Week 19: Emerald Veil
Breath of the Vanilla Leaf
Reflection
We’re over the horizon and glimpsing summer now during this first week of May.
The forest buzzes and tweets with life. The soil is warming and this years bloom of the Vanilla Leaf plant is becoming noticeable at trails edge during morning hikes.
Reproducing by underground rhizomes allows for an intimate connection with the entire forest community; sharing information, food and medicine through the mycelial mat weaving through the soil connects the vanilla leaf into an ecosystem that operates on a system of sacred reciprocity - never taking more than is needed; offering in return what is needed.
This particular flora live a life of interconnection with their community - a beautiful example of the Interdependence of living systems.
The rhizomes break through the leaf litter wherever a space permits representing intentionality and finding your own path.
Thriving through the ability to catch the sun through the trees is a manifestation of resilience in shadow - learning to flourish in and love the quiet and less-celebrated parts of our journey.
Evidence & Ecology
At the halfway point between the spring equinox and the summer solstice is Beltane a time of celebration fertility and new life. Midway between seed and full bloom, the energy of the season is held at the forest floor; the womb; an area overseen by the large conifers and occupied by shade loving beings.
Taking advantage of the openings in the canopy - before the main stars bush out - the Vanilla Leaf, thrives in these damp, dappled environs of the forest floor. Beginning as a delicate stem, the leaves loosen into their characteristic scalloped platter shape. The three-part, fan-shaped leaves emerge in a hue resplendent of chartreuse. Possessing an almost ethereal glow, these ground dwellers often grow in carpets, and have a delicate sway choreographed with soft spring breezes.
A most interesting feature of the Vanilla Leaf is that the fresh, green plant has virtually no scent. The famous vanilla fragrance only emerges after the leaf is picked or begins to wither. A reminder that sweetness can often be found during and after difficult transitions - through post-traumatic growth. What “sweet” qualities have you allowed to become noticeable after the letting go and introspection of challenges?
This characteristic of the Vanilla Leaf, or “Sweet-after-Death” reminds us that in the continous cycle of life nothing is actually lost. The memories we carry of an ancestor or past moments continue to perfume the present. What memories of past moments or loved ones do you still carry close with you? How do these almost tangible memories colour your current landscape?
What redolence of yourself are you gifting your children or community? How long will it linger? What will it tell them about you and the life you have lived?
Embodying Practice
Embodied Nature Meditation
The Threefold Breath
Begin by sitting comfortably with your spine straight and your feet comfortably on the ground. Or lying down with your head on a cushion allowing your chest to remain open.
I invite you to place your right hand on your abdomen with your pinky finger resting on your navel or belly button.
Begin to breath into this lower lobe of your lungs, and notice your hand rising and falling, allowing for the expansion of your lungs but frontwards, backwards and into the sides…….
Story of Place
A Conversation with the Season
The Deferred Sweetness of Transformation
It’s a cool, warming morning and the air is full of bird song. The grove of trees you enter, as you step onto the path is noticeably cooler with a fresh crispness to the air. Today is a a day in late spring, and the forest is potent and cacophonous with activity.
The early spring rains combined with warmer days recently have given the forest the permission to leap and grow with fervour. All of the chlorophyll involved respiration has imbued the air with the moist exhales of these stationery beings. All around the forest floor there is life; expanding, unfurling, finding its space.
For years the scalloped platter shaped leaves intrigued me. But as the ignorant and sometimes lazy human I am, the effort to look it up was obviously onerous. A walk a few years ago with a friend opened my eyes to what was lining the path. The Vanilla Leaf plant is native to the BC South Coast and Vancouver Island. Arriving annually in or around late April, this is a plant of the understory, like the Western Sword Fern of Week 18, thriving in the moist, light challenged spaces between the knobbly barked giants.
The leaves of the Vanilla Leaf look remarkably like a deer’s hoof print, giving it its alter ego the “Deerfoot”. This doppelgänger effect provides us with the metaphor of interconnection and the legacy of our time in this earthly plane.
It was last summer when I experimented with the insect repellent properties of the leaf. Kindly and with permission three Deerfoot plants journeyed home with me. My daughter’s detest of bugs was the catalyst for testing this plant’s purported superpower. Tying them up with a pink ribbon by the stem, I hung them above her closet in early June. Over time as they began to wither and dry, a feat only possible in the summer amidst the ubiquitous humidity of the other eight months, releasing their scented oils, shrinking and curling into eventual leaf dust….
The Invitation
Nature Kinship
Weekly nature connection practices aligned seasonally to engage with your locale. Encouraging immersion, appreciation and spiritual attunement with the more than human world around you.
Always remember to enjoy these practices within the bounds of your physical and ecological limits (do not sit outside when it’s -40, or walk on slippery surfaces), practice “leave no trace” and mindful reciprocity (take only what you need, ask permission from the earth, and only leave what is naturally biodegradable)
The Journaling Practice
The Three-Fold Fan
The Vanilla Leaf Plant grows in threes - three lobes and three leaves on each plant.
There are also three phases of it’s life cycle that we can use as a metaphor for our own life and thoughts.
Begin your practice by asking yourself these three questions:
What is currently flourishing in my life?
What is currently beginning to wither in your life? How is the process of withering showing up in your life? Can it be viewed as a gift? Or sweet?
What flowers are you currently tending in your personal garden?
Repeat this practice weekly for the rest of spring.
A Final Note
Closing Invocation
Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.
Singing the Earth
All photos copyright
Nature. Connected.
