imagination

Your great mistake is to act the drama

as if you were alone. As if life

were a progressive and cunning crime

with no witness to the tiny hidden

transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny

the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,

even you, at times, have felt the grand array;

the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding

out your solo voice. You must note

the way the soap dish enables you,

or the window latch grants you freedom.

Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.

The stairs are your mentor of things

to come, the doors have always been there

to frighten you and invite you,

and the tiny speaker in the phone

is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into

the conversation. The kettle is singing

even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots

have left their arrogant aloofness and

seen the good in you at last. All the birds

and creatures of the world are unutterably

themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

~David Whyte

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

― Albert Einstein

Notes on COMFREY

by Ana

Every gardener & grower should consider peppering a few COMFREY plants in with their veggies, flowers and fruit trees

Not only is comfrey an excellent pollinator plant (bumblebees seem to really dig its purple bell flowers) but this beauty is also a companion plant for orchard trees.

Comfrey’s aerial parts are high in protein, making it an excellent feed plant for livestock like chickens and pigs.

She’s also highly beneficial for other plants as well. You can beef up your compost pile and tea by adding comfrey to it

Herbalists know comfrey to be a beneficial topical for bruising, bone fractures, or strained ligaments

She’s rich in the chemical compound Allantoin, which stimulates the growth of healthy skin tissue- great when dealing with sunburns, acne break-outs, rashes, scar reduction and wounds

Comfrey also contains mucopolysachirides which are long chains of sugar molecules found throughout the human body in joint fluid and mucus- making her helpful for those suffering from arthritic pain

Comfrey is generally recommended for external use as her natural defenses against bugs aren’t great for our livers when digested, but you can ingest her in small doses if you’re dealing with stomach ailments such as diarrhea or for an acute bout of bronchitis

You should know that she is a runner, so if you do plant her, expect her to take over that particular plot of soil.