Plants From The Homeland: Mullein

content note: the picture at the very bottom of this post may not be suitable for arachnophobes

First Year Mullein

Mullein is special to me.  I was born on a piece of land known as “Mullein Hill Farm,” one of the back to the land communes that peppered the hills of Vermont in the late 60’s and 70’s.  When I was born, I was given 4 names, and one of them is mullein.  When I was a kid on the commune, the adults called me “Rahula Mullein”, or just “mullien”.  I even have a mullein tattoo.

I’ve crisscrossed the United States by bus, by car, by thumb, and I’ve seen mullein growing everywhere.  In California it grows more than one spike, so I thought maybe it was a different kind of mullein.  Turns out that might just be about the length of the growing season.

A few years ago I travelled back to Vermont, where I grew up.  My mom is a gardener, and pretty much everything I know about gardening I learned from her.  It is because of her that I just know in my body how to sow carrot seeds, and because of her that I add radishes to mark my carrot rows.  It is also because of her that I talk to plants, but that’s a blog post for another day.  After nearly 50 years of living very rurally with huge gardens, she now lives in an apartment building in town.  But she still finds ways to garden, and her apartment still has herbs hanging to dry in every room.  She now grows her vegetables and herbs in two organic community garden plots.

So, back in, what 2018?  my mom gave me a mullein stalk that had overwintered.  I wrapped it up and brought it home to California.  I scattered the seeds (did you know mullein seeds are toxic?) in lots of pots and buried the stalk in another pot, and…nothing happened.  For months. But,  eventually just 2 plants emerged.  I was glad to see them though.  This past summer more mullein plants appeared.    So now I have two plants in their second year and 4 or 5 in their first year. Mullein is a two year plant, growing close to the ground the first year and then sending striking flower stalks to the sky in it’s second year.

In Vermont, mullein stalks grow until the cold kills them.  Here, it just is never truly cold, so the mullein has kept growing, sending up side stalks.

I feel particularly fortunate to have mullein, which is an herb for lung health, in this time when our lungs are so at risk from Covid-19.  I’m excited to grow more.

Orb weaver hiding in the mullein

A before picture

I spent the first week of shelter in place sick.  Not Covid sick, or, at least, I don’t think so.  Basically just deeply exhausted and short of breath.  It was fine as long as I didn’t *do* anything.  So I spent some time outside, getting fresh air, and the 4 leggeds took good care of me.

Now this is a gardening blog.

We don’t always know what helps us to stay grounded, what helps us through traumatic and stressful times.  And sometimes we forget.  I started social distancing a week before the shelter in place order so I’ve been home for 3 weeks now, with the exception of grocery runs and drives around town with my family (we don’t get out of the car, we just drive to places with good views).  But it was only a couple of days ago that I remembered that gardening is one of my very top resiliency practices.

Writing is also one of my resiliency practices, and it’s been displaced by social media.

I am happier when I spend less time on social media, I am happier when I spend more time in the garden.

And this bog has been severely neglected.  It’s time to repurpose it.

I wish I’d thought to take before pictures.  Here’s the front yard after a round of weed whacking. 

Pandemic thoughts: How we cope, how we make change, and how we slow down

Preface: my thinking is always influenced by those around me.  And in this moment, I’ve had the time and space to go internal and contemplate these things and write this because of the multitude of ways I am lucky …housed, employed, supported…right now.  I’m sharing these thoughts because I believe in them and hope they might be useful.

How we cope with Stress

I’ve been thinking about stress, about how we all respond to stress.  Most of us aren’t at our best when we are freaked out.  Now is a good time to take a moment to think about ourselves and how we respond.   What are your coping mechanisms, and how well do they serve you?   Do you get hyper vigilant, hyper focused?  Do you disassociate, or space out?  Do you panic in crisis or are you calm and detached?  None of these are wrong or right, we’ve all got different ways of surviving.  It’s just good to *notice* right now.  Especially if you are having to proceed as though it’s business as normal, which means extra stress and less time for coping.  What helps you to be your best selves in the midst of so much fear and anxiety? For me when I start to feel like I might explode with anxiety, going outside helps, herbs (teas and tinctures) help, stretching and yoga help, and sometimes physical contact with my partner (who I am fortunate to live with) helps.  Sometimes getting focused on a thing I can DO helps.  Weed and booze help to some extent, but they also have drawbacks.  How about you?

How we cope with Grief:

I know that especially in US culture, we do not want to think about this.  But we should all spend some time as soon as we are able to thinking about grief and how it impacts us.  I don’t know if any of us will get through this without losing someone we care about and even if we do, the people around us won’t.  We have so many different ways of coping with grief and with anticipation of loss, but this time around grief is not going to be an individualized experience.  And we will be unable to partake in whatever our usual rituals for grief are if they include gathering, or if they include contact with the body of our beloved dead.  with so many people grieving at once, there will be impacts on how we interact with each other, on what we need. I don’t know what we should do, but I think we should be preparing ourselves emotionally for this.

(I feel so grateful for the work that has been done, in particular this past decade or so, by so many incredible visionaries about trauma and trauma informed approaches; about how to understand that the things we’ve gone through in our lives shape how we move through the world now, how we respond to danger, what our default survival modes are… and how to think about healing on individual and collective levels, and about how relevant this is to our social change work.  Because of this work we have so many resources to help us understand ourselves, to understand trauma, beyond our own individual reactions to the way it moves in community.)

How we make change

We are in a liminal moment…a space between *this* and *that*. We all know what *this* is; it is this neoliberal society built upon capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, ableism, and domination.  What is happening right now will change what is; the question is, what will it change to?  Will it be deeper authoritarianism?  Will it be socialism?  Will it be a slightly more humane version of what we have now?  Will it be a transformation to a just society?  There are so many possibilities right now.  What can we do, from within our homes (those of us who have them), without assembling in large groups, in this moment, to move things toward a just society?

On small local levels, we can look for opportunities to take care of each otherr and connect with the people round us.  From mutual aid in the form of groceries and other supplies, to virtual hangouts and dance parties that help us feel connected over distance.  People are offering virtual art classes for kids stuck inside, and lists of activities for kids  These acts can help us remember that we are connected, that we need each other, and that individualism is not helpful.  I’ve also been struck by the videos of people under quarantine in Italy, singing together.

And then on the larger level, we can be engaged in pushing for policies that help people right now. We’ve already seen so many things happening that seemed impossible…eviction moratoriums, for example!  And things like, continuing to provide lunch for kids even though the schools are closed, as San Francisco is doing. We can and should demand that our governments, from local to national, place human needs at teh center of every choice they make right now.

Our chances of moving toward a just society on the other side of this pandemic are so much better as a result of Bernie Sanders and his candidacy, both now and in 2016.  He has put on the table issues like Medicare For All, and free college, student debt relief, and so more people can imagine them actually happening.  The pandemic is making very clear that our whole system is rotten and dysfunctional. The Sanders campaign is throwing light on alternatives and they feel much more in reach and possible than I’ve ever felt before.  So do what you can to support that campaign.

How we slow down

Over the past several days I have read different calls for us to slow down, care for ourselves, to connect with and listen to nature.  They’ve come from a Christian minister calling on us to listen to the messages of redwood trees, a poet encouraging us to treat this time as sacred, an indigenous leader suggesting we go out onto the land, a professor pushing back against the idea that we can do everything just like normal but from inside our houses.

These messages, coming all within a day, illuminated and crystalized something I think I’ve known for some time: that we can’t get to that different world if we keep striving for it in the exact same way we’ve been.  Slowing down is hard.  Especially when things are so dire, especially for those of us who shape our lives around doing things to make the world better, especially in a capitalist society that encourages us to base our value on our production.  In the book Braiding Sweetgrass (which would be a great thing to read or listen to right now!), Robin Wall Kimmerer explores how language shapes how we think, and it makes me consider what our strategies and solutions might be missing right now if we do not slow down, if we don’t take the time to fully take in what is happening, if we don’t make room for different ways of thinking and being to seep in.  How much of how we operate comes from the earliest colonizations, when the relationship between people and the land was sundered?  and if we don’t allow our mind set to shift, what does that do to what is possible?

So how to do that?  If you are able to go outside, that’s a start.  Sit with or under a tree.  Watch some birds…even if they’re urban pigeons!  Read some beautiful poetry or look at art (some museums have virtual tours!) Listen to some meditation tapes.  Sing a song.  I don’t know what works for you, but think it over!  What can you do to be grounded and present in this moment, committed to doing the work to change the world, and also, slowing down and listening?

This kind of slowing down may well be what we need to get to the world we want.

So that’s some of what I have been thinking about.  What’s on your mind?  What do you think about my thoughts here?

Running out of money? let’s talk about it!

This past week, I was posting on facebook about the drama of my car repairs costing as much as a month’s rent, and not having enough to pay both. I was making jokes about selling a kidney, but you know how those jokes are: not really funny.

I have family that is helping me out and I’m going to be ok, but I wanted to say something about WHY I posted that.

We’re trained in this culture not to talk about money, and especially not to talk about it when we struggle financially. But why?

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/05/my-secret-shame/476415/

This article explores recent studies showing that not only are a majority of people in the US living paycheck to paycheck, a majority of us also can’t scare up $400 in an emergency without selling belongings, or borrowing money. I know that’s MY reality, but I assumed that’s because I was, you know, bad with money, have too much debt, etc., etc. I thought about it in an individualist way, and blamed myself. It never occurred to me how common this situation is, and that people in my lie were probably in the same boat as me, without me knowing.

Because we don’t talk about it.

I think we should talk about it, because when we realize it’s actually an experience many people are having, it’s less isolating, scary, and shaming, and it also becomes clearer that it’s not an individual situation, it’s a systemic one. And maybe that’s a step in the direction of building solidarity and power to change the system.

I spoke with a couple of friends in the days after posting about my water pump drama, and it turned out that they, too, are one paycheck away from falling behind on everything, and they, too, don’t have $400 or more stashed away for emergencies, they, too have no idea what they’re going to do when their kids head to college. So if that’s also true for you, know that you aren’t alone, and even if some of your experience is a result of financial missteps or mistakes you’ve made, overall, this is systemic. And because it’s systemic, all of us coming together in solidarity and organizing is going to have a bigger impact on our financial situation that forgoing that latte.

I think that’s why we’re socialized not to talk about this stuff. If we think it’s only us, we turn our ire inward, and we think if we can just work hard enough/be frugal enough/win the lottery, it will change. But it will only change if we do it together.

And one last thing: don’t get sucked into blaming other people who have less than us for this situation. Scapegoating immigrants, people of color, people who are poorer or more precarious than us just clouds things up and keeps us from seeing where responsibility for this state of affairs rests. If you want to know who to blame, look to the people who run the economy and who benefit from the way it is right now. Punch UP.

 

September 11, 2012 mix tape

These are the things I listened to about 9-11 today, and last year, too. Do you have anything to add to this mix-tape? leave a link in the comments!

Suheair Hammad: First Writing Since

Ani Difranco: Self Evident (I haven’t watched the video…but listen)

Arundhati Roy: Come September

On September 12, 2012September 12, 2012 By rahulajanowskiIn Global politics, Politics of PowerLeave a comment

It’s a Trap!

“If this strike happens, it will awaken parents’ interest in terms of ‘Why can’t we have more choice’ (and) ‘Why do we have to be stuck without having a voice,'” he said. “I think parents are going to be frustrated when they see 50,000 kids having an education, going to school without interruption and their kids are not.”

This article is clearly pro-charter school propaganda. The only people quoted in it are charter school parents, the CEO of an organization that runs charter schools that also has close ties to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel (these ties aren’t mentioned in the article), and the president of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools.

I have a complicated position when it comes to Charter Schools. Politically, I see and oppose the way they are being used by the right wing to break teacher unions and to privatize education. When the right wing push for school vouchers failed, those involved turned their attention to Charter Schools, where they are finding much more success. I have found writings published in Left Turn about charter schools in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina and about charter schools in Washington D.D. to be very eye-opening and troubling.

But I also know that historically, charters were created to offer a place for innovation, and some charter schools do still innovate. I know this for myself because my child attends a charter school. Our school is atypical as far as charter schools go. It was founded by parents and teachers, in 1994, before the modern charter school “movement,” and from the beginning has had more of a focus on process than on product. Our teachers unionized a couple of years ago, and our board of directors is made up of parents and staff who are elected through a community vote.

I served as a member of the board of directors of our school for two years, and being in that position and doing that work really led me to believe that the right wing’s support for charter schools is more about privatization than it is about union busting (though it is, also, about union busting).

School districts are generally governed by a school board, whose members are elected by the voters of that municipality. So, the parents of the kids in the public schools are among those who decide, through voting, who will be making educational policy decisions and handling the money in the district, public money which comes from taxes.

Your average charter school is governed by a board of directors. The school’s charter is granted by the local school district or by the state. In the case of our school, we go before the local school board once every five years for charter renewal. So while theoretically, the school board has some oversight, in practice there’s not much. Voters, the parents and families of the kids in those charter schools, have very little access to, or power over, the people deciding educational policy and choosing what to do with the public dollars that run the charter school.

Please note that, at least in California, the state provides the exact same dollar amount per student to charter schools as they do to regular public schools.

Most charter school boards are appointed by whoever formed the charter and then they self appoint subsequent board members. Board members are often chosen for their access to resources, such as money and power, and we all know that folks with access to money and power often see the world very differently than those without that access, and those world views will guide their choices. And if the choices they make don’t serve the good of their neighborhood or of their city or, even, of their students, there’s not a lot that a community can do.

This is what it looks like when private interests assume control over public funds. The electoral process is pretty flawed, but at least when we’re dealing with a school district, the people making policy and budgets are elected and there is some accountability. Not so with a self appointing charter school board of directors. Some charters are big organizations, so the CEO of that charter down the street might not even live in your state.

With the Chicago Teacher’s Strike underway, charters are popping up in the conversation, but mostly in the context as a way to break teacher’s unions. The union busting possibilities of charter schools are certainly one of the reasons the right wing loves charters so; but teachers at charter schools can unionize.

More and more, though, I feel like the hits on the teachers unions are both a side benefit and a distraction; the deeper agenda is the removal of control of public dollars into private, unaccountable hands.

Charter school promoters tap into the frustration and disenfranchisement that many people feel, that we don’t have enough options, that we don’t have enough say in our day to day lives or in our children’s education. They offer the idea of choice and agency, but in reality, the more of our children go to typical charter schools, the less say we have in educational policies and in how educational money, public dollars, is spent.

Which is why, when I read that quote I opened with, the first thought that jumped into my head was IT’S A TRAP!!! It’s a dirty stinking lie, and a trap.

***

after writing this, I was on my way home, listening to the podcast of today’s Democracy Now! broadcast, and I heard Chris Hedges say this:

And it really boils down to the fact that we spend $600-some billion a year, the federal government, on education, and the corporations want it. That’s what’s happening. And that comes through charter schools. It comes through standardized testing. And it comes through breaking teachers’ unions and essentially hiring temp workers, people who have very little skills. This is what Teach for America is about. They teach by rote, and they earn nothing. There’s no career. I mean, there’s quite a difference between teaching people what to think and teaching people how to think. And corporate forces want to teach people what to think. It’s a kind of classism. People get slotted. It’s vocational. And so, I see what’s happening in Chicago as, you know, one of the kind of seminal uprisings of our age. And if they don’t succeed, we’re all in deep trouble.

which sums it up pretty well.

There’s Something Missing

There’s something missing in the dialogue around rape charges against Julian Assange.

Most people are going binary on this…either either poo-pooing the rape charges and claiming this is all politics, or poo-pooing the politics claim and saying this is all about rape charges.

This is a crystal clear example of why movement/radical/leftist men need to be feminists and our politics need to be counterpatriarchal.

When people in movements for change harbor and replicate the oppressive behaviors and attitudes of the dominant culture (the top three are probably sexism, racism, and homophobia, but there are many others, including but not limited to ableism and classism), we give the state and reactionary forces great tools to use to crack us open, and we also diminish our participation, potential, and power.  I believe there is something to the rape charges, because the scenarios are completely plausible to me and I know that having supposedly great politics doesn’t mean a man won’t rape.  I believe the prosecution and attempted extradition of Assange is political, because I know governments don’t go to great lengths to follow up on crimes against women.  As people who want to change the world, we have got to be able to hold both of these concepts in our head at the same time; we have to be able to see and grasp and communicate nuance, and we have to be able to gain insight from tricky situations.

A comrade on facebook  recently pointed out that the way some Assange supporters are treating the rape accusations with ridicule and disdain is exposing the deep misogyny that even to this day is common in radical and lefty spaces…to the extent that discussions of the situation push women and rape survivors to the margins of conversations, spaces….movement…yet again.  Holding onto these attitudes and beliefs and behaviors just guarantees that we will not win.  So, maybe instead of arguing about the validity of rape charges, let’s talk about why it’s so easy to believe a movement man might rape someone, and let’s talk about what our movements and politics would have to look like for that to change.

Collective Liberation for The Win!

 

Magic Beans (no cow required)

I have a small bag of scarlett runner beans, that I grew in the garden at our house on 26^th Street.   They must be from two years ago, because the last year we were there I couldn’t find it in me to do any gardening.  It was very hard to put the kind of love and intention that tending a garden is into the garden of a household that is falling apart.

But I kept them when we moved, because they are beautiful, and because growing them was beautiful.  That garden wasn’t ideal, facing north and shaded by other houses, and it only took a week or two of neglect for it to look, well, neglected.  But when I was in a habit of regularly spending a lot of time out there, watering, talking to plants, weeding, watching birds, relocating slugs, nibbling on herbs, things grew pretty well.

 Scarlett runner beans, when they grow, are a lovely plant.  They send up strong green shoots that then get vine-y, and they grew to the top of the 5 foot high poles I gave them, and then some; I think they’d have grown as tall as anything I could have built for them.  The flowers are small, but bright red and vibrant, and then the bean pods are long, and flat, and slightly hairy.  You can eat them right off the vine when they’re young and tender, then as they get bigger, you can eat them as green beans, steamed, sauteed…but they’re not as juicy as regular green beans because they’ve been bred for the bean inside.  If you keep picking the bigger ones, the plants will keep setting new beans, and you can have a steady supply for a while.  Then when the plants start to lose steam, you can leave them on the vine until the plants are starting to die off and the pods are yellowed and totally wilted, and then pick the pods.  If you let the beans dry in the pod until the pods are dry and hard (and rattle when you shake ‘em), and then shell the beans, you’re met with a thing of beauty: a purple edged, black centered bean that’s nearly the size of a lima bean.  They look great on your altar, feel excellent and smooth in your pocket, and when you cook them, they are not as beautiful to behold, but they’re smooth and tasty.

Eating food I had a hand in growing is one of he things that pleases me on every level…physically, emotionally, spiritually.  Growing beans also proves to me that I still, on some level, have some basic non technological skills that are about sustenance and survival.  These beans could feed you all year: fresh green beans during the growing season, and then dried beans through the winter.

I wish I could plant these beans myself. In fact, I will; I’ll put some in a large pot that I have, set it up in the micro-yard, and see how it goes.   But I will probably only use about 10 of them, and I have 166 (I counted em).   Seeds don’t improve with age.  I suppose I could eat them, but it’s only about a cup of beans, and I’d rather know someone else is watching them bust out of the earth, send up those energetic tendrils, bust out those butterfly attracting blossoms; and that someone is eating the tender baby green beans and enjoying the bright flowers.  I saved these beans specifically to replant them, and I want them to be planted.

The best time to plant these beans in the bay area is May, but April works too.   It’s also good to know that these sweethearts are perennial in our region; if you cut them back after they die off in the fall, they’ll resprout the following spring.  Oh yes.  these beans are magical.

Tarot Reading for 2012

Tarot reading of January 1, 2012, at 1am

This is the story as the cards told it and as I interpreted it:

Now is a time of great abundance, of wealth, though that wealth may not look as we expect it. So much is available to us right now, we need to know what we want, what we need, and we need to know how to ask for it.

But we are challenged by the inclination to pull back, gain some distance, in the name of gaining what seems like greater context, but is in fact a retreat from the real world into the cerebral, the theoretical, separating from our heart and soul connection to what is happening here and now.

What is happening now began in the distant past, when new relationships and organizations were just being formed, with all the optimism and joy that comes with such new beginnings!

And more recently, we have found new inspiration, new energy has been unlocked. Things we thought were impossible are now possible.

We strive now for togetherness, celebration, strength, and joy! If we succeed, this is the moment where we begin to build our new world.

Our immediate future holds slow and steady work, and all the strength that comes from and with that kind of work. We are grounded and rooted, the earth is beneath our feet and supports us, and we will taste of the bounty that accompanies our persistent hope, work, and success! The struggle itself can be it’s own reward: when we use the right means, we taste the ends we are striving for.

Our chances are affected by our capacity to combine different forces and create something new and better, by our ability to engage in praxis; by our ability to come out of the crucible of strife and change tempered and strengthened. Our situation is affected by our ability to co-operate and to compromise in appropriate ways, to balance things.

Our struggle is supported by the magic that people do, the rituals we engage in to set our intentions, be they rituals where candles are burned and spells cast, or be they the forms and patterns of our meetings and actions. The ritual phrases people speak to each other whether they are pagan and arcane, or of political subcultures and communities, they set intention and are a gift to us that we should embrace!

We need mentorship, and leaders who are calm in the face of crisis, who know how to use diplomacy instead of force. We need leaders who reach out to help people, that build more leaders, and who know how to accept different points of view. We need leadership that seeks not to gain power but to build collective power.

And in the end, we will assert ourselves, we will speak up despite the risks, because now is the time to shout out loud! When we are united, we can shift that which we thought was unmovable. Don’t give up! Don’t surrender!

******

The reading was a version of the Celtic Cross, with the Collective Tarot*. I was slightly tipsy when I laid out the cards, and then only had time to jot them down before I was interrupted; therefore the reading and interpreting happened at about 9pm on January 1st. I thought I’d laid a personal reading, but as I looked at each card and it’s meanings, I realized that this reading is not about me and my life, it is about me, and you, and them, and our world. So mote it be.

And the cards were thus:

The Present: 10 of Bones
The Immediate Challenge: 6 of Feathers
The Distant Past: 2 of Bottles
Recent Past: Ace of Keys
Best Outcome: 3 of Bottles
The Immediate Future: 9 of Bones
Factors Affecting the Situation: Temperance
External Influences: Ace of Bones
Hopes and Fears: The Mentor of Bottles
Final Outcome: 7 of Keys

*for those not familiar with the Collective Tarot, Bones=earth/pentacles, Keys=fire/wands, Feathers= air/swords, and Bottles = water/cups.