The Healing Echinacea Patch
...closing the gaps...
In 2020 I had the idea that it might make sense to grow some purple coneflower plants. They’re pretty, of course, which is always a plus. And, they’re a native plant. And I think part of me was “rationally” thinking: What if we need it?
Good news is, echinacea is one of the medicinal herbs that has gone mainstream in the last 20 years or so. You can find echinacea tea in a typical grocery store. And my understanding is, there are also studies out there that substantiate the traditional uses of this plant in stimulating immune system response.
Setting all that aside, though, I also just felt like trying it. So I ordered some seeds and planted them in flats in late winter, putting them outdoors so the freeze/thaw cycles as the weather slowly warmed up would encourage germination. After they sprouted in late spring, I fed, transplanted, and supported their growth and development with soil supplementation, weeding, mulching and other kinds of care and attention.
Two years later, the little seedlings had grown into stout and stately expressions of botanical strength, topped with numerous of their namesake spiky-centered purple flowers.
Late in the fall of 2022, I dug, washed and chopped up about a dozen of the roots, packed them tightly in a half-gallon mason jar, covered them with a mix of two different kinds of high-proof potable spirits, and left them for a couple months to tincture. From the dead flower heads I also collected seeds that the goldfinches had apparently overlooked so that I could start another generation, perhaps locally adapted to some degree, owing to their local origins.
However, there’s something quite different happening when we put a box of echinacea teabags in a grocery cart — which I have done and will almost certainly do again, I must emphasize — and what I did. I don’t want to take away anything from those whose products and businesses make using plant medicine easier. I think it’s important work. But the fact remains that making things easier doesn’t always make things better.
Compare, for example, the process of tending living plants that I just described with a grocery store purchase, dropping the item into the cart, scanning it at the self-serve checkout, then putting into the plastic bag and swiping a plastic card. Then think instead about the smell of the rain, the intimate touch of the soil, the periodic attention given to the plants’ nutrition and water, observing them grow. And consider the ongoing pleasure of just watching these plants “do their thing” like the hippies and flower children from days of yore!
The typical grocery store purchase in the card-swipe world feels to me like a series of broken relationships with unseen actors in which monetary transactions act as stopgaps . What I did in tending those plants to put myself into the equation at every step where it was presently practical, in effect filling those gaps. The net result of putting more of my own biological energy into the equation was that I was building relationships and making connections on all levels, both inside myself and between me and my world.
And please, this isn’t intended to be an exhortation to study herbal medicine or grow plants, though I think if more people did so, that would likely be a good thing. The bigger message here is much more general. It’s more about a basic law of the universe that says that engaging with focus, attention, energy and love builds autonomy, connection and strength. On the other hand, indulging in mindless convenience tends to lead in the opposite direction, producing dependency, fragmentation, and weakness. This pattern is worth noticing as we make choices.
This Substack channel, for example, grew out of the realization that I was consuming too much online content and producing far too little. What I found was that in reversing that flow by engaging in a regular writing practice, a whole bunch of things in my life began to change. I started to feel direction and strength flow back into my being. It felt to me as though the effort and focus it took to write sort of re-inflated my energy bubble, which had been collapsing into the gentle and well-subsidized, heavily promoted death spiral of convenience-driven and consumption-oriented habit patterns.
So, I’m still writing, you may notice. And, interesting thing is, once I started with that practice it led to other things, like growing my skills in photography so I could post photos with these pieces and later developing my skills in vocal expression for the recorded “voiceovers” on this channel as well. But the biggest payoff is that as a practice it keeps my energy flowing outward into the world. In Steinerian terms borrowed from Waldorf education, what we’re talking about here is will engagement.
Another apt comparison: We can sit in the audience of life, or we can stand on stage. Both can be valuable experiences, but it’s almost certain that stepping onto the stage is a bigger deal in terms of engaging one’s personal will. Also noteworthy: after stepping on stage, chances are, you’ll be a different audience member. Likewise, after picking up a wooden box with metal strings on it and trying to make music, I guarantee you’ll have a fuller appreciation when your favorite guitarist does, with ease and mastery paid for by years of devoted practice. I haven’t fully felt into the reasons why, but I’ve found that it’s often true that maintaining our outward flow of engagement will make us more deeply receptive to others and what they offer, not less.
And this brings us, in a roundabout way, back to my echinacea patch. Because what I started to notice after making that echinacea root tincture — and it turned out to be by far the most potent echinacea tincture I’d ever sampled — was that I had already been strengthening my immune system simply by engaging in the process. I’d bridged a lot of gaps and made many connections to help these amazing things emerge into my world. Crossing each gap involved an act of will, by which I mean it took some effort, yes, but it was also receptive, responsive engagement. There was give and take.
Maybe that’s why people often say that if you want to really live, find your gift, find your passion. Find your purpose. Find your practice. Do what’s meaningful. To you. And yeah, it’s gonna be hard at times. And it’s all fraught with uncertainty. Stick with it anyhow. And I’m not trying to get preachy here. These writings are messages to myself most of all. Every single time, I’m the very first person to read them.
Growing with plants is another one of my practices. So it probably won’t surprise the reader that this all connects. Quite instructively, I had to live forward into the experience to learn how it connects. Just as on a smaller scale I had to write my way to this point in the essay to understand what needed to be said, likewise I had to work with the purple coneflower plants and see them come into flower before I knew what came next. Only then did I look into the use of echinacea as a flower essence. Flower essences, in case you are unfamiliar with the term, are vibrational medicines that offer different but sometimes related uses compared with traditional herbal medicine. Looking up Echinacea in my Flower Essence Repertory book (by Patricia Kaminski and Richard Katz), I was fascinated to read that echinacea flower essence is associated, among other things, with healing immune system and other problems stemming from the effects of “shattering and destructive forces”. The authors’ implication is that when the sense of self is shattered or inadequately established in the first place, the gaps that open up in us sometimes also open us up to… well… let’s just say, to bad things. For this reason, I suggest that for many, echinacea flower essence may be a particularly important remedy at this time.
So perhaps this will help shed some light on why I keep addressing the issue of gaps and fragmentation in so many of my Substack postings. What I’m starting to see is that the body isn’t just a material blob of protoplasm to get pushed around. On a fundamental level, it’s helpful to think of the body as a signal.
At all levels of our being, we are signals. Think about that: We are signaling.
And as anyone who has listened to the radio while traveling long distances can tell you, signals can get weak and garbled, can mix unhelpfully with other signals, can get broken up and even lost entirely. Personally I’m trying to keep my signal as strong and clear as I can by bridging any gaps in my inner and outer circuitry. For me, writing is one way of building that coherence in myself and “pulling myself together.” Reaching in, reaching out. It’s one of my practices. So is tending plants, which requires much the same kind of inner-outer, figure-eight-shaped energy dynamic. And then writing about that. And sharing with others both the process and the products. And growing my way forward through all these experiences.
Whew! Take a breath, and take a moment to look at the picture at the top of this essay once again. Go ahead, scroll up.
Hello!
I’m so happy to introduce the two of you. This is one of the many flower children I know, doing its own thing.
What’s yours? Are you ready to do your own thing with renewed passion and intensity? Do you want to focus on the activities where you feel truly and deeply connected, the things that bring you joy? ’Cause I can tell you, it really matters.