Bioregionalism & Bioregional Herbalism
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Bioregionalism
Global Capitalism has provided the tempting illusion that we can have whatever we want from wherever on earth in as little time as possible. Same-day-delivery, pints of ice cream in 30 minutes, 6-month online diplomas. We try not to think about the many hands that our trinkets pass through as they make our way to our doorstep, and we definitely put out of mind the labyrinth of labor and logistics that brought that craft-roasted bag of single-origin coffee into our hands.
This is also an issue in herb commerce. Large herb suppliers import herbs from all over the globe, wrapping them in plastic and burning fossil fuels to get them on your doorstep. By the time the herbs make it into your cup, their vitality and healing properties have long diminished, being likely several years tossed around in trade.
We understandably put this out of our minds because we're uncertain of the alternative, and many of us know that buying completely local/organic is beyond the paycheck that barely carries us from week to week.
Still, we want deeply to reconnect with our bodies and the body of earth. We want to nourish ourselves and our families with nutrient-dense and toxin-free foods. We want to thrive, not just survive. So what is there to do?
Perhaps it all starts with how we direct our attention, what we notice about how we feel when we put certain things into our bodies, how it feels when our desires are instantly gratified. What kind of mindset does our culture engender? What kind of ethics? The fact that you are here leads me to believe that you feel that this can't be it. So where else to start than our immediate surroundings, what we can tangibly touch, taste, smell, hear, and see. Here is where the practice/concept/model of bioregionalism might offer something profoundly transformative:
Bioregionalism offers a model for how we might begin to think about and engage with home, specifically, the particular home we find ourselves in every moment of every day: the Great Lakes Basin.
"Bioregionalism, whose tenets were articulated by the environmentalist Peter Berg in the 1970s, and which is widely visible in indigenous land practices, has to do with an awareness not only of the many life-forms of each place, but how they are interrelated, including with humans. Bioregionalist thought encompasses practices like habitat restoration and permaculture farming, but has a cultural element as well, since it asks us to identify as citizens of the bioregion as much as (if not more than) the state. Our 'citizenship' in a bioregion means not only familiarity with the local ecology but a commitment to stewarding it together." – Jenny Odell, How to do Nothing, p. xviii
What happens to us when we begin to see ourselves as citizens of a physical place delineated by ecology rather than arbitrary political divisions? How does it inform our sense of who we are as humans?
"Similar to many indigenous cultures' relationships to land, bioregionalism is first and foremost based on observation and recognition of what grows where, as well as an appreciation for the complex web of relationships among those actors. More than observation, it also suggests a way of identifying with place, weaving oneself into a region through observation of and responsibility to the local ecosystem." - Jenny Odell, How to do Nothing, p. 122
Bioregional Herbalism
Bioregional Herbalism is a practice of collective care and self-actualization rooted in place.
Drawing upon the principles outlined above (observation, awareness, identification, connection, responsibility, and stewardship of and with our surrounding environment), the Bioregional Herbalist apprentices themselves to the land they grow out of, entering into a sacred relationship with their landscape, learning who lived there before (human and non-human alike), and building deep relationship so the land can support those who come after.
"We do not 'come into' this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean 'waves,' the universe 'peoples.' Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe." - Alan Watts, from The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
The work of the Bioregional Herbalist can be very painful, since the land does not hide the scars left by civilization and the displacement of indigenous peoples. More often than not, the work is infused with wonder and joy, because despite the scars the dominant culture has inflicted, the land of our beautiful bioregion continues to give, asking only gratitude, stewardship, and a disposition toward reciprocity in return. When the Bioregional Herbalist travels into the woods, wildcrafting for medicinal preparations, or just visiting their nonhuman kin, they are coming home to themselves once again.
"One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise." - Aldo Leopold, Round River: From the Journals of Aldo Leopold, p. 165
Interestingly, the very same process one undergoes in deepening their awareness toward the land, also happens when one deepens their awareness of their own body and mind. The practice of meditation, which we will talk more about next month, is the most direct way of connecting to nature. It is sitting, with deep attention, in the wilderness of our body (which may find itself deep in non-human nature or in the bowels of the great metropolis we know as Chicago). One might think that by becoming enlightened through meditation, our experience of suffering will lessen and we will be this happy buddha floating a few feet above the ground all the time. But actually something far more wonderful and interesting happens:
"To the degree that you relax more into uncertainty and groundlessness, you find your heart opening. Your heart opens to the degree that you can allow difficult situations and step into them. Strangely enough, and I'm sorry to share this with you, you do start to see more and more suffering. In case you think this is a path that leads us someplace where we look like cherubs and have wings and no more pain, on this path, you begin to see that there is suffering in the world, and you see it more and more." - Pema Chödrön, How to Meditate: A Practical Guide to Making Friends with your Mind, p. 173
I invoke meditation in our discussion of bioregional herbalism, because as I've grown as an herbalist and integrated meditation into my life, I've begun to see meditation as the core and center of my bioregional approach to herbalism: (our) body is at the center of our phenomenological experience of the land we walk upon. To be able to cultivate presence, stillness, and relationship within the space of our body, we will see the horizons of our relationship with our bioregion expand as well, and will be better able to enter into ever deeper relationship with every plant we encounter, while also acknowledging the ecological scars inflicted upon the land we walk, working to do whatever we can to repair the harm done.
See our Marginalia Botanica course for some approaches on cultivating a presence practice for yourself, including mindfulness meditation.
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