If Ground Ivy Is Still Grooving-Can't We Be, Too?
Please don't stop doing what you love!
Well, here we are. 2025, crazy twists and crazy times, and on the edge of Something, yet here we are, still showing up. Amazing.
I’ve noticed that, for the most part, one of the tenets of living on earth is that how we feel about what’s happening on the outside is actually more about what’s happening on the inside.
And I’ve noticed that how we are feeling on the inside is, for the most part, a result of two things: 1) Where we put our attention and 2) What we believe.
So in collective situations that breed fear, division and chaos, we actually have more individual power than we give ourselves credit for.
I’m seeing many folks paralyzed, unable to do their jobs well, or be present, or plan ahead or be whatever it is they are called to do, because there’s an ocean of scary uncertainty coming at us from all the angles, along with a million distractions. I am often in that boat myself. I don’t know about you, but my heart is daily shattered. I have to do a constant ‘pause and recall’ to not forget to feed what really matters to me. I keep returning to the Cherokee Anigaduwagi story:
A grandfather is sitting around the fire with his grandson.
The grandfather says, “In life, there are two wolves inside of us which are always at battle. One is a good wolf who represents things like kindness, bravery, and love.The other is a bad wolf who represents things like greed, hatred, and fear”.
The grandson pauses for a bit, staring into the fire, then looks up at his grandfather and asks, “Grandfather, which one wins?”
The grandfather replies, “The one you feed.”
What is it we are feeding, both individually and collectively? Remember, feeding what you want does not negate working for change of what you don’t.
I’m sending out a little plea to us-Please don’t stop doing what you love. Don’t stop hugging and smiling and feeding others and being a good friend. Don’t stop writing or holding your work dear, or making or listening to music, or doing art or playing or giving your attention to all the beauty and goodness in the world that still remains. Especially in the good, green, living world. Remember your power. Tend well all that you believe in that makes you feel whole, while letting go of all that stuff that won’t bring you the inner peace you need to carry on. I can’t do that work for you and you can’t do that for me, but we can each do it for one another.
I have been so grateful and inspired to be getting back into my garden. That’s one of the ways I am able to return to center. It’s my happy place, and I ground as soon as my hands hit soil. I weed through all my various emotions while weeding through the carpets of ground ivy. I love how the weeds keep coming back, getting their groove on, dancing into spring without a worry in the world, then getting yanked around, and how that parallels my state of mind, which is always needing tending.
I have this song on repeat lately. Well, it’s not really a song as my eldest pointed out, but it’s music to my ears. (She also told me it’s ‘corny city,’ but I think it’s beautiful!)
In truth, we’re just passing through and before you know it, we will all be ancestors. May we not forget everything is temporary. What do we want to leave in our place?
I’m continually awed by the integrity of humanity as a whole- we keep showing up each day, inside these times of climate collapse (and way more as you know) making change where we can, offering a smile, a happy greeting, goodwill, appreciation of the new day, celebrating life’s big and little triumphs, acknowledging the pain, having faith in healing and holding onto hope.
“If in our daily life we can smile, not only we but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.” Thích Nhất Hạnh.
Thank you for being here with me. Keep feeding your brave, peaceful, loving wolf!
Mary Morgaine Squire
4/10/25
Under an almost full moon that rises about an hour before the sun sets
~Love Letter to Ground Ivy~
Ground Ivy, Gill-over-the-Ground, Hedgemaids, Alehoof, Creeping Charlie
Glechoma hederacea
Lamiaceae
Listen to Mary Plantwalker read a love letter to Ground Ivy
Dear Ground Ivy,
Each spring when you bust out hundreds, more like thousands, of purplish-blue flowers, I am reminded to honor you in some way, even though the rest of the year I am kinda cursing you under my breath. Your carpeted display of color is a gleeful sight after months of drab. I have no doubt that should your flower be larger, say as big as a Zinnia, you’d be a much more popular plant. Your bloom of two bluish lips, freckled with purples and whites and poking out of the axils of your kidney-shaped, lobed leaves looks like a stunning, miniature orchid. I can imagine all of the insects and small animals who must admire you in your flowering glory- I know the native bumblebees do!
It’s just that you are so common, so very common, Ground Ivy, that you get overlooked and also unappreciated. You are one tough, mint family plant, making your way across pastures and fields and parking lots and countries and continents, and people really have a hard time with such plant tenacity. I am both in awe of and aggravated by you.
The first time I recall meeting you was over 20 years ago, when I was mowing my lawn and was suddenly overcome by a disagreeable odor. I looked down and saw that it was your leaves being chopped up that was creating such an unforgettable scent. I called you the Lawnmower plant until I found out your botanical name, and I also learned that other people called you the Lawnmower plant, too!
It’s those glands on the corners of your leaves that give off an intense scent, and it is not the usual minty aroma. You are the only vining mint I know of, and unlike most mints that spread their stems to root underground, you are a perennial with unbranched stems that lay atop the soil and root at the nodes. This is how you take over, in addition to spreading your seed, and how you become a creeping, carpeted mass of plant matter that not even chickens, cows, goats, sheep or horses will eat. Some horses will eat a little of you but not much, as they are the only animal I have seen eat you, besides humans.
I find you growing in all kinds of terrain, but I see you thriving in damp, shady spots tucked around the bases of shrubs or all fluffed up in crevices of buildings and stones.
Turns out you are the plant of a 1,000 names, but some of the ones I alternate between calling you are Alehoof, Hedgemaids, Creeping Charlie, Gill-over-the-Ground and Glechoma. Mostly, I just call you Ground Ivy, since your evergreen leaves vine along the ground. Your latin name of Glechoma always makes me think of glaucoma, which, ironically, you are an herb for healing eye inflammation! Glechoma is a Greek word for mints and your species name of hederacea means ‘ivy-like.’ Gill-over-the-Ground comes from the French word ‘guiller,’ to ferment, for how beloved you were in the ‘gruit’ beer making days, to clarify, improve flavor and preserve it.
Some of my plant loving friends eat you as a spring tonic, and like many of the wild green ones, you are high in Vitamin C, a free antiscorbutic, building our immunity. You are also packed with iron, you red blood cell builder, you! I find you in your full power when in flower, but will harvest you anytime of year if need be. I admire your capacity for lead removal- that’s a pretty amazing party trick! You’ve been a lead-poisoning antidote for centuries.
Fermented, you help make the brew that gets us drunk, but then consumed fresh you can take away the hangover! Purifying our blood is what you do well- we can drink infusions or take tincture of your aerial parts to receive this gift. Thank you. You are one of those herbs that sounds like a panacea in the old pharmacopeias: healer of kidney disease, gout, bladder problems, indigestion, tinnitus, sciatica, nervous headaches and eye problems—I can see why colonial immigrants brought you over from Europe in their bags and trunks.
The Cherokee embraced you as an infusion for colds and as an external remedy for measles and hives. And as far as someone needing some serious support for a prolonged cough, sipping 2 cups of your tea a day for a couple weeks is likely to end that saga.
So I honor you today by sipping on your tea, and giving my full attention to you, studying you under the hand lens, making a crown of your flowering vine to wear around the land for the day, and writing you a love letter. I thank you, Ground Ivy, for our co-existence.
Love,
Mary Plantwalker
Weaving Community~
~There’s a brilliant organization outside of Atlanta building an inclusive community that normalizes self care, creates a sacred space for healing and adventure, and prioritizes the mental and emotional wellbeing of all women, because they believe that when women thrive, the world thrives. It’s called We Hike to Heal and there’s a walk with indigenopathic practitioner Chenae Bullock that I am dreaming of joining. You interested? Visit We Hike to Heal
~ In 2008, I had the honor with my late partner Frank Cook, to visit Martin Crawford’s world renowned Dartington forest garden, in Devon, UK. The landmark site has inspired and educated thousands of people from all around the world, as well as hosted imported scientific research on carbon storage. The landowners wanted to suddenly to renege on the lease and develop the gardens, but the Change.org petition to save it has prolonged this from happening. Our voices matter! Speak up and out when you can!
~I recently received a wildflower field guide bandana from my Flora and Forage friend Nina Veteto! Genius! It’s so soft and fun- thinking of all the ways to include this functional beauty in my outdoor adventures. Here they are!
~Do you have something you’d like to share in this Weaving Community portion of Earth Devotions? Or something you’d like to see more of? Send me an email by replying directly to this post!
The 2025 Eat Something Wild Challenge! What did you eat wild this past couple weeks? Here’s what I found to nibble:
Stay low to the ground, live close to the earth, don’t stray very far from your soul. It’s simple things show us the reason we’re here, and simple things keeping us whole.
From Libby Roderick’s song Low to the Ground
So good to learn more about Creeping Charlie/Ground Ivy!! I’ve been noticing this one for ages but we had never really been introduced until now! Thank you, Mary Plantwalker, my absolute favorite Substack writer!
Let’s go to that awesome camp in GA together in June 😊
I had no idea that hostas, moneyplant flowers, and pawpaw flowers were all edible. Wow! Thank you also for the information about ground ivy. I am learning more about identifying plants and your close-ups were helpful. I had only heard about its respiratory uses, so you have opened my eyes in more than one way :) It's hard to groove when you feel called to bear witness, but I'll do my best. Here's my thing to share: United Plant Savers memberships come with membership to the American Horticultural Society's reciprocal garden network, which gives you discounts to hundreds of gardens.