The ferns at left are just emerging under the avocado tree. they are bracken ferns, which can get up to three feet tall, depending on how much rain falls in the year.I have been told that they can be cured using wood ashes and made into snacks, marinated in oil. I never did get around to trying that one.
I did learn a lot about the wild greens growing around the woods...with really cool names, like miner's lettuce, shooting stars, johnny jumpups. all of these have edible greens high in vitamin C. Many walks around the pthways also produced mushrooms for the rice, rose hips for he tea, and other wild medicines and teas that grow in abundance here.
As I learned more about the way Nature has of providing nutrients, I often marveled at how I seemed to be living the same life that people had lived here thousands of years ago, and yet, it was a modern age. This, in a time when I had no phone and very little contact with the outside world!
As I look at that time now, I see how the seeds of today were planted through noticing the beauties of nature, and the treasure of time in the quiet parts of the world. Too much quiet, at times! I felt at times like there was no other place in the world. When a car came into the canyon, I could hear it from miles away, and know exactly where it was on the world.
I learned hard truths about life at a young age. This has served me by making me resilient, and in knowing the power of the imagination to transform, to create new meanings out of raw experience, I have become far more than I ever could have imagined during those times.
What seeds of your life do you want to grow?
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