Leigh Joseph - Held by the Land: A Guide to Indigenous Plants for Wellness

A Guide to Indigenous Plants for Wellness

WA CHCHISTWAY TA TEMXW: SPEM TXWNA TA HA7LH S K WLWEN

Leigh Joseph

W hile I write this introduction, the season in the Pacific Northwest is turning toward spring. There are hints of new growth in the plants in my garden and on the trails around my home. Leaf buds are set, and soon the new shoots will start to grow up through the soil in the forests and estuaries in my home territory of S k w x w7mesh (Squamish, British Columbia, Canada). As I have learned more about plants and their life cycles, I have developed a new sense of timing that is based on botanical seasonality. I look forward to the return of early-spring plant foods and medicines and the harvesting time spent on the land with family.

I am an Indigenous ethnobotanist, woman, mother, and entrepreneur. All the work I do in my life has been guided by plants. It has been through rebuilding my cultural relationships with the land, learning about plants, and reconnecting with them, that I have found grounding and strength in my identity. I was compelled to write this book for my children and for my community, and to share my voice as a S k w x w7mesh woman in the spaces of botany, beauty, and self-care. There is very little Indigenous representation in these spaces, and it is my hope that my children, my community, and other Indigenous communities utilize this book as a helpful tool for reconnecting to culturally important plants. For non-Indigenous readers, I hope that this book resonates with your love of plants and the land and supports you in further developing your lived experiences and knowledge of what it means to you to be in respectful relationships with plants.

This book is meant to be an intersection between my lived experience as an Indigenous woman, my training in Western science, and my cultural journey toward identity. Part narrative, part botanical field guide, and part recipe book, it is a guide you can carry in a backpack or harvest basket, place on your kitchen shelf, or keep out on a table for quick reference. I intend this book to be a helpful companion and to support cultivating respectful and reciprocal ways of being in relationship with place and with plants.

This book covers plant species primarily found in the Pacific Northwest regions of North America. I have focused on plant species that I am most familiar with, but many of these plants have other species or closely related plants that span much farther geographically. The plants included in this book are not an exhaustive or complete list of all the culturally important plants that are found in this region. Instead, I have chosen plants that have a cultural history in my home territory of S k w x w7mesh across a range of foods, medicines, and materials. I write this book from my S k w x w7mesh perspective as I cannot speak for any other Indigenous Peoples or communities. I want to emphasize that S k w x w7mesh is one of hundreds of diverse Indigenous communities in North America. It is my hope that sharing my perspectives on plants as an Indigenous woman will provide a lens for being in relationship with plants that resonates with Indigenous and non-Indigenous readers alike.

About the Title

Held by the Land was one of many title options. This one rang true. What does it mean to be held? To me this means being seen, recognized, supported, allowed just to be. Being held also means being offered what you may need in a particular time, whether that be space, nourishment, health, connection, challenge, or reflection. The land can hold us, and our needs, as humans on this earth.

How does the land hold someone?

Through my work as an ethnobotanist, I have spent time listening to elders share stories of spending whole seasons and years on the land together with loved ones, working hard, being solitary, absorbing their natural surroundings, and actively being a part of the natural world. There were recurrent themes that I noticedfeelings of deep safety, contentment, strength, and good health. When I think about the times in my life where I have felt the most at ease, the surest about myself, the most connected, they were the times that I have spent on the landout harvesting, planting, sharing a meal with my family on a big stump in the middle of a spring forest, my children nibbling on thimbleberry and salmonberry shoots. These moments that make up the highlights of my life were all supported by the land and leave me feeling held. I invite readers to take a moment to close your eyes. Think and feel your way into a meaningful and relaxing memory of time spent on the land. What season was it? Who was there with you? What sounds were around you? What plants were there? I believe we all share these moments in our lives where we catch a glimpse of the ongoing relationship we are in with the natural world. With relationship comes responsibilities as well. What do we offer back to the land, a presence that offers so much to us?

Land-Based Wellness

Wellness is a very commonly used term in the English language. It often conveys practices connected to physical health and can extend in some cases to include mental, emotional, and spiritual health. I would like to bring another lens to that concept. While its focus is often on the individual, for the purposes of this book I wish to extend the concept of wellness to the interrelationships we experience with the natural world and with community, and what this means for our greater responsibilities and purpose as individuals sharing the earth together. The concept of community care can also be extended to the concept of wellness, and the definition of community can be extended to include our non-human kin, meaning