Learning the Ways of the World

I hold close memories of hunting and gathering with my paternal grandmother as a kid, the wisest soul I've had the delight of crossing paths and walking with on this mortal coil. Her layered blue eyes, brighter than the skies; rest atop her Cherokee cheeks that protrude out like blushing plums. Her thin dark hair usually pinned back, still retains its black pigment through her seventies. She used to ask me often if I wanted to mosey down the railroad tracks with her, to just outside the city limits where a person stops being bombarded with imported landscaping and eases into local flora and fauna. Plants that have grown here for lifetimes, each with a special purpose. I never once declined one of these invitations. The whole way along she would point out and identify plants and teach me about this perfect earth our loving god designed for us and how EVERYTHING has a use and a reason for being; from grapevines and buck-brush for baskets and wreaths (which we made, and she sometimes sold at the flea market), tiny wild cherries for the the critters to eat who in turn propagate the seed creating children and grand children for the tree, to the mud puddle being a reserve of water god intended for birds to drink and splash in. These walks down the tracks gifted to me, my most valued worldly and spiritual knowledge and thought. These gems of knowledge (in addition to my gram-muh's life experience through trial and error) were in large part passed-down to her from her grandmother, who was a signatory on the Dawes Roles (one of my families main links to our native ancestors, remnants of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex) These valuable grains of information amount to a sea of knowledge. It is our proud obligation; yours, mine, our siblings, our whole generations to preserve natures secret forgotten powers through sharing recipes and remedies, methods, and uses. I'd like to use this platform, in part; to share, compile, and document our inherited knowledge. By revitalizing this information and these ideas and customs with input from population pockets that retained various cultural aspects we are truly honoring our ancestors.