Preserving the Plant Power of a Pacific Panacea

Good Greetings Folks,

My inspiration for this mission was definitely to pass down the knowledge about the local healing plant used by the Indigenous People of the Pacific Northwest... Devil's Club.

My first act of inspiration was to gather a root piece of Devil's Club to transplant near the creek on the property where I am staying. There is a large Devil's Club growing overtop of the spring where I go for water each week. One root piece was overhanging the steep hill, with a little shoot growing out of it. I easily removed this piece and then planted it in a damp, shady spot near the creek.

The ultimate goal of the mission has eluded me all week though. Without much experience in crafting, I was in my head most of the time, trying to figure out what I could put in my hands, that I could actually make, and that represented the healing power of Devil's Club. I realized I wanted to use the symbol of the Asklepian, the Rod of Asklepios, Greek God of Medicine. This symbol is now recognized quite universally as representing medicine and healing. My attempts to work with stone and brick seemed to be steps towards frustration, and the week just went on without answers, though continually seeing the Asklepian image.

This morning, next week's EVOKE feeling closer and closer, I began going quicker, trying again to carve in to brick or stone, ultimately just trying to write the word 'Panacea' in a brick, which I thought to then leave by the Devil's Club transplant. Again, I was feeling unsatisfied with this.

And then, it came, my 'Aha'... I would make an actual Asklepian! Though actually, the image that came to me first was more so one of a Medicine Stick, or the staff that would be carried by a traditional 'Witch Doctor', with roots and ribbons and rat skulls hanging from it. How this 'Aha' came about was that, in the growing sense of anxiousness that arose from trying to do a craft, I let go and went back to my experiences with Devil's Club.

The most connecting of these experiences was shortly after a 'Secret Teachings of Plants' 5-day Intensive that I did in the Autumn with Stephen Harrod Buhner. Shortly thereafter, I had paddled across the lake to go and harvest some Devil's Club. The first one I came upon was very old, with branches that extended out up to 5 meters each, with their looping, haphazard, Dr.Seuss like appearance. In my moment of silence and stillness with this elder plant, there came the vision of an old witch doctor. He had long braids hanging down from the top of his head, the rest being bare, with blue Pictish tatoos across his face and arms. His clothing was made up of many different pieces of cloth, with many straps, satchets, and trinkets hanging from them. Most apparent was that he was bent over, leaning upon his staff, and slightly trembling.

He had the feeling of being 'crazy', for sure, though it was a very comfortable craziness, the kind that you could depend on as just another way of being genius. His trembles were like the body language telling you that this being is very 'diversified in their realities', however, his gentle gaze and slow movements let me know that he was present with me, with our surroundings, very competent, knowledgable, and wise. From my 'Secret Teachings' training, the medicinal function of Devil's Club that came to me was its usefulness in bringing balance to a person's psyche, perhaps in the case of what is considered to be mental illness, and also for relieving the stress of psychological conditioning and traumas.

So, in seeing this image, and seeing his staff, I had the reailzation that I could make a staff. That it will become a Medicine Stick, with plans to attach the different pieces of Devil's Club to it (such as pieces of the root, along with the berries and leaf in little satchets), gives it the energy of the Spirit of Devil's Club whom I met, the Witch Doctor, while also indicating the plant's use traditional spiritual rituals as well as in medicine. Wrapping the cordage around symbolizes the Asklepian, a well recognized symbol of medicine, as well as giving me somthing to tie things to.

I also had the inspiration to give my Asklepian another function. In desiging and building a garden here where I am staying, I was motivated to use the Megalithic Yard as a unit of measurement. This is a measurement used in Megalithic sites across Western Europe, and including Stonehenge. I had been using a similar stick with tape to demarcate the MY (which is about 0.82 of a meter), and so I thought, I could also use the Asklepian for this, and so wrapped an extra piece of cordage on it to mark this.

It is also symbolic, in that it speaks to my enthusiasm of growing medicinal plants. It is a staff to represent and share the energy of medicine, also to be used in the construction of gardens in which to grow medicines.

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Here's another link, to the American Botanical Council's ethnobotanical review on Devil's Club.