The Healing Power of Wild Grapes

 

The Wild Grapes have been whispering to us.  “It is time.  It is time.”  We’ve been watching their transformation since the grape vines flowered in the spring.  This year, there seemed to be a lot of grape flowers on the side of the walking trail that we frequent.  Soon, we noticed large clusters of small green orbs appearing as if by magic.  We watched them grow larger and larger throughout the summer.  When they began to blush pink, then pinkish purplish blue, we paid close attention.  Soon, they were dark blue but still hard to the touch.  Last week we noticed that they were soft and flavourful when tasted. “It is time to pick us,” they whispered.

I spent last Saturday in an Indigenous Culture Competency workshop with a local Indigenous teacher, Kelly Brownbill.  She provided an excellent foundation for us to later “build a house of knowledge on,” as she put it.  Some of the information was new for me and some of it strengthened what I had already learned from other authors and teachers. 

I have been thinking a lot lately about ancestral traumas and how my ancestors brought the worldview of scarcity to Turtle Island.  Instead of seeing the abundance as a cure for this scarcity, they moved into greed which resulted in the death of 80% of the people Indigenous to these territories, the extirpation of some species of birds and animals and the deforestation of thousands of acres of land.  Kelly explained the worldview of the Europeans coming to Turtle Island in which the monarch was the supreme ruler and the aristocracy took way more than their fair share of resources.  Despite the warnings about greed in the Christian teachings, greed was the sign of success.  This is still true today in Western non-Indigenous culture.  And so, scarcity hoping for abundance turned into greed and destruction in the face of actual abundance.  This seems to me, to be an ancestral trauma in need of healing.

This morning, in the gentle fall rain, my partner and I renewed our relationship with the Wild Grapes that grow beside the dock where we tie up our canoes.  We asked their permission to pick and they were happy to say yes.  We gave them an offering in reciprocity and then we begin to break the clusters off of the vines.  There were a lot of them and they hung in beautiful clusters.  I felt the ancestral desire to get as many as I could rise up in me.  I didn’t name it greed but that is exactly what it was.  I was picking quickly, as if there was someone approaching who would take them if I wasn’t fast enough.  But, we were alone.  There was no actual threat. Wild Grapes are a treat for us, not my main food source.  We give most of the jelly we make to our friends and neighbours.  There is absolutely no need for greed.  I became conscious of this ancestral trauma rising up in need of healing.  

 I don’t exactly know how to do this healing. It seems to be a relatively new idea for non-Indigenous people who see themselves as the perpetrators of trauma, not realizing where it comes from to think about healing the trauma they carry. And so, I am finding my way, making this up as I go along, co-creating healing experiences with nature.  I took some deep breaths and stopped picking.  An idea came to me.  What if I thank each cluster for their gift as I break them off of the vine.  So, that’s what I did.  My body changed.  I slowed down.  Efficiency became null and void.  Presence, gratitude and appreciation were what was important.  We picked only what we could reach from our feet and left lots of grapes up high for the birds who do need these grapes for their food.  There were enough for all of us.

Dr. Gabor Mate talks about holding compassionate space for healing and he does that beautifully for his patients.  And so, I held a compassionate space for myself as I became conscious of the impulse for taking as much as I could arose in me.  I didn’t beat myself up.  I simply noticed it and felt the fear of scarcity that was underneath it.  What we love softens and as I held a compassionate space for myself, the fear diminished as did the greed that arose out of it.  Instead of being driven by unconscious trauma, I became conscious of it and could then choose to slow down, calm down and feel gratitude.  My body slowed down, calmed down and softened.  I could be present in the actual moment instead of being driven by an ancestral past.

Perhaps healing ancestral trauma is a series of healing events.  Perhaps some of these are done on a personal level and some are done at a collective level.  I do believe that as we get better at this, it is possible for a shift in “society” to take place.  As an older woman, I have the freedom of time and space to experiment with this, to reflect on my experience and to listen to the whispers of the Wild Grapes.  It’s what I feel called to do.  It’s where I want to share my gifts just as the Grapes share theirs. 

 

The Transformation of the Humble Potato

 

It all started in the late winter of 2022, on a visioning zoom call for the brand new community garden.  We were brainstorming what vegetable we would like to grow.   “Let’s plant potatoes,” suggested Ronald Muwonge.  Originally from Uganda, Ronald works in food services and has a You Tube channel called “Cooking with Ronald”.  He is also an avid gardener and I imagined him putting potato cooking recipes onto his You Tube channel.

The cedar potato box with the word potato in Luganda (Bumonde), Anishinaabemowin (Opin), French (Patat) and Michif (Patak) reflecting some of the languages spoken in our region.

Another member of the community got into the spirit of potatoes and built a cedar potato box to grow them in.  We researched how to grow potatoes in a box and what nutrients might be needed for such an endeavour.  We learned that potatoes like lots of potassium for good root growth.  An easy source of this is dried banana peels that are ground up.  We saved all our banana peels for a few weeks, dried them in the greenhouse and buzzed them in the coffee bean grinder.  We also learned that potatoes like slightly acidic soil and that pine needles are a good source to lower the pH.  We collected this “pine straw” from the local forest and added it to the soil at the bottom of the box which had holes cut in it for drainage.

On planting day, we added the banana peel dust to the top of the soil and Ronald planted the seed red potatoes into holes in the soil, leaving the “eyes” looking up to the sky.  Some of the children in the community helped him to water them.   You can see the planting on this beautiful You Tube video that Ronald made about the celebration at the 29:45 mark  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRmwgSlZuDk

As the potatoes sprouted and the stems and leaves grew higher, we added soil to encourage lateral root growth and thus more potatoes.  We added more pine straw as well and watered.  Eventually the plants made it to the top of the box and we stopped adding soil.  The stems and leaves kept on going up another two feet.  Eventually they flowered with beautiful purple and yellow flowers that had a very sweet fragrance.  Most us the people that visited the garden had never seen potato flowers up close before and they stopped to well, smell the potatoes.  These flowers turned into seed pods which look just like green cherry tomatoes except, potato seed pods are toxic.  So, we quietly picked them all off so that no child would make an unfortunate error.

The beautiful potato flower that has a very sweet smell

Towards the end of August, some of the plants began to wilt.  We knew that we could get small “new potatoes” from the box at this point but we decided to wait a while longer.  In the middle of September, we had a Harvest Celebration including the big potato reveal.  At first, we had some trouble enticing the kids to come and dig for potatoes.  But once, they started to reveal the pinkish red spuds, the excitement mounted.  Some of the children had been watering the potatoes all summer while others were new to the garden.  They used yogurt containers as scoops and carefully removed the soil to discover potato treasures.

The children reach into the potato box

Each one was carefully pulled out and handed to another community member to be put on a wire screen.  The excitement grew and loud shouts of “Whoaaaa” were heard with each new find. It was wonderful to see children with their hands in the earth, finding food.  Hopefully that will be a memory that stays with them. Eventually we reached the bottom of the box and looked at the beautiful harvest.

The final potato harvest

Three potatoes were put in each brown paper lunch bag to be taken home by the Harvest celebration participants – including the soil that still clung to them.  There were enough potatoes for everyone to take some home.  As we were packing up at the end of the celebration, I was told that there was one more potato left in the box and that I should come and see it.  There, inside the box was one of the five year old boys who had helped to plant the potatoes in May.  He was curled up and was vibrating slightly as he pretended to be the last potato to be found.

Sadly, Ronald and his family had to move away from Waubauahene at the end of June.  However, we sent him email updates about the garden and he is planning to make a third video this fall.  And so, it only seemed fitting to mail him three potatoes for himself, his wife Vanessa and their son Liam.  We are all still connected.

What started as an idea on zoom blossomed and transformed as we worked together.  In a small way, we got to take part in an activity that our ancestors knew only too well. The potato which originated in Peru, has travelled the world.  And the world has travelled to Canada. This richness of ancestry was represented in the potato harvesters at our celebration as we came together to renew our relationship with the soil, the rain and the sun that resulted in food that will sustain us and with each other.  I will never look at a potato in the same way that I used to after this.  For me, potatoes have now become a sacred symbol of community and the healing that is possible when we renew and nurture relationships.

A tiny tree frog who itself transformed from egg to tadpole to frog, surveys the empty potato box.