Mary Plantwalker
Who loves using handwritten recipes? They seem to be going extinct for the younger generations (like cursive and talking on the phone.) A dear elder named Elmer, some of you reading this newsletter may know him, has run an Inn in Hot Springs, NC, for many many years. My late former partner Frank used to work there and Elmer shared with him his famous tahini dressing recipe. One of the highlights of eating at Sunnybank Inn was Elmer’s salad with this dressing:
If you have Spotify, perhaps you want to play this song while making it?
Whoever you are, you are welcome here~
I know I tend to misspell things, but Kindom is spelled this way on purpose;-)
beautiful letter! such a sweet way to get to know a plant in a more casual yet deeply intimate way <3 frogs are big medicine for me as well, and although they are not quite awakened just yet here in the north, I still hear their songs that play around the pond come the summer.
We heard peepers last night during our respite from the bitter bitter cold .. they make me smile as I know winter won’t last forever…. And I did howl at the moon, sparkling like the giant moonstone it is, and the coyotes yipped back before slinking on through the holler… today the cruelty of January is back bringing rain and shivering cold…. But I can hold onto yesterday’s warmth and take confidence that winter is nearly past and spring isn’t far behind….