Elza started writing “plant praises” daily and sharing them with me, and I so loved the idea that I decided to share some of them here and add a few of my own.
This is a “bonus post” since it didn’t really fit with the Parallel Paradigms essay but it does belong with the gratitude theme of this time.
In praise of Moss
You grace tiny niches
You inhabit liminal spaces
Anywhere a few drops of water linger.
North sides of oak, rough faces of basalt, asphalt
Shingles, pavements, sidewalk cracks
Without judgment, verdant everywhere.
You offer me wee forests in paved places
A gentle touch (soft, cool, velvet) in return to my touch.
I offer you admiration for your adaptability
Your greenness
In bare winter trees,
In the roughness
Of not-so-impervious surfaces.
-Elza
In praise of Douglas-fir
I am grateful for you: giants who stand like cathedral columns, arrow-straight and pushing the limits of capillarity.
Birthed from tiny seeds, perhaps planted by the curious squirrels that share your name, you aim skyward at a remarkable pace and then slowly expand over hundreds of years, a thousand even, creating whole aerial ecosystems home to licorice ferns, millions of mosses, and even nesting murrelets winging inland from the sea.
Your cousins the redwoods and sequoias might be slightly larger and older but you are the most adaptable of the giants, thriving across entire ecoregions. Why is it that you grow twice as tall, twice as wide, and live twice as long as the stately oaks and maples of eastern forests, or even the great trees of tropical jungles? What is your secret?
And what is your name, really? You are not a fir, nor do you owe anything to the human named Douglas. What should I call you, that would be worthy of your magnificence?
You offer me a step into deeper time, into a humbling world where I can set aside daily concerns and walk among old and wise ones, where I feel Lilliputian by comparison.
I offer you my support for the preservation of old-growth forests, so that you may long survive me to fall in your own time, nurturing the next generation of giants.
--Mark
In praise of Licorice Fern
You adorn my favorite archway of bent and living oak.
In drought you crisp, you green up in rain.
Your root has a bitter skin. It is sweet - as bitter medicine is sweetened - at the core.
You are the giants of the forest
That grows on the bark of trees
Within the forest
All the eye can see of telescoping infinities.
I offer you my hope for your sweetness
Even as I slowly taste your bitterness.
-Elza
In praise of Lichen
You are a symbiosis, a perpetual collaboration of algae and fungi. But you are both really, and neither. You are your own being.
You inhabit boundaries. Between rock and air, bark and air, even growing on old vehicles that sit out in winter rains.
You begin the process of turning mineral into soil, nurturing first mosses, then grasses, then shrubs and forests.
You drop tendrils from oak branches, extending the boundaries, brightening the drab palette of winter.
You offer me an example of resilience, thriving through scorching sun, winter ice, holding fast against winds and torrents.
You don’t need much from me, but I offer you my appreciation, for showing me that life will always find a way.
-Mark
In praise of Philodendron I am a pallid creature in a box. Occasionally a crow or vulture drifts across my windows high above. You find and harvest sunlight here, you reach for it without obvious pining or striving. One leaf opening after another, too slow for me to notice until one day I look up and see what you have achieved incrementally. You show me how to patiently thrive with next-to-nothing. I offer you water, a few nutrients, footholds for aerial roots. You offer me verdancy and a measured optimism. -Elza
In praise of Kitten-tails
I still remember your little rosettes of leaves and bushy yellow-green flower stalks gracing the hills of McKnight Prairie, in the spring of 2006.
I chose you for my ecology class project, to see how you responded to the fire we were returning to the grassland. Your response told me you would like it better if we burned earlier, or perhaps later, but not during your season of growth.
The project inspired me to observe closely, taking my time, seeing not just your unique and delicate form but the entire tapestry of grassland species springing forth in May.
I offered you careful observation and data that hopefully contributed to better management to nurture your threatened populations.
You offered me a reason to take a deeper dive into the world beneath my feet, to touch and feel the interconnected webs of niches and habitats in a tallgrass prairie.
-Mark
Calming and connecting...thank you to you both!💚
I would love a little book of nature "prayers".
You've inspired me to keep a journal notebook handy on the farm, to capture the tiny wonders every day🙏🙏🙏🤗